As a freshman in college, I lived in an on campus dorm at Franklin & Marshal College in conservative Lancaster Pennsylvania. Though we boasted one of the nation’s largest shopping malls, just outside of town was a sizable Amish community where open horse drawn buggies were the main means of transportation. It was a quiet country place.

College life revolved around classes, the cafeteria and fraternity parties. But dorm rooms were places of refuge where we deliberated, shared care packages of cookies from home and studied the birds and the bees. Perhaps it was a fad of the times, but many students hung posters on their dorm room walls. Most of these paper reproductions had words along with a picture. The messaging was always encouraging and though provoking. I often found solace in these artworks. One poster I have never forgot had the verse, “If you don’t understand my silence, you will not understand my words”. As a stumbling freshman and now as an adult, this sentiment continues to resonate.