Shards of Light Volume 3

VOLUME 3

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VOLUME 3

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JOHN BROWN UNIVERSITY’S LITURATURE

&

ART JOURNAL

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EDITORIAL STAFF MANAGING EDITOR | Faith Smith LITERATURE EDITOR | Mckinley Dirks POETRY EDITOR | Caleb Place GRAPHICS EDITOR | Reah Umlauf

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Abby Babcock Cole Blagg Anna Brodnick Peyton Hoffman Nattilie Kirby Lily Matayo Rachael Oatman Kat Shaneck Samuel Spencer Amber Yaeger

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The world of creative content can be an exceedingly dark place that promotes the estrangement of faith from creativity, but, as christians we should strive to bring light and hope to our readers and viewers. our work has the potential to renew our culture and be a part of a greater dialogue, ultimately fulfilling our God-given mandate to further the Kingdom of God. With the hope of the Gospel and the grace of God, we seek to bring redemption in our words, in our art, and in our lives.

We are Shards of Light

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CONTENTS 08

“Ani-Ya” : Emma Brown

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“They Asked for a Story About Oxford” : Evyn Mcgraw

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“Fight Club” : Blake Selby

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“Coconut Chicken Malai With a Side of Trespassing” : Jill Ellenbarger

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“Skeleton Surfer” : Blake Selby

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“Of Eyebrows” : Anna Noden

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“Canary Girl” : Betz Richards

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“Pursuit” : Michelle Satterlee

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“Dancing in the Rain” : Katelyn Johnson

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“Sasha” : Anna Noden

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“Farmers Market Flowers Pt 2” : Emma Brown

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“Road of Regrets” : Emily Hume

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“Sweet Ignorance and Dairy Queen Blizzards” : Kelly Leamon

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“The First You Started in Me Pt 1” : Emma Brown

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“Things I Can’t Change but I Still Try” : Njema Dejong

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“Pouring Passion” : Lauren West

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“Ars Poetica” : Sam Spencer

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“Llama Portrait” : Amber Yaeger

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“Borrowed Ire” : Lydia Degisi

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“Remnants of Us” : Katelyn Kingcade

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“To Erik Leamon” : Kelly Leamon

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“Music of the City” : Leah Scott

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“Dirk’s Bumblebees” : Mckinley Dirks

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“Late Birds” : Kelly Leamon

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“Zion” : Gabby Dakota

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“Nemesis” : Anna Brodnick

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“Horse Eye” : Amber Yaeger

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“Horses Of Montana” : Betz Richards

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“Still Nothing” : Lydia Degisi

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“Sooners Land” : Katelyn Kingcade

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“Suspension” : Sarah Martin

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“Fall Colors” : Amber Yaeger

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“Ode to the Crab” : Anna Brodnick

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“Story/Song” : Reah Umlauf

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“Old Fashined Day at the Sea” : Leah Scott

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Shards of Light | “Ani-Ya”

by Emma Brown

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ani-ya

: emma brown

Shards of Light |

they asked for a story about oxford

: evyn mcgraw

THEY ASKED FOR A STORY ABOUT OXFORD EVYN MCGRAW

They Asked for a Story about Oxford (Or, Eleven Aphorisms Concerning the Knight of Faith and the Knight of Infinite Resignation) 1.

Tell us a story about Oxford, they said.

Sure, I have lots of stories. How about the time I was on my way to the Pitt Rivers Museum but got distracted by a giant skeleton fish head? All pale crags and hollows, it looked like an undead aquatic dragon, so I sketched it instead of going to the museum.

2.

Or how about the time I swung medieval weaponry at a group of strangers in the park?

Well, not exactly strangers. The reenactment society was founded by a bony, old programmer woman who described herself as “just an old git.” Other members were as follows: Kami studied philosophy and thought all philosophers were bastards, which was why he studied philosophy, (by his own admission); Torulf was a transman from Hungary who managed a sex shop in Oxford; Antonia was tall and German and kind of intimidating to swing a sword at.

We stayed up late one night making chainmail and talking about Socialism and the reasons Kami hated Poland.

3.

How about the time Bridget and I went to a very red café after mass and had to shout over pots clanging in the kitchen on the other side of the wall. Bridget said she wanted to be an ascetic nun because she didn’t know how else to keep from hurting people. Every time we enjoy things, she said, someone suffers somewhere else. Buy a nice meal? Someone probably worked in a sweatshop to make it available for you.

It’s not up to us to save the world on our own, I argued as I spread butter on sourdough toast.

“And we can’t be afraid to love,” I said. “Part of loving God is learning to enjoy the good things he gives us.”

Things like a very red café and scrambled eggs on toast and a crisp, sunny afternoon.

4.

How about the time I spent the weekend writing about steampunk magician philosophers with

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Shards of Light |

they asked for a story about oxford

: evyn mcgraw

musket laser guns instead of reading Hegel like I was supposed to? Wind battered the rickety Victorian windows. I drank tea in the lamplight and curled on a couch with nothing but my novel and a decided lack of an agenda for the day.

There’s a such thing as virtuous procrastination, I reasoned. Most people call it rest.

5.

Or the time I walked downtown to buy art supplies and a cookie from the covered market and passed at least five people begging in the street. If I had extra cash, I wondered, how would I decide who to help? If I gave money to one person, then the others wouldn’t get any. Would I give it to the most in need? The most reputable? The most likely to not waste the money on a beer?

Goodwill couldn’t be so utilitarian, so calculated. But what was I supposed to do?

6.

Or the time Peter and I argued over the dinner table about the doctrine of total depravity. It isn’t possible to perform a good deed without some hint of sin, he said. Everything he did had a hidden sinful motive. “Even when I’m doing outreach ministries at college,” he said, “it’s so people will like me and I’ll be more attractive to women.”

There weren’t always sinful motives lurking behind everything, I argued. When he asked me to prove it, I only said that sanctity exists.

Sanctity is self-authenticating. Sometimes you meet people who you know without a doubt have been so profoundly touched by grace that you can’t help but say, “Something in you is deeply, transcendently good.”

But part of me quaked at the idea he might be right.

7.

What about the time I rushed past a homeless man to go to vespers? Sitting on the lamp-lit cobblestones, he was a dark lump in the night, his back leaning against the priory. And I rushed past to worship God, to pray and leave the least of these right outside the door.

The monks’ chant droned and I heard nothing. I left in a haze of tears I tried to hide.

His name was Kenny, and he’d come to Oxford from Scotland three weeks ago to help his destitute brother who was a writer. Kenny needed money for a place to spend the night, and it was getting cold.

While he talked, I was just thankful he hadn’t left while I went to pray. I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself. Isn’t that pathetic? Even this—even getting down on my knees to look this stranger in the face and say, “What are you going through?”—even this was self-focused. Dear Lord, please let Peter be wrong.

8.

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Shards of Light |

they asked for a story about oxford

: evyn mcgraw

Or the time I wandered in the park listening to a big, dumb fantasy novel because there’s nothing like academia to make you long for a big, dumb fantasy novel. And the low sun flared gold in the trees—so beautiful it hurt.

All I wanted to do was melt into the gold. It was warm like tangible, visible love.

But I also felt trapped somehow, wondering what the hell I was actually doing here.

The heart is restless, I thought. Even in Oxford, when I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, even here the heart is restless.

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Or the time Daniel and I argued over the dinner table about whether pornographers and sex traffickers deserve the death sentence. He said death was the only message strong enough to make people behave. I told him people’s lives weren’t worth a “message” and that legislation wouldn’t fix human nature. He asked if I had a better idea, and I said I didn’t.

“You might be able to settle for not doing anything to fix society,” he said, “but I for one am interested in finding a solution.”

I told him I was more interested in leaving myself open for a true solution than clamping down too quickly on a false one.

“What is the solution, then?” he demanded.

The answer burst from me without my intending it. I shouted Christ’s name at him because I didn’t know what else to say.

10.

In the homily today, the priest compared a saint to a stained-glass window. A saint is someone through whom the light of Christ shines.

The thing about a window, I thought, is that it doesn’t build itself. And that was a relief to me.

Sanctity doesn’t start at saving the world. Saints aren’t the people who do the most right things; they’re the people who know how to gaze in the right direction.

11.

So how is Oxford going?

I write about steampunk wizards every morning. I go to the pub with transmen in chainmail. I draw fish heads and other sundry oddities. I meet people like Kenny, even when there’s nothing I can do to help but offer a bit of change. I need Christ.

Am I a window? Has God’s love burned its way yet through the clouded glass that is myself? Who knows. I certainly don’t feel like a window. Thankfully, it isn’t up to how I feel.

So, I ask again, Am I a window? God, whatever it takes, please, make it so.

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Shards of Light | “Fight Club”

by Blake Selby

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fight club

: blake selby

Shards of Light |

coconut chicken malai with a side of trespassing

: jill ellenbarger

COCONUT CHICKEN MALAI WITH A SIDE OF TRESPASSING JILL ELLENBARGER

“Soooo… what good food have you eaten lately?”

Oh, man. As soon as the question leapt out of my face, I realized that it was dangerously awkward. In the seemingly eternal pause that followed, I became acutely aware of everything around me: the smell of sunscreen, the sound of the surf crashing along the beach, and every single grain of sand between me and the metal bleacher. But then Lauren’s face lit up, and the listing of delicious food in Northwest Arkansas began. Most of the food we discussed originated at least half a hemisphere away, and all of it had adventurous flavors. My stomach grumbled as the crowd roared. We were so engrossed in our conversation that we were missing the very volleyball match that we had traveled across the country to watch. Turning our focus away from our daydreams of deliciousness, I felt anticipation building at the prospect of a new friend.

This excitement was refreshing as it came in the midst of a season of significant transition. After spending most of my life developing friendships through common course enrollment and the resulting stress-relieving social activities, I had finally graduated, and I found myself immersed in newness.

I was in a new “young professional” life stage in a new geographical state surrounded by a new assortment of humans. There was approximately twenty-seven percent of me that still ascribed to my family’s assumption that upon learning someone’s name, they became your instant friend. For that part of me, the newness was exhilarating. However, the remaining seventy-three percent of me realized more fully than ever that building friendships was going to take intentionality. It was going to take pursuit.

So, I took the next step in developing my budding friendship with Lauren by extending an invitation to not just talk about food, but to eat some food together. Feeling inspired and slightly intimidated to be cooking for a fellow foodie, I prepared my favorite Indian entrée while my husband Michael curated a welcoming ambiance in our home. Just as we were putting the finishing touches on our respective domains, Lauren and her boyfriend Luke arrived carrying homemade brownies.

It all began so well!

As we shared our meal of Coconut Chicken Malai, we shared our lives. The conversation naturally began around our mutual interest in playing sand volleyball, but quickly rabbit-trailed into traveling adventures, work challenges, and family histories. After we all finished our second and even third helpings of dinner and had cleaned out the pan of brownies, Lauren made a proposition. She described an old, abandoned house that she had recently run across and suggested that we go check it out. Ok, so true confession: my personal definition of trespassing is a bit loose. One of my favorite things to do with my mom growing up was to explore the houses being framed out in our neighborhood and imagine what the homes would become. Apparently, as Michael still has to

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Shards of Light |

coconut chicken malai with a side of trespassing

: jill ellenbarger

remind me, this is frowned upon by local law enforcement and our legal system… but regardless of these technicalities, on that fateful night, I was game for an adventure.

Creeeaaakkkkkk.

Walking through the once-ornate doorway, our flashlights revealed a long hall ending in a dark staircase. Lining the hall were several doors standing slightly askew and beckoning our curiosity.

Lauren tentatively stepped up to the nearest door on the left, slowly opening it to reveal what had once been—I’m sure—a lovely conservatory. Overgrown vines snaked around crumbling planters and carpeted the walls, eventually escaping from view through the broken lattice windows above.

Lauren gingerly picked a path through the invasive greenery while the rest of us settled for botanical observation. Approaching the largest of the planters, she stifled a yelp of excitement and extracted a giant key from the midst of the foliage. What a cool find! The adrenaline of the adventure must have been surging because she looked absolutely giddy skipping back across the sunroom to join us.

As we made our way further down the hall, we discovered the kitchen and the dining room, followed by a dusty study and an epic library. Growing ever emboldened with each room, we prowled through the ground level until we’d exhausted the rooms and found ourselves facing the staircase. Feeling split on which level to explore next, Lauren and Luke descended to the basement while Michael and I headed upstairs. Cresting the upper landing, we found ourselves facing a corridor featuring a rusty suit of armor. Michael grinned at me as he donned the helmet, lifted the spear, and marched onward. As his footsteps echoed further down the hallway, I entered the first room on the right. And what a room it was. I found myself in a maze of mountains of old newspapers and teetering columns of boxes labeled “very fragile.” Along the perimeter were display shelves packed, stacked, and overflowing with miniature glass figurines, mixing bowls, old framed photos. It was absolutely mesmerizing. I could comb through these by-gone treasures for ages… but then I heard it.

A great clattering followed by a ferocious, inhuman roar.

I panicked. All I could see were piles of junk. I ran back in the direction of the door and immediately tripped over an old stuffed animal. Picking myself up and brushing myself off, I steadied my nerves and found the door, just as Luke’s scream joined the cacophony. Michael was already ahead of me, racing down the stairs to rescue our friend in the basement. The glint of light off of Michael’s helmet disappeared down the stairwell just as Luke’s scream turned into an intelligible declaration. “SHE HAS A FREAKING DRAGON!” A dragon? What does that even mean? And who is she? Obviously not me… but Lauren? This dinner-date-turned-felonious-trespassing-adventure seemed to have taken a final turn into a dumpster fire. Since there was no point in me trying to fight a dragon, I decided to go find help. In the moments that it took these thoughts to race through my head, my feet had transported me down the staircase and towards the front door.

And then, another roar and the sound of little metal armor bits clanking against the ground. I froze mid-flight. Turning, I starred agape at the shrouded staircase. I watched as Luke leapt up the stairs very much alone, out of breath, and just a little singed. Sorrowfully shaking his head, he inter-

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Shards of Light |

coconut chicken malai with a side of trespassing

: jill ellenbarger

rupted my agony to pant, “Lauren used the key… that she found in the conservatory… to unlock the dungeon… and release a dragon… which she has now sent to hunt us down!” Before he could say more, Lauren appeared, leading her dragon up the stairs. The look of manic delight that raced across her face was startling as she exclaimed, “I foooooound yoooou! [Long pause for dramatic effect.] Attack.” Brandishing our flashlights and remaining courage, we launched ourselves at the dragon. The dragon seemed to laugh at our onslaught… a laugh that ended in flames.

Stack. Sort. Close.

As Luke, Lauren, Michael and I packed up the board game, Lauren grinned victoriously and asked, “Games at my house on Sunday afternoon?!”

“Yes, friend, absolutely!”

“Skeleton Surfer”

by Blake Selby

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Shards of Light |

of eyebrows

: anna noden

OF EYEBROWS ANNA NODEN

The practical, evolutionary reason we have eyebrows is to keep sweat and other pesky objects from falling into our eyes. If you think about them too long—how they are simply strips of hair in the middle of your face—you begin to feel that they are ridiculous.

— My entomologist father told me, when I was six, that I have thousands of mites living in my eyebrows.

“If there are that many in your eyebrows, Anna, imagine how many must be on your whole body!”

I was not pleased to be the host of such an ecosystem.

— My brother bleached his eyebrows as part of a fundraiser put on by our school. They were still yellow in the senior portrait he sent out in his graduation announcements.

— When I allowed my roommate to pluck my eyebrows—something I had not attempted myself—I put on relaxing music, laid on my back, and tried in vain not to flinch and tear up with every yank.

It was a trial I do not wish to repeat.

— My eighty-two-year-old grandpa’s eyebrows must weigh heavily on his eyelids because he is always flicking them up when he talks. Perhaps eyebrows get heavier as you age.

— Karyna said that in Uganda people will raise both eyebrows to mean yes. It is the equivalent of nodding.

— My grandma once gave me an eyebrow conditioning stick. My cousin laughed till she cried when I, privately, asked if there was any eyebrow shampoo.

— In French class, we would watch these—often boring—videos from the eighties. Mocking Francois’s unibrow became daily entertainment for us. Traduire: Nous étions assez méchants. We were quite mean.

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Shards of Light |

of eyebrows

: anna noden

— When my brother was fourteen, he shaved a line through one of his eyebrows. My mom said, “Honey, eyebrows never grow back.”

He scoffed at her but examined his eyebrow in the mirror every day. It took a full year for it to grow back.

— In a movie about death row, I learned that prison guards will shave your eyebrows before they put you in the electric chair. I suppose it is to guard against fire. For some reason, it felt like the prison guards in the movie were shaving Herb’s eyebrows off because they made his face human. The final dehumanization before death, perhaps.

— “You must never underestimate the power of the eyebrow.” – Jack Black.

— When a can of lighter fluid blew up in my grandma’s face in the seventies, it singed off her eyebrows. I think that might be why she only wears pencil eyebrows now.

— “You can tell a lot about a woman by her eyebrows.” – my roommate.

— Danielle and Aunt Vicki said I was lucky I did not have to worry about plucking my eyebrows because I am blonde and not brunette like them. They warned me never to get my eyebrows done at the Asian kiosks in the mall: “They use string to slice off your eyebrow hairs. You can feel each individual hair pinging. It hurts like heck.”

— My family’s favorite Muppet was the Swedish chef whose drooping eyebrows hid his eyes entirely.

Once in a while, if truly shocked by something, he would raise his brows to reveal his eyes. It made the eye-reveals exciting—a peek at something rare.

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Shards of Light | “Canary Girl”

by Betz Richards

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canary girl

: betz richards

Shards of Light |

pursuit

: michelle satterlee

PURSUIT MICHELLE SATTERLEE

It happened during the final semester. After four years, plus three years, plus four years, plus one year—which was already half finished—there were just four months to go. It was the final semester.

After school and working and school and working, school was about to be well and truly over, and there were open skies ahead. As a family, we were buying airline tickets. We were planning a dinner party and imagining how school friends and relatives might all get along best in a whirlwind trip of celebration.

I was at work when the notification appeared, and I thought it would be about graduation, more family planning. I braced myself for details and calendar questions that didn’t come. Instead, my mom’s voicemail brought one reality to a sudden halt, and a new starting pistol sounded: He’s stabilized for now, but they need to run more tests…no, I don’t think you need to make a trip. Wait until we know more.

The next ten weeks tumbled like bizarre, cascading boulders, and I strained to find the right pace.

It was like the worst version of trains, planes, and automobiles. I rushed through airports, chasing reservations, only to idle on runways in snowstorms or wait for the next batch of inconclusive test results.

The experts demonstrated their ignorance, their best guesses, and their compassion in the waiting.

Nurses fought valiantly to balance dignity with whatever invasive procedure just had to be done, and, between alarms and mechanical supports, we all leaned in to hear the next breath.

I’ve never moved like that through time. We made the rounds from one hospital to another, one diagnosis to another, one emergency room to another, surgical suites to waiting rooms to ambulances to MRIs. They physically misplaced my dad more than once. They lost him. How do you lose a patient who isn’t ambulatory—more than once?

While we frantically raced to find answers, to be able to form a plan and keep everyone up to date, my dad strained for moments of clarity, of connection—anything that would cover him with the familiar and allow him to express who he was with the ones he loved. He cheated at even the simplest of games because the rules were so far beyond his grasp, but the pieces and the boards were familiar. As if he were reviewing the comfort of better days, he sang old songs at the top of his voice and ate nothing but chocolate ice cream. It was the oddest thing to see him travelling back through his life at breakneck speed while we wanted nothing more than to slow the forward motion.

I have never strained so hard for anything in my life. I have never worked harder to pay attention or to stay focused. I have never fought for a moment as I did for those ten weeks. In the midst of it all, the target often seemed just ahead, only to disappear again. After this test. After this appointment.

After this decision. After this administrative battle. After they find him and return him to us once more. Soon. Just ahead. If we kept moving and kept searching, surely it would be there: a moment of serenity without the looming next, without the ever-deepening awareness that something was forever different in this lifetime-gone.

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Shards of Light |

pursuit

: michelle satterlee

The graduation ticket became another ticket home, and the unopened regalia box leaned against the wall in the entryway. There were clients to see and final reports to be written and professors to inform; and a small part of me, woven through the fibers, still responded to “Congratulations!” and “It’s a big deal.” But my straining—my attention—was elsewhere.

When he couldn’t sing anymore, we quietly sang. And when he couldn’t reach out, we stroked his hands. And then, we ate his chocolate ice cream. At the time, while my dad was dying, I don’t think I would have said I was pursuing anything. I think I would have used other words like managing or surviving. If anything, I imagined myself as being swept along faster than I wanted to go, but, when I look back, it seems so incredibly clear. Amidst the chaos and the tumbling of it all, I can still feel the pull in my chest. I can feel that posture of leaning forward. I can see myself constantly straining, madly pursuing what was always just out of reach, and it was so strange how his final breath brought that striving to an end. It was the heaviest kind of prize, an unyielding kind of rest.

“Dancing in the Rain”

by Katelyn Johnson

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Shards of Light |

sasha

: anna noden

SASHA ANNA NODEN

It all started with a slipped disk. Her mom’s, that is. She helped her mom limp all the way across our gated community to ask my mom to drive Sasha to school until her back healed. “I hate to ask this, I really do,” her mom said. Sasha and I eyed each other as our mothers spoke. She was small, muscular, with a turned-up nose. Her orange-blonde hair was pillowy around her angular face and her eyes were steely, cold.

Carpooling became our norm. Through groggy morning small-talk, I discovered that she and I swam with the same club, and that she played tennis and took nature lessons from a Native American lady in town. Her mom was a marine biologist, her dad was a geologist, and she was their only child. They were from Cape Town and had been living in Namibia for eleven years. She liked to play punch-buggy (an especially cruel game in a former German colony crawling with Volkswagens) and she hit so hard. Once, on the way to school, my brother and I squinted out at predawn Windhoek while her dad admonished her for ten minutes about washing the dishes improperly the night before: “It didn’t make sense to add the soap that early, Sasha. There was too much grease.” She was front-seat, straight-backed, silent.

I knew that she and Katrien were longtime friends. They did everything together. And they fought a lot: wrestled, scratched, pinched, and punched each other. I thought they were just trying to be like boys. Katrien was better than Sasha at everything: swimming, art, music, and academics. The annoying boys in our sixth-grade class—Yekuru, Sergio, and Luke—pulled Sasha’s hair, called her Natasha (which she despised) and stole her stuff. Sasha would whip around and punch, scratch, and kick them. They would nervously giggle. They never bothered Katrien. She was the enigmatic, smart-girl fixture of our grade.

When Sasha and I became friends (this was sixth grade, when the I think I will call you my friend conversation is quite explicit), she told me she had hated me when I first moved there. “You were friends with Alexandra, and I hate Alexandra,” she said. Sasha never punched me like Katrien and the boys. I was not better than Sasha at anything. I was just the new chubby kid from America who laughed a lot.

We started meeting each other on the scrappy, rounded mountain behind our houses and we claimed our own spot under a large camelthorn tree. We even made a tribe. In our treaty, we appointed Sasha (or her chosen name, Wolva Shade) as president, my brother (Stern Bull) as vice president, and myself (Laughing Bear) as secretary. For our meetings, we took turns bringing snacks.

Our first tribal feat was to make a broom from grass and twine and sweep out the glittery mica and black hyrax dung that had accumulated under our tree. We had officially claimed the land.

Once, while we were taking a walk, Sasha abruptly fell to her knees next to a lifeless chipmunk on the sidewalk. She put her finger on its chest and closed her eyes. My brother and I didn’t know what to think. We had never witnessed prayer for the dead before.

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Shards of Light |

sasha

: anna noden

When she gave a presentation about sea life in science class, she nervously stumbled over her words a few times. She blushed so deeply. Public failure was a foe that rarely bested her. When her mom came to pick us up from school—her back had healed by then—she asked me, “How did Sasha’s presentation go?” I said that it went well. She looked at Sasha. “Did it?” Sasha mumbled, “I forgot a few things.” Her mom erupted. “Didn’t I tell you that would happen? Didn’t I say that you should have been working on this for a few weeks, not just last night? If you had taken my advice, you wouldn’t have flopped today.” My brother and I shrank into the backseat. She and Sasha yelled at each other until, five minutes from home, Sasha’s voice broke. They were silent after that.

She bullied my brother. Isn’t it strange to be friends with a girl who hits your brother? Yeah, he thought so too. To be fair, I didn’t know how bad it was. Apparently, she would kick him in the backseat. He was immensely hurt by my indifference, but I was just as scared of her as he was. I summoned the courage and promised to defend him. The next time she punched his arm, I spat shakily, “Sasha, don’t hit him.” She stopped to look at me, those cold eyes peering at me, searching my face. She never hit him again.

It was on the sunny stone stairs outside our art class where Sasha told me she liked Ben. “YOU?” I asked. Hurt skittered across her eyes. “Yes, me.” I blushed, ashamed that I had overlooked the fact that she had a heart. Ben was this boy she saw every Christmas in Cape Town. Their families had neighboring seaside shacks and they had grown up finding shells, swimming, climbing the rock jetty.

He had a girlfriend.

We argued about the morality of Mamma Mia and whether My Fair Lady was irredeemably sexist. We argued about genres: she refused to read anything but fantasy; I refused to read anything but historical fiction. I said that the real world had enough drama to interest me; she argued that the real world was too draining. She pressured me to read The Lord of the Rings, and I never did. Her favorite book was The Shack, about a man who meets God. “Anna, guess who God is in this book? An African American woman,” she told me. “I think she expresses God so well. So loving.” She sighed.

She and her family started coming to church with us. Dana, the pastor’s wife, gave her big hugs and Sasha adored her Texan accent. Every Friday night, at youth group, she asked for prayer for an unnamed agnostic friend. We all knew it was Katrien. When Sasha got baptized, she wore a swimming tournament T-shirt. Before the pastor lowered her into the water, I noticed that the back of the shirt said Stay in Your Own Damn Lane.

She started to build a lean-to on our mountain. She learned how to build it from the Native American lady in their nature lessons. She claimed that I helped her build it, which was sweet. I didn’t. I gathered twigs for her to weave through the ribbed side of it and then I just sat on a rock and talked with her. It was one wall made of camelthorn branches and grass, but it felt like a fortress. We stored our treaty and our broom under it.

The first time I saw her really cry was on our six-day-long, seventh grade Fish River hike. We had hiked forty kilometers that day, and the food was taking especially long to cook. Boys had called her Natasha and she had argued with Katrien. I have always been horrible at comforting people. I hugged her. Sat in silence. She didn’t want to talk anyway.

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Shards of Light |

sasha

: anna noden

She understood why my family had to leave Namibia. There was no future for us, really. Her parents were planning on leaving too, eventually. They had their eyes set on New Zealand: more job options for them, more university options for her. On our last night in Windhoek, we drove around to each friend’s house to say goodbye. It was getting late. We can’t make it to your house, Sasha. I’m sorry. I don’t even remember if I texted goodbye or not.

We kept in contact through email, mainly. She emailed me the twelve chapters of the book she wrote about Zyranna and the tyrannical witch-queen. She told me that Ben made out with her in the shack in Cape Town, even though he had a girlfriend. She justified it; I cautioned. After a few years, we were just messaging each other on birthdays.

We met up in Boston two years ago. We spent a lot of time filling each other in. Five years had gone by. The friend group had fallen apart: Yeh-Sol went to Germany, Gabi became super popular and now drinks a lot, Katrien maintained her aloofness and lives in Europe somewhere. Sasha had a Kiwi boyfriend and was starting university soon. I told her about Oklahoma, about my Christian college. We ate peanut butter sandwiches on our whale watching boat, tossed teabags in the Boston Harbor, and argued about affirmative action on the Harvard lawn. Some of the time, though, we just sat in silence. We had nothing in common anymore. “You remember that fort we made, up on the mountain?” she asked, our backs cold against a Castle Island bench. I nodded. “The guards tore it down two weeks after you left. I never went up after that.”

“Farmer’s Market Flowers pt 2”

by Emma Brown

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Shards of Light | “Road of Regrets”

by Emily Hume

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road of regrets

: emily hume

Shards of Light |

sweet ignorance and dairy queen blizzards

: kelly leamon

SWEET IGNORANCE AND DAIRY QUEEN BLIZZARDS KELLY LEAMON

Walking home from Dairy Queen last night, I saw a ghost. My hands were clammy from the condensation on my cheap paper cup carrying the prized blizzard (the only cold thing I could find in the South during the summertime). My ears and head were filled with music Dad showed me several years prior. My eyes skimmed the cracked sidewalk for dandelions and the shady alleys for those Strangers they have self-defense classes against. A figure on a bench caught my peripheral. I must have caught his, too, because he turned and gave me a good looking over. I took inventory of the character: worn tee, backless pack, denim jeans with a thin spread of grime, toe-less shoes, Yankees baseball cap, fingerless gloves, eyes hollow (not in the drugie way— their eyes are wild and tortured and mad —his were tired and slumped, like dirty laundry carelessly flung onto a chair), cheeks caving, and lips and brow thinning like thread pulled too taught. I must have stopped walking. I wonder what he must have seen in me. For an old, homeless person (the kind my mom always warns me about), he seemed very unthreatening, so, naturally, I paused the Carpenters and sat down beside him to finish my ice cream. He let out a sigh and a little hum.

“Been awhile since someone did that.”

“Eat ice cream?”

“No, sit next to me,” he said with a smile whispering across his thread mouth.

What a weird way to start a conversation.

“Well, howdy, then.”

“Howdy…”

We talked about the weather, how it was incredibly humid and slightly nice. We talked about how we could tell that there would probably be a storm soon, from the smell of geosmin and the negative space in the air for lack of birdsong. We talked about whether it would hail or just rain really hard. We talked about storms we’ve lived through. He mentioned something about the imminent end of the world and the blissful ignorance of the youth. We talked about cooling temperatures and tornadoes. We talked about lightning in big clouds and how beautiful it was when it stayed up there, reaching out to other lightning and holding each other’s hands and such. My blizzard was gone. I think it evaporated. I may have drunk it all. It was getting late, so I stood to go.

“Thanks for the nice conversation, you’re not too bad, you know,” I mentioned as a form of goodbye.

“You too.”

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Shards of Light |

sweet ignorance and dairy queen blizzards

: kelly leamon

With a weary smile, the old man, made of laundry and thread, sighed out onto the bench. The fingerless gloves and backless pack now fully fit the description. My companion was simply discarded belongings on a flaking green bench. I wadded up the napkin that I had wrapped around the Dairy Queen cup to try to soak up the water beadlets and walked home. The syrupy summer sunset was hidden behind cumulonimbus clouds traced in lightening. I smiled. I remembered what the old man had said. The Carpenters, now resumed, sung on about monotony and a businessman with a name that sounded like an artisanal cheese. Last night, I saw a ghost.

Didn’t even get the guy’s name, but what does that matter.

“The First You Started in Me Pt 1”

by Emma Brown

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Shards of Light |

things i can’t control but i still try

: njema dejong

THINGS I CAN’T CONTROL BUT I STILL TRY NJEMA DEJONG

1. The way my brother refused to join our family group chat because he “hates group texts,” but, really, he just hates us. So, I added him to the WhatsApp group anyway. But immediately after I added him, the automated message from WhatsApp said he left the group.

2. The small percentage of women in The White House. I actually live with eight women in a house painted white. I proposed a name for our house. My house mates and I call it the White House.

3. My brother-in-law’s opinion that the American government took God out of public schools. I told him that he took God out of public schools by not sending his kids to a public school. I’d rather die than teach in a private Christian school. After all, God didn’t call Christians to separate ourselves from the community.

4. The decreasing numbers in the sea turtle population around the world or just marine life in general. Out of the almost eight billion people in the world, I refuse to use plastic bags for my groceries, and, for Christmas, I asked for glass Anchor Hawking food storage containers.

5. My sister chose to name her last child Tobias, but I hate the name Tobias. It reminds me of the character from that awful young adult literature series Divergent. Tobias is the name of the main male character in the series. Now his family members call him T after I lived with them for four months. His birth certificate still says, “Tobias.”

6. The boys driving down the street on a Saturday night in Salt Lake City who yelled out the window, “Whooo! Girl got booty,” while I stood with my friend with our rented electric scooters, waiting for the crosswalk light to change. At the end of summer, I gave away the shorts I was wearing that Saturday night to Goodwill.

7. When my nephews refuse to take cute pictures with me. I tell them I won’t play with them unless they do. They end up taking pictures with me. In every single picture, either one of them isn’t smiling, looks high, or sticks out their tongue. So, the pictures aren’t the cute pictures I wanted.

8. When I meet new people and tell them I am actually adopted from Kenya and grew up in Kenya, they ask me if I’ve heard the song “Africa” by Toto. But I can’t stand that song because I don’t understand how “God blesses rain” like the lyrics suggest. Every time I hear the song, I either leave or change the radio station.

9. That my mom, no matter how many times I tell her to proofread her texts, still sends them with spelling errors. So, I sent a list of rules to the WhatsApp group. Rule #2 proofread your texts before sending them. My mom texts and asks, “If Jamie is still feeling sick.” We don’t even have a Jamie in our family. She meant to say Kami. She apologizes and blames her mistake on autocorrect.

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Shards of Light |

things i can’t control but i still try

: njema dejong

10. At coffee shops, you can order a Chai tea latte. In Swahili, and many other languages, the word chai means tea. Basically, when you order the drink, you’re asking for a tea tea latte which just sounds super dumb. I quit ordering them at coffee shops because I feel like I am disrespecting my countries official language. My friends have heard my rant, but, when we go out to do homework at coffee shops, they still order an extra hot chai tea latte.

11. My brother-in-law thinks that social justice is BS. Our ethnic differences shape our own perspectives. He tagged me on Facebook and instructed me to listen to a podcast that diminishes the Black Lives Matter movement from a politically conservative perspective. While living in his house, I made sure The Hate U Give, The Color of Compromise, and Just Mercy were part of my displayed book collection. Those stories are not BS. All I wanted him to do was listen to me.

“Pouring Passion”

by Lauren West

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Shards of Light |

ars poetica

: sam spencer

ARS POETICA SAM SPENCER

How can I word how words have Wormed their way into my world?

Could it be poems and prose Have probed a place of pondering?

Maybe it’s reading and writing—a rag For refining these rows of reciting.

But grass grows wall tall blades, Berating psalms into slipstream wakes.

Lyrics lull over the growth gleaned through Cut couth, coiled cold and counted rue.

“Llama Portrait”

by Amber Yaeger

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Shards of Light |

borrowed ire

: lydia degisi

BORROWED IRE LYDIA DEGISI

When we conspire on borrowed ire, weaving untruths under unsubtle fire balance barred, thought-lines unfed— burn me at stake. I’m better off dead.

“Remnants of Us”

by Katelyn Kingcade

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Shards of Light |

to erik leamon

: kelly leamon

TO ERIK LEAMON KELLY LEAMON My legs are tangled in too-hot flannel sheets. Sweat plasters my hair to my cheek and neck. My face feels swollen, my throat too dry. It’s 5am and I can’t get back to sleep. I got up to get water or go to the bathroom or something—I don’t remember, I was half asleep. But now my mind is awake and restless as my alarm clock broadcasts each second that passes in which I am not dozing. I stare up at the popcorn ceiling a foot above my head and have a heated debate with myself regarding the decision to get out of bed; I still have two hours before I technically need to be awake. The AC kicks on. My neighbor’s dumb donkeys bray for God-knows-what reason. (It’s five in the morning, do you have no sense of respect, you asses?) Frustrated, I let out a sigh, unravel the bedding, swing my legs over my bed, and stumble downstairs into our open living room. My dad sits on his couch, the one that’s striped, tan and white, and too old to be comfortable.Dad clears his throat twice before looking up. He gives me a little half smile before moving his plethora of books and journals aside so I can sit next to him. We don’t say anything. He goes back to reading and making notes in his books with blue scrawling ink. I stare down the picture of my grandfather hanging on the wall in front of me. I think about how I wish I got to know him better before he passed. I think about how I know my dad does too. I think about my dad sitting next to me. I don’t think about that. I do think about how my dad smells like bicycle grease and old tee shirts, about how he has had the same pair of glasses all my eighteen years of life, about how he is an amazing artist that rarely draws anymore, about how he could burn a salad, about how he is quiet when he’s fine and too quiet when he’s not. Breaking the silence, he clears his throat again and gets up. He shuffles to the kitchen in those formerly white house shoes that he’s had for six years. I look outside and watch the sparrows on our back-porch peck at suet. I think of nothing in particular. The sun rising bathes everything in a rosy gold hue. It is absolutely quiet. Not the heavy type that indicates that things are unsaid or the kind that creeps into your gut and runs laps up and down your spine, but the kind that’s the living definition of a deep sigh—it’s waiting but for nothing in particular. Dad comes back carrying two of his hand-made mugs that we buy for him for every holiday and birthday (the guy only ever says he wants “peace in the home”). He gives me one—a coffee made the way I always have it: just a bit of honey, even less milk.I nod. He smiles. He takes the other back to my mom. His feet pop and crack as he walks down the hall to their bedroom. Soon, the house will wake up. My brothers will inevitably argue about taking showers. My sister will inevitably not wake up with the house. My mom will inevitably make hot cereal. My dad will inevitably round everyone (even the begrudging ones) up around the breakfast table to have a Bible time. And it will not be quiet anymore.

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Shards of Light |

music of the city

: leah scott “Music of the City”

by Leah Scott

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Shards of Light |

dirk’s bumblebee

: mcki dirks

DIRK’S BUMBLEBEE MCKINLEY DIRKS

Poem for Dr. Wilson after she expresses her strong dislike for bumblebees

Below a makeshift cathedral, the class learns to scan and scrawl on poems,

lounges above words on pages too metered to read aloud and still hear

the vibration of a bumblebee in her flight— her plight against man,

woman, and poets’ One Art. Mistaking pages of a textbook for

an altar, she burrows between Bishop and free verse and lies in wait to enforce fear—or, mute, she pleads mercy.

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Shards of Light |

late birds

: kelly leamon

LATE BIRDS KELLY LEAMON

Once there were, In an urban paradise, Some four jazz birds (Who played very nice).

One was Lee St. Bittern, A sharp-beaked intern, Who loved his family and home— But one night a week The speakeasies he’d seek, To play the bass trombone.

There was Woody Beck Kur, Wealthy carpenter, Whose beakwork brought in his income— But one night a week The speakeasies he’d seek: He was also delightful on drums.

Also that proper bird Who owned a law firm, And whose name was Sir Charles D. Finch— Yes, one night a week The speakeasies he’d seek To play as lead pianist.

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Shards of Light |

late birds

: kelly leamon

Finally Burr O. Howl, Mayor of the town (He’s so well known with the locals)— And one night a week The speakeasies he’d seek, A stunner with his vocals.

All birds of a feather Flocked to that bar To hear the Late Birds play— On that night a week The speakeasy peaked: For jazz was the Late Birds’ game.

“Zion”

by Gabby Dakota

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Shards of Light |

nemesis

: anna brodnick

NEMESIS ANNA BRODNICK

Nemesis, an Epithet

(“to give what is due”)

Give her a daffodil From across the street, From right under the adamantine sign, Which admonishes twitterpated Youths to not pick the flowers, Which is a mere echo in their minds.

Pick one anyway.

Giver of daffodils, Yellow as the fiery sun, Yellow as bananas attractively ripe, Yellow not as gold, Yellow as your favored color— Though she is pink as a rose (Not a yellow rose, mind you).

Give her you, daffodil, From beside the sighing pool.

Maybe she’ll transplant you.

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Shards of Light |

horse eye

: amber yaeger “Horse Eye”

by Amber Yaeger

“Horses of Montana”

by Betz Richards

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Shards of Light |

still nothing

: lydia degisi

STILL NOTHING LYDIA DEGISI

Again and again, from nothingness I’m born.

Each death I witness makes me more my own.

—Anya Krugovoy Silver, “From Nothing”

I thought questioning souls —whether they come from God or parents— was a vacant pastime religious undergrads chitchat over, stone-serious.

Then I learned, sitting quietly and politely on my grandparents’ couch, as the EMTs spoke, lowly, that we reclaim souls in pieces, scooped up off the ground.

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Shards of Light |

sooners land

: katelyn kingcade “Sooners Land”

by Katelyn Kingcade

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Shards of Light |

suspension

: sarah martin

SUSPENSION SARAH MARTIN

for Lincoln

An uncomfortable shift and the cautious certainty that a wrong move would upset the perfected physics of wing in air— the mystery of lift.

Thirty thousand feet above surety like a sunflower seed rolled around between gum and teeth straining against the indubitable fact that I ought to be spat out from the space I temporarily occupy.

A tediously-hovering metal shell, a juxtaposition of the sky itself, created by two right brothers no, I mean Wright— of this I am certain: humans were never intended to fly.

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Shards of Light |

suspension

: sarah martin

Yet these excited words behind me, of a child’s first flight, the eager exclamations of cotton candy clouds over and over again assured me that magic was present, that clouds were cotton candy, and that expectation suspended miraculously between my doubt and the other’s immaculate wonder.

“Fall Colors”

by Amber Yaeger

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Shards of Light |

to the crab

: anna brodnick

TO THE CRAB ANNA BRODNICK

(Response to “Come meet me by the ocean” and “I know you’re in love with the sky”)

My dear crab,

No—you will follow me over the vapors,

a burr-clinger on my wingtips;

your carapace will burst with the air pressure;

pinch your eyes shut and let that shriek

rip from your throat.

I will fling you up and pin you

with thumbtacks of fiery wishes

into the celestial sphere to be eternally underfoot,

so that you, groundling, won’t have to evolve

wings like mine.

Follow my lead—I shall wheel through the expansive blue.

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Shards of Light |

story/song

: reah umlauf

STORY / SONG REAH UMLAUF

This is the story of a song; A song you’d sing me when my mind Was in the thrall of insomnia, A child wracked with a restless head.

Your voice wrapped around me like your arms did, And your fingers traced the knots in my spine.

Twice I almost died in water: Once by drowning, once by snake.

Slipped stepping into a sewage drain And ran like life was worth saving.

Mine was then, When I couldn’t know any better.

Fingers finding footholds on mountains That shrunk to boulders with each passing year.

They’re pebbles now My too-big hands can’t find a place to hold.

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Shards of Light |

story/song

: reah umlauf

Forever didn’t feel like a contract back then.

It was the fact of the matter, No signature required.

Now my thoughts fill every room I enter Like a viscous liquid And boil me alive.

Life isn’t something I’ve felt, It’s a reality I’ve heard about That doesn’t quite fit into place.

I’m not a puzzle, I guess, Or I’m missing some corner pieces.

Alive is only something that you are; A pinkie-promise with fate, And to date I’ve suspected Fate was crossing its fingers While my fingers Were busy finding mountains too small to climb And stretching to reach the knots in my back.

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Shards of Light |

old fashioned day at the sea

: leah scott

“Old Fashioned Day at the Sea”

by Leah Scott

45

BIOGRAPHIES ANNA BRODNICK Hailing from Dallas, Anna is an English major with a love of stories and art, preferably together.

She takes her tea over-steeped and her nights under-slept.

EMMA BROWN Emma Brown is a family and human major but photography has been a part of her life as long as her passion for people.

LYDIA DEGISI Lydia DeGisi is a creative writing major from Kansas. She loves rain, insects, and Billy Joel, and her primary hobby is procrastination. She can’t afford to be at this school, but here she is.

NJEMA DEJONG Njema DeJong has lived a lot of places with her super large family. She tends to write about her interactions with them a lot because they mean the world to her.

MCKI DIRKS McKi is a sophomore English major in love with the intentional composition of words, jasmine tea, and seeing other people smile.

GABRIELLE EITUTIS Gabrielle is a freshman studying Spanish and Digital Cinema at JBU. She enjoys portrait photography and also does some nature and landscape photography.

DR. JILL ELLENBARGER Jill Ellenbarger graduated from Union University in 2011 with a B.S. in Chemistry and then earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry at Texas A&M University. In August 2016, Jill joined JBU’s Division of Natural Science as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry. Through teaching and research, she engages with students to help them expand their understanding and love of chemistry and to encourage them to consider the integration of their faith and study of science.

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EMILY HUME Emily is a sophomore graphic designer. She loves typography and enjoys doing design work that explores deeper meanings or goes with poetry.

KATIE JOHNSON Katie Johnson is a freelance artist from Bella Vista, Arkansas. She is constantly in pursuit of all things beautiful and enjoys expressing God’s beauty through art.

BETZ JOHNSON RICHARDS Betz graduated from JBU in 1967/8 with a BA in English and minor in Business. Discovering she was artistic at the age of 34 (in 1979) under the direction of Alexander Chidichimo in San Diego, California, and after retiring, she returned to what has turned out to be her passion. Her love of color and detail defines her work. She uses stark or slightly designed backgrounds to keep the subject as the main focus of her pieces. Her current works are in colored pencil.

KATELYN KINGCADE Katelyn is currently a sophomore. She is pursuing a major in photography as well as a MBA. KELLY LEAMON Kelly plans to graduate in 2023 with a double major in Psychology and Art and Illustration and a Minor in English. She loves to write and sketch (on occasion).—She is a being (human. female. unknown height. undisclosed weight) who enjoys writing, sketching frogs, and hiking. She also enjoys long walks in overgrown fields whilst ponding weather or knot the word she used in sum conversation a year ago was the best fitted to the situation.

SARAH MARTIN Sarah is a Senior Kinesiology major with minors in Biology, English, and History. She is excited to continue her education at a physical therapy graduate program next year. She believes and hopes to convince others that science and literature are beautifully interconnected.

EVYN MCGRAW Evyn McGraw is a senior English major who doesn’t like writing short bios about herself.

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ANNA NODEN Anna Noden was born and raised in Southern Africa, but has called Oklahoma home for the last six years. She loves reading, long walks, and a good joke.

MICHELLE SATTERLEE Michelle grew up in the Midwest, where there is always good work to be done and where seasons still shape the patterns of life. After years away, Michelle has recently returned and found those rhythms again in a campus community, where it’s her pleasure to watch students grow and move through new challenges of life, grace to grace.

LEAH SCOTT Leah Scott is from Little Rock, Arkansas She is an elementary ed major and a Spanish minor. She loves documenting meaningful moments with her camera (especially the places she travels) as a form of art because they are memories that give a glimpse of a particular moment in time. They are reminders to her of the mystery and wonder of the world we live in.

BLAKE SELBY Blake Selby has always loved design and he’s proud to have the opportunity to learn and grow.

SAM SPENCER Sam is a junior English major with an emphasis in Creative Writing. He grew up in Africa, where his parents were missionaries. He started writing poetry in high school and learned that he wanted to keep doing it. When He is done at JBU he plans on getting an MFA from somewhere in the U.K. REAH UMLAUF Reah is an Illustration and Graphic Design major. They like long walks on the beach and the angst of getting older.

LAUREN WEST Lauren is a freshman, majoring in Political Science with a Military Science minor. She writes poems and paints in her free time.

AMBER YAGER Amber is a Photography student dreaming about traveling the world and capturing all the amazing adventures. She is addicted to Starbucks coffee and making memories with her friends.

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See you in the next volume!

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