As I reflect on AY 21-22, my first in my current appointment as the Director of Community Development & Spiritual Formation, the word that comes to mind is creativity. Creativity offered new ways to emerge with grace, gather graciously, and gracefully lean into belonging. Our Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School (ANS@YDS) community, from student to senior staff and affiliated faculty to trustees, perhaps had to be more creative than ever as we sought to foster belonging amidst an ongoing global pandemic. The state of our world implored our ANS@YDS to dive into the unknown: in community.

 

Creativity cast new light on our mission and purpose. Though we returned to a seemingly familiar Quadrangle, we were compelled to creatively maneuver gathering guidelines, mask mandates, and grief – anticipated and unexpected. Sacred touch points, like our beloved Emmaus services, were engaged with a newfound creativity: a creativity that inspired more embodied and experiment sharing of what God has been up to in our lives – with poetry, movement, visual renderings, and song. Creative expressions of blessings in lieu of the familiar partaking of bread and cup encouraged healthy theological reflection. The belovedness imbued in each of us from birth was evoked by way of blessed chap sticks, electric candlelight, and bars of soap.

 

In community we made meaning with what we had. The reminder that we indeed had a theology to lean into as much was in flux provided entry points to worship, prayerful engagement, and warm welcome, even while masked. This revelation to lean into what we have grew into new relationships with partners of the Quad and with one another. Together we creatively tended to the wounds of whiplash of emerging into virtual and in-person learning. Together we founded new spaces to gather safely (ie. Andover Newton Cottage). Together we (re)discovered how exactly we belong on the Quad.

 

Each obstacle furnished our ANS@YDS with new learnings, discoveries, and checkpoints. Our academic year wrapped with a series of Commencement Weekends, it was in these milestones that we were able to transition with care and celebration. These milestones provided opportunity to see how far we had come: to (re)establish old as well as institutionalize new traditions. As we look to our next academic year, we seek to begin as we hope to finish – in holy covenant. We seek to engage what is familiar and routine while remaining open to the movements of the Spirit. The creativity of AY 21-22 has equipped us to interact intentionally, teach tenderly, and minister: pastorally, playfully, and prophetically.

 

Submitted respectfully,

 

The Rev. JaQuan Beachem