{"id":103638,"date":"2016-10-14T11:18:57","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T15:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=103638"},"modified":"2023-11-21T11:08:17","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T16:08:17","slug":"bates-at-night-breaking-bread-together-at-hearth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2016\/10\/14\/bates-at-night-breaking-bread-together-at-hearth\/","title":{"rendered":"Bates at Night: Hearth"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\n\t
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Simone Messer '19 of New York, N.Y., talks with a friend before dinner. Students were invited to bring a fallen leaf and explain why they chose it. <\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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One discussion group gathers in the attic space, one of several extra rooms opened for the surge of Hearth attendance. \n<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Keenan Shields '18 of Pittsford, N.Y., walks through student gear in the front hall of Multifaith Chaplain Brittany Longsdorf's home.\n<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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The beauty of Hearth is its simplicity, says a student. \"It\u2019s just some food, a couple of candles, and some good questions.\"<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Before dinner everyone grabs a hand or locks arms for a moment of silence.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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At the dinner gathering known as Hearth, participants can share their thoughts, simply sit in silence, or anything in between.<\/p>\n

“I think that\u2019s really the beauty of Hearth: It\u2019s so simple,” says Multifaith Fellow Keenan Shields ’18 of Pittsford, N.Y. “It\u2019s just some food, a couple of candles, and some good questions.”<\/p>\n

The quiet can last, too, which some find comforting \u2014 once you get used to it.<\/p>\n

Multifaith Fellow Jeremy Glover ’17 of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, was “really weirded out” by the silence. “Like, ‘Why is no one responding?'”<\/p>\n

Over time, he “sort of grew to really appreciate just the sharing aspect of it, being able to share in the silence.”<\/p>\n

At Hearth, students can find themselves in an intimate setting with students they don’t know. “I\u2019ve heard students say it\u2019s a place where they feel that cliques dissolve,” says the Rev. Brittany Longsdorf, the college’s multifaith chaplain, who hosts the dinner at her Ware Street home.<\/p>\n

After dinner, students break into groups to discuss prompts chosen by the Multifaith Fellows. Thursday’s topics\u00a0were “What are you excited to jump into?” and “What is something that is changing color in your life?”<\/p>\n

Hearth offers students a respite from the academic buzz that occupies their minds much of the time, says Longsdorf.<\/p>\n

“I see it as this really beautiful space to think with your heart instead of your head,” she says. “There\u2019s something about breaking bread together and having a meal that just makes it feel really cozy and almost instantly intimate.”<\/p>\n

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Bates at Night: At the dinner gathering called Hearth, participants can share their thoughts, simply sit in silence, or anything in between.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":103649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[1,11012],"tags":[11217,11227,6111,11648],"class_list":["post-103638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-batesnews","category-student-life","tag-bates-at-night","tag-brittany-longsdorf","tag-multifaith-chaplaincy","tag-religion-and-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103638"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103694,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103638\/revisions\/103694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}