LEGACY
FIRST PERSON Dr. Jay Martinson ’86
“You can’t go home again.” At least that’s the expression made famous by the novel with the same title written by Thomas Wolfe and published posthumously in 1940. The expression makes sense. Returning to a place from our past may be disappointing. It won’t be the same as we remember. It has changed. Times have changed. We have changed. Our nostalgia for home can overshadow reality. Home is the set of feelings, memories and associations which triggers joy, comfort and happiness. It is a place and context we experienced with all five senses and, as such, remember vividly. It is also the impressionistic canvas of faces we have loved and of those who have loved us. For me, feelings of home are evoked by the smell of fresh-cut hay, the sight of rolling Wisconsin farmland, the taste of tomatoes just off the vine and the scrunch of gravel under my running shoes at dawn. Floating in my pool, I still see the image of my mother doing double duty in her lawn chair, breaking beans and serving as my lifeguard at the edge of the old farm pond. Building a bookcase, I hear my dad’s voice reminding me to draw it first and then measure twice before cutting. While I’ll always feel anchored by these early images of home, my understanding and sense of home have expanded. I now also identify home as moments laughing around a dinner table with my children, hugging my grandchildren, and playing cards and drinking coffee with my wife of 35 years. Jeanette and I also experience home with Mike and Janet Taylor, our best friends from our campus days at Olivet. Although we’ve never lived in the same town since graduation, we’ve remained best friends. Our frequent calls and visits are marked with life updates, animated storytelling, laughter, exchanged prayers and sometimes tears. While different in many ways, we feel at home together united through our transformative experiences as Olivet students in the mid-1980s. The best of what we learned there has bonded us: our love for the Lord, following His call in our vocations and service, and the cultivation of authentic and healthy relationships with others.
46 OLIVET.EDU
I could visit my childhood farm, but there’s another family living there. With zero connection with them, I would merely be a curious trespasser. I can relive it only with triggered memories and nostalgic conversations with my mother and sister. But with Olivet, it’s different. Olivet remains home for all Olivetians. It evokes feelings of home through every call, visit or social media interaction with fellow Olivetians. And every time we worship in our local church. And through the positions of service and ministry we accept. And through the Christian worldview that shapes our day-today prioritizing and decision-making — about everything. And we CAN come back to Olivet. We don’t return as “curious trespassers” but, rather, as Olivetians! We quickly observe that, yes, our Olivet home has changed. There are new buildings, new programs, new people, new technologies and new opportunities. And then we discover that Olivet has — over the last century — not changed at all. It has the same mission, same focus on education with a genuine Christian purpose, and the same transformative experiences of living and learning in community with others. It is still home. For incoming freshmen and transfer students at Olivet, home will be fostered through late-night faith conversations in dorm rooms with lifelong friends they shall soon meet. For the graduating senior, home represents that first job, new church, first house and possibly children or furry babies. For them, home is claiming the Lord’s promise for their hope and future. It might be true that we can’t go home again if we’re just trespassing on an experience that no longer exists. The good news is that your Olivet home is alive and thriving. Welcome home!