The Seattle School
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves. – Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”
—
This is where I’m meant to be.
—
This blog will be, I think, quite taxing for me to write. I’ve been in Seattle for two days now, and I’ve seen so much – so much I don’t know what to leave in, what to leave out. I’ll do my best. For those of you who’ve known of my obsession with the Pacific Northwest – Renee, Jacque, Nathan (of course), Sophie, Molly, Merz, Sam, et al – I was right about this place. Amazing.
—
DISCLAIMER: In the FWA bathroom I prayed that God would make it clear for me whether or not I’m supposed to be in Seattle. I knew that I had great expectations, but I didn’t want any sort of illusion to get in my way. God, make it so clear. Ten minutes later, our flight was cancelled.
I’m under the impression that God makes door open, and then Satan tries to close them. The important doors were open: Mom’s on board, I’ve felt peace about the school, my mentors are on board, etc. Satan closes are the arbitrary doors: he cancels flights and makes you sit in Atlanta for two days. I believe this to be true.
—
Interview
I was late for the interview day at The Seattle School. My fault. Instead of following directions, I wander. I love wandering; I love getting lost – if I have time to. I didn’t have time to.
I called the school and James – God bless James – helped me find a bus to get me to the school. The head of admissions, Nicole (who looks so much like Miss Nicole Chromey), called me, looking for me. We texted a bit – she promised to stall the interviews.
I got there about 45 minutes late, but in surprisingly good spirits. This was opposition. I expected nothing less.
Rachel, another admissions rep, met me at the door and took me upstairs where the other applicants met and chit-chatted. She offered me water and offered a story about her starting her period five minutes ago. I know what it’s like.
Upstairs we separated into groups almost immediately for our interviews. I was in a group of six girls with a woman facilitator, Talitha, who looks like Cuddy from “House” and was, I’m pretty sure, a subject of Joshua Longbrake‘s photography. I’m pretty, pretty sure.
OK, so this interview was more like a therapy session. Talitha asked us to speak to the topic of body. Alisha, the beautiful thirtysomething with a 9-month-old named Clive Gatsby, began by talking about eating disorders. She started crying. Then I added something and started crying. Pretty much half of us cried. We were sisters. In one hour: sisters.
We talked about vulnerability – I haven’t been that vulnerable in a long time. I’m most honest with myself, God and Nathan. No one else. But these strangers, my sisters, know my darkest insecurities and secrets.
I hung out with those girls the rest of the weekend.
—
Faculty
These are real people. The dean of students and several faculty members spoke to us this weekend – none of them “sold” the school. There were no sales pitches, just real stories from real people.
Even as they talked about what they believe the mission statement to be, I felt like I was learning something. My mind wandered so much as I considered their thoughts on reading Scripture and orthopraxy. These people are smart and so personable. They’re lovers of people and lovers of God.
I hunger for that. I didn’t realize how constricted I felt at IWU until I heard these people speak. I wish I could be honest there. I wish we could write about sex in the school paper. I wish I could write fuck in poetry. Because there’s truth in that. There’s culture.
The Seattle School isn’t afraid of culture, like I think IWU is.
(IWU does a great job of pretending it loves culture. We love diversity! We love different denominations! But cusswords scare us. R-rated movies scare us. Hollywood scares us. Calvinism scares us. Sex scares us. Cigarettes scare us. Homeless and impoverished people scare us. Truthfully, black people scare us sometimes. Am I speaking with unfair generalizations? Yep, a little bit. But there’s truth in all of those – I’ve seen it first hand. Let me pull out my book of for instance….)
As we listened to faculty, staff, alumni and students speak to us, the words openness, intersection, culture, wholeness, good news, tension, conversation came up so much. Also the word shit.
It’s a real word spoken by real people. That word relaxes me. It reminds me that we are people just like non-Christians are people just like the homeless are people just like prostitutes are people.
(My favorite moment: Dan Allender, who is a god and has written several books and is friends with Don Miller, talked with Rachel the admissions rep about her time researching for one of his books. When he found out that she was only 30, he goes “Ohhh shit!” I guess he’s much older.)
—
M.A. of Theology and Culture
They’re changing the name of the program I want to study from Christian Studies to Theology and Culture. How much cooler does that sound anyway?
“Oh yeah, I’m studying theology and culture in grad school. Yeah, no big deal.”
—
Friends
I’ve made quasifriends here already. Like I said, those girls I interviewed with I spent much of the rest of the visit day with. I’ve spent the most time with Megan, the blonde-Caitie Merz, and her friend Krista. They’re both real girls. They’re the kinds of people I want to spend the next two years with.
During the last session of the day, a current student named Dan talked about vocation. And though he read from the awful Parker Palmer book Dr. Allison made us read for Capstone last year, he had us do an exercise I really appreciated. He read to us Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese” (a poem I read in Poetry this year and fell in love with) and had us write down the words and phrases we resonated with. Then we free-wrote a bit about what those words and phrases brought to mind and shared it with the person next to us.
I love that Megan and I were thinking such similar things, yet we approached it in a different way. We see from different lenses. We have different standpoints.
I’m overwhelmed, too, by the people I’ve met here. Mom will agree: They’re all just so nice. I think it’s because they’ve spent time either studying how to love people or want to.
—
Justice
I’m realizing that there’s no way I can do this school justice. No way. I just know that if I were to invent a school, this would be it. Actually, I don’t think it could be. This school is beyond my wildest imagination.
March 4, 2012