Date: July 28, 2021
I have always been fascinated with intentional communities. Earlier in my life, I lived at the Iona Community in Scotland and the Taizé community in France and sojourned in other communities in India, the Netherlands, Italy, and the U.K. Communities fascinate me because they offer the possibility that humans can model a way of life that is different from that of the world around them: more loving, honest, generous—in short, more intentional.
VTS is an intentional community. Our new Mission Statement, approved by the Board of Trustees in May, places a strong emphasis on residential community as the indispensable context in which VTS undertakes the formation of students for ministry. We are reinforcing that emphasis by committing to in-person education this fall, gratefully returning to being together after a year and a half of leading so much of our community life online.
As we come back together, we have an opportunity to be intentional about how we want to live, move, and have our being with each other in community. There’s almost the sense that we are pushing a “re-start button.” So in this time of re-starting, we can ask how we want our common life to manifest a different way of being than that of the world around us. How can we live more fully into our rhythm of class, chapel, and lunch? How can we engage the Seminary Covenant at a deeper level? What other core values or aspects of a communal Rule of Life would we like to embrace? How would we like to be in relationship with the communities around the Seminary? These are vital questions as we re-commit to life in community.
The Rev. Ruthanna Hooke, Ph.D.
Associate Dean of Students
Associate Professor of Homiletics