I've taught courses for New College Berkeley on and off for years and have been grateful for the unique relationships it has maintained with the GTU, Berkeley First Pres and other churches in the Bay Area, and with the long, rich tradition of Ignatian spirituality and spiritual direction.
Over the past couple of years, New College Berkeley has rededicated itself to being a "third space" where thoughtful people gather for cultural and theological reflection. This past year Craig Wong, who has taken hold of its directorship with a firm grip, deep prayer, and a great laugh, has pulled together public conversations that span an impressive range of topics, some of them urgent: human dignity and polarization; Christians in an age of empire; harmony with the land and each other; communal discernment; staying centered in election season; gospel faithfulness in the Bay Area; sacred icons; missional hermeneutics; Christians and AI; nationalism and trauma; and facing fear, among others.
Threaded among those lively conversations are writing workshops, writing retreats, and conversations about Christians and the written word. Matthew Steem, editor of Radix Magazine, has teamed up with Craig to bring together the missions of Radix and New College, extending widening conversations into written form with articles, personal essays, poetry, images, and editorial reflections. Radix and New College worked in tandem for a long time under Sharon Gallagher's and Susan Phillips' respective leadership, but now that partnership has become even more intentional, official, and complementary.
I've had a role in all this, though not as a key player--more as a fellow traveler. I've taught New College courses at the GTU, offered talks and retreats, and recently, led a number of workshops, including ongoing "First Saturday Writing Workshops," each time on a different topic. Over the course of a long teaching life, I've taught undergraduates, graduate students, medical students, seminary students, and adults who enthusiastically pursue "lifelong learning." I've loved it all, despite early years of paper grading that did, I admit, have tedious moments.
At New College it's been my great pleasure to be able to share with other people of faith my own conviction that writing can be, and at its best surely is, an extension of prayer life; that poetry by its nature opens up prayer space; that words are instruments of power and grace entrusted to us for the purpose of fostering critical reflection, offering comfort and hope, sharing and interpreting perspectives on the world we inhabit, and, as Paul puts it, "equipping the saints." Writing is one of the tasks and gifts that sustains the life of the Body of Christ. Some are called to preach, some to teach, some to minister to the sick. Some are called to write.
That calling may not be a professional vocation. It may come only for a season--perhaps the call to write a memoir or share a story that can help others through indecision or fear or grief. Perhaps it comes intermittently--a poem now and then, a timely op-ed, an essay that offers readers a way to think about common challenges or about the common good. To some it comes as a compulsion to write something every day--bless their itching fingers. To some it comes late in life, after children are grown and professional obligations have lessened.
I am a writer, so it may seem a bit self-interested to insist that we--the church, the culture, the person in the grocery life--need good writers. Statistically we read less; more of our time is spent consuming entertainment or perhaps listening to thoughtful podcasts. But there's no substitute for the written word. It activates a different part of the brain. It puts us into a slower, richer, more multi-faceted relationship with words as we pause over them, occasionally look them up, see as well as hear and feel them. When we read silently, our own inner voices provide intonation and emphasis, and so we interpret as we read. We participate differently in what we read than in what we hear. We enter into the text. Or, to invoke another venerable metaphor, we ingest what we read. Good writers provide nourishment to live by. We do not live by bread alone.
I count on writers to help me read well, notice what I might overlook, challenge my own assumptions, open my heart and imagination a little further, and love words. I've come to believe that loving words helps us love each other--and all beings--better. Many of us associated with New College and Radix claim a logocentric faith. We believe on more than one level that "In the beginning was the Word." Part of our work in the world is to help one another find and exchange words that are instruments of grace--including sometimes challenge and argument and admonition--and that point to that Word, and in doing so, "bless the space between us." May those blessings continue in our conversations and at our keyboards and on the pages we read before we take turn off the light each night and leave the rest to God.