A Complimentary Facelift

The Chapel, in conjunction with SGA, is revamping and revitalizing Dirlam Lounge to offer students an alternative space to study, hold club meetings, chat with professors, relax on campus, and curl up with a cup of Holy Grounds’ coffee. With the exciting arrival of the busy and bustling Kent Campus Center, RLC is looking to provide students with a quiet getaway to hull up with some hot cocoa and that paper due at 8:00 a.m. This facelift is hoping to include new flooring, lighting, paint, and furniture and will hopefully give the room a more intimate feel in contrast, and yet complimentary, to the open, exciting, and busy feel of the new Kent Campus Center.

The new campus center, and what it will offer the Simpson community, has generated excitement in students, faculty and staff, and potential students; however, one would be delusional or naïve to assume that the needs of every Simpson student could be fulfilled in one building. The Student Government Association and the Religious Life Community are by no means attempting to compete with the new student center. Rather, we want to provide a complimentary space that will serve students interested in a slow, quiet, and less chaotic atmosphere on the opposite side of campus.

Plans are being formulated and approved – changes are quite underway. Though the changes and additions are altered from the original plan, it is still our goal to make these changes over Christmas break. Dirlam Lounge is already a popular study hub offering coffee from Holy Grounds and a comfortable meeting venue. This facelift, however, will create more of a coffee shop essence with the new warm and relaxing atmosphere.

Dirlam Lounge is a regular stop during prospective students’ tour of campus. These changes will much improve the space and increase the “wow factor” of the room. The decrease in enrollment is a common knowledge; any positive change to campus will be of benefit.

These renovations will not, in any way, inhibit the happenings at Kent Campus Center once it is up and running. The improvements only seek to accommodate more students. With a need for retention and recruitment, shouldn’t students, staff, and faculty express concern and offer improvement to campus as a whole? The Simpson Community needs a well-rounded, diverse, and unique campus atmosphere – all of which will be affected by a new and improved Dirlam Lounge.

A New Approach: Spring Break Trips 2012

As Ecclesiastes 3 says, “To everything there is a season.” It’s a season of changes for Simpson’s campus, and RLC is doing our part to keep advancing as well. One way that RLC is changing is through a different approach to our Alternative Spring Break trips. Historically, our Chapel Intern of Mission has prepared and planned five spring break trips that are offered to the student body. Each trip is focused on some type of service varying from Habitat for Humanity projects to learning about inner city poverty.

This year, however, new things are happening. Striving to make our organization even more student led, we’re handing over the alternative spring break trip planning to the students themselves. Any student who wishes to propose a service trip may do just that by filling out a proposal application. This application consists of trip location, types of service, as well as a few other details. A committee will review the proposals and the RLC spring break trips will be announced the following week. Proposals are due this month on October 19 (right before fall break), and the trips will be announced on October 26 at Quench.

Forming the spring break trips this way is a huge change for RLC, but something that will make a huge impact, not only in our programming but on campus as well. Allowing students to plan their own trips is making room for much more personal investment in each individual’s spring break experience. Every student participating in the trips will not only have a voice in the coordination of the service but they will also partake in fundraising for their trip. They will have more time to form a community with the other students going on the same trip which will allow time for more growth during the actual week of spring break.

Though spring break is still in the somewhat distant future, it is time to begin thinking about how we’re spending our breaks. Coming up very soon is Fall Break (Octover 20 – October  23). RLC is currently sponsoring three (yep, that’s right, three!) alternative fall break trips. On the evening of Wednesday, October 19, we’ll be sending vans of students to Kansas City for an Urban Plunge experience, Sioux City for flood relief, and Des Moines to learn about justice in the city. If you’re interested in signing up for one of the trips, contact RLC, or Jorie Landers directly ( jorie.landers@my.simpson.edu ).

We’re excited about these changes that are happening within RLC and hopefully you are too! So it’s time to start brainstorming: Where do you want to spend your Spring Break?? Let me know if you have any further questions about this new approach to the Alternative Spring Break trips.

Peace and Love,

Jorie Landers

RLC Intern of Justice and Mission
jorie.landers@my.simpson.edu

Marriage… It Boils Down to This

Marriage.

It plays a large role in our lives whether we want to admit it or not.

We’re all about that age now, when we feel pressured to start thinking about our futures. Aside from decisions regarding majors/minors, grad school, and life after Simpson, society consistently reminds us that our personal lives need attended to as well. Many of our classmates are getting engaged and married, which only adds to the societal pressures.

I’ve done my fair share of thinking about marriage recently, for a variety of reasons. The reason that consumes most of my time is that of marriage equality, or same-sex marriage. It’s a touchy subject, I know.

The whole issue boils down to one single question: “What is marriage?” I grew up in a small Christian community that taught marriage to be the merging of two lives into one in the presence of God. No one specified, however, that marriage was only to be shared between one man and one woman. In recent years it occurred to me that this definition of marriage isn’t the one used by the government.

This forces us to consider what marriage is to the government and what purpose it serves in society. For starters, religious marriage should be completely separate from civil marriage. If the state upheld religious views of marriage, we would see non-Christians and people of other faiths being denied marriage licenses left and right because not all Americans believe in the Christian God.

Others have pointed to reproduction and a stable child-raising environment as the purpose of marriage. Once again, this excludes many people: those who don’t want children, or those who can’t have children. When it comes to marriage providing a stable enrironment to raise children in, who’s to say that two people of the same sex are incapable of raising a child just as well as any other couple?

Let’s not forget that marriage is an institution that was created to serve the needs of society. This becomes especially important when discussing the purpose of marriage today. What needs should be met by marriage? What do you see as marriage’s purpose? These are all questions to consider in the debate over the purpose of marriage; if we ignore these issues and aren’t careful, marriage could end up being denied to a lot more people than it already is.

Carrie Wubben
Intern of Welcome & Celebration
Smith Chapel – Simpson College

A New Beginning

A new school year means a new beginning for many of us. For
incoming first years, this is the start of a new chapter in life; one soon to
be filled with memories – memories you will cherish and memories you may regret,
but nevertheless learn from. For returning students, a new year means a clean
slate. It’s a chance to start fresh; to build on existing memories and create
new.

Simpson’s Religious Life Community (RLC) is eager to be a piece of
your new beginning. RLC offers opportunity for fellowship, service, worship,
community, justice and mission, and interfaith relations. As a team, we have
prepared for the upcoming year. Our theme kicked off last Wednesday evening at
Quench, our campus worship service open to the Simpson community every
Wednesday from 9:00-9:45PM.

This year’s theme originates from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 :

To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

This passage is applicable in our everyday lives. “To everything
there is a season…” There is a time, place, and reason for every action,
decision, and thought. Your new chapter, or clean slate, will benefit from
pondering the meaning behind this passage. This is your time to grow. This is
your time to make decisions of your own. This is your time to determine who you
want to be and where you want to go.

Start fresh. It’s your new beginning.

Join us for Quench on Wednesday nights from 9:00-9:45PM, with Afterhours directly following worship.

Keep an eye and ear out for service opportunities and Bible studies soon to come.

Rob Bell Deserves Some Respect, Maybe Even a Little Love

Christianity is rich with diversity.

It means that Christians will never agree. On the nature of God, on what constitutes Christian living, on heaven, hell or whether Jesus was human or divine. Pretty much anything anyone has ever believed about Christianity has been believed to be wrong by somebody else.

But it also means that God is big. Like really, really big. God is big enough to love us all, to claim us all. It just doesn’t seem right that God would only choose to save the literalists, or the Mormons, or the humanitarians. Somehow God has the capacity to allow for all of us and our wildly restrictive beliefs about who God is.

In his new book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Rob Bell presents a controversial argument about the loving nature of God. Essentially Bell argues that a loving God does not condemn people to an eternal hell based on what they believed, how they acted, who their friends were, or which prayer they recited. God does, however, love us all enough to grant us free will. Our decision to use that free will against God’s will, is the same as living in hell. And in heaven – wherever and whenever that is – those people who have denied God will be really uncomfortable because everyone else will have clean hearts. To use Bell’s example: can you imagine being a racist at a table in heaven full of the people you’ve always hated? And they love you. 

Bell allows that God will, even after death, allow those who have denied God on earth to change their minds. God is big enough to cleanse our hearts even after we’ve died. And God is loving enough to give us the chance to do so.

Love Wins isn’t your everyday sermon, that’s for sure. But as Bell points out in his preface, he’s not the first person to believe this. And remember, his beliefs are a part of our diversity.

So why did so many people jump at the chance to critique this new book? John Piper, a well-known Baptist leader, even tweeted, “Farewell Rob Bell” before the book was even released. Where’s the Christian love in that?

I’m sure Bell is exhausted by now. Since the book’s release he’s been under constant fire. He’s been critiqued, accused, ridiculed and interrogated. MSNBC’s Martin Bashir wouldn’t even let Bell get in a full sentence as he labeled him a universalist. Now, let’s be honest. At first glance Bell’s argument does seem a bit like universalism, but did Bashir actually read the book? Bell makes some very clear distinctions between his argument and universalism. And his book is full of important questions and provoking points. He can’t condense the material into a short interview. He wrote 200 pages for a reason. 

We may not agree with every word in Bell’s new book. But it’s certainly worth a read. You might even find some of his conclusions fascinating. At very least, please (please!) don’t critique it until you’ve read it. After all, it’s a part of the Christian story. And shouldn’t we all respect the others in our story? Don’t we believe in the kind of God who wants us to embrace and appreciate diversity instead of restrain and condemn it?

At very least, let’s agree that we don’t want a God who would allow love to lose.

Anonymous Alumna

 

Habitat–grab a hammer, change a life–but whose?

Hello RLC! My name is Annaleah and I went on the spring break trip to Mississippi to work with the George County Habitat for Humanity affiliate. I chose this trip for multiple reasons: I love working on Habitat houses, I like spring in the south, and it just seemed like the best thing to do with my spring break. Our group of 11 had a blast!

We got up early on Saturday morning to drive south to the Memphis area, where we stayed at Getwell Road United Methodist Church. While we were in Memphis, we visited Graceland and signed the wall around the grounds. We also ate at Ted Neely’s Interstate BBQ, which was our first taste of the southern staple. At Getwell we slept in their youth group room and their movie room, and then got up on Sunday morning for their 8:30 service. It was a somewhat contemporary service but quiet and relaxing. The men’s group served us breakfast and told us more about Getwell’s emphasis on service to the community. According to them, the church goes out on every fifth Saturday and serves for about 4 hours in the community and they also have several mission trips to Africa. They said that the focus on service helped make them one of the fastest-growing churches in the state.

After the service, we drove even more, stopping in Jackson, MS to eat lunch and visit the state capitol building. The New Capitol was closed, but the Old Capitol Museum was open, and so we got to learn a little more about Mississippi’s history and culture through the history of the Capitol building. There were interactive exhibits and it was free, so I recommend if you are ever passing through Jackson to stop and see it.

After checking out the Old Capitol, we continued on to Lucedale, MS, which is in George County. We were to stay at Grace United Methodist Church, but we got lost finding it. We turned around and found it eventually, and they had supper ready for us. We met the other group that we were to spend the week with, who were from New Hampshire, and after supper, some of us visited with the youth group from GUMC about evolution and various other controversial topics. It was a fascinating discussion and I think it helped bond us with the others on the trip.

Monday morning we got up from our mattresses on the floor. We were out the door at 7:30 to find our first Habitat site. The house framing was done, but we had to do the insulation and finish putting plywood on the roof. I spent much of the day up on the roof, which I really enjoyed. There were pleasant cool breezes and getting to pound nails is a great stress-reliever. For lunch, one of the Habitat group took us out to Pizza Hut. This generosity was repeated throughout the week; we did not have to pay for any of our meals while we were on the site or having supper at GUMC. It was humbling to be served in such a tangible way. That night we had homemade food from the hostesses at GUMC, and after supper the groups played Mafia together.

Tuesday we were back at the first site, and much of the day was spent finishing the insulation and putting drywall up. Outside, people were working on the siding and soffit work. The rooms in the house began to look more defined, and we finished about half the house’s drywall by the end of the day. We felt like we got a lot done because the house was changing so quickly. That evening some of us kicked back and watched The Social Network while others had good conversations and enjoyed the outdoors.

Wednesday was the pivotal day for us. We started working on the second site, which we worked on for the rest of the week with the future homeowners. At 8 a.m., all that was there were the cement slab and the walls in piles around it. By lunchtime, we had raised all of the walls except for one, and then in the afternoon we finished the walls and began putting on the roof trusses. By the time we were finished for the day, about five trusses were up and secured. It was an amazing feeling to look at the bones of the house and be able to say, “We built this; when we got here this morning, there was just a cement slab, and now there’s this.”

 On Wednesday and Thursday, workers from the local Lowe’s came to help us with the house. Lowe’s had donated $30,000 for the house and the local newspapers and radio stations covered the wall-raising. There were about 35 people on the site and we were all working hard in the heat to get the house going. To see the house framing complete by the end of the day Thursday was a testament to the power of teamwork and sharing the load. No one person could have done it, but with the large group we were able to get it done.

 Wednesday night I took part in a conversation about happiness and success. The discussion revolved around a quote from “Man’s Search for Meaning,” by Viktor Frankl which essentially said that happiness and success cannot be pursued but rather must ensue. Some people spoke of their belief that happiness requires an active component, while others said that happiness can be a passive thing. It was an interesting conversation.

Thursday night we got done with working early. The New Hampshire group headed off to visit New Orleans and see the St. Patrick’s Day parades, while we Iowans went to Dauphin Island, AL, to the beach. We got to the beach as the sun was setting and the moon was rising, and it was beautiful. The air was warm and the water was cool, and along the shore there were multitudes of shells to collect. The sea breezes swirled around us, fresh salt air invigorating the senses. The only thing that marred the beauty was the harsh orange light coming from the oil rigs out in the water.

We left the beach to find a place to eat supper and ended up eating at Street’s Island Grill. All 11 of us crowded around a round table, elbow to elbow, enjoying the seafood. I ordered a crab cake burger, and it was delicious. I couldn’t finish the fries that came with and so I shared them with everyone else. Dining together in such close quarters was comfortable and made us feel like a family. After eating, we drove back to GUMC under the bright moonlight and went to bed.

Friday was our last day in Mississippi and we were all feeling sorry that we had to leave. The relationships we had formed with the others we worked with were valuable. One of the contractors on the site, Wendell, told us his life story. When he was a teenager, he became hooked on drugs and also dealt drugs. He overdosed once or twice and saw three people shot. He was living the high life in terms of making money, but as a man, he was about as low as someone could go. Then, he met a woman who helped him get to know God and introduced him to his wife. Wendell’s life was changed, and now he is a pastor and spends his life serving others. The power of God and the power of love shone through Wendell all week, and it was a real honor to get to work with him.

At lunch, the family whose home we were working on thanked us for pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into their home. They were so grateful, and I felt blessed that I could give them my time and energy. It was an emotional lunch, because there were so many people saying thank-yous, and the Habitat group even gave us medals inscribed with “Our Hero 2011 GCHFH”. (GCHFH is George County Habitat for Humanity.) I had tears in my eyes, and I know that other people did too. 

After lunch we worked on the house for the final time, and completed putting plywood on half the roof. Wendell invited us over to his youth pastor’s house to shoot guns. He had high-powered rifles, handguns, and shotguns. We shot skeet, too. At last we had to leave for supper at GUMC, and we said goodbye to the people we’d been working with all week. Hugs and handshakes were exchanged and tears flowed. They told us to come back soon and that we were always welcome.

Supper was a catfish fry, and after supper we Iowans packed up to leave. We said our goodbyes to the New Hampshire group, and set off to drive straight through back to Simpson. In the van, we discussed our experiences and talked about coming back next year. Driving back was not particularly memorable, but it was good to come back and have a day to relax before classes began again. I miss Mississippi already, but I know we will be able to go back someday.

 If you have never been on a break trip through RLC or have never worked with Habitat, I urge you to try it. As one of the people on the trip said, “Habitat–grab a hammer, change a life–but whose?” Come into it with an open mind and you’ll find out that this world can be changed with your helping hands.

Alternative Spring Break

I think when most students start looking forward to Spring Break, they are dreaming of warm weather and relaxation.  They are probably either looking forward to an exciting trip south, or a boring trip back home to be fed by mom and sleep in until 2pm.  To be honest, both of those possibilities sound wonderful right about now, but I am looking forward to a different kind of Spring Break.  Yes, I will still be heading south, but I won’t be packing a bikini.  My Spring Break—along with about 50 other Simpson students—will be dedicated to service. 

My freshman year, I went to Florida for Spring Break.  Ok, I went to visit my grandma, but I still spent the majority of my time laying on the beach and relaxing.  It was a great break—I was able to relax, read for fun, and do whatever I wanted.  The past two years my Spring Break has looked a little different.  My sophomore year I went on a RLC Alternative Spring Break trip to Houston to do Hurricane Katrina roof repair, and last year I went to Toronto to serve the poor in the city.  I didn’t necessarily come back from these trips relaxed or caught up on my reading– this type of Spring Break doesn’t exactly serve that purpose.  Instead I came back having learned about myself, about poverty, and about the way the world works.  I came back bonded to a group of people in a new, deep way.  I came back with a passion for service, for travel, and for people.  These trips may not have brought me relaxation, but they did give me a new perspective on life, a renewed energy for service, and life experiences that I could not have gained in any other way.

Looking back, I signed up for Alternative Spring Break trips mostly because my friends encouraged me to.  The allure of a cheap trip to a new place also encouraged me to fill out the application.  Yes, I think service is a worthwhile and important part of life, but spending Spring Break doing service when I could be relaxing was a bit of a difficult decision to make.  I definitely don’t regret my decisions to spend Spring Break serving, learning, and bonding.  Alternative Spring Break trips gave me a chance to leave behind the world of self-centered consumerism that so many of us operate out of and spend a week sharing my time and space with people who think and live differently than I do.

 I can now say that I have spent a week in Houston, sleeping on a cot in a church, showering in FEMA showers, dancing on rooftops under the Texas sun learning how to shingle with nine other young women.  I can tell people the story of Levita, a handicapped woman who was living in a tiny house with huge holes in the walls and a leaky roof, less than a mile from HUGE, million dollar mansions.

 I can now say that I have made the van trip to Toronto, Canada, where I was able to learn about  different cultures and experience how poverty is dealt with outside of the United States.  I can say that I have played soccer with refugee children in a Toronto park and served in a Canadian soup kitchen. 

On each Alternative Spring Break trip I have gone on I have returned with a renewed passion for service, a new group of friends, and stories of new experiences to share.  I have been able to continue this passion in my daily life, through the service groups that RLC offers and through my position in the chapel planning the Alternative Spring Break trips that will go out next week. (I am SO EXCITED to head to Arizona to learn and serve on a Navajo Reservation)  If you have never experienced the awesome experience of a RLC Alternative Spring Break trip, I encourage you to apply next year.  And for those of you who are heading out in white rental vans a week from Saturday morning—make the best of your experience and come back with stories to share!

Megan Culbertson

Chapel Intern of Service and Mission

Interfaith is Inclusive

Imagine you’re working in a soup kitchen. Why are you there? Are you there because you want to be there for your fellow human beings? Are you there because Jesus said, “But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind”? Are you there because Muhammad said, said, “Feed the hungry, visit the sick and set captives free”? Are you there because Buddha said, “If you do not tend to one another then who is there to tend to you? Whoever who would tend me, he should tend the sick”?

No matter who said it, the message is the same.

Interfaith work doesn’t mean that you have to let go of your beliefs. It doesn’t mean that you are giving up on your faith (or lack of so). Interfaith takes common goals of all people, and gives us the opportunity to work together to achieve them. You may be a Muslim. The girl next you may be a Hindu, or a Christian, but we’re all here working for something. When we fight over who is right and who is wrong, we hinder that goal.

Chris Stedman came to Simpson to speak on Monday night. Hannah and I met him at the Interfaith Youth Core last semester in Washington. He was our group leader and mentor, along with being a Humanist and a passionate interfaith activist. He spoke to 50-plus Simpson students about his role in interfaith, and trying to find an inclusive community. He spoke of his childhood fundamentalist church and their own self-assurance that they were right, that they had the answer. He spoke of a community of athiests, who felt sure that they were right, that they had the answer.

We all think we have the answer, and that’s not bad unless we are exclusive. When we refuse help because that other group was the one who offered, that is not beneficial. When we refuse help because we’re different, nothing gets accomplished. Interfaith means embracing these differences, learning from them, and being better Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, because of them. It’s cheesy, but remember when you were in 5th grade, and your teacher had a poster on the wall that said something like, “Two minds are better than one”? It’s corny, but true. We come from different backgrounds and faiths, but those differences can help to open our minds and see things that we might not have before. Maybe we see how much we have in common. Maybe we see that our faiths point us in the same direction. A lot can happen.

I love interfaith because it brings people together instead of leaving people out. It helps us all to be better than we were before, and do more than we could alone. If all the world’s people worked together to solve world hunger, or to end racism or sexism, think of what we could do. If we say, “We’re only going to work with other Christians,” we limit ourselves, as would we if “Christians” is exchanged for any other religious or nonreligious group. As Chris said Monday night, we limit ourselves when we put up walls, saying that there’s “us” and “them.” Why can’t there be an inclusive, “we”?

It’s by standing together and embracing our differences that we can accomplish what seems impossible, even if we start standing together at something as basic as a soup kitchen.

Peace,

- Madie Fiedler [Intern of Interfaith]

Speak through Word and Deed

Words are powerful.

The more and more I think about what that statement implies, the more I’m completely blow away by its truth.

We use thousands of different words each day. Some big, some small, some we make up… Words are how we express ourselves in a variety of circumstances. We are interactive, social beings that use language as a tool for growth and learning. And the more and more I have conversations with others, the more and more I learn from them and about myself.

One thing I’ve noticed a lot lately is how at any given time, words can pack a punch. I might be reading out of a text book and come across something that makes me go, ‘Whoa. That’s powerful stuff.’ And I might have that same reaction to an insight someone has during class, or when I’m listening to someone give a sermon at campus worship. In any case, the words that we use to describe things, or to convey ideas, are incredibly important.

Something that might surprise people is how our brain learns and retains things. Often times we don’t always filter information the first time we ‘learn’ it. In some cases it actually takes the human brain multiple tries to recognize, filter and store the information or stimuli it’s been given. From there it gets stored in our working, sensory, short or long term working memories for later use.

–I only bring this up because I want to share a time when words powerfully altered my understanding of my faith and myself.

 

During my freshman year I was going through a really rough time… I had just gotten broken up with, I didn’t understand anything about my life, none of my classes made sense and I had no focus or direction whatsoever. And as an 18/19 year old [as I'm sure it would be at any age] that was a difficult and scary place to be. I remember once when I was driving back to Simpson from a weekend at home and I was dreading everything about what I had to go back to… But on my 2 hour journey back to campus I decided to put on the radio. I don’t particularly like the mainstream music that’s played on the radio, so my alternative choice of listening that day happened to be the Christian radio station. And for the first time in about two months I sang…because up until this point, I had nothing to sing about. I was not happy. I was numb.

At some point in my karaoke-like travel experience I felt something deep in my chest…like when you have a lump in your throat but you don’t know how to get it out. I actually felt an aching in my heart. The kind of aching that you feel when you long for something that you miss… And I missed feeling anything.

Then this song came on… “By Your Side” by Tenth Avenue North. I had heard this song many, many times before, but something about the lyrics of the song on that particular day, at that exact moment hit me like a brick. The words weren’t new and the song arrangement was familiar. But it was how it was presented at that moment which made the message stick. I may not have paid much attention the first time, but I certainly did the next time. And every ounce of my being was fully immersed in the feeling of God’s unconditional love and grace.

I don’t know what it was about those words…but they packed one hell of a punch. And I needed that more than anything I’ve ever needed in my life. I was never the same after that day in the car, and I’m not ashamed to say that. I was reduced to a state of vulnerability and God used that in a way that might not make a lot of sense. It still doesn’t really make sense to me, but it’s something that I felt very deeply.

It was a powerful message given through words.

We often gloss over the words and messages that are presented to us. Sometimes we just don’t make the connections, and other times we’re just not paying attention. In my case, this particular message was pretty straight forward: ‘And I’ll be by your side wherever you fall. In the dead of night, whenever you call. Please don’t fight these hands that are holding you.’ But it doesn’t always work that way. I feel like God becomes present when we least expect it, and certain things are revealed to us in those moments. But for whatever reason we can’t predict them…which I’m afraid is incredibly frustrating.

But when we do pay attention, I’m convinced we can find hope in the message and in our own words if we choose to. It’s so important to think about the words we use, or don’t use, and how they can effect others. You never know if something you say will be another person’s ‘ah-ha!’ moment in life or that pick-me-up they’ve been needing. It could change their whole perspective and understanding…and that’s a big deal.

I would like to propose a challenge that we might strive to go throughout our days and weeks being vigilant for the message that we can receive and also give to others. It doesn’t have to be something incredibly profound, but something with substance… Because words are beautiful and powerful parts of our lives. They can do so much.

May these words offer some wisdom and some comfort for those who need it.

Peace.

- Erin Guzman [Intern of Spiritual Formation and Celebration]

What Do You Think Of?

When I say the word “Catholic”, what immediately comes to your mind?  Do you think of some old guy in a big white hat waving his hand and making all sorts of religous “decrees”?  Do you think of a nun wapping some poor Catholic school kid on the knuckles with a wooden ruler?  Or do you think of something a little bit darker?  The Crusades?  The Inquisition?  Modern day clergy abuse?

When I think of the word “Catholic”, those are not the first thoughts to pop into my mind.  I think of my family, and I think of my childhood.  I think of my days attending a Catholic School (uniforms and all), and I think of my home parish.  Mostly, though, I think of my faith…I think of me.

I don’t intend for my first blog post to be something deep and profound, but when I was thinking of what to write about for the Catholic Student Organization, I felt it would be appropriate to talk about my own faithlife and how much I truly love being Catholic.  Having grown up Catholic my whole life, and having graduated from a little K-12 Catholic School, my faith was never really challenged.  I never had to give a lot of thought to what I believed or why I believed it.  I fell into the category of “culture Catholic”, Catholic by name if not necessarily by practice.  Then I started attending Simpson, and suddenly I wasn’t surrounded by the close Catholic community I was used to and had honestly taken advantage of.  My faith was no longer the dominant faith…and it wasn’t the most popular one either.  It wasn’t that people disliked me because I was Catholic, but I had never heard so many Catholic jokes in my life.  I took religion courses that made me think hard about what I believed and why.  I found that there was such a diversity of views, beliefs, and opinions at Simpson that I was going to have to step up my game and figure out just what it was I valued out of life, what I thought of God, and what my own opinion of Catholicism was.

Well, as many of you know, and as the rest of you can probably guess, I embraced my Catholicism.  The more I learned about my faith, the more good I found in it.  What once was an accepted part of my life, because my family was and I had simply always been as well, became one of the major components of why I am who I am.  I found beauty in what some see as an archaic, patriarchal hierarchy.  Not just beauty, but stability, tradition, meaning, and community.  I became the Chapel Intern for the Catholic Student Organization because I want others to see what I see.  People focus to much, I think, on what’s negative about Catholicism.  Actually, I think people focus to much on the negative things in life in general.  I don’t want to convert anyone because everyone is entitled to believe whatever they believe.  I  just want to highlight what is good and strong about the Catholic faith, so that people don’t automatically go to the negative, stereotypical ideas of what it is when they think of the word “Catholic”.  

It’s not easy being Catholic, but let’s face it, it’s not easy being any type of faith in this world.  What we really need to remember in the end is that we are all people.  We all have different thoughts, beliefs, and hopes in life.  What CSO, as well as all of RLC, is striving to do is provide a community of acceptance, love, and understanding.  I love being Catholic, I love being the CSO Chapel Intern and a part of RLC, and I love being at Simpson.  I just want people to know why.  So, feel free to question…feel free to critique…just know that I’m Catholic, and I like it   

Peace and Love,

Erin Broich