This semester, I have felt completely out of the loop at Cairn. Sure, I am the editor of The Scroll, and so I know what’s going on regarding the specific topics that students choose to write about. However, I feel much more out of touch with the goings-on of Cairn than I have in my four years here thus far.

I’m a senior, and although I am not close to graduating anytime soon, I certainly have hit some bouts of senior-itis. This semester, I only had Tuesday and Thursday classes, partly by choice and partly just by circumstance of when classes were offered. Because of this, I was exempt from chapel for the semester.

As the semester began, I was honestly really excited that I no longer had to attend chapel three times a week. I’ve been attending chapel for four years now; I’ve experienced some great chapels, but I’ve also experienced some painfully boring and seemingly pointless chapels. Of course, right when I was exempt from chapel, a new chapel policy of only needing to attend 30 chapels per semester was put in place, so I probably could have managed to attend chapel enough times to reach the necessary amount. My excitement of chapel exemption did not last long; I quickly began to miss the fellowship of being surrounded by my fellow students and having a better idea of what the climate of campus was. I never realized how much going to chapel keeps a student “in the loop” at Cairn. Having missed chapel for a whole semester, I feel out of the Cairn loop. I feel like I never know what events are going on, what updates there are in the university, and that I missed out on seeing people that I don’t normally have in my classes. The countless emails we are sent about updates don’t include everything we need to know, as much as they try to. Not only did I feel out of the loop about events and the goings-on, but I missed worshiping with the Cairn community. Sure, some of the worship teams at chapel are less than great, but there’s something about the fellowship we experience in chapel that can’t be found elsewhere.

As I made my class schedule for next semester, I purposely made sure I could attend chapel. Not only am I glad to not have classes from 11:00am-9:15pm straight through on Tuesdays (trust me, that was not fun), but I am glad to have the opportunity to go to chapel again and fellowship with you all.

As a senior living in Penndel, it is easy to allow myself to stay out of the loop of campus life at Cairn and just spend time with my small friend group. However, Cairn is a really cool place, and I’m not ready to leave the Cairn bubble/loop yet. I want to encourage you to not neglect going to chapel or events on campus; I now know firsthand that being a part of the Cairn community is more fulfilling than we realize as we are experiencing it.