Lifelong Conversion

Today I would like to share some thoughts and experiences that have struck me throughout this last week on what it means to strive for conversion-for a lifetime. I remember during my training in Washington, DC, Father Joe Nangle summed it up pretty simply but profoundly. He said something like this...Lifelong Conversion is about being open to the spirit and simply saying yes to making the next right choice...for a lifetime. Easily done right?...Not quite. I remember this simple idea having an impact on me back in September, when I heard it, and it re-struck me again this week. Let me tell you why these words have strong meaning for me. Like any journey in life, if we look to far ahead we can be overwhelmed by the magnitude of it, and we also miss the precious moment which is this one single step-right now. Like the saying goes, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”-Confucius In order to be aware of our decisions and actions each day it means we have to be constantly living in a state of contemplative action. This means we can’t say our faith or spirituality is something that only happens on Sunday, before a meal, or before we go to bed. Striving to live with the spirit, the true self-(to awaken to the true self is to know the divine truth of God), or whatever we decide to call it is a choice to grow towards that which is best in us spiritually, physically, and intellectually. Each decision and action taken either helps us strive towards that which is good, lovely, and pure or that which is destructive and decaying. Sometimes the choices are clearly good and bad and we easily know if our choice was right or wrong, but most of our choices fall into a grey category. To me these are the small daily choices that take contemplation and reflection in order to really understand their impact on our lives. Let me give you one example that happened to me during this last week. I am currently in an intensive six week language program. Each day we have close to four hours of classes with four different teachers and are expected to put in a significant amount of time studying at home as well. During this last week I have had a cold and have been feeling a bit run down. I started to allow my body feeling a bit run down to turn into doubt and frustration about me learning a new language. This doubt and frustration then began to turn into a negative attitude which quickly took me out of my inner peace and joy and got me to start pointing fingers at my teacher(s) and family. All of a sudden my teacher(s) became unreasonable with their expectations or weren’t patient enough for my slow learning etc. I started to think my family spoke too quickly, to softly, and slurred words together. They should know I’m just learning, why are they making it so difficult for me to try and understand. It almost felt personal and how I was responding with my body language and attitude was not seeking that which is best within me. Some of these thoughts and feelings lasted for about two days before I was able to reflect and contemplate on my choices and actions. It then became glaringly obvious to me what I was doing. It all started with a small bad choice of allowing frustration and doubt to creep in and that was just enough to fuel me into making another bigger poor choice. Luckily it didn’t take me too long to figure out what was happening. This is such a classic example of how each small choice really is important and is either leading us towards God, our best version of ourself, our true self, or towards destruction, despair, and that which is worst within us.

Thoughts and Pictures from my first week in Bolivia

Two Bolivian family members (Rodrigo-16, Fabio-8) playing soccer

Stephany-5 playing with some friends at the big soccer fiesta. Our family was responsible for making 200 hamburgers the night before to bring to this big party. We had quite the assembly line going. (Ingredients 50 pounds meat, 35 eggs, a bunch of peppers and tomatoes, and seasoning)

Me with Valedia-(cousin) in front of my home for the next 5 weeks

A church close by that I attended last Sunday. It was quite interactive and spirited.

The language school that I attend Monday-Friday. I have 4 teachers that work specifically in different areas of language and culture and all my classes are one on one. I will have 6 weeks of language training before I hit the ground running, walking, or stumbling.

Another picture of Valedia-She is quite outgoing and fun to play with. She helps me with my spanish because she is constantly asking me questions. She also finds it amusing that she (4 yrs old) gets to correct me and teach me basic things in spanish.

A close up of Fabio-center middle row-and his teammates after they won the soccer game and tournament.

Stephany and her cousin Gracia-so cute

Spiritual Journey

This is something I wrote for my training in Washington D.C. It gives a very general overview of my spiritual journey throughout my life. I thought it would be good to start with this so you have an idea of where I am coming from. 

Spiritual Journey

I was born and raised in the Catholic faith. I don’t remember being baptized, but my family kept gifts and cards from that special day. I remember my first communion going up for the body and blood and when I was offered the blood of Christ I had the eucharistic minister ask me, “Now what do you say?” and I said, “I don’t know” and she said, “You are suppose to say Amen.” “Oh, amen.” I had both my first communion and also my first confession while attending St. Francis De Sales elementary school. I have vivid images in my mind of both of these days. I was generally a “good” boy growing up, and I was told these sacraments were important so I did them without too much thought. The next big day was confirmation. I had my god-father, who is a close family friend, as my sponsor. I remember going through the necessary steps in order to be confirmed. I believed in God and proclaimed my faith to be important to me, but it was not alive within me. I was confirmed because I chose to be, but when you grow up being exposed to only Catholicism, with little or no experience of other faiths its not a very authentic experience. These are the monumental days that I remember growing up as a Catholic. In between these big events were the weekly masses we attended, giving up something for lent, being part of church activities, and the things you usually associate with a faithful family. Even though I had faith, I was going through the motions. I really hadn’t challenged my faith or made a strong personal relationship with Jesus. Many times during the week to week services I felt bored and didn’t see or feel the Gospel-Good News coming alive within me or our church community. I don’t think my heart was really open to God, and I felt very lukewarm with my faith and the faith I saw in our church. 

With the feelings of having a lackluster faith, I started to branch out a bit and attend other worship services during college. I enjoyed the services I attended outside the Catholic church more, and I felt my relationship with God, although sporadic, started to grow. I got caught up in the college culture for a couple of years and my faith was inconsistent. I got into playing quite a bit of online poker during my college years and really started to spend a lot of time playing poker to make money. I know you’re thinking how does poker have anything to do with my spiritual journey, but it actually played a significant role. I started to get pretty good at poker and was daily reading blogs of some of the best players in the world online. I was surprised and fascinated to read that a few of the top players in the world were very intellectual and deep thinkers. It surprised me that young players who were making millions of dollars and appeared to have everything by my standards, at the time, were still struggling with being unfulfilled and seeking for purpose and meaning in their lives. In their blogs they would be talking about books about philosophy, religions, history, and anything else that helped them to improve themselves as players but most importantly as better people. One of the players decided to quit playing poker for a year to go to a prestigious university. He wanted to become better educated and it was his way, at the time, to seek out more about the world around him. He had a passion to learn and grow as a more well rounded person and to me this was quite baffling. He had it made or so I thought, and the pure statement of his actions really began to make me think...Having a few of these players as people I was trying to emulate, at least on the poker table, forced me to slowly question myself. I began to rid myself of superficiality and started questioning literally everything. I had this great revelation one day that I knew nothing about almost everything. I started reading books, a concept to me that was very foreign, unless it was a basketball book. As I started to read it opened my eyes to the world around me, and the things I was learning forced me to drastically change my life. I had a choice to either accept the truth through the shattering of my ignorance, or to turn a blind eye and continue down the path of ignorance and deceit I decided the former. 

I really started to ask questions and challenge things that I had previously believed in ignorance. The claim I had made throughout my life is that God is the most important part of my life. Well, I decided it was time to stop giving God lip service and started running towards him instead. This running towards him had to be done in truth and that forced me to start at the very beginning...Is there really a God? Is Christianity really true or do I just believe because of my environment? I had to start from square one and this was a very scary and vulnerable place to be. Admitting that I was asking such questions was difficult for me, but I believed it was essential if I really wanted a real and true experience of God. I started to dive into my preconceived notions of faith and really tear down walls I had built up throughout the years and start from a fresh new foundation that was based on truth in Jesus. I took this time to start reading the gospels, spiritual books, praying more, and even volunteering down in Peru. As I started to pursue God and make him the center of my life, he started to change my heart. In the past, God was someone I had a relationship with on Sunday’s, before I went to sleep in prayer, occasionally in thanksgiving for my blessings, and when I was in times of trouble or need. Now, God is turning into an ever present spirit within me. I started to see God in many different things, whether it was the beautiful Alaskan mountains, or the realization that even the most difficult student to work with is a brother or sister in Christ and was made in the image of God whether they knew it or not. God was slowly making me anew. The things I desired were starting to change, how I saw the world, what was important, and why I am here. God continued to challenge and shape me, and the more I received of Him the more I wanted. He was someone I took joy in. I never had such peace, joy, or love in all my life, and I knew he had forever changed me. 

A few of the awesome kids I got to know during my trip to Peru!

This last year, while I was working up in Alaska, had been a huge year of spiritual growth for me. I got myself involved in a small group from the church I was attending and it was such a fruitful time. I loved being intentional about getting together and worshiping God. We had such a great time together and our small group started to feel like a family in many ways. It’s such a blessing to be striving to get closer to God and have people hold you accountable in love. I started to meet Jeff, a guy from our small group, at six a.m. every Friday. He was a spiritual mentor for me. We would try and read through a certain amount of the bible every week, and then get together and talk about what we had read. We would talk about questions about the bible, any real life concerns or issues, intellectual questions and thoughts, and really shared our lives with each other on a deep level. I would also meet Chris from our small group for lunches, from time to time, and it was another great opportunity for spiritual growth. People from our small group did all sorts of things together like playing ping pong, disc golf, wiffle ball, hiking, and of course worshiping. It was such a joy for me to be a part of a spiritual community like the one I had in Alaska. 

From Left to Right-Justin, Jacob, Me, Jeff, and Chris

       Ever since I had volunteered down in Peru, working with children in education and sports in the summer of 2010, I knew I wanted to work in places of high need. I felt a strong calling to go out and try and walk out what the gospel calls us to with those most in need. At the end of the school year, I had a very difficult decision to  make. I could stay teaching and coaching in Alaska and pursue that path for many years to come, or leave and pursue what I felt God had placed in my heart and that was to work with the poor. It was a very difficult decision for me, but ultimately I had to follow my heart and the passion I felt to serve and walk with the marginalized in the world. 

During much of the year in Alaska, I decided to start the Peace Corps process, because I thought that would be a possible opportunity for me in the future. I was looking for some other possibilities, because I was not sure how long I would be staying in Alaska. I didn’t know if I would have a job in the school the following year, so I felt it would be good to have some options. When the time came for me to make a decision and turn down the job in Alaska, I didn’t have anything for sure lined up for the coming year. 

During the summer, as I continued to pray and seek God’s path for my life I really felt like the door to the Peace Corps was closing for me. I started to search out some other options and that is when I found the Franciscan Mission Service. I sat down and had breakfast with a Secular Franciscan who runs some schools and serves in a leper colony in Brazil. He was the one who introduced me to the Franciscan Mission Service. I had a bit of a wall up at first about a Catholic organization not to mention the fact that I didn’t know anything about St. Francis. 

I really felt like God was softening my heart at the time and wanted to break down some of the walls I had built up in ignorance about the Catholic faith. The more I learned about what St. Francis and the Franciscans stood for-(radically walking out the gospel) it really rang true to what I believe. I won’t go into all the small details, but even after I had found the Franciscan Mission Service, I had many questions and some constraints. I thought it was unlikely that the Franciscan Mission Service would work out. I kept praying, “God close doors and opportunities that you don’t want for me and open doors and opportunities that you do want.” Well, the Franciscan Mission Service turned out to be a huge open door and it seemed to be so much from God. It was something I wasn’t expecting and to be honest was a little hardened to at first. God once again worked within me to show my hardness of heart and it was another opportunity for conversion towards Him and to release more of my sinful self. God has an amazing way of changing our hearts and bringing us closer to Him. So here I am, excited with the amazing opportunity that lies ahead, but most important, excited and filled with love for Him who sends me.