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| April 2015 |
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Chapel -- A weekly hour of peace
I am usually in my Magan Hall office on Wednesday mornings, working through a variety of appointments. Around 10:45 I stand up and look out the window to the north, across the campus Once every week, throughout the academic year, our campus family — students, staff and faculty — gather in the University Church for an hour of fellowship and worship. Up until about a decade ago, it was held at 8 a.m. on Wednesday mornings. But we decided to move it to 11 and make it a special feature of the campus. We fill the church, which officially now has 1844 seats — an auspicious number to be sure! It is required attendance for most of our students, unless they are involved in clinical services or are away from campus. With our diverse student body, representing some 60 different religious backgrounds, we occasionally get asked why we do this. Why require those from other faith persuasions to attend our religious services, sing our songs, listen to our stories and learn our lessons? The answer is simple — we feel that the individual and collective spiritual atmosphere on campus is enhanced by worshipping together. While we seek to be accepting of all cultures and religions, we also believe that this campus is dedicated to a Christian perspective, an Adventist perspective to be even more precise, that offers understanding and value to others. As I stood there this last Wednesday, listening to a church full of young voices singing together, a cappella on the last verse, it moved me. With the lights dimmed and the strains of “It Is Well with My Soul” filling the church, I felt at peace in this place. Our chapel Analyses of educational institutions across this country show that collective worship is an important part of maintaining a normative culture. On our campus, we seek to intentionally do this with a recognition of our reality as children of God, sharing this journey together, though coming from very diverse backgrounds. Our chapel is just one small part of this strategy. It is woven together with our academic programs where service learning and sensitivity to human need have moved from “extracurricular” to “curricular.” For if these events and activities are so important in developing character and the kind of professionals Loma Linda desires to produce, why are they not front and center in our curriculum? So we made them that way, using the term “Mission-focused Learning” as the purpose of our educational programs. And it is clear that our overt statements about this campus and its programs do not deter applicants, but rather attract them even more — over 11,000 last year. The world is searching today for substance, for faith and beliefs, for a sense of purpose and direction that is filled by our traditions. The prophet Zechariah talked about a place like this when referring to Jerusalem several millennia ago. Through him, God called on Jerusalem’s leaders to “Administer true justice, show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.” And God even called on Jerusalem to be the original Blue Zone®: “Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with cane in hand because of his age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.” And because of this reputation, “Many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come, and the inhabitants of one city will go to another and say, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the Lord. I myself am going.’ … In those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the edge of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.’”*
Could it be that Loma Linda University Health is called, in some small way, to carry on this tradition? To demonstrate to the world the power of acceptance and compassion and healthy living and relationships? So on Wednesday mornings, you will see our students walking across campus, representing many Christian orientations, as well as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, and yes, probably even an occasional atheist or agnostic, coming together to share a worship experience in the Loma Linda tradition. They will be exposed to music and ideas about Christian values, about service and compassion, about sacrifice and commitment. And those experiences, when queried about on our various surveys, are valued by all who truly seek personal development. I saw a quote the other day from actor and writer Peter Ustinov that said, “Charity is tax-deductible. Compassion is time consuming.” I want our grads to understand the diversity of backgrounds and opinions in the world around them, and feel comfortable in their own beliefs. I want them to be filled with compassion for all the people who share this Earth with us. Whether our differences are inherited or learned, our God claims us all as His children, and we can do nothing less. Cordially, Richard Hart, MD, DrPH * Zechariah 7:9-10, 8:4-5, 20-21, 23. Blue Zone® is a registered trademark of Blue Zones, LLC, and refers to a place in the world where residents have greater longevity. The community of Loma Linda was designated a Blue Zone by Dan Buettner, author of “The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest.” |
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April 9, 2015
Notes from the President -- April 2015
quad. There I see a stream of our students, hundreds of them, coming out of the Centennial Complex and other buildings and heading up the Centennial Pathway to the Loma Linda University Church. I know where they are going, and what they are expecting — chapel service, or 
programs vary widely, from guest speakers to musical groups to faculty telling their stories to students sharing their own experiences. Terry Swenson and Dilys Brooks, our campus chaplains, do a great job putting these programs together, sensing student needs and interests. The music committee, the video group and those who create the right atmosphere in the church are all an important part of this service.
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