First of all, I did not start spurting tears at random
moments throughout the two hours of course discussion. Second, I actually
understood the entirety of the discussion. That has never before happened in a
class period with Eamonn.
Our discussion today focussed on family structure,
construction of identity, genre debate, and mental health. Not only are those
my favourite topics to discuss, they also helped me to construct a paper topic,
outline it, and jot down the resources I would need to uphold it for my final
paper. I’m pretty excited about it. I built a similar argument in a previous
class at JBU, so I have a semi-foundation for discussion.
Using the background of Seamus Deane’s “autobiography” Reading in the Dark and the subtexts of
Earnest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast and
Henry James’ novella “The Turn of the Screw”, I’m going to prove that Deane’s
book is, in fact, not an autobiography but a novel. And, more than that, a
gothic novel.
I’m pretty excited.
To now turn to a different book, I’d like to discuss the concept
of “common grace”, as defined by Rick Ostrander in Why College Matters to God. Since obviously I don’t have my copy on
me here in NornIron, I’ll sum up for you. Common grace is the idea that
regardless of something’s goal of being Christian or NonChristian, anything can
reveal and draw us closer to the character of God.
I am rather certain that neither my classmate Paddy nor my
processor Eamonn is a Christian. Just drawn by class discussion, which often
focuses on religion due to the structure of this nation.
However, I was struck, both last Monday and today at the way
my professor and my classmate were genuinely concerned for my well-being. Not
that non-christians are in any way unfeeling or not able to understand things,
I guess I’ve just never had a whole lot of interactions with non-christians.
A Christian would have tried to spiritualize my being upset
or tell me that they were praying for me. The two of them, instead, expressed…I
don’t know. It was like they felt hurt with me, and they didn’t even know what
was wrong. I don’t think I even knew fully what was wrong. They made me feel
joined. And both afterward expressed so verbally.
It didn’t end there, though. Today, in continuation from
last week, they individually followed up with me and reiterated the fact that
academia doesn’t stop short of relations, that they really did want to stand
beside me in whatever way I needed them to. I don’t know. It sounds kind of
dumb saying it now, I was just taken off-guard by it, I suppose.
Eamonn wears a blackbird pin, representative of Seamus Heaney
and representative of Ireland. Literature and stories are his life. I caught
myself staring at that pin throughout class and thinking of what it meant in the
context of the whole.
I’ve spoken before of Ireland’s struggle for identity and
struggle for a voice and struggle to live their own story. Who are they?
British? Irish? Northern Irish? And yet, they are all at the same time. All our
stories and identities are interlinked.
And we all seek to live a good story.
Donald Miller speaks a lot about living good stories with
our lives in A Million Miles in a
Thousand Years. If you don’t like the story your life is telling, change
it.
However, our stories are not our own. Like I said, we are
all interlinked, Christian and nonChristian alike. Eamonn and Paddy expressing
genuine interest into my life was them choosing to play a role in my story past
their assigned roles as professor and peer.
That’s why it was meaningful to me.
Anyone can play the assigned role. Requirement says very
little. Taking up space out of compulsion is empty of character. It takes
boldness and compassion to choose engagement and role-redefinition, going
outside the expected to further the greater story at hand. Christian or nonChristian, that speaks volumes of the Lord's grace through them.
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