Conversations

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

On May 20 the Academy will graduate its ninth class and its 100th Fellow. This landmark is significant as we consider how Alumni are serving around the world, not simply as bright and determined individuals, but as part of a larger community represented by relationships among classmates as well as among fellow Alumni, staff, mentors, friends and colleagues. In their careers, families, churches and communities, it is our prayer that Academy Alumni will continue to live fully and freely before God, demonstrating the vital nature of community, promoting civility and thoughtful collaboration, and energetically pursuing what is good, beautiful and true. In the context of this community and bold vision, it is our expectation that God will work to demonstrate his love in our lives and in society.

This year at the Academy each Fellow developed a Statement of Calling to take account for the ways God has worked in their life and to lay out the areas and issues to which they see God is calling them. On Monday, April 26, Mindy Hsieh, who came to the Academy after receiving a degree in literature and poetry at Vanderbilt University, presented her Statement of Calling in anticipation of her new job with Epic Arts, a London-based non-profit that organizes visual arts, drama, dance, and music projects for people with disabilities.

One of Mindy’s goals at the Academy was to lay a spiritual and relational foundation for a career in the arts, as a poet, curator or minister. For her personal research project she undertook researching and developing a personal aesthetic, or philosophy of art, seeking to better understand how her faith in Jesus might shape her work, motivate her thinking, and permeate the ways she relates to others through her poems. In addition to her classmates, Mindy was challenged and supported in this effort by Jerry Eisley, her Academy mentor and owner of Foxhall Gallery in Washington, DC, as well as Lisa Lynne Kirkpatrick, a personal mentor and musician from New York. Academy Academic Coordinator, David Covington, who has specialized in a theology of aesthetics, as well as guest faculty Andree Seu, Greg Wolfe, and Makoto Fujimura, all offered insight, challenges, and encouragement to Mindy in the process. This intensive project fully employed her mind, heart and hands and resulted in a profound framework for sharing the Gospel through her work. In her own words:

Our challenge then, is to wrestle with this shared “secret” of humanity and allow our wrestling to produce fruits of peace. I have written a personal aesthetic to help frame my exploration of what it means to participate in this process of reconciliation as a poet, a peacemaker. Ephesians 2:10a declares that because we are saved by grace alone, “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” In its original form, the first clause reads, “autou gar esmen poiema,” meaning, “for we are poems.” As a result of Christ’s death and resurrection, our lives have the capacity to embody poetry. We are to address the world in all its beauty and brokenness, as we hold it in tension with its completed peace. Therefore because Christ lives in us, we are likewise able to imagine and respond to all of life in the manner of poets—moving from an evocation of questions to a meditation upon life. What we can see passes away, but what is imagined and lived out in faith leads us to an inexpressible joy and the salvation of our souls. This piece is an effort that both defines and stretches my understanding of what it means to employ our imaginations for His glory.

As a culmination of this aesthetic Mindy composed a series of poems. Included here is her piece entitled “What Is Wild and Strange.”

I share Mindy’s story as an example of how we see God at work in the Academy community. Mindy’s story and her call to serve in the arts, can be told for our other eleven Fellows this year who have callings to international law and human rights, technology entrepreneurship, education, and economic development. It can also be told for our eighty-eight Alumni and many other members of the Academy community who have developed a stronger, faithful foundation for life, work and community. We are grateful to so many of you who help make this work possible.

I’ve included updates on several highlights from the year including our Annual Conference “Responsible to Risk” with Andy Crouch and Michael Lindsay, our Alumni Weekend at Osprey Point, and an upcoming concert in New York City featuring our very own jazz trombonist, Fellow James Hall. You’re invited!

Thank you for all of your prayers and support. We always enjoy hearing from you.

Blessings from Osprey Point,
Grady

Grady Powell
Executive Director

Academy Update

Class of 2010 Research Projects (QRE) and Future Plans
From the way the state shapes our understanding of identity, to assessing mental health in the context of biblical creation, to examining political philosophy and economic development, the Academy Fellows have completed. Download a PDF of their project summaries and future plans.

Join us for “The Serpent Speaks” a Jazz Performance by Academy Fellow James Hall
Join us on May 28 in New York to hear James’ original jazz composition based on the poem “The Serpent Speaks” by Robert Seigel. The Academy will host a reception following the event during which Seigel will participate in a discussion session about his work and his thoughts on the performance. Learn more at www.jameshallmusic.com.

Integrity Weekend 2010—Responsible to Risk, January 29-31
Over sixty guests visited Osprey Point to hear from Keynote Speakers Andy Crouch and Michael Lindsay. Read Alumna Miriam Moser’s humorous reflections on the weekend and learn about why panelist David Kim, Director of the Gotham Fellows Program at Redeemer Church, New York, thought “the weekend was one of the most thought provoking conferences we’ve been to…” Or download our conference report, which includes pictures from the weekend.

Alumni Weekend, March 5–7
One of the yearly highlights of life at Osprey Point is Alumni Weekend. This year, fifty three Alumni returned to rekindle relationships and hear a charge from Academy Senior Faculty member Os Guinness. You can see pictures from the weekend here.

Recent Guest Faculty & Speakers

• Jennifer Wiseman (Science) — Dr. Wiseman, an astronomer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, spoke on the synergies and challenges between faith and scientific knowledge and presented new images from the Hubble Space Telescope, a project which she has led.
• Greg Jesson (Philosophy) — Dr. Jesson, a University of Iowa philosophy professor, delivered a series of lectures and led community discussions on epistemology and the history of postmodernism.
• Makoto Fujimura (Art) — Fujimura, a Trinity Forum Senior Fellow and head of International Arts Movement, spent a week at the Academy teaching on the nature of art, its power to shape imaginations and society and the role Christians should play in producing and promoting art. Fujimura also delivered a moving presentation on “Soliloquies”, a joint exhibition between Fujimura and Georges Rouault at the Dillon Gallery. You can learn more about this exhibition at http://www.makotofujimura.com.

Donate to the Academy — We need your support!

The Academy is funded solely through private donations. Please consider how you might help us continue to invest in the lives of our Fellows and promote the renewal of our culture. You can give securely online through our PayPal account by clicking here. All donations are tax deductible. Thank you for your consideration.

Reflections