Wow, that's shiny... but will it work?

So to be honest, I wasn't really sure how this whole Proxé thing was going to turn out.

Of course, I was excited; the concept was really cool, the board was definitely the slickest survey that I'd ever seen, and it provoked some serious thinking about some pretty important topics. But at the end of the day, I couldn't help but ask myself, "How will Swatties respond to this?" "Will people actually want to do it?" "Are people going to really engage or are they just going to be polite, or worse, will they just blow us off?"

So was my thought process on the morning of September 15th, sometime in the last 2 or 3 minutes of Organic Chemistry.

And it didn't help either that I was part of the first team to man the station along with Maisie; we had little idea of what the actual process of taking the survey was going to look like, no section in the SCF Book of Wisdom to fall back on, and no people preceding us to tell us what was working, what questions seemed to be most thought provoking, and what might be good to include in conversation if a person brought up such and such issue. I know, we had been trained (thanks Kathleen!). But, for me, it was like taking a person who had trained in a pool all his life, throwing him into the ocean and saying "Ok, now swim to the other side".

So there I was, stickers and post-its in hand, eyes shifting up and down the walk in front of Parrish. I spotted someone I knew, then my mouth started moving before I could think.

"Hey Eliza! You have a minute to take a quick survey?"

Well Houston, it seems we have liftoff. I know, sorry about the whole countdown thing, but you can't really call the shuttle back at this point...

So the next five minutes go something like this: Eliza takes stickers and post-its, Eliza puts post-its and stickers on the board, Eliza cocks her head to one side, Eliza puts another sticker on the board. Then Eliza turns around and hands the stickers back to... Maisie? Um, hey, you kinda took my person, but that's ok, cuz there's another person here that I've somehow invited to the station.

Yeah, things went quick, but they also went surprisingly well. From what I could hear from Maisie and Eliza's follow-up discussion, the varied answers on the Forgiveness spectrum had given Eliza some pause. Another survey taker was intrigued over the conditions presented as necessary for helping another person: "They all seemed kinda selfish, I would like to think that sometimes I help people when there's nothing in it for me." Another commented on how strange it was that while a lot of people said they had been shown grace and didn't deserve it, the concept of grace being worth anything was all over the spectrum. Still another wondered at the honesty of people who might have put stickers in places based on the trend and expressed admiration for those who were outliers and therefore were probably really honest about how much they deserved or how much they forgave.

Mind you, this was between 10:30 am and noon; it wasn't even half of the day. But if my hour and half experience was anything like what happened up until 5 (which I heard it did), then I can do nothing but wonder at what I was so worried about.

God had a plan for today, and I knew it. But if any of you know me, you know that I'm definitely the kind of guy who would look to God and say, "Are you sure about this Lord? Couldn't you just let me in on just a tiny portion of today's checklist? I mean really, I know you know what you're doing and all, but it'd be nice just to have a little assurance."

But of course God just chuckled as I was doing a follow-up with a survey taker who said, "Friday at 7? That's sounds pretty cool, I'll try to make it out to that...Hey Melinda! You should come and take this survey! No really, do it!"

Be excited folks, God is moving in a mighty way at Swarthmore, and you definitely want to be in on it.

-Nate