Lindsey Horrell's Essay Submission
A Woman of Inspiration: Tori McClure
The boat tossed with the crashing waves of the North Atlantic Storm. One woman, with a shoulder injured from a nasty jolt of her row-boat, contemplated signaling for help. Calling for help would be admitting defeat. Was she ready to relinquish her dream of becoming the first woman to row across the Atlantic? For the first time in a life fraught with challenges such as skiing to the South Pole and the more visceral need to protect her mentally-handicapped brother, this woman felt vulnerable. After several capsizes and acceptance of eminent death, Victoria Murden McClure did something she never dreamt possible. She asked for help. Rather than succumbing to this temporary set-back, this inspiring woman later returned to the North Atlantic to accomplish her dream.
Listening to Victoria Murden McClure speak about her adventures compelled me to reexamine how I experience life. When born, God equips every human with an internal telescope. Just as telescopes enable people to view the extra-terrestrial, God gives us the tools to seek His hidden mysteries in this world. A child may look at a field of dandelions, pull out her telescope, and see the flowers form a beautiful necklace. As the child grows, however, her telescope shrinks to the more practical binoculars utilized by many adults. Her binoculars, too weak to picture the elegant necklace, now expose only weeds invading her yard. Ms. McClure’s lessons provoke recognition of my own set of binoculars and a desire to reconnect with my inner telescope.
Binoculars are useful in many situations. They provide a focused view of objects of interest. One must first have some glimpse of the object, however, to know where to point her attention. Telescopes, on the other hand, reveal planets, stars, and satellites that one cannot imagine or view with the naked eye. In life, many view education with binoculars. They create an image of the person they want to become and see education as a necessity for obtaining this goal. Tori McClure, who has received degrees in law, divinity, and writing, challenges me to examine learning through a virtual telescope and recognize it is not merely a means to an end, but rather an endless process that opens doors to infinite opportunities.
While the life of Victoria Murden McClure seems so adventuresome and romantic, I ponder why anyone chooses to trade a telescope for binoculars and limit their vision of the world to the image of their own circumstances. When accepting a set of binoculars, people exchange their faith in adventure for fear of the unknown, their curiosity for life for dread of death, and their pursuit of success for fear of failure. With her tales of rowing alongside whales and skiing across uninhabitable lands, Ms. McClure heightens the pressure of the binoculars pressed against my eyes. Under her example, I brushed the dust from my internal telescope and vowed no longer to blind myself with fear and worry. The view is too remarkable to miss.