As we move through the academic and calendar years, the Sacred Space realm of Student Leadership regularly offers small collections of words and images to help The Seattle School community mark the rhythms and seasons. This fall, A Little Book of Welcome features images by second-year MA in Theology & Culture student Davia Campbell, plus poetry and prose by Seattle School students Luke Winslow (MATC), Stephanie Johnson (Master of Divinity), and Elsy Thayil-Blanchard (MDiv), as well as other writers whose words resonate with our community. Here, we’re featuring the opening letter from Sacred Space, followed by a link to the full PDF of A Little Book of Welcome, which is also available in print form at the front desk.
Dearest Seattle School Community,
Beginnings are wild, full to the brim with euphoric vibrancy, fraught with precarious possibility. To venture down the path of a new beginning is to step onto soil that is unknown and yet exploding with life in all of its infinite forms. This fertile ground that we tread upon, this dirt that swallows the soles of our shaky feet, grafts us into a family, a communion with enchantment, wonder, and each other. While we head into uncharted landscapes, we do so with a promise that we are not alone.
As we begin to take our first steps into this new school year, we want to simply say, welcome. Welcome to a new year of discovery, longing, sorrow, and joy. Welcome vulnerability, beauty, and grief. To turn the corner and step into a new year is to risk much and yet to walk such a path is to become acquainted with the God who resides in frailty, the God who lingers in the haunted chambers within us. You are not alone.
We hope that this book is a reminder of the open vistas before you, of a new world and a new creation that is bursting forth in the midst of blessing and heartache. We invite you to linger in these words and images. Think of them as threads tethering your very body to the Divine that is at work in the spacious terrains we will wander together. As we become deeply rooted together in this work, as we learn to make space for others, and come to be surprised by the love of God, may we see and hear anew. May we know the world that awaits us.
Love,
Sacred Space