From the Editor, Vol. 20 No. 2
Dear Reader,
We are grateful to God for the publication of another issue of the Ichthus. It is a blessing to be able to speak on Harvard’s campus and to work with such a mission-driven team.
Our theme for this issue is “Collisions with Eternity.” Here, we consider time through the Christian lens; when interviewing Sadie Sasser, Lily Castello asks: “How do you think the idea of eternity—the fact that Earth is not our permanent home—impacts how we as Christians should participate in the world and use our time?” In a sense, this is the driving question of this issue. Do we live with an eternal gaze? And does that change how we orient ourselves?
Yet having questions does not necessitate possessing answers. We hope that in this issue you will dialogue with us, engaging with what it means to operate in—as Sadie Sasser explains—kairos time and chronos time.
In this issue, you will feel especially the weight of the human condition; wrestle with what it means to live in time. But I charge you to read with hope—the hope that the battle is already won, and that Christ has indeed redeemed us. Yes, sometimes it is painful to think of time, but we rejoice that the doors to eternity have been opened unto us, and we proceed onwards and upwards.
I will close with this—in my freshman year at Harvard, I encountered the writing of Etty Hillesum, and in these past four years, they have been of great encouragement to me, especially in times when I have been tempted to despair. Etty died in Auschwitz at the close of 1943, but wrote these powerful words the year prior:
“I find life beautiful, and I feel free. The sky within me is as wide as the one stretching above my head. I believe in God and I believe in man, and I say so without embarrassment. Life is hard, but that is not a bad thing [...] True peace will come only when every individual finds peace within himself; when we have all vanquished and transformed our hatred for our fellow human beings of whatever race – even into love one day, although perhaps that is asking too much. It is, however, the only solution. I am a happy person and I hold life dear indeed, in this year of Our Lord 1942, the umpteenth year of the war.”
In this, the year of Our Lord 2026, let us hold life dear. Time is a gift—let us give it to each other. “This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”
Sincerely,
C. McGowin Grinstead
