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When I was little I used to say that I knew I was at home somewhere when I felt comfortable enough to take off my socks and shoes and walk around in
my bare feet. To this day my favorite place to go barefoot is right here at St. Mark’s.
Over the course of the past eighteen years, I have slid across the hardwood floors of this nave in my stocking feet at midnight, padded on scratchy
carpet in the undercroft while playing hide and seek, and felt the cool grass of the courtyard under my feet as I made attempts at cartwheels. I
have loved every minute.
My love for St. Marks has grown as I have grown up.
I have spent the past eight years of my growing up attending a catholic girls prep school. When I started in 5th grade I definitely noticed
differences between what I was learning in daily religion classes and what I experienced here every Sunday morning but it wasn’t until high
school that I realized I wasn’t getting everything out of the community at school that I wanted to. It wasn’t just that our religious education
didn’t completely speak to my beliefs or that what was important to my school community was not as important to me. It was on a much smaller
scale – sitting in my history class sophomore year, my teacher, in context with the lesson, asked if there was anyone in the room who was not
Catholic. When I was the only one to raise my hand my teacher asked me my religion. When I responded “Episcopalian” he immediately dismissed
it with a wave of his hand saying it didn’t count because it was the same as Catholic. This obviously raised some questions in my mind. My
catholic education was nothing like my education at St. Marks. In my eyes two things could not be more different.
The biggest difference I can think of is the way I experienced communion during mass at school and services here on Sundays. At school I
sat and watched as other girls went up to the front of the room single file for their wafers. While on Sundays I relished in the moment
of being part of the group that gathered in a circle for bread and wine that no one was excluded from receiving.
Communion exemplifies so much of what I have gotten out of St. Marks. For me the religious ideas of communion have always gone hand in hand
with our strong community. I love that I can stand around our central alter and can see the faces of a community that means the world to me
while at the same time being part of this spiritual renewal. It frustrates me when I can’t quite explain to my friends why I can’t simply
go to a different church or a different service on a Sunday morning. For them going to church on Sunday is more an issue of convenience
than anything else. For them it doesn’t matter who stands next to them when they get communion just as long as they receive the sacrament.
For me, this symbol of communion has always extended beyond the religious aspects to how this community treats the youth here at St. Marks,
always with open arms of welcome and support.
The adults here have shown care and support for me and all the teens in a way that I have not found anywhere else. This is something I know
that so many of us value as one of the most meaningful experiences of our lives. For many of us it has been an understood right of passage
to write our college essays about our time at St. Marks.
So it may not come as a surprise that I knew for years that I would write my college essay about St. Marks -- the place that gave me countless
memories of Shrine Mont, service trips to Honduras and Harlan Kentucky, wonderful St. Marks Players productions and --
I struggled to get it right in my essay...thinking -- I have this community that has shown me so much love. But I don’t know if it prepares me
for the harsh realities of the real world that surely will not accept me as they do.
I am an average student at best. I procrastinate too much and stresses about everything and pick on my younger brother.
But here people see me as a strong confident well spoken young women who of course at my very best I hope to convey…hopefully in reality that
is what I have become. Surely it is because you see these qualities in me that I can find them in myself. My essay ended assuring colleges
that I am that confident young woman… but the truth is that I’m still working on it. I guess some days I just feel that confidence more than
others.
Now before I leave you thinking that St. Marks has been perfection ~because we know sometimes we do get a little proud ~ I have to mention that
as much as I have been welcomed and included in this community I have also felt excluded at times. To us teens the adults of St. Marks sometimes
seem like an exclusive club with vocabulary we never understand and a language we don’t speak. Things like functional education and LCF. Going
through years of Sunday school we tend to feel only vaguely knowledgeable about what goes on behind what we learn. It is so frustrating to be a
product of something I do not understand. We aren’t allowed to take the class that is supposed to be all about understanding St. Marks but
despite my frustration I don’t feel like I understand St. Marks any less for not having been included in that.
And so sometimes I find myself in limbo between the wonderful inclusiveness of this community and its exclusiveness. But really there is no
disconnect between these two extremes of inclusion and exclusion. I have found balance between them.
As much as St. Marks has taught me to view the bible skeptically – every once in a while I can find some merit in what it says. Today’s gospel
talked about a house built on the sturdy foundation of rock. Just like a house built on a rock, I feel that I have a strong foundation beneath
me. The ways in which St. Marks has shown me so much support and at the same time left me yearning to understand more deeply our intricacies
have made this foundation all the stronger for me. Now as I leave St. Marks I put my trust in the foundation I have been given and look ahead
and know that I will never forget everything this community as done for me.
