Culture-making World’s waking A restlessness overwhelms The watchfulness That’s needed Heed seeds sown In patience And gratitude
--Emilia Gore
We all make culture. The question isn’t whether or not you’ll engage in culture-making, the question is what kind of culture you’ll produce and promote. Members of Charlottesville’s community heard Tim Keller speak these words at a national event, Q Commons, on a Thursday evening in October.
Recently, UVA culture has attracted national media attention. No headline or University response can fully capture our University’s nuanced culture. Still, as I read the articles, my heart sank. What kind of culture have we created? As I searched for an answer through discussions in class and conversations among friends, I felt both hopeful and discouraged. Some friends attacked our University culture and others defended it; but more importantly, the majority of us forgot about our collective ability to shape it.
Students left for thanksgiving break with heavy hearts and heated heads. Unrest still marks the grounds as we return from our gratitude-centered holiday. Conversations in the dorm revolve around the stress of finals and a readiness to return home. Currently, we foster a culture of comparing and complaining. Personally, I want to move our culture toward one of gratitude and thankfulness. It goes beyond not complaining; it’s “more than a mental exercise, more than a formula of words. We cannot be satisfied to make a mental note of things which God has done for us and then perfunctorily thank Him for favors received. To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything He has given us—and He has given us everything.” (Thomas Merton, Vintage Week 12) This advent season, what would happen to our culture if we sought to see God in everything he has given us?
Emilia Gore is a 4th year Political and Social Thought major from Washington, DC. Some of her interests include Mandarin, sustainable agriculture, ethics, and Cuban history. This year, Emilia will lead a Food and Agriculture Organization committee at UVA's Model United Nations and continue to manage the UVA Community Garden.
Paul Dafydd Jones is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at UVa and Co-director of the Virginia Center for the Study of Religion. He is currently working on a book in constructive theology focused on patience — divine patience and human patience, but also divine impatience and human impatience. It explores creation and providence, the incarnation, atonement, the nature of sanctification, and, last but not least, the intersection between Christian thought and political activity. It draws on a wide range of figures and intellectual movements including Karl Barth, John Calvin, Martin Luther, and Hans Frei and is an attempt to show how “classical” theology and liberation theology can be integrated.
On a drizzly Friday night, the Bonhoeffer House opened its doors to let a breeze pass through the small crowd of students, faculty, and community gathered together around chocolate, grapes, cheese, and cider. Charlottesville’s newly-local duo, Lowland Hum, was preparing the stage to sing to us, and I grabbed a seat right in the front, which was brilliant since half the show’s beauty was in watching the two interact. Daniel and Lauren are so truly harmonious and lovely, it wasn’t a surprise when Daniel let us all in on the secret that their music has changed for the better since the marriage of their lives and (luckily for us) the marriage of their voices. They opened up their lives to us – a crowd of strangers – in courage, honesty, and love. Sharing stories of their marriage, their tour, their struggles, their losses, Lowland Hum invited us to see the beauty of a pair of human hearts struggling to live and to use their voice in love.
Allison Wolf is a 4th year studying English at the University of Virginia. She is currently writing her major thesis on Virginia Woolf and aspires to be a Professor of English. Over the summer, she participated in a course at the UVa Rare Books School where she studied the technical and cultural contexts of typography and printing. 
Tuesday mornings, sleepy eyes, hungry tummy. I head to the Lawn. The leaves are changing and the air is just cold enough to remind me that I am not eternal—followed quickly by the Discipleship Intensive to remind me that I am.
CJ Green is a 4th year studying English at the University of Virginia. He hopes to pursue a writer's lifestyle. He enjoys most postmodern art and has the privilege of dating Horizons sweetheart, Maddy Partridge.
September has come and gone, and the fellows program at Theological Horizons is in full swing. We got the opportunity to get to know the members of our group at both the kick-off dinner as well as at our first monthly Monday night gathering featuring Mike Guthrie. Mike spoke on the well-known parable of the lost son, a story told by Jesus in response to the Pharisees' grumbling, "this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them" (Lk 15:2). I think Jesus' following stories, first of the lost sheep, the lost coin, then the prodigal son and his brother, reveal His consistent pursuit of the lost because of His grace. Whether you are the one following the law, the one squandering your father's wealth in reckless living, or somewhere in between, Jesus is there to remind you, "you are always with me, all that is mine is yours" (Lk 15:31).
It seems we're at a particularly rich period in culture-making where innovation is abounding among people of faith. Lowland Hum is no exception. They are the 'multisensory artistic collaboration' of Daniel and Lauren Goans. This North Carolinian folk duo are re-imagining the concert experience by focusing on house concerts where audience members break local bread together, offer comments or questions in between songs and follow thoughtful lyrics in tiny hand-bound books. Participating in a Lowland Hum house concert blurs the line between performer and listener, allowing you to actively experience the music on many levels.
We asked Rhody Mastin what she took away from her experience working as our Communications Intern this year. She said,
