#  Hope Podcast: Featuring Paula Ortiz, MDiv Candidate 

 





March 26, 2025

 

 

 

In this episode of the Hope Podcast, we hear from 2nd year MDiv candidate Paula Ortiz. Together we discuss the Andes mountains, being awestruck, and seeing hope in the present.



 

 Harvard Divinity School · Hope Podcast: Featuring Paula Ortiz, MDiv Candidate 

 



 

 

 

MICHAEL 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 RSL chaplain interns this year.

Today, I sat down with second-year MDiv candidate, Paula Ortiz. Paula, thank you so much for joining us this morning. We're so excited to have you on the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

Of course, you know, we usually like to start these conversations just by giving you a chance to introduce yourself and telling us a little bit about your spiritual autobiography, if you wouldn't mind.

PAULA ORTIZ: Yeah. So I'm Paula. And in terms of spiritual autobiography, I think it is salient for me to mention that I grew up surrounded by mountains, by the Andes Mountain ranges in Quito, in Ecuador.

And I think from a very early age, just being surrounded by mountains and actually several active volcanoes did give me a sense of relationship to land and orientation to vastness that felt really important, I think. Not that this would happen very often, but the possibility of for example, a volcano erupting was just like very grounding in the impermanence of things.

And so I think that was very formative for me in the sense that it taught me kind of how I am a small and essential part of the fabric of existence and of the landscape that I'm in. And so my spiritual journey has gone through various stages.

I grew up in a Catholic adjacent home. And some of those values were instilled in our family practices. But again, most importantly, I think that this connection to the natural world and this sensitivity to the wondrous qualities of life were really one of the foundations on how I oriented to spirituality.

And so it was not until I moved to the US for college that I started to delve more intentionally into Buddhism, and particularly to the Zen Buddhist space. And when I was in college, I connected with one of the monasteries close to our campus. And I would go on retreat and study with some of the monastics there and the roshi there.

And it was a very expansive time for me, and it kind of invited me a lot to go into these deeper levels of stillness and silence that were previously unknown to me. So for some years after that, I was studying various Buddhist traditions, and I lived in monasteries in Asia and South America.

And that really kind of, again, just deepened my relationship to presence and mystery in a way that was continues to unfold. And then I moved back to the US, and it became a period of a lot of instability and suffering around loss and very rapidly changing things in my life.

And so I felt that that was a moment where the robust spiritual foundations that I had sustained me. And at the same time, I fell a little bit farther from my practice at that time. So that kind of went on for a couple of years.

And it kind of naturally became this remembering process of being and reconnection with the land and with stillness and silence that has brought me into a space where I don't really define what tradition I am part of right now.

But I would say it's between this more like Earth-based spirituality meets Buddhism space.

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: And I think that makes total sense when listening to you share, even from the earliest moments, being in the presence of the Andes. And you highlight from your Buddhist practice the sort of idea of presence and mystery. I hear such a connection between those sorts of daily negotiations you are having with the mountains, acknowledging their presence and also their mystery as you have to live your daily life sort of in their shadow or in their view and to then expand to a place.

If presence and mystery are the focal point for you, or at least were at that time to me, it makes total sense that you would find yourself in a place now where your values are less along the idea of establishing a firm tradition, and more so embracing that idea of presence in yourself and the world around you, and the mystery of the things that are still left to understand.

So just to say back to you, that that to me makes total sense. And I think, especially in the context of being a student here, we find so many people who have found their way here because they're grappling either with that tradition, they find themselves a part of or the lack of tradition they find themselves a part of.

And I guess, I would be curious then to know, based on that background, how you found yourself here at HDS.

PAULA ORTIZ: Well, thank you for that lovely--

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: Of course.

PAULA ORTIZ: So I had never heard about Divinity School until my junior year of college. And I remember a few people around me at the time were like, you should consider this. And I was like, what? But I do take it as a moment where a seed was planted for me that I didn't know was planted, and I'm grateful that it was.

And then it was not until about three summers ago where I did this cross-country trip on a bicycle. We biked with a group of my best friends from Virginia to Oregon. And one of my friends there, she was going to Divinity School at the time.

And I just found that as we were biking, we would naturally gravitate to these conversations around things that she was studying in her program and these kind of just deeper questions around existence and essence and spirit that were deeply energizing to me.

And it was a moment where there are a few things that get you uphill in the heat of the summer. And I just found that as we were having these conversations, there was so much momentum and energy that I was feeling within as we were talking that I would like climb these hills with her with ease in a way.

So I was like, OK, there might be something here. And then we finished that trip, and a few months after, it came in a very kind of spontaneous and almost intuitive way of, I woke up one day, and I just got the message very clearly, just like you're applying to Divinity School.

I was like, OK, I'm applying to Divinity School.

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: I guess so. Yeah.

PAULA ORTIZ: And so that the journey unfolded. And I feel that in many ways I was guided here. So I feel very blessed for that.

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: Well, how exciting. And I know many of us are thankful that that message came through loud and clear to get you here.

PAULA ORTIZ: Thank you.

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: And I think we just appreciate that that context to you because there's a lot of similar stories for how people find themselves here. Certainly, that narrative of, I never even knew this existed and now here I am. But to just hear it in the context of your background, I think is just so beneficial and just important to recognize everyone's unique stories for finding their way here.

And I usually say that the container of this podcast, the thing that has us here is this idea of hope and what it means to each individual, either as a political tool or as a personal sort of relationship. And we're always curious to hear and would love to know from you, what does hope mean to you, as you would define it? If you would be so thoughtful as to share that with us today.

PAULA ORTIZ: Yeah. I think in order to answer that question, I want to go back to something that perhaps ties the two previous questions together. And I'm thinking of this moment, I was young. And waking up kind of right as in Sunrise in Quito and pulling up my curtains, and just the mountains were glowing.

It was like this gorgeous, warm deeply radiant scene that absolutely stopped me in my tracks. And I remember, I think I must have been 9 or 10, and I was just like crying looking at that. And it was this moment of deep recognition and also of deep belonging.

And it was this moment where I really kind of understood the importance of awe and spaciousness and pause to take in all of the life around us.

And so that has been a big orientation around life of, how can I cultivate my ability to stay with the gorgeous infinity and possibility of someone and something as I move through life?

And so similarly with how I understand hope, I think my trajectory with that has evolved over the years. And I am expected that I will continue to unfold. And I perceive hope more than like a single pointed orientation or a particular outcome.

I see hope more as an attitude or an orientation toward possibility. That is the muscle that can sustain possibility in the face of changing conditions. And so that kind of brings in this greater spaciousness and curiosity and even room for play for things to unfold as they exist within this container that you were mentioning of hope.

And I see that as it's work. There's this prison abolitionist and grassroots activist, Mariame Kaba, and maybe many people have brought her into this space, but she refers to hope as a discipline.

And I think that really speaks to this moment of meeting mystery, meeting possibility with the work that it takes to A, recognize it and then B, breathe life into it to sustain it.

And so it is this deep collaboration between kind of meeting this possibility and being holding kind of loyalty and conviction in what it may become but not be too attached to what it needs to be. It's like the possibility of your becoming is worthy enough in and of its own to be breathing life into you right now.

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: And I love how you note loyalty to, in your words, the muscle not to the destination the muscle gets you to and a sort of acceptance that taking on this discipline is not to get you to a specific end, but to more so just maintain that larger orientation.

PAULA ORTIZ: And perhaps actually a better word than loyalty might be the reverence to it actually.

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: Yeah. That should bring back that sense of awe that you speak to rather than a militaristic sort of loyalty to something. I appreciate that. And I think that's an important element to the stories you've told us so far that that is what it is, the wonder and awe rather than the conviction in a way that is potentially shameful to the self to not shame oneself when struggling with that, as you spoke to previously with your own relationship to spiritual traditions. I think that's a key aspect.

PAULA ORTIZ: And also, I think something that I want to add there is that, having it be an orientation rather than a fixed, say, destination, allows us to be in relationship with the moment in a different way. That is kind of allowing our hope to be permeable so that we can continue to respond to what the moment is asking of us, or what is the possibility wanting to be.

And so that's why when I think about it in terms of, how this orientation does cultivate this sense of play and spaciousness is like, oh, I think I was going this way, but actually now I'm going to go this way. And it kind of that fluidity of it also asks a lot of trust for us as we move through it.

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: As much an orientation towards possibility as it is towards a specific goal, I think is important and something that I think would help individuals maintain that sense of hope over the course of potentially going through a phase of life that challenges us towards that orientation or challenges us towards that disposition.

And I think we'd be curious to know when you're far away from the mountains in Quito and you can't pull those blinds down to train that muscle, if there's any specific practice or ritual or readings or you've shared so much with us already that helps you maintain that muscle and prevent atrophy on that front, if we want to use that metaphor or just helping you to reconnect with that posture when it may be challenging to do so.

PAULA ORTIZ: Oh, so much. Well, first, I really think that all of our roots go in so so deep. So in a way, I do feel the connection to the Andes kind of with me at all times. So I'm grateful for that. And I often do talk to the mountains and to the waters over there and also greet the land over here.

So there's this tending to that connection that I feel is important. But more fundamentally, I think-- and I'm realizing that I've talked about this at various points during our conversation, it is this openness to awe.

And sometimes awe is not like, oh, this is such a beautiful awe, but it's that rawness of the vastness and the realness of things that brings us to this place where it's almost like it undoes us in a way that opens space and surrender in a way that can be disorienting for a bit and also deeply humbling and grounding after the fact sometimes.

And so how I tried to cultivate this is really to build in pause into my day to day, to cultivate delight. And I mean, I think about this, and I try to practice this whenever I'm cooking, for example.

Like the other day, I was looking at the kale that I was massaging as I was making a salad, and I was like, this being is incredible, all of the processes, the nutrients in the land that have happened over time and all of the little beings that just made this bunch of kale possible.

And I think this ability to constantly try and trace and reconnect and remember this web of radical interconnectedness that sustains life is very fundamental to my ability to be in this orientation toward hope.

And so listening to the birds this morning and trying to learn their call and marveling at the laughter of my friends and also marveling at the brilliance of all of the authors that we are exposed to and the wonderful deep conversations that we're able to entertain during our time here at school.

So there's this kind of just receptivity to surprise and like the wondrous quality of beingness that kind of supports me in that space. Then something that has also become really important for me since being in Divinity School is vocalizing and song.

And I feel that that has put me in a different relationship to myself and my ability to feel my own frequency and my ability to be in connection with my own voice in a way that does not appeal so much to reason as it appeals to other dimensions of the self.

And being in that space has made me more comfortable with the ambiguity in a way that also feels important. And I think that's the thing around hope and awe is also like, I can't always name you, and yet I feel you. And I sense that there's a resonance that is important here, and I want to breathe life into it.

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: I think and the way you speak about the web of interconnectedness really being an act of remembering, and I think that's so important to this idea of wonder and awe and the rawness that you talk about, that those are things that when we forget them, it is just the act of remembering their presence and acknowledging the memories that we have with those kinds of experiences that do, I think, as you say, root us sometimes very practically in certain situations and in relationships with certain things that I just want to thank you for uplifting that today and encouraging us to continue to remember.

Even when sometimes we forget how expansive possibility can be, even with our relationship to the morning birds and our relationship to a bushel of kale, as we turn it into a salad.

PAULA ORTIZ: And I think that's an important part for me is just like, sometimes I think of like these kind of transcendental experiences needing to be in these grandiose ways. And the more I go through life, it's also about the simplicity and the presence of things.

And so one last bit that I want to share is, I've been thinking a lot about this idea of resonance and resonance as the way in which we can be in communication with the immensity of the world in the moment. And these moments of resonance, of connection, of transcendence, in a way, find us as much as we find them.

They are never predictable. They're never like you can never expect for them to arrive at a given time. And so so much of the cultivation of hope for me is how can I stay as close as possible and as receptive as possible to meet these moments of resonance, of transcendence, of mysticism without being attached that they will come right without expecting them to come but keeping the hope that they might and trying to, again, stay in that orientation toward their possibility?

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: That it's much more about that commitment to the pause than it is about the commitment towards divining your own transcendental experience that--

PAULA ORTIZ: I love that.

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: I think that's a really great point and something that as scholars of religion, as many of us are, we can find ourselves constantly spinning our wheels trying to find those moments, either for ourselves or in the lives of the people that we study. And I think that idea of pause is so helpful and not only a personal framework, but also an intellectual and political framework as well too.

PAULA ORTIZ: So thinking about hope in the realm of political engagement, I often think of the role of imagination and hope as well and how they kind of partner each other to breathe in these new possibilities on how can we craft a future or mobilize each other toward a cause or a future that is not present here yet, but is responding deeply to the moment that we're in?

And so hope kind of lays this very important foundation to tend to the sprouts of possibility. And it does take quite a bit of courage to decide like, OK, this is the batch of sprouts. This is the batch of possibility that I'm really going to devote myself to.

And I remember a while ago, someone that I was talking to, a professor, we were talking about hope and the sense of paralysis that often comes in the face of desperation and instability and how to go beyond that moment of paralysis. There needs to be a trust in oneself, a conviction in like what you can offer is like worthwhile doing.

And I remember him saying to me like, OK, so when you decide to commit, when you decide to go for it, will you blink? And I think that is also another layer of hope that when we are grounded in hope, it does give us this courage to maybe not blink and go ahead and do it, while still being receptive to everything that happens but still go for it.

And I think that is an important thing to keep in mind in this moment of deep uncertainty. We don't have to have the perfect solution, the perfect answer before we give the first step. But when we have even a whisper of a possibility or a sprout of a possibility that we think is worthwhile, perhaps some of our work is not to blink and go for it and then continue to unfold that possibility as we keep walking.

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: Which is so connected to this idea that you talked about previously, is hope not as imagining the perfect destination, but as being responsive to the moment and beginning the process to lead us to destinations we may not yet know are the right ones, but ones that we can take a step towards.

And to really consider hope as that use of energy towards something, even though we may not know quite yet what it is, I think, helps people create that sense of either resilience or just calming during uncertainty that allows them to still feel like they're moving toward something, even if it may not be clear what it is.

Because as you've said today to it, the thing you imagine it may need to may not be where you end up after you start that process as well too. Well, Paula, thank you so much for sitting down and chatting with me today. I know that I'm deeply thankful, and I'm sure the many people that listen to this will be thankful as well too.

PAULA ORTIZ: Michael, thank you so much for inviting me, for having me here and for really having this space to explore these topics and really have a chance to learn from one another and what this practice of hope means.

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: Of course. Anytime. Awesome. That's a wrap.

PAULA ORTIZ: Yay.

MICHAEL FUHRMAN: Yay.

\[BIRDS CHIRPING\]



 

 



 

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