I spent the weekend in Chicago with my sister, blocks from McCormick Seminary and a few miles from Fourth Presbyterian Church. In many ways, these two Chicago institutions have played a pivotal role in shaping my faith. Two years ago, as a first year student at Macalester College, I joined four fellow Mac students and our associate chaplain at a Covenant Network conference at Fourth; we spent the night with recent Mac alumni who were living and studying at McCormick. The conference was my first awakening to real, live liberal Christianity: it was an introduction to a faith I could really claim.

In addition to being a Presbyterian nerd, I’m also a history nerd, and I love the rising notion among historians that memory and place are intimately tied together. Just as I associate Chicago with my spiritual awakening, so to do we as human beings create and construct our memories firmly on the foundation of where we’ve lived our lives. We are who we are because of where we’ve been, where we’ve cried and where we’ve laughed.

Sure, that might sound pretty obvious, and in a way it is. Louisville will always be the Presbyterian Mecca for me, and when someone says "Kentucky," I think I’ll always think of late-night pizza runs at the leadership event, navigating dark paths to the bathroom at CoCo meetings, and Humna.

What places have special significance to you? Why? What do those places say about you and the commitments you’ve made?

Hillary Mohaupt
Macalester College (St. Paul, MN)
NNPCW Coordinating Committee