Telos Fall 2018 Issue

TELOS

12

A WILLIAMS JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN DISCOURSE

Reconciliation Spiritual Baggage A Melody for My Maker Reconciliation: Sink or Swim

FALL 2018

TELOS TEAM th e W I L L I AMS

{Definition}

Telos is the Greek word for “purpose,” “goal,” or “fulfillment.” For us, telos represents a direction that can only be found through God. Julie Kim ’19

Anna Sun ’19

{Purpose}

The Williams Telos is a journal dedicated to the expression of opinions and perspectives informed by the Christian faith.

Angela Tang ’19

Rebecca Park ’22

{Contact}

Email williamstelos@gmail.com with comments, questions, donations, or submissions.

The Williams Telos is a member of the Augustine Collective, Andre Hui ’21

Dasol Lee ’ 21

a student-led movement of Christian journals on college campuses. augustinecollective.org

All pieces in The Williams Telos are the contributors’ own interpretation and understanding of the Christian faith, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Telos board or the publication as a whole.

Andrew Rim ’20

The Williams Telos is a journal for Christian discourse founded Spring 2009. After a short hiatus, we are excited to resume publication with pieces collected over the past two semesters.

“Reconciliation,” the theme for this semester’s publication, is a process that we see in the Bible and experience internally. How do we reconcile our faith with our intellectual thought? How do we reconcile contradicting or confusing aspects of our identities? How do we reconcile a strained relationship? In Romans 5:6-11, Paul says that before reconciliation we were powerless, ungodly, sinners, and enemies; we were under God’s wrath. It is only through reconciliation that we are changed through God’s grace and are filled with the Holy Spirit. “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” Paul makes it clear—the ultimate act of reconciliation is God reconciling us to him through his love and the death of Christ.

Christian life can be thought of as a series of reconciliations through which our faith and Christian identity are challenged and questioned. In overcoming these struggles through scripture, prayer, discipleship, and fellowship, our faith and confidence grow stronger, more mature. At the same time, having faith, no matter how strong, does not mean reconciliation is easy. Being Christian means that we struggle with our faith every day. Thus, reconciliation is far more powerful than just the resolution of cognitive dissonance. It provides the opportunity to arrive at new realizations, ultimately deepening our understandings of selfhood and faith.

Our last publication focused on the Christian journey, the process of figuring out where God leads us and wants us to go. Now, we continue that journey by discussing reconciliation through our reflections and lived experiences. Reconciliation, an encounter that is also necessarily unending, can be thought of as a crucial and inseparable part of our walk with Christ.

This issue’s contributors range from current students, to alumni, to Augustine Collective coaches, who all explore and piece together parts of their identity and beliefs through their content. In the following pages, Jeremy Shields writes about dragging his baggage, physical and spiritual, into a confessional and recognizing that God forgives the sins of everyone. Andrew Rim reconciles his identity as a competitor, performer, a child of God, and a worshiper. Tang reflects on her relationship with others and with God, realizing that she can put all of her trust in him.

We offer this collection of thoughtful, self-challenging, triumphant, narratives in hopes of elucidating the potentials and significances of reconciliation in the Christian journey. We invite you to continue on this journey with us as we reconcile parts our faith, identity, and experiences.

The Telos Team Fall 2018

01

Features Taylor Reynolds Jeremy Shields Andrew Rim

05 License to Wonder 12 Spiritual Baggage 14 A Melody for My Maker

Reflections Dasol Lee Luke Thoreson

03 Trying to Be Myself 08 Hope in a Broken World

Art Angela Tang

10 Reconcilation: Sink or Swim

th e W I L L IA M S

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The Williams Telos

TELOS

Trying to Be Myself

by Dasol Lee There is a scene in the musical Les Misérables in which the protagonist Jean Valjean, who has adopted a new identity in order to escape being pursued as a criminal, wrestles to decide if he will reveal his past to the world. Another man has been falsely identified as the missing Valjean and will be punished if Valjean himself does not confess to his crimes. Valjean sings:

Who am I? Can I condemn this man to slavery Pretend I do not feel his agony...

Who am I? Can I conceal myself forevermore?

Pretend I'm not the man I was before?

Valjean could have absolved himself, viewing his reformed life of service as sufficient atonement for his former life of thievery. Instead, he ultimately admits his guilt before the court, implicitly identifying with the crimes he committed years ago and condemning himself to their penalty. I saw that Valjean thought he was, at least in part, the same man who broke his parole so many years ago and concluded that his identification with his past was driving him to confess to his crimes. The scene reminded me that the identity I root myself in has a direct im-

pact on my behavior, and I felt further pressed to respond to Valjean’s question, the answer to which had been eluding me for so long: who am I? I grew up with the maxim “be yourself ” plastered across school walls and sprinkled into many elementary school lessons.

And I used to think it was possible, if not inescapable. After all, who else could I be? As I grew older, the problem became clearer to me. One day, I would sit down to dinner with my family and chat and laugh long after the table had been cleared, whereas the next day I would eat quietly and soon bury myself in my room. So I began to ask myself: who am I, truly? It seemed to me that my personality was always fluctuating, from talkative to quiet to assertive to shy. Each new situation, each new group of people would bring out a different side of me. How was I to know which version was my true self ? Ironically, “being myself,” an attitude towards life that I assumed was supposed to be liberating, suffocated me. I tried again and again to pinpoint a specific character that I could always be but felt restricted each time.

Could I come to accept that I was simply a mixture of all these personality traits? I tried, but was left unsatisfied. What made it tricky was that I felt that I was, at least to an extent, in control of my personality. For example, in tenth grade, I was made aware of my tendency to prioritize my comfort and not consider the thoughts or feelings of others. I subsequently

Fall 2018

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worked for months on remembering to ask others how their day went, on elaborating when others asked me questions and not just when I felt like it, so on and so forth. Selfless thoughts and behaviors now come more readily, and I believe I am more empathetic than I was four years ago. Being able to control who I was at least to an extent made me wonder if I could indeed claim to be everything at once – to be selfish and selfless, shy and confident, quiet and talkative – or if it would be more legitimate to say that I was no quality in particular.

Often during social interactions, thoughts concerning identity would run through my head and trickle through my subconscious for hours afterward. Confused and frustrated, I desperately wanted to understand myself and to be genuine and consistent with my behavior, but I simply had no idea where to start.

So when I read the following passage at a church service April of my freshman year, I was fascinated:

In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.1

“And from my identity in Christ, all thoughts and behavior should flow.”

Not judge myself ? I had believed, as the one who surely knew myself the most, I was supposed to judge myself. But, as the pastor went on to explain, we can barely understand ourselves, so how could we possibly expect to judge ourselves properly?

Reflecting on my own years-long journey toward self-understanding, I couldn’t help but agree.

For the first time, I realized how normal it was that I struggled to properly see myself and was drawn into ever greater confusion about who I was supposed to be. The Apostle Paul speaks elsewhere of how little he comprehends his desires and decisions, writing, “For I do not understand my own actions.

For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”2 I reasoned that if the wise apostle could not understand himself, I would have immense trouble doing so too. But my question persisted--how was I supposed to be myself ?

And then, it finally clicked when I recalled and reflected on Paul’s words in his Letter to the Galatians: “I have been cruci-

04

The Williams Telos

fied with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”3 I realized that, rather than trying to understand myself enough as to know how to be myself, I should try to be more like Christ. I felt freed. In any moment, I can be anything--quiet, talkative, introverted, extroverted, calm, excitable--as long as I act, as Jesus did, with love for God and His creation. And God Himself gives me the gift of “a spirit...of power and love and self-control” so that I can be more like His Son.4 I realized that, while I may understand my tendencies and character more over time, it’s okay to never fully know myself.

The important thing is that I can finally answer the frustrating-turned-beautiful question, who am I? And it is that I am a child of God, claimed as God’s own by Jesus Christ. And from my identity in Christ, all thoughts and behavior should flow.

It is wondrously joyful to root myself in Christ, and I can see now that Jean Valjean reclaims his past identity, not because he has rooted himself in his criminal history, but because he has been able to let it go completely. I had missed the significance of the verse:

My soul belongs to God, I know I made that bargain long ago He gave me hope when hope was gone He gave me strength to journey on Who am I? Who am I? I'm Jean Valjean!

It is when Valjean remembers that he is not his own, that he is fundamentally neither defined as the criminal of the past nor the respected mayor of the present, but belongs completely to God that he finds the hope and strength to sacrifice his well-being for another, as Christ did for us.

1

1 Corinthians 4:3b-4 (ESV)

2

Romans 7:15 (ESV)

3

Galatians 2:20 (ESV)

4

2 Timothy 1:7 (ESV)

Dasol Lee ’21 is a potential chemistry major. She loves to sleep, eat good food, engage in sarcastic conversations, and tussle with her older sisters. Broken, she is blessed to have been saved and redeemed by her best friend Jesus.

License to Wonder

by Taylor Reynolds

“Wonder is the only true beginning of Philosophy.” -Plato “Truth is a matter of the imagination.” -Ursula K. LeGuin “He’s gone.” These two words echoed through the phone between sobs, and my world changed. With the sudden death of my father from a heart attack during finals my sophomore year of college, I joined so many of my generation as a member of a single parent household and anxiety set in as a near constant. This new normal of mine is all too familiar in our culture. In that moment, I could not imagine anything outside my situation, and in an afternoon worthy of a drama film walked alone through the rain for a couple hours. All I remember of those hours are the endless nothingness swirling through my mind. Tragedy is not the only way to become stuck within a seemingly inescapable cultural box of anxiety. Whether it be the consumerist culture of the 90s and early aughts or experience driven hipster culture, our society is driven by an existential anxiety that only finds relief and that momentary in some sort of purchase.1 David Foster Wallace was reflecting on this enigma in Infinite Jest when he wrote “It did what all ads are supposed to do: create an anxiety relievable by purchase.” It might be new REI gear, pour-over equipment and single source coffee beans, beanie babies, Apple products, research trips, antiques, drugs, or plane tickets. This anxiety drove me. If I dressed like that, had these credentials, or that internship; maybe, just maybe the fear would go away. This anxiety drives us. How do we prove to ourselves we are or have enough? The short answer is that we never can.

I am a millennial. No matter how one cuts up generations, I am nearly always placed within the confines of this most maligned generation. However, I am also a historian and so I know that every younger generation has been the worst and the most irresponsible in the eyes of their elders. I will not try to refute that claim here, nor do I honestly believe the subject to be worth the ink which has been spilled over it. Instead, I want to think about another charge levied at myself and other millennials: that we are the most anxious and fearful generation (at

least for a long while). Millennials have been called “generation anxiety” and according to longitudinal studies including the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), levels of anxiety among Americans have risen steadily over the last 40 years. Here it is probably helpful to give my working definition of anxiety as detachment from reality caused by and focused on fear pulling us into ourselves and away from the world. Social Psychologist Jean Twenge has written of millennials that they are “on the verge of the most severe mental health crisis for young people in decades. On the surface, though, everything is fine.”2 From this charge I hope to create an alternate approach to the so called “culture wars” of our time. This approach is based in a philosophical lifestyle of wonder.

“How do we prove to ourselves we are or have enough?”

I once heard philosophy described as “thinking really hard.”

This may seem off-putting, as indeed philosophy itself seems to many. It makes sense. As with many subjects, it has been drained of all life when it is taught in our schools. No one starts out being interested in Wittgenstein’s theories of language or Schopenhauer or Kierkegaard. The most basic ethical and metaphysical questions however are things everyone should think of.

Why are we here? How do we know…anything? Who are we?

Do humans have free will? What is the good? Does human life have any meaning? These are the questions that begin to draw us away from dread and anxiety into wonder. How though can we begin to travel from fear into wonder? Out from anxiety and into imagination? It seems impossible to ever set sail from the islands of doubt. Can there ever be enough evidence to make Fall 2018

05

sense of unanswerable questions?

An interesting example to play with here is solipsism. As a t-shirt I once saw on campus put it, “Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me?” This is the belief that there can be no proof of the existence of anyone’s mind but their own. You can never have enough evidence to believe other people have minds and are not simply productions of your own. Alvin Plantinga addressed

“We must, rather than timidly waiting to find evidence, chart a course through unmapped waters searching.”

06

this problem in his book God and Other Minds. Towards the end, he writes that “belief in other minds and belief in God are in the same epistemological boat; hence if either is rational, so is the other. But obviously the former is rational; so, therefore, is the latter.” In other words, lack of evidence does not intrinsically mean something is irrational. We may never be able to prove via evidence the existence of other minds or that people we encounter are not projections of our mind. However, we can believe this as a properly basic belief. The same is true of any other number of problems. We cannot prove God. We cannot prove love. We must, rather than timidly waiting to find evidence, chart a course through unmapped waters searching.

Walker Percy wrote that “The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life.

To become aware of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

Similarly, a seventeenth century Japanese poet once urged his The Williams Telos

pupils “Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of wise men, seek what they sought.” This I think is the greatest legacy of Plantinga and how he can be most helpful to us with the problem of anxiety. His philosophy will be remembered, this is without question. I believe though that his methodology and lifestyle have and will continue to inspire generations of philosophers and thinkers. I don’t agree with Professor Plantinga on everything, nor do I think most who have been inspired by him, but he has affected others aspiring towards academia and being a philosopher. This almost universal affect has been to slay fear and sow seeds of wonder. Nearly every philosopher, scientist, and thinker I know was fearful about the questions they asked or where they belonged in some way before interacting with Professor Plantinga either through his works or in person, and they became less fearful for having known him.

Perhaps if I and others who claim to believe in a transcendent order of the universe thought of it this way, we might begin to pull ourselves from the cantankerous dichotomous world in which we reside. Instead of wallowing, we might see more hope in imagination. The Pulitzer prize winner, Marilynne Robinson writes often about the experience of wonder as an antidote to a world of fear.3 How can we learn to crave this wonder? To ask questions and imagine what others have not allowed for? It obviously helps to have someone like Plantinga, a pathfinder in the wilds of the intellectual world to put a hand on our shoulder and call us into greatness. If you can find a mentor like this, congratulations.4 However, this process may also take smaller, quieter forms. I was once told that to recapture wonder. Here I think, we must turn to the metaphysical poets and postmodern filmmakers for advice.5 William Blake said that wonder allows us: To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

Or if you prefer film, watch Terrence Malik’s Tree of Life and To the Wonder. Both films focus on life as it is lived by individuals struck by the world in all its beauty and wonder.6 If all else fails, you can do what one philosopher told me to do and go stare at trees for a few hours. As I consider what this wonderful (pun intended) philosophical lifestyle might entail, I think of my

2

iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less

Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us 3

“For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one

longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing–-the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one’s hair is all but to feel

“Step out into a world that’s filled to overflowing with beauty if you look for it.”

it. So, whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again.”

4

It can be done however, and I highly recommend it. Search out those

who you respect and ask them questions. You may be surprised by how easily you find those ready to talk.

5

I never learned wonder from Francis Schaeffer or other culture warriors

although I appreciate them and am burdened by the debt of freedom my generation of Christian artists and thinkers owe them. John Adams spoke of studying war and politics so his children might study architecture and

relationship with my smartphone. I often find my smartphone laughing at me. Sometimes it bothers me. I’m usually happiest when I forget it somewhere. Maybe that’s because it reminds me that I can. That I am not my phone, and it does not control me. Whenever I don’t have it I am drawn out of myself into the world around me. But even when I possess it, it can push me into wonder. The question is how I use it. Listening to music while walking, driving, or taking the metro helps me construct the world for myself. A pre-scored soundtrack to the beauty I encounter. Similarly, philosophy can either draw us further into life or isolate us apart from it.

We are surrounded by unexpressed philosophical presuppositions in nearly every area of life from what Plantinga calls “serious intellectual endeavors” to the normal milieu of life. These oppressive societal frameworks often amount to what Vogue has called “a fear bordering on a conviction.”7 What if instead we were convicted of wonder and dogmatically drawn to imagination? This may sound like only so much word play, but when struck with the question Camus was, whether to kill himself or make a cup of coffee, the imagination can draw us back to a deeper reality. My call is to step off of the millennial treadmill.

Step out into a world that’s filled to overflowing with beauty if you look for it. To a truer truth beneath things, or as one fantasy author has put it, deeper magic from before the dawn of time.

1

“For a consumer society thrives by stoking unquenchable desires into

unsustainable cravings and fanning them with an inflated rage for rights.

The restlessness it creates by providing false satisfactions and deadening true desires simultaneously fuels the economy and destroys happiness.”

Os Guinness Fools Talk

the sciences so his grandchildren might be artists and philosophers. We are the artists and philosophers their warring and politicking gave birth to.

6

From Tree of Life: “Help each other. Love everyone. Every leaf. Every

ray of light. Forgive.”

7

https://www.vogue.com/article/anxiety-metal-illness-young-

misdiagnosed

Taylor Reynolds graduated from Washington University where he studied history, psychology, and religion and politics. While attending WashU, he founded Kairos, an undergraduate journal of Christian thought. He currently interns with the Veritas Forum working with their Veritas Labs initiative as well as a coach for the Augustine Collective network. His aspirations include publishing at least one book and completing the PhD he is currently applying for. In his free time, Taylor writes poetry, fishes, watches romantic comedies, backpacks, reads novels, and is starting a podcast. He prefers dead languages to computer languages, existentialism to analytic philosophy, and people who disagree with him to people who agree with him.

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Hope in a Broken World

by Luke Thoreson

Practice ended, and I was starving. I rushed to Mission dining hall to fill my plate with the Latin food that had been so highly recommended earlier in the evening. When I got there, I piled the food onto my plate. As I sat down, my eyes scanned the dimly lit room. Everyone had their eyes fixed on one thing: the TV. Curious to see what was piquing everyone’s interest, I turned and read the headline: “14 dead, 17 injured in shooting in San Bernardino, California.”

“Again?” I thought, “Another shooting, another tragedy.” As I looked back around the room, I saw the shaking of heads.

Even with the loud and upbeat music in the background— designed to add a dimension of liveliness to the themed dining hall meals—a sobering aura pervaded the room. My mind was racing with other recent atrocities. Little over a year ago, the Paris attacks left at least 129 dead, with at least 352 injured.

Racial injustices have occurred on the campuses of Missouri and Yale. In 2015, two civilians and a police officer were shot and killed in Colorado Springs in a Planned Parenthood clinic.

The strife of refugees running from the Syrian civil war is still garnering national attention.

These waves of tragedy and heartbreak seem to surround us, drowning us with wave after wave of terror, unresolved conflict, and repeated injustice. From what I have seen on campus, they have also generated a sense of outrage, as well as a feeling of hopelessness—what can we do in the face of such atrocities and corruption? Especially when it seems so far out of our control?

“However, in the face of this brokenness, I, as a Christian, have hope.”

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The Williams Telos

Personally, I consider myself blessed to have a concrete hope in such a volatile world. As a Christian, my hope is found through my faith in Jesus. It does not depend on any person in this world, any feeling I may have, or any circumstance I may find myself or the world in, simply because God is in control of all those things, and my hope lies in him.

With this in mind, I think people on campus believe that, when tragedy strikes, the Christian community can appear to be apathetic: either we don’t seem to care, or we don’t voice an opinion. These tragedies do not hold sway over the hope we have in Christ, but it does not mean that we are indifferent to the world. My heart breaks when I see the tragedies that permeate our lives. I believe that these evils are not how God intended the world to be. Rather, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), and furthermore, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen. 1:31).

The waves of violence and conflict are evidence that the world around us is not the way that God intended it to be; to simplify, we live in a fallen and broken world. This brokenness reaches into and pervades the very essence of our nature as human beings separated from God. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God’s glory is something we can never attain on our own. Frankly, by ourselves, we are hopeless.

However, in the face of this brokenness, I, as a Christian, have hope. Through faith in Jesus, I am rescued, even in the tragedies surrounding me. God the Son humbled himself and became a human being like us in Jesus. He went outside time and space to turn water into wine (John 2:1-12). Jesus broke the dividing walls of ethnic hostility and misogyny (John 4:1-26).

Jesus brought healing to the lame and the outcast (John 9:1-12).

Jesus took fives loaves of bread and two fish and fed thousands (John 6:1-15). Jesus raised the dead (John 11). Jesus exhibited

His great power to us and yet, he served us. He lived a flawless life, the life we could not live. He died the death we deserved to die. And he rose again on the third day to give us the grace we could have never earned. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

It is this God that I serve and in this hope that I live, and we can trust that he will even use the brokenness of our world for good.

Therefore, in response to the tragedies of this world, I can respond with a broken yet hope-filled heart. God calls me to follow Jesus: to act in love (Luke 10:27) and, especially in the face of such tragedy, to seek justice and love mercy (Micah 6:8).

To share the hope that I have found in Jesus, hope that he can— and does—save us from the fallen world in which we live and bring healing to our broken hearts.

I certainly share in the pain and sting of the affliction, which I was abruptly reminded of on that solemn evening in Mission dining hall. It is in that very pain, though, that I find true joy in being able to share my source of hope, a hope that overcomes all of the pain and sorrow of this world.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28).

“Jesus exhibited His great power to us and yet, he served us. He lived a flawless life, the life we could not live.”

Luke Thoreson graduated in 2016 with a major in History and a concentration in Justice and Law.

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Reconciliation: Sink or Swim

by Angela Tang

Cat and Mouse, friends through grace, Angela Tang mixed media, (gouache, colored pencil, graphite, found paper), 16x 32 in

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The Williams Telos

Dear God,

on read and move on to the next boy. At some point, the instant gratification of texting and talking with guys left

Please open up my heart and soul for your presence.

me more empty than before; slowly, I came to realize I

I come to you in a time of prayer. I know you are there,

needed to begin to reconcile my relationship with God

but I do not always go to you for help when I need you.

first before I could make myself emotionally available for others. Who else but He understands me more than I can

In Jesus’s name I pray,

understand myself ? Who else but He can give me more

Amen.

than my soul could ever desire, not just a “balanced” relationship? Who else but Him can I go to in times of

This was the prayer that I was always told to say whenever I was lost or wanted to talk to God. I thought

need and not be left unread? (Him as in God, not him as in the boy next door).

that in order to approach Him, I had to talk to him in this

I know now that this is only the beginning of my

rigidly standard template. I did not think I could depend

reconciliation with God and trusting HIM with all my

on God for all my struggles and internal problems; I always

selfish desires, lusts, and temptations. To sum it up, one

thought I had to balance my trust in God with my trust

of my favorite pop songs by Justin Bieber, raps in his

on earthly relationships. I realized that my relationships

song “Purpose,”

with people were exactly like my relationship with God; all my relationships were founded on a strict and rigorous

It’s like, God I’m giving it all I got

50/50 balance.

Sometimes I’m weak and I’m gonna do it And it’s like I’m not giving myself grace

“Who else but He could give me more than my soul could ever desire?”

I’m just like understanding, that’s just how it is Minus the multiple times Bieber says the word “like”, I feel as if I can entirely relate with his sentiment. I have been a Belieber since 2010, but I am more importantly a

For example, if one friend gave me a specific amount

Believer in Christ for eternity. I want to give Him all I have

of effort, then I would give them the same amount, maybe

because if I do not, no other relationship can be stable.

even less. This was particularly true for guys I liked. If I

Every other relationship stems from my relationship with

texted them a paragraph of text and only got a one-word

God, first and foremost.

reply, then I would take that as a sign to leave the message

Angela Tang ’19 is majoring in Art History and Practice.

She is actively involved in Williams Intervarsity as a small group leader. She loves to go on runs, eat, eat some more, and hang out with her suitemates.

Fall 2018

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Spiritual Baggage

by Jeremy Shields

I’ve never been a fan of basement churches. It’s not as though I’m the type who just has to attend Mass at the nearest cathedral. The church I grew up attending, a modest Catholic church in suburban Philadelphia, was built in the 1960s according to an architectural trend I sometimes call the “modern barn style.”

But at least the barn church is above ground, along with the confessionals. The upper sanctuary of a church is typically preferred for Mass and confessions by both pastor and congregation, but some churches are privileged enough to have a second sanctuary just down the stairs. Although these basement churches are used more often as chapels for private prayer than for regular worship, circumstances sometimes require a change of scenery. The contrast is palpable: upstairs, natural light illuminates the stained-glass windows and somehow makes God’s penetrating presence known throughout the sanctuary, even behind the closed door or drawn curtain of the confessional.

There is no such comfort in the basement. While I’ve mostly gotten over the anxiety of coming face-to-face with God in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, nothing brings back the anxiety of listing my sins to the minister of mercy like waiting my turn in a low-ceilinged, poorly ventilated, subterranean cavern.

At the beginning of spring break 2018, I found myself in just such a basement church while I waited for my next train on the way home from Williams. According to Google, Manhattan’s St. Francis of Assisi Church was the only church nearby that offered to hear confessions at noon on a Saturday—which is, incidentally, a prime time for weddings. After crashing the upper sanctuary during the exchange of vows, I smiled at the happy couple and retreated down the stairs.

Picture it, the typical basement church: low light, painted saints watching over me from the ceiling, parishioners kneeling at shadowy shrines and saying their prayers.

They even might have been smiling. Of course, they had already finished their confessions, and this was their basement church.

As the line outside the confessional dwindled, I realized I needed to do something about my suitcase. Do I bring it in with me? Would it be suspicious if I left it beside the statue of Our Lady? When my turn arrived, I decided that God had a sense of humor and dragged my baggage, physical and spiritual, into the confessional.

The typical confessional might be compared to the Narnian wardrobe: small and claustrophobic, and not much to wonder at from the outside—but within, there awaits something wonderful. For the Catholic Christian, the wonder is “reconciliation with God by which the penitent recovers grace.”1 Of the ritual’s many names, Reconciliation is the one that best captures this reality.2 Saint Paul tells his readers that the reconciliation of God with the human race, accomplished through the forgiveness of sins, was Christ’s fundamental mission: “God

was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation”3 Paradoxically to human eyes, Christ’s mission of reconciliation is both past and present, completed by Christ in his death and resurrection and carried out today through the ministry of his Church: “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of rec-

“The sacrament is not merely a symbolic action, but truly communicates the forgiveness that it represents.”

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”7 The Christian God, then, did not appear on Earth 2,000 years ago only to ask humanity to make sense of his life and teachings on their own. He remains present and active even now in his Church, in which the Holy Spirit carries out his redeeming work.

Through a tangible sacrament, God forgives the sins of his faithful ones—and indeed, his unfaithful ones. Even now, God is continuously, repeatedly, “reconciling the world to himself.”8 When I left the confessional of St. Francis of Assisi Church in New York City, I checked my spiritual baggage at the door.

Following the locals’ lead, I knelt in prayer before a statue of the crucifix, that paradoxical image of God’s mercy. If Jesus was willing to go to the grave for me, meeting him in the catacombs was the least I could do. When it comes to reconciliation, the hard work has already been accomplished.

onciliation.”4 This ministry, instituted by Christ and perpetuated by his apostles like St. Paul, remains a vital part of Christian life, known in the Catholic Church as a sacrament: “The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us.”5 In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, then, God forgives a Christian of his or her sins through the priest, who carries on the ministry of the apostles. It is through this forgiveness that the Christian is reconciled with God and with the Church. The sacrament is not merely a symbolic action, but truly communicates the forgiveness that it represents.

The Catholic Church’s belief in a sacramental understanding of God’s reconciling power is directly tied to her teachings on how Christ remains active on Earth long after his Resurrection and Ascension. Humans are creatures of history, looking to the past to understand and interpret the present. God met humanity on these terms in the Person of Jesus: Jesus, through human birth and human death, entered history just like any other person. However, in the sacraments, God does something that no history textbook can by making the past present.6 After Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to his disciples in order to commission them with propagating not only the faith of Christ, but also his paramount works of reconciliation and the forgiveness of sins:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness (Lam. 3:22-23).

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

Jeremy Shields ’20 is majoring in Religion and Spanish. He is currently studying abroad in Spain and has learned to play the flamenco guitar.

Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 1496. The Catechism is a handy, textbook-length summary of Catholic teaching; citations refer to paragraph, not page number, as enumerated internally. See the same paragraph for other effects of the sacrament, some of which will feature later in the article.

2 The Church emphasizes different aspects of the sacrament by giving it different names. Reconciliation is one of them, and so are Penance and Confession. Of these three emphases, I will focus on the name Reconciliation for the sake of space, but also because it is my favorite way of visualizing and comprehending what it is that God does in the confessional. See CCC 1423-24 for other names of the sacrament and their meanings.

3 2 Cor. 5:19. All Scripture citations are from the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.

4 2 Cor. 5:18. “All this” is explained by Paul in the previous verse: “if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.”

5 CCC 1131.

6 CCC 1152: “[The sacraments] fulfill the types and figures of the Old Covenant, signify and make actively present the salvation wrought by Christ, and prefigure and anticipate the glory of heaven” (emphasis mine).

7 Jn. 20:21-23.

1

8

2 Cor 5:19.

Fall 2018

13

A Melody for My Maker

by Andrew Rim “A Psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness!

Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” -Psalm 100:1-5

ening to freeze my hand immobile. I set down my cello next to

“As I approach the tall double doors leading to the stage, my cello endpin accidentally scrapes against the hard ground, creating a sharp and gravel-like noise that startles the whole room.”

Tuesday, February 12th, 8:00PM, backstage of the competition hall. I see other competitors pacing up and down the narrow corridor, gripping their instruments tightly, muttering to themselves, shaking their cold and clammy hands, dancing about to loosen nerves as tense as tightropes.

Seated against the cool stone wall, I can’t help but notice my own hands start to grow cold, my once warm skin now threat-

14

The Williams Telos

me, put on my headphones, and start playing one of my phone’s many upbeat genre playlists, specially curated for recitals and competitions.

Tradition and routine have shaped my pre-performance habits for the past three years of my music career. The day before my performance, I wear my outfit and run through my piece as though fully clad in battle armor; the morning of, I eat a big breakfast, a light lunch and perhaps no dinner, to make sure I’m not playing on a full stomach; two hours before the performance, I enter my practice room, spot-check a few parts from my piece, then go through a series of dances, shouts, and stretches that help me either vent or relax. Twenty minutes before, I enter the backstage, find a seat, and meditate, staying hydrated and listening to music – anything to block out the background noise and help me find my groove, my game face.

Three years ago, my playlist consisted of hard rap and trap; J. Cole, Biggie, Nas, Future and Fetty Wap headlined the list, all prompting me to bounce and bop to their heavy beats. Two years ago, I ventured into the world of EDM and techno

music. One year ago, I went through a messy mash of Hillsong Young and Free, K-Pop and bebop jazz; that year saw a rough performance.

Tonight, I decide it is time to whip out something new: a gospel genre playlist. I turn up the volume, and am met with the worship-filled voices of Tasha Cobbs, Kirk Franklin and Eddie James crooning, roaring, and proclaiming words and melodies of worship excitedly and vigorously. I begin to sway to the music, soon drumming on the chair, tapping my feet against the ground, and air-guitaring as I relax and loosen. Warmth returns to my hands. My pianist, staring at me in shock, implores, “Please don’t let that speed you’re tapping be the tempo you’re planning on playing for the recital.” A burst of laughter.

Warmth is restored to my body. The gospel music plays on. Everything around me drowns out and I am in my element, competition-ready.

The usher calls for me. I step up to the prep room, waiting for the judges to call me in. As I approach the tall double doors leading to the stage, my cello endpin accidentally scrapes against the hard ground, creating a sharp and gravel-like noise that startles the whole room.

Initially, a flood of embarrassment fills me, and I feel silly that one blunder can bring the whole room’s attention to focus on me. Immediately after, feelings of panic, nervousness, and insecurity begin to take over my mind. Wave after wave of negative thoughts enter my head: What if I mess up during my

performance? Am I ready to be performing on this stage? What qualifications do I have, to have the audacity to stand on

“Met by loud cheers and words of encouragement from this audience, I can only stand in shock before slowly proceeding center-stage and preparing for my performance.”

this stage and perform in front of a panel of esteemed judges?

to tell me to fix something I played wrong, told her that I’d had

Burdened in heart, legs feeling heavy, and unsure of my own

enough, that I didn’t want to do competitions anymore, that I

ability, I go through the double doors and enter the auditori-

was tired of trying to please her and dad with musical accolades.

um… to find the majority of the audience occupied with indi-

Since when was this ever about you? My mother was hurt.

viduals I have the privilege to call my friends.

Andrew, I want you to do the best in whatever you do, not to win competitions, not to be successful, not to bring glory to

“I am not just a performer. Above all these, I am a child of God, and a worshiper.”

yourself, but to bring glory to GOD. This was never about you, this will never be about you. This is about God, about glorifying Him, and this will always be about God and glorifying Him. If you think otherwise, then I have failed to help you recognize the reason why I want you to play cello and love music.

I return. I see the audience, the faces of these people whom

Met by loud cheers and words of encouragement from this

I hold dearly in my heart. I picture my mother and father’s faces,

audience, I can only stand in shock before slowly proceeding

beaming at me and reminding me how proud they are of how

center-stage and preparing for my performance.

firmly founded I am in my faith, and how the music I have cre-

I tune my cello, scanning the audience face by face as I adjust the strings: my worship team on stage-left of the auditorium;

ated from my cello, since that fateful day, has evolved into true worship from my heart.

members of the Christian fellowship scattered throughout the

I am not just a competitor. I am not just a performer. Above

seats; my acapella group members on stage-right. Professors

all these, I am a child of God, and a worshiper. At the end of my

who earlier in the week had wished me luck on the competition,

life, I want to be remembered not as an entertainer or an artist,

other supporting staff members, fellow competitors who are, in

but as a worshiper, someone who never stopped pursuing God. What I had once struggled to find purpose in has now been

other settings, also my friends.

All eyes are on me.

redeemed by God. What had once been music for my own per-

I finish tuning and take a long pause. Time to pray. I close

sonal glory has now found purpose in God’s glory.

my eyes and imagine the faces of the audience in my mind. My

I give my pianist the nod, and she opens the piece with a

mind is still in turmoil, and I just can’t seem to quiet the storm

flourish of notes. Soon, I begin playing as well.

raging in my head. God, please calm my heart down, that I may

successfully play through this competition. I don’t want to make any mistakes out of nervousness; please give me strength.

Since when was this ever about you?

I freeze. In my mind, I flash back to that fateful day seven years ago. I remember the fight with my mother, that one moment that changed my life in music. I did not want to continue cello; I was tired of it, I was tired of having to improve myself, I was tired of parents nagging me to practice so often, I was tired of other people’s expectations placed on me. So I snapped.

I snapped at my mom, yelled as she entered the room, probably

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The Williams Telos

Andrew Rim ’20 is majoring in Biology. He is an active member of Williams Intervarsity, leading worship on campus and at Community Bible Church. He enjoys playing cello, playing basketball, and taking long walks.

All images have been made black and white from the originals and cropped.

Cover: Anna Sun ’19; 2: Public Domain; 3: Public Domain; 6: Public Domain; 11: Public Domain; 12: Angela Tang ’19; 14: Public Domain; 17: Public Domain.

th e W I L L I A M S

TELOS

TELOS FALL 2018