April 2022
This month we asked our writers to reflect on friendship
The value of community
Joseph Carlson
MSMU Class of 2025
I imagine that you have had the experience where someone is so outright happy that you think they must be joking? That is what I thought of Harry when I first met him, and it was hard to understand why he would be so happy. I asked him that question, and, after looking far more perplexed than I was, he said that it was because he is simply overwhelmed with gratitude. He knows that everything he has was not earned nor merited by himself or his own efficacy, and for that, he cannot but be thankful.
This sort of gratitude is what inspires his enamoredness with life, and with human beings. There are so many folks that we go around within our intellectual settings, people who we enjoy, who are enamored most of all with ideas. I often find myself caring more about ideas than people, and that scares me. I even find myself caring most of all about the idea of caring about people, but it is all one big rouse to not have to do the hard, tedious work of loving the person in front of me.
Harry strikes the balance between loving ideas and loving people. He is very accomplished, but, like so many of the people who’ve truly had an impact on me, he finds the time to be what you need him to be. Yet, he still is himself. It’s astounding.
Harry Scherer is the senior editor of the Emmitsburg News-Journal, but he also happens to be my RA. We share a lot of common life together, although he exists, for me, in that space in-between the professional and the personal, between mentor and friend. So much good happens in that space. Still, friends are called to something even deeper. There are some lessons we can take from my relationship with Harry and his life, namely how no matter how interesting one’s friend is in conversation or how much you learn from them, the most important part of any relationship is that both people involved call each other to be better human beings.
Like I said before, Harry strikes a balance between loving people and loving ideas. So many of our conversations have been his engaging me where I was in the topics that I wanted to talk about. He had enough care and humility to, even though he knows more than I do, let me articulate how I understood those topics. After I had explained my understanding, he called me forward, deeper into those ideas, with an eye to the state of my soul. A good mentor can encourage your good ideas and critique bad ones, but most of all encourage you toward virtue and warn you against self-destructive habits. This has been my experience of many of my professors at the Mount. They encourage me to learn and pursue excellence because most of what these particular professors do is encourage me toward good ideas and virtue, rather than simply correcting me. Perhaps it is only my hubris that doesn’t like being corrected, but I think that the best way to draw anyone
to like anything is to at once affirm them and show them how they could go even deeper into the good that they already understand. That is the job of the mentor. The friend has the same goal of the other person becoming more virtuous, but does so by walking alongside her. Friends are two people who share a common life and desire each other to be better off, to be more human, to be more virtuous. I have learned so much from my friends, even more than what I’ve learned from mentors, and this is because mentors sometimes walk too far ahead of me in life for me to really garner the lessons I ought from them.
Friends are right beside me through the whole journey, and I am able to share so much more with them than with a mentor. Granted, there is some information which friends simply do not have access to that mentors do. But that which makes friendship unique is that they not only are completely interested in your wellbeing, but they have the means to be with you through it all. A good mentor can council me as much as he can about the trials I am going to face, but only my friend will be with me in those trials. Some marvelous people qualify as both mentors and friends, and these sorts of people are often responsible for the greatest mindset shifts. My life has had many of these, friends who are much better people than I, but really do share a common life with me and are with me in the thick of the difficulties that I am undergoing. This is the benefit of community: it turns mentors into friends and allows people far ahead in the path to virtue
to travel alongside me. They sort of draw me up to their status of virtue, even if I am not there myself. In a good community, this is what happens; rather than all people involved being brought down to the lowest common denominator, everyone is almost lifted up to the highest point among the friends. So long as that individual is pointed at virtue, it is difficult for the community to fall in the other direction. Furthermore, among friends, it is known whose strength is whose, and so everyone finds a place, where they at once feel useful, but are called to something even greater.
It is sometimes difficult to find such groups of people, and many, if not most communities keep their members in complacency. What so often happens in college is that people get caught up in the wrong groups of people out of a fear of being lonely. The message that they are not made for comfort, but made for greatness, is a difficult one to give, but thankfully, the men on my floor have had an RA who is able to give them that message by simply loving them where they are, and calling them deeper.
Read other articles by Joseph Carlson
Launching too soon
McKenna Snow
MSMU Class of 2024
Workplaces can be a place of tightening communities or weakening them, both with fellow employees and with consumers. The Emmitsburg News-Journal workplace for the columnists of "Four Years at the Mount" is less a brick-and-mortar office than it is a meeting in the Mount’s library to discuss upcoming editions and updates. Yet, I am so thankful that I get to say I have a tight community with our little staff, and especially with my friendship with the Class of 2023 writer, Emmy Jansen. I met her at a class we were both in during the fall of my freshman year. She always dressed really cute and sounded smart when she gave answers to Dr. Turner’s questions. She was one of the first girls in any of my classes to give me her number so we could chat about the class.
I saw her around sometimes when my other friends got together. We’d end up at the same movie nights, and, to my surprise, the same Emmitsburg News-Journal meetings. I saw her at the Latin Mass with a lovely veil on, and in the line for Dunkin’ Donuts coffee after Sunday Mass.
We always had pleasant exchanges and fun conversations, but our schedules never lined up well enough to see each other consistently or regularly. Yet, we found ways of still connecting and bonding when we could, deepening the friendship little by little.
The fall of 2021 offered more frequent encounters. As RAs, we went on rounds together, making memories walking through Terrace and just chatting like old friends. We are very good at the chatting thing, and I love it. The fall afforded us many more opportunities to hang out, to come over to each other’s rooms for late-night chats, for random dinner-meet ups, and each time, we became better friends.
Getting to know Emmy has been one of my favorite aspects of the Emmitsburg News-Journal writing experience. She’s my junior editor, who comments on my articles, gives me insight and criticism, and is someone I can really connect with to talk about the content. Our shared experiences as RAs helps deepen our similarities that we can relate to. As C. S. Lewis said, "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one!’" Emmy and I have had many moments like this, sometimes it’s almost comical.
My friendship with Emmy is reflective of how circumstances may very well help begin a friendship, but that it certainly doesn’t stop there. Sure, we enjoy movie nights together and sit by each other in RA staff meetings, and maybe I do text her slightly too much about the latest Emmitsburg News-Journal prompt and my writer’s block. But what I reserve from this article is what is reserved for friendships grown over a long period of time, in the little moments throughout the semester: moments of disagreement, confiding in one another over a struggle with friends, sincere times of bonding over a new joy in life. Seeing the other person sitting across from you at lunch and realizing they have so much more going on in their lives than their professional encounters let on. Realizing that you want to take care of them, and that you feel special to be the person sitting across from them at the table. The other person wants to share a part of their
story with me? How blessed am I!
And the longer I’m around Emmy, as I am very often this semester, the better I get to know and see her. I see her personality in her love of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, and in her love of essential oils that she keeps on hand for whatever need may arise. Her personality comes out in the way that she cares for her friends and listens intently when they share a struggle with her. Emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual health—all important and priority for Emmy. This is especially reflective in her efforts in the RA field; she is incredibly attentive to her residents when they need support. She is incredibly smart, quick, thoughtful, and empathetic; she is a strong leader (SGA President, for one) and always down to chat about fashion, femininity, and current events. I love our conversations because they give us the opportunity to build each other up, sometimes through honest criticism, and often through uplifting and encouraging advice.
There weren’t enough opportunities I’ve had with Emmy to classify our friendship as simply existing by proximity; it took effort behind the scenes to reach out, schedule a lunch or dinner, invite to a quick Dunkin’ trip, send a text just checking in because it’s been a while since one has seen the other around. And to me, that’s what friendship looks like: even quick texts that say, "thinking of you!" over the summer and a late-night "can I come over, I need a friend" and a chat over Monday’s lunch to catch up about the weekend. Circumstances don’t always afford easy means of seeing the other person to keep up the relationship, but putting in effort, charity, patience, humor, joy… that’s what makes the friendship solid.
Emmy is graduating early, so she won’t be here next year. One stage of our friendship is slowly coming to a close, but it is about to enter a new one: she’ll be moving several hours away, and I’ll be here at the Mount in the fall. I am sincerely going to miss her fun, strong, energetic personality on campus. But I don’t fear that our friendship is coming to an end. I have seen now through these past two years that the long-lasting friendships are the ones that put in the effort even when the circumstances work against you. There are so many things that keep friendships strong regardless of circumstance. The many memories we’ve made at the Mount I will keep closely and joyfully with me, and I am excited to make new ones with her in the fall; maybe it’ll look like a road trip to see each other, or phone calls once a week to keep in touch, or both. Who’s to say? Life is an adventure, and I am thankful for Emmy as a friend who’s been dancing
with me through it.
Read other articles by McKenna Snow
To love is to learn
Emmy Jansen
MSMU Class of 2023
"Friendship looks like ugly fights when you have something to say." McKenna says this, fork and knife poised to cut into her cafeteria corned beef. Having known McKenna (Kenna, to friends) for almost two years now, I was unprepared for this answer. Kenna is known for her upbeat demeanor, her face that is never lacking a smile. I have always enjoyed her whimsical remarks on the beautiful moments in the world around us, whether physical or emotional, and every one of her articles fills me with joy and peace. I was prepared for a well-versed monologue on the importance and beauty of friendship, how the bonds we form help to shape our being over time. Although I think Kenna would agree with this sentiment, this was not the discussion we had that day.
The truth is, Kenna is the type of friend you want to have exactly because of the statement above. She loves you so much that she refuses to let you stay as you are if she knows you can do better for yourself and others. I believe Kenna wants to see people flourish, and this is where she finds part of her own fulfillment. When you have something great, you want to share that greatness with others. I see this is in Kenna, every time we broach a subject of development and growth.
Despite my perceived differences between the two of us, Kenna and I are more similar in this vein than I realized. Having both come from big families, we both agree that sometimes your closest friends are your family. However, our reasons for this belief are distinct: Kenna moved around due to her military father while my family never moved but was isolated in our own rural paradise that prevented the typical suburban relationships. I think I speak for both of us when I say we wouldn’t change this. Our friendships and bonds with our own family members are foundational in our current and past experiences.
It seems that what lies at the heart of friendship, after all, is who you can be yourself around. For me, that is my family. I never laugh more than when I’m at home. For Kenna and I, our foundations in our friendships with family trickle into our other friendships. The way we act around our families is how we would ideally like to act around those who we consider to be friends. In families, you often have to acknowledge the shortcomings and mistakes of others, especially when you live in close quarters. I find it much easier to correct the behavior of my older brother than my close friends. Those of us who come from big families may be prone to doing this with our friends, because we love them and want what’s best for them. I believe this is what Kenna brings toward her other friendships.
And this is what makes Kenna’s friendship special. In a culture of allowing everyone to be themselves, we often take that to the extreme, allowing the flaws and vices of individuals to fester until we reach a breaking point. If we acknowledged the true wrongs of some people, instead of to-each-their-own, we’d communicate better in our own relationships and within greater society. I admire Kenna, for more things than I can list here, but most of all because I have never seen her back down from the truth. If everyone had a friend like Kenna, we’d all be a little nicer, hold our heads a little higher, and laugh a little louder.
A little-known secret known only by the seasoned readers of FYATM is that the theme of the article almost always aligns with the writer’s personal life. I’ve written about love in the midst of a break-up and declared a major after interviewing a former writer, among other things. This is one of the many beauties of being one of the select writers on this staff; the article will always cause you to reflect on something that needs reflecting upon during that season of your life. I’m glad I’ve had the chance to grow up before the eyes of the readers in the Emmitsburg area. Because I have been allowed to be myself within these pages, perhaps you and I are friends, as well.
For both Kenna and I, we reflected on friendships this month with the change in the near horizon. I will be graduating in May, leaving the Mount a year earlier than those who I entered with. I’ll return to Richmond, lacking the convenience of having friends right down the hall. To say I am worried about my friendships is an understatement. Kenna is facing a similar struggle: she, too, is graduating a year early, and her friends are split between the 2022 and 2024 classes, even though she will leave in 2023. A season of change is upon the both of us as we worry about the future of our friendships, whether they will adapt to the shifts in the not-too-distant future. One thing I am not worried about, however, is our friendship together. Despite having known each other for only a fraction of our lives, Kenna has shaped me in many ways, constantly causing me to reflect on the world around me. I am happy to say that her fearless femininity, deep
theological curiosity, and unabated love for the human person has rubbed off on me—my posture is a lot better, too. There will come a time where I can no longer walk dorm halls with her on RA duty, where our coffee dates become sparse to nonexistent. Yet, I do not doubt that our friendship can weather the tides, as our commonalities and the memories we’ve shared will not disappear overnight. And we have one unique similarity that sets us apart, cementing our friendship into one hard to replicate: we will both graduate college before we can legally drink.
Readers, I have enjoyed our friendship over the past three years, for you allowing me to be myself within these pages. I only hope that you have the chance to learn as much from Kenna as I have.
Read other articles by Emmy Jansen
What a chance
Harry Scherer
MSMU Class of 2022
When I started college, I had ambition, drive, and promise. My intentions were clear, and my vision was focused. Now, as I leave this university and this town, I am grateful to say that I now have something of much greater value: friends.
These friends and I have found each other in different times and places across the past four years. Thankfully, the Emmitsburg News-Journal served as a medium of connection between us, as it has for many before me and hopefully many more to come.
Emmy Jansen and I have worked together for the better part of the past three years. In that time, we have solved many of the world’s problems via email and worked on a variety of modest projects together. Both in her role as assistant managing editor of this news-journal and in other domains, I have come to know Emmy as one of the hardest workers I have ever met. Her dedication to the institutional identity of the Emmitsburg News-Journal and the Mount is appropriately complemented by her eloquence with the written and spoken word and her exceptional organizational skills. In her writing, you have seen her priorities shine through as properly ordered and honestly described.
You have also had the pleasure to read the work of McKenna 'Kenna' Snow. A conversation with Kenna guarantees the gift of being listened to. I’ve always known her to be a woman of honesty, curiosity, and enthusiasm. Kenna is not oblivious to the troubles that she encounters in her own life or in the lives of her friends to whom she diligently attends, but still places a premium on the joy of community. The seriousness with which she approaches her friendships and work is met with an earnest sensitivity and a warmth that pervades each of her interactions. Through her writing, you’ve likely been challenged to something greater.
Next, I admit that I have spent less personal time with Sam Barber in the years during which we’ve worked together. As his editor, though, I can confidently say that Sam is the most reliable writer with whom I’ve ever worked. When he sends me his writing, I can expect the fruits of thorough research, unique knowledge, and incisive commentary. When he’s working as a sports reporter or commentator for a national outlet, I hope he remembers his time at the News-Journal as a formative experience for him. His writing encouraged me to be clearer with my language and more attentive to my deadlines.
This year, I was privileged to hire two new writers to join the university staff. Claire Doll separated herself as the ideal candidate to join the team when she applied, and she continues to distinguish herself today. Claire does not lack in generosity to her friends and coworkers. She has taken on unique and challenging projects with enthusiasm. When a problem confronts Claire, she responds by humbly asking for help and confidently moving forward. Claire has rightfully developed a reputation on campus for having a clear, poetic mind; I hope you’ve seen that identity shine through in her writing. An encounter with Claire’s writing for the News-Journal likely encouraged you to see life through the lens of exciting and intricate narrative. To that extent, Claire is a wholly humane writer, delicate with her prose and forceful with her poetry.
I also had the privilege to hire Joseph 'Joey' Carlson at the beginning of the academic year. In every conversation I’ve had with him, Joey thinks with me. This is a subtle but important point. When some possess the gifts of articulate expression and knowledge, they occasionally think at or for their interlocutors. Joey, while highly capable of thinking for others, patiently thinks, speaks, and acts with them. He is certainly one of the most well-read freshmen I have ever met, and he will make an exceptional theology professor one day. Because Joey is human, he’ll imitate those he admires. Right now, all those who earn his admiration are patient listeners, rigorous thinkers, and trusted mentors. In his writing, you’ve likely found each of those identities wrapped within his paragraphs.
When I think of these people, I am comforted and particularly grateful that I have had the opportunity to meet and work with them. They have each made me a better editor and hopefully a better man.
My sincere gratitude also goes out to Shea Rowell, C’19, who hired me in the fall of 2018 and encouraged me every step of the way. I am also grateful for the diligent work of my other editors, Morgan Rooney, C’20 and Angela Guiao, C’21.
I am forever indebted to Mike Hillman, editor of this fine paper. He taught me how to be a better employee, leader, and writer. Mike embraces the idea that there is always an opportunity for education. Mike seeks to lead his writers out of the shadows of ignorance and into a richer understanding of themselves and the world around them.
Finally, I would like to thank the loyal readers of the Emmitsburg News-Journal, and especially the readers of the Four Years at the Mount column and all other university writing. You are the reason we write, work together, and try to deliver a special issue to you every month.
Thank you to the people of Emmitsburg. I will not forget you soon.
Read other articles by Harry Scherer
Read Past Editions of Four Years at the Mount
