The Waltonian

I believe using the word “regarding” instead of the phrase “in regards to” is infinitely superior, and it annoys me to no end when the latter is used in writing or speech. Though this preference of mine may seem to be mere semantics, I posit there is in fact a relevance to their difference — for a few reasons. Before I begin I want to be very clear: this is my attempt to convince you to sympathize with my nettles purely by means of my charmingly insufferable prose, and not by anything likely worth attending to. (I am a gadfly and this is my loitering, strictly speaking.)

My first reason in favor of the superiority of “regarding” is one of practicality. It is one word, while “in regards to” is three. Additionally, there are less keyboard strokes and syllables for the former, making your writing and/or speech slightly more efficient and saving you a considerable amount of time. While I would not disdain someone for using “in regards to” to meet a word count for an abnormally-strict professor, in any other case I thoroughly maintain “regarding” is far the better practical option.

Secondly, this is an issue of grammar as well. Perhaps I am being witheringly obtuse, but I find “in regards to” to be categorically and utterly obfuscatory. What does it mean to be “in” a regard, much less plural regards? Who or what, I implore, is in those “regards”? And why do we need to say “regards to” — employing that usage we’ve not defined or understood — when the preposition “regarding” says what we mean far more implicitly and clearly? Granted, the slightly less colloquial phraseological alternative to “in regards to” — “with regard to” — is far more sensible grammatically. Yet, “regarding” indicates you’re specifying the object with a regard for its delineation. If you absolutely, needlessly must use multiple words, I beg of you to choose “with regard to” instead of “in regards to;” but I will reiterate — “regarding” is the best of them all.

Thirdly, I also think this is a debate of aesthetics, and if I am right and aesthetics have truly anything to do with this, then we have a provocatively philosophical matter on our hands. How we use words is paramount to the human experience, and certain uses of words (in this case, “regarding” and “in regards to”) we then find aesthetically thus philosophically appurtenant. How a word or phrase sounds to your listeners or readers, and to yourself as you speak it and even read it on the page, is indeed a matter of aesthetic. The words we choose indicate, on some level I’ve decided is beyond my scope, our regard for the love of wisdom. Hence, “regarding” ought to be used always in place of “in regards to,” which I find to be phonetically objectionable and melodically tedious. “Regarding,” on the other hand, has no particularly sticky consonants and features a distinctly agreeable cadence. But I have pontificated far too long; I shall abate.

I assure you that my attachment to “regarding” is entirely petty and nonserious. If someone else made this same opinion their hill to die on, they’d be mocked and run out of town, coddled by academics, or (worse) both. I’d rather avoid that demise. Perhaps, another time, I can argue our nonserious opinions actually have some significance to be acknowledged and valued. For now, though, know I genuinely and ultimately care very little, and really only enough to nurse a pet peeve and write a few hundred priggish words. If you press me on this, I shall inevitably rise up to the task of defending my opinion, but only for the sake of my pride. All the same, do remember this salient item: using one word instead of three to say the same thing is nearly always ideal. Ignore my theory if you must, but do me the honor of engaging my praxis.

Since 2011, April is annually recognized as Autism Acceptance Month (previously Autism Awareness Month). According to the 2021 10th anniversary Autistic Self-Advocacy Network’s statement, “Autism Acceptance Month was created by and for the autistic community to change the conversation around autism, shifting it away from stigmatizing ‘autism awareness’ language that presents autism as a threat to be countered with vigilance.” Autism acceptance is about equitable belonging, not apathetic tolerance or self-righteous saviorism.

What is autism? It’s a developmental disability (known in the DSM as Autism Spectrum Disorder – ASD) that some people are born with and live with for their whole lives. It’s heritable, not caused by vaccines (a popular misconception in some circles); it can’t be cured, reversed, or fixed (what Applied Behavioral Analysis—ABA—attempts to do), and while it can be masked to varying degrees, it is a permanent neurotype that affects everything about a person, from the senses to social interactions to emotions. The World Health Organization said in March 2022 that “about 1 in 100 children has autism” but that while “characteristics may be detected in early childhood, … autism is often not diagnosed until much later.”

Autism is relatively common, and it’s very likely you have known many autistic people, diagnosed or not, over the course of your life; as such, it’s very important to understand this disability. Julianne Anemone, an autistic student here at Eastern, said that while mental health awareness for more common things like anxiety and depression is improving, “with autism [there’s a] spectrum of symptoms … it’s complicated[;…] no two [autistic] people are going to be similar.” Dr. Thompson, the director of the College Success Program here at Eastern that exists to assist autistic students, said “because autism affects many aspects of how a person interacts with the world, it looks very different from one person to another.” Justin Rittwage, another autistic student at Eastern, said that the most important thing non-autistic people need to know is that “[autistic people] think differently and that’s not a bad thing.” Dr. Thompson also noted that it’s further important to know that the commoly-used “high-functioning [and] low-functioning [spectrum] is a simplistic and inaccurate way of looking at [autism]…some people are able to adapt well to their environment, but other people don’t see the effort that goes into that;” i.e. there’s huge amounts of effort to live and function to any degree for all autistic people.

There are also many misconceptions about autism. Dr. Thompson said that some of those misconceptions are that “autism looks a certain way, or that once you know one [autistic] person’s strengths and weaknesses [you can] apply [that] to others… One that bothers me the most is that autistic people aren’t capable of empathy…[there’s a] range of levels of empathy within the autistic community just as there is a range of empathy among allistics.” Rittwage recounted that “the biggest misconception is that we’re not intelligent. That’s how I felt my guidance counselors treated me in high school, and I wasn’t able to excel or reach my full potential until college… I didn’t think I was going to be able to perform as well as I did and I’m blown away by that.” Anemone said that “when most people think about autism they think about …[dramatized]examples like Shaun from The Good Doctor, [and] they think [other autistic people] aren’t really capable of doing much, but that is only really [the case] for the severe[ly disabled].”

Regarding support, Dr. Thompson noted carefully that “lots of neurotypical people are trying to do good and doing it from their own perspective rather than from the perspective of autistic individuals.” And it’s important to remember that many autistic people, especially those assigned female at birth and people of color, are un- or late-diagnosed—“signifiers of autism aren’t nearly as clear” due to different socializations than the DSM accounts for, which is “geared towards” white autistics assigned male at birth, Dr. Thompson continued. Anemone agreed, saying that “it’s important for autistic women to speak out about their symptoms, because autism is diagnosed a lot more in men compared to women.” And being undiagnosed “is problematic because it affects self-understanding and how [many] support systems and accommodations [you have access to],” said Dr Thompson. Anemone said “[it’s] important that people with … autistic symptoms … get help early enough they could also potentially have success in life.” Both Anemone and Rittwage said that CSP and other accommodation services at Eastern was the reason they chose this university. “Eastern has a pretty good autism program and that’s why I chose [it]…When I was choosing colleges I was only looking at autism programs…I also know that CCAS is a really good resource as well…[it’s a] robust system and it definitely has helped me out a lot, both academically and socially,” remembered Anemone; Rittwage agreed and said “[the] CSP program is there, that’s why I came here and transferred in; I needed a little bit more support…at my other college, they didn’t have that.”

Autism is an enormous spectrum of different symptoms, comorbidities, disabling factors and experiences; no two autistic people are the same. It’s deeply personal, and while there is an autistic community—since the world is set up around neurotypicals, you can find the people whose brains work similarly—it can be hugely important to an autistic person’s sense of self. Anemone remembered, “when I was younger I was more severely autistic, [and] luckily because my mom noticed…I was able to get the services I needed to be able to get to where I am now. I want to be an inspiration for other people…I hope to be an advocate, and say that autistic people can do anything that other people can do.” And Rittwage said, “I’ve heard people say that they want to cure autism, and I would not want to give it away in a million years, never. You have struggles and hurdles, but it’s a specific life experience. If I was neurotypical, I wouldn’t have to jump as many hurdles and I wouldn’t be who I am today.”

Megan Mahoney is one of the most accomplished and ambitious people you will ever meet. She is graduating in May with not one but two degrees: her bachelor’s in English literature and creative writing and her master’s in Arts in Teaching. A Templeton student, she was able to pursue her master’s degree simultaneously with her four-year track bachelor’s. Being able to read one thousand words per minute certainly helps with that! She has worked as a TA for six semesters, in the English department and in Templeton. She’s leaving Eastern with a full resume and more than prepared to have a life of fulfillment and joy beyond university.

After she graduates, she’s moving back to her beloved home state of Arizona to teach middle schoolers at the liberal arts charter school she herself attended and graduated from. She’s specifically teaching poetry and literature: two subjects she’s studied thoroughly and become expertly familiar with through her educational years. I attended a sister school of the one Megan is going to be teaching at, and I can confidently say that she is easily the most capable and qualified 21-year-old applicant and first-year teacher they have ever had.

Wickedly smart, Megan is also an author. She writes YA fiction and has queried two of her books and will query a third this summer, hoping to be published soon. Additionally, she is a founding member and chair of the Poikilia Project, a small organization dedicated to researching and developing methods for bringing historically-excluded voices (women, people of color, etc) to the Western canon that we all study to some degree in our formative years. She writes beautiful poetry occasionally in her spare time that she thinks is not great (it is). Even more: she speaks Mandarin and French, and has studied Latin and ancient Greek. Megan has staffed and written for the Waltonian for her four years here, and has staffed and participated in ETHELS for her four years as well. She never does anything part-way.

She’s a loyal friend, with an enormous heart and a strong ethic of commitment. Megan deeply cares for the wellbeing of her family, her friends, and everyone around her, and she’s giftedly perceptive about the needs of her loved ones. She’s incredibly passionate and knowledgeable about her occupations and areas of study — able to talk about any of them in detail for hours. She is wonderfully faithful and a treasured friend, and her intuition and wisdom is unparalleled.

If you ever have the blessing of knowing Megan, or even merely meeting her, you’ll know that she cultivates a safe and encouraging space around herself, and you will be affirmed and inspired to move about your life devotedly and diligently. And, if you want to be endeared to her forever, I recommend giving her some dark chocolate or burrata cheese — both is even better.

If you frequent the coffee shop Zime here on Eastern’s campus, you’ll be aware that there’s at least one thing missing or unavailable nearly every day. Most recently, they were out of two drink sizes, multiple flavors and ingredients for drinks and some food items as well. There’s usually a list near the register indicating what’s unavailable. You’ll also know that Zime now serves Starbucks: a massive, ubiquitous coffee corporation. That is the key to why we’re experiencing shortages.

The problem of shortages at Starbucks, and therefore Zime, is global — and geopolitical. The COVID-19 pandemic that we’re still attempting to squelch two years later has been the catalyst for enormous change in the United States and abroad. According to UNCTAD, there are two changes at play in our situation at Zime: the global supply chain crisis, and labor movements like unionization and resignation. And these affect each other as well; labor movements affect product turnaround, and then those supply shortages can make work environments so stressful that workers seriously consider walking out or unionizing.

The Guardian explains how labor movements, like the widespread unionization and the Great Resignation (as it’s being called) are massive, and not to be underestimated. And there’s something important about Starbucks here. Bloomberg reported that Starbucks is a well-documented union-buster, which according to the National Labor Relations Act 1935, is illegal.

Bloomberg further explained how union-busting is when workers on the ground try to unionize, their superiors — if they hear of the unionization attempts — are encouraged by corporate to make their workload as difficult as possible and inundate them with anti-union material and bullying tactics. That results in unionizers often being forced to quit or their location being closed down. It’s illegal to fire someone for unionizing, but it’s not technically illegal to drive unionizers to their breaking point.

The Associated Press reported that Starbucks is one of many, many American corporations experiencing widespread unionization efforts. More recent domestic strikes include Chevron and Amazon, and some recent international strikes have been in Germany, Turkey, Canada, and Haiti. These global labor movements, including in the United States, have been triggered by the overworking and under-recognition of workers — and widespread deaths of workers — during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is the ultimate exacerbator of the supply chain crisis.

The New York Times explains how the issue functions like a massive Rube-Goldberg machine: if just one element is off, then it won’t work, and we at home are feeling the effects of that in the form of shortages.

So what does that have to do with us at Zime? Well, all of this is happening far away from Eastern, and the workers we interact with at Zime are the last of many, many middlemen. If anything has gone wrong, it is very likely to be entirely out of the hands of Zime workers, and there’s absolutely nothing they can do about the shortages. I encourage us to treat them with grace and solidarity. Corporations like Starbucks end up hurting us all — consumer and worker — for the sake of profit at any cost.

Sources: UNCTAD, AP, New York Times, The Guardian, Bloomberg, National Labor Relations Board

From March 23rd to the 26th, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) met for their first in-person national conference since 2020. This year, AWP’s national conference met in Philadelphia—the first time it’s done so. 200 events were offered at the conference, along with a book fair with “editors, small presses, publishers, and literary magazines” from all over the country. It took place at the Philadelphia Convention Center. In addition to its in-person conference, there were also more than 100 events available online since they had “a successful virtual conference in 2021with over 6000 attendees.”

This year, a number of writing students from Eastern attended with their Professor Rebecca Gidjunis, who also is Managing Editor of a journal called Saturnalia Books. Saturnalia was present at the book fair all weekend. When asked to speak about the conference, which Gidjunis has attended multiple times, she said “I love that I can connect with my community of writers and friends from grad school.” This is a large yet tightly-knit community, and many attendees know each other from school, just like Gidjunis, and they come to the conference every year and recognize faces and names, or interact with well-known writers and publishers on social media.

A number of the journals represented at the conference this year were from universities with undergraduate and master’s level audiences. Some of these universities were Rutgers, Wilkes, NYU, Columbia, UChicago and the University of Arizona. There were also larger organizations like American Poetry Review, Pen America, The Writer Magazine and Poetry Foundation. Representatives from each journal or publisher came with their most recently released books for sale, along with free merchandise, and set up their booths in enormous rows for attendees to meander through for hours.

Most of the journals and publishers at the conference focus their material on poetry, essays and short stories, but some housed photographers and nonfiction/fiction authors as well. A few more advertised genre-bending material. On the opening day of the conference, the 23rd, AWP hosted Toi Derricotte— the “celebrated poet”—for their keynote address, and the other events throughout the three days featured talks and panels on a broad variety of subjects like “Ask an Agent Anything,” “Exorcising our Demons: Mental Illness in YA” and “Poets Theater.”

In attendance, one could clearly sense the atmosphere of creativity and community throughout the massive book fair and in the myriad events and panels. Most attendees were young, in their twenties and thirties, as were most of the representatives from journals and publishers. Though some genres found there are not generally regarded as art forms by the general public, like non-fiction or essays, one could be convinced of the artistry in all kinds of writing disciplines just by taking a few steps into the main room of the conference center. It was certainly a gathering of creatives, artists who are on the front of society, pushing it forward and stretching our minds. There was also a discernible spiritedness hovering over the whole three days. “After successfully reimagining the conference as a virtual-only space for 2021, returning to an in-person gathering this year brings a new sense of excitement and anticipation. The AWP staff has worked hard to achieve a safe in-person conference while still providing that wonderful, interactive virtual offering for those who join us online,” said AWP executive director Cynthia Sherman.

If you’re interested in submitting to any of the above-mentioned journals or publishers, please find them online, as their timelines for submissions update regularly and often. Visit the AWP website for more information about the annual conference.

Sources: AWP 2022 (press release), Rebecca Gidjunis

During the week of March 18, the Office of Faith and Practice in cooperation with Campolo Scholars, Palmer Seminary and Templeton Honors College welcomed scholar and author Dr. Reggie Williams for three days of invigorating conversation. The conversations centered around Williams’ acclaimed book, Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance. Williams, who has degrees from Fuller Seminary and Westmont College and teaches Christian ethics at McCormick Theological Seminary, spent his doctorate studying the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran theologian and pastor who was assassinated by the Nazis in 1945 for his political resistance to the Nazi party. Williams occupied his educational years by engaging his Black heritage and identity with his white professors and authors he was assigned. He is also an ordained minister in the Progressive National Baptist Church. Throughout his life, he has always asked, “what does the Gospel do on the ground? […] what is the lived implication of our faith?” which led him to his focus on Christian ethics — and to the study of one individual who was deeply aware of this faith-led “lived implication,” so much that he suffered death for them.

Bonhoeffer is widely hailed as a hero for his prophetic yet singular calls to social justice for the church in a time of mass suffering when most had given in to Nazi rhetoric or were too afraid to take action. Williams’ study of Bonhoeffer asks why this privileged German man was able to form and loudly espouse such necessary and Christlike insights into Christian discipleship and Christ-powered justice; Williams answers that it was Bonhoeffer’s time living in Harlem in 1930, while he attended Union Theological Seminary in New York City, that was essential for, in Bonhoeffer’s words, a shift from “the phraseological to the real.” It was Bonhoeffer’s time in and around the Black church and the Black community in Harlem that showed him how to resist injustice, advocate for the oppressed and live bravely in Christ amidst the ongoing threat of death enacted by the state. It was the picture of Black Jesus that Bonhoeffer learned to worship: non-racialized, non-specific, yet the face of every oppressed person who suffers by regimes of injustice — as Jesus of Nazareth himself was oppressed. Experiencing the vitality of the Black church and Black community in Harlem, Bonhoeffer was a changed man — converted to a theology of political resistance, and ready to return to Germany to decry that regime of injustice.

When asked about the concept of “white Jesus” — a view that whitewashes the historical Palestinian man from Nazareth in order to co-opt him and his words for the purposes of white supremacist Christians — Dr Williams asserted that the worship of “white Jesus” is in fact a modern christological heresy rooted in gnosticism. Making salvation accessible to only the supposedly enlightened people (white people), who then in turn attempt to gatekeep the true Christ for the unenlightened (people of color), the fabrication of “white Jesus” is a product of white supremacy. Dr Williams, however, wants us — regardless of race — to look to Black Jesus to identify, listen to, advocate for and love those who are oppressed: those who are marginalized and othered, all of whom Black Jesus represents. The concept of Black Jesus asserts that Jesus was truly oppressed — politically, socially, economically — and together with our modern, postcolonial understanding, the Black Jesus clarifies the real suffering of the Christian Savior from Scripture and turns our attention to the real suffering of the oppressed today.

When asked about how to understand Christians who oppress, enact harm, and adopt a “theology of the status quo,” Dr. Williams said that “in the U.S., we have Christianities, with many different narratives. […] Apathy [is one of those] Christian moral standard[s, … and] perpetrating suffering is a faith practice, a Christian practice.” He says that it’s “fact” that suffering is not only caused by some Christians, but that those Christians have a view of God and of Jesus that constructs for them an orthodoxy of oppression. To that, Dr. Williams asks us to examine our world with the question: “which Christianities are faithful to Black Jesus?,” i.e., which Christianities are faithful to a God who suffered as much as we do and who sees the oppressed of our day?

Lastly, Dr. Williams reminded us that “we are always becoming.” The three days he visited our campus were filled with engaging, thought-provoking and spirited conversation, with plenty to bring us forward into a new day for Christ and his people.

If you were at Sunday brunch at the Dining Commons on Feb. 20, you probably noticed One Gen leading a worship session at that time there. If you’re like me, you had no idea this was going to happen. And it wasn’t exactly a pleasant surprise.

I’m not here to attack One Gen or student worship leaders. Absolutely not — this is a Christian university, I am a Christian, and I expect worship to happen here. However, as far as I know, worship at this university day-to-day is optional and non-mandatory. It should stay that way. There wasn’t enough of a heads-up to the student body to fairly call this worship session “optional.”

Why is it important that worship here stay optional? Well, for two reasons. Firstly, it’s undeniable that many students here have a difficult relationship with the church and with worship as an extension. Either because they’re LGTBQ+, were raised in toxic church environments, or any other reason (there are many). I know I’m not the only one for whom this is the case.

Secondly, students with sensory or audio processing issues may not be able to handle worship at such a volume for the length of a whole meal, and something like that might throw off their plans and significantly distress them.

Again, I know I am not the only student for whom this is true. A full sound setup worship session in a highly-trafficked, popular area without sufficient warning is likely to alienate a good portion of the student body. Again, I’m not upset that Christian worship is happening at a Christian university; I’m concerned about the lack of heads-up that might lead to the opposite effect the event organizers were hoping for.

While there was a small note in a Weekly Happenings email from student engagement, one screen of a few others on rotation on a monitor in the entrance to the DC, and a few flyers in Walton, there was no other announcement for this event. These do not seem like enough, since all of these options are very easily missed. No one really reads the Weekly Happenings email, so it’s very easy to ignore the screen in the entrance to the DC or not see that individual slide completely, and it’s hard even to find a flyer you’re looking for in Walton, because there’s so many.

Here’s the thing. If this is a recurring event, say, twice per month, then there should be more announcements than just these easily-missed things described above. Even if it were just a one-time thing, it’s not enough. I help run a club here myself — I know how much logistical strategy goes into making just one of these things happen. It’s tough.

Again, I’m not criticizing One Gen here. But the administrators who get these requests from clubs on their desks need to do better here. For example, signing off on a few easily-missed flyers or DC monitor announcements for a club who meets in a classroom at 8pm on a Tuesday is one thing. Allowing the same amount and type of announcements for a loud worship session that’s meeting at one of the most attended meals of the week, on the day when most students have very limited options for eating? That’s different, and those administrators should know better than to assume that students have the time, energy or mental capacity to observe and take note of the contents of every email they receive, every flyer they see or every monitor they encounter. That’s too much, and it’s not our job.

So, administrators, please be more mindful of the nature of club events that come across your desk. Please consider the needs and experiences of such large portions of the student body when it comes to loud worship events in mostly unavoidable, highly populated areas of campus.

To One Gen: thank you for your desire to make Sunday brunch a little holier. I love that you’re here and worshipping so proudly and enthusiastically. I just wish that I could have appreciated it more, had others here at Eastern been more considerate.

What a task: to attempt to condense poetry as a skill, an area of study and a creative outlet in a couple hundred words. Indeed, the art of poetry is all three of these things, and more.

Poetry is a writing skill like any other you practice, but the attention to detail that’s required sets it apart. This attention is microscopic. Synonyms don’t exist; no word means the same thing as another word. No word means exactly what you think it means. Each kind of punctuation is like a different kind of kitchen knife: they all cut up your phrases and sentences, but you have to discern whether you need to pare your phrase or hack your sentence. Even capitalization is its own kind of punctuation, its own tool of dividing words up. You’ve got to be near-obsessive about your words and punctuation. And, hardest of all, your poem’s message can’t alienate your reader. This seems impossible. But the best way of avoiding this, I’ve found, is to assume nothing about your reader other than that they’re reading and that they’re human. The best poetry sings to one impression of a tiny sub-aspect of human universality.

Poetry is an area of study too. If you put all of poetry together, you’d have for yourself a comprehensive history of ideas. No poem is comprehensive itself, but poetry is. If you study any culture from any place or any period of time, you’ll find poems. Humans have always told stories, always talked about what they’re feeling and seeing, always sung about their heroes. All that is poetry, and you’ll find it. And deducing clues about the poet’s work by examining words, meter, rhyme, punctuation (if any are present) is the thrilling work of the reader. Studying poetry is almost anthropological.

Lastly, poetry is a creative outlet. Not all of your poetry is fit for publication, but that’s not the greatest goal of poetry. It’s good and healthy to do on your own, alone in your room with a pen and paper. Playing with words is fun, and so is stretching your brain in a different direction with them. Reading poetry is creative too; it’s not just for consumption, it’s also for curious questioning and study. Stay wondering — and I hope you come away a little more energized to read or write one more poem.

It’s that time of year again. Insects are emerging, daffodils are poking up from the ground, birds are chirping, the weather is getting warmer, the sun is shining more happily — and Christians around the world are about to observe multiple weeks of fasting, repentance, prayer, and being reminded of their death in preparation for the yearly celebration of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection. This liturgical, annual season is known across the traditions as “Lent.”

In this article, I’ll lay out how the different traditions of Christianity, marked out loosely as evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox, observe the season of Lent. I’ll talk about their different fasts, requirements, and general atmospheres around Lent. But before I do that, I want to make it clear that each strain of Christians make it clear, to varying degrees, that the spirit of a fast is more important than following the rules of the fast, and that a heart of repentance and turning to Christ is the most important part of the season. You’ll encounter individuals, pastors, or maybe whole churches that stringently adhere to the letter of the “law” when it comes to Lenten fasts, but by and large, most will in some way note that God cares more about rending our hearts to Her than She does us rending our garments (Joel 2:13). God sees the heart. Additionally, it should be noted that good pastors generally encourage adaptation of the fasts in their denominations or traditions for pregnant people, the chronically ill, and those who deal with eating disorders (and others as needed) — because, as I said, God cares more about our hearts than about following rules.

For all four Christians streams, Lent is forty days long. This represents the forty days that Jesus of Nazareth spent fasting in the wilderness, as recorded in Matthew 4. Lent ends on Holy or Maundy Thursday of Holy Week, which is the liturgical day that observes Christ’s Last Supper and betrayal. Another way of saying this: Lent ends at the beginning of the Holy Triduum (Latin derivative meaning “three days”) which consists of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday (Easter vigil). Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday, the Sunday a week before Easter, but it is still contained by Lent. Lent is approximately six weeks long, but the forty-day measurement is more meaningful because of its connection to Christ.

In the Western churches (Protestant and Roman Catholic), Lent begins on Wednesday, March 2, on the day called Ash Wednesday. Attendants to Ash Wednesday services will often receive interment of ashes (made from last year’s palms from Palm Sunday) in the shape of a cross on their foreheads, to remind them that they are dust, and to dust they shall return (Genesis 3). This day somewhat morbidly begins the remembrance of one’s mortality that they’re called to during the season of Lent.

In the Protestant traditions, dietary fasts are not required and are not strict. Generally, a Protestant observing Lent is encouraged to discern what’s best for themselves individually when choosing what to fast from or what devotion to add to their routine. For example, a small child might choose to fast from candy, but one of their parents may choose to add reading the Bible for ten minutes every day before bed to their daily schedule in lieu of an abstinence. A Protestant congregation by the leadership of their pastor may collectively decide to fast from the same things together, for mutual support.

Roman Catholics tend to do similar individual abstinences/additions, but ecclesially, they’re required to fast from meat and poultry every Friday during the season as an ongoing remembrance of Good Friday, and go to confession at least once during the forty days. They also have the option of limiting the amount of meals they consume every day: one full meal, and two small snacks that together don’t exceed the amount of a full meal. A few also choose to stop eating before they are satisfied when they sit down to their daily meal.

In the Eastern Orthodox traditions, Lent begins this year on March 15, with their Easter celebration, called Pascha, on May 2. The Orthodox also observe a week of partial fasting, called cheesefare, before Lent proper begins. Their fast consists of abstinence from meat, poultry, fish (some shellfish allowed), dairy, olive oil, and wine. Cheesefare is the same but with dairy allowed. Their proper Lenten fast is essentially going vegan, with the additional abstinences from olive oil and wine.

If you are as terminally online as I am, you may have noticed a new Instagram page called “EU Mask Choice” (@/eumaskchoice) pop up in your feed recently. Their online presence consists of a whopping 80 followers, a cheap website that houses effectively nothing but pontificating, clunky and redundant infographics, dependably dissident and sarcastic engagement, and satire accounts with twice their followers. Their comment sections is filled with “sheep” name-calling, non-sequitur digs at reproductive rights, tagging Eastern’s main account urging them to “do something” (in vain, predictably), teasing implications about the size of the account admin’s genitalia, and far too much earnestness for this early in the year. It’s barely February and we’re at each other’s throats.

Look, folks, we’re quickly approaching the two-year anniversary of Kicked-Off-Campus-gate. We’re tired. We’re depressed. We know people who have died — or at least we know people who know people who have died. We know healthcare workers — or at least nursing students — who are scared and burnt out. We’ve seen too many pictures of neoliberal politicians and celebrities with needles stuck in their flesh. (No one wants to see that.) We’re tired from back-and-forth restrictions and allowances on campus every semester. We’ve been desensitized to the idea of almost a million Americans dead from this disease. We like the masks keeping our faces warm in winter and we hate the masks suffocating us in the summer. All we want is our degrees, better food at the DC, and to see our friends and live our lives. Look at how much we have in common.

That said, this Instagram account is one of the most banal and pestiferous things I’ve seen emerge from this student body. It’s insufferable. There’s overdone discourses in their replies, and the whole thing is just an infernal racket. Both the account and petition is unnecessary if they just wanted to get rid of masks; if you look around campus, there’s any number of guys foregoing masks, and they don’t seem to care at all about some petition from a tiny Instagram account. If these account admins only wanted to not wear a mask, they could. No, what they want is to not suffer the consequences of not wearing a mask, hence the petition to change the school’s policy from the top down. (They could learn a thing or two about grassroots organizing from the maskless guys, if they wanted to.)

Here’s the thing. This whole question of whether masks should be implemented seems to usually be answered the loudest by two kinds of people. The first yells “my body my choice” (hilariously ignorant of the implications to everyone else), uses the word “sheep” too much (allowing computers with pretty colored lights to herd them around our roads), and signs petitions that are destined to fail. The second prides themselves on scientific orthodoxy bordering on dogmatism, tends to an extreme abundance of caution and panic, and trusts the government far too much. But there is, in fact, another option here (and it isn’t snobbishly centrist, it’s just common sense).

Calm down. Touch grass. Please be quiet. Keep your mask on, not because it’ll magically immunize you, but because a little bit of cloth in front of your face that catches your nasty particles and droplets protects people more vulnerable than you, Mr./Ms./Mx. spry and healthy 21-year-old college student. We’re all so tired from caring so much. Leave if you don’t like the consequences you signed up for by registering this semester; stay if you’re prepared to be told to go back to your room and get a mask if you forget it once in a while. That’s all.

My cards on the table: I’m all for distrusting the government and its entities, including the CDC. Hell, I’m a Marxist libertarian — I don’t trust the government or big pharma either. But at the same time, I am vaccinated and I wear a mask, because it wouldn’t be in the interest of big pharma and their sell-outs to do bad science that kills us all. Then they’d have none of our money, and that’s all they really want. Make the interests of capitalists work for you and your loved ones, and mask up so that you all live. And to the replyguys causing righteous chaos on this Instagram page: Nice work. I salute you.

Be well, everyone.

Sources: CDC Covid Tracker