He Carries the Week
Finding value in the big and small things
This article is part of the Claritas spring 2024 issue, Home.
By: joaquin rivera
Monday
I open my eyes, waking up before my alarm goes off because of a creaky bed and an all too bright sun breaking through my all too insufficient blinds. Who am I? I’m a student at Cornell University. Why? Sometimes I say that I’m here to pursue my passions, but inside I’m thinking of earning money. Sometimes it’s vice versa. Deep down, I value the words of my teachers who told me to be curious about the world and the words of my mother who told me to help people through my studies. So I embrace this mission. I see that my job is to ask questions and, hopefully, to find answers that will one day equip me to solve problems that the world faces.
At 10:10 a.m., I arrive at my Southeast Asian history class. I learn about how the complex intertwining of imperialism, migration, political infighting, sectarian violence, and famine has created an arbitrary geopolitical region that happens to be where I am from. We say we learn history so that it will not be repeated. Yet the cycles continue, and oppression and poverty still reign. I don’t yet know why this happens, but I feel that, if I continue reading, I can one day understand. One of the course readings describes an early 20th-century Burmese student who studied in England, hoping to gain the skills and resources needed to become a leader in his country. Then, overwhelmed by discrimination and the hopelessness of his tasks, he took his own life. 100 years later, his country is free from British imperialism but under the control of a military junta.
I take upon myself the mission of that student. I want to learn these things so that I can figure out how to alleviate suffering. I ask myself, how can I best be a part of that fight to prevent the suffering of millions?
By 4:30 p.m., however, I have a much more immediate problem. Forget trying to feed millions, how do I feed 25 people at 6:00? At my house, teams of residents take turns cooking dinner. It’s a fun system, but managing six pots and pans at once takes a certain degree of resolve. Not to mention prepping all the ingredients to go into those pots and pans. And then we have to clean them too. Afterwards, I lie down on a couch, fulfilled by the community but exhausted by the work.
Tuesday
My first class is on the history of global anarchism. No, anarchism is not what you think it is! I tell a lot of people. No, I’m not being converted to anarchy, but I think it is fascinating.
Fundamentally, anarchists believe in the capability of people to create equal, stable, and flourishing communities where everyone shows radical love and hospitality to each other. The more idealistic ones among them believe that this can be achieved through a transformation of people’s hearts.
But the idealists get nowhere. You can’t sit around and hope for people’s hearts to transform. Thus, anarchist scholars have spent decades debating on how to achieve a social revolution. Is it through unions? Is it through violence? Is it through restructuring education and home life? They’ve gotten nowhere. But in class, the questions still persist. How do we improve the lives of workers? How do we create equal societies? What is the role of governments and institutions in shaping us?
I am engrossed in it, and I am tired of it at the same time. It seems so much easier to be an idealist.
Wednesday
It’s 1:00 p.m., and a group of friends and I are going to a food truck. It’s in a hidden spot, off the grid; no one else I talk to at Cornell knows about it. We see local Ithacans order from the truck as if they are talking to a friend. We ask the food truck owner’s name. He’s J.P., and he happily takes our orders. By giving a $10 bill, I receive the most delicious sandwich I have ever tasted. It’s small institutions like this that seem to hold up a community.
At 4:00 p.m., I am interviewing for an internship. I claim that I am skilled at analyzing geopolitical problems and coming up with solutions. It’s not an incorrect claim. In my time at Cornell, I have done hundreds of readings on a litany of labor and economic issues. It’s content I enjoy. These are areas in which stronger legislation and management could improve the lives of many. I want to help usher in that positive change, but can I? Am I really as different from everyone before me as I think? The academics and politicians that I read seem like they have answers that make sense, yet suffering still exists. I begin to understand the hopelessness of that young Burmese student. I am drowning in these questions of vast significance.
Thursday
About every month or so, I tell myself that I should start every morning by reading. I often fail at this, but today I picked up Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations as a lifeline to separate myself from the world and my discouragement in my quest as a student. I ask good questions, I grasp at answers, but can I really do anything? Aurelius would contend that I cannot change the circumstances around me, but I can change how I react to what happens around me. Excellent advice. I open to a random page.
“People try to get away from it all, to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within. Nowhere you can go is more peaceful, more free of interruptions, than your own soul.” [1]
Yes, perhaps this is what I need: retreat. I just need to get away from it all and go within my soul.
But it’s not that easy. It’s not that easy at all, Marcus Aurelius. When I sit down and do nothing, I see how utterly broken my soul is. There is no peace there. Instead, my mind is flooded with shame from the past, with sinful thoughts, and with petty distractions. The questions I face there are no longer about the world, but about myself. Are you worth it? How dare you act like that in the past? Did He really say that you are loved?
So I retreat from myself and busy myself with the world once more.
It’s 8:00 p.m. now, and I am leading a Bible study. I still see part of Aurelius’s wisdom. It’s not just about knowing abstractly how to solve the problems of the world, but about supplementing my knowledge with self control, perseverance, and godliness. So I look into scripture and try to make it form me. At the end of every session, I make sure to ask the group, “How should this scripture passage change how we live this week?” Some answers are given, but I wonder if they ever actively try to apply the passage we read.
Friday
It’s 9:00 a.m. and I attend a Public Reading of Scripture, a time where people come to listen to the Bible be read aloud for an hour. No discussion, just listening. Before it begins, someone frames the purpose of the session. He says that all too often in our individual study of the Bible, we try too hard to put ourselves into the center of every story. But when you listen to one passage after another without stopping, you realize that in many ways you are not the center of the story. It is still written for you, just not about you.
Saturday
I remember hating Saturdays because there was nothing to do. My school friends all lived far away. Nowadays, I perhaps overcompensate by filling every hour with activity. But it’s because I love meeting new people and creating new friendships. A good friend who recently visited says that the answer to all these impossible questions of life that we drown ourselves in is simply friendship.
I think back to the hours spent in my house cooking. I toiled together with others, but I rejoiced in the toil and rejoiced in the fact that my food brought smiles to people that I love. As I reflect on it, my week was full of these small transactions where I was sometimes the giver and sometimes the receiver of an act of love.
The idealist anarchists weren’t just bums who sat around and hoped that people’s hearts would magically change. They didn’t busy themselves with thoughts of national revolution but instead tried to create small communities where one neighbor would help another and each member of the community would receive what they needed. What I said was true, though. Because of a combination of government repression, infighting, and logistical problems, these communes often fell apart. But perhaps there’s still some message here. There’s something here about the enduring appeal of truly loving our communities as the first step to global change.
Sunday
I wake up, and I am still a student. Still carrying on this mission that I gave myself. All the resources of the world are at my disposal at this university. Cornell tells me to use them all for “the greatest good.” How? Frederick Buechner once wrote that “the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” [2] But this begets more questions. What really brings me deep gladness? How can I practically find and help those who are suffering from the deepest hunger? I keep trying to grapple with these questions, but I keep getting nowhere. So I go to a place where people go for answers. I go to church.
There, the pastor seems to understand what the problems of the world are. Just like a professor at the ILR school, he describes that there is oppression and suffering in the world. And just as I discovered through personal reflection, he tells me that I am broken inside. But the answer does not center around what I do. It centers around what God already did.
God tells me not to worry about what I will eat or drink or about my body or what I wear. He tells me that the little ways I love my community have value, that my studies—being focused on helping the world—have value. But these pursuits are not what makes me valued in His eyes. I don’t have to put the burden of fixing the whole world on my shoulders. He already took that burden and conquered it. Instead, He tells me to embrace the peace and rest I have by trusting and believing in Him, and to love those around me with a humble attitude.
I lie down in bed. I am a student. But I am also a child. I have some ability to learn more about the world around me and make it a better place. But at the end of the day, I simply cannot answer all the questions of this world. But my Father knows the answers. So I must surrender to His will. He asks me to love Him with all of my heart, and to love my neighbors as myself. Yet, like a child, I fail again and again. And like a Good Father, He picks me up every time. I must remind myself of this truth as often as I can. Because, like a child, I forget easily, and tomorrow will come and the pressures of the world will close in on me. But for now, I close my eyes, and restful sleep falls upon me. I know who I am, and I know in whose arms I rest, the Great I AM.
[1] Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations, tr. Gregory Hays (New York: Random House, 2003), 37.
[2] Buechner, Frederick. 1994. Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC. London: Mowbray, 118