Memento Mori

Since I started living here in Chicago last month, I've been enjoying going to church.  One of the times I attended Catholic Mass earlier this month, the priest told a story during his sermon. 

A man went to a monastery on a retreat.  He went there for some quiet contemplative time, since he was trying to decide whether to become a priest or a psychologist.  Everyday, he would go for a stroll on the grounds of the monastery.  When he went on his walks, he would always pass a monk who would say to him, "Memento Mori."  Finally, when the week was over, the time came for the man to leave the monastery.  Soon before he was going to depart from the monastery, the man again crossed paths with the monk.

"Well?" inquired the monk.  "What did you decide?"

The man replied, "I have decided that I am going to become a psychologist."

"So?" asked the monk.  "What now?" 

"Well, I am going to go to graduate school."

"And then what?"

"Then I will get a job as a psychologist.  And I am going to fall in love and get married."

"Then what?"

"Then we will have kids."

"Then what?"

"My children will start attending school."

"Then what?"

"Eventually, my children will attend college."

"Then what?"

"By then, I suppose I will retire."

"Then what?"

"Well, since I will be retired, I will get to travel to some places I've never been." 

"Then what?"

"Well, by then, I suppose that my children will be having their own children, so I will enjoy spending time with my grandchildren."

"Then what?"

The man thought for a moment.  "I suppose that soon after that, I will die."

"Then what?"

The man looked a bit concerned.  "Well, then I will go before God, and I hope that He will be pleased with how I have lived my life."

The monk explained, "This is why I kept saying to you, 'Memento Mori,'" meaning 'Remember death,' or 'Think about what will happen when you die.'"  

No Greater Aspiration In My Life

On the day when Lasallian Volunteer (LV) Orientation ended, we all had a free night to do as we pleased.  Most, if not all, of us LVs headed into Chicago for the evening.  One of the LV staff members had arranged an opportunity in Chicago for those of us LVs who were interested to participate in trapeze activities.  I joined her so I could try trapeze!

I signed up to do trapeze because of some elucidation on trapeze which I had heard a couple of months earlier.  I heard this insight when I had attended a three-day workshop on the Catholic writer Henri Nouwen's interpretation of Rembrandt's painting of the Return of the Prodigal Son.  Nouwen's literary executrix, Sue Mosteller, who also lived at L'Arche Daybreak, the faith-based community in which Nouwen had lived, presented the workshop.  Since she had lived in the same community as Nouwen for years while he was there, she got to know him, his musings and his writings fairly well.

During the workshop, Sue shared how Nouwen became mesmerized by trapeze, the art of swinging through the air, leaping forward and being caught by someone else also swinging through the air.  He concluded that the people who leap toward each other and who catch each other symbolize us and God in our relationship with each other.  Sue explained how Nouwen concluded that the truly remarkable party in the trapeze is not the one who leaps, but rather the one who catches, since the one who catches is analogous to God.  She said that just as one person leaps in the trapeze act, trusting the catcher, we too must make leaps of faith, trusting in God.

When I heard Sue's explication of Nouwen's trapeze philosophy, she delivered words which had a profoundly transformative effect on me.  Up until the workshop, in my life I had still been clinging to personal property which I no longer needed.  I hadn't felt able to bring myself to sell the car I owned, even though I had just been living abroad while in the Peace Corps in Morocco for two years, and thus hadn't been driving it for those years.  I hadn't given it up although after my return from Morocco, I'd been staying with family and friends who either had their own cars they were letting me use and/or who lived in areas with great public transportation.  I'd felt that I couldn't let go of it despite how I knew that as an LV, I'd be living in a community where I knew I'd have access to cars I could drive.  In short, even though my life already was one in which I didn't need a car, indeed although my life had changed years earlier into a life in which I didn't need a car, I still wasn't accepting that reality.  I was living in fear, fear that I couldn't sell the car since I might end up needing it at an undetermined--and increasingly unlikely--point in the future.  I wasn't acknowledging the need to get rid of it and trust in God to take care of my needs.  Yet when I heard Sue explain that, like the one who leaps in the trapeze act, we must take the leap of faith and trust in God, my spirit shifted.  I realized that I had to sell the car and trust that God would satisfy my transportation needs.

Having been inspired by Nouwen's conception of the trapeze as a metaphor for our relationship with God and how we must trust in Him, I was interested in actually trying trapeze.  Having only conceptualized trapeze as a spiritual metaphor, I wanted to try it so I would be able to turn it over as a spiritual analogy in my mind in the context of actually having tried it.  I knew that by physically swinging through the air and feeling the associated physiological sensations and the emotional effects produced in me by leaping, swinging, and reaching from the trapeze bar, I would be able to consider it from first-hand knowledge. 

Thus I signed up to try trapeze.  The folks running the trapeze spot were quite pleasant.  That helped!  It also helped a little bit that the trapeze folks operate in a park close to the shore of Lake Michigan, a beautiful outdoor location. 

Once we had gotten harnesses attached to us, and gotten the latches on the ends of ropes clicked into the harnesses on us, each of us took turns climbing to the top of the trapeze platform.  Generally I am unbothered by heights.  But under certain conditions I start to get a little nervous.  In this case, we were climbing one of those metal ladders which extends to potentially double its length.  Thus I wasn't worried about it coming apart, but it just didn't stay exactly still as I stepped on it.  So I climbed a bit slowly up to the trapeze platform, which I finally reached.

The fellow on the platform told me not to worry, that the ladder was firmly bolted into both the deck on the ground and into the trapeze platform.  That eased my mind, as did the net which more than adequately lay under all of the space in which I would be swinging.  Still, I was a little apprehensive standing up on the trapeze platform, perhaps 25 feet above the ground.  He assured me that I would be fine if I followed his instructions, which I did.  He took off the ropes which had secured me when I had been climbing, and attached new ones which would secure me after I leaped from the platform.  He told me to use my left hand to hold onto a metal frame on the platform.  Then he told me to step forward and put all ten toes just slightly over the edge of the platform!  He had me grab the trapeze bar with my right hand as I continued holding with my left hand onto the metal frame on the platform.  Then he was holding onto me and leaning backward.  Despite this secure arrangement, I found it difficult to ignore my instincts, which were kicking in and setting alarms off in my head as he told me to lean forward and grab the rest of the trapeze bar with my left hand.  Eventually I did so.  Then he told me to take, as he put it, a little bunny leap off of the platform.

I took a little leap and voila, I was flying through the air!  As each of us hung from the platform bar, the staff gave us instructions on what to do.  They tell someone hanging from the bar by their hands to swing their knees up to the bar when they're at the end of their swing because that's when someone is the lightest.  Thus it's easiest to get your knees up and over the bar at that very moment.  I tend to lag a bit with verbal instructions; that is, it takes me a little while to process what people say to me.  Thus, it proved a little difficult for me to get my knees above the trapeze bar.  Although I'm a bit slow when I listen, I did get it, and I got my knees over the bar.  When I swung back to the other end, they had me let go of the bar, so that I was then hanging from the bar upside down by my knees!  Then they told me to stretch out my arms toward Lake Michigan.  Now, I don't know about you, but when I'm upside down, I'm rather disoriented.  I was putting out my arms in front of me, but they wanted me to thrust my arms in back of me.  They tried a different way of phrasing it: they told me to put my arms toward the net.  That did it!  I was reaching out my arms just as I was supposed to do!  On the way back, when I swung to the end, they had me grab the bar with my hands.  At the other end, they had me swing my knees down, then they had me let go, and down to the net I fell.

We each got to practice this routine a few times.  That helped!  It helps to practice being upside down, getting one's knees over a trapeze bar, and swinging from one knees, when one has never done it! 

Last we got to try leaping and getting caught by a catcher who was also swinging from a trapeze bar.  Here, though, I wasn't just jumping off the trapeze platform whenever I wanted.  The catcher was swinging on his own trapeze bar, on the far side of the net.  Once I was in position on the platform, he'd shout, "Ready!"  That word was my cue to bend my knees and be ready to jump.  Then he'd shout, "Hup!"  That word was the cue to jump.  Since he precisely timed his shout, it was crucial immediately to jump.  One can't hesitate, or else one will be late in arriving at the spot where the catcher can catch you.

Once he had shouted, "Hup!" I jumped right away!  Reaching the far end, knees up and over the bar.  Back at the end next to the platform, hands down.  Then one has to reach out...  I put out my arms...  Yet I was disoriented, as happens to me when I'm hanging upside down by my knees from a trapeze bar!  Yet without anyone yelling any correction to me, I self-corrected and stretched my arms out wide...  but because I had initially reached in the wrong direction, I had thrown off my momentum.  When I then tried to reach toward the catcher, and when we reached the point when we were closest to each other, we were too far apart from each other for him to catch me.  Later I saw a picture of the catcher and me reaching toward each other.  Perhaps our hands were a foot apart.

Despite not being caught, I was pleased that when I dropped from the bar, at least I successfully did a back flip on my way down to the net.  Again, it is critical to let go when one is at the end of one's swing.  Then one is the lightest.  Thus when one lets go at that moment, one is best positioned to do a back flip. 

One must know what one is doing to be able to do trapeze well.  The LV staff member who arranged the trapeze opportunity for us is quite skilled at trapeze.  We saw her complete some talented feats up in the air, including propping herself up so that she was sitting with her legs wide open on the trapeze bar!

However, not only is she skilled at actually flying trapeze, but she is also skilled at taking analogous leaps.  In some fitting symbolism, she has since moved on from working for Lasallian Volunteers.  She left her familiar job at Lasallian Volunteers, taking the leap to take a new job, which also entails moving to a new city, to try something new.   

We are called to make leaps of faith in our lives, in the choices we make.  We are called to give up things in our lives which have proven to be obsolete or which otherwise hold us back, whether they be possessions, or opinions, or unhealthy emotions such as anger, greed, sluggishness or pride.  We are drawn to let go of the ego which controls us, to forget about an insult someone has made against us.  We are asked to make the leap of faith to give someone the benefit of the doubt, to figure that perhaps he or she truly was in the right, and to forgive him or her during a disagreement.  We are invited to make such leaps into unknown territory which makes us vulnerable and uncomfortable and unsettled, because in doing so we stand to improve ourselves, to evolve into more advanced, caring, understanding, loving, compassionate, kind human beings, drawing closer to the ideal which Jesus set for us.  Once we finally do make such leaps, we will feel far better than we do clinging to our fear, which would have us remain standing on the platform for days, weeks, months or years, which would control us to our own detriment, both directly to ourselves and indirectly to ourselves through the unfortunate effects our fear has on our relationships with others.  Once we take the leap to love our neighbor, we will also love ourselves and God more.  

As far as I am concerned, I do sincerely hope that I am as good at taking leaps as God wants me to be.  I have no aspiration greater than this in my life. 

Orientation Part Three: Gratitude For Blessings

At Lasallian Volunteer (LV) Orientation at Lewis University during the last ten days of July, as LVs we had sessions on numerous topics.  Staff reviewed with us the organization's policies and procedures, with which we must comply as LVs.  One of the Brothers of the Christian Schools educated us about the life, work and times of Saint John Baptist de la Salle, who founded the order of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, the order which in turn founded the staff organization named Lasallian Volunteers, which administers the LV program.  Later we were reminded of the many types of work which the Brothers perform in dozens of countries on five continents.  We went to multiple sessions during which we were trained in the tasks we will be doing as LVs, whether it be teaching, tutoring, working in campus ministry, doing social work, or serving in other ways.  Facilitators led us through discussions about social justice and about various kinds of diversity.  The presenter of one session spoke with us about becoming familiar with the neighborhoods in which we'll be living as LVs.  We received tips about beginning to live in community with others, in the intentionally faith-based community houses where we'll be living as LVs.  Insofar as we'll be living in community which is faith-based, we also received guidance on how to lead prayer sessions, a responsibility which generally all of us will have at multiple points during our service as LVs.

Since Lasallian Volunteers is a Catholic organization, and since it was founded by the Brothers, which is a Catholic order, and since it is affiliated with Catholic schools, the priest at Lewis University facilitated a session during which he fielded questions about the Catholic Mass.  While many LVs are Catholic, some are Protestant Christians.  Others might not identify with any particular denomination of Christianity.  Thus not all LVs are familiar with the Catholic Mass from having attended Mass for years.

By the end of the session during which the priest was answering questions about Mass, I was wondering if some LVs were not enthusiastic about attending Mass despite their Christian heritage.  Although we had already gone at least a few minutes longer than scheduled, and although we were thus overdue to head to the campus cafeteria for lunch, I raised my hand.  Acknowledging the time, I succinctly said that, as many of my fellow LVs already knew, at the end of last year, I finished living in an overwhelmingly Muslim country for two years: I had been living in Morocco in the Peace Corps.  I added that while I was living there, often I wasn't able to attend Mass, and consequently greatly missed spiritual community with other Christians.  I explained that when I returned to the U.S. and attended Mass, I felt so comforted by the spiritual community I felt by the other people singing around me in church that I began to cry out of gratitude for what I hadn't had, and for which I was now so grateful.  I pointed out that so often, we think nothing of singing in church, yet it can be profoundly supportive to others.  I suggested that they meditate upon these thoughts. 

The next day, late in the afternoon on Saturday, the priest said Mass for us in the chapel on campus there at Lewis University.  During communion, the hymn being sung was an adaptation of the Prayer of Peace, which is widely attributed to St. Francis, and which in this case was set to music.  For those of you who think you might not know it, the original prayer reads:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

I have appreciated this prayer for quite some time.  I find its message to be profoundly important, actually crucial, for spiritual development.

As I've noted, since living in Morocco, where I often did not enjoy spiritual community with other Christians, I have very much appreciated hearing other Christians sing when I go to church now.  Thus I certainly appreciated my fellow LVs as they sang the hymn version of the Prayer of Peace.

Yet not only hearing fellow Christians, but more specifically my fellow LVs, with whom I share a passion for helping not just poor persons, but impoverished youths, sing this hymn therefore affected me on additional levels.  Yet, knowing that they also share with me the aspiration to the ideals expressed in the hymn, goals which are demanding, in service of others, I was further comforted by this additional level of spiritual community with them.

They were singing the hymn softly and sweetly, a soft, comforting melody.  In their gentle, soothing tone, they auditorily aspired to the humility, modesty and care which the hymn expresses.  Knowing that I was surrounded by others who value this approach of serving others in life at one's own expense, I began to weep, in gratitude for the treasure, privilege and honor of being in their company.  Having sojourned alone many days in the past, I have so cherished the fellowship and support of those who share my values and ideals, as I did especially at that moment.  I saw my fellow LVs in that moment even more vividly than I had before, as the blessings which they truly are to me and to others.  I am blessed.  Thank you, God. 

Orientation Part Two: Racism, Injustice, Poverty, And Personal Choices

After the day at Lasallian Volunteer (LV) Orientation when we all went to Covenant Harbor as I described in my last blog entry, next we were back at Lewis University in Illinois, where we had sessions on numerous topics.  We had one period where the leader asked us to talk about our motivations for joining the LV program and about our views on social justice. 

During that session, as the facilitator made differing statements about various topics, each time he made one of these statements, he asked us to get into one of four groups, the first group if we strongly agreed with the statement, the second if we agreed with the statement, the third if we disagreed with the statement, and the fourth if we strongly disagreed with the statement.  I must say I was interested to see where my fellow LVs stood in the room as the session facilitator made each statement.

The presenter said, "My main reason for joining the LV program is to grow spiritually."  I stood in the quarter of the room to indicate that I strongly agreed that the statement applied to me.  I joined the LV program to help myself discern the type of work I want to do, to help me see if I would like to teach full-time.  But moreso I joined the LV program to see how I feel about living in faith-based community.  And even more than living in community, I joined the LV program to grow spiritually, from serving others in the work I am going to do, and also, I feel even moreso, by living in faith-based community.  While living in community, I hope to learn primarily about myself, what I need to improve in myself, and what weaknesses I have which I must accept in myself.  While living in community, I also would like to learn about others, about the other members of the community, and how I can support them.  Yet truly by living in community, I hope that in gaining this knowledge, and in applying it, in trying to be more kind and compassionate to others around me, I hope to grow spiritually.  I see community as a means to an end, not simply an end in itself.

Next the facilitator said, "My main reason for joining the LV program is to live in faith-based community."  Since I believe that community is a means to the end of spiritual growth, I only moved one group over, so that I was in the category to show that I agreed with the statement.

Later the presenter read the statement, "Racism is the primary cause of suffering and injustice in the United States."  Here the population of LVs was mostly in the middle of the room.  I was in the group which disagreed with the statement.  A friend of mine, who strongly disagreed with the statement, started explaining that he believes that not racism, but prejudice, is the main cause of suffering and injustice in the U.S.  He went on to say that racism is only one way in which prejudice is manifested.  He added that sexism has been the cause of much suffering and injustice in the U.S.A. as well.  He opined that racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination have the same root, which he termed prejudice.  Once he had explained his viewpoint, I moved into his quadrant of the room.  Although I would've phrased my thoughts on it a bit differently, I agreed with the basic thrust of his point.  I would've stated that hatred is the primary cause of racism and sexism and other forms of suffering and injustice anywhere.

During that session, I did not add my thoughts to the discussion, since the presenter was moving the conversation along.  Here online, I am relatively unconstrained by time.  Thus I can state that not only do I believe that hatred is the primary cause of suffering and justice, but also that conversely, love is the root of well-being and justice.

And I believe that we can best achieve justice by loving as best as we can.  Indeed, I follow and try to emulate Jesus as a Christian since no one else has lived a life of love as well as Jesus did.  In addition to living without sin, He laid down His life, allowing Himself to be crucified such that He died on the cross for all of us.  Since Jesus is so important to me, indeed since He is my Savior, I note that I follow Him specifically as a Christian because Christians believe that He died on the cross and triumphed over death in His resurrection, which Muslims do not believe.  I honor the full extent of the sacrifice Jesus made and the example He set.  As Jesus Himself said, at John 15:13, "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for others."  And He did so of His own free will.  As we read at John 10:18, He noted that He laid down His life of His own accord, and that He could have taken it up again if He had chosen to do so.

Had I expressed these thoughts, including these on the pivotal role of free will, during this session at Orientation, they could have dovetailed into the presenter's next statement, when he said, "The majority of people living in poverty are poor because of bad personal choices."  All of the LVs in the room moved to the side of the room to indicate that they either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement.  Indeed, with around 50 of us LVs in the room, I wasn't sure that all of us could fit into one quarter of the room, so I'm not sure whether or not everyone strongly disagreed with the statement, or whether some of us strongly disagreed with it and others just disagreed with it.

After we had been discussing this statement for a little while, I raised my hand and noted that nearly all of the people, if not everyone, in the room had chosen at some point, whether in the past, present or continuing into the future, to be financially poor.  Of course, the vast majority of us in the room were LVs.  Aside from the LVs in the room, LV staff were also in the room.  Most LV staff members used to be LVs themselves, and thus used to live on the modest stipend LVs receive. 

I further noted that plenty of people (which would include monks, nuns, priests, social justice activists, pro bono lawyers, and Peace Corps volunteers, among many others) would view that voluntary decision to be monetarily poor as a good personal choice.  I wanted to be sure that not everyone in the room was looking at financial poverty as a bad thing!  I found it appropriate to point out that many find it laudable to be purposefully financially poor by reminding everyone in the room that probably all of them chose financial poverty at some point in their lives.  Granted, I am fully aware that the vast majority of impoverished people in the world are not monetarily poor by choice.  Nevertheless, I wanted to illustrate that the question could be viewed from a different perspective. 

Soon thereafter, again trying to look at the question from a different perspective, I asked the session facilitator if he had intended for the statement to apply to financial poverty.  He indicated that one did not necessarily have to interpret the statement as dealing with poverty in a monetary sense.  As soon as he had said that, I began moving my way through the crowd which had gathered on the one side of the room.  I walked over to the other side of the room, where I now stood alone.  I explained that if the statement is taken as applying to spiritual poverty, then I strongly disagreed with it.  All of us, every last one of us, who is spiritually poor is in that condition because we have made poor personal choices.  (And I quickly point out that many of us, including myself, are spiritually poor.  We are trying to crawl out of the darkness which comes along with the bad choices we have made; we are trying to return to The Light, which is from God above.) 

We all have free will.  All of us know the difference between right and wrong.  Each of us has a conscience.  It is only us who do spiritual damage to ourselves.  Others might be able to physically injure us or financially harm us.  How we choose to respond to events in our lives determines our spiritual state of health.  As Jesus noted, nothing from outside us can hurt us.  As He also explained at Mark 7:15-23, it is what is within us which hurts us; the poor personal choices we make are what hurt us, since ultimately we can only be responsible for our own choices.  We cannot be responsible for what is done to us, but we can, and indeed are, whether we like it or not, responsible for how we respond to events in our lives. 

Since we are responsible for the choices we make, we are also more specifically responsible for how we respond to others in need.  And when we help others who need our assistance, we not only help them, but we also create spiritual wealth for ourselves. 

What kind of wealth do we want to amass?  At what expense?  When we accumulate spiritual wealth, often we put assisting others over earning money for ourselves.  Do we help others, perhaps at the expense of our bank account?  Do we help our own bank account, perhaps at the expense of our souls?  As Jesus noted at Matthew 6:21, where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. 

Do we help someone else in need, or do we pass by that person?  The LV program was founded to provide volunteering opportunities for helping disadvantaged youths, clearly a decision to help those in need.  By helping others in need, and in doing so rather than pursuing material wealth, one redefines wealth.  True wealth, wealth that will last for eternity, is spiritual wealth. 

We can only be responsible for our own choices, including the ones we make about the types of wealth we accumulate.  Thus our choices truly define us; they determine our eternal destiny.  Make yours reflect the best values you can. 

Orientation Part One: Tackling Challenges With Others And By Oneself

In the last ten days of July, I was at Lasallian Volunteer (LV) Orientation.  Before Orientation, I had only met a couple of other LVs besides Whitney and Megan, who also live in Chicago.  I was glad to finally meet all of the other LVs. 

On our first full day of Orientation, we headed north to Covenant Harbor, a Christian camp and retreat center located on the shore of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where we spent the day.  At Covenant Harbor, they have ziplining, ropes courses and other challenging physical activities, sometimes which require participants to strategize with each other to be able to reach the goals.  Thus, we went to Covenant Harbor, among other reasons, to help us to learn to work as a team. 

Once we arrived at Covenant Harbor, in the morning, all of us LVs were split into teams.  Each team headed off on its own with a staff member from Covenant Harbor, who directed us on which activities to do and who also supervised us while we were doing them.  At first on my team, we spent time learning each others' names.  Then the staff member asked us what our ground rules would be while we were working together on the activities.  We noted that we wanted to continue working on learning each others' names.  We established that everyone had to listen to all suggestions which were made.  We said that we also wanted to make sure that we all were having fun!

Having set the ground rules for our group, we set off to begin the activities.  We finished some of the activities; others we didn't successfully complete.  One of them involved balancing the group of the dozen of us on what essentially was an oversized see saw, so that neither end of the see saw touched the ground.  This task we completed fairly quickly, without much difficulty.

At another point, we were brought to three wooden platforms, each of them only slightly above the ground.  The first platform was one yard square.  The second platform was slightly smaller than the first.  The third platform was a bit smaller than the second.  The first platform was about ten feet from the second platform.  On another side of the second platform, the third platform was ten feet away.  We had to get onto the first platform all at the same time.  We were given two wooden boards, each about six feet long, about five inches wide, and about two inches deep.  We had to bridge our way from one platform to the next without our bodies or either of the boards touching the ground.  If our bodies or either platform touched the ground, we had to start over from the beginning.  We were given 15 minutes to complete the task.  It was a bit crowded on each platform, so we had to coordinate our movements very carefully and deliberately.  Nevertheless, we finished in less than 15 minutes!

After these team-building exercises, we took a break for lunch.  The LV staff had arranged lunch for us, which we ate at picnic tables on the lakeshore, a break which was a welcome respite from some difficult activities! 

After lunch, we were told that we had spent the morning coming together as individuals and working together as a group.  We were next told that in the afternoon, we would be watching in groups while we cheered on individuals taking on physical feats.  It was at this point that we were introduced to the high ropes course.  On the ropes course, there are several tall round poles, about the width of telephone poles, and which are perhaps one and a half times the height of telephone poles, and which have spikes in them for climbing on them, just as telephone poles have.  In between the poles, at their tops, were strung ropes.  Alternatively, between two poles there was a wooden beam, perhaps four inches wide.

Staff securely tightened harnesses around us, and securely attached the latches at the ends of the ropes into the harnesses around us.  The ropes attached to us ran up to pulleys overhead.  From there the ropes ran down to staff members on the ground.  Thus when someone is ready to come down, they can be let down slowly since the rope is fed through a pulley, by which one can adjust the speed the rope is being used.  Once we had been secured with the harnesses and the ropes, we started climbing up the telephone poles to tackle some physical challenges at some higher elevations. 

Between the tops of two particular poles was strung a rope, perhaps twenty feet off of the ground.  Hanging from that horizontal rope were a half dozen ropes, each of them tied to a tire.  Once one had reached the top of the pole, one stepped onto the first tire, then made one's way to the next tire, and the next, all the way to the other pole, then turned around and headed back. 

More than challenges such as that one, what I really wanted to do on the ropes course was to take the Leap Of Faith, which entails leaping off of a platform and catching a metal bar, ideally with two hands.  I had been waiting to do it, since the staff members hadn't yet opened it to us, since they had been staffing other stations on the course.  Finally they said that they would start letting people try to take the Leap Of Faith.  I made my way over to that station.  I got the special harness put on me.  We got the latches on the ends of the ropes clicked into the harness which was already on me.

Then I began climbing the pole, trying not to think about how high I was going up off of the ground.  Finally I reached the small platform, perhaps two feet long by two feet wide, which was probably between 20 to 30 feet off the ground.  I slowly stood up on the platform and as I looked down, I began to think that I was quite high above the ground.  I rather nervously and thus gingerly made my way to the edge of the platform.  I looked from the edge of the platform at a horizontal metal bar hanging about five feet away from the platform.  I thought of Indiana Jones, near the end of the film "Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade," as he looks across a deep and wide chasm, and mumbles out loud, "This is insane!  Nobody can jump this!"  From somewhere below which seemed far away, but which was much closer than it seemed, I heard some of my fellow LVs shouting cheers of encouragement to me.  Something shifted in my spirit.  I stopped worrying, and instead, in a more focused way, I started preparing to leap with enough energy to hopefully help me to reach the bar.  I squinted at the bar and bent my knees a few times in a row.  Then I leaped off of the platform.  I caught the bar with two hands.  My fellow LVs were cheering on the ground as I swung from the bar by my hands.

Once the cheers had subsided, the staff member directed me to let go of the bar.  To do so was to defy everything that my instincts were telling me.  I was hanging from a metal bar 25 feet above the ground.  My animal instincts told me that if I let go, I would fall to the ground.  The staff member repeated that I had to let go of the bar.  I let go of the bar, and of course I did not fall.  I was hanging in mid-air, at first staying a constant height above the ground, kept in place by the rope which was tied to me and which was slung through the pulley above me.  Before I let go of the metal bar, had I resorted to logic, I would have reasoned that I was secured by a rope, made taut over the pulley, and further secured at the ground, and thus did not need to worry about falling.  Since I had let go of the bar, the staff member slowly let me down by the rope down to the ground.

After taking the Leap Of Faith, I tackled another challenge on the ropes course.  I climbed to the top of one of the poles.  From there started a walkway of sorts.  Between that pole and another pole stretched two horizontal ropes which were analogous to hand railings which one held as one walked on wooden slats hanging from those hand railings.  However, this path was made a bit tricky because the wooden slats were not tied to each other.  Therefore, they could, and often did, swing away from LVs who were trying to walk on them.  I managed to walk slowly on the slats from one pole to the other, then slowly turned around and walked back to the first pole.

Aside from taking the Leap Of Faith, I also had really been wanting to zipline.  When you zipline, you're secured to a cable which is horizontally suspended about 20 feet above the ground.  When you're about to start ziplining away from the ziplining tower, the cable stretches horizontally away from you for a few hundred feet.  When you step off of a platform, you whisk away down the cable.  So I made my way over to the zipline.  I found out that in this location, you have to climb to the top of the ziplining tower.  Secured with a harness and ropes latched to me, I set off up the tower, a square tower with three flat walls with things like rocks sticking out of the wall every couple of feet in every direction, which one either grabs or on which one steps to climb the wall.  I'd done rock climbing while similarly secured years earlier.  Yet this time when I got about halfway up the climbing tower, I ran out of strength.  Fortunately the height wasn't bothering me, perhaps partly because the climbing wall was in front of me, and thus I wasn't looking at the ground, but primarily at the wall in front of me.  In the end, I ascended the upper half of the climbing tower largely because the staff member holding the rope on the ground helped by pulling on the rope, feeding it through the pulley at the top of the tower.  I was glad to be at the top of the tower, about 30 to 40 feet off the ground.

At the top of the tower, there were a few other LVs already up there who were in line to zipline.  When it got to be my turn, the staff member hooked me into the apparatus which connected to the cable.  He instructed me not to dive or do anything drastic; he told me to merely step off.  I stepped off of the tower.  I first thought, rather than traveling horizontally across the cable, "Um... I'm falling... toward the ground..."  Since I had been standing, and thus had stepped off of the tower, I did plunge a bit toward the ground.  If I had been sitting on the tower, I would've merely leaned forward and fallen off of the tower, which I think may have been a more gentle start, in which case I believe I would've had a smoother trajectory, and thus would've felt a bit more assured that all was well.  Nevertheless, soon my trajectory smoothed out, and I was more horizontally zooming through the forest clearing toward the other end of the zipline path.  Once I got going horizontally, I enjoyed ziplining: it was a fun ride!

My fellow LVs and I enjoyed our time at Covenant Harbor.  We got to know each other better, we worked together as teams, and we had fun all at the same time! 

Site Visit

After I accepted the invitation to become a Lasallian Volunteer (LV), the Director of Lasallian Volunteers called me to discuss my site preferences with me.  After accepting the invitation, before we spoke again on the phone, I had a few days to think about what I wanted to get out of the program.  Thus I felt that I had gathered my thoughts enough to be able to explain well to the Director the kind of experience I hoped to have as an LV.

I considered the Brothers of the Christian Schools, the religious order which founded the Lasallian Volunteer program.  The Brothers have taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to God.  However, they don't live in monasteries.  They live in houses much like anyone else does, yet they live in Christian faith-based community with each other, sharing prayer and fellowship together.  Given how I've enjoyed spending time with people who have consecrated their lives to God, I told the LV Director that I had a very strong preference to live in a community with the Brothers.  I want to see what it's like living as the Brothers do, rather than live in a community composed solely of LVs, as a small number of LVs do.

I also told the LV Director that although I had indicated on my application that my first choice would be to teach ESL (English As A Second Language), I had thought further about work positions and had decided that my first choice would be to serve as a high school teacher, and that my second choice would be to serve as a middle school teacher.  Since I had interviewed to be an LV, I had thought about how in a previous job, I had expressed uncertainty about my ability to do certain tasks well, which had led my supervisor at the time to say to me, "Don't give me that Scarecrow from 'The Wizard Of Oz' routine!"  After I had interviewed to be an LV, I had started applying that advice from my former supervisor, trying to shed my uncertainty, and instead telling myself that I was able to teach high school or middle school. 

As the weeks after the interview passed, the LV Director contacted me from time to time to update me on the process of selecting a site for me.  At one point, she contacted me and informed me that the site selection process had narrowed the options for my site down to three possibilities. 

A short time thereafter, she informed me that the principal of a middle school in Chicago soon would be contacting me.  Within a week or so, perhaps in the middle of April, the principal called me.  We had a pleasant conversation, which I took as a good sign.  He told me that he would be in touch with me. 

At the end of April, he invited me to come visit the school.  He asked me when and for how long I would like to visit.  I told him that I wanted to visit the school as soon as possible for a few days.  He purchased the tickets and less than a week later, I was flying to Chicago in early May. 

I landed at O'Hare in the afternoon and took the subway's blue line into the city.  The principal had arranged it so that a teacher picked me up from a stop on the blue line to drive me to the community house.  In the small world in which we live, as we chatted in the car, we found that one of his best friends had served with me in the Peace Corps in Morocco over the last couple of years! 

I enjoyed my stay at the community house.  Two LVs in their first year of service, Whitney and Megan, had been living in the house thus far during their year of service.  At the end of their first year of service, during this summer, they moved to the other community house which is across the alley separating the two houses.  They'll live there during the second year of their service, that is to say, for the next 12 months.  I enjoyed talking with Whitney and Megan, who are very friendly and happily answered my questions about serving as LVs and about living in the community. 

The first thing in the morning, at 7:00 a.m., the Brothers, Whitney, Megan and I gathered for morning prayer.  We read aloud together out of the Shorter Book Of Christian Prayer, reading mostly Psalms, and at times other Scripture passages as well. 

After the brief morning prayer of about 15 minutes, most members of the community gathered for breakfast in the dining room.  There's a fair supply of cereals, as well as oatmeal, toast, English muffins, and coffee to be had in the house. 

At the community house, we also gathered for evening prayer.  Technically it is late afternoon prayer, given that we met for evening prayer at 5:00 p.m.  Evening prayer is substantially similar to morning prayer. 

Immediately following evening prayer, we shared dinner together in the dining room.  One night during my visit, we had gumbo! 

During my site visit, when I wasn't at the house, most of the time I was at the school.  I had a long enough site visit that I was able to spend three full days at the school.  It's a small school, only serving kids in grades 6, 7 and 8.  There are only about 28 students in each grade, so that each grade is entirely contained in its own classroom.  The vast majority of the pupils are of Mexican heritage.  Well over 90 percent of them qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch.  Given that the school serves so many poor children, I had been looking forward to going to the school. 

From the moment I stepped onto the floor on which the school is located, even before meeting any of the staff or students, I had a good feeling.  Then once I started meeting the children and teachers and other staff, I felt even more comfortable and excited to be there.  The kids are fairly well-behaved and are exceptionally respectful.  I found the teachers and other staff to be friendly and happy to answer any questions I had. 

Once the school day got started, I got to see first-hand how each student reads 90 minutes each day, a practice I think is wonderful.  The principal had me sit with individual students who were reading, confirming their accurate pronunciations when they seemed uncertain, encouraging them, and correcting some of their mistakes as they read. 

The principal also asked me to teach the 8th grade religion class one afternoon so he could see how I would interact with the students.  Since the students were about to start learning about Pentecost, I decided to teach about Pentecost, when God sent the Holy Spirit down upon the Apostles.  I started off the lesson asking the kids what types of events worry them, and how they react to such events.  Then I asked the students how the Apostles felt right after Jesus had been crucified.  A student replied that the Apostles were worried.  I had a student read the Bible verses in which Jesus had assured His Apostles that He would send the Holy Spirit upon them.  Then I asked for a half dozen volunteers.  I had the six or so students come to the front of the class and they and I took turns reading aloud as we made our way through the second chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, in which Luke the Evangelist recounts how God indeed sent the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, strengthening them and enabling them to do great things.  After we had finished reading from the Bible, I referenced and called upon the Scripture passage to illustrate how God wants us to trust in Him, and that when we do, we are empowered to do great things for Him. 

After the class, a teacher asked me how the lesson went.  The principal happened to be passing us at that moment.  I deferred to him.  I responded, "You'll have to ask him."  I was glad to hear that he was pleased with my teaching style, how I involved the students in the lesson, and how I handled unexpected occurrences during the lesson.  He noted that in my interactions with students, it helps how I speak with energy and show animated facial expressions, tendencies which I hadn't considered as being helpful when I teach. 

While I was glad to hear that the principal had been pleased with my teaching style, I was still concerned about being able to teach well.  Thankfully, he gave me a couple of fantastic books to read, "The Essential 55" by Ron Clark and "Teach Like A Champion" by Doug Lemov.  After reading them in May, June and July, I recommend them both, as they contain very helpful tips about teaching.  In the first book, Clark tends to focus on getting kids into the right mindset for school, both for studying well and for behaving well both in and out of school.  Lemov shares his observations of how outstanding teachers convey knowledge and cultivate reasoning skills, and also how they manage their classrooms well.  I found both books to be insightful; after reading both of those books, I'm less anxious about teaching.

I'm excited about the coming school year.  I'm looking forward to teaching.  And more specifically, I'm glad that I'm going to be teaching at a school where poor children attend.  I'm also glad to have co-workers who share my Christian faith and who are trying to express their faith by caring for others, especially those who don't have a lot.  I'm happy to be trying to live my faith, being supported by those who share it and hopefully supporting them too. 

Invitation To Become A Lasallian Volunteer

In March this year, my first-choice volunteer program, Lasallian Volunteers, accepted me. Yet I feel I should back up to give some context of how I came to apply to be a Lasallian Volunteer.

When I was living in Morocco and working there as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the field of Youth Development from 2010 to 2012, I experienced spiritual changes which helped me gain clarity about the kind of life I want to live. While I lived in Morocco, I had a lot of free time. I tried to make good use of my copious spare time, using it to read the entire Old Testament, then the entire New Testament, then all of the Old Testament Apochrypha. I also gradually read all of "The Imitation Of Christ" by Thomas a Kempis, which many feel is the most treasured text in Christianity after the Bible.

Amongst the other Christian writings I read while I was in Morocco, I read "Celebration Of Discipline" by Richard Foster, as well as the accompanying study guide which Foster also wrote. In those books, Foster discusses spiritual disciplines which can help place one before God, which can help focus on God, which can help one commune with God, including prayer, study, meditation, fasting, simplicity, solitude, community, worship, celebration and service. As I read these books, I came to realize that Foster was describing elements of my life at that point in Morocco which I had been enjoying.

Of course I had been enjoying serving impoverished persons through my work as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I had long found fulfillment from helping poor people in a variety of ways, so it came as no surprise that I found satisfaction from serving poor persons whilst in the Peace Corps. 

I had been living simply as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I didn't miss the paycheck I used to earn as a lawyer, nor did I miss the possessions I had shed just before moving to Morocco. Indeed, as I progressed in my Peace Corps service, and came to rid myself of more property, I grew to want to give away even more possessions. Not only did I want to live even more and more simply, I wanted to do so as I simultaneously knew that to do so is an attempt to practice a spiritual discipline.

Before I had read Foster's writings on the spiritual disciplines, I had known in a general sense that the spiritual disciplines present worthwhile spiritual practices. After reading Foster's books, I came to be aware of why they are helpful to one's spiritual development. I further became aware of their importance in my life, and how they relate to each other. I appreciated his exposition on the spiritual disciplines, since upon reading his writings, I was better able to organize my thoughts regarding my spiritual journey and the facets of my life which I hoped to retain in my life once I left Morocco.

Soon after reading these two volumes by Foster, I read Thomas Merton's autobiography, "The Seven Storey Mountain," in which Merton describes how he came to be a Trappist monk. It occurred to me that as a monk, one can live a life of service, and also of solitude, yet also of community, a life which is especially conducive to prayer, meditation and study of The Word Of God.

Accordingly, once I left Morocco, I visited monasteries on my way back to the USA. I enjoyed my stays at Glenstal Abbey and at Mount Saint Joseph Abbey in Ireland. Even moreso I enjoyed my stay at Belmont Abbey in the United Kingdom. There I stayed inside the abbey with the monks for a week, unlike how I had stayed in the guesthouses at the monasteries in Ireland.  From those monastery visits, I found that I enjoyed the company of persons who have chosen to live their lives consecrated to God. 

After having invested my extensive free time in reading which helped me to identify the kind of spiritual life I wanted to live, and after having stayed at and otherwise visited monasteries, I arrived back in the USA in late November 2012 intentionally looking for specific kinds of opportunities to serve others. During my time in Morocco, I enjoyed spiritual community with other expatriate Christians who were also living in Morocco. I would meet up with them for Bible study, sometimes as often as once a week. I cherished the fellowship we shared as we supported each other in our faith as Christians. As much as I enjoyed the fellowship with them, I also knew that I needed more spiritual community than weekly Bible study sessions. I concluded that I wanted to live in a Christian faith-based community. Thus, I arrived back in the USA seeking opportunities to serve poor persons while living simply as a member of a Christian faith-based community, perhaps as a member of a volunteer program.

Although I started looking for such opportunities about a week after I arrived back in the USA, initially I could not find them. I searched intermittently for brief periods for such opportunities, not consistently searching for them partly because I was especially occupied given that Christmas was soon approaching. Even though I had not been persistently looking for these volunteer programs, by the time New Year's Eve arrived, I was starting to despair that I would not be able to find a way to continue serving poor persons while living simply in a Christian faith-based community.

Then right around New Year's Eve, while doing an Internet search, I found the website www.catholicvolunteernetwork.org. On that website, I found numerous opportunities to volunteer. I found full-time options and part-time options. I found chances to volunteer abroad or in many states in the USA. I found programs offering positions where one could teach, be a social worker, volunteer in a soup kitchen, and serve in many other ways. I found programs where volunteers work in connection with friars and sisters. I found programs where volunteers could get health insurance, room and board, and modest living stipends. In short, I found so many volunteering possibilities that I had to start prioritizing which programs were most appealing to me.

Soon I had developed a list consisting of a few tiers of programs with progressively later deadlines. I applied to the first three programs at the top of my list. I filled out long applications with dozens of questions which called for short answers. I asked former work supervisors, pastors and a co-worker to write recommendations for me. Once I had submitted the applications, I began to wait.

After perhaps a couple of weeks, I heard back from Lasallian Volunteers, which was my top choice. They wanted to interview me! I was glad to get this news. I knew that Lasallian Volunteers was a staff organization which was founded by the Brothers of the Christian Schools to run a nationwide network of volunteers. I knew that Lasallian Volunteers places volunteers in positions where they serve impoverished youths, often in educational settings. I wanted to teach. I had enjoyed teaching as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. When I was applying to the Peace Corps, I enjoyed being a teacher's assistant to a teacher who was teaching ESL (English As A Second Language), and I also enjoyed tutoring people in ESL during that same period. When I was a lawyer, I always enjoyed educating people about the law, which had led me to want to teach in the Peace Corps. So I was excited to interview for a chance to become a Lasallian Volunteer (LV), since I knew that as an LV, I could probably not only teach, but also be a teacher for poor kids. And I was excited to interview to be an LV since LVs live in Christian faith-based community, most of them with Brothers of the Christian Schools.

In preparing for the interview, I learned about Saint John Baptist de la Salle, who founded the religious order known as the Brothers of the Christian Schools. He was a French priest who lived from 1651 to 1719, who did much to further education. While preparing for the interview, I read about middle schools and high schools affiliated with the Brothers, schools which are often called Lasallian schools, and which serve impoverished youths. I also read about other types of sites where LVs serve, including educational centers, a family therapy center, and a retreat center. I also read about the array of positions in which LVs serve, including in the position of teacher, tutor, social worker, campus minister, recreational activity leader, retreat facilitator, and development assistant. On the Lasallian Volunteers website, I also read about LVs who were serving. In all that I read, I got a positive impression of the LV program. As I read LVs' blog entries, I could tell that LVs are happy. As the interview neared, more and more I wanted to become an LV.

The interview lasted over an hour and a half. The interviewer asked me a variety of questions, which tended to revolve around faith, service and community, the main pillars on which the LV program is based. After the interview, I wanted to be an LV even more.

In the days after the interview, I tried to busy myself as I wondered about the status of my application. After a couple of weeks, which seemed much longer, I got word that I was invited to be an LV!  I promptly accepted the invitation to be an LV.  I was happy that I had found a way to continue serving impoverished people, while living simply and living in Christian faith-based community.  I was set to take the next steps on my spiritual journey!