Let me start by explaining my relationship with religion:

I went to church with my family the better portion of my life. All three Flom-Staab daughters were baptized in the Lutheran church and until about the third grade, being involved in our church community was part of my family’s routine. Once I entered my second year of middle school, I started my church's four-year process of getting confirmed. Each Wednesday night for two hours after basketball practice, I would sit with 20 other confirmands and learn about the Bible. We listened to lectures and took field trips but I never got fully into it. It wasn’t the people or community, although it didn’t help that I did not have many friends, but I felt like what we were reading and interpreting seemed to have a similar concept of a book of fables that all had simple morals at the end, teaching kids what to do and not to do. I didn’t find the words inspiring or a way to base my life. I figured I had enough guidance from the excessive amount of Disney and fairytales that already consumed. So when it came time to get confirmed into the Lutheran faith, I forced myself to write a two-page essay about what I believed in and how my faith would guide me later in life. I’m not exactly sure what I wrote in that essay but I can imagine it didn’t make much sense as I was still figuring out what religion meant to me. After that experience, religion and church seemed to fall out of my life without a second thought. My family would go to church on Christmas and Easter but I never felt any connections to the passages read to me from the Bible.

Flash-forward to my first day of First-Year Orientation where 400 nervous 18-year-olds sat in Luther College’s Center for Faith and Life with our parents, listening to the campus pastor bless us as we started a great new journey. I remember watching as heads bowed down to pray and mine begin to follow in fashion. But something stopped me. I didn’t believe in the God we were praying to. Was I supposed to pretend? Will the people around me notice and judge if I don’t follow suit? Will I have to pretend all four years I am here? Am surrounded by people who I fundamentally don't agree with on certain topics?

These questions gave me something to think about as I lay in my new dorm room with a stranger snoring in the bed next to me (just kidding Grace you don’t snore hehe). As the year went on I was pretty vocal about my “disbelief” in an attempt to find others who also were uncertain about this huge aspect of Luther Life. I found a few but after all, this school is called Luther… as in Martin Luther, the founder of Lutheranism… I’m not sure what I was expecting to find. Each person I talked to all had amazing stories how faith influenced their life and why they believe. Most had to do with music, since music is also a huge aspect of Luther. Most were very willing to hear my perspective as well.

Then the big C came. Christmas at Luther, the biggest event of the year filled with six choirs singing harmonic songs about the birth of Jesus, one massive orchestra playing away and thousands of audience members supporting their alma mater and children. Sections of the Bible were read and audience members cried overcome with the power of the lord. My choir had been rehearsing our C@L (what the cool kids call it) pieces since September. I had these pieces ingrained into me and each time we sung them I felt like I shouldn't be here in this massive church singing about this. By the time C@L week rolled around and we had our 5 long shows, I didn't feel out of place anymore. All I could think about was the beauty of the sound the people around me were making. I think this was the point where I accepted my Luther community as a place I can learn from by our differences. Yes, I don't always agree with how the advice and guidance is given to me at this school and yes, I have gotten in heated debates with peers on our belief system but the important thing is that I'm learning. And maybe so are they.

I don’t bow my head in chapel and I may be a little different than the majority of the population here at Luther College but I have found a new sense of what I believe in. I believe in love and that it can fill you up from head to toe. I believe in being kind and finding joy in the life you have. I believe in a strong community of people all with unique points of view. I have that all here at Luther. I'm not too sure what I believe in religiously or what my fate is but I am happy to be where I am.