Zachary Faitz

Dr. Davis
Servant Leadership Capstone
11/12/20
Honors College Reflection

Looking back on my three and a half years in the Honors College, I am astounded at how
much I have learned as a student and grown as a child of God. Almost every class I took offered
some new groundbreaking perspective on the world which changed me from the person I was at
the beginning of college to the person I am today. I can already tell that I have started forgetting
things, and without my past notes, they will unfortunately continue to elude my memory;
however, looking at how I have changed, I can safely say that these lost fragment have still
influenced my development even if I cannot recall the precise details.
During my first year in the Honors College, I enrolled in What is Truth, Practicum I,
Rhetoric and the Sacramental Imagination, What is the Good Life, and Practicum II. For me,
What is Truth offered answers to many questions I had growing up. The five-act narrative
provided a comprehensive overview of much of our faith and provided me with a foundation for
continuing my Journey with God. In particular, the section on the Trinity and the Incarnation
heavily influence my life because I began to see God in a completely new way. Based on my
experience, I would say Practicum I was the perfect class to pair with What is Truth. It gave me
a chance to apply what we were learning in the form of different practices like lectio divina,
attentiveness, and solitude. Rhetoric and the Sacramental Imagination, like What is Truth,
altered my view of the world. I never realized how profound it could be to look at creation and
look for ways it reveals God. Our projects in this class in tandem with our understanding of a
sacramental ontology created a truly ground-breaking experience. The next class I want to
discuss is What is the Good Life, where we took a more application-based approach to theology.
I found that holding our readings on consumerism in juxtaposition with Wendel Barry’s writings
provided a very clear picture of the flaws in the American dream.1 And then there was Practicum
II. I feel like Gandalf choosing between the three paths in the Mines of Moria when I say, “I
have no memory of this class.”2
Overall, I believe this year provided the necessary foundation for my spiritual
development to actually begin. During my first year, What is Truth provided knowledge,
Practicum I helped put that knowledge to use, and What is the Good Life allowed me to apply
what I had learned to something outside myself. As for Rhetoric and the Sacramental

1
As a side note, I do not remember reading The Divine Commodity at all, and I was very shocked when people said
that it was the most impactful book.
2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSrf8EgSyDg
Imagination, I will explain later how it was essential in my journey of integrating my faith with
science.
While I do not think I have any memory lapses as bad as Practicum II, my second year of
college was much rougher than the first, so I do not remember as much. With that disclaimer, the
classes I took m sophomore year were What is Humanity, Wisdom, Culture, and Justice I, Great
Texts I, What is Beauty, and Practicum III. In my eyes, What is Humanity, Wisdom, Culture, and
Justice I, and Great Texts I, were all a different form of history. The first provided a sort of
moral and religious history of people coming to grasp with exactly what we are. The second
provided a literal history spanning the Greeks to the Middle Ages. Finally, the third provided a
sense of history from the eyes of the writers of some of the greatest works of art in history. In
each case, I gained knowledge from another person’s perspective, which I now see as an
invaluable resource to understanding the world around me. During my next semester, I took
What is Beauty, a very unique class. I found that this class, more than any other, helped my
translate my knowledge from What is Truth into the real world. I felt like I was moving from
having an only book-based theology to having some in-the-world theology too. Our study of
phenomenology and iconology was instrumental in this transition because I began to understand
how our interaction with creation and other people gave us insight into the nature of God.
Finally, I remember Practicum III, but I did not get much out of it.
This year as a whole helped my understand the value of understanding another person’s
perspective. Even though people like Aristotle, Virgil, and other historical writers were not
Christians, they still provided profound insights into morality and our experiences in life. What
is Beauty built on these ideas by explaining why the experiences of other people can be a
powerful tool in understanding theology.
Things started to slow down for my third year, and I could really start to digest what I
was reading. During this time, I was in Wisdom, Culture, Justice II, Great Texts II, Faith and
Scholarship, Who is Our Neighbor, and Practicum IV. Out of all the classes I took this year, I
feel like Wisdom, Culture, and Justice II built the most on many of the classes I took the
previous year. Once again, we learned to look at the world from another person’s perspective,
but this time, we looked at the “other’s” perspective. I found that unless you intentionally work
to understand a marginalized group’s experience, it is easy to convince yourself that there are no
problems with the way they are treated. For Great Texts II I feel like I finally began to
understand something which I did not fully grasp in Rhetoric and the Sacramental Imagination:
the power of literature. This class more, more than any other, showed me literature's potential to
communicate ideas, experiences, and feelings. The next class I want to mention, Faith and
Scholarship, turned out to be surprisingly influential. Growing up I always thought that a career
in the sciences was less noble than working in a church, but after taking this class, I realized that
faith and science can indeed have a harmonious relationship in such a way where my vocation
can integrate both. During my next semester in Who is Our Neighbor, I had another
groundbreaking revelation. I think because I had hear growing up that humans were the only part
of creation made in God’s image, I thought that we were separate from the rest of creation;
however, after reading the works of several authors relating how the Israelites understood their
relationship to the earth, my perspective was completely changed. I now understand how
important our relationship to the rest of creation is, especially as stewards. Finally, when reading
Volf’s book in Practicum IV, I came to the realization that God’s idea of justice might be very
different than our idea of justice. At first this was a very florigen concept because we live in a
society where, for the most part, equivalent wrongs are judged identically. Unfortunately, we
will still fail to emulate true justice which God enacts perfectly.
During my Junior year, many of my classes contributed to my spiritual development in
similar ways to past years, but my experience in Faith and Scholarship stands out as something
unique. We were trained in Rhetoric to develop a sacramental imagination, but it was not until
taking Faith and Scholarship that I realized that those same ideas could be applied to my career
in science. Since all of creation reveals its creator, there is no reason that something like an atom
cannot teach me something about God. Looking at science with this perspective, I had the
realization that studying science was not only a way to learn about God but also a way to
worship Him by seeking Him through working with His creation.
My senior Honors College schedule is a bit unique because I am currently in Servant
Leadership Capstone but not How then Shall We Live. Even though I cannot comment about my
last honors course yet, I can still talk about what I consider to be the most important aspects of
Servant Leadership Capstone and how they contributed to my spiritual development. For me, the
concepts of consolations and desolation were the most impactful. I am not sure why, but I never
really considered my feelings to be an insight into the spiritual movements in my life. Even
though I am still only a beginner at discerning these movements, I have already noticed changes
in my prayer habits. Whenever I feel like I am in a time of desolations, even something small
like being in a bad mood, I take a moment to pray and understand why I am feeling the way I
am. I hope this will be a practice I can continue to hone for the rest of my life.

Letter to a Future Student

Dear Future Student,

This letter is meant to encourage you to always continue pursuing your spiritual journey
in the honors college. Keep that in mind, because I want to get all the hard stuff out of the way
first to prepare you. There is much more work in the honors college than other general education
classes, and you will surely feel like quitting at time. Sophomore year is particularly awful
simply because of the number of honors classes you need to take. Thankfully your first year will
prepare you for this amount of work. On top of all the work, your understanding of faith and
theology will undoubtedly be challenged. You might even feel like some of your foundational
beliefs are crumbing, but in the end your faith will be built up stronger than it ever was before.
Despite all of this, I strongly encourage you to stick with the honors college because, at least
from my perspective, it has been life changing. I have found that my prayer life is healthier, I
have a stronger foundational faith, and I am better at relating to other people. To be frank, the
honors college is actually the reason I am still at Indiana Wesleyan University.
To help you make it to the end of the Honors College, I do have some helpful advice.
Firstly, make an effort to develop relationships with your professors. They will be right alongside
you during your journey, so it is important that you feel like you can approach them with
questions and concerns. Also, make a point reach out to your classmates and talk about what you
are learning together. I am continually amazed at what my peers are able to pick up in class when
some of the concepts go straight over my head. Finally, do not be ashamed that you are in the
honors college. I was told my freshman year that no one really like the honors college, so I
decided to myself that it was better to just keep that side of my college life to myself. In the end,
it turned out to be stressful keeping the honors college a secret, and during my junior year I
started being more open about it. Not only did I find this freeing, but I was also able to have
good conversations with other people on campus.

I hope this helps,

Zac Faitz