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From Lee
As the president of Meadville Lombard Theological School, there are two moments when I am most moved by the work we do here. Our annual commencement is one. I am especially confident in the future of Unitarian Universalism when women and men who have been our students become our colleagues in the work of ministry.
The other moment comes each year about this time: when the new residential students arrive on our campus and bring with them the excitement-and trepidation-of their new status as theological students.
Along with the new residential students, our fourth year students return to us after a year of internship where they have ministered in either a congregational or community ministry position, learning that special relationship between service and spirit.
These are exciting, moving times, these first few weeks of the new school year. But this year, we are reminded most dramatically of just how desperately the world needs our graduates.
You may have already read on our web site the account by Lyn Oglesby, a member of our graduating class of 2005. She began her ministry at the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana, just weeks before Katrina came ashore and sent hundreds of evacuees to her new town. She and members of her congregation worked to provide comfort to those who landed there completely and utterly adrift. As she notes in her letter, these people came to her "so traumatized for the first few days that all we could do for them was hold their hands and pray with them, in ways that they understood and were used to."
There are others who have responded just as heroically. Steve Crump DMin '78, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Baton Rouge, and members of his congregation were among the first to respond to the tragedy just south of them, by offering shelter. Matt Tittle MDiv '04, minister of the Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church in Houston, responded with a handful of members of his congregation by going to New Orleans in the hours after Katrina came ashore.
Even as I write this letter I am hearing from other alumni/ae who went to Louisiana to respond to the human needs presented by this crisis. And many others around the county are helping to accommodate the evacuees who are at their doorsteps.
The devastation left in the wake of Katrina is unimaginable. But the ruins--physical, emotional, and spiritual--remind me of the absolute necessity of the work we do here, preparing ministers to meet people where they are and provide them what they need: be it eye shades or diapers or prayer.
Lyn concluded her letter by saying "thanks again for preparing me for all this--I repeat--thanks again for preparing me for all this."
Last June, when we conferred degrees upon the graduating class of 2005, we could not have known what tragedy we were sending Lyn--or any of the others--toward. But there she is, prepared to help people who have lost nearly everything move forward with their lives "in ways they understood and were used to."
That's the work we do here--and will continue to do--so that the tragedies of our world can continue to be met by leaders trained in the Unitarian Universalist tradition.
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