The Pilgrim Way: Taking the Path of Risk and Revelation:
An Evening with David Whyte
The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology is pleased to welcome renowned author, theologian, and wilderness mystic David Whyte for our 2018 Alumni Lecture Series. Whyte is a world-renowned poet whose work weaves together a surprising and thoughtful spirituality, grounded in the landscape and history of the places he has called home.
This year’s event includes an afternoon workshop, “The Practice and Poetry of Listening in Place,” followed by an evening presentation, “The Pilgrim Way: Taking the Path of Risk and Revelation.”
In the evening session, David Whyte will look at the great questions of human life through the eyes of the pilgrim: someone passing through relatively quickly, someone shaping a question in deeper and deeper ways the closer they come to their destination, someone looking for signs and omens, or the biggest context they can find, someone dependent upon hospitality from friends and strangers alike, and who must learn the necessity of asking for visible and invisible help along the way, someone who will walk both alone and with others while subject to the vagaries of wind and weather.
David will explore the theme of internal resilience, the necessity for following a certain star not seen or perceived by anyone else, and the way an internal, parallel migration can keep our outward journey in the world safer, more relevant and true.
This session will follow a workshop in which David will join Mary DeJong (MA in Theology & Culture, 2017) to invite us to listen more deeply to the places we inhabit. Learn more and register for the afternoon workshop, “The Practice and Poetry of Listening in Place.”
Workshop attendees receive free admission to the evening session.
David Whyte is a world-renowned poet whose work weaves together a spirituality that is grounded in the landscape and history of his English and Irish homeland as well as the Pacific Northwest, where he currently lives. His collections of poetry include Songs for Coming Home, Where Many Rivers Meet, The House of Belonging, and Pilgrim. Whyte has also authored works of prose that explore how poetry in organizational and business settings might foster creativity and engagement, and he has developed a series of seminars focused on the conversational nature of leadership in today’s world. This eclectic melding of poetry, spirituality, ecology and even business—though famously difficult to categorize—has resonated with a growing number of people across the world, and Whyte is often now spoken of in the same breath as other major contemporary, Irish American and English poets.
About the Alumni Lecture Series
Established by the Office of Students & Alumni, the Alumni Lecture Series exists to honor the work of The Seattle School’s alumni community by featuring artists and thinkers who resonate with the vision and mission of the school. Each year, the series welcomes someone whose work wrestles with the world around us in all of its beauty, pain, wonder, and brokenness.