John Prendergast Lecture

Reflection- Only a Fraction of an Understanding

            Okay, so I’ve told you all (my classmates) about how difficult it is to recover from the loss of my oldest brother. I’ve expressed to at least thirty people how constant the grief is after the death of a sibling. However, in all honesty after listening rather attentively, if I might add, to John Prendergast’s speech about the domestic war in the Congo I really began to think about the life I live, and how fortunate I still am. I know how cliché and self-centered this reflection may appear, so let me clarify that this response is supposed to symbolize everything contrary to this. Because of this lecture with Mr. Prendergast I have gained a different understanding of life.

            After hearing John Prendergast’s lecture on the civil wars in Africa, my heart sank to the bottom of my stomach-literally. Through his powerfully descriptive words and passionate tone, Mr. Prendergast was truly able to evoke a ton of emotion from his audience. I appreciated his style of lecture because it appeared more so that he was talking with us and amongst us, rather than to us or at us as an audience. Not only did he blow us all away when he illustrated the brutal conditions of the ongoing issues occurring in Africa, but he built us up as college students when he informed us about how we have limitless potential to change the society in which we live in today, and for this I am appreciative of him even more. People always hear about how they make a difference in numbers vote or rally together or whatever. Yet, Mr. Prendergast showed us [as college students] how we make a difference already and how to continue doing so. I was honored at how much respect and gratitude he showed us even when we ourselves view one another as just silly, college students. Furthermore, during his lecture I was awed at how pragmatic he was.

            In some parts of his lecture I was unable to sit comfortable in my chair. I found that during the really graphic points he made in his lecture, my face began to scrunch up and I began to squirm in my seat. Nevertheless two things I am certain of- I am naturally an overdramatic person, and this is exactly the reaction (whether felt internally or acted out eternally as I did) that Prendergast wanted to conjure from his audience. Often times I was incapable of fathoming conditions such as the ones in which the citizens of the Congo have undergone. But even in just imagining just a fraction of the pain and hardship in which they experience as victims of war was enough to truly just leave a person speechless. Honestly, I shake my head in dismay at how cruel people can be. I sincerely hurt for the victims of war in the Congo. And, I now question some of the values I live for.