A few weeks ago, I visited a religious order in California to gain perspective on the meaning of life. The friars, some old and some young, welcomed me into their warm community, inviting me into their daily prayer service, filled with the smell of incense accompanied by chants to the divine. It was a delightful, but counter-cultural experience, to live in a community disconnected with the outside world, first choosing to think rather than to speak when sharing life in a sacred space.
Often at Wheaton College, we drum up phrases like “intentional community” to promote our residential spaces as distinctively Christian. And some of this is true, I can think of certain floors of underclassmen dorms which do fun events, campus apartments that prove to be a sanctuary of rest, and many off-campus houses which abide by certain virtues. But for some of us, fellowship with all those around us feels optional, even frowned upon in certain circles. Perhaps we feel alienated that our institution, nicely put, is a strongly mono cultural and heteronormative environment. Others of us may feel frustrated with constantly being associated with a prominent on-campus organisation, wishing we could be recognized as full individuals again. In a sense, we’re all forced to play one certain social role or another, that seems more likely to squeeze the life out of us rather than empower us together to do great things.
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Now to be clear, it’s certainly not my intention to group people into broad categories at our institution, as each of us is unique in one way or another. But we live in an age where romance, education, and employment is at least partly-based on personal preferences; preferences which require a demanding list of upkeep and do not automatically give thought to “the other” in our neighborhood. So to gain a better understanding of who we are, and what we are meant to be, we have to build diverse relationships with those who are unlike us. Humanity’s educators are not just the affluent Ivy League professors, who speak of connections which will raise a few eyebrows, but they are also the ones choosing to be distinctively present in a community where love is valued over fame.
Truly, there is beauty to be found in what the popular have decried as “foolish” and the theorists have devalued as “irrelevant”. This must not be so! We must challenge ourselves to invest, listen, learn and grow together intently through journey called life. Be patient and wait, because you just may find life-giving sources of communal inspiration combined with a sense of calling at a place where you thought there was no significance to be found in the world.
