From splintered lives to whole persons

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Religious Education Vol. 97 No. 2 Spring 2002
DOI: 10.1080/00344080290060923
FROM SPLINTERED LIVES TO WHOLE PERSONS:
FACILITATING SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT IN
COLLEGE STUDENTS
David M. Hindman
Wesley Foundation
Abstract
College provides students opportunities to examine and rethink
spirituality, values, and faith. Spirituality is defined as a dynamic
expression of who we are, truly. Students’ spiritual development can
be assisted as faculty and staff acknowledge what is personally sa-
cred and valuable; institutions commit to assisting in such develop-
ment; communities strive for consistency in mission, goals, and
actions; time and space are provided for reflection and growth; genu-
ine care is expressed; service opportunities are offered; living mod-
els and images of the spirited life are shared; and faculty and staff
attend to their own spiritual development through living together
as a spirited community.
Recently my family and I entered the local ice cream store to buy
a cool treat on a hot day. As a young woman took our order, a look of
dawning recognition broke across her face. “I know you! You came to
my residence hall last year and did a program on spirituality. It was
great! I wish we had more opportunities for those kind of conversa-
tions, and to develop that kind of intimacy with others. That’s a real
lack in our college education.”
With regularity, residence hall assistants will contact a campus
minister at The College of William and Mary to request such a pro-
gram on “spirituality.” Four questions are used as a framework for
building conversation among students about this topic: Who are you?
Who do you want to be? What do you do? What are your deepest
hungers? Provided with paper, pencil, quiet, time, and music to drown
out other background noises, the responses are sometimes quite pro-
found and honest. They are windows onto the personal spirituality of
the participants.

2. 166 FROM SPLINTERED LIVES TO WHOLE PERSONS
Young adulthood is a fertile time for attending to one’s spiritual-
ity. College can be the catalyst for intense growth, reflection, and ex-
ploration. Such exploration can be both liberating and disconcerting.
Two images illustrate this.
The first image emerges from a story told by a Catholic campus
minister about leaving home for college. He was on an ocean liner
sailing for Rome. Aboard the ship, he held one end of a paper streamer.
He tossed the other end to his mother, who was standing in the crowd
on the dock. As the ship began to pull away on its voyage, the paper
streamer grew taut, stretched, and broke. It was an electric, exhilarat-
ing, and terrifying moment. In his hand he still held a visible reminder
of his ties to family, memories, values, and commitments. But he was
also heading toward the open sea, freedom, and a new place of un-
known mystery and adventure.
The second image comes from a national morning news program’s
report about students beginning college. It began with this descrip-
tion, “Going to college is like moving to a new planet, but a planet
with no gravity.” Students leave the safety of home to begin the ad-
venture of college, but suddenly find themselves in a world where
everything seems free floating. How will they find their bearings, bal-
ance, and direction? The navigational skills which made the journey
possible elsewhere may still work in this new environment, or they
may not. It is a time of reassessment, instability, fear, excitement, ex-
perimentation, adjustment, risk. College is a time for testing the spir-
its, and having one’s own spirit tested.
Going to college might be described as an experience of liminality.
In some cultures children of a certain age are suddenly taken from
the safe, familiar environment of home and village, and delivered to
an unknown and potentially hostile location. There they learn the rights
and responsibilities of adulthood. This liminal time is dangerous, full
of potential, possibility, and risk. It is a time for learning and letting
go, for leaving behind childhood’s identity and entering adulthood.
Those who participate in this crucial and formative experience return
to the village as new people. Those who work with students on cam-
pus, and those at home who try to figure out who this stranger is who
has taken up temporary residence once more for winter break, can
attest to the validity of the statement that college is such a liminal
time for many young adults.
Scholars interested in the sturm und drang of young adulthood
have sought to map out this unfamiliar territory for us. Erik Erikson

3. 167DAVID M. HINDMAN
(1963) suggests that young adulthood is the time for engaging in the
life crisis of intimacy versus isolation; nevertheless these years are also
an opportunity to continue to deal with adolescence’s battle between
identity and identity diffusion, and to take first steps toward a life of
generativity and not stagnation. William Perry’s (1968) examination of
how college students change through the college years tracks a path
in cognitive and moral development in which students move from
authority-based morality, to relativism, and finally to personal com-
mitment in the midst of a world of relativism. Persons interested in
how faith develops in young adults also report a pattern of movement
and change, describing transitions from mythic-literal to synthetic/
conventional to individuative/reflective faith (Fowler 1981) or from
affiliative to searching to owned faith (Westerhoff 1976); or from per-
sonalized to established to reordered faith (Gillespie 1988). Sharon
Deloz Parks (1986) contends that as young adults develop in their
faith and spirituality, they need images and models of mature, respon-
sible, admirable adults to imitate and incorporate into their own adult-
hood. All agree that young adults need advocates, guarantors, resource
people, reflective counselors to accompany them on the faith journey,
to help them survive, and to find their way as they leave behind child-
hood in order to become adults. They need wise friends and mentors
who, in this liminal transition to adulthood, can make the strange sud-
denly seem familiar, and the familiar suddenly seem strange. While
Tom Beaudoin’s (1998) writing on the spirituality of Generation X is
different from the above mentioned works in its highly subjective and
personal nature, he contends that this generation has spiritual hunger
and depth, and that humble adults can participate in assisting its fur-
ther development and growth. In the spirituality of young adults,
Beaudoin argues that organized religion and other institutions are
suspect, personal experience has its own intrinsic validity and truth-
fulness, suffering has a religious dimension, and ambiguity is not to
be feared. Instead of being problems or liabilities, persons in religious
communities can draw on resources available in their heritage which
can build upon these characteristics and offer a oasis of hospitality for
young adults seeking a deeper life of the spirit.
Spirituality is one component of faith development. It is one di-
mension of how one lives faithfully in the world. Spirituality is a word
frequently used these days, but rarely defined. Paul Johnson describes
spirituality as a component of a faith stance. Spirituality is

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. . . how I live at the center of who I am. I live at a center with an image of
who I am, how I am embodied and in touch with the concrete, and with
work, a career, and a calling. I have an individual family history, and I can
draw upon my religious heritage. I stand in a particular social class from
which I look at the world, and I do not see as others see from other social
classes. I do not stand alone, but interact with others and am a part of
several different communities. I feel strange toward, or unfamiliar with, or
am a companion with frailty and death. My spirituality is the way I live at
my center and connect within myself these factors in my life. There are
times when I need to shift my center, or realign it, allow the connections to
loosen or break and be redrawn. (1983, 252)
A second definition of spirituality is offered by Joan Chittister when
she writes
Spirituality is more than church-going (sic). It is possible to go to church
(sic) and never develop a spirituality at all. Spirituality is the way in which
we express a living faith in a real world. Spirituality is the sum total of the
attitudes and actions that define our life of faith. (1990, 4f)
Finally, James W. Jones presents his understanding of spirituality
by writing
What gives meaning to our life is being connected to something beyond
our own ego. This is essentially a spiritual experience. Although there is
plenty of talk in this culture about religion, most people tend to restrict
religion to sabbath celebrations or an occasional holiday. Finding our life’s
meaning and purpose may appear to have little to do with creeds, rituals,
or commandments. We therefore fail to see that the search for deeper
connections, which echoes through our most intimate personal struggles,
is essentially a spiritual quest. The experience of connection to a greater
reality that gives us meaning and purpose is the core of what I mean by
spirituality . . . Spirituality means tuning the spirit within us to its source.
(1995, 2, 25)
In other words our spirituality is a dynamic expression of who we
are, truly. It gives shape to, and is shaped by who we really are at our
deepest levels. “It is what we are and how we do what we do that is the
mark of the spiritual life” (Chittister 1990, 164). There is also a rela-
tional dimension to spirituality. At its best, the spiritual life is life lived
with consciousness, attentiveness, alertness, and awareness. It can be
enriched or hampered by the relationships that comprise our life.
This understanding of spirituality carries with it the possibility that
not all spiritualities are the same, or even beneficial. An individual

5. 169DAVID M. HINDMAN
could exhibit a spirituality grounded on race, gender, selfishness, ma-
terial acquisition, or cultural superiority. One’s spirituality could also
be affected by traumas such as war, neglect and deprivation, or sexual
exploitation. Not all spirits are of God; nor does every spirituality en-
hance life for self or others.
In Hebrew, ruach has multiple definitions, including breath, wind,
spirit; in Greek pneuma may be defined as wind, breath, life, soul, or
an energizing dynamic force, including the power to influence or af-
fect relationships. Thus, in both Hebrew and Christian scriptures, spirit
has to do with that which enables and brings life. In light of these
meanings, spirituality may also address such questions as these: If our
spirituality is “the wind beneath our wings,” what lifts and energizes
us? If it is a dynamic, forceful energy, what drives and empowers us?
If it is soul or life or breath, what enlivens us and is essential to us? In
answering these questions we discern that which brings us life, whole-
ness, and integrity. To live the answers to these questions is to become
more than mere forms of life, but living realities. To borrow language
from the children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit, spirituality can be that
which enables us to become real.
In one scene in the film Dances with Wolves, the tribe’s medicine
man tells Kevin Costner’s character, “There are many paths people
may choose. I believe you are on the path to becoming a real human
being.” In the residence hall program on spirituality described above,
students are invited to reflect and respond to these questions: What
helps you to feed your deepest hungers? What hinders you? What
helps or hinders you from doing or being at your best? What factors
help keep you on the path, and which ones can lead you astray? In
other words, they are asked to consider what aids or abets their spiri-
tual quest to become real and fully alive.
In order to renew our spirits and attend to our spirituality, we
need love, intimacy, and trust. In the language of Parker Palmer (1983),
we need truth, that is, commitment to truth, to the other, whether the
other is a colleague or a student. To borrow Martin Buber’s (1970)
phrase, we need I–thou relationships in which we see one another as
subjects, or persons to be encountered, and not as objects or things to
be manipulated or used.
Students come to college with a desire to examine, explore, re-
think. They want to find their bearings, to delve into issues of spiritu-
ality, values, faith and commitments. Many desire to integrate beliefs,
values, and lives. In recent years the Chronicle of Higher Education

6. 170 FROM SPLINTERED LIVES TO WHOLE PERSONS
has published each month a “Top 10” list of what students are read-
ing. The list often includes writings that to some degree address ques-
tions of good and evil, the meaning of existence, or spiritual growth,
such as Memnoch the Devil, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Don’t Sweat
the Small Stuff—And Its All Small Stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the
Little Things From Taking Over Your Life, and The Meaning of It All:
Thoughts of A Citizen Scientist. The January 13, 1995 issue reported
a survey of entering students, indicating that 16.6% planned to be
active in religious life, which was more than those who planned to join
a Greek organization (This Year’s College Freshman 1995, A30–31).
More recently, 18.9% of entering students planned to volunteer or do
some form of community work. Although a significant percentage of
entering students have no religious preference (14.5%), most students
come to college with at least nominal religious affiliation (more than
45% are either Roman Catholic or Baptist). Perhaps the percentage
expressing no preference includes disaffected or non-religious per-
sons, and is an indication of our culture’s increasing secularity. It also
may include those who perceive themselves to be religious/spiritual
but antiinstitutional, or persons who have no loyalty to a particular
denomination.
Nevertheless, regardless of background, many students are search-
ing for more than a job, career, or money. As goals in life, 40.9% wanted
to develop a meaningful philosophy of life, 36.4% wanted to influence
societal values; and 59.9% wanted to help others in need (This Year’s
College Freshman 1999, A48–49). In another study, 63% of the en-
tering students indicated that one reason they went to college was to
formulate values and life goals (Boyer 1987, 67), and 81% of students
reportedly wanted help in clarifying beliefs and values (44). Should
we then be surprised that at least some students feel cheated, frus-
trated, and robbed if all they get in college is objective and imper-
sonal lectures, grades, career skills, GPA, hours accumulated toward
graduation?
An essay by Robert Coles in the September 22, 1995 issue of the
Chronicle of Higher Education tells of a student who arrived at Harvard
with a midwestern, working class background. She was working her
way through college by cleaning rooms for fellow students, encoun-
tering students who forgot (or never learned) the meaning of “please”
or “thank you.” No matter how high their SAT scores, she met stu-
dents who did not hesitate to be rude, even crude, to her. The student
reached the breaking point when she was overtly propositioned for

7. 171DAVID M. HINDMAN
sex by a male she knew to be a bright, successful pre-med student and
an accomplished journalist. To Coles she said
That guy gets all A’s. He’s in the top academic category. I’ve taken two
moral-reasoning courses with him and I’m sure he’s gotten A’s in both of
them. And look at how he behaves with me, and I’m sure with others. I’ve
been taking all these philosophy courses, and we talk about what’s true,
what’s important, what’s good. Well, how do you teach people to be good?
What’s the point of knowing good, if you don’t keep trying to become a
good person? (A68)
Coles writes that the young woman left Harvard. His philosophi-
cal sparring with her in his office that day did not change her belief
that Harvard was fancy yet phoney.
But he was changed by the encounter. Recognizing that attempts
had to be made to bridge the chasm between behavior and intellec-
tual assent to certain principles, Coles imagined that community ser-
vice enriched by classroom learning and discussion might be useful.
He began to ask students to write papers about particular efforts they
were making to practice the noble thoughts they discussed in class.
He knew it was a small step, with small victories now and then. But
Coles remembers one student who wrote, “I thanked someone serv-
ing me food in the college cafeteria, then we got to talking, the first
time.” That was a decisive break with that student’s previous indiffer-
ence to those she regarded abstractly as “people who work on the
serving line.” In the encounter she had learned something about
another’s life and had tried to show respect for that life.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think
critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the great-
est menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the person
gifted with reason, but no morals. We must remember that intelligence is
not enough. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true educa-
tion. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration
but worthy objects upon which to concentrate. We must work passionately
and indefatigably to bridge the gulf between our scientific progress and
our moral (spiritual) progress. One of the great problems of humanity is
that we suffer from a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast
to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become
materially the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. (1983, 41,
67)

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Will Willimon and others have suggested that unfortunately, while
we may value such a grand vision of education, colleges and universi-
ties too often do not provide the means to actualize it. In The Aban-
doned Generation: Rethinking Higher Education, coauthors Willimon
and Thomas Naylor (1995, 6) write, “College students suffer from a
more fundamental malaise than alcohol and drug abuse. Their lives
are meaningless.” They suggest that students abuse themselves, oth-
ers, alcohol, and other substances because they receive inadequate
parenting and experience separation, alienation, economic uncertainty,
and meaninglessness. They have been abandoned by parents and other
elders to fend for themselves. In addition, higher education has aban-
doned the moral, character-related aspects of their education, believ-
ing that it is possible to have a college without having an opinion about
what sort of people ought to be produced by that institution.
Thomas Buford (1995) suggests in In Search of a Calling: The
College’s Role in Shaping Identity that students come to college want-
ing to learn skills necessary for career and job, but they want more.
They also want to attend to beliefs and values; to become more ethi-
cal; to make a difference in society; and to gain a better sense of who
they are, and what they are to do and to be. But their lives have be-
come splintered and fragmented into separate and seemingly unre-
lated parts: academic and social life, job and family, producing and
being.
“Splintered lives” is a powerful and troubling image for the lives
of students. Splinters are dead and lifeless. They are the residue of
what once was vital and vibrant. They are also painful. Buford argues
that to bring wholeness and integrity to splintered lives, several things
must come together. Students must have an image of a whole life.
They must be able to see that image take shape in a real human being,
such as faculty or staff. They must have the opportunity to imagine
possibilities for who they may become, given the talents and gifts they
possess. They must be able to see themselves as having a place in a
larger story which gives meaning and shape to life. To find wholeness
in life, or to discover who they are and what they are to do and to be,
students must learn to be committed to reason, justice, love, compas-
sion, the larger community, and respect for life. Such character for-
mation occurs in the context of the community in which students
discern their identity and assess honestly their personal lives, skills,
and experiences.
Such a journey from splintered lives to wholeness is a spiritual

9. 173DAVID M. HINDMAN
quest. Faculty, staff, and campus ministers have some responsibility
in aiding, shaping, and guiding that journey for the novice adults we
work with in higher education. Sondra Higgins Matthaei (1996) con-
tends that adults play a significant role in the faith and spiritual devel-
opment of the young. More experienced adults can mentor the young
toward faith and spiritual maturity by performing the roles of guide,
model, guarantor, and mediator. A 1998 survey of first year students
in college suggests that they have an extraordinary amount of trust in
the moral integrity and honesty of adults. Nearly 80% have a lot of
trust in the grandparents’ generation and nearly 70% have that same
high level of trust for their parents’ generation (Krane and Cottreau
1998, 3). This is an extraordinary amount of capital that can be in-
vested wisely in the spiritual and moral development of young adults.
But how does that take place in a university setting?
Some clues may be found in three monastic tales told by Joan
Chittister in Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St.
Benedict Today. The first involves a teacher and a traveler.
One day a traveler begged the Teacher for a word of wisdom that
would guide the rest of the journey.
The Teacher nodded affably and though it was the day of silence took
a sheet of paper and wrote on it a single word, “Awareness.”
“Awareness?” the traveler said, perplexed. “That’s far too brief. Couldn’t
you expand on that a bit?”
So the Teacher took the paper back and wrote: “Awareness, aware-
ness, awareness.” “But what do these words mean?” the traveler insisted.
Finally the Teacher reached for the paper and wrote, clearly and firmly,
“Awareness, awareness, awareness means . . . Awareness!” (68)
Spiritual maturity reflects an attitude of acute awareness of the
sacred in life. To assist in the spiritual development of students, we
ourselves must be aware of what is sacred and valuable in our own
lives. By modeling such things in our own lives, we can help students
to be attentive to how they spend their time, to differentiate between
wants and true needs, and to treat the world (and one another) with
respect and reverence.
Here is another illuminating tale from the monastics.
Once upon a time . . . the Elder said to the businessperson:
“As the fish perishes on dry land, so you perish when you get en-
tangled in the world. The fish must return to the water and you must re-
turn to the Spirit.”

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And the businessperson was aghast. “Are you saying I must give up
my business and go into a monastery?” the person asked.
And the Elder said, “Definitely not. I am telling you to hold on to
your business and go into your heart.” (13)
Those who wish to assist in developing the spirituality of students
will enable them to pay a visit on themselves in order to explore deeply
who they are and their sense of self and vocation. They will also pro-
vide occasions for students to have space and time to go deeply into
the meaning of their relationships, their values, and commitments. As
in the hall program described above, students need venues for identi-
fying their true hungers, hurts, and hopes.
The third story goes like this:
“Where shall I look for Enlightenment?” the disciple asked.
“Here,” the elder said.
“When will it happen?” the disciple wanted to know.
“It’s happening right now,” the elder said.
“Then why don’t I experience it?” the disciple asked.
And the elder answered, “Because you do not look.”
“But what should I look for?” the disciple wanted to know.
And the elder smiled and answered, “Nothing. Just look.”
“But at what?” the disciple insisted.
“Anything your eyes alight upon,” the elder continued.
“Well, then, must I look in a special kind of way?” the disciple said.
“No,” the elder said.
“Why ever not?” the disciple persisted.
And the elder said quietly, “Because to look you must be here. The prob-
lem is that you are mostly somewhere else.” (201)
Development in spirituality occurs as students are helped to deepen
their awareness of the sanctity of their own lives in the here and now.
Spiritual growth happens as they explore who they are and what they do
as true expressions of spirit, values, and commitment. Spiritual matu-
rity brings together the fragmented, splintered aspects of life to ad-
dress questions of who I am and what I am to know, to do, and to be.
What follows are specific suggestions for how students can be as-
sisted in their quest for spiritual growth during their college years.
Neither exhaustive nor guaranteed to succeed, these proposals offer a
variety of settings for such development to occur. They also challenge
professionals and institutions to be attentive to their own spirituality,
values, and commitments.
It should also be noted that these suggestions are broad and gen-

11. 175DAVID M. HINDMAN
eral, and not specific to particular religious traditions. I would con-
tend that the optimum environment for spiritual development is to
participate in a particular religious community, experience its unique
communal life, critically engage with its sacred texts and traditions,
and live in its social construction of reality. What is presented here is
supplemental and secondary to the spiritual development that can
happen in church, mosque, or temple. It is not to replace particular
practices of religious groups, and is addressed broadly to faculty and
staff. Clergy, other religious leadership, and faculty and staff at home
in a specific religious tradition would agree with many of the sugges-
tions listed here, but probably would develop programs and approaches
with greater specificity designed to facilitate the spiritual develop-
ment and formation of persons in a particular tradition.
One crucial, yet oftentimes neglected, component in helping stu-
dents to develop their spirituality is an explicit, overt, public commit-
ment from the institution itself to assist students in acquiring a
particular set of values and attitudes about themselves and the larger
community. Will Willimon and Thomas Naylor write that when one of
them began their undergraduate studies, the president of that institu-
tion welcomed them with these words:
You are among the best students ever to matriculate at Wofford College.
You have the best high school records of any class before you. We are
proud to have you as our students.
Yet because most of you come from South Carolina, that means that
most of you happen also to be racist. Your racial attitudes are mostly a
matter of your history, your culture, the notions handed down to you by
your parents. This college hopes to change that about you through your
studies here. We hope to make you into the sort of people who will be able
to know, from your education here, the errors of such opinions as racial
superiority. It will take us about four years to do this. And though we may
not succeed in changing all of you, we hope to change enough of you to
make a difference in our state in the future. (1995, 70f)
As with the rest of education, the spiritual development of stu-
dents requires intentionality and consistency of aim. Unfortunately,
colleges and universities can send mixed messages which are confus-
ing and contradictory. When an institution laments its undergradu-
ates’ abuse of alcohol, and then gushes with gratitude upon receipt of
$900,000 from a brewery to build an athletic facility bearing the
brewery’s name, will students hear clearly the institution’s alcohol
policy? When an institution of higher learning expresses commitment

12. 176 FROM SPLINTERED LIVES TO WHOLE PERSONS
to diversity and inclusivity, but its board of trustees is predominantly
older White men, is its commitment credible?
The spiritual development of students can be enhanced as they
live in a community committed to consistency of moral purpose and
action. When a college or university publicly commits itself to the task
of transforming itself and its constituency into those who are dedi-
cated to justice, compassion, reason, and respect for life and others,
and makes it a priority to help students develop some sense of who
they are and what they are to be and to do, faculty and staff have
sanction to assist in realizing these goals. When an institution makes it
a priority for its community not only to know the good but to do it,
attention to values and morals are no longer extracurricular, optional
aspects of a student’s life. They become central components of the life
and mission of the institution.
In a similar fashion, organizations and groups affiliated with the
institution can assist in the spiritual development of students by pub-
licly committing themselves to work toward those same goals. Once a
college or university has established its mission and priorities, it is
reasonable for it to ask clubs, fraternities and sororities, and other
campus organizations to identify concrete ways they will embody those
goals and priorities. For example, if a college is committed to racial
inclusivity, how will this goal be addressed by various student organi-
zations? What help will they need from the institution? What barriers
will have to be removed? How will they be addressed? David Hoekema
(1990, 177–93) has suggested that once an institution has identified
its priorities, groups on campus should assist in realizing them, or
should not receive institutional sanction or funding. Student organi-
zations could continue to exist without striving to address the goals of
becoming individuals and a community of self-awareness, justice, com-
passion, reason, and respect; but they would not have access to the
resources of the institution to implement their goals and priorities,
and the burden of proof for the value of their existence as an organi-
zation would lie with their members.
The possibility for the spiritual development of students is en-
hanced as time and space for reflection and dialogue is intentionally
provided. Will Willimon and Tom Naylor (1995, 93) suggest that stu-
dents need wise friends who can help them become initiated into the
world of adulthood. Students are novices who need assistance, guid-
ance, friendship from those who have been on the path longer and
who know where some of the dangerous pitfalls are. Such occasions

13. 177DAVID M. HINDMAN
are limited if students are shut off from their elders, or if faculty, staff,
and local citizens do not make themselves available for such reflec-
tion and friendship. Nevertheless, students are hungry for such inter-
action.
Recently two students came to visit, clearly searching for guid-
ance. They presented the details of a situation and concluded, “We do
not want you to tell us what to do; we will decide the best approach to
take and live with the consequences of our actions. But we are young
and know that there are more options for action than we have consid-
ered. Because you are older and have a wider range of experiences,
we want to talk to you and to see if there are other possible directions
to take, and to get your help as we think and weigh our options care-
fully.” What these students wanted was not for someone else to tell
them what to do; they wanted wise friendship, and respectful trust
that they could act appropriately as adults.
As a component of our wise friendship, one of the things we can
do is to tell our students that we love them. Oftentimes students are
affirmed for their intellectual acumen, their physical prowess, or their
leadership potential. We easily affirm their gifts and graces of mind
and body. But do they know we care for them? No doubt caution
should be used in how one communicates such a feeling for students,
lest the message be misunderstood. Nevertheless, wise people can
find appropriate ways to convey the message, “I cherish you as a per-
son. You are a valuable, unique, precious work of art. I am committed
to you. I love and value you enough to offer you help and advice if you
want it, to listen fully to you, to be there for you, to challenge and
confront you, not always to agree with you, and to hold you account-
able for your words and actions. I do this so you may grow into a wise
and mature adult. I do this because your life matters to me, and I
want the best for you. I hope these commitments helps you to under-
stand how much I care for you.”
Space and time for such friendships to develop, and for dialogue
and reflection to take place, can be made available in a variety of ways.
Faculty and staff could be expected to have a certain number of hours
available each week for talking with students. They could join stu-
dents for lunch or invite small groups into their homes. Such interac-
tion with students could be considered an appropriate expression of
service to the community when faculty apply for tenure. Listening
Posts, attractive meeting places where community members can
munch on peanuts or popcorn as they informally visit and chat with

14. 178 FROM SPLINTERED LIVES TO WHOLE PERSONS
trained listeners, can be set up at highly visible locations with fre-
quent hours of operation. The Native American tradition of gathering
the community and allowing whoever has the talking stick to be heard
respectfully could be introduced to small groups of students, as a way
of enabling them to share hopes and dreams, hurts and hopes. Fac-
ulty could utilize the Praxis program as a resource for meeting class
requirements. In Praxis, students volunteer 20 hours in an appropri-
ate, course-related community agency. They also meet twice during
the semester with a trained facilitator to reflect on what their volun-
teer experience has taught them about themselves, vocation, values,
and life. Men’s or women’s groups, annual gatherings for students at
each stage of their academic journey (frosh, sophomores, juniors, se-
niors), faith-based small groups, or hall programs such as the one de-
scribed above, could provide students with time and space to reflect
on what is going on in their lives, what is happening to them, and how
they are developing as persons with values, commitments, and spirit.
Of course, students must be given opportunities not only to think,
reflect, and dialogue. They will have a greater likelihood of becoming
persons of spirit if they are given opportunities to act consistently with
their thoughts. Service to one another and to the larger community
allows students not only to think about justice, compassion, respect
for life and other, but to act on their commitments to these virtues.
Spiritual growth and development may happen as students give their
time and energy to tutor a child, repair a home, prepare and serve a
meal to a homeless person, dance with a retarded person, or sit by the
bed of a dying woman. Such opportunities for growth of spirit are
strengthened when students find themselves working alongside fac-
ulty and staff who also act on the values they profess, and are afforded
opportunities to ponder what effect such deeds have on them.
The spiritual development of students is enhanced when they are
provided models and images of the spirited life. Through dramatic
performances, film discussions, and lectures, students can be intro-
duced to heroic persons who exemplify self-awareness and commit-
ments to compassion, justice, reason, and respect for persons and
creation. In classroom instruction, attention can be given not only to
what people did, but to the persons behind the actions and events.
Students can examine the values, motives, commitments of persons
past and present, and reflect on which values they want to incorpo-
rate into their lives and what kind of persons they wish to become.
Faculty and staff can also share, in and out of class or office, their

15. 179DAVID M. HINDMAN
values, beliefs, visions, values, and life stories, thus making themselves
accessible as mentors or wise friends. In addition, they can recognize
the essential importance of students being given permission and power
to share their own stories, values, and beliefs in a context of both criti-
cal reflection and friendship.
Of course this requires faculty and staff to be on their own spiri-
tual journeys. If assistance is to be offered to students in their spiri-
tual development, attentiveness to, and awareness of one’s own spiritual
development is crucial. Perhaps the five tenets of Islam can be in-
structive here. Those tenets include pilgrimage to Mecca, fasting, alms
giving, daily prayer, and confession of core truths (“There is no God
but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet”). Faculty and staff, and the
students they seek to assist, not only need to know their sacred spaces
and “holy ground”; they must make pilgrimage sometimes and go there
for renewal and remembrance. Such space may be Athens or Jerusa-
lem or Medina; or it may be a particular building on campus, a special
space at the ancestral home, a certain street where reflection and quiet
are the only companions, or the coffee shop where a life-changing
conversation occurred. Wherever those sacred places may be, growth
in spiritual lives needs knowledge of, and return to them. Fasting from
busyness can provide such open spaces, but other forms of fasting can
also foster spiritual development. Fasting from food will inform us
quickly where lie our personal weaknesses, shortcomings, and vulner-
abilities; fasting from unnecessary words or destructive criticism can
bring discipline to one’s own life and possible blessing to others.
Almsgiving may take many forms of generosity, such as giving time to
write a letter of conscience for a political prisoner, giving oneself to
community service, or contributing financially to a scholarship for
marginalized students. Quiet time for reflection, solitude, and/or prayer
must be a regular part of daily life. Somehow we must be invited to it,
whether by a voice within or without, or by a daily schedule that in-
cludes open periods for such activity. Lastly, one’s affirmation of faith
can include not only the tenets of a faith community, but also declar-
ing publicly and faithfully one’s own deepest personal values, priori-
ties, and commitments.
Most religious communities also have sacred texts, rituals, times,
and gatherings. Faculty and staff who know their own sacred texts
(whether from the Bible, the Koran, Confucius, Robert Fulghum,
Maya Angelou, or Emily Dickenson), life-giving and life-defining ritu-
als, times, and gatherings (whether they have evolved from personal

16. 180 FROM SPLINTERED LIVES TO WHOLE PERSONS
experience or from religious communities), can exemplify for students
the value of discovering and incorporating such things in their own
lives. In the same way, institutions of higher learning have such texts,
rituals, times and gatherings. To further the growth and development
of their students’ spirits and lives, universities can tell their institu-
tional stories of triumph and tragedy, celebrate and communicate to
the present generation the importance of their rituals, name their sa-
cred times, and gather regularly to remember who they are, to name
their hopes, and to commit themselves afresh to become the commu-
nity they envision.
Finally models and images of the spirited life can be presented to
students as faculty and staff live themselves as a spirited community.
Colleagues also need to see and hear that they are loved, and that
there is a commitment to one another transcending professional asso-
ciation. Faculty and staff need opportunities not only to deal with
institutional issues such as budget and staffing, but to be together to
share friendship, stories, intimacy, values and commitments, joys and
sorrows. If students are to learn the virtues of compassion, respect,
justice, reason, and self-knowledge, they will benefit from seeing such
virtues embodied in how faculty and staff live and work together. What
kind of spiritual understanding would be communicated to students
if, when a near relative of a colleague died, offices or departments ran
on a skeletal staff so everyone else could attend the funeral? What if a
message was posted, “Due to a death in the family of our colleague
and friend, Mary Smith, our staffing is reduced today. We believe it is
important to show our love and care to our friend, and to be with her
in this difficult time. We will also try to meet your present needs, and
appreciate your patience, understanding, and cooperation.” What kind
of spiritual understanding is communicated to students when we don’t
do such things? Do colleges and universities wish to assist students in
becoming spirited humans who know themselves as well as facts and
theories? Do they wish to equip students to know how to make a liv-
ing and how to live compassionate, just, rational, and respectful lives?
If so, it is important for students to see such things embodied in the
lives of the faculty and staff in that setting.
Here is one final monastic tale told by Joan Chittister.
Once upon a time, a preacher ran through the streets of the city shouting,
“We must put God into our lives! We must put God into our lives!” And
hearing him, an old monastic rose up in the city plaza to say, “No, Sir, you

17. 181DAVID M. HINDMAN
are wrong. You see, God is already in our lives. Our task is simply to recog-
nize that. (1990, 206f)
Spirituality is not something we have to add to the curriculum, or
infuse into students’ lives like a missing additive or a diet supplement.
It is already there. The question is what spirit shall be affirmed and
nurtured. The task is to increase awareness, open eyes to see, and
provide ways for our spirited lives to move from being splintered and
painful toward wholeness and joy.
David M. Hindman is the director of the Wesley Foundation, the
United Methodist campus ministry at The College of William and Mary in
Williamsburg, Virginia.
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Submitted: 20 June 1999; accepted 10 June 1999.