What contact leads people to develop a relationship? I never considered that question before I learned where my organization had decided to send me. It came to mind during the latter half of the summer after I’d found out. My job here would require me to develop relationships with students. What could hinder a genuine relationship more than making it part of an agenda? I could not believe that a student would waste his time with someone paid to befriend him. After all, none of them would see consequence in my presence beyond that of a goody-two-shoes chaperone sent there on a well-meaning but misguided frolic. No telling of my story could convey what it was like to live it, so why bother? That is where I would have left it if I trusted untested theory over faith.

At times I am not the most reverent. I pray fast when I am in a rush, and I do not always genuflect in a perfect lunge. However, I do believe that God works at every moment of my life. If I believed that I needed to map my interactions to ensure that students adored me, then I would not yet have had my first conversation. There is nothing complex about making an introduction, and each one leads where it goes. I speak to some students every day. I have spoken to others just once. Still others have never said a word to me, but we exchange nods when we cross paths.

Many words could describe the interactions with students that I have had. One word that could not is “grasping.” Since my arrival, I have not forced any relationships. Rather, I have responded to the people that have come before me in the ways that I thought that I should. It is not for me to decide what results those responses “achieve,” but eight months have shown them to me. Two of my strongest relationships are not two of my closest, and they occur with people I did not expect. There are more that I could describe, but I chose these because we are not close.

One is a senior. He is not one of the students with whom I deal directly. Our contact is the Catholic Center: routine and incidental. However, its consistency gave each of us the opportunity to accumulate data on one another—even if we did not realize it. During a trip to St. Louis in January, mishaps shifted me to a hotel miles from the male students over whom I had charge. I had to organize them by proxy. No sooner had that thought occurred to me than did that senior come to mind. Hours later I wondered why I delegated that authority to him so easily. I’m not sure that I knew his last name. Then I realized that I had seen his character on display all semester. We have spoken more this semester. Not by much.

Another is a junior. Our interaction is similar to that of the senior. She is involved with the women on my team. Upon my return to campus in January, she gave me a Christmas present. The present was a plush toy: a jar of peanut butter with a smiling face. My team and I decided to call him Skippy. I am not inclined to presents (though I will not refuse them), but Skippy told me about a relationship that I did not know was there. That stuffed toy reminded her of me, and she was comfortable enough with me to buy it. I do not know how others see me, but Skippy gives me a clue.

It is evident when actions reflect a respect for being. To let others exist without calling them to account to oneself. Two people do not need to be best friends, or even like one another, to have a strong relationship. There is strength in the shared understanding between two people about what their relationship is. I have not always had the best relationships with my siblings. It has not always felt fair that I did not get to choose them. But I have always known that I have to love them, and both there and here it is enough.