I attended Seattle Pacific University for 4 years around the turn of the century (the 21st century, thank you). I've been wanting to post about my experience there to add to the reflections in the wake of the shooting earlier this month. I thought if I let my ideas swirl long enough, they'd coalesce into a beautiful orb beaming with insight. This is not the case. Instead, I offer here some jumbled thoughts that have been percolating in my brain.
SPU played an immensely formative role in my life. To be sure, the college years are a time of growth and formation for most students, and I was no different. But SPU's unique mission, the way that the quest for knowledge is grounded in a rich faith tradition, provided just the laboratory I needed to to emerge a stronger, more grounded, and compassionate person.
SPU is where I learned to appreciate nuance, to not only tolerate ambiguity but to love "both-and" statements, and to ask questions rather than assume I already knew the answer. SPU taught me to branch out and embrace the church universal, focusing on that which unites us rather than quibbling over that which divides.
At SPU, I built relationships with a variety of people who had different backgrounds and life experiences. Now, I won't say every single interaction I had on campus left me uplifted or beaming with joy. It's a place populated by humans, after all, and we were all learning and growing together. Sometimes we erred or hurt each other. But we were striving for truth and reconciliation (we press on towards the goal, even if we have not yet attained it). And through it all, I learned a lot how to interact authentically with those in my community.
SPU takes seriously its commitment to educating the whole person. Professors demonstrate passion for their discipline as well as personal student development. Outside the classroom, through my work study job on campus, I spent 4 years working in an office populated by caring, dedicated, fun-loving staff. My Facebook friends list includes several current SPU staff members, and that was how I first heard about the shooting, as they posted about being on lockdown.
We always used to say that going to SPU was like living in a bubble. And I'm sure everyone's saying that the bubble has popped now. For me, when I was there, SPU felt like a safe place - intellectually and emotionally. I had the freedom to explore, to investigate, to try new things, but I also had a safety net around me in the form of a caring community. The shooting on campus didn't burst that bubble. In this time of trial, the community came together, and I'm hopeful it will only continue to get stronger.
