An Open Letter to the Students at Harvard: When Your Life Falls Apart, Talk to a Chaplain Who Believes in God

I didn’t go to Harvard, but I did go to Harvard-on-the-Hill.

That was the nickname for Virginia Western Community College a bunch of years ago. I would have much preferred to be really anywhere else. My grades and SAT scores weren’t quite as stellar as yours, but they were still excellent, and granted me early admission to the colleges where I applied. My anorexia started in part because I had to begin my higher education at community college, not away at university. Scholarships were not as plentiful when I was your age, and taking on debt for college was almost unheard of, and not encouraged.

Fun fact: my daughter went to a camp at Harvard Medical School for academically advanced students interested in medical careers a few years ago. That’s a story for another day.

But a funny thing happened on my way through education and corporate career: after earning three degrees (Associates, Bachelors in Accounting and Masters in Business Administration), a handful of in-career certifications and promotions from audit staffer to a Senior Vice President level job in less than ten years in one of the nation’s largest banking institutions, I realized something amazing: some of the best professors and instructors I had, hands down, were at that community college in Podunk, Virginia.

Fast forward to this past week, to this headline: Harvard University names a devout atheist, who describes himself as a humanist rabbi, as its new head chaplain. 

On the one hand, I totally understand hiring someone who understands the individuals served. Forty percent of Harvard’s students are agnostic or not religious. But in the role of chaplain? As head of the chaplains?

I guess I don’t understand how Harvard is using the term ‘chaplain.’ Once upon a time, a chaplain was a member of the clergy assigned to a college, royal court or military unit. The term kind of assumes there’s a faith in something greater than oneself.

I’m not really sure how a humanist approaches questions like why bad things happen to good people, or helps you find meaning and purpose when calamity strikes your life, not just ‘people over there.’ I get that the head chaplain is probably a wonderful guy, who has terrific interpersonal skills, and has worked with students and faculty for a long time. Job titles like counselor, therapist, life coach, advisor – any of those work for someone with the passion and work experience to help others with life questions. But chaplain? I hate to break it to you, but a person who doesn’t believe in God has no real answers or help when your life goes everywhere but the direction you thought and planned that it would.

Don’t think it will happen to you? I hate to break THIS to you, but some students at Harvard will experience unexpected painful realities up close and personal, before the end of this year. Maybe that someone will be you.

Here are four things I hope you will think about, when the wisdom of the wisest among you doesn’t exactly lead to hope, peace and answers:

1. Life Purpose – do you have a sense of what your life’s purpose might be? Do you think your life has a purpose? If not, why are you even going to college, much less at a place where you likely have to work pretty hard, and will cost you and your family a fortune? Why exactly are you here on the planet? You can’t really answer those kinds of questions apart from the existence of God.
2. Vocation or Calling – do you long to serve others, or help people through their problems, or work in war-torn areas healing both bodies and souls? Does your heart beat faster when you think about concepts like this? Why is that? Or maybe you just want to build, or explore, or design systems, or create solutions using new technology. Could it be that the intense draw you feel is not just because you have to declare your major this fall, but because there’s a bigger subtext at play?
3. Answered Prayer – You probably know or have heard of at least one of those crazy simpletons who actually prays and believes that his or her prayers are answered. Maybe you even hesitantly lifted up a silent prayer once or twice. But what do you do when your heart is breaking, and your missile of a prayer actually comes true? Or when that happens more than once? What do you do with that? What do you do when something that has troubled you for more than half your life, suddenly is resolved in a way that no one could have ever expected or predicted? Or how do you reconcile the belief that God does not exist with that time when you sought out guidance, insight, anything from a higher power – and you got it? Or how can you explain that time when the cretin from down the dormitory hall who’s into the Bible handed you a Bible verse, and you read those same words in a chat board thread yesterday, and saw them the day before in a social media post, and the day before that in a philosophy book?  The chaplain who doesn’t believe in God won’t have a lot to offer regarding the possibility of answered prayer or guidance from a Higher Power, except empty platitudes about coincidence.
4. Miracles – This is the real clincher. Only an entity with power beyond the dimensions that we understand can work miracles, if such an entity exists. And it’s fine if you don’t want to believe miracles from the ancient past. But what about miracles in your lifetime – what do you do with that? 

Have you ever seen someone on the brink of death, pretty much given up for dead by the doctors charged with care, be prayed for, and not die? And not only not die, but make a full recovery, and live a healthy life for many more years?

Have you ever been deeply wounded or afraid, and had no idea what to do next, only to hear a thought that’s not your own thought, from inside you, that was the right thing to do at that very moment?

Have you ever suddenly known something you couldn’t possibly know – and you were absolutely right? I’m not talking about academic insight, I’m talking about knowing about someone’s wrongdoing, or sensing that something was about to happen, and acting so others are protected and disaster is averted. What do you do with things like that?

Or maybe you were significantly drawn to a certain name as a great name for a husband (in my case), but you never dated anyone with that name, and married someone with quite a different name. Years later you learned that your husband’s biological father – your husband was adopted at birth and knew nothing about his birth family – had that name that you were drawn to all those years before? You know that thing about how sons are often named for their fathers? Kinda weird how this worked out, right?

Or what if you heard that there was this couple who prayed over where God would have them live, and they lived in a house and neighborhood for many years, only to learn that the husband’s biological mother – a woman who was from a great distance away from their house – had lived five minutes away from that very same house for about three years? And that when the couple found out about this, their family was in the midst of a painful season, and learning this news and all the intricacies that went along with it helped them see that God is weaving together even our worst days for our good and His glory, if we love Him?

No one wants to force any of this on you. God Himself doesn’t force anyone to believe in Him. He knocks at the door of our hearts or spirits, He doesn’t force His way in.

So by all means, visit the chaplain who doesn’t believe in God when your world is falling apart. He’ll have books, insipid inspirational readings and other resources, but none of them will fill the bottomless hollow that you desperately want to go away. They certainly won’t address your doubts about the real-world importance of an Ivy League education, or other ‘Veritas’ issues that you are afraid to even admit to yourself.

Or listen to people who not only trust and believe that God is real, but have actual insight into the black holes of your unanswered painful questions, and have many of their own jaw-dropping experiences, similar to the ones listed above.

The choice is yours. Choose wisely.