Hello good folks of the blogosphere.
I am Ben Kreider, a hometown boy from North Newton, Kansas, a sophomore and an excited blogger. I am majoring in Social Work and Bible & Religion – both areas that stimulate me intellectually and vocationally. I find myself captivated by many things here at Bethel College. I am a soccer player – from the center defender position I survey the field, careen into opposing players, and find great joy. I am a singer; In the Concert Choir, I focus my bass voice onto particular notes and rhythms and in conjunction with fifty or so other folks find transcendent harmonies. I am a member or at least onlooker in many groups, in clubs with fellow social work students or people wanting to make social change, in the chapel worshiping with the wider college community, at the lunch table feasting on food and conversation.
I am intrigued by the possibility of telling the stories of my experiences at Bethel, of letting you all into the little beautiful crannies of life, of sharing the ordinary and extraordinary with you.
Update on where I am at right now, a few weeks into the school year: My classes are the best they have ever been, a great mix of theology, psychology, and practical skills for working with humans. This semester I won’t have the constraint of lack of motivation, rather time. The soccer team is a great bunch of guys, although we are a little short on numbers. This means lots of playing time and us all becoming in superb shape. It’s great to be a returner to campus, to see friends after the summer, to run into people that you spent the previous year building shared experience with. It’s gratifying to have places to start and connections to strengthen upon arriving here on this campus this year.
I’ll leave you with a quote, which I find to be beautiful, illuminating, and hopefully representative of my experiences this coming year at Bethel. It is from “Gilead” by Marilyn Robinson.
“I have been thinking about existence lately. In fact, I have been so full of admiration for existence that I have hardly been able to enjoy it properly… I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again.”