Isaac Taylor
Hometown: Overland Park, KS
Major: Architecture
Next Steps: Architecture Position at SFS Architects
What would your life at KU look like without St. Lawrence?
Life would probably look pretty much the same except for one major difference: I’d be a whole lot less joyful.
If I am anything, it is persistent. “Finish what you start;” My parents ironed that into my character from a young age, less so by words than by example and silent expectation. I fully expect that I would still be studying architecture and attending Sunday mass if not for the SLC, but there would be little life in either activity. SLC taught me that there is a joy to be found in everyday activities.
What is the biggest risk of faith you took at KU?
“Persistent” is just a kinder way of saying “stubborn.” It has been difficult for me to trust God, chiefly in His simplicity. To believe that how he desires to bring about sanctification in me is, in fact, precisely by my own desires, is astonishing.
The biggest risk I took of faith at KU was also the one that set me on fire. I was sitting in Mass one day my sophomore year feeling unfulfilled, seeking and desiring something I could not express. As if it was an answer to that unspoken desire, I then heard God speaking undeniably through Fr. Dan in an announcement for Samuel Group. The risk was choosing to enter a program I was too young to be a part of with people I truly did not know (though I had sat next to them for a full year).
That risk introduced me to the Sisters, confession in earnest, spiritual direction, the Koinonia Retreat, and a community. Samuel Group, more than helping me discern a vocation, it helped me discover that our faith is founded on something tangible… I also discovered that something was the object of my unspoken desire I had been seeking.
How would you describe your experience of community at St. Lawrence?
I saw the community of SLC early on, but it took a while to feel integrated into it. Due to my major and non-involvement my first year, I was rarely at the center except for an occasional event. Even in Koinonia, it took till I had to literally deliver a talk about how we are all a part of one mystical body that it clicked: I had a home here; I was a part of that body. My story has been one of seeking: who God was, who I was, and how to get involved. I Longed for the thing I never realized a had unconditionally, if only I got out of my head and experienced the present moment.
Following that Koinonia, my experience changed. People I have never spoken to came up to me, knew my name, and were genuinely interested in me. I still was unable to spend much time at the Center, but that meant that I cherished each moment I could. The SLC grew my desire for community exponentially with every minute I was surrounded by it.
With some tragic flair, however, the moment I realized what the community was 1) COVID hit, and 2) I joined the service team (where I served for two years as first reunion coordinator and then service team leader). In those positions, I recognized what the community I sought, but was once again outside of it all. I knew it, not because I am a part of it, but -God willing- because I facilitated its flourishing. I loved these people, but the cards fell in such a way that my love was to be expressed like a father’s: I sacrificed nearby, but still somewhat separate from them.
How are you called to continue to build community after college?
I’ll be working at SFS Architects: a dream come true to be sure. God, in His goodness, arranged for them, my #1 choice in KC, to reach out to me before I even asked. They, as a firm, are excellent, but, moreover, have the honor of having been one of the archdiocese's main architects for the past 20 years. I will have the opportunity to LITERALLY build the community of the faithful (or at least the spaces they will occupy).
Experiences at the St Lawrence Center have taught me that the best evangelization strategy is having no strategy at all. God uses our earnest desires to reveal Himself through us. I love Him, and I love architecture: I am confident that He will be made known simply through faith coming up in conversation or just by the way I design buildings.
Who has been one of your greatest guides at St. Lawrence? How did they guide you?
Sr. Ruth has been my Spiritual Director for the past 3 years and has guided me greatly in an understanding of my yearning for greater interior freedom and leisure in our sessions. I am deeply grateful for our conversations, and for the opportunity, through her, to begin to learn how to share those deep places of my heart.
There have been, however, occasions where nearly every member of the staff has guided me. As mentioned in a previous answer, I had difficulty feeling like I was a part of the SLC -due primarily to the perceived demands I had of my major. I wasn’t around the center unless I was at an event. Therefore, John-Michael floored me by simply knowing my name without my telling him - I was not involved at all with Focus yet he knew. Kyle did similarly to me by his natural ability to draw people out of themselves in conversation. Stacy floored me with her own story and her vulnerability, Dr. Murray with his ability to state deep truths simply and compellingly, and so on.
How have you grown in interior freedom?
I, melancholic and temperament, used to place value primarily in being the perfect type of whatever I was involved with. As I was a student: being the typical student; as I was a son being the typical son; as I was an architect: being the typical architect. I strove for excellence in these roles yet found great discouragement in how I continuously failed to live up to these ideals.
Freedom is a choice made for the good, but early in college, it did not feel as if I had the agency to choose. My growth in interior freedom has come through the continual yet slow loosening of my grasp on these ideals, subordinating them to who I am as a human being, not vis versa. This is not relativism (i.e., you do you) but a recognition of the beauty inheritance in my own uniqueness and my identity as a beloved son of God.
St. Augustine gives us the formula, ‘Love God and do what you will.” It is a simplicity that astonishes me. In my friendship with the creator of the universe, I am free to do whatever it is I desire, because, by being united to Him, His desires have become my own. I can be a great student, or son, or architect, not because I achieve certain thresholds, but because I delight in being those things naturally.
In leisure too (understandably a connected difficulty, for if I was always focused on being the best, it was something I never had time for), I can sketch or play volleyball with friends in the certitude that He delights in those actions. He rested on the seventh day not because He needed to, but as an example for us to do likewise. G.K. Chesterton notes that the things which are the most worth doing are worth doing poorly: in doing them without expectation, we truly rest and, paradoxically -or at least in my case- discover that we do those things better anyway.
What is the biggest lesson that you learned at St. Lawrence? How will you carry that into your adult life?
The biggest lesson I’ve learned at the SLC is that faith can be personal. It’s obvious, but I never considered that it could be me-personal. Holiness is being the person God made you to be. That does not mean being lesser or different but paradoxically more of the person you already are.
When we look at the Saints, we see that each is wildly unique: unrepeatable. It is compelling, and I hope to carry into my adult life the perspective that every person I meet has the capacity to be a beautiful story the world has never heard, nor will ever hear again. Who is this person before me: I hope to always have the desire to find out?
Describe a situation where your faith impacted someone else.
The Fall after COVID hit, I moved into a house that also serves as the events center for a non-denominational campus ministry. I’d been going there for their free food on Monday nights and because of few of my architecture friends were involved, but this was a step more fully into their community. Living at the house exposed me to the faith and practices of the evangelical movement, and in turn, exposed them to the faith of Catholicism.
I went into the house with aspirations of being a light of the fullness of the Truth they already believed -anticipating vaguely many debates or rosaries said obviously in the living room- but God humbled me in the best way possible. I failed to be as courageous as I aspired, but simply the way I lived my life differently than them caused enough for a few rich conversations and opportunities to invite them into Catholic things.
They, deeply loving Christ, naturally had questions about how other denominations understood Him (they often church hopped around to witness it firsthand). Catholicism, with all its tradition and ritual, was fertile ground for questions to sprout from, and I, being present to them, giving them the permission to ask. I was able to intellectually explain devotion to Mary, the structure of the Mass, and Confession to those who needed those answers as well as be the familiar element in the foreign and overwhelming experience of the Mass (even if one of them went exclusively because he wanted to hear the pipe-organ).
Other thoughts you'd like to leave us with?
It is strange to consider how the journey has hardly begun. The SLC has left me with more self-exploration to do than when I entered college, the typical time of discovering things about yourself. Cheers.
There is an analogy that has stuck with me, which summarizes my experience at the SLC and where I will be headed in my faith well. Perhaps it is appropriate since Jesus is the bridegroom, but the analogy compares my faith to dating. In dating, there is the initial stage of attraction to the other. They are alluring for some reason we can’t explain or for some surface-level attraction (i.e., She’s hot). Then follows a period of curiosity and discovery about the person (dating) wherein we learn just how deep a beautiful this person is. It has a honeymoon phase (wherein everything is awesome) before it mellows out and becomes the new normal. The love that was there originally is not gone, but it has matured and now will deepen continuously over the course of the lifetime spent together.
I’ve just graduated from the honeymoon phase, the SLC was that awesome discovery phase. I am committed to this Person Jesus Christ who I discovered wanted a relationship with me too. What’s next? A lifetime to delight in each other’s presence, and to learn more deeply about each other. The bride and groom can claim to know some facts about each other, but they’ve only really just begun to build a life together. Facts grow into experiences, knowledge into understanding. Who, actually, is this Person? How is it that He actually cares for me, and will not abandon me, though He knows exactly the wretch that I am. I want to understand.