FellowsArticles from current TF Academy Fellows
Wed 23 Apr 2008 • Responses: 0 • by Wendell Kimbrough (’07), Ali Phillips (’08), and Will Weir (’08)
Reflections on the Conference from three Academy Fellows
At this January conference you might have expected another fifteen-dollar guilt trip on how we’ve failed to serve the poor, but what these Fellows found was something a little different. Some new topics were part of the discussion—real estate development, racial reconciliation, and the arts—and a diverse group of people were in attendance. In light of this refreshing approach, new challenges also arise. How do we go beyond developing a fresh approach with different language and strive for a renewed heart?
Fri 16 Nov 2007 • Responses: 0 • by Miriam Moser
Each week, Academy fellows write journal entries about themes encountered in class and in their personal reflections. Fellow Miriam Moser shares her thoughts on the discomfort of “almost” as we live our lives on earth. “In the Greek language, two sorts of time are specified. Kairos is God’s time—the eternal, divine moment. Kronos is the time that we humans struggle through.”
During matins one morning, one of the fellows prayed that God would “rush through Windrush [our house] like a wind” and that his spirit would bring unity to our group. I thought about that twice. How would that actually appear? I have heard the terminology of the “spirit rushing through like a wind” many times. My entire Pentecostal heritage is based on the story of the upper room, a wind, tongues of fire and speaking in tongues. And so my idea of God being fully present always meant that everyone would be singing worship songs and praying and speaking in tongues every hour of the day and night. But this is obviously wrong. We must sleep sometime. If we spoke in tongues for the sixteen waking hours a day, our voices would go hoarse. Pity the fingers of the guitar-playing worship leader!
Tue 24 Jul 2007 • Responses: 0 • by Alicia Luschei
A 2007 graduate reflects on one area of her growth over the past year. “From the boardroom to the classroom to the manufacturing plant to the bedroom, as God’s image bearers, both male and female have something profound to offer one another in each situation.”
As I begin to reflect on my time at the Academy, and areas where I have grown the most over these past nine months, I realize the biggest areas of growth have occurred within the context of living in community, in relating to the guys and other girls living in the Windrush House.
Tue 20 Mar 2007 • Responses: 4 • by Wendell Kimbrough
2007 Academy Fellow Wendell Kimbrough reports on his changing attitude toward beauty in a fallen world.
I have been thinking a lot lately about the concept of beauty. My mother is an artist, so over Christmas break I spent a lot of time at home gazing at her artwork. After three months at the Trinity Forum Academy, I found I had a new capacity to be enamored by her work. My mom is always creating new paintings and rearranging the house to reflect her art; my childhood unfolded within an evolving display of color and light. Naturally, this shaped me as a person. By the time I was 19 and leaving for college, I had a healthy, if sometimes naïve, appreciation for beauty and its effect on human beings.
But over the last few years, despite my childhood, I unconsciously developed a deep skepticism toward beauty. Whether it was beautiful people or beautiful places, I discovered that beauty can often be used as a veneer to hide ugly things.
Tue 12 Dec 2006 • Responses: 1 • by Mary Catherine Caldwell
A journal entry from a 2007 Academy Fellow.
As I sit here contemplating so many thoughts, I am overwhelmed at where my mind and my heart are going. After just reading how the Lord God is the creator and we are the molded clay before him, I find myself prostrate on the floor because that’s the only way that I can come before his throne. Paul says that some vessels are molded for glory and some for destruction. Some for mercy and others to be hardened. I am so in awe; the fear and reverence of the most holy most powerful maker has been burned upon me. I am before him—the whole, powerful, solid, true, beautiful great I AM—and I am fearful of his power yet I am thrown on my face in thanksgiving that he had mercy on me! That he adopted me, my name, as in Isaiah, was called, and I am his. I feel in awe of him and so inadequate to look upon his glory; I feel as Job did crying out for a mediator.
Tue 12 Dec 2006 • Responses: 2 • by Sarah Mackin
A journal entry from a 2007 Academy Fellow—a meditation on learning to give good gifts.
The other night, several Fellows and a staff member held an impromptu poetry reading around the dining room table at Windrush House. As the rest of us listened in delight, one Fellow read aloud his favorite poem by Billy Collins. In this poem, titled “Lanyard,” the poet slowly builds tension by contrasting a son’s gift of a seemingly useless lanyard with his mother’s gift of care and most fundamentally, life itself. The poem climaxes with the following stanzas:
Tue 12 Dec 2006 • Responses: 1 • by Stephen Ogden
A journal entry from a 2007 Academy Fellow.
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Isaiah 55:2
Returning from Thanksgiving break. Much has occurred over the past couple of weeks. As best as I can recall our last classes were regarding Christology and soteriology—Borg and Wright, Begbie on the Trinity, and so on. Then (for Wendell, Syman, and me) it was off to the Evangelical Theological/Philosophical Society meetings in D.C. and the C. S. Lewis Institute’s apologetics conference at McLean Bible Church.
Tue 10 Oct 2006 • Responses: 0 • by Brad Bell
A journal entry from a 2007 Academy Fellow.
During a recent class, I struggled to define worship. I knew worship should encompass all of life, but I could not explain how. I worried that if I did not thoroughly understand worship, which is the ultimate calling on my life, then I would have serious trouble identifying my vocational calling. In other words, if I have an incomplete understanding of my primary calling, then I cannot hope to grasp my secondary calling.
Tue 10 Oct 2006 • Responses: 0 • by Aaron Isley
A journal entry from a 2007 Academy Fellow.
One’s “Call,” “Salvation,” and “Christian Living” are all essential factors to any believer’s life. However, I would go so far as to say that even non-believers, though they would deny it, either aloof to the fact, or naming it something else, are infinitely affected by knowing or not knowing their raison d’être or calling; having a task or mission, no matter how self-serving, which gives them worth, legacy, or salvation from purposelessness; and a lifestyle that best facilitates establishing this legacy and fulfilling goals.
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