University Chaplaincy Offers a Time to Reflect

In late September, members of the University Chaplaincy team hosted events across Tufts' campuses to create space for reflection and community. Hosted on the Medford/Somerville, Grafton, and Boston Health Sciences campuses, they offered an opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to bear witness to their shared humanity.

"Look around at one another. Each of you is an invaluable, important member of this community at Tufts," said University Chaplain Elyse Nelson Winger (heard in the video above). "And each of us, in both common and deeply divergent ways, is bearing the weight of deep grief and loss in the wake of the many crises and conflicts, the wars and violence, the chaos and polarization that marks our experience in and of the world every day."

Participants were invited to take part in community art projects. Members of the Tufts Interfaith Student Council and the Interfaith Ambassador Team came together to paint rocks used to adorn the gatherings, which were centered around a large ceramic bowl created by Jennifer Howe Peace, ceramicist and former interim university chaplain and researcher at Tisch College. Community members were invited to mold their own pieces of clay and add them to the communal bowl filled with water.

"Our wisdom traditions have long leaned into the symbolism of clay, because it points to a truth-we are earthen vessels, fragile and strong, forever connected to one another and to the earth," said Lynn Cooper, associate director of the University Chaplaincy and Catholic chaplain at Tufts.

"I am reminded that while tonight's clay is soft and supple, clay does dry out," said Naftali Brawer, the university's Jewish chaplain. "It becomes rigid and brittle. Water particles, however, return it to flexible clay that can be reformed again-turning it into objects of beauty, use and value. When the realities and injustices of the world threaten to make us brittle and dry out our hope, I invite you to remember this moment, to trust that in the midst of deep divisions in this world, on this campus, we share a common humanity and it is with that recognition that we can start again to care for and listen to one another and to work toward reconciliation and healing."