Around the Table

CA Spring Retreat, 2.17.2012 - 2.18.2012

2012-02-23T12:14:00.012-08:00

On February 17th and 18th we enjoyed a wonderful retreat with students and staff at the

Farm House at Temenos Retreat Center outside of West Chester, PA. A relaxed setting,

fun activities, nature and excellent food combined to provide an opportunity for deep

discussions and community building.

The Trust Walk was an exercise in leading, following, trusting, and communicating.

Afterwards, we reflected on how we can trust God to gently lead us on our path through life.

Campus Minister Crissy Bowen shared her faith journey by naming the different communities she has been a part of, listing the gifts that came from each community, describing the images associated with each one, and sharing quotes from them.

Students then recounted their own experiences and answered the same questions around community, gift, image, and quote. It was heartening to see how the CA plays in important role in their lives at Penn.

And throughout the weekend... lots of gathering around the table for good food, fun and conversation!

17th Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King, Jr. Annual Day of Service

2012-01-23T10:17:00.000-08:00

Local elementary school students enjoyed MLK Day painting Civil Rights Movement-themed banners!

Christmas Party, 12.9.2011

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Eating and mingling on the first floor, with Zach Zarrow of Penn African Performing Arts on the piano...

Pausing on the staircase to share: "I am building a world where..."

Gingerbread house construction, ornament decoration, and desserts on the second floor...

Meditation on the third floor...

And caroling around campus!

Community Dinner, 12.6.2011

2011-12-12T12:39:00.000-08:00

On December 6th, we celebrated the Feast of St. Nicholas (Nicholas of Myra) at our bi-weekly community dinner.

St. Nicholas is remembered for his generosity and secret gift-giving. Hence tradition of putting goodies in shoes, or stockings, left out for Santa Claus (a popularized caricature of St. Nicholas).

We also decorated ornaments to put on our Christmas tree!

Even those of us who do not gravitate towards arts & crafts enjoyed ourselves. It was a welcome break in our weeks, where we could stop to remember that this is not only a season of anticipating the end of the semester--sprinting towards the finish in a marathon of final papers, projects and exams--but a season of anticipating the coming of the Christ child together.

Community Dinner, 11.22.2011

2011-11-28T12:02:00.000-08:00

Decorating our Thanksgiving Turkey with messages of gratitude...

Tofurkey and Turkey were friends for the evening...

Peacemaking through the Arts: Update

2011-11-22T09:03:00.000-08:00

Here's a guest post from Kirsten White, a senior in the Nursing School and our Peacemaking through the Arts intern.

While Peacemaking through the Arts got off to a slow start, we have been having a blast since the first day on October 19th! The class size has ranged from 3-8 kids, and officially takes place bi-monthly on Wednesday.

So far, we have had three classes. In the first we made picture frames, the second, granola, and in the third, we played acting games. The kids never fail to brighten up my Wednesday with their energy, passion, and loving spirits!

I have been trying to go every Wednesday in order to have more consistent interaction with the kids and the after school volunteers and staff from St. Augustine's Episcopal Church. Two weeks ago, we had the privileged of having 5 volunteers from Penn join the PTA class.

I am looking forward to seeing how God continues to use this program in my life, the life of the volunteers, the kids, and ultimately for His glory!

Dana How Scholars Mentoring Program Weekend Retreat! 11.12 - 11.13

2011-11-17T11:20:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, ten UPenn undergraduates, thirteen West Philadelphia high school students, and four CA staff members ventured to College Settlement Camp in Horsham, PA for a weekend of community building and leadership development.

We worked as teams to tackle an obstacles course.

We made s'mores and shared our stories through poetry, song, dance, and painting around the "Expression Bonfire."

We reflected on different leadership styles by watching The Great Debaters, an inspiring movie about the triumphs and struggles of a debate team at a historically-African American college in the 1930s.

We enjoyed the autumn leaves.

We reflected on the kind of leaders we would like to be, and identified what stops us. We brainstormed how we might tackle these obstacles, both individually and collectively.

Thanks to all who came out for a great weekend! We're excited to see how the community of Dana How Scholars will continue to deepen in this next year.

Community Dinner, 11.8.2011

2011-11-10T10:52:00.000-08:00

For our third community dinner of the semester, we decided to focus our bellies and our brains on what often brings us together: food. Victor Galli, co-founder of Penn Vegan Society, treated us to vegan mac n’cheese (well...not quite: Vegan Mac n’ Daiya, a tapioca starch-based cheesy substance...http://www.daiyafoods.com/). We also enjoyed vegan cookies, a la Eat Pastry (http://www.eatpastry.com), a vegan cookie-dough company. Hold your skepticism: all platters of Mac n’ Daiya were scraped clean, and the cookies vanished within ten minutes of being out of the oven.

How do we make choices about the food we eat? This was the question on the table for the night. Well: price, convenience, proximity, habit, culture...ethics? Faith? We did not come to any conclusions. Instead, the conversation helped to clarify the tensions we experience as we navigate the grocery aisle, the corner store, farmer’s markets, and the dining hall...

But this is what we do know:

Food is central to community (hence our bi-weekly Community Dinner!)
What we eat--how we inhabit our bodies, and our world--is important.
We like food.
We’re going to continue explore these topics at our next dinner, on Nov. 22nd. Join us, and read along with us, too: http://www.conspiremagazine.com/

We also want to say goodbye (for now!) to Zefang Wang, a visiting student from Franklin & Marshall. This was Zefang's last community dinner with us. Thank you for making the CA a home, for yourself and for us!

Poster-painting with the Interfaith Working Group at Occupy Philadelphia, 11.3.2011

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Open Mind for Gambia, 11.2.2011

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This past Wednesday, Penn alumnus Vera Goldberg joined the Christian Association for our first Eat Your Way through Africa dinner of the year. Vera was last year's recipient of the Open Mind for Africa travel stipend*, which she used to travel this past summer to Gambia to volunteer at Sulayman Jukung General Hospital. This was Vera's second time in Gambia, having visited and volunteered the summer before beginning her undergraduate career at Penn. While in college, Vera kept her connection to Gambia alive through a campus non-profit organization called Power Up Gambia, which provides reliable electricity and running water to healthcare facilities through solar energy. Sulayman Jukung General Hospital is the first facility in Gambia to receive solar energy technology through their partnership with Power Up Gambia.

Over West African dishes of chicken domoda, plaintains, and corn couscous, the community at the CA learned about Vera's individual experience in Gambia, as well as some of the cultural context that shaped her experience. Taking inspiration from health care leaders she met over the summer, Vera encouraged us to persevere in committing our skills and talents to the often frustrating work of making the world a more livable place.

Members of the Penn African Performing Arts ended the evening with an a capella rendition of Gambia's National Anthem:

For the Gambia, our homeland

We strive and work and pray,

That all may live in unity,

Freedom and peace each day.

Let justice guide our actions

Towards the common good,

And join our diverse peoples

To prove man's brotherhood.

We pledge our firm allegiance,

Our promise we renew;

Keep us, great God of nations,
To The Gambia ever true.

* More information on the Open Mind for Africa travel grant: http://www.upennca.org/left/open_mind_for_africa/about_open_mind_for_africa/

Community Dinner, 10.25.2011

2011-11-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of the upcoming Halloween weekend, we decided to focus our community dinner on the topic of “Masks.” We got literal and provided actual masks to decorate--glitter, gold-and-silver ink, feathers and all. This was an admittedly light way to enter into a longer discussion about the masks that we wear in our daily lives. For instance: the masks we wear around parents (i.e., pretending that life is better than it actually is so as not to worry them), masks with classmates (i.e., pretending to know more than we actually do; pretending to understand when we don’t, really), masks in religious community (i.e. pretending to be at home and happy in religious settings because we sense that there is no space to voice frustration or doubt).

Granted: the ability to slip on “masks” is a necessary skill, given the many social spaces we are required to navigate in the course of a day. Still, it can be exhausting and isolating to always have our costumes on. Finding a community where we can take off our masks, break bread, and be present to one another is nourishing and restorative. As we tucked into our soup and bread, and relished homemade oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies, we enjoyed the fact that this may have been the one Halloween party all week where we could take off our masks.