Gratitude

For a little over a month I've been keeping a gratitude journal. Every night right before I turn out my light, I write down at least three things I'm grateful for about the day I just had. Some days I write a lot more than three things and other days I have to write things like “I'm grateful there are only two days left in the workweek” (and the next day followed by “I'm grateful there is only one day left in the work week”).

One thing that keeping a gratitude journal has taught me already is to look for things to be grateful for in my day and make a mental note of them. Even if they don't make it into the actual gratitude journal because I don't remember by the end of the day, making a mental note of the good things that happen helps me stay positive and in a state of gratitude throughout the day.

I plan on making the gratitude journal a part of my regular spiritual practice because I really think it's made a difference in the short time I've been keeping it. Gratitude isn't just for Thanksgiving, though it's great to have a whole day full of gratitude too.

Life Update

I am happy (and relieved) to report that I have been hired at Catholic Charities as a Case Worker. I'll work with individuals and families who are at a high risk for becoming homeless. I'm very thankful for everyone who helped me get this job and all the positive thoughts, advice, and prayers I've been getting from family and friends.

I start work on Monday—which is good because I need the money and bad because I have so much to do. Even though I have a lot to do, I wanted to write an update.

As promised, my year of service changed me. Probably the most obvious/measurable way that I've changed is how I've changed my plans: I decided not to go to graduate school right away (I applied to five schools, got into three, and was offered a Graduate Teaching Assistantship that would have covered all tuition costs and provided a stipend). There were a lot of reasons I decided not to go to graduate school—one of which was that the school where I was offered the GTA was in Kansas—but probably the biggest reason is that I want to continue to serve the poor and vulnerable for a year or two or maybe even more. I still see myself getting a MFA one day, but it might not be for a while.

For a few years I've seen the connection between my faith/spirituality and social justice/service. This year I've grown in my faith, expanded and deepened my spirituality, gotten to know myself better, and learned more about the systems of poverty and injustice. Now, I cannot separate spirituality and social justice. I think if I stopped serving others and engaging in different aspects of social justice my spirituality would be empty and weak. I'm certainly not a perfectly just person, but I want to do my best to make the world a more just place. I've enjoyed putting my faith into action and doing that is largely why my faith has grown so much this past year (it's also grown because I've taken the time to explore my spirituality and reflect).

The work I will be doing is more charity (it is Catholic Charities, after all), but I'll be continuing to serve those in need. I also plan on seeking opportunities to work for social justice both within my work and outside of work.

I'm excited about my future and nervous about paying rent, student loans, buying a car, and all the other financial and logistical things I have to figure out that I haven't done (or done much of) before. That said, I'm happy to have this to report: so far, so good.

Citizenship, John Jay, and No Religion

Yesterday I went to a citizenship class. Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement recently received a grant to start a citizenship program and the class I attended yesterday is one of the things we're doing with the grant. Tomorrow I'll start spending some of my time working with people who are applying for citizenship.

In the class, we played bingo with words that are on the test for reading and writing. The words are also included in the 100 questions so it's easy to incorporate the vocabulary into studying for the civics test.. Some examples of words/phrases we used were Washington, Maryland, The Constitution, Adams, 1787, freedom of religion, and John Jay. I did not know who John Jay was, but apparently he was one of three men who wrote the Federalist Papers (the other two are Madison and Hamilton, which I did know).

The class only had seven people in it and the age range was somewhere from around 20 to 60. Everyone in the class had obviously studied from the week before (this was the second class out of five) and were working hard to learn. I don't know if I've ever been in a class with such motivated students. I was surprised at how motivated they were considering it was a Saturday morning and the room we were in was about fifty degrees (everyone wore their jackets the whole time). Then again, maybe I'd be motivated too if I'd been waiting to apply for citizenship for five years and wanted to have some small say in how the place I was living was run.

To me, the most interesting thing that happened was when we talked about freedom of religion and what it means—freedom to practice any religion you choose or to choose not to have a religion.

While I was pondering how I'd missed ever learning about John Jay in my seventeen years of formal (I swear I'd never heard of him until yesterday), there was a young man who was pondering something much deeper. He was maybe a year or two younger than I am and sitting directly across the table from me. He was frowning and he said, “excuse me, teacher, there are people who have no religion?”

“Yes, some people don't have any religion,” said the woman teaching the class.

“No religion? None at all? How can that be? How do they live?”

I think I was nearly as surprised by his his confusion as he was that some people don't have a religion. I was also sad because of how confused and sad he looked. He kept shaking his head and after the class had moved on, he said quietly, “I didn't know it was possible not to have a religion. How is that?”

His neighbor—a lady who was probably about his mother's age—said, “why don't you ask them?”

“Oh,” he said, “I've never met anybody like that.”

Even though I didn't know how he could live in the United States for at least five years and not realize that not everyone is religious, I could imagine the confusion he felt. After I thought about it for a little bit, I found myself sharing some of his wonderment: I understand not believe in anything specific or having any particular religion, but I find it hard to imagine not having any type of spirituality. When I look at the beauty of nature or witness someone doing something truly kind for another human being I don't know how anyone could look at that and see only a beautiful coincidence.

I know that not having a religion is different from not having any kind of spirituality, but what I started thinking about was kind of an extension from the young man's reaction.

With all of the violence in the world, all the hatred, all the poverty and oppression, and all of the random natural disasters it's easy to see why someone might not believe in the loving God that I believe in. Still, not to believe in anything at all? That makes the world seem even more hopeless. Of course, then it can be argued that people believe in God only to make themselves feel better when things go wrong or to explain things they can't explain themselves. Even if that's true and people live happier, more hopeful, and more generous lives because of those false ideas, is that such a bad thing?

A Nourishing Lent

This lent, I'm going all out--in fact, I may have bitten off more than I can chew: I've given up everything that doesn't nourish me in some way. I'm not just talking about food that doesn't nourish me physically because we need much more than food to nourish us. People need social, mental, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual nourishment. This means that I'm giving up food without nutritional value, yes, but I'm also giving up other things that aren't good for me such as wasting time (with things like solitaire), complaining about nothing, negative self-talk, and anything else I deem not to be good for me.

Some people say that it's better to add something good during lent rather than give up something bad--making lent a positive instead of a negative. I've done this in the past and I've found that it takes more energy to add something than to give something up (which, of course, is part of the point). I thought about adding something this year, but lately I've found myself so tired and worn down that it's overwhelming to think about adding something new. It will take a lot of energy to give up everything that doesn't nourish me and I'm sure I'll have my slip-ups (I already have). Still, I hope the end result will be that I feel refreshed and have more positive energy to share with my community, my placement, and on my relationship with God.

I hope everyone has a nourishing Lenten season whether you're giving something up, adding something, doing both, or haven't yet decided to do anything at all.