Feature Category
A Reason for this Season
Sep. 10, 2014—“The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.” —James Baldwin As a first-year master of divinity student, I entered Vanderbilt University ready to study and participate in the transformation of a world, which I feel, is in much need of healing. I...
A Blank Paige
Sep. 3, 2014—by Paige Wetzel, 2nd year MTS candidate Blank. I wouldn’t say I came to VDS open-minded, just blank. When I began my studies last year, I had few expectations and even fewer ideas about what my time here would be like. Like a fresh piece of paper, I was clear and vacant, uncertain of what would...
Icons and Imagination
Aug. 27, 2014—In this assignment, VDS students reflect on their encounter with various Christian traditions. Our goal is not just passive knowledge but for students to add their own voices to the many interpretations of Christianity. Given the diversity of the VDS community, our voices speak from a variety of perspectives. Nevertheless, we have each encountered the long...
Stop. Breathe. Relax.
Aug. 20, 2014—This week, we share words of advice prepared by second year MDiv, James W. Dennis III, for our first year students. Stop. Breathe. Relax. The hardest part of your transition to Vanderbilt Divinity School is over! You are finally here!! Congratulations!! However, don’t celebrate too soon. A pat on the back is appropriate at this...
VDS Maymester – South Africa trip
Aug. 13, 2014—During Maymester, Professor Victor Anderson and I traveled with thirteen students to South Africa as part of a course studying collective violence. We were a mixed group: black, white, Asian; gay, straight; old and young. We came from different religious backgrounds, and brought our unique perspectives. The course material was difficult and asked us to...
The Patron Saint of Lost Causes; Maymester course part 4
Jul. 23, 2014—The Patron Saint of Lost Causes by Kate A. Fields, MDiv2 The painted desert, the Sonoran, home of lumbering Pipe Cacti, coyote, sidewinders, rattlesnakes, mice, owls, eagles, desert primrose, hawks, roadrunners, sunsets that wrap the day up with a bang and towering mountains of the Santa Catalina range. The fragile ecosystem of the Sonoran is disrupted...
“Borders are invisible until they’re not.” VDS Maymester course Part 3
Jul. 16, 2014—“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” Robert Frost Borders are invisible until they’re not. The wall the US built, closing off Mexicans along with other Southern and Central Americans from family and jobs, is as imposing and harsh as the policies that inform its existence. People come and go through checkpoints and pass...
VDS Maymester course, Traversing Our National Wound Part 2
Jul. 9, 2014—This past May, twenty Vanderbilt Divinity students and I travelled to Tucson, Arizona, as a delegation under the care of the organization BorderLinks. Vanderbilt Divinity School has partnered with BorderLinks for its last seven delegations, bringing groups of students every other year to Arizona for a week of engagement. Our trip was part of a...
Toward a Celebration of the Fourth of July
Jul. 2, 2014—By Amy E. Steele, MDiv (2000) PhD (2012) “The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of...
International Interfaith Delegation to El Salvador Part 4
Jun. 25, 2014—This March four students took part in the first ever International Interfaith Delegation to El Salvador in support of LGBTQI activist and people of faith, and attended the inaugural Festival de Fe in San Salvador (this trip/event coincided with the annual recognition of the martyrdom of Monsignor Oscar Romero. The work happening in El Salvador...