Abstract
The sermonic testimony penned here is in response to the impending closure of a Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies department at the University of Iowa, a public Midwestern university. Written from the dual perspective of artist-scholar and theologian and blending performance, prose, and liturgical cadence, it intertwines lament, scripture, institutional critique, and personal memory to document the slow bureaucratic demise of a department and the spiritual and communal toll of that loss by reflecting on the hallway that once buzzed with open doors and daily rituals of care, now silenced by absence. It is presented as an act of resistance, a sacred archival intervention, and a public expression of grief. Drawing on Psalm 126, the Gospel of John, and Black prophetic traditions, the sermon resists closure in form and content. It challenges the notion of resurrection not as a metaphor but as a method, inviting the audience to “come out” into visibility, mourning, joy, and continued struggle. This work is not a memoir, but a methodology, not a eulogy, but a fierce love that insists on being seen. It attests that even in the face of institutional annihilation, we fought. We remembered. And we left the door open.