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Jeanne M. Hossenlopp
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Chemistry
Web Posted: May 9, 2005
As the end of another academic year draws near, and Spring continues to unfold around us, we observe the cyclical nature of life manifesting itself in rituals of closure and of new beginnings. A challenge for students, indeed for any of us during this hectic and deadline-driven season, is to be able to integrate what has been learned over months and even years in order to be able to see the larger picture in the midst of many details. This requires us to see new connections as we live out the University’s mission through the search for truth, seeking to discover and share knowledge throughout our lives. As naturalist, conservationist, and writer John Muir noted in his journals in 1869, “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” (John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra, published in 1911)
When we recognize the interconnections that hitch each thing to everything else in the universe, the often-stated Marquette goal of “Finding God in All Things,” becomes clear. Muir’s writings resonate with this understanding. In a letter to Miss Catherine Merrill, written in June, 1872, Muir states: “We all flow from one fountain Soul. All are expressions of one Love. God does not appear, and flow out, only from narrow chinks and round bored wells here and there in favored races and places, but He flows in grand undivided currents, shoreless and boundless over creeds and forms and all kinds of civilizations and peoples and beasts, saturating all and fountainizing all.” (Excerpted in Badè's book, The Life and Letters of John Muir, 1924) Finals week provides us with a reminder to look for the connections in our lives and in our work at the University.
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