My name is Mimi Holland. I’m from Minnesota, but I lived for a good while in Chicago. I used to have hobbies (like jazz guitar and making kaleidoscopes), but now I have grad school. That’s not a complaint. I love it. I’m reading the most fascinating books and articles about the most fascinating ideas, engaging in the most enlightening discussions, and discovering all sorts of new things about myself. For example, I consider myself to be pretty even-keeled, but as soon as I have to write any paper longer than fifteen pages, I turn into the most melodramatic, tortured tenderfoot. Alas, how I suffer! I start to fancy myself a 19th-century opera heroine perishing alone in an attic for Love and Sentence Structure. And then, as soon as I submit the paper, the orchestra stops playing, and I become boring old normal Mimi again. It’s a thing.
I chose ESR because a bunch of people in my meeting (Evanston Friends Meeting, ILYM) have studied here, and they all recommended it. I’m glad I listened to them. It’s everything I hoped it would be. My professors and classmates are the smartest and most interesting people I have ever met. It is such an honor and joy to be part of this community.
I’m in my second year of the MDiv program, hoping to one day work as a chaplain. I think. I mean, let’s back that up; I might be in the MDiv program. I also may have been corrupted by a theology class I took as a January intensive, and, oh, I don’t know, perhaps I’ll end up in the world of theology. It surprised me that I would find so much joy in reading moldy 400-year-old Apologies and such, and yet it’s super engaging. That might sound puzzling, and you might ask, “So why did she go to seminary if she thinks Robert Barclay and early Friends are moldy?” and that’s a fair question. I’d answer that perhaps being wrong righted me.
I thought my spiritual journey was pretty straight and well-lit. It’s not. It’s more of a spiritual adventure. Or even better, a spiritual opera! I feel really lucky that along the way, I get to travel and sing with some pretty amazing minds and hearts, both living and dead. Because yes, I now feel I’m walking with and enjoying the company of that moldy old Elizabeth Bathurst, bonnet-headed Lucretia Mott, and so many others. It’s pretty amazing.
Mimi graduated with an MA in 2023 and an M.Div in 2024 and now serves as Earlham College’s Coordinator of Quaker Life and Assistant Chaplain.