If you're interesting and have a couple of minutes, you can check it out too. Just go to maps.google.com and search "Dolores Mission School, 170 South Gless Street, Los Angeles, CA 90033". Enjoy!
Saturday, July 31, 2010
1 week!
In exactly one week from now, I'll be in flight to San Jose, CA! I can't wait to meet my casamates (I guess I'm going to have to get used to using Spanglish!), learn more about our work, and start life as a JV! This morning, as a little celebration of this fact, I took a little tour of my neighborhood and Dolores Mission School's neighborhood using Google Maps. I can't believe technology sometimes. It's crazy that I can take a walking tour of the area and see kids playing on the street and vendors selling popsicles (or maybe paletas? yum!). The playground at DMS looks awesome and large, despite being in the middle of LA. I can't wait to be teaching PE out there!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Need
What is need? We all have needs, but what makes a need worth serving and worth dedicating a year of my life to?
This morning I was at Target with my mom and while we were checking out, the cashier asked me about what I was doing this fall (assuming it was back to school shopping, I think) and when my mom told him I was going to be doing missionary work in Los Angeles, he looked completely shocked, stopped what he was doing, and said "LA? really??" I said yes, and he said something about being surprised because he always thought missionaries served in places like Indonesia, Africa and South America, not in the US. He then added, "I guess people here need help too." But it seemed like a consolation statement to me.
Why do we so easily assume that the needs of those outside our country are so much greater than those within the US? I am guilty of it too, so I'm not trying to accuse this guy of anything. But, what does it mean when JVC states that its volunteers "serve where the need is the greatest"?
I'm not really sure what word or idea I am wondering the meaning of,but this brief conversation really stuck with me and has left me confused. More on this later with more insight hopefully!
This morning I was at Target with my mom and while we were checking out, the cashier asked me about what I was doing this fall (assuming it was back to school shopping, I think) and when my mom told him I was going to be doing missionary work in Los Angeles, he looked completely shocked, stopped what he was doing, and said "LA? really??" I said yes, and he said something about being surprised because he always thought missionaries served in places like Indonesia, Africa and South America, not in the US. He then added, "I guess people here need help too." But it seemed like a consolation statement to me.
Why do we so easily assume that the needs of those outside our country are so much greater than those within the US? I am guilty of it too, so I'm not trying to accuse this guy of anything. But, what does it mean when JVC states that its volunteers "serve where the need is the greatest"?
I'm not really sure what word or idea I am wondering the meaning of,but this brief conversation really stuck with me and has left me confused. More on this later with more insight hopefully!
Friday, July 9, 2010
Transitions
So often, I get wrapped up in planning - planning the morning, the weekend, the next six months, the rest of my life. When it doesn't happen as I had planned, I get frustrated and annoyed, with myself and the situation. I ask myself what did I do wrong and how can I manipulate it so it is better. What are my flaws that prevented the "correct" outcome?
A while ago my friend Jen suggested I read the book Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan and after waiting unsuccessfully for it to be available at my library, I finally bought it and read it on my plane ride to San Francisco last week. Sullivan tells the story of four best friends and their journeys post-graduation as they each search for personal happiness, love, and success, while trying to transition from college to adulthood. While the characters lives and college experiences are much more liberal than mine, more than a few lines and ideas hit me like bricks and made me reflect on my desire for constant purpose, plans, and perfection.
"In college, half of what they had talked about was what came next - what would they do for work, where would they would live, whom would they fall in love with? .... [But after college, she realized that,] most of the time, the choices just made themselves." (p. 182)
Despite planning so much for where I would live and what my career would be all throughout my undergrad, God obviously had plans for me, much grander and more challenging than I ever would have imagined. Four years ago, I didn't know who the Jesuits are. Two years ago, I didn't know what JVC was. I hope this year to be able to let go of my own plans and allow God to work through me in a much greater way than ever before. I want to live in every moment.
The first year out of college is your "freshman year of life... It's going to get better, I swear." (p. 52)
This year is going to be an experience. It is going to be full of ups and downs, challenges, struggles, and successes. Like freshman year of college, I am going to again learn how to live independently, yet in a new type of community. Like freshman year, I will have to again learn how to balance time, priorities, money, work, relationships with family and friends (old and new), spirituality, and personal well-being. Like freshman year, I will have to form and trust my new support system as we use our diverse pasts to help us form the future, learn about the world around us, and share in our experiences. Like freshman year, I will need to take chances, step completely outside my comfort zone, and be okay with making mistakes.
"What will survive of us is love." (p. 160, from Philip Larkin's "An Arundel Tomb")
I will only be living, learning, and serving in this community for a year. Similar to lesson learned during my student teaching, if I only touch one life, it is a success. While that seems insignificant, I need to keep in mind the domino effect of spreading love and compassion. My physical presence won't last in the lives of the children I serve, but hopefully, I will be able to show them patience, kindness, respect, and love, that will stick with them and help them to be examples for others. Similarly, with the JVC phrase, "Ruined for Life", the experiences and relationships formed during this upcoming year will continue to shape my relationships, priorities, and choices for the rest of my life.
In short, Commencement helped me to realize that my planning isn't going to change God's plan. Everything is going to work out, but there will be plenty of ups and downs in the road to make the journey worth the ride and prepare me for the next stage of my life. And so, with this blog, I hope to create a space for sharing my experiences and my reflections on this year.
A while ago my friend Jen suggested I read the book Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan and after waiting unsuccessfully for it to be available at my library, I finally bought it and read it on my plane ride to San Francisco last week. Sullivan tells the story of four best friends and their journeys post-graduation as they each search for personal happiness, love, and success, while trying to transition from college to adulthood. While the characters lives and college experiences are much more liberal than mine, more than a few lines and ideas hit me like bricks and made me reflect on my desire for constant purpose, plans, and perfection.
"In college, half of what they had talked about was what came next - what would they do for work, where would they would live, whom would they fall in love with? .... [But after college, she realized that,] most of the time, the choices just made themselves." (p. 182)
Despite planning so much for where I would live and what my career would be all throughout my undergrad, God obviously had plans for me, much grander and more challenging than I ever would have imagined. Four years ago, I didn't know who the Jesuits are. Two years ago, I didn't know what JVC was. I hope this year to be able to let go of my own plans and allow God to work through me in a much greater way than ever before. I want to live in every moment.
The first year out of college is your "freshman year of life... It's going to get better, I swear." (p. 52)
This year is going to be an experience. It is going to be full of ups and downs, challenges, struggles, and successes. Like freshman year of college, I am going to again learn how to live independently, yet in a new type of community. Like freshman year, I will have to again learn how to balance time, priorities, money, work, relationships with family and friends (old and new), spirituality, and personal well-being. Like freshman year, I will have to form and trust my new support system as we use our diverse pasts to help us form the future, learn about the world around us, and share in our experiences. Like freshman year, I will need to take chances, step completely outside my comfort zone, and be okay with making mistakes.
"What will survive of us is love." (p. 160, from Philip Larkin's "An Arundel Tomb")
I will only be living, learning, and serving in this community for a year. Similar to lesson learned during my student teaching, if I only touch one life, it is a success. While that seems insignificant, I need to keep in mind the domino effect of spreading love and compassion. My physical presence won't last in the lives of the children I serve, but hopefully, I will be able to show them patience, kindness, respect, and love, that will stick with them and help them to be examples for others. Similarly, with the JVC phrase, "Ruined for Life", the experiences and relationships formed during this upcoming year will continue to shape my relationships, priorities, and choices for the rest of my life.
In short, Commencement helped me to realize that my planning isn't going to change God's plan. Everything is going to work out, but there will be plenty of ups and downs in the road to make the journey worth the ride and prepare me for the next stage of my life. And so, with this blog, I hope to create a space for sharing my experiences and my reflections on this year.
Words
In preparation for moving to Los Angeles and the predominantly Latino community of Boyle Heights, I've been trying to brush up on/finally learn Spanish. Using the Rosetta Stone method in which you are supposedly taught in the same manner as a baby would first learn a language, experiencing it in real life settings in which you connect words/phrases with pictures, in contrast to the way I learned in high school in which the English words were regularly used to give the Spanish words meaning, I realized that there are a lot of Spanish words and phrases that I'm learning that I honestly don't know what exactly they mean. For example, a picture of a woman frying food in a pan is connected with "cocina", meaning "cooking", but technically she could also be "frying", "sauteing", "browning", etc. So as I work with this program, I am expected to just accept what the words mean through the pictures.
This experience brought me back to an earlier realization/freak out that I had while writing my JVC application essays. When asked to write a paragraph response to a question such as "What is your understanding of charity? What is your understanding of social justice?", I realized, holy cow, what if I don't actually know what charity and social justice mean? These words were such common lingo at SLU and with JVC that I took their meaning for granted, using context and experiences to create my own meaning for the words. But I never really knew the dictionary definitions of either of them. So naturally, not wanting to totally miss the mark in my responses, I looked them up in the dictionary. But this led to even more confusion because these perfect definitions were not so perfect for me; they were flat and lifeless.
So where am I going with all this rambling? I am hoping to construct a framework for my hopes and desires for my JVC experience. While I realize that I probably will return next August with more questions than answers, I hope to have more experiences to connect with terms such "charity", "grace" and "solidarity", as well as with the four JVC values of "community", "spirituality", "social justice", "simple living", in order to be able to construct more complete meanings of these terms, helping me to continue to serve others, build stronger relationships, and promote justice.
Thank you for visiting my blog and your interest in my journey! I hope that the experiences through which I find deeper meanings will inspire you too to search for more complete understandings of words, concepts, and societal norms which we all so often take for granted.
This experience brought me back to an earlier realization/freak out that I had while writing my JVC application essays. When asked to write a paragraph response to a question such as "What is your understanding of charity? What is your understanding of social justice?", I realized, holy cow, what if I don't actually know what charity and social justice mean? These words were such common lingo at SLU and with JVC that I took their meaning for granted, using context and experiences to create my own meaning for the words. But I never really knew the dictionary definitions of either of them. So naturally, not wanting to totally miss the mark in my responses, I looked them up in the dictionary. But this led to even more confusion because these perfect definitions were not so perfect for me; they were flat and lifeless.
So where am I going with all this rambling? I am hoping to construct a framework for my hopes and desires for my JVC experience. While I realize that I probably will return next August with more questions than answers, I hope to have more experiences to connect with terms such "charity", "grace" and "solidarity", as well as with the four JVC values of "community", "spirituality", "social justice", "simple living", in order to be able to construct more complete meanings of these terms, helping me to continue to serve others, build stronger relationships, and promote justice.
Thank you for visiting my blog and your interest in my journey! I hope that the experiences through which I find deeper meanings will inspire you too to search for more complete understandings of words, concepts, and societal norms which we all so often take for granted.
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