Finding a job and a place to live is a top priority for most new college graduates. But James Murray, Class of 1999, deferred those luxuries, choosing instead to live on the streets of Columbus, Ohio, for forty-seven days.

Murray, who had graduated the previous December, joined Columbus-based writer Phyllis Cole-Dai in February 1999 to experience the struggles that homeless people face every day. They lived on the streets without changes of clothing or money for food and shelter.

"I wanted to try to understand the idea of walking in another man's shoes-to try to get past my own assumptions and judgments," explains Murray, who credits his religion major at Kenyon with opening his eyes to everyday struggles. "The major was just phenomenal for me. It helped me to grow a lot spiritually as a young man. It just gave me a great foundation with which to see the world and a desire to explore."

On the streets, Murray saw the world in harsh detail. He and Cole-Dai scribbled notes each day, writing of sleeping outside in seventeen-degree weather, of living in homeless shelters and makeshift homeless camps, and of relying on soup kitchens and trash receptacles for their food. Murray captured images of street life using a pinhole camera that he built from scrap.

The experience took an emotional toll. "As the weeks progressed, I started to lose the ability to spell words at times. I was struggling even to think straight," he says. The knowledge that a warm home awaited him at the end of the forty-seven days did little to help him. "When we were out there, that didn't really matter."

Despite the difficulties, Murray feels that he achieved the goal of understanding the pain of homelessness. Six months after the project ended, Murray and Cole-Dai set out to share that understanding with the world. They pulled together their notes and photographs to write a recollection of their experiences. The resulting book, The Emptiness of Our Hands, was published in 2004.