Dear Reader, O

n March 29, 1968, the night before he was murdered, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech to a group of workers in Memphis, Tennessee. His words were powerful, almost prophetic in light of the hateful tragedy to come. Amidst a civil rights struggle that was far from over, he displayed a confidence and willfulness that could be interpreted as both naïve and inspiring depending on the observer.

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t really matter to me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop,” Dr. King said near the end of the address.

Among the many things that strike me about Dr. King’s words is the stark contrast between his demeanor and the prevailing attitudes of the present-day. Whereas Dr. King worked with a tireless patience in the face of struggle, ours is a culture that does not want to wait for anything. The claim that we can’t have our best lives now or immediately will our way out of hardship is not only rejected but abhorred. Our pleasure-driven society perpetually offers a narrative of instantaneous transformation through the acquisition of things. We’ve been tricked into believing that we become runners when we buy the right pair of shoes and poets when we declare an English major. Even in the life of our churches, this phenomenon of consumerism has done significant damage. We Christians find ourselves believing that if we attend the right church or feel the right emotions during worship, then we will suddenly find ourselves in the midst of a substantive relationship with God. “There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness,” wrote the late Eugene Peterson in his book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. In a society racked by anxiety, depression and identity crises, we repeatedly find ourselves opting for the allure of instant gratification and are, without fail, disappointed when we do so.

On the contrary, the Christian gospel offers a message of hopeful patience. In the gospel account of Luke, Jesus describes discipleship as a daily decision of self-sacrifice rather than an instantaneous switch from sinful to sanctified. Anyone who has tried to form a habit knows that doing so only comes through a long journey of trials and errors, and life as a Christian is no different. When Jesus extends the invitation of discipleship, he does so knowing that he calls broken people who are living in a broken world. In the book of James, Christians are encouraged that the testing of their faith actually brings them closer to God. Holiness, as the Bible describes it, is a lifelong struggle mostly populated with the monotony of daily routine. “The new life into which we are baptized is lived out in days, hours, and minutes. God is forming us into new people. And the place of that formation is in the small moments of today,” writes Tish Harrison Warren in her book Liturgy of the Ordinary.

In our second issue of To The Well, we lean into the nature of this long obedience. Chapel Hill is a beautifully complex place, a multi-faceted ecosystem of people pursuing all sorts of things in all sorts of directions. In this edition of the journal, you will read about a number of these pursuits, ranging from affordable housing to pre-med classes. These practices, whether they be big or small, are best characterized by daily habits rather than mountaintop experiences. In opposition to the modern virtues of pleasure, comfort and certainty, we celebrate the mysterious and gradual ways in which we see God at work in the world. As you read, I hope you see this theme showing up again and again.

We live in a time of already-not-yet. On the cross of Calvary, the God-man Jesus of Nazareth defeated death, shame and all brokenness. One day, this act will come to completion, and everything will be made new. Until then, we live and work throughb our daily lives in the peace of this hope, striving to maintain the mindset that Dr. King proclaimed with a simple beauty: “I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

Parker Marshall Editor-in-Chief

PARKER MARSHALL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Signal Mountain, TN

Class of 2020 Economics

DANNY EICH EDITOR

Charlotte, NC

Class of 2020 English

LAUREN GILBERT EDITOR

Birmingham, AL

Class of 2022

Economics and Public Policy

GRACE HILDEBRAND

EDITOR

Charlotte, NC

Class of 2019

English Studies

MICAH MULLARKEY

EDITOR

Highlands, NC

Class of 2022

Linguistics and Romance Studies

KELLY BUMB

DAVID BUSSELL EDITOR

Charlotte, NC

Class of 2020 Economics

ANNA GRACE FREEBERSYSER EDITOR

Fuquay Varina, NC

Class of 2020

Entrepreneurship and Studio Art

JOSHUA GRADY EDITOR

Hendersonville, NC

Class of 2022

English and Studio Art

VALERIE LUNDEEN EDITOR

River Forest, Illinois

Class of 2020

Economics and Public Policy

SYDNEY SCHAMAY

EDITOR

Winston-Salem, NC

Class of 2021 Public Policy

WESLEY HARWOOD

Tucson, AZ

Class of 2019

Graphic Design

CASANDRA BERENS

Graham, NC

Class of 2023

Undecided

KORINNE HAWK

Brevard, NC

Class of 2022

Human Development and Family Studies, Psychology

JENNY LAWRENCE

CO-HEAD OF DESIGN DESIGNER DESIGNER DESIGNER

Asheville, NC

Class of 2020 Advertising

Blowing Rock, NC

Class of 2022

Graphic Design

ERIKA FAGER

Charlotte, NC

Class of 2022

Psychology

JULIA HAYNES

Charlotte, NC

Class of 2021

Media and Journalism

MARGARET MARSHALL

CO-HEAD OF DESIGN DESIGNER DESIGNER DESIGNER

Signal Mountain, TN

Class of 2022

Public Policy

Our Mission

To The Well is a student-run organization at UNC-Chapel Hill that strives to facilitate dialogue meaningful to our community by creating a platform for Christian perspectives articulated in a peaceful, accessible, and thoughtful manner.