Kirksville, Missouri is a tiny little town with a population slightly over 17 thousand people. The town is about 200 miles north of St. Louis and, subsequently, is virtually in the middle of nowhere. Of course to the permanent residents of Kirksville, this ‘middle of nowhere’ is home.

The size and location of Kirksville threw me the first time I arrived here. Coming from a midsize city I knew very little about life in a rural setting. I saw the small size of the town and the farmland surrounding it and determined it to be little more than a rural farm town. I snickered on the long drives home at the audacity Kirksville had to call itself a city. Even so, I fell in love with Truman’s campus and the people who lived and loved their homes.

It took time for me to fall in love, however. As I have already mentioned I would laugh and poke fun at Kirksville on my visits and driving home. Even when I arrived here to start college I would occasionally make a joke about Kirksville’s size. Despite this, I learned to love this little town of 17 thousand.

I did not expect Kirksville to be beautiful, just like my home city of Omaha, Nebraska (more on this next week). The first days of college life, I remember repeating in my head how beautiful the campus was. How I had forgotten what it had looked and felt like.

In the moments between activities, classes, and homework I have experienced and seen tremendous amounts of beauty. I watch the world, a childish observer in love with everything. I jump up and down in excitement when the sun’s rays hit peaks of buildings, leaving the rest in shadow. I run out on the quad in deep night, letting the rain pour off my body. I have biked under the cover of darkness and explored in the cool morning. I have watched the sun rise and set again, never growing tired of the streaming colors illuminating the skies.

I walk around campus for hours at night, when it is quiet and cool. I walk through the silence, or the rain, and let the world pass. I go to the darkened fields to gaze to the dark sphere above, sprinkled with the twinkling stars so far away. I sit alone in silence or with a book. I allow myself to think and to simply be. Like the poets and authors before me, I have learned to slow down and enjoy the world around me.

I quest that all of us do this. Search for those small moments. Revel in the rarity and the indescribable nature of them. I challenge all of you to be more childish. I challenge you to look at the world with wonder and excitement. I challenge you to run in the rain sometime. Yearn to be a little eccentric, strange even. Being different is not so bad. Who knows, if you try it, you might actually enjoy it.