This artefact from the history of a young writer is just one of many delightful surprises that has shown up in our office since I first connected with Breanna Mekuly ’09 earlier this summer. Breanna’s name first cropped up when I asked the faculty to join me in the six-degrees-of-separation challenge that would eventually become the cover story for our summer issue:
Dear All,
I hope you can take a minute for a helpful party game in aid of the magazine. For an image-driven feature in our summer issue, I am looking to establish connections between St. Norbert College and the following people, places or things.
These are the prompts!
Oscar Romero
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Dorothy Day
Thomas Merton
Maya Angelou
Rabbi Riccardo di Segni
Rabbi Elio Toaff
Marie Curie
Claude Francois Nicole of Nancy
Pope John XXIII
the Jewish community in Rome
Premontre
Christ washing the feet of his disciples
deep roots/stabilitas
Pentecost
Via Bridget Burke Ravizza (Theology & RS), I received this response from Breanna, whose name I had not heard since she graduated four years ago.
“I hated poetry. So to prove a point (but mostly to teach me about wonder, beauty, and diversity), Dr. Burke Ravizza prescribed that I read and reflect upon Gerard Manley Hopkin’s poem ‘Praise Hymn’ weekly. At the end of the semester, I emerged a lover of the way in which poetic language can lead one closer to the Great Mystery, God.”
Also, this summer, I have an internship with Sister Joan Chittister and her ministries. If you’re interested, I would be willing to share my experience here and how I was introduced to her at SNC. Let me know if something like that would be anything you might be looking for. I’m always up for writing different sorts of articles, especially of how SNC has shaped my life!
Another piece in the puzzle that would become the A Wing and a Prayer feature … plus a lead on a new story! We took Breanna up on her offer, which led to the wonderful story of vocation, practical persistence and Benedictine hospitality that led this month’s @St. Norbert.
Meanwhile, Breanna had found Bridget’s actual assignment, as evidenced at the top of this post: great advice for the poetry-reluctant, and we are so glad it brought her to us! And yesterday brought Breanna herself to the office – a welcome but unlooked-for visit, since we had been emailing back and forth at her temporary home in Erie, Pennsylvania. She was on her way to the Benedictine community in Indiana referenced in the Quest for Sister Joan story. And she left with a new assignment: we hope to bring you her work again soon. Meanwhile, here is Breanna again, in a completely different outlet, on Why I Don’t Like Working at Soup Kitchens, for Patheos blog.
