Summer Intern from Duke Divinity School

Mark Graves

I'm excited to have the opportunity to serve as a summer intern at the Chapel of the Cross for the next 10 weeks. I'm quite thankful to the parish for working with me in organizing this internship as part of my divinity degree requirement.

I'll be starting my third year of study at Duke Divinity School in August. Before beginning my Master of Divinity program, I earned a BA in music from the University of Richmond and an MA in music (Historical Performance Practice) from Duke. Outside of the academic and musical worlds, I have interests in the outdoors (backpacking), ecology, wine-making, and cooking. I'm also looking forward to getting married (at the Chapel of the Cross) next May!

During my summer internship at the Chapel of the Cross, I'm going to be all over the parish map. I'll be assisting with vacation church school, the youth mission trip to Wyoming, pastoral visitation, and general parish ministry. In addition, I'll be facilitating an adult summer reading group. The group will gather every other week for a span of eight weeks, exploring four books together, with a general overarching theme of Christian faith and its impact for our daily life. We'll begin with Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament by Ellen Davis (a Hebrew scholar, Duke Divinity professor and lay Episcopalian), and then move on to No Future without Forgiveness by former Archbishop of Southern Africa Desmond Tutu. The next book will be For the Life of the World by the Orthodox scholar Alexander Schmemann. The series will conclude with a novel, Jayber Crow by Kentucky essayist and environmental advocate Wendell Berry. I'll also be reading Morning Prayer in the chapel Mondays through Thursdays at 8:45 a.m.

I'm eager to become immersed in parish life over the coming weeks, and hope to get to know many of you during this time.

Mark Graves became a communicant of the Chapel of the Cross in January 2003 and has also served as a 5:15 volunteer organist.

If you would like to know more about the Duke Divinity School Program, please visit www.divinity.duke.edu or call 919-660-3400.