This past weekend, two of my community members and I drove up to Trenton for an ecumenical Christian conference entitled "Revive". The conference (or, rather, "revival") took its inspiration from that often-quoted passage from Luke 4:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free" (Luke 4:18, NAB).

I have to admit, I had mixed feelings about going to this conference - mostly because the prospect of rubbing shoulders with Christians from all points along the theological and political spectrum threatened to disturb the comfortable Catholic bubble I've been creating for myself here in Philadelphia. At the end of the day, however, I found myself renewed and encouraged.

Most of that renewal came from meeting Shane Claiborne, one of the founders of the Simple Way, an intentional community in the Kensington area of Philadelphia; and Bart Campolo, founder of Mission Year (a program very similar to JVC), who now lives in an intentional community in Cincinatti. Both of them talked about the challenges of trying to live a radical Gospel witness in contemporary American society. After ten months of living in community in the inner city and trying to be present to the needs of the poor and marginalized, it was incredibly inspiring to hear from two men who have walked this path for decades.

Both Shane and Bart talked about community as a huge part of what sustains them in this path. They talked about it only being possible to really love all of the broken people they encounter in their neighborhoods if the love within their community is strong enough to overflow and draws others in - (which is exactly the model of the Trinity - three Persons Whose eternal love overflows and draws in all of humanity!) They talked about a theology of place and a ministry of presence. They talked about the great Christian mission to love people, not to fix people; how it is our mandate as Christians not only to construct a just society in which our systems actually work for the people they are intended to work for - not only to staff soup kitchens and after-school tutoring programs - but also, and perhaps most importantly, to be in relationship with those around us, to truly love our neighbors, regardless of how broken our neighbors are.

And honestly, it was just really exciting to think that this way of living that I'm discovering through JVC could be more than just a one or two year stint after college. It's exciting, and terrifying, to think that it could be a calling, a vocation, a way of life. Or maybe (probably?), something in between the two extremes.