Meet Kurt Nelson, the dean of religious and spiritual life at the College. Nelson shares on his faith life, his journey to the Hill, his newest family member and reminds students to, “really value the friendships and relationships with people who make you your best self.”
For weekly “reflections, thoughts, sermons, [and] prayers,” see Nelson’s website Religious & Spiritual Life @ Colby at http://web.colby.edu/kdnelson/ and connect with the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life by “liking” it on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CORSL).
Role on Campus: dean of religious and spiritual life
Education: BA St Olaf College (Northfield MN), MDiv Yale Divinity School (New Haven CT)
Dorm: Mary Low
HCC: When did you arrive on the Hill?
KN: We (Joanna (wife, musician), Grover (dog, lover of the outdoors), unborn child (Lillian Grace, born Sept. 27), and Kurt) moved to campus at the beginning of August. Started work on August 15th, so today is my 3 monthiversary of Colby employment.
HCC: Have you been acclimating to Maine well? Where were you before here, and what is the biggest change you have encountered?
KN: Maine is good. Waterville’s an interesting little town. Colby’s been good to us so far. Lots of possibility. Lots of work to be done.
We came from Lebanon, New Hampshire. I was Asst. Chaplain at Dartmouth College.
Moving’s always a challenge. We miss our friends and our neighborhood. Clearly the biggest change has been having a baby. Turns out that’s something of a big deal…
HCC: Do you feel that you have had a warm welcome into the Colby community?
KN: A warm welcome indeed. Lots of great, interesting, interested people. It’s a new position, so I’m not sure people quite know what to make of me sometimes. But we’re making progress. (Hint: I’m nice. And fun. And smart. And humble. And I want to learn more about people at Colby. How they see themselves. Where they’re going. What they want to do with their lives. Why they think they’re here. What’s meaningful to them.)
HCC: Congratulations on welcoming Lillian Grace Nelson to the world on September 27. How are things going with your newborn? Have you and your wife considered the convenience of having over 1,800 babysitters as your neighbors?
KN: Indeed. If all goes well, we’ll actually be moving down to Averill St. next month – a robust ½ mile walk from campus. But we look forward to a wealth of baby sitting opportunities. If folks want to meet the little one, she comes to our Chapel services on Sunday evenings almost every week.
HCC: Can you talk a little bit about how you became interested in religious life?
KN: I came to college pretty frustrated with Church life and had a pretty inauspicious welcome to a Christian community at St. Olaf. So I was pretty certain I wanted nothing to do with religion ever. I was also, by default, pre-med at that point.
I realized about half way through my first year that, while I could do bio and chemistry, I didn’t really care about it. Meanwhile, I was loving my first-year religious studies seminar. At some point I decided to take the plunge and study what really excited me (I finished all my pre-med requirements, just to be safe).
In graduate school, I realized it was the relationships developed around talking about faith, religion, and meaning that I really valued more than the creation of academic knowledge. Particularly relationships between people of different faiths or religious contexts. So I interned with the Chaplaincy at Yale. From there, I took what was meant to be a very short term job at Dartmouth. Which led to a better, longer term job. The next thing I know, I’m here and have a career.
HCC: A Sept. 12 Echo article said that during your undergraduate studies you became “disillusioned with the church.” Do you have any words of advice for college students who are questioning faith? How did you find your way back to spirituality?
KN: College is an amazing time because it creates a safe-enough context to question all the various things we inherit from our families, communities, intellectual histories, and places. And religion is no exception to that. The asking of big questions is the reason we’re here, I hope. And I similarly hope our various communities (religious, academic, cultural, etc.) encourage us to do so.
At the same time, it can be a turbulent process. But it’s the means by which we take ownership of ourselves, our sense of meaning and purpose, and our narratives.
For me, that meant I needed space away from the church of my youth. And I came back into relationship with my church in the course of wanting to advocate for change from within. During that process, I realized how much I missed about that community and have been in increasing relationship with my church ever since.
My advice would be two-fold:
1. Keep asking the big questions. And be suspicious of anyone who tells you you shouldn’t. This is a great moment to examine and wonder about the foundations of all sorts of things we put our faith in – for some people that’s a religious community or tradition. For others, perhaps it’s money or country or success. Wondering about these things is good. And asking the questions is, in my language, a deeply faithful pursuit. And the means by which we live into answers.
2. At some point, we tend to figure out that we can’t go about this stuff alone. So seek out communities that both support and challenge you. Find mentors or advisors who you can trust (not the kind of trust that leads you to do everything they say, but the kind of trust that leads to productive push and pull.) And, perhaps most importantly, really value the friendships and relationships with people who make you your best self.
HCC: What do you hope to bring to the College as the first ever dean of religious and spiritual life on the Hill?
KN: A big question. Good work. I suppose at its most basic, my hope is to help make the world a little bit better. And I think we do that by bringing what we know, what we believe, and what we do (about what we know and believe) into coherent relationship with one another.
So in a practical way, I think that means helping Colby understand that belief and practice are worthy of time and thinking and consideration during these college years. Thus, I hope to encourage the flourishing of a wide variety of religious and spiritual communities at Colby.
And I hope to find ways for people to bring their beliefs and their narratives and their questions into meaningful conversation with people who have different beliefs and narratives and questions. When we do that well, lots of good things happen, and the world does get a little bit better…I hope.
HCC: Are your services only available to students with a religious background, or those who already have a faith life?
KN: All of our meetings, events, and religious services are open to the full Colby community. Anyone who’s interested in exploring should know that there’s a blanket statement of welcome all the time.
‘Welcome’ is easier said than done though. And my hope really is to provide a wide variety of entry points for people of all sorts and places to think and talk about meaning, purpose, and faith. Multi-Faith initiatives (like Multi-Faith Council and our Interfaith Community Service projects) are a great place for people of no particular religious context or atheists, agnostics or seekers to enter that conversation. And programs like “What Matters to Me and Why?” and public lectures are meant for a wide audience.
And, if you want to see something that’s not happening, come let me know. We’ll do our best to figure it out together.
HCC: In light of the upcoming break, what is your favorite holiday?
KN: I love Thanksgiving. Big meals. Family. Togetherness. Professional football. My family always hosts large, lively, international occasions for Thanksgiving and I look forward to them every year.
Not to mention, I think gratitude is a deeply important thing. Moments to be thankful are good moments. And gratitude is – again in my language – a really basic religious instinct. And one we need to celebrate as often as possible.