7QT: Volume 2 (Ruined for Life Edition)
3:09 PM
I started this blog during my two years with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC), a service program that offers recent college graduates the opportunity to serve the poor and marginalized while living in an intentional community of other volunteers. I followed in the footsteps of several family members who had served in JVC before me. And now my little sister is continuing the tradition! I am so excited that she will be spending a year with this amazing program, and am especially psyched that she is going to be serving in my city and living just a few blocks away!
Linking up with Kelly for 7 Quick Takes dedicated to the awesomeness that is JVC.
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My experience in JVC was transformative. I went from working as a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health with my own studio apartment outside of DC to learning the ropes as a Case Manager in a domestic violence shelter while living with six housemates in the heart of Philadelphia. Going from culturing mouse neurons to counseling survivors of domestic violence was about as huge a transition as I had ever experienced. There was a lot of discomfort in those first few months - but also so much grace. I am so grateful for the lessons I learned through JVC - I wouldn't be the person I am today without them.
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There are four core values to the JVC experience. One is simple living. Each JV receives a paycheck from his or her service placement, all of which (aside from a small monthly stipend - ours was less than $100) is put into the community bank account and used to cover living expenses for the community as a whole. In part this was meant to encourage solidarity with those we were serving - men, women and children who lived month to month and didn't always know where their next meal was coming from or where they would sleep at night. We did not, of course, experience hunger or homelessness or so many other forms of marginalization the way that our clients did, but we did learn something about the difference between wants and needs, luxuries and basic essentials. Simple living is also intended to encourage intentional living - making decisions thoughtfully and carefully, with reference to values and beliefs. This value is something my husband and I are trying even now to incorporate into our family life.
We learned to save our money for the things that mattered - like this awesome spread for our Christmas party (Phillies Navidad)
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Another of the JVC values in community. JVC places volunteers in cities across the country, where they live in community with other volunteers, usually ranging from 4 to 8 per house. As if living on a tight budget isn't hard enough, JVC challenges you to do it with a group of veritable strangers, each with unique preferences and personality quirks. This is one of the hardest values to live, perhaps because there's no escaping the very real challenges of community life when living on a small income in an unfamiliar city. Living in community taught me a great deal about myself, and laid bare many of my faults and weaknesses I could keep hidden while living alone. Since our time in JVC ended, the members of my two communities have moved to many states and are pursuing many different paths - but we still share a powerful bond that few other people in our lives understand. There are still group texts and email chains that circulate between us from time to time, re-sending favorite pictures and reprising inside jokes.
This shot of our living room captures so much of the JV lifestyle. Random collection of furniture. Awful green carpet. Yes we had a TV, no we didn't have cable...but we did have a complete set of Friend's DVD's that we watched over and over and over. Retro exercise bike donated to the community...empty six pack in front of it. Try not to bond with your community members when this is your life!
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The third value is spirituality. JVC operates out of the Catholic tradition, which informs the service placements and spiritual support offered to volunteers. In particular, JVC calls upon the spirituality of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, who taught his followers to be contemplatives in action, living lives of interior recollection while working to build the Kingdom of God in the world at large. While not all JV's are Catholic (or religious, for that matter), the program asks that each volunteer brings an openness to the spiritual life and a willingness to accept the faiths of his or her community members, whatever they might be. My two communities were made up of staunch Catholics, along with other Christians, spiritual seekers, agnostics and atheists. While it was sometimes challenging to connect on spiritual grounds, for the most part I think that we were respectful and loving toward one another, even at moments when we profoundly disagreed.
Altar cloth made by the Additional Year volunteers for the final Mass of our Orientation retreat my second year.
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The final value is social justice. I think this is the value that draws most applicants to JVC, at least initially. The people I met through JVC were passionate and idealistic, on fire to relieve suffering, resist oppression and remake the world in the image of the God who is just and merciful. Even those did not identify with the Catholic and Ignatian spirituality of JVC were committed to accompanying the poor and marginalized. JVC's commitment to social justice emerges from Catholic Social Teaching, which emphasizes the value of the human person and envisions a society that respects and fosters the dignity and worth of each individual, particularly those on the margins. If I could change anything about JVC, it would be to emphasize even more strongly this particularly Catholic approach to social justice, which is founded on doing all for the sake of Christ. As Pope Francis has said:
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Finally, to my little sister, as she begins this incredible journey - I am so proud of you for taking this leap into a year of simplicity, community life, spiritual exploration and the pursuit of social justice. You are moving to a new city far from home (though by God's Providence, just around the corner from me!), to live with new people who may become some of your best friends - or whom you may find barely tolerable. You are embarking on new and challenging work that will draw upon many of your skills and experiences, while also stretching you in ways as yet unknown. You are aligning yourself with a tradition you are not fully comfortable with - and I hope that you will be open with your community members about your beliefs, because there is so much richness to be discovered by meeting each other in the borderlands between faith and doubt (which is, I think, the place we all live most of the time). And whether you call it this or not, you are opening yourself up to the grace of God, which will flow into every crevice and chasm broken open by this experience.If you're interested, you can check out all my posts written while in JVC. Don't forget to head over to This Ain't the Lyceum to read what others have to say this week. And if you know any idealistic college students looking for a way to spend a gap year, or discern a vocation, or come face to face with poverty and grace...consider pointing them here.
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