Issue 3 | Oct. 9, 2015

Oct. 9

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Editor-In-ChiefNatasha Jones

Assistant EditorsTrenton CanadaAshton Rector

Faculty Adv isorJeremiah Massengale

Sta ff WritersLiz Guillermo

DJ HiteLydia Jay

Shyann NorrisChristin Rottenberger

Sta ff PhotographerEric Ford EdwardsJay Sanksakulchai

Editor ia l Rev iew BoardLisa Bartram

Marianne Worthington

- 7000 College Station Drive Williamsburg, Ky 40769

(606-539-4172

/patriotnewspaper @UCThePatriot

*thepatriot@ucumberlands.edu

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The Patriot is the biweekly student publication of the University of the Cumberlands. Our goal is to provide timelyand original content by highlighting campus news and views.

Award-winning member of the Kentucky Press Association.

CONTENTS

UCTHEPATRIOT

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Dear readers,

The staff of The Patriot has recently determined that there were some inaccuracies in a few ar-ticles that were published during the 2014-2015 academic year. While we’re choosing, at thistime, not to identify the student(s) responsible, we regret those errors.

While we aren’t sure if anyone else noticed them, it’s our responsibility to acknowledge thatmistakes have been made. Beyond that, it’s our job to get things right.

When you take time to read the college newspaper, we realize you’re making a choice. Andalongside that choice comes a certain level of trust you place in us as reporters. You trust thatevery article, every quote, and every fact we publish is our best attempt at accuracy. Nothingless. We don’t take that trust for granted.

We expect every article that’s submitted to our paper to contain entirely original writing andfor its author to pursue accuracy and clarity. Along the way, however, errors have happened.

Our hope at The Patriot is to create an environment where students are free to learn and try andsucceed and (yes, even sometimes) fail as they pursue journalism.

And this failure has presented all of us with an opportunity.

Mistakes happen in journalism, just like they do in every other area of life. The worst thing wecan do is ignore them. The best thing we can do is learn from them.

So that’s our goal. To emerge better than we were before, holding ourselves to even higherstandards as your campus newspaper. We are going to be more vigilant.

As this semester’s executive staff at The Patriot, we each commit to accuracy, authenticity andintegrity more than ever.

So, thanks for sticking with us.

We take our work seriously.

We’re devoted to being the voice of the students on the campus of the University of the Cumberlands.

Sincerey,

Jeremiah Massengale Natasha Jones Trenton Canada Ashton Rector

A letter to our readers

Life of a writer

A coffee conumdrum

War Room

Shattering the Stigma

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On Monday, October 5, sidewalks outside the Boswell Campus Center atthe University of the Cumberlands were colored in chalk with positive phrases,verses of Scripture, and words of encouragement as a part of National DayWithout Stigma. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, October4-10 is Mental Illness Awareness Week. UC’s Tua Upsilon Alpha, human serv-ices honor society, sponsored the event to help combat the negative connotationthat follows mental illness.

Alex Schaich, president of Tua Upsilon Alpha says, “We hope to first ofall break the stigma and second of all we just want to let people know thatthey’re not alone if they are dealing with something like anxiety or depressionor anything like that it is very common.”

The quotes were written anonymously, by students, and among those onthe sidewalk included “be strong,” “you are worth it,” and “you matter.” Along with the encouraging quotes, the statistic that stated, “one in four studentshave a mental disorder.”

As of the 2015 school year, UC has added counseling services on campus.

The services can be accessed through the university’s website. Counselors,Dawn Wesley and Michelle Helton, are located in the Correll Science Complexon the second floor.

Chelsie Duncan, junior member of Tua Upsilon Alpha, says, “Wheneveryou’re dealing with a disorder, you’re not alone. There’s always, out there,somebody with you with that same situation and they’re there to help you too.There’s always help.”

Another junior member of Tua Upsilon Alpha, Kaitlin DeJarnette adds,“Mental health awareness is really important because there is such a stigma re-lated to that and it’s good to break down those barriers and just let people knowthat there is help out there and that you can get help and that it’s not embar-rassing and its not something that should be avoided because that’s somethingthat’s needed.”

BY ASHTON RECTOR

Assistant Editor

A Day without StigmaUC students participate in the mental health awareness campaign

Chelsie Duncan and Kaitlin DeJarnette help over-

see the Day without Stigma event on UC’s campus.

Photo by Ashton Rector

How can you receive counsling servicesright here on campus?

1. Go to: http://www.ucumberlands.edu//counseling-services2. Click on “Client Portal” at the BOTTOM of the page 3. Click “Find an Appointment”4. Then follow the step by step instructions5. Counselors are located on the 2nd floor of the Correll ScienceComplex

Any other questions contact: Dawn Wesley (606)539-4655 orMichelle Helton, M. ED. LPPC. (606)539-3566

Photo by Ashton Rector

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Features

Photo by Ramona Rosales

Since she could string words together to createsentences and sentences together to create para-graphs, University of the Cumberlands’ Englishprofessor Jamey Temple has called herself a writer. Temple, a published writer, is a graduate of Cum-berlands and has a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) increative writing from Spalding University. Shedoesn’t limit herself to one label as a writer or asa teacher. She’s worked in public relations andjournalism, she’s had her prose, poetry and articlespublished in Still: The Journal, Kentucky Monthlyand Repurposed Magazine and she’s passed herlove for reading and writing on to every type ofEnglish student since joining the English depart-ment in 2008. Currently, Temple is working on herfirst novel.

In this interview, she sits down to discuss whatbeing a writer is about, her inspirations as a writerand an English professor and she also offers advicefor the thriving and struggling students at Cumber-lands.

AK: How long have you been writing profession-ally or just in general?

JT: I’ve always considered myself a writer eversince I could form sentences. My teachers wouldcollect the poetry I had written and make books.We would decorate the poster board, cut it out, andthen they would hole-punch it and use yarn to tieit. I’ve been fortunate to have people in my lifealong the way who have encouraged me, whetherthat be a teacher or… I was really close to mygreat-grandmother, who was an English teacher.No surprise, right? She always loved to read mystories and comment on them. I’ve just been nur-tured throughout. Professionally, since I graduatedcollege, I worked in public relations for a while; Iwas also working on the MFA, so I was workingthe creative side and the journalism side together.

So, [I’ve been writing] for most of my life.

AK: Who inspired you to become a writer?

JT: A couple of people: real people and fictional. Ilove “Little Women.” I actually have the bookcover above my writing desk; I love Jo in that bookbecause she loved to write so much and I identifiedwith her; I thought I looked like her. I thought,“This is someone like me, someone who loves tomake up stories and this is what she wants to doabove all else; where everyone else wants to justget married and just do this, she has other aspira-tions.” So, she really inspired me to keep going.Back to my great-grandmother, I cherish my timewith her and it always meant a lot to me for her tolook at my stuff and to comment on it, so I wouldsay those are my two biggest influences.

AK: Since you consider yourself a writer, what gotyou into teaching? What inspired you to becomean English professor?

JT: I think I’ve always been teaching, but I’ve beenfighting against it because I did [teach] naturallywhen I was playing and my teachers would notice.They would pair me up with the weaker studentsin class and say, “Oh, you ought to be a teacher”and I would say, “No, I don’t want to be teacher.”So, when I went through college, my major wascommunication arts. I thought I was going to gointo broadcast journalism or something like thatuntil I became honest with myself. “You don’t re-ally have the voice.” I sound like a small child;people call me and they are like, “Can I talk toyour mom or your dad?” (laughing) So, I had tobe realistic and that it may not be for me. And Istarted taking some creative writing classes andgetting back to my roots, I guess you could say. Istarted writing and it was like, “I could just keep

doing this.” Even after I graduated, I worked in ad-missions for a while, but then I would create workfor myself. I would write television scripts becauseI always wanted to write; it didn’t matter what typeof writing I was doing. So I moved over to publicrelations and I did that for a while. I had work-study students and I would teach them how towrite stories for the newspaper and whatnot. Dr.Cockrum was in the office and he commented onetime. He said, “Jamey, I think you would be a goodteacher.” I was like, “Ugh, not this again.” Whichis funny now looking back because most of thetime when people get MFA’s, they get them to notonly write, but also to be teachers. And that wasnot on my radar at all; I just liked to write. Thiswas a fun way to be a professional student, I guess.So, as you know, Dr. Cockrum went on to becomethe Dean and then the President. While he was inthe Dean’s office, I had already completed myMFA and I had been an adjunct professor for a se-mester or two. He was like, “You know what, weneed someone over here. What do you think?”Now, I realize a lot of people want so badly to becollege professors and are struggling and it justhappened for me; that’s not lost on me at all. I re-alize how fortunate I am to have this job and I loveit. I don’t know why I fought so hard against it.(laughing) And that was a really long answer tothis question.

AK: What advice would you give to a freshman inan English class here?

JT: I guess it would depend of the type of student.We have students who have gaps in their educationand who are terrified. Then, we have students whohave had a good foundation and who are interestedand do well. No student is the same.

The Life of a Writer: Q&A with Jamey TempleBY AMANDA KELLY

Guest Writer

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Photo by Er ic Ford EdwardsSo, my advice for the ones who come here and arestruggling is to stick with it. Even if you don’t enjoyreading, that doesn’t mean there isn’t something outthere that won’t interest you. You just have to findit, but you have to keep practicing. It’s all about per-spective. If you tell yourself, “I don’t like this; I’mno good at it,” then it’s going to be a self-fulfilledprophesy. That’s going to be the trajectory thatyou’re on.

But it if you come in and say, “I can do this; Ican learn,” and you just shift your perspective just alittle bit, I think that student would be surprised athow much they can change and how much they canlearn. I guess that advice would go to students whoalready know, too.Because if you go in with an atti-tude of “I already know this,” then you’re closed offand can’t learn anything else. We have a very tal-ented faculty who are here because they want toteach, but it’s not all on the professor and it’s not allon the student. It’s a joint effort, so both have to bewilling.

AK: What advice would you give a student whowanted to explore writing further and possibly pur-sue an MFA with a writing emphasis?

JT: I have some of these students, even in my col-lege writing class, which is the course before youget to English Composition 131, saying, “I love cre-ative writing.” I always say to take an introductionto creative writing course; take all the writingcourses you can. It’s usually students who like towrite creatively already say “I’m a fiction writer orI’m a poet,” but as you know, sometimes you findthat you can do other things, you can do other genreseven better than the one you think you belong in.So, don’t pick or box yourself in so early. Just play.Take a lot of classes. And when I say play, I meantake a fiction class, take a poetry class, take some ofthe writing classes in communications, take all ofthe different types of writing you can and kind offigure out from there what you want to do. Or be-yond that, ask a professor. If you have stuff written,if you have a notebook filled with things, schedulean appointment; get some advice. We have talentedwriters, like Jeremiah [Massengale] over in commu-

nications who has written for Relevant, USA Todayand all these publications. Then you have MarianneWorthington, who is a fantastic poet and she’s incommunications. You may not even know she’s apoet; most students may not even know. So, reachout to us; it’s what we’re here for.

AK: What would you say is the most importantthing to know in order to be a writer?

JT: I think the most important thing to know is thedifference between those who are successful at itand those who are not is that the successful writerhas figured out a way to overcome resistance. AndI get that term resistance from Pressfield’s “The Warof Art” and I think it’s so true. Basically, you’ve fig-ured out a way to stick with it; you sit your butt inthe chair. I mean, you can sit there and think aboutall these things that could happen, like “I could havea bestseller or I could do this,” but until you put thetime in and actually do it, you’re not going to doanywhere. That resistance can come from that sortof thing, that daydreaming, but resistance can alsobe in the form of fear, that you’re not good enough.You have to be kind to your creativity and yourimagination and you can’t just expect it to show upany time you expect it to. If you haven’t written ina month or so and then start writing, you can’t ex-pect it to be on. It’s a relationship, you have to spendtime with it. Honestly, that’s how you get published.That’s how you become successful because you justdo it. That’s probably my number one piece of ad-vice. No matter what those little voices in your headare telling you, just do it.

AK: What kind of writer were you as an undergrad-uate compared to now as a professor with an MFA?

JT: I was a procrastinator to be honest because I hadsome natural ability, I would just put it off. I wasone those students the other ones hated because wecould have a 10-page paper and I would still get anA on it even though I didn’t spend as much time assomeone else. I hate to even say that; that’s aca-demic writing. I could procrastinate more with aca-demic writing than with creative writing. I would

procrastinate with creative writing, but sometimesthat would make me work harder because it forcedme to sit down. When I had so much time to write ascene, I would be like, “oh, I can do somethingelse.” In those instances, I think it forced me to haveoutput. I think I was pretty typical in that way of alot of students who procrastinate. I didn’t start writ-ing a lot of creative work until my junior year andduring those semesters, I was taking 18.5 hours, soit was rough. I didn’t have much of a social life nowthat I think about it. Now, it’s always about figuringout when I can do it. That changes when you’re astudent and have all these different obligations andthen when you graduate, you have a different set ofobligations. It’s all about when I can honor this de-sire that I have. I wish I could say it gets easier, butI don’t think it really does. I still have different typesof obstacles, distractions and obligations. I don’tknow if that’s encouraging or not. (laughing) Peoplewill be like, “Why do you do this?”

AK: Is there anything you would have told your 20-year-old self that you know now?

JT: I actually thought about this question or somevariation of it because I sometimes wish I hadwaited to do my MFA. With that being said, I knowthat if I didn’t have my MFA, I wouldn’t be teachingright now, so it’s one of those catch-22’s, but I don’tthink I was really ready at that time to get my MFA.It’s kind of like how, and I don’t know if you can re-late to this, but I think it would have helped me morewith my writing because I think about all those craftlectures I went to and I was there, but I wasn’t reallypresent. Now, that’s all I want [craft lectures]. That’sall I want. Sometimes I wish I knew that I didn’thave to rush to get there; you don’t have to chargeahead, you can take your time. Obviously, I didn’thave a bestseller by the time I was 30, because I’mpassed that now, but I think that’s what I would do.Just live life because that’s how we get the materialto write about. Just live and don’t feel so rushed toget there.

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Photo submitted by Tedarrius Teasey

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The University of the Cumberlands recently participated in the NationalDay without Stigma, focused on raising awareness about mental health, but theincrease in knowledge about this issue seems to be far from over. Within recentyears, the United States has seen an increase in the number of individuals con-cerned not only about their own mental health but the mental health of thosesurrounding them. Across college campuses, UC included, this awareness is tak-ing a more drastic shape.

In a recent study conducted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness(NAMI), it was found that there were common mental health concerns acrosscampuses. Among these, depression, anxiety, eating disorders and suicide rankedhigh. While some students may tend to believe that their campus is immune tosuch mental health issues, the statistics show otherwise. That same study foundthat one in four young adults suffer from a diagnosable disorder.

Sydney Freeman, a UC senior, knows from experience just how difficult abattle with mental health can be. “I have struggled with bulimia since I was asophomore in high school,” Freeman shares. “I began taking medicine for de-pression and anxiety my freshman year in college… I know what it’s like towant to take my own life.”

NAMI concludes that 75 percent of mental health conditions that have alifetime course have onset prior to the age of 24. Those are rough numbers totalk about, yet Michelle Helton, a licensed counselor with the UC counselingservices program, believes that they have significance.

“What it should mean to students here at UC is that they’re not alone,” Hel-ton comments. “I know these problems exist, and they don’t go away when stu-dents come to college. They tend to actually worsen. But just because they’resuffering from a problem doesn’t mean that they’re the only one.”

Yet, those struggling with their mental health often do feel alone. In a 2012survey released by NAMI, 40 percent of students surveyed with a diagnosablemental health condition chose not to seek help. The common reason for thisseems to be a general fear of the stigma associated with mental health concerns.UC senior and president of the human services honor society, Alex Schaich,

agrees. Schaich was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder before attending college,yet was reluctant to seek help.

“There was a stigma attached to it. If you came out and said that you hadanxiety or you were dealing with panic attacks or depression, it’s like sayingyou weren’t mentally tough enough or strong,” Schaich recalls. “Especially ona college campus, we’re taught to be strong and to deal with it, we’re goingthrough a really weird phase right now. We’re learning to become adults andlearning to deal with things on our own, to be on our own. With that comes alot of stress and anxiety. On college campuses, that’s something that’s not talkedabout enough.”

Yet, the questions remain: Why fear the stigma, and is the fear of the stigmaalone enough to keep students from reporting their concerns? A unique compo-nent is placed on students and other individuals living in the South, where theculture is so highly dependent on self-reliance. Many may feel that if they cannotovercome the issue on their own, it isn’t something that can be helped. Addingto that, there may also be an element at play given a high reverence for Christianprinciples.

In an article titled “Can Prayer Cure Mental Illness?” published by Psychol-ogy Today, 48 percent of survey respondents who identified as Christian agreedthat mental illness (things like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or evenschizophrenia) could be cured simply by reading the Bible and prayer. They re-ported that they believed there was no outside source needed to combat mentalhealth concerns. Moreover, in a paper entitled “Demon or Disorder,” Dr.Matthew Stanford, of the department of psychology and neuroscience at BaylorUniversity, presents that 30 percent of survey participants reported a “negativeinteraction” when they sought help from their churches concerning their mentalhealth. According to that report, these individuals were told that their mentalhealth concerns were the result of sin or demonic forces. Moreover, a majorityof the women who sought help from their churches were outright dismissed orcounseled to not seek further help or medication.

BY TRENTON CANADA

Assistant Editor

Shattering the Stigma Raising mental health awareness on campus

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Schaich comments on how she has experienced some of these thoughts. “Iwas raised a Christian, and I am a Christian, but I think that in the church it’skind of overlooked and not talked about,” she states. “I was raised to pray aboutthings, to go to my church, and I think to a certain point that helps, but therecomes a point that you need someone else to reach out to. You need someoneto acknowledge that this is something real, something that you’re going through.You can only do so much on your own.”

Freeman adds, “I changed churches. I stopped condemning myself becauseI learned the Christ does not condemn me. Learning who I am in Christ andwhat I have in Him has changed everything.”

Still, what is to be said about those who feel trapped? There are still thosewho suffer from mental health concerns yet simply do not seek treatment be-cause they feel that prayer is enough. Helton has a response to them.

“Mental health is often stigmatized in church. It’s thought because you’renot praying enough or you’re not close enough with God. That’s absolutely notthe case. Even in the Bible, they sought counsel from other people. So, you’recoming to us just to talk things through.”

Following this thought further, there is help out there for UC students whofeel overwhelmed. Under the direction of Dr. Emily Coleman and Debbie Harp,UC recently restructured its counseling services program, which is free to stu-dents and is located in the Correll Science Complex.

Dr. Coleman states, “Regardless of what campus you’re at, mental healthneeds are growing. We’re very aware of that. We started asking ourselves,‘What’s another way we could look at counseling services and increase our op-portunities to support students’ needs?’ Now we have a website highlightingcounseling services. We have a client portal, where students can make theirown appointments. They can even look at the profiles of our counselors to seewho they may better connect with.”

Helton adds to this, “There are going to be some students who may not feelcomfortable speaking with a female. There may be some who are not comfort-

able speaking with a male. We can accommodate that. The one thing that I wantto stress above anything else is that there is no judgment here.”

“Counseling is something that can help anybody. Anyone can benefit fromit at anytime. Help is here,” Helton confirms. “I often make the analogy that ifyou were diabetic or had high blood pressure, you wouldn’t hesitate at all toseek help. Mental health should be no different.”

Counseling services’ online portal, which can be accessed through the uni-versity homepage, contains a list of outside sources of information about com-mon mental health concerns and possible courses of treatment. Also online,they list telephone hotline numbers for those severely depressed or consideringsuicide, an though there are students suffering from diagnosable illnesses, Hel-ton assures that often time students simply need to talk about their stresses,though she is not the first one that students often reach out to. Students whofeel overwhelmed or who feel that their mental health is suffering can reachout to any number of individuals, including friends, professors or even athleticdirectors.

“There are a lot of outlets on campus,” Dr. Coleman states. “If the studentslive in the residence halls, they can work with their residence hall directors.I’ve even received referrals through coaches who think that a student couldbenefit from help. We’re here to receive those. We’re here to offer services tostudents if they’re in need.”

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Features

On Tuesday, September 29, 2015 our nation celebrated what is personallymy new favorite holiday, National Coffee Day. A day that is meant to keep youcaffeinated and infatuated with the coffee chains that keep us going. Many ofthe places that run our lives with coffee continued the trend of giving out freecoffee in celebration of this great day. Many, except for Starbucks, who is ar-guably the leading name in coffee. Don’t worry, they have not suddenly for-gotten how the world works or how free coffee can be a call to all, insteadStarbucks launched their new “One Tree for Every Bag” commitment wherethey will donate to plant one new coffee tree for every bag of coffee sold intheir stores. These are not just regular coffee trees, but trees that scientists haveworked to make more effective in the fight against coffee rust. They want toensure that National Coffee Day can be a holiday that people like me can jit-terily celebrate for years to come.

I do not wish to alarm you, so hold onto your mugs, but coffee is actuallybecoming less and less attainable as the years go by. This can be blamed on,Hemileia Vasatrix, or more simply put, coffee rust which, according to theAmerican Phytopathological Society (it means science of plant diseases), is arapidly increasing threat. No, Coffee Rust is not what happens when you forgetto wash out your metal cup in the morning, it’s actually a fungus that is wipingout coffee bean trees making it harder to keep up with the demand. This coffeeleaf disease affects innumerable trees every year and appears in splotches that

appear to rust away the leaves of the coffee trees. What does that mean for thecoffee consumers of the world? Quite frankly, it means that supply is no longermeeting the demand and coffee is going extinct.

I asked some other UC students how they felt about the impending blowthat coffee rust promises to deliver and, such as I, they feel strongly about it.Senior Brody Nolan simply said, “This is literally the end of the world.”Senior Sydney Freeman answered with a deadpan, “I’m dead inside.” I know,I know, I too am frightened for what I will become should the java giant leavethis world.

In fact when I told my very own roommate, junior Amber Gastineau aboutthe threat to coffee she immediately responded with, “I’m scared of what you’llbe without coffee. I didn’t know that coffee rust was a real thing, it doesn’teven sound real.”

However, I assure you, dear reader, that this threat is very real but thank-fully the new “One Tree for Every Bag” commitment started out with an al-ready donated one million trees and the promotion will run for one full year.If you have ever needed any better excuse to go to Starbucks in the next year,go now. Because now you know and knowledge is power. You can invest inour future to help ensure that it involves coffee. Only you can prevent coffeerust from wiping out the supply, only you can save the world.

BY LIZ GUILLERMO

Sta ff Writer

Starbucks Perks Up to Save Coffee’s FutureA Coffee Conundrum

Photos by Sydney Freeman

Sports

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This past Saturday, September 26th, the University of the Cumber-lands Patriots football team and the Union College Bulldogs football teamtook to the field, to battle for the Brass Lantern, a tradition that has beengoing on for years. The final score to the game was 42-29, with the Patriotsgetting the win to bring back the Brass Lantern trophy back to Williams-burg. Matt Rhymer, UC’s head football coach explained, “It’s a historicalgame dating back to the early 1900s. I know the game means a lot to eachof the two teams, their universities, and communities. The game is a sig-nificant game for recruiting purposes. I have experienced this game as afootball player and coach; it’s an awesome atmosphere.”

For both teams this game is not a regular game; there is a lot to playfor including the Brass Lantern Trophy that is passed between bothschools. According to the Union College athletics page, the Lantern rep-resents the coal mining industry, paying homage to the major industry inSoutheastern Kentucky where both colleges are located. This game is always a crowd pleaser, with the stands being packed everyyear. “The game was packed. The amount of support from fans, studentbody, faculty and staff along with the community was great. I believe per-forming in front of fans like ours should make our team play good everygame. The energy passed from stands to the field and vice versa works outto our advantage, “ said Wendall Williams, starting wide receiver for theUniversity of the Cumberlands.

Williams added, “The win affects me a lot being a senior. Losing tothem last year how we did on their home field played a big role in the waywe came out to play this year as a team. I think the whole team was onthe same page about the significands of the brass lantern and what it meansto get it back to UC, “said Williams.

This is not it for the University of the Cumberlands, this win was bigbut there are many more games to be played and goals to accomplish.“Each game we are trying to improve and with the adversities this gamebrought. How we responded under those circumstances proves to us thatbeing disciplined and having great character always prevails. Our goal isfor this team do it’s very best with the talents and abilities that God hasblessed us with. We know that without the Lord we are nothing and cando nothing. We want to be great people, great students, and great competi-tors. Our football team always needs to reflect the pride, class, and char-acter that this great University possesses, “ said Rhymer.

BY DJ HITE

Sta ff Writer

All about that brassUC Football reflects on the Brass Lantern victory

Photo provided by Will iam Turner

Faith & M

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Photo by

Shyann Norris

“War Room,” a recently released film by the same producers whobrought us “Facing the Giants,” “Fireproof,” and “Courageous” is anothersuccessful story that teaches viewers of God’s everlasting grace. The filmshows a family of three who lives in a nice home with two working parentsand a young daughter. The family may not struggle financially, but spiritu-ally and emotionally they battle relentlessly.

The mother of the family, Elizabeth Jordan (Priscilla C. Shirer), worksas a real estate agent and meets her newest client Miss Clara (Karen Aber-crombie). The two women strike up a friendship after Miss Clara showsElizabeth her favorite room in her house, her “war room.” This room is filledwith prayers and bible verses Miss Clara has written on sheets of paper andplaced them on the walls. Miss Clara talks to Elizabeth about her prayer lifeand encourages her to start a war room of her own.

The acting performance given by several actors in this film is phenom-enal, especially that from Karen Abercrombie. She does an amazing job trulyselling a pure hearted, authentic character to the audience. Her character iswise, honest, and humorous in a sense that viewers will feel like they havejust left their grandmother’s house as they exit the theater. Also, at the closeof the film she delivers a monologue, in prayer to God, which is inspirationalto say the least.

The various settings of the film are exceptional as well. From the homes

to the husband’s corporate buildings the set really matches with the messagethe producers are trying to send to the audience. For example, the homes ofthe two women match their personalities exceptionally well, which enhancesthe believability of the entire storyline. There is also a specific scene wherethe husband, Tony Jordan’s (T.C. Stallings), boss, Coleman Young (AlexKendrick) is contemplating a very tough decision in regards to Tony. Cole-man is gazing out the multiple stories high office window over the view ofthe city, which symbolizes the vastness of his answer to this situation.

The film ends with the display of 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people whoare called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face,and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will for-give their sin and heal their land.” Overall, “War Room” stays true to thesewords from scripture and captures over and over again the unending streamthat God’s grace is. The characters of the film display that through faith,prayer, and submission to God’s will, He can accomplish much more in yourlife than you could ever imagine.

BY ASHTON RECTOR

Assistant Editor

On the battlefield

Photo credit: Dav id Whitlow, courtesy

of AFFIRM Films/Prov ident Films

A review of Kendrick Brothers newfilm, War Room

Feature

Photo by Eric Ford Edwards

Faith & M

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How to succeed in Him

Have you ever been so overtaken by the stress in your college career that you forget where God is? Have you ever been so beaten down when youare studying for a big exam that just cannot grasp the material? Have you ever stopped to think, “Have I prayed about it as much as I have studied it?”Sometimes life takes over so much that we leave God out of the stress thinking we can do it all alone, but we can’t. Most of the time we just completelyzone in to the test we have tomorrow but not the One who holds tomorrow. How can we focus so much on one little occurrence of the day but simplytell ourselves we do not have the time to focus on who has already overcome these small occurrences for us?

This is where we need to learn to reverse out study habits. Take breaks to pray and be in the Word rather than to get coffee and donuts. Take timeto pray over the material rather than to vent to a friend. I, being a devoted stress-er, am even guilty of just venting to friends of how nervous I am orhow unprepared I feel, yet still forgetting to just give God my fears and worries. We often forget to ask Him for the wisdom we need to take the exam(or whatever is stressing us at the time) and we forget to ask Him to calm us and give a peace like only He can. This is where we are failing. InDeuteronomy 11:15 (KJV), God says, “And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full.” This is God’s promise thatHe is enough and will give us what we need if we ask for it. He will “fill us up” with the knowledge we need and ask for.

Often in the most stressful times in our life is where we see the most improvement and success. God tells us; however, that to see that success wemust go through Him. Ecclesiastes 5:19 (KJV) says, “Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him to power to eatthereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.” I have too many times seen (even in myself) after a huge exam orpaper that we try to exalt ourselves for the good grade we made and blame God for the poor grade we made. Have you ever thought maybe it is theother way around? Maybe that poor grade was because God wasn’t in it and you saw no success. Maybe the good grade you made was because youasked God to intervene but when it was all said and done you tried to take all the credit when in reality, God is the reason why you performed as wellas you did.

Sit back and evaluate yourself. Let yourself go so that God shows through more. Hide yourself behind the cross and let Him do the work. In Psalm28:7 it states that, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trust in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with mysong will I praise him.” Let us all give God the glory. Let go and let God.

A devotional

BY SHYANN NORRIS

Sta ff WriterPhoto by Eric Ford Edwards