Third Place: Do You Trust Me? by Keziah Clarke ’13

Do you trust me, right this second? From the tone of my voice, do I seem worthy of your acceptance? If a stranger came to your doorstep dressed like a homeless person who smelled and looked as though he may have been involved in illicit activities, looking for a place to stay the night, would you let him in automatically?

In Homer’s mythological world of elaborate hospitality, strangers were instinctively welcomed. The Greeks washed, clothed, and fed them before even thinking, “Why the heck are these people whose names I don’t know eating my food in my home?” Granted, that was quite a while ago, and by using that ideology the city of Troy was utterly annihilated, but its principle remains untainted. Trust in its purest form comes without a catch.

Supposedly, when I was much younger, I went up to a woman who was smoking and told her point blank that if she didn’t stop she would go to hell because Jesus didn’t like sinners and smoking was a sin. The double-edged blessing of being a young child is that your perception of the world is still quite pure, and everything is determined by the list of things you can currently recall you are not supposed to do, which means everything else is deemed trustworthy. That doesn’t leave much room for middle ground. But when you experience the world and the fallible nature of humans—especially when you yourself can’t always seem to make the best decisions—something fades.

There is an innate correlation between truth and trust, so when you lose one the other quickly follows. Over time we (Earth’s human inhabitants) have lost the ability to have complete confidence in one another. Distrust is automatically assumed, for danger lies in the unknown. Well, not all strangers want to kidnap your children, lure them predatorily with candy or, god forbid, sexually abuse them. People are messy. Trust is fragile. Certain people have been working overtime to see how far we can possibly test each other before we clash like collision-bound oncoming trains and lose hope in humanity and goodness. But from what sappy romantic comedies, the Apollo 13 space mission, and the Bible tell me, giving up, losing faith, and counterproductive retaliation are not options.

In the Bible, from the book of Matthew, a man walked up to Jesus and asked how many times he must forgive his sinful brother: seven times? Jesus answered: not seven, but seventy times seven.

After ten years of being sieged inside their deteriorating city, the Trojans still accepted that god-forsaken wooden horse. It killed them, but they died virtuously. After losing his wife to an invited guest, red haired Menelaus did not lose faith in wanderers; having learned his lesson fairly, he kept his doors open.

Fifty years ago, seven months before “I have a dream”, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech at Groton. His sentiments were quite similar to those in Washington, and he spoke of tolerance, acceptance, and the importance of speaking up and objecting to injustice. Even after the second swearing-in of President Barack Obama, Dr. King could still give a similar speech highlighting the ongoing need for basic human rights, and it would be as poignant and meaningful as it was so many years ago. That’s sad. It’s not enough to say we should love each other and treat one another equally because we cannot escape the things we fear the most: having faith in fellow man and being wrong. There will always be people who do terrible things, but that should not, cannot, jade our ability to trust. We have to consciously alter and change our perceptions of the world, on our own, as individuals. We just have to be willing, like Menelaus, to take that leap, remind ourselves to keep moving society forward, and refocus our perspectives. Until one day the volition it takes will turn instinctive.

So I return to my query: do you trust me? Is it because I present the exterior of an educated, informed, well-meaning girl? Can you honestly see beyond this without more insight? Do you really know me? For all you know, I could be the elusive murderer, the homeless person on your doorstep. Perception is everything. It certainly was for the Trojans.

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Third Place: Do You Trust Me? by Keziah Clarke ’13