'Growing in the Middle Ground'

FWT +1

Arrived in Louisville yesterday and spent the afternoon getting settled in my new room at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (a story for another post). I was pleased to find I have my own private bathroom yet concerned that I couldn’t find how to turn down the heater that was turning my room into a one twin-bed sized oven. The to-do list for tomorrow includes asking about the heat.

First day of (field)work at This I Believe, Inc. was great. I spend the day getting oriented, then working on cleaning up audio from essays of the original 1950s series that was started by Edward R. Murrow. Often, I found myself distracted by the essays that I was working on and stopped editing long enough to listen to each essay in its entirety. One essay that I was exposed to today immediately struck a chord with me given my current state. It was written by Anne Phipps, a college sophomore in the early 1950s. The opening words of her essay could just as easily been mine.

I believe that my beliefs are changing. Nothing is positive. Perhaps I’m in a stage of metamorphosis, which will one day have me emerging complete, sure of everything. Perhaps, I shall spend my life searching.

Equally as stunning was Ed Murrow’s words of closing

What you have just heard, was the sound - so to speak - of an American girl growing up. She says she is learning. Already, she has taught us something of the exciting wisdom that comes with maturity to a thoughtful person.

I’ve provided the link to this essay where you can also browse the huge collection of essays from both the 1950s and the 2000s. More from the ‘middle ground’ of self-discovery soon.