Concert choir retreat
FEB. 12, 2020
PLNU’s Concert Choir headed up north to Camp Cuyamaca in Julian last weekend for their annual retreat: two days of musical rehearsals, meals, and what freshman singer Ethan Vahle classified as a very inclusive and encouraging trip. This weekend retreat lasted from Friday, January 31 to Sunday, February 2, consisting of what can be described as an impactful few days for the group.
Concert Choir is one of several musical groups that a variety of Point Loma students participate in, Music and non-Music majors alike. This group performs at a range of different concerts and events throughout the fall and spring academic semesters each year. The group also prepares for a mission-oriented tour every year where they perform at various churches outside of the local San Diego area in attempts to share the gospel of Jesus Christ through music, prayer, and community.
This spring semester the Concert Choir will fly across the Pacific Ocean to the sunny island of Oahu to minister to a series of churches and perform the musical pieces they have selected and chosen for this year’s tour. But this is where the group’s annual retreat comes in: these kinds of tours take a lot of preparation, not just in booking flights and room and lodge, but in ensuring that the group is prepared to give exceptional performances for the communities they visit.
Dr. Jackson, the group’s director, said that this retreat has been an annual event for the past 45 years. “It didn’t start with me,” he said before commenting on various ways that the trip has changed as the years have gone by. He detailed that at one point there were no fundraisers to help pay the way for students to attend the retreat. The food for the weekend was brought straight from the campus cafeteria, and students were required to use some of their meal swipes. But the development of the group’s annual Cider Celebration almost two decades ago produces enough ticket sales for the weekend’s food to be purchased from stores. “It pays for everything,” Jackson said. “It’s our fundraiser.” This Christmas concert has made it financially easier for this musical group to plan their retreat every year.
“In class, I’m somewhat of a killjoy,” Jackson said with a kind of shrug of the shoulders. He shared how when he has his assembled singers in his classroom, he has to emphasize on the hard work that must be done in their short class period since there is always some sort of distraction, “in a regular classroom, [where] we get interrupted.” But the contrast of more open time at Camp Cuyamaca allows the group to simply “rehearse, and then when we’re done, we’re done.”
“Second semester, we’re out on the road really quick… in order to be ready, musically, we’ve gotta… step it up a little in how fast we learn the music,” Jackson said as he related that the rehearsals that this trip offers allow the group the room they need to “step it up.” But he didn’t focus merely on the technicalities. He continued by saying: “I think it builds community.” He said that rooming together in one-room cabins makes the dynamic of the trip “a little more personal” and truly helps in “building those relationships” between students. “Seeing people play games, or just relax together, or talk together… all of that is just really important in community life… in building relationships.”
“Community is everything to singing… it’s crucial for a choir,” he said. Whether that be eating, rehearsing songs, or partaking in activities and group games together, as Jackson listed on his fingers, this retreat fosters the sense of community that he feels is instrumental to the success of a choir -- especially one that will be performing their prepared work together in another state for close to two full weeks.
Julianna Suel, a freshman second soprano in Concert Choir, offered her perspective on how her very first retreat felt among upperclassmen who had attended retreats in years past: “It felt a little awkward at times to feel kind of excluded from certain things [and] not understanding what’s going on,” she said. “But there were certain seniors or juniors to talk to us about what was going on and it just made it more comfortable as well too.” Julianna also shared that her favorite part of the whole trip was a time that didn’t even have anything to do with music. What was most memorable to her was “probably the prayer time. It was just super cool to interact in a different way with choir people that was focused on Jesus rather than just focused on music and just to be real with each other.”
Victoria Vera, a junior and alto in Concert Choir who attended last year’s retreat as well as this year’s, also valued the “prayer time,” which was essentially a time on the last night of the retreat that consisted of students praying over their fellow students and receiving prayer themselves. “Even at a Christian school you don't necessarily find people that are wanting to go deeper into their relationship with God, growing in community,” Victoria said. Jackson’s hope that the retreat would provide a unique and personal experience outside of alloted school hours rang true: “That's not something that naturally happens everyday. It’s not something we usually make time for and so I like that Dr. Jackson made it a point to make time for worshipping and praying with each other, which I feel can bring people together more than just class,” she said.
*Add a quote from Jonah and another choir guy here.*
The intended effects of this weekend were to aid the group in getting “out of their music,” as Jackson phrased it, but also, in the eyes of their director, resulted in “75 friends.”
“It’s not about the music,” Jackson said in regards to the approaching spring tour. “Maybe the end of the year concert, [where] we’re doing all classical, it’s about the music. We’re singing Beethoven: it’s about the music. We’re singing Mozart: it’s about the music.” But Jackson was sure to be clear that his view of the retreat’s rehearsals allow the group to not make their tour performances about the strive for perfection, but rather “Christ coming through as center of what we do,” because “It’s totally, when you’re in ministry, about the message,” and “unless we rehearse to where we’re not thinking about the music anymore and we’re only thinking about the text, we can’t truly minister.”
One of the last comments Dr. Jackson had to share in regards to this retreat sums up why a weekend away in spite of homework and other responsibilities is necessary for a group that is taking up the even larger responsibility of sharing the gospel with hundreds: “Music reaches people where spoken words will sometimes fail.”
Coauthored with Emma Wilhite
driftwood sales
FEB. 19, 2020
Writing, art, photography, and music created by PLNU students is all available within the newest edition of Driftwood, which will be available for purchase for $5 between the end of February and beginning of March. Copies will be made available to students throughout the following weeks outside of the Caf during lunch rush hours.
Driftwood is PLNU’s creative arts journal published once a year in the spring semester. Its cover displays many different colorful objects that can be found on desks while the book’s content ranges between all sorts of subjects. It contains the submitted fiction, nonfiction, poetry, art/photography, film, and music of PLNU students. These works do not come exclusively from students within the LJWL department, however. In the words of the publication’s co-editor in chief, Sophia Markoski, “it’s one of the few spaces where everybody from all different departments and majors can showcase their creative talents.”
This journal will be on sale soon, but an entire semester was required to see it take its final form. Driftwood’s student editors went through a process of submission reviewing as students sent in their various works via email. It was a process that involved sifting through submissions, editing, judging each piece in each genre, poster-making, and seeking local advertisements.
“In the fall, we set up everything so that we can take submissions from students,” said Dr. Katie Manning, the advisor of the Driftwood’s staff. In total, there were 89 submissions, and some students submitted more than one piece. 7 fiction and 12 nonfiction pieces, 39 poems, 15 photographs, 10 visual art works, and a link to a short film were all selected to compose the journal. The tasks of reading and editing the submissions were set after the period of open submission time had closed. This editing time was approached with “a judging system” that allowed the staff to read pieces “blind,” or without seeing the author’s name. These editors’ eyes were not the only ones to view the students’ work as “an outside judge,” who is usually an established writer within their genre, “rank[s] the pieces 1 to 5,” which results in prize winners, Manning said.
This multi-step process makes it possible for Driftwood to exist. The behind the scenes support of these students’ collaborative editing comes from an array of sources, including surrounding local businesses that purchase ads to be put into the journal as well as the Driftwood Benevolent Society, which is most often consistently made up of various faculty members, alumni, and parents of students. “Some people have an auto-donation sent monthly, and some donate annually each fall,” Manning said. These funds allow the journal to pay their publishing costs, *insert costs here* to an outside editor as well as to throw an awards party to recognize those students who have their work published in the journal. This year’s awards party will be March 25 in the ARC.
Riley Breitbarth, a sophomore and student editor on the Driftwood’s staff, has two of her literary pieces published in this year’s spring edition.
“I have one creative nonfiction piece, ‘Like A Racehorse,’ and one fiction piece called ‘Sunken,’” she said. “At least for ‘Like A Racehorse,’ it was super weird to have it in the Driftwood knowing that people are gonna read it. It was so personal,” Riley said. She offered the journal some comedic promotion by revealing that the piece describes a scenario with a pant-wetting incident and saying “Buy the Driftwood, you can read about me peeing my pants.” But in more seriousness, she explained how the editing and revision process of the piece in her Intro to Creative Writing class brought her to the realization that “Oh, wait, people are actually going to read this,” and how she is grateful for the opportunity for it to be seen.
Riley also talked about how she “got to experience firsthand the process of choosing and editing” while being a part of Driftwood’s staff, as she is interested in the field of editing. Getting to be included in the journal’s creation as well as having two of her pieces make it into the publication also “made [her] more flattered to be chosen,” as she physically edited and rated many other student pieces.
While only a handful of PLNU’s student body were a part of creating this year’s Driftwood, and an even smaller number submitted and will be recognized at its awards party, a large variety of students are represented in the publication through their diverse art. In all, 84 published pieces make up the journal from the pool of submissions. Manning views the publication as a type of unifying agent, an entity that shows how “we’re working with a lot of the same concerns or similar ways of trying to engage with the world or with trying to seek after beauty and truth, whatever those things might mean.”
Under the instruction of its past advisor, the now-retired Dr. Rick Hill, the Driftwood was known as the Tanglewood, a small pamphlet of student work that was more strictly literary in terms of its submissions and final published pieces. But the journal never deviated from being student-run. Relatively low funding for the organization became more sufficient as Hill worked with the university “to expand the magazine” for it to “become much more of a larger creative arts magazine rather than only a literary magazine,” Manning said.
This spring’s publication was brought forth for the students of PLNU by the students of PLNU, just like their predecessors who created the Tanglewood. At the tail end of its lengthy process, the soon-to-be sold Driftwood exists as the direct product of many different students’ minds for their fellow students and the community to view.
kobe bryant and plnu
FEB. 26, 2020
People are still talking about Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna’s deaths that occurred on January 26, 2020, including the students of PLNU. Freshman kinesiology student Cameran Sherwood, who helps to manage and coach Point Loma’s basketball teams, says “I don’t see people stopping talking about it for a while. It’s huge.”
Byrant’s reputation and achievements were indeed huge. He entered the NBA directly after finishing high school, won five championships over the whole of his career, ranks fourth on the NBA’s all-time scoring list, and even won an Academy Award two years after retiring from the court.
All of these various accomplishments are also huge in the ways that they made impressions in people’s memories of his image. In what ways did this basketball player have the kind of impact that keeps people from being able to stop talking about him? One answer, as Sherwood believes, could be because “he was so much more than a basketball player.”
John Bothe, PLNU’s ASB Director of Finance, agreed with Sherwood when he said, “He’s an icon; it’s more than just basketball. He’s a household name.”
Bothe has a handmade poster that says “We love Kobe,” the “love” expressed in a purple heart, and Bryant’s numbered 8 and 24 Lakers jerseys hanging in the window of his office, facing out to overlook the sidewalk below.
“I just wanted to, simply put,” he said. “Who wouldn’t? I think a lot of people would have done the same thing.”
Bothe’s initial reaction to hearing about Bryant’s death was similar to other students on campus.
“My girlfriend said she thought someone had died in my family because I wouldn’t talk,” he said. “But I couldn’t believe it. I never would have expected that to happen. I don’t think anyone did at all. It’s ridiculous.”
Cole Lewis, a junior at PLNU, couldn’t believe the news either.“I didn’t think it was real at all,” he said. “I thought it was fake. I couldn’t believe it. I’m still honestly in shock.”
PLNU senior James Meyers had the news broken to him through a conversation with a friend and found the information hard to believe.
“And then I Googled it and I was just in utter disbelief,” he said.
Freshman Jack Vielbig also had trouble believing the news when he first heard it. “I saw the TMZ article, but I didn’t really trust [it]. So I waited a few minutes and then more and more sources started reporting it,” he said.
Shock connects all of these reactions -- shock that a prominent figure had died so unexpectedly. Each of these people had different perspectives to offer concerning how Bryant affected their individual lives.
“I’ve played basketball since I was eight,” Vielbig said. “He was kind of the first major figure that I started watching on TV. He was the first guy that was the big face of basketball that I started watching.”
Sherwood compared Bryant to Michael Jordan in how the current generation “were actually able to watch Kobe and how he approached the game of basketball and life in general.” Sherwood also spoke of how “his passion to always give everything [was] unbelievable.”
Kylie Hearn, a freshman sociology major and point guard on the PLNU women’s basketball team, said that Bryant influenced her as an athlete “100%.” Hearn appreciates his efforts as “one of the biggest supporters of women in sports,” as a women’s basketball player herself. She said that his support has “been big for the entire women’s basketball community,” and that she’s “always looked up to him.”
In 2003, Bryant dealt with an off-the-court challenge in the form of a sexual assault allegation. Has this part of his past negatively impacted his legacy in the eyes of the PLNU community?
“He wasn’t this perfect guy; nobody’s perfect,” Meyers said. “I don’t think it really tarnishes his legacy. I mean, there are people out there getting tattoos of him and they didn’t even speak one word to the guy,” he said.
“There’s definitely a good chance it did happen,” Vielbig said, but he believed Bryant “kind of turned it around and was a legitimate family man after his early twenties.”
Meyers spoke on Bryant’s impact on the game of basketball itself when he said “[he’s] one of the best players to ever touch the court, [to] play the game of basketball.” Like Vielbig, he commented on the image of Bryant as a father, saying: “From what I heard, he was a great dad, just always was there for his kids. He was just a great overall player and good father.”
Bothe said that “he was young, and a lot of people have made mistakes.” He approached Bryant’s situation with a viewpoint that concerns how “we don’t live in a world [where] we [are] held for those mistakes. Wouldn’t it be tough if your whole life you were remembered for those things and nothing else?”
So how will Bryant ultimately be remembered? Will it be the five championships? The Oscar? The sexual assault allegations?
“Everyone always disputes where he ranks all time,” Vielbig said. He discussed how Bryant won five championships and an Oscar while maintaining an “influence overall on the game of
basketball” as being “one of those handful of guys that you think of like the Mount Rushmore of NBA players, and he’s up there.”
In relation to how Bryant’s legacy has affected Point Loma’s athletes, Hearn spoke of her realization that playing basketball “isn’t forever. We have a limited amount of time doing what we love. Really pour into it and make the most of it, that’s what I would say.”
Sherwood spoke on his belief that “Kobe would have rather had people celebrate his life than mourn over it” when he emphasized Bryant’s desire to “have wanted us to work harder and get at it. He wants people to just focus on themselves and work hard.”
One of Bryant’s famous quotes lines up with Sherwood’s sentiments: “Life is too short to get bogged down and be discouraged. You have to keep moving. You have to keep going. Put one foot in front of the other, smile and just keep on rolling.”
No one can say for certain how much longer Bryant will be at the forefront of the media and at the center of Point Loma community conversations. But when someone dies, it can remind us that “we don’t boast about tomorrow,” as Bothe phrased it. “Everyday is a gift, and I think that is the most important thing I have come to terms with as well as people around here too to that extent.”
ring by spring
MARCH 4, 2020
“Ring by spring” -- a phrase casually thrown around Point Loma’s campus by the student body. A phrase that may be more harmful than humorous. A phrase that may affect PLNU female students’ perceptions of Christian dating and marriage.
This phrase does not exist solely on PLNU’s campus, but rather various Christian campuses throughout the country as people have studied exactly what it means and how it affects students. But what do some of PLNU’s female students think about it? Firstly, it is important to loosely define what this phrase even means. Several students had very similar ways of describing it.
Emily Wong, a Pre-Nursing student at PLNU, put it into simple terms when she said: “Getting engaged by the end of your senior year.”
Briley Nichols, a senior Education major and RA in Nease Hall, views it “as being engaged by your spring semester of senior year.” She also said that she has only seen it “in the realm of Christian schools. My friends who go to public schools have never even heard of it.” Wong, who attended a public high school, had never heard of the phrase before coming to Point Loma.
Megan Lange, another Pre-Nursing student at PLNU, expressed her definition in finer detail when she said that it is “finding the right man [and] getting engaged before you graduate college so [that] when you get out of college you can get married and start your life.”
An article from The Chronicle of Higher Education written by Liam Adams presents its definition as “the aspiration among many students to be engaged by the spring semester of their senior year.” Like Lange, who said that she felt the notion to be “super unhealthy,” the article also expresses that “each Christian college is different in its response to the culture.”
Getting engaged by the spring semester of your senior year -- so what? What’s “super unhealthy” about young love?
Stacy Keogh George, an associate professor of sociology at Spokane, Washington’s Whitworth University, did a research study on how the culture of “ring by spring” impacts women at private Christian universities. She commented on how “students and faculty may joke about the marriage-obsessed ring by spring culture,” but that “it dispenses a social psychological burden that follows students, particularly women, throughout their undergraduate experience.”
George conducted a survey that revealed that this phrase tends to more prominently dominate women’s minds than men’s. She asked both male and female students if they feel pressure to get married, and their answers revealed that “women feel more pressure to be married than men,” as sixteen women and zero men responded “Definitely.” 27 males and 112 females were questioned. Although this is just one particular pool of students, it appears that women have the mission to obtain a ring on their finger more pervasively on their minds. The notion of finding love in the first place seems to occupy PLNU women’s minds.
“I see [that] there’s so much pressure that you need to find a boyfriend here,” Lange said. She sees the implications of the phrase generating expectations for female students on campus to “feel like if you find a boyfriend and date for a year, you must get married right after.”
Young love is depicted in many different forms today, and with the recent passing of Valentine’s Day, rom-coms have only added to these depictions. Do these rom-coms have something to do with this pressure? All of the PLNU female students were able to identify unrealistic expectations for romantic relationships that they have seen in various romantic comedies.
Lange believes that “only the best parts in the relationship are seen” in a lot of romantic movies. Currently in a long distance relationship, she described how she experiences good times with her boyfriend, but how movies depict signs of conflict within a relationship as “super dramatic and
over the top.” Lange stressed the importance of communication because, “in reality, when something goes wrong in a healthy relationship, you have to communicate it instead of blowing it out of proportion.”
“I feel like movies portray guys as these perfect people that are always going to be there to catch you,” Wong said. In her eyes, “a lot of their problems are generally focused more on the girl,” and their emotional issues are not portrayed at all because “they’re not allowed to, which is so unrealistic.”
Virtually every girl brought up Nicholas Sparks’ film The Notebook. “I’ve probably seen The Notebook twelve times,” Nichols said.
Lange put a more positive spin on this movie’s story, saying that she loves the film, and that “it’s real, but it’s not real.” Despite the parts of it that she finds to be unrealistic, she spoke about her belief “that when you find the [right] person, it will feel like a movie with them.”
Nichols, who is currently engaged, said that movies are produced to try to seem realistic, “but then once you actually live through a romantic relationship, almost always it’s nothing like those stories.”
Nichols is currently living through a romantic relationship and is due to be married in August of this year. Her story, while fulfilling the catchy maxim of “ring by spring,” looks different from the various interviewed single students. But her feelings towards the implications of the phrase align very closely.
“Whenever people say ‘You got your ring by spring!’ I kind of gag a little bit just because I don’t like the pressure that it puts on younger girls,” she said.
Nichols found the saying to be confusing when she first entered Loma as a freshman. But when she started to “admire” the engaged couples she got to know, it seemed that if she “wanted to be like them,” it would require her finding her husband while at Loma. She began to find herself constantly wondering “Am I going to find my person at Point Loma?” before moving on to an “understanding [that] everyone has their own path to happiness.” She felt like “Point Loma might idealize one path,” and she “wanted to go the complete opposite way” as a leader in an RA position who “could live their life differently at Point Loma and still have a really fulfilled life.”
But when Nichols met her now-fiance her junior year, she came to the understanding that her relationship was “a good thing” and something that allowed her to grow. She said that her relationship “was super growing in ways that I didn’t imagine myself growing into” while single. Now residing on “the other side” of singleness, she recognizes “the value in relationship when it is something that happens naturally.”
Many of these women also stressed the importance of Christian values that potentially get undermined in the mix of the “ring by spring” culture.
Tori Tilden, an Applied Health Science major, feels that “all romantic movies are not aligned with Christian beliefs,” and Nichols said “I think [they cause] women to hyperfocus on relationships.” She said that this sense of focus can lead to “letting those things consume them more than it should.”
Lange said that characters in movies “lose themselves” when the relationship falls apart, but that “with Christian dating, you need to know who you are and be fulfilled by God.”
Wong spoke on her sentiments of how sex comes into play with this subject. She said that a lot of movies “preach” finding a deep level of intimacy through sex, but that “for a lot of Christian girls, they don’t want to do that,” that they have “boundaries.” As a result, she said that girls find the pressure “to go against their beliefs and question why they have to wait.”
Loren LaBossiere, a Pre-Nursing student, talked about how “a lot of people [say] you can find your husband at church,” but she doesn’t believe that that should be someone’s sole purpose for attending services. “Church should be focused on your relationship with God.”
So if Christian universities are experiencing a marriage-driven culture that appears to discourage some of their values, what could be done about lessening its overall influence on PLNU students surrounding their relationships?
LaBossiere believes that people who graduated from Loma who found their spouses later in life would be instrumental in healthily showing students that “there are plenty of people that don’t find” their ring by spring and still get married. Her suggestion was that some of these people return to campus to speak during chapel or another set time.
Tilden’s ideology of a need for “a major culture shift” coincides with LaBossiere’s idea. She advocated that an emphasis on “need[ing] to live your life for you” and finding someone who “wants to do life with you but not start your life,” could help with this cultural shift.
One way to initiate this shift could be by taking Nichols’ advice and asking each other “How’s your relationship with God right now?” before inquiring how one’s love life is faring. “I think especially as a Christian campus,” asking about romantic relationships “shouldn’t be the first thing that we go to,” she said.
Wong’s belief that this culture is not “necessarily just on our campus,” but rather “at every Christian campus around the world” aligns with Adams’ and George’s mentalities. Realizing that the culture goes beyond just PLNU makes matters a little more difficult. Regardless, perhaps one could ponder Nichols’ view that not every season of life necessarily requires “striving” towards a relationship. In all, “ring by spring” will most likely return to campus with students from spring break. In relation to Adams’s article, how will PLNU, as one out of many Christian campuses, choose to respond to the results of its culture?
coronavirus and the concert choir hawaii tour
MARCH 25, 2020
Sun, sand, music, and coronavirus: all of the elements that came together to make up PLNU Concert Choir’s tour of Oahu, Hawaii.
This group’s tour was ministry-focused as they sang at multiple local churches and schools, and in the words of their director, Dr. Daniel Jackson, “in spite of the coronavirus, it was the best tour we have ever had.” These nine days on the island, March 7-16, were marked with hills and valleys as updates on the state of PLNU amid the coronavirus continued to develop and the choir members continued to perform and minister to their audiences around the island.
PLNU announced that the rest of its Spring 2020 semester would be moving to online formats on Friday the 13th, causing many on the trip to realize that if the tour had been scheduled just a few days later, the whole trip may have been called off.
First alto Audrey Stillwell recalled how she “was speculating what was going to happen to PLNU” when she had heard word from her parents about other schools in the San Diego area turning to online methods of instruction. It made her think “What if Point Loma is going to do the same thing?”
Many choir members commented on how no one had thought that returning from the tour meant that they would be returning to pack up their rooms. But this is the new reality that they, as well as the rest of the PLNU community, has come to face.
So how did this tour, with all of its added complications, end up being the best one ever?
The beginning of the trip couldn’t have foreseen its end. The group’s very first full day in Oahu saw light-hearted conversations that were focused on the excitement of being in Hawaii and singing for people.
Julianna Suel, a second soprano, said “it’s been super fun.” She described eating “some good food,” and Emily Delmont, another second soprano, said “I thought it was fun to explore with friends and bond.”
The student’s impressions of their first performance, which took place at Windward Church on March 8, were generally positive.
Klarissa Miller, a first alto, thought that the concert “went really well,” and two others, Jonah Del Fiorentino and Eloise Tapia agreed, Del Fiorentino commenting that “it went awesome,” and Tapia saying that “we weren’t as stressed about it” as she had originally expected.
The end of this first concert included a time of prayer. This prayer time would conclude the rest of the choir’s church service performances in the coming week. It was a time for the students to pray for people in the audience. Students’ details of this prayer time were enthusiastic.
Del Fiorentino “loved it so much” and described how he got to pray with a seventh grade girl named Megan who “was so sweet” and “loves gymnastics.”
Tapia approached a woman who seemed lonely and “just listened to her talk” despite her not having any specific prayer requests. “I think she liked to have someone to listen to her,” she said. “Sometimes there’s just people that need someone to listen to them.”
Delmont had a unique experience praying with “two little girls” who “didn’t really know how to pray yet.” She talked about how she simply “just got to talk to them.”
Suel was able to experience people in the audience also praying over her. She had approached a man with his family and “they didn’t even hesitate to talk to us and ask how we needed help for this week, too,” she said. “I thought that was such a blessing to have somebody offer that. It’s really special.”
Hannah Kredit, a first alto, had been on the choir tour two years previous but described that none of them were quite as “special.” She described the “celebration of community and the overwhelming aloha spirit.”
Kredit has loved the diversity that comes with going from a church service to a school concert, and the way the music is appreciated differently. “For the older people, they have experienced a whole lifetime with all the ups and downs of life,” she said, “so maybe they can relate to the lyrics and what we are singing a little deeper. The children may look up to us as Christian role models and are beginning to learn about music, inspiring them as they grow older.”
All of the students were able to attend a luau on March 9 at the home of choir member Jordan Klein whose family lives on the island.
Ethan Vahle, a tenor, described these few hours off of a stage as “a ton of fun” and refreshing to “not be in a choir setting” but rather “just to hang out and have community time.”
First soprano Anna Giek described the luau as “amazing” and “incredible.” She was especially grateful to Klein’s family for “open[ing] up their house” and partaking in cultural activities with the group such as “blessing the food with a Hawaiian chant [and] teaching us the hula.”
Tuesday the 10th was the students’ first free day -- a full day without any concerts or scheduled group plans. The continuing developments of coronavirus did not stop these students from exploring the island and partaking in numerous activities.
Vahle “went hiking in the forest” that led “to a waterfall,” describing the experience as “fun.” David Hayden, a trumpet player in the orchestra for the tour, also went on this hike, describing the experience as “really cool” among his other endeavors which included going surfing at the North Shore of the island and trying some “good food.” Hayden’s word to describe how being in orchestra amidst the choir was “fantastic.” “It’s super fun playing this music,” he said. “[Compared to] other ensembles I’ve played in the past, this is just so much more fun. The environment is really cool [with] a lot of fun people to hang out with.”
Concert Choir continued throughout the week with their varying performances, singing for children at a variety of schools including Windward Elementary and one of the Kamehameha Schools campuses as well as at church services. They weren’t anticipating their performance at Wahiawa Church of the Nazarene on Friday the 13th to be their last one, but this turned out to be the case as The Bridge church canceled their Sunday morning service for the sake of social distancing -- the last concert on the choir’s tour schedule.
Jackson remembers how the bus ride to Wahiawa Church was “pretty quiet.” In an attempt to be able to commemorate their very last concert together, as the rest of the semester will not allow them to meet for rehearsals or perform at their preplanned performances, Jackson “tried to get somebody to video it,” and was able to have the performance recorded on video. But he was deeply saddened at the abrupt conclusion of it all and thought, “How are we going to have our last concert?”
Senior Jack Shelby and Concert Choir President had the same thought going through his mind as he never expected his senior year could end in potentially not seeing his school and choir friends again. Shelby expressed the sadness and frustration that a lot of the group felt, but he also quickly switched perspectives and became grateful for all he had been given throughout his college years.
“At first, I was pretty devastated,” he said. “But at the same time, it imbued that final concert with such a sense of emotion, camaraderie, and spiritual renewal that I ended up being very thankful for it. It was beautiful for that last concert to be our grand finale.”
Despite the varying emotions, Shelby was proud of the group's accomplishments in ministering to as many people as possible and bringing uplifting music and testimonies to Hawaii.
Stillwell was saddened as well, but is holding onto the hope that the group could perhaps perform their songs from the tour during concerts in the next school year. Regardless, she shared how she is “really glad that our semester ended with the tour and performing what we had already prepared for all of the churches and schools.”
Stillwell also shared how she felt that their last concert “went really well” despite being the most emotional performance of them all. She said that it felt “so spiritually strong and so emotionally strong” due to the knowledge that it would be the group’s last time singing together. “We all just wanted to make it the best performance we could.”
Every church concert began and ended with a time of prayer, allowing Concert Choir to meet in private to pray over their coming performances. It was a time to discuss concerns but also to dwell on gratefulness and memories that had been made over the course of the trip. For Jackson, he felt that this prayer time on Friday was “when it all came together,” “it” being “the turning point for everybody” to apply the music they were singing to their current situation. He described the concert after that “private time” to have caused the songs to “make sense for the first time.”
“I thought that I was picking the music for me,” he said. “But I was picking it for the students. I really believe that the choir got God’s perspective.”
Stillwell also recalls a prayer time that the group shared on Sunday as “a time of happiness and gratitude as well as sadness and goodbyes” as the group recognized the senior members.
Now the members of Concert Choir have returned to their homes all around California and the country. As unexpected as their parting was, Jackson reflected on the impact that the group’s music was able to make on their various audiences. “If you think about it,” he said, “all of the schools that we sang at are not meeting this week,” much like many other schools in districts across the United States. “We are one of the last things that they saw and experienced. We had God’s grace upon us and I think everybody felt it.”
Coauthored with Emma Wilhite
walking through the coronavirus quarantine
APRIL 1, 2020
Yes, people are quarantined. But people are also walking.
Californians were told by Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday, March 19 that a statewide shelter-in-place order was to be effective that evening, keeping families within their homes under quarantine. This major transition saw many people deemed essential workers continue their jobs outside of their homes, but many are finding their houses to be their new offices. And in the middle of this quarantine, people are walking.
Yes, walking. Not in a protest kind of way, but around their neighborhoods for fresh air, a chance to get out of the house for just a little while. At least they are in the French Valley area of Murrieta, California, a SoCal town in Riverside County. I decided to get some of this fresh air and take to the streets to talk to some of these walkers -- while maintaining social distancing, of course.
Walking obviously helps the body physically, as it offers a low-intensity form of exercise. But many of these neighborhood walkers had more to say on how the act of walking is proving to have mental benefits for them in the middle of the statewide shelter-in-place order.
A gentleman who wished to remain anonymous said that he and his wife are both retired and didn’t go out for public outings as a couple much before the mandate. He said that the notion of knowing that they can’t go out makes leaving the house “like an adventure” that they both look forward to. He has been walking since 2005, four miles Monday through Friday, and the quarantine isn’t stopping him from continuing this routine. “I don’t feel like I’m getting exposed unless someone holds me down and sneezes on me,” he said. When he walks, he has the ability to “free think” so that his mind can “think about things it hasn’t thought about in a while,” things other than the information he ingests from TV and books. He said that he felt like this experience of free thinking was always true for him, but even more so now in the middle of the quarantine.
Lisa Pierce, an employee at Temecula Olive Oil Company, said that her household’s overall reaction to the world’s current situation has been one of nervousness and caution, but that they have also “been enjoying the family time.” Pierce walked before the quarantine to walk her dog but said that walking during these times aids in making life feel more “normal” for her. “I feel like when we’re outside, things feel a little more normal,” she said.
When music teacher Marie Chilstrom isn’t out walking during these times, she’s working on adapting to “distance learning” with her students to be able to offer them online lessons. “The days feel a lot longer,” she said. “Days go by so fast when you’re at school, and when you’re at home it just feels like time slows down.” Marie lives with her husband, a PE teacher, and her 90-year-old mother-in-law. “We’re trying to keep her safe and take care of everybody,” she said in relation to the virus that could endanger the woman’s health. Chilstrom regularly walked before the quarantine and said that it’s synonymous with “prayer” or “meditation” for her in the midst of the activity inside of her home. “It gets me out of the house. My husband tends to watch TV a lot, I like to get away from the noise. We’re caring for my mother-in-law, so it’s just good to have some time for myself.”
A woman who wished to remain anonymous spoke for both her and her husband who were out for a walk when she said, “We are lucky that we can stay home, but I feel bad for the ones who have to go to work.” She said that she feels that all of the current happenings surrounding the pandemic are tragic and her impression of its beginning developments were “What’s happening? It’s like it’s the end of the world.” She feels like it’s just a dream when she wakes up in the morning, but is shocked to find that it is in fact reality. She also took note of her gratefulness for all of the nurses that are working hard to take care of people. She walked regularly before the shelter-in-place order, but her husband, who is home from work for two weeks, is beginning to join her. She said that walking helps her mentally and physically because it allows her to just get outside; she doesn’t get to visit with her grandkids anymore, and walking allows her to not feel as lonely within her house. “But of course I don’t want to go where there’s too many people!” she said.
Stay-at-home mom Sarah does part time work as a homeschool teacher. She said that her husband was a little nervous about the current lack of need for his event business, but that the dynamic of their household has not changed drastically due to their children already being homeschooled. She ran more than walked before the quarantine, but said that the time she has spent walking “has definitely increased.” She said that walking “helps clear my mind.”
A husband and wife who wished to remain anonymous said that their family exhibited “mixed emotions” when the developments of the virus eventually led to full-on quarantine. “Some of the kids are more concerned than others and we’re still trying to figure out the severity of it,” the husband said. His wife commented on how having everyone at home with less responsibilities has been a positive of the situation, and that the two of them walked everyday before the order. Like stay-at-home mom Sarah, the wife commented that walking helps to clear her head as well as absorb some Vitamin D. “When you feel fit and healthy, you mentally feel better,” she said. Her husband chimed in, saying “We have good talks. It’s nice to get out.”
Mark Peterson, a retired technical salesman, thinks that the result of a quarantine from the spread of the virus is “way overdone.” Before the shelter-in-place order, Peterson went to a gym five days a week and now looks to walking as his “alternative.” “I’m hoping I don’t get too out of shape,” he said. He believes that the parts of walking that allow him to “get out and actually talk to a few people” makes the activity and time spent outside better for you than “sitting on the couch.”
These people’s comments and views do not represent all of the walkers out in the neighborhood who may have different reasons for their activities. These people’s varied outlooks also don’t speak for all of the various situations that people are living in right now, whether that be the loss of a job and steady income or the death of a loved one. But what these people shared can be viewed as a sign that not all elements of normalcy have fled during the COVID-19 pandemic. If nothing else, people are still putting on their shoes and getting outside.
the students' scoop
APRIL 8, 2020
If you weren’t already distance learning, there’s a good chance you are now. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond determined on March 31 that all California schools should remain closed for the rest of the academic year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students of all ages and grade levels are making the move to distance learning.
High school freshmen are in a very different place in comparison to high school seniors, many of whom are missing out on their senior proms, Grad Nites, and regularly scheduled graduation ceremonies. Kids in elementary and middle school are inevitably dealing with the pitfalls of puberty. And college freshmen are trying to adjust to living at home again rather than their dorms while college seniors are getting ready to enter into the post-college world.
The current situations of Emily Wong and Mackenna Marshall, freshmen at Point Loma Nazarene University, are living in a time of transition that many other college freshmen are currently experiencing.
“It has definitely been different,” Wong said about living back at home. “I don’t know if there are more distractions here or more at the dorms.” Marshall describes living at home as having “been transported back to high school.”
The increased amount of time Wong has been able to spend with her family has certainly been one of the positive aspects of the quarantine for her, she said.
“We are trying to make the best out of quarantine and have been trying to plan different activities that we can do at home,” Wong said. Some of these activities include painting, baking and decorating sugar cookies, reading, watching movies, and taking her dog on lots of walks. Marshall said she is also greatly enjoying the time she has to spend with her family in her home, but said the time is too much at times.
“I need to get out, but I can’t,” she said.
Both of the girls miss living with and seeing their friends everyday, they said. As much as Wong said she enjoys the home cooked meals her parents have been making for her, she misses the mealtimes that she got to enjoy with her friends which she viewed as a time to catch up and simply talk.
Marshall said she misses being in a classroom, interacting with friends and meeting new people, and Wong said she misses having face-to-face learning and instructor lectures. Marshall is “becoming more comfortable” with the possibility of being quarantined for an unforeseeable amount of time. As a result, she has resolved to change her expectations of sheltering-in-place to not be as oriented on the future.
“For the rest of the quarantine I would really like to find some ways to spice up my days so they aren’t so monotonous,” she said. Wong said she hopes her family can “stay creative” and come up with activities for their weekends.
Emma Christie-Foster, a junior at PLNU, offers the perspective of a commuter student as well as a junior who will be graduating a year early.
Christie-Foster lived at home for all three of her years at PLNU, but she said she was rarely there, making the time she is spending there now strange. She has focused on the positives of sleeping in amid adapting to the newness of her environment. A part of this adapting for her is affected by the fact that she is not extremely close with her family.
“The lifestyle they lead and their values are so different from mine, so it definitely presents some challenges,” she said.
Christie-Foster said the development of PLNU’s gradual shutdown was “quite the adventure” as massive amounts of change ensued in such a short amount of time. While she said she finds relief in the precautions being taken, this time of change has caused her to miss her friends and professors. “Being in class physically is so different from doing things online,” she said.
Christie-Foster still finds the postponement of graduation, which was originally supposed to take place on the weekend of May 8-9, to be “a real bummer.” “I worked hard in college and was really excited for the graduation season,” she said.
Third grader Evan Reese, who goes to Staton Elementary School in Clark County, Nevada, hasn’t been going to school for as long as older students, but his words express the perspective of a younger student in the middle of this time of intense change. Not having to go to school and being able to play Xbox with friends and hang out with family have been the highlights of sheltering-in-place for Reese so far, he said. Reese said his initial reaction to finding out about his school closing was one of happiness, but he does miss his teacher, friends, PE class, and recesses filled with playing basketball. According to Reese’s mother, who is a second grade teacher at her son’s school, the school’s district is still developing forms of efficient online communication for their young students. But as of recently, Reese has been using Zoom to connect with his teachers and classmates.
Reese said he expects that the rest of the quarantine will still find him stuck in the house and will keep his school closed.
“I feel sad about not saying goodbye to my class,” he said.
Allyson Reese, Evan’s older sister who is in eighth grade at Sig Rogich Middle School in Clark County, Nevada, said she is also finding the time spent with her family to be a positive part of the quarantine. She said she does, however, miss seeing her friends and swimming with her teammates on her swim team like she used to on her regular basis.
Allyson said she wanted to see what homeschooling was like when she first heard that she would be quarantined. She has discovered over the course of her distanced learning time, however, that she feels “unmotivated and lazy not being in a school-like environment.” Reese has also found planning for the future to be “harder to accomplish as we have no idea when this will end.”
Benjamin Coley, a fifteen-year-old freshman at Vista Murrieta High School in Murrieta, California, talked about how distance learning and quarantine have been for him as a first year high school student. Coley described being at home instead of at school as boring and weird. Sleeping in on a school day and doing his homework from a desktop computer instead of in a classroom are surreal for Coley, he said. He said the increased flexibility of his time is one of the negatives of the quarantine because he knows that there is work to be done but being at home makes him feel like there isn’t anything he has to do.
Coley spent last week on what would have been his spring break from regularly scheduled classes. But he said that the entirety of the quarantine thus far has felt like one long break, and the time has seemed to blend together.
Coley said the social interaction he had from physically going to school and participating in classes is the only aspect of normal school that he misses. He said that the classes that he shared with his friends are what he finds himself missing during this time. He expects his workload away from actual classes to increase.
Abigail Butler, a senior at Vista Murrieta High School, said that the shift from public school to quarantine has been upsetting. But she also said that getting to be home has been relaxing.
“Taking a break from the stresses of life has been a blessing,” she said. Being a senior, some of the events that serve as highlights of a normal final year of high school have been cancelled for Butler, as well as her classmates and countless other seniors across the country. Butler said that “high school is just a small portion of one’s life,” but described how she can’t help but think about how she won’t be able to receive her diploma by walking across a stage in front of a crowd or be able to show her children pictures of her dressed up for her senior prom.
Butler was also highly involved in her school’s color guard team, serving as one of its captains. She has pursued this activity for seven years, and said she was looking forward to finishing her final season with her teammates and friends.
Butler has found in the middle of these disappointments that having a temporary leave from her normal “busy stressful schedule” has been one of the positive parts of the quarantine for her. She has aspired to take the extra time on her hands to focus on her mental health and “enjoy my family and home.” As she is home, however, she has her mind on the effects the coronavirus is having on so many people throughout the world.
“The danger and effect of this virus is truly devastating and it’s awful that people are losing grandmas and grandpas, moms and dads, or sons and daughters because of it,” she said.
Butler “will miss having tangible activities” and teachers who are accessible while she finishes her school year online. Despite her belief that the virus and the pandemic have “slowed everything down” when it comes to hearing back from graduate school, she said she has decided to utilize her time indoors to focus on college preparation and scholarships.
“Others may choose to dwell in sorrow of the fact that their activities or events were taken from them. I, however, am choosing to stay positive despite the things I’ve lost and understand that the virus is dangerous and detrimental.”
No one can say for certain when schools will open up again, let alone when all aspects of daily life will return to a level of normalcy. All of these students are approaching distance learning in their own ways.
we're all in this together: transitions to distance learning
APRIL 15, 2020
While there may be some students finally living out their dream of doing school in their pajamas, not all teachers and administrators are viewing distance learning as a completely positive replacement for the traditional learning methods that are currently unavailable. In the world’s present case, making the most out of the reality that is online communication and learning is a challenge. Teachers and administrators are individually as well as collaboratively working within their roles as leaders towards transitioning to online learning formats as smoothly as possible.
Nicole Reese teaches second grade at Staton Elementary School in Clark County, Nevada. Her definition of distance learning is “giving my students the materials and resources to learn independently and being there for them if they need any guidance or have any questions.”
She explained that she is not able to teach her students new information or subjects, that the online forms available for her use are “only good for review and practice.” Despite this reality, Reese is focusing on giving her young pupils assignments that will “support what they have already learned this year,” since they are in need of “small group instruction daily for reading and math.”
Personally, Reese describes the quarantine and shift from public to online school as “a big adjustment” for her and her family. “We are usually a very active family,” she said, as her two children are involved in the sports of swim and basketball. “We hardly ever had a day where we all just stayed home and now we stay home all day everyday.” Reese said that she has been doing much more cooking than usual since they can’t go out to eat “at least twice a week” like they used to. “Trying to teach my students online and support my own children with learning has been a big adjustment for me as well,” she said.
Reese finds the new flexibility of her schedule to be one of the positives of the quarantine. She said she is grateful for the opportunity to be at home with her children. Not only is she able to guide them with their online learning, but gets to spend more time with them. She has also been “exploring” the extensive online resources available for teachers to use that she may eventually implement once she is able to teach from a classroom again.
She is currently using a program called Class Dojo to be able to communicate with parents on their child’s academic progress. She is also using Google Classroom, which she described as not the easiest program to utilize with second graders. Getting login information to parents took up a lot of her time the first week that distanced learning launched. Reese discussed how “parents are trying to figure it all out,” and that some of her students’ families only have one computer or printer within their home which adds complications.
“Some parents want a lot of work for their kids and others don’t want any and don’t have time to be bothered,” she said. “Only half of my students are actually doing the assignments that I put on Google Classroom so there will be a big gap in learning for those students who aren’t working.” She also expressed the difficulties that Zoom calls have posed for her class, as they were deemed insufficient to be able to effectively teach younger kids by her school’s district. Now she is “waiting to see what we can use so I can see my students and they can see me at least once a week.”
Brent Coley taught as a fourth and fifth grade teacher for fifteen years at a variety of different schools in California before eventually becoming an assistant principal at Shivela Middle School in Murrieta, California. He is currently the principal of Alta Murrieta Elementary School where he has led his students and faculty for the past seven years.
Coley’s personal definition of distance learning is “having to accomplish learning tasks from home, utilizing a lot of online instruction and connecting via virtual meetings (e.g. Zoom).” As the leader of an entire school, Coley said he has been working hard to facilitate communication with his various teachers as well as other principals and administrators over the past few weeks.
Coley described how his family has fared the quarantine pretty well so far. “We’re doing OK,” he said. “It is difficult to have four people in the home having to all work on things at the same time.” He pointed out how every person in the house has a device to be able to get their work done on, but he has found it somewhat difficult to find “a quiet space to work” at times. Coley has also found it challenging to “leave work at the office” since his office is now at home. “The stress of feeling like I’m always working has been difficult,” he said.
Coley believes that while programs like Zoom and Flipgrid are making it possible for teachers and students to maintain the best communication possible within the present circumstances, “nothing can replace the personal interaction of face-to-face learning.” He said that when in-person interactions are made unavailable, it really impacts key student-teacher and staff relationships which are “foundational to education.”
Within these unforeseen times, Coley and his staff “are being forced to learn new things that are building our skillset.” He is sure that when the quarantine comes to an end and traditional learning is able to start up again, “we will all be stronger and better able to meet students’ needs in new ways we previously wouldn’t have thought of using.”
Trisha Morel is the assistant principal of Lisa J. Mails Elementary School in Murrieta, California. She defines the ways that are allowing students to remain “engaged and moving forward in their current grade level standards” as distance learning. She views this type of learning’s “overall goal” to be to prepare students to successfully enter into their next grade level.
Morel described her family as having experienced “a roller coaster of emotions” as the quarantine has progressed. “I think that we all have ‘mourned’ things we were looking forward to,” that were inevitably cancelled, she said. She shared that one of the hardest parts of her present situation has been working from home. Instead of being able to leave home to go to work and vice versa, she has found that she has “the two worlds colliding,” much like Coley. She uniquely described her “mommy guilt and educator guilt” as “constantly fighting for my attention” as a result of this collision of worlds.
Amid her challenges, Morel said she has been able to be more “empathetic” towards the similar situations that she knows her staff are experiencing. She is aware of how her kids miss socializing with their friends as well as their development of an appreciation for traditional school in the wake of its absence.
As one of her school’s leaders, Morel sees how distance learning puts her teachers in “vulnerable” positions when it comes to not having her and other administrators near to lend a hand in dealing with different situations. She also feels like her teachers believe that “they have to have all of the right answers for parents, when in fact they are experiencing these uncharted waters just like families are.”
Morel described the kind of interaction that online communication requires as “intense.” She has been utilizing email, text, and various video calling platforms like Zoom to replace the face-to-face conversations that she was able to conduct before the pandemic. She described a specific Zoom conversation between her and her staff. The conversation included some emotional discussions with the campus aides surrounding how much they missed the students that they used to interact with everyday. Like these aides, Morel said that she misses seeing the kinds of interaction that come from visiting classrooms and observing her teachers “work their magic,” like “the responses on the students’ faces” when engaging in a classroom setting. She also misses having her school open to be “that safe place that many of our students so desperately need.”
Like Coley, Morel views this time of online communication as a time that will result in an increased “connected and supportive” dynamic among her and her staff. “It is forcing collaboration amongst teams that otherwise tended to do their own thing rather than work together,” she said.
Kurt Olson, an English teacher at Vista Murrieta High School, simply described distance learning as “better than nothing” because he views face-to-face learning, or “collaboration,” as the “core” of how he approaches teaching his students. He believes that “educators like to see their students and communicate with them in a classroom.” Olson teaches regular, advanced, and AP English/writing courses at Vista Murrieta and said that “everything I do revolves around class discussion or group collaboration.” His students do engage in independent tasks like in-class essay writing and at home assignments, but Olson explained that much of the preparation for these assignments is conducted in discussions and valuable class time that enhance the students’ “engagement and learning.” He said that “trying to accomplish on a computer what I’ve done for twenty years in a classroom is impossible.”
Olson explained that his students’ grades have not been negatively impacted since March 13 in light of the abrupt shift from traditional to online learning, much like how other schools have opted to offer “Pass” and “Fail” results for courses in place of letter grades. As a result, he has found maintaining his students’ motivation to keep working at their classwork to be “difficult.” According to the comparisons Olson made between his classes and other Advanced and AP English courses on his school’s campus, only 75% of his students will continue to turn in their assignments and attempt to communicate with him in regards to their work. His College Preparatory English students are estimated to rank even lower at 30-40%.
The limited communication and decreased accountability that come with distance learning are not positive in Olson’s eyes. Neither is the aggravation he has felt in his lower back, neck, and eyes after sitting at his computer “hour after hour.” But the detailed lesson plans he is making for his students have turned out to be a positive aspect. Despite an eight page plan detailing rhetorical essays and a twelve page description of how to write an argumentative essay, Olson is viewing his lesson planning as “invaluable.” Not only does he believe that his students will “undoubtedly” benefit from the critical instructions, but much of his future time is being saved by sitting down and tackling “such a horrendous task” now.
Spending more time with his family and not having to get out of bed at five in the morning have also been positives for Olson over the course of the quarantine. “I am a parent during the morning, afternoon and evening while working from home,” he says, but taking walks, exercising indoors, and “getting sun” have all helped to combat his adjustments.
Tim Hall, a Professor of G.E. for Psychology and Kinesiology at Point Loma Nazarene University, views distance learning as “the next best thing” to traditional teaching when meeting face-to-face is not a viable option.
Hall views the transition from traditional to online learning as a kind of loss because “teaching is a lot about communication.” “There’s body language, there’s tone, there’s relationships, there’s interaction, there’s that incarnation of people being with people that I think enhances content,” he said. In regards to the control he has over how he maintains his classes, he has attempted to run them as normally as possible despite the loss of actually teaching from a classroom. He has tried to maintain this by not assigning his students extra work, as he understands how this major shift is stressful for both students and professors. For his courses, he sees his students as having the ability “to do the work when you want to do the work,” which allows them flexibility in the midst of the stress of establishing a whole new routine. “You get to kind of plan a new rhythm on how you’re going to do your schoolwork,” he said.
On the professor’s side of the coin, this new kind of instruction allows Hall more “space” and “freedom” to work out his schedule to best serve his students. But in general, Hall does not view distance learning as an overly positive entity for the kind of teaching that he tries to employ. He said that distance learning makes it harder for him to teach according to PLNU’s mission statement and to further the relationships that he had been developing with his students. A “critical” component of the kind of teaching that Hall strives for is interacting with and investing in the lives of his students apart from the content he is teaching. “Whatever it is we do, whether it’s work [or] learning, when there’s a relational touch there, I think it enhances it,” he said.
Hall is impressed with the feedback he has received from his students, as he has found them to be “gracious” and “honest” in sharing how they are feeling overwhelmed by their current situations. “But they keep doing it,” he said, “it” being the work set before them to be able to finish their semesters the best that they can. “I’m really proud, but I’m not surprised either.”
It appears that like Hall’s students, these teachers and administrators are continuing to handle the new demands that distance learning is requiring of them despite all of its positives and negatives.
decreased hurry, increased reading
APRIL 22, 2020
The government-issued orders to stay inside during the COVID-19 pandemic have created an abundance of time for people all over the world. Many options for entertainment are available for people to engage with as they shelter-in-place. Perhaps some have gleefully embraced learning that skill they’ve always wanted to master like cooking or doing the splits, having that movie marathon they’ve said they’ll accomplish someday, or establishing a workout routine that keeps them active.
Others have taken to the indoor activity of reading. Granted, people were reading even when they weren’t told that going outside wasn’t an option, finding the time to crack open a book amid their hurried and busy routines and schedules.
One Point Loma Nazarene University student is currently reading a book about the opposite of hurrying. Rather, it is a book about eliminating hurry from one’s life.
Noelle Doctorian, PLNU’s current Director of Spiritual Life, gives her current quarantine read a “5/5” rating: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World, written by John Mark Comer. Doctorian is also making it possible for other PLNU students to engage in this literature through Loma XL, a new social media platform created by PLNU’s ASB to provide activities and connections for students during the quarantine. She hosts a virtual book club that meets on Zoom every Thursday night to discuss the book, which was published on October 29, 2019. She expressed how she feels like the book allows “anyone from any season of life to join the journey” that Comer invites his readers to take.
What is the journey that readers can embark on? Doctorian believes that “the title says it all.” Comer details his personal revelations about the impact that the culture of hurrying has had on his life throughout the book and offers his insights into how to avoid the detriments of an incessantly busy lifestyle. As the official summary of the book discusses, Comer found himself asking “What am I becoming?” and sought out the true meaning of the wisdom he received from a mentor: ““Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life.” In essence, it is a book that seeks to open its readers’ eyes to the hustle and bustle of their daily routines and the unhealthiness that too much hurry can cause on who they are as people.
An article written by Kayla Minguez about “the importance of slowing down” reflects a key part of Comer’s book and what Doctorian has been taking note of during the quarantine. Minguez says that “Speed is rewarded in our society by career promotions, praise from peers, and even our own personal belief that we’re doing something well.” Doctorian agrees, saying “I think living in America, we are wired to be constantly on the go, in a hurry to get everything done. We take pride in how much we’ve accomplished in such a short amount of time and don’t realize how we are living life in such a hurry.”
These sentiments have led Doctorian to believe that Comer’s book possesses the ability to help people “learn how to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the world.” Doctorian gives it five out of five stars “because of how applicable and relatable it is to everyday life” and how Comer is able to dissect “so many truths we as Christians gloss over in the Bible.” As the title of the book advertises, its words have offered Doctorian a “roadmap to staying emotionally healthy and spiritually alive.”
Doctorian believes that the content of Comer’s book “is perfect for the current state of pandemic we are in.” She talked about how the world is essentially on “pause” even though none of us had any “intention” of slowing down so much -- hence the culture of hurry Comer warns against getting sucked into. She said that Comer writes about how “Jesus was never in a hurry” and that his book brings to readers’ attention that their lifestyles should mirror Jesus’.
Doctorian said the book doesn’t just point a finger at its readers and warn them against leading a hurried lifestyle, but rather “walks the reader through how to change unhealthy habits through the use of spiritual disciplines.” Some of these disciplines include recognition of the Sabbath and intentional times set aside for “silence and solitude.” Doctorian believes that these disciplines among others within Comer’s book are all able to be “learned and practiced during quarantine so that we can implement them into our daily lives once the chaos of the world picks up again.”
Doctorian describes the activity of reading during the quarantine as keeping her feeling “productive” and “enriched.” Like other students who have described their transitions to distance learning, Doctorian has felt online learning’s “toll” on her routine. She said that she has to take breaks throughout her day. These moments of reprieve from her schoolwork have been spent reading, which she describes as helping to keep her feeling productive as well as spiritually and emotionally developed. Being able to shift her eyes from screens to the pages of a book “has been so life-giving,” she said.
While the Greek fabulist Aesop said that “It is possible to have too much of a good thing,” American actress Mae West believed that “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” One could apply both of these quotes to the current COVID-19 era of sheltering-in-place, whether it be because there is ample time to read Doctorian’s recommended book, or because there will always be more to read and do before life gets busy again, as it inevitably will.
quarantine music
APRIL 29, 2020
More music to keep you occupied during quarantine is here. Nashville songwriter and worship performer Chris Renzema released his newest album on April 24, 2020, titled “Let The Ground Rest.” According to an article from The Christian Beat, the album possesses music “about hope and echoing the universality of both pain and praise.” Made up of ten original songs, Renzema’s second full length album centers around “the idea that growth comes from periods of rest, of barrenness,” said Renzema in the article cited above. “It’s a process to exist, to learn and understand God’s love. While His love is not seasonal, we go through seasons as we understand and experience it.”
Renzema’s first full length album “I’ll Be The Branches” dropped in 2018, featuring one of his most popular songs “How to Be Yours” that has received over eight million saves on Spotify. He collaborated with musical artist Moriah Hazeltine in an album titled “Age to Age” in 2014; towards the beginning of his up-and-coming career. And now, despite “having no idea” that his newest album would be released during the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine, Renzema expressed how he views some of the songs as “prayer[s] for tired hearts in this crazy time,” as expressed in The Christian Beat article.
Renzema’s sound is characterized by his inspiration from artists like Wilco, Beck and John Mark McMillan, as he shared on his church’s website, Ethos Church, where he is the marathon worship leader.
Let’s get to talking about Renzema’s new music. We’ll walk through four of the featured tracks: their musicality, various interpretations and uniqueness.
- “Springtime”
When I first heard this song back in February, I was still in winter in more ways than one. This song reminded me that life is lived through seasons, that winter and its troubles do not last forever, but God’s love can be viewed as a kind of eternal springtime that calls us to grow in the middle of our present circumstances. I think that it serves well as the very first song on the album; its concepts tie into the album’s overall theme in relation to growth as well as rest. “Spring is not spring without winter, and that process is a good thing,” Renzema said in The Christian Beat article.
2. “Maybe This Is The End”
A melody that mixes the electronic synths of an 80s hit and the twangy guitar of a folk ballad, this song begins with a swirling instrumental intro that sounds like the perfect song to blast with the windows down in the car. Then Renzema’s voice sounds and the words he sings reveal that this song fits into more than just road trip playlists. This song can be interpreted in a variety of ways. It features repeated phrases of “Sure, maybe this is the end” that cause listeners to think about what may be ending for not only Renzema but themselves. The pre-chorus sings “I never saw it coming, but here we are and here we go,” adding to the sense of wonder of what Renzema is singing about exactly. We get an allusion to scripture with the phrase “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,” but this ominous reference to destruction is never fully delved into.
This song seems to me to be purposefully vague- like an invitation for the listener to fill in the blanks. Perhaps Renzema is singing about something in his life that saw him somewhere he wasn’t expecting to end up, as he sings “the end is just another door.” There is an endless amount of interpretations to be made, which is the main part of what made this song so powerful for me apart from its toe-tapping beat and variety of instruments.
3. “17”
A strumming guitar paired with Renzema’s voice begins with what I believe to be the most raw and honest song on the album. His description of saying “a thousand times” that “never again starts now” relates to humanity’s struggles with the pitfalls of sin; Renzema expresses it in a straightforward way. The song is a conversation with God as well as an invitation. Listeners hear the lyrics and get a glimpse of Renzema’s conversation with God, but they can also allow themselves to sing the song and participate in their own communion, making the words their own. The chorus leads into the concept of life being simpler when we were younger, when we weren’t caught in “the inbetween.” The bridge allows us to ruminate on the words Renzema has heard God speak to him: “Child, stop listening to yourself so much. I have made you more than worthy of My love.” These lines truly develop the vulnerability that Renzema introduces throughout the lines in the intro. The strumming guitar picks up intensity and is joined by electronic chords and drums to go with the divine words Renzema has shared. I felt a profound sense of awe at the display of God’s mercy that this song portrays. The song’s outro switches so that while Renzema is the one singing, the words are God’s words, telling us that He knows that “your heart is tired” and “broken,” but that “the best is still yet to come.”
This song spoke to me more than all of the others, especially through the lyric “Child, stop listening to yourself so much.” Speaking as someone who painstakingly over analyzes and expends too much energy on trying to control what cannot be controlled, this song is like a wake-up call to the fact that there is a being in control over me. Not just over me, but for me. This song is powerful.
4. “Let The Ground Rest”
This song speaks directly into the world’s present quarantine experience. To use language mirroring that of the album, the world’s present spring season of rest as well as barrenness. This song, the title song, deals with a time of rest, despite the desire to be active and moving in spiritual as well as physical ways. The beginning of the song, featuring a single guitar, speaks of waiting for one’s time to come, to have “your fifteen minutes in the sun.” But Renzema asks “don’t you find it strange that God, He made four seasons and only one’s spring?” I think that this question is meant to showcase how even though the beauty of spring is lavish and full of healthy growth, there have to be times of decay and simple, dormant stillness to prepare for the growth that comes after winter. Renzema calls his listeners to “just let the ground rest, ‘cause if it’s not right now it’s for the best.” This song celebrates the reality of life not always being what we would define as good, but rather that most of the time it deviates away from the various plans that we have made and put our hope in. And maybe that is okay. It brings a song like “Springtime” into sharper clarity and value. Complete with more folk guitar paired with piano and drums, a steady rhythm pulses beneath Renzema’s higher falsetto notes as he sings directly to his listeners: “These flowers only grow once they’ve tasted rain… You’re gonna grow, I know this.” It is a song of confidence that allows its listeners to remember that, among their other worries and tribulations, the quarantine and death from COVID-19 will not last forever. Despite the fear and uneasiness they harbor, this time can be embraced as a time of rest to prepare for future seasons.
Renzema’s “Let The Ground Rest” is available to stream on platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music. It is just a listen away for people looking for music that doesn’t try to gloss over the hard parts of having faith in God. On the contrary -- it is music that celebrates the unusualness of this particular spring season, offering exponential hope and growth to last to the quarantine’s other side.