Personal Narrative: The Virgin Mary Statue

The Virgin Mary Statue

Kindergarten through fourth grade was absolutely beautiful. We all sat together at lunch, played tag together on the playground, laughed and listened to the teachers together in class. Then fifth grade rolled around, and all my friends started to evolve, and for the worse as I saw it. We all started noticing things that we weren’t aware of before. We used to be like a bunch of happy naked babies, absolutely oblivious to the fact that we were all unclothed and different from one another. Then, some of us took the role of Eve; we became seduced into eating the forbidden apple and offered it to our friends. We started realizing that despite the fact that we were all wearing the same black plaid uniforms,

I remember often dreaming that someday the Virgin Mary Statue would be removed and there would be nowhere for the girls to hide. Nevertheless, I realized as I grew older that there would always be some people hiding behind something from someone even when there were no statues to escape to. There would always be someone who wasn’t accepted. And there would always be the several people who would cling onto any sense of belonging in order to feel

When I got to college, I started to view fraternities as Virgin Mary Statues. All the freshman boys, no matter how much they denied it, wanted to be included and identified with something that gave them security. Many had their moments of vehemently declaring they did not want to be associated with a particular group, with a particular house. Yet, when all the frat boys came out wearing their house tee-shirts that had their Greek letters proudly gleaming on their chests, I could see most of my guy friends “eyes” take notice of this; I could see them secretly wanting to be the ones who could strut about with such tee-shirts themselves. How could anyone blame them? You come to a totally new and unknown place. You’re by yourself for the first time. You need to have something, someone to turn to. Fraternities seem like the perfect answer. Yet I’ve noticed over and over again that the very system that proclaims to promote brotherhood most often creates disunity. I’ve seen fraternities create selective brotherhood. I’ve seen them turn my friends into clones of what the fraternities are supposed to represent. I’ve seen identities squashed, and I’ve seen young minds branded. I’ve seen these very young men run behind Mary Statues when they do not see one of their