By Tracey L. Hurd,
Executive Director
The image of life as a narrative or a book unfurled captures
me. There is something comforting about
envisioning us all as players in a grand unfolding, mutually held together by
the weight of a solid book’s binding.
There’s progression, yes, a moving forward, but the option to go back –
to return to page three—is ever-present, too.
Life as an unfolding story gently suggests a metaphor of life as change
happening without true loss.
Change as a Constant:
Adapting, Surviving, Thriving is the theme for the upcoming Spring
2012 Lecture and Discussion Forum series.
It’s the first full series that we will launch with our new name, WomenExplore
Lecture and Discussion Forum. It is
a lyrical but unplanned coincidence: two changes at once. The new series name provides a larger
umbrella for the variety of topics that anchor our sessions and it names a
focus on women that has been part of the program from its inception. WomenExplore signals our progression,
but the pages of the Theological Opportunities Program are held dear and
intact. We are one story.
I joined this narrative of change and continuity as
Executive Director on the first of February.
Muna Killingback left for full time work at U. Mass, Boston, in the late
fall. Sitting on the board of
WomenExplore, she maintains her close ties with this community and
program. I come here after years in
primarily academic settings—as a former Scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies
Center, program director at the Unitarian Universalist Association, and faculty
member at Boston College. The dual
commitment to learning broadly about issues in the world today, and deep
thinking about how those issues touch our own lives, drew me in. I attended a session with a friend, and came
back again and again. I am honored to
be part of a program that is so full of possibility and transformation.
This spring’s line up is stunning. There will be excellent lectures from leaders in fields
presenting cutting-edge research that wrestle with chaos, journey, clutter,
sensuality, grief, home, competition, partnering, aloneness and growth. There will
be shorter focusing presentations preceding the lectures, where we will learn
about how these topics have taken shape in lived experiences of a participant
of the WomenExplore community. The
focusing presentations and lectures, together offer synergy and tension. Time for engagement, discussion and
questions is therefore an essential part of each morning.
So much awaits us.
Come! Bring a friend. We have a truly wonderful spring
series. It will be interesting and
engaging, and better with you there.
There is a place for you in the unfolding story of WomenExplore’s
Lecture Series and Discussion Forum.
