The Rock – Spring 2021

THE ROCK

The ROCK | 2020–2021

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Dear Friends, I am so proud to give you the 2020–21 edition of The Rock ! This magazine is the product of a staff who work numerous hours, and even with the cancellations, quarantines, and COVID restrictions, we have created a beautiful magazine. 2020 will be written in history books as the year COVID-19 poisoned the world, but our staff approached this global pandemic differently. Our goal was to document what TCA and the world around us looked like during 2020. This time capsule issue allows future readers to look back and experience the year with us through pictures, COVID-19-based articles, and school events. Although this year has been filled with uncertainty and fear, we hope to bring joy and comfort into the pandemic. I and the rest of the staff are so excited and extremely grateful for the opportunity to produce this magazine, and we are very thankful for our adviser, Mr. Ellis, who guides and helps executes this production. Serving as the executive editor this year has been challenging but most of all rewarding. I am so thankful for the staff that helped create this magazine, and I could not have wished for a better group to work alongside of!

Sincerely, Caroline Woodward

Cover design by Claire Shodeen Volume 19, number 1, the 2020-21 issue of The ROCK magazine was designed and produced by the 2020-21 ROCK staff. This 28-page, all-color issue was printed by Millet the Printer, Dallas, Texas, on 80 lb. gloss text paper. 300 copies were printed and for sale on the TCA campus for $2. Cost of printing is paid for by magazine sales and additional funds from the TCA Communications Department. Adobe InDesign CC 2021 and Photoshop CC 2021 software applications were used for design and layout. Typefaces used throughout: Gopher Bold & Gopher Medium (headlines), Soleil Book (headings), Utopia Std Semibold Display (headings), and Soleil Light (body copy).

The ROCK ROCK magazine staff is comprised of TCA Upper School students. Students join The ROCK ROCK at the beginning of the school year, usually in September, and meet regularly throughout the school year during off periods and outside of school to discuss, decide and execute the magazine’s theme, article topics, writing, editing, photography, design and layout. Staffers submit articles for inclusion in each year’s issue and also judge/select when there is a call for Middle School and Lower School art and writing submissions for a particular story.

If you have feedback, ideas or suggestions for The ROCK ROCK or would be interested in joining the magazine staff for the next school year, please contact Kendall Ellis, TCA publications coordinator and The ROCK ROCK adviser, at kellis@trinitychristian.org.

Trinity Christian Academy 17001 Addison Road Addison, TX 75001-5096 972.931.8325 TrinityChristian.org

TABLE OF CONTENTS Staff

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The Positives of COVID-19

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What we did in quarantine!

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Upper School Clubs!

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The Art Wildebeest

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Sports Recap

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The Importance of Sleep

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Teacher Superlatives

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Highlight of Each Grade

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SAGE

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A Job for Jesus

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Enneagram Types in COVID

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Enneagram History

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Time Capsule Poetry

back cover

Our Staff

Reagan Rodgers Co-Editor of Design

Cade Holliday Senior Editor

Writers Hannah Burke Taya Burgett Ayla Francis Bethany Grimm

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Ally Lee Will McIntosh Emily Morris Wilson Roe

The ROCK | 2020–2021

Peyton Prideaux

Caroline Woodward Executive Editor

Patricia Sharon Senior Editor

Designers Kathryn Callahan Isabella Jackson Hollis Jarrel Alex Kim Sophie McNeill

Co-Editor of Design

Leah Kegerreis Senior Editor

Kathryn Novakovich Olivia Priest Katie Reding Claire Shodeen Mary Lauren Westover

Photographer Emelie Wong

Annie Xia

Senior Editor

Editorial/Design Assistance Kate Barclay Ainsley Ferrel Kate Hurley Lauren Lee

COVID Positives

By Patricia Sharon

1. The mask acts like a face

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People have tried new crafts and tapped into their creative sides

2. Social distancing is a super

7.

If you’re breaking out, no one can see under the mask

warmer when the weather is cold

easy excuse to get out of any social obligations

3. There has been a huge

increase in people buying puppies

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Something small, such as going out to dinner or to the movies, feels like a big deal.

4. People are more likely to

9. If you miss a day of school, the

5. Students are more

10. Less paper is being

wash their hands after using the bathroom

appreciative of their time in school

lessons are recorded so you can go back and watch them

used on homework The ROCK | 2020–2021

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Life in Quarantine

By Leah Kegerreis

This year has brought a lot of uncertainty.

Every email or post I’ve seen since March opens with “I hope you are all doing well during these uncertain times” and concludes with some version of “Stay healthy!” While these modern phrases have made for some humorous memes, they don’t really get to the heart of what we mean when we say them.

These times really have been uncertain. But at least we have the blessing of technology. That got me thinking: What did people do without technology? I can remember in my early years a large slab of an iPad, and shortly after, the smaller brick of an iPod. You couldn’t even change the wallpaper on these ancient

devices! And that, my friends, was only a decade ago! Think about it: I’m a senior this year, and the first iPhone was released on June 29, 2007. I was only four years old! A lot has changed during our lifetimes, and especially during these “uncertain times.”

So, let’s step back and think for a moment: what are some of the things right now that we are obsessed with, that we don’t notice anymore, or that we do every single day? And what will people many years from now think of them?This article is really a time capsule, then. What did people do “back in my day”when they were stuck in their houses?

Let’s find out.

TECHNOLOGY Let’s start with technology, then. A lot of highschoolers mentioned their favorite Netflix or Disney+ shows, or even Tik Toks! This time capsule would have to have some pretty spectacular WiFi to stream all of them, but here’s the gist of what my survey gathered.

A variety of classic Disney shows were very popular in early quarantine, helping teens and kids alike relive their favorite childhood memories! These included Austin and Ally , Phineas and Ferb , Gravity Falls , and many, many more. Let’s not forget that Broadway’s hit musical Hamilton came out on Disney+ during quarantine! Personally, I watched a lot of Disney musicals and Tik Toks, and I’m finishing up Avatar! TV shows like these help us remember fun memories from when we were little, but they also give us hope for the future. Even though these episodes might be fictional, these heroes remind us that there 4

The ROCK | 2020–2021

are better things to come, which is especially beneficial during the coronavirus. It seems we would definitely need to fit a TV in the time capsule, but what else? If TV wasn’t quite your speed, maybe you picked up a new hobby! Let’s examine some of the calming, heartwarming, or even eccentric things that y’all picked up during quarantine!

HOBBIES A vacuum. Hair dye. Watercolors. A lawn chair. A cookie sheet. What do they have in common? Quarantine! From obsessive cleaning to sudden artistic inspiration to a sudden need for a tan, we all tried something new to drown out the boredom.

Personally, I reorganized my room (multiple times), painted lots of pictures, built some puzzles and LEGOs, and even made SAGE’s Beef Macaroni recipe! Lots of people picked up baking, drawing, journaling, working out, or even made a daily habit of taking a nap.

Whether you spent your time outside getting a tan, inside baking some delicious cookies, or split your time between both, I’m sure you found yourself doing something unexpected during the pandemic. The pandemic itself was unexpected, but we made (and are still making) the most of it. So next time you’re bored, or you finished all your homework, try doing something new! You may find a new hobby you love! Let’s add a few trinkets to the time capsule and keep moving.

TRADITIONS

A lot of people started fun traditions over quarantine! For my family, that meant eating tacos every Tuesday night! While I definitely got tired of eating tacos by the beginning of the school year (I know some of y’all could not relate), I loved the excitement of Tuesday!

We played music and even had special cups and place mats. A lot of families started new traditions over the corona-cation. Whether they walked their new dog together or watched a movie every weekend, being stuck inside brought a lot of people closer together (even if your little siblings wanted to play, or if the laundry just kept piling up). One of my favorite things is sitting on my grandma’s porch and catching up, even if nothing really exciting has happened that week—we can still be together, even if we can’t do the same things we did last year. Through quarantine, we remembered the importance of being together, even if we were apart.

The ROCK | 2020–2021

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MEMORIES In any other era, I never would have done some of the things I did during quarantine.

I went to lots of birthday parades, I sat in my trunk to talk to my friends, and even attended a virtual dance party! Sonic receipts, Andy’s Custard, even sitting with your summer reading out by the pool – these things are sweet memories. They weren’t expected, and sometimes, they were a bit of a letdown.

But some of these memories are priceless: do you remember the first time Target had toilet paper in stock again? Or the first book you had time to read in years? Or the first basketball game on TV in months? Or your favorite restaurant opening back up? Those little sparks of joy kept us going through thick and thin, and they’ll keep us going even now. I want the people of the future to see memories, to see snapshots of the good times we had, despite the circumstances.

We made the most of this! So, if you had a

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time capsule, what would you bury? What should the people a century from now learn when they look at your lower school life, or your middle school life, or your high school life? Some things they see will be ancient: “What’s an eye-phone?” or “Wait… they had to pay to watch TV?” But some things are timeless: pictures of smiling faces, or rather, pictures of happy eyes that are definitely smiling underneath masks. The cuteness of a new puppy. The tastiness of a new ice cream flavor. The laughter from watching the same episode of the Office over and over again. While our “uncertain times” won’t last forever, I’m sure glad the memories will remain. I can’t wait to see everyone’s happy eyes again as we tell our kids and grandkids about the “Extra-Long Spring Break” or the “Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020.” Until then, here’s to the happy memories we’ll make together as we wait for some “certain times.”

C

L

U

S B

Illustrations by Bethany Grimm

Junior-Sophomore Fellowship

JSF, or Junior-Sophomore Fellowship is a fun way for juniors to be able to grow closer to and mentor sophomores through the year. We meet every other Friday morning to eat breakfast, do a devo, and talk about our weeks! This new club has already become a highlight of the year for the junior and sophomore girls, and we can’t wait to continue growing together in community.

Reach Every Corner

Reach Every Corner is a club dedicated to creating bags of snacks and toiletries to be distributed to the homeless people of Dallas. The club‘s mission can be summarized by this scripture: “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”Acts 20:35. The most unique part of REC club is the massive student involvement. Students and teachers anonymously donate items throughout the month work to help their surrounding community.

Environmental Awareness Club

The environmental awareness club is a club that informs students about the world around us. Its goal is to inspire change and take action to protect the earth we live in.

By implementing these strategies we can better our community at TCA and ultimately our entire world.

Life Club

“The LIFE Club has been such an amazing place to learn and grow this year. It’s given me a place to learn how to respectfully and productively have conversations about sensitive topics. It’s also taught me how important it is to stay informed on the times. I have had so many incredible conversations in this club. One of my favorite things about it is that I am not afraid to say the wrong thing. If I were to, I trust others in the club would kindly inform why what I said was incorrect and help me understand how to do better. It’s definitely a good place to learn not to be too stubborn in your beliefs.” —Patricia Sharon The ROCK | 2020–2021

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The Wildebeest

T

he Art Department is a special part of the TCA campus. A hub of creativity, the building is just as much a piece of art as the works that come out of it. From painted doors to decorated animal heads, the art building reflects the creativity buzzing within. There is one decoration significantly more notable than the rest: The Winged Wildebeest. The Wildebeest hangs proudly in the hallway and has become the logo of the art department. Jon Millet, head of the Art Department, was kind enough to share the history of the Winged Wildebeest.

The Winged Wildebeest

The Winged Wildebeest began to emerge in the 80s when a TCA family donated a collection of Authentic African animal heads to TCA. These heads hung in the Science Department for a number of years until they lost their luster for them. At that time, they offered them to any other departments within the school who might be interested in housing a few exotic animal heads.

Always looking for fun, interesting and unusual items to help brighten our hallways, the Visual Arts 8

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Department became the logical place to house these African animal heads. (We were actually the only ones who offered to take them, so by default we became the proud owners.) These animal heads have graced our hallways for some 20 or so years now and have become the mascots of the Art Wing. Over the years they have ordained Christmas decorations, ties, hats and even a wedding dress. That was a site to see for the students.

The Winging of the Beast

A few years back the city of Dallas sponsored the Dallas Soars project. A project where different Arts groups around the DFW metroplex were given a lifesized fiberglass Winged Pegasus, after the symbolic Dallas Pegasus that adorned one of the buildings downtown throughout the 60’s and 70’s. Each group was responsible for painting or decorating their Pegasus. At that time a wonderful TCA family sponsored our TCA Art Department as one of the 125 groups able to participate in this endeavor. The TCA Pegasus was delivered to TCA and at that time the TCA Art Students used their imaginations to paint

and create a very crazy and colorful design on the Pegasus. All the Pegasus’s were on display in downtown Dallas for several months until each one was delivered back to its creative team. The TCA Pegasus was proudly displayed on the outside back porch of the Upper School Commons for a number of years. On one particular spring day the TCA Pegasus decided it would like to take flight, being a Pegasus and all. Straight line winds picked up our Pegasus promptly carrying it 100 yards across the parking lot slamming it into a parking space and breaking it into about 15 splintered pieces. When we entered the Art Wing the next morning we found the broken Pegasus piled high in the hallway. It was in complete dis-repair except for the wings which had stayed intact. So, in an instance of mourning the brutal demise of the Pegasus with a spark of excitement and creativity we saw the immediate need to adorn one of the African animal heads with the Pegasus wings.

So, the wings were attached to the wall around the head of the Wildebeest and thus the Winged Wildebeest was born. It has since become the Art Mascot representing the wild nature in us all that needs flight for our imaginations to fly beyond the

heavens. Francis Schaeffer said, “The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars,” This is a motto that my art teacher and predecessor, Wally Linebarger, began in the Visual Arts Department at its inception in the late 70s, and I have tried to foster throughout the years.

For me the Winged Wildebeest reminds us that we emulate a creative God and our imagination is not limited to this world. I am proud to see our students wear this logo as a part of the TCA Art Tradition.

The Wildebeest Today

Every year the students of the art department are challenged to color in a picture of the Wildebeest’s wings. The teachers decide on the three best deigns and students vote on their favorite. The winning design is displayed on the art t-shirts for that year. The original Wildebeest also adorns the art jackets. Students wear the Wildebeest with pride. The Winged Wildebeest will forever be a symbol of the Visual Art Department’s peculiarity and creativity. What would any art building be without a bit of weird?

AP Style AP art students Lauren Lee, Ashley McCuller, Olivia Dewey, and Patricia Sharon sport vibrant red art sweatshirts adorned with the beloved wildebeest.

Photos by Emelie Wong

The ROCK | 2020–2021

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The New Look of Trojan Athletics

By Caroline Woodward and Will McIntosh

March 13th of 2020 will go down as one of the most infamous days in our lifetime. In wake of the rampaging coronavirus pandemic, the world shut down. Sports shut down. Many high schoolers were devastated about missing their last sports season, and some were unsure if their next one would happen. Well, it did. And for the TCA Trojans, it had a whole new look.

Two of the differences that are easily noticeable in sports today are the presence of masks and social distancing.

During football games, students sat behind the end zones in spaced out chairs until the last game of the season, they got to sit in the stands. Volleyball games did not have much of a student section because each girl was allowed 4 tickets to give out to family and friends. And with all this, the Trojans dominated. The football team went 6-1 this year, even with some cancellations due to “covid-19” (other teams were just scared). One of the highlights this year was the Homecoming game versus Fort Worth Christian. The football team had not won a homecoming game in some time, and late in the fourth quarter it looked like the streak would live on.

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However, in the last six minutes of the game, the Trojans scored two touchdowns backed by Senior quarterback and captain Conner Williams thrown to Markus Schumacher and Joel Smitherman. The Cardinals attempted a last-minute drive but were halted by a stellar Trojan defense and interception by senior captain Daniel Delp. The Trojans won 42-38, and afterwards the students stormed the field (no Covid cases reported) and it was a night to remember. The TCA volleyball team also had wild success this year. Through loads of adversity, the team went 8-3, won District for the first time in many years, and they got to the state semi-finals for the first time in 9 years. One of the highlights was the regional finals in the playoffs versus rivals Bishop Lynch. The game went to the final wire in the 5th set, and TCA won 16-14! The girls celebrated with a dog pile and advanced onto state.

Moving on to winter sports, the soccer and basketball teams also triumphed over Covid-19’s restrictions and had a successful and fun-packed season. In basketball, the girl’s favorite game to play, and as a crowd to watch, was their intense game against Prestonwood. They had previously been defeated by this team, and being one of their first district games, the stakes were high. Tied throughout the game, the score was neck and neck, but when everything ended the Lady Trojans took the victory.

The team continued to play hard, and felt even though this year looked different, they could not ask for a better season. Similar to the girls, the boys basketball team had a great season and ended up making it to the area playoffs. The team’s favorite games were the First Baptist Academy tournament championship game versus McKinney Christian. They were the team’s only loss at the time, and the championship game ended up being super intense. Each player put it all on the line and focused extremely hard, and the Trojans won fiftythree to forty-four. Another look into winter sports, both the girls’ and boys’ soccer teams had amazing seasons. For the girls, beating Bishop Lynch in double overtime in penalty kicks was their favorite part about the season, and the fun celebration that followed that game was exciting. For the boys, their highlight was beating John Paul the Second on their home field 2-0. This game helped them win district, and they scored a penalty kick with ten minutes left to seal the game. Although there was a lot of pressure on the guys, they were able to come together and win as a team. In the end, the boys’ soccer made it to the semifinals, and although they lost, they proved to be a very talented and an amazing team.

With more athletic seasons underway and more to come, Covid-19 does not look like it can stop the Trojans from dominating on the court, field, or track.

The ROCK | 2020–2021

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The Power of Sleep

Sleep Schedule for Students-How Much Do I Need?

By Ayla Francis I think I speak for most of us when I say I don’t get nearly enough sleep. With sports and homework and friends, it seems like we never have enough time for it, and suddenly feeling exhausted all the time becomes a norm. Conversations in the hallways rarely center around what a good night’s sleep everyone had last night; instead, they tend to fall more on the side of competing to see who got the least amount of sleep.

Even knowing we have school the next day, some of us stay up until the early hours of the morning refusing sleep. Why? Commonly, we have an impressive amount of work to do, and that either takes up our allotted sleep time or our own procrastination does. Perhaps you have a game or scrimmage eating up your limited time that causes you to push back sleep. Maybe you need to address your ever-lengthening to-do list full of chores, jobs, errands, etc. Sometimes, we may not even have a priority to make time for. Sometimes we choose not to

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sleep simply because we don’t want our free time to end.

After a busy day, scrolling on our phones pacifies our minds and pulls us away from shutting them down. We want to enjoy that numbing state of thoughtlessness before we force ourselves to focus again the next day.

This year, it turns out we can add quarantine to our list of causes for avoiding sleep; a study at Stanford University found that students’ sleep patterns suffered from the anxiety and inconsistent scheduling that the pandemic introduced. Clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences Scott Kutscher explained, “What I find in a lot of my patients is that they are sleeping more, but the satisfaction of their sleep isn’t necessarily better.

I think that speaks to just the dramatic change in the environment.” Perhaps credit is due to our shift in sleeping habits during quarantine, which usually involved sleeping in and staying up far too late without the pending school morning to worry about. The shift from not requiring much

work and energy of ourselves during quarantine to requiring all of it for the demanding activities of the school year haven’t quite matched up with our outdated sleep patterns. We’re losing even more sleep than normal – as if 2020 needed something else to rob from us.

Regardless of the reason, the truth stands that we don’t prioritize sleep as much as we should.

Most doctors recommend an average of eight to nine hours of sleep a night for teenagers. It seems crazy, right? No way you can carve out nine hours of your time for that! However, these doctors have good reasons. John Hopkins pediatrician Michael Crocetti (M.D., M.P.H.) argues that “Teenagers are going through a second developmental stage of cognitive maturation. Additional sleep supports their developing brain, as well as physical growth spurts. It also helps protect them from serious consequences like depression.” Without proper sleep, we deprive our body of the energy it needs to function and grow. We endanger ourselves to fatigue, moodiness, and depression, which can cripple our academic performance. Other doctors agree teenage students require much more energy than they allow themselves for sports and learning and even driving (drifting off behind the wheel is a serious risk that teens face when lackinproper rest).

So, we know sleep deprivation is bad. What do we do about it? One recommendation commonly found on health websites is using your bed for sleeping only instead of watching TV or working.

Even if it doesn’t seem like a big deal, training your body that it needs to sleep and only sleep once it gets in bed can be a big help. Another is setting

reasonable limits for yourself. Although it’s ideal to pick a consistent bed time and stick to it, it’s not always realistic, and therefore choosing a cut-off time may work better. For example, if you choose not to allow yourself to work past midnight and simply save it for the morning, chances are you’ll perform way better than if you’d denied yourself sleep and tried to push through. Your mind operates much more easily when its needs are met. You won’t regret choosing sleep; even if it might cut down your productive time, it can always wait until the morning.

In conclusion, sleep is a priority we must learn to place higher on our list from now on, especially with all the new challenges we face with Covid-19. We need to be at our best health-wise and maintain a solid immune system. Besides, with all the changes in the world, wouldn’t it be nice to keep one thing constant at the end of the day?

The ROCK | 2020–2021

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Teacher superlatives

By Emily Morris

With a community as close-knit as TCA, students get to know their teachers very well through the years during classes and intentional time spent to form relationships. As students grow closer with their teachers, they begin to realize some unique things about them. Just like senior students are assigned superlatives, teachers were given “Teacher Superlatives” to honor the effort they put into forming real relationships with their students and to showcase the talents that help make them a special part of our Trojan community.

Most Artistic

Most School Spirit

Most Likely to Win a Tony

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Most Philosophical Most Likely to Write a Best-Selling Book

Most Likely to Travel the World

Most Likely to Solve a Global Issue

Most Patriotic

The ROCK | 2020–2021

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The Highlight of We asked lots of people what their favorite activities for each

1st

The grade gets to take a trip to the Farmer’s Market! I still remember picking out my favorite pumpkin to take home.

2nd

Everyone gets to create a Flat Stanley and send it to a friend. Mine got to travel all the way to England and back!

3rd

5th

Every fifth-grader gets to have a stand at Roman Forum, and all the students are able to stop by and buy their goods! It is super exciting for everybody.

6th

The year that you earn your cursive license! It even has your picture and signature on it, and it showcases your new skill.

4th

There is a day where all the 6th graders get to dress up for Renaissance day! They get to do several activities like launching catapults, baking chick pot pie, and a painting class.

The last year of Lower School comes with many new responsibilities!

Students get to participate in KTCA, work on carpool duty, act in the In God We Trust play, show off their state floats, and take a field trip to Austin.

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Each Grade

By Taya Burgett and Wilson Roe

grade were, and these were the most popular responses:

7th

In science class, students get to create a Rube Goldberg project with various contraptions. While very challenging to make, the end result is fun to watch, and you get to eat a Three Musketeers bar!

8th

10th

To go along with your European history, you get to visit local art museums on an art field trip. And, afterwards, you go to a Mexican restaurant with good chips and salsa!

11th

In your second to last year, you get the opportunity to give back by being a counselor for the Camp of the Hills and Wilderness trips.

It’s a great chance to mentor younger students, and you get to have a lot of fun, too!

The Wilderness Trip is the last thing you do in Middle School, and it is an incredible bonding experience.

You get to have several beautiful days in the Ozarks and do fun things like rafting, hiking, and repelling.

9th

The Bridge is your first welcome to Upper School.

You are split into color teams, and there are many competitions where you get to know your new, older classmates. Good luck with the bug project though!

12th

Being a senior has a lot of benefits like the Senior Trip, off-campus lunch, monthly gradewide parties, and much more! And finally, you graduate!

The ROCK | 2020–2021

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SAGE Director Craig Ford: the power of food

By Annie Xia

From the beginning, Craig Ford has found himself drawn to the kitchen.

“When I was a kid, the kitchen was where all the fun happened.”

The first memory that came to mind about his family cooking together was his grandfather’s ability to make the most perfectly flat bacon. Even now, with three decades of culinary experience and a degree, this is a feat he has yet to replicate—and not for lack of trying either.

When asked how many times he’s attempted to do so, he said, “Twenty? Thirty? Forty? Every time I try and cook bacon. Every time. I make a joke about it to myself.”

As a kid, he spent three or four afternoons a week helping around the kitchen and learning his way around the basics: preparing vegetables, manipulating the potato peeler, cleaning up.

His parents always encouraged his interest. “It was never, ‘you need to do this’, or ‘you need to do that.’ It was always, ‘how can we help you be involved in that?’” They bought him cooking-related gifts for Christmases and birthdays.

After years of practicing in his home kitchen, he took his first restaurant job at age 14. This job marked the beginning of a culinary career that would take him from grunt work to TV to the true meaning of cooking, but none of that crossed his mind as a teenager. At that time he was just hoping to make some extra cash.

There was the option of mowing lawns, but he didn’t want to be outside. Instead he decided to wash dishes on the weekends at a business owned by family acquaintances. The dishwashing itself was terrible, but he still enjoyed being in the kitchen. For the first time, he realized that his love for his own kitchen translated to all kitchens.

At 16, he landed his second restaurant job, and this time he actually got to be the one making the food, not just the one cleaning up after the people who did. It was at Mazzio’s, a pizza chain with locations everywhere in Oklahoma.

“I started there on a Friday night. During football season,” he said, laughing. “It was crazy. I made probably 600

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pizzas that first night. My first boss there was a former drill sergeant. His method for getting everybody to learn things was to stand over their shoulder and scream at them really loudly. But it was still fun. Anything new in the kitchen is always a good thing.”

He spent a year at Mazzio’s and then worked for a string of different restaurants throughout high school.

There was Braum’s, the ubiquitous ice-cream and burger chain.

There was Vito’s, a New York-style pizza spot that made variations of the first American pies: hand-tossed with thin crusts, fresh mozzarella, basil leaves, and sweet San Marzano tomatoes grown from the bitter ashes of Mt. Vesuvius.

There was Tony Marconi’s, an Italian restaurant founded by Bill Killpatric, an Irish-Catholic who had always wanted to open an Italian restaurant. “He was the youngest of thirteen kids. Eight-five nieces and nephews. Why I remember that after all these years, I don’t know.”

Then at age 20, he started working at Monte’s. It was here that he realized cooking was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

While cooking a large steak on a sizzle platter, somebody accidentally bumped into him, and the hot fat from the meat poured over his entire hand and arm. “I ran my hand under water, waited about five minutes, and got right back to work. And that was when I went, ‘This is for me.’ When you’re in that moment and rhythm, that’s the only thing you’re really thinking about.”

Craig said his boss during that time was hands down the best boss he ever had. At the end of successful nights, she would tell them good job, and after bad nights, she would tell them the next one would be better. To break up the monotony of cooking the same dishes, she would create silly contests for the employees to play. For example, on some nights, whoever guessed the number of total guests most accurately would win ten dollars.

“I would’ve walked through fire for her. She appreciated us as employees, and there’s no value you can really put on that. That was maybe the most important lesson I ever learned.”

After four years there at Monte’s, he started working at Polo Grill, the nicest restaurant a person could cook at in Tulsa.

During his time there, the establishment won numerous culinary awards, and in 2000, it hosted a James Beard dinner, which he described as being as important in the cooking world as the Super Bowl was in football.

“Everyone in Tulsa knew that restaurant. It was the big restaurant, the famous restaurant.”

While he was there, he did many TV spots. “Now let’s go to Chef Craig from Polo Grill,” the TV anchor would say.

“Once I worked there, the whole world opened up. I could go into a job interview — ‘Oh, you work there? You’re hired,’” he said, snapping his fingers.

One such offer came from the Golf Club of Oklahoma.

When he asked his father, an avid golfer, for advice on whether or not to take the job, he received an emphatic yes. “He was like, ‘You got to do that. Then I can go and golf there all the time.’” So he took the job. The Golf Club of Oklahoma was his first of three country clubs.

The second was Prairie Dunes in Hutchinson, Kansas, one of the top 25 golf courses in the United States. In 2006, when Prairie Dunes hosted the Senior Open Golf Championship, his father volunteered as a golf course marshal.

It was during his time there that his father passed away.

He decided to start looking for another job, away from the country clubs and rolling greens that his dad loved. In response to the heart failure that his father passed away from, he found a job at Baylor Scott and White The Heart Hospital in Plano, Texas.

At first, after an entire career of working in restaurants and country clubs, cooking in a hospital felt “completely alien.”

Before, he arrived at work around 10 a.m. Now he came at 5:30 a.m. Before, his responsibility was to focus primarily on taste. Now nutrition ranked as an equally important priority.

Before, customers ate food soon after it was made. Now he prepared food knowing it would be packaged into trays and boxes that patients might only receive hours later.

But in the hospital, he found something that had been missing from his work before: the “absolute joy” that comes from “knowing what you’re doing is helping someone.”

“Nobody’s having a good time in a hospital. But if you’re in there and you eat something, and it tastes wonderful— it tastes like home, like a hug from your mom—it makes your day.”

When he was young, he had wanted to be the best chef in the world, but his whole perspective towards cooking completely shifted at a special event he attended. For a few days, he cooked together with Paul Prudhomme, a celebrity chef known for his Cajun food.

He recalled Chef Prudhomme’s life-impacting words: “‘You know what the difference is between what we do and what everyone else in the world does? What we do nourishes life.

A mom can give life, a doctor can extend life, but what we do nourishes life.’”

He summed up his point of view by referencing the wisdom that only a Disney movie can give.

“Did you ever see Ratatouille? That movie illustrates the power of food better than any other movie. It’s at the very end, where the total jerk food critic comes in. He gets the food, and he scoffs at it because it’s just this simple dish. He eats it and it transports him back to being a little kid. He’s skinned his knee, and his mom is taking care of him and made him ratatouille. It shows the power of food.

It’s just amazing to me.”

“I got to take him into the tent where all the golfers eat, and he was so excited about it. He was in absolute heaven for a week.”

His third and final country club was Craig Ranch in McKinney, Texas.

The ROCK | 2020–2021

19

Saving the World: A Job for Jesus

By Reagan Rodgers

After recently turning eighteen, I was thrilled to exercise my right to vote this past year in the 2020 election. Thankfully, my voting experience was amazing. I was proud to take part in my country’s democratic system, and the volunteers at the polls were very encouraging, even applauding me as I cast my vote. However, I think we can all agree that this year’s election was…messy, to say the least. Sadly, in the past year, America has experienced unprecedented conflict and division, so now that we have a new president, we can’t help but wonder what will come next. Where do we go from here?

Before I continue, I want to clarify that I am neither criticizing nor endorsing former President Donald Trump or current President Joe Biden. While governmental affairs are undoubtedly important, this article isn’t about listening to voices in politics; this article is about listening to the voice of God and how He tells us to live in a world of brokenness. As Christians, we believe that the Bible is the ultimate source of Truth, so if we really want to know how God would want us to act in these times of uncertainty, His Word is the first place that we shoud turn.

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One explicitly expressed command that the Bible gives us pertaining to citizenship is the call to pray for our leaders and country. No matter if you support or oppose our current leaders, there is no doubt that they need our prayer, and prayer is one of the most powerful gifts that God has given us as believers! In Acts 16, Paul and Silas’s prayers and worship literally caused God to shake the earth and shatter their chains, freeing them from their unjust imprisonment.

Prayer to our omnipotent God can have miraculous consequences, so there is no reason that we should not be engaging with this powerful tool on behalf of our nation.

As the Lord said to the Israelites in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my

people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” Our country and our world needs healing, and thankfully, we serve a God who is an expert in that field.

Secondly, God calls us to love others.

This seems like a very simple command, but we all personally know that it can be extremely difficult at times. We aren’t perfect, and we aren’t the same, so it is easy for different viewpoints to lead to conflict.

There is nothing wrong with disagreeing.

But there is something seriously wrong with hate. In our society, there is a very popular, logically unsustainable argument that if you do not agree with someone’s views, then it is not possible for you to truly love them. Biblically, this could not be farther from the truth. God sent His only son to die a gruesome, undeserved death to save us from sin when we were fully immersed in the depths of the unrighteousness that God could not be a part of. The most impactful, barrier-breaking love is unconditional love, and if we are trying to live like Jesus, this is the kind of love that we should try to display.

As John explains in 1 John 4:11-12, “Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.” To love is to reflect Christ, and right now, He is what the world so desperately needs right now.

This leads into my third and final point: If we are looking for a savior, we aren’t going to find him in the White House. As I mentioned before, our political leaders are greatly important; our country wouldn’t

function without them. However, what is most important is the salvation of souls. I will likely live in the United States for the remaining years of my life, but eternity is a lot longer than a lifetime in America. Therefore, as Christian citizens, the most important way in which we can help our fellow Americans is to spread the Word of God. Christ alone is the savior of the world, and with every passing day, His eternal kingdom grows closer. In the hope-filled words of John, “The darkness is passing, and true light is already shining” (1 John 2:8).

As American Christians, we are called to pray. We are called to love. And most importantly, we are called to embrace the Truth of Christ with confidence. Because darkness? It doesn’t stand a chance.

The ROCK | 2020–2021

21

The Enneagram Types in Quarantine Writing and illustrations by Bethany Grimm

1

The Reformer: “Sanitize

ALL the things!” you yell, Clorox wipes in hand, until you drop from cleaning burnout.

Fortunately, you’re making it difficult for anyone in your vicinity to actually get sick.

The point of Enneagram is not to stereotype or put people in boxes, so if you’re reading this and thinking, “Wow, this is so not me”, don’t worry. As Carl Jung put it, “Every individual is an exception to the rule.” But there’s a good chance that you will resonate with one or more of them!

2

The Helper: Would be

delivering home-baked treats to all your friends and family… except people aren’t too keen on receiving food that could potentially have the virus nowadays.

3

The Achiever: Could

probably talk the virus itself into going away if it gave you the chance. Sadly, that’s not happening, so time to embark on fifteen new projects.

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4

The Individualist: Trying painting. Poetry. Songwriting. Or maybe research, if that’s your bent.

Reminiscing on the good old days – but who says the new days can’t be good too, in their own way?

5

The Researcher: Reading through Wikipedia or the giant stack of books by your bed, bingewatching YouTube or Netflix – take your pick. Because, admittedly, quarantine isn’t too different from your preferred lifestyle.

7

The Enthusiast: Getting

bored of trying not to spontaneously combust and starting a bunch of new projects which – regrettably – aren’t being finished. Like the vlog which was scrapped after only getting twelve views.

9

The Peacemaker: You are okay with it and seem to have it all together. Hosting Zoom calls with your friends whenever it’s convenient or consuming ice cream by the pint. Or maybe both simultaneously.

6

The Loyalist: Checking

the statistics. Checking WalMart’s supply of hand sanitizer.

Checking Amazon’s mask supply.

Growing increasingly more suspicious whether it’s worth all the paranoia – like why the heck are people buying that much toilet paper anyway?

8

The Challenger: A little annoyed that The-Right-To-GoOutside-When-I-Want is almost nonexistent. Going outside for fresh air whenever you get the chance. Counting down the days until no quarantine.

The ROCK | 2020–2021

23

History of the Enneagram

By Hannah Burke

You may think the Enneagram is just a simple 15-minute test that gives you a number and some corresponding personality traits, but it actually has a much deeper history. The Enneagram of Personality Types is a modern synthesis by Oscar Ichazo of several ancient wisdom traditions. Ichazo studied at an Argentinian “school of inner work” as a young man and then traveled through Asia.

In the 1960s, he founded the Arica School in South America and began teaching all he had learned.

His teachings revolved around metaphysics, cosmology, spirituality, and psychology which were meant to help bring about the transformation of the human consciousness. The highlight of his teachings was, of course, based on the ancient symbol of the Enneagram, which can actually be traced to as far back as the works of Pythagoras.

While the “Traditional Enneagram” is attributed to Ichazo and only dates back to the 1960’s, a lot of the philosophy behind the Enneagram is much older and includes components from religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and ancient Greek philosophers like Plato and Socrates.

At his school, Ichazo taught a system of 108 Enneagrams—he called them “Enneagons”— but when the Enneagram movement started in America, it was based primarily on the first four: Virtues, Passions, Holy Ideas, and Fixations. These are essentially four different Enneagram charts where your number corresponds with a certain Virtue, Passion, etc. The significance of these diagrams is often misunderstood because people don’t understand that the Enneagram system was originally created to help explain the relationship between the Essence and personality (ego) of a person. Ichazo said that the Essence of every person “is perfect, fearless, and in a loving unity with the entire cosmos,” but when “the ego begins to develop, man falls from Essence to personality.” For Ichazo, the Enneagram was a way to investigate specific facets of the human soul and see how Essence could be distorted into personality states. To develop his theories about theses states, he looked to Western mythical and philosophical tradition, namely, the idea of nine divine forms. These nine forms can be found throughout history in many different places, the most notable being the Seven Deadly Sins.

Ichazo’s greatest work was determining how the Divine Forms and their distortions connected with the symbol of the Enneagram, specifically, the four “Enneagons” mentioned earlier. He believed that the Holy Ideas were the higher, essential qualities of the 24

The ROCK | 2020–2021

human mind and that every Holy Idea had a certain Virtue associated with it. The Virtues are meant to be the essential qualities of the heart that are experienced by people when they are fully abiding in the Essence, the place of unity. When a person falls from Essence to personality, the Holy Idea associated with their Enneagram number morphs into their Egofixation, and similarly, the loss of their Virtue causes a person’s characteristic Passion. Ichazo believed that everyone has the capacity to exhibit all of the Holy Ideas and Virtues, but that one pair of them is central to a person’s identity, thus the reason why people are split into nine different Enneagrams. The Passions and Ego-fixations are meant to represent how spiritual qualities can be distorted into personality states, and corresponding to the nine Enneagram types, Ichazo theorized that there existed nine ways in which a person lost their center, became distorted in actions, thoughts, and feeling, and forgot their connection with the Divine. Because of the relationship between the higher qualities and their corresponding perversions, knowing one’s “type” or number would allow someone to use presence

1. The Reformer 2. The Helper 3. The Achiever 4. The Individualist 5. The Investigator 6. The Loyalist 7. The Enthusiast 8. The Challenger 9. The Peacemaker

... and awareness to restore themselves to balance and thereby increase their perception of themselves in the Essence. When abiding in their true nature, a person will be able to see through the desire and fear of their ego, and their Virtue, the natural expression of the awakened heart, will manifest itself. However, when connection to the natural Essence is lost, the ego attempts to cope with this loss through the Passion.

Because of this relationship, Ichazo believed that the Virtue could be an antidote to the Passion, so restoring the Virtue was one of the most important spiritual uses of the Enneagram. The Holy Ideas and Egofixations work in much the same way as the Virtues and Passions. Ichazo’s Holy Ideas represent specific ways of understanding the unity of Being that comes from seeing the truth of the world, and the loss of this idea results in delusions about reality or oneself, which Ichazo called the Ego-fixations.

8

9

While the Enneagram has lost much of its spiritual emphasis as it has grown in popularity, Ichazo’s legacy lives on in the many people who take the Enneagram test and learn about its history.

Furthermore, although this test is meant to help people connect with themselves, it can also be helpful in our relationship with God. We all sin, we all occasionally delve too deep into these passions, but with this knowledge of ourselves, we can turn to God and ask Him to free us from the distortions of our soul. Just as Ichazo taught people to find their center, their inner good, through the understanding of the Enneagram, we can also use this tool to grow to be more like Christ. By reaching out to God and acknowledging our faults, we can discover who we were truly meant to be in Him.

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3

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The ROCK | 2020–2021

25

The Time Capsule

By Ally Ballard

In the dirt it lays.

Seems to be forgotten, But never changes its ways.

As it holds something precious.

More precious than gold, It known it will be found, For what it has you cannot hold And it will soon be taken from the ground.

After several long years, It knows the time is coming.

After plenty of shed tears, It can hear the people running.

It hears the shuffling of hands, And feels the sharp stab against its side It sees the sun over the people who stand Over the freshly dug hole were it lies.

It is heaved from its longtime home, Placed upon the fresh grass, And finally sees the people who placed it alone.

The old 2020 class.

It is ready to release It’s hidden treasures.

That have long been in peace, But it will now bring pleasure.

As it opens its lid, To the memories inside.

It knows it has waited a long time, But feels no regret for its melancholy life For it see the smiling faces, And old times unfold.

For the people are happy And its stories have been told.

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The ROCK | 2020–2021