Editor’s Note: This essay won the 2007 Outlook Church-College Partnership Award open to graduating seniors invited to write on the topic, “How my education at a PC(USA)-related college has equipped me for significant service and leadership.” The winner received a $1,000 prize. Information for the 2008 contest is available on page 32.
… and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God (Micah 6:8).
Such are the words chiseled into the lintel of the Lyon Business and Economics Building at Lyon College, the college where I invested myself — my time, my money, my heart — these past four years. This simple yet powerful passage was the first thing I read on the Lyon campus as an entering freshman, and will be one of the last things I read when I depart as a graduated alumna. I have had many memories at Lyon and shared in its many famous traditions — our rich Scottish heritage, our Spring Break mission trips, our close ties to the surrounding community. I have danced the Scottish fling, floated the Buffalo, taken class after class after class, and yet as I prepare to don my graduation regalia, spending what little time I have left reflecting on what four years at this institution have meant, this passage from Micah keeps entering my mind. I consider this passage the fullness of what it means to attend a PC(USA)-related college, what it means to attend Lyon College, and to go forth as a servant-leader walking humbly with our God.
What doth the Lord require of thee … The statement seems to encompass all the questions I had as an entering freshman. What should my major be? What do I want to do with the REST of my life? What does God want me to do? Such weighty questions I laugh at now, for I still haven’t found the hard and fast answers. If anything the only hard and fast answer I have discovered is that life, or perhaps my life (the only life I can speak on with any semblance of authority), is one where God must constantly reaffirm my call, one where life is a verb and not a noun, a journey not a destination. Sophomore year passed and I chose a major: chemistry. I began asking the same questions, but slightly colored toward my new decision. Now as a near-graduate the question persists: What doth the Lord require of thee? As a Christian I will forever be asking myself this question, wondering how this day, this moment can be lived for the lord. This is my spiritual heritage, one affirmed by my College and the Kirk. Yet throughout my questioning, the consistency of the answer remains in the rest of the passage — justice, mercy, and humility — seasoning my college career and my steps ahead.
To do justly … Even through the questioning of God’s call, I have felt the gentle nudge of the Holy Spirit leading me, like the prophet Isaiah, to bind up the brokenhearted and to proclaim liberty to the captives. The call to do justly, to be an advocate of justice and a voice for the broken and hurting, does not stop outside the brick walls of the Lyon building, but instead bursts forth and flows out into our community and beyond. My education has affirmed this call, studying ethics in both the classroom and the soup kitchen, writing my beliefs with a pen and a ladle. Lyon has a long history of proclaiming justice for all, and because of this I will graduate blessed with enough foolishness to believe I can make a difference in spite of those who quickly point out my naiveté.
To love mercy … I have spent the past four years in a community where mercy and gentleness are affirmed, where the goal of an education is to educate not to compete. I have been taught that we live in a fragile world, rife with disaster and discord, one in which mercy is the only balm that soothes well enough and sustains long enough to provide hope. Jesus is the realization of this mercy, and as we strive to reflect his image more fully we must sow mercy on every road and in every heart we pass. I never understood this concept of mercy seasoning all aspects of life until I joined this community, whose messy, honest walk with Christ proved such a life of mercy-giving possible.
To walk humbly with thy God … The culmination of my education will be in the grasping of humility. As I travel along my questioning road with God, sowing just mercy, I must always remember from whence I came. The realization of my sinfulness is not used as a whip, but as a reminder of our equality before our Creator. My humble walking is realized only though upholding all creation for creation’s sake, seeing the wounds of the Nazarene as constant reminders of my own place, and sensing God’s form beside me, enabling me to walk and extol just mercy. I learned humility, like mercy and justice, through the examples of my peers and educators at Lyon, which acted as extensions of Christ.
These components, as poetically recorded in Micah 6:8, explain to me what a true education aims for, what education at a PC(USA) school instills, and how a true servant-leader must live: by doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God.
Laura McWilliams of Benton, Ark., was a chemistry major at Lyon College in Batesville, Ark. She graduated in May 2007. Among her recognitions was a Rotary Scholarship for overseas graduate studies that Laura planned to use to study in India.
