Volume 2025 Parnassus | Hephaestic Voices

Letter from the Editor

Hephaestus is the son of Greek gods Zeus and Hera. Upon his birth, he failed to meet his mother’s expectations—with his dark complexion and rough, hairy, deformed skin—so she cast him down from heaven in disgust, never to be seen or heard again. However, defying her expectations again, Hephaestus would rise back up with vengeance as the god of fire and blacksmithing.

At the threshold of a quarter-century, Parnassus sees a campus where student struggles and faculty terminations are painted over by marketing and expansion priorities. It sees a country where presidential elections fail to make many people feel seen because of their political candidates. It sees a world where senseless wars are fought in Ukraine and Israel that extinguish life and divide God’s people in every corner of His Creation. Before you ignite the voices of Taylor University—those that have been cast down and quieted by these hurts yet those which now rise up in flames. It was not the vision of Parnassus to ignore these subjects, but to embrace them. For that, this journal makes no apology.

Hephaestic Voices begins with The Struggle—the struggle of silence and grief. It journeys on through changing Seasons, conflict, and division until the Last Minute where it finds Jesus to redeem this great sin and suffering of going unheard. It finally ends with the start of a new journey—the Long Journey of Flaming Hope ahead.

Hephaestic Voices tells a full story from cover to cover. Each piece sings with and to those before and after it to create one seamless chorus. Each voice speaks to one another, just as Gloria Carey writes in her poem “Voices” featured at the beginning of this issue. But my hope is that they speak to you as well—that they can help you rediscover your own voice in a clarified reality. That as you read this year’s issue and see the story unfold you can point to a page somewhere within and shout, “I’m here, I’m here!”

To the authors and artists featured in this issue, I thank you for your works which have come to define and set the tone for this entire edition of Parnassus. Thank you for trusting me and my staff in being a part of the story we are telling this year.

To the authors and artists not featured in this issue, I thank you for your passion and vulnerability. I want you to know that even if your submissions were not selected to fill these pages, they were still heard. Every stroke and every word. This year, Parnassus received more submissions than ever before; it was an immense pleasure to get to know each of them intimately yet an incredible agon to choose between them. Truly, if I could print a book with every one them, I would.

To my staff, I thank you for your unending patience and grace through this entire process. It is not easy to assign one image and one theme to the countless ideas we discussed. Truly, this year’s issue could not have been what it is without your work.

To Matt, I thank you for bringing our theme to life with your enamoring illustrations on our poster and cover, and I thank you for bringing Hephaestus into the conversation. Thank you for your grace as I demanded the world; your work never went unnoticed. Truly, you spoke to this campus in ways I never could.

To Dr. Housholder, thank you for making a life and career out of giving people a voice. I know that I and every student who has had the gift of being in class with you has been empowered to make their voices heard; I thank you for giving me the chance to do the same for others through leading Parnassus. Truly, without your encouragement, guidance, and behind-the-scenes battles, this year’s issue could not have existed.

I thank God for the gift it has been to bring this book to life. Finally, to the readers, I thank you for picking up this book and accepting the fire upon its pages. Please enjoy Hephaestic Voices, and remember to MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!

Roach
2025 Editor-in-Chief