Excerpt from Dean Townes' Opening Convocation talk Fall 2022:
i hope that you are here today and will remain here for the time it will take to complete your program because you think that there is a better way to be with each other and the creation that surrounds us
that you are willing to take the leap into learning and to open yourselves up to new ideas, new perspectives, new histories, new words…just overall new stuff
for part of what we do in theological education is make a commitment—faculty, staff, and students—to be open to the journey of bringing together head and heart, body and spirit, intellect and intuition, reason and experience as natural dance partners and not warring states of being
we, my friends, are trying to bring humanity back as we enter our classrooms, talk in the common room, gather in the atrium, sit in worship, travel here and back, hang in al’s pub, and more
because there is more in this world that calls out the good, if only we have the skills, will, strength and vision to do so
