An Ode to Thanksgiving

An Ode to Thanksgiving

by Leah Buturain Schneider I am sitting in a leather chair on the second floor of Fuller’s David Allan Hubbard Library looking at a beautiful six-feet high installation of vintage Persian tiles.

Thank you to the person who donated these tiles, and to the ones who conserved the treasures now assembled on the second floor of the library. Fresh grass green, mustard yellow, salmon pink, indigo blue, chocolate brown, purple hyacinth, peach blush, linen cream, emerald green, colors that like our Fuller community constellate a mosaic of jewel tones and earthen elements all in praise of the Creator.

researchers, administrators, and support staff. The main composition of slender graceful branches that curve and intersect as they overlap bearing blossoms, some buds, some burgeoning, and others full bloom attracting a dozen birds all of varying shades of feathers and shapes and perches.

We students and professors who study here are birds flocking here, some on the end of the branches taking out books to study elsewhere and others ensconced in the middle of the thicket soon after the doors open at 9 a.m.

How fortunate we are to flock together here in this amazing season of seed and nectar, of The beauty of the Persian carbloom and blossom, with abunpet motif in the border tiles that dant foliage to hide and blend frame the central composition is and some to contrast, all beautilike the seminary that supports ful, all belonging. the library, attracting scholars, Thank you books for standing 10

sentinel, ready to be opened and to provide knowledge in pursuit of wisdom.

Thank you journals, newspapers, and all printed materials, some awaiting binding, others recycling.

great gift.

Thank you hardworking librarians for long hours of dedication to provide the very finest resources for us, negotiating with other institutions to borrow, lend, and open up more access.

How fortunate we are to flock together here in this amazing season of seed and nectar, of bloom and blossom, with abundant foliage to hide and blend and some to contrast, all beautiful, all belonging.

Thank you shelves, carts, elevators, vaults, for storing the treasures.

Thank you library staff for carting, sorting, lifting, replacing, and providing. Thank you behind the scenes staff for cataloging, recording, recycling so many hours and years you need to wear wrist guards to support your labors of love.

Thank you library staff for walking through the rows to check on those who leave their belongings vulnerable, for thoughtful reminders of danger in more than one language, for caring to protec what we can take for granted, but is indeed a

Thank all of you who greet us as we walk up to the desk, interrupting you yet you graciously multi-process and enrich the beauty of this sacred space.

Thank you IT people for connecting the digital resources here to the network on campus and beyond.

Thank you to those who scrub, mop, empty trash, replace liners, dust, and vacuum.

Thank you for those who do invisible work with excellence.

Thank you brother and sister scholars who respect this library as a place for study, for 11 11

composition, for discovery.

Thank you neighbors in carrels for your thoughtfulness in

Thank share library write,

you to all those who will leave their books, their art, and give resources to keep this growing and equipped so that we can teach, minister and keep the gift moving.

keeping your phones on vibrate and taking them away from the study area to answer them.

Thank you for each person who respects this quiet and for guarding this place as one of the last outposts of mutual respect for the opportunity to be attentive to the words on the page as mind and heart and spirit process and appropriate.

Thank you for using earbuds, for silencing computers, for keeping conversations brief or moving them outside, upstairs, or in the lobby.

Thank you for mutual respect to compose and sustain a sanctuary. At a party recently, I met a physician who said after trying many libraries in frustration, he now studies here on weekends because it is one of the last outposts of quiet.

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Thank you parents, for being so thoughtful, when you bring your children, to have what they need to engage them. As a

parent of four, I bow to you in honor of how quiet and respectful your children are and how you are juggling studies, work, and the inestimable responsibility of being mother and father and friend.

Thank you for looking out for one another against laptop thieves.

Thank you heroes named and unnamed who helped create and design an environmentally saavy building, who spent long hours at city meetings to attain zoning and work permits.

Thank you Board of Trustees for your commitment to support the hard-working administrators and staff who give their all to make this place exceed its resources.

Thank you donors for giving money to build and continue to maintain and improve this beautiful facility.

Thank you to foundations like the Luce Foundation that gave the Brehm Center money to purchase rows of art history books that make L2 the home of the top three finest art and theology collections of all universities in the country.

angels to protect those who risk their lives to get an education and those who risk to teach freedom of thought. Please help us here to hone our critical skills that our minds would be renewed to discern how to contribute to the world with vision.

Thank you for the privilege to have freedom and access to come and borrow books and study in beauty and safety.

Thank you to all those who will leave their books, share their art, and give resources to keep this library growing and equipped so that we can write, teach, minister and keep the gift moving.

Thank you for all good gifts.

Thank you to those like Fred Davison who built the gallery wall and installed the lights during his own time so that we could see art when we walk in.

Thank you that you desire that we take the knowledge here and live and serve wisely with abundant love here in this library and beyond.

Thank you to our Orthodox brothers and sisters when they entrusted Bill Dyrness and us with their precious icons, images of Holy members of the Communion of Saints.

Thank you Author of the Book of Life for sending fleets of

Thank you Giver of all good gifts, thank you for becoming human, the Word Incarnate so that your Holy Spirit within us testifies to life.

Leah Buturain Schneider is the Brehm Scholar of Theology and Culture at the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts. Leah brings to her interdisciplinary work in theology and the arts a keen and poetic desire to meet, greet, and give thanks to God for the beauty in others, in creation, and in the material world. She is currently composing her dissertation proposal involving mid-fifteenth century devotional praxis and altarpieces of the annunciation.

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