In the corridors of the divinity school, there are class photos going back to at least 1905. I know the pull to search those pictures because I have done so myself, looking for my bishop and his parents, the Niebuhrs, etc. It is a pretty common sight to see someone looking at them closely and intently, so it is almost unnoticeable at this point.
I have never talked to someone who was looking at those photos. Why should I? I don't have the photos or the names memorized. What's more, we had our prospective student day earlier in the week, so would visitors still be around? I suppose so, but that would not necessarily seem to be a reason to talk to someone staring intently at photos.
Yet, as I was walking to class, I saw a young woman looking intently at the photos, and I did what makes no sense.
"Who are you looking for?" I asked.
"Oh, Moses Moore," she said. Moses Moore is a professor in the Religious Studies Department at ASU, from which I graduated in May.
I stopped dead in my tracks. "Are you from Arizona State?"
"Yes," she said; she finished her undergrad degree in the religious studies department in May; she walked in graduation the day after me. Now living in Chicago, she is considering coming to YDS. I talked with her for a while. She got in late for the "prospective student" events and was waiting for her flight. Tisa Wenger, also from ASU, teaches here now... M.A.R.'s have more academic freedom since they do not have the practicum requirements of M.Div, which is more of a professional degree...She has some time to decide between the two degree programs...Chicago is her fallback school...
Then she dropped a bomb. "I feel that God is calling me here."
The philosophical side of me started to work. What is the power of a coincidence theologized? How do I make sense of the fact that I did something I never do in talking to a stranger in the hallway? Can I really chalk this up to the Spirit?
"If you feel God's call, trust that. I did the same," I said, and her already bright face become positively luminescent... she looked lighter.
As we parted so I could get to class, she said that perhaps she would see me in the fall. I walked away lighter, almost like I was under the influence of adrenaline. Oddly enough, that's what the Spirit tangibly feels like to me. I also walked away with a sense of accomplishment that I do not think I rightfully own. The veil was thin indeed in those moments.
