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.