During my trip to New England last week, I was able to visit Harvard University. I had not been back to my alma mater since my final graduation there in 1992. Of course I enjoyed plenty of nostalgia, which I generously shared with my wife. I thought I’d share a bit with you, through some pictures.
Photo below: Harvard Square, with my freshman dorm in the background. I was on the first floor of Straus Hall, with my bedroom window facing Harvard Square. Quite an experience for a formerly suburban Californian!

Photo below: The Charles River, with Harvard houses (dorms) in the background. During my freshman year, my job was washing dishes in Dunster House, the building with the white tower and red dome.

Photo below: The steeple of the Memorial Church in Harvard Yard. I heard some fascinating sermons there, some of which were right on. Others pressed the edge of acceptability, while some plummeted over that edge. One Palm Sunday, a visiting preacher’s point was the “Jesus was a turkey” because he let people think he was the king. That wasn’t the set up to something more. It was the point.  Oh well . . . .

Harvard, as you may or may not know, was founded for the purpose of training people for Christian ministry. Among the college’s founding precepts you find this statement:

Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisedome, Let every one seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seeke it of him (Prov. 2:3).

Thought the university seems to have lost sight of this goal, I’m pleased to report that many students and faculty at Harvard continue to uphold it. Thanks be to God!