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.