Make Your Mark

Last week was finals week at the University of Central Arkansas and we all know that the stress can definitely get to you. What better way to let off some steam then to write, draw, color all over the library that you've spent the past (4) months in, well at least the library floor. While the library is undergoing renovations, the floor has been stripped down to a wide expanse of dusty gray concrete simply begging to be infused with life and color! So, all week students (and I'm pretty sure some faculty have secretly been getting in on this too), with the assistance of a variety of colored Sharpies have taken on the task of making their end of semester impressions before the floor is recovered.

Everything from signatures, to cartoons, to (of course) Greek letters began to turn the formerly blank ground into a virtual comic book of color!

Perhaps the idea is that ten years from now, when we've all moved on (hopefully) from this phase of our lives, and the carpet is ripped up again, the next generation of students will be impacted by what we saw, felt, experienced, and desired to share with as many as we possibly could.

Then again, perhaps it's just a way to keep the students from writing on the walls.

Whatever the reason, it has been the source of some musings on my part. Here I stand (well, sit technically) at at the end of my first year at a University and the thoughts begin to stir in my mind. Thousands of students every year pass through this University and when they leave where do they go? When I leave, where will I go? What will I do? And what will be purpose, my point, my role in the enormity of this world be?

While I don't have answers with the specificty required for math majors, the length and detail employed by  psychology majors, or the background and evidence required for political science majors, it took a chalky blank floor coming to life with messages, pictures, and simple signatures to remind me, in the most abstract way, that I am here quite simply to MAKE MY MARK.

 That may consist of a drawing a line between two people that desperately needed to connect. It may consist of sculpting a new opportunity out of a disappointing or failed on. Then again, it may consist of infusing a splash of color into a faded and graying situation.

Each one of us, every day, is making an impression, a mark, on someone, on something, on our world. So, the challenge is to make your mark something beautiful, something lovely, something honorable, just, and kind. Let your mark be that you loved freely, that you gave without reserve, that you listened, truly listened, that you sacrificed for the greater good.

So come one, pick up a pen, a marker, a paintbrush (figuratively) and let's get to work. 

Blessings,

Bethany