Last fall, I took a nonfiction writing course with Professor Marzano-Lesnevich (ML). I’m not an English major or minor and have never considered writing as a career. I took this class because I enjoy writing, and I think it is a very applicable skill.
During my first ever Zoom class, my professor delivered a moving speech. She said that this crisis has forced her to define and defend what she believes is the purpose of a Bowdoin education. In her opinion, that purpose is to make us leaders—in our families, in our communities and in the world.
On Sunday, February 16, a 61-year-old woman with symptoms of the coronavirus (COVID-19) attended a service at the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu, South Korea. She scanned her thumb on an electronic pad to prove attendance and prayed in a basement packed with about 1,000 other attendees whom she hugged repeatedly per church ritual.
Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) was a renowned feminist poet throughout the second half of the 20th century. Her poems explored themes of feminism, social justice, queerness and environmentalism. One of my favorites is called “My heart is moved.”
“My heart is moved by all I cannot save: / so much has been destroyed / I have to cast my lot with those / who age after age, perversely, / with no extraordinary power, / reconstitute the world.”
Two of the most influential people in my life, a married couple who teach at my public high school, introduced me to this poem.
I identify as religious. My father comes from a long line of Irish-Catholics; he and my mother, who was raised Lutheran, decided to raise my sisters and me in the Catholic Church. In high school, my religious identity became an active choice: even when my parents took breaks from going to church, I would drive myself.