Like all college reunions, this one provoked nostalgia, but it tied my student years to events of the present day, too

As we shared past experiences, I developed a new appreciation for my professors in that southern Christian college. The place was, I now realize, an island of growth in a sea of a less than Christian time and place. We could ask questions, express doubts, and be stimulated by a faculty remarkable for a combination of intellectual toughness and Christian transformation.

If our professors exemplified the best of Christian scholarship, the college’s administration taught me another lesson. We southern young people, brought up to be polite and courteous, rebelled against the food served in the cafeteria. Rather humorous in the light of the social ills we could have chosen to rebel against.

Nevertheless, I learned what happens when two sides of an issue face each other, especially when one occupies an inferior position, as we students did. The college administration insisted on meeting us with cold logic, irritated that unformed students could question their assertion that the food was acceptable according to institutional norms.

The deeper issue was not the food but our desire to be taken seriously, to be listened to.

I think about that time when I study the youthful (and not so youthful) protestors of today. I am not much of a protestor. I’d rather dialog with those with whom I disagree. Protests tend to encourage a them/us atmosphere, even lead to violence. Nevertheless, those protested against, usually the stronger side, can seize it as a chance to dialog, not yielding to the temptation to name call or label or dismiss the protestors as the worthless ignorant. Better if both groups learn respect for the other, even journey toward a bridge that both may cross, a bridge formed by two opposing views coming together in a new and stronger joining.