Five questions: when, where, who, what, and why
Welcome to CMU 2014/15! This new academic year opened formally on September 2, 2014, and I greeted the students, faculty and staff with the words below. With these reflections I offer you a glimpse into the life of CMU and invite you to either join or remain part of the surrounding community that entrusts the university with its mission.
Dear Students, Faculty and Staff:
Let’s start this year with five short questions: when, where, who, what, and why.
When?
Welcome to a year of celebration—CMU’s 15th year of operation! This academic year will be marked with something that was previously only a dream—albeit a concrete dream. On the day we opened in 2000 we dreamt of a warm and safe way to get across Grant Ave, and a new Library and Learning Commons due to open in early January. On November 29 we will have a chance to get our first glimpse inside!
Where?
Welcome to a place where we seek understandings of what long preceded us and will long follow our own meanderings on the earth. Our welcome this morning honours Cree, Ojibway and Dakota peoples who lived on this land before any formal school existed here. This recognition reflects CMU’s commitment to seek reconciling relationships and respect for covenants that were formed between Indigenous and settler peoples, before the Creator, in 1871.
Who?
Welcome to a wonderfully diverse, university community gathered from across Canada and around the world. Each person here comes with a unique story. One unique story to which l will draw your attention is that of CMU Professor Jarem Sawatsky, who has taken early retirement, due to the advancement of Huntington’s disease, a condition that has begun to alter the quality of his life. We honour Jarem’s contributions to CMU, his teaching, his creation of the Canadian School of Peacebuilding, and the impact he has had at this university. We honour Jarem and his family, even as we also walk alongside every person here whose lives are touched by all the good and all the challenge that life brings.
What?
Welcome to a journey of study of the “-ologies” of the world—psychology, sociology, biology, musicology, theology, oceanology, dragonology, wizardology, and on. Do you think I’m beginning to digress? Here’s the evidence—titles of recent books that are favourites of many children today. Most of us understand the suffix “-ology” to refer to words and forms of logic in some area of inquiry, and to rigorous study that’s detached from what touches and concerns our everyday lives. The “-ology” labels for the children’s books draw attention to a less well-understood feature of disciplined study: it’s made up of encounters with some way of knowing the world as explored with great love and care, and explored by fans and followers who are drawn together along the way. What’s distinct about CMU is that practitioners of these different “–ologies” are best friends and have opportunity for real dialogue and good understanding across the avenues they know and care for most.
Why?
Welcome to a place where we begin from a posture of gratitude. We’re thankful for the ways that each student, faculty and staff member, will bring their voice and their listening, their passion and hope, their misgivings and honesty, their analyses, wonderings, struggles, creativity—and simply, their best to all we will learn together.
In entering a new academic year we recognize that CMU students come from a wide array of different church traditions, and that some students have never participated in the rituals and life of Christian faith. Regardless of where each of us comes from, you are invited into a moment of silent reflection as we open our year with this prayer.
We bless you, O God, for you have gifted the world with an abundance of hope and a wellspring of trust.
Here, now, in this place we celebrate the CMU community of 2014-15, and ask that you cherish and bless the learning and the life of each person who gathers in these classes and halls.
May the students, staff and faculty receive and share in your gifts of hope and trust this and every day. And may we swallow them whole until our beings flow with generous imagination and faith-filled character.
Among us are those for whom the events of the summer have left open wounds...through the death of a sibling, a rift in a relationship, a hoped-for job that never did work out.
Among us are those who are anxious about making new friends, and those who fear blank computer screens on days when papers are almost due.
Among us are those who have seen a summer filled with good things, and also those most eager to learn new things, unfold old things, and hope things...together with a God who is alive in all that is old and new.
Among us are those gifted with strong voices, quiet voices, gentle spirits, wild spirits, well-formed habits, ever developing better habits—together the community is holy and full of God’s beloved children.
Among us are faculty and staff entrusted to nudge deeper your grasp of what we’ve come to know of life and all things in it, and to walk with us through the thick of it all, as mentors, pastors, and friends.
Among us is a God who is patient yet eager to fill the earth with the good news of hope and healing justice, a God whose adventures show up in the most unlikely forms, a God who is worthy of trust.
As we encounter all these ones among us,
may we be drawn into the wonder of the world’s Creator,
surrounded by the peace of Christ's redeeming grace,
and filled with the wild courage of the Spirit's boundless joy.
Amen