Magis Moment: April 2023

A Message from the Vice President of University Advancement 

A recent issue of "The New Yorker" included an odd little story about Billy Collins, a New York poet and professor who moved to Florida not long ago. In it, Collins says this: “Right now, people are ready to be offended. But I’m always ready to be delighted.”

Lately, I’ve been struck by a stark contrast between the overall tone and rhythm of public media—including social media, ESPECIALLY social media—and the feeling I get from the day-to-day in-person experiences with people at home, at work, in the grocery store, on the street, and so on. Our electronic lives tend to be fast, cynical, ready to jump, ALL-CAPS, and harsh. Our in-the-flesh lives, our actually incarnate lives, bend more toward the slower, less efficient, nuanced, lower-case, somewhat more understanding side.

These are generalizations, I know. There are sweet online moments, and there are some awful things that happen randomly on any given day when we deal with other people.

Mr. Collins’ readiness to be delighted reminds me that though the apparent message of the world often is to make us defensive and ready to strike back, attentiveness to what’s out there prepares us to find beauty and goodness.

If you’ve walked on Loyola’s campus since the construction of Monroe Library in 1999, you’ve seen one of the touchstones of an Ignatian education: Finding God in All Things. In the form we see a keyword on the stepping stone outside the library (“Finding”), it just sounds like something that happens if we go along for the ride. I find it meaningful to turn the gerund into an imperative, a command: “Find God in All Things!” Thinking of what the day brings in this way sometimes makes it easier for me to be delighted and avoid being offended. From this vantage point, starting the day feeling affronted is, at best, silly and, at worst, ungrateful. 

Early April this year includes heady days on the calendar for Christians and Jews. For Jews, the offense of Egyptian enslavement gives way to the delight of the Promised Land. For Christians, the offense of the cross leads to the delight of the Resurrection. This month I hope each of us can see our way to finding even small joys. 

AMDG, 

Chris Wiseman '88