Today, as the community of Mars Hill Graduate School we celebrated Convocation. This event marks the beginning of a new academic year, the welcoming of new students, the start of classes, and the turning toward Fall. It’s a glorious marker of what has passed, where we are, and what’s yet to come.
The ceremony is called Convocation, but its action is matriculation. Here’s the definition and explanatory paragraph that was printed in today’s program. Trust me: it’s worth reading.
Matriculation is from a Latin root and means to admit into a society or a body of persons, and especially, to do so by acknowledging the place for your name on the register of members. It is also related to the word Mater for mother, especially in the sense of adopting a child. So, this is our official welcome to you – your adoption into the Mars Hill Graduate School community of learners. It is an ancient tradition that hearkens back to Oxford University in England, where all new students were officially welcomed into the community and asked to commit themselves to the culture and mission of their new school. Our act of commitment today is a symbol that envelops you into the life of the community at Mars Hill Graduate School. Please receive our hand of welcome, of adoption, of inclusion. From this point on you will be part of our community always.
I love this – on a couple of levels at least. First, I love the idea of being formally admitted into a body, to be a member, to be part of something larger than ourselves. There is something so sacred about this experience. It’s worship really. I found myself wishing that the same meaning, weight, beauty, and liturgy were as present in the church; that the experience of being welcomed into a body would carry the honor and esteem that this ceremony does for our students. Not just when we join a church, but over and over again and with just as much pomp and circumstance for every person who enters our midst.
Second, as you might imagine, I love the connection of this word to the feminine, to Mater, to mother, to adopting a child. I always love it when I discover feminine roots in some of our most esteemed and historic words, traditions, liturgies, life…And I especially love it when I realize just how amazing a particular word like this is given the predominantly male presence in the academy of the past. Oxford, at least when the tradition of matriculation began, only had male professors, deans, presidents, leaders, and yet they chose to use a term that originated from Mater, from mother, from the feminine. Amazing. I love that!
Most of all, I love the idea that the female gender is not required for us, as human beings, to graciously and in mother-like ways, welcome others into our midst; to take them into our family, provide them a home, be like kin. What if we did that all time time and not just at the beginning of the academic year? What if we did that in our homes, our offices, on the bus, in the mall and not just in a beautiful cathedral? What if we did that with everyone we encountered and not just those who are like us? What if we all functioned as adoptive mothers – welcoming new life into our midst with open arms, ample nourishment, and a heart overflowing with love? Wouldn’t that be amazing?
It is also hard work. Being part of any family is not just the initial joy of adoption but the reality of day-to-day relationship. Still, it’s worth matriculating; calling ourselves back to membership, back to our adoption, back to community and family, back to the beauty of worship and belonging and celebration and commitment.
Matriculation (ma – trik’u – la – shun). ‘Might be a word worth repeating and practicing more than once a year…
SUBSCRIBE to my Monthly Newsletter. SUBSCRIBE to the Blog via Email or your Kindle. LIKE me on Facebook.
