Welcome back!

Welcome back. See, I can be warm and welcoming. I have heard many inquiries as to whether or not I will be writing again for the Weather Vane as an opinion columnist. The truth is as long as they let me I will pen the page. So I start in a new vein: welcome back. Saying "welcome back" speaks from a place of some sort of authority and, contrary to popular belief, I do not intend to sound pompous or self-promoting.

The truth is that I have spent my summer helping to build the new Mainstage Theater in the former Old Gym of the Commons. Mainstage Theater is a wonderful new space with new seats and some other new toys. As an actor I am pleased to have a space to call our own. So welcome back to those of you who ever went away. I have found that it is a good thing to occasionally take inventory of oneself and one's place in the world.

So I encourage you to do the same. Loren spoke at convocation of the differences in this place versus other universities. One of the things he mentioned was our mission. Our mission to "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God" received the warning of becoming complacent in the head. In today's world, this "post-9/11" world (if you are one who likes to make yourself feel more important by placing a qualifier on an event you can imagine is the biggest event ever), we are pressured to become jingoistic, hegemonic, or even downright nationalist.

I second Loren's call to follow that mission. I agree with his belief in the need to set oneself apart and how that is often as or more important than the specifics of study (OK, maybe that was my take on his comment, but the point remains). The truth is we live in a world full of strife. We are told by ever-increasingly wealthy people that there is more economic balance and prosperity. "There are more jobs today than at any point in American history," were the words that came through the radio waves the other day from Libertarian talk show host Neal Boortz. The truth is that in pure stat, but the truth in reality is that there are more jobs that pay much less than before. People in a time of desperation do things they would not otherwise including accepting jobs.

For example, I read about theft in hurricane-hammered New Orleans. It is hard to fault a person whose house is filled with water to the ceiling for taking food out of an abandoned grocery store. Desperate times. And so in a world rife with war and natural disaster (not that either is new) we are called by our choosing a certain faith or belief system to do something beyond send a check. My welcome comes with a challenge; this year, pick up a cause and fight for it. The only thing worse than evil is apathy.