Thoughts from Culhwch

You know that feeling that when you go home you’re only really on show for everybody else. You know it’s not really true, but a certain part of you feels like you’re being rushed around so that everybody can see you. Sometimes it feels like coming home is a little like that. It’s like you have to be seen more than you get to see everyone else. Maybe this is what Yale does to people. You turn into this celebrity because you are never around, and everybody know that you’re somehow special. The thing is, I don’t want people to think of me as special just because I go to Yale. It’s an opportunity that God gave me, not something I deserved because of any merit of my own.

I’m sure not everybody reading this will agree with what I’m saying here. But even if you contest whether or not God exists or acts as I think, it doesn’t change the fact that I feel increasingly alienated from people on the grounds that I’m attending a prestigious university. It’s the last thing in the world I want, to be alienated from the very people I want to serve… all of you.

I set out to go to Yale because I knew I had learned something, and wanted to learn more about how I could communicate something. And that something is that the role of faith in the arts is important. We cannot simply overlook it. Faith can be a part of the fine arts, not just the arts and crafts show at the local church/parish. But I feel like I have to fight this education which is helping me to understand all this, just to be able to communicate it without being some Yalie, some Academic, some important celebrity or whatnot.

Well, that’s enough rant for the first day.