Our Shared Experience

It’s a choice we make, to be kind, civil, and helpful to those around us on a day-to-day basis.

I’ve recently completed my thesis for the master’s degree program I’ve been in for the past four years in seminary. It’s been by far the most intense project I’ve ever done. I was a computer science major in undergrad, so I didn’t have a thesis there, just a big project, which wasn’t really that bad. All the writing I’ve done from undergrad through starting seminary has been technical writing. It’s either been coding, code that tests code, or documentation explaining code.

The reading and research required for writing have been an adjustment for me, which has turned into another phase of growth. In my mid-40s, my brain has become a lump of silly putty again, much like it did in the formative years of undergrad. It’s been a good thing overall. As an adult, I’m still learning and realizing I don’t have it all figured out. I’m learning it’s never too late to pick up a skillset, develop a new passion, and gain a new lens of interaction with the world.

N.T. Wright talks about worldviews in his book New Testament and the People of God and how they shape our perception of the world. It is essentially a person’s lens through which they view the world, shaped by their beliefs, which ultimately come from the stories they’ve heard throughout their lives. The stories we believe are the foundation of our individual worldview, and the stories that contradict what we believe often get rejected as false or “other.”

My experience in seminary has shifted my worldview immensely. I’ve been exposed to new people, more information, and new stories that have caused my worldview to expand. It has changed how I view others as well as myself. It has been a period of discomfort in that the way I structured my life has been challenged, and I’ve learned there is another way, and it’s better.

I started seminary in 2022 following my calling into ministry, which came three years prior. I joined a group of students to learn from Scot McKnight, whom I hadn’t heard of prior to seminary, but would learn is a highly respected theologian. I felt like I was inadvertently thrown into the deep end of the pool. The comments and topics we discussed were so far over my head that I felt completely out of my depth. It was in this class that I was introduced to Wright’s book. I had to write a 15-page paper on it to finish the class.

One of the biggest helps I’ve gotten from seminary is my cohort. Many of the people from this class bonded together to help each other out. We came from different walks of life and different backgrounds, yet we bonded through our shared experience of being in seminary. Some were just starting like I was, while others were in their second year. Some had different degree specializations. Through our various differences, we found a way to connect and grow together.

We’ve taken different paths at times, not taking the same courses at the same time, but we have continued to support each other. Throughout the uncertainty of being in school again in my mid-40s, it has been a little more bearable because of this cohort. Our shared experience helped us become a community.

I’m hopeful that this idea of shared experience bringing people together will be informative for the time we now find ourselves in. The world around us has shifted dramatically, and we are now amidst a war. Gas prices have gone up by over a dollar in just a few weeks. Travel across the country and the world has become more uncertain. We are watching events unfold on our phone screens, TV screens, and even seeing changes in our daily lives.

We don’t know what will ultimately happen in our country or the world, but my hope is that our shared experience will bring us together. We might find ourselves among people we know or among strangers in a shared space. It may be at work, church, school, or in transit.

We are all facing the world one day at a time and one situation at a time, and prayerfully, we can extend grace to each other to help get through the day. It’s a choice we make, to be kind, civil, and helpful to those around us on a day-to-day basis. This is how we should be on any day, but especially with the state of the world, I implore each of us to make an extra effort. By helping others, we put ourselves in a posture of serving, which is also part of the Christian walk. We love God, and we love our neighbors.

If there’s one thing this journey has taught me, it’s that growth rarely happens in isolation. It happens in community, in discomfort, and in the willingness to see the world differently than we did before.

My prayer is that, in a time where so much feels uncertain, we don’t retreat from one another, but instead lean into grace, patience, and shared humanity. Because sometimes, the very thing that stretches us is also the thing that brings us closer together.