Since last summer...

It is remarkable to think about how much I've changed in one year. I view the world in such a different way it is almost like I am a completely different human. In a sense, I think I am "more human" in the way that education can only make one "more human."

I was thinking about the random events that sort of spurred the change in my thought. My close friend and current roommate at the time assumed responsibility for the Fairfield Society at Hillsdale effective in the Fall 2008 semester. The Fairfield Society meets on Thursdays at 5:45 and you are encouraged to bring your dinner into the private dining room where we meet and listen to a presentation by a student on whatever topic he or she desires. It is usually something on the mind of the student that he may desire feedback from. Often the struggle is finding students willing to present thus my friend began pestering me to share my thoughts.

About this time, I was interacting with another friend who was set to enter Hillsdale in the fall as a freshman. This particular friend was a staunch libertarian who saw the world a lot differently than I did. We spent many IM and phone conversations hammering out our positions. I remember one of these phone conversations in which I made an identical argument against abortion and gay marriage. Something triggered in my head that night and it is hard for me to pinpoint exactly what it was. I do know I began making the sort of connections in all that I had learned at Hillsdale the past two years. I began to understand why I thought the way I did in my understanding of the world. This led to a Fairfield Presentation which I will outline in my next post that definitely was landmark day in life...

I was not left alone to deal with these new ways of thinking. I am thankful for a certain senior, who recently graduated Hillsdale with departmental honors in history, for his time in continuing to help me piece together many different ideas. This past academic year I took the classes that allowed me to firsthand engage these ideas with the thinkers behind them. This is not to say I've learned all I needed to learn. It does say however, that the way I think now is completely different than the way I think last summer.


I think this is an integral part of learning that I've really began to enjoy. We are always modifying the ways we think as we continue to learn and grow as human beings. Our fundamental convictions do not necessarily have to change. In my libertarian friend's case, they have changed... for the better! But in my case, I still remain a reformed, Christian, conservative... who just happens to see things a lot differently than ever before.

I'm happy to be a part of this conversation... and thankful that God has placed me at a college where such changes to ones character are not only encouraged, they are strengthened.