Torn

Okay, so “torn.” I am frustrated right now. But my frustration is dissipated by beauty. And (from one frame of reference*) the sources are the same, which is why I am torn. My frustration stems from Caltech’s library policy. As you all know, I am a student at Fuller Theological Seminary. Their library is closed on Sunday (which is totally legit and I can respect that). But for me, today, I wanted to go to study somewhere outside of my house. So I went to a coffee shop and was there for about 1.5 hours, but I decided I wanted a library. So I walked over to California Institute of Technology (aka Caltech), because they are a large, secular institution, so (I assumed) very likely to have at least one open library today. They do, but their policy is their libraries are open 8-5 weekdays to anyone, and outside those hours, the libraries are only available for Caltech students and the scientists of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This was very frustrating for me. I feel like the ownership/territorial/belonging values that this policy endorses are antithetical to the purported values of the University.

My frustration is mitigated because I am surrounded by beauty^. Caltech is an amazing campus, not because its buildings are beautiful, but because of the landscaping of the grounds. I am currently sitting in front of a 3 level rock pool surrounded by all sorts of shrubs, bushes and trees. On the rocks in and on the edge of the pool, turtles sun themselves lazily. The waterfall bubbles gently, accentuating the soft melodies of Phil Wickham on my iPod. And so it is in this environment that I find it difficult to harbor the feelings of resentment towards the previous encounter. Not because the “rightness” of the latter experience cancels out the “wrongness” of the former in any objective manner, but only because the subjective of peace engendered by beauty is incompatible with the frustration of injustice#, for me at this moment.

May you all search for beauty, and, moreover, may you find it.

*frame of reference is a current question that I’d like to explore, in light of the philosophical implications of it, but it would be long, involved and not particularly scholastically informed, not to mention not directly relevant to this discussion, so I will omit it.

^I think that beauty is a an important feature of human experience. I’ve had some reflections on it in the past, and though not as much lately, I think it would be good to re-incorporate into my thinking.

#justice has been a big topic for me lately. I’d like to explore it more in some writings as well.