As a biblical scholar and an educator in a Sisters of Mercy university, this past week was a particularly rich one on the Carlow campus. The events below illustrate in practical terms some of the ways that the mercy tradition infuses the Carlow experience.
On Tuesday, the Center for Mercy Heritage hosted a lecture on “Mercy in the Hebrew Scriptures” with Rabbi Bisno from the Rodef Shalom congregation, just down the road from Carlow. This is one of several special events held at Carlow this year as part of the Jubilee Year of Mercy initiated by Pope Francis. Students learned about the place of mercy in the Hebrew Scriptures as well as in the rabbinic tradition, and were able to see many similarities and some differences between Jewish and Christian views of mercy.
On Wednesday, Campus Ministry hosted a panel on understanding Islam: “The Muslim Next Door.” Two Carlow students were on this panel as well as several individuals from the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh (Wasi Mohamed, Humza Ahmed, and Kelcey Sharkas) and Dr. Sebnem Unlu from the Turkish Cultural Center of Pittsburgh. In light of some of the negative rhetoric about Muslims in the media, this forum provided an opportunity for open dialogue and a chance to understand our Muslim students and neighbors better.
On Friday, my Parables of Jesus class met in the Carlow Art Gallery to view the “Observation and Exploration” exhibit and to have a talk and discussion with the two artists whose work makes up this exhibit, Dale Huffman and Bill DeBernardi (both faculty members in the Art Department). Dale and Bill also gave a gallery talk later in the day open to the entire university community. There were many connections between their work and the work of reading, interpreting, and responding to parables. Not least of which was the way in which these works repay careful and sustained observation. What may appear as a simple detail at first actually may play an important role in focusing attention and raising important questions about the significance of the piece. My students will be discussing these kinds of connections in our next class.
Taken together, these snapshots from this week at Carlow highlight to me the great value of an education grounded in the liberal arts, and specifically in the Mercy tradition. Students (and faculty and staff) have opportunities to engage with people from a wide variety of backgrounds and traditions, to encounter familiar ideas in new ways, to challenge prevailing cultural stereotypes, and to interact about the things in our lives that connect us as humans. As a biblical scholar and educator, it is highly gratifying to work within a community that encourages questions like “what is mercy?”, “who is my neighbor?”, and “how can we learn to observe the world around us in new ways?” These kinds of questions and these kinds of learning opportunities seem essential for an education to be truly transformational.
