Like many Catholics, I spent last Sunday nodding off in Mass or trying to get the toddler in the pew in front of me to laugh. Like still more Catholics, I promptly forgot the sermon and jostled with my fellow parishioners to exit the Church when the one hour time limit was reached. I went to Church with my family, simply because it was the thing to do. Tradition demanded it and, being a sucker for the old-fashioned way, I hastily obeyed. Now that I am back at Middlebury, I will likely continue my habit of rarely attending Mass. I did not stop going simply due to some strange atheistic peer pressure; it just stopped making sense to me. So I stopped, and happily let my identity be molded by our academic, merit-driven community.
Religion is a tricky thing, and all too often it is intensely personal in its definition and application. While I no longer attend Church and do not feel particularly bad about it, there are elements of that community which a place like Middlebury cannot make up for. Religion may not be a prerequisite for a contemplative life, but I am sure most address it in their doctrine.
Now before you dismiss me as a little out of a touch, let me explain. At almost any place of higher education we can rely on a few staples. First and foremost is academic rigor. Here we pride ourselves on how hard we work and the quality of said work. Seriously, how many times per Proctor visit do you hear the phrase, “I have so much work.” Similarly – and perhaps this is more Middlebury specific – we take great care to eat healthy and exercise, satisfying our physical well-being. Lastly, many of us strive to be satisfied in our pursuits and satisfy our emotional selves. Bear with me here as I go out on a limb, but there is something in the contemplative and spiritual that is left unresolved in college.
I can guess what you’re thinking: something about new age or religious nonsense. Just humor me for a minute. (We all know you’re just killing time reading the paper while you wait for your friends in Proctor). If we were to define a contemplative life as self-reflective and concerned for the well-being of others, how many of you would fill that requirement? I would utterly fail. Who has time for that?
We pride ourselves on the strength of our community, yet that very definition of community is unachievable without a common sense of selflessness. In an environment of high stress mid-terms, job interviews, GPA worries and near constant anxiety, is it any wonder we spend so little time wondering how to improve ourselves? Is it any wonder we have so little patience for the problems of others or so little focus on the positive experience of those around us? Religion by no means mandates or succeeds in producing utterly selfless, community-centric people. After all, each one of us knows our share of bigots. Yet, at least it is an avenue for the discussion. In our on-the-run, work-until-you-drop, please-don’t-drop-my-GPA world, we have little time or energy to work on being better people.
This is a wonderful ideal. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone were nice, right? Personally, I have very little energy or patience for my neighbors; I find it weighs me down to take on other people’s worries. Extending that to a stranger would seem an almost impossible task, and certainly one with no guarantee of personal reward. Which is, after all, what we want right? However, none of us can possibly come up with an excuse for not putting any effort into being less selfish people. Even if that means something as small as waking up in the morning and trying to be a better partner, sibling, cousin or neighbor.
I had an interesting conversation with a mentor of mine who repeatedly asked me the question, what do you want? I managed to conjure up some professional sounding words concerning a future career. In an hours time, I ended up where we all end up. I want to be around friends and family who I take care of and who take care of me. It is not exactly a complicated goal, certainly not an original one. To achieve it we need to step outside ourselves for just a little bit and pay attention to the people around us. So I leave you with this final thought: decades from now when people talk about you, what would you have them say? My hope is that it wouldn’t be, “they were a pretty good student and made some good money.” Rather, with any luck, it’ll be something like, “they cared more for their friends than they did themselves.”
