VDS Voices

A reflection from our dean, Emilie M. Townes Guilty on all three counts. These three counts can be—and hopefully will—be positive steps to not only police reform but to our very broken criminal justice system where the scales of justice are not blind but often tilted against the poor,… Read More

Emilie M. Townes Spring Faculty Assembly Presentation Delivered 1 April 2021 download a PDF of this presentation with its original formatting.   perhaps you are familiar with this childhood chant: sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me i remember my… Read More

  by Emilie M. Townes, Dean and Distinguished Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society Hearts and souls reach out to the Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities in Atlanta and beyond.  The senseless deaths of eight people, six of them Asian women, joins the list of massacres that are… Read More

To the Vanderbilt Divinity School community, In the wake of Tuesday’s murders of Asian American persons in Atlanta and amidst a disturbing nationwide trend of violence, discrimination, and xenophobia directed against the Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander community, the Vanderbilt Divinity School Student Government Association declares our solidarity… Read More

  A monthly reflection from Emilie M. Townes, Vanderbilt Divinity School dean. Our family has been dealing with the deaths of three of our elders over a five-month period in the last months of 2020.  Their passing would have been hard without a pandemic raging around us, but the… Read More

Maker of all things, In a season when we long for touch, presence, connection, we remember our place in the vastness of creation. As we enter a season of 40 days of spiritual preparation, we confess the habits of oppression often come more easily than the practices of sharing resources… Read More

Image: Glitter Ashes in a small terra cotta dish. They are on a woven blanket of rainbow colors in the sun. There are candles and other bowls in the background. Provided by the Rev. Lyndsey Godwin. Read a blessing for the imposition of ashes >> An Ash Wednesday reflection… Read More

Dean’s message from the January 2021 Spire e-newsletter It begins with a country being formed by taking the land of others because darker-skinned people were (and are still) judged as less than lighter-skinned people.  This founding kernel of our country has grown over the years and has emerged at… Read More

Chicago artist Mac Blackout’s new mural encouraging Americans to get out and vote in the upcoming election. Guest post by Emilie M. Townes, Dean and Distinguished Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society. This reflection originally appeared in the November 3, 2020  “Spire”electronic newsletter. Growing up in the liberal segregated south of Durham,… Read More

Saturday 26 Sept  / 8 Tishrei When a Bird Crashed Into My Window on a Pre-Yom-Kippur Jewish Meditation Virtual Retreat It was yoga time The instructor was guiding us from downward dog to cobra, when I heard a loud thunk. My mind began to race. I noticed it racing… Read More