God in all things?

Loyola University is a Jesuit institution, which means that its mission and values relate to the Jesuit ideals of education set out by Saint Ignatius of Loyola (here on campus, he goes by Iggy, for short). Twenty-eight colleges and universities in the United States ascribe to these values, and I have come to feel a great affinity toward Jesuit educational institutions because of them. For example, the Jesuit identity of our institution indicates a special focus on the practice of discernment, or separating our thought and decision-making process from worldly wants, desires, and fears, and instead focusing on the deepest needs of our hearts and minds. Jesuit education promotes the idea of a unity between heart and head, as well as using our talents for the betterment of the world. There is also special attention placed on freedom for oppressed populations, holistic development, and working toward an end to poverty. These values are etched on the walkway in front of the Loyola library, and I enjoy reading them as I navigate my way around campus. But one always gives me pause: commitment to seeing God in all things. 

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have undergone what Sharon Daloz Parks calls "spiritual shipwreck" over the past ten years. I arrived at college with a seemingly deep and solid Catholic faith that was brought into question by the many challenges of identity and the nature of knowledge while I was an undergraduate. I vacillated between different denominations, teachings, and beliefs for much of college, during which I experienced some painful losses of both family members and friends. As cliche as it may be, I experienced a crisis of faith in college from which I have yet to recover. 

Over the past year or so, I have re-opened and begun the process of cautiously exploring the vault of my spirituality. I have attended different types of masses and spiritual gatherings, embraced the mind-body experience of yoga, read numerous books, articles and psychological theories about faith development, and even wrote papers about the spiritual struggle in college. While all of these things have helped me soothe the pain of losing something that was such an integral part of my childhood and young adult life, I still have not figured things out and the sense of emptiness created by my lack of faithful assurance has left a void inside me. 

This summer, as I found comfort and conviction in the Jesuit ideals of education, I also have felt uncertainty about the idea that God is in all things. In the past few years, I have read, seen and experienced a lot of things that seem to contradict this concept in the form of war, greed, hatred and the wretched existence brought on humanity by the scourge of poverty and oppression.

 I have felt disheartened and discouraged by these things, and have found it difficult to believe that there is a God out there who would allow such evils to exist in the world. 

Last night, as I was muddling through my thoughts on a lot of these issues and feeling down about the lack of answers I was coming up with, I scoured my bookshelf for something to read that would distract me and my over-analytical brain. I picked up Ann Patchett's Truth and Beauty,

a nonfiction narrative of the author's friendship with a fellow writer, Lucy Gealy, a victim of cancer that left her with extreme facial disfigurement. No sooner did I begin reading the book did I start coming across random lines and passages that seemed to be speaking directly to me and my anxieties about faith, life, and my future. 

p. 15"True spiritualism, more often then not, shows you just how hard things are, not how easy." For someone who is struggling with her faith, these words immediately popped out and soothed me. 

p. 39 on writing "It's got to be every day. If you don't turn out pages every day, you're not really a writer. You're just playing at it... you won't be for real if you don't write the pages. Then you're just like everyone else. A lot of talk and nothing gets done. All promise, no delivery." This section too struck me, as I have spent most of this summer contemplating whether I have a future as an academic, and whether my desire to write and be read is enough to carry me to the next phase of my academic life. 

and finally, p. 42-43 "I came to understand that night that I could not worry about [death] anymore. I knew then that it was just too enormous for me to manage, and that worrying about [it] would swamp me. If I was swamped by worry, I would be useless... I decided that night I would take all the hours of my life that could easily be spent worrying and instead I would try to [do something.].The world is saved through deeds, not prayer, because what is prayer but a kind of worry? I decided that my love [and passion] would have to manifest itself in deeds. 

I read and re-read this passage maybe five times and thought to myself, how ironic it was that I had pulled a truly random book off of my shelf and found so many insights into what I was feeling anxious and stressed about? I thought about something Judy Deshotels, a resident chaplain on campus, had said me a few weeks earlier; "Prayer and spirituality take different forms for different people. Your work and devotion to others can also be a form of faith and prayer." Patchett's passage seemed to reinforce that message. 

Although I still don't feel as though I am capable of seeing God in all things, despite my alignment and respect for many of the other Jesuit values, last night I began to think that maybe I do "see" God in books, and more generally, in the written word. And although I know I still have a long way to go in my own faith development, I like to think that that is a start. 

Hide and Seek

No matter how old I get, or how many times I have suffered, there is one mistake I make on a near-habitual basis: I underestimate the sun, and overestimate my ability to thoroughly apply sunscreen. 

 

I took myself on a date

 today. Me, myself, and I went to Gulfport, Mississippi, a shore town right on the Gulf of Mexico and only about 70 miles from my Loyola summer home. I sat on a completely isolated, brilliant white sand beach for about two hours. I saw and spoke to no one, spare an older man, Tom, an Ohio resident and truck driver, who introduced himself to me... we yankees can spot each other, I think. The rest of the time I drifted lazily between the last chapters of a book, taking pictures, and dips in the Gulf, which felt a little cooler than a warm bath.  

I felt very patriotic today. Maybe it was the fact that every single lamp post and street sign in Gulfport had a flag attached. But mostly, I think it was because of how mysterious, beautiful, and diverse this country is. Within one hour I left the mansion-lined streets of Uptown New Orleans and landed on a deserted beach looking out over blue Gulf waters. Since living in Michigan I have seen beautiful lake shores, beaches and forests. On the drive down here, we saw mountains, rolling hills of vineyards, rivers, and national parks. We of course also saw strip malls, billboards in bad taste, desolate towns, and a lot of fast food restaurants. But what's great about this country is none of that seems out of place. It all fits together like one of those 1,000 piece puzzles; the hard parts of it make you think, make you angry, drive you crazy, the easy parts are soothing and reassuring, and when you finally get it all together, it just makes sense. 

But my drive to Mississippi was also confusing. Everywhere down here- the radio, the lunch conversation, the newspaper, the walls of restaurants- I see and hear about Katrina. I hear sentences that begin with "Since Katrina," or "Because of Katrina," or "Before Katrina." I remember the pictures of the flooded streets of the city and its poor neighborhoods, the roofs blown off houses, and the horrible images brought to the world from the Louisiana Superdome

 (I'm including a picture of it from my window). I was anxious to get here and learn about the storm, the aftermath, the recovery. But being new to the area, finding evidence of Katrina is not easy for me. Which is creepy. The media coverage of abandoned buildings, FEMA trailers, ruined neighborhoods... all of that is weirdly missing if you are a visitor to the city. This is both disorienting and unnerving.  

I expected that on my drive to Gulfport, as the MS coastline was hit incredibly hard, would yield signs of the storm and recovery efforts. I was wrong. After my day in the sun, I stopped in Bay St. Louis for a cool drink and a snack at a small coffee 

shop called the Mockingbird Cafe. After

 a fresh scone and an ice-cold strawberry lemonade, I made a quick trip to the restroom- its walls were adorned with newspaper articles-turned-plaques of the recovery of the house and area where I stood. The article spoke of how the cafe had been like the living room of the community after Katrina, whose wrath closed 100% of the businesses in the community. People gathered in Mockingbird to comfort one another, to mourn their losses and to rebuild the one most important thing the storm had taken from them; their community. 

Bay St. Louis was hit by a 34-foot high wall of water during Katrina. There is a twisted oak tree that still stands in the town facing the Gulf- seven people and a dog survived the storm because they were able to cling to this tree. I drove right past it while I was downtown and only learned of its significance after I got home and began thinking about this post. It is incidents like this and others that make it feel as though I'm in an eerie game of hide and seek here; sometimes I am looking right at Katrina's ghost, and don't even realize it.  

Just as my travels are helping me better visualize and put together the unique puzzle of our country, so is this experience in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. I am slowly piecing together the pains and the stories of this region, and hope that before I leave, I will have gained an understanding of what happened here that I can share with my own community. 

Heck List of Things Not Previously Known about New Orleans

10. How slow people walk in the South; at first it was really frustrating, as I would outpace my orientation leaders and co-workers by many feet. Then, the temperature started to skyrocket. Now, I understand.
9. Who Satchmo is; this name is thrown out all over the city, and on our very own Loyola campus. I now know that Satchmo refers to Louis Armstrong.
8. Bourbon Street kind of smells like a mix of alcohol, barf, and trash; not a huge surprise, but would have been nice to be forewarned about!
7. Jazz permeates everything; music is not just confined to the smoky lounges and bars of the French Quarter... It pipes through the speakers at the grocery store, we play it at all of our orientation events, companies use it as hold music for phone calls. Literally, it's everywhere. I love it!
6. Potholes; I thought Michigan's roads were the worst in America. I was wrong. I learned yesterday that U.S. states get money for enforcing the drinking age, and some of that money is directed toward road repair. Louisiana, home of the to-go cocktail and lack of open container laws, laughed at this for years apparently, meaning there are lots of roads in dire need of repair. Also, the streets in New Orleans proper are bordered by many large oak trees, whose roots don't like to be contained by sidewalks and pavement. It truly is a recipe for car destruction. Check out the New Orleans Pot Hole Patrol.
5. Mardi Gras is not the only time of year when you may be pelted in the face with plastic beads.
4. One word: Nutria . Gross.
3. "Late" does not translate well; New Orleanians are okay with taking their time. This includes staff and student leaders, much to my own dismay.
2. Open doors; Everyone here likes to hold the door for me. However, if I were to hold the door open for a man here, he will refuse to walk through it, and will wait for me to go first. Awkward, if you don't realize why you are having a stare-down contest with an elderly man who seems to be smiting you for your polite gesture- yup, that was me.
1. That the Big Easy was easy; I have actually adjusted really quick to life here. I have been able to cope with the heat, get around, and assimilate into Loyola's culture with relative ease. An occasional daquiri I am sure has helped with that, but for the most part livin's easy in Crescent City!

Negotiations.

Nothing makes me feel more accomplished than surviving a hot summer run. I had forgotten how much this weather is the reason I love (and sometimes hate) running. Around 3 p.m. I decided to lace up the running shoes and go to the gym. I put my headphones in, started rockin' out to get myself pumped for it, and exited the front door of my residence hall. On the grassy quad, a group of guys was playing baseball, there was a decent breeze blowing, and even a few passing clouds. Observing this scene, I thought, "hmm, maybe I should just stay out here. So I took off toward parts unknown in Uptown New Orleans. 

Running when its hot is a test of what you're made of. You have to start, which is half the battle, get into something that resembles a pace or rhythm, and then you have to keep going until you can't go anymore. Things started off relatively well, as I leapt over sidewalk cracks in front of enormous Southern mansions draped in shade by old oak trees. For probably the first 15 minutes, you might have seen me and thought to yourself, "wow she's sweaty, but it looks like she is enjoying herself!" I would have agreed with you. 

But then I turned a corner. I reached Magazine Street, made a right, and all that lay ahead of me was blazing sun, cars, and open stretches of treeless sidewalk. I could have stopped. I wanted to. But instead, I turned up my iPod, wiped my brow, and dug in. Sweat dripped mercilessly into my squinted eyes as I looked for a place of refuge. I hit the corner of Webster Street and found myself in shade again, though I felt as if I had just run through Dante's ninth level of hell. By the time I made it to the corner of Calhoun and St. Charles, where Loyola is located, every part of me was screaming to stop, so I walked the last block and entered my hall again, soaked in sweat and feeling as though I had just won Olympic gold. 

I forgot about these runs, these negotiations with my body and mind to keep going, which first began in Richmond, the birthplace of my love for the hot run. Questions rip through my brain, can I keep going? Can I make it one more block? Can I keep this pace? And, when all the answers to those questions are yes, the world is my oyster. When the answers are no, it can be downright depressing, but all the more encouragement to go out and try again.

As I struggled through the 90-degree, unforgiving afternoon today, I thought about how much of my life is about negotiations right now, some literal and some mental. In the literal sense, Amy (my co-intern) and I negotiated with our supervisor for some additional compensation yesterday, as we came to realize the staffing changes and workload in the office were going to differ from what we anticipated. It was nerve-wracking and challenging, but the conversation went great, and I am happy to be part of the minority of women, according to research, who ask for more when they think they deserve it. I am also mentally negotiating what I want for myself, my life, and my career. Student affairs has had its ups and downs for me over the past four years, and I am coming to a crossroads where, next year, I will be making important decisions to shape my path toward the next phase of my life. I don't know what that will look like yet, but I do know that I am not willing to negotiate my quality of life, happiness, or expectations just to "do" the next job in the march through this profession. I will be looking for a rounded package of things that will make me happy at work, and allow me opportunities for growth, challenge, and development, but also a place that won't require me to negotiate who I am as a person or professional. As I grow older, I have realized that these things are off the negotiating table for me; who I am, what I need in my career to be satisfied, and happiness in my life. 

It's likely that the next year or so leading up to graduation is going to be like one long, hot summer run to the finish line, where I'll be mentally battling all of the questions that plague my overly analytical mind. But I plan to keep pushing to the next block and going as hard as I can because a) I know I can make it and b) I always feel better and happier when I do. 

Run, Heck, Run!

I am living across the street from the equivalent of Central Park in New Orleans.

At about 6:30 this evening, I put on my most breathable running clothes, a rockin' playlist of "ignore your pain and keep running"-type songs, and braved the 90-degree, 90 percent humidity weather for a jog. It didn't take long before I was drenched in sweat, breathing heavy, and trying not to fall over, but I kept going long enough to cross St. Charles Avenue and enter Audobon Park. 

Suffice it to say, I was shocked and awed by what I saw. Despite the heat, the bugs, and the dinner hour, there were literally hundreds of runners, walkers, joggers, and bikers joining be for some early evening torture. Old people, young people, marathoners, new runners with ill-fitting choices in clothing, children with their parents and siblings, dog walkers, thin people, obese people, all races, all classes, you get the picture. But what was most jaw dropping about the whole experience was that despite the insane heat (or what I perceive to be insane), people were enjoying themselves! There were clearly families walking together, college friends, work groups, all sorts of combinations of people not hitting the pavement alone, but making it a date with others.

 

Terry and I talk a lot about how East Lansing seems to lack a fitness culture, or one of health and well-being, and wondering why that was the case. Why is it that places like New York, New Orleans, and elsewhere seem to foster this community of getting out and working up a sweat, whereas other places do not? Yes, I am sure there are overarching reasons related to wealth, appearance, status, and the value the media places on a stick thin body, but I can't help but think that there must be something much more deeply rooted within a community for fitness to garner a high level of time and attention. 

Sidenote: I also thought of one of my best girlfriends while I was running. For everyone else reading, my amazing and wonderful friend is competing in her first 5K this month, and I am sad that I can't be at home to jog alongside her, encourage her, and hold a homemade sign along the race route as she hits this milestone. So while I want to get back in shape, I am also running as a sign of solidarity, challenge, and support- you can do it, Jules! 

Disorienting Dilemma

In the past week and a half, I have been in some wildly different places: South Africa, Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and now, New Orleans, Louisiana. I am not counting the drive through Indiana and Mississippi because I don't feel as though I spent enough time out of the car to really form an opinion of those (though MS had some incredible town names, and few teeth). Time is racing, and I am bracing myself against its impact. 

Terry and I arrived in the Big Easy on Saturday night around 9, the air thick with humidity and the campus largely deserted. Even in the dark, it was obvious how beautiful the campus is; soaring red brick buildings in the college gothic style of the early 19oos, large, grassy quads, and of course a tower with chiming bells. Loyola is situated in a splendid neighborhood in Uptown New Orleans on St. Charles Avenue, a classy boulevard lined with gorgeous mansions in French, Italian, and Spanish styles. Palm trees dot the roadside, and flowering shade trees arch over the sidewalks. A trolley runs directly down the middle of the street in front of Loyola, weaving its way to the heart of the city. Directly next door (and really all around us) is Tulane University, another prestigious institution with white stone buildings and a historic feel. It's like being in a college town, in a Victorian novel, in a microwave oven. 

Yesterday, Terry, Meg (my former student worker from St. Mary's College of Maryland) and I ventured downtown to stroll the infamous Bourbon Street, and I must say, it is like no place I have ever been. We hit the pavement around 3:30 on a Sunday, and every other bar and corner had live music of all genres, but primarily the blues, drunk people stumbling in the streets, strip clubs everywhere you look, and a general spring break-type feel. This description could probably apply to many other cities on a weekend night, but here, it fits New Orleans daily. It wasn't long before we picked up our first 2-1 Mango Daquiris (which you can get to-go. Almost any alcoholic beverage you can imagine can be taken to-go, including frozen specialties, beers, and even hard liquor over ice) to cool down and drink up. We meandered our way to the French Quarter, with its stunning flower-strewn balconies and beautiful townhomes, stopping at The Market Cafe for yet another delicious drink (the Creole Splash, which our waiter happily told us had "4 whole shots in one drink!".. I shared with Terry) and my first taste of crawfish etouffee- glorious- all while watching a blues group perform. You could say that minus the sweating and the general smell of Bourbon Street, it was the perfect Sunday. 

Today, I began my summer orientation internship at Loyola in the Co-Curricular Programs office. The office has undergone some major staffing changes this summer, including the loss of three out of four full-time employees. Right now, the orientation team consists of our director, a brand new assistant director, myself, and my co-intern Amy... and orientation leader (called Krewe Leader) training starts next Wednesday. As far as work goes, it looks like it is going to be a crazy summer! 

Back in January, when I began applying for NODA internships and the South Africa trip, it made sense in my head that I would only have a few days between the two experiences. But it has been incredibly jarring to unpack, repack, drive cross country and start working as though my trip abroad was long ago. I am going to work hard this week to write my final reflections on the trip, as well as the accompanying 8-10 page paper for submission next Wednesday. 

I am hoping this summer will be transformational (and no doubt the source of many more disorienting dilemmas) in a few ways that I thought I'd share in the form of some goals: 

* See New Orleans. Really see it. From as many angles and perspectives as possible. 

* Survive life on my own- When I moved to St. Mary's last year, I had my family 2 hours away. In Michigan, even when I didn't know anyone else, I had Terry and his friends to get me started. Here, I am starting out mostly on my own, in a totally different part of the country. It will be interesting to see how this experience differs from others I've had, and I hope to talk about that this summer. 

* Be my own Biggest Loser Coach and Contestant: Terry and I obsessed over this show this past year, yet probably wasted countless hours watching TV because of it, rather than getting in shape. This summer, I don't have a TV, I will be sweating my butt off, and doing shopping just for me. I am going to keep a food and exercise diary and seek to lose about 10 pounds/gain muscle definition by being diligent about my health and fitness. Hold me to this! Ask me about it, comment on it when I am not bringing it up, in general, be my other consciences. 

* Think: I want to think a lot about what I am doing in grad school, what I hope to do with my life, and specifically where I want to be when I graduate. No easy task. 

Hope summer is going well for you all. Thanks for reading!

Hellogoodbye

Greetings from Michigan! I made a safe return to the States on Sunday, and this week has been a whirlwind trying to prepare for my next big adventure... summer internship at Loyola University in New Orleans! I leave tomorrow morning for a two month stint in the Office of Co-Curricular Programs where I will be working with new student orientation at Loyola, and hopefully getting acquainted with the Big Easy. Tomorrow I'll be on the road to Nashville, then Saturday, we hope to make it into NOLA and get settled for some fun before work starts Monday. 

Look for thoughts, pics, and other tidbits, as I plan to update regularly once I get settled down South. Happy Summer!