The World is My House

The beginning of my JVC year started at Waycross in Morgantown, IN. What fascinated me about JVC was its focus on intentionality regarding aspects of community, spirituality, living, and society. The focus is on a mindfulness regarding all forms of decision-making. Sometimes we are so accustomed to our position in society that we simply overlook the clutter and complexity that we voluntarily choose for ourselves. At the end of the day, does certain forms of technology and habits allow us to engage in the greater community as partners or simply isolate us in our own self-centered comforts? Indeed, life has allowed us to invest in certain peer groups based upon political or socioeconomic leanings. There is nothing wrong with that. The problem stems though from the fact that we so easily associate people as others. To what point does this comfort disengage us from a greater dialogue?

One of the phrases that struck me was a Jesuit saying: "The world is my house, the journey my home." To this extent, I reflect on how my journey in life has been about learning from people of different backgrounds. I have been lucky to learn through my grade school's outreach programs that people in poverty experience the same suffering and joys as any person albeit in different forms. I have been lucky to learn from Honduran farmers, Chicago inmates, and New York immigrants the brokenness of local healthcare and legal systems. I have been lucky to learn intellectual endeavors in art, literature, philosophy, anthropology, and chemistry from a Western collegiate education. What I'm trying to say, is that my life has been enriched by my encounters with people from different peer groups. This is something that we as a society should be mindful of when we engage technology and our personal choices.

What ultimately amazed me at orientation was the sheer passion and excitement that people had for intentionality. We all shared fears and anxieties about being thrown into uneasy situations, but we look forward to the challenge. Yes, we had fun socializing through dancing and singing and exercising, but we all came with the commonality to intentionally engage the world. We are meant to engage the world realizing how we have propagated broken systems, but also realizing that the world is beautiful. We are privileged in our ability to sacrifice a year and it is our responsibility to fully invest in such an engagement. Our service is transient and temporal; we can't do much good. But we can be part of greater engagement in dialogue. In the end, I believe the program is about loving the world in a holistic manner and that is the eye-opening reality of service.

The next post will be about my first week in Detroit and the vibrancy that has failed to capture our attention.