Snapshots

Life, lately, has been categorized by moments that I will never forget. Snapshots of life, if you will. Moments frozen in time-a Polaroid photograph that can be held in my hand to revisit the scene that is captured before me. The interesting thing is, I don’t control when the picture is taken; it just happens. So my life seems to be categorized by the random Polaroids that are tacked or taped to my wall, skewed ever so slightly. Memories I know I will never forget.

Brian Hartley telling our Foundations class that theologians are poets and singers. Captured in this one statement is the truth that theologians don’t just capture the words of the faith, but they’re caught up in the ‘doing’ of the faith as well-they’re singing, they’re speaking those words. This has great meaning for me because I fit into the category of theology poets. But it’s one thing just to write, and another to speak forth those words, to sing them to other people.

President Mannoia telling us at the Cor 401 retreat that he feels like he has half a heart and half a brain without Ellen. They truly did become one person, one flesh. Then he read the vows she wrote for him. In a gruff, deliberative voice he said “….and she kept her word.”

Sitting in Snyder 104 with all the freshman for Environmental Science, listening to them talk about the things I talked about three years ago-things I wanted to talk about because I was worried about them. How hard would those drawings in Western Civ be graded?
I’m in a group for that class and it’s so evident that it takes time not only for freshman to be ‘greenville-ized’ (and I mean that in the best way), but it also takes time for them to adjust to the college work load. I didn’t realize that working in groups and writing papers had become so commonplace until I sat with people who had not done that on the college level yet.

Walking back up to Tower as the sun sets and the orange light streams across campus. Being really excited to go to St. Meinrad’s in October. In anticipation for the colors of fall. Realizing in a second that the familiarity of Greenville wasn’t always there and it’s not always going to be, and in that next second realizing it was my last year as I walked across campus.

These snapshots will, inevitably, continue to accumulate on my wall as my mind continues to realize that it’s my last year as a student at Greenville College. I can only hope that I will be present enough not to miss them.