I’ve been feeling nostalgic recently since I let my students thumb through my Grove City College yearbook. They particularly appreciated a black-and-white photo of me in a cheerleading uniform. College is a formative place.
Augustine’s Confessions is perfect for students who are wrestling with the college decision. In Book III, we read about Augustine going off to school at age 18—“I came to Carthage and all around me hissed a cauldron of illicit loves.” Not quite the atmosphere most of us would hope for our college-bound juniors and seniors.
The Carthage campus was a place where seniors terrorized the freshmen, everyone was hooked on entertainment and booze, and professors puffed students with conceit. Bright-eyed Augustine was just looking for a place to love and be loved.
He confesses that he wasn’t ready for the onslaught of debauchery: “My soul was in rotten health.” Unsurprisingly, he spiraled: “I rushed headlong” (greek life pun intended). He threw himself into games, entertainment, and girls. He studied hard, but only so others would pet his ego.
Looking back, Augustine realizes that he was shaped by Carthage. Steeped in the “hissing cauldron,” he became a part of the illicit stew.
College changes students. That sounds inane, but do we realize it is true? We are changed by the places we inhabit. We become steeped—for good or for ill.
Consider the places you inhabit. Your home. Your office. Your classroom. Your church. Your car—hopefully you don’t live in your car, but you get what I’m saying. Those places are shaping you. And they are shaping the people you invite into them.
What sort of people are being formed in your “places”? The words, ideas, activities, sounds, smells, food, and people that populate those places will have their effect.
May we fill our places with good things that we may form good people. J. Howard Pew of my alma mater encourages us: “Make the campus beautiful, for that in itself is an education.”
Every home should have a hissing cauldron on the countertop: An electric tea kettle!
Quick, efficient, and versatile, electric kettles are useful for much more than making coffee or tea. Countertop-boiled water saves you time and stove space. Below is my favorite way to prepare rice—with a tea kettle!
Kettle-Cooked Rice
Ingredients:
3 cups water
2 cups long-grain rice (Basmati or Jasmine—not quick cooking!)
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
Make it:
Boil water in the electric kettle.
Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a pot over medium heat. Add rice and salt and stir occasionally as water comes to boil.
Once the rice has absorbed heat, slowly pour in the boiling water. Be careful—It will hiss and bubble at first!
Quickly lid the rice and turn heat down to lowest setting.
After 10 minutes, remove from heat, fluff rice with fork, and let stand lidded for 10 minutes. Enjoy!