"'I just feel better after making art!' This is the sentiment that was expressed by my housemates and I as we walked home one night after a CSTM Theology Arts Collective workshop. It is a statement that has rung true for me during the entirety of my first year at the CSTM. Engaging with art through CSTM Theology Arts Collective has helped me remain connected to the passions that have always been an integral part of my life. Whether it's painting, writing short stories, playing improv games, or performing Shakespeare, Theology Arts Collective is a space for connecting the theology we learn with the art we make, recognizing how the two are intertwined. It has given me creative space to slow down and engage in grounding artistic practices with no pressure that I be any good at it. I believe it is an invitation to do art with the freedom God intends for us.
I have also been able to engage with the arts by dancing with BC Full Swing, the student-run swing dance group. Meeting every Sunday to forget about homework and dance for two hours has been an important part of remembering the ways that God calls me to care for myself.
Engaging with art is a vital, joy-sustaining part of my life here in Boston. It keeps me connected to my scribbling inner child, and rooted in the reality that God calls me to more than just the books. God calls me to engage with the creative reality all around me."
-Grace Gasper, M.Div. '27
"During my previous graduate studies, I wrote two short musicals. The first one was very much a learning experience, but I was quite proud of the second, and it was performed by the MIT Gilbert and Sullivan Players in 2014. I could even trace how that production fits into the journey that has brought me to the CSTM today. Last year, I gathered with CSTM and MIT friends for a 10th anniversary singthrough. That was meant to give me incentive to work on the third, which is in the planning stages, but I don’t get much focused time to give it the attention it needs.
Lately I’ve been working on a film script: not for production, but for my own enjoyment as a new genre of creative writing. It’s been fascinating how much of my spiritual life has found its way into the script. Someone who knows me well could identify all sorts of reflections of my personality, my experiences and my understanding of my relationship with God. I think this flows from a development in how I find God’s relationship with us most clearly expressed. So much of what we study at CSTM is propositional: ideas about God and about how the Church can carry on its mission. But in my studies in physics and other experiences in my life, I think I’ve had plenty of exposure to ideas and concepts. Now I discover more about God in narrative: my life and the lives of those I’m privileged to witness. Some of my favorite writing this semester has been not in essays but in short cases for our practical courses in spiritual direction and the sacrament of penance: how do I imagine people recognizing God’s presence in their experiences and their responses?"
-Matthew Pinson, S.J., M.Div. '25, S.T.L. '26