Stanford Vox Clara | Fall 2011

vox clara

at Stanford

Forum of Christian Thought and Action at Stanford

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STAFF President Tara Guarino ‘12 Editor-in-Chief Kyle Pollock ‘14 Designer-in-Chief Luke Knepper ‘14 Design Intern Josh Bloom ‘12 Finance Graham Thompson ‘14 Public Relations Ellie McCardwell ‘14 Board of Advisors D.G. Elmore Steve Stenstrom Andrea Swaney Cover Photo Valdiney Pimenta flickr.com/photos/valdiney

photo by Valdiney Pimenta

For this issue of “Vox Clara at Stanford,” we chose the theme “Life at Stanford.” We encouraged students to write pieces, compose poems, and take photographs that capture the essence of their college experiences. In the Centerpiece, you can find snapshots of Christian life at Stanford submitted by students from all corners of this university, expressing what they have seen God doing in their lives and on Stanford’s campus during their time here. We are extremely grateful for the opportunity to present you with the Fall 2011 issue of “Vox Clara at Stanford.” photo by Tamer Shabani

CONTENTS REFLECTIONS

12 Christian Roots and Creative Wings

by Courtney Crisp

14 The Purpose of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia

by Heidi Thorsen

20 Cracking the Narnia Code

by Luke Knepper

FEATURE STORIES

Life At Stanford 14

by Ellie McCardwell

The Art of Losing Myself 15

by Nina Chung

Insights of Stanford 16

by Student Contributors

REGULAR FEATURES 4

Our Purpose

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Letter from the Editor

28 Get Involved 30 Letter from the President 31 Closing Thoughts

PROSE AND POETRY Holy Spirit, Minister to Me 6

by Anonymous

A.C.T.S 7

by Kate Mayer

Drifting 8

by Kate Mayer

Easter Vigil 9

by Kate Mayer

Crying 12

by Courtney Crisp

Going the Second Mile 22

by Justin Reed

Scars 24

by Chase Ishii

Vox Clara Our Purpose

Vox Clara seeks to provide a platform for believers and non-believers at Stanford to engage in dialogue that inspires a lasting response to the Gospel message. We believe it is important to address issues of faith in the University community. As Jane Stanford’s words on the wall of Memorial Church warn: There is no narrowing so deadly as the narrowing of man’s horizon of spiritual things. No worse evil could befall him in his course on earth than to lose sight of Heaven. And it is not civilization that can prevent this; it is not civilization that can compensate for it.

No widening of science, no possession of abstract truth, can indemnify for an enfeebled hold on the highest and central truths of humanity. ‘What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?’

We find spiritual truth in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, who became man, died, and rose again

photo by Robert Knepper

for the salvation of all. Through Him we interpret and understand the world in which we live. Vox Clara seeks to express to the Stanford community that religion is not a set of rules that threatens our freedom or creativity but rather is the hope that pervades our entire lives.

Simply put, we are trying to provide an account of the hope we cherish within us. We do not wish to impose our beliefs but instead to propose our views to everyone at Stanford who is searching just as we are—searching for purpose, for truth, and for Love.

As we seek collectively, we will strive to speak with a clear voice and voyage together, elevating each other’s lives in the process. From different Christian traditions and each with our own experience, we at Vox Clara have come together to explore how faith illuminates life and how life enriches faith. We invite all to join us in this important conversation.

vox nostra

A note on our name

In the words of C.S. Lewis speaking on Christianity, “it is at her centre, where her truest children dwell, that each communion is really closest to every other in spirit, if not in doctrine. And this suggests that at the centre of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice.”

We at Vox Clara celebrate this voice of Jesus Christ and believe that His is the true voice. It forms the foundation of our hope and strength. For this reason, we have chosen “Vox Clara,” a Latin phrase meaning “clear voice,” as the name for this organization.

EDITOR

From an outsider’s point of view, life at Stanford is “the good life.” It is a place that high school students dream of attending and parents hope and pray their children will be accepted to.

It abounds with visions of excellence and success. Where else is there such a beautiful combination of rich culture, worldclass academics, nationally acclaimed athletic programs, the laid-back attitude of the West Coast, and the ability to, rather comfortably, sport flip flops and shorts year round? How could it get any better… right? Nevertheless, this pictureperfect concept of life at Stanford is quite often not the same as the life experienced by many of us who are actually living it. The most accurate comparison that comes to mind is that of the famous “Stanford Duck Syndrome.” As with a duck swimming on a lake, life at Stanford seems to be perfectly calm and peaceful on the surface level. However, take a look beneath that surface and you will see a frantic and fierce paddling, a desperate struggle just to keep from falling behind.

In all honesty, life at Stanford can be lonely and sad, plagued by worry, stress, and a fear of inadequacy. But how, and why, have we turned it into this? Why do we so often take a seemingly perfect opportunity and transform it into something burdensome and discouraging?

The answers to these questions take many different forms, but, at their foundation, are all rooted in some type of comparison and imprisonment. It could be a comparison of academic success in high school to academic success now, and the resulting worry that we are not as good as we once were. It could be the comparison of ourselves to the projected image of others and their success, and the unreasonable realization that we are somehow not as valuable or as worthy as others are.

Accompanying these thoughts is the burden of feeling that we need to achieve as much as we once did or as much as other people are. Perhaps these comparisons even evoke a sense of insufficiency. These responses are sincere and legitimate reasons for causing life at Stanford to be a struggle at times, and I believe they reveal a deeper issue: we are placing our identity, our faith, our stock, our worth, in worldly things. But this is a flawed and dangerous place to live. It is not how God created us to be or how God desires for us to live now.

We were not meant to be defined by how well we do in a class. We were not designed to have our worth judged by how successful we are or how popular we might be. We were not created to live in the fear of not being accepted or of not being good enough. We were not destined to be enslaved or imprisoned to the workings of this world. Jesus Christ did not die on the cross for this to be our reality. He came to set us free from these exact things. Isaiah 61:1 speaks of Jesus’ ministry to us. It states, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me Because the Lord has anointed me To bring the good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners.” Matthew 8:1-2 also declares, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the Law of sin and death.”

This freedom comes from knowing that our worth and value in life is given to us by God’s grace and God’s grace alone.

Nothing else can make us more or less worthy. Christ has already paid for our shortcomings and inadequacies, and as a result, we are free to live life and face all of its circumstances, without fear.

David Jones, the former campus minister for Reformed University Fellowship, compared this freedom to already receiving a perfect résumé for life. Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life on Earth and sacrificed that for our sake. When God looks at us, He sees the perfect life of Jesus interceding on our behalf.

If we are in Christ, then we already know what the outcome of our lives will be. Are we living with the knowledge that our life is a gift that Jesus gave when He died on the cross and that our souls are already spoken for? How would our actions and intentions change if we knew that our identity and worth are sealed in something that our circumstances and conditions can’t change? This comforting freedom should be driving us to be more relentless in our love for others, more courageous in our undertakings, and more unyielding in our commitment to Christ. Since there is no fear of failure, there is no limit to what can be done.

Life at Stanford can be tough. It can be lonely and sad. It can be long and grueling, but it is not too big for the power of God and the freedom He has called us to. In this journal, you will read about people who have faced the hardships of Stanford, but who have found freedom in relying on something more than themselves to overcome those hardships. They have a hope and a confidence in God and his ability to make all things work together for good. Whether you are someone questioning Christianity, just starting your walk with Christ, or a mature Christian, we pray that in this journal you will find encouragement for how to live life at Stanford, and, more importantly, that you would tangibly experience the freedom of Christ in your life.

“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”

–Galatians 5:1

Kyle Pollock Editor-in-Chief, 2011-12

Holy Spirit,

Minister to Me Anonymous Holy Spirit, minister to me.

Let my life forever be a wellspring of your ministry.

Teach this broken heart which desperate is Knowledge of the perfect joy of being fully His. Grant me ears to hear and eyes to see, And sense to fear His majesty.

Constantly pursue my wayward heart, Which from the narrow path persistently departs.

Bid the strivings of this prideful heart to cease, And the effort that responds to grace ever to increase.

Inspire in me a passion for His glory; Give me the gift of a role in His redemptive story.

Spirit, bless me with humility, Which will ultimately set me free To see my God and self rightly placed And to comprehend my full dependence on His grace.

Remind me of my rich inheritance.

Once a slave, and now a son, and as a son, a prince.

Make me a servant who praises his King By trading broken cisterns for the Living Spring.

Let my life forever be a wellspring of your ministry.

Holy Spirit, minister to me.

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Vox Clara, Vol. VI, Issue 1

A.C.T.S.

BY KATE MAYER

Awesome God Who loves beyond comprehension Provides beyond expectation Accomplishes beyond realization Exists beyond imagination I Adore You. Correct me, God From thinking less of you than of myself From trying to give while forgetting to receive From struggling to control your dominion From forgetting to breathe I Confess to you.

Thank you, God For the beauty of the sky For the sweetness of an orange For the love of a friend For the goodness of the world I Thank you.

Save them, God From the demons they must battle From the hurt I have inflicted From the pressure of position From the evil of the world I Supplicate you.

photo by Natalie Uy

KATE MAYER

is a freshman from South Bend, Indiana. She is interested in economics with an eye for policy work. In her spare time, she sings alto in Testimony A Capella and knits scarves. Her favorite thing about Stanford is that everyone is fascinating in one way or another.

Forum of Christian Thought and Action at Stanford

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Drifting

BY KATE MAYER

When I was very young The world was black and white.

Colors entered one by one Simple.

Manageable.

Now the world swirls around me Colors beautiful and ugly Too numerous to name.

I’ve lost myself in a rainbow.

You’re the artist here.

So tell me What color is love?

Does it taste sweet, or bitter?

What sound does truth make?

Can I hold it in my hand?

If white is right, and black is wrong, What’s the aroma of innocence?

If I can doubt my friends And feel compassion toward my enemies, How can I tell them apart?

How can I devour the world And still starve?

I’m walking on water.

I’ll drown if I look down.

photo by Ellie McCardwell

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Vox Clara, Vol. VI, Issue 1

Easter Vigil

BY KATE MAYER In the darkness, He chanted His mantra.

“It’s worth it. It’s worth it.”

Pain ran from every pore.

On the cross, He cried to His Father.

“They’re worth it. They’re worth it.

Forgive them,” to the silence.

In his room, he kicked away the chair.

“Not worth it. Not worth it.”

The betrayer hung, unnoticed.

On the throne, He looked upon his friend.

“You’re worth it. You’re worth it.”

The apostle rose, forgiven.

photo by Steven Puente

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by Courtney Crisp Christian Roots and Creative Wings:

My Struggle to Find the Perfect Balance

b/w image

photo by David Carreon When I was younger it was never the roots I was worried about. It was the wings.

I grew up in a Catholic family with rock-solid values who also strongly encouraged free thinking and creativity.

My family talked openly about where they thought the Church was right and where they thought they still needed to catch up with the times: gay rights, women priests, etc.

They never saw our beautiful spiritual traditions and real world lives as mutually exclusive. My parents could go to Mass every Sunday, vote for Obama, and be values-based, successful entrepreneurs.

They wanted us to strive for that same world and spiritual success.

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But I also felt like my creative wings outside of home were clipped. In school I was particularly bad at following directions. I always wanted to do things my own way, frequently the annoying child in the back of the room asking why we had to write essays in rigid Jane Schaffer format or only color using crayons.

I remember feeling like even though I got good grades, my real intellect went unappreciated and my creativity remained malnourished. I got a C in my senior English class (even though I read ferociously and killed every standardized English test I ever took) simply because my AP Lit teacher and I did not see eye to eye. I adamantly refused to believe there was but one way to look at a work of literature.

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Three years ago I came to Stanford and found the creativity that I had been missing. I found professors willing to help me with almost any writing project and an open-minded English department that was incredibly supportive.

I was astonished that I was allowed to respectfully contradict professors, that they valued students’ passions and difference of opinion. Outside of wood-paneled lecture halls, I fell into more creativity and diversity.

I was an active Ujamaa resident my freshman year, joined a multicultural sorority my sophomore year, and lived in Germany for 9 months my junior year. I threw myself into each new experience and felt my spirit

where I came from weighing down on me like a ton of bricks, with no one else to help me bear the heavy weight.

I also had a hard time dealing with Stanford’s irreverent spirit, particularly when it came to the Catholic Church.

A few years ago the Stanford band was banned from the University of Notre Dame for dressing up as the pope and playing the drums with crucifixes.

Everyone laughed.

I had stayed quiet, deeply saddened that so many people thought it was ok to so disrespect a school I nearly went to. Staying silent became my new way of dealing with the differences. When people asked me where I was going at 10 pm on a Sunday night, I lied. When the Roe vs. Wade debate took place in White Plaza and I secretly strongly identified as Pro-Life, I avoided White Plaza.

When a professor cracked a joke about Christian sexual frustration, I didn’t talk.

I stayed silent, afraid to be the closeminded Catholic voice that I felt so many people loved to put down.

I was mad at myself for not being strong enough to be vocal about the ways I felt.

But on a certain level, I think I kept my religion and values to myself to protect them. If no one knew them they wouldn’t feel like it was okay to constantly attack them. The downside of this method was that I felt them withering away with no support system, needing to be brought out into the light to grow but hidden behind the darkness of my fears.

photo by Ellie McCardwell

When I was younger it was never the roots I was worried about. It was the wings. growing and expanding in ways it never had before. I felt blessed and incredibly grateful for those experiences.

But as much as I cherished these new opportunities, I felt myself falling. I finally had all of the open space I had ever wanted to let my creative spirit run free but with none of the shepherding

values I had grown up with to lead me home when I went astray.

My college friends had different values than I did, they wouldn’t hold me morally accountable like my friends in high school. I had to be my own safety net, draw my own moral lines. I felt the pressure to stay true to my family and to

I had never worried about the roots when I was younger. It was always the wings. Now I just hope and pray that I can keep myself grounded. That I won’t lose my way, staying strongly anchored in where I come from while still walking confidently in the direction I’m going. In God’s name I pray.

COURTNEY CRISP graduated

from Stanford University last spring and majored in English. She is obsessed with traveling, the beach, shopping, Stanford Women’s Rugby, and her multicultural sorority Sigma Theta Psi. She recently spent 9 months in Germany and has moved back since graduation.

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Crying:

a creative nonfiction by Courtney Crisp I only feel safe crying in two places. One is when I’m running, so fast I feel like I’m flying, so far in transit that no one can catch me. No one can ask what’s wrong, no one can stand around awkwardly wondering how to handle it: I don’t have to feel bad about disrupting anyone’s day. The other is in the shower, where no one can hear me over the sound of the water, where my salty tears are not out of place but instead blend perfectly, sooty mascara swirling down the drain.

I don’t cry in public. Thus to the world, I don’t cry ever. It’s a personal rule I’ve had for myself ever since I broke up with my boyfriend in 11th grade. Together for a year and a half, two smart basketball players that did everything and knew everyone; we were a golden couple whose demise no one could see coming. Including myself.

I remember strolling into school that first day post-breakup, right hand clenched tightly to my frosty Starbucks Java Chip Frappuccino. The sun drove fire into my back as I methodically spun open my locker and grabbed my neon notebooks, willing myself to stay strong. I felt the weight of so many eyes on me as the day crawled by, some pushed together in genuine sympathy, some lifted in haughty superiority, some casting down on me in judgment – but all knowing that the world as I had known it for over a year had just fallen apart in a matter of minutes.

I remember being so proud of myself for making it through first period. Second period. Third period. And then fifth period. I had no sooner slid into my desk and opened my Algebra II book when I heard a mock sympathetic voice behind me, “Hey Court, I’m really sorry about you and Mark. But I saw him talking to another girl today. I don’t want to upset you, but I just thought you should know.”

I ignored her, focusing instead on the complicated intricacies of factoring binomials.

Another girl shot a

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sympathetic glance my way from across the room. I ignored her too, staring at the board with everything I had in me.

being tied down in a relationship for so long. I was made of both steel and sugar, a powerful force to be reckoned with.

And all of a sudden, the black numbers in front of me all began to run together, turning blurry in a watery veil blocking my vision. Stop it, I yelled at myself.

Not here. But instead of turning stone cold and emotionless like I wanted it to, my face scrunched up and my shoulders started shaking. Tears ran freely down my face as I sprinted out of the classroom. Out the door, down

My rock solid ice walls shielded me from the world, but I felt them slowly destroying me from inside. But I didn’t care. All I had to do was run far enough, knock enough jump shots down in basketball, get enough A’s in physics, and this constant ache in the depths of my stomach would finally start to fade. Or so I believed.

“My rock solid ice walls shielded me from the world, but I felt them slowly destroying me from inside.” the stairs, out the G building. Past the beige senior lockers, past the front office, past the adobe entrance to the school.

I must have looked so ridiculous, running the 2.5 miles from school to home still wearing my plaid Catholic school skirt and white Oxford. But I didn’t even think about that at the time. Instead I felt how no one was staring at me any more, how no one could tell I was crying.

I learned a new superpower that day, a survival skill that would withstand the test of the rough weeks ahead. No one could think that they could get to me if they couldn’t see how it affected me.

Those first few weeks post break-up, I spent a lot of time running and in the shower. More than I would care to admit.

I felt like my world had been ripped apart, shaken to its core, yet I felt simultaneously ridiculous because a guy was affecting me so much. But no one saw that. To the rest of the world I was perfect - a Stanfordbound elite athlete finally getting some much needed space and freedom after

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Instead it all caught up with me one fateful Wednesday. It was Ash Wednesday so the whole school was crammed in our sky blue gym for Mass. I sat next to my best friend Jenna and the rest of our AP U.S. class, head aching and body exhausted from my pursuits of perfection. Ash Wednesday is the mother of all Masses.

It is over 2 hours long because the entire congregation has to file to the front twice, once for Communion and once to receive the Ashes on your forehead.

I remember filing up to the front for the first round to receive the Ashes, Father Michael pressing the sooty dust into the shape of a cross on my forehead.

“You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Pivoting on my right heel, I suddenly spotted Mark out of the corner of my eye. And with no warning, not really understanding why, I felt my protective walls tumble. After months of no one seeing me break down, in front of the entire school, I started sobbing. And the weirdest part was instead of caring about all of the people that I imagined were staring, all I remember of the rest of that Mass was seeing Jenna’s navy-blue, sweatshirt clad arm loop through mine, leading me back to the last row of the gym bleachers. Crying past any sense of embarrassment or self-consciousness, I let someone hold me and tell me it was going to be okay. And through hurting so badly, sinking so low, I let myself start to heal.

COURTNEY CRISP graduated

from Stanford University last spring and majored in English. She is obsessed with traveling, the beach, shopping, Stanford Women’s Rugby, and her multicultural sorority Sigma Theta Psi. She recently spent 9 months in Germany and has moved back since graduation.

Forum of Christian Thought and Action at Stanford

photo by Steven Puente

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Life At Stanford I came to Stanford from Pendleton, Indiana: a small town of about a thousand people. I remember before leaving for college feeling afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find a Christian community that I would fit in with. I was truly blessed to have gone to the same church back home since the day I was born, and all of those people are family to me.

While I am thankful for this community

back home, it put a lot of pressure on me to find a place that could compare. I still love my church family back home, and they have a place in my heart that I don’t think can ever be replaced by any other community.

Initially, I struggled to find a community that resembled the one back home even in the slightest. I became too concerned with just making friends, and I almost gave up looking for a Christian community that I could really be involved in.

I fell into the stereotypical “normal” college experiencepartying, drinking, doing what it took to be accepted and fit in.

I wasn’t sure if it was right or wrong, and I was really torn between having a good time and choosing to walk in the Christian way. I found that the Bible wasn’t very clear on the things I’d been involving myself with.

photo by Howard Yonghyun Ro

ELLIE MCCARDWELL is a sophomore from Pendleton,

Indiana. She is a pole-vaulter on the track team and takes part in Reformed University Fellowship and Cardinal Life on campus. Although not entirely sure how she was lucky enough to make it here, she considers herself blessed to be able to walk through the vibrant campus full of engaging people and breathtaking sights. Ellie enjoys exploring the great outdoors, farmer’s markets, singing in the rain, and a good cup of coffee.

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I’ve since learned that the Bible doesn’t always have answers to my specific struggles and questions, but it gives me guidance to choose the path that God has planned out before me. If not for God’s word and a few

Vox Clara, Vol. VI, Issue 1

by Ellie McCardwell

Christian friends with solid faith, I might still be headed down that path filled with seeking empty and fleeting pleasures.

It wasn’t until winter quarter when I decided to attend Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) for the first time that I started to be encouraged in my faith journey here at Stanford. I left that first meeting feeling loved and feeling like I could really belong in that community.

The kid welcoming people at the door before the service had, by the end, remembered my name. DJ, the campus minister, not only remembered me but also reached out to me and wanted to get coffee with me. I kept coming back, and not only did I run into a place of awesome worship and messages, but I also met some of my best friends that I have today.

Living the Christian life at Stanford certainly takes effort, discipline and resolve. But as I, and a lot of my friends have learned, God greatly blesses those who seek to live in His light.

Christians usually stand out easily on this campus. Sometimes, that makes things difficult, but God definitely uses us to reach out to others who are searching for something they are missing in their life. I’ve seen God working through and working in countless people over this year and it has been incredibly encouraging.

I have been more than pleasantly surprised at what I’ve discovered here at Stanford. A word of advice for you: honestly seek out a group of friends that appreciate you for who you really are. It’s not worth getting involved with people that just want you as their “party buddy.”

You might have to take more time to find those people who do appreciate you, but you will thank yourself later and be happy that you did.

Nina Chung

photo by Eric Chan

The Art of Losing Myself This article was previously published in “The Daily”.

I won the same yearbook award at the end of both middle school and high school: The Most Likely to Brighten Your Day Award. I don’t even remember being particularly surprised the second time. Through those years and onward, I also became accustomed to certain related qualities that kept popping up, too, when people described me and when I described myself. That award was only part of a set of experiences that gradually convinced me I had to be the one that would Brighten Your Day; the happy one; the cute one; the constantly excited one; the open one; the clever one.

I had to be laughing and smiling all the time.

I had to be jumpy, unpredictable and entertaining, and ever the immaculate extrovert.

And I knew this was how people saw me.

Wait, I’ll be honest – I didn’t just know it, I was constantly aware… and burning myself out as I played the identity game to a tee. It was a new kind of selfishness, one that has nothing to do with money or material or sharing. But I can’t think of any word but “selfish” to describe the self-obsession I fed as I constantly self-strategized how to best fulfill who I was expected to be.

I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but I don’t think I’m the only one. Expectations surround us like air – unseen, unspoken and unbelievably heavy. There is, for example, the collective freshman conception that not attending a frat party is a social code violation.

But not all freshmen enjoy frat parties, and that’s a fact. Unfortunately, it takes many of us a relative while to realize that our entire social life for the next four years is actually not affected by non-attendance. Great news! Still, the expectation exists, ready to trap students and steal their weekends. And secretly unwilling students will continue to go, thinking that they need to be “social,” if that’s how they choose to define it.

The outside expectations by which we

judge ourselves are thus often very self-imposed. No doubt they stress us out. Yet we tend to place values on ourselves through our success or failure in fulfilling them.

We have to become a household name after graduating, because that’s what our family thinks is success. We have to be environmentally sustainable, because that’s what a good global citizen is. We have to be constantly conversational, because otherwise we’re being “antisocial” (which has apparently become a short-term crime). Or we have to be the funny/intellectual/organized/nonchalant/insightful one amongst our friends, even if we’ve outgrown the title and it’s starting to get tiresome.

per nice and bubbly and everything, but, like, I wondered who you actually were.”

And it was amazingly refreshing to finally hear it out loud, because I knew it was true of so many people I used to meet.

It’s ironic, the way we distance other people the more we inch closer to what they expect of us.

It’s too much strategy and too much effort.

If we could just lose all of that… it’s easier to meet the One who still finds us valuable – without us making a single move.

The truth is that none of these things are bad in themselves; it’s just that none of them are much greater in themselves, either. No matter how much security we feel inside these convenient little shoeboxes, fitting inside them doesn’t make us any more worthwhile as people or friends or family members. I believe that they’re not inherently valuable.

Of course, though, it feels unimaginably risky to step outside those bounds. At least, that’s how I felt. I used to be afraid that someone would catch a glimpse of me that wasn’t bright and bouncy because I was afraid they’d realize I was boring.

Then I would be lost to myself, too... and that scared me more than anything.

I suppose it was just around two years ago that I met the sole person in all of history and time who saw that side of me… and was – is – still completely crazy about me.

Seriously, it was completely disorienting at first. I mean, how often do we not have to live up to a single thing, and still be loved?

In this world, I will say effectively zero. In this context, God’s grace shines through.

It’s liberation, pure, simple, unmistakable.

I was recently talking about God’s relationship with me with another friend of mine, who said this about “knowing” me before I had fallen into it: “Don’t get me wrong, I totally thought you were su-

photo by Eric Chan

NINA CHUNG

is an undergraduate senior currently studying International Relations, learning about God’s will, and trying to spread the love as best she can. She hails from Los Angeles, California, and is excited for whatever is ahead.

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CHRISTIAN My Christian faith brings so much more meaning to my life at Stanford, for not only does it allow me to view my studies in a different, more spiritual light, but it also provides me with the encouragement that an exciting future is waiting. Although I still struggle with the many common fears that plague college students, believing in God and his design for the world and my life brings me a hope and a peace that is greater than any problem I might encounter on campus. It is only through God that I find my greatest joy, and it is only in those moments of true connectedness with my faith that I feel really alive.

Berkely Webster ‘12

LIFE

My faith has been challenged in ways I never before imagined at Stanford, thus driving me to explore my faith more deeply than ever before. Through these experiences, I have been greatly strengthened in Christ and I am confident that He is working here every day.

William Key Norvell Jr., GSB Life at Stanford is nothing short of a roller coaster. It soars to the highest of highs and plunges to the lowest of lows. Life is chaotic, but I’m not alone: sitting next to me is the Creator of the Universe, and in Him I find stability.

Luke Knepper ‘14

A gay professor opined to me and 13 other members of a discussion group that being openly Christian takes more courage than being openly gay at the GSB. I shared my faith in an appropriate setting (a class on interpersonal dynamics) to allow my classmates in on what defines me.

But my goal was to reflect Christ’s mercy and His desire to have relationship with us all. Be prepared to lovingly explain to your classmates why you are a follower of Christ.

Jon Venverloh, GSB

While Stanford is self-professedly open to beliefs and individuals from all walks of life, in reality that openness frequently applies more to a certain set of liberal perspectives than to a balanced campus-wide discussion of how we should lead our lives. Combined with a general accomplishment-driven, ladder-climbing, do-or-die, hard-playing ideal of how students should “be” both at Stanford and in the world, this can make it challenging to find explicitly Christian values operating in our landscape, at least outside of the safe hubs of campus ministries, friend groups, and other faith-based gatherings.

Rachel Kolb ‘12

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STANFORD

It’s tough being a freshman Christian on campus trying to find a church and place to get plugged in. But upperclass Christians reaching out to me and finding a home church has made a huge difference, and I’m trusting God to guide me the rest of the way.

Eyosias Samson ‘15

The Stanford environment has stretched, but also deepened, my Christian faith. Encountering new faiths, difficult situations, and sometimes unreceptive classmates has challenged my beliefs, but the close community of other Christians has helped me grow tremendously.

Despite the tumultuous times I had at Stanford, besides the fact that for three years I drifted away from the Lord, it felt so good to know that He never drifted away from me. It felt so good to know that He was always with me. When I went through my darkest hours at Stanford, when I felt that I was not good enough, I was reminded that I could do anything through Christ who strengthens me. In all that you do, always trust in the Lord. It is by His grace that we are here and it is by His grace that we shall overcome.

Kwadwo “Nana” Osei-Opare ‘11

Reagan Thompson ‘12

I feel like it’s such a critical time of learning how to be in the world but not of the world. No doubt it will always be difficult to figure out how to love the things and people of this world without making them our ultimate. But it has been the beginning of really understanding what it means to need to be filled up in quiet times or in fellowship, because otherwise it becomes too easy here to be turned in a million different directions that are not focused and centered on the one true God.

Lizzy O’Brien ‘12

I found, from the start, that if you live passionately for Christ you easily stick out and can be blessed with daily opportunities to share the joy and Good News. But complacency and a fear of offending anyone just as easily snuck into my life, and even became a part of my faith (justifying it with verses like "do everything to live at peace..."). Now I fight daily to figure out how to live for Christ while "in the world, but not of [it]."

Jose Vieitez ‘11 photo by Madison Kawakami

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Narnia: the

Purpose of C.S. Lewis’s World

by Heidi Thorsen The following is an excerpt from the author’s Oxford tutorial paper in response to the question: What did Lewis say he was trying to achieve in writing the Narnia books, and did he achieve it?

The fact that the metaphors in The Chronicles of Narnia are not dead or frozen, like Witch’s sculpture garden, is a testament to the presence of a creator behind them. According to an essay entitled “Sometimes Fairy Stories,” the role of the Author persona is to isolate and generalize these images.

The role of the Man persona is to care about them personally, thus increasing their likelihood of appealing to a readership. The primary difference between the Author and the Man is their intended audience: the Author writes with a consciousness of the reader; the Man writes principally for himself. This changes the nature of what Lewis is trying to achieve, depending on which persona of the creator one focuses on.

While the Author endeavours to create a series of evocative images, the Man tries to achieve freedom from “the expository demon” so as to simulate an experience that he himself can enjoy (On Three Ways, online). This leads to another explanation of why the unifying story is so important to The Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis describes the role of the Man persona in the process of writing

the series:

(Myth became Fact, 141).

Lewis goes on to ask whether it is possible to “steal past those watchful dragons of tradition” and revisit the truths of Christianity on an emotional level. He postulates that this is possible, with the aid of stories.

While the Christian allusions in The Chronicles of Narnia present a temptation to read the series in an overly-critical light, they serve the opposite effect for the writer himself by providing an automatic template in which to insert images. Lewis writes,

Aslan, the most Christian symbol in the

This admission of Lewis’s heightened awareness of Christianity while writing The Chronicles of Narnia might seem to contradict his insistence that the series not be read exclusively as a Christian epic or allegory. However, it is crucial to remember that in this context Lewis speaks specifically about “the Man’s motive.”

Any concerted effort to weave the Christian narrative into The Chronicles of Narnia was not geared towards readers or scholars who would pick apart his so-called allegories years later.

The sole intended audience for this Christian narrative was C.S. Lewis, the Man himself.

Despite Lewis’s awareness of the Christian implications, he is consistent in discouraging an overly critical reading of the Christian images in favour of a more universal stance on myth. And, Lewis maintains, when a myth achieves its full potential “[y]ou are not looking for an abstract ‘meaning’ at all. If that was what you were doing the myth would be for you no true myth but a mere allegory”

Then [after the Author]... the Man in me began to have his turn. I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralyzed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to.

(Sometimes Fairy Stories, online)

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At first I had very little idea how the story would go. But then suddenly Aslan came bounding into it... I don’t know where the Lion came from or why He came. But once He was there he pulled the whole story together, and soon He pulled the six other Narnia stories in after Him. (It All Began with a Picture, cited in Hooper, 401) series, was not conceived as an object for adoration and contemplation but rather the glue that fills the gaps between images and creates a story. Lewis’ description of how “Aslan came bounding into [the story]” suggests that this image, at least, was more subconscious than contrived.

Lewis’ subconscious integration of the Christian narrative within the series affords Lewis, the Man, a greater distance from his subject matter. While the Christian allusions entice readers to think more critically about the text, it enables the writer to think less critically by easing into the familiar territory of tradition. It is this distance alone which enables Lewis to step back from his creation and take part in the spiritual exercise, or askesis (On Three Ways, online).

There are other ways in which one can imagine Lewis’ emotional participation

in The Chronicles of Narnia, such as the characters he most resembles and the parallels between the series and his other writings. One can see, in Edmund’s craving for the ephemeral Turkish delight, a picture of the young Lewis’ misplaced search for the physical source of joy.

one cannot help but be influenced by some of the numerous images that Lewis presents in The Chronicles of Narnia, one can also hardly read the series without trying to peel off the layers of the onion.

In doing so one strays further and further away from the experiential beauty of

myth that drove Lewis to write The Chronicles of Narnia. While myths may contain whole universes of meaning, they are still small enough to hold in the palm of one’s hand—even the hand of a child.

Eustace’s extended and painful shedding of scales during his conversion in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader bears a similar emotional resonance to that of Lewis’s own conversion. Lewis also reveals a great deal about his belief that the physical world is a shadow of God’s absolute goodness (hence the term ‘Shadowlands’ in The Last Battle).

This becomes apparent in the green Witch’s attempt at convincing Jill and Eustace that the Underland is the full extent of reality. “Your sun is a dream,” the Witch coaxes, “and there is nothing in that dream that was not copied from the lamp” (SC, 188). The kids experience the same temptation as Lewis when he is misled to think that objects, such as the tin-pan garden in Surprised by Joy, are the fundamental basis of existence.

Ultimately, it is impossible to determine whether or not Lewis achieved his goal from the perspective of the Man persona since it is impossible to gauge the spiritual impact that the series had upon the author himself. However, the emotional impact that the series was able to simulate for its readers is eternally written in the images behind The Chronicles of Narnia.

Lewis did not fail in his goal of evoking an emotional response in readers, both adults and children alike. If anything, Lewis achieved too much by the complexity of his mythic images. While

photo by Caroline Chen

Hooper, Walter. C.S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide. London: Harper Collins, 1996.

Lewis, C.S. The Chronicles of Narnia. 1955. London: Collins, 1998.

An Experiment in Criticism. Cambridge: University Press, 1961.

“Myth Became Fact.” 1944. C.S. Lewis Essay Collection: Faith, Christianity and the Church. London: Harper Collins, 2000.

“Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s To Be Said.” 1956. < http://wedgwoodcircle.com/news/articles/ sometimes-fairy-stories-may-say-best-whats-to-be-said/>.

“On Three Ways of Writing For Children.” Online. < http://campus.huntington.edu/dma/leeper/DM101/Readings/

HEIDI THORSEN Heidi Thorsen is

a senior involved in the United Christian Campus Ministry, Progressive Christians @ Stanford, and Faiths Acting in Togetherness and Hope (FAITH, the interfaith group on campus). Last spring she studied C.S. Lewis under Dr. Michael Ward in a tutorial at Oxford University.

On%20Three%20Ways%20of%20Writing%20for%20Children.rtf>.

Jacobs, Alan. “The Chronicles of Narnia.” The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis. Ed. Robert MacSwain and Michael Ward. Cambridge: University Press, 2010.

Forum of Christian Thought and Action at Stanford

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Cracking the Narnia Code

by Luke Knepper

Most are familiar with C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia as children’s stories; many recognize strong parallels to Lewis’s Christian theology as a second level of meaning in the books. But few are aware of a third level of meaning that Lewis may have embedded into the series.

Dr. Michael Ward of the University of Oxford, author of The Narnia Code, came to Stanford in early October to talk about his literary research of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Ward describes himself as a life-long scholar of Narnia, having first fallen in love with the books as a child. His study of Lewis’s writings at Oxford led him to discover a strong connection between the Narnia series and, surprisingly, ancient beliefs about the cosmos. He highlighted Lewis’s interest in ancient cosmic tradition, explored the symbolism and themes that medieval thinkers associated with the planets of our solar system, and connected each of the seven medieval planets with one of the Narnia books (e.g.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with Jupiter, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with the Sun). He concluded by explaining the Biblical connections contained within the ancient view of the planets, marveling at Lewis’s brilliance in secretly patterning Narnia after such beautiful “spiritual symbols.”

Dr. Ward’s talk reminded me of the value and beauty that is inherent in literary research. Books like Narnia are far more than entertaining stories: they contain truths that, when discovered, remind us of God’s deeper meaning for life. I can’t wait to re-read The Chronicles of Narnia in light of Dr. Ward’s insight into Lewis’s purpose.

photo by Katie Dooling

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Vox Clara, Vol. VI, Issue 1

photo by Tara Guarino

photo by Katie Dooling

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GOING THE SECOND MILE

by Justin Reed This article is the last entry in a series of articles found in Volume V, Issues 1 and 2 Now that we’ve been turnin’ cheeks and taken off tunics it’s time to go the extra mile. The lesson from this one is simple: Jesus tells us to go the extra mile because he is a distance runner and wants his followers to stay in shape!

Just kidding.

Let’s jump back into Jesus’ day once again...

This time I am simply a non-Roman. We can forget about my ethnicity, class, or social status, all that matters is that I am not a Roman; I am a subject to Rome living within their empire. That being the case, the main rule that I have to keep in mind is, “When in Rome… DO AS THE ROMANS TELL YOU.” So, I’m minding my own business, not causing anyone harm, when some Roman soldiers stroll into town. They survey the scene. “Don’t point at me, don’t point at

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me, don’t point at me,” I pray repeatedly under my breath. I’m like the student in class that doesn’t know how to answer the teacher’s question: I really don’t want to get picked, but I can’t let them know I feel that way. I do one of those look away moves. The one where you just avoid eye contact. You know? The “if I can’t see you, you can’t see me.”

Then I hear a chuckle nearby. Out of the corner of my eye I can see that it is not a Roman soldier who is laughing: it’s Jesus!

“PSSSSHT!” I whisper at the top of my inside voice.

“Hahaha” Jesus continues. “You really think that the world disappears when you close your eyes? Oh, I love you, J Reed.

You’re such a funny character.”

“Stop laughing or they’ll pick me and make me carry their equipment for the next mile,” I retort. As a privilege of being Roman, a soldier can force any nonRoman to carry his equipment up to a mile. That’s the law.

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“Why are you worried?” Jesus asks.

“WHY AM I WORRIED?!” I yell. I’m getting kinda heated and my voice is getting louder. “I’m worried because they can force me to do their will and I have NO control over that! If they--”Suddenly, I get collared by a Roman. “Here ya go buddy!” he exclaims with a devilish grin.

He drops 60 pounds of equipment at my feet and begins to walk away with the other soldiers.

Jesus laughs on. “Why do you worry about things that you can’t control? Can worrying change a single fact or add even an instant to your life?” Then he smiles, “Don’t worry, I’ll be with you.”

I start lugging this Roman’s heavy equipment along the road. I’m not the only one doing this. There’s a man just like me for every soldier walking on ahead of us, and Jesus is walking among us.

After carrying on under the immense weight for an hour, the Romans stop and we are all relieved as we anticipate being released of our burden. According to

photo by Steven Puente Roman law, they can only have us carry their belongings for a mile because many Romans had driven people to death from exhaustion. But, as everyone around starts to ease their burden down to the ground, Jesus pipes in with his backwards logic: “If someone forces you to go a mile with him, then go two miles.”

don’t need to be doing this,” he grumbles.

Everyone is watching us now. I shake the soldier off and keep walking just as Jesus told me to do.

“I’m tired,” I begin. “I’m tired of the walking. I’m tired of carrying this burden.

I’m tired of the Romans getting to do whatever they please. I’m tired of every day being as pathetic as the last. And I-“My yoke is easy” Jesus interrupts… More complicated backwards logic. When he confuses me like this, I figure I might as well just do what he asks. So I lift the load back onto my shoulders.

“Are you begging me NOT to carry this now?” I say as I step around him.

But as soon as I start to walk the soldier that gave me this burden stops me. “You’ve already gone a mile,” he informs me.

“You can put it down now.” I sense some uneasiness in his voice.

“You wanted me to carry it, so I’m carrying it.” I reply. And I continue onward. The soldier takes a firm grasp of my arm. “You

Now the soldier is down on his knees begging. “PLEASE! Don’t carry it any further!”

He lunges for my ankle and holds my leg so that I cannot walk any further. “If you keep going they’ll beat me!” He cries. And that is the truth. The Romans that would take advantage of their privileged status were subject to severe punishment. As I realized this, I looked up at Jesus to see him smiling and laughing as usual.

I spent my entire life subject to Roman authority. And now, through an act of submission, I have the upper hand. I have control over the well being of a soldier. If I keep walking, then I know that his captain will hurt him.

As I look down at the Roman, I contemplate

my control over the fate of my superior.

This is a person that never had any regard for my well being in the past, and now I can do with him as I please. Once again I hear Jesus’ voice: “Be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful.”

JUSTIN REED is an African/African

American Studies major and Religious Studies minor from the class of 2010.

His major interest is Biblical Studies and his honors thesis was on the influence of ethnicity in the story of Samson.

His interest in the story of Samson also spawned the creation of a 212-page published graphic novel, Samson: Blessed Savior of Israel. He was also a Track and Field and Cross Country varsity athlete for four years. If you would like to contact him with comments or questions, his email is jayreed2@gmail.com. In addition, his website www.image-of-God. com includes the hand-painted clothes he makes, information on his book, and spiritual growth resources.

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SCARS

by Chase Ishii

photo by Greg Witmer

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Most days, Foster was perfectly fine with his unique name. But on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he would have given anything for any other. Tuesdays and Thursdays were swimming lesson days at the public pool two blocks north where he was known to all the other boys as “Foster the Monster.” They’d tried “Fost-enstein” and “Fugly Foster” in the past, but Foster the Monster contained the perfect balance of melody and abuse to stick permanently.

But he never cried in front of them; he never even opened his mouth for fear a whimper would escape his words.

Foster was as ordinary as any seven-yearold boy could and should be. His average height and weight made him a solid fourth-round pick during recess sports.

He had two close carpool friends and they would waste time building cardboard forts, playing video games, and talking about how gross girls were. He preferred chocolate milk to regular, strawberry ice cream to chocolate, and grape jelly to strawberry. Foster’s teachers called him gifted, his friends called him funny, and the boys at the public pool two blocks north called him Foster the Monster.

Foster had a scar that scribbled from the middle of his forehead over his eyebrow to his right hairline. He’d worn it for as long as he could remember, but he couldn’t recall how or when it came to be. He always made sure it was completely covered underneath his long, moppy bangs. He quickly learned to live his life hidden.

And that’s why Foster hated swimming lesson days. The pool water pulled his hair from his face, and he was left exposed.

He stuck to the far shaded corner of the pool and did his best to avoid contact with anyone. But still, some noticed.

“Here comes Foster the Monster! I guess he made it out of his cave!” The ringleader nudged his two cronies. They giggled and mimed Frankenstein stumbling around in the dark. Foster kept quiet and walked right past them. He’d ignored them the first couple days, the way he was taught to deal with bullies, but they continued ever so relentlessly. Every Tuesday and Thursday, he walked with his head down, trying his best to keep his ears far from his heart.

“Let’s see if Foster the Monster is afraid of water!” The larger crony ran over and shoved Foster into the deep end: shoes, jacket, towel, and all. The water was chillier than most days. At least down here the laughter was muffled. He watched hundreds of tiny bubbles rise up from his splash. They danced around carelessly

in a cluster, then sprinted freely toward the surface, only to burst and disappear moments later. He wished he could stay submerged forever. And if he had to rise, he prayed he could burst upon breaking the surface. Burst and disappear. * * * Foster remained quiet all through dinner. He wanted to cry and tell his mother about his horrible name and his horrible day. But even more he wanted her to ask, to pry it out of his proud silence, to allow him to feel proud even in his weakness, even just for a second.

“Foster,

more

milk?”

He caved.

He was just an ordinary seven-year-old after all.

“I want to quit swimming.” The defiant resolve in his voice startled the both of them. He held out his glass and stared at his plate.

“Honey, you can’t quit swimming.

It’s important you learn.

It’s important that everyone learn.”

“No it’s not. It’s stupid and I hate it.”

He began stabbing pees with the fork clenched in his fist. The metal clang against ceramic further accented his demeanor.

“Foster, you need to learn how to swim.

It could save your life. Besides, Mrs. Cunningham called and said you’ve been doing really well. She said—“ “Well then I want to change my name.”

He tasted regret the moment it left his tongue. He shoveled mashed potatoes into his mouth to smother the conversation.

“Ok, what’s going on? You’ve been with this attitude the last couple weeks. It’s not like you Foster.”

He looked up at her. It was the first time he had made real eye contact the entire meal. He pulled back his bangs with the butt of his fork. “Mom, how did I get this?” * * * They finally sat down on the couch.

“You don’t remember?” she had asked, instantly clearing both their plates from the dinner table. He shook his head.

“Are you sure you don’t remember?”

He was drying dishes faster than she could wash them at this point.

“No, Mom. What happened?”

She paused a moment, “We’ll save it for the couch,” and continued to rinse off the dishes. He rubbed his scar, gently, then with violent disregard. It didn’t hurt anymore, but his mind was racing.

He only had two other scars, a small quarter-sized shape underneath his

elbow and another, a half-dollar, right below his kneecap. The former from skateboarding without proper pads and the latter from running through the woods on a camping trip and getting caught up on a raised root. They were little permanent trophies for schoolyard stories. Neither hurt anymore, but just the thought brought to life the sting of alcohol and the spastic breathing of heavy tears.

He was still tracing his forehead.

Maybe he didn’t want to remember.

Maybe consciousness would bring the memory of hidden pain. His eyes began to water. Too late. The rags were hung and the water was shut off.

They finally sat down on the couch. “You still remember your father, don’t you?”

He thought a second. Of course he remembered his father. It’d been three years since he had passed, but he kept a picture on his nightstand. His father was there when he went to sleep and his father was there when he awoke.

He liked to pretend his father kept his room safe from burglars and shadow monsters. And once he was old enough to read, he would read aloud in a deep burly voice and pretend his father was telling him stories before bed.

“Of course, Mom. Is Daddy in my scar story?” She tensed a bit and then melted into an endearing smile. “Yes, Honey. He’s all over your scar story.” * * * “You were only four years old, and it was two days after Christmas. We were up at Grandma’s place in Minnesota for the holidays. You know, the cabin with the heavy woods and small lake just past the backyard. It was a particularly cold winter and the lake had frozen over. I tried to keep you inside all week, but your father disagreed. He said a young boy should have the freedom to run around, to explore the world.

‘Life ain’t living if you don’t breathe the air.’ That’s what he would always say.

“He took you outside and showed you how to spot a good climbing tree from a great climbing tree. You two must have explored every inch of the woods behind the house. More importantly, he taught you how to make a perfectly round snowball that would explode beautifully on impact. You two would practice aiming and throwing at each other for hours. When I’d call you both to dinner, I had to bundle up from head to toe just to poke outside. I knew there was an ambush waiting just beyond the deck.

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“So, it was two days after Christmas. Your father was helping Grandma clean out the shed. You wanted to test out the saucer sled Grandma had gotten you on the slope by the lake. I didn’t think it was a good idea, but your father said it was fine. “‘Go ahead, Kiddo. Just promise me you’ll stay off the frozen lake.’ You nodded your head and bounded off all in one excited motion. I told him it was unsafe, but he promised you would be okay. “‘You don’t know he’ll be safe.’ I probably sounded like a broken record. “‘No, I don’t. But I know what a promise can do.’ He lifted a canoe upright and placed it into the shed.

“I went back inside to start making dinner and to keep your grandmother company.

She kept going on and on about how you reminded her of your father when he was your age. She said you were the spitting image of him. I kept staring out the window watching you slide down and run back up. You were having the time of your life all alone in the pure white snow.

“I had just turned my back a couple minutes to slice the ham when I heard a high-pitched scream. I turned as fast as I could, just in time to see you stutter and sink through a crack in the middle of the frozen lake. I ran outside. Your father had already taken off. It was about fifty yards from the shed to the edge of the shore.

I sprinted after him. He had thrown off his jacket on the way and only stopped to tear off his shoes. He yelled at me to stay off the ice, and then slid out on his hands and knees toward the center.

“He reached the crater you had made and dove in head first without hesitating.

I hadn’t seen any sign of your body since you fell in and I screamed even louder as I watched him go in after you. I don’t know how long you both were under there, but I could feel the needles in my arms. It felt like hours.

Days. And the needles stung sharper.

“Finally, you emerged gasping for air.

Too frozen to speak. I screamed again.

I probably never stopped screaming.

Your father lifted you onto the ice and pointed at me and yelled for you to go.

I’ve never heard his voice that hoarse, that panicked and distraught. You began to crawl toward me, blood water trickling down half your face. Your head must have caught an edge when you fell.

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“You were halfway to me, when your father began to climb out of the water.

But as he pressed down on the ice, it began to splinter; the extra weight I guess.

The cracks echoed out and collapsed underneath your knees. Your legs fell back in. You were clinging to nothing on the edge, slowly sliding back in. I couldn’t move. I wanted to run out onto the ice and grab you. But I couldn’t move.

“It was your father. He had disappeared underneath the water again. It was his hands. I saw them lift and push you out of the water a second time. But he never came up. You crawled as fast as you could towards me. The ice kept fracturing underneath and all around you, but you never sank. Every step you took was firm, even as the ice was breaking. It was all a blur as I urged you to me, faster and faster.

“I was hysterical, but I swear, I swear that between the cracks of the ice, as they fell apart beneath you, I could see a shadow, I could make out a figure; supporting you, carrying you, holding everything together for you until you reached the shore.” * * * Foster sat frozen. His mother was crying.

But not the hysterical crying that seizes the body into convulsions of breathing.

It was a crying he’d never seen before in his seven years of life. A soft, calm cry. He couldn’t pay attention to the rest of the story. He didn’t hear about her removing his jacket so he wouldn’t get frostbite or the ambulance his grandma had called. He didn’t hear about the stitches to hold the wound on his forehead or the firefighters that were only capable of surface ice water rescues. He didn’t hear anything except the deafening tear that slid on its hands and knees down his mother’s cheek, plunged into the couch, and disappeared within the darkness of the fabric. It happened, again and again it happened.

His mother reached over and tucked him to her chest. Finally, his lips broke the silence.

“Mommy.

Does it make you think of Daddy?” He was stroking his scar, more gently than ever.

She hiccupped a bit and her words exhaled, refreshed. “Yes, honey. Everyday it does.”

He sunk deeper into her chest and began desperately patting and pulling his hair over his face. For the first time in his seven-year-old life, he felt like a real monster. He wanted to stay submerged forever. He wanted to disappear.

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* * * But his mother laughed in her tears. It was a sputtering, coughing laugh that rattled him to the core. In one graceful whisper, she combed his hair back.

“But Mommy, I don’t make you sad. I can

want to hide it.”

“Foster, when I see your face, I see your father. I see a father that loved you so much, he made sure you’d never have to hide again. I see a father that showed what a son was worth and what a promise could do. And nothing could ever make me happier.” * * * Two days later, an ordinary seven-yearold strolled into the public pool two blocks north of his house. It was warm that day. The warmest day of the summer.

He was sporting a fresh new buzz cut that he hoped would help him swim faster. He stopped—to breathe the air.

“Hey look! It’s the new and improved Foster the Monster. Twice as ugly!”

The three boys laughed and high-fived.

Foster smiled and waved, then set his towel and clothes down and began to rub on sunscreen. “I guess twice as ugly and twice as stupid!” They laughed again, but this time a little slower, their eyes darting from left to right.

Foster grabbed a kickboard and eased into the pool. He began kicking back and forth, straight down the middle. The water shot into the air with every kick, the hundreds of tiny drops bursting like fireworks. Mrs. Cunningham returned from her break and stepped into the pool.

“Foster, I see this beautiful weather has got you out of your little corner.” He smiled and began kicking faster until he reached the end. “And I love this new hair-do.” She rubbed his head playfully. He ran his hands over the sides, enjoying it as well. “And I’ve never noticed that scar. I’ve bet you’ve got a really good story about that one.”

He grinned. His eyes opened wide; wider than when he shared about how he fell off his skateboarding going a zillion miles an hour down a hill. His face lit up, brighter than when he shared about scabbing his knee because he thought he was being chased by a bearturned-out-to-be-squirrel. The words burst to the surface and took form.

“Let me tell you what my Daddy did.”

CHASE ISHII Chase Ishii is a junior from Orange County, California. He is a Religious Studies Major (one of the few and the proud) and a Creative Writing Minor. He plays on the worship team for Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and MPPC Sanctuary. He also has an opinion column in the Stanford Daily every Thursday. As an aspiring screenwriter, he is allowed to procrastinate homework by watching all the movies and TV shows he wants without feeling even the slightest hint of guilt.

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photo by Heidi Thorsen

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The Augustine Project Vox Clara was inspired by The Augustine Project, which is a growing movement to establish Christian journals at colleges across the country.

The Project’s goal is to be a “thoughtful witness to [Christian] faith in the modern university,” knowing that “Truth cannot be pursued in a vacuum.”

The Augustine Project was founded by Jordan Hylden, a graduate of Harvard University.

Other Member Journals Include: • Ichthus (Harvard)

• Religio (Duke)

• Revisions (Princeton)

• Wide Awake (University of Virginia)

• The Beacon (William and Mary)

• The Fish (University of Chicago)

• To An Unknown God (Berkeley)

• Logos (Yale)

• Closing Remarks (Brown)

• Apologia (Dartmouth)

• The Pub (Wheaton)

• The Stand (UC San Diego)

Vox Clara at Stanford is a chapter of Vox Clara, a Christian non-profit dedicated to building a network of Christian organizations on college campuses across the country that produce publications and host speaking events and conferences for college students. This national organization grew out of Vox Clara at Stanford, its first chapter. For more information, please visit www.voxclara.org.

The Augustine Project: theaugustineproject.blogspot.com

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Want to get involved?

Interested in submitting an article or other content?

Vox Clara is currently accepting all types of student submissions, including research articles, opinion pieces, interviews, short stories, book reviews, poems, and photography & art (please take into consideration that journals are typically printed in black & white). We feature this content and archived material on the online version of our journal.

The deadline for articles for the Winter 2012 issue is February 17th. We will still accept submissions after this date but they may be postponed to a later issue.

We welcome any submissions, including those that fit with our winter journal theme: Origins of Faith.

Please submit your work to submissions@voxstanford.org.

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photo by Howard Yonghyun Ro

Forum of Christian Thought and Action at Stanford

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PRESIDENT This past September, Dr. Michael Ward of the University of Oxford traveled to Stanford to speak on his research regarding C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. In the beautiful Terrace Room of Margaret Jacks Hall, Dr. Ward spoke about Lewis as a figure who synthesized his identities as writer, thinker, and Christian, and as such cannot be confined to just one of these categories. His faith profoundly impacted his work, and his intellectual pursuits gave him a medium by which to both share and strengthen that faith. Lewis demonstrates that faith and the intellect need not, in fact should not, exist as a dichotomy or in isolation of one another.

But in so many instances I am guilty of doing just this. Faith belongs in certain pockets of my life, and reason, thinking, intellect, and thereby academia, belong in others. As Stanford students, academia has a big role to play in our identities.

Perhaps our identities are comprised of academia more than we even care to admit. Stanford is a phenomenal place, and it is an immense privilege for each of us to be here, but at Stanford it often feels challenging to follow Christ when so much of our time is absorbed by classes, papers, problem sets, research, leadership, friends, and job searching.

Stanford’s academic component alone poses challenges to faith. As Stanford alum Sam Harris puts it in his book The End of Faith: “We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there are no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common, we call them ‘religious.’ Otherwise, they are likely to be called ‘mad, psychotic, or delusional.’

While religious people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely are.” This mentality can pervade the Stanford classroom, leaving Christian students feeling that their faith is irreconcilable with reason and learning.

Thankfully, God loves our desire to learn: that desire in fact comes from Him, is gifted to us by Him, and as the perfect God that He is, He teaches us exactly how faith and the mind are designed not to be in competition at all.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). We’ve heard this

verse, spoken by Jesus, and we know that God considers it to be vitally important to our souls. But how can we unpack this concept of loving God with our minds? What does doing so even look like?

According to the Bible, faith begins with reasoning. We know Jesus better through our thinking, through considering His words and asking hard questions of them. We are called to have a relational faith with Christ, a faith that by definition involves the application of our mind and our thoughts to the lifelong project of studying God’s Word. Not only with a portion of our time—a few hours on Sunday morning or with the five minutes before we turn out the lights and fall asleep. God wants all of our mind, and that means He wants us to think as deeply and as profoundly about Him as we do about biochemistry or Renaissance literature We apply our minds to knowing God because we want to love Him. We can’t love Him without knowing him, and so the mind has an essential role to play in our relationship with God. What does this mean for us as Stanford students? It means that God challenges us to love Him by studying rigorously, digging into difficult issues, wrestling with challenging parts of Scripture, and using our minds to respect the intricacy of His creation.

We are to worship God with our minds, and in doing so, come to fall before His majesty and glory.

During his lecture, Dr. Ward shared a verse from Colossians that was central to Lewis’s world view: “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:1617). In him all things hold together. That includes Stanford, and biochemistry, and Renaissance literature, and every other application of the mind to which Stanford directs us.

My prayer is that God would make Himself known to you at and through Stanford, and that He might use this journal to do so. As Dr. Ward put it, God is the medium we are swimming in, and His divine nature is so ubiquitous that we sometimes risk missing it.

Tara Guarino President, 2011 - 12 30

Vox Clara, Vol. VI, Issue 1

CLOSING THOUGHTS

photo by Valdiney Pimenta

Thank you for reading Vox Clara. It is our sincere hope that you come away enlightened about aspects of Christianity. Whether you are a skeptic, seeker, or believer, we encourage you to continue exploring the faith. We leave you with these closing thoughts.

“There is no narrowing so deadly as the narrowing of man’s horizon of spiritual things; no worse evil could befall him in his course on earth than to lose sight of Heaven. And it is not civilization that can prevent this, it is not civilization that can compensate for it. No widening of Science, no possession of abstract truth can indemnify for an enfeebled hold on the highest and central truths of humanity.

What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? To teach this means the simple truths taught by our greatest of all teachers: Jesus Christ.”

- Jane Stanford “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

- Proverbs 1:7

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Vox Clara, Vol. VI, Issue 1