Carroll Fountain

The dark veil of the night sky mirrored the limitation of my mind and the sound of water falling into water drowned out the conversation across the square as I returned the knight to the chessboard. After a long week of unrelentless work, B. Watson and I unwound to a relaxing game of chess and conversation in the chairs next to the new fountain by Carroll Science (aka Baylor’s English building). I vote we call it Carroll Fountain.

The chessboard is only an excuse to get together, a mildly diverting activity while we talk about whatever comes to mind… especially since we both know I’ll get my tail handed to me in chess every time.

Sitting at Carroll Fountain, dabbling in chess, and unwinding with a good friend reminded me of the galvanizing effects of rest amongst the company of a like spirit. Carroll Fountain evokes a pleasant, peaceful atmosphere that overflowing from the SUB plaza joined with the new fountain drowns out the rest of campus and the weight of life.

Essentially, we live in too fast a society. I enjoy the rare occasions I can sit and talk about things that matter without worrying about the next event or the distractions of normal Baylor life.

Misperceptions?

I first heard of Common Grounds while I was still in high school. My older brother, Rodney, had gone to visit a friend of his at Baylor. When they got back all I heard about was this “hippie-coffee shop” right off of campus where his friend went to talk philosophy with other people.

You can imagine the image that evoked…a dimly lit, smoke filled, cramped space where college students came to smoke marijuana over the open pages of The Communist Manifesto.

Imagine my surprise freshman year, when I first went to check things out, and found a constant influx of sorority girls and the regular Truett Seminary student. Future ministers and girls from Plano? This can’t be Common Grounds. I guess I was still learning that “older brother” was not synonymous with “perfect.”

I go to Common Grounds quite a bit now, to do homework or to find an out of the house place to catch up with a friend. They have good coffee and a laid back atmosphere that acomidates the people studying and the people relaxing.

            I’m not going to say I have never heard the name Karl Marx in Common Grounds, but to my knowledge there has yet to be any marijuana or LSD…and the only tie dye is worn by sororities.

"I Just Need You Now"

This morning at work, we were listening to a local Waco radio station, 106.1 Doc fm. As I walked past the steel worktables that lead to the office in the back of the metalworks shop, I was mentally transported to the soft, laid back little bakery/coffee shop with the pervasive aroma of rising dough and the sweet scent of freshly baked pastries, This vision remains cemented in my memory by the Lady Antebellum song “Need You Now” that was playing in the background. I could not for the life of me figure out why this bakery in Tiberias, Israel was playing a country song, specifically this song, which at the time, I’d hardly heard before! It was so funny to me that any Jew or Arab would be at all interested in American country music.

Since that June day in Tiberias, I have heard that song over and over on the radio, and every time I wonder and kinda laugh at the seemingly random thought of this being the only English song I remember hearing on the trip at all. What was it that made this song appealing to the people living in Israel?

The song speaks of two people who are hurting. Every man alive can associate with pain, especially the people living in Israel, Jew or Arab, Israeli or Palestinian. Every culture knows the pain of losing someone you love or the pain of severing a relationship. It appeals to people all across the board of ethnicities and religions.

We here in the ‘States are not too different from either Israeli or Palestinian. We have the same emotions that leave our chests heaving. So let us not forget the problems of our human brothers just because they are so distantly removed from us. Just because they aren’t next door does not mean that we do not influence each other. We in American must give ear to the plights and problems of the rest of the world, the world we are a part of. And not just by way of our politicians and the government, but the ear of individual man who can feel as they do. The rest of the world needs us now.