Expect Nothing. Experience Everything.

One of the greatest pieces of advice I received from an RA during my undergraduate career was: don't have any expectations.

Well that's kind of morbid and depressing don't you think? Well, yes and no.

Expectations allow us to dream about what is to come. If you never expect anything then you really don't have anything to hope for or strive for- do you? It is in our expectations that we envision what lies ahead, both for good and for bad. So if you never expect anything, can you ever achieve anything? Or does living without expectations simply make what you achieve/ what happens to you more serendipitous or does living without expectations require more or less work to reach your goals?

After all, goals are expectations- aren't they? If you didn't expect to reach your goals, there would be no point to making them in the first place. To expect something is to set a standard for which to strive. So if the fateful advice my friend gave to me was to not have any expectations, he must have been one un-motivational RA (he wasn't the best, but I digress).

Yet, I remember that advice from my freshman year and even more, I followed it. (and I didn't turn out that much worse for the wear, right?... right?!?!!?) It's not that you shouldn't have expectations, it's that you have to be realistic and, sometimes, you just need to realize that no matter what you expect, you can't (nor should you try) to predict what exactly lies ahead.

I'll never be able to have no expectations and to try to eliminate them from my consciousness would be unhealthy. What I can do is keep my expectations from inhibiting my actions. Expect the best but don't push it; be honest enough to experience everything that comes your way; and allow the experience dictate your expectations, not vice versa.

So I bring that piece of advice, which came to me before my first spring break service trip, with me as I get closer to Philly. I'm trying not to have too many expectations and not having a ton of information about my job, our orientation, or my community mates is making that a lot easier. In a way, it is forcing me to detach from any presumptions I could I have and, in so doing, I'm realizing that those expectations and assumptions I do have about the program, where it will lead me, and what the year may hold are ungrounded and unjustified. (I still have them but now they come with a grain of salt.) For good or for bad, expectations won't get me anywhere- being true to this experience, the emotions it raises in me, and the new thoughts, prayers, and, ultimately, expectations it plants in me will take me to places I never could have imagined.

The beginning of an end ends up at the beginning

"My deepest vocation is to be a witness to the glimpses of God I have been allowed to catch"

- Henri Nouwen

In less than a month I leave for the SSJ Mission Corps in Philadelphia. I'll be living and working in the Kensington neighborhood of the city. My days will be spent in service at Visitation Parish and the Cardinal Bevilacqua Community Center as the Coordinator of Outreach Services. That position entails everything from managing the St. Vincent de Paul Society for the parish, running the food pantry, and overseeing and assisting with any assortment of programs at the CBCC.

The process that has gotten me to this point has been long, arduous, and full of discernment, not to mention twists and turns that landed me in a place I never thought I would be at 6 months ago.

Since graduation from college, service had called out to me, so I wasn't surprised when that call arose again in the Fall of last year. When I began looking for service programs in mid-October I ran across a program run by the Sisters of St. Joseph based out of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. For the last year I've been spending time with the Sisters of St. Joseph and looking at the description of this program I fell in love with it pretty hard and fast.

Wait a second, you might be saying to yourself, she said she's moving to Philadelphia... last time I checked Philly was in Pennsylvania not Minnesota! Correct you are.

I fell in love, and at the time I didn't know exactly what with. My gut reaction told me that it was this program in MN and for a long time that's what I believed. Based on that, I visited Minneapolis, went through the entire application process, interviewed via skype, was accepted, interviewed with a placement site and then decided MN wasn't where I was meant to be. Of course the story wasn't/isn't that simple, but to recount all the emotions and situational changes involved would be a roller coaster ride that I would have trouble putting into words and even if I tried, I'm pretty sure you would have just as much trouble trying to deceipher it.

Leave it to say that some time after visiting the program in MN, I was hanging out with the Sisters of St. Joseph in Philly for a justice event and each time I would tell a sister that I was looking at this program in Minnesota, they would mention to me that they had their own, albeit new, program. Each time this happened I would brush it off- I was going to MN afterall- but after much talk (see: persistant talk bordering on nagging), I was convinced to talk to a current SSJ Mission Corp volunteer, if only to tell the sisters "I told you so".

Well what I expected to be a 15 minute phone conversation turned out to be an hour and 15 minute phone conversation. I heard a lot of things I liked and having filled out enough applications to choke a horse, I threw an application together for the SSJ Mission Corps that very night. Soon enough I was invited to Philadelhia for an interview with the program. What followed was an interview with MN, finding that I was in love with service and my desire to serve blinded me to some pretty aggregious faults between myself and MN, and some heart-to-heart talks with some close friends and the big G-O-D.

All of these realizations allowed me to decicively say "I'm not meant to go to MN... I may not know where I'm meant to go, but Minnesota, I'm pretty sure, is not where I'm being called." And so I declined my spot in MN... without having been accepted to Philly yet.

While my interview with Minnesota threw up some major red flags, my interview in Philadelphia was challenging and life giving. The challenge was in questions that dug deep and really made reference to who I am and how I had shared myself in my application (not to mention that because I threw my application together last minute from a variety of sources, I wasn't exactly sure what stories I had and hadn't included). The vitality of the interview came in interviewers who genuinely and respectfully handled my application, who cared to ask deep questions, and who, in return, allowed me to ask deep questions of them.

As I waited in discernment limbo to hear from Philly, I knew that these women and this program despite its faults in some area was ultimately the place for me. When Julie called to invite me to join and gave me 3 weeks to make my decision I told her I'd get back to her by the end of the week- at the latest. At this point, I was at the end of a year long discernment (well not really, but for this entry's purpose I guess I could say a resting point after a year of discernment) and could say yes despite all the unknowns before me.

I still am filled with questions and the unknown hasn't gotten any more known, but I'm ok with that. Lots of people think I'm crazy. Crazy to pick up and move; Crazy to pursue such an unknown; and crazy for leaving a full time job to do so. Sometimes when I sit down and think about it, I honestly think I might be a little crazy. But then my heart beats a little faster, I think of everything that has led me to this point, and I figure if it's for love, what's wrong with a little crazy.

As autumn settles in & with All Souls' Day yesterday, this post from the Happy Days Blog at the NY Times site gave good form to the hope we find in life that is inherently tied to death... and the one thing May misses in this piece- the joy of living, while epitomized in moments near death, is a glimpse of the joy and a push towards the hope of a life yet to come.

Who do you say that I am?

Ah Ha! "Who do you say that I am?" Leave it to Jesus to pull a curve ball like this.

I vividly remember when I heard this reading for the what seemed like the first time three years ago. I was beginning my year as a college sophomore, living in a community focused on the questions: Who am I? Whose am I? and Who am I called to be? At that time, I focused on why Jesus would ask this question. Why would he ask who people said he was? If I was asked, who would I say that he is?

Today, as I reread that passage and face that question, I ask myself: who do I say that Jesus is?
Not what my response would be if asked this question, although that is important, but what do my actions say that Christ is?- Who do I say that I am through my actions? As a Christian I am called to embody Christ in all that I do and, as such, if Christ asks "Who do you say that I am?" I must reflect on my own actions and being to discover the truest answer. It's easy to respond quickly, to pass out stale responses that we know those around us, and we ourselves, want to hear, but if we really want to find out who Christ is, we must search who we are and how we are striving to be Christ.

As St. James so truthfully writes in the second reading, "Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works." It's as easy and as hard as that- we are Christ. It is our very being that speaks to the who Christ is and, ultimately, in coming to a better understanding of our faith, our community, and our selves it might be best that we try not to answer this question with our lips but with our lives.

"Spirituality is the journey of falling in love with God and living out that love in everyday life."

~Elizabeth A. Dreyer, Making Sense of God: A Woman's Perspective

It's summer and for the first time in a long time I am not running around for the summer months. My typical summer consists of traveling around the country (or world) doing service, taking some time to just "veg" out, and chilling around the house. Half of the time I am running around having a grand old time and the other half I am recouperating, relaxing, and getting ready for the next adventure to come my way.

This summer began much the same- service around the country, loving life, keeping busy, and growing. Now here I am in my typical veg place... but there is no vegging to be found.

Now I am a working girl, you know the whole nine to five thing, yeah that kind of puts a damper on being a total vegetable. (note: time stamp) Still this is a time of growth . Learning a new set of skills, discovering why I am behind a desk rather than out in the field, and, most importantly, finding and taking advantage of new opportunities for growth.

That brings me to the quote above. Usually my summers are full of experience, experience, experience followed by plenty of processing just in time to return to school. This year finds this process in swing but without a definitive ending (gasp! I graduated! That means no going back to school!) Thus I am in search of a faith community and faith life here at home. I've moved back in with my parents, which is a trip to say the least- a big shift from independent living- and am now faced with the issue of continuing the journey of falling in love with God and living out that love in a place that is all too familiar as a person who has grown out of the place I once occupied.

It is here that I begin that journey, a new leg of my faith journey. Not here as in on this blog, but here with this quote. I am in love with God but that love is a continual journey, it shifts as all things do. Each day I discover new ways of loving God; I find peace in some experiences while wrestling with finding meaning in others. I long to fall more deeply in love with God and so I place myself in the still presence of prayer- a place my summer vegging did not often take me with any depth.

Here is a journey... to speak with the divine and even more, to listen to the divine. To find my place, even among the remnants of my childhood home and summer habits, a place that I think I must first discover within myself and then bring to the spaces of my everyday with love for a God-filled life and journey.

It's going to take time no doubt. Time that may be uncomfortable and places that probably will be too. I may be a college graduate but I've got a lot of learning to do. For now, it is my task to journey. Not to know how or why or where, but to look for space where I can journey with no end in sight but the simple "journey of falling in love with God and living out that love in everyday life."

Let's start wandering, why don't we...

The next great American novel? I think not.

My musings on life (my own, yours, and everyone elses')? Yeah probably.