For many of us we feel like we know our parents, but they had this whole life before we even existed, and it’s always interesting what stories you never hear about your parents until you somehow end up in a situation or a place that reminds them or that invites that story to be told. Walking around the University of Puget Sound with my Father, where both of my parents graduated I got to hear a story about my father that made me as proud as I have ever been of him. What made it even more poignant was that it was a story he had never told simply because to him it really was just him doing what he should. His story was about how he had quit his fraternity over an issue of racism and justice. He talked about a group in his fraternity that was refusing to admit black students and his response was to not admit the white students who this racist group was in favor of. To my dad this was the only response he could make and when pushed he felt he had to resign his membership in the fraternity because what he was doing wasn’t fair to the white students either and he could not remain a part of a group that was making decisions like that. The thing about it is that this thing he felt he simply should do, was an act of justice that many might agree with and understand and respect, but few would actually act on. Even reading this now I feel like it doesn’t nearly represent how big this little act of justice that was just what “should be done” was.

Graffiti on the bathroom stall at a graduate school of theology makes you wonder about the human need to mark their territory, to leave their imprint so that the world will know that they did indeed exist. Admittedly the graffiti was somehow appropriately deep in its scope posing questions as to the existence of the soul and an image of the three crosses on a hill with a question mark forcing you to think about what they were trying to imply; but still somehow it was surprising to see. In public places it’s something pretty much expected. Graffiti has ancient roots so much so that even in the forum of Rome and on monuments in ancient Greece, the walls were tagged with advertisements for anything from lawyers to prostitutes, and with messages like, “Claudius was here” alongside professions of love and some of the same obscenities we see today. Driving along the freeway today we see on retaining walls, underpasses, even the buildings along the road all manor of images, political messages, gangs marking their borders, profanity, you name it. Some are incredibly artistic, so much so that it has been recognized as an art form and is being demonstrated all over the world (there was even a live demonstration and display along the banks of Lake Geneva in Switzerland last summer). You never know what you might find from deep “philosophical fragments” (Kierkegaard probably wrote some interesting graffiti in his time) to ignorant statements of hate, or from vulgar stick figures to vibrant caricatures and vivid landscapes with a poignant message; graffiti is not limited to back alleys and school bathrooms.