It is hard to see through the fog. You know something is out there. You catch just a glimpse, but can’t tell what it might be. You wonder.
This photo is one that I took on New Year’s Day 2017. It was the dawn of a new year. The sun was coming up beyond those clouds, but you couldn’t really anticipate what would lie ahead in the future. I remember standing at the railing of the cabin at the Stonewall Resort wondering about that.
As the sun broke through the clouds, the lake and the mountains came into view. The reflections still made me think about how the old and new years seemed to be connected. A reflection, and yet more than that. The total view seemed to be all as one. It seemed timeless to me.
The past and the present are much like this.
The present is a reflection of the past, and yet more than that.
The future will be a reflection of our present. But, do we even take time to put our own present into focus as we live it? Or are we too busy and distracted?
We Are Part of a Bigger Picture
Writing about the DreamersAndGiants has given me an opportunity to “meet” many of the people who have walked the campus of West Virginia Wesleyan before me. Some have become very familiar to me, and pop up over and over again in various articles that I read or photographs that I see.
For those people, you and I are the future that they couldn’t quite see. They thought about many of the same things that we do. They wondered about us.
Their present is the murky past to us, but they left us some clues through their writing. And, sometimes in that writing they pull things together for us. Sometimes things that we think we have “discovered” are things that they have thought about long before we were born.
Among many other activities at Wesleyan during her student days, Mary Sumner edited the Pharos. She left many clues to help us to understand the college in the 1920s, including this great poem about the Sundial. I wrote a blog about that very same Sundial last year, called the Timeless Sundial.
She married Eugene, who likewise edited the Pharos along with a long list of activities and leadership positions. I also wrote a blog last year about the Gifts of Stories from the Past, which includes a wonderful article that Mary and Gene wrote for the March 1966 issue of the West Virginia Wesleyan College Bulletin – Sundial. It is on pages 17-23.
In this article, Looking Back Forty Years, the Modlins reflected on the college, the students, the faculty, and the culture of the “Roaring Twenties.” They had been there and covered it all — everything from Bobbed Hair and the post WWI Culture to the new road that had been built from Weston to Buckhannon. From the dreams of the students to the faculty who was here to guide them. From the High School State Basketball Tournament to the legendary 1924 Football Season at Wesleyan. They were Giants even in the 1920s, but their Giant Shadows were cast down through the years even further.
Later on, their son Charles, class of 1958, was also Editor-in-Chief of the Pharos. He married Marjorie McCullough, class of 1957. They continued the work of reporting and telling the stories of people and events on campus.
It was my honor to receive a generous gift from Marjorie in 2007 on behalf of the Annie Merner Pfeiffer Library. Charlie had died, and she wanted to do something in his memory. We decided that using those funds to digitize and make the Pharos available to current audiences would be a wonderful way to celebrate and honor his work on the Pharos. When I later found out that this also honored his parents’ work as well, it was a joyful discovery.
Each and every day something new comes to light. Something about Wesleyan becomes a little clearer. New insights are possible.
We don’t know what is beyond the mist of time, or around the bend. We don’t know who has walked before us, where they have gone, or who we might meet. But, the reflection of the past is with us in the present and we can learn from it to make our lives richer and to guide us into the future. And, with appreciation, we stand on the shoulders of Giants and in the long shadows of their work to make it so.
Seeds
J. Roy Price (known as Roy) entered West Virginia Wesleyan as a student in the Academy in 1917 (which would be equivalent to a Jr. in High School today) and graduated in 1919. This was the year that the Academy program phased out and all work became college level.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” is depicted by a woman kneeling and bent in grief, but she is surrounded by the flowers which suggest new life, the circle which again suggests eternity, and above the figures are the Chi and Rho, symbols for Christ whose resurrection provides the comforting answer to grief and mourning.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” is depicted by a symbol that is out of the Old Testament. It is an ark, but it suggests the Ark of the Covenant, rather than the Ark of the Flood. The covenant in the Old Testament included the assurance of God’s forgiveness and this is a dominant theme throughout the Gospel.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” employs the familiar olive branch and dove as symbols of peace. The nimbus and the descending flight of the dove suggest that the peacemaker is rewarded by the sonship of God.
“ You are the salt of the earth” is portrayed by a man on his knees with arms and face upraised as if to look toward heaven. Above him is the cross and immediately around him are two trees and other vegetation suggesting that the results of his own good qualities have been productive. Beneath this arrangement is another figure prostrate with apparent failure. It says that not all disciples are faithful.
