DigitalCommons@C.O.D.

Palatinus, Kirstin

Duet for Guitar and Accordion

Hehir-Rupp, Claire

Arbitrary Oscillation

Daly, Una

Introduction to CCC-OER: Una Daly

Hofer, Amy

Librarians & Instructional Support Staff: Promoting OER Adoption

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 41 | Number 1 Article 4
Fall 12-1-2018
Editorial Team
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr
This Prefatory Note is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for
inclusion in The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu.
Recommended Citation
(2018) "Editorial Team," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 41 : No. 1 , Article 4.
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol41/iss1/4
Editorial  Team
Editor-in-Chief                        
 
 
 - Eleanor Zilius
Production Editor
 - Madiha Saber
Marketing editors
 - Ronda Crawford
 - Troy Bissonnette
Assistant Editors
 - Alexandra Weston, 
 artistic direction
 - Miguel Contreras, 
 Editorial team
Advisor
 - Trina Sotirakopulos
Fall 2018 Journal .indd   3 1/3/19   4:35 PM
1
et al.: Editorial Team
Published by DigitalCommons@COD, 2018


English

Editorial Team

Weston-Slapinski, Alexandra Rose

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 41 | Number 1 Article 7
Fall 12-1-2018
Rainbow of Yarn
Alexandra Rose Weston-Slapinski
College of DuPage
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr
This Artwork is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu.
Recommended Citation
Weston-Slapinski, Alexandra Rose (2018) "Rainbow of Yarn," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 41 : No. 1 , Article 7.
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol41/iss1/7
Rainbow of  Yarn
Alexandra Rose Weston-Slapinski
Fall 2018 Journal .indd   6 1/3/19   4:35 PM
1
Weston-Slapinski: Rainbow of Yarn
Published by DigitalCommons@COD, 2018


Rainbow of Yarn

Pfeiffer, Morgan

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 41 | Number 1 Article 19
Fall 12-1-2018
The Moon Knows My Name
Morgan Pfeiffer
College of DuPage
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr
This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu.
Recommended Citation
Pfeiffer, Morgan (2018) "The Moon Knows My Name," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 41 : No. 1 , Article 19.
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol41/iss1/19
The Moon Knows My Name
I often find
when I cannot sleep
I stare out my window
instead of counting sheep.
I look at the stars,
they’re always the same.
I map out their places,
I call them by name.
I listen to crickets
chirping their songs;
The toads croaking happily
about the grass getting long.
The nocturnal creatures.
The craters of the moon.
The sound of the night
and its calming perfume.
As I lay wondering,
it starts to seem
that I know of them,
but do they know of me?
Morgan Pfeiffer
Do the crickets know
that I’m listening in?
Do the stars look down
and measure my grin?
Do the trees gently rustle
in the breeze just for me?
And sway in the starlight
to keep me company?
Because the people I know
are asleep through the night.
Their brains all shut off
when they turn out the light.
But I’m not the same,
my imagination takes flight.
I lay awake in my bed,
I’m addicted to night.
I’m friends with the owls.
I’m pals with the moon.
The cold December evenings
and the warm nights of June.
Fall 2018 Journal .indd   17 1/3/19   4:35 PM
1
Pfeiffer: The Moon Knows My Name
Published by DigitalCommons@COD, 2018


The Moon Knows My Name

North, William

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 41 | Number 1 Article 23
Fall 12-1-2018
Watching
William North
College of DuPage
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr
This Artwork is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu.
Recommended Citation
North, William (2018) "Watching," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 41 : No. 1 , Article 23.
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol41/iss1/23
WatchingWilliam North
Fall 2018 Journal .indd   20 1/3/19   4:35 PM
1
North: Watching
Published by DigitalCommons@COD, 2018


Watching

Flannery, Maureen

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 41 | Number 1 Article 30
Fall 12-1-2018
Quest for the Veil of Veronica in Jerusalem
Maureen Flannery
College of DuPage
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr
This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu.
Recommended Citation
Flannery, Maureen (2018) "Quest for the Veil of Veronica in Jerusalem," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 41 : No. 1 , Article 30.
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol41/iss1/30
Quest for the Veil of Veronica in Jerusalem
Lenten Friday afternoon stations of the cross.  We adore Thee, oh Christ, we praise
Thee, because, by Thy holy cross, Thou hast redeemed the world.  My wandering 
attention always circled back to the sixth station. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.  
There must be this record of His features somewhere—map of His facial hair.  
How high the forehead of Christ?  How wide set the eyes? What the noble slope of his 
nose?
I read in an obscure passage of a dog-eared Jerusalem guidebook that the cloth of 
Veronica was in possession of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.  With just one day in 
Jerusalem to explore on my own, I take upon myself a pilgrim challenge to locate and 
view the cloth.
Years ago, in a Mexican market of colonial antiques, one tiny object seemed almost
to emit some force to hold my focus, insist I take it home.  A miniature retablo
depicting the blood-stained face of Christ displayed on a cloth.  Unable to resist,
I paid the inflated price.
In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I accost a string of worshipers until one priest 
directs me through the Old City’s labyrinthine passages to the Patriarchate. I have to 
stop three times on the way to confirm directions, each time closer to zeroing in on  
the right place. A kindly Palestinian man holding a huge iron key opens an imposing 
door and asks how he can help me. I plead that I’ve come to see the veil of Veronica.  
He cannot understand my request but assures me their religious museum has been 
closed for years.   Wishing to be helpful, he opens the chapel for me to see the ancient 
icons.  He contents himself as I marvel at paintings and the elegant throne of the Patri-
arch.  But I am still not dissuaded.  I beg him to ask if I can perhaps even see a photo of 
it. I am impassioned, humble but insistent. He pours me tea, brings biscuits, invites me 
to sit.
Fall 2018 Journal .indd   28 1/3/19   4:35 PM
1
Flannery: Quest for the Veil of Veronica in Jerusalem
Published by DigitalCommons@COD, 2018
Finally I convince him to persist.  He leads me up twisted stairways to where he says I 
am free to request information from the secretary.  A splayed-out tabby cat  luxuriates 
before the worn wooden door. Having knocked three times, each a bit less sheepishly, I 
am ushered into a modern office that might be in any US high-rise, but that this is 
actually Jerusalem.  Three clerics, baffled by my no-Hebrew mime, direct me to one 
young woman who speaks English.  Tear-eyed I tell of my desire to see the Veil.
“I can see this means a lot to you.  Do we even have it?” she shrugs.  “I don’t know if we 
have that.” And off she goes to ask. 
She soon comes back to report, “He’s not even here, but you can wait.”  I try to sit as 
unobtrusively as possible amidst the bustling activity.  She explains that everyone is busy 
getting ready for next week’s visit from the Pope.
I try meditating to quell my impatience as the minutes drag .  At last the arrival of an old 
orthodox priest, long gray beard, black, academic-looking robes, a hat like an eagle’s 
nest atop his head.  She tries to explain why this American woman is sitting in his office.
“No”, he shakes his head vigorously.  “We do not have it.  The Capucin nuns have been in
possession  for centuries.”  He says something to his secretary about the haggling over 
sacred treasures that contaminates the holy places.
 I understand little of it, but she translates. “Down this street, right, left, then right 
again, through the passage beyond the arch, around the fountain,” etc., directions to the 
convent of the Capucin nuns.  “They wear white habits,” she tells me. 
 I bow a thank you and back away, through the old door without disturbing the cat, down 
three turns of stairs with a brief stop to express my gratitude to the Palestinian keeper   
of the keys.
Fall 2018 Journal .indd   29 1/3/19   4:35 PM
2
The Prairie Light Review, Vol. 41, No. 1 [2018], Art. 30
https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol41/iss1/30
 Having followed the Patriarch’s direction, I find myself still among vendor stalls  No one     
seems to know anything about the Capucins.  I ask and ask, retrace my steps, try again.   
Nothing.  All afternoon I traverse narrow streets of the old city.  Repeatedly traversing the     
Via Dolorosa, I mime the kindly gesture of Veronica.  Finally a sweet Jamaican nun leads 
me to the sixth station, the home of Veronica.
Descending stone stairs into a dark chamber, I imagine the young girl having stepped
 outside into the offal of contaminated streets to see a man straining under the weight of a   
huge crossbeam, trudging up toward the skull place.  
Moved by compassion she grabbed a  cloth and dabbed His blood-stained face. 
The impression of His pained features stayed on  her veil.
 Surely here they can tell me where I might see it.  A small stall in the same building sells      
Russian-style religious paintings.  The French-speaking nun returns from the back room   
with an icon of Veronica holding the cloth.  
  “No,” I insist, “I was hoping to see the real one.  The very one. The original image.”  
 “Oh,” she looks gently amused but not mocking,   “It’s legend.  The actual cloth does not    
exist.”
 I abandon my search with prayers before the slab of unction that smells of myrrh and is 
 infused with the piety of millions of Christians. ( It is actually not the stone on which                 
Christ’s body lay for burial preparation.  Only two centuries ago it replaced another that     
had lain on the spot since the 12th century. )
 I hadn’t considered the theory that Veronica, derived of vera (truth) and icon (image),
 was a picture of the Word, recalled verbatim—outside the throat, beyond the eye,
 no brave woman at all, but the two-thousand year old embodiment of our
 desire for some physical evidence that He lived, that He walked the sorrowful way
 to Golgatha, past a woman full of compassion. 
  Maureen Flannery
Fall 2018 Journal .indd   30 1/3/19   4:35 PM
3
Flannery: Quest for the Veil of Veronica in Jerusalem
Published by DigitalCommons@COD, 2018


Quest for the Veil of Veronica in Jerusalem

Krzysztofiak, Jason

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 41 | Number 1 Article 43
Fall 12-1-2018
COD's Mac Lab: Giving Life to a Space
Jason Krzysztofiak
College of DuPage
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr
This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu.
Recommended Citation
Krzysztofiak, Jason (2018) "COD's Mac Lab: Giving Life to a Space," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 41 : No. 1 , Article 43.
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol41/iss1/43
COD’s Mac Lab: Giving Life to a Space
 
 Tick, tock. Tick, tock. The perpetual ticking of the clock above the entrance 
seems to embrace every student that enters the Mac Lab, tucked away to the side of a 
discrete community college. Its function is simple, provide tools for students to com-
plete their assignments and studies – within comfortable reach to the classes that those 
same students endure. Though not a living entity, it seems to breathe and maintain itself 
as if a self-maintaining and rational being. No utility is left unused, nor broken, a simple 
existence, one that accepts its reliability with no real desire to be acknowledged.
 Tick. As though on cue, the adjacent classroom roars in a cacophony of boister-
ous claps and cheers – a sound that the voice acting class within has seemingly imprint-
ed into the very walls themselves. Wafts of early morning coffee and bagels still linger 
throughout the hallways that leak into the Lab, the usual suspect peps into the Lab. A 
young pale girl, with ginger hair frosted with faded violet highlights, carrying her cup of 
coffee that which radiates warmth and comfort until gently placed onto the wood table, 
falling to a chair, and beginning her work. The lingering buzz of an idle color printer pro-
vides a comfortable silence, the clicking of keys on a keyboard and gentle conversations 
between various students adds to the pool of cozy white noise. The Lab seems to sigh in 
relief.
 Tock. Suddenly, the white noise dissipates like fog, a clustered and energetic 
group of students flood out the adjacent classroom, with a heterogenous handful of 
students. A larger tomato-tinted man with an unkempt beard, wrapped in a blue and 
black flannel. A short girl whose jet-black hair seems to selfishly take up the face where 
her Almond colored face should be, desperately grasping her textbook. Every other 
face seems to melt into the pack, with few stragglers wandering behind. Ambitiously, 
students begin to fill up that same classroom and begin to contribute to the silence that 
was once impossible to find in such a busy hall. Now, they begin to spill into the Mac lab, 
evolving that same printer buzz into a deafening whirring of papers being ejected out for 
the loafing students who form a line.  
Fall 2018 Journal .indd   8 1/3/19   4:36 PM
1
Krzysztofiak: COD's Mac Lab: Giving Life to a Space
Published by DigitalCommons@COD, 2018
Print after print, the Lab begins to fill with the aroma of printer toner and ink. A man 
with his hair tied back, a woman with glimmering blonde hair, a boy whose curly brown 
hair cover his glasses, all contributors to this thick haze but all seem to scuttle back to 
class. Not to emerge again until instructed to use the printer for further assignments. 
The Lab despises the environment it has created but yearns to be of any more 
assistance.
 Tick.  The same conversations of students working the lab begin to restore the 
lab back to its relaxed state, the comforting clicks of the keyboards emerge as though 
early morning birds, chirping throughout a neighborhood. Being less chaotic, individ-
uals walking past the clear windows facing into the lab can peer into it, studying it and 
seeing if it holds any use for them and their daily endeavors. A brittle and tanned to the 
bone elderly man casually glides through the hallway, peering in and then continuing 
his errands. Now, students entering and leaving seem more personal. Either being an 
exuberant, man with cobalt colored hair who trots out with a similarly animated tall 
and slender girl whose hair is twisted into a bun, or a restrained woman whose head-
scarf and attire seemed to flow into a beautiful black and green collection of patterns. 
Once within the lab, the mood seems to alter and morph into one that exists to serve. 
The Lab hopes it will be of service again soon.
 It is interesting to imagine something made of concrete, carpeting, finished 
wood, and scattered with electronics as something that aims to connect and assist. Of-
ten, the rooms we enter are not simply foundations that hold people and objects alike. 
They are more than that, they are spaces for emotion and containers within a seemingly 
infinite universe that lay outside them. The Mac Lab is one such example – a room 
composed only of tables supporting computers, with the occasional stapler or printer 
for students’ convenience. It contains the ambitions of every art, business, or other 
field’s student and their desire to begin, continue, or finish what they started. Their 
homework, their degree, their passion, there is an immense potential in the things that 
are ongoing and take large amounts of time to even explore, but the spaces where these 
bodies are encapsulated, that is where the true potential lies.
Jason Krzysztofiak
Fall 2018 Journal .indd   9 1/3/19   4:36 PM
2
The Prairie Light Review, Vol. 41, No. 1 [2018], Art. 43
https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol41/iss1/43


College of DuPage

Not a member yet