MemChurch Daily
April 14, 2021
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PRACTICING HOPE
The daily newsletter of the Memorial Church
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Dear friends,
Today we are delighted to share with you the reflections of Walquiria B C L Garcia '21 and Sung Kwang Oh '21, both of Quincy House in our Virtual Senior Talks series of 2021. Senior Talks are a beloved annual tradition in which each House at the College is invited to nominate a senior to offer a Morning Prayers address. We are honored to continue this tradition virtually this year by way of uplifting their reflections in our Daily Devotional. Thank you Walquiria and Sung Kwang, today we celebrate you both and all your fellow Quincy House seniors!
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The Memorial Church of Harvard University
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SENIOR TALKS
Quincy House's Walquiria B C L Garcia '21
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Inside Looking Out
By Walquiria B C L Garcia '21
Quincy House
I was never one to stargaze. To lean on a windowsill and look at the moon. To look out the window of the car and appreciate the mountains. To hike a trail just to see view. To simply go for a walk to be in an open space.
I never minded confined spaces. I’m a homebody. I am comfortable staying in. I like watching movies and series on the tv. I like conversations around the dinner table. I like road trips and car rides, sitting in the back seat reading a book. I like the security of known place.
Being at home has never been an effort before. But today I long. I long for the world outside. Not for the freedom, but for the people. Because it was never about the location — my room, my home, my House.
It has always been about the opposite of loneliness. The friendship and companionship. The doing your own independent thing in an environment filled with connections. The full house of the holiday season. The working late into the evening in the packed dining hall. The going on a ski-trip for the bus drive and spending the afternoon reading on the lodge.
I long because the few times I’ve stargazed were when my cousin would come take advantage of the better view in my room. Because I have no interest in a road trip alone in the driver’s seat. Because my first and only baseball game was about asking my exasperated friend what was going on and seeing her frustration grow as I reacted unenthusiastically confused to a homerun.
And I miss the in-between. The stopping at my blockmate’s room on the way to mine. The chitchat on the way to class. The inevitable break at mealtimes when a friend joins your table or a stranger, driven by the lack of available space, asks to sit down. And I miss the unscheduled. The bumping into someone from class or just seeing them from afar.
So now I am inside looking out. Feeling alone in my own house. Because there are some distances that technology tries to shorten but fails to eliminate. Because the safety and comfortableness of a space was never about the place. And for the first time I look longingly to the outside and wish to bring some of its vastness to my space. To expand my bubble just enough to get loneliness out.
Walquiria B C L Garcia is a senior graduating in Economics with a secondary in Psychology. She's from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and went to the Military School of Brasília. She is a proud Quincy House penguin. Her love language is reading people's favorite books and watching their movie or series recommendations.
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SENIOR TALKS
Quincy House's Sung Kwang Oh '21
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By Sung Kwang Oh '21
Quincy House
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? … Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:25-27, 34
In the bathrooms at the church I went to growing up, there were signs with a Bible verse hanging at eye level, in front of every urinal, and on the inside of every stall door. One day, a particular sign caught my eye - frankly, it would have been hard to miss given its prominent location. It read, “‘Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?’ Matthew 6:26”
And this message would stick with me for the rest of the day. When I later went to see what the rest of the chapter had to say, I read two verses that struck me and would serve as a reality check throughout my college experience: “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? ... Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
These words are simple and sensible. And often, impossible to follow.
I’ve wrestled with the difficulty of living out this verse since the beginning of college. At the end of freshman fall, I was quite worried… I was worried about how college was already almost over. I reasoned that I would soon be a sophomore and after I declared my concentration, it would quickly become junior year and before I knew it, I would be in a cap and gown at commencement. There were, evidently, a few things wrong with that assessment. But I remembered feeling, as a recent senior in high school, that four years had flown by, and I didn’t expect anything less from the next four years of college. So I was determined to make the most out of it.
And so I pressed on. I planned what classes I would take, which clubs I would comp, and for which internships I would apply. Determined to not let any opportunities go to waste, I joined endless email lists and kept thinking about how I could fit one more event into my Google calendar and do more tomorrow.
In the midst of all this - trying to do everything I could - it felt as though I wasn’t achieving as much as I had hoped. So I joined more organizations and took different classes, and yet I still felt uncertain, anxious about the future. It was in this vicious and exhausting cycle I realized that, in my never-ending pursuit of tomorrow, I never stopped to say hello to today.
In my chase for the future, I failed to look around and appreciate all that God had gifted me in that moment. With this realization, I learned to pause. To appreciate the small moments I previously overlooked. Walks along the Charles. Late night group “work” sessions in Quincy dining hall. Meals and laughter shared in the common room. And by taking the time to reflect and appreciate where I was currently in life, it was just as the hymn goes, “Count your many blessings; name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.”
I still struggle with trying not to hyper plan for the future, but during my time in college, especially in the past year, I’ve learned that I can neither predict nor control the future. Instead, I must ground myself in the present.
And this is what I believe Matthew 6 invites us to do: to let go. To let go of our feeble attempts to take control over our lives and try to get life perfect. Instead, it invites us to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” and all the other things will fall into place. And for me, this starts by being present and grateful for all the blessings our heavenly Father has already given me today.
Sung Kwang Oh is a senior concentrating in Government with a secondary in Computer Science. He is from Cherry Hill, NJ. At Harvard, Sung Kwang has spent his time organizing Veritas Forums, dabbling in the performing arts, and going on walks along the Charles River.
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