Dig In

This past weekend, 100 students from campuses all across Pennsylvania met here at Susquehanna University for the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship "Dig In" conference, 24 hours of worship, scripture study, and socializing.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is not (contrary to popular belief) some sort of Christian athletes club. It's an international organization, started in Great Britain (where "varsity" is a common abbreviation for "university"), that is dedicated to creating communities of Christians on college campuses. Susquehanna's chapter currently has about 45 active members.

At the conference freshmen, sophomores and juniors from Bucknell, Penn State, Lehigh, Bloomsburg, Alvernia, Albright, and SU did an in-depth study of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Seniors like myself spent the conference talking about what it looks like to have faith after college in concrete terms.

After studying a few of Jesus' parables, we talked about how our faith can play active role in our jobs, careers, budgets, housing situations, and romantic relationships. We discussed the problems many twenty-somethings run into when they try to find a church and how we can actively seek out Christian community wherever we end up.

It was busy 24 hours, but I still found some time to connect with some old friends from Lehigh that I've gotten to know through other IV conferences. Susquehanna and Bucknell students opened up their rooms so students from the more distant schools would have a place to crash for the night.

At Susquehanna, a bunch of us ended up in a basement in one of the West Village buildings, spread out in front of the big screen TV, and we talked through all of The Italian Job. InterVarsity conferences are the only place where I've seen such vibrant community spring up so quickly among complete strangers.

Dante's Inferno

The room was hot but silent as Dr. Giuseppe Mazzotta began to read from Canto 1:

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say

What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,

Which in the very thought renews the fear.

So bitter is it, death is little more;

But of the good to treat, which there I found,

Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

Dr. Giuseppe Mazzotta, the Sterling Professor of Humanities for Italian at Yale University, visited campus last Thursday to deliver a lecture on the role education plays in Dante's Inferno.

I've never seen Isaacs Auditorium so full. They had to bring out extra chairs just to fit everyone in, and Dr. Mazzotta did not disappoint.  This was honestly the best lecture I've ever attended.

Admittedly, I am a creative write/religion double major and a fan of the Comedia, so I may have a bias here, but it was more than just interesting.  For Dr. Mazzotta, Dante isn't just an area of expertise.  Dante is also his passion.  You could hear it in his voice and see it in his animated hand gestures.

Dr. Mazzotta said that the Commedia is a journey of both mind and body, that for Dante simply knowing what justice is is not enough to make a person just.  The path up to the top of Mt. Purgatory begins with the road down into Hell.  The journey of conversion involves both intellect and passion.

Intellect and passion.  I think that's what made Dr. Mazzotta's lecture so outstanding.  Not only did he know Dante inside and out, he had such a strong passion for Dante that this 700-year-old poem suddenly seemed relevant to our lives today.

When President Lemons cut off the questions from the audience and thanked Dr. Mazzotta for coming, I thought, wow, it's over already?  Then I checked my cell phone and saw that an hour and a half had just flown by.

Pumpkin Carving with Intervarsity

Normally when a bunch of Susquehanna students from Intervarsity Christian Fellowship get together, the meeting involves a laid-back contemporary worship service or an in-depth look at a passage from the Bible.

But last Friday, that wasn't the case at all.  Last Friday involved vegetable and knives.  Intervarsity spent the night before Halloween carving pumpkins down in the common room of West Village G.

See for yourself: