Angie Booher
The Author contemplating the meaning of the Universe in Hawaii
Photo: Biomes Participant
I am a biology major and a Christian; these are two things that define me. In the past few years however, I have struggled with the second in many ways. I was expecting this trip around the world to help me understand the world better from a science perspective, which it has, just as it was meant to. I was not expecting the trip to also help me redefine myself in terms of my religion, but it did that as well.
The reason that I needed to redefine it, that I have struggled so much, at least in part is because the last three years were so hard for me. Losing two of my best friends within a week of each other, losing another friend later that same year, dealing with my brother being deployed in Iraq, and underlying it all the worry for my step mom and her cancer that won’t stay in remission. I guess someone would say that I was feeling resentful that one person should go through so much in so short a time. Either way, I was still having difficulty with my faith. Since I grew up as a preacher’s kid and therefore a strong base in the church, that fact was hard for me to deal with.
When I have had problems in the past, I have always turned to music to help me deal with them. Luckily for me, music was a very important aspect of the trip. Not in terms of just listening to it, but how it affected me. The first instance was when we were in Germany. We were at a concert in the Lutheran cathedral in Berlin; they were performing Bach’s St. John Passion. I was able to follow what was happening based on my knowledge of the story, since I know no German.
When Christ was crucified, the bass sang an absolutely beautiful aria. And while he was singing, I happened to look to the left of the choir where a candle rack was sitting. At the beginning of the performance, the rack was full of lit candles. But for some reason, when I was drawn to look at it at this time it only had a single candle burning. That against the backdrop of the extravagant church and the beautiful performance of the soloist struck a chord. It was such a fitting image for the mood of the song and was too perfect to have been planned.
The other instance where music helped my beliefs was actually more than one instance. It was more a matter of the entire trip, all of the world. Katie, Lindsey and I were always singing, one song or another. (Ironically enough, we were the ones in the Jeep on Mount Ida in Turkey with the drivers who liked to sing as well.) But every time we would be together singing, somehow we would work our way from Michael Bublé, the Beatles, and other such well known music to praise songs. Songs I sang as a kid growing up with my dad as a preacher; songs that I loved. And when we sang these songs, I remembered all those times I sang them before, when I didn’t question the world or the word. Life was simpler because I didn’t wonder about why things happen. I didn’t over analyze the things I was taught, even if they conflicted, like evolution and creation.
I think that when I was singing with the other two girls was when I realized that I didn’t need to understand everything in my religion. This trip showed me that the world is full of things that make little sense to me and even more that I know nothing about. So if there are unanswered dilemmas in my beliefs, they aren’t as big a problem as I thought. I don’t need to make sense of everything all the time.
Angie Booher
boohera at my.hiram.edu
last updated 24 October, 2008
Banner Photo by Mathew J. Wilson