Mary Belfry Hansley '67
I transferred from Mt. Holyoke into the Class of 1966 my junior year, I actually extended my time at Northwestern by a summer and extra semester as I changed my major from Mathematics and Chemistry to History and Literature of Religions and Anthropology.
Threading through my entire life has been the sense that I wanted to know the meaning of the 'whole' - wanted to find something to which everything else would relate, to which everything was connected. Although I did not recognize myself to be a relational thinker, I did recognize that such a 'framework' was necessary for me to function at my best. Religion (from the root meaning 'to bind back') was the only discipline that had the 'whole' embedded in its subject matter. I also recognized that religion is that discipline from which ethical and moral directions are generated. This led me to see that I was learning the answers to 'Who/Whose am I?' and, therefore, 'what am I to do?' (Anthropology studies also enlivened these questions as I explored how human beings organize themselves.)
Threading through my entire life has been the sense that I wanted to know the meaning of the 'whole' - wanted to find something to which everything else would relate, to which everything was connected. Although I did not recognize myself to be a relational thinker, I did recognize that such a 'framework' was necessary for me to function at my best. Religion (from the root meaning 'to bind back') was the only discipline that had the 'whole' embedded in its subject matter. I also recognized that religion is that discipline from which ethical and moral directions are generated. This led me to see that I was learning the answers to 'Who/Whose am I?' and, therefore, 'what am I to do?' (Anthropology studies also enlivened these questions as I explored how human beings organize themselves.)