Prompt: In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, pose a question of your own. If your prompt is original and thoughtful then you should have little trouble writing a great essay. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk and have fun.
Essay:
"Letters to God"
Standing amid ten excited elementary school children energetically shaking a multicolored parachute, I felt that the world had been simplified, reduced to the blue, green, red, and yellow balloons floating within the confines of the room. As the children continued to chase the balloons, I listened to the teacher, Tom Berry, explain to me that the Humanist program (dubbed the "Sunday School for Atheists by The New York Times) simplified the world, reducing it to scientific reasoning.
"You don't have to let the world happen to you," Berry said. "You can happen to the world."
On that Sunday morning, I felt that I had to finally choose between Berry and God. Was I ready to take the world at face value or continue to believe in a higher being? Though my family is not religious, I have always felt, whether from outside pressures or inward curiosity, that I ought to pay homage to the great, mysterious Being - God. Because I didn't know how praying worked, my attempts at communication had come in the form of letters.
My first letter was simple:
Hello, God.
However, my letters developed into more varied forms, and I quickly personalized God into what I believed Him to be:
Dear God,
Are you Asian?
Though I slightly altered that view in later years, I continued my "religion" and often shared my thoughts about existence in my letters to God:
Dear God,
At debate camp today, we discussed the essence of Being and Dasein. We learned about "It is," "It is It," and finally, "It is It Itself." How confusing. But now I understand how IT'S-IT ice cream has the weirdest name ever.
God never replied to my letters. Nevertheless, I persevered. I wrote letters to my
God, not because I believed He would receive them, but because I needed a guide through life. Taking a Humanities class junior year prompted me to question my beliefs:
Hey God,
I heard today in Humanities that an ad said bananas are proof that God exists. The ad said God must exist because He designed bananas especially for humans. Bananas are 1) easy to peel, 2) shaped like a handle (for humans to hold), 3) are covered in a non-slippery surface, and 4) delicious to eat. But, God, what about pomegranates?
And thus, at the Sunday School for Atheists, I didn't know which side to choose. How could God be all good and all-powerful? Why would He distance Himself from His creation?
Through Berry's advice and meeting individuals comfortable living in a world without God, I decided that I will continue to muse over the eternal questions of Who are we? What is being? Where are we from? And inevitably, Does God exist? - though no longer through my letters. In those letters, I needed God's existence more than I believed in Him.
Instead, I will follow Berry's advice. I will soak my shoes in puddles while breathing in the smells of grass mixed with rain. I will bike with my sister along the Bay Trail as the wind tries to halt our progress. I will eat entire pomegranates, seed by seed. I will not wait for the world to happen to me.
I will happen to the world.
