Freshman Reflections From Belmont UniversitySample

Day 7 – Community I have a lot of baseball caps. I have a cap from the World Cup in South Africa, one from the college I attended, several Belmont caps, a St. Louis Browns cap, Predators caps, a Titans cap and a couple stacks of St. Louis Cardinals caps. I have 22 St. Louis Cardinals caps. As a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan, my Cardinals caps are a way I identify with the team. I have a reproduction WWI era cap, a cap from the post WWII era, Sunday caps, World Series caps, classic red caps, white caps and even a green St. Patrick’s Day cap. Maybe you do not share my commitment to St. Louis Cardinals caps. Maybe you’re one of those Yankees fans, or a Red Sox fan, or even a Cubs fan. Maybe you are not even a baseball fan but you like wearing Belmont gear or some other sports team gear or Star Wars T-shirts or the T-shirts from a favorite band. Maybe you do not wear any clothing that identifies you with a team or a group of people, but we all have communities of one kind or another that help give us identity. A really cool thing about your first forty days at college is the opportunity it gives to you to reinvent yourself or establish yourself as you make new communities. You’ll discover new friends as well as new places to hang out to make new friends. Before you know it, your life will be redefined by new relationships and new communities. Our Scriptures for today give us some guidance in the ways we make new relationships and form new communities. Proverbs 22:24–25 reminds us that hanging out with hotheaded people means we’ll soon be acting that way ourselves. More simply, we tend to act like the people we hang out with. Choose wisely. The Galatians text reminds us that new communities means people to help and to help us. We cannot survive life without community and friends to help along the way. 1 John 1:7 reminds us that the best community of all is the community that walks with Jesus. Which community will you choose? How will you make new friends in these first 40 days of the rest of your life? Who will be the people to help you build your life? DARRELL GWALTNEY Dean, College of Theology and Christian Ministry H. Franklin Paschall Chair of Biblical Studies and Preaching