Congratulations Horizon Fellows ‘25!
It was a joy to sit in the Bonhoeffer House garden on the cusp of their final finals and bless these 4th Year Fellows. I began with a brief recounting of all we had wrestled with throughout the year and reminded them of their Belovedness in Christ. Then I layed hands on each one and read a blessing from their mentors. Fellows each shared final reflections around their understanding of faith & calling at this point in their lives. What a joy!
Enjoy the summary below. - Christy Yates, Associate Director
FALL SEMESTER: Who/se am I and from what story am I called?
Psalm 139:23 (NIV) - Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
We started with sharing our faith journeys, one of the most powerful and vulnerable acts of knowing another and being known.
Calling & Constraint - we then considered whether “constraints” and “limits” could be forces that shape our vocation and we asked whether we should let go of the ideal of finding that perfect place where our passions meet the world’s needs and meet a paycheck.
“If we are freed from the burden of finding the specific vocation to express and fulfill ourselves, then the process of discerning one’s work and career becomes much less anxiety-ridden and self-absorbed. When we see how God intends work to be creative rather than alienation, then we can imagine labor that works toward the support and liberation of others.” - Russell Jeung, At Home in Exile
Calling & Commitment - next we hung out at Buck’s Bend with our resident philosopher Chris Yates and asked what we pay attention to and how might that shape our vocation? Simone Weil writes “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”? What if we paid attention to what we pay attention to? We noted that technology is a powerful force that shapes our attention.
Calling out & Calling In - finally we turned to look at how America’s racial history has affected our own story within that. Jim Wallis (Sojourners) has said that racism is America’s original sin and MLK has said 11am is the most segregated hour in America still. We wondered together, what does it look like to be called out while also called in, both personally and as a church/campus ministry?
SPRING SEMESTER | To whom and to what am I called?
Matthew 22:36-40 (NIV) Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
Loving our Neighbors through Place - Here we learned about the life & legacy of John and Vera Mae Perkins as well as the Christian Community Development Association - the movement to bring wholeness to communities through spiritual, social and economic development which focuses not just on felt needs but the assets and strengths of communities previously seen just as problems. We asked one another, who has been a good neighbor in our lives and how can we each love our neighbors wherever we find ourselves next year?
Loving our Neighbors Amidst Deep Difference - One of my favorite though challenging discussions, we looked at what it means to love one another across the theological & political differences dividing the church today. Jesus’s final prayer in John 17 was that the ‘believers’ would all be one. How do we maintain our own beliefs while being in relationship with those who believe differently, especially around issues like universalism and gay marriage? What might it look like moving forward for us to foster friendships across not only ethnic differences but political and theological?
Loving our Neighbors with Beauty, Joy and Hope - Where is the place for art, beauty, joy & hope? Given the complexity of pain and joy in the world and in my own life, how do I move forward in hope and joy knowing I am beloved?
My greatest prayer for you as you leave is that you have tasted a bit of God’s shalom (right relationships between God, others, land, yourself) and that you can move forward with a sense of security in your belovedness as you love God, others and this created world. That you can see Christ as holding all the broken and beautiful things together and that you’d experience the Joy that comes out of that knowledge.
Mary Oliver: “Don’t Hesitate”
Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
Colossians 1:9-14, 17
We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,[c] 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you[d] to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins;....Christ, who is before all things and in him all things hold together.