Telos Fall 2013

TELOS10

healing

FALL 2013

A WILLIAMS JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN DISCOURSE

The Healing of Intimacy

Battlescars

He Healed My Broken Spirit

TELOS

10

Fall 2013TELOSthe WILLIAMS

All pieces in The Williams Telos are the contributors’ own interpretations and understanding of the Christian faith, and do

not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Telos board or the publication as a whole.

Purpose The Williams Telos is a journal dedicated to the expression of opinions and perspectives

informed by the Christian faith.

ContactEmail [email protected] with comments, questions, donations, or

submissions. You can also visit our website at sites.williams.edu/telos

ThanksWe would like to thank College Council for

their financial support.

DefinitionTelos is the Greek word for “purpose,” “goal,” or “fulfillment.” For us, telos represents a direction

that can only be found through God.

Cover photo by Amber EllisSpecial thanks to our friends at Saddleback Antiques

for allowing us to photograph their quilt.

Bianca Brown Fr. Gary Caster Shana Dorsey Amber Ellis

Yedidya ErqueFelecia Farrell

Dylan GriswoldHeng Chao Gu

Todd HallOsakpolo Igiede

Lily LeeAngelina LinSi Young Mah

Chih McDermottRaquel Rodriquez

Sarah Wu

Unless otherwise indicated, all Bible verses are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by

Tyndale House Foundation.

Contributors

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Wyatt Boyer ’15SENIOR EDITOR

Chih McDermott ’14EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Jasmyne Grismore ’15

SENIOR EDITOR

Bianca Brown ’14SENIOR EDITOR

Shana Dorsey ’14SENIOR EDITOR

Heng Chao Gu ’14

LAYOUT EDITOR

Feixue Gong ’16

BUSINESS MANAGER

Hoi Ching Cheung ’16

LAYOUT EDITOR

Amber Ellis ’15

LAYOUT STAFF

Eduard Ciobanu ’15

LAYOUT STAFF

Joyce Huang ’16

LAYOUT STAFF

Sarah Wu ’16

LAYOUT STAFF

Si Young Mah ’14

All images were used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License. Images were desaturated from original.

(For more information, see creativecommons.org/license/by/2.0.)

“Come, all you who are thirsty,come to the waters;

and you who have no moneycome, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.”

Isaiah 55:1 (NIV)

Upon my acceptance into Williams, I believed I had reached the pinnacle of God’s favor in my life. Four years at a top school, immersed in the highest concentration of brilliance to which I had ever been exposed – how could I ask for more? The future looked bright before me, and each day felt like I was taking one step closer to uncovering God’s plan for my life. Now in my third year, I can say sincerely that I have made some of my finest memories here at Williams. But to think that my best days are confined to my Williams experience is to narrow the margin of the grace and provision God bestows upon those who love Him.

One of my favorite stories about Jesus is when he stays over at Simon Peter’s house after he heals the demon possessed man in the synagogue. After sunset, people gather outside of Peter’s back door hoping Jesus will heal them. When I read this, I am amazed at how many people show up. The story says that “the whole town gathered at the door.” Everyone comes. Everyone has a disease that they need healing for, everyone has a demon that they wish they could cast away. And the amazing thing is, that until Jesus came, the people just lived their lives. They never sought after healing because they never believed that it could happen. But as soon as Jesus heals one person, everyone starts to pay attention. They see the alternative to their broken and compromised lives and they desire it.

We enter Williams as students set apart for our talent and promise. We’re told that our liberal arts education will provide us the knowledge and skills necessary to enact meaningful change in the world. Valiantly, we commit ourselves to an array of global causes – economic equality, environmental justice, social uplift. However, in the course of our studies, we may come to discover that our efforts to implement systemic change are ultimately inadequate: as our knowledge of the world around us increases, we see how overwhelmingly vast the disparities of our world really are. Moreover, in light of the world’s brokenness, we find that we ourselves are broken, debilitated by fear or mental illness or damaged relationships.

All too easily we accept this brokenness as reality. Frustrated by the continued inconsistency between what we hope for and what we find in our own lives, we choose to rationalize brokenness, explaining it away until it feels normal, and continue on with our lives. Everyone does this. And Jesus comes not to shame us for our error, but to show us that the healing we seek, both for ourselves and the world, is real and attainable.

In this issue, our writers and artists share their stories of receiving God’s invitation to healing. Raquel Rodriguez discusses the loss of her cousin and the unexpected ways in which God met her in the midst of grief. During an interview at the Northern Berkshire Pregnancy Support Center (NBPSC), Bianca Brown uncovers stories of pain transformed into hope and new life. Dylan Griswold shares how a physical injury led him to receive God’s gracious gift of love.

Healing is not an abstract ideal that we attain through hard work and diligent study. But rather, a gift that Jesus offers to us without cost. Jesus simply says, “Be healed.” So, in the words of the prophet, come, buy, eat, and enjoy the good things of God.

Grace and Peace Be Yours,

Jasmyne and Wyatt

Letter from the Editors

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Shana Dorsey

Bianca Brown

Dylan Griswold

Yedidya Erque

Raquel Rodriguez

Felecia Farrell

Chih McDermott

Father Caster

Angelina Lin

Sarah Wu

Si-Young Mah

Heng Chao Gu

Osakpolo Igiede


On 61 Main

The Gift of Love


Features

What’s the Heal?

Shattered

[name]

Battlescars

Affliction Furthers the Flight in Me

Suit Yourself

I Have a Hope of Getting There

A Thoughtful Text

02 The Williams Telos

Poetry

Reflection

Art

Fiction

Discovering My Neighbor


Fall 2013 03

She had been told not to, but his words were enticing and made sense. The serpent hissed “You will surely not die…For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The words reverberated through her mind “For God knows that when you eat of it….” And suspicion arose.

Was God holding out on her? Why couldn’t she eat from the tree—why couldn’t she have this knowledge?

“You will be like him…” “I will be like him” she thought. She wanted this—she wanted

her eyes opened, to assert her own destiny, to know something more.

Can we fault her? I cannot. With all the sagacity of hindsight, we modern readers look upon Eve and think “what a fool!”. How could she not trust God and instead listen to a serpent of all things? The serpent’s words were subversive with a hint of accusation. He suggests God was threatened by Adam and Eve, that he did not want their eyes to be opened and he did want them to be like him. Thus Eve was led to believe that the one who created her, had not her best interest at heart, but was looking to clip her wings, to keep her shut in the dark.

Her questioning and doubt of God is not unlike my own. In the face of the slightest set backs, with the ache of waiting for an answer to prayer, I question him.

“Where are you? Why are you withholding this from me? Why do you hide yourself from me? Why am I suffering? Why can’t I feel your presence? Where are the gifts in my life?. And so on the questions go. At the heart of each question is a fundamental doubt of God’s goodness—of his desire to bless me. Yes I can quite identify with Eve and my response to my doubts are similar to hers.

With the serpent’s words her evil desire was conceived and sin birthed.1

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5458/6913475380_0412fb40ba_o.jpg

wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”2

Through disobedience to God both she and her husband’s sin was birthed.

The effects of this sin were immediate. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”

Only a short while earlier , before they disobediently ate from the tree, “the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame”. In the purity of God’s fellowship and while still cocooned in obedience, they were comfortable with themselves and God. Now, after their sin, all changed. Instead of blissful transparency, there rose shameful nakedness. Nakedness at its core implies vulnerability. When one’s body is unclothed it is laid bare. It is not only physically vulnerable, vulnerable to the elements and injury but also it is “emotionally” vulnerable. Suddenly all one’s faults are magnified, such as that unsightly wart, those extra pockets of fat, the blemish, the mole, and most sensitively, the sexual organs. Intuitively we know we shouldn’t expose our nakedness to just anyone because our bodies are unique and profoundly “self ”. One’s body is oneself. Thus for one’s body to be exposed is for one’s very self to be endangered. Adam and Eve felt this danger, first with one another, then with God.

Eve was taken out of Adam—she is a part of him and he of her. In the New Testament the Apostle Paul states that no one abuses his own body but nourishes and treats it well. Thus when Adam and Eve hid from each other in shame, they were in effect proclaiming “I do not acknowledge you as my own, I do not trust you with my body. I do not trust you with myself. There is something to fear from you”.

Adam and Eve’s shame also revealed their uneasiness about themselves. Though their very bodies were fashioned to represent God, they no longer reveled in bearing his image but thought of

his creation, their bodies, as something to be ashamed of. They rejected God through the rejection of their bodies.

Adam and Eve’s sense of rejection is also manifested in their decision to hide from God. After shielding their bodies from each other, when God inquired of their whereabouts, Adam responded “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

Their hiding from him reveals further information about their fear of vulnerability. It is understandable to mistrust imperfect humans but to mistrust one’s perfect Creator, reveals a deep embedment of fear—an almost irrational desire for self-preservation at all costs, even the severing of emotional connections with others.

Adam and Eve hid from God because they feared emotional intimacy with him but they also were likely afraid of punishment, for they knew they had disobeyed. Before, I surrendered my life to God for the first time, I feared going to him because I was ashamed of my faults, of myself, and feared he would be disappointed with me.

But God covered Adam and Eve’s shame better than they could themselves. “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” And I found he he was able to cover mine.

In God’s act of making garments of skin, animal fur, to clothe Adam and his wife, he foreshadows the sacrifice of Jesus Christ who fully restores humanity back to intimacy with God and to each other. Jesus took the punishment for ours sins, for us, and through his life, God reconciles the world to himself for all those who will put their faith in him. I, tired of my own loneliness and unhappiness, cried out to God “ I can’t do this anymore God”, and I relinquished control to him. From that moment on he became more to me than just a disciplinarian in the sky, but a loving Father. My fear of him was gone and was replaced daily

“But God covered Adam and Eve’s shame better than they

could themselves... And I found he was able to cover mine. ”


“But God covered Adam and Eve’s shame better than they

could themselves... And I found he was able to cover mine. ”

by confidence of his love, and daily words from him that I was his daughter, one he loved and adored. I received the spirit of “sonship”, and by that spirit, cried Abba,Father, Daddy.”3 My loneliness began to mend and I gained the ability and trust others because of the love God gave to me. When I cannot love, I look to the love he has already given me, and I am able. Until, Christ comes again to restore the world once and for all, I must continue to lean into this healing.

Adam and Eve were not abandoned because of what they did; they had broken the peace and unforeseen consequences that linger to this day were unleashed. They could not undo the damage of what they had done, but they had the opportunity of healing. God promised them and the world, a coming savior,4 and he began the process of addressing the new death in the world.

After God’s covering of them, Eve gave birth to a son, and Adam named his wife the mother of the living.

“Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man.”

It seemed from then, in God, some healing began. Through one man, death entered, through the other, life. Through one, fear and vulnerability reigned, but through the other love, peace and healing flows._______________1 “For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each

person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” James 1:14-15

2 Genesis 3:6 NIV3 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but

you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’” Romans 8:15, NIV

2 Genesis 3:15 NIV

Shana Dorsey is a magical being whose super powers include turning people who annoy her into toads. However, as she is a very loving person she does not exercise this ability very often.

the source. The nationwide Care Net network estimates a time frame of eighteen months from start to finish to open a pregnancy center; NBPSC opened in seven. Three rooms needed new floors, doors had to be boarded up to create a wall, and the whole center needed painting. Insurmountable obstacles remind us to hold our Father’s hand, and Judy let God lead her so closely that her trips to the post office would be amidst tears of happiness and relief as God provided for yet another check to cover a month’s expenses to be waiting in the mail. One Sunday a carpenter in Judy’s church came up to her and asked if he could help out in any way. Judy found the voice to tell him, “Yes,” while her enraptured heart sought the expression of humble thankfulness towards her God. NBPSC has the gracious touches of the body’s provision; God will have His way.

The phone in the front room started to ring, and Judy jogged over to take the call at the receptionist’s desk. As she began to speak animatedly with the caller, joking about plumbing woes, I remembered a phone conversation Judy spoke of that took place when the center had first opened. A young woman named Callie had called to see if she could help out, a request well-received in a ministry run by volunteers. Callie didn’t know quite how she could help, but as the conversation continued, Judy began to understand why she had phoned. Hurting hearts can believe that helping others may fulfill their own need for help.

“As it turned out, I wasn’t able to let her volunteer because she isn’t healed,” Judy told me. “She can’t help others yet if she’s still deeply grieving about her own situation.”

Two and a half years ago, Callie was raped. She felt sick, alone, and wished to bury her pain out of existence. But hers was a pain

On 61 MainRescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those

who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man

according to his work? - Proverbs 24:11-12, ESV

The entranceway of the Northern Berkshire Pregnancy Support Center (NBPSC) matched the adjacent storefronts; hollowed out of the main building there was space to unbutton a coat, shift a shoulder bag, or nervously shake off second thoughts before reaching for the door handle. Facing a short flight of steps inside, I paused to watch the shadows of footsteps that have climbed up before me: some anxious and quick, others halting, hesitant. I quieted my breathing to listen to the whispered worries and unspoken doubts that were still palpable in the air. As the shadows disappeared into the layers of past reality, I walked on to see what they had found.

A field of lemon lavenders danced through each of the five rooms at NBPSC. The warm fragrance matched the gentle decor gracing the walls, and sweet music dusted the atmosphere with a sense of calm. This place of peace is a humble tribute to God’s penchant to work miracles, especially the kind where He reclaims a space for His active work. To be honest, I have not always believed in the signs and miracles of God being worked in the world today. But healers are yet among us: on that day I found them at 61 Main Street in North Adams.

Judy Williams greeted me with a tired but enthusiastic hug, her day already filled with more than a Friday morning can reasonably accommodate. As the Executive Director for the NBPSC, Judy is responsible for overseeing all of the center’s services; on that day it included looking after lavatorial complications. But the presence of the plumber simply reminded Judy that two years ago the center didn’t even have a functioning bathroom. God’s favor can often be seen through provisions of which only He could be

“She can’t help others yet if she’s still deeply grieving about her own situation.”

An interview with Judy Williams, healerby Bianca Brown


that would be used greatly for God; hers was a pain that would be known in a most public way. When she missed a period, her fears were confirmed. Callie nervously told her husband that she was pregnant, and that the child was not his. Her husband could not hide the wretched pain that this information provoked in him; he did not want to keep this child. Callie’s friends counseled her to abort. When her mother brought her to the doctor, he told Callie that she had two weeks to decide if she wanted to terminate her pregnancy. Callie’s mother regretfully remembers telling her daughter, “It’s up to you.”

The possibility of giving her baby to an adoptive family helped Callie decide to continue her pregnancy. At six months, however, Callie and her husband saw the small, beautiful form of a little girl – their little girl. Callie’s husband couldn’t dismiss from his waking and dreaming consciousness the soft, delicate person the ultrasound had showed them. He wanted to be her dad.

Little Bethany is now two years old. She is alive, and she is gorgeous. Callie’s pain is being transformed into saving grace for many other Bethanys yet inside their mother’s bodies, but there is also no disguising the real hurt in her family. While walking down the street with her husband, who is white, and her daughter, who is half-black and half-white, strangers’ glances and whispers constantly remind Callie of something she has asked the Lord to

be able to forget. The rapist is still not caught, and Callie fears encountering him every time she leaves the house. He knows what she looks like, but she cannot recall his face.

The wooden floors creaked as Judy walked with me from the front room to the counseling room, pointing at furniture and television screens along the way, saying, “They were all donated. Everything was donated.” As I flipped through literature on the bookshelves in the counseling room, Judy explained how clients have the opportunity to “earn while they learn.” Points accrue as each young mother continues to visit the center and go through lessons. Such a program encourages the young mothers to have ownership of purchasing items for baby, as the center’s internal economy allows points to be used as dollars at the Baby Boutique; none can find a more favorable conversion rate!

Bianca Brown

“But hers was a pain that would be used greatly for God; hers was a pain that would be known in a most public way.”

Fall 2013 07

Pint-sized dresses and miniature shoes for adorable baby feet lined the shelves of the Boutique. The circular racks and shelves were all filled, and a volunteer named Susan is milled about, keeping the sunny room in order. “We only accept clothing and shoes that are very fresh,” Susan told me while attentively folding and refolding a gingham button-down boy’s shirt. “I won’t accept anything I wouldn’t use for my own children.” Rimless glasses showcased Susan’s bright, honest eyes, and colorful stones on her wrist caught my attention. She calls her bracelet a life bracelet, because the colors of the stones tell different stories of how Jesus has given us life through his sacrifice and resurrection. A volunteer for seven months, Susan already refers to her clients as friends, and has seen them transform from anxious, fearful young women to mothers who are comfortable breastfeeding in front of others. As Susan was shared stories of her friends that come in regularly, my eyes fell on a crib tucked away in a corner of the Boutique. “We accept mostly clothing items because it’s all we have space for,” Susan regretfully chuckled. “But we’ll hold on to a few furniture pieces for girls like Meagan.”

Meagan walked through the doors of the center at five months pregnant, five months very pregnant and homeless. She had been hiking the Appalachian trail with her boyfriend when they found out about her pregnancy. Since they were transient, Susan’s first conversation with Meagan involved where she could stay in one place to raise a child. Susan suspected Meagan’s boyfriend wasn’t going to remain in the picture, as theirs was an abusive relationship.

“I hope we’ll receive a few more things that we can set aside especially for Meagan,” Susan said. “It will take one more thing off her list to worry about!”

I thought perhaps Susan’s mind was on Meagan’s cystic fibrosis. The disorder can lead to an early death, yet Meagan – so young, so strong – was only concerned that in giving her child life, it would be a life fraught with pain. Susan’s eyes, flush with sensitivity,

searched my face for understanding as she spoke of Meagan and the pain that lingered in her own heart whenever she thought of all the young mothers. “After the child is born, we continue to welcome the young families here. The center is a second home for them, it’s not going away!” Susan said with a soft smile. It is the great pleasure of the healers at the center to nurture the whole family long after the crisis has passed, into a fullness of healthy life lived together.

I left the Baby Boutique and entered the final set of rooms. Judy’s office doubles as a board room, and a small kitchenette off to the side hummed with the sound of brewing coffee. Judy apologized for a nonexistent mess, explaining that they hadn’t been able to straighten up since the board’s late meeting the night before. It seems that Judy is not the only one in her family to manage superhuman amounts of work and emotion.

“My poor husband!” Judy sighed. “He has to be up at three in the morning, and he was here until 8:30 at night.”

Judy pointed out her husband in a framed photo of her family that sat on her desk. Three generations cheerfully smiled back at me.

“These look like your grandsons, Judy, but you can’t possibly be old enough to be a grandmother!”

After enjoying a flattered laugh, Judy happily told me about her two grandsons. The older is seventeen years old and a senior in high school.

“Seventeen years old? You began directing the pregnancy center in Bennington seventeen years ago, right?” I asked. The number had lodged itself in my mind and I thought the congruence was curious. But God doesn’t often exclaim, “What a coincidence!” when watching His children. His utter intentionality renders any event or happenstance a non-accident: seventeen was also the age at which Judy’s eldest son found out his girlfriend was pregnant.

It was a conversation Judy never expected to have. Seven months prior she had accepted the position as Executive Director at the pregnancy center in Bennington, VT. Seven months prior she had linked herself in an obvious way to working towards counseling young people who faced life-changing decisions, young people who were other people’s young people, not her own. Judy had

“The threat of pain surrounding crisis pregnancies is real, and so is the joy that new life brings.”


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prepared to take on more responsibilities in a visible position at the pregnancy center; she was not ready for living in the conspicuous role of “mother of the son.” Compounding this fear were worries of what kind of reception this news would receive at church.

“Do you notice how this story is all from my perspective?” Judy sighed, shaking her head in frustration. “I was selfish, thinking about how my son’s situation would affect me.” Judy looked back at the photo on her desk. “I’m so proud of my son. He and his girlfriend worked through some tough times. They came to us and asked for help. Now my grandson is going to college next year! I’m a very proud grandmother!” The frustration of the moment disappeared as a huge smile warmed her face. She excitedly started to tell me about her grandson’s plans for the future and the good friends that he surrounds himself with. I nodded in response, trying to write down all the details as Judy bubbled with affection. The person in front of me positively glowed, her spirit so incredibly whole. In my notebook I scribbled four words: “A healer is healed.”

I closed the front door behind me and walked down the hallway in a fog of feelings. I had driven to North Adams that morning hoping to catch a story of the center’s healing and its place in the local community. As I went down the stairs, however, I thought of Callie holding Bethany’s hand as she jumped from step to step;

I thought of Meagan balancing the wooden crib, navigating the narrow stairwell. I turned the doorknob and a rush of crisp air flooded the entranceway. I lingered on the sidewalk for a few moments thinking of Judy’s daughter-in-law considering the prospect of her unexpectedly early marriage. The threat of pain surrounding crisis pregnancies is real, and so is the promise of joy that new life brings. These women’s lives, so beautiful and full, give meaning to the center and its work. On 61 Main Street these women have encountered present-day healers who give them choices they never believed they had.

Moved by God, the young mothers find their way to the center and unexpectedly work a healing ministry of their own. Hungry for grace and ready to receive, these women’s lives have shown Judy, Susan, and so many others glimpses of God’s power and provision. Praise be to God who is tirelessly working grace into our lives, born and preborn.

Bianca Brown ‘14 is a political science and Asian Studies double major from a suburb of the city. Back for her second full but final year on campus, she is excited to see the new life God is bringing to the greater Williamstown area.

Fall 2013 09

After a full day at a choir contest, I climbed into my mom’s van looking forward to sharing our success with her. However, when I opened the door to the van I felt that something was off. My sister, who got out of school later than I did, and my dad, who we had been expecting would finish work late that day, were both in the car. My mom asked me how the contest went, but I could tell her mind was elsewhere. There was no music playing. Music was always playing. It wasn’t until after we got home that they told me what had happened. My 20-year-old cousin, Chester, was dead.

Chester’s death didn’t seem real until family came over to offer their condolences. I broke down, and I felt that I had no one to turn to because everyone else was also seeking comfort. I have never cried as much as I did that night. The next morning, I was sure I would make it through the school day without crying, since I was sure I had cried all I could the night before. I made it through half of the day, but when I walked into the cafeteria, I lost it. I looked at my classmates and overheard all the same conversations that I had heard the day before. Nothing had changed for them; no one else was aware of what the world had lost.

Chester was a very compassionate, optimistic, and loving person. In pictures, he would proudly pose with a thumbs-up, reflecting his optimism. He always went out of his way to make sure those he loved were having a good day. I remember when our nanny was bedridden and, while all the other cousins were chasing each other around, Chester stopped playing to keep her company. Seeing my classmates oblivious to my cousin’s death made me angry. But I knew it wasn’t their fault he was dead. It was God’s.

Growing up, my understanding of God was very one-dimensional: He was good, loving, and just. Through second grade Sunday school, I learned that God was good and loving because He sent His only Son to save us from our sins. I learned that He is a just God through biblical stories in which He punishes horrible, sinful people. My cousin, however, was a good son, brother, and friend. Why would He take away my cousin? His death didn’t align with my image of God. There was nothing good in not letting Chester live a long life and nothing good in God taking him away from us. There was nothing loving in the way he passed away, the impact of the accident dismembering him almost beyond recognition. And there was nothing just about God taking the lives of my cousin and two of his friends, but not the perpetrator’s. My eighth grade mind was clouded with confusion and anger.

The Friend Who Went

Stephen Hampshire via Flickr


Soon the anger began to consume me. I was angry that others could continue with their lives while my life had been turned upside down. I was angry that no one could explain why my cousin had passed away. I was angry that nobody else in my family seemed to be angry. I was angry that I would never see Chester again and that he would miss out on so much; he would never get to dance with his sister at her quinceañera, or ever have kids and see them grow up. I was angry that I was expected to continue to thank God for what I had and to pray to Him even though it was His fault we were all suffering. This anger felt liberating and just: since my cousin couldn’t be angry at God, the least I could do was to be angry for him. In my mind the only way to do Chester’s memory justice was to constantly express this anger because it showed that God had been unfair to us.

A few weeks after my cousin’s death, it seemed as if everyone else had moved on. Dinner was once again a social time. My parents shared memories of when my cousin was younger, like they had done before. It was as if he was still with us. I didn’t understand how these memories seemed to bring them joy when they only brought me pain. The confusion grew after a conversation I had with my mom. I asked her why God had taken him away, to which she responded, “I know it hurts to not have him with us but God is so great that He let us see him one last time,” referring to when my cousin and his family came to visit us a few months before his passing. I couldn’t even respond. All I could think was, “How dare she say God is great? If He really were great, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, because Chester would still be alive.”

My mom was the first person I noticed to express this gratitude. I remember thinking she was crazy. But in subsequent conversations with relatives, I noticed that my perspective was out of place, not my mom’s. Seeing everyone able to think and talk about Chester with joy made me second guess my anger. Slowly I started to realize that my anger was keeping me from appreciating my cousin’s life,

keeping me focused instead on the pain of his death. I realized that I had been viewing Chester’s death in terms of justice, and that this mentality was the reason why I was stuck in anger and unable to heal. I was so focused on doing his memory “justice” that I didn’t realize that my cousin would not have wanted me to remember him by expressing my anger with God. He would want me to remember him by his life, not by how unfair I thought his death was.

As I started to let go of this anger, the pain that was associated with my cousin’s memory began to loosen its grip on me. I began to take joy in past memories. Still, it bothered me that I didn’t know why God had taken him from us. My mom told me once that perhaps God took him from us because His plan for Chester was too big for this life. His mom and sister have told me that although it still hurts, they feel as if he is now our guardian angel watching over us. Even though I didn’t want to at first, thinking about his death in these terms made it easier to handle, and I was slowly able to feel grateful for his life. I accepted these reasons because I trusted these people and I saw the peace they brought to my family – a peace I wanted to have myself.

As I’ve gotten older, my individual relationship with God has grown and I have learned that even when we are suffering, He is still with us and has good intentions, even when it doesn’t seem to be that way. Chester’s close relationship with the Lord encouraged the rest of his family to grow in their faith. It was surprising to see that even in the midst of their suffering, they were able to thank God for the time they had with him. In an unexpected way, his death brought spiritual healing to his family.

I am still in my own healing process, although it has been a little over five and a half years since my cousin’s death. I don’t know how long this process will take, and sometimes it feels as if I won’t ever be completely healed. Whenever the pain of his death comes to me, I try to remind myself that it is okay for me not to know how long this process will last. Just like God knows why He took away Chester, He also knows how long this process will be for me, and I’ve come to accept that as enough.

Raquel Rodriguez ’16 is from Carrollton, Texas and a potential French and Psychology double major. She loves spending time with people, wearing cowgirl boots, and is easily freaked out.

“Nothing had changed for them: no one else was aware of what

the world had lost.”

Fall 2013 11

by Raquel Rodriguez Away

Angelina Lin ’16, hailing from central New Jersey, loves peanut M&Ms and telling bad jokes. She will probably major in comparative literature and/or studio art.

I have a hope of getting there.

Then your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal. Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind...

The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an everflowing spring.”

Isaiah 58: 8, 11


I have a hope of getting there.

vicinity. He puts a suit on every morning, peruses his reflection in the mirror like the embodiment of a crystallized undergraduate education, a human shaped monochromatic void shaped like a suit at the fringes of which a head and hands drift disembodied, partitioned into useful bits and pieces. A wimpishly defiant tie hints at the presence of a soul, which apparently has a lot in common with tasteless, tacky wallpaper. He feels thankful that he has spent four years comprehending how to comprehend his own everyday mediocrity.

He goes to work and spends hours upon hours each day trying to break things down for people, trying to transfer his own thoughts and plans whole like potted plants into limp minds concerned with matters of lunch until he can see his ideologies

Suit Yourself

“He’s got it together”

“I see a somber black robe beset at multiple angles by human appendages, that is to say, belimbed, connected via human head to a slab of posterboard surrounded by a square flat-rimmed black hat – tenuously, it seems, requiring this writhing blackened monstrosity to adjust repeatedly, over the course of a sweltering summer day (an environment for which it simply was not made to survive), its drooping, bulbous head-neck-gasket lest the unspeakable occur, until – lo – the speech is over, the beast rises, thronged by its fellows, and decapitates itself. Swiftly, gloriously! A hand whips towards the sky as if to catch a star, and the hat, the hat, the final detritus of what I now recognize as the end of an undergraduate education, vanishes into vistas unknown to tumultuous applause, the headless beast is revealed to be an actual human being, a human being clad in a sweaty suit for which indeterminate expense has been spared, young, male, face plus limbs plus hands plus whatever else is in there. He totters about the field with his fellows, at least half of them needlessly supported by spindly, impossibly brittle high heels; the mass gathers, exults, appears to begin racing off in every direction possible, including into itself, a roiling sea of youth of which, from some perspective, every member is heading straight into brick walls, against the current of a major river, and blithely towards the unbridled, merciless fury of oncoming American traffic. Where he is going, only I know. Nobody is worried.

He’s got it together.And he leaves behind the part of him that is a student, exchanges

scraggly jeans and stupid shirts branded with obscure references to video games and a ratty brown hoodie that apparently exists as a continuous, utterly unbroken string through time for suits, for suits, for more three-minus-one-piece suits. Variants of funeral attire carefully rationed out over the week give the impression that laundry is done in semi-regular intervals in his immediate

by Heng Chao Gu

Lily Lee

Fall 2013 13

only through the eyes of others. At some point he realizes that every seventh day in his life is going to be a Monday. A sum of parts of parts, of parts and parts, this company is more than the sum of its parts, he is told by a brilliant mind possessed of copious amounts of drive and consequential authority he comes to know by either the appellation of “boss” or the comparatively heroic “bossman.” This company, this aggregated being, it operates through some automatic, unarticulated combinatory nexus to become something more, an analogue of perfect mankind, hyper-efficient, thoughtful, reactionary, constructed through the sum of our parts, our parts, like the coffee he must now drink every day, coffee and sugar and milk combining to make coffee-and-sugar-and-milk (invariably still tasting like water made somehow elementally unclean). Every four days his soul is colored a blue-white tessellation of birds and fish. He feels uncomfortable because his shoes were purchased stiffened by rigor mortis and will remain so until he has spent sufficient time being uncomfortable in them to promote himself to the nirvana of lower standards.

When not working he becomes someone or something else, a collection of operating limbs with well-defined functions. He is surrounded by wandering minds, busy hands, tapping feet, the ear that hears: a perfect machine, the invisible symphony, a triumph of humanity in synchronized, harmonic cataclysm; an artificial aligning of planets enacted every possible moment; the cooperative effort of a trillion writhing virtual hands motivated by the same averaged-out voice and mind united impossibly for a singular, noble purpose: the delivery of some product at a time and place expedient towards consumption. A different time, a different place, like he’s become a different person run through a sieve shaped like himself. Like water, he takes on the shape of his container. The suits lose their stiffness, the shoes wear comfortably around his feet until he barely notices they are there. Within the space of roughly years, he loses himself, has lost himself, is lost in the machinery of meaningful societal contribution.

It’s only when he wakes up one morning and discovers his teeth already brushed and busy hands, his hands, preparing of

“...he loses himself, has lost himself, is lost in the machinery of meaningful societal contribution.”

by Hans Van Den Berg via Flickr

their own accord the same shoddy breakfast he always eats that he feels a twinge of concern. Over the course of the succeeding months he and his body grow apart like an estranged married couple. His lips loosen, his mind wanders. At a certain point he discovers he has no idea what his body is doing: it works dutifully, it brings in the bacon, but they never have the opportunity to just sit down and communicate. They sleep apart at night and have silent, cheerless meals where he just watches his body eat, knowing anything he says will simply be said back at him. One day he awakens in the morning and discovers all of him has in fact decided to go on without him to the three-day summit in Copenhagen, in the name of some kind of unknown efficiency. He wonders, fruitlessly, what of his mind is left behind to be thinking what he thinks, gazes upon his incorporeal self in the mirror, a sort of specter of sensation observing his own life, leans close as if this is a matter of magnification, tries to make himself feel concerned. Should this be concerning? A visual amputation, nothing more? He feels his hand, rotates it like a reflective surface. When he taps his fingers against the glass, an audible sound is produced, the sound of tissue suddenly sandwiched between bone and a hard surface. On an impulse, he writes his name on the fogged-up surface of the mirror and tries to think of himself as anything other than “me.”

And there he is now, orphaned somehow by reality. He wanders around seemingly untouchable, a phantasmal point of view, and gets used to watching life play by at the corners of his peripheral vision, an observer whose life is being lived out by somebody else. He collects his thoughts, he’s got it together, he has it under control, within the cold clammy hands impatiently drumming a mahogany conference table somewhere on the other side of the country. Bilocated, somehow, in two places at once. His life feels somehow insincere, lived at a distance or as portrayed by an actor he will never meet. And yet he’s not sure where or what he is, even when an incomprehensibly heavy cement truck plows through

“On an impulse, he writes his name in the fogged-up

surface of a mirror and tries to think of himself as

anything other than ‘me.’”

the crosswalk and splays him across the street like a collection of particulates along a mathematically defined ballistics pattern. One, two, and he remembers he’s still contractually required to be real after the truck’s black wake finishes sweeping over him.

He wonders if he can see himself, or if he’s only imagining it: a vague notion of his body scattered, every piece responsible for his life itself divorced from the others, operating at remote, phoning it in, some weird phantom pain that isn’t even there. Is he memory? His life flashes before his eyes, perhaps; a dozen temporal displacements seem to parade through his field of vision, perhaps. Maybe they’ll sew him together, like a suit, if they can. Maybe he’s there, he thinks, lying stupidly spread-eagled on the ground while strangely patriotic lights paint his ravaged colorless existence. A paramedic is telling him to pull himself together.

He feels it, then, or now, or here, as it is. Sensation, like realizing a lost pencil is actually tucked behind an ear, a combination of remembrance and discovery as he abandons this world, this world of parts and parts and sums of parts, compartmentalized poetry, the science of last words. He abandons the notion of restatement, the unfathomable black-clothed promethean legion of undergraduate education, the business corpus of eyes and ears and body parts that whispers in his ears, telling him to get it together, to pull himself together, to find himself, to gather himself, to appropriate himself; that infinitesimal societal engine that unites in its division and fragments every piece within it; that insidious force that has driven him to wear suit over shirt over skin over soul and lose track of where it all began. He abandons all of it, it, in the moment when he ceases to see and starts to sense, to feel, to know what can only be described as warmth, and a certain peace, and an unknown voice that is telling him –”

Now you are ready to be healed.

Heng Chao Gu ’14 is an English major from Broomfield, Colo. Each day teaches him life is a project not to run away from. This description couldn’t have written itself without his help, after all.

Fall 2013 15


A Thoughtful Textby Sarah Wu

Sarah Wu ’16 is a potential math major with a passion for tutoring calculus, drawing, and listening to people. She is a top caliber secret agent in her nightmares and a master chef in her dreams.

Fall 2013 17

Don’t look for the big things; just do the small things with great love and great faith.

-Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

I’ve felt I am supposed to become a doctor since second grade; I’ve known God has called me to become a doctor since I was eighteen. Despite my desire to come to Williams in order to prepare for medical school, it wasn’t my main focus once I arrived. Within the first month I became so wrapped up in baseball that I began to devote eighty percent of my mental energy and time to it. More than anything I wanted to play professionally for a couple of years before eventually applying to medical school. By January of my sophomore year, my goal of pitching professionally looked hopeful – I had two tryouts scheduled with the Red Sox and the Reds. The day of my tryout with the Reds I pitched well, but with a 103 degree fever that ended with my being rushed to the hospital. Even though this should have been cause for concern to take it easier on my body, my focus and determination was only fueled. For the next month I added two-a-day workouts in order to prepare for the upcoming season, further ignoring the classes that should have been preparing me for medical school.

My efforts paid off, and I saw immeasurable improvements. The first time on the mound in February I was at my best. But that day was also the last time I pitched. As I stepped off the mound I felt a knife-like pain stabbing through my elbow and forearm. The smallest movement caused searing pain to

course through my entire arm. I feared the worst, but I was still hopeful. North Adams General Hospital diagnosed me with a stress fracture in my elbow. The doctor said I would be back to throwing in six weeks, but after twelve I still was unable to pitch. He suggested that I take the spring off to prepare for my summer in California, where I had been planning a trip to stay in Palo Alto in order to play in a competitive summer league. In my mind, it was the perfect opportunity to improve my chances of pitching professionally, and the chance to intern at a medical lab at Stanford gave me the peace of mind that the summer wasn’t just for baseball. And so on May 26, 2013, I flew to California to stay with my good friend, Alex Marshall, and her family. The summer held so much promise, so much prospect.

When I first walked into the Marshalls’ home I looked to my left and saw a cross. I looked straight ahead and met the eyes of a life-sized wooden carving of St. Augustine, the confirmation name I took not two years earlier when I became Catholic. A sense of peaceful purpose came over me, and I knew that God was confirming His plans for me to be in California. At the time, though, I didn’t know it wasn’t to play baseball. I spent the first two weeks biding my time in the lab and rehabbing, but without pitching I was feeling incredibly unfulfilled and useless. One evening Alex’s mother, Anna, and I were talking about her bookshelf laden with many Catholic books when I asked if she knew of any volunteering opportunities in the area. She said she would contact her father, who was good friends with Mother Teresa before her passing, and that he would probably be able to offer some suggestions.

The next day Anna mentioned that her father had gotten back to her with a recommendation to call the Gift of Love home in Pacifica, California, a hospice home for patients terminally ill with AIDS run by the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s Catholic Order. But for weeks I did nothing to follow up; I wasted my free time sunbathing by a country club pool as the slip of paper with Gift of Love’s phone number became lost under a

The Gift of Love

“I spent the first two weeks biding my time in the lab and rehabbing, but without pitching, I was feeling incredibly unfulfilled and useless. ”

by Dylan Griswold


growing pile of books on my bedside table. I kept hoping that my arm would heal, but as the days turned to weeks, despair set in. As I ignored the urge to call and continued to linger by the pool, intense thoughts of dying and an anxiety so strong that it could have dragged me into the pool crept into my heart and began to fester. What would I say to the God of the Universe when He asked how I had spent my brief time on Earth? Would I tell Him that I really wanted to play professional baseball and was happy I had spent so much time preparing to do so? I realized I could no longer live so apathetically, so selfishly. I woke up the next morning with an overwhelming burden to call Gift of Love.

No answer. I felt the Spirit telling me to try and call once more and if no one answered again, I was to drive the forty minutes and ask in person. No answer. And so off I went, my worship music playing and rosary beads in hand, but still full of intense feelings of anxiety and despair. Just as I summited the mountain drive before descending into Pacifica I was struck with one of the most spectacular views of my life: the Pacific Ocean with all of its tranquil grandeur and vast opulence enveloped me. I was overcome by feelings of love, peace, and hope – feelings of consolation usurped my feelings of desolation as quickly and completely as the cascading water impacted the shoreline. All at once, I knew the Spirit was leading me.

I calmly pulled into the driveway, and just as I entered the house, a man with the most peaceful, serene blue eyes unexpectedly came through the doorway to my right. He asked, “Can I help you?” I told him why I was in California and asked if there was any need for another volunteer. Calmly, he replied, “Ah, yes, we’ve been praying for you. Our last volunteer just returned

to Canada.” I left in disbelief, and the next day I got a call from Sister Faustine, the head nurse of the house; she was a woman of small stature, but of great vitality and energy and with as sharp a wit as anyone I’ve met. She told me to come after my game was over, so I arrived with my jersey and baseball pants, not knowing how much I would change.

The first two weeks of volunteering were incredibly tough on my heart and soul. The home housed about nine residents throughout my time there – most of whom were going to die within a short period of time. When in the middle of the night James, one of the residents, would wander the halls unsure of where he was, I would sigh as I tried to get him back to his room; and Gary, constantly crying out in need of new bandages for his swollen legs, led me to take extended breaks in the kitchen, passively avoiding the care he so desperately needed. I was exhausted, and felt there was nothing I could do to make any difference. No matter what I did, they were going to die. As I traveled between the residents’ suffering and poverty and the opulence and wealth of Palo Alto, I began to despair. I felt as if there was nothing I could do to reconcile these two lifestyles. How could I go back to the luxury of Palo Alto every day knowing that these people were suffering so much?

“I was exhausted and felt there was nothing I could do

to make any difference. ”

Martin Boyer via Flickr

Fall 2013 19

As I was folding sheets one day, Sister Faustine stopped me and said, “Dylan, I have been praying for your ‘conversion.’” I looked at her, very puzzled, as I had in my mind made it very clear that I converted to Catholicism a little over two years ago. When I didn’t respond, she pointed to a picture of Blessed Mother Teresa under which read, “Every act of love is an act of peace, joy, and unity.” She said, “You see, Dylan, when you are in despair and you feel as though there is little you can do to help the residents of this house, you are not loving. When we perform acts out of love we feel at peace, we feel joy; we find unity with that person. We all must pray for conversion every day.” Sister Faustine gave me homework that night. She wanted me to watch a film, a long one – three and a half hours long. When she handed me the case and I read the title, “St. Giuseppe Moscati: Doctor to the Poor” I felt an urgent need to watch it.

Back at the Marshalls’, I sat down in my room, closed my door, and inserted the film into my computer. As Dr. Moscati looked out over the infirmary, eyes becoming melancholy as he identified the immense suffering that surrounded him, I finally felt something. Watching how this doctor, amidst so much suffering and poverty, cared so deeply for his patients with such humility, led me to start thinking about the residents of Gift of Love and my own interactions with them. Seeing how his knowledge of medicine enabled him to quickly diagnose and treat the desperately sick, I thought about how careless I had been with my studies over the past two years – how completely unconcerned I was with the people I would eventually be treating. And as he knelt by the Mediterranean Sea gazing towards the empty sky with tears in his eyes and a small boy in his dying moments wrapped in his arms, I lost it and couldn’t stop the tears. I professed faith, but I knew very little what it meant to love my brother, my neighbor. In that moment, God began to create within me a deep, burning love and passion to care for the least of these brothers of mine. The way Dr. Moscati went to the chapel and gave everything to God in his anger, his sadness, his grief – his tears became my tears. I knew that God was calling me to live in this same manner and in that moment I made a promise to God that I wouldn’t waste a

day in striving to become the best doctor I could for His children, my brothers.

Over the remaining weeks of the summer, as my heart continued to undergo a profound change, I thought more about what conversion actually meant in relation to its Latin root, ‘converto, convertere’ which means, “to turn round,” or, to “turn back.” I realized that each time I turn towards something, I renounce something else: conversion is not so much a moment of profession, a lifelong process of turning away from the world, and turning towards Christ. A conversion of heart required a reorienting of my heart towards the will of God for my life. God’s will for my life became very clear that summer. I was to love

“A conversion of heart required a reorienting of my heart towards

the will of God for my life.”


Him, love the residents of the house, love my family, love my friends, and most especially, love those who can offer me nothing in return. My mind was turned to the Gospel of Matthew as it reads, “‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me. Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’” (Matthew 25:35-36, 40 NASB). It was not just the residents I was caring for; it was the reflection of the face of God in them. God’s work started in having me watch Saint Giuseppe Moscati, and through

the summer led me to bathe James with a loving and gentle hand, change and clean Gary’s wounds as I sang to him, and carry Tim to his bed at three in the morning to administer his medication. It was no longer just James, Gary, or Tim gazing into my eyes as I cared for them, but it was Jesus gazing back at me, healing my soul, molding my heart.

As I was getting ready to leave California, I received news that my original injury that had kept me from pitching the last six months was misdiagnosed, would require surgery, and would keep me from pitching for the next twelve months. What would have been devastating news five months earlier instead gave me hope, for I knew that God wanted to use this time to give me continued perspective and show me how much more there was to my life than baseball. I knew God wanted me to cherish and to treat my time at Williams differently. What I do now will affect how I treat my first Gary, a man with late stage terminal pancreatic cancer, or my first James, a young boy suffering from a rare form of leukemia, his hands and heart cold from never knowing the hand of a mother – both of these brothers too close to death, and too far from feeling loved, and me with the opportunity to allow God to pour forth healing, both physically and spiritually. With this healed perspective, only two things mattered: giving myself to God to pour into me each morning, and giving myself to others in the full-hearted pursuit of my studies, becoming a complete physician in mind, body, and soul. When it came time to leave Gift of Love, I couldn’t hold back the tears. The jersey and baseball pants I arrived in contrasted sharply with the white coat and scrubs I left in. I can honestly say that this injury has been a gift, a gift of both spiritual and emotional healing, a gift showing me that my treasure lay not in my prospect of playing professional baseball, but in giving myself fully to God’s mission of healing. My treasure lies in a simple, yet profound gift– a gift of healing, a gift of love.

Dylan Griswold ’15 is an aspiring missionary doctor from Monson, Mass. He enjoys struggling to play the piano and finding a comfortable balance of discomfort in his life.

Rachel Kramer via Flickr

“My treasure lies in a simple, yet profound gift – a gift of healing,

a gift of love.”

Fall 2013 21

Let me proudly introduce the biggest lie in human historySticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me

You’re ugly!You’re a crybaby!

Nobody likes you!Meet the bully

A 12-year-old Caucasian boyWho made me his verbal abuse toy.

Now meet the bullseyeI was five going on six

And was already sick of the comments.What’s that bump on your head?

Your voice sounds like Daffy Duck!What’s wrong with you?

To tell you the truthI didn’t really know what was wrong with me.

All I wanted to do was give people fives, be friends,Right? it was kindergarten.

My voice in Hi-CI thought they were my friends. Right, just joking with me.

Nope. Things soon took a left.I thought we knew each other.

I recognized their faces but couldn’t see their hearts.Right? Kindness. Nope. Wrong.

Their insults beat me rhythmicallySpilling oil into this ocean like BP.

The darkness covered my mindlike an eclipse

Making me blind to the Sonall while on the bus ride home.

Now let’s take a field trip.Ten years into the future

At fifteen, I was blindI was still blind

Unable to see the signThat God really cared for me.

Though the love of my parents and the affirmations of my teachersFelt nice, I never felt as though they would sustain me.

What’s the Heal?by Osakpolo Igiede

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The volume of those lies drowned out the truthThoughts of suicide tap danced into the quietest parts of my mind.The insults danced off their tongues telling me I should die.So I did, I killed my self-esteem, lowkey,Starving for affectionI fed off their insultsI tried to down my insecurities in music.Drake never took care,J. Cole only showed me a cold world, no life.I was soon on to the next one My life was filled with strifeI wanted to go under the knifebut in actuality all I needed was a breath of life.Congested with all of these thoughts of suicideI cried,I just wanted to see light.I was worse than Stevie. I couldn’t even feel the keys.I went to church to feel HimBut couldn’t no one could see the darkness in me.I was nineteenLooking for some type of beam to illuminate me,To shine through this dark screen of lies.It wasn’t until these simple words of a man named PaulBroke down the screens of low self-esteem“Present yourself as a living sacrificeHoly and acceptable unto the Lord.”With this I realizedOne, I will never have to think about that knifewith the intention of ending my lifebecause He took those stripesNot just for me but for you too.Three, nails He took for usTo forgive us,and show ushow much He loves us,broken peoplein need of,

Healing. Osakpolo Igiede ’15 is a business administration major and English minor at MCLA from Boston, Mass. He likes to play the guitar, eat lots of chocolate, listen to Darius Rucker when the occasion arises, and loves to give to those around him.

Fall 2013 13

Shatteredby Si Young Mah

Si Young Mah ’14 is a math major and cognitive science concentrator from Los Angeles, Calif. She looks forward to the day she owns a tiny coffee shop/bookstore/bakery and can pamper her grandchildren.


It was such a cold, gloomy day. I did not feel like getting out of bed and facing the day. I could not even muster the energy to go down to breakfast, so I lay there trying to ignore the growling of my stomach. I had turned down yet another offer to hang out and watch movies with my best friend, who had started getting on my nerves for no particular reason. I dreaded going to my religion winter study class, which I was supposed to find interesting, but for some reason I lacked the energy to even do my readings properly. I really hated the snow and the cold; why couldn’t Williamstown have a wonderfully moderate climate like Ethiopia? And worst of all, I did not want to spend time with God. Praying daily to God and studying my Bible demanded more energy than I could possibly bring myself to gather. All I could do was lounge in my bed all day, wondering why I felt so tired even though I was doing nothing.

As winter study gave way to spring semester of my freshman year, I still did not feel any better. The cold weather was really getting to me, and I started having a very hard time with classes. I had done very well fall semester and I had expected to do fine in the spring too. Yet my courseload was extremely different; I had always wanted to be a history major, but my family put pressure on me to take math and science courses. I felt constantly overwhelmed by the new courses and was so tired and anxious all the time. I would stare at a single page for an hour without absorbing the words, and then begin to cry. What was happening to me? Was I just losing my focus? I spent hours in the library, but was doing worse with every successive exam. I avoided my friends because I thought I was wasting valuable time that I could use to study. Slowly I estranged myself from God and all the people I loved; I ended up feeling utterly alone.

I anxiously searched for a way to get away from school, so when spring break came, I thought everything would be okay. But I turned out to be wrong. I went to my sister’s house in Canada, but even then I was unable to enjoy my time with family. I did not socialize with the guests invited to my niece’s dedication party; I walked out in the middle of the party and went to a place where I could be alone. I did not know why I was feeling so antisocial, but I just could not bring myself to be in the company of other people. When my brother called from Pittsburgh to say hello, I lacked the energy to even hold a conversation with him.

I came back from spring break feeling more miserable than before. A few days after I returned I received my midterm results and panicked. I thought that I was going to fail and lose my scholarship. How could everything have gone so wrong? I started crying; I felt so helpless. I started having flashbacks: I saw the friends I had avoided when they wanted to spend time with me; the people I had snapped at im-patiently when they did nothing to annoy me; the classmates I had brushed off when they wanted my help with schoolwork. I was filled with so much guilt. I had always thought I was a good person, and yet I had so thoughtlessly hurt a lot of people that were important to me. I realized that I had failed so badly; I had lost the purpose God first gave me. He had sent me to Williams to be a witness for him and to show his love to the people in my life, but instead I ended up alienating everyone around me through my callousness. I felt that God could never forgive me for ruining everything; I could not even bring myself to pray and ask for his forgiveness. I thought he had turned his back on me and that no one could intercede on my behalf.


by Yedidya Erque

“I thought [God] had turned his back on me...”

Fall 2013 25

In the end, I responded to my sister’s pleas to go back to my dorm until she or my brother could come for me. I instinctively walked towards my dorm where I could find some warmth because I was so very cold. My friends had been worried when they could not find me and had reported me missing to campus security. I could not answer their concerned questions because I had retreated too deeply inside the dark recesses of my own mind and was barely coherent. I was taken to the hospital for overnight keeping. My brother flew from Pittsburgh to see me, putting his career on the line. I could not even talk to him because I had withdrawn to a place where nobody could reach me. I hurt him so much, the big brother I had always adored. He returned back to work the next day; I still cannot forget the grief etched on his face. His eyes red from fatigue and pain, he hugged me tight and told me he loved me.

I was not ready to finish the semester; I was so afraid about what everyone would say when they discovered what had happened. I decided to take a leave of absence from Williams and return to my country, Ethiopia, along with my sister. On the plane back home, I was haunted with vivid images of the triumphant way I had first come to Williams. What a contrast! I was returning to my country with my tail tucked between my legs, in shame and defeat. My parents had been so proud of me when I was admitted to Williams; the thought of letting everyone down and falling so far below their expectations was devastating.

I spent the next four months in deep depression. I loathed myself so much that I felt I did not deserve anyone’s love. I was hurting so badly that I also hurt the people I loved the most. I just wanted to close my eyes and never wake up. I contemplated overdosing on sleeping pills or stabbing myself with a knife until my life-blood drained out of me. I blamed God for the fact that I had returned to my country empty-handed when I had first gone out with a bright future ahead of me. I was afraid of what people would think when they found out I had quit school. I had panic attacks even at the thought of going outside the house; I became a prisoner in a cell of my own making. I did not leave bed for days: sleep was the only oblivion I had from all the pain and shame and self-contempt I was feeling. I did not shower or brush my teeth. I did not care if I stank; I just wanted to curl up somewhere and die.

But God was able to slowly but surely lift me up from the pits of despondency I had sunk into. I started going to church with my sister. At first, she had to drag me to go along with her. But from the first sermon, God spoke to me through his Word. In one sermon the words the pastor spoke truly touched my heart. He read from Joel 2:25, which says, “I will repay you for the years consumed by swarms and hoppers[...]” I was so moved when he spoke these words because I knew I was going to graduate two years behind my peers, but God comforted me by telling me he is able to restore all the years that would be wasted because of my depression. Another sermon

One Sunday night in April, I left my dorm and walked to where my feet led me. I reached a bridge. I gazed at the turbulent waters for a long time, wishing I had the courage to jump in and allow the swirling dark waters to wash my pain away along with my dead body. I thought back to my conversations with my brother and sister over the phone, myself sobbing that I couldn’t handle school, them weeping that God loved me so much. But I was not in any condition to listen to anyone. I stood near the bridge for a long time, staring into the dark waters and wishing that I could jump in. Their phone call broke the stillness of the night, and they started crying in earnest when they learned where I was. They did not know what to do, so they just continued pleading and crying into the phone. The sound of their anguished sobs still echoes in my ears. After watching the dark water amidst my siblings’ sadness, I realized I did not have the courage to let go and end my life.

“‘I will repay you for the years consumed by swarms and hoppers[...]’”


that remained in my heart was about Hosea 2:16-17, which says, “Assuredly, I will speak coaxingly to her and lead her through the wilderness and speak to her tenderly.” Indeed, that was how I felt; God had taken me alone into the wilderness to speak to me tenderly and show me his unchanging love through all the pain I went through. Understanding that God loved me in spite of everything gave me the power to move past what had happened. I realized I had never understood the depth of his love before. He still loved me when I was filled with so much self-contempt and bitterness. He showed me that I could move on, and so I gradually got ready to face my future. At first, I did not know if I could even continue my studies because I had lost my passion for learning. I was afraid of returning to Williams because it was the place where my darkest memories lay; it was the place where I had discovered that I had a terrible and despicable side. Williams was the place where I had lost all sense of myself.

But God healed my broken spirit and gave me the courage to face the future. After a long time contemplating what returning to Williams would mean, I finally decided to come back because I believed that God had provided me with a wonderful opportunity and I did not want to lose it because of my own fears. My friends joyfully received me, and I felt as if I had never been away. But sometimes I am still wracked with acute feelings of fear: what if I cannot handle being at Williams? What if I get depressed again? I would never be able to forgive myself if such a thing happened again. But I know that all I can do is trust God to sustain me day to day. Although I am grateful to be back among the amazing people God has put in my life, I also know there once was a point in my life when only God could break through the walls I had built. It didn’t matter how much other people wanted to help me; I had been beyond anyone’s help, and only God, with his almighty power, lifted me up from the dark abyss I had sunk into. He healed my wounds and made me fit to live again. He has restored all I had lost and has given me a second chance at life. I am now able to look towards the future with hope and the expectation that God has greater things planned ahead for me still yet.

Yedidya Erque ’17 is a psychology and history major from Ethiopia. In her free time she likes reading romance novels, swimming, and hanging out with her friends.

“... I gradually got ready to face my future.”

Photocredits: by Nicolas Raymond on Flickr by Nicolas Raymond on Flickr

by Jun Seita on Flickrby Paul Lowry on Flickr

Fall 2013 27

It seems like I’m always injuring myself. Part of it is clumsiness, part of it is absentmindedness, but rarely a day goes by when I haven’t stubbed my toe or jammed my finger or gotten a paper cut somewhere at some unknown point in the day. No matter how hard I try, it seems like at the end of the day I always have yet another scratch or bump to add to my never-ending collection.

Most times they’re just small: no ambulances, no stitches, and I’m the only one who will ever know. Other times I have to break out the Band-Aids. My mother, knowing that I am, as my father likes to say, “accident-prone,” has trained me to always have handy a fully stocked First-Aid kit. (The fact that she’s a nurse might also have something to do with it.) Over the years the kit has evolved into what now resembles an obscure collection of random artifacts: safety pins, alcohol wipes, hand sanitizer, a nail clipper, a flashlight, and the list goes on. It has become tailored to my needs and the endless combination of minor accidents that I have created. So when I have to, I go to my room and open it up to find just what I need to hold me together for the next few hours.

But there have been times when I can’t find what I need in a First-Aid kit. Unfortunately, paper-cuts aren’t the worst thing that can happen to us in this life. There have been many nights when I have sat with a friend for hours in an attempt to ease the pain of something difficult that they have experienced or mend an emotional wound. Upon seeing the tears running down their cheeks I instantly reach for my kit, knowing that I will find an infinite amount of tissues inside. But in those situations there isn’t much more that my seemingly reliable First-Aid kit can offer. The truth is that you can’t put a Band-Aid on a bruised ego. You can’t put a gauze bandage on a broken heart. There’s no amount of surgical tape that will hold a family together. There isn’t a cold compress in the world big enough to dull the pain of losing someone we love. And no amount of Tylenol can make us completely forget some

Battlescarsof the things from our past that seem too dark to mention. These things hurt. More than that, they also leave scars, and most people don’t consider scars to be all that attractive.

One of the things I love about Jesus is that He was always easing someone’s pain. And I don’t mean that He simply made people forget their troubles for a few moments of fleeting relief. There’s a difference between a temporary fix and eternal healing. Wherever He went, wounds were mended, diseases were cured, and lives were restored. Considering there weren’t First-Aid kits back in Jesus’ day, I think He did pretty well. There are some things you can’t make better with a Band-Aid and a smile. I love that He never condemned the people that He healed for being broken in the first place. He has never expected us to be perfect people living flawless lives, but somehow we seem to have convinced ourselves that He does. He welcomes the brokenness, the bruises, the scratches and the bumps. He’s always willing to fix us up and put us back together. Because of Him, I’ve seen that through all the mess, through all of the pain and the struggle, I’ve become the person that I am today. He’s taught me that my scars are beautiful.

Nothing that we experience in life, whether good or bad, leaves us completely unscathed. We are changed by the world around us and the experiences that we have lived through. I have had days so filled with joy I wondered if there could be more to life. I have had nights so filled with darkness and pain that I thought the world would stop turning. But through His grace I have come to see that with every little mark I acquire from the hurts of life, with every scar I collect from the battles I fight, I become a more intricate testimony to His infinite grace.

So now I show my scars proudly, because they remind me where I’ve come from and what I’ve been through. They are my battle scars from the things that I’ve overcome.

Now I embrace my scars, because they mean that I am healed.

Felicia Farrell ’14, is from Springfield, Mass. She loves to play the piano, appreciates silence, and is really into holding hands.

by Felecia Farrell

“But there’s a difference between a temporary fix and eternal healing.”


by Chih McDermott

Fundamentally, the story of Easter is a story of healing. After the crucifixion, the darknest and emptiest experience of life, Jesus is resurrected into new and eternal life. All that He suffered has turned to glory, and Jesus takes His place at the right hand of the Father, the full richness of heaven and earth placed under His dominion.1 In Christ’s resurrection, man’s relationship with God is restored, giving us the opportunity of a life free from the tormenting destruction of sin. Indeed, Christ’s sacrifice is good news, and He freely offers us the fullness of the eternal life He has earned. Through Christ, God restores to us the “riches of his glorious inheritance,”2 recreating our lives as a “Divine work[s] of art.”3 Inspired by the story of the resurrection, 17th century English poet George Herbert wrote his short poem “Easter Wings.” The poem beautifully recreates the restorative power of Christ’s resurrection; though short, it reflects, in form and content, the eternal beauty of God’s grace toward sinful man.

The modern reader is likely to take note of “Easter Wings”’ unique form. Similar to most poetry from its time, “Easter Wings” follows a strict formal structure; each of its two stanzas is identical in line and meter, and almost identical in rhythm. But this structure does not remain the same throughout each stanza’s ten lines. Starting “harmoniously” with iambic pentameter, the poem

loses two syllables each subsequent line until it is “most poore” at its center, where lines five and six have only two syllables. From this impoverished core, Herbert rebuilds his structure, adding two syllables to each subsequent line until the stanza once again ends in pentameter. The result of his unconventional meter is a poem that creates pattern not only in its rhythms, but also in its appearance: both stanzas splay out on the pages like wings. In fact, in its original publishing, the poems were printed sideways across two pages, fluttering, flying upward toward the heavens as the reader opened and closed the small book of poetry.

Beautiful on its own, this unique pattern also reflects the content of the poem. As the poem begins, Herbert returns us to the Garden of Eden, where the “Lord” creates man “in wealth and

Affliction furthers the flight in me

“though short, the poem, in form and content, reflects

the eternal beauty of God’s grace toward sinful man. ”

Kevin

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A meditation on Herbert’s “Easter Wings”

Fall 2013 29

store”: safely in the bosom of Paradise, the pentameter is richly intact. But “foolishly,” man turns his back on God. Choosing his will over that of his creator, man quickly loses all the wealth of life with Him, as the lines fall inward toward their “most poore” center. “Sickness and shame” replace the glory of life in God, and as man “decay[s] more and more,” falling from God and into the empty pain of sin, the lines lose the fullness of the poem’s beginning, wasting away syllable after syllable until almost nothing remains. In this fallen state, disorder reigns, the gentle abundance of God replaced with the harsh emptiness of sin.

But Herbert does not leave us in the “poore” state of separation from God. Although man’s disobedience has emptied him of the vibrant life of God, Christ brings healing restoration. At the stanza’s “thinne” core, Herbert and the meter are emptied by sin, desperate to return to the richness of God. “With thee,” he writes, the short, iambic line rising as Herbert finally reaches out to Him, the simple act impregnating the poem with the possibility of restoration (6, 16). Slowly, decay returns to harmony, loss to Christ’s “victories” (9). The lines flood outward again, the dropped syllables grafted back on, healing the brokenness of sin. This is the story of Easter, Christ’s resurrection from the dead that heals our relationship with God, and His re-entrance in the poem that restores the lines to flowing pentameter. Though “foolishly [we] lost” the “wealth” of God, Christ’s death pays the price of our sin, and His resurrection assures us “victory” over even the ultimate destruction of death.4

Form and content work hand in hand to create the beauty of this Easter story. The decaying and healing lines illustrate the profound truth of which they speak: without God our lives are empty and sorrowful; with Him we soar even to the heights of heaven.5 Just so, a life of faith in Christ is incomplete without the transformation that His Spirit brings. In the acceptance of Christ, we become new men, once again “created after the likeness

of God in true righteousness and holiness.”6 Just as the poem’s structure reflects the beauty of the truths it contains, so too our new lives in Christ reflect the beauty of God living within us. In professing that Jesus is Lord and believing in our hearts that He was raised from the dead,7 we invite God into our lives. Once there, God does not leave us in the brokenness of sin. He starts an often painful process of restoration, healing the brokenness of our sinful lives, turning them from decay into the vibrant pictures of life. Though painful, this process is for our good, restoring our relationship with God and, in its end, offering “the immeasurable riches of his grace” that we forfeited in our disobedience.

“Easter Wings” beautifully illustrates the resurrection of Christ as God’s ultimate source of healing. Without God, the lines, like man, decay into brokenness. With Him, the riches of life are restored, and the abundant blessings of heaven are poured out. This is true restoration, so pervasive that it not only heals us from our pain, but turns the pain itself into a source of good: “affliction shall advance the flight in me” (20). As the last line regains its pentametric glory, it points to something of a paradox: that Christ’s suffering leads to our healing.8 Rising from the dead, Christ becomes our source of life, a free gift found only in Him. And by daily dying to our old lives of sin, our own afflictions only bring us deeper into the abiding love of Christ. In Him we are healed, gaining in His death and resurrection not only life, but life abundantly.9

_______________________1 Ephesians 1:22, ESV “And he put all things under his feet...”2 Ephesians 1:18, ESV3 C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain4 1 Corinthians 15:54, ESV “Death is swallowed up in victory.”5 Ephesians 2:6, ESV “and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” 6 Ephesians 4:24, ESV7 Romans 10:9, ESV8 Isaiah 53:5, ESV “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” 9 John 10:10, ESV “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Chih McDermott is a Super Senior from Palos Verdes, Calif. He loves to sing to God even though his voice often cracks.

“Although man’s disobedience has emptied him of the vibrant life of God, Christ brings healing

and restoration.”


by Father Caster

Discovering

There are two extremely moving and challenging parables recorded only in St. Luke’s gospel. One involves a rich man who ignores his poor, sore-ridden neighbor Lazarus, and the other describes in stark fashion just what it means to love one’s neighbor. On a Wednesday evening in September of 1985, I was thrust into both of these parables at a home for people dying from HIV/AIDS run by Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

While I had willingly and enthusiastically helped Mother and her sisters find and prepare the home to take in the unwanted dying in our nation’s capitol, I – like so many at that time – wanted nothing to do with the people that would come and stay at the Gift of Peace. I am ashamed to say it, but I was afraid of them because of their disease. I busied myself with all sorts of other tasks so that I wouldn’t have to be around them. Then one Sunday afternoon, Mother told me I would come the following Wednesday evening to be the night volunteer.

Now, many people don’t know this about Mother Teresa, but she never asked someone do something, ever. Rather, she always used the imperative voice. She never allowed for wiggle room or excuses. Nevertheless, I did try to impress upon her that I was far too busy with graduate studies to come on a Wednesday evening while classes were in session. This simply didn’t matter to her. Against my protestations, she steadfastly said, “You will come.” So I did.

When I arrived, I was greeted warmly by Mother and the sisters and was told that I was needed to “change Andy’s diaper.” Alarmed by this I asked to speak with Mother in the hallway.

Away from the other sisters I could explain to Mother that I had never changed a diaper on a baby, let alone a grown man. I also told her that I had lots of schoolwork to do. She just smiled at me and told me that my guardian angel would tell me what to do.

With that, one of the sisters came into the hallway and relieved me of my backpack. Another sister asked me to follow her upstairs to where our guests lived (we never called them patients). She showed me Andy’s room and the place where the supplies were stored. Then she left me. I stood for a few moments, uncertain about what I should do, and even considered leaving. I had never been more afraid of anything in my life. I didn’t want to do what I had been told and I silently voiced my displeasure to God in quite a dramatic fashion. When I think back on that moment, I am embarrassed by my childish behavior but reassured by the Lord’s patience with his children.

After putting on a gown and gloves, and gathering the necessary supplies, I went into Andy’s room and introduced myself in French. I told him my age, that I was a seminarian studying to be a Catholic priest, and that I had never before changed a diaper. I also asked him to tell me if I caused him any pain or discomfort.

Andy was a young Haitian man in his early twenties. He came to us from a local hospital after having been neglected for over thirty days. At that time, no health care worker could be forced to interact with persons with AIDS. As you might imagine, Andy was filthy and his body was covered with sores. Not only was the virus ravishing his body, it was also eating away his mind. It took

My Neighbor

“I am ashamed to say it, but I was afraid of them because of their disease.”

Fall 2013 31

me over half an hour to wash and change him. After cleaning Andy up, I said that I would pray for him and asked if he might do the same for me. But as I went to leave, Andy, in a windless voice, called me over to his bedside. So I returned and bent over to better hear what he had to say. He asked me if I wouldn’t mind sitting for a while to hold his hand. For the next twenty-five minutes, I did. When he fell asleep I left his room and went to find out if there was someone else I could attend to.

I learned more about God and my relationship with Christ in my time with Andy than I had in any one of my seminary classes or all of them combined. I learned that fear had blinded me to the truth about seeing my neighbors and choosing to love them. I learned that perhaps the greatest gift we can give to others is the

affirmation of their humanity, to recognize their dignity and that they are unique and irreplaceable.

I also learned about my own poverty of spirit and the need to be fed on food that lasts unto eternal life, a meal that’s given when at last we recognize that all of us are neighbors to each other.

I was only able to see Andy as my neighbor because he first saw me. Andy gave me one of the greatest and most precious gifts I have ever been given. He changed my life that night and continues to do so today; and all I did was sit and hold his hand.

Fr. Gary Caster is the Catholic Chaplain at Williams College. He is an avid fisherman.

Lisa William

s via Flickr

“He changed my life that night and continues to do so today; and all I did was sit and hold his hand.”


Todd Hall ’16 will probably be a political economy major with an Africana Studies concentration. He is proud to be from Jersey City, N.J.

Healing #9

TELOSFALL 2013

Documents

Telos Fall 2013