Don't Follow Your Head, Follow Your Heart

The title of this blog is lyrics from a song called "Heaven Go Easy on Me" by the Head and the Heart.  I went to their concert last Monday with some friends hoping to escape for a while the decision that felt like it was pressing down on me--which seminary to attend in the fall?  I didn't have an epiphany moment when I heard these lyrics (actually, I think the song isn't really about making a decision, but about growing up and how life is constantly changing and we can't really hold on to or control any of it) or any others, but it did make me realize how much I love being in Nashville and what a wonderful community I have here... and how much I would miss it when I move at the end of the summer.

This process of discernment about which seminary to go to actually started several years ago.  In college I visited lots of seminaries and thought about what I would like--Presbyterian or not, seminary or divinity school, East or West coast.  But all those years of discernment have come to a head as I have spent the last four months applying to, interviewing with, visiting, and thinking about seminaries.  In the end I applied to Vanderbilt, Yale, Union in NYC (not the Presbyterian school in VA), and McCormick, a Presbyterian seminary in Chicago.

It's funny sometimes when I try to remember what my life was like before YAV.  I considered myself smart, an academic.  I still do consider myself those things, but I have also discovered a lot more about myself and my gifts and what is important to me.  Three and a half years ago, when I was a senior in college thinking about going to graduate school immediately after college (before I had decided to do the YAV program) I wanted to go to University of Chicago or Harvard Divinity School.  And they are great schools, don't get me wrong, but with a few years of a little more real world experience, I know that it is important to me to go to a school that will not only be academically challenging, but that is also engaged with the world and has a strong community within the school.

All the schools I applied to are great schools and the admissions staff and others were wonderful to me throughout this process, but I have ultimately settled on Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.  It is the place that I feel has all of the qualities I am looking for, and because it is so diverse and has a history and a culture of being leaders in theological movements (i.e. Black liberation theology, womanist and feminist theology, Queer theology) I feel it can challenge me in ways that I have not yet been challenged in my theological education and faith formation thus far.  And, for me, perhaps what was most important in choosing it over the other schools I applied to was that something just "clicked" when I visited.

These last four plus months have felt stressful at times, but I do realize it is a huge privilege to be able to go to graduate school and to be able to go where I feel most strongly pulled.  I am very excited now to know where I will be for the next three years of my life and to begin at Union in the fall. I am so grateful to everyone who helped me in this process of discernment, and who helped all along the way to get me to this point in my life.  Gracias!