Part of me really loves college. Truly, I do. I thoroughly
enjoy the late movies nights, campus ministry events, and occasional class of
interest. And I am sure that I will appreciate my college education even more
in later years if it helps me achieve a job with a paycheck that prevents me
from living in a cardboard box on the corner of the street somewhere. But I
want to know who thought it would be a good idea to cram young adults together
on a campus from the ages of 18-24 and think that would in any way be a
functional environment. And not only are the maturity levels of each individual
differing colossally, let’s also throw in people from other countries so we can
have further difficulty understanding one another, as if humans weren’t complex
enough. Now don’t get me wrong, I adore diversity. In fact, one of my favorite
things about Troy is the amount of international students I get to experience
on a daily basis. But with all these factors working together the concept of
college alone is absolute madness. If
you are fortunate, and among the vast majority, Americans are born into a
fairly regular home environment. They have a mom and a dad and sometimes siblings
and they are raised in a home. And in this home, you are taught a certain set
of values and core beliefs, whether this is taught verbally or through actions
and example. You form your first few ideas about life in this atmosphere, and
it shapes your outlook on the rest of the human experience either purposefully
or subconsciously. You continue growing and you spend more and more time away
from your home in other settings that both test your original beliefs and help
you form new ones. But at any given time in your pre-college life, there were
always people surrounding you that believed close to exactly what you did, and
were extremely supportive of the lifestyle that assimilated with their own. If
you were an only child and had never understood the concept of sharing, you
went to elementary school and a teacher helped you along the path of learning
such a thing, and that became a staple rule for being a part of that classroom.
Everyone around you supported and adopted the same set of rules. Or if you went
to middle school and your teacher asked you to write a paper on evolution and
you made the decision not to, you had your family at home that stood behind you
because of their faith that was the same as yours. But in college you live
with, sit next to, and eat by people with a completely different set of beliefs
and values. You can literally walk into a room on your first day and end up
sleeping in the same room as someone with an enormously opposite outlook on
life. And at times, that can be very exciting. I can’t even begin to describe
all the things I have learned from people because they have been so wonderfully
different from me. But it can also be quite discouraging, and lonely, and can
very quickly make you feel as though you have lost all sense of community. This
will be my third semester in college and I have certainly found a home in my
church here. I know that when I need to be surrounding by people with the same
eternal goal as I, my place there is always waiting for me. But I also spend
many evenings just frustrated with people around my age. If there is one thing I
have learned by being in college, it is that I prefer the little people. The
hardest thing for me about being a young adult in a college city is the lack of
children. 18-24 year olds positively baffle me. Even more so than middle and
high schoolers. Because at that age, we had an excuse. We were young, our
brains weren’t fully developed, our hormones were crazy, it’s part of being
that age, etc. Fine. But I look around me at halfway grown adults and cannot
even fathom what the heck some of them are thinking half the time. Somehow some
people have wandered around on this earth for more than 18 years and have yet
to learn a thing. And I don’t mean the freshman that come to school not knowing
how to do laundry (although that is fairly ridiculous in it’s own right). I
mean, how did we make it this far in life and still not understand or know how
to treat PEOPLE. It shouldn’t be a foreign concept at this point. Not only have
we been surrounded by people our entire lives but we also spend most of our
education talking about, people. And these people are either discussed because
they treated people well, or they treated them poorly. Think about it. Some of
the most famous men you studied in history. Martin Luther King Junior, treated
people well. Adolf Hitler, treated people poorly. Jesus, treated people well. Joseph
Stalin, treated people poorly. Abraham Lincoln, treated people well. Osama Bin
Laden, treated people poorly. So not only do we have enough life experience
ourselves, we also have written examples of how to treat people, and how not
to. MLK teaches us to treat people equally, while Hitler shows how NOT to
handle bitterness with a particular race. Jesus teaches us to treat people with
love and kindness, while Stalin shows us how to be a murdering jerk. And
Lincoln teaches us how to treat people with respect and show honesty, while Bin
Laden shows us how to be a real coward. But after all of these things we STILL
manage to mess this up on a daily basis. We cheat and we lie and we hurt people
regularly. And we convince ourselves the things we do aren’t a big deal. I’m
not putting anyone in a gas chamber, so lying to my friend isn’t that deep. But
remind yourself of a time you were lied to, and be honest with how deep that
hurt really goes. Anytime I sit down to talk to my friends here in Troy, 97% of
their stress is not based on actual school or financial problems or health
issues. Almost always their problems are rooted in people. Other people trying
to survive this life just as we are that somehow can’t manage to treat each
other with respect. I appreciate that golden rule of “Do unto others as you
would have them do unto you”, that’s certainly a valid point and something to
be thought about. But let’s take a second. This verse, is found once in the
Bible. That’s the only time they bother to bring it up. But in the King James
Version of the Bible the word “love” is used 310 times. I certainly think that
is a testament as to what our motives should be. Doing unto to others as you
would have them do to you, comes from such a selfish place. It’s a good
illustration, but it’s easy to confuse why we are acting the way we are. Is
this so I don’t get bad Kharma, or do I truly care about how my actions are affecting
others? But if we can grasp the concept of love, if we can embed that in our
hearts and make that the sole motivation of our being, we could start of
revolution. A revolution of people that cared. And it would be weird. People
would notice. Because that is not our natural inclination. It’s not a part of human
nature. But what if every action we made in a day, was made out of love? We didn’t lie, because the thought of hurting
someone else with false words would break our own hearts. We wouldn’t cheat,
because we would love ourselves enough to do things correctly and courageously.
There would be no sexual impurity, because we would care about our partner
enough to guard his or her mind and soul. There would be arguments, because the
need to be right would seem unimportant against the feelings of another person.
I think that is why children are so easy. Love IS in their nature. It is as
simple as breathing. They radiate purity and wholeness. Being around them heals
me. They make me a better version of myself. And I miss that. But I am being
called to a greater challenge right now. And that challenge is greater only
because of my own flaws and shortcomings. I struggle to connect and understand
college kids. And sometimes I get frustrated and want to shake them until they
understand. But one of the most exciting things about being here, especially
among our campus ministry, is watching people transform and seeing them “get it”,
and being a part of a group of people that’s focus is above. I am in no way doing this living thing
perfectly. I know that I fail daily. But I also know that everything starts
with a single step. So let’s start a movement of love.
