If I were to sum up my last five years in one word, it would be “change”. I have lived in four different houses, worked three different jobs, lived on two continents, gotten married, gone to grad school, and had a child. Read more…
Leaving Academia, Part 1
For the better part of a decade, my life ambition was to become a professor. I was confident that hard work and a few providential breaks would land me a tenure-track political science professor position. I believed that God had called me to a life in the academy, to be a witness pointing peers and students to Christ.Read more…
Living in the Moment (Scholar’s Compass Transitions Series Summer 2017, Post 4)
The Gospel opens to us a new reality, a new awareness of timeRead more…
Encountering God in the Liminality of Graduate School, Part 2
It was 1991, during the summer between my first and second years of medical school. I was in the basement of a Christian clinic in Times Square. The clinic provided free medical care for homeless people in New York City. I was filling up a tub with warm soapy water so one of our homeless clients could soak his feet.Read more…
Living in Transition (Scholar’s Compass Transitions Series Summer 2017, Post 3)
We daily live in this tension of the “already and the not yet.”Read more…
Encountering God in the Liminality of Graduate School, Part 1
I once had a seminary professor who liked to talk about something he called liminality. The term comes from the Latin word limens, which means “threshold.” Liminal space is a place of transition, of waiting and not knowing.Read more…
“Where You Go, God Is” (Scholar’s Compass Transitions Series Summer 2017, Post 2)
What Christian Brady learned about transitions from a vaudeville performer turned expository preacher. Read more…
Reshaped, Reworked, and Redeemed (Scholar’s Compass Transitions Series Summer 2017)
When I began college thirty years ago I was intent on being “a real doctor.” I loved science and medicine, I had interned at NIH, and I was going to be a physician. Until I wasn’t.Read more…
Letter to My Self, Starting Graduate School
Well, congratulations—you’re going to graduate school! So—this is your future self, writing from a decade ahead to let you know that you’ll have a lot of fun. On the other hand . . . it won’t all be easy. Read more…
Writing Captures the Moment (Writing As a Spiritual Discipline Series)
Since finishing undergrad, I’ve moved back across the country—from school in Illinois to home in Orange County, CA. Writing has been a big part of the past 8 months as I’ve been re-adjusting to the area, away from the majority of my social circles.Read more…
Summer Snapshot: The Secret of Solitude
Same setting yet different pace of life. A transition from being an undergraduate student to graduate student at the same university is a place of mixed feelings. As I’m utilizing my summer by starting a research project, the reality of large time commitment is becoming very tangible for me as I realize how quickly time escapes from me.Read more…
Processing your PhD: on next-ness
As a young faculty person, with all the anxieties that are part of that identity, that quiet does tend to bring in some of its own challenges, however. It might even go to waste, slipping away into the voracious demands of the calendar. There’s a refrain of next-ness, for lack of a better phrase. What’s next, indeed?Read more…
Summer Snapshot: Taste, See, and Obey
This summer, everything is new. My plans have been pushed aside in favor of God’s, and He is constantly telling me that I know what’s best, and I will provide. I’ve just finished my undergrad degree in molecular biology and Asian American studies. I’m still torn between what to pursue for graduate school. Read more…
Processing your PhD: a further meditation on done-ness
My friend Nate recently asked me what I’d do next. “What do you mean, ‘next’?” I replied.Read more…
Processing your PhD: on teaching
Almost by their nature, large research universities don’t necessarily prime their PhD students and candidates for a teaching-oriented academic career. Read more…
Processing your PhD: the first of a short series on life after graduate school
You stand in the Quad, surrounded by empty chairs and the sound guys talking down the stage. It’s an early June day in Seattle at the University of Washington. A cool wind is blowing paper programs lazily through the air.Read more…
Summer Snapshot: Transitions, Instability, and Jesus
As an undergraduate and now graduate student, I’ve attended three institutions of higher learning in the last six years. Very little about my life has remained the same. Read more…
Pilgrimage: Life of a Pilgrim on Campus (Scholar’s Compass)
As we near the end of this series of devotions on pilgrimage, let’s return to where we began, on that highway to Jerusalem in Psalm 84. On that highway travelers have their hearts set on arriving in Jerusalem and worshipping in God’s holy temple. With their focus set on this story, the path they walk becomes one of refreshing springs even in the desert. When we encounter Paul in Athens, he is also following a story, a story that begins on a road to Damascus. Read more…
Pilgrimage: Communitas in the Academy (Scholar’s Compass)
As we muddle our way through liminal spaces on the path to a sacred center, especially with others who also see themselves on pilgrimage, not only do we change, but so do our relationships. A unique community arises that focuses on reaching that goal more than remaining within the usual boundaries and edges of social interactions. The lure of such a community often draws people to the academy.Read more…
Pilgrimage: Liminality in the Academy (Scholar’s Compass)
On a journey to a sacred center, pilgrims often leave behind known and familiar lives to step into an unfamiliar time and place. Even if they have a good image of their destination, they cannot predict what will occur along the way. In this respect, pilgrimage is essentially a time of liminality.Read more…
Scholar’s Compass Navigating Transitions: In the Middle of Things
Returning to Graduate School – Thoughts by Michael Stell (3)
Part Three: Should I Attend Grad School? Or What was I thinking? What counsel would I give someone who is considering grad school? First, think about it in terms of vocation. If your vocation, or expanding your vocation requires youRead more…
Returning to Graduate School – Thoughts by Michael Stell (2)
Part Two – Being a Graduate Student When I entered grad school, I entered with a sense of purpose that was in my mind akin to the idea that the Puritans had of vocation or calling. Attending a Catholic university,Read more…
Returning to Graduate School – Thoughts by Michael Stell (1)
Introduction After several months of connecting on-line, I had the privilege of meeting Michael in Lancaster, PA. What brought him to my neck of the woods? His research on John Williamson Nevin (1803 – 1886). John Williamson Nevin not onlyRead more…