So I am officially leaving in 6 short days. I was originally going to head out on Friday the 22nd, but found out that I didn’t have to work that day. And since I didn’t want to have to say goodbye to my roommates at 7:30 am and then hang out for 5 hours before heading to Spokane so I have decided to leave on Thursday night.
If you remember from my last blog I talked about the Missoula Marathon, which took place last weekend. We had around 30 people camping out on our front lawn and sleeping in every nook and cranny of the house. It was an amazing weekend full of friends and laughter and lots of local brew! The 7 of us that ran did a great job, but with the ending of the race came the end of the weekend and people started heading back home. This meant GOODBYE. We had to say goodbye to all the other houses knowing that we probably will never see most of them again. Of course there will always be certain people that you will keep in your life and even if its 10 years from now you can meet up with them and your relationship will pick up right where you left it. It’s hard to think that, despite how important of a role some of these people played in my year, they won’t be apart of my life anymore.
Goodbyes are so hard… I mean I guess it’s not goodbye… just see ya later?
Gosh I have just been a mess this last week. I started packing up my room so now Janna and I have been living in a bare room which surprisingly doesn’t help us stay positive about leaving. It’s so depressing just to be in the house. Crazy story time… there were a bunch of papers/pictures we put up at the beginning of the year. Things like our 10 commitments as a community and letters from other houses and all of a sudden this week things have been falling off the walls. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, has fallen off these walls all year until now. It’s like the house is shedding us and getting ready for the new JVs. The JV house in Omak, Washington shoot an Elk this winter and after they had cleaned it they mounted the antlers on their wall. These antlers became a symbol for that community and meant a lot to them. Well two of the community members were saying goodbye and just as they started to pull apart from a hug the antlers crashed down and broke in half (leaving it unrepairable). Even though we pass along the house each year to new JVs I guess there is always a little part of it that is special to our particular year. And even if all of the pictures are gone our house will live in our hearts and in each other forever.
I guess I can pull out a cheesy metaphor right now. Here goes… So everyone gathered in Missoula this past weekend. They came from far and near and most of them came so that we could all be together one last time. Well the 7 of us that ran all finished, but many of us suffered along the way. Some had to stop and walk. Others pushed through, running the whole way. But even our major runners struggled on Sunday for some reason. But we all finished! The JVs who didn’t run were at the finish line for hours cheering each JV on and giving them the extra push to get over that finish line. This is so symbolic of this year. Each JV had their own struggles this year and I don’t doubt that every one of us considered quitting at some point. Every JV I know stopped and walked a bit to take a short break and regroup. But the JVs who stuck through it and finished have been changed forever and have a huge sense of accomplishment. Neither the race nor this year has been easy but with the support of each other we made it… a lot of blood sweat and tears but we did it. Some are going on for another year others are going to grad school and some are gonna try to get a job and make more than $80 a month. No matter what we are going on to next each one of us will hold this year in our hearts and souls and we will all be able to look back on this year and feel a connection to each other, community and of course… LOVE.
What more can you ask for?
Hey all,
So I know it has been awhile since I have written and there is a lot to catch you up on (whoever you is).
Lets start with May…
Well actually lets skip to the end of May because that is when all the fun stuff happened. The last week of May I headed home to attend St. Mary’s graduation as well as my Cousin Ryan’s graduation at Cal State Long Beach. It was great to be home and catch up with friends and family. Most importantly I got to meet my Beautiful Godson Colton Poling!!!! When I wasn’t spoiling him with my love I was sipping margaritas with my bestie. The graduations were great and motivated me to seriously start looking into grad school (I think I figured out where I want to go, but that will have to go in June). It was great to be back at SMC with all of my old classmates. Being around friends, especially friends you haven’t seen in awhile, is one of the best feelings one can experience. It’s just great to be around people who get you and support you no matter what.
Now to June…
June was filled with lots of great experiences! The first in June weekend was our last retreat, which was on a lake in Northwestern Montana. It was absolutely beautiful… and very buggy! This retreat lead us through the Jesuit practice of the Examen. If you aren’t familiar with this practice I would highly suggest looking into it. There are five parts to the Examen and the goal is to help you reflect on your day and find the holy spirit, or greater being, or divine spirit throughout your day. The five steps include: 1. Become aware of God’s (or whatever word you want to insert here) presence, 2.Review the day with gratitude, 3.Pay attention to your emotions, 4.Choose one feature of the day and pray from it, 5.Look toward tomorrow. It’s a wonderful way to stay positive and reflect on the craziness of life. BUT the most important part of retreat was being able to hang out with all of the other JVs!!! It was pretty much the first beautiful weekend Montana had seen so we spent every moment outside. A bunch of us re-learned how to hula hop and others played the extremely fun game of Can Jam (if you haven’t played this I definitely recommend looking into it).
Jen and I also went to the slut walk that happened in Spokane. Although it was raining, there was a pretty good turn out. And the best part was that more than half of the participants were male… YAY!!!!! This made me so happy to see men partaking in a women’s issue that can’t be fixed without their participation.
My house also went to Yellowstone in June. We were supposed to go with Billings, but unfortunately they had to cancel. Despite the change of plans we had a beautiful weekend. Yellowstone is so different compared to Yosemite and Glacier… it’s very prehistoric and a little creepy to think about the fact that you are in the center of a volcano. We borrowed a bunch of camping gear from FJVs and roughed it for a night (well sort of… we didn’t shower for 2 days so that counts right?). Janna, Meggie, and I started a fire and we cooked hot dogs, veggie burgers, and of course S’mores. Overall it was a great weekend and I’m glad we went despite the few set backs.
After my house ran Bloomsday we all thought about the Missoula half marathon (which is next weekend) and decided we would run the Relay instead. We thought that meant we would each run 6.5 miles, which is totally doable. Then we wouldn’t be too tired for our party afterward… this is especially important because this will be the last time we see most of these people… ever :( Well once we finally got our stuff together and sat down to try and figure out who would run what part of the race we realized the relay was NOT split evenly and instead one person would have to run 8.5, the next 8.2 (up hill), the third 5.6, and the last 3.9. So this screwed us all up, but luckily we figured it all out and I am only going to have to run 5.6… YAY!!!!!! I’ll let you all know how it goes and of course how the party goes!!!!
As noted above in May I did some research on grad schools and I am pretty sure I want to go to school for Non Profit Management. I love doing program planning and I think this is a great start to furthering my education and skills in this field. Sooooo… as sad as this may make some of you I think that the school I really want to go to is Northeastern in Boston. Who knows where I will end up in a year but this is looking pretty good right now.
Oh and on top of all of this I got a job offer at the YWCA to work with homeless families who are participating in our Emergency Housing program. Although I would love the job and it would be nice to stay in Missoula, I think it is time for me to move on. Also, I have a lot of personal growth I want to work on next year and I think it will be a lot easier to do this during JVC.
ALSO…. I got a tattoo last weekend. Now before you all freak out please know this is something I have been thinking about for at least 4 years. It is on my right hip just about my Bikini line. It is an outline of a Flor De Lis and underneath it it says hope. I did this because the Flor De Lis reminds me of NOLA and NOLA reminds me that it is not the money that is important but instead human connectedness. The hope is a reminder to stay hopeful for the future, human kind, and myself… that there are good people out there and that I need to keep chugging along with my dreams of changing the world for the better even when it seems impossible. Because ultimately we all have an impact on this world and I want to make sure mine is a positive one and I am living the life that I preach!
July is filled with so many things it’s hard to keep track of everything, but it is going to be a fun month. I head out of Missoula on July 22nd and start my trip home. I will be going to Spokane first, then Medford to see my best friend in the whole world Bryan, and then down to my Aunt’s in Colfax and finally HOME! But of course nothing can be easy… I will only be home for 4 days then my family heads up to Donner lake for our annual vacation. After a week there I will then head over to Santa Cruz for my orientation and finally be in San Jose!
I’m sure I will do a post before I leave Montana but if I don’t I will probably be starting a new blog for next year and will update the address and post it on here so you can follow me on my next great adventure :)
Currently there are protests taking place all over the world called SlutWalks. They are a direct response to a comment made by a police man in Toronto who labeled women and those most at risk for sexual assault as sluts. Then the movement grew, because this isn’t really about one police man in Toronto. This is about victim blaming all across the globe, and people have had enough… especially women. As a society we rearly blame the victim who has been wronged through a crime, but when it comes to rape and sexual assault we have no problems pointing our fingers at the victim and coming up with several ways why it was there fault they were violated… I know this doesn’t make sense… does it?
The movement is attempting to reclaim the word slut, and make a point that even if you are a slut you still don’t deserve to be violently violated. And further more what makes someone a slut and who was given the right to place that judgment on someone? So if you sleep with more than one person are you a slut? Or is it more than 5? Are you a slut if you just fool around with another person and don’t have sex with them? Ahhhhhh it’s so confusing how can I make sure I don’t get deemed a slut.
Well actually I don’t care whether I am deemed a slut or not, because as long as I feel comfortable with my sexual relations and feel respected that is all that really matters to me. And everyone else should just worry about themselves. Why is our society so fucked up when it comes to sexuality and women? And it seems to me that even though there are movements like this and V Day we are still being ignored by the larger society and things are staying exactly the same… how frustrating!
Honestly I don’t think any woman can truly be empowered until all women are empowered and we have a long journey ahead of us until that can happen. So I encourage you to look up the SlutWalks and maybe even participate in one. Look up the V Day website (www.vday.org). Stand up for those who are persecuted and ridiculed because they have been raped or experienced sexual assault. And remember 1 in 4 women will experience RAPE or sexual assault in there life time… so most likely you know many people who have experienced this and just don’t feel comfortable talking about it for fear of what you might think of them.
My hope for the future is that as a society we can be more open about sex, end victim blaming, end violence and sexual violence against all people, and ultimately finally give women a voice and empower the other half of the worlds population!
Last night my roommate and I were talking about how fast March and April went and how much faster May was going to go… This leaves us with about 2 months left…. AHHHHHHH! How did this happen? A few months ago I never thought I would see the sun again and I was pretty sure this year would never end.
I am starting to get very overwhelmed at the idea of ending one year, racing home, going on vaca, and then starting my new JV year. When will I be able to process the last year of my life? When will it all hit me? Some of the JVs who are doing second years in the Northwest were talking about how sad and depressed they are going to be at Orientation because they will be missing their old community and other JV friends they made during their first year. Although orientation is supposed to be a fun week where you can meet all of your new housemates, make new JV friends, and prepare for the start of your year, second years are trying to do all of this while struggling with trying to let the last year go and process the experience. Wow this seems daunting!
Of course I started to get all teary eyed last night thinking about it. I will be all alone going into my next orientation and I will remember all of my amazing friends I met last year during orientation… and they won’t be there with me. I have been apart of this amazing creation of community, not only here in Missoula, but with all of the JVs in the Northwest, and now… I have to do it again. Start all over.
Of course I will have the support of all the incredible people I met this year, but they won’t be there going through the process with me. Don’t get me wrong I am ready for this challenge. I just hadn’t really thought about how emotionally trying it is going to be during the transition.
I was reading the JVC Northwest newsletter this morning and I again started to get teary eyed and chills all up and down my body. Because as I was reading the words of current JVs, FJVs, and JVC staff I felt like I wasn’t alone and that I was apart of something so much bigger than myself. I am going to attach the letter that Jeanne Haster, JVC Northwest’s Executive Director, wrote in the newsletter… enjoy and I hope it reminds you that you are apart of something so much bigger than yourself.
Greetings,
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.Driving Social Change, the first step in social change “involves a personal and/or collective commitment to social change … a fundamental belief that there is something wrong in the world that must be changed. It is built on a firm embrace of the need to take action on a specific issue, such as hunger, poverty, illiteracy, disease … it involves a felt sense of empathy, altruism, and most important, outrage.”
Attending the Cascades Jesuit Volunteer retreat a couple weeks ago, I was movedto hear the values of JVC Northwest lived out as the JVs shared stories of their service with women who have been abused, men in addiction recovery, those seeking shelter from the bitter cold, rain and snow. The JVs struggle with trying to understand deep entrenched poverty and increasing numbers of people coming to our partner agencies for assistance. How do they respond? Has society lost its sense of the common good?
As I write this, Father Bill Bichsel SJ, Susan Crane, Lynne Greenwald, Sr. Anne Montgomery RSCJ, and Father Steve Kelly, SJ, ages 61-84, await sentencing on March 28. They face up to ten years in prison for engaging in civil disobedience protesting the deadly Trident nuclear submarines based at the Bangor/Kitsap Naval base where one of the largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons in the U.S. are housed on eight submarines. Each Trident has 192 warheads with the capacity to destroy 192 cities anywhere in the world within 30 minutes, costing billions of US dollars annually.
The oft-quoted words of former general and President Dwight D. Eisenhower come to mind:
According to Paul Light, author of a new book,
Outrage? Yes! Ethicist Beverly Wildung Harrison years ago wrote about anger as a positive force in the “work of love.” Anger at the injustice of increased numbers of people struggling on the margins in our communities, at nuclear weapons posed to destroy the world, at wars and regional struggles trapping people in endless eddies of death and ravage, at babies and children still dying of hunger, at domestic violence, at the lack of clean water and health care for all.
This Lent, let us feel the pulse of the Gospel’s call for justice and peace, love and compassion, forgiveness and healing addressing the hurt, the pain, the struggles of those who still have no voice. Let us hear the impelling call of Jesus to change what must be changed. Jesus’ expression of anger in the temple, his speaking to the political and economic forces in overturning the temple tables is a model for turning the tables on oppressive structures and acting on our love for all, especially the most oppressed.
According to Aristotle, “We become just by performing just action … brave by performing brave action.” Let us be just and brave — together! I encourage each of us to take a step this Lent, to become more informed, to write a letter, to take a small action, to make a change in lifestyle, to create a stronger “commons.”
The JVs’ struggle to know how to respond to a suffering world is a struggle we all must embrace. May we do so with open arms encouraged by the knowledge that we are not alone, we do so as community.
My best friend, Dani Lucier, was eligible to apply for valedictorian this year at St. Mary’s. Although she did not win, I believe that her speech is inspiring, moving, and thought provoking. So she gave me permission to post it up here… I hope you enjoy.
Valedictorian Speech
“Armadillos–holy
Magic tricks–holy …
Your mother teaching you to slow dance.
The fear returning, the fear overcome– all of it holy.
…Losing your watch in the waves and all that signifies.
The day you got to really speak to your father cause the television broke–holy.”
In this excerpt from the poem “A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me,” Derrick Brown explores the possibility of truly experiencing the vibrancy and beauty of life. Daily. And in doing this, finding “holiness.” Brown says holiness is all wrapped up in normalcy; we just need to notice it.
Whether or not we are officially religious, all of us seek some kind of holiness in our lives. And I think that as we step out into our new post-college lives, that is one of the goals we might want to pursue. As each of us chases what is holy for us, we will need to combine three specific components: joy, gratitude and passion. First we have to recognize the joy of the present moment. Second, we will each have to take a step backwards to experience gratitude for all of our blessings. Third, we will seek our passion as we move to find the driving forces that will define the rest of our lives.
Let’s think together about how to reach a state of holiness by finding each of these elements in the rest of this day and the rest of our lives. A good place to start would be to recognize and define some simple moments as joyful.
Sometimes, though, we miss moments of happiness entirely because it is hard to feel joy when huge, terrible things are happening around us. We have experienced a few of these huge overwhelming moments while we’ve been here at SMC:
—We have all seen or felt the effects of a global economic crisis that altered our notions of wealth and poverty, humbled our expectations and brought some of us to our knees. Some of the people who should be graduating with us right now are not here because of the economic changes that overtook their families throughout this chaotic time.
And we witnessed 30 seconds of the earth violently shaking and flattening what was arguably already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The earthquake in Haiti brought to the foreground a nation wrought by political, social and economic injustice, which was only further damaged through this environmental disaster. Another earthquake in Japan has left damage that we can’t yet understand.
And probably all of us have experienced a major family struggle or personal crisis. Though these moments don’t always reach the scope of the global realm, they can rattle our individual notions of security, make us question the bigger picture, throw us off balance and break our hearts.
While these big, terrible things are happening, it is understandably difficult to see joy. But, by the same token, it is easy to feel joy when we are completely overtaken by things in our lives that are obviously good. There are many instances of this goodness in our experience at St. Mary’s. These moments could include the triumphs of the dance and debate teams, the excellent plays from our theater program, our college earning the Presidential Service Award for the 4th straight year, or, of course, our basketball team making it to the Sweet 16!!!
Moments of extreme happiness and anguish deserve their due. However, the point here is to try and find pockets of joy outside of either of these extremes; to move off either end of this spectrum and to look at the middle — maybe like the golden mean in Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics — to reflect on our average days and see if there is more to be found. I think that if we were to take a look at some regular days in the last four years, we could come up with a pretty joyful list.
For instance:
—“WOWies” and the rugby team dragging your bags up four flights of stairs in 100-degree heat as you meet your roommate for the first time - joyful.
The oversized hands on the statue of De La Salle- joyful.
—Seeing a notice on your classroom door that says, “Class cancelled. Continue reading and see you Tuesday.” – joyful.
—Watching the Big Lebowski for the first time…or the thousandth- joyful.
—Snow- joyful.
—For the athletes out there, waking up at 6am and doing sprints for what feels like hours in fog so dense that you can’t even see 3 feet in front of you - joyful.
—For the science majors, marathon study sessions in Brousseau, which comes to function more as a home than your own bedroom during finals week - joyful.
—For many, touching the baptismal water to your forehead as you bless yourself while entering the chapel for Sunday evening mass - joyful.
— For the off-campus commuters, narrowly missing hitting a fleet of turkeys while driving down Ascot every morning to class - joyful.
—For anyone who has ever visited the campus, hearing the bells. But more than that — having to stop a cellphone conversation when you can’t hear the person on the other end because the bells are ringing. Or maybe, stopping the conversation to hold your phone up in the air so that the person on the other end can listen and appreciate their sound. – joyful.
For those who have clicked onto the SMC website, asking yourself one more time: “Can a machine think?”- joyful.
For anyone who feels the urge, expressing your sincere private anguish in public at The Bash or The Lounge, knowing that there is a huge supportive audience there that is with you all the way, no matter what - joyful.
For a broad coalition of campus activists, sleeping in a tent on the chapel lawn because you are an advocate for this school, for its future, and for those who cannot speak - joyful.
For loyal basketball fans, Aussie-Aussie-Aussie-Oi-Oi-Oi - joyful.
For the people right in front of me right now, finishing your last final on your last day as an undergraduate. –painfully joyful.
The point here is that joy is readily available to us if only we allow it to be. These examples are all casual interactions and mundane occurrences. “Everyday life.” They don’t require anything extraordinary. They just happen. The challenge, at least for me, is to see them.
From here, after noticing that joy is present in our lives, we have to feel gratitude for being in a position to feel that joy. There is no guideline or script for how to be thankful or about who deserves thanks. Still, I think that we can, with great ease, come up with a list of people and moments about which we could express great gratitude.
For parents who have consistently put us and our needs ahead of their own and who have granted us the opportunity to experience such joy. For parents who have answered every phone call for the last four years, ready for whatever might be barreling their way from the other end of the line — from ecstatic stories about friends and classes, to a dissolving mess because the computer just crashed and the 8-page assignment was lost and is due in 6 hours. For parents who have been a part of and supported the decisions we have made in the last four years — from changing majors, to changing majors again, to traveling to crazy places, to shifting ideals and values, to finally vocalizing who we think we are or who might want to be. For parents who —despite what seems to be incontrovertible evidence otherwise — continue to ensure us that it is all going to be ok - grateful.
For sisters and brothers who have come to visit and slept on couches or tiny beds just to spend some time together. For siblings who get jokes that no one else does, who are a painful mirror for us to look at when we need it most, but who, at the end of the day, love us regardless of our screw ups - grateful.
For mentors who have given us a launching pad that is stable enough for us to be confident in our next move, but high enough that we have to take a risk and jump off in order to see what happens next. For those professors who have no problem looking us dead in the eye, right after we are done complaining about all we have to do, to remind us that excellence requires hard work. For those mentors whose office hours no longer seem to apply because their doors are consistently open. For the mentors who we all know work way harder than we can quite fathom - grateful.
For friends who are far wiser than us, who have expanded our limited notions of reality, challenged our preconceptions and loved us right where we are, even when that place is perpetually messing up movie lines and maybe not having the greatest choices in music. For those people who are the ones we need to see everyday, where 12 hours doesn’t feel like a long time and with whom we would be content to sit and chat on the couch for hours - grateful.
For this institution that has provided us a place to live, eat, explore and learn for fours years. For a place where — even in the midst of weeks of seemingly endless rain — when the trees along the front lane blossom, the entire campus becomes even more beautiful. For this institution that is rooted in Lasallian principles and pushes us to learn outside the box - grateful.
For Seminar. Now I know that in all reality no employer is going to ask us if Antigone was right when she disobeyed her uncle and buried her brother. However, the fact that we had the opportunity to read great texts in a building decked out with a painting of Lucifer with translucent wings is a blessing. The fact that we explored high order thought, learned the meaning of effective communication, and explored ways to make big-picture connections and ask big questions will be useful. So, for the seminar program- grateful.
For January Term, where, for a month, and for credit, we get to examine the relative effects of Harry Potter on popular culture, to delve into our dreams and divulge their meaning, to study the chemistry of wine making and enjoy it ourselves, to explore and appreciate the history of women at our own institution, to sleep in tents in foreign countries, to walk in the footsteps of early Christians, to scuba dive in our learning environment, to stand under a waterfall and feel God’s creation beating down our backs, and to hold a child and be convicted that there is always more to be done. There is no learning that could be comparable - grateful.
For the opportunity to figure out how to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable- whether that be in a travel course, a CILSA Saturday of Service, a triple in Mitty, or as you make your way through a class that is just not your favorite. For the opportunity to step outside our comfort zones and find out that there, we not only learn, we transform - grateful.
For the fact that we are able to walk up to a faucet, turn it on and drink from it without questioning its safety. Because we have roofs over our heads that are not more of a danger to our safety than not having one. Because we have shoes on our feet, we are blessed. Because most of us have never had to question if or when we would eat next. Because many of us have seemingly countless resources at our disposal while so many others literally have none. For the simple fact that we can learn about the systems in play that perpetuate inequity and explore ways to effect change – grateful.
For the fact that we are citizens of the world and are held accountable to more than just ourselves- grateful.
Lastly, out of respect for the joy we feel and for those who have made sacrifices along the way, we must not simply be content with the experience as it is. We absolutely must find our joy in all that is around us, but we will find our passion in those things that are not yet there. We will create things, invent things, reform things that aren’t quite enough, and strengthen things that are going in the right direction. We will be bold, live and love loudly. We will refine our passions as they begin to define us.
I don’t think I can make a list here of what our passions should look like. Each of us, as unique individuals, will have to harness this passion and seek it out for the rest of our lives. However, because we are all graduates of Saint Mary’s College, I do think that there are some universal, grounding similarities between our passions. As Saint Mary’s students, we know the founding principle of our institution is “enter to learn, leave to serve.” So, I think that because of our education here, our passions will be big. They will not be small undertakings or simple plans. Rather, like all we have done here, our passions will ask big questions, make larger connections, tackle systemic inequities and invent entirely new systems. We are not a group that colors inside the lines. This place has given us the tools and the resources to identify that which is not yet enough, and find a way to make it more. We have learned how to speak, how to speak our opinions in an intellectual fashion and how to make our voices known. Our passions will reflect that. So, while your passion will be uniquely yours, it will also be grounded in a place familiar to all of us.
And there we have it. When we learn to combine all of this mindfully – our joy, our gratitude, and our passions – we will achieve lives that are holy. So now I can conclude by making the first entry on our list of experiences that combine all three of those important virtues:
Graduating from St. Mary’s College on May 21st 2011, with friends, family, faculty, staff, and loved ones standing right beside us - HOLY!
On Sunday we all heard the news that Osama Bin Laden had been shot by United States armed forces. At the time I was in Spokane Washington celebrating our success after running Bloomsday. Many people didn’t really care about the news (other things were consuming their attention at the time), some kept chanting AMERICA, and others like myself were disgusted and concerned. There are so many emotions surrounding this event and everyone has a right to feel how they wish. But since this is my blog here’s what I think….
I think that Bin Laden was a terrorist and he did need to be stopped. But I do not think killing is ever an answer to our problems. At first I didn’t have all of the details and was concerned that we just went in and shot him instead of bringing him in alive. As I got more details I found out that he did try and shot at us so we took him down, which made me feel a little bit better about taking his life. Because no matter how we try and frame it Killing is never just and justice is never served through killing… killing in honor of other people’s death is revenge NOT justice.
I understand that some might feel more relieved now and others might feel like the war we have been fighting is now justified. But it is hard for me to believe that the thousands of lives and dollars lost are all justified by this one death.
And the funny thing is that America is now celebrating Bin Laden’s death just like a small group of people in the middle east celebrated after the twin towers came down. Many people are saying well we can celebrate because they celebrated… but why don’t we remeber how upset it made us to see them laugh in our faces and celebrate our sadness. Just because one person steals does that make it ok for you to do it? I would assume the answer is no to this question.
This is something I struggle with on a daily basis… is it ever ok to kill or go to war? Most of the time I think no and then there are other times (WWII) where it is harder for me not to side with going to war. But ultimatley I don’t beleive in the fighting and I understand why some might be ok with it, but as someone striving and working for social justice it just isn’t something I can condone. I know that there are hundreds of innocent people being killed by terroirst but there are also hundreds of innocent people killed by the US through the war.
So the question is how can we approach these situations where human rights are at stake without going to war? I haven’t figured it out yet but maybe with more discussion we can come up with some answers.
So lets stop the celebrating and instead start thinking about those who have been affected by these wars, both here and abroad, why we are in these wars, and how peace can be achieved. Use this as a time to reflect… I’m sure it will be more productive then celebrating.
One of my best friends has been faced with a decision… she is graduating from SMC in a month and she was accepted into Teach for America and JVC. As she goes through the discernment process I have tried to offer support and help guide her through her own thoughts. As I have heard her talk about JVC or ask questions about the program I have discovered how grateful I am for this experience. Man has this year been hard, but it has been worth all of the sweat, blood, and tears (ok maybe not too much blood but you get the point).
In order to make this experience work I have to try harder than I have ever tired in my life. You have to remain committed to the 4 values, even when all you want to do is go shopping or get your nails done. You have to compromise, which means letting go of your own stubbornness (almost impossible for me haha). You have to be willing to let these experiences transform you. This transformation causes you to think differently and redefine everything in your life. You question everything around you. Although I did this to some degree before JVC, I now do it with aspects of my life that I never questioned before.
It is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life!
But what comes of it makes it so worth it. You discover your weaknesses on a whole new level and you are forced to acknowledge them and work on them. But you also realize your strengths which become even stronger through your work and interactions with community.
When I was thinking about this blog I started to write down words to describe my experience this year… here is what I came up with
JVC—- change, new experiences, laughs, lots of tears, love, support, revolution, going against the grain, evolving, thinking, challenging, inspirational, deflating at times, beautiful, powerful
P.S. JVC has asked us to raise money for our year of service next year. My goal is $500, but I would like to be able to raise more than this. It costs JVC $58,000 to fund one JV throughout their year of service. It also costs the non profits we are placed at money because they pay for our health insurance and a small fee to have us work for them. By raising this money we help JVC save money as well as our agency’s! This then allows our agency’s to put more funds towards their programs and participants. So ultimately the money donated is helping out all sorts of people including myself. If you are interested in helping me reach my goal please go to my fundraising page which can be found at https://jesuitvolunteers.myetap.org/fundraiser/smts/. I appreciate any amount you are willing to donate.
Thanks for your support!
PEACE AND LOVE
