Death Do Us Part Jaden Massaro

Withered roses on the arbor arch wedding bells play a funeral march the afterparty, the afterlife small talk with Orpheus’s wife. Waltzes with wishful siren ghosts echoes of their translucent toasts:

“To death!” do us part, but life goes on and on and on and on and on on my own.

You’re the secret I’ll take to the grave I’ll wait here. A life or a seat I will save.

The six-foot chasm, seventy years to cross oh, time was always lost.

So, dance with me, they’re keeping score a billion miles and six feet more endlessly twirling on the ghostly dance floor on and on and on and on and on and on my own.

Departure from Tennessee

Jacob Zabka

I dreamed of this day for so long and leaving Tennessee was filled with a lot of emotions I was overwhelmed with. People would ask me if leaving Tennessee was bittersweet and, with those that I wasn’t as close with, I would tell them that it was. However, people who I was really close with knew that I was filled with joy that I couldn’t describe. My move from Tennessee wasn’t an out-of-the-blue decision, but a decision that was on my mind for three years. Those three years led up to the evening of my departure and journey across America, to land where I felt was home, and that home was Seal Beach, California.

The decision really started when I came to Manhattan Beach, California, to visit my cousins. I landed at LAX, and there was something that festered in my heart and soul the second I left the airport. It was a feeling that most people can only imagine if they experience it themselves. It is the feeling of a void being filled that hasn’t been for so long. I got to experience things that I didn’t know my heart longed. On my first day, I ran to the beach, and when I got to the edge of the water, the beauty of California struck my eyes. I was instantly hooked, and the rest of the week was filled with food that wasn’t chain restaurants, but hole-in-the-wall places, coffee that was better than I ever had, surfing, walking under the California sun and green palm trees, sitting down watching the sunset over the ocean. Watching those sunsets gave me peace that I believe came from Jesus. It was a peace that I needed in my life, and Jesus knew that I was meant to be there. Leaving California was like a knife to my heart, because I was leaving a place that I knew was my true home. My heart was no longer in Tennessee anymore…my heart belonged in California.

Journeying through my freshman year at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, I was honestly quite sad the whole time. Every day I thought about California. I thought about the waves crashing, the sunsets, the food, and the peace that had graced me when I was there. It was the second semester of my freshman year that I prayed to Jesus, asking if I was meant to move there. I prayed for two weeks before I got an answer, and Jesus told me “You are meant to go there. If you want to go there right now I will make everything work out for you.

However, I’m asking you to wait a year and trust me.” I wanted to leave that very instant, but my heart was tugging at me to stay an extra year and trust Jesus…and I did. Little did I know that this decision would make the next year the hardest year of my life.

My sophomore year of college was brutal, to say the least. Over that year I made three trips out to California to visit my best friends that have moved out there. The year was filled with joy when I was in California, and filled with so much sadness when I would return to Tennessee. I lost a lot of friends that I invested so much time into, I lost a lot of hope at points, I was working all the time or studying my butt off to get the best scholarship that I could, and for a year I was at a very low point in my life. At points I would be furious with God, asking why I was feeling all these emotions when I followed what he asked of me. Little did I realize at the time that he was preparing my heart, and it was about two to three months before that I read the book of Job. The book of Job wrecked my heart because it was everything that I was feeling. I was experiencing the pain and sadness that Job did. God wrecked my heart in that moment because everything that Job questioned God on was what I was questioning him on as well. I realized at that point how much God was protecting me over that year, and I was able to find that happiness again.

The night before my departure was filled with all my favorite things: my favorite food which was this meal called chicken and rice that my mom would always make, sparkling lime Lacroix, and playing a card game called 3-13. I had everything already packed and my roommate and I loaded up the car. While there was so much joy in leaving Tennessee, I did find it a bit bittersweet. I was leaving my family that I loved, but I was also leaving a place where God gave me a good foundation for life. God, for 20 years, was preparing me and my heart for all that time so that he could do work for me out here in California. I woke up on the morning of July 27th, 2021, ready to take on the new adventure of going to my new home. Everything was already packed in my car, and all I had to do was get in it and go. My family and I gathered in our living room and my mom prayed over me for my new journey in California. I knew how sad she was, so I gave her the biggest hug I could possibly give her, and let her know how thankful I was for her. She has always been my biggest supporter, and I wanted to make sure I knew how much I loved her. My roommate and I walked out my front door, got in my car, and we began our journey through America, anticipating our return to home. Right before we pulled out of that driveway, my life flashed before my eyes. It was filled with old memories from Tennessee with friends, family, and events, but it also flashed with some visions for my future life in California. It was a sign that what I was doing was in God’s plan and I gave him thanks for that. When I think about this departure, I could write about every moment of the night before I left. I could recount every thought going through my head, every feeling I had in my heart, and every word I spoke. However, to me, the substance behind this departure lies in the years leading up to it. The heart of the departure lies within everything that came before it, and that is what makes it so beautiful. It was the recount of the hand of God over my life for so long.

Driven Michael Robles

“Are you excited?”

My dad held the wheel with both hands, 10 and 2, just like the driving schools used to teach.

“Hmm?” My nose was stuck in Ender’s Game.

“For the trip,” he said with a smile. “Finally get to go out in the summer past that hellhole of a city.”

I turned down the music from my phone. “I don’t know, I like the city. L.A. is nice, sometimes.”

My dad scoffed. “C’mon! Bumper to bumper traffic all day, every day. Crackheads and homeless on every corner. You can walk a mile in any direction and not know a single person. That’s no way to live!”

“Ehh. There’s a certain charm to it.”

I looked back down at my book.

“Well?” He asked. I could feel his eyes on me.

“Huh?”

“Are you excited?”

I closed my book. “Oh. Yeah, I guess.”

His eyebrow raised as he tilted his head. “Well, you certainly aren’t acting like it.”

“I mean, yeah, sure. It’s just, camping isn’t exactly my forte. It’s hot, there’s tons of bugs. Sleeping bags don’t seem very comfortable.” An endless road of desert stood ahead of us. The GPS showed we had more than a hundred miles ahead of us until the next turn. Anna and my mom were asleep in the back seat along with tons of bags, our chairs, tent, and coolers.

“You’ve never been camping, though.”

I knew this conversation wouldn’t end. He expected an answer. He expected his answer.

“I don’t know, but new things like this make me nervous.”

I instantly regretted buying into his questioning.

He licked the top of his lip from sweat. His sunglasses already started making indentations into his eyes, changing his complexion.

“You can’t go into a new experience being nervous all the time. Sometimes you just gotta take it in stride and follow through.”

I rolled my eyes.

“This trip is supposed to be fun,” he continued. “Your mom and sister really wanted you to come.”

“I know,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Besides. There’s nothing to be nervous about. It’s just us four.”

I reached for my bag on the floor of the car to grab my sketchbook but stopped. I knew he’d think I was just trying to distract myself. Or ignore him. Part of me wanted to do both.

“You should grow out of nerves like that. It’s not good for you.”

I sighed under my breath. “I can’t exactly grow out of nerves, dad.”

“They make people do crazy things, or nothing at all. They get in the way.”

“Crazy like this,” I asked, showing him my left hand. Torn skin appeared on the corners of my fingertips, dry blood peppered around some of the areas.

I’ve had the habit of biting my nails since I was a kid. My parents assumed I’d grow out of it, but never did. It got bad when I was in elementary school. I bite sometimes to my top knuckle. It was an anxious tick, I suppose.

He turned from the road for a second. “Ew. You do that when you’re nervous?”

“And anxious.” I looked at my nails.

“Anxiety,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Of course.”

“Well, it’s better than what happened before,” I chuckled. His fraction of a smile faded. “Stop. We don’t talk about that.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. A tense silence filled the car for what felt like hours. The clock on the dashboard never moved, even though I so desperately wanted it to. I tried to think of something to say, but I felt forbidden. I felt annoyed. Irritated. Still had eighty-five miles to go.

He spoke up. “That’s not something you should joke about.”

“Why? It’s not like anyone acts like it happened anyway.”

“It’s hard to talk about. It was hard for us too, especially. Joking about it like that is insincere. And disrespectful.”

I could feel my voice raising. “Hard? How do you think I felt, dad? Being sent off for however long without being told when I could come back. Being told it was for my own good, and that I need to “heal,” but not having a say in it. I felt like a character in a show that just up and left and came back like nothing happened.”

He didn’t respond. His eyes stayed on the road. I could feel his breath getting heavier, practically huffing in the heat. My hands balled up into fists, straining. My cheek got sore from biting on it. I looked back at my mom and Anna, and breathed.

I lowered my voice. “It’s like there’s this empty space of time I was gone and I just have to act like it didn’t happen. And I gotta just say “yes sir” and “yes ma’am,” smile, and go on my merry way. Like that whole year didn’t happen.”

I looked at him, half-expecting an answer of some sort apart from ending it. The silence frustrated me even more. If I’m being honest with myself, part of me hoped he’d yell back.

“Just drop it,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

You never do, I thought. I turned back to my window, staring at the desert. Sixty miles to go. An hour and twenty-five minutes left.

“I just want to have a nice vacation for everyone,” he said, one hand off the wheel.

I kept staring at the Joshua trees. “I know, dad.” I reached for my headphone, but decided against it.

“Can you turn the station to 100.1?”

I turned the knob. “Yes sir.”

Shot in Chinatown, Los Angeles, the vintage car in front of run-down Cinema Land, tells a story of time. One story kept pristine and one left to the conditions of the world. These varying worlds caught my eye and were worthy of being captured. Shot on Portra 400, the warm tones of summer in Los Angeles cast its midday light onto the scene, and produced this image I call A Car in Cinema Land.

A Car in Cinema Land

Jacob Zabka

Ethics and Speech: Do the Ends Justify the Means of Sharing Your Faith?

Jade Promise McClintock

Vanguard University Department of Psychology

Diversity in the Helping Profession: PSYC-331-01-21FA

Professor Elizabeth Powell

December 13th, 2021

Life is precious, and a soul is everlasting. To save a life or a soul, one may be willing to risk it all. But if a life is saved by threatening death and a soul is redeemed by killing its spirit, is that really a life, and is that truly a soul? How can life be lived out of the fear of death? How can a soul prosper with a broken spirit? When the “ends” are defined as the goal of conversion, then the “means” that have damaged souls and spirits are far from justified.

In this essay, I was directed to “thoughtfully argue [my] personal opinion” about ethics and evangelism as it relates to public speaking. I will be graded on my ability to portray my argument in a civil and conscious manner because that is what is most effective in presenting myself as a speaker worthy to be listened to, and in my persuasiveness. Would you, as a listener or reader, listen and comprehend my message if I were on the street with a sign telling you that you will go to Hell if you did not agree with my opinion? Would you comprehend my message in this essay if I were to publicly burn, destroy, and attempt to outlaw depictions of your deity, God the Father? Perhaps you would change your opinion out loud out of fear, but you will not understand it. In Mark 4:11-12, Jesus explains how He, the holy son of God, portrays the good news. He said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand.” Jesus has given us the goals one should have when explaining the message. When the goal is evangelism, Jesus commands us to speak in a way that promotes in-depth perception and understanding rather than surface-level observation.

But is our God a murderer? Is He unforgiving? Does our God give up on us when we are just beginning our journey? Although many Christians love to see themselves as superior souls to non-Christians, we were all once that motorcyclist, and our God acted as one that guided us to him. God never gives up on us. Jeremiah 29:11 states, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Would a God that does not harm His people kill this man before He was able to be saved? The ends do not justify the means because the “means” promote an ungodly God.

When preaching of a God that hurts His people, you are preaching of a false deity. Those that threaten deaths on corners of streets, spout hateful words at pride events, protest outside Hindu temples, and burn churches that marry same-sex people are not following a God that the Bible depicts. They are not leading a soul to be saved by The Holy Father that is shown in the Bible. They are leading a soul to quake in fear over a lie. Are these the means you say we should condone? The means that lie to promote the savior complex some self-proclaimed “Christians” have?

The Bible calls us to not act upon worldly desires. Although we may want to, it is not our job to save, it is our job to lead those to the only one that can save by being as Jesus was: loving, compassionate, and understanding. Nor should we promote worldly desires, like the desire to live in fear. The ends do not justify the means, because a soul in fear of death cannot be a soul saved.