Hope Podcast: Featuring Eve Schwartz, MDiv Candidate

In this episode of the Hope Podcast, we hear from Eve Schwartz, a third-year MDiv candidate at HDS. We discuss blending the personal and the academic, building community, and the power of ritual.

Learn more about religion and spiritual life at Harvard Divinity School.

MICHAEL CURTIS FUHRMAN: Welcome to the Hope Podcast, a podcast hosted by the Harvard Divinity School office of Religious and Spiritual Life, where we talk to HDS students about their spiritual lives, what hope means to them, and how they work to cultivate it daily. My name is Michael Fuhrman, one of the chaplain interns in the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life. Today I sat down with third-year MDiv candidate Eve Schwartz. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Eve. 

EVE SCHWARTZ: You're welcome. Happy to be here. 

MICHAEL CURTIS FUHRMAN: We usually just start these by giving you the opportunity to introduce yourself, maybe a little bit of your spiritual autobiography, and would love to hear that story from you. 

EVE SCHWARTZ: Wonderful. So, I'm originally from Clearwater, Florida. I was raised Catholic. My grandmother was very religious. And she was the one who I always say my grandma's the one who showed me Christ from my earliest memories are like walking hand in hand with my grandma into our local church. And just being too little to really know what's going on, it's like the whole Cheerios moment in the pews and the coloring books. 

But she made sure that I was there with her every single weekend. And now in life, I can appreciate that. But in elementary school, there would be like moments where I would just want to go to sleepovers. And she'd be like, no, we have to go to church. And I like didn't understand the value of it back then. But now, those are some of my most special moments in life. So I went through the good old Catholic Catechism, CCD, all throughout elementary school and into middle school. 

In Florida, you get confirmed really early. So, I got confirmed in 8 grade, which is the last year of middle school down there. And that's baptism is when your parents commit you to God and confirmation is said to be like when you yourself can make that choice to commit to God. And by that time, I was super involved in my parish. I was an altar server. I've been an altar server since I was in fourth grade. 

And as the years went on, I really loved it. I loved feeling like I was actually a part of the mass. And really in the action of what was going on, it made me listen better because I had roles that I had to remember when I was up there. I had a part to play. And so that became really, really special for me, and I think allowed me to go deeper into my faith. 

When I was in high school, it was the same thing. I was going to youth group. I was teaching CCD to young kids. I just really loved being there. I had a pretty turbulent home life. And so, church always felt like the one hour of guaranteed, just peace and solace and comfort every week. And I really craved that. I wanted to be there as much as I possibly could. And so I made sure that I was there as much as I possibly could. 

And in my junior and senior year of high school, I really started to get serious about thinking, OK what do I want my college experience to be like? I had just gone to public school. I'd never gone to Catholic school. But again, during that time, my faith was increasingly more important to me. So I knew that if I could make it happen, I wanted to go to a Catholic school for college. 

I knew I wanted to study religion again at like a higher ed level. So, I applied to a bunch of colleges, one of which being Holy Cross in Worcester, which is a Jesuit Institution the Jesuits. My favorite. But I really knew very little about the school. I have family who lives in the Northeast. And I remember going past it onto I-90 all the time, driving from my grandparents to New Hampshire to my great grandparents in Connecticut to visit them. 

And so that's how I knew that the school existed. Because I would always ask my grandpa, what's that beautiful campus? What is that? So that was the introduction of that school into my life. But obviously, as a child, I never thought that I would end up there. So, I ended up applying on a whim and getting in. And I committed without touring the school at all. I was like, this just feels right. I'm finally going to get to go to a Catholic school. And I'm just really excited about that. 

I was super involved in campus ministry. When I was at Holy Cross, I lived in the chaplain's office work, ended up working for one of the Jesuits there, helping him with the RCIA program in my senior year of college. And again, just I really loved having that immediate access to church and chapel spaces. I think that was something I certainly took for granted when I was there of living out religion for me in that way was so easy because I could go to a chapel whenever I want. It was always unlocked. 

And so, if I was having a really hard night and it was 10:30 at night, I could go sit-in the pitch-black chapel and just sit and be with God there. And so my time at Holy Cross was both really, really wonderful. And by the end of it, started to feel a little stifling. I had a situation where, unfortunately, I was abused by a priest. And that rocked my whole world emotionally, spiritually, physically. 

It was a really hard moment. And it was really caused a hard-core paradigm shift for me of, OK, this spiritual home that I had for 20-something years at this point now felt so foreign to me and now felt unsafe. And the one place that was my haven now looked unrecognizable. And it was really hard for me to go sit-in the chapel and to want to continue working campus ministry and all of that stuff. 

Because in my mind, I could not understand how something like that could happen. I was like such a faithful follower, and did everything right, and was so devout. And in my mind, I was like, how could God let this happen? And so by the end of my time at Holy Cross, I always say, like I was praying to a God that I wasn't even sure that I believed in anymore, because I couldn't understand how something like that could happen. 

So that experience certainly informed my decision to come to HDS. I knew that I wanted to continue studying religion. I didn't know what that would look like given this experience. But I knew that I wanted to be in a space that wasn't exclusively Catholic or Christian anymore. I felt like I needed a lot of space to be able to take this next step. 

MICHAEL CURTIS FUHRMAN: Thank you so much for sharing all that in such a way that really connects how the personal and the spiritual and the professional can be so wound up with one another and can often be inseparable. I really appreciate the insight that you gave us into that. And you touched lightly on HDS being the place for you to continue to explore these things, but not necessarily under the banner of Christianity Catholicism. But when you say that you knew you wanted to continue to study religion, could you speak a little bit more on maybe why HDS in the sense that you knew that you were committed to the studies still? 

EVE SCHWARTZ: So, when I was applying to graduate schools, I had found myself writing my college thesis, really focused on trauma studies. Aside from being a religion major, I was also an English major and ended up writing a thesis for the English honors department. And it was looking at the sexual abuse of Black girls and how Black female authors portrayed that. And so taking stock of my four years in undergrad, I realized that even the theology I studied, the liberation theology, the feminist theology, it was so connected and wrapped up in trauma studies. 

And so I think coming to HDS, I knew that I wanted to look at religion through a lens of trauma. I didn't necessarily know what that meant. I really came to HDS on the heels of realizing and grappling with what had happened to me in my own religious tradition. And in a lot of ways, I think that has shaped what I have done here over the last couple of years. I really threw myself into this intellectual and academic study of clerical abuse, and of spiritual abuse, and religious trauma. 

And it started as a project that was really for me. And I don't think I knew it at the time. I was certainly drawn to it because of what had happened to me. But I don't think that I was able to put two and two together of just how much my own story would end up bleeding into the academics. And I started writing all these papers. And I realized how much of my own voice and my own story was in that. And I had never been able to do that before in undergrad. It's taken the eye out like you are writing an academic paper. 

You are to think with your head and not with your heart like that. There was no heart, really. And I came to HDS because I knew that I would be allowed to use my heart. I didn't know that I'd be using it for what I ended up using it for. But I really feel like over the last three years, I have combined the intellectualizing of my experience with the actual raw, vulnerable feeling of the experience itself. 

And I have spent the last three years looking at clerical abuse and really studying the trauma, and the healing, and the journey of spiritual abuse in a way that I didn't think that I would be afforded if I was still under a banner of Catholicism. I think here I have felt so much freedom. And there has been so much healing for me that has gone on over the last couple of years. 

Because I have been separated from that tradition in terms of going to a school that subscribes specifically to that tradition. I think that I have really been given the freedom to explore beyond what Catholicism gave me and what I grew up knowing and learning. And I think that has both strengthened my life academically and personally. 

MICHAEL CURTIS FUHRMAN: And one thing that I want to note about the things that you're sharing, which thank you so much for sharing those details as well, too, is that I think the Divinity School allows us to have of a third place. I don't think we have many, if any, classmates who are Cambridge locals. And so to have that space afforded to us to be away from both our physical home communities, our spiritual home communities. 

I appreciate the way that you approach that not as an alienation, but as a respectful distance to then be able to maybe ask some messier questions and write on those. And as someone who is engaged with you in the classroom and in writing context, just to share that I'm so excited about. Your work and find it so important. And I think the container of this podcast is this idea of hope, and what it means to you, and how it informs your work, in whatever way that makes sense. 

And clearly, as you talk about the idea of the academic, and the personal, and the spiritual all bleeding together into the work that you're doing now, I think our listeners would be curious to know, what does hope mean to you in whatever way that helps you understand maybe perseverance, or maybe this just optimism in the reason we do the work that we do. So, what does hope mean to you? 

EVE SCHWARTZ: What a question. I have a very complicated relationship with hope. And I know it's going to sound cliche. But I'm going to say it anyway. I feel like I came to HDS as a very hopeless person. And just felt lost because I was coming from a religious tradition that had been my home. And then when I got to HDS, I no longer felt it was-- I no longer felt my religious tradition was a home for me. 

And I feel like I hope for me in the past was so bound up with God and with my faith and with Catholicism that I didn't know where I was supposed to reach for hope. I didn't know if I would ever find a community, let alone like a spiritual community or spiritual practice that would feel fulfilling for me anymore. And that was a really dark moment in my life because I was like, OK, well, if there's nothing that I can latch on to for hope, then what am I doing? What am I supposed to be doing? 

And now, being in the last year, being in my last year at HDS, I feel like I have found that spark of hope again. And I think where I find hope to get at an angle of your question is in the community that I have built here. And I think that really has been a testament to what can happen in the closeness and communal spaces that you carve out with other people. 

I have an incredible group of friends that I know will be friends. I'm hopeful that we'll be friends for the rest of our lives. And when I look at those people, that's where I find hope is in the last-minute text that one of us sends that, hey, it's a really hard day. Would love some company. And next thing someone's on my doorstep or vice versa. I think that I really underestimated the context that community can arise in. 

Because I was so used to my church being my community, like that was my main community. And sure, like certainly in undergrad and in other moments in my life, I had friends. But I have never ever experienced community like I have here at HDS. It is almost indescribable. And for me, it happened very quickly in a matter of months, my first year here. And I think, honestly, that is what lit the spark of hope for me again and certainly does now. 

I mean, again, like the community here really is one that shows up for one another. And showing up is huge and witnessing and abiding with and accompanying other people on this really messy, hard journey of, yes, grad school. But life doesn't stop just because we're in grad school. And real life happens here. And so to have people like that around me, that's where I place my hope. And that's what has given me hope again. 

MICHAEL CURTIS FUHRMAN: I think that that's beautiful. And as someone who's a member of this community and your community, I just have to agree with you on how I like that you use the language of the word spark that it can ignite something again, that can often feel sometimes trivial, sometimes cliche, like you were saying. But is still important to get ourselves through these spaces that ask us to bleed the academic with the personal, with the spiritual and all those things. 

And so then the question is, you've talked a little bit about those texts and going to people's doorsteps and just being there. What do you think are some other practices? I've been lucky enough to participate in a few. But practices that you use to help cultivate hope in that way. 

EVE SCHWARTZ: So, over the summer, I did a unit of CPE. And it was life-changing and transformative. And I had a really wonderful experience where I was given the opportunity to explore the sacred and divine outside the four walls of a church. And for me, that was huge, and freeing, and liberating. And during the summer, I got really, really into writing rituals, and liturgies, and blessings that were rooted in real life, not necessarily coming out of again, a church or a particular faith tradition. 

And I got very attached to objects over the summer. I had to wear scrubs. And I kept the same objects in my scrubs every day when I was going to see patients. One was a bracelet that one of our friends made for me and blessed. And the other one was an old Polaroid picture of me as a baby lying on my grandmother and reaching out for my mom. And those were my talismans that I carried with me while I was seeing patients. 

And so when I came back here, I knew I wanted to find things that felt like that and that could give me, again, that experience of the divine and sacred outside of a church. And so I had this idea when I came back in September to start what I call monthly ritual dinners, which you are a part of. And every month, I think there's six or seven of us. It's a small group. And that's intentional. 

We gather at my house. And I make a meal. And everyone brings an offering. And the only real parameters of these dinners is that each month, we rotate and someone brings some opener, an opening ritual that is sacred to them in whatever way and for whatever reason. And someone brings a closing. But in between that time, there's these beautiful, magical moments where we just start talking. 

And it never ceases to amaze me how we weave in and out of the most intentional, sometimes just hard and vulnerable conversations that you look up and everyone's crying. And we're all just sitting on the couch with one another. And then it shifts into a comedy skit. And we're all rolling on the floor laughing. And the container is big enough to hold all of that. And I think that is exactly what I was hoping for was a container that was expansive enough to hold our whole beings, our whole bodies, and minds, and spirits. 

And I think that's exactly what these dinners do. And I really do consider that a practice of communion and Eucharist and gathering. And it's almost like I have re-imagined for myself what a Eucharistic celebration can look like. And right now, mine looks like gathering with six of my closest friends around a living room, coffee table, and just being with one another. So that is that's the main practice that I feel like I engage in regularly. 

MICHAEL CURTIS FUHRMAN: And I love that it contains that sense of accompaniment that you talked about earlier when you talked about hope, specifically that to make the container big enough to hold all those things. There is some amount of just carrying with each other all the joys, flaws, failures, successes that each other face. And so thank you, I think, offering that reimagined Eucharist as you put it, which I think is so beautiful. 

And thank you so much for really just sharing all these aspects of how the person that is Eve comes together and makes this wonderful package of care, and accompaniment, and a sense of community that can be something a lot of people say they want to achieve, but oftentimes requires someone who I think in this situation is you to be willing to do the labor of making those moments happen. So this is my thank you to you for that. And thank you for joining us today to share it and talk about it as well. 

EVE SCHWARTZ: Thank you so much for having me. And thanks for being a part of my community. 

MICHAEL CURTIS FUHRMAN: Of course. And that is a wrap.