Nandika Anne D’Souza
Materials Science & Engineering
University of North Texas
These are times when I am drawn to an epiphany that came to me years ago.
As I went through a re-enactment of Mary and Joseph reaching Bethlehem and needing to seek shelter, not knowing anyone, I was drawn to the notion that each year on our campuses there are students arriving who also know no one, who find themselves in a foreign land.
It is at moments like these that I find that what they need most is a smile, a nod from me that says they are going to overcome it, a prayer in the heart and reinforcement on my face that says, “Yes you can do it, and we are sure you can.”
I Was Overwhelmed
When I arrived at Auburn, Alabama from India in 1988 I was overwhelmed by converting currency, finding an apartment to rent that I could afford, and registering for classes. I didn’t understand credit hours or GPA. A host of orientation classes left me with more things I could not understand.
Different campus offices asked for mandatory attendance at meetings at the same time. And even though my family raised me to speak only English, my accent was as puzzling to those Alabamans as theirs was to me.
My first Sunday at Auburn I got a first glimpse that 32 streets may have 30 churches. I found one for my denomination and entered. As songs of praise lifted up, my spirits lifted too. As we prayed for strength for the spirit, for the new semester, for families now without their children in their homes but off to college, it seemed like suddenly all things were possible.
The Spirit Knows No Boundaries
I saw that the spirit knows no boundaries. That the world breathed from the same air, and that faith is both a bound rock and an elevator of the spirit. It was such a joy to realize that I had a gift in having faith that I had never quite realized before. That is how I came to both realize and embrace my faith anew.
On campuses, as we identify the new to campus, there are also many who do not have that faith. They come and cling to secular metrics of the American experience—wealth and ambition. These do not fulfill the spirit and thus as they wander through their own Bethlehems, how wonderful it is to share our spirit with them. To offer the manger of a meal, a candy bar, a grin . . . and in that moment to make a statement for Christ of a faith which indeed makes all whole.
I have found that some strangers find their way to my office to share their belief, so perhaps living it is all that is needed. Giving to all, regardless of the commonality of faith, may grow it.
The innkeeper did not find out if Joseph and Mary shared with him anything in common. He saw a need and filled it. Christmas comes every day, particularly in the faces of strangers. It can even arrive at the beginning of our semesters.
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© 2009 Nandika A. D’Souza Used by permission of Faculty Commons