‘These are all ways of saying “You’re the problem”.’ Photo: © Mike Pinches, for BYM
Accessible language: Rebecca Hardy talks to Swarthmore lecturer Esther Loukin
‘Sometimes the call of God is not something that you have simple feelings about.’
How did you feel when you were first asked to do the Swarthmore Lecture? Did you know immediately what you wanted to say? Or was it more a slow process of evolution?
It took a while and definitely evolved. My initial response and feeling was ‘Absolutely no’. I thought: ‘I don’t think I can do a good job of that’ and I’m not really a writer. So I felt really unsure, but I really believe in our discernment process and I’ve seen it do amazing things. The committee was quite clear too about some of the things that they wanted me to cover. So, gradually, I thought that what they’re asking for is something that I have something to say about, and I couldn’t think of a list of people they could go to instead. So I sat with it, weighed it over, and thought, actually, sometimes the call of God is not something that you have simple feelings about, and I decided that it was probably right that I did it, so I gave it my best shot.
