Recently Gordon honored some faithful leaders at the annual Celebration of Leadership. The Loring and Patton families each exemplify faithful leadership in their everyday lives through their legacy of philanthropy and service in Greater Boston along with significant contributions to social service organizations, education, and important causes. It is this kind of unique leadership that called Gordon to honor three members of the Loring family—Caleb Loring Jr., Caleb Loring III and Bronwyn E. Loring ’87—as well as Joanne Holbrook Patton with the College's most prestigious leadership award for public service, the George F. Bennett Leadership Award.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Faithful Leadership in Today's World
Recently Gordon honored some faithful leaders at the annual Celebration of Leadership. The Loring and Patton families each exemplify faithful leadership in their everyday lives through their legacy of philanthropy and service in Greater Boston along with significant contributions to social service organizations, education, and important causes. It is this kind of unique leadership that called Gordon to honor three members of the Loring family—Caleb Loring Jr., Caleb Loring III and Bronwyn E. Loring ’87—as well as Joanne Holbrook Patton with the College's most prestigious leadership award for public service, the George F. Bennett Leadership Award.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Earth Week: Caring deeply about environmental change
When I was in third grade my school introduced a comprehensive recycling system. Our teachers showed us the new addition to the corner of the classroom--bright plastic blue bins--and explained we'd be the newest partners in waste management for Oscar the Grouch. I remember thinking these new arrow-clad containers took up useful play space and gave us another responsibility to worry about. We knew not what they were for, or why their introduction was necessary, but that day we did our best to separate our recyclables and follow all the right steps. To this third grader, if someone took the time to create them, they must be important, right?
Last week was the 43rd annual Earth Week at Gordon. It was a week that serves to both remind and enlighten students about their responsibility as stewards of creation--how every student not only needs to engage in sustainable practices, but also needs to understand why it is important to do so.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Chemistry Chapter Earns National Recognition
"We are not just about blowing stuff up and making it look cool. We are about making a solar cell out of blackberry juice and glass slides." -Owen Williams '14
This month, Gordon College student chemists received a prestigious honor: two awards at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), of which Gordon College has a very active student chapter. At the group's national meeting in New Orleans this month, nine Gordon students were recognized with the Outstanding Student Chapter Award as well as a Green Chemistry Award. Receiving both awards together is the most elite recognition any chapter can receive, and only 25 other schools (from a pool of over a thousand) have received this honor.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Restore Creation: Earth Week at Gordon
The week includes film screenings, garden clean-ups and plantings, a Boston service project partnering with the Charles River Watershed Association and urban nonprofits for a Charles River Cleanup, tours of small farms in the area, and educational discussions.
"Earth Week is a favorite of mine," said Cyndi McMahon in the Communications Office, who often takes photos of the events during the week. "I love hearing the sounds of the Recycled Rhythm pop-up performances similar to the bucket drumming near North Station in the city."
Though environmental stewardship is a year-round commitment at Gordon, it's important to set aside time for discussion, and also to celebrate the Gordon community's leadership role in this important field. Recently Gordon College was again named to the Princeton Review's Green Colleges Guide, a highly selective listing of universities and colleges across the U.S. that go beyond traditional expectations for environmental care. Gordon staff members Paul Helgeson and Mark Stowell have been invited to speak at a forum on Faith and Sustainability at the third Massachusetts Sustainable Communities and second Massachusetts Sustainable Campuses Conference this week at the Worcester DCU Center, a clear testament to why the Princeton Review would set its sights on Gordon for this distinction.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Miroslav Volf at Gordon: Understanding Religious Violence
The German-educated Volf is the founding director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and a Henry B. Wright professor of theology at Yale Divinity School. Born in war-ravaged Croatia and a witness to the violence there, at a young age Volf had to reconcile his Christian faith with this devastation.
Volf kicked off the lecture with a philosophical explanation of the three motivations for conflict as put forth by Hobbes: that people invade for gain, safety or reputation. Religion, according to Volf, follows right after because of its nature as a system of truth. Anything that stifles a group's practice of its religion will spark dissent, and perhaps violence. This extends even to traditionally peaceful religions and cultures; in Sri Lanka, Buddhist monks whose protests have been long been non-violent now are sometimes raising guns. And today we see Muslims in France facing threats to their religion over a potential ban of the hijab, the traditioanal veil worn by Muslim women.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Multigenerational Leadership: One Size Does Not Fit All
Four insightful panelists gathered around the table at the front of the room, sharing their views on a relevant issue: How can a business operate effectively when its workforce has employees from different generations? Gordon’s thrust to feature more Boston-based events paved the way for the recent “Organizational Success Through Multigenerational Teams” event in the heart of Boston's business and e-commerce neighborhood. The event, sponsored by Gordon's Career Services and Advisory Board, brought professionals and students to the Boston Private Bank & Trust Company’s conference rooms to hear how organizations thrive despite different generational perspectives. The four panelists,—Dave Caruso, founding chairman and managing director of Coastal Capital Group; Pilar Pueyo, senior vice president and director of human resources at Boston Private Bank & Trust; Mary Mariano, vice president of the finance division, employee development and inclusion for State Street Corporation; and Jessie Saintcyr, deputy treasurer and human resources director and employment counsel, at the Office of the Treasury for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—offered unique views on the subject from their vantage points in institutions of quite different sizes.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Play With A Purpose: Triple Honors for Gordon
When people think of academics, recreation and leisure are two of the last words that usually come to mind. But the Recreation and Leisure Studies Department at Gordon strives to show the importance of leisure in our collective and individual lives. Through holistic study of the quality of life, the department seeks to enrich student lives and their communities. The department's excellence was recognized at this year’s Massachusetts Recreation and Park Associate (MRPA) Conference in which three Gordon representatives were honored for excellence in the field.
Student Marcos Castellano ’13 was named Student of the Year, alumnus Peter Coleman ’03 won Professional of the Year and Professor Peggy Hothem received a special citation for 40 years of service in the field. Professor Hothem—who won the Peter O’Brien Humanitarian award in 2003, the highest honor bestowed by the MRPA—was recognized this year as a long-time member of the organization and for initiating the recreation and leisure studies major at Gordon in 1990.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Stand for Freedom: Raising Awareness for Global Slavery
At this early hour, she’s the only one standing. In an hour or two, however, more will join her. The numbers vary with the time, but over the course of 27 hours there will always be someone standing there representing this message. As my fellow students and I go about our busy days, we will pass this makeshift gathering place, looking at the students at the fire with a mixture of confusion and awe. A lot of us know they’re standing for freedom, but we don’t really understand why they have braved the cold at all hours of night and day. The story those students tell shows their determination to fight for a cause in the midst of the college life routine.
Friday, March 22, 2013
City Life: Gordon Students Meet Alumni at 3rd Annual Boston Networking Event
Blogger: Mac Gostow ’13. Mac is a communication arts major from California and a student writer in the Office of College Communications at Gordon College. With a double minor in business administration and sociology, Mac has interned for CBS News in New York City, is a founder of ScotRadio, performs with theSweaty Tooth Madmen improv troupe, and served as a show host for KURadyo in Istanbul, Turkey.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Leadership 101: Chairman of NYSE Imparts Wisdom to Students
Friday, March 1, 2013
Student Diplomacy: Gordon Delegates Get Invaluable United Nations Experience
Recently, 18 Gordon student delegates represented the country of Tunisia at the 2013 Harvard National Model United Nations conference in Boston. The event brought together 3,500 college students from around the world for a four-day conference that simulates the United Nations. During the conference, delegates work together to form policies and draft resolutions that they vote on during the final assembly.
The 18 Gordon delegates collaborated with Paul Brink, associate professor of political science, in a 2-credit MUN class from November to February. They spent the first month researching their country, and then drafted proposals during winter break. The culmination of their work was presented during the MUN conference.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
For the Love of the Game: Gordon Alum Goes Pro
Monday, February 18, 2013
Beanpot: Boston's Biggest Collegiate Improv Competition
The members of Sweaty-Toothed Madmen, Gordon’s improv troupe, harness the imagination to create humorous, often outlandish theatrical scenes. Later this month, the troupe will make their fourth appearance in the Beanpot, a Boston-based competition that brings together improv teams from Boston University, Northeastern University, and other colleges in the area.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
A Cultural Nomad, A Grounded Faith
“My concern is for souls, not material wealth. A soul lost here is just as big of a loss as a soul lost in Africa.”
Business Administration major Chan Mi Kim is a cultural nomad of sorts. Born in Korea to missionary parents, she moved to Vietnam at 7, attended boarding school in Malaysia at 13, and traveled to six countries during a gap year before making her way to America for college. She brings a perspective many Americans can appreciate but few can identify with. In the Gordon community, she exudes confidence, grace, and passionately engaged faith. With a zeal for photography, languages and people, she breathes life into everything she touches.
Chan Mi arrived in America last summer feeling called to the Boston area. A Gordon alumnus at a camp in Korea had introduced her to the school and she thought it the perfect place to cultivate her business knowledge and serve the many college students in the Boston area.
As she entered the Class of 2016, Chan Mi discovered she'd traveled the farthest from home to get a Gordon education (8,539 miles, to be exact). Her first semester settling in at Gordon included several particularly American experiences.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Superbowl of Birding
Monday, January 28, 2013
Fat Dog Shellfish: An Alum's Journey into Sustainable Aquaculture
Many people think about abandoning their office jobs for a more adventurous life, but few take the steps to make it happen. Jason Baker ’95 is an exception. After 13 years of working out of a Boston-based office, a suggestion from a close friend prompted him to leave his old life behind and found Fat Dog Shellfish, an oyster farm in New Hampshire's Great Bay. With the drive to grow the perfect oyster, and a commitment to promoting an environmentally friendly industry, Jason is putting his Gordon education to use in an interesting, exciting way.
Jason studied biology at Gordon, where he took advantage of the many immersion opportunities offered through his department. “Gordon is where I first cultivated my environmental ethic,” he says. During a summer environmental studies program at the Au Sable Institute in Michigan, Jason's passion for environmentally sustainable practices and industries was solidified.
Friday, January 25, 2013
On View in the Art Gallery: Jay Walker
“What is our relationship with Mystery? Do we ignore, indulge, or succumb to its daily presence in our lives?” – Jay Walker
The Gallery at Barrington Center for the Arts kicked off its spring exhibit schedule this past Saturday with a new show by Philadelphia artist Jay Walker. The exhibit, From my book: Installations by Jay Walker, features large-scale interpretations of the Theotokos figure (the Greek title for Mary, mother of Jesus, especially in eastern Christian traditions), using nothing but tape and cut vinyl. You can view the exhibit in Barrington through February 16, 2013.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Not a Museum, but a Garden: Massimo Faggioli Lectures on the Meaning of Vatican II
It was Massimo Faggioli's provocative lecture title, “Vatican II: Then and Now,” that likely drew many local Catholic parishioners, as well as Gordon faculty and students, to the Ken Olsen Science Center MacDonald Auditorium for the final talk of the Fall 2012 Faith Seeking Understanding Lecture Series at Gordon College. Faggioli explored in his lecture the history, theology and broad cultural impact of the Second Vatican Council. Professor Faggioli, assistant professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, is an Italian scholar who has taught at the University of Bologna, the University of Modena-Reggio Emilia, and the Free University of Bolzen-Bolzano; he brought his passion and enthusiasm for church history to his listeners.
Beginning in 1962 and concluding in 1965, the Second Vatican Council represented a major effort on the part of the Catholic Church to address issues of modernity in a way understood by many (Faggioli included) to be more open and culturally engaged than the Church's approach through "the long 19th century."
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Gordon Students Win Big at Regional Skateboarding Contest (and Why It's Not About Winning at All)
The Fall Brawl, New England’s largest amateur skateboarding contest, took place earlier this month. Among the highly selective crop of 50 invited competitors were Gordon College students Matt Lane ’13, a recreation and leisure studies major, and Steve Mull ’15, an English major.
After warm-ups—a kind of Battle Royale which seemed to defy not only Newton’s laws of nature but Hobbes’ nasty, brutish, and short state of nature—competitors plied their tricks in groups of five for several minutes while judges jotted notes and, at points, covered their eyes. Following a few elimination rounds (a term I use in both its technical and descriptive senses), only two groups remained. Both our heroes, Gordiators we might call them, remained in the fight.
Allow me a moment to clarify something: skateboarding is not a sport. These contests are not really a competition amongst skateboarders. Skateboarding is, rather, an inherently kinetic activity of the body—not unlike ballet or other forms of artistic dance—which simply adds further dimensions of speed and landscape. What do you have when you add landscape to ballet? Parkour. Now, add speed—pushing-a-wheeled-stick-as-hard-as-possible-with-your-mobile-leg speed—and you get skateboarding. Add several skateboarders together, you get a session. Add judges, you get a contest. The Fall Brawl, then, is really some breed of obstacled, high-speed, free-form ballet—and Lane and Mull are kinetic artists of rare quality.
However, let’s not let this information take away the social meaning and fiscal value from a further set of facts: A this year’s Fall Brawl, Matt Lane took 1st place and $1000. Steve Mull took 2nd place and $450. And there’s little reason to be surprised. Consider the following:
“Matt [Lane]’s the best up-and-coming skater in Boston, hands down,” I overheard from Josh, part-owner of Boardwalk Skate Shop and Indoor Skate Park in Woburn. Matt’s recent feature article in Steez, a top skateboarding magazine, sharpen Josh’s point, as does Matt’s mug on the cover of another premier magazine, Focus. What makes Matt so good is that he rarely misses a trick. What’s more, every trick he does is done faster and bigger than anyone else who does that trick. I feel sorry for the obstacles in Matt’s landscape. It’s like watching a silverback gorilla move across a jungle floor: the trees might try to get out of the way, but the silverback is just too quick. Power, courage and backbone like Matt’s—well, you just can’t buy that stuff.
Steve Mull, whose signature board just came out with his sponsor, Vermont Skateboards (yes, I mean that Steve Mull has a skateboard deck with his name printed on it in fancy script next to graphics that would make any street artist go legal), is a different kind of skater. His style is influenced by the round and sloped semi-rural landscape of his home, Vermont. This kid is pure style. (And to use this word, ‘style,’ multiple times, as I intend to, is not being repetitive when describing Steve Mull.) Mull’s contest performance was marked by his signature trick, a very long, stylish stalefish crooked, which looks something like this (skip ahead to 2:30). It’s a trick as difficult as it is original. Steve Mull: innovator, innovator, innovator… and style-king… and owner of a heart-warming smile that could melt a Vermont winter.
Matt Lane, Steve Mull, we love you. You make Gordon proud—for your backbone and your style; for throwing your whole selves onto those boards.
Brian Glenney, PhD, is assistant professor of philosophy at Gordon College, where he also teaches a skateboarding physical education class. In addition to his peer-reviewed scholarly work on philosophical psychology and perception, Glenney has been an active skateboarder and (reformed, legal) street artist for over twenty years. His scholarly interests in perception and personal passions for art and mobility have recently coalesced into the Accessible Icon Project, a collaboration with Harvard artist Sara Hendren to transform the International Symbol of Access (the Wheelchair Symbol) into an “active, engaged image.” Photos: 1—Steve Mull ’15, Frontside 180 Kickflip; 2—Matt Lane ’13, Frontside Nosegrind
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Fall Theatre Wrap-up: Working: A Musical
Working: A Musical is based on real interviews with American workers, conducted by writer Studs Terkel in the 1970s. Through a series of individual stories and ensemble numbers, the audience is offered a glimpse into the frustration, joy, pride and aspirations of average American workers.
Directed by Gordon professor Jeff Miller, the cast and crew were challenged with reimagining this classic American musical, each playing multiple characters and assisting the tech crew.
“The cast and crew deserve an enormous amount of praise for a very successful run…One of my favorite things about watching an ensemble cast is seeing each cast member get to embody multiple, different roles,” said production manager and technical director Matt Schwabauer.
One of these performers was Cristin Gordon ’14, a theatre arts major. “Being a part of a show like Working was amazing because of how close the entire cast and crew became. It's awesome to get to perform in such a fun, nurturing environment. Also, I felt honored to perform these roles and tell the stories of these people.”
Miller echoed these sentiments in his reflection about his students’ performance: “For college students to embrace and give integrity to these characters who are very different from themselves (in more than age) is a major accomplishment. Time and again we heard that audience members were moved, challenged and deeply affected by hearing these stories.”
Josh Kaplan ’16, a communication arts major, was one of those who connected with the stories presented by the cast. “Working was very thought provoking. The text of the piece and the performances by the actors truly made me think what is the value of work in today’s society.”
Another first-year student, Damaris Gibaldi, was excited both to serve as assistant stage manager and take part in a production that tackled these timely themes. “Not only did I learn about the logistics of backstage work, but I got to be a part of a show that clearly demonstrated the worth of the working class.”
Miller had been eager to present a show that communicated the values and complexity of work and vocation, and he concluded that he was humbled by his students’ “commitment to excellent work and their full commitment to their Creator, who gives them the opportunity to use their gifts in service like this.”
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Ten Years Towards Benign
By Hilary Sherratt ’12
“The real question is, how do we train chemists?” John Warner looked intently at each face in the front two rows of the MacDonald auditorium. “How do we expect chemists not to make harmful compounds if they’ve never been taught how to identify them?” Education was the key word at Monday afternoon's Green Chemistry Lecture at Gordon College. Warner, a world renowned industrial chemist and founder of the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry, shared his personal journey into green chemistry and his commitment to calling attention to this unmet need.
When he was a lead researcher at Polaroid, Warner met with his college friend and colleague, Paul Anastas, at the Environmental Protection Agency. Anastas was working in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, and the two men got to talking about the need for environmentally benign non-toxics. This, Dr. Warner told us, was the birth of green chemistry. “It started with the two of us, wondering why there is such a lack of conversation around this important issue,” he said. The initial conversation in an EPA office in Washington, DC, sparked a worldwide revolution, the publication of a book, Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice, and a new field of research and development in chemistry. Now, Warner says, green chemistry is projected to be a $100 billion industry by the year 2020.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Aruhah: Awareness and Prayer for the Hungry and Thirsty
Since coming to Gordon, McKenzie, a biblical studies major, has sought the means to bring her passion for hunger and thirst to the campus community. Steph Clark ’15, a social work major, recently joined forces with McKenzie, and the two have brought to life a brand-new ministry called Aruhah—Hebrew for “meal.”
Monday, November 12, 2012
Seek the Lord While He Wills to Be Found
Each year the Day of Prayer celebrates two fundamental realities about Gordon. On the one hand, we are one body in Christ. By praying together in two large chapel services on Tuesday, we sought the Lord as one campus. The morning service began with the Morning Chapel Band, the Dance Ministry, and others, all calling us to worship. We moved through a time of individual and corporate confession. And we prayed in groups for the needs of this community, this nation, and all nations.
In the evening we worshipped again as one in the chapel with a congregational expression of the Psalms through song. From a lone voice in the darkness expressing the cries of the Psalmist in Psalm 130, to voices in unison reading the Psalms of Ascent; from hymns to contemporary music to bluegrass; from a Taizé chorus to Gospel music led by the Gospel Choir, we raised our voices in prayer and praise together, using the words of the Psalms.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
On View in the Gallery: Joseph A. Fiore
Last Saturday's opening reception, in addition to unveiling this body of work for the first time to a New England audience, gave Gordon students and gallery visitors the chance to hear from two of Joseph Fiore’s closest contacts. The first was the curator of the exhibit, David Dewey, himself an artist and former student of Fiore. Before his passing in 2008, Joseph Fiore asked Dewey to take on the significant honor and challenge of preserving and curating his artwork. Dewey spent over a year preparing Fiore/Drawing, and he was delighted to see the work on the gallery walls in Barrington.
Joseph Fiore’s own daughter, Susanna Fiore, was also in attendance. Susanna and her husband, Jay—both accomplished jazz musicians from Boston—paid tribute to her father’s love of music with a wonderful set of classic jazz standards and original pieces. It was a fitting atmosphere for an artist whose work inherently reflects the energy and rhythms of live music.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Water Sundays 2013
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Scriptura Sola After 500 Years
The Conference on Faith and History, held biennially and hosted this October at Gordon College, provides a forum for scholars of Christianity and history to learn from one another. Professors, scholars and students from all over the country bring their questions and insights. The intermingling of so many levels of scholarship is a big part of what makes the CFH such a valuable experience. It was a unique privilege for Gordon students and professors to be able to attend presentations by notable historians who have widely influenced the study of history.
Dr. Mark A. Noll, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, presented the conference's final lecture, entitled “Scriptura Sola after Nearly 500 Years: A Protestant Blessing or a Protestant Curse?” Scriptura sola, Latin for “by scripture alone,” refers to the belief that the Bible includes all the information necessary for a life of salvation. Noll’s talk laid out the progression of Protestants' use of scriptura sola throughout American history. As he began, Noll quipped, “After 500 years, has scriptura sola been a blessing or a curse? The answer, of course, is…yes. That’s it, thank you—end of lecture.” The audience of iPad-clutching professors and notebook-crinkling students laughed, and settled into their seats for what they knew would be a much more thorough addressing of this challenging question.
Noll explored the diverse meanings that people have drawn from this concept during different time periods. He also raised difficult questions about the Protestant use of scripture, including the historical justification of slavery and outright disagreements between congregations of the same faith.
There is ambiguity in the definition of scriptura sola, Noll stressed; what does it mean, exactly, to follow the Bible alone? Some Christians uphold the sole use of the Bible in living the Christian life; others advocate the exploration of texts from other religions in order to better understand our own. According to Noll, the best solution is for Christians to be socially and politically engaged, infiltrating the layers of society with scriptural wisdom—a method, Noll pointed out, exemplified by our school’s founder, A. J. Gordon. Regardless of scriptura sola’s exact meaning in our world now, we know that scripture commands us to extend the love of Christ. This, Noll emphasized, is what we should pay attention to.
Noll’s lecture provided a triumphant conclusion to four days of vigorous discussion of the overlaps between faith and history. A true scholar of faith, he left us with questions and with a call to action.
Photo: Scholars from all over the country came together with Gordon students this month for the biennial Conference for Faith and History—pictured here in the Ken Olsen Science Center lobby.
Rebekah Connell ’15 is an English major from New York and student writer for the Office of College Communications.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Cultivating Deep Faith
Often, Belcher explained, the moment comes during a person’s college years—away from home, from parents and youth group, from most of the inherited aspects of her religious faith. Drawing from the research of another well-known Gordon alumnus, Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith ’83, Belcher shared some sobering facts about how our most recent generation of college students and graduates (termed "emerging adults") fare through this critical moment. Upwards of 90 percent of emerging adults take on the social and spiritual identity of their immediate surroundings, even if it goes against the identity of their youth.
This means that many emerging adults who were raised in the Christian faith “put that [Christian] identity in a lockbox," said Belcher, once they enter into the largely faith-skeptical realm of secular higher education. They then emerge on the other side of their college years brandishing a sort of vague spirituality Smith calls Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD)—God without grounding in theology or creed, accompanying a general moral, spiritual and social aimlessness.
“Can MTD be escaped?” Belcher asked. How can we instill enduring faith in ourselves and in future generations? It’s a question Belcher has been grappling with for years.
After earning degrees from Gordon College, Fuller Theological Seminary and Georgetown University, Belcher became the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California. He made his debut as a Christian voice on the national stage with the thoughtful and fair-minded Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional, celebrated as one of Christianity Today's "best books from 2009." Now an associate professor of practical theology at Knox Theological Seminary, Belcher continues to seek a vibrant and firmly rooted faith in his work as a pastor, teacher and scholar.
And as Belcher explained in his Chapel message Monday morning, the firm, sustaining root of the Church is in the enduring story of Christ. Drawing a comparison to Lucy’s discovery of the magic of the “Spell for the Refreshment of the Spirit” in C. S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Belcher reiterated that “once you have been gripped by that story [of Christ], you will want to hear it over and over again.”
It is the timeless power of the Christian narrative that ultimately resists the casual draw of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, and which creates a culture of bold Christian leaders ready to live out that narrative in the world. “I’m thankful that I was able to get exposure to that kind of story here at Gordon, 25 years ago,” said Belcher.
Belcher is currently working on a follow-up to Deep Church, titled In Search of Deep Faith.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
"Welcome home. Look around."

By Ashlie Busone '13
After a lifetime of looking directly in front of me, three months in Tanzania taught me to look around.
Twenty-five hours in the air, one night in a dirty Dar es Salaam hostel, three hours on a crowded bus with chickens and children alike being passed along my lap, a short dala dala ride, and a long walk to the end of a dark red dirt road . . .
There’s a wall there.
There’s a what, where? With over 50 pounds of donated school supplies and tie-dyed t-shirts, and a pack on my back full of three months'-worth of life . . . I wasn’t exactly prepared to scale a large cement wall. So my traveling partner’s stark observation came as an unwelcome challenge.
Sijui, she told me. I don’t know.
Well, that’s great, I thought, staring up at the wall that separated us, clay stained feet and all, from the house we were supposed to move into for the summer. Neither do I.
I contemplated pulling out my trusty Lonely Planet Tanzania guide and scanning the index for “what to do if there’s a literal wall between you and your home,” hoping to find some helpful piece of wisdom like “use the other half of your boarding pass and the dental floss your mother made you pack to construct a pulley system and hoist yourself over the thing,” or “call the Lost Backpacker’s Hotline and ask for Juma, the wall remover—remember to say ‘asante!’”
Instead we called Mustafa, a local friend who found us and laughed for just a few minutes in the traditional Tanzanian way before effortlessly hoisting our bag full of donations onto his head, and gently leading us around the wall and through a neighboring field, over a hill and into our compound. He acted as our gardener, our guard and our source of entertainment for the duration of our stay in Morogoro. Mustafa helped us navigate many more roads, and guided us down paths we never could have found in the first place.
It was the first moment he arrived, though, that struck me. Mustafa’s smile told me he understood our frustration. He could see past our smirks and into our fear. It was as if he could hear the little voices screaming inside my head. The ones that doubted my ability to teach, and laughed at my reasons for “giving up” a summer to volunteer, as well as questioned the validity of our purpose at SEGA, the school we’d be working with. He could probably even hear the jumbled Swahili–English phrases floating around in my mind that resulted in mass confusion (not just for me, but for all of my partners in conversation).
Yes, Mustafa could hear all those voices, but somehow they didn’t prevent him from understanding our attempts (in broken Swahili) to relate to him. He simply took our hands and led us to the place we could figure things out. He situated us among our fears, our anxieties and our challenges, and helped us cultivate a life of beauty for ourselves that made sense among the confusion and the chaos. This was mostly ironic, because we thought we had gone to Tanzania to help people like him do that. We had spent our lives looking up, but he had an innate ability to look around and help those wearing virtual peripheral blinders.
Mustafa’s gesture offered more than a guidebook. At first glance, the photograph above might look like any other: two friends in a field full of flowers in the East African bush . . . frolicking and “changing lives,” and all that it may entail. But in reality, this walk was the beginning of a beautiful adventure into a Tanzanian summer full of lessons. His was the voice that told us “you’ve come home,” and welcomed us as whole people—anxiety and all.
Along with how to eat ugali, how to fashion a headscarf out of a khanga, what to say in response to “habari gani?” and where to go to get a new passport, I’ve learned that when you reach a wall in your path, what you need is someone who will help you look around. The people you thought you’d come to reach will find you first. They will (quite literally) carry you home.
Instead of saying “kwaheri” or “goodbye” to Tanzania, I ended up saying “karibu,” which means “welcome.” Welcome to a new stage in your life, to a new place on the map, to a new way of thinking, loving, and feeling. Welcome home. Look around.
Ashlie Busone '13 is a a Pike scholar majoring in Spanish from Ballston Lake, NY, and is the founder and president of Hippies for Hope.



























