Josie Reeve: “Finding Welcome” (Grad Sunday)

I’ve felt a little silly writing this grad reflection to share with this community, as I’ve really only been a part of Pres House for about 30% of my college career. But the gratefulness I feel for this group of people and the joy and peace y’all have brought me make it easy to offer words of reflection on what Pres House means to me as I prepare to graduate.

There have been moments in the past year that I’ve had moments of regret; regret that I was not a part of this community for longer, that I didn’t walk in the door my first week of freshman year. I’ve felt it when my first winter retreat was also my last, when I think about how much deeper my relationships could have grown given four years instead of one and a bit, the questions and conversations and musings I could have wrestled with and pondered and discussed, with only a little bit more time. But then I stop myself. Because how fortunate I am to even feel this longing at all!

How grateful I am to have found a community where ‘welcoming’ is not merely a word, it is an action that is practiced each week. Pres House is the place where I learned what ‘presumed welcome’ meant, and where I’ve felt I can freely put it into action.

How joyful it has been to get to play alongside my peers on the Music Team, working together to create a worship environment for celebration and reflection, for centering and renewal. Pres House is the place where I’ve gotten to make music in so many interesting combinations, perhaps most notably in a violin-viola-dulcimer-accordion quartet, (surely a first!).

How thankful I am to have been pushed out of my comfort zone over and over again, to ask questions I hadn’t even known to wonder about. Pres House is the place where I’ve been asked to deeply and thoughtfully question my faith and beliefs and why I hold them, and have been graciously supported as they evolve over time. It is the place where I am challenged each week by not only Nii Addo and Erica, but by my peers sharing their wisdom with the community. It’s where I’ve had honest discussions with my peers about the challenges of the world we live in and been blessed to hear their thoughts as they hold space for my own. It’s the place where I took a leap of faith, entering into a leadership role with a community I had been a part of for just about a month. But once again, I needn’t have worried, because when I showed up that first weekend of Council Retreat, I was continually greeted with kindness and openness and love by the other Council members who actively worked to make me feel at home.

One of the biggest things the Pres House community has taught me is that communities like these don’t happen by accident. They are the result of individual people who make decisions each day to show up and try to make the world a tiny bit kinder; people who see people different from themselves and choose wonder instead of judgment. It comes from college students working to find whimsy in everyday life, instead of taking themselves too seriously, and who find joy in the small moments of togetherness. It results from people who think deeply about their faith and beliefs—about what it looks like to act justly and to love our neighbors—and are comfortable sitting in the uncomfortable, at being challenged. It happens through meals shared together, dishes washed together, and life’s moments celebrated together. It happens in places where everyone can truly, truly, come as they are, and be reminded that they belong, that they are welcome. This is what Pres House has been for me, and that is the community I have real sorrow in leaving. To each and every individual who makes up this community, whose actions result in a culture of welcome, thank you. I am grateful for each and every one of you and the time we have shared together.

Josie Reeve (she/her) graduates in May 2026 with a B.S. in Genetics and Genomics and Microbiology with honors in Research.