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Leading to the Edge of Mystery: The Gift and the Challenge of Teaching Spirituality

2022; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 22; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/scs.2022.0001

1535-3117

Barbara Quinn,

Mentoring and Academic Development

Leading to the Edge of Mystery:The Gift and the Challenge of Teaching Spirituality Barbara Quinn RSCJ (bio) INTRODUCTION In 2001 and for the next 10 years I served as the founding director of the Center for Christian Spirituality at the University of San Diego (USD). The charge to create a new center was alternately exhilarating and daunting. After surveying countless people at USD I identified four areas of focus that would serve as the framework for developing the Center: personal enrichment, social justice, spirituality and professional life, and spirituality as an academic discipline. The latter was of particular concern to me having frequently heard comments about the nature of spirituality as "soft," "feel good," and "lacking rigor." I set out on a mission to help members of the University to think otherwise. After laying the groundwork, I initiated teaching interdisciplinary courses in spirituality and law, business leadership, health care, and social justice; worked with the Center for Educational Excellence to examine spirituality as an academic discipline with administrators and faculty; and hosted premier scholars of spirituality, many of whom are sitting among us today, to present creative and substantive lectures to a wide population of people within and beyond the University. A capstone project that aimed to strengthen the understanding of spirituality as an academic discipline was the sponsorship of a day-long workshop for interested faculty from across the campus and across disciplines to concretize what teaching spirituality actually entails. Members of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality were front and center as Mary Frohlich examined methodology, Doug Christie highlighted the interdisciplinary character of spirituality, Arthur Holder reflected on teaching spirituality, and Anita Houck addressed assessment as only Anita could do, drawing gales of laughter at every turn! My role was to welcome people and glean the intentions and hopes of those gathered by simply asking them why they came. One professor from the physics department articulated his hopes in a simple and stunning way. I have never forgotten it. Dave began by telling us that he had been dating a woman whom he really liked. She was a dancer. One day she asked Dave to attend one of her recitals. Internally he grumbled: "I don't want to go to a recital! But I really like her so," he said grudgingly, "I guess I'll go." Although [End Page 3] his internal voice continued to groan at the thought of spending a weekend doing something for which he had no taste, he reluctantly went. Weary of his own negative chatter, however, he resigned himself to just paying attention and watching. And then an astonishing thing happened. He found himself absorbed and swept into the glorious sound of the music and the gracefulness of his girlfriend's body and the beauty of her movements. He melted fully into the moment. He ended the story by saying simply and quietly, "That's what I want to do for my students. I want to lead them to the edge of mystery." To the edge of mystery…. I believe this is the heart of teaching spirituality and, I dare say, any theological and spiritual discipline. Christopher Pramuk describes this process in his beautiful book, Sophia: The Hidden Wisdom of Thomas Merton. He writes: For Merton himself the task of theology as such involves both "realization", (contemplation; mystical experience) and intellectual struggle, the two movements circling and informing each other as perhaps in a fugue or carefully patterned dance. Just as good choreography is careful not to foreclose or rigidly confine the dance but aims rather to structure, support, and unleash its spontaneity, its surprise, its grace, just so theology at its Catholic (and literary) best aims to structure, support, and unleash the living experience of God, contemplation, the inner dynamism of faith. At the very least, theology, even in its most academic or speculative mode, ought not to foreclose the possibility of grace, surprise, or resonance in the community for which it is intended.1 It is the edge of mystery that speaks to us beyond what words can tell…. I imagine some of you have seen the movie, "Billy Eliot," a film about a boy in a working...