This I believe.

This week, we had a community/spirituality night entitled "This I Believe," based on the NPR radio series and the couple books out by the same title. As the introduction to the book says, "This I Believe offers a simple, if difficult invitation: Write a few hundred words expressing the core principles that guide your life -- your personal credo. ... This I Believe is an exercise in philosophical self-examination in a public context. It rises from the grass roots, where people can begin to listen to each other, one at a time." So we each wrote a short essay and read them out loud to each other, one at a time. The task was more difficult than I thought it would be, and I wish I had taken more time to complete my short essay (I wrote it at the end of a long work day, forgot to print it out or email it, then re-wrote it quickly when I got home), but here's what I came up with...

I doubt myself pretty frequently -- my decisions, my plans, my work, my views. Hell, just reading a well-written philosophical piece can temporarily unravel what I consider to be my firmly held beliefs. But I consistently believe in the value of two things: learning and giving. In learning about others, I learn, too, about myself. I seek to understand -- to understand what makes me who I am, you who you are, and them who they are. And in learning about people, I recognize our similarity and equality. I see that we are equal genders, races, ethnicities, cultures, sexual orientations, people. I see that we are uniquely gifted and flawed, myself included, and that these flaws unite us in humble humanity. 

And what's more, as I learn about the world we as people inhabit, I am inevitably drawn to the grandeur of a divine Creator. There are few things more beautiful to me than the mysteries and phenomena of biology -- the ever-turning circle of life, to be sure, but also the intricate turnings of the citric acid cycle, the blob-like-yet-perfectly-folded shape of a protein, the leap from electro-chemical nerve synapses to consciousness. When I marvel at these processes, I turn to God in humility, confusion and adoration. Learning makes me a better person. This I believe. I seek to learn and to marvel always, and to never close my mind to the possibility that I am completely and utterly wrong.

I believe just as assuredly in giving. After all, how can I respond to God's overflowing love in any other way than to be generous with my own love? In giving myself and my love to others -- family, friends and strangers -- I encounter the divine reality of relationship: that we are all a connected community of beings. In service, I encounter God, for it is in loving the unloved that I can most readily mimic God's example and that I can most faithfully bring about the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. I believe that we can be the best versions of ourselves when we are giving that self away. Because in its essence, "giving" is not just a one-way process; in being present to one another, we become connected. I believe that in the balance of grasping versus sharing, it is sharing that will bring us peace and justice. I believe in giving. I hope that in my life, I will share rather than grasp, and give rather than keep.

I choose to invest my life, and my love, in learning and giving. In so doing, I will be reminded during my times of doubt and questioning of the goodness of God and the beauty of human connection.

The Crucified People

I decided to stick to my commitment to simple living by not flying home for Easter, a tough decision given that this is my first Easter away from family. But as the weekend has unfolded, I've come to see it as an opportunity to reconnect with the spiritual meaning of Easter that I frequently lose sight of when I'm sunbathing (read: sunburning) on the beach on family vacations (not that I have any regrets about that relaxation time). I attended both the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Thursday and the solemn Good Friday liturgy at St. Monica's Parish in Santa Monica, both of which were over two hours long but time well-spent. The liturgies, especially the music (I love Taize chants), were beautiful, but I am moved to reflect on one moment in particular.

On Friday, the homily was not spectacular -- a rare occurrence at St. Monica's -- and by the time we got to the intercessions and adoration of the cross, I wasn't really listening anymore. But I tried to re-center myself as I went forward to adore the cross and receive communion. When I returned to my seat, the couple sitting next to me had left, and someone else had filled it in: a Bread and Roses client. She isn't an everyday client, and she seemed to be in a mental state in which she didn't recognize me, so I just knelt next to her while she sat in the pew.

I immediately thought of a community night that Maria recently led on the topic of liberation theology, a class at Georgetown I regret not taking. I thought of how the cross, beyond its place as an event in history and its meaning for our salvation, must also take on another meaning in every historical setting now and in the future. The question we must ask ourselves is, "Who are the crucified?" Right here and now, who are we, as the people and structures of society, wrongfully oppressing and executing? And further, cui bono? Who stands to benefit from the way society is designed to allow these crucifixions? It is easy, I think, to consider these questions, but the greater challenge is to take it one step further and consider what these means in terms of salvation.

I like what Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., writes: "It is indeed scandalous to hold the needy and the oppressed as the salvation of the world in history. It is scandalous for many believers who no longer think they see anything striking in the proclamation that the death of Jesus brought life to the world, but who cannot accept in theory, and much less in practice, that today this life-giving death goes by way of the oppressed part of humankind. ... It is easy to regard the oppressed and needy as those who are to be saved and liberated. but it is not easy to see them as saviors and liberators."


So as I prayed last Friday alongside my client, the passion took on a new and deeper meaning. I have a habit of understanding things intellectually long before I recognize their full emotional or spiritual significance, and this was just that: I think it was the first moment that I was truly able to see Jesus in the poor. I accompanied Jesus through the Passion that day in a more meaningful way than ever before.


I prayed for my client next to me, and for all my crucified clients: the mentally ill, the homeless, racial minorities, sexual minorities, and so many more. I prayed for the eyes to continue to see Jesus in those we serve at St. Joseph Center. And I prayed that the joy of Easter would give me strength to serve -- that the knowledge of God's triumphant power to bring life over death, hope over despair, and love over hatred would give me courage to work for peace and justice even amidst death, despair and hatred. May you, too, find life, hope and love this Easter season.

Remembering Romero

"Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty."

Oscar Romero (d. March 24, 1980). Presente. 

Quote for an Exhausted JV

"Pray as if everything depended on God, and work as if everything depended on you." My dad often cites this St. Ignatius quote when I'm stressed/burnt-out/lacking motivation. The idea of working as if everything depended on you seems kind of daunting, and I never really found the quote that comforting (sorry, Dad)...until this week when I hit a seriously low point at work and needed to find some solace. So I was looking around the interwebz for the exact citation of this Ignatian quote, and I stumbled upon some interesting findings. First of all, it turns out this particular quote is actually attributed to St. Augustine. But Ignatius did say something similar: "Trust in God, as if the whole course of events depends on you and not on God, but fully implement your plans as if nothing needs to be done by you, but only by God." In short, pray as if everything depended on you, and work as if everything depended on God.


Here's why I like Iggy's original quote (a quote which was later reversed because people thought it was an error, and also perhaps stolen from Augustine, but no one here is concerned about saintly plagiarism):


If I prayed as if everything depended on me, I would be quick to realize my shortcomings. Recognizing that I need God's help, I would pray for the graces of understanding, compassion, and wisdom. I would need to pray for the strength to carry on. I would need to pray for forgiveness. And I would pray with a sense of urgency.


And if I worked as if everything depended on God, then I would be working with inspiration much deeper than my own personal motivation. A Jesuit blogger says it better than I could: "If I work as if everything depends on God, then I will go forward with greater confidence and energy, since the work to be done is in more capable hands than my own. If the outcome is in God’s hands, then I will perhaps be able to persevere in the face of opposition and apparent poor results. If it all depends on God, then I will not hesitate to 'step out of the boat,' out of my own comfort zone, as I try to serve. And if God is in charge, then [God] will not allow my mistakes to ruin [God's] work, but will make all things work together unto good."


Now that is an idea I can take solace in. I shall carry it with me this week as I try to find peace amidst some challenging and painful realities about my own deficiencies.

one more year?

I'm applying for an additional year of JVC. Crazy? Maybe...but no more so than it was to move across the country in the first place to share oh-so-limited resources with six strangers who are intensely passionate about working with the marginalized. To share some insight into my crazed mind, here is an excerpt of my application, from the essay prompt about motivations. It's not my finest literary work, but I think it aptly depicts why I am even considering this next leap of faith...

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       I wrote in my application to JVC last year that “I see JVC as an opportunity to adapt an orientation of myself towards others and towards the world -- an orientation of self-giving love, rather than selfishness and greed.” I could not have understood the degree to which that statement would be true just one year later. I could not have understood how working intimately with the marginalized would motivate me to fight for change; how living in a community would nurture my faith; or how running out of cash could make me reassess “necessities.” Although I had previously accepted the values of JVC on face value, actually living them has begun forming me into the loving person I long to be. I know that there is much room for still further growth before I will have the confidence and courage to truly integrate these counter-cultural ideals into my life beyond JVC.

      In this sense, my motivations for applying for an additional year are much the same as they were last year. Yet this year, I apply with greater conviction and understanding. I apply with the knowledge that being loving to community members does not always mean being “nice,” and that giving of myself fully to clients requires more than a solid work ethic. I apply with a genuine enthusiasm to continue along the path of growth as a self-giving and loving woman for others, rooted in an Ignatian sense of spirituality. Being a JV this year has made me certain that I want to commit my life to social justice -- and in particular to work at the intersection of medicine and social justice. My work this year has also convinced me of the type of physician I long to be: one that treats each patient with dignity and respect regardless of socioeconomic status, and one that advocates for justice in the systems that preclude some from necessary healthcare. I know that an additional year of JVC would foster the attitude and conviction I need in order to develop into this person.

      I also know that an additional year of JVC would be challenging, and in many ways more so than this current year. Simply maintaining the level of energy I have now for both my placement and my community will be a challenge. I had not anticipated how much effort would be required to support community after a long day of working, but I believe in the fruits of community enough to put in that effort. I anticipate being challenged by the transition to a new community, too. Beyond uprooting myself from the known to the unknown, I foresee facing a constant temptation to judgmentally compare my new community to Casa Maura Clarke. I acknowledge that the mental comparisons sometimes cannot be avoided and may be valuable, but I do hope to keep my self-judgment to a minimum. Whether or not I live in an additional year community, I know that my views toward community will be shaded by the successes and failures of my present community; I hope to learn to appreciate these insights without imposing upon the organic development of my new community.

      I believe I have been more present in the past six months than at any point during my college career. Unlike my previous life of constant stress over future plans, I have been taking each day and learning from my interactions with new and familiar people. I know that I will struggle next year to balance presence to community and clients with my goal to simultaneously apply for medical programs. However, I hope to find inspiration in the knowledge that this presence to my JV years will positively impact my life as a student and physician.

      I desire to accept these challenges, and to continue grappling with the challenges I currently face in my JV year. I want to live in closer solidarity with the individuals I serve. I want to commit to a simple lifestyle beyond my superficial acceptance of the challenge to make it through each month within stipend. I want to nurture the strong drive for social justice that the past few months have planted in me. There are many ways in which I hope to strengthen my commitment to the JVC values, and I am excited by the opportunity to do so in the next year and a half. 

Boring, but true. Cheers to you for reading this far.

Memorial of the Martyrs

December 2 was a special day for Casa Maura Clarke, Casa Ita Ford and Casa Dorothy Kazel of L.A. It was the anniversary of the deaths of the namesakes of our JVC houses. The fourth martyr, Jean Donovan, also had a JVC community, Casa Jean Donovan, until it was consolidated into DK and Ita this year. All four women were beaten, raped and murdered by a Salvadoran death squad on Dec. 2, 1980. Two were Maryknoll sisters, one an Ursuline sister, and the fourth a laywoman; all were Catholic missionaries working with the poor in El Salvador before their untimely deaths.

We attended a memorial service at Mount Saint Mary's College last Friday night, with about 30 sisters, including a few Maryknoll sisters and more than a few who knew the women. Rather than recount the service, I'll share a quote from each of the four martyrs:

"We have refugees, women and children, outside our door and some of their stories are incredible.  What is happening here is all so impossible, but happening.  The endurance of the poor and their faith through this terrible pain is constantly pulling me to a deeper faith response. My fear of death is being challenged constantly as children, lovely young girls, and old people are being shot and some cut up with machetes and bodies thrown by the road and people prohibited from burying them. One cries out:  ‘O God, how long?’  And then, too, what creeps into my mind is the little fear, or big, that when it touches me very personally, will I be faithful? I want to stay on now.  I believe now that this is right. God is very present in seeming absence."

-Sister Maura Clarke, M.M.

"Several times I have decided to leave El Salvador. I almost could except for the children, the poor bruised victimes of adult lunacy. Who would care for them? Whose heart would be so staunch as to favor the reasonable thing in a sea of their tears and helplessness? Not mind, dear friend, not mine."

-Jean Donovan

"[El Salvador is] writhing in pain—a country that daily faces the loss of so many of its people – and yet a country that is waiting, hoping, yearning for peace.  The steadfast faith and courage our leaders have to continue preaching the Word of God even though it may mean ‘laying down your life’ in the very REAL sense is always a point of admiration and a vivid realization that JESUS is HERE with us. Yes, we have a sense of waiting, hoping and yearning for a complete realization of the Kingdom, and yet we know it will come because we can celebrate Jesus here right now."

-Sister Dorothy Kazel, O.S.U.

"I hope you come to find that which gives life a deep meaning for you; something worth living for -- maybe even worth dying for; something that energizes you, enthuses you, enables you to keep moving ahead. I can't tell you what it might be -- that's for you to find, to choose, to love. I can just encourage you to start looking ahead and support you in the search."

-Sister Ita Ford, M.M., in a letter to her 16-year-old niece

World AIDS Day

(Delayed posting that I've been meaning to write for over a week...) For spirituality night last week, we as a community attended an interfaith prayer service for World AIDS Day, which was on Thurs., Dec. 1. Interfaith services truly inspire me. It was a beautiful demonstration of how compassion, among so many other things, is a common thread among world religions. The atmosphere was somber and powerful, with just about 40 people spread in the dimly lit St. Monica's Church.

Photo of a random wedding I found online to show the inside of St. Monica's.

The service was comprised of meditative singing in the tradition of Taizé Prayer, a form of prayer that originated with an ecumenical monastic order in Taizé, France. My favorite Sunday evening Mass at Georgetown often featured post-Communion Taizé meditations, so I was already familiar with the melodies and words, but I've never experienced an entire prayer service with these meditations. Apart from being a powerful communal experience of music, listening to these short, repetitive songs can also be a great way to center yourself as you begin personal prayer. Here are a few of my favorites: Ubi Caritas (Where Charity and Love Prevail), Laudate Dominum (Sing Praise and Bless the Lord), Nada Te Turbe (Nothing Can Trouble). Ignatius, a big fan of repetitio, would probably endorse this form of prayer.

In between each song, a different religious leader reflected prayerfully on a different aspect of the reality of AIDS in our world...for those who have died, hope for the cure, women affected, minorities affected, LGBTQ community, caring for those in need, orphans of HIV/AIDS. Simply living in D.C. exposed me to one perspective of the reality of HIV/AIDS (in the District, 3 percent of adults are infected with HIV, and another 3 percent are infected but don't know it), and working with a research team at Whitman Walker AIDS clinic for a year helped educate me a little bit more. Still, it was shocking to hear the congregation speak so many names during the intercessions of people in their lives affected by AIDS.

On one hand, I am grateful that AIDS is an easy thing for me to forget about on a day-to-day basis. Yet my ignorance is still embarrassing, since it has such a global and tragic impact in millions of lives daily. I recognize that I cannot be involved in the fight against every global injustice; but the injustice of HIV infection interacting with racial and socioeconomic disparity is something I hope to delve more deeply into in medical school.

CMC's Spiritual Soundtrack

Part of the commitment to JVC is a commitment to incorporating spirituality into our lives -- individually and as a community -- and one way we do that is by having a weekly spirituality night in our community. (We also have community nights, alternating weekly with our support nights.) We take turns leading spirituality and community nights, and for my first spirituality night, I decided to focus on music.

I'm not sure I was cognizant of how important music was to me until fairly recently. Certainly my track record of quitting various musical instrument lessons after five or six years would suggest that I didn't care much. Yet music was a constant presence in my life, from Grandma Arnold's family party piano sessions to violin, guitar, piano, and drums lessons (guitar and drums were the only ones that stood a chance, as I thought they were "cooler" than piano and violin...). In high school, making the decision to quit volleyball in favor of dance, the fall musical and show choir was probably the first time I acknowledged that music was something that truly made me happy.

Even slower was my acknowledgement that music is important to me on a spiritual level, beyond but including its role in liturgy (the quality of music at a Mass is a deal-breaker for me). Music can move me or calm me in a way few other things can. For me, it adds a further dimension of emotion to psalms and religious sentiment: song is poetry to the prose of my prayer.

With this in mind, I asked each person in CMC to send me one song that has been meaningful on a spiritual level. I compiled the songs in a playlist, read this prayer, and we all just listened. It was a practice in silencing ourselves to be open to what we might hear and an exercise of stretching our definition of spirituality.

Here's the playlist of all seven of our songs (can you guess mine?), with links to youtube videos of really questionable quality:

• Turn the Page Again by Tim O'Brien
• Blessed to be a Witness by Ben Harper
• Don't Worry, Be Happy by Bob Marley
• Down to the River to Pray by Allison Krauss
• Go Light Your World by Chris Rice
• Something Beautiful by needtobreathe
• Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle

I was between a few (Awake My Soul by Mumford & Sons, Take My Hand by Shawn McDonald, You are Loved by Josh Groban, Pachelbel's Canon in D, Debussy's Claire de Lune), but ultimately I settled on Blessed to be a Witness, which I first heard at my DSHA freshman retreat, as my song.

What I Should Have Said

I've been having a lot of "what I should have said" moments lately. I think, in part, it has something to do with being in a new place, starting a new job, and being with entirely new people (I knew one person when I moved out here). This year presents an opportunity to be my best self -- without past experiences and mistakes intruding on first impressions -- and with that opportunity comes some hesitation as I navigate the appropriate times to assert myself, defend myself or to share openly.

My most recent "what I should have said" moment came as I was introduced to a Bread and Roses donor (a rather unconventional donor, who periodically brings himself and his credit card to the grocery store while a shop-til-you-drop situation ensues for B&R). After he asked what I planned to do with the theology part of my studies, my response was, "Well, nothing. I'm planning on applying to medical school."

It was a tiny insignificant moment (made even more insignificant by the fact that the guy could barely hear me), but I felt ashamed selling myself and my Jesuit education short in that moment because the truth is, studying theology -- even just as a minor, not a major -- at Georgetown has enhanced my life in a huge way. Of course, my Georgetown education cannot be limited to theology or even to the classroom; but it was the theology courses at Georgetown that brought structure to the chaos of my doubt as I learned about world religions, traced the "the problem of God," and critically questioned the Catholic Church. In studying theology, I deepened my understanding, both intellectually and emotionally, of Creation, human dignity and the common good. In this way, I bridged the now obvious connection between faith and service, and accepted the challenge to orient myself toward the world as a woman for others.

I gained an Ignatian way of proceeding through life, one that acknowledges no divide between the spiritual and the secular. And that's why I felt I was slapping my theology professors in the face when I said I didn't plan to do much with my theology background. In accepting his definition of theology as vocation to the religious life, I was accepting a compartmentalization of spiritual and secular that I do not endorse. On the contrary, I hope to integrate my faith into every part of my life, so that I am a life-long student of theology, even as I am also studying to be a physician.

Of course, it would have been ridiculous if this had been my response to the poor old guy's half-joking question about me becoming a nun, but it got me thinking...

A weekend of peace

This weekend, a group of my casamates met up with Casa Dorothy Kazel and Casa Ita Ford (other L.A. JV houses) downtown for the Interfaith 9/11 Prayer Vigil. The event was spearheaded by the Episcopal Diocese of L.A., but leaders of all the Abrahamic faiths were represented, and the event was hosted at the religion-neutral L.A. city hall. The focus was definitely on the interfaith aspect of the event, and less on memorializing the victims of 9/11 and the war after. Still, it was interesting and inspirational, and very peaceful.

The more significant way we remembered 9/11 was at the Sunday 5:30 Mass at St. Monica's (in Santa Monica). We've been Church shopping for a while now, and St. Monica's is definitely my favorite. It reminds me a lot of the 7:30 Mass I went to at Georgetown for four years, but on a larger scale with an intense speaker system. The 5:30 Mass is the contemporary mass for young adults, so it suits us well. Everyone is incredibly welcoming, and we really like a lot of their traditions already -- like everyone receiving communion starting from the back, and everyone reciting the names aloud of each person we pray for during the intercessions. Our impression of St. Monica's became even better when they played Maya Angelou's "Amazing Peace" following the homily, in honor of the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The girls of CMC really like Maya Angelou, and her poem was a perfect way to end a peaceful weekend.


"Amazing Peace" (abridged)
by Maya Angelou


      Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
      And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
      Flood waters await us in our avenues.

      Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
      Over unprotected villages.
      The sky slips low and grey and threatening.

      ... ... ...


      Hope is born again in the faces of children
      It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
      Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
      Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.

      In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
      At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
      We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
      We hear a sweetness.
      The word is Peace.
      It is loud now. It is louder.
      Louder than the explosion of bombs.

      We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
      It is what we have hungered for.
      Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
      A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
      Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.

      On this platform of peace, we can create a language
      To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

      We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
      All the earth's tribes loosen their voices
      To celebrate the promise of Peace.

      We, Angels and Mortal's, Believers and Non-Believers,
      Look heavenward and speak the word aloud. Peace. 
      We look at our world and speak the word aloud. Peace. 
      We look at each other, then into ourselves
      And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.

      Peace, My Brother. Peace, My Sister. Peace, My Soul.