Sarah E. Moffett

Few schools would have taken a chance on a student like me. Not many schools want a student recently expelled from another Christian college, regardless of the reason. Eastern Mennonite University, for better or worse, gave me a chance to start over, granting my request for admission as a junior in the fall of 2000.

Upon arrival at EMU, it didn’t take me long to grasp that I was in a different kind of place. I had been raised in a Baptist family that boasted a military lineage that had fought in every American war since the Revolutionary War, while EMU was filled with pacifist ideas, beliefs, and people. I had known pacifism was part of the school’s history, of course, but I had failed to appreciate it was a very real part of the school’s ongoing education. A line between me and the majority of the student population was drawn in my first religion class, “Faith and Praxis.”

One fall morning, the teacher asked us to line ourselves up on a continuum, ranging from 1 to 10, with 1 being completely opposed to war and 10 being pro-war. I was an 8. Only one person stood closer to 10 than me. Everyone else was parked on 4 or less.

I was already a bit isolated, having transferred into a small-school setting, but that class heightened my sense of being an outsider. After that, I spent a lot of time hanging out with the international students who didn’t care about my militaristic tendencies nearly as much as whether I could dance. (Fortunately, they accepted me despite the fact I could not.)

Con’t. for rest of Crossroads Magazine article here.

*Recently, I was asked to share my professional experiences with my alma mater in Crossroads, their alumni magazine.  Once we began discussing the theme of the article, it became apparent there were more potent topics available than my compelling status as a law firm associate.  The above excerpt is taken from the article, Four Religions in Four Years.  Well, that was one idea for the title, but instead the Powers That Be went with Thanks for Giving Me a Second Chance.  Both titles are the truth.  Enjoy.  It’s the first published peek into book two, A Tale of Three Cities.  

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