Bethel University - Spire Yearbook (St Paul, MN)

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There is constant tension here for me, because I am not in my environment. I am constantly aware of my family and home community, as if my people’s eyes were fixed on me from a distance, their collective expectations I came from. At the same time, I am aware of the eyes of people here. I will always stand out among them, and nothing I do goes unnoticed. So, I am on stage here. I am performing for audiences. But I have become used to the eyes, I have learned to live with the tension. It's almost like being on the court with my team down on points. The odds are against winning, but I cannot allow myself to lose. Right now I've got the ball and I can see my goal. I must negotiate the opposition as best I can, but I can t quit while I still have a chance. How should I react to people? Should I hate them, showing my hostility? Should I bend over backwards to prove that I’m harmless? Or maybe I should just try to ignore them, though that’s not always easy either. Sometimes I wish I could confront them all. and see how they would answer. Do they really believe we are all brothers and sisters? Do they believe we are all equal under the same God, a God who knows what really goes on inside people? I wish they would really face these questions; then I could begin to hope. JM. oe

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A great deal of learning at college is non-academic. Values are sifted and arranged with eyes focused on the future as it fits with truth learned today. This woman finds the formation of her ideals most intensely challenged in the tension between Bethel and the rest of our world... Sept. 17 This evening, between some fruitless hours in the library and catching the Silvercrest bus. I went to the bathroom. After I sounded the roar of the toilet, suddenly, silence ... I felt the absence of all my worries. All alone, I hummed some low notes, and rich acoustics surrounded me. (It sounds like I’m talking about Nirvana!) Then I had a stare-down with myself in the mirror and asked. Why do I always feel so relaxed in public restrooms?” Still don’t know. On the bus my mind whirled like a top. Images ricocheted in my head, from the chapel singer, to the dining room, to FA 313 — all over the campus — and between all these, in kaleidoscope fashion, appeared faces and shacks I had seen last summer around the Appalachian mission. Wish every student could do SMP. Sometimes I wonder what Gretchen would think if she walked around Bethel. Working in the coal mines got her nothing but dirty lungs. I hope all is well with her. Sept. 20 ... Why can't men just say what they mean! Tom made me so frustrated in the Lemon Lounge today. If he feels hurt because Kathy isn’t interested in him, why does he beat around the bush? I can just picture some guy writing in his journal tonight, Why can’t women just say what they mean? Any rate, it’s easier to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics than to translate what some guys say.