Yale Divinity School

Yale Divinity School

Student Co-conveners: Mary Emily Duba and James Christie

Faculty Advisor: Harlon Dalton

409 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511

Tel: 203/432-5303

School Website: www.yale.edu/divinity/

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We are a community called to live into the prophetic witness preached by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. We seek to be peacemakers, voices of justice, servants of the poor, teachers of hard truths, and preachers of a liberating Word.

Recognizing that prophetic work is hard and often lonely work, we come together to be the Body of Christ for and with one another. Our hope is to provide a time of sabbath--a "non-performative" time when we can rest our minds, hearts, and bodies and renew our spirits.

We gather together one Friday a month from 5:30-7:30, often at the convener's home, but also at the homes of our other members. We share a simple, homemade vegetarian meal, the ingredients for which are purchased with our seed grant money. We have about 8 consistent and committed members, and about 8-10 others who cycle through when they are able. Spouses and partners are explicitly invited.

During the meal, we take time for non-structured conversation. This is an important opportunity for us to "let down," to laugh, check in with one another, welcome those who are new, and build an atmosphere of friendly trust. As the meal portion of the evening winds down, I often offer a few announcements--things that have come through my in-box in the last month, opportunities through the Beatitudes Society, or whatever else needs to be discussed for the sake of the community.

We enter a time of prayer and reflection when the meal has ended and mugs of hot tea have been served. A standard prayer model has been to read the Beatitudes from Matthew's gospel in three or four different translations, allowing time in between for silence and for sharing what struck us about the particular reading. We have used the NRSV, the Message, the Cotton Patch Gospel, the NIV, and others. Our fourth "reading" is a rendition of the Beatitudes sung by the women's a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock. This is a very popular one, which we listen to almost every time.

Other times, we spread out on the living room floor, and enter into a guided meditation. I highly recommend the book Sadhana by Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello. This has been an extraordinarily powerful way for us to enter an imaginative space where the mind is at rest, and the heart is open and vulnerable to the work of the Spirit.

Sometimes our prayer leads to action, like when one of our members experienced though our guided meditation a vision of himself going into the city to find God among the poor. This sparked ready kindle in the hearts of other members, and lead to a decision that we will join a local effort by the organization "Point in Time" to help conduct a census of the homeless in New Haven, seeking them where they live and asking them what services they utilize and what services they need but don't have access to.

Challenges we face--It took a while for our chapter to develop a reliable contingency--those who would commit to our community by attending regularly, thus providing some continuity of spirit and mission. For a while, we would have a different group each week, which made it very difficult for me to figure out what kind of events to host, when to host them, etc.

Grace we discover-- Even when I am hosting, cooking, and leading the reflection, I find these evenings to be a time of renewal. These faithful friends, old and new, continue to show me what it means to lean into a future not our own, even while we commit our hands and our hearts to the service and love of those whom Jesus has called blessed.

What are you studying and why do you care about the Beatitudes?

Convener, Mary Emily Duba: I am a Masters in Religion student, concentrating in Theological Ethics, and hoping to continue on with doctoral work. My focal interest is in the Christian practices of peacemaking and nonviolence, as well as what I would call the practice of imagination—theological, ethical, and literary—and how imagination (and lack there of) shapes identity, faith formation, and public life.

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Strengthening the progressive Christian network for justice, compassion, & peace