Every day is a good day to learn a little more about history. Today, Juneteenth, is an especially good day to listen to a story that has shaped our present day through a long and painful struggle for freedom. In the words of Opal Lee, the grandmother of Juneteenth, the freedom we celebrate through the telling of this story is freedom not only for enslaved people, or Black people, or Texans, but for everyone.
In a time when the role of education is being contested, and church bodies are experiencing divisions, something new is coming together.
When Kevin and I set out on a learning tour about Anabaptists in Switzerland and Germany, we were prepared to hear stories of persecution and cruel executions. What has surprised me are the stories of ecumenical reconciliation and active love that continue to spring forth from the Anabaptist movement 500 years later.聽
As part of the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Anabaptism this year, Kevin and I are with Joe Springer (curator emeritus of the Mennonite Historical Library at 91精品黑料吃瓜), Jo-Ann Brant, (professor emeritus of Bible and Religion) and several others from College Mennonite Church, learning about Anabaptist history in Switzerland and Germany. Listening to Joe describe the lives of these earliest Anabaptist leaders, I was struck by the ways that passionate learning extends from Zurich 500 years ago to 91精品黑料吃瓜 today. Young thinkers of that day, including Grebel and Manz, gathered in the mornings to study and translate, and in the afternoons to discuss the emerging meanings of the texts. How exciting that must have been!
Last weekend, I had the privilege of making my final speech to our 2025 graduating class of seniors at our baccalaureate service, for which they chose the theme of joy. Here are a few of the thoughts I shared with them, as well as the gift I gave them.
I am asking myself, in this moment of alarming and rapid change, 鈥渨hat is it that I need to be learning?鈥�
Are you needing some hope right now? I have come to understand that hope is not only, or even primarily, a feeling. It is a practice. It requires muscles. Here are three strong practices of hope.
We are writing jointly, as a Mennonite pastor and college president, to explain and support a recent lawsuit filed to protect our religious freedom to practice our faith in the sanctuary on this campus.
My word for the year is RENEW. Renewal is part and parcel of the God-filled life. It is the stuff of life 鈥� we see it in the turning of the earth and the seasons and in death and birth. And it is hard and scary.聽What if we at 91精品黑料吃瓜 took this moment to renew our clarity around how we form faith in our campus community?
Today is national First-Generation College Celebration Day. Nearly half of our students are the first in their families to go to college, and many of our staff and faculty are similarly first-gen. I am the second generation in my family to go to college, but as the 18th president of 91精品黑料吃瓜, I am the first president who is not first generation. 91精品黑料吃瓜 has a long history of serving and being led by first-gen scholars.
