In this feature, a STM alum 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.
One winter afternoon after picking up my sister from school, I popped into a bookstore without much of a plan. Seeking some type of a Lenten prayer companion, and after scanning the stacks a short while, my eyes focused on a copy of Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith, a collection of academic and spiritual writings by Henri Nouwen. One of the many beloved treasures of the Catholic community at Yale, Nouwen had a way of writing as if he was present in vulnerable conversation with you.
After leaving Yale Divinity School and the STM communities, I took a Theology faculty position at Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood, MA, where I once was a student. The first year has been a whirlwind: daily lesson planning, often times from scratch, fill the weekends and pre-dawn morning hours during the week. Then the teaching, grading, tutoring and after school programs. And I have so many questions and a lot of ambition: Is all this too familiar to me? Is it enough? Am I doing enough to meet and exceed high standards of teaching excellence? Do my students like me? Am I working out enough and treating myself well physically?
Nouwen, interlocked in a vulnerable Lenten discussion with me, writes, “When the physical, emotional, intellectual or moral life commands all the attention, we are in danger of forgetting the primacy of the heart.” My difficulty since leaving the weekly embrace of the STM community has been too often forgetting to remind myself that, no matter what other questions swirl, I am a beloved son of God, as Nouwen would often say. The “primacy of the heart” must be the reigning reality. Living in this truth alone is enough.
