PRESIDENTIAL PERSPECTIVE WHY WERE WE CREATED? WHY DO WE EXIST? In this issue of Aware, we look back at the academic year that was 2020-21. It was a year of great change, of unexpected challenges posed by a global pandemic, of reckoning with our national and institutional history on race, and of tremendous perseverance on the part of our students, faculty, and staff, as well as the institution itself. It’s safe to say that this past year was unlike any other, and yet because we have such a rich history of institutional perseverance, we are weathering the challenges of the present moment with characteristic aplomb. I hope that as you read this annual report, you will share my sensibility that in the face of multiple challenges, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary remains strong. Planning responsibly for the future and rising to the challenges of the current moment often require that one understands the past well. This has been part of my own work as I’ve assumed leadership in this storied institution—to remain focused on the future, but to learn the origin stories and to understand and appreciate the many other stories that have made this seminary what it is today. Yet, understanding that past cannot simply be accomplished by reading historical descriptions of past events, for understanding history well requires analysis and evaluation, leaving room for nuance and for what is not explicitly said in written accounts. Oral histories, which abound at GarrettEvangelical, are as much a part of the story as what has been recorded for posterity. Origin stories are always somewhat misleading because they claim something that is almost always not entirely true. Origin stories often claim to tell or recall the beginning of something, but in doing so, they must start from arbitrary places. Otherwise, all origin stories would have to start so far back in time as to make the telling of the story a near impossibility.
Just think about the question a child might ask her parents, as mine asked me, “Papi, where did I come from?” To answer that question in an ageappropriate way is a bit of a dance, isn’t it? Parents always struggle with providing their kids either too much information or too little. To tell the story of where a child came from requires a parent to make certain assumptions: first, that the child’s question wasn’t biological in nature, and second, that they were not asking for a detailed accounting of the family tree. These are important parts of their own origin, and in due time, they should understand both well, but I doubt that their innocent, yet profound question is motivated by these factors. In my experience, I chose to start the story my daughter wanted to hear in Puerto Rico, where I came from. But the truth is that I could have started the story in England, from where her mother descends. Yet, even starting there is arbitrary because those lineage stories could have started back just one or two generations, and they would have then been situated in completely different places, like Spain and Africa on my side or Germany and Wales on her mother’s. In truth, I don’t think my daughter was asking for a geography saga, but the origin story I wove seemed to suffice. Upon reflection, I actually think my daughter was asking a deeper question she wasn’t yet able to put into words, even though her little frame and heart could already fully sense and feel it. She wanted to know why she was here, and I assume she also needed to know that love was at the center of the story. (Continued on page 2) AWARE MAGAZINE | 1
