Sing Me to Heaven

In my heart’s sequestered chambers lie truths stripped of poet’s gloss.
Words alone are vain and vacant, and my heart is mute.
In response to aching silence memory summons half-heard voices,
And my soul finds primal eloquence and wraps me in song.

If you would comfort me, sing me a lullaby.
If you would win my heart, sing me a love song.
If you would mourn me and bring me to God,
Sing me a requiem, Sing me to heaven.

Touch in me all love and passion, pain and pleasure,
Touch in me grief and comfort; love and passion, Pain and pleasure.

Sing me a lullaby, a love song, a requiem,
Love me, comfort me, bring me to God:
Sing me a love song, Sing me to heaven.

- Daniel E. Gawthrop (b. 1949)

Ahem. When I visit my alma mater, I feel an immense amount of warmth from both genders of the campus. This is probably because I am a wacky/married/open-minded woman that can and will say what anyone else can't or won't. We're comfortable with each other.

So, as an objective onlooker and active participant, I am disappointed in both the men and women of AMC.

Now that the population is down to circa forty, it is more vital than ever to love. As AMC students have learned in VanShajik's Human Person or Dentino's Theology of JP2 classes, "love" must be in action for it to be effective. This is the lacking element on our campus. This is the virtue that keeps our college from the greatness it deserves.

Disclaimer: I understand that the administration, whose example we should follow, forsook the privilege of admiration and leadership long ago. I also admit that I am pathetically guilty of the behavior I am about to criticize.
For the women: Many of us were taught to apply wisdom and sensitivity in our dealings with men to get what we want and need. We were taught how to create and maintain a happy and well-functioning relationship using our "feminine wiles" in benevolent and mutually satisfying ways. We have replaced this innate femininity with disdain, criticism, hypersensitivity, and manipulation. Men are not the insensitive creatures we like to think; men need respect and love whether or not they 'earn' it. Encourage men to be men.

For the men: I won't refer to you as "guys." You are men, and men you shall be called!

How many AMC girls feel similar to Chaucer's "gat-tothed" Wife of Bath? Rosy-faced broads with sexual energy hot enough to melt Fr. Roy's heart of stone, existing for the sole purpose of man's temptation and distraction? Personally, I felt more like Monty Python's hussies of Castle Anthrax, but that's just me. It's a pitiful cop-out to use a woman's beauty as an excuse for distraction and impurity. Everybody knows it, but we femmes somehow agree and blame ourselves. (Immodesty is an entirely separate issue.) Appreciate the beauty of the women around you. Pre-theologate or not, beauty is meant to be recognized, not shunned.

AMC ladies are tough; we need, however, the love and sensitivity of our wonderful gentlemen. Because I am a somewhat *vibrant* woman, some treat me as if I lack the capacity to have hurt feelings. When I was teased somewhat malevolently, rarely would a man in present company defend me. (Thank you, Cory, for asking someone to stop the foul language in a lady's presence last year. Thank you, Darin, for chasing that flirtatious homeless man. Thank you, "Crazy-eyes" Rutherford, for defending me against inappropriate comments instead of laughing or ignoring them. See? Elephants and women never forget.)

Destroy your copy of Paradise Lost if that's what it takes. Seriously.

Please stick together. Only one more semester to go. Like it or not, we are each bonded by faith and education. In our everyday interaction with one another, strive to remember the fundamental reason God placed man and woman together.