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January 3, 2023
A New Year dawns. How do you start an epic journey? Literature, cultural and religious traditions are filled with images of roads and paths. The road goes ever on and is riddled with beautiful scenes, dangers, and choices. A clearing opens, and on the road relationships begin, events are explained, travelers met, loneliness or solitude is overcome, and lives are transformed. “All who wander are not lost” on this road.
All of these stories we have inherited – all of us – are in fact the partial, yet real memories of the pathways of others, imagined in complete form and now written down, en-fleshed with full meaning and bestowed to the present and the future. In each year, some paths we walk are like a via dolorosa – or a sorrowful way – whereas others may be a Mahayana path of joy. Many days, we may feel we live in a nation and world where we wonder if we’re on the same road at all.
I am regularly asked, as Director and Spehar-Halligan Professor, at the Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement situated within this innovative, progressive, Jesuit, Catholic university – what is our path in the year ahead?
I often respond by referring to the foundational ethos of Seattle University, and to its stated strategic goals, which both “serve as the path that allows us to imagine and to shape” all that we do in the Center.
We hope that when you witness our CEIE programs steeped in public theological engagement such as in the forthcoming course on religious literacy for social well-being that arrives in March of this year; or when you hear next September of a new relationship with a prestigious publishing house; or when you peruse our website and observe the enhanced experience of university students who lead on this team; or when you recall that in September of 2022 The Interfaith Observer joined the Center as an online interfaith journal that is just releasing its first issue this winter; or when you consider how this team worked with the United Nations last summer and now with the Parliament of the World’s Religions preparing for this summer’s 130th anniversary of their international convening. … These roads tell a story of engagement connected to Seattle University’s strategic identity. Imagine and then shape.
We witness alumni, from the SU School of Theology and Ministry to which this Center shares a direct formational legacy, that assist the Center in repositioning for growth today. Formation and adaptation are - the what and how of the path we are on.
And now, here is the why – the why of the Center’s path this year: Because we believe the world requires Centers with this ecumenical, interreligious and values-focus to face pain in our society by convening, listening, reminding, responding, teaching, and leading. True to our strategic vision at SU, we seek to reimagine, shape, and – we hope- also to mend the commons of our public life at the same moment. This work is sinewed in that effort in all we do at the Center.
As we start the year, what do we need for our roads? Many of you have asked this Center to create an opportunity for gaining skills in spiritual direction by drawing upon gifted leaders and educators in the field throughout this region and beyond.
I invite you to join us on this road, which the Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement is setting out upon, beginning with our Winter Workshop Series on Spiritual Direction. Carla Orlando, our chief facilitator for the series, has brought a constellation of additional spiritual directors and educators who are luminaries in this field. I invite you to register and to join us for this virtual series on January 19, February 16 and March 16. You’ll find registration information at the top of this newsletter.
In addition, our January newsletter provides original podcasts, webinar recordings, and information about future events. Most of all, this Team of students, staff, and faculty wish you and yours a healthy and balanced start to the year ahead, and we welcome and invite an opportunity to hear from you.
Thank you,
Michael Reid Trice, PhD
Spehar-Halligan Professor and Director
Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement
School of Theology and Ministry
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