Chapel View Magazine | Spring 2023

CHAPEL VIEW

SPRING 2023 magazine

DUKE CHAPEL NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD CHAIR Grace Lee, T ’79 VICE CHAIR T. Walker Robinson, T ’00, G ’01, M ’09, H ’12 EMERITUS MEMBER William E. King, T ’61, G ’63, G ’70 ADVISORY BOARD D. Michael Bennett, T ’77 John A. Bussian III, T ’76 M. Keith Daniel, T ’90, D ’05, D ’16 Ellen Davis Thomas Felgner, T ’94, B ’95 Cathy S. Gilliard, D ’97 Elizabeth Grantland, T ’20 Zach Heater, T ’17 Sara Elizabeth H. Jones, T ’89 Southgate Jones III Carole Ann Klove, N ’80 Kenneth Lee, T ’74 Jeffrey Nelson, D ’13 Hananiel Setiawan, G ’24 Sanyin Siang, E ’96, B ’02 Max Sirenko, T ’11 Valerie Henry Sirenko, T ’11 Kathryn Watkins, T ’19

CHAPEL STAFF OFFICE OF THE DEAN The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery, Dean Ava West, Assistant to the Dean The Rev. Leah Torrey, Director of Special Initiatives MINISTRY The Rev. Bruce Puckett, Assistant Dean The Rev. Kathryn Lester-Bacon, Director of Religious Life The Rev. Racquel C.N. Gill, Minister for Intercultural Engagement Angela Flynn, Worship and Ministry Coordinator MUSIC Dr. Zebulon Highben, Director of Chapel Music Dr. Philip Cave, Conductor-in-Residence Chad Fothergill, Interim Chapel Organist David Faircloth, Program Coordinator for Chapel Music Dr. Robert Parkins, University Organist John Santoianni, Ethel Sieck Carrabina Curator of Organs and Harpsichords Katelyn MacDonald, Staff Specialist Chase Benefiel, Chapel Carillonneur Mitchell Eithun, Chapel Carillonneur Daniel Jacky, Organ Scholar ADMINISTRATION Amanda Millay Hughes, Director of Development and Strategy Joni Harris, Director of Business and Facilities James Todd, Communications Manager Mark King, Hospitality Coordinator Lisa Best, Accounting Specialist and Office Coordinator David-Michael Kenney, Wedding Coordinator and Visitor Relations Assistant Erica Thomas, Staff Assistant for Development Blanche Williams, Wedding Director Ann Hall, Visitor Relations Assistant Jane Kelly, Visitor Relations Assistant Shawn Proffitt, Visitor Relations Assistant Ken Davenport, Visitor Relations Assistant Emerson Cobbs, Visitor Relations Assistant Benny Edwards, Visitor Relations Assistant Nikki Manderico, Visitor Relations Assistant Prerana Deshpande, Visitor Relations Assistant Oscar Dantzler, University Housekeeper Beverly Jordan, University Housekeeper Duke Schools Abbreviation Key: D (Divinity School); E (Pratt School of Engineering) G (Graduate School); MD (School of Medicine) T (Trinity College of Arts & Sciences); WC (Women’s College)

Above: The Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley, E ’94, preached during the Sunday morning service on May 1, 2022, which was part of the Duke Black Alumni Collective National Conference.

Photo by AJ Shorter Photography.

Cover: Students climbed to the top of tower to celebrate on the last day of classes on April 20, 2022.

Correction: The Spring 2022 issue of Chapel View magazine gave the incorrect title for the Rev. Dr. Howard C. Wilkinson in the story on “Remembering a Student ‘Dialogue Sermon’ from 1969.”

His title should be Chaplain to the University.

All photos are by Chapel and University communications staff unless otherwise indicated.

A SEASON FOR OUR REBIRTH The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery, Dean of Duke University Chapel [@LukeAPowery] Dear Beloved Friends, As I write this, I stand in the middle of Lent, a time of reflection, contemplation, and longing.

Approaching the Easter season, the days are growing longer, and there is a sweetness in the air on Duke’s campus as the Gardens bloom and the students stretch on the grass in the first warm days of spring.

This year, we have experienced many days in which newness and possibility emerged around us. As we come out of the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, remaining vigilant about the health and wellbeing of our families, friends, and the campus community, we also feel a renaissance within and among us— a revival happening all around us. This is a season replete with both sorrow and celebration, remembrance and renewal, a season for the “rebirth of our humanness for the glory of God in the power of the Spirit.”*

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In every aspect of our ministry at Duke Chapel, we remember the humanity of Jesus and the humanity of our students. We remember that we are made by God to be a part of an extraordinary, creative diversity worthy of celebration.

We preach the love and blessing of God in our lives. I hope that in this edition of Chapel View magazine, you will catch a glimpse of these blessings.

Look closely at the faces on the cover. Perched high above campus at the top of the Chapel Tower, there is joy. Look closely at the faces of the students who circle around the new piano in the sanctuary. There is hope.

Let yourself feel the blessing when you read about Arsha Sharma, T ’23, and her “burgeoning interest in interreligious dialogue.” On every page, there is faith.

This place and this time are filled with blessings, and you, in all your particularity and beauty, are

one among the many blessings I experience at Duke Chapel.

Thank you for blessing us with your faithful and generous support.

May the Holy Spirit move in your life with the breath of new beginnings.

In response, may you breathe deeply and join me in giving thanks to God. Yours in peace,

Luke A. Powery Dean of Duke University Chapel *from: Becoming Human: The Holy Spirit and the Rhetoric of Race © Luke A. Powery Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky, 2022.

Dean Powery and Chapel Assistant Dean Bruce Puckett bag potatoes for people in need at the Crop Drop event on August 27, 2022.

DUKE CHAPEL NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD

Stewards of Blessing Duke Chapel is blessed to have a National Advisory Board committed to the mission and vision of the Chapel. Our board members support our work with their time, talent, and treasure. They offer substantial guidance and feedback as we approach every aspect of our work, from administration and mentoring to music and worship. They advocate for the students in our care. And most of all, they remember us in their own practices of prayer. It is our privilege to be stewards of the blessing they offer us.

Chapel Assistant Dean Bruce Puckett speaks to the board at the Chapel’s PathWays House in Durham’s West End.

Members of the Chapel’s National Advisory Board at their fall meeting along with staff who attended the meeting.

Chapel National Advisory Board Chair Grace Lee, T ’79, and her husband Ken Lee, T ’74, light a candle during the Jazz Vespers service on November 10, 2022.

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STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

A Faith and Learning Profile of Arsha Sharma, T ’23

Learning to Communicate Across Faiths

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hen Arsha Sharma, T ’23, first arrived at Duke, she quickly found a place to belong in the Hindu Students Association (HSA), but soon she was curious about meeting students of other faiths.

“I really felt welcomed into my own community, but one incredible thing about Duke is that other people were really gracious in explaining their own faith,” says Sharma, a senior from Charlotte, North Carolina.

With her burgeoning interest in inter-religious dialogue, she took on the role of interfaith co-chair for HSA. She partnered with three other groups on campus—Jewish Life, Muslim Life, and the Sikh Society—to create a student interfaith lunch series.

“That’s where my journey with interfaith really started,” Sharma says.

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It is a journey Sharma says has complemented her studies as a neuroscience major and her aspiration to work in healthcare. In classes such as “The History of Mental Illness” and “Drugs, Brain, and Perception,” she has sought to understand what lies behind people’s behaviors.

“Whether it was mental illness, whether it was pharmaceutical drugs or addiction, I felt like if I could understand the reasoning behind it that would make me somebody who is a better fit for healthcare,” she says. “I’ve realized through the interfaith journey that with people’s personal behaviors, they have a lot of reasoning behind it, so I can translate that [understanding of people’s motivations] into being openminded and understanding [people’s] reasoning in other spaces.”

In her junior year, Sharma expanded her interfaith efforts.

She was elected to Duke Student Government (DSG) and created an Interfaith Caucus. The group held an Interfaith Week that highlighted Religious Life events and services on campus. They also worked with the Chapel’s director of Religious Life, the Rev. Kathryn Lester-Bacon, to share social media posts that marked religious holidays, including the Sikh holiday of Guru Gobind Singh Jayanti.

“I remember the Duke Sikh Society really felt welcomed at Duke at that moment because representatives of Duke were taking the initiative to showcase their students,” Sharma says.

Throughout her time at Duke, Sharma cites the value of having a Hindu chaplain to provide support and guidance. Chaplain Priya Amaresh leads weekly HSA meetings on Thursday evenings and also organizes trips to a local Hindu temple, hosts yoga sessions, and takes students to an international grocery store.

“She has really been vital to helping to create a community here,” Sharma says. “I know a lot of students, both undergrad and grad, go to her to seek advice or support.”

As she nears graduation, Sharma says her experience with Duke’s religious groups has shaped how she relates to people who are different from herself: “One big thing I learned from my interfaith journey . . . is ways that we can communicate with each other that don’t highlight the differences in our identities—but acknowledge them —and use that to form closer relationships with other people.”

Watch a video version of this profile at chapel.duke.edu/FaithAndLearning.

Chapel Scholar Students Deepen Their Faith in Community Emerging from the pandemic, the Chapel Scholars program is as vibrant as ever with sixty-four students participating this year. Chapel Scholars form an interdenominational community of Christian students connected to the Chapel. Together, they ask and seek answers to life’s deepest questions.

Through study, service, counsel, and worship, Chapel Scholars build community across traditions and are formed together in faith.

Above: Chapel Scholars pose for a photo after the service in which they were commissioned on October 16, 2022.

Below left: Scholars gather for a meal at the home of Chapel Assistant Dean Bruce Puckett. Below right: Scholars get to know each other through group games during a meeting in the fall.

Chapel Scholars by Class • 12 First-Year Students • 23 Sophomores • 8 Juniors • 10 Graduating Seniors • 11 Graduate Students Spring 2023 5

STUDENT ENGAGEMENT Theology Underground Discussion Series Engages a Diversity of Christian Traditions Theology Underground is a new series of guided conversations for students about how culture, identity, and race can impact the way they live out their faith and beliefs. The series is organized by the Rev. Racquel Gill, the Chapel’s minister for intercultural engagement. Each month, with the help of campus and community partners, the program engages a different cultural community to learn about ways they approach theology and the faith.

The Rev. Carl Kenney, D ’93 and ’95, (right) was a guest speaker at the Theology Underground meeting on February 7, 2023.

Student Preacher Focuses on Rest in God Selected as this year’s Duke Chapel Student Preacher, Erin Dickerson, T ’26, delivered a sermon in the Chapel’s worship service on Sunday, March 5.

A double major in Turkish and International Comparative Studies, Dickerson’s sermon, titled Resting in the Lord, was based on Psalm 121.

“Psalm 121 is about finding rest in God, and God protecting us,” Dickerson said about her approach to the sermon. “It can be tempting to find pseudo-rest in all these other forms, but truly ultimate and fulfilling rest is from the Lord, and the Lord only.”

“I think that’s something that can be life changing,” said Dickerson, who is a member of the Duke Wesley campus ministry and also attends the Summit Church in Durham.

A student in the Air Force ROTC detachment at Duke, Dickerson was selected by a committee organized by the Chapel. She then received coaching in revisions and delivery 6 CHAPEL VIEW magazine

by Chapel ministers and a Divinity School professor.

Dickerson wrote the first draft of the sermon over the winter break after a semester of intensive study and writing. Having developed a penchant for theological reflection in high school, she said writing the sermon was actually a way for her to find inspiration and renewal at a time when she was exhausted.

“It can be easy to be in denial about our need to take a break and rest, but it takes a level of humility and a servant mindset to realize that we are incomplete,” she said. “We need God and can’t be everything for ourselves.”

United in Praise Student Gospel Group Celebrates God and Campus Legacy This year, the student gospel group United in Praise has performed for several on-campus events, including a fall concert in Duke Chapel and also for off-campus events in North Carolina and Virginia. The Rev. Racquel Gill, the Chapel’s minister for intercultural engagement, serves as the advisor to the group and its eighteen members.

Above: Members of United in Praise perform at a concert in the Chapel on October 23, 2022. Below: The audience applauds. Photos by Brianna Smith, T ’24.

Lauren Relaford, T ’25, conducts the group.

United in Praise is one of the oldest continuous student groups at Duke.

In the mid-sixties, a time when Duke did not openly embrace its diversity, the Modern Black Mass Choir (as it was named then) was organized in a local Black church for Duke’s Black students. In the late nineties, the choir was renamed United in Praise, and since then has maintained its commitments to Christ, Duke, and the Durham community.

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SACRED MUSIC & THE ARTS

New Bösendorfer Piano Enhances Musical Offerings

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trumpets sound and saints and angels sing the songs of Moses and the Lamb, send your blessing upon us and upon this piano, which we dedicate to your praise and glory.”

Later that day, students with the Duke Catholic Center gathered around the piano to rehearse with vocalists and an instrumental ensemble and then led the congregation in song during the evening Mass.

This single day, September 25, 2022, gives a glimpse at how the Bösendorfer piano has become a regular part of music in the Chapel, enhancing worship services, weddings, concerts, rehearsals, and public demonstrations.

Purchased jointly by Duke Chapel and the Catholic Center with support from donors, the Austrian-made piano was procured from Ruggero Piano of Raleigh and delivered to the Chapel in August. It replaces a smaller, aging piano at the Chapel. Guest artist Cole Burger gave the first full-length recital on the new piano on March 19.

“The Bösendorfer gives us a piano that is of the caliber of our many organs and that’s important for a couple of reasons,” says Dr. Zebulon Highben, director of Chapel Music. “Firstly, when we think about its use in worship, there are Workers with Ruggero Piano roll the piano into the genres of congregational Chapel on August 22, 2022. song that are best led

uring a Sunday morning worship service this fall, interim Chapel Organist Chad Fothergill and Organ Scholar Daniel Jacky both squeezed onto the bench in front of the Chapel’s new Bösendorfer 225 grand piano. With their combined four hands, they accompanied the Chapel Choir in singing a setting of Psalm 146 by the contemporary American composer Emma Lou Diemer. Later in the service, Fothergill returned to the piano to lead the congregation in singing the hymn Lord, Whose Love Through Humble Service and then played J.S. Bach’s Prelude in B minor during the collection of the offering.

In the same service, Chapel Dean Luke Powery offered a dedicatory prayer for the instrument saying, “Dear God, Before whose throne,

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From the piano, Andrew Witchger, director of music for the Duke Catholic Center, leads a rehearsal.

from the piano, including some of the music that comes out of some Black Church traditions. Other music that is more idiomatically suited to piano leadership than organ leadership includes music of the global South, folk hymnody, and Western European art song from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”

According to Dr. Highben, the new piano is also valuable for instruction during choir rehearsals and accompaniment of visiting choirs, especially during a statewide choral conference held earlier this year at the Chapel.

“This instrument is really well suited to broaden the type and kinds of repertoire that we might feature in worship and in concert performances,” Highben says.

Andrew Witchger, director of music for the Duke Catholic Center, also emphasizes the Bösendorfer’s role in supporting a wide range of music.

“There is so much music inside this piano,” Witchger says, playing snippets on the piano to illustrate his point.

“So whether it is something more royal or something more upbeat, this instrument is just a joy to play.”

Organ Scholar Daniel Jacky Hones His Craft

In the Catholic Center’s liturgy, the piano is the central instrument for the music, which is led by Witchger and ensembles of student vocalists and instrumentalists.

“Here on a college campus when you have so many students who have the ability to play instruments you want to include as many students as possible,” Witchger says. “We use a lot of different instrumentation and when you are playing with strings, woodwinds, trumpets, percussion, and guitar, you use the whole fortepiano to keep up with all those instruments.”

Seated at the piano, Highben lists the strengths of the Bösendorfer compared to the old piano, including sensitivity to touch, a clearer timbre, and sound that carries throughout the Chapel.

“It’s a little bit like a Rolls Royce versus an old Chevrolet,” he says. “It’s just a night-and-day difference in what we’re able to do with an instrument like this.”

Witchger says the quality of the piano has a spiritual dimension.

“There’s a lot of music inside every instrument,” he says, “and the Holy Spirit just speaks through an instrument like this as soon as you place your hands and play a chord.”

As an organ scholar this year at the Chapel, Daniel Jacky has played regularly in worship services and concerts, assisted with choir rehearsals, and received regular lessons and coaching in organ playing, conducting, and vocal techniques.

This immersion in sacred music has prepared Jacky for graduate studies at highly regarded conservatories from whom he has already received acceptance offers.

“It’s been a great breadth of experience,” Jacky says. “There’s organ, there’s continuo, there’s conducting— and I’ve done a lot of all of it.”

“The people here are really supportive,” he says. “They want to see you do well.”

Jacky came to the Chapel from Oberlin College and Conservatory, where he was a Stamps Scholar with majors in mathematics and organ performance. His role at the Chapel is supported jointly by the Chapel and the American Guild of Organists (AGO) for the inaugural AGO Organ Scholar Program.

Chapel Choir Prepares for Tour of Ireland, Scotland

The Duke Chapel Choir, with its ninety voices, will tour Ireland and Scotland in May of 2023.

Beginning on May 19, the choir heads first to Dublin where they will sing in a service at Whitefriar Street Church and then give a concert at Christ Church Cathedral. From there, they travel to Glasgow to perform a joint program with the University of Glasgow Chapel Choir at their Memorial Chapel, followed by another concert at Glasgow Cathedral. Next, they head to Edinburgh for a concert at St. Giles Cathedral, and then on to Holy Trinity Church in St. Andrews to assist in a worship service in the morning and give a concert in the afternoon.

This 2023 Chapel Choir tour builds on a longstanding tradition of the choir sharing its music ministry around the globe. Previous choir tours have gone to Spain, Poland, China, Turkey, Greece, and Germany, among other destinations.

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SACRED MUSIC & THE ARTS Spring Art Exhibitions Present Works from Three Faith Traditions Marc Chagall and the Bible January 12–March 30 In partnership with Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts (DITA), the Chapel presented an exhibition of prints of works by the distinguished, modernist artist Marc Chagall.

Curated by the art collector Sandra Bowden, the exhibition, Marc Chagall and the Bible, features etchings and lithographs with biblical themes.

Chagall (1887–1985) is one of the foremost visual interpreters of the Bible in the twentieth century.

His vision of the Bible combines his Jewish heritage and modern art, producing a rich display of symbols and imagination. The exhibition at the Chapel included thirty lithographs and etchings of Chagall’s graphic works as well as one signed original poster. Another ten etchings from a Bible series he worked on for twentyfive years bring together the artist’s spirituality and childhood fantasy through the sophisticated artistry of a master printmaker.

Prints from Marc Chagall and the Bible, clockwise from upper-left: Banished from Paradise, David with the Harp, Moses II, and Moses I. Images courtesy of Bowden Collections.

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Stations of the Cross April 2–8 Artist Margaret Adams Parker’s Stations of the Cross, presented in fourteen panels, depicts Christ’s journey to the cross with contemporary figures rendered in muted browns. The gold paint of the background evokes the icon tradition, while the deep red of the outer panels calls to mind the rich colors of medieval images. Old Testament texts at the bottom of each panel are passages traditionally considered to “prefigure” the Passion.

The Chapel has purchased the paintings of Stations of the Cross so that they can be displayed in the Chapel around Lent and Holy Week and also loaned to other churches for exhibit.

Artist Margaret Adams Parker speaks about her Stations of the Cross exhibition at the Chapel on April 5, 2022.

Composite photographs by graduate student Shiraz Ahmed for his exhibition The Beards of Muslim Men. Images courtesy of the artist.

The Beards of Muslim Men April 11–May 5 Selected as this year’s C. Eric Lincoln Fellow, Shiraz Ahmed, G ’24, explores how and why local Muslim men wear beards in his exhibition The Beards of Muslim Men, which places photographic portraits on stylized backgrounds.

“Most Muslim men are viewed through this racialized lens of what people think a Muslim looks like,” Ahmed says. “[From] my experience of being Muslim and living in a very diverse Muslim area in Michigan, I wanted to show that there really is no way of ‘looking like a Muslim man.’”

The fellowship provides funding to a student to complete a sacred art project that reflects on the work and legacy of the late Duke professor C. Eric Lincoln, a poet, minister, and scholar who wrote about the Black American religious experience in both Christianity and Islam.

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CHRISTIAN WORSHIP

The Students and Volunteers Who Bring Worship to Life Every Sunday just before 11:00 a.m. in the Chapel’s main sanctuary one of the organs begins to play, signaling the start of the worship service. After a greeting from a Chapel minister, the congregation stands as the ministers and choir process down the center aisle behind the cross and candles.

It is a stirring image of the people of God rising before the throne of God, but what many people in the pews don’t see is the preparation by dozens of students and volunteers who fill the many roles in the service—both highly visible and behind-the-scenes.

This photo essay of one service on February 5, 2023, gives a glimpse into the dedication, attention, and joy that makes Chapel services possible.

9:45 a.m. Altar guild members Gary Bauer and Patsy Willimon set out the chalices and patens to prepare for a service that will include communion. The altar guild works behind the scenes to clean, prepare, and clear the communion vessels and linens.

9:54 am. Chapel Choir members pause for a moment during the pre-service rehearsal. The choir, comprising mostly students and volunteers, rehearses Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings in order be prepared to lead the congregation in song each week.

Photographs by Brian Mullins, owner of Brian Mullins Photography; Easwar Paidipalli, G ’24; Brianna Smith, T ’24; and James Todd, Chapel communications manager.

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9:58 a.m. Mitchell Eithun, D ’24, lights the altar candles. On Sunday morning, Eithun serves at the Chapel in two capacities—as the carillonneur who plays the carillon before and after the service and as the intern for worship and student engagement who assists with preparations for the service.

10:25 a.m. Angela Flynn (left), the Chapel’s worship and ministry coordinator, coaches students Margaret Cole, T ’26, (center) and Hananiel Setiawan, G ’23, (right) on how to read scripture in the service.

10:48 a.m. The Rev. Bruce Puckett, assistant dean of the Chapel, reviews the order of the service in the Chapel conference room with the volunteers and students.

10:57 a.m. The Rev. Kathryn Lester-Bacon, director of Religious Life at the Chapel, leads the choir and other worship leaders, including guest preacher Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, in a prayer before the service.

11:04 a.m. Members of the Gospel Quartet—(left to right) Jan Gwyer; Russell Owen, T ’84, G ’89; and Natasha Parikh, G ’17 and ’19—lead the opening procession.

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CHRISTIAN WORSHIP

11:48 a.m. Usher Francis Donaie collects the offering during the Offertory.

11:14 a.m. First-year student Margaret Cole, T ’26, a Chapel Scholar and member of the Cru campus ministry, reads the Old Testament lesson.

12:13 p.m. The Gospel Quartet leads the communion servers, lectors, choir, and ministers in the closing procession.

12:01 p.m. Laura Catherine Wilson, D ’25, (center) serves communion.

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Worship Services Draw on Original Compositions

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uring the Sunday morning service on February 12, when the choir rose to sing the anthem after the sermon, the composer of the song was in their midst. A tenor in the choir and a music composition graduate student at Duke, Chris Williams, G ’28, wrote the piece, Endless Radiance.

“I don’t think I have ever sung in a performance of a piece that I wrote,” Williams said after the service. “It was amazing; it sounded Chris Williams, G ’28 like nothing else.”

Williams is not the only person to make creative contributions to music in Chapel worship services. The services regularly employ texts, arrangements, and compositions by people in the Chapel community.

Another student who has had a composition debut in a Chapel service is Sarah Lapp, D ’24. The congregation sang her hymn Look at the Trees, an original text and tune, in the Sunday morning service on March 12. The text is based upon Psalm 1, and also the passage from John 4 that was read in the service. The hymn was composed as the final project of a hymnody course she took as a Divinity School student with Chapel Music Director Dr. Zebulon Highben.

The Chapel’s recently revived hymn competition has also produced a text that has been sung multiple times in

Chapel services. Selected last year for its alignment with the Chapel’s value of Compassion, Brad Croushorn’s Open Wide the Doors connects the image of open doors and windows with a posture of open hearts and minds.

This year, the Chapel commissioned a hymn text to mark an emphasis on the value of Justice. Holy Wisdom, Holy Word by the writer and Lutheran pastor Susan Briehl debuted in the Chapel service on February Sarah Lapp, D ’24 5 as the opening hymn.

The new texts and tunes are in addition to original translations of the Psalms by Divinity School Professor Ellen Davis as well as original anthems, service music, and hymn arrangements by Chapel Music staff, including Highben, Conductor-in-Residence Dr. Philip Cave, and Interim Chapel Organist Chad Fothergill, as well as Craig DeAlmeida, T ’99, G ’04, a longtime choir member. The graduate student Williams said his experience as a Chapel Choir member helped him in composing his anthem Endless Radiance.

“There are a few moments where I have the whole choir dissolve and just have these single lines [of melody],” he said. “It’s really simple, but I know in this space all you need is a single line for it to start resonating.”

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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Lawyer Bryan Stevenson Discusses Faith, Justice, and Shared Humanity

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n a public conversation at the Chapel with Dean Luke A. Powery on September 21, 2022, the human rights lawyer and best-selling author Bryan Stevenson reflected on how faith and a sense of shared humanity have provided insights and motivation for his work in criminal justice reform.

“We have the highest rate of incarceration in the world, and we have that because our policymakers actually think they can put crimes in prison,” said Stevenson, the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama. “What I want them to understand is that you cannot put a crime in prison. You don’t have the ability to do that. You can only put a person in prison . . .

And what I want to talk to them about is that people are not crimes. They can commit crimes, but they are not crimes.”

The event at Duke Chapel, titled “Seeking Justice and Redemption in the Public Square,” was the inaugural William Preston Few Lecture, which takes its name from Duke’s first president who articulated a vision of education promoting the courage to seek the truth and the conviction to live it. More than 750 people, who filled the pews in the Chapel’s nave, attended the event, while more than 600 people watched the livestream.

In introducing Stevenson, Dean Powery said Stevenson’s work is aligned with President Few’s vision of education aimed at producing students “made strong by the power to know the truth and the will to live it.”

“I believe our special guest of honor and our conversation this evening will help us move toward that vision that President Few put forward,” Dean Powery said.

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“It is especially timely, as our Chapel community is focused on the value of justice, a value in our strategic plan, and even as the wider Duke community continues its efforts toward racial equity and renewed campus life.”

A lawyer who has successfully argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, Stevenson said that mercy and faith are essential to his understanding of, and work towards, justice.

“It seems like every time I have had to deal with the weight of injustice there has always been a moment where mercy, where intervention, where grace, where redemption disrupted the weight of injustice and something happened,” said Stevenson whose best-selling book Just Mercy was made into a feature film in 2019. “I think that has been what has been essential to my career.”

In response to a question from Dean Powery about the role of faith in his work, Stevenson said, “To do the kind of things we all need to do to create more justice and more mercy and more equity and more opportunity, you have to be willing to believe things you have not seen.”

“For me at least, my faith history and background has made believing things I have not seen, not only something that is conceivable or rational, but it is something that is essential,” he said.

Throughout the hourlong conversation, Stevenson described a number of pivotal moments in his career. One came when he was a student at Harvard Law School, and he met a death row inmate for the first time while working for a nonprofit in Georgia. The man was so relieved to get the news that his execution was not imminent that he left the meeting with Stevenson, still shackled, singing the hymn “Higher Ground.”

“That was a moment when I knew I wanted to help condemned people get to higher ground,” Stevenson said.

Stevenson’s description of his calling to serve people on death row was compelling to Craig Glover Hines, D ’23, who gave welcoming remarks at the event. Afterwards, Hines said the discussion and the opportunity to meet

Stevenson was a highlight in his Duke education.

“I was not only close to Bryan Stevenson in physical proximity but also in spirit,” Hines said, explaining that his biological father had recently finished serving a long prison sentence. Hearing from Stevenson, he said, “was an opportunity to receive further confirmation for how God wants me to serve those who are incarcerated and those impacted by incarceration.”

Another person inspired by Stevenson’s reflections was Christopher Wyrtzen, T ’26. He said immediately after the event he went home and watched the movie Just Mercy, based on Stevenson’s book.

The event and film “showed me a lawyer who despite adversity, was able to rise up and defend those who weren’t defended properly,” he wrote in an email. “I am inspired to press through my education and journey to find my passion and area in life that I can further bless others.”

Reynolds Chapman, D ’10, the executive director of the Chapel community partner organization DurhamCares, said he was newly inspired about his organization’s work to support people in Durham in caring for their neighbors in holistic ways.

“I think what made the event so special—and what makes him so special—is the way he sincerely and

compellingly talked about things that are so often held at odds with each other today—justice and mercy, lament and hope, truth and reconciliation,” Chapman wrote in an email.

“Bryan Stevenson is as far from shallow or cynical as any public figure I know, and I think that’s largely because he does what he encouraged us to do—resist the politics of fear and anger.”

Even though Stevenson and his organization have successfully defended more than 135 death row prisoners, Stevenson said he had an important realization from a case in which he was not able to save a man from execution. His client was a man with intellectual disabilities who did not receive relief from his death sentence. The two men had a final affectionate phone conversation before his execution.

Stevenson described driving home brokenhearted that night and hearing a preacher on the radio who quoted from the Apostle Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians: “Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite content with my weakness and with insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

“That night was powerful for me because it made me understand myself and my struggle and to situate myself among the broken . . . just like I felt in that moment,” he said.

“In fact, it is the broken among us that can sometimes teach us what recovery is all about—what redemption is all about.”

Dean Powery quipped to applause and laughter: “You are more than a lawyer; you are a preacher too.”

In concluding the event, Dean Powery said, “As you leave remember these words: people are not crimes. Go in peace.”

Left to right: Dean Luke Powery, Bryan Stevenson, and Craig Glover Hines, D ’23. Photos by Brian Mullins Photography.

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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Dean Powery’s Becoming Human Prompts Public Conversations

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ince its publication in November, Chapel Dean Luke Powery’s book Becoming Human: The Holy Spirit and the Rhetoric of Race has been an impetus for discussions of theology, race, and shared humanity, among scholars and lay people alike. Selected as the winner of the 2023 Book of the Year award from the Academy of Parish Clergy, the book has been the focus of discussion groups, workshops, panels, and interviews.

Published by Westminster John Knox Press, Becoming Human gets its title from the 1968 eulogy for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., given by the theologian Dr. Howard Thurman. “[Dr. King] was killed in one sense because [hu]mankind is not quite human yet,” Dr. Thurman said. “May he live because all of us

in America are closer to becoming human than ever before.”

In the book, Dean Powery contrasts a view of humanity that sees race as essential and valuing some bodies over others with a theological understanding of humanity, shaped by the biblical account of Pentecost, that sees the diversity of human bodies as one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

“One of the hopes [for the book] is—as I draw on Pentecost as a metaphor—we would find a new language [for] talking about one another and talking about this idea, this social construct, of race,” Dean Powery said in an online panel discussion of the book in March.

“The prayer undergirding this book is that we would discover and become more fully human with each other

and ultimately that can only happen through the work of the Spirit.”

One of the groups engaging the book is the Congregation at Duke Chapel, which organized a half-day seminar and two four-week online discussion groups around the book.

A member of the Congregation, the Rev. Dr. Christian Wilson, T ’67, D ’70 and ’72, G ’77, read Becoming Human for the book group.

“As a retired United Methodist pastor, I have read a lot of books on preaching and I’m pretty well conversant with the literature on race,” Rev. Dr. Wilson said. “[Powery] puts these two things together, along with the Holy Spirit, in a way that gave me a number of new insights.”

“The Pentecost event with the Holy Spirit enabling each of these many different ethnic groups to converse

Dean Luke Powery talks with participants in a seminar on his book, held February 18, at Trinity Avenue Presbyterian Church in Durham.

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with one another—he applies that in terms of our situation today when a lot of our race conversation is going past one another,” Wilson said. “He sees the Holy Spirit as connecting us.”

Another person who participated in the book group was Deborah Eaton, a member of Mount Level Missionary Baptist Church in Durham.

Dean Powery records an interview about his new book.

“The book helps me better understand what reconciliation is— what reconciliation to God is, and reconciliation to one another,” Eaton said. “We throw around this term ‘reconciliation,’ but I don’t think we really know what it means, and I think that Powery is saying here by yielding to the power of the Holy Spirit that we can repair the breaches—the breaches of racialization and the breaches of racism and other kinds of divisions that get in the way of human flourishing.”

Another important aspect of the book for Eaton was how the spirituals are woven throughout it, including in the chapter titles.

“That’s powerful because I think the spirituals can help us to feel the pain and to tell the stories of despair of African Americans and those who were enslaved,” she said. “Those spirituals really aid in ushering us into humanity.”

To learn more about Becoming Human, visit chapel.duke.edu/ BecomingHuman.

Collecting Stories of Black Alumni

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research team led by the Rev. Dr. Keith M. Daniel, T ’90, D ’05 and ’16, is interviewing Black alumni from four universities in North and South Carolina—Davidson College, Duke University, Furman University, and Johnson C. Smith University.

“The time is ripe to listen to Black alumni from these schools—to affirm their truths, to honor their pain, and to be inspired by their resilience,” Daniel says. “Identifying and amplifying these stories should help us recognize how the resilience of Black lives has contributed to moving our institutions from good to greater—and where we still need to grow.”

Above: The project research team (left to right): the Rev. Dr. Sterling E. Freeman; Madison Daniel II, D '24; Queron U. Smith; the Rev. Dr. M. Keith Daniel, l, T ’90, D ’05 and ’16; and Jasmine C. Smith. Below: Rev. Dr. Daniel gives a presentation on the project on October 2, 2022.

So far the team has conducted forty-nine interviews with alumni across the four schools. Once the interviews are completed, excerpts of the stories will be compiled with photo portraits and published by the Chapel.

People interested in being interviewed, or with recommendations for interview subjects, are invited to contact Rev. Dr. Daniel at kd1@duke.edu.

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SUPPORTING THE CHAPEL

Head Docent Lois Oliver Enriches the Visitor Experience

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n a recent weekday, a man and a woman walked into the Chapel to take in its architectural splendor. Soon they were deep in conversation with Lois Oliver, the Chapel’s head docent.

With her laser pointer in hand, Oliver offered some keys to understanding the building, such as the buttresses hidden in the walls and the order of the windows. After fifteen minutes the couple headed off, giving profuse thanks to Oliver for her insights.

Oliver has been volunteering as a docent at the Chapel for two decades, enriching the experience of thousands of visitors through her knowledge of the Chapel’s history, construction, and anecdotes. For her, serving visitors in this way is a way of sharing a passion.

“I think they should appreciate the blessing of having an elegant, beautiful, totally biblical space,” says Oliver, a member of the Congregation at Duke

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Chapel and a retired associate dean for medical education at Duke. “I just want them to appreciate all the people who worked on building it.”

Oliver’s service as a docent dates back to the time of her husband’s death in 2003. She joined a group of people who rotated giving tours of the building after Sunday morning services.

“We were all learning on the fly about the Chapel,” she says. “The first year or so, the tours were focused on the inside of the building—the windows, the woodwork, and the stone.”

With the arrival of Chapel Dean Sam Wells in 2005, the docent program expanded to weekdays with the goal of imparting the aesthetic and religious value of the space.

Based on the success of the program, Oliver was invited in 2015 to teach a course on the history of the Chapel through Duke’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

“I spent a whole summer in the archives of the library,” she says about her research for the six-week class.

“You wouldn’t believe the names I found—the builders, the artisans, the stone masons. I began training the other docents about what I had learned.”

Being a docent is not only about imparting knowledge, it’s also about meeting all kinds of people. Oliver remembers giving a tour to a family and at the end the father put a $50 bill in her hand. “That was my biggest tip,” she says. (She put the money in the Chapel’s donation box.)

She regularly encounters patients and their families coming over from Duke Hospital. Oliver tells a moving story about one woman being treated for cancer at the hospital who would visit the Chapel with her husband every time she had an appointment.

One day the couple came to the Chapel and asked to see Oliver.

“They walked all the way around the nave and came back,” Oliver recalls, “and she threw her arms around me and said, ‘I’m cured.’”

An Unexpected Opportunity to Build on a Family Musical Tradition

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hen Carole Ann Klove, N ’80, was a student at Duke, she attended services at Duke Chapel and, as a lifelong choir singer, was drawn to sing in the choir but with auditions being quite competitive, she found herself serving as an usher. Decades later, the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic led Klove to reconnect with the Chapel and provided her an opportunity to fulfill her heart’s desire of singing with the choir in G.F. Handel’s Messiah.

Klove’s family connections to the Chapel go back to the choir’s first Messiah performance in 1933, which her father William N. Klove, T ’36, attended when he was a Duke student. Now a member of the Chapel’s National Advisory Board, Klove is honoring her family’s musical and Duke traditions by singing in the Chapel Choir whenever she has the chance to fly back to Durham and by endowing Chapel Music to support the choir’s annual performances of Messiah.

“Music has always been a part of our family,” Klove says in a Zoom interview from Reno, Nevada, where she works as the chief nursing officer for the healthcare technology company Elemeno Health. “Sacred music draws so many people into the Chapel. We touch so many lives through music.”

Klove has fond memories of the Chapel as the “cornerstone” of campus life when she was at Duke and the site of the capping and pinning ceremony for nursing majors like herself; however, her ties to the Chapel were limited to an occasional visit after graduation. That changed when the pandemic hit and she was living and working in Reno and caring for her mother. The opportunity to enjoy livestreams from the Chapel for Sunday morning worship service was a blessing, Klove says.

“In September 2020, we were watching the livestream and the bulletin announced auditions were being conducted virtually by Zeb [Highben, Chapel music director] to sing in the virtual choir,” Klove says. “I thought, ‘That’s got my name all over it.’ So, I auditioned and, Zeb said, ‘Yes.’ The rest is history.”

With all of the choir’s activity being online that year, Klove participated in Wednesday evening rehearsals on Zoom and recorded her parts for virtual anthems the choir produced. (For its recordings during the pandemic, the

Chapel Choir was honored as a National Finalist for The American Prize in Virtual Performance.)

As restrictions on gatherings began to lift, Klove was able to occasionally fly to Durham to participate in a Wednesday choir rehearsal and then sing in the Sunday service. As the 2021 Messiah performances approached, she came to campus two weeks in advance to attend rehearsals.

“It was just joyful,” she says about the experience of singing in the concert with some friends and family in attendance. “It was fun to see how inspired they were by the beauty of the music.”

Looking ahead, Klove is planning to participate in the choir’s tour in May to Ireland and Scotland (see story on page 9) and to sing in the 2023 Messiah concerts, which will be the ninetieth anniversary of the performance her father attended as a student.

The trips to Duke campus have an additional layer of meaning for Klove, whose sister, nephew, and cousin also graduated from Duke. Her mother and father are both interred in the Memorial Garden at Duke Gardens.

“It is so special to come out and not only sing with the choir, but also spend time in the Gardens as well,” she says.

“I am confident my parents are up in heaven, looking down, thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, she finally got to sing with the choir!’”

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CHAPEL NEWS & NOTES Training the Next Generation in Sacred Music Two popular music training programs will return to Duke Chapel this summer. Through the Chapel, the nonprofit organization Chorworks is offering the program “Baroque Before Bach” from June 19 to 25, 2023. This week-long workshop for talented, early-career singers explores the richness of Baroque sacred music before Bach, featuring music of Heinrich Schütz, Johann Hermann Schein, Samuel Scheidt, Andreas Hammerschmidt, and members of the Bach family. The workshop is led by Dr. Philip Cave, (pictured right) executive director of Chorworks and conductor-in-residence at Duke Chapel, who has built an international reputation as a singer and conductor. Learn more at chapel.duke.edu/chorworks.

The Royal School of Church Music in America Carolina Summer Choral Residency provides training in choral and organ music for children and adults. This year’s course, held at Duke Chapel and other campus venues, is from July 10 to 16, 2023. The director of this year’s course is Matthew Owens, music director for The Ulster Consort and conductor of The Belfast City Chorus. Käthe Wright Kaufman is the organist for the program.

Left and above: Photos of last summer’s Carolina Course by Katelyn MacDonald, a staff specialist at the Chapel.

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Meet Our New Staff Members

Chase Benefiel Chapel Carillonneur

Prerana Deshpande Visitor Relations Assistant

Mitchell Eithun Chapel Carillonneur

Benny Edwards Visitor Relations Assistant

David Faircloth Program Coordinator for Chapel Music

Angela Flynn Worship and Ministry Coordinator

Chad Fothergill Interim Chapel Organist

Daniel Jacky Organ Scholar

Nikki Manderico Visitor Relations Assistant

The Rev. Leah Torrey Director of Special Initiatives

A Multi-Generational Project to Restore the Chapel’s Windows Work to restore the vibrancy of the Chapel’s stained-glass windows has resumed this year. The project dates back to the 1990s when the late craftsman Dieter Goldkuhle removed pieces of colored glass by hand, cleaned them at his workshop, and came back to the Chapel to re-insert them. Now Dieter’s son Guido Goldkuhle (pictured) is undertaking the same detailed process to complete the cleaning of the remaining windows. Work this year is on the windows in the Chapel’s narthex and Memorial Chapel. With work happening off and on to avoid peak times in the Chapel, the project is scheduled to be completed in 2027.

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STEWARDS OF HOPE Amanda M. Hughes Director of Development and Strategy Dear Friends, Duke Chapel makes a difference every day in the lives of the students, faculty, and staff at Duke and beyond in the local community and across the nation. One example of this is pictured on these pages. Partnering with the Society of St. Andrews, members of the Duke community bagged sweet potatoes for local food pantries and soup kitchens, helping to care for those among us who are food insecure.

It is one of many opportunities at Duke Chapel to serve the world. And that is what we are called to do.

As we fully embrace the Chapel’s mission and focus on the priorities outlined in our Strategic Plan, we invest our time, talent, and treasure in four strategic areas: Student Engagement, Christian Worship, Sacred Music and the Arts, and Community Engagement.

In every area, we recognize that we are stewards not only of the Chapel as a building, but the Chapel as an icon of hope. We are stewards of the people who look to us for inspiration and consolation. And we are stewards of the resources you share with us through your gifts. Every day, we strive to be accountable and responsible to the gifts of God in our midst. All of our activities are funded through the generosity of individuals and foundations who support our mission and the mission of this great university. We are deeply grateful.

If you would like to request a copy of our Strategic Plan, please contact us at chapeldevelopment@duke.edu and we will send you a copy. You can also find a copy online at chapel.duke.edu/strategicplan.

Thank you for investing in our mission and our ministries.

Sincerely yours, Amanda Millay Hughes Your gift today is 100% tax deductible. Please make your check payable to Duke Chapel and mail to: Director of Development and Strategy Duke University Chapel 401 Chapel Drive, Box 90974 Durham, North Carolina 27708-0974 For information about credit card or stock gifts, please contact Erica Thomas for assistance at (919) 684-5955 or at chapeldevelopment@duke.edu or gifts.duke.edu/chapel.

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