By Josh Noem, Guest Commentary
Did you know that you've had your diaper changed more than 2,500 times?
Assuming you are not still wearing diapers, your parents wiped your tiny butt day and night for at least the first 18 months of your life. Your parents also picked up your toys, dealt with your tantrums, helped you with your homework, drove you to practice, put up with your teenage angst, forced you to have fun on vacations, and loved you beyond anything you can imagine.
And now they have let you go and here you sit at UP, all by yourself, reading a newspaper like a grown-up. What will you do with this one, precious life you have? How will you spend your time and money and energy? You have one shot at this college endeavor – what will you make of it?
Whether you are a cynical senior or a rosy-cheeked freshman, I have two words of advice for you.
First – don't get distracted looking for the ultimate college experience. There is a whole cultural narrative out there that dictates what college "should" be like. Some students waste a lot of time searching for that paradigm because it doesn't exist in reality. The only thing that does exist is the people and opportunities around you. If you are looking for Animal House (Google it), you perhaps should have considered a state school.
I'm not saying that people here don't know how to have fun; I'm just encouraging you to forget searching for the stereotypical "college experience" and dive in to the opportunities that come your way. God forbid that these four years are the only time in your life when you'll have an opportunity to have fun. You'll have 60 or 70 more years to live after walking out of here with a diploma.
Second – you'll find deeper happiness if your time here at UP is marked in some way by faith. Why? Because some kind of awareness and relationship with God and with a community of fellow believers is what you are programmed for.
The vast majority of the world's population throughout all time has had some version of faith in God. What can account for this phenomenon of faith among humanity? Perhaps we are deluding ourselves and faith is an easy fix to our anxiety. Perhaps faith is indeed an opiate and ruling entities encourage it for the pacification of their people. I cannot deny that this may be so.
For my money, though, the more compelling argument is that people are faithful because they find something true about it. Faith makes sense of their experience in some way. And this makes sense from what has been revealed to us in our Christian tradition: we're made in the image of God. If we're made in the image of God, we will only find our truest selves in relationship with the origin of that image.
So, I encourage you to remain open to the possibility that God might have something to say to you during your time here at UP. Don't ignore the thought or feeling that there might be something for you at a Bible study or retreat or Mass or service plunge. Those nebulous thoughts and feelings, deep in your core, are the ways in which God whispers to us.
Our staff in Campus Ministry loves, loves, loves to talk about these whispers. We have a really good candy dish in our Pilot House office. I mean really good. Swing by under the guise of grabbing a Butterfinger and casually mention that you might be interested in learning more about the possibility of maybe finding out what would be involved in talking about the options open to this friend of yours who might be curious about what students do in Campus Ministry.
We'll know what you are talking about.
