Ode to Our Librarian, Susan Ebertz,
On the Occasion of Her Retirement from Wartburg Theological Seminary
By Martin Lohrmann
Libraries are always spiritual places
Serendipitous sanctified spaces
Of memory, experience, passion, and wisdom
Scientific wonders, card catalogued visions
And while all libraries invite the divine
Ours, in particular, splendidly shines
With spiritual treasures and reverent tomes
Books upon books, with the Good Book our home
Ours is an innately angelic collection
Of mystical tracts and profoundest reflections
About living amid Christ’s holy love
Daring to describe being born from above
Tools for masters of divinity, arts, and service
With scholarly vocabulary that makes students nervous
As when numinous forays into apophatic ontologies
Leave first-years nostalgic for their embedded theologies
Our library boasts of rich resource pages
Multimedia links, research databases
Periodical stacks, new acquisitions
Books on reserve in digitized systems
Aids for translating Hebrew and Greek
Yet none of this makes our library unique
For despite the great books that grace every shelf
Its radiance has come from somewhere else
Namely, we’ve been blessed with Professor Susan
Imbuing the space with warmth and inclusion
Her care for community clearly combining
Technical know-how and thoughtful advising
With puzzles to share and blankets on laps
For cozier reading (or maybe just naps)
And even amid recent renovations
Our library in exile is a peak destination
Tonight, Susan, we give thanks in the Spirit
Whose love you have shared so that all who come near it
Will find in our library your teaching again
“We are God’s ohana, helping peopo com friends”
You have done the hard work of caring for hearts
With wisdom, compassion, humor, and art
You have served Wartburg Theological Seminarians
By pointing to Jesus, who is—like you—a loving librarian.
(c) Martin Lohrmann, 2023, may be shared with attribution; and, yes, the author asked Susan's permission to share this online.
On the Occasion of Her Retirement from Wartburg Theological Seminary
By Martin Lohrmann
Libraries are always spiritual places
Serendipitous sanctified spaces
Of memory, experience, passion, and wisdom
Scientific wonders, card catalogued visions
And while all libraries invite the divine
Ours, in particular, splendidly shines
With spiritual treasures and reverent tomes
Books upon books, with the Good Book our home
Ours is an innately angelic collection
Of mystical tracts and profoundest reflections
About living amid Christ’s holy love
Daring to describe being born from above
Tools for masters of divinity, arts, and service
With scholarly vocabulary that makes students nervous
As when numinous forays into apophatic ontologies
Leave first-years nostalgic for their embedded theologies
Our library boasts of rich resource pages
Multimedia links, research databases
Periodical stacks, new acquisitions
Books on reserve in digitized systems
Aids for translating Hebrew and Greek
Yet none of this makes our library unique
For despite the great books that grace every shelf
Its radiance has come from somewhere else
Namely, we’ve been blessed with Professor Susan
Imbuing the space with warmth and inclusion
Her care for community clearly combining
Technical know-how and thoughtful advising
With puzzles to share and blankets on laps
For cozier reading (or maybe just naps)
And even amid recent renovations
Our library in exile is a peak destination
Tonight, Susan, we give thanks in the Spirit
Whose love you have shared so that all who come near it
Will find in our library your teaching again
“We are God’s ohana, helping peopo com friends”
You have done the hard work of caring for hearts
With wisdom, compassion, humor, and art
You have served Wartburg Theological Seminarians
By pointing to Jesus, who is—like you—a loving librarian.
(c) Martin Lohrmann, 2023, may be shared with attribution; and, yes, the author asked Susan's permission to share this online.