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A prayer for higher education

The following prayer Interceding for Those in Higher Education is an adaptation from a prayer written by Emily Umulis and posted on the Women Scholars & Professionals website. We are using it at the first GCF of the year.

Lord, you are present to your people throughout the world. You have called us to learn, love, and serve within the universities where you’ve placed us. Hear us now as we bring them to you.

Lord, we pray…

  1. For the leaders in higher education, including presidents, provosts, governing councils, deans, department heads, and all who manage internal operations and external relationships that influence the flourishing of the University of Toronto: give them wisdom as they navigate complex systems. May the decisions they make and the actions they perform nurture the well-being of the university and the lives of the people within it.
    • We pray, both aloud and in silence, for the leaders we know:
    • “Lord, hear our prayer.”
  2. For faculty who teach, mentor students, conduct research, and take part in various service obligations balancing day-to-day tasks with pressure to achieve in an increasingly competitive environment: give them insight as they order their days, create boundaries between work and life, and prioritize the demands on their time. Fill them with wisdom and grace as they bring words and influence into people’s lives and engage in research that furthers our understanding of your world.
    • We pray, both aloud and in silence, for the faculty members we know and work with:
    • “Lord, hear our prayer.”
  3. For graduate students who often work countless hours in solitude, studying a topic few people in the world understand, and feel caught between their own needs or desires and the power structures in which they live and work: give them peace and hope. Fill them with a sense of your presence and connect them with others in meaningful ways.
    • We pray, both aloud and in silence, for the graduate students we know and work with:
    • “Lord, hear our prayer.”
  4. For undergraduate students who are often both excited and overwhelmed as they navigate new independence and spaces of need: meet their longing for beauty with your presence, ground their identity in your love, and breathe your Spirit into all the ways they long to impact the world.
    • We pray, both aloud and in silence, for the undergrads we know and work with:
    • “Lord, hear our prayer.”
  5. For those who serve the University without long-term titles, including adjunct faculty, operations managers, grounds and cafeteria workers, who navigate power systems in which they are not at the top and serve in positions that are often overlooked: provide financial stability, open their eyes to see the impact they have, and speak truth and justice into the systems that affect their lives.
    • We pray, both aloud and in silence, for the we know or have seen at work on campus.
    • “Lord, hear our prayer.”

Lord, we bring to you the places where you have called us and the people there. Fill us with your Spirit, bless the work of our hands, and make us to be a redeeming influence in our classrooms, departments, and universities. May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.”

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Thoughts on Sabbath

Tonight we are talking about Sabbath at Graduate Christian Fellowship. As preparation, I glanced through MaryAnn McKibben Dana’s book, Sabbath in the Suburbs. I read the book a number of years ago when I first became a parent and found it deeply encouraging. While I love the idea of Sabbath as being restful and contemplative, the reality is that it’s hard to stop from the pressures and realities of the rest of life (and when you do stop, doing nothing or binging feel like the best activities). And practising Sabbath can be hard, whether you are a parent of a small child or a single person. Dana’s book felt like a gift, a recognition that some things are worth trying to (continue to) do, even if/when we can’t do them at the level we think (or feel pressured) to do.

The following are a number of quotes from the book to provide encouragement and fodder for thought, in the hopes that they help you imagine practising Sabbath in your life:

  • Sabbath as a “day of giving up trying to change things;” a day of “not trying to improve oneself: no progress” (15), a day when we have all the time in the world, to be fully present;
  • it is ” a disruption in the liturgy, a break in the rhythm” (28)
  • a day of wonder and delight (even with food); a day “free of obligation and ‘should'” (33)
  • Sabbath hacks:
    • work/errands are sometimes necessary, but doing it differently: slowly and intentionally, unhurried, contemplatively;
    • “find the one most important thing that must be done and to put parentheses around it in order to protect the rest of the day.” (98)
    • “another approach to Sabbath – to go about one’s day as usual, even if that includes work or errands, but to fast from one thing.” (85)
  • It can help to create a list of possible Sabbath activities, including trying something new or novel; such as “pursuing an unfamiliar or nonroutine task” (75)
  • “the Jewish Sabbath emphasizes bringing one’s best self to God… but maybe we also show respect for the Holy in our lives when we bring our real selves, not our clean and made-up ones.” (107) a day to be our authentic selves, without the mask or being ‘on’
  • “Sabbath feels like a dance between the impulse for togetherness and the needs of the individual.” (110) This challenge is different but just as true for those who are single.
  • a day to “help me remember that I’m not God… help me not to be consumed by good work.” (115)
  • “on one day, we should do our utmost to let go of the annoyance and anger – even anger at things we’re justified in being angry at.” (122)
  • a pre-Sabbath prayer: “what has been done has been done, what has not been done has not been done; let it be.” (128) from New Zealand prayer book
  • a day “to make time our friend, not our enemy” (42) of “trying to make time my friend again – a real friend, not the friend I only call when I need something.” (135)
  • “letting one thing go each day is a way of acknowledging that perfection will always be beyond me. It also helps me find a little bit of Sabbath each day.”(135)

Some reflections from Dana on her experience:

  • Dana: “Sabbath seems designed to make life as inconvenient as possible…. Sometimes, I can see a holy purpose iin the inconvenience. Other times, I’m just annoyed.” (83)
  • Dana had thought Sabbath would provide rest so that she could do more, but Sabbath isn’t so we can pack the rest of our week; “Sabbath is making me want to do even less the rest of the time.” (91)
  • “There isn’t ever enough time. Even when we strip away all the inessentials – even when we focus only on the things that are good and nourishing and important for ourselves, our families, and the world – there is still not enough time. But our hope is not in there being enough time but in there being enough grace to muddle through the scarcities or our days.” (150)

The Well also provides several helpful reflections on the Sabbath:

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Using the First Nations Version Bible: Learning from indigenous voices

As we start our gatherings, we “acknowledge the history, spirituality, culture, and ancestral stewardship of the land on which we regularly meet by the Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Anishinabek Nations, and the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation.” We continue our land acknowledgement with words that one of our emerging leaders helped us adopt several years ago: “we commit ourselves to seeking to live out the Good Way, which encompasses both love and humility as we bravely journey towards the justice which Jesus proclaimed with his words, life, death and resurrection.”

Our land acknowledgement recognizes our complex histories of the land on which we live and gather and reminds us of our desire to learn from other cultures. One way we as a community have chosen to more actively learn from Indigenous wisdom is through using the First Nations Version of the Bible, which is an Indigenous translation of the Bible. Using a different translation of the biblical text can be helpful for hearing the text in a new way; furthermore, the use of cultural norms and words that are different from what many of are used to can challenge our assumptions about what the text means.

As we have been using this version of the Bible at our gatherings these past few years, many people have commented on how the translation uses descriptions for names, such as Creator Sets Free (Jesus), Bitter Tears (Mary), Father of Many Nations (Abraham) and House of Bread (Bethlehem). Such descriptions may feel distracting at times but most of us have found them helpful, as they provide us with extra information for understanding the biblical text, including the meaning of the words in the original language.

Using the First Nations Version of the text is a simple and concrete way of acting out our desire to learn from Indigenous voices. We are hopeful that the Holy Spirit will work in and through this translation to allow many to grow in appreciation of the Bible and how we can learn from other cultures.

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Always be prepared to have an answer (1 Peter 3:15)

This past week we looked at 1 Peter 3 at GCF. The following was the email text send out to GCF folks ahead of time (which was adapted from a Wine Before Breakfast email sent out in summer 2021).

I grew up in a tradition where having the right answer mattered. It was important not to let others live in ignorance if we had the answers or knew they were doing something wrong, even if they didn’t like what we had to say. I thought this was what Christians ought to do, a way to share the truth we had with others. 

It took me a long time to realize that this was a poor interpretation of the text. 1 Peter 3:15 highlights that we are not to go around telling people the right answer(s), but instead to wait until we are asked. This implies living in such a way that people will want to ask about our love and humility and why we repay evil with blessing (1 Peter 3:8-9). Assuming that people will be impressed by how we live, we are to be prepared to give people an answer. The text commands us to be prepared to give an answer, not to give an answer. It is as if the preparation is what matters most, as if the answer is more for us than for others.

The answer that we are to prepare is not the ‘this is how you ought to live your life’ kind of answer, but the sort of answer that shares what has happened in our lives so that we have hope. And then, just in case we’ve started leaning towards responding to others with an “I know how to fix your life so it will be better” answer, the text reminds us to give our answers with gentleness and respect.

Having the text challenge our assumptions is one of the things I love most about studying the Bible, especially in community. When I lead a study, I hope that we will all be challenged and am thankful that the Spirit can use the insights and experiences of all those present to challenge us, including myself. 

Not surprisingly, the study this week reminder that the word answer (or defense, depending on your translation of the Greek, “apologia“) is necessarily a response to other’s curiosity or questions. It makes me wonder how I can live such a life that people might ask me about the hope I have, or how to give answers to ordinary questions that bear witness to how I sense the Spirit working in my life, even as this might make me uncomfortable.

– Brenda Kronemeijer-Heyink, Chaplain

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Striving to be a safer space

As a ministry we desire to create spaces where young adults and others connected to the university feel welcome. We especially want to be a safer space to those who might feel less welcome in more traditional church or Christian spaces, such as those who ask uncomfortable questions or who have experienced trauma or other negative experiences related to church.

As part of that desire to be a safer space, we’re working on providing descriptions on our website for what people can expect if they attend gatherings, the opportunity to meet with a chaplain ahead of time, and through having and ensuring we follow our safe campus policy. In our conversations, we encourage and welcome a diverse range of opinions and we also are intentional about (graciously) challenging people to pay attention to how their language might comes across as racist or ableist, as being dismissive of the complexity of the Bible and Christianity, and/or as being exclusive of or causing distress to others.

We do this recognizing

  1. That creating safer spaces where people are held accountable is part of proclaiming the gospel, where all people and their experiences are valued. Melissa Kuipers, a Christian Reformed campus minister at Mohawk College in Hamilton, explains this well: Your Inconvenient Safe Church Policy Helps Spread the Gospel.
  2. That healing from trauma is a hard and often long journey. As Amanda Benckhuysen addresses why we can’t just get over trauma: “I think a large part of the answer is that we weren’t made for this. We weren’t made for a world in which we are violated and harmed. We weren’t made for a world of brokenness and sin. As such, we should never hope to get good at getting over oppression and violence and abuse and injustice. To simply “get over” the wrongs done to us is to acclimate to the brokenness and evil of the world and lull ourselves into believing this is OK. The hurt we feel when we are violated or mistreated, then, is not an indication of what’s wrong with us, but an indication of what’s wrong with the world. And this realization should inspire in all of us a deeper longing for Christ and Christ’s kingdom.” (The Journey to Healing After Abuse)

It is our hope that we might learn from the wisdom of people like Benckhuysen and Kuipers and so be safer spaces where people are able to lament injustice as well as imagine and long for God’s kingdom.