We’ve all heard the expression Success is where preparation and opportunity meet. In a related theological vein, Christian writer and pastor Frederick Buechner pens it beautifully this way: The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
This issue features EMU alumni in and around Philadelphia. Their lives are an anthem to our mission here to prepare students to serve and lead in a global context and to do that in the spirit of Scripture: to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. Their stories bring preparation and opportunity, deep gladness and deep hunger together in remarkable ways.
Their choices for a life well-lived underscore the new positioning materials we’ve refreshed at EMU – stories that help us further distinguish our special brand of education in the increasingly competitive and cluttered educational landscape. After lots of research, and a ranking from Forbes magazine’s Grateful Grads Index for the high percentage of alumni donors who are thankful for their quality education, we have good evidence to assert that our students are sought after at home and around the world. Why? Because our graduates thrive as confident real-world problem solvers and bridge-building leaders in their careers and communities. The beauty of our uncommon counter-cultural understanding is that we discern together what it means to activate the teachings of Jesus to serve and lead with distinction.
Last fall, my husband Jesse and I were in Philadelphia visiting our oldest daughter and son-in-law who had moved from Kansas to the 26th floor of an apartment complex near the University of Pennsylvania. We stood in lines to do all the touristy things: seeing several historical sites, including the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. But the longest line, and the one with people of the most racial and ethnic diversity, was the one formed to stand under the iconic LOVE sculpture in Love Square. Incidentally, that sculpture was created by artist Robert Indiana shortly after JFK’s assassination. Yes, LOVE is a universal human yearning, perhaps especially in turbulent and tragic times.
Enjoy these EMU alumni success stories – at crossroads that intersect deep gladness and deep hunger – in the colony William Penn, a Quaker who fled religious persecution, called The City of Brotherly Love!
