March 18, 2022 | By Sharmaine Koh SM ‘22

“I cling to you; your right hand upholds me” (Psalm 63:8)

My fist is clenched, knuckles white, around a glass marble. I can feel the curve of my nails making indents like crescents on the palm of my hand. The tension rides up to my shoulders. I’m clinging to the marble as if my life depends on it, and somehow, in the strange logic of this nightmare, it does, because —

March 14, 2022 | By Karis Ryu YDS’23

To believe in Jesus Christ is to believe in the God-man sent to die for the healing and renewal of the Creator’s world: to believe in suffering and healing, hand in hand. We must feel sorrow in order to also feel the necessity, impact, and joy of Jesus Christ’s act of ultimate and utter service when it comes—over and over again.

January 20, 2022 | By Serena Puang DC ‘22+1

I grew up in Arkansas, but for most of the last eight months, I’ve lived with my aunt and grandma in Taiwan. This lent itself to more than a few moments of culture shock and miscommunication. For the first two months, I felt like no one at church or in my ballroom dancing club wanted to be my friend. I would say hi and try to make conversation, but it always felt one sided.

These interactions led me to conclude that Taiwanese people, in general, were not friendly. After all, if a new person had showed up at my church/school/club meeting, I would never treat them that way. Was there something wrong with me? What was I doing that was putting people off?

January 20, 2022 | By Shi Wen Yeo MC ‘23

Memory is like a haze that gradually sharpens into focus as one grows up. One of my earliest, albeit haziest, memories is of Saturday afternoons when I was nine years old. For any child that age, Saturday afternoons were synonymous with pee-wee baseball games, time spent hanging from tree castles or playing in the sand. For me, Saturday afternoons were the longest afternoons of the week. Instead of basking in the gentle sunshine, I spent those afternoons suffocated by harsh, luminous lights that dangled from the ceilings of my “tuition center.” And I was not the only one.

December 18, 2021 | By Hannah Turner, BK ‘24

“That’s funny,” my high school friend said when she heard the common Christian phrase thrown out in a conversation about racism. She had concluded the very opposite: God didn’t love her, if there even was a god.

November 26, 2021 | By Bella Gamboa JE ‘22

Limestone columns rise to an intricately engraved ceiling far above, whose artistry is somewhat shadowed as it lies above the lights that line the sanctuary. The nave is imposing yet familiar; its grandeur feels like home. The stained-glass windows are particularly exquisite: the cool blues and purples that enclose a stone brought from the moon, the panoply of shades in the rose windows, the vivid panes painstakingly joined by lead seams. The light filtering through the glass creates puddles of color, rivulets of crimson and gold, eddies of amber and sapphire. And these are but the wonders of the main sanctuary; both outside and deeper within, crevices and cornices, chapels and gargoyles, add to the intricacies and spectacle of the church.

March 19, 2021 | By Jason Lee TD ‘22

Sometimes the good news does not feel like good news. My confession is that, sometimes, my faith redirects my daily resentments from an implacable universe to an impassive God. It is easier, sometimes, to believe our afflictions result from the wingbeats of several rather malicious butterflies than from the motion of a world watched by a loving deity. Many believers have told me that the former viewpoint is much lonelier than the latter.

March 10, 2021 | By Margot Armbruster

Content warning: This piece discusses disordered eating.

It’s Ash Wednesday, early and cold. I’m locking my bike outside the Duke Chapel, catching my breath through my mask, rubbing the feeling back into my fingers. I’m here to lead worship at this morning’s service.

Feb. 5th, 2021 | By Shi Wen Yao MC ‘23

Food has a cult following. Consider the Yale College Facebook page named “Free Food at Yale.” Before COVID-19, everyday there were announcements upon announcements asking people to come to claim free food all around campus—leftover pizzas, chicken nuggets and all things of the sort…

Feb 5th, 2021 | By Jason Lee TD ‘22+1

In my mother’s house, buddae-jiggae is always served with a side of spinach. If any meal she made lacked vegetables, the spinach was how she compensated. Most stews come with seaweed or daikon or bean sprouts or long, spindly mushrooms simmering in red broth. In those cases, there is no need for spinach. Buddae-jiggae, however, does not contain anything green.