Final Draft: Spirituality

I forgot to post my final draft! Here it is!

Dr. Rev. Mary Ellen Ashcroft, the Chaplain here at Kalamazoo College and a professor of English, walks up to the trunk of the tall tree and places both of her hands firmly on its smooth and rippling grey trunk. She looks up, “Beautiful tree isn’t it?” and then places her forehead on the trunk and stands in silence. She describes how people often feel most connected to their spirituality in nature, and that is part of the reason she enjoys nature so much. For her, spirituality is the “longing for something more than a consumer society.” Her two dogs bound around her as she wanders through the nature reserve.

Mary Ellen has lots of passions in her life. She began seminary, moved to South Africa and worked with an Anglican parish to fight the apartheid movement. She returned to the US and worked as an English professor for years. After finding that she kept looking at students writing for the deeper and more personal issues, and after years of commitment to her Episcopal church, she decided to get ordained as a priest. She took a sabbatical and moved to Cambridge to study. She does not want to be a full time priest, but decided to combine her Priesthood with her teaching in the form of being a chaplain. Here she works hard to help fulfill needs she sees on this campus. “[Students are] not enjoying each other and connecting with each other…but what is most distressing is [students] equating grades with who they are,” so she created ways for student connect in spirituality groups and a place for people to meet and escape from the realities of campus, called The Cavern. She thought students need a connection to spirituality because they “need something beyond just grades and resumes.”

The Cavern, with its bold and simple colors, and inundates visitors with the calming smells of sandalwood and spices. It is structurally just the basement of Kalamazoo College chapel, but as one student says, it is a place of “peace, balance, and escape.” “I wanted to created literal and metaphorical places for people to grow spiritually.” “I wanted it to be funky and classy,” Mary Ellen explains. A large bookcase on the opposite wall is stuffed with 12 boxes of Celestial Seasons, varieties of coffee, and coffee condiments. A large Hamilton Beach coffee warmer warms water. A coat hanger on the wall has been turned into a coffee cup holder with each labeled for the mugs owner. The harsh fluorescent lights are covered with fabric to give a calmer light effect to the space. Students wander in and out; a student chaplain sits at a desk in the front of the room welcoming Cavern guests. In the chapel library, cushions and floor chairs supplement the couch and chair for sitting places. Cookies are in a container on the table in the corner. Further down the hall is Mary Ellen’s office, a tiny room, with one curved wall. A bookcase, her desk, and a lectern occupy the room.

One of her passions is her current partner, Suzanne. As friends for years, Mary Ellen says that Suzanne was, “[the] perfect support for me,” when she and her husband broke up. Suzanne and Mary Ellen had similar break-ups with their husbands and both have three children. Mary Ellen talks about how she wasn’t sure that she could ever be happy again. She recounts feeling a strange feeling in her the time after the divorce where she would think, “oh, that must be a ting of happiness,” but it was never a lasting feeling. Suzanne provided friendship and support though this hard time in her life.

Mary Ellen recounts when she knew that Suzanne was more than just friends. Hiking together on the Superior Trail in Northern Minnesota, Suzanne fell off of a bridge and hit her head on some rocks. Mary Ellen ran to the nearest road to get help. When the nearly 25 First Responders came to help, they left their radios on and Mary Ellen could hear them talking about how much blood Suzanne was loosing and Mary Ellen fainted. They took her to the hospital and came back and got Suzanne out. Mary Ellen remembers when one First Responder visited her in the hospital to update her on Suzanne’s condition (she was stabilized). The First Responder told Mary Ellen that Suzanne was the most amazing person they had ever met; she had been encouraging them for the 6 hours it took to get her off the trail. Mary Ellen says, “I realized the way I felt was more than just good friends… [the next] few days spent together [were] sacred time.”

Suzanne and Mary Ellen have found home in Kalamazoo. About 8 months after realizing they were more than just friends, they had a commitment ceremony- that was 2 years ago. Shortly after that they moved here to Kalamazoo for Mary Ellen’s new job. For Mary Ellen, her same-sex relationship plays out in her faith because the strongest element of faith is when something good comes out of something bad. They moved to Kalamazoo together from Minnesota, but still spend their summers in the woods of northern Minnesota- hiking, walking, picking with wild-flowers, and bird-watching. The community here is very open to their same-sex partnership and she recounts nothing but stories of openness and sharing from the community. Here they share an adorable welcoming home within walking distance of the college. Suzanne spends does a lot of volunteering and, as Mary Ellen says, “nurturing plants and people.” They have a beautiful, well tended garden in their back yard. Their two dogs bound around her as she works with the plants.

Mary Ellen’s partnership with Suzanne is another facet of her life which makes her a fantastic resource for our campus. As a very open person who listens and shares; she has many ways to relate to members of our college community. Mary Ellen’s Christian beliefs inform her own life, but she focuses on bring all spirituality to our students. As a woman priest in a same-sex relationship, her position on spirituality is extremely open-minded. She works hard to bring opportunities for spiritual growth to our students, to show our students that our lives need not revolve around grades and resumes.