Hi, my name is Savannah Wu, I am originally from Taiwan but lived in Shanghai for 12 years until I came to Boston for college. I am very grateful and excited to be able to help out at Marsh Chapel, to explore Christianity and to get to know the other Marsh staff and interns this year!
I am an Architectural Studies major and Sustainable Energy minor junior and am graduating with the class of 2018. I catch myself wondering if graduating early is the right choice often these days, but on the other hand, I am also looking forward to applying for jobs and grad school as well. This year will be an important vocational discernment year, a turning point in my life. This summer I interned at sustainability@BU and took an architecture studio course at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. I had ACL reconstruction surgery early in June, which was very painful for the first few weeks. Nevertheless, the experience helped me realize how much my dad loves me (he came to take care of me for a week) and what a privilege it is to be able to walk, to be independent and mobile. I’m thankful for these milestones in life, the opportunities to reflect, to spend time with family, to learn about different climate action plans in various US cities and schools, to have the space to imagine, draw and model three dimensional spaces. I will be working hard to be able to practice Shotokan Karate again and hope to better understand climate change and the built environment this semester. I am also looking forward to planning/writing a senior thesis related to retrofitting historic buildings to become more climate resilient and to adapt to current needs. I aspire to be stronger, more patient and focused, to start meaningful conversations and to build lasting friendships this year.
I’ve talked to Jess about programming activities for Earth Week, to get Marsh Chapel offices Green Office Certified, and to initiate more conversations around sustainability and faith.
As Norman Wirzba writes in the book, From Nature to Creation:
[T]he way we name and narrate the world determines how we are going to live within it. . . . To say that our world is “creation” rather than a “corpse,” a “material mechanism,” or a “natural resource” means that we need to see it and our involvement with it in a particular, God-honoring sort of way. It is not a material mechanism that runs according to its own laws. It is instead the material manifestation of God’s love operating within it. It is not a pointless exercise of motion, “full of sound and fury, / signifying nothing,” but a drama that witnesses to a divine, hospitable intention that invites our response and participation. Therefore, the practices and priorities of our economies, and the way we think about production and consumption, need to reflect this new appreciation of the world. To live in creation, in other words, means that we must understand ourselves as called to adopt particular kinds of expectations, affections, and responsibilities that are appropriate to a world so named. If the world isn’t a value-free, amoral mechanism, then we cannot do with it whatever we want.
I want to thank Jess for lending me this book, it is inspiring and thought provoking. This passage reminds me of my mom’s lawyer friend who said that he began to believe in God when he realized that all the beautiful things we see in nature, all the artwork that has been created, could not have been by mere accident, they must have been touched by something divine. I remember questioning the validity of his perspective, but the more I think about it, the more his remark makes sense. Thus, I want to honor God’s creations, to study and care for our environment. I am deeply disturbed by the natural disasters and weird weather patterns that are affecting people around the world and desire to process and do something about climate change.