PARTING THOUGHTS WC MEMORIES
What is life expecting from us? By THE REV. DR. STEPHEN McCONNELL ’80
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n Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning , through which he recounts his horrifying journey surviving Hitler’s concentration camps, he also explains how the experience helped him to arrive at a new philosophy on how to approach even the worst circumstances of life. Wrote Frankl: “We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly.” Each of us would and should arrive at a different answer to that question and yet maybe it’s a time to draw inspiration from the Biblical passage that resides at the center of the Westminster College seal: Isaiah 8:16—“Bind up the testimony, seal the law.” I’ve never found what inspired our founders to—of all Biblical verses—put this one front and center to our life at Westminster College, but it’s made me wonder if it doesn’t serve as a good touchstone for our mission especially in this unexpected time. The law according to Jesus is to love one another—love God, love
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neighbor. What does life expect from us—Jesus would say— but to love one another. Or as the prophet Micah would say, “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God.” We seal the law in our love for one another. We seal the law when we raise more than $1.8 million to Bring Back the Titans, when we encourage our students to live the Westminster Way, and when we pound nails into a Habitat for Humanity house. We seal the law when we take our nursing degree into the hollers of Appalachia, when we parlay our business degree into starting a non-profit that feeds the hungry, and when we volunteer at a hospice center. This is what distinguishes human beings at their best, as it says in Westminster College’s mission. And if there is any testimony that we would wish to bind up in the history of Westminster—perhaps it would be the stories of Westminster people displaying the courage and the creativity to love and help our world and our neighbor especially through a time like this. That while our students learn organic chemistry formulas and macro-economics and 19th century British literature—and from that learning dream of trails to blaze—that maybe our greatest legacy will come not from what we expect from life but in learning what life expects from us—to live out the law of love and to share the testimony of love’s power to conquer all things. That the invisible evils of any virus, microbiological or behavioral, can be dismantled by the visible contagion of compassion and kindness. S
The Rev. Dr. Stephen McConnell ’80 is the senior pastor of Church of the Palms in Sarasota, Florida. He recently completed his second term on Westminster College’s Board of Trustees.
