Link to Reflections on the Beatitudes
Link to Benediction for Dr. Decker
Dear friends and companions of the Downtowners,
It is not often that students have the time to think together about their ways of believing in God. It is not often that students, in a true sense, have the opportunity and the luxury of time to do this theology together. A highlight of our retreat last fall during an extended mealtime prepared around a bonfire provided just this opportunity for reflection on the meaning of relationship with God.
Students of differing religious traditions reflected upon their religious experience that has come to them from their communities of family and worship. Students talked together about how they grew up Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Hindu, Baptist, and non-denominational, respectively, and became the people of faith that they are now. Rituals and laws were important, but the presence of God in their lives and their struggle to believe in God in their lives made for truly authentic belief for them.
One way this energy of God pours out into service of God’s people is through the ministry to the poor of the city. The Downtowners provides a vehicle for this to happen and the students talked about how meaningful this is to them in their relationship to God and to their faith.
Doing theology together in community is critical to maintaining a balance in religious faith and practice. This experience avoids the pitfalls of fundamentalism, arrogance, and false piety and thinking one has all the answers on the journey of faith in God. Humility is central to the search for truth. Listening to one another’s path of searching for God is to listen to the sacredness of a person’s life. I am moved to my soul by being with students whose academic lives have faith as the center of their motivation and who are open to asking about their struggles around their uncertainties, their fears, their trust that God cares for them and is with them as they choose their respective paths, either alone or with their families. A nursing student who is the mother of a fifteen-year-old son has experienced homelessness herself. Now she serves as an intern in the emergency room, serves the homeless through the Downtowners, worships weekly, and has God as the center of her life. She is someone to listen to and to learn theology from! This is no ivory tower theologian!
The Downtowners offers sound theological reflection through programs, prayer and service.
-- Ellen O'Shaughnessy