Returning to Brown University

Almost immediately, a cheery and attractive woman of about 45 greeted me in the hall outside of the President's office. With a professional smile and a charming efficiency that no doubt got her the job, she ushered me into the inner sanctum of her office, directly next to the President's office. "Dr. Long," she said (maybe they were looking for a big contribution), "I am happy to show you that clock now. Good thing the President is away, because it is in her office." So, for the next few minutes, I was able to examine an old grandfather's clock in the spacious and commodious office of Dr. Ruth Simmons, Brown University's 18th President, and the first African-American President of an Ivy League school. After looking at the clock for a few seconds, I turned to Ms. Helpful and said, "This isn't the right clock." She, who was no doubt trained to make lemonade out of every lemon that fell into her lap, was momentarily out of words. I quickly filled in the potentially awkward gap by telling the story of how the Hopkins clock was in the seminar room or conference room of UH, where the Slavery and Justice Steering Committee met. Then she said, "Oh, yes, I recall; I will have to read up on the report (just released) and confirm that in my mind."

And then, after exchanging some pleasantries with the Secretary, I left, never actually having seen the Hopkins clock, but having, in some ways, learned far more than I thought I would when I walked into University Hall.

Returning to My Thoughts

So, I walked out of UH and continued my re-exploration of the campus I knew so well. I wandered into Manning Chapel, next to UH, not because I needed to confess any sins, though I probably should have done that, but because it was the place where I had spent many an hour as an undergraduate from 1970-74. I was delighted to see that the Haffenreffer Museum, an anthropological museum consisting of Africana and other materials collected by that prominent RI family over the years, had been partially moved to campus and now was set up on the first floor of Manning Chapel. I have my problems with museums in general, even though they try to "create" the environment out of which their artifacts come, but I was happy to see that someone is trying to be responsible with the vast collection.

Then I walked out into the open air again and wondered why I felt such a surge of peace, a sense that this very place was almost sacred to me, that this square block or two in the East Side of Providence, RI occupied such a large place in my feelings and longings. It was strange to me, at first, that it did. Why? Because Brown University didn't occupy such a large part of my heart when I was there in the deep past. For example, while I was an undergraduate, I was caught up in my own form of delusions and ideologies in the middle of the Viet Nam War. Oh, don't get me wrong. I think that War was a bad one, whose demons have still not been exorcised from America's collective consciousness. But what I did during my undergraduate days at Brown was to be a member of a religious minority on campus (Evangelicals) who spent an inordinate amount of time on activities which no sane undergraduate ought to have been doing in those days. Rather than going on dates or attending parties on weekend evenings, I would often attend prayer meetings or meetings of the "action group leaders," who wanted to evangelize the campus. There are reasons why I did this, and I try to lay that out in my second autobiography. But I was sort of alienated from Brown as an undergraduate, even as I was thinking in my mind that I was "redeeming" it according to the plan of God.

Then, during my graduate work (1977-80), things weren't much better. It was not that I was an outspoken Evangelical in those days. The rough edges of that religious expression had been sanded off me, as a result of three years at an Evangelical theological seminary (Gordon-Conwell), and I was evolving into that most hated of all creatures, a religious "moderate." I lived in Boston and didn't spend much time on campus. When I came to campus, I was almost forbidden by the Religious Studies Department to take courses anywhere else at the university (except if I wanted to improve my Greek and Latin by taking reading courses in the Classics Department). Thus, my daily pilgrimage from Boston included stops at 59 George St. (the Department of Religious Studies), the Rockefeller Library and the train station. So, there was little in my actual experience of Brown to endear me to the place. Some of my professors were good, even very good, but I think they were, like most professors, very good at their narrow specialty but actually quite ignorant when you got them talking about anything beyond that (with the exception of the topic of the Boston Red Sox).

Nevertheless, when I have thrice returned to Brown, for my 25th reunion in 1999, when showing my kids the place in 2002 and then just last month, I had a growing sense that this small piece of God's good earth is now rather stitched to my soul. I do recall the days of the 1970s quite vividly in some ways, but what I most recall about those days is a young man who longed so deeply for what he didn't really know, who yearned for some combination of knowledge and love, for some strange mixture of wisdom and creative expression, all of which he was far too young to articulate or to realize. But that same young man, now in his mid-50s, has a much better idea of what longing is all about, what it means to express himself creatively, and what are the limits and the avenues for his teeming mind. And that, in the final analysis, is perhaps the reason why Brown University means so much to me. It allows me a mirror to see the uncompromising, bright, and even misguided student of 30+ years ago but it allows me also to step away from that mirror and examine the student who has become the man. Just as the student so longed to be the full man, so the man now wants to embrace that student. And, for some reason, while I am walking through the sacred spaces of that campus, I feel that the man and the student can meet, exchange stories, love and embrace one another, and go back into the world with strength, vision and peace.

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