A musical performance by freshman Nam Tran “Bambi” Nyugen started off the first Agape Latte event of the semester on Wednesday. Her soft, calming voice, accompanied by her own piano playing, eased into the talk presented by David Hilmey, Ph.D., dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, about his struggle to embrace spirituality.
Natalie Wasek, a senior accounting major and coordinator of Agape Latte, introduced Dr. Hilmey, who has taught at St. Bonaventure University for almost 10 years. Prior to his current dean position, Hilmey served as associate chemistry professor and honors program director.
When Wasek introduced Hilmey, she noted that he offered the fun fact of being a “long-suffering Buffalo Bills fan who was the happiest he’s ever been on New Year’s Eve.”
Although Agape Latte usually involves divulging information about the speaker’s personal life, Hilmey began by saying, “I’m not usually really good at talking about personal experiences.”
He then lightened the mood by describing how Wasek approached him about doing Agape Latte, mentioning he needed to provide a picture to go on the flyers. He asked his wife for help finding one, and she sent him a photo from when he was 3 years old in a St. Bonaventure University sweatshirt at Pumpkinville in Ellicottville, New York.
He laughed as he pulled out the same sweatshirt he was wearing in the picture, while also getting a laugh from the audience. Then, he emphasized how this connection to Bonaventure did not come full circle.
His experience as a toddler was the only prior relation he had to Bonaventure. Coming here to teach was brand new for him and a journey in itself.
“I had no transformational moment in my life,” Hilmey said. “Every moment has been a decision or event that led me on a path.”
When he went to the University of Buffalo for his undergraduate degree, he started to feel less engaged in religion. Hilmey considered himself different from most people because he was always more invested in religion than spirituality.
“I loved the nature of the Catholic Church, the incense, being an altar boy and the ritualistic nature of it that made me really engaged,” Hilmey said. “But, when you’re all holding hands, it freaks the hell out of me. I don’t want to touch anybody. I don’t want to hug. I don’t want to cry.”
While that religious aspect started to fade, it never went away. He still went to church, not always thinking about why, letting his spirituality carry him through.
Hilmey gave an analogy from author Resa Aslan’s book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth: “Religion is a lot like wells…[I]f you think about, ‘Oh I’m spiritual, but I don’t have a religion,’ you’re digging a shallow well. It doesn’t mean that you have to dig a particular religion, and a deep well gets you to the water to where that spirituality is.”
For Hilmey, Catholicism was that well that he studied and was fascinated by, but he got so caught up in what he considered the construction that he forgot what he was going for: the water, the spirituality, the deeper connection to something beyond himself.
He also got caught up in what he wanted to do with his life, struggling to balance his family life with getting his Ph.D. and trying to figure out if his dream of being a being a renowned chemist was what he wanted.
Once he got to Bonaventure and learned that teaching and explaining concepts was what he was passionate about, he still continued to face the idea of spirituality with the presence of friars on campus, the amount of students involved in ministries or through the classroom.
“I learned that I don’t care about talking about what I accomplished,” he said. “I’m trying to tell them how I got there. I was far more interested in explaining stuff to my peers.”
With the support of his wife and the community at St. Bonaventure, he started to find his place and understand that the well is there to bring you to the water. The water is there to rejuvenate and to renew.
“I’ve learned that it’s good to reflect and openly speak about how I feel,” Hilmey said.
