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

out beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. i'll meet you there.
when the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other'
doesn't make any sense.
(rumi)

“Belonging” has been the October theme for a worship community of which I am a part. Someone said, last night, that she is always amazed at our ability to belong to one another – to be in community and to live among each other. Belonging is not something I comprehend well. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense outside of faith. It is one of those things we cannot see but we trust is there, for us always. Belonging is truth, I think.
Belonging just is. And thank God, it always is.

enjoy the weekend,
katie

The number one principle that everyone in Sunday school learns, first thing, is that God told us to "love thy neighbor". It makes sense that this is the first thing to learn at young age, I’m sure it cuts down on rowdiness in the classroom and potential fist fights breaking out before service begins. This message inevitably gets lost somewhere between middle school and high school graduation, because at that point, parents become concerned on just how much love their son or daughter is showing their neighbor. But now, somewhere between the beginning and the end of college, I’m starting to wonder just how much love is a good thing.

It’s a legitimate question for any person of any age to ask him or her self, but especially for a young woman like me. I go to a large school (over 30,000 students) in an even larger city (over 600,000 people) at a very urban campus. On a daily basis I interact with people from all walks of life, background, race, nationality, political persuasion, religion, sexuality, etc. We’re a diverse group, I must say, even within classes. While I try very hard to approach each situation with the love God would want me to show, I find that I fail most often in the little interactions: I ignore people begging on the street when I’m walking alone, I often forget important details involving friends—like their birthdays or what classes their taking. The biggest failure, I think for most people in my city, involves driving. If I’m behind the wheel, I will vocalize my opinions (rarely positive ones) about the people driving around me and especially the pedestrians walking nearby. Especially when I’m walking (which is most of the time), any car that comes near my crosswalk, regardless of the stoplight color, is almost always subjected to the dirtiest of looks. If looks could kill, that taxi cab driver would be dead, buried, and decomposed.

This semester in particular, I find myself wondering just what God meant by love your neighbor. Did He mean love them like you would your best friend or your family? Love them like your boyfriend? Because honestly, there are plenty of times when I question my love for all of those people, especially my family (we’re a kooky and opinionated lot). I mean, I love them at the end of the day, but there are plenty of times when I don’t especially like them. So can you love someone without liking them? And what kind of love is that?

Everyday, I wake up, and sincerely hope I do not interact with my next door neighbor, Paul. Literally, I have trouble loving my neighbor. He drives me absolutely crazy, and the worst part is, I’m not totally sure why. Outwardly, he’s a very nice fellow, but something about his manner seems to be off. It’s a serious thing, in a study abroad program of 9 people (yes, I’m studying abroad, forgot to mention that earlier) to thoroughly dislike someone, because you’re constantly with them. We live together and have class together, but thankfully do not work together. So four days a week, I’m guaranteed eight to ten Paul-free hours. But that doesn’t help the social time when it’s hard for eight of us to hang out without him, or to invite the boys from next door over, but leave him out of the invitation.

In my defense, I do have a little bit of justification for disliking him. He’s very demeaning toward women but in a chivalrous way. He constantly treats my roommates and me like we cannot handle anything. No, we can’t walk to the store by ourselves at 3:00 in the afternoon—it would be unsafe. No, four girls can’t go out to bars in a very safe neighborhood as a group—it’s not ok. We can’t even carry our groceries up the stairs. Again, this all sounds like a great thing—a man around the place to help out opening jars and reaching things on the high shelves—but it’s actually fairly insulting. All five of the women in my apartment have been managing independently for a few years now; we’re perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves. Moreover, the tension came to a head two weeks ago when Paul attempted to condone rape in the military because most of the rapes occurred when both parties are drunk. He left our apartment and hasn’ t been back since then, and honestly, I’m not sure he’ll ever be welcome again.

So, do I have to love him? To be a good Christian who follows God’s word, do I have to love him the way I would love my brother? I just can’t decide. I know I don’t hate him; for instance, if he was in physical danger, I ’d probably protect him if I could. I’m not planning on pushing him in front of a bus any time soon, but I’m also not planning on inviting him over for a cup of tea to hear about his day or to welcome him into my apartment to watch "Grey’s Anatomy" with the rest of us. There’s a clear line in my mind—I don’t want to be his friend, but I don’t want him to be tortured or killed or anything remotely similar. Essentially, as long as nothing horrible happens to him on my watch, I think we’ll be fine politely ignoring one another. I don’t sit or stand near him during class, and during our weekly full program dinners, I politely ignore his every word or movement. Basically, I pretend he does not exist, unless by societal standards, it would be rude not to acknowledge him. Again, I ’d save his life if I had to (I feel somewhat responsible for the bodily well-being of those around me, and even to some degree his emotional well-being), but in every interaction, I do just enough not to feel guilty. I behave, as best I can, above reproach. Can that be considered showing God’s love? Or, if nothing else, can I have a get out of sinning free card, because I’m human and I can’t always rise above? I’ll be looking for the answer in my prayers, and until then, I’ll just keep hoping that God loves Paul enough that I don’t have to.

Virginia Hines
Boston University (Boston, MA)
NNPCW Coordinating Committee

Hello from Oregon! I am so excited to be blogging this week. I am Hailee Barnes and go to Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. I am currently a sophomore and going through the sophomore crazy time of trying to figure out what exactly I want to study and do as a college student. College is a tricky time in our lives where we are in a transition from living with parents to having a career and life of our own. I feel as though I was in a daze and shock last year with all these new opportunities, responsibilities, and being away from home for the first time. My friends laugh at all my attempts at making "life plans" as there have been about four of these just since September of this year; I have lost count from last year. I try to trust that things will all work out, but this often gives me the chills, some may say that I am a control freak.

My campus can be quite conducive to making one feel very disconnected from the world and get caught up in the life of classes, papers, tests, sports, clubs, and parties. NNPCW so far has been my "get away." I thoroughly enjoyed attending the leadership event this summer. I had no idea what to expect. I shied away from the Christian groups on my campus due to contrasts in focus and activity and did not know what NNPCW would be like. To my great findings NNPCW was just what I was looking for, a group of college women who support each other and are joined together by their belief in Jesus Christ. I have learned so much already from my fellow NNPCW members and CoCo members. At the leadership event it was suggested to me to apply for CoCo [NNPCW's Coordinating Committee] and even though I did not have a clear idea what CoCo was I did and attended my first CoCo meeting in September. I am so excited to work with these amazing women and learn more about them and from them. I am excited to plan this year’s leadership event with other NNPCW members.

In this time of confusion and frustration I have been so thankful that I was directed to NNPCW. I often feel as though every decision I make is so important and stress over it for a long time. I am learning slowly to take a deep breath and remember that I am not alone in this journey of life and that if I focus on the small catches that I will miss the big picture. I have turned towards support from women going through this time and those who have already been here and am learning so much. As Noelle blogged about untold stories I am learning through my experiences what my mom, aunts, grandmother, and other older women must have gone through and how much they must have to teach me. One of my goals for the year is to ask women in my life their story, why they believe what they do, how they have come to that, and what experiences they have to share with me. Until next time, take care.

Hailee Barnes
Lewis and Clark College
NNPCW Coordinating Committee

My current mood is road rage..because i realized I have a problem with anger..my friends may not notice it because I appear to be a patient person..on the outside i handle situations with the poise and grace..but its only by the grace of God that this happens..My father and I went to my favorite Chinese Food Restaurant in the city Charli Mom a place that most of the people reading this have been with me..My cookie read "The road to success is a lonely one." When youre called for a certain purpose and set apart by God..your lifes journey is a lonely one..From a young age Ive wondered why my life experiences have been 10 times worse than other peoples..I feel i have road rage becaue often times i am traveling on life’s journey with absolutely no worries, chillin in the HOV lane with all my family and good friends, cruise control is on and God has my life on auto-pilot..suddenly something goes wrong and the upset i feel is undescribable..I know many of you have felt this way..have you experienced pain so deep that you couldnt even word the way you felt?..or when you get surprised and you cant even react to the excitement of it all?..road rage can be brought on by other peoples actions or even your own..when someone does something so bad or hurtful to you that you just want to curse and carry on...but is that how God wants us to react? psalms 34:19 says many are the afflictions of the righteous but God will deliver you out of them all...isnt it great to know that the God I serve will be there to heal my every wound every time I crash and burn...

Fortune cookie read: The road to success is a lonely one

My fortune reads: The road to heaven is a lonely one, but "if I suffer with Him then Imma reign with him so either way I’m ordained to win"

Iyana Davis
NNPCW Coordinating Committee
Spelman College (Atlanta, GA)

This past Saturday marked the first day of the eighth month of my pregnancy. Two months to go. Eight short weeks.

I recently reread my blog post from the beginning of my third trimester, when I had three months to go. I was much more apprehensive about giving birth back then. I’m glad to say that time and my childbirth classes have served to calm my nerves.

What’s made the most difference, I think, is simply knowing more. I realize now how little I knew about birth before I began my childbirth classes, and my lack of knowledge startles me. What’s more, I realize that not only did I know so little about birth in general, I also knew very little about birth in particular. Think about all the women in your life who have given birth: your grandmothers, your mother, your step-mother, your sister, your aunts. How many of their birth stories do you know? I’m not talking about knowing a few details like how many hours she was in labor, or what each baby weighed. I’m talking about knowing her story: What did the experience make her feel? How did it change her view of the world? Did it alter her relationship with her body?

Do you know the birth stories of the women in your life? I confess that I do not. What other stories are we failing to share with each other as women?

We live in a society that has little patience for the laborious listening to stories. But stories shape us, they tell us what we know. It’s no wonder I know so little about birth, not having been told—or not having listened to—the stories that my friends and my family have to tell about their own birthing experiences. Again, I wonder what else worth knowing is not being shared, because the stories are not being told and heard. I wondered this as I visited my grandmother during a trip home this past weekend. She has severe dementia and doesn’t recognize me. Our time for sharing stories is past. What have I lost?

What I have gained is a determination to ask for people’s stories, and to share my own. I am going to send my other grandmother a tape recorder and a journal, so that she can record her stories for me. I encourage you to begin working to create a culture around you that shares stories. There is much to learn, and much to teach.

Noelle