Grace Community Boston
  • progressive
    • Progressive?
    • Podcast
    • 10 things Progressive Christians DO
    • What you DON'T have to Believe
    • Progressive Christian Pins
  • emergent
    • Is Grace for you?
    • Our Story
    • Give
  • christian
    • Is Grace Christian?
  • community
    • Who
    • Connect
    • What
    • Staff
    • 2023 Annual Meeting Agenda
    • 10 Year Report
    • 2022 Christmas Service
  • Where & When
  • Blog

discipleship
in  chaos

Learn more about who we are by following our blog, written by our pastor, preacher, and chief evangelist. Engage in the everyday sacred as Abby writes about the deep and ordinary all at once.  
more about our staff

Tonya: Just Be Who You Are! (Human Story/Saint 3 Blog)

12/9/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Disclaimer: This blog may feel a whole lot more about me than about the saint I would like to celebrate: Tonya. This may be true. If you can, bear with me. The only way I can express the impact this every day saint has had on the world is through my own experience, particularly what I learned about myself in her presence. 

And for Tonya: Thank you for letting me share this. How often I pray for you. 

Tonya and I began Colgate University in the fall of 1994. We had both made it to our first year at college on our own merits you could argue, but looking back I see now what different worlds we came from. I was groomed for private college in every stereo typical way you can imagine. I graduated from an elite private school and was the fourth generation in my family to attend college. I was not only prepared for the academic rigor of college, but also the social expectations which were much more difficult to navigate. 

When I arrived at Colgate, I felt freed from the social constraints of my prep school. I quickly assessed who was comfortable in that world, which girls had possession of their daddy’s credit cards so they could purchase all the J Crew their hearts desired, and just how the social hierarchy would establish itself. Although I did not possess my daddy’s credit card, I could have tried to establish myself in that unspoken elite circle. I had no interest. I never looked back. Instead, within the first semester, I discovered an ever widening circle of extraordinary 18 years olds, earnestly, if not clumsily, finding their way in the world. Some were prep school kids, others were first generation college students, others were overwhelmed by the demands of the classroom, others aced organic chemistry. It was in one of these ever widening circles that I met Tonya for the first time. Meeting her challenged me to the very core. 

I wanted to leave the social elitism in which I had marinated for years. I thought I had the moment I walked onto Colgate’s campus. I truly desired to be better than noticing if someone was wearing J Crew or if they had extensive orthodontic work. I yearned to be a real-Jesus-following-inclusive college student. Yes, this sounds overly earnest, but this was my 18 year old self. 

First let me tell you the person Tonya was the moment I met her: genuine and deeply kind. Engaged in the world around her in such a way that you knew she loved the human race with all of its flaws. She also lacked all the unwritten private school social rules I was used to. She was unapologetically real and almost loud. Not volume loud, but the kind of genuine-eager-engaged loud. There was nothing couth about her. There was also nothing disingenuous about her. Tonya was 100% who she was and lived into the fullness of that person. 25 years later, theologically trained, I would describe her this way: When God called Tonya by name, she heard it loud and clear, greeted God without hesitation, and lived fully into her God-given gifts God, ignoring every challenge, perhaps almost bulldozing right through them.  

It should also be noted that NO ONE has ever described me as quiet nor demure. So why was I so overwhelmed by Tonya’s genuine engagement with the world. I think it was simple: she was unself- conscious in a way I yearned to be. She was lovingly engaged in the world in a way I sought to be. Tonya's example helped me be less concerned about what people thought of me and more concerned about the impact I had on others. Yes this perhaps sounds simple, but to an 18 year old it was an enormously life changing.

At first glance Tonya did not have all of the expensive grooming available to me in prep school world, but at second glance because she was freed from that “grooming” she had discovered the things that truly mattered. Before I met Tonya I thought I didn’t care about such grooming, but my initial reaction to Tonya made me face the truth-- I still did. I wanted to live in both worlds. Yet living in both worlds was not possible if I really wanted to enjoy the freedom of being simply who I was. This was the beginning of a journey, I'm still on (I still am too concerned about what others think of me). I am grateful for the important journey Tonya sent me on: fully embracing the person I was and the person others were regardless of social standards, but instead based on the gifts they shared in relation to others. 

Tonya is dying of cancer. Her story is unjust. Not long after meeting the love of her life, she was diagnosed with cancer. Recently her trip to Paris was canceled due to COVID. She is now under the care of hospice. She has recently had to stop working which is her calling -- a school psychologist. Yet in all of this I recognize Tonya is still 100% the person she has always been. She is still building community. Her facebook posts are still filled with honesty, thanksgiving, love, heart ache. She is still her authentic “loud” self. This loud self has given others, including myself, permission to live fully into the life given us, genuinely, celebrating the gifts God has given, and always connecting with others. 

Tonya is a saint. I am positive she would tell me she is not. But she is. A reminder: to be a saint is simple. It means to live in the world in a way in which you leave it is better. I am only one small part of that better world Tonya has created. I am sure there are classrooms of children who can attest to the difference she has made in their lives.

Thank you Tonya for being who you are. I am praying and praying that the days you have left are filled with as much joy and love as they have always been. 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Abby Henrich

    Rev. Abigail A Henrich (ehm!) is an ordained minister who earned her stripes at Princeton Theological Seminary and Colgate University. That said, Abby is really a mother-pastor-spouse who lives in a kinetic state of chaos as she moves from her many vocations: folding laundry, preaching, returning phone calls, sorting lunch boxes, answering e-mails, and occasionally thinking deep thoughts in the shower. Unabashedly she is a progressive Christian who believes some shaking up has got to happen in the church.

    You can read more of Abby's writing on her own personal blog: abbyhenrich.weebly.com

    Categories

    All
    Advent
    Ash Wednesday
    Atonement
    Baptism
    Communion
    Community
    Confession
    Cross
    Easter
    Emergent Church
    Holy Spirit
    Hope
    Hospitality
    Immigration
    Jesus
    Justice
    Lent
    Love
    Motherhood
    Other Religions
    Peace
    Prayer
    Preaching
    Progressive Christianity
    Redemption
    Repentance
    Resurrection
    Thanksgiving
    Transformation
    Women

    Archives

    September 2023
    June 2023
    November 2022
    March 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    August 2019
    May 2019
    February 2019
    September 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • progressive
    • Progressive?
    • Podcast
    • 10 things Progressive Christians DO
    • What you DON'T have to Believe
    • Progressive Christian Pins
  • emergent
    • Is Grace for you?
    • Our Story
    • Give
  • christian
    • Is Grace Christian?
  • community
    • Who
    • Connect
    • What
    • Staff
    • 2023 Annual Meeting Agenda
    • 10 Year Report
    • 2022 Christmas Service
  • Where & When
  • Blog