On a "Love My Job" kind of Month

Monday, March 16, 2015

You’re catching me on a “love my job” kind of month.

No, it’s not always that way.

When the questions are not answered and I don’t have the right words.  And the lines in the Eagle’s Nest are long and I think that the 20 minutes we have to wait for food will somehow delay our “real” conversation. 

But that’s just it.  Te acompaño.  Whether there is bread or not.  Whether you’ve gotten your salad yet or not.  Jesus is accompanying us in the breaking of the bread.  We’re accompanying each other in the sitting in the Eagle’s Nest.  (It all happened while [they] sat around talking)

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I’m loving my job this month because I am seeing the students live the questions.  No, but really live the questions. 

We’ve started a “F.A.S.T.” week this year – Faith, Action, Solidarity, Today – and it has been such a joy to watch the students struggle (yes, a joy to watch them struggle), with the questions, concerns, realities.  How do we live this life?  Of faith and justice?  Of privilege and humility?  Of downward mobility in an upward reality?  We must carefully discern what is ours to do.  And then do it.

An alum tonight on the “Fall in love, Stay in love” Panel said something along the lines of, “When you beginning really leaning into these questions of what you are going to do, you begin to realize you are already doing it.”

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I guess that’s it.  I’m doing it.  I work at a college campus (a very awesome/incredible/wonderful one at that), and I help students think about their lives and their vocations. I create/coordinate/support a program that exposes students more deeply to the realities of another community, often one which suffers from poverty or marginalization, and help facilitate that they fall in love.

Fall in love with what?  With compassion, with solidarity, with love and faith in action.

I walk around a beautiful university and learn from each student that comes through the door; each work study student whom I ask for assistance; each graduate student from the STM who shares another bit of faith.

It’s not perfect.  It’s not always this way.  And that will have to be a topic of reflection for another day.  But this month, yes, loving. 

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How blessed am I to be among this community.
How blessed to love my job for a month.