In this feature, a STM alumna/us reflects on joys and changes in their faith life after graduation. If you are interested in being one of our feature writers for “Faith in the Real World,” we would like to hear from you. Contact robin.mcshane@yale.edu.
Sitting in my cozy attic room in Seattle, Washington, curled up on a salvaged couch with a giant evergreen tapping at the window, I am a world away from the lower level seminar rooms of the Golden Center where I had found my core community at Yale. I am still new to this city, and jarringly aware of the temporary nature of my home here, just a pause between the rush of undergraduate life; months of traveling between Ethiopia, Alaska and New Haven; and already anticipating a move to a new state, campus and the start of medical school.
Nevertheless, like many nights before, a former member of my Small Church Community and I walk through a tradition developed over four years of Friday night SCC meetings, a tradition which has continued long past our graduation day two years ago. Over Skype, we check in and share a rose (a joy), a bud (a hope) and a thorn (a sorrow) from our life that week. It’s a gentle opening, one deeply embedded in a sacred trust, a trust that allows me to confess the cause of my mourning—a cousin with two young children under the age of ten, diagnosed with inoperable and untreatable Stage IV stomach cancer. The voice of my friend is soft, familiar and comforting over laptop speakers: “Even Jesus wept.” Those words wash over me and I can almost feel outstretched arms reaching out to surround me, and the unconditional love of a friendship born at STM.
