Sunday Reflection: Thunderclap Newman and the Holy Comforter

So, there was this moment...

There is a group of students at Baylor called the Sexual Identity Forum, which met last Thursday. They were denied student group status, so they can't post flyers on campus (there is something very poignant about that), so they communicate via a Facebook page that had promised "free cookies and special guest Mark Osler." Despite that limitation, a large group gathered in the dining hall in the student union-- in fact, they took up about half of the main space.

My talk wasn't so great, I think, but when I was done, I heard some of the students speak. It became clear to me that there was something very important and unusual going on there... that I had stumbled into a turning point when i wrote what I did. Students told me the most remarkable things: That "Baylor is a great school, and I would hate for someone to miss out on it because they are gay," and "these people who love Baylor and hate gays-- what do they tell a gay son about college?" There was a faculty member there (a very brave faculty member), and a tv camera (it was the lead story on the top local station).

At the end of the meeting, something wonderful happened. The President of the organization is Adam Short, who has a tremendous, positive attitude about Baylor as a school and about SIF. He made a few closing remarks. Meanwhile, students from a spirit rally across the street had filtered in and filled in much of the rest of the room, sitting in circles wearing Baylor gear. When the meeting closed, the SIF people clapped, and then cheered, and then, almost imperceptibly, the rest of the students in the room joined in, until that song was twice as loud.

When I realized it was so loud because of the the others, it... well, it made me realize that this is going to work, because of these students.and only because of them. This may, in fact, be the coolest group on campus. Their group will get larger. More students and maybe some faculty will come, and athletes, and they will have other speakers. It will become part of what happens at Baylor.

And, in a few years, I will come back to Baylor for something and be walking on campus when I see their flyer up on a wall with all the other sloppy photocopied goofy-picture flyers, and I will just stand there for a while in silence and look down a little and hope no one sees me tear up when I think about that moment that these students-- all of them-- created.

I love the video above, which I stumbled across. The song is about revolution and instigators, but the video shows high school and college kids doing the things people that age do-- goof around, meet friends, go to movies. That is exactly the kind of revolution this will be, too: one of friendships and conversations, gentle change, and shared love for a place where good things happen. That is how the Holy Comforter works, and every once in a great while, if we choose to look, you can see it the way you see the wind in trees or the movement of water in Minnehaha creek, a gentle pushing force. Life is good, God is good, and that creek will run to the river, which runs to the ocean, broad and blue.