The start of the academic year invites us to new beginnings and renewed commitments.  The welcomes and exhortations at Convocation in the crowded heat of our stunning Chapel.  The crisp, clean syllabi passed out, signaling knowledge to explore and problems to solve.  A new calendar or planner, awaiting the events, due dates, student org meetings, and group study sessions we will fill it with soon enough (if we haven’t already).  It can feel heady and promising–ours to claim and relish as we dive in.

But as much as I love being back on a full campus that’s rich with community, the beginning of the year overwhelms me.  I am conscious of all the things that I need to do.  Right now.  I am conscious of the desperate need to establish new (efficient!) rhythms as campus comes to life and our attendant work (whether we’re students, faculty, or staff) responds in kind.  I am conscious of the hubbub–which can be invigorating in its smaller moments, but A LOT when all taken together–that seems to define August and early September.  

Basically, I want a break.  And we just “started.”

Based on my conversations with others, I don’t think I’m alone.  I think it’s pretty normal to feel both excited and overwhelmed this time of year–that so much is calling for our attention and time, and that we want to be present for it but that we also have limits.

One reason I’m naming this start-of-the-school-year feeling is because it’s a potent reminder of the radical power of a pause.  

Pastors Kate and Jim have already made a pretty compelling case for this in previous Wednesday newsletters, calling us to remember our human-ness and the ways in which we are made to rest and to Sabbath and “to be.”  The Division of Calling and Spiritual Life is leaning in, embracing a collective initiative this year called Reset/Refresh.

In order to get to something like a “reset” or a “refresh,” we have to give ourselves true license to pause and slow down.  With any luck, we hopefully encourage one another in the practice, granting each other that same license for rest and reflection so that it’s communally supported. Such support is critical because a thoughtful pause can be a countercultural act. After all, it’s taking time and space apart from the busy-ness that always beckons and seems to reward us in systems built on productivity and a hollow sort of value. (Even as I type these words, I’m blushing at my own hypocrisy and the ways I unthinkingly prop up these false systems of value and the worker-bee mentality they generate.) All that to say, I’m writing about the radical power of pausing and slowing down, not because I’m particularly good at it [see above] but because it’s too important to neglect. 

Over the summer, I moved into a new position at the university as the Director of the Institute for Leadership and Service, which is part of the Division of Calling and Spiritual Life. While transitions are always bittersweet, I’m excited to help guide conversations and programs on our campus around value-laden words and accompanying practices: vocation; calling; leadership; service; purpose. There’s such rich possibility to plumb. How do we show up in the world, individually and collectively? How do we discern that, both on our own and in necessary conversation and reflection with others? How do we sort out the distinctive gifts and talents we bring to the world, in dialogue with the urgencies and needs of our neighbors and those we are lucky enough to walk alongside?  These are generative questions, but that also means that they elude quick, pat answers and require our thoughtful, fuller attention.

In other words, they require space for reflection.  They require pause and the permission “to be.”

As the beginning of the school year calls you into the gifts of a full and active community (which is wonderful and life-giving), I would invite you to participate whole-heartedly, while also giving yourself permission to pause and reflect (which is also wonderful and life-giving). This can be a productive tension, and one that opens you up to a deeper sense of your place on a still-unfolding journey.

As I’m often reminded, it’s a gift to have others accompanying you on the journey, and there are many of us walking alongside you across this campus.  Here at the Institute for Leadership and Service (ILAS), we’re a relatively new team, and we’re looking forward to being thoughtful fellow-travelers with you. My colleague Kat Peters (who will write a reflection in this newsletter next month) now heads up our Calling and Purpose in Society (CAPS) fellowship program, among other initiatives, and many of you have already had the privilege of working with our colleague Rachel MacDonald, who now oversees the Christian Formation & Leadership program (including Allen Scholars). We’re eager to be part of the good and meaningful work already taking place on this campus, and to help guide programs that support our campus community members in discernment and reflection, leadership and service.

We look forward to getting to know you better, and to leaning into the invitation being extended by Calling and Spiritual Life this year to reset and refresh. To pause. To be.  

Yours on the journey, always.

Dr. Stewart

Learn more about the Institute for Leadership and Service here.