Faith

As my and your friend from SEED, Ruthie, and I sat in the Atlanta Airport for 46 hours trying to get home from our spring break mission trip, we wondered how this struggle of dashed hopes and confusion would affect the memories of our trip. We had just experienced the most amazing week of serving and being served by the community of Harmons, Jamaica. Would we dwell on the torments of a two day layover? Would we curse Delta Airlines, the funny little man who kept giving us misinformation, or the whole city of Atlanta?

Each evening of the trip, all 26 participants would sit in a circle for a time for reflection. The final evening, the reflections were dominated by questions of whether or not we could really take the lessons we learned back to our normal lives. I know I’ve previously felt similar spiritual ‘highs’ after a great retreat or trip. They always seemed to fade to some degree though when faced with entrance back into a lukewarm Christian American society. This might have been the case, given my travel woes, had I not received the most inspiring faith I’ve heard in a long time on this very trip.

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Second semester senior.

Every Sunday evening, I’d stare at the big grandfather clock…waiting, wishing.  7:45pm. It takes me five minutes to get there…I’m too anxious, so I leave. 

I walk up the dark streets, watching the light bulbs flicker off when I come their way.  The streets are covered in acorns.  Acorns and cicadas. 

Their dead skins crackle beneath my instep.

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Second year of high school.

Everything was going great for me: I was a straight-A student, on the varsity basketball team, was the youngest in my ballet class to start toe shoes, and my family and social lives were going great.  Perfect, right?  Well, it wasn’t.

I attended church, but never paid much attention—I didn’t think I should have to…I felt pretty satisfied with my life already.  It came the time for me to get confirmed and I had to take a Catholic education class in order to do so.

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[Editor's note: Natalie is the Poet Laureate of Seed.  She is a Penn State undergraduate majoring in Communications, is an active member of everything, and likes to drive editors crazy by including unusual typographical symbols in her writing.  Enjoy.]

Wait a second…

I have always heard that one’s five closest friends added together, give or take a few complimentary idiosyncrasies, mixed up, and spit out—personality, humor, charm, morals and all—equals oneself.  Because truth is, we choose our friends based off of these criteria.  If we don’t smoke, any smoker “friends” we may have are probably better titled “acquaintances”.  We bond with who we relate to.  To what degree this is true, I know not.  But I have been an inhabitant of this earth long enough to know that most of the time, it proves to be true.  One night I sat on my bed pondering all of this.  I thought about all the cliques in my high school and how alike those within each clique were.  They were all on the same sports teams, went everywhere together, loved the same movies, laughed at the same kind of humor.  I thought…and I thought. 

Then I thought, why am I so different?

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