Humanizing

My job is to sell my university. Each one of us recruiters has a different area in which they place the most focus (depending on our own experience with JBU), but at the end of the day, we are getting paid to articulate why we love where we studied.

I end each tour in the cathedral, the Cathedral of the Ozarks. 

It's everything a good cathedral should be with its stained glass windows lining the sides (the blue panels on the lower half telling the story of the university and the red panels on the top half telling the story of Christ), the large pipe organ at the center of the stage (used only for special occasions such as the Candlelight service in December, a must-attend), and rows upon rows of wooden pews (which were actually constructed by carpentry students back when JBU was a "working campus").

The Cathedral isn't just awesome for its own sake, though, but rather for what goes on in there.

Each week, we have three different chapels: "The Gathering" and tuesday/thursday chapel.

During my three years at JBU, I missed 5 chapels, usually for an academic conference, but there were a couple when I had just gotten out of early morning soccer, it was cold, and I wasn't feeling the walk up the hill. Regretted each miss.

Here is why.

JBU chapel makes "its" into "thems".
At The Gathering, you hear from one of our seniors. They share part of their "story", some of their thoughts on a piece of scripture, or just something that's been stuck in their head about Jesus and Christianity.

And, you know, you look at people who are older than you and think, "They have everything so well put together, and I don't and oh crap how do I get like them." They look nicey nicey up there in the pedestal of your mind.

Then they talk. And you realize that they've got their stuff too. And somehow, that makes you feel as though you're able to have stuff too and still be valuable and still be someone that Jesus could love and could be used by him.

Thursdays bring an outside speaker in. JBU understands that no matter how sheltered and Christian an upbringing or high school or college experience is like, our students will be shoved into the big bad world after and shit goes down in the big bad world.

If we were to continue to helicopter parent them, we'd be doing them (and the kingdom of God) a serious disservice.

So, on Thursdays, we bring people in to speak to our students who we absolutely know are going to challenge their way they look at doing life and approaching "hot topics" of now.
When they leave university, we want them to know who they are, why they are who they are, what they believe, and why they believe what they believe. So when the shit hits the fan, they'll know up from down.

Tuesday chapels, though, are my personal favorite in terms of humanization. Tuesdays, one of our staff or faculty comes to speak to us. Now, I say staff or faculty because it could be anyone from your 18th century british literature professor to the campus custodian to the campus president to one of your friendly neighborhood admissions counselors.

We all subconsciously do it, don't be ashamed or try to deny it. When we meet someone, anyone in a particular profession, there's a part of our pseudo conscious brain that things, "You are ____." You are admissions counselor/custodian/grounds keeper/cashier/literature professor.

Just a little tiny chunk of us believes that janitor spends his/her nights in the supplies closet with visions of urinal cakes dancing in their heads.
What we don't think about when we meet them is their family structure, financial issues, or childhood memories.
We especially don't point to them and think, "Hey, I'll bet you know a lot about the theology of John 1." No!
But that's what chapel does!
We hear pieces of their real lives outside of who they are at work. We know them and their story and through that, we become a bit more human ourselves because we can no longer look at them without knowing that there's more to them than excellent vacuum skills. 

Find that Funny Bone

There are wrong times for comic relief.
Believe me, I come from a family where we deal with (most) emotions by dealing out humor.

However, never underestimate the power of humor to dissipate anxiety and anger.

In my Family and Human Services classes, we learned about "repair attempts."

It's those things you do that bring uncontrollable situations into the realm of "Okay I can handle discussing this" again.

Sometimes, that's a 5 minute time out. For my professor's wife, all it takes is him touching her on the arm. I'm not sure what mine is, but I know that something that does work for me often is being taken off-guard by something that makes me smile. Sneak attack humor!

There's been a couple situations weighing on me pretty heavy since I got home (which makes some serious sense, considering how much drastic change I've gone through in such a short period of time), and twice yesterday was I brought out of my seriousness and into clarity.

The first was bestowed upon me by my boyfriend, who decided--mid-conversation about the acceptability of having feelings (something I struggle with sometimes) to ask me whether I thought women or men would live longer should one of their limbs be cut off, given that women are so much more conditioned to losing unreal amounts of blood. It was so...random. And I laughed.

Laughter has actual effects on the body.
Listen to just one of its benefits, stolen from the Mayo Clinic's website:
"Laughter enhances your intake of oxygen-rich air, stimulates your heart, lungs and muscles, and increases the endorphins that are released by your brain."

Later, I was at a party, where I came across two people I never anticipated being at said party. During the course of the evening, I ended up in the same conversation circle, and a mutual friend of myself and one of said non-wanteds was brought up.
This new acquaintance could not have known the context for why bringing up this mutual friend was funny, but it was enough for both me and the ex to have a moment of significant, amused eye-contact. Our first positive interaction in more than half a year. It was good.

My point in bringing up laughter and amusement and conversations/people I don't like is to say that even matters that seem so hard and fast in one direction can be altered with the smallest of actions.

It reminds me of something I read on pinterest once:

Laughter reminds us that we are human. And no matter how full of red hot emotion, are not unable to find a point of connection and relatability.

A Moveable Feast

Sometimes I think that I've managed to retain my love of books but lost my love of reading.

Then, I accidentally spend an entire evening turning the leaves of a novel from start to finish, without moving from my position for even an instant.

Some find reading a pleasant amusement. As though if one is reading, then one could just as easily be cleaning a bathroom. Therefore, a task list must be set for the reader.

I, however, am under the firm impression that reading is soul-making.

A book, however deep or shallow, however well or poorly written, however many commas I MUST put in, is inherently good. Let me rephrase. Reading a book, etc, etc.

To merely look at a book is to merely look at a beautiful woman or man. It is objectification, leaving no room for the development of character, nor the appreciation of such a character, literal or figurative.

To read a book means to allow yourself to leave your own mind and care, for the length of the pages, to care about the people who the author seems to care so much about.

In that span of time, you are a made into a better person simply because you are taken outside of yourself. For me, reading is essential to my nature not only because I crave anything that feeds my creative, imaginative self or, more "prudently" my intellectual self, but because I am selfish and think about myself and my little problems a lot.

Books get me outside of my own head and give me perspective, remind me that there is a whole lot more out there than my horseblinders of self allow me to see.

When I don't read, you can tell. When I don't write, you can tell. When I don't hang out with Jesus, you can tell. And for me, all three of those are intertwined.

I think and speak and act more sanely and more humanely when my stomach for good words has been fed.