Life in Ladd: Post Epicuria

Talk of the Quad: As an eagle towards the sky

I’ve heard that birds are disappearing. I don’t understand all the implications of mass extinction, but I’m sure that it does not augur well for us. Maybe it’s encouraging that birds have recently found refuge in the Orient. In response to three articles published two weeks ago, I wanted to share something I noticed.
I recently saw a Chukar partridge in Brunswick. I was walking by 52 Harpswell when I spotted two older men across the street, frozen with eyes fixed on something in the lawn next to me. They were pointing and talking excitedly to each other. I will not give a detailed description of the Chukar—the article 2 weeks ago did that well enough—but will say that it’s beautiful. It certainly stands out in a suburban landscape. For its size, it was extremely disruptive that afternoon: the two men all but ran into the road to get a closer look, stopping traffic, while I scrambled to take a picture of it. This encounter roughened an otherwise smooth walk home that had been completely sanded down by routine. It reminded me that there is more to the landscape than my usual walks reveal: there are worlds besides our own that we manage to distance ourselves from but cannot quite escape. Usually, however, it takes something as outwardly extraordinary as a Chukar to wake me to this fact.
A walk across campus is usually rushed—a way from A to B. The Bowdoin landscape is pretty but is rarely more than a background for our determined lives—and a predictable, safe background at that. An erratic squirrel is the most disruptive thing most of us encounter regularly and even that is hardly enough to free us from our busy heads. We rarely observe what we see.
This summer, I worked with a number of avid birders in a community where loafing is virtue. They walked slowly and paused frequently, keen on small details and nuances I could not perceive. They saw things I didn’t and loved the wildlife refuge in a way I could not. As Liam Taylor’s Talk of the Quad explained, going birding gives us the chance to observe and connect with beings radically different from us. Done well, it can be a hobby of humility: past plumage and species lies an experience alien but not entirely inaccessible to us. The distance implied by the difference need not be insurmountable.
In the solitary setting of a beach or forest, it may be natural to step into a more active, inquisitive mindset. But to assume the posture of a birder in our crowded human habitats is a spiritual challenge. It’s one thing to realize we share a planet with people and things with inner lives as rich and vibrant as our own—in theory or in momentary glimpses in the woods—but it’s another, much thornier thing to adjust ourselves according to this knowledge. To wake up and find our mundane surroundings solid and pulsing with meaning. This opening of ears and eyes seems to ask for a lot of heart.
But we don’t have to talk abstractly about what has practical implications and examples close to home. You don’t need to dwell on last year’s frustrating campus dialogue about race to begin to suspect that we aren’t good listeners: I think about any time I let prodding personal stress keep me from following a class discussion, having a conversation with an author or understanding a friend; or how fear of awkwardness and discomfort—truly self-centered concerns—shackle all modes of discourse. There is clearly a difference between ideas you listen to and noises you hear, just as there is between seeing a living thing and feeling yourself in its eyes. Good listening is like questioning: a pursuit of truth, valuable whether or not you get an answer. It should move us. In a community of bad listeners, my peers become a collection of background noises and decorations.
Last February, Marc Lamont Hill gave a talked titled “Fighting for Freedom in an Hour of Chaos” to a small Kresge audience. He talked about global politics, Black Lives Matter and our campus, which was struggling to make sense of itself at the time. I gather that we all want to feel safe and somewhat ordered. We want to know what’s happening and especially where we are going. Most of us plan courses of life on a clean piece of paper, letting our lives fall into place around a few formal activities. We even pencil-in Ivies: binge drinking and hookup culture are not distractions from but rather natural extensions of resume culture. Waxing effusive at meals about the week’s work or the weekend’s social chores, it’s easy to ignore the soft uneasiness in each other’s voices or sadness behind the customary cheer. Our lives are rigidly structured and our community unstable. Last year had many people questioning whether or not Bowdoin even is a community. At least last year people were questioning.
It’s possible that the way we order our personal lives has made the community ill; and it’s possible that below the C.V. and the hard athletic bodies, we are not so healthy and secure. Hill prescribed “radical listening” to our ailing nation and our wavering campus: only by seeking knowledge through other’s perspectives and vigorously questioning our own could we become a community. This, he implied, is the sort of knowledge that diversity and a liberal arts education offer, but hardly guarantee. It cannot be honestly pursued on the way to something else.
Now my point has barely fledged, but I’ve said more than enough: a refuge is a good thing, but it’s far from a home. Birds belong in conversation.
Ben Bristol is a member of the Class of 2017.

Talk of the Quad: Coming out Christian

This past summer, I became a born-again Christian. I have since harbored a burning desire to share this experience with others.
I was raised in a Christian household, however, as I moved into high school, I began neglecting most Christian teachings. I left little room for God within my life of rebellion. I usually justified these actions by highlighting the hypocrisy of the Church. Like many, I wrongly equated the Church—which is a broken and earthly institution—with the divine Word of God. I thus rejected Scripture due to human hypocrisy and fraudulence.
This year, everything changed. I first began to sense shifts during the second semester of my sophomore year. It began with a sudden disdain for Bowdoin’s hook-up culture. I gradually began to sense a darkness within the College’s social culture. This was not merely a recognition of youthful pitfalls. Some might call it the beginnings of a spiritual awakening. Others might say I was “finding” myself. For me and most other born-again Christians, it is obvious that God was chasing me. I became aware of the works of certain forces that semester, but I could not give the forces a name.
It was during this time that I also became more aware of a subtle emptiness within myself. In hindsight, this void had been present for years. It was not especially invasive; in fact, I had always been a fairly happy person. On paper, my life was amazing. I had a privileged childhood, seventeen years of elite education, great friends, hobbies and good grades. I was not fighting severe depression or dealing with family woes. Still, I did not know Fulfillment.
One day during this past spring break, my mom brought home the film “War Room.” The movie’s plot centers around a mother who is able to rebuild her broken family with the assistance of Jesus Christ. This suffering woman is transformed into what believers often call a “prayer warrior.” I initially approached the film with skepticism and slight annoyance. However, about halfway through the film, I was overcome with unexplainable awe. Within days, I had repressed the movie’s message; fortunately, the film had already planted a seed of faith within me.
The turning point began at the onset of summer. I spent the first half of the summer conducting research on mass incarceration and the media as part of the Mellon Mays program. I spent almost every waking hour reading and writing in solitude. As I studied the oft-concealed history of our country, I began to see past the elite’s web of lies. The deceptive illusions blinding the public became startlingly apparent. This realization heightened my desire for knowledge. As my understanding of reality began to defog, it became obvious that a key piece of this puzzle was missing.
Though I had become aware of the forces of darkness, the corresponding Light was my last and most precious discovery. As I was researching inside Helmreich House one July day, I found myself lost in an internet hole. I was deep in this study session when a source referred me to the Bible. Strangely enough, in my search for knowledge, I had inadvertently turned to the Book that I had previously deemed outdated. Needless to say, I was shocked by my findings. Within the prophecies describing the End of Days, I saw my own research. I saw the chaos and deception that characterizes modern society.
As we all know, this summer was especially violent. As I read, I realized that all of the brutality, confusion and destruction that we are seeing—such as increasing turbulence in the Middle East, government conspiracy and spikes in natural disasters—has been foretold. Not vaguely—specifically. In that moment, my spiritual understanding came full circle. I spent years attempting to ignore my Christian upbringing. This summer, it came back to me in the most alarmingly beautiful manner.
After the Mellon Mays program ended, I began interning at the Innocence Project in New York. By no coincidence, my New York home was that of my mom’s good friend—a minister. In the city, my faith in Christ flourished. The Innocence Project—a nonprofit law clinic that serves the wrongly convicted—taught me the value and necessity of servitude. My days there strengthened my commitment to serving the underserved. On August 14th, I dedicated my life to Christ at a Brooklyn church.
Since that day, life has taken on a new meaning. Frankly, the insignificance of the physical world is now glaring. I have begun to understand the Spirit. Moreover, I now understand the true meaning of good and evil. I know it sounds crazy, and that’s because it is. Our world is obsessed with explaining life through logic and reason; as a result, our world is broken. That was my old world, and broken it was.
I did not understand the term “born-again” until this ineffable transformation happened to me. I say “happened to me” because this transformation occurred by no action of my own. I had immense doubts and could not see past the facades of religious constructs. I was not searching for God when he found me; it is solely by His grace that I am found. Because of this transformation, I am able to truly see clearly for the first time in twenty years. I now know Life. And I am whole.
John 9:24-25: “Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner. He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”Adira Polite is a member of the class of 2018.

Talk of the Quad

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Amber Orosco

Contributor

September 30, 2016

When the topic of Epicuria, the Men’s Rugby team’s annual fall party, came up, all of us who live in Ladd House had major concerns. What might go wrong when hundreds of alcohol-bearing and toga-wearing students came through the doors of our home? Most of us had only experienced the night once, and some never at all. We had no idea what to expect and what was expected of us.

To our relief, the Men’s Rugby team took care of practically everything before the party, but we were still anxious about what would become of our house. I was most protective of the second floor bathrooms. Given that there would only be one bathroom for the hundreds of guests on the first floor, it was assumed that some would inevitably use the bathroom upstairs. All we had to go on were stories of past Epicurias, where all sorts of goodies were found in the bathrooms and showers the morning after.

Before we knew it there were togas, tacos and tons of Bowdoin students coming through our doors some expecting a night that would define their first semester. Upon assessing the aftermath, it was found that we had done a decent job. There were, however, some interesting finds. There were stray togas everywhere, one of them in an Elsa print (nice) and another hanging from the chandelier (impressive). We awoke to a broken thermostat in the basement and a dislodged railing in the first floor bathroom. There were tacos in just about every corner of the house, which provided us with the prolonged scent of tacos mixed with the usual fragrance of beer and BO. There was also pee everywhere: puddles in the elevator, a cup filled in the basement and mysterious stains in the hallways.

Additionally, we heard an interesting tale of a couple consummating their love for togas through performative sex in the coat closet. We found more evidence of friendly activity in the Mahogany Room: a lovely used latex product in the middle of the floor boards accompanied by its blue wrapper (shout out to the rugby player who had to clean that up). Another shout out to the owner of the taco truck who not only aided everyone’s stomachs with tacos but also helped a distressed student who appeared to be napping on a tree just outside the doors of Ladd around 2 a.m. (real hero right there). The real show started when I found myself awake at 6 a.m. and watched some lost students make the trek back to their residences after interesting night-time activities—toga on…or in hand.

Although minor accidents were inevitable, we did everything we could think of to prepare for the night. We knew we had to be proactive about was ensuring the safety of the students attending Epicuria. Ladd house member Tessa Epstein ’19 took the lead in planning a consent-awareness poster series the week before the big night. In the end—despite the wall damage and the various concerning smells—things could have gone much worse. It’s amazing that this is the second large-scale campus event in a row (the other one being Ivies), where there were no transports. As house members and the proclaimed “social leaders” of the campus, we should continue the trend of happy and healthy fun at Bowdoin. Long live Epicuria.

Amber Orosco is a member of the Class of 2019.

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