Today's blog is written by Bethany Davey, now serving as a CMC pastoral intern.

I know it’s fall—or, nearly fall—when I hear crickets chirping in the daytime hours. Their song, alongside the smell of musty prairie grasses and the subtle lessening of the sun’s summer intensity alert my body that autumn is on its way. I am transported to rural Ohio high school football games, to school supply lists, to the excited nerves of changing seasons and new school years. This year’s cricket song accompanies me in a season of seminary shifting: in my third year of my Master of Divinity program at Drew Theological School, it is time for an internship. It is a joy to intern with CMC this school year!

This CMC internship is a shared internship with the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery. Throughout this year, I will tend to experiential learning and relationships within both organizations, while simultaneously nurturing CMC’s already-in-existence Repair Network relationship. At CMC, I will co-lead an adult Sunday School class toward the end of this Sunday School “semester,” preach, blog, participate in pastoral care and experience a variety of behind-the-scenes CMC functions. With the Coalition, I will participate in mediation/conflict transformation, will facilitate decolonization trainings, provide pastoral care to EuroWhite people reckoning with internal and external systemic injustices and will experience behind-the-scenes Coalition work. My Coalition work will nourish my CMC work, and my CMC work will nourish my Coalition work. 

When Joel, Sarah Augustine, Sheri Hostetler and I met to dream and plan for the coming year, we understood our work as interconnected and mutually beneficial. And, in keeping with CMC’s commitment to monetary repair work, CMC is covering the cost of my internship labor in full, an act both symbolically and actually honoring our reparative commitments while meeting a Coalition financial need. I am grateful for our CMC community, and for our reparative financial commitments. I am thankful for Joel, Sarah and Sheri’s compassionate guidance. I am humbled by those CMC-ers who have agreed to be on my Teaching Committee, offering encouragement and reflective feedback throughout my internship. I feel held and accompanied on this internship journey—in its Knowns and Yet-To-Be-Knowns. 

And so, here we go together: into a new school year, a new season and an additional layer of communal relationship. It is an honor to intern with you. Thank you for accompanying me with your cricket songs, and for continuing to welcome mine as they change pitch. 

Here’s to us!

Chirp, chirp.

Bethany