As a person of the Christian faith, and a 23 year old in the age of social media, I interact with multiple web-based Christian platforms on a daily basis. What a wonderful thing it is to have this free access to sermons and blogs and other resources from millions of churches, foundations, .coms and .orgs. There are so many of these that if you type “Jesus” into a simple Google search, you can pull up “About 884,000,000 results” (in 1.12 seconds). If you decide to refine your search and inquire, “Does God love me” you’ll get about 17,000,000 results. Typing in “Why does suffering exist if God loves me” will give you over 3,000,000 results. Ten minutes online reveals that, for anybody who is curious and has internet access, there are “answers” that exists for almost every single question we could ask about Jesus Christ and God. If you believe in Jesus, then you can also Google “answers” to every secret struggle of the heart as you try to recon with your own painful habits and questions. Each has a related but distinct and instantly accessible answer you can download in the form of PDF or listen to as a Podcast.
In fact, so tailored are these “answers” that you can Google to find out whether or not your depression is a sin, if your non-Christian mother and father are going to burn in eternal flames, and which presidential candidate you should vote for if you are a real believer (This of course depends on which Google page you decide to find your answer. On the first page you’ll probably find at least 5 sources that say a GOP vote is the vote of God. On the tenth page you can find out that democracy is unbiblical and a vote for either an unbaptized democrat or a republican is actually a vote for satan). It’s a unique age we live in. Before the explosion of the internet, to find answers to big questions within our faith, we were forced to turn to our local church leadership, to our congregation, or, (worst case scenario), to prayer, if we were to come to some kind of understanding about the questions weighing on our hearts and minds and spirits. Interesting how, now, it is easy to replace intense spiritual discernment with a few clicks around on the screen of our smartphone. It seems, too, that every ministry is eager to provide this media, answer the same questions in slightly different (but definitely from “God’s perspective,” or the “correct Biblical interpretation”) and so to get as many webpage hits and subscribers as possible. Please don’t take me the wrong way here. I believe that people have been saved from suicide, from acting out on an addiction, from abandoning their faith completely through the encouragement and guidance that these online sources can offer! I know because I’ve heard those stories. And I too have found comfort and wonderful guidance through links sent to me by friends or in random internet searchs when I was researching some faith topic I wanted to get multiple opinions on. When Christian online literature is written under the influence of Galations 5:22 (those lovely fruits of the Spirit we are promised), it has the potential to be wonderfully uplifting. It recognizes that it is but one voice among many, part of a bigger family, serving as a jumping off point and not the final authority. It is gentle and respectful, offering a perspective on the topic and inviting the reader to make the final decision by seeking more wisdom and knowledge. But, through personal experience, I know that the vast treasure trove of online information and opinions about Christian life can also be the Pandora box of condemnation, judgement, and manipulation. In vulnerable times when I was alone and confused, isolated from a healthy and thriving faith community, or deeply troubled about some difficult circumstance of my life that I wanted to find an answer to quickly, I was plunged into a darker online world. Here,I found faceless and disembodied Christian voices who were carrying guns loaded with singular verses, cocked and aimed and firing rapidly back and forth over the controversial topic of our day: homosexuality, mental disorders, doubt, politics, money, violence. There’s another common manifestation of this that might be even more familiar. I’m sure we have all experienced the 50 comment long Facebook posts where people are trying to prove that their position on an issue is the right one (which, in our community, boils down to trying to prove what God thinks about an issue based on our interpretation of what Holy Scripture means). So what am I trying to say here? What I’m trying to say is that we have to be aware that the cyber culture of bullying, finger pointing, hatred and discrimination is one that we, as Christians, need to acknowledge exists, and refuse to engage in. The internet is an easy place to cast stones and judge aspects of our culture that we believe are wrong. It’s easy because we can do so without the responsibility of standing and having to answer for our words. The virtual world is a place where people who have a platform can spread their beliefs on any topic and where some of the most vulnerable of those among us can easily become the victims of subscribing to an opinion or a person instead of the Truth (that we are all equally close to God and can come to him through the saving work of Christ). That’s the Gospel that sets us free. Free to begin a relationship with God and others without fear of being condemned even though we make mistakes, have baggage from the past, and are in need of a lot of encouragement. Free from the need to judge others as we realize that the hatred, lust, and jealousy in our hearts towards another means that we share the same sin as the murderer, the pimp and his prostitutes, Donald Trump and Mother Theresa. Now, more than ever, as hard questions and existing divisions continue to tempt us to tear each other apart, we need to insist on fostering healthy communities. Spaces where we are free to ask big questions, to find support instead of incrimination for our doubts and fears, to learn about Jesus from the guidance of the Holy Spirit, from a holistic and committed approach to unbiased Biblical investigation, and, so importantly, to learn from the lived example of those around us. I believe that this can happen over the internet, but it will take a great commitment to tolerance, to refusing to use our platforms (as small as our personal Twitter and as large as jesus.org) to elevate our interpretations or opinions at the danger of equating our view with that of the absolute authority of God and Christ. May we please remember as we express our views on faith and life via technology that “We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!” (1 Corinthians 13:12 MSG).
0 Comments
For the past year, my life has been a huge mess. Totally wrecked. Upset in every way. I managed to hold it together well enough to finish projects I had started, and even graduate with a pretty decent GPA (and a growing skepticism). But even with this big accomplishment under my belt, I haven’t been able to fight off the realization that something is completely off. And after a lot of searching, I finally think I’ve landed on the reason.
I’m love sick. Completely enamored. Hopelessly head over heels. Sold out and devoted. I wonder, though, does he feel the same? I wake up in the morning with my mind fixed on him. My heart pounds against my chest and pulls me out of slumber. I can’t eat like I used to. Food that held such enjoyment before tastes empty in my mouth. Though I eat like a P.O.W. rescued from a work camp, it’s only because I know that otherwise the food would go in the landfill. And with a body recovering from a vicious five year disease, I know I need the calories. But still, meals three times a day, more, feels like betrayal. Mostly because I know he doesn’t eat that often, if even hardly at all. I know that what he tastes is hunger, because I know he hears the cries of every child who hasn’t eaten a meal in days, starving to death alone. Ten years old, five years old, infant. I know and I hear their voices too. And even the best food goes down in guilty gulps of ash flavored mush. I look for him everywhere too. I call his name under my breath and then scan around me. My heart is drawn to the front of my chest and pounds when I realize that he might be near. Sometimes I’ll go weeks without even catching a glimpse him. But he’s not far. He dances in my memories, creeping in during my daydreams and distracting me from the important business that stops being important when I remember that he is alive out there. That at one time he touched my face and called me by name. My heart aches. I want to be with him. Or do I? The fear grows again from the bottom of my stomach. And then I’ve lost track…what was I doing before? I’ll have dreams where I’m face to face with him again. Or running away from him, as the case may be. Or screaming, angry with him, or myself, because he’s the most intimate and foreign lover I’ve ever fallen for, and I the most fickle of suitors. As I’ve watched him from afar, my heart has melted. He attracts me in every single way, and repulses me at the same time. He beckons me forward with a charisma that is unmatched by the most charming of them. I respect him and trust him more than anyone else. I believe deep down that he knows all the answers, and if only I could get him to stay put and endure my interview…then I’d finally have peace. But he doesn’t like to stay put. And here he terrifies me with his untamable spirit, uncompromising strength and honesty, and his unwavering devotion to people I really can’t stand. The biggest problem with my lover is that he demands I share. Because you see, he goes where he’s called. He’s not selective. He has no type. And he has no favorites. His love is contagious and more delicious than a honeycomb covered in fine dark chocolate. And he is generous to give it. I see my lover everywhere. From my car window I see him kneeling down to kiss the bundled up pile of blankets and beaten-up human figure lying under the overpass. I see him stroking the hands of the woman dying of cancer alone in her home, left by her family. I see him dancing with tattered shirt children in the streets, whose parents are nowhere to be found. I see him weeping over the limp body of a baby whose mother was too strung out to nurse. And sitting, stroking the hair of a young boy sitting in a cell, facing 40 years more of life in jail, whispering hope for something more My lover has no attraction to shopping malls or big church buildings. He doesn’t concern himself with Netflix shows or Instagram posts. He barely notices political campaign and the loud shouts of people filled with so much hot gas from the pulpit. Not that he hates these things. No, he’s just too busy preparing gifts and food and shelter for the homeless, and the desperately poor. He’s too busy comforting the sick, those facing the grave, forced towards an early end by the consequences of modernization: pollution, chemical food, and fluorescent lighting. He’s too busy celebrating with the kids on the street, because he knows that joy and innocence and freedom from the needs and demands of adult life are the real way to experience life. He’s too busy standing with those that the world has abandoned and condemned to their mistakes, telling them that they are not their past. My lover is all about the small and quiet pursuits of the dirty, the small, the ignored, and the unprivileged. I yearn more than ever to leave behind my life and join my lover where he is. The old life I once knew feels like an empty shell to me now. Cold. Lonely. Where my lover is I see light. True, warm light, and not just the glitter to temporary glutting entertaining. Deadening stimulation. With him is joy, I know. Yet the fear of leaving behind the empty glitter and the cold ash of lonely food keeps me back. I fear so deeply that if I leave behind my shell and expose myself to his light, he will see me like no other lover has. The wrinkles and bumps and rashes and putrid sores of my naked and given self. His perfection and love are so opposite of my ugly flesh. How could he ever love me back? Oh how I fear that he will turn from me in disgust. That when he sees my selfishness, my judgement, my greed, my gluttony, my worldly desires, my lustful eyes, my murderous heart and my compulsive hands, that he won’t love me. But the more I watch him from my shell the more that I know I can’t stand to stay hidden in it any more. Risking exposure is better than being tortured by his beauty and fragrance from afar. Even being rejected is worth getting to stand near his glory, for one moment. I must go. I tiptoe out of my shelter. I feel his warmth on my exposed skin. And I whisper to him, the lover I’ve watched from afar for so long. As I call his name he turns to me, and his eyes lock onto mine. “Jesus…” I wisper. “I’m here…do you love me?” Rick and I couldn't stop munching on the cubed potatoes. Smothered with French Onion soup mix and olive oil, they were undoubtedly the best part of the meal. We quickly reached the bottom of the bowl. Everyone had finished their plates (and most of the food on the table), so we decided it must be time to break out the desserts. These were the gift that Mr. Jesse Lott and Mr. Rick Lowe had brought to add to our weekly community dinner feast, and of which they were the VIP members this evening. As Gabrielle distributed to each of us a cupcake or cookie, I could barely contain the huge smile breaking out across my face. Because these weren't just any sweets. They were from the newly Christened bakery in our neighborhood, Crumbville, started by a mother whose business began as a result of the rave reviews she got for the cookies she made her favorite musician (J Cole) before attending one of his concerts. Through a series of fantastic coincidences, she managed to get a friend to sneak her delivery of fangirl sweets backstage. J Cole shouted her out later on Twitter for her “amazing chocolate chip cookies”, she gained traction with other (less famous) cookie lovers, and the rest is history. Gabrielle handed me a vegan almond butter cookie (Ella, the owner of Crumbville, specializes in vegan delicacies), and I looked up at our guests for the night.
Rick Lowe and Jesse Lott are two famous artists. Rick Lowe started a hugely successful public art installation space and community development non-profit in the Third Ward called Project Row Houses (the workplace of two of my housemates, and a frequent stop during our Saturday neighborhood walks). He's also a MacArthur fellow. Jesse Lott lived in the Third and Fifth Wards for the past 60 years and through a meandering but momentous journey has become a nationally known, iconic Afro-American artist. Among his many triumphs of creation, he built a 30 foot tall metal sculpture that bursts into the sky near the bus stop we all take to the grocery store each Friday. Two weeks prior to our dinner, I attended an art gallery opening where he was the featured artist. In the shadow of these two great men, my face was flush with the realization that I was sitting among people whose lives have made a deep impact on the individuals and the communities they found themselves in. In other words, these guys are living the dream and helping other people live theirs, too. As I sunk my teeth into the overwhelming goodness of my cookie and our lighthearted banter, I felt giddy with delight. As we chattered, our group conversation somehow meandered to the topic of music. As usual, I began boasting that I knew the drums, and pulled out my tiny hand-held Djembe to prove it. Mr. Jesse said, "Let me see that thing." He saddled the drums between his large, overall-clad knees, making it look like a toy and not so much a real instrument. He began to slap out a rhythm. The conversations around the table suddenly snapped shut, and the room grew quiet. Our shoulders began bobbing to his beat. Rick picked up his fork and started tapping it against his water glass. Now we were moving our heads along with shoulders. Taylor patted chopsticks on the back of her chair, Saajidah was clapping her hands, and I sang the words to a never-before-heard song that had no real lyrics or functional melody. Eventually all of us found a makeshift instrument (Gabrielle had even somehow located a ukulele in our closet), and all of the sudden we were a ragtag band, whooping and hollering and likely making the neighbors think we were some kind of modern-day speakeasy. It was a celebration for no reason. A coming together in mutual jubilation of a team of women fresh out of college, just beginning to pursue places in the world, and a duo of men deeply rooted and incredibly fruitful in the interest of serving their communities and living out their passions. And so it was, for ten minutes or two hours, our music making felt infinitely high and wide and deep and long, and as I woke the next day I wasn’t sure if it had all been a dream. Luckily, the cookie crumbs on our kitchen table confirmed its reality. Still the sweet smelling memory of this night can still bring an instant smile to my face and tingling encouragement to my heart when it grows weary. I believe there is a deeper lesson to this experience, too. And a truth that cries to be voiced. I believe that the Kingdom of God looks like celebration and reunion across dividing lines, like making noise and dancing and singing just because joy is everlasting, and like revolutionary friendships starting over cubed potatoes, cookies, and merry-making that has no definite start or finish. In 2013, the Third Ward, also called "The Tres" was rated the 15th most dangerous neighborhood the United States, according to a ranking system made up by the people behind Location, Inc. a research company that rates communities based on their crime rates, school quality, and real estate trends. According to their statistics, 1 in 13 people in this zip code will likely be the victim of a crime every year. In my old life, if I were to find myself driving through these streets, I would roll up the windows and lock all the doors. There's a variety of factors that might make this place seem threatening to an uninitiated passerby: crumbling infrastructure, heaps of trash where people from outside the neighborhood have dumped their refuse, stray dogs, and the lack of businesses (except gas stations and corner stores). The Third Ward is a drug and prostitution hub, it has some of the most under resourced schools in Harris County, and a lack of local business has created expansive food deserts. Men often wander around the streets or sit in front of the few shops, calling out to any feminine figure that crosses by. To be on the streets means to feel hyper vigilant, checking over both shoulder to make sure no one has the worst of intentions in their minds. In other words, this place is a new world for me, the girl who lived in the lap of luxury at one of the best pruned and safest college campuses in Houston, maybe Texas. In the first six weeks of living here, I've had to fight the dread in my heart at the thought of walking through the streets and confronting a reality that is foreign to what I've known. But one of the reasons I chose this Mission Year was the opportunity to enter into a space known by its scarcity, and to see what it is really like from the inside. To live in solidarity with, and experience both sides of. I was following a deep heart conviction that this classification was hiding a greater beauty. That the light must shine brightest in the places that seem the darkest. That abundance must abound in places where poverty also abounds. Mission Year has been an opportunity to be fully immersed in this paradox, of bright light and dark darkness. There is darkness. It is mostly expressed in relationship to the lacks we are adjusting to. A lack of mutual respect means that, in this place where women are often sold and bought for what their body can offer, we don't know which men that drive or walk by us are predators and which ones are just neighbors. Our lack of the ability to trust our safety means that we constantly have to be on guard, looking around us in suspicion. My shoulders are squared and tight with tension until we step in to our house and lock our door after work. Sweet relief. It is expressed too in the sheer grief of realizing that we live in a place where fullness of life seems far away. The lack of safe public spaces, the prevalence of trash everywhere, these cast a shadow over the streets of our home, too, and it is uncommon to see children or adults enjoying recreation. Probably because this is so close to my heart, I strongly feel the absence of this strongly. And yet, what I heard in my heart is proving to be so true, too! Despite the "scarity", our team has experienced so much abundant goodness here! This has come in the form of relationships and many gifts. There's Mr. Spider-Man next door, who knows our schedules sometimes better than we do, and is always quick to tell a joke (laugh at it), and then divulge to us the happenings on the streets around our house. His yard and cars are impeccably clean, too, which makes my dirty car look like a shame. There's Ms. Ree near the bus stop Saaj and Taylor and I take to work every morning. She drinks her coffee at 7am on her porch, and one day we approached her to say hi. She quickly decided we were her friends, and the next morning she presented us with a sleeve of Shipley's donuts! We started the habit of visiting her every morning, and we constantly are gifted with a rotation of coffee, sausage and egg mcmuffins, hash browns, or donuts (see below). Ms. Ree is the Queen of the block - she's lived in the Third Ward her whole life and much of her family populates the houses of our street. We were gifted with free tuition to a retreat weekend with our Church, St. John's Downtown, where we were surrounded by the love of women who ranged in occupation from minister to recovering alcoholic to recently off the street to CEO to retired journalist. When Pastor Juanita, the co-leader of St. John's introduced our team and (unexpectedly) announced that we were living on a communal budget of $110 dollars a week for food and $70 monthly personal stiped, we were swamped by a crowd of women asking to take us shopping and give us gifts for the house. In a single day we were provided with months of house supplies, a microwaves, and a treasure troves of each of our favorite snacks (I scored enough popcorn and almonds to keep me content until Christmas!). We were given free cookies at the opening of Crumbville, a vegan sweet shop in the Third Ward started by a single mother who began her baking career making cookies for her son's birthday (http://theboxhouston.com/9555095/single-moms-rock-htowns-own-ella-goes-from-dreamville-to-crumbville/). I could go on and on and on about the goodness that is so abounding here - the smiles and food and hugs and money given to us by neighbors who seem to be overcome with the desire to give away what little they have. We live in the constant duality of being amazed at the people we've befriended in our community and wariness of the very real darkness that lives in this place - the inadequate school systems, children without access to sound nutrition and a solid education, drugs, violence, human trafficking, and the walking shadow figures who might not want our friendship - only our bodies. Maybe it's because the darkness exists that the light here is so beautiful. Like a moth I am drawn toward it with a hunger that I've never known before. I love it here, the collision of comfort and fear, the duality of love and pain. That is the Third Ward in all of its fullness! To reduce it to anything less is to toss out a Tolkien novel just because it is missing a glossy cover. Mission Year's vision is "to inspire and join in with a movement of people committed to loving God and loving people in neighborhoods across the country...to develop lifelong disciples, leaders, and advocates who will transform the church, the city, and the world...to see the church unified, cultures reconciled, neighborhoods revitalized, and the world redeemed."
During my senior year in college, I was having a really hard time "driving by." Rice is so close to so many very urban impoverished areas, where people are not getting to experience fullness of life, or even the basic needs I was so abundantly provided for in school. Whenever I drove by a group of homeless people sitting under a bridge, sweating their brains out (I can't imagine how bad it would be in Houston with no A/C) or a shanty house right next to a brand new condoand I was constantly asking myself and God, "well, what am I supposed to think about this, and what am I supposed to do?" And that's when a friend recommended me to Mission Year! Now, for one year, I won't be driving by any longer! In September, I will be a part of the Mission Year team in Houston, Texas. Along with a group of five other 18-30 year old women, I will live at 3322 Beluah Street in the Third Ward, one of the six historic neighborhoods near downtown, and currently an urban area that has a high concentration of low-income families. Mission Year involves a couple different intentionally formulated components that enable me to best serve and help the people in the Third Ward. The first is an internship placement with a local non-profit called CAN Do Houston, where I will work during the week and get immersed in learning about how to be a part of addressing one specific need of the people in the Third Ward – healthy living opportunities. CAN Do will make up a big portion of my time during Mission Year, and I’m really excited to get to join into their vision, which is to prevent and reduce childhood obesity through grassroots initiatives, empowering individuals in neighborhoods at greater risk for childhood obesity to advocate for changes in healthy eating and active living in their communities. They do this through filling the gap between existing resources (government and other non-profits, like the food bank and community gardens), and neighborhoods in need of them. I will also have intentional time set aside on get to know the girls I'm living with (yay new sisters!!!) and the community I'm moving to on Saturday and Sunday. Those days will be set aside for getting out into the neighborhood and engage with the people I live next to -- so far Mission Year has told us to be prepared to knock on doors and intentionally get to know the neighbors, play chess with them, as well as invite these people over for dinner (and practice hospitality) on Saturday nights – which you can come to, if you’ll be in Houston! Mission Year really wants volunteers to get fully immersed in their community, which is why I'll also be abandoning my car for a year and shopping for food and other resources within the Third Ward, going to Church in the Third Ward, and taking the bus to work, home, church, the store, etc. (all with my roommates of course, we will be acting as a family unit to keep each other safe). Finally, there will be a lot of study and devotional time (group and personal) in the Bible and in other literature that will lead us through a curriculum about institutions that contribute to poverty, homelessness, inequality, etc! I can't wait to get to know some of the people in the Third Ward. To hear their stories and what they want to do in life. To understand the societal factors holding them back. And and what things they need to feel safe and healthy and free. This summer I was really luck to get to think a lot about what people need to feel safe to pursue life in peace, which I think everyone should be able to do! As far as I can see, people need food, shelter, safety, and then, super-duper importantly, Community! I've been so blessed over the past year to get immersed in being loved in the context of a community with the Navigators ministry on Rice's campus, and have made friends I literally can trust with everything, could ask anything from, and get to share deep spiritual bonds with, too. There's been a ton of internal healing from fears and wounds and mis-trusts that I didn't even know existed in this context. Especially just knowing there's a place I can go home and be safe and KNOWN in total acceptance, with no shame leveled against me, even when I do things that are wrong. It's amazing, like taking a bath in love that doesn't demand anything back. The power of community has really changed my life. And so I really think that's fullness of life, paired with all the health and education and quiet spaces to enjoy the beauty of the world that God wants for people! In order to work as a full time volunteer with Mission Year in my nonprofit placement, I am fundraising $10,000 this summer and over the course of the next year, to cover the basic food, shelter, and clothing needs I will have. The purpose of this fundraising is to support my full-time work with my nonprofit and in the neighborhood I will be living in. Please considering donating to me this year, if you feel so led. Contributions can be one-time, or monthly. The link for giving can be found here. https://missionyear.thankyou4caring.org/larisalamere And if money is not a way you can support, then please email me if I can add you to my prayer support network. I am specifically praying that God will lead me to one or two women in the Third Ward that I can bond with deeply and form meaningful and lasting spiritual relationships with. I am praying that I can find some women, along with the other girls in my house, to really have genuine conversations with, that I can be reliable and present for the girls (sisters!!!) around me, that we can pray and seek God, Love! Real Love! and whole physical, emotional, and psychological health together, so we can be infectious women who are beneficial to our families, friends, and in our workplaces. I will be reaching out periodically through the year with prayer requests for the people I am working with and for myself. My email is [email protected]. My phone number is 832.941.2181. The first six weeks of the program we will be doing a technology fast from cell phones, so please contact me via my email, [email protected] Love and encouragement as well as questions are more than welcome!!!!!!!!! Houston. June. Three weeks ago I graduated from Rice University with a degree in Earth Science. The celebration was fantastic. I got to say goodbye to everyone at Rice who made my time fantastic, who encouraged me to pursue Jesus Christ, Earth Science, and life-giving hobbies (kombucha! running! writing!). It was emotional leaving people who I lived through four years of intense joy, sorrow, and sleeplessness with. And all of the amazing relationships that I made as a barista, a student, and someone in deep need of guidance and love. I look forward to continuing some of these relationships in the next chapter of life, and starting new relationships as circumstances change, too. BREAD PT 1. This summer, from June to September, I am working in the Earth Science department at Rice, continuing soil science research with Dr. Masiello. I am exploring how biochar interaction with minerals affects the water retention capacity of soils. Basically: But soil is complex. Soil is not just dirt, but a mixture of many different components from a variety of sources: weathered rocks and minerals, dead and living plant material, microbes, water, and nutrients in the form of organic compounds. Any of these components, but especially soil minerals, can potentially prevent biochar from doing its job (bad, because farmers are paying $ to put biochar in their dirt). Above: a complicated soil particle. My job is to figure out how exactly soil minerals impact biochar's environmental benefits (e.g. water retention) in a controlled environment (e.g. the lab). In addition to this lab work, I'll also be acting as co-editor, along with Cin-Ty Lee (cintylee.org), of the inaugural Earth Science department magazine. The point of the magazine is to make Earth Science research accessible to the broader community (Rice, Houston, and beyond). I tried to do this in the above description of my work. How did I do? The magazine will also feature discussion with professors and department members, so we can all get to know the human side of each other more intimately. I can't wait to start interviewing people and designing the first issue. Above: an idea I had for the logo of the magazine!
Thank you God for the provision of work You've given me this summer. In my next installment I'll explain the other task before me this summer, something much more intimidating to me than the vast questions of science: fundraising. |
Author/soil science research assistant @ Rice U/ Archives
March 2017
Categories |