Seminary Blog
The voice of the Seminary Community, with new articles each Friday written by Students, Faculty, and Friends.
“Living with Christ” - In Person and Online
Article by RC
Perhaps sometimes my heart is too closed to the experience, or maybe other people or other factors prevent it for me; but the fact that it sometimes doesn’t work, just underlines the amazingness of all those times that the experience that I’ll call the feeling of the presence of Christ Jesus does actually happen. I credit my participation in this [‘Living with Christ”] group with helping me draw closer to Jesus and to deeper participation in the life of the Christian Community in recent years. I am now in year two of the seminary’s “Distance Learning Program” (DLP2) and I try to attend the services as often as I can.
Light Bulb Moments
by Silke Chatfield
Stepping through the door of the Seminary is like stepping into another world.
Outwardly, not so much different; there is community, laughter, joy, an endless supply of good coffee and snacks and of course the daily celebration of the Act of Consecration of Man.
Inwardly it is a different story, for me anyway. When the “Knowing Christ” group (the program for the first year at the Seminary) started the studies at home in the Fall Semester, we were all separated and only connected via zoom. We began by reading through the four Gospels, reading one or two chapters each day. This was a new experience for me.
Letters to the Ground: Ordination Preparation Group
by Damien Gilroy, Erica Maclennan, Nigel Lumsden and Robert Bower
Beloved Ground,
You are the sublime yet humble counter-balance to the infinite periphery and magnitude of the cosmos. You are the most precious life bearing blue and glistening jewel of all the worlds. You are beloved of gods, glorified and nurtured by divine spirits. Yet so little are we humans conscious and grateful for your majesty in all existence. It is time now to try to speak some words of recognition to you, O ground, of how you benefit our earthly lives and spiritual evolution.
Participating in the Act of Consecration of Man: Once a Month or Twenty-Four Times a Month
by Claudia Pfiffner
I am a member of the Ottawa affiliate of the Toronto Christian Community congregation. Once a month Reverend Susan Locey from Toronto visits Ottawa and celebrates the Act of Consecration of Man. The service is held in a rented room in an old high school building where Polaris Waldorf School is also housed.
While studying at the Seminary I have experienced the Act of Consecration of Man almost every day. It is held in the beautiful, large, and purpose-built chapel of the church building of the congregation of the Christian Community in Toronto.
About the Seminary Patreon Podcast “The Light in Every Thing”
By Lory Widmer Hess
In their conversations, Jonah and Patrick demonstrated not just a what, a lump of information, but a how, a method of taking in, digesting, discerning, reflecting and summarizing experience or content that truly brings it to a higher level. I found the listening to be an amazing journey of discipleship in itself, one that I could return to again and again.
Art Inspired by Ivon Hitchens at the Toronto Seminary
by Erica Maclennan, Marc Fortin, and Robert Bower, students in the "Walking with Christ" program
… Such life in browns and grays! …
The Wounded Healer, an Image for the Priesthood
by Faith DiVecchio, a student in the “Knowing Christ” program
What does it mean to be a wounded healer? To explore this image, we can first ask, what does it mean to be wounded? And when we understand our woundedness, what is the alchemy that transforms wounds into the activity of healing?
There, but for the Grace of God, go I – wait…what?
by Erica Maclennan, Student in the Walking with Christ program; with an introduction by Seminary Director, Patrick Kennedy
…But beyond this knowledge and practice what makes the path to priesthood – and its accompanying training – so subtle and profound is that it has to do with who we are. It is in the sacred realm of our own activities of ‘self’ that a foundation can be laid upon which a healthy priesthood in the renewed stream of the movement for religious renewal can be built. …
Gathering
By Claire Jerram
There comes a moment for a dandelion when it creates a silvery orb. The sun-like flowers give birth to seeds which cluster around a center, each with a feathery wing, and these, together, create the orb. All previous activity of the plant culminates in this silvery sphere.
The Shepherd-King
Marc Fortin, a student in the “Walking with Christ” program at the Toronto Seminary, created the following painting during the art class with Regine Kurek (see the blog post from 2 weeks ago). The class moved from enlivening the senses to ensouling the life processes. Marc’s classmates noticed the figure below in his artwork and encouraged him to bring it more forward.
Inspirations from the Distance Learning Program (DLP), Part III
The first-year Distance Learning Program explored practices of Christian Meditation. For one of those weeks, we contemplated the Creator as Word, building up our contemplation from our direct human experiences of speaking and listening. Out of the shared activity in the class arose spontaneous creative offerings in the form of poems and artwork. The final artwork grew out of our work contemplating the Trinity.
Art Classes at the Toronto Seminary
by Robert Bower
I almost don’t recognize who I was when I look back at myself just 18 months ago, when I first set foot in the Seminary of The Christian Community in North America. I’ve gone through multiple transformative processes in such a short time. One area in particular in which I have grown is in my experience of creating visual art.
Inspirations from the Distance Learning Program (DLP), Part II
by Marc Delannoy
What was I thinking as I took up this program? The curriculum did state that it would be “transformational” learning. Still, how could this take place?
Youth Adventure Camps 2021: Interview with Ann Burfeind and Jen Zimberg
By Caitlin Wallace French
This interview is a window into camp experience: What happens there? Where does all this acceptance come from? Youth Adventure Camps – what are these? I had the pleasure of meeting with both Rev. Ann Burfeind and Jen Zimberg individually to talk about the upcoming Youth Adventure Camps.
Inspirations from the Distance Learning Program, Part I
by Daniil Kalinov
In 2019 the Seminary began its first full-fledged Distance Learning Program (DLP). Looking back, it seems as if the DLP was preparing the ground for the times we live in right now. It feels as though we were the pioneers of this digital space, which was soon to become a world-wide necessity.
Approaching Easter: Finding Strength to Bear The Cross
By Dhruva Corrigan
The local seminary endeavor here in Hillsdale has been and continues to be a great adventure. It is an experiment in student initiative and an exercise in the Michaelic impulse of our time: for each of us to take our spiritual formation into our own hands, and consciously and freely apply the forces of our soul to the tasks at hand.