Margaret Trim

Class of 2015, ThM | Interview by Ian Sheh

[VST] You are both a student and staff member at VST. Has being a student helped you in your role as Coordinator of Academic Records & Admissions?

[Margaret Trim] In some ways, they’re two separate things, but it has helped me with advising and working with students and understanding theological study.

What drew you to VST classes?

The flexibility of learning, picking the courses that are required, but also being able to put a bit of a focus in terms of where my area of interest is, which was trauma and theology. I was able to, in most of the courses, look at them from both of those lenses.

How does your VST education apply outside of VST?

I am a licensed lay preacher with my Anglican church. I have opportunities to preach in a very reflective style allowing the imagination of scripture to speak. And through my sudies I have discovered a joy in reflective style of painting, photography, and prayer.

I took a summer school course in 2021, with Septemmy Lakawa, the instructor from Indonesia on trauma, theology and the arts. I was able to write a more reflective paper, looking at the “after the storm” time of a traumatic event and how Christ appears in the mist, and was able to include a reflection in a painting.

So you haven’t stopped learning.

No. No, and that’s the thing, I’ve always been more of a journey person. I didn’t imagine I could have done a thesis like this. Each of these steps became unexpected opportunities and I still don’t necessarily know what the destination is.

You work directly with the students at VST, do you have any advice for them?

To see how your studies are living out in your world, in the bigger understanding of theology. And that it can filter through your life afterward. For both of my MA degrees, I didn’t actually know that’s what I would be completing when I started. Regent was a diploma that turned into a masters, VST started as a job that also allowed for ThM study, and I’m still here [in Vancouver] 20 years later when it was supposed to be a year. Allowing the Spirit to do the work while we’re trying to do our work.