Realignments of Body Politic and Soul

As a YDS student, I served as an assistant chaplain for Yale football teams 149-151 (from the 2022 season to Spring 2023). Connecting with the battles of the gridiron, I witnessed grace in action: players growing through setbacks and pain. Football teams are microcosms of multicultural dynamics. I saw how every element of the game—from morning workouts to walk-through practices and game-day bus rides and final score—contributed to a profound sense of teamwork and sacrifice. This deepened my understanding of service. Guided by my own walk with Christ, I feel compelled to support those who are tested by life. 

So my song is evolving—it is moving beyond all empty spiritual praise that ignores the deep sources of affliction festering in our neighborhoods, cities, and rural regions. I want to bring faith to those who may not believe it can reach them.

I’ve also been involved in community outreach in Kalihi, a neighborhood in Honolulu, where my mother runs Shore to Shore Gowns, a mobile boutique. In addition to offering formal gowns and organizing fashion showcases, she created a resource room focused on family values, fine arts, and fostering community connection. This space provides youth and families with a safe environment for creative expression and access to essential supplies like food, diapers, and school supplies, while also offering on-site modeling and acting classes. The goal of this outreach is to meet the community where they are and provide opportunities for growth, reinforcing my belief that true transformation must be systemic, not merely physical or spiritual.

“Society Itself is Broken”

Recently I made a foray in chiropractic training, getting a closer look at the embattled realities of the human body. I learned much, but I soon moved on from it: it confirmed to me a larger vocational desire to pursue comprehensive healing that extends beyond physical adjustments. Such wellness would address deeper spiritual, emotional, and societal pain, imbalances, and injustices. These days, society itself is broken. 

Through all these experiences, I’m seeing up close the proliferation of pain at society’s core. These are reshaping my ministry to look beyond the walls of the church and into communities in pain. We cannot claim health while perpetuating destructive social patterns. The psychological toll of multiple crises—driven by disinformation and power consolidations—is reflected in inadequate care, broken systems, overpriced treatments, crumbling shelters that fail troubled youth, and policies that sustain inequities based on race, class, and privilege.

A more holistic approach to ministry and healing gets at the root causes of the suffering—a standard of care that mirrors how the Apostles reconciled Christ’s teachings with the healing of bodies and souls. True spiritual politics makes the well-being of all people a priority, not only their physical health but also mental and emotional repair. It addresses the harm caused by systems that often prioritize profit over people. It confronts these injustices head-on and mobilizes people to reform a society so that wholeness and equity are within everyone’s reach.

Singing a New Hymn

So my song is evolving—it is moving beyond all empty spiritual praise that ignores the deep sources of affliction festering in our neighborhoods, cities, and rural regions. I want to bring faith to those who may not believe it can reach them. I want to return to the sacred duty of stewardship—of both land and soul. I want to sing a new hymn that can be heard both in church and beyond, in places overlooked, in streets where marginalized individuals feel disconnected from traditional church spaces. It is a hymn that recognizes the brokenness around us but refuses to accept it as inevitable. It calls us to rebuild—not in the image of empire, but in the image of Christ. His ministry of liberation and love will sustain us in the trenches—not the hymns of old, but the new songs we must sing for the world we are called to create. The gospel calls for action, restoration, and a radical reimagining of how we live. 

Until we face these systemic issues, our efforts at healing will fall short. A spiritual catastrophe surrounds us, asserting human ambition and ideology above divine purpose. We have been fatally selective in the stories we remember, deciding whose histories are preserved and whose are erased. I take inspiration from the legacy of those who have come before yet have been obscured. At YDS I learned about the remarkable 19^th-century leaders the Rev. James W.C. Pennington and the Rev. Alexander Crummell, two of the countless lives forgotten in the struggle over our national values and identity as a people.[1] My efforts with others to secure Pennington’s rightful degree at YDS were undertaken to correct a deep injustice. Our aim was to bring truth and light—Lux et Veritas, as it is said—to the halls of Yale Divinity School, the cornerstone of Yale University’s history. I view the university’s decision in 2023 to grant Pennington and Crummell their posthumous degrees not as a conclusion but as a foundation for reform based on continued reckonings with its past.

Prayer, Protest, Perseverance

Though we are weary of the world’s relentless cycles, the world is where communal healing must begin. A chiropractic adjustment, like casting a vote, is just the start of a longer journey. The real work resides in deeper efforts to mend fractured souls, broken systems, and dispirited peoples. These efforts will shape our collective future, determining whether we emerge stronger and united or further divided. I want to enlist prayer itself in the struggle to comprehend and defy the times. How do we use it as a counterweight to the depravity we witness and the political fatigue and alarm many of us feel both in the church and at the ballot box? Reconciliation requires looking beyond immediate electoral victories and defeats, grounding our actions in justice modeled on Christ’s example. We can build a future that reflects the true liberation and unity we are called to embody. 

Today my door to hope remains open. I trust that God will guide me toward a greater purpose, even in an era of uncertainty. God shows the divine love for all of Creation through the sacrifice of His Son on the cross. I embrace it.

Noah Humphrey ’23 M.Div. plans to pursue dual callings in ministry and healthcare, focusing on holistic wellness in at-risk communities. He is the author of a book of poetry, Morgan Boy: Memoir of South Central (2021) and co-author of My Dream Carried Love (2023), both published by Black Minds Publishing.