A New Chaplain at Yale, cont.
Sharon M. K. Kugler
I would not be here if I were not blessed by a husband and two daughters who came to believe many years ago in the importance of this work. They have been continuously generous and patient. They have been so very willing to take this next step with me and see the great promise of it. Their love has consistently fed my soul and always makes my heart soar.
I most certainly would not be here had I not been given the precious gift of a faith community by my parents. Though at times I have struggled with it, I was taught to rely on it. I was taught never to abandon it, and I have not.
And finally, I wouldn’t be standing here today had Yale not genuinely committed itself to taking this historic step.
In accepting this charge at Yale, I have the privilege to walk the path of extraordinary chaplains who have gone before me. Each of them, unique and gifted, gave to this community in a way that had a profound hand in forming futures, forming values, and forming faith. It is not lost on me how big this job is, how much it has mattered to the story of this institution. As a chaplain, as a person who dearly loves this work, to be somewhere that holds such a rich legacy is a privilege that I embrace with great humility.
For a number of years now I have kept two very tattered looking post-it notes by my computer. I even brought them with me from Baltimore. These two post-it notes contain what I like to call my inner inspiration for chaplaincy. The first one reads “The unknown next.” The second says “Cultivating tomorrow’s hope.”
I am not sure where the “unknown next” phrase came from, whether I thought of it myself or read it somewhere. It has simply always served as a reminder to me of the great mystery of this work. The “unknown next” is the pulse of this ministry. It is the beautiful, humbling call that leads to the unfolding of holy moments in the life of a university community. We don’t know what each day will bring. Be it a day of holding deep sorrow, or a day of lifting joyful triumph, we are simply called to be fully present to it.
“Cultivating tomorrow’s hope” was my response to the question, “What is at the heart of what you do?” The answer was clear; I help to cultivate tomorrow’s hope. As you witnessed earlier, hearing the voices of our extraordinary students, they are tomorrow’s hope and our world such as it is right now needs them desperately. I believe with all my heart that they must, and indeed will, have a hand in curing the darkness. The role of any chaplain is to nurture that into being.
My sisters and brothers, every heart in this holy space on this stunningly beautiful day is a creation of God. Every heart is called by God to irrigate this earth, to nurture it to flourishing. We are each different, and that is the intention of our loving Creator. It is also the intention of that same Creator to have us come to know and ultimately love one another.
We live in a world that is fractured by violence in our cities and towns and in lands far away, we live in world that aches from the alienation of desperate poverty and by conflict that holds no clear solution. The intention of our Creator is often lost to our own fears of the unknown. The ignorance that divides us is the true enemy. It is the division that is killing us, not the difference.
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
So what are we to do?
What is the world for which God longs?
It is the one where we are all not the same, but rather one where our mutuality is actually our path; where mutuality is at the heart of our hunger; where mutuality is what moves us forward – and
forward is where we must go.
Hard as we might try to distinguish ourselves we are, in the end, of one another; we are in the end meant to be part of one another.
It is in that oneness that we are taken to the Divine.
Last night we dedicated a labyrinth that had been faithfully painted by a few members of the Yale community over the course of the last week. As we gathered to walk it for the first time I was struck by the living, breathing example of what God is asking of us. It was a beautiful scene to see this spiritual tool shared by a magnificent array of people from several different religious traditions. My heart was warmed by the picture of it, all of us walking together to reach the same end, mindful that the journey is both individual and shared.
My sisters and my brothers, we are all walking this path toward the future together, at different paces and with different meditations, yet we walk it as members of one human family, and we walk it open to the sacred, open to the holy, open to the unknown next.
I accept the charge that Yale has given me with sincere humility, I am grateful for the confidence, and I am counting on the wise, loving guidance and prayers of everyone assembled here today.
~~~
Sharon M. K. Kugler, the new chaplain, was profiled in the March 2007 PRISM.
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Rabbi Laemmele's Blessing
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