College: A Place for Training Exiles
“All of us know this in our bones: we know that something has gone wrong and that people and places are broken. Yet we still try to restore the connections necessary to make our places healthy and whole. The season of college can help us learn to be like Israel is commanded to be in Jeremiah 29: Israel is in Babylon, in exile. God promises that, after seventy years, He will bring them back to their place. Despite this promise to eventually return them to their place, He does not command them to do nothing in their exile. Instead, he commands them to build homes, to raise families and start new families, and to plant gardens and eat their produce. In the same manner, we are to be in this world while recognizing that it is not our final destination but a training ground for our final home.
What I have learned from this season in life is that it is good to form connections in college. It is good to grow attached to the place where I have been further formed. It is good to read books, plant gardens, marry and be merry, but it is also necessary to recognize that my time in this place will come to an end. There are two corresponding mistakes that a college student can make when trying to live well during this season of life. The first is to disregard forming new connections or even to start withering the roots which do grow in order to make the transplanting process more bearable. Friendships wane, and one natural response is to try to be stoic about it all. This stunts emotional, intellectual, and developmental growth. If we do not form and water these roots, we risk killing these roots altogether and stunting our growth when we are transplanted elsewhere.
Leaving a place and community we have come to love will hurt. Still, it will be good because it will hurt – the hurt is a sign that we have lived well in this place.”