Council Corner - March 1, 2022

Dear Colleagues,

For a number of years, Frank has asked me to write poetry for Spring Renewal, an honor for which I am incredibly grateful. I am even more grateful for the generous colleagues across Student Affairs who have been willing to listen. The truth is, sharing my writing with you is terrifying. Every word is personal, and I often worry that I don’t have anything to say that truly matters. But this year was different. When Frank asked me to write on the theme of well-being, I knew I had a story that felt important to tell.

Like many of you, I’ve thought a lot about my life and well-being over the past few years. I’ve looked at my to-do list and played the never-enough-time, never-enough-energy, never-enough-help soundtrack on a loop, and last summer, I found myself pretty lost. I knew that I needed to get out of the busyness black hole and spend some time reflecting.

So I decided to take myself on a solo retreat—something I had never even dreamed of doing before. I rented a tiny cottage on the edge of a horse pasture in Asheville, North Carolina, and I committed to spending three days technology and work free. I spent my days outside, watching the horses and wild turkeys in the wide field outside my back door. I wrote pages upon pages in my journal, and all the stories I’d been telling myself about my life in recent years began to emerge.

Throughout my weekend alone, I also re-read Parker Palmer’s book Let Your Life Speak, an inspirational and emotional exploration of what it means to live a life of meaning and authenticity. Sitting there with the horses living gracefully in front of me, I was captivated by a particular quote from Palmer:

“We are born with a seed of selfhood that contains the spiritual DNA of our uniqueness-an encoded birthright knowledge of who we are, why we are here, and how we are related to others. We may abandon that knowledge as the years go by, but it never abandons us.”

That is the singular lesson of my retreat: to remember who I am—not who I think I should be or who others want me to be. It is so simple, and so hard. I knew when Frank asked me to write a poem this year, I wanted to share this lesson in case you, too, have felt a bit lost. I encourage you to take some time alone with your thoughts (and maybe a horse, or a bird, or a dog). Your “retreat” doesn’t have to last for three days or require you to leave town. Even an hour alone by a sunlit window may remind you of that precious “seed of selfhood."

Thanks for reading and listening,

Ennis McCrery,

Director of Student Conduct

We are born with a seed of selfhood that contains the spiritual DNA of our uniqueness-an encoded birthright knowledge of who we are, why we are here, and how we are related to others. We may abandon that knowledge as the years go by, but it never abandons us.
-Parker Palmer (from Let Your Life Speak)

The Strength Living Takes

You are brand new, resting in your mother’s arms,
perfect as a blossom--all want and need, inviting everything

into communion: the color of your mother‘s eyes, the soft air
cool against your cheek, the harmony between your sharp cries

and your father‘s murmured comfort. After your violent arrival,
you know the strength living takes, and you are more alive now
than you ever will be again. Wise and innocent, you feel the pulse

of the world--but you do not cede your place. You demand to eat
and sleep—to be safe and warm and clean. You deserve no less.
And all around you, there is love. You are love--reminding everyone

of our shared beginning and the grace we are offered each day after.
I’m afraid to say, but you may forget these gifts, in time, or rest on
the belief that life is a miracle, and you are merely a passenger.

But living is pain, hope, grief, joy, hunger, sickness, and laughter.
It is choice. It is you in the world together—and alone. It is love.

And you are perfect as a blossom.
Remember.

-Ennis McCrery