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Disciples Divinity House: A New Home for my Spiritual RevolUUtion
Disciples Divinity House
On Friday, I received an email notifying me that I had been invited to join the Disciples Divinity House (DDH) community for the next academic year. I was ecstatic; not only was this a wonderful honor, but it was a beautiful sign of things to come. The experiences and formation I would receive at DDH would be quite unique compared to other living opportunities in Hyde Park. I knew upon choosing to go to Chicago Theological Seminary that I would need to move to the south side, if I was going to have a truly immersive and formative experience in these coming years. The decision of where to live was the real question and so I pondered my options. I had to decide between location, price, living environment, and community. I felt sure that the last point was of most importance, sacrificing the others if necessary.
I came across an interesting co-op in Hyde Park with a seemingly rich history and progressive mission. The co-op is named Qumbya and is a part of NASCO, or North American Students of Cooperation. It seemed like a wonderful place for me: artistic, diverse, highly progressive, vegan-friendly. My heart was set on living at Qumbya. However, I shortly thereafter found another housing possibility as referenced to me by girlfriend’s mother, an affiliate housing community of the University of Chicago called Disciples Divinity House. I took a look at the website and the once clear skies of my housing future became rather overcast.
Charity: Is it Enough?
“This article was originally published on the DePaul Interfaith website in January 2010″
Friday night Bridget Liddell (a fellow scholar) and I, along with two other DePaul students, traveled down to the First Unitarian Church in Hyde Park. We were joining the Unitarian Universalist Young Adult Campus Ministry that is affiliated with the University of Chicago. The group gathered to prepare dinner for homeless people in cooperation with The Night Ministry, a non-denominational, non-profit organization, dedicated to serving the needs of “Chicago’s most vulnerable”. We boiled hotdogs, bagged chips and cookies, and loaded them into three cars along with sodas, bananas and a handful of college students ready to help make the world a better place.
We headed down to the service site, unloaded the food and began serving dozens of cold and hungry men, women and children. As we reached the end of the line people were invited to come back for another helping. It became evident that these people were really vulnerable when we began handing out two hotdogs at a time, even three, to these starving people. Towards the end, when the population was waning, for those who remained, we began filling empty hotdog bun bags with numerous helpings. There seemed to be nothing that could fill the emptiness in these good people. Read the rest of this entry
