Senior Chapel -- May, 2006

"If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person." - Fred Rogers

When I am reminded that I am supposed to leave this place a week and a half from now, my body tends to cringe with a feeling of terror. How can I leave a place that has witnessed my bud to blossom journey? When I am told to really listen to my life, however, I find different emotions. What is my life telling me? ... That I have survived so much already, it seems impossible something could bring me down. But above all else, I have learned from my life in this place that people make my world.

A wise woman once said, "A good friend is a connection to a life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world." When I first came across this quote, it hit me: the people around me are not only my friends and family, but my link to a spiritual world ... a world where I find the most beautiful of beautiful thoughts. The holy, for me, is right there in the meeting of another person I allow to enter into my circle. So my life has been this miraculous series of moments... moments in which I draw a great deal of spirituality from those around me. These connections breathe life into me.

At Manchester I learned that I can make as many connections as possible and find the deep beauty in that. I find the holy in the connections I have made with people. I find it in going skinny dipping with friends in the very lake in which I was baptized about eight years earlier. I find it in grabbing three of my friends and dancing in a circle before chapel. I find it in new friendships tragically formed right as I prepare to leave this place. I even find it in this building.

This building has seen me make an endless number of connections, including time in meetings for United Sexualities, the Vagina Monologues, Take Back the Nights, Coming out Vigils, and decent attempts at a spirituality group. My first time in attendance for a chapel service was the first year service my first year here. I came because Tyler Secor asked me to light his candle... so I lit it. I immediately sat back down as I felt my true lack of comfort sink in. After that service three years ago, an angel named Sonia talked to me and brought me back down to a level of comfort. I was hugged and told that it was good to have me there.

That meant the world to this queer formerly Brethren girl. However, it took me until this year to attend another chapel service.

You see, organized religion and I never really found a common ground. Yes, I grew up in the Church of the Brethren. And you weren't mistaken if you remember me mentioning earlier that I was even baptized. At one point in my life, I knew and could recite every book in the Bible. I know the Lord's Prayer and the Doxology by heart. But that is the extent of my connection to religion. And, opposed to what many think happens inthe path of a queer formerly Brethren kid, I left the church before I ever even questioned my sexuality.

Manchester College first met me as a fairly quiet, long-haired, straight peace studies major who showered every single day. I am SO thankful those things have changed. Now, I am even able to attend chapel services because of my deep connections. It is only here, week after week, that I have two beyond eager women waiting to sit with me and be in my presence. They are a true testament to the thought that "wherever you are, it is your friends who make your world."

Tatiana de la Tierra once made a simple statement... a statement which guided me as I prepared for today's service. She said, "Part of my own path in the land of Otherness is to meet other Others." I have been blessed with the connections I have made while in this place... for I have truly found my Others. At times my college experience has been flat out terrifying. But it was my Others who could always bring me back to a safe, even happy place. My hope for each of you is that even if you find yourself traveling in the land of Otherness (and believe me, you will) that you are able to find other Others and make some deep, long-lasting connections. For without these connections and these beautifully outstanding people, I truly would be lost in this world.