Hold on to your paper, ladies and gentlemen! The wind is a-blustrin’ atop St. Peter!

Alas! This is not a dialogue on the difference between Windows and Apple technology … Though ironically, I debated on writing about the Pink Lady vs. Braeburn type of Apple verses writing about those glass things in the middle of our buildings.

As someone who seeks to soak up every ray of goodness from the liberal arts education, I present to you with a handful of quotes about windows, saving you the 47 seconds of Google-ing. (That’s the first time I’ve ever typed out that word … Oh, the times, they are a changin’!)

In the spirit of William Faulkner, who said, “Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.” Let the quoting begin.

Along the theme of clarity and exploration of self, the great writers and public speakers give us these words: “Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.” (George Bernard Shaw)

“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.” (Alan Alda)

“The windows are the eyes of the apartment.” (Duarto Feliz, played by Bronson Pinchot, in The First Wives Club)  If you haven’t seen this dated and funny movie, I highly recommend it for a reminder of how to deal with relationships and confidence in light of life’s changes. Serenity prayer, anyone?
A bit more intentional here:

“Art is the window to man’s soul. Without it, he would never be able to see beyond his immediate world; nor could the world see the man within.” (Claudia Lady Bird Johnson)

Another helpful tune is one of relationships. Friendship, without getting too corny here (sorry corn lovers, you know who you are!), grants us a perspective or nuance of ourselves that we might not otherwise see.

“Thanks for being a pane in my window on the world!” (Lyn Cherry) Oh, goodness, that one had a pun, too!

“A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.” (Mark Twain)

Let’s hear it for creative life tasks! One of the most challenging and enlivening aspects of college is the ever-fluctuating intensities and patterns of commitments and interests (academic and social). In this contained four years of college, we are given a glimpse of what we could be: an artist, a doctor, a philosopher, a chef, a writer, a good person, a __________. Be it a class, a single conversation, a professor or a friend, the inspirations come at us from all sides of who we are and who we are becoming. May we go out with good courage, trusting in years to come for continuing that necessarily patient process and often enthralling adventure of discovery!