Our Hearts Are Restless

If you are currently in college, just flipped your tassel, or - like me - are still struggling with calling a new apartment "home", p lease enjoy this guest post from one of my good friends, Amy Marter.  Amy just graduated as Valedictorian from Christendom College, with a BA in Literature and a minor in Classics.  She is working for Our Sunday Visitor for a second summer, volunteers at the Catholic Writers' Conference, and will attend Catholic University of America this fall for a MA in Literature. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay A Patron Saint for College Nomads If there is one practical skill that I have gained from my college education, it has been that of packing. After four years of moving into dorms and returning home for breaks, I like to think that I have mastered the art. There is an exhilarating liberation that comes from the decision that all of one’s necessary earthly possessions can fit into the back of the station wagon. It gives rise to freedom to ro...

Once upon a time , I was dead set on being a professional musician.  A degree in arts administration with a minor in trombone performance awaited me, and I would hear of no other possibility, no matter how hard my parents tried. Then, the summer of 2010 happened.  My parents dragged me, kicking and screaming, to the same week-long program my two older sisters had previously attended at a little liberal arts college in Virginia.  "It's just a week," they said.  "Think of it as a vacation."  Some vacation!  Classes began and ended with prayer.  We had daily Mass, daily adoration, and an introduction to the depths of the liberal arts and Western civilization. Midway through that week, I sat in the back of the chapel, looking at the monstrance.   I can't leave this behind , I realized.  I knew, with overwhelming certainty, that this place was where I belonged.  The next few days were one long existential crisis, as I fought with myself t...

It seems like forever and yesterday that I started as a bright-eyed, naive little freshman at Christendom College.  After four years and a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature, the world seems just about as scary as it did then, but I'm so much better prepared to deal with it.  I could go back and give a post-mortem of all the things I wish I'd done better, but likewise I can give you an even longer list of why I'm glad I went.  I even managed to graduate  summa cum laude , thanks be to God!  My thesis was successfully concluded, I've made a myriad of "life-giving friends" (thanks, Dr. O'Donnell, for that perfect phrase!), I've grown spiritually, emotionally, and mentally, I've learned my strengths and my weaknesses, and I've received an amazingly intense and grace-filled education. Many thanks are due to my parents.  They are responsible for getting me to Christendom in the first place (that's a story in itself) and have sac...