Messiah College -Rubbing Alcohol the Wrong Way?
Michelle Canales
Issue date: 11/5/09 Section: Opinion
We are young, we are impressionable, we are reckless? We are akin to 1920's prohibition: "Speakeasies" bootlegging up the hoo-haa's of Messiah's Campus. We are the Underground Railroad for moonshine guzzling and penetrating the covenant's seal. We are elitist, pseudo-Satanist, and perhaps even masochists (we eat in lottie after all). We are labeled all because of the lust and allure of the fermented grape, pressed hops, condensed sugar cane, and the distilled potato.
We are adults floating inside an institutionalized bubble. We bounce off the walls along with the same prescribed jargon circulating the "Chrisitan Church Scene". We are carrying a "cross" that no longer has significance or reason. And should we mess up, should we be in the presence of the holy spirit, we are discarded like lepers. We are in George Orwell's Novel, 1984: Big Brother is watching us. And it is true. Messiah College is watching us.
That watch extends far beyond the public safety vehicles' patrolling parking lots and preying on unlucky, intoxicated victims. It extends beyond the R.A.'s dogmatic instruction to put his or her ear to the door of residents' dorm rooms and apartments in anticipation of loud upheaval. As if those doors whisper "We have alcohol in here, come save me." It extends beyond Abe Lincoln's "ability to add or detract" or having one's case appealed to the peer review board.
I am not undermining the worth of Public Safety or Resident Asisitants. Public Safety has successfully protected us from bears and masked menaces. Nor am I denying the R.A.s' abilities to aid us in our toilet-paper rationing emergencies; they do their job. It even extends beyond the School Covenant which acts like the Ark in its curtain-shielded glory. However, as I recall, that curtain split in two before a certain resurrection occurred.
We, in hindsight, are either Christians at the hand of misconstrued legalism and private funding or followers of the Book of Mormon.
We are adults floating inside an institutionalized bubble. We bounce off the walls along with the same prescribed jargon circulating the "Chrisitan Church Scene". We are carrying a "cross" that no longer has significance or reason. And should we mess up, should we be in the presence of the holy spirit, we are discarded like lepers. We are in George Orwell's Novel, 1984: Big Brother is watching us. And it is true. Messiah College is watching us.
That watch extends far beyond the public safety vehicles' patrolling parking lots and preying on unlucky, intoxicated victims. It extends beyond the R.A.'s dogmatic instruction to put his or her ear to the door of residents' dorm rooms and apartments in anticipation of loud upheaval. As if those doors whisper "We have alcohol in here, come save me." It extends beyond Abe Lincoln's "ability to add or detract" or having one's case appealed to the peer review board.
I am not undermining the worth of Public Safety or Resident Asisitants. Public Safety has successfully protected us from bears and masked menaces. Nor am I denying the R.A.s' abilities to aid us in our toilet-paper rationing emergencies; they do their job. It even extends beyond the School Covenant which acts like the Ark in its curtain-shielded glory. However, as I recall, that curtain split in two before a certain resurrection occurred.
We, in hindsight, are either Christians at the hand of misconstrued legalism and private funding or followers of the Book of Mormon.
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