Ready?

I'm not exactly sure how to start this post. Usually when I sit down to blog it is because I've had an idea, or several ideas swimming through my brain for a few days and I have finally made sense of them. At this point I'm ready to commit those thoughts to "paper" through this blog. This really isn't the case with this post. I'm still processing and not exactly sure where it will take me, but here we go.

I suppose I should start with the inspiration for this entry which is the one and only Samii Hartman. For those of you in the world who are not blessed with this wonderful creature in your life, let me paint you a picture. Samii is simply the most honest (sometimes brutally so), caring, selfless, wise and grounded person I have ever met. Did I mention that she graduated from LMU three months ago and is six years younger than me? Who says with age comes wisdom?

Two years ago I was blessed to be paired with Samii for my first Alternative Break (AB) trip to Washington, D.C. I had heard great things about Samii from Dan Patterson, a former RD who had Samii as a participant on his AB trip the year before. I immediately knew I was going to have a connection with her and through the pre-trip process, this became true very quickly. There was a ton of drama before the trip started and we somehow ended up with Neal Pourroy (former MESA student, then RA in another building, then the MESA RA in McCarthy last year) as a co-leader for the trip. The three of us were quite simply made for each other and the trip to DC has continued to be a milestone in my LMU experience.

During the trip to DC our group was charged with looking at homelessness from a variety of angles which meant working with a variety of agencies who were all trying to combat the complex issue of homelessness through different methods. Samii was extremely passionate about this issue and the level of reflection that she brought to the group was simply amazing. I could go on and on about ABDC, but the moment that sticks out in my mind more than any other of our eight days together was during the Sunday we walked around the city as a group. We had done the Lincoln Memorial, seen the Capitol, the White House and a variety of other destinations and the group's energy was a little low. The sun was getting ready to set and we found ourselves at the base of the Washington Monument. Samii and I looked at each other and we both said "reflection?" at the same time. We brought the group together, took some epic pictures, and truly reflected about the issues of poverty and homelessness and money and privilege and all kinds of things that you only hope to talk about with students, but never actually get around to during your regular work hours.

ABDC Love

What I remember the most about the reflection (which happened right after this picture was taken) was how deep it was and how quickly it got to that place. It felt like it was one of those "lightning in a bottle" moments and no matter how hard anyone tried, we would never be back to that place of honesty and trust and vulnerability again. Normally I would try to recreate this, but there was something about being in that group of students, at the base of this beautiful monument at sunset that was incredibly meaningful.

I bring up that story because I often think of those moments together when I think of Samii. While Samii is all of those wonderful things that I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, she is also the first to admit that there is an emotional wall surrounding her that is next to impossible to breakdown. During our Washington Monument reflection that wall came crashing down which brings me to the second part of this somewhat rambling reflection of my own.

I am not a particularly religious person. Nice transition, right? Stick with me, this is going somewhere. The link between all of the AB/Samii stuff and the religion stuff is that Samii is now serving in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Here's her explanation: "So basically, the short way of explaining JVC, is that it consists of volunteers across the country that work for social justice. There are four main pillars, or values that each of us volunteers work towards. Community. Social Justice. Simple Living, and Spirituality. We all live together, work at non-profits, get paid only $100 a month, and grow together as a community as we explore our faith."

Not only does this make her the coolest person ever, but it also means that she is consistently blogging about her experiences. Her last blog made me stop in my tracks and it caught my breath a little bit because it was like she was in my head. Her entire post was talking about the Spirituality pillar of JVC and how she was struggling with it. She eloquently processed through was it was like to go into a JVC Spirituality exercise with the wall around her and what it felt like to peek through to glimpse the other side. I feel like I am at the same kind of place right now.

I've always had a love/not-so-strong-as-hate relationship with religion. I grew up in a community where church was not optional, however it was also a place of deep community. Church was the social web of small-town Ohio so to be connected to other families and kids, you went to church. You went to Sunday school and sang in the choir and went through Confirmation, even if the only motivation was a free trip at the end to celebrate (what's up, Chicago '97??). I never felt a strong connection to God and as much as I don't want to admit it, I really really understood what the whole Christian thing was about. Maybe I missed that day, but I honestly did not understand that you had to believe in Jesus and the whole thing to consider yourself a Christian. Clearly, the Sunday school and confirmation program needed some work!

Church was never a place of deep reflection and it was never a way to see the broader strokes of the world. It was a place of beautiful Christmas Eve services and a kick-ass Christmas tree that they brought in from someone's farm every year. It was a place where I played M*A*S*H with my friends to pass the time during the pastor's sermon. It was a place of an insane amount of gossip and "keeping up with the Jones'" It was never a place of comfort or God and certainly wasn't a place that was focused on Christ. (I must mention that the denomination was United Church of Christ) so it had to be there somewhere, but I honestly never picked up on the message.

My hometown church

Some of my most vivid memories of religion as a child actually come from my best friend Denielle who is Catholic. I remember going to a Catholic mass and being so overwhelmed by the ritual and the pomp and circumstance. There was something so much more legitimate about a Catholic mass in the eyes of 7-year-old me. It seemed to mean more when you had to kneel and cross yourself a certain way in order to send up a prayer to God, versus politely folding your hands and closing your eyes. I was fascinated that they said the Lord's Prayer in a different way and I was amazed that they all had so many things memorized! I also remember the look of tears in Denielle's mom's eyes after she got divorced and couldn't go up for communion. I also thought it was silly that I couldn't get communion when I could totally enjoy the wine (it was actually grape juice) and bread at my church. There were so many things that didn't make sense in the Catholic church, but it seemed infinitely more interesting then my hum-drum services that were 50% children's choir performances, 25% announcements and the rest was filled with hymns and sermons that had to clock under 10 minutes if they were going to keep the attention of the congregation.

There was a lot of other things that happened throughout my time growing up that helped form me as a spiritual being. In the interest of time, I'm tabling those for now, but let's just say that I was scared shitless to work at a Catholic school. I knew I was in love with the mission of LMU and most definitely in love with my potential co-workers and students, but I didn't really know what was going to be a non-religious, somewhat spiritual person working at a religious school..dum, dum, dum...pause for dramatic impact...

One of my favorite "Catholic school" memories was on Halloween of my first year. I saw an older gentlemen walking through the cafeteria at lunch. He was dressed in all black and had on a priest's collar. I pointed him out and whispered to some of the other RDs that it was a great Halloween costume. One of them not-so-gently reminded me that I worked at a Catholic school now and that was an actual priest and not someone in a Halloween costume. From that moment on, I was acutely aware of what it meant to work at a Catholic school.

It means having large campus events in our chapel, whether they have a religious connotation or not. It means having a crucifix in every single classroom on campus. It means sometimes going to committee meetings headed up by a kick-ass nun who asks you how God has worked in your life this week. It means a lot of reflection and a lot of talk about mission and purpose. It means going along with a few policies that are outright discriminatory because "that's just how it works here." It means some topics are off-limits, even though they are a big part of our student's lives. It also means have deep, reflective, social justice conversations with students that take your breath away. It means listening to alumni speak about how the mission of the institution impacted and ultimately changed the very fabric of who they are and how they operate in the world. It means having students like Samii in your life.

It also means working through some of your shit so you can help students work through some of their shit which is where I find myself now. I have felt for quite some time the feeling of yearning or seeking or not quite being fully settled from within. I could usually chalk this up to being tired or working too much, even though deep down I knew it was something else entirely. Then I read Samii's blog. She described being asked to choose two pictures that represent her history with spirituality and where she would like to go this year. Her future card was an open window and she said that it could mean that the window was her; opening up to this experience, to the women she is living with; and letting whatever happen, happen. Or, she says it could be her spirituality opening up to her, or pulling her up, even if she's not open herself. She said after she shared this with the group, she felt in some measure, relieved. Like she was holding her breath in that scary part of a movie, and then the bad guy gets caught and you can breathe again. She eloquently says that it was nice to exhale.

I basically feel like I've been holding my breath for 27 years. I've been waiting for the right time or moment or place or whatever to open myself up to this thing called spirituality. I'm not necessarily sure this means organized religion, but I do think it means giving myself a chance to discern. Discernment is a very Ignatian principle and something that I absolutely love about LMU. It is totally okay not to know! It is okay to wonder and hope and pray and think and reflect. I don't think I have every truly allowed myself to wonder about things larger than myself. I have always been stopped by the fear of rejection or ridicule. While LMU is clearly religious, I don't think Res. Life is particularly focused on the spiritual development of the staff so I'm not entirely convinced that I would be supported in this. I certainly hope so, but we are such a joking, looking-for-the-next-punchline kind of group, that I don't know how well this new hope or whatever it is that I'm thinking would be received.

Clearly, I know that I shouldn't be worried about what other people think, but that has kind of been my MO for the past few decades. It is a lot easier said than done to not worry about what other people think or how people feel about you, but this would really be putting myself out there. So for now, it stays a blog post. I'm going to end what has to be the loooongest blog post ever with a few comments from one of Samii's mentors: "I think that one of the most holy things we can do is allow another person to tell us what it's like being them. Most of us struggle to allow others the freedom to tell us when and where they are ready and not when we think they should. We are also challenged to honestly answer the question ourselves, 'What is it like to be me?'"

I think what it means to be me is that I'm someone who might actually believe in God. There. I said it. The end.