Welcome to my blog! If we haven't already met, please take a look at the right of this page for a brief description of who I am and my plans for formation and service with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) in Nicaragua from December 2014-2016. Thank you for joining me in this journey! I hope you will continue to be with me, as I hope to be present with you, Nicaraguans, fellow JVs, Jesuits, donors, and the larger JVC program. I hope all involved in this journey can be present with one another as equal partners. I also hope to foster dialogue here in the comments section below each post about any comments, suggestions, concerns, memories that arise. Please also feel free to follow by email by entering your email at the link on the right: you will only receive an email update when I have posted new content. Thanks!
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I find it hard to believe that I am here and now. By "here and now," I mean: four months after being offered a placement to serve with JVC in Nicaragua; two months after graduating from college; four days after completing JVC's two-week Orientation at the University of Scranton; and four months from moving to Nicaragua for two years. Talk about transitions! It's been a time of serious flux with many uncertainties, surprises, joys, and challenges. Leaps of faith and conversations; laughter and sorrow; "see you laters" and "forever hellos"; World Cup watch parties and a silent retreat; changing identities and dependable relationships; dancing and resting; learning and unlearning; action and reflection; being loved and loving. The things that make life so interesting.
Having just finished Orientation at the University of Scranton, I feel there has been very much a culmination of these things. Over the last two weeks, I was reminded of why I said "Yes" to JVC in the first place: the people and the program's values. I first came across JVC when I felt drawn to post-graduate service and time for discernment about what might be next for me. From my college experiences, this developed into a draw to service abroad and doing so with a focus on community and spiritual growth; I particularly felt called to the Jesuit sense of spirituality, also known as Ignatian spirituality after the Jesuit founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola. (* for my limited explanation of Ignatian Spirituality.)
This same sense of spirituality played out in the application process with JVC which included two unique pieces: mutual discernment and apostolic availability. First, mutual discernment meant that throughout the application process, we talked about not only whether I would be a good fit for them, but also whether they would be a good fit for me. This first piece fed into the second piece, apostolic availability, which meant that applicants be willing to serve where the program best matched the volunteer and work-site. In the mutual discernment process, I was able to share my desires for where, when, and how I might volunteer, and JVC took this into consideration. Eventually, when JVC offered me the placement in Nicaragua, I had two days to accept the offer and commit to living their four values, with the hope that I had discerned whether JVC would be the right fit for me by the time I was offered a placement.
Saying "Yes" was a big step, but the mutual discernment process helped me to see why JVC's values would be a good fit for me. After returning to a practicing faith in college, I felt drawn to post-grad programs rooted in spirituality. After being part of different communities back in college, I felt drawn to living alongside people who were willing to wrestle with questions of faith and injustice. After traveling to El Salvador and being with and hearing the stories of many marginalized Salvadorans, I felt drawn to serve the poor and marginalized, live in solidarity with them, and be present with them in their joys and sufferings, which are too often overlooked. And I felt drawn to doing all of this with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, who creates an opportunity for volunteers to do all this at once. And with the Jesuits, who at their best appear to approach faith and injustice with open hearts and minds, dialogue, discernment, holistic care, global awareness, and a preferential option for the poor. (cue: Pope Francis, the Jesuit Martyrs, St. Ignatius, Pedro Arrupe, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jon Cortina, James Martin... a few I have encountered more intimately.)
I felt this same spirit when I met other applicants in the application process and at our Orientation. All of this continues to inform my ongoing "Yes" to JVC and its values, alongside other JVs. It also helps to balance the challenges that come with saying "Yes" to: living away from family and friends for two years; embracing the ups and downs of community living; only having visitors in the second year; waiting (im)patiently to be in Nicaragua; and saying "see you later" to JVs and staff who won't be serving in/near Nicaragua. However, within these tensions of saying "Yes", I do feel a growing sense of falling in love with this something new...
Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
- See more at: http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/prayers-by-st-ignatius-and-others/fall-in-love/#sthash.OBoZsN6l.dpuf
*Of those reading this, there is likely a spectrum of familiarity with Ignatian spirituality: from those who know nothing to those who attended Jesuit schools/parishes for much of their lives. I personally am only just beginning to understand it more fully. For my very limited and brief description (readers more familiar with this, I would love to hear yours in the comments section), Ignatian spirituality holds core tenets for a practical, real-life way of cultivating an awareness of what is good in our lives, examining our desires, and directing these desires toward what is ultimately good. I am actually moving through a "must-read" book for Jesuit Volunteers called "The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything" by James Martin, a Jesuit. The book has been great so far as I seek to learn more about JVC's value of spirituality; moreover, it is presented for the broadest audience, including "Spiritual, Religious, Spiritual but Not Religious, and Everything in Between." I recommend it so far, and hope to learn more about Ignatian Spirituality through it. I hope to do a future post on the book.
