“Aftershocks and Gratitude” Good morning. It has been much too long since we’ve gathered as a full community in this space and in this sacred place. I offer our returning Chautauquans a hearty welcome home. It is definitely not Chautauqua without you. And it’s absolutely wonderful to see you again. To those with us visiting Chautauqua for the first time this morning, we want to offer you an extra special greeting. You are now part of a community that cherishes lifelong learning as a key to perpetuating and enhancing our democratic society. Our mission calls us to constantly widen our...
“Let us take a more joyous strain.” The long winter of our discontent may not be quite over in the world, but this week, it sure is looking a lot like summer at Chautauqua! I have spent the last several days getting to welcome many of you back to the grounds. We’ve been through so much, individually and collectively, since we were last together. It has been wonderful to share your stories and to share some of my own, including the news that since our last in-person Assembly, Peter and I were married, and we joined the mighty ranks of...
Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill was the guest speaker of the 2021 Turner Winter Series hosted at the Robert H. Jackson Center. He reflected on the 2020 Chautauqua Institution season, Covid implications and beyond.
“If We Knew Then …” “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”— T.S. Eliot From our Unitarian Universalist brothers and sisters: “Spirit of life, we look within our own hearts, to the burning coal that is at the center of our being, the place where our hope for the world lives, the place where our faith in humanity resides and there we find the strength and courage to continue moving forward however muddy and rough the path may be.” Until we...
“This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don’t have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. And I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn’t have the specific ritual you are craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotional systems with all the do-it-yourself resourcefulness of a generous...
“Good morning, and welcome home to Chautauqua!” These are the words I have ordinarily used to open our assembly in the first four years I have been fortunate enough to serve as Chautauqua’s President. But this year is anything but ordinary. What you can’t see beyond me is an empty Amphitheater, which can seat up to 4,500 people. Our grounds in Western New York are traditionally populated with between 7,500 to 10,000 people on a day like this. My best estimates are that we have approximately 1,000 people on the grounds for the start of this season. From coast to...
By Michael E. HillPresident, Chautauqua Institution Summer is a time of rituals for me. As President of the 146-year-old Chautauqua Institution located on 750 acres about an hour and 20 minutes south of Buffalo, my summer is usually a highly scripted affair. Over nine weeks, Chautauqua explores the best in human values through some 3,000 individual events. Ours is a storied institution replete with traditions and a sing song routine for those of us called to be stewards of this special place. On a normal June 15, which is when I am writing this, we would be preparing to receive more than 100,000...
Like everyone else, I have been watching the events of the past week with a mix of horror and pride: horror that we still live in a society that perpetuates systemic racism, hatred and cruelty, and pride that people who refuse to accept this are standing up and making their voices heard. At Chautauqua, we have been sharing the words of speakers who have given their lives to dismantling systemic racism as a way to shine a light on what we think we can all do to make a better society. This is the mission of Chautauqua: to put a...
Dear Chautauquans, My heart aches for the hurt in our nation. The recent headlines remind me how much work we all need to do to heal divisions. My thoughts and prayers go out to all who are hurting during this scary time as old systemic wounds of racism are again laid bare, a reminder that they are unresolved and unattended to, all while we grapple with a virus that has leveled the world. It is at moments like these that I search for words to make sense of what is simply senseless. Words fail me right now, but they do...
May 2, 2020 Dear Chautauqua Family, I write today with a message I never conceived I would need to convey, but one that is necessary for the health, wellness and safety of our beloved community. Late yesterday our Board of Trustees decided unanimously and with moral clarity to suspend any in-person programs on our sacred Western New York grounds this summer. We will not be convening as we usually do, but rather in a new, online space, as a distributed but still tightly knit community of lifelong learners and lovers of the arts, education, interfaith and recreational programming. I invite...
