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Wesley Institute Graduation

On
Saturday 21 April, the Wesley Institute class of 2006 celebrated their graduation. There were 117 graduates in total - 76 from Wesley Institute and 41 graduating through the Sydney College of Divinity. The ceremony was the largest graduation in the Institute’s history.

The guest speaker was the Executive Director of the Board of Education for the Uniting Church, NSW Synod, Mr John Oldmeadow, who is also a Director of the Wesley Institute Board. His address was titled "Finding Meaning on Saturday".

Wesley Institute Counselling Graduate and Valedictorian, Serena Zahra, also gave an inspiring and heartwarming address to her fellow students that reflected on the impact her studies had on her personally and the strength of relationships formed during those years.

"I guess being at the end of our degrees we are all in different places," she said. "Some of us have a strong sense of our destiny and calling, others are still searching. Personally, what I think is more important than what we do with our degree is who we allow ourselves to become as a result of our degree."

"Through my degree I learnt a lot about who I am and why I do the things I do, and I think what it’s all about is becoming 'real'.

"One of my greatest joys in counselling was getting to know my classmates and their life stories; sharing their journeys toward becoming ‘real’. It’s been such a pleasure to know you and I’m really going to miss those times of deep sharing. Now it’s time for us to move on but I really hope we can all find a way of keeping in contact."

Wesley Institute congratulates all the graduating students and offers every blessing for the journey ahead. What follows are some of the students’ reflections on their time.

Graduate Testimonials

Q: What did you enjoy about studying at Wesley Institute and what does it mean to you?

Kim Marchant (Drama) – “I made the best friends ever at Wesley Institute”

Neridah Morris (Drama) – “I love the teaching, the atmosphere, and the fact that God is apart of everything they do”

Amy Wykes (Drama) – “I enjoyed stealing the lime-light at every possible moment”

Tamryn Anderson (Drama) – “My favourite thing about WI was growing and learning in a safe environment”

Katyana Cracknell (Drama) – “The community of WI was just awesome and being around other Christians and studying the amazing creativity of our God”

Katherine Norman (Drama) – “I enjoyed studying at WI for the community, the fun and the great performances”

Alice Fraser (Graphic Design) – “It was really good to have small classes and a lot of attention by the teachers.”

Sarah Stambolieff (Graphic Design) – “It was really good because it got me back on track with God and it taught me a lot of things about who I am and where I’m heading in my life. It was more than just a degree to me it was about building relationships with other people and finding potential in changing the world.”

Colleen O’Connell (Music and Drama) – “I really enjoyed studying at Wesley because it was a good environment in which to feel safe to explore my creativity to write music and to be able to fail at some stage if that had to happen at some stage. It was a safe place to do and it was a really supportive environment and I made my best friends.”

Louisa Drury (Graphic Design) – “I enjoyed the people that I met and their creativity that was encouraged to be brought out of us by learning through Wesley Institute.”

Christie-Lee Henderson (Music) – “I was studying a Bachelor of Music I really enjoyed getting to know everyone at Wesley, the Christian community and the grace that I have received through that.”

Carissa Lehmann (Music) – “I studied a Bachelor of Music and Wesley Institute was a huge learning curve for me and I learned so much about myself and so much about God and how to use my music coinciding with being a Christian and I’m very proud that I got a piece of paper today.”

Riikka Honkanen (Music) - “I did a Bachelor of Creative Arts and the thing I learned the most was just more direction on where I want to go in life and what I want to do now that I’m finished.”

Chris Cerinich (Music) – “My name is Chris and it took me 5 years to do a three year degree but I finally did it. It’s really cool.”

Lisa O’Connell (Education) – “I did a Graduate Diploma in Primary Education and I guess I loved having and Godly perspective and a Christian input. That’s what I really loved and am really thankful to have been able to do that. That’s what I want to work in. My heart is in sharing Jesus with kids. I think it really helped and equipped me to do that.”

Rachel Devenish (Education) – “I did the Graduate Diploma in Education for Primary. Something that I enjoyed was the fact that I did the theory and the practical at the same time. So you really got to integrate your theory into practice straight away. And I just loved being in the classroom and the opportunity that Wesley gave to be in the classroom nearly straight away with the course. So really for me it solidified my passion to teach.”

Emily Hammann (Education) – “What I enjoyed about Wesley was doing all the pracs and just learning heaps about teaching from doing all the practical work. And I really enjoyed the relationships and stuff even though I was doing it by distance education we’ve all been able to keep in contact. Yeah and its just been good to catch up with everyone today too.”

Amy Gill (Dance) – “I loved the opportunity to dance full time at Wesley. Not many other courses are you able to do that. It was good to be able to train hard and stuff.”

Denielle Walsh (Education) – “It’s an awesome place to be able to be stretched, to grow in your understanding of who you are, your particular area of study and to explore it within a biblical framework. It’s just an awesome place to be!”

Samantha Meyerink (Drama) – “Something that I enjoy about Wesley is that you can find your future husband there!”  

David Moore (Counselling) – “What I enjoyed, the people, love the people, love the counselling, love the whole lot! Good fun!”

Serena Zahra (Counselling) – “I actually enjoy everything about Wesley!”

Doris Lee (Counselling) – “What I enjoy studying at Wesley was the people. That is one of the main highlights.”

Rebecca Houldershaw (Graphic Design) – “Really great teachers and great friends.”

Lia Ewing (Dance) – “The close knit family and friends that you make and get to keep for life.”

Melanie Yun (Graphic Design) – “I enjoyed the people, the people we awesome and the teachers were just fantastic with small classes and stuff like that.”

Elizabeth Kovacic (Drama) – “Something that I really enjoyed about studying at Wesley was that even though drama students seem like freaks they’re actually really good quality and it’s such a blessing to have theatre professionals teaching in our department.”

Shannon Dwyer (Graphic Design) – “I enjoyed the intimacy of Wesley and the fact that you become friends with the teachers as well as them being your mentors. And I think that takes teaching to a new level because I think you learn a lot more about yourself as well as the subject you are learning.”

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Graduation Address

By John Oldmeadow
Executive Director Board of Education
Uniting Church: NSW Synod

It is indeed an honour to be here with you; graduates to be, faculty, friends, family and all manner of well wishers. For my address today I’d like to explore how the arts might provide meaning and insight into our lives. Let me begin with,
The words of the Teacher
Son of David, King in Jerusalem.

“Vanity of vanities! Says the teacher
All is vanity
What do people gain from all the toil from which they toil under the sun?
A generation goes and a generation comes but the earth remains forever.”

In Wisdom literature of Ecclesiastes the writer sets out the paradigmatic cry of all future generations… “How can we make sense of it all?  What does it all mean?”  Throughout time and transcending cultures, peoples and individuals have sought to make sense of, to understand their lives in their particular context.  The words, once scrawled on Sydney pavements in chalk and written on the subway walls are now posted on the internet but the message is the same, “How can we make sense of life?  How can we give meaning to our existence?”

There are particular times and occasions when we have the opportunity to reflect on the broader questions of our lives and the next steps we might be taking.  In every culture there are different way-marks or rites of passage for these occasions for reflection. In western world, change of career, completion of courses, graduation and other still-points in our changing world often allow us time in our hectic existence to reflect on these questions.

In a dense but powerful passage the American philosopher and linguist, George Steiner, uses the metaphor of days as the context for our search for meaning.  Friday is the day of despair, hopelessness and injustice while Sunday is the day of looked-for hope and expectation.  In between is Saturday, the day in which we live out our lives while seeking to find meaning between despair and hope.  Let me read George Steiner’s passage, it’s one to which I return with some regularity, in my moments of reflection.  Steiner’s metaphor of days, the way in which Friday and Sunday bookend our diurnal round, provides the focus for my comments today.

“There is one particular day in Western history about which neither historical record nor myth nor Scripture make report.  It is a Saturday.  And it has become the longest of days.  We know of that Good Friday which Christianity holds to have been that of the Cross.  But the non-Christian, the atheist, knows of it as well.  This is to say that he knows of the injustice, of the interminable, suffering, of the waste, of the brute enigma of ending, which so largely make up not only the historical dimension of the human condition, but the everyday fabric of our personal lives.  We know, ineluctably, of the pain, of the failure of love, of the solitude which are our history and private fate.  We know also about Sunday.  To the Christian, that day signifies an intimation, both assured and precarious, both evident and beyond comprehension, of resurrection, of a justice and a love that have conquered death.  If we are non-Christians or non-believers, we know of that Sunday in precisely analogous terms.  We conceive of it as the day of liberation from inhumanity and servitude.  We look to resolutions, be they therapeutic or political, be they social or messianic.  The lineaments of that Sunday carry the name of hope (there is no word less deconstructible).

But ours is a long day’s journey of the Saturday.  Between suffering, aloneness, unutterable waste on the one hand and the dream of liberation, of rebirth on the other.  In the face of the torture of a child, of the death of love which is Friday, even the greatest art and poetry are almost helpless.  In the Utopia of the Sunday, the aesthetic will, presumably, no longer have logic or necessity.  The apprehensions and figurations in the play of metaphysical imagining, in the poem and the music, which tell of pain and of hope, of the flesh which is said to taste of ash and of the spirit which is said to have the savour of fire, are always Sabbatarian.  They have risen out of an immensity of waiting which is that of man.  Without them, how could we be patient?”

Real Presences, George Steiner (Faber & Faber 1989)

It is the final paragraph from this passage that gives point to my comments here today.  On the Saturday of our lives, the ordinary everyday experiences, it is (and I quote again from Steiner),

“The poem and the music …. tell of pain and of hope,…, they have arisen out of the immensity of waiting which is that of man, without them how could we be patient.”

And this is my contention: it is the arts, poetry, literature, music, the visual arts and the dramatic interpretation which enables us (as Steiner would have it) to be patient in the Saturdays of our lives.  It is only through art, drama and literature that we are able to make sense of that time. 

Literature and the arts speak to us of the essence of our humanity.  These arts are drawn from and speak to the wellsprings of human experience.  They enable us to transcend time and culture and to make sense of our lives. 

On Maundy Thursday this Easter I attended the opening exhibition of a collection of paintings which sought to explore that core of human existence which exists in the Easter story.  On that occasion Rev Doug Purnell (himself an artist) had gathered some dozen artists and matched each with one of the Stations of the Cross.  In a deliberate manner, Doug was asking the artist to act as interpreter for the wider community.  One of the questions Doug had put to the artists was, “How do we live life responsibly?” “How do we pass on this world in a better way to the people who come after us?”

 At times when words fail us, the image and vision of the artist have enabled us to come to grips with the beauty, the transcendent joy or the horror of human experience.  In the western artistic tradition, there are many examples of the vision of the artist which has encapsulated, articulated and occasionally spurred to action the wider community.  Perhaps one poignant example serves to illustrate my purpose.  Picasso’s depiction of the bombing of Guernica was an attempt to make sense of the horrors of 20th Century warfare in a way that no other artist before him had been able to do.  The impact of that single painting changed the lives of many.

Let me pause for a moment to ask, “Is there an image, and artist who provides a window into meaning for you?”

Steiner points to first art and then music as a way of making sense of the human condition.  It’s always comforting to have some cross disciplinary support for the notions espoused by philosophers and I found it helpful coming across two recent pieces of quantitative and qualitative research.  The National Church Life Survey – a massive undertaking every 5 years which surveys the people in the pews on a particular Sunday - has identified that one of the most significant aspects of church life and worship in particular is the music.  Indeed, it is the music which many people identify as that which makes sense of their life within the church. 

This research finding should come as no surprise to us.  The Jewish and Christian traditions over thousands of years are marked by the music and the transcendent experience which it brings to people.   In a very pragmatic sense, the music and the words speak to each generation.  The words of Charles Wesley and his unique linking of popular tunes to his words spoke to a generation in Britain.  The power of Charles’ language to encapsulate complex theological propositions in his hymns is still an object of study to students of literature and music alike.  When confronted with the mystery of the incarnation, a theological notion which has divided communities of the faithful over many centuries, how more powerfully can it be expressed than in Wesley’s words “Our God contracted to a span incomprehensibly made man?”
(Less than 10 words to articulate, while others have filled volumes).

And then the most recent research by Christian Research Association, Rev Dr Philip Hughes, when exploring the Spirituality of Gen Y, noted that a sense of meaning and purpose was provided for young people, perhaps surprisingly, from family, less surprisingly perhaps from their friends, but Hughes was surprised to notice that for so many young people it was music which enabled them to make sense of their world through a heightened sense of spirituality. 

I am sure that we all have our own example of music which gave insight at a particular time. I suspect that the tune tells much about our age and musical tastes. The most recent song to resonate with, to speak to my uncertainties, leapt out at me when I saw the Leonard  Cohen movie, “I’m your man”,  The stanza from the track “The Anthem”  came across in Cohen’s, gravelly tones,

“Ring the bell that still will ring,
Forget your perfect offering
There’s a crack in everything,
But that’s what let’s the light come in”

I won’t attempt to explore with you how that verse speaks to, makes sense for me of the institution within which I work, suffice it to say that on the Saturday of my working life, Cohen is an interpreter of meaning for me. 

Let’s pause again, “What track echoes around in your mind when all else is without sense for you?”

However, while music and the visual arts are interpreters of meaning, for me the written word remains one of the most significant conveyors of meaning. 

The multitude of human experiences is so often made universal through literature.  Again I turn to the Hebrew Scriptures and the story of the death of King David’s son Absalom.  In the second Samuel 18 after the rebellion by his son Absalom, David’s intensely conflicted response – to crush the rebellion but to treat his son with mercy – is brought to a head with the slaughter of Absalom by David’s enthusiastic troops.  In just a single verse the universal experience of the love of a father for his son, the dashed hopes that he holds for his son, the terrible agony of rebellion are summed up in a passage that surely transcends 3000 years. 

 “The King was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as he went, he said, “Oh my son Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom!  Would I had died instead of you, oh Absalom, my son, my son!”
Second Samuel 18:33

In our western literary tradition, Shakespeare, second only to the biblical text, holds up to us just what it means to be truly human. Whether it is the naked ambition of Macbeth, the despair of King Lear, the duplicity of Mark Antony, the alienation and separation of Othello, we see parts of our selves in the mirror Shakespeare holds up before us. The vision of the author gives focus to the reader’s own life.

“What scene, what lines, perhaps learnt by heart, perhaps dimly remembered, spring to your mind when all around you is bare and sparse and unintelligible?”

If we are to make sense of Saturday book-ended between the despair of Friday and the hope of Sunday, surely the works of literature can, in Steiner’s words, ‘give patience to our immensity of waiting”.

And so, as graduates of Wesley Institute, take this occasion to recognise and celebrate your achievements over the past years. We, your friends, family, teachers and supporters, recognize the many disciplines in which you have worked. These disciplines contain the essence of that which has enabled generations to make sense of, to give meaning to existence. 

Perhaps, I may be permitted one further observation.  That you have participated in these experiences of the arts yourselves is a privilege:  that many of you may be provided with an opportunity to help others through your dramatic, musical, artistic and literary visions provide glimpses of meaning is indeed a rare gift.

As we live in the in-between time, the Saturday of our lives, we know only in part, we prophesy only in part, but when the end comes, (the Sunday for each one of us), the partial will come to an end.  While for each one of us the Saturday, the waiting time, may be a time of partial glimpses, of child like reasoning, in this time, the artist, the musician, the writer amongst us will be the provider of visions however partial, the enabler of glimpses however incomplete. 

And so as you celebrate your Graduation experience, I urge you to take moments to reflect on the visions, partial though they be, that may you have glimpsed in your time at Wesley Institute for Theology and the Arts.  As you move forward from this time and place, you may as the artist, the writer, the musician in our midst, continue to provide insight, sense and meaning as we live out the Saturday of our lives.

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