Adults and students gathered in the Kay Spiritual Life Center for three essay readings and a book signing of "This I Believe," an anthology of essays read on the eponymous radio show broadcasted on WAMU 88.5, American University's affiliate to NPR.
The radio program is a remake of a 1950s version produced by Edward Murrow. The show was originally inspired by Margot Trevor Wheelock, a depressed woman who committed suicide. Her husband wanted to memorialize her search for understanding herself and developed the concept for the show.
While previously by request only, the present version has now encouraged people to submit their personal beliefs. In the past year-and-a-half the show has been airing, 20,000 people from 50 states and 36 countries have submitted essays, and a quarter of them have been young adults. Thisibelieve.org has 18,000 essays published on the Internet, including everything from beliefs in extraterrestrials to how to treat the pizza delivery person.
Cecilia Mu¤oz, Gregory Orr and Kay Redfield Jamison, professionals in the D.C. and Virginia areas, read their essays and autographed attendees' books. Dan Gediman, the show's producer and an editor of the anthology, requested for each of them to submit essays for the show.
Mu¤oz, the vice president of the National Council of La Raza's Office of Research and Advocacy, wrote "Getting Angry can be a Good Thing."
Her story began with her friend's comment that when America went to war with Latin America, Mu¤oz's family should go to an internment camp. That statement and unjust attitudes toward immigrants angered her and propelled her advocacy work with the National Council of La Raza to help Hispanic Americans find justice.
"For my friend, as for many others, there will always be doubt as to whether we really belong in this country, which is our home - enough doubt to justify taking away our freedom," she said.
Orr, a poet and English professor at the University of Virginia, wrote about the healing qualities of writing poetry in his essay, "The Making of Poems." He described the writing process as having "an elegance of agony about it."
"Because poems are meanings, even the saddest poem I write is proof that I want to survive," Orr said, referring to his brother's death in a hunting accident.
Jamison discussed how she grew from her bipolar disorder in her essay, "The Benefits of Restlessness and Jagged Edges." People need to appreciate their passions and tendencies, she said, and these encouraged her to teach from life experiences.
"Unless one wants to live a stunningly boring life, one ought to be on good terms with one's darker side and one's darker energies," she said.
Sophomores Alison Goh in the School of International Studies and the School of Public Affairs and Charlie Kilby in the College of Arts and Sciences and SIS said they were struck by the journeys involved in each speaker's essay. Both said they heard the show on WAMU.
"[It was interesting] that they weren't just writing about what they believed in, but they were self-journeys in 500 words," Goh said.
Kilby said he was amazed by the range of topics addressed and also how each of the readers said they still felt like there was more they could write.
"It displays 'know thyself,'" he said. "I found it interesting that even they didn't know quite what they believed"
