service

I am going on retreat with my juniors tomorrow and Tuesday. Well, half tomorrow, half Tuesday because when these retreats were scheduled back before I was on board, they decided that this junior class needed to be separated. But what started as a negative (and remains a negative in their mind--Why are we split up? How could you do this to us?) is actually a positive to me. I don't know much about this class. I've had little time to get to know them over the last 8 months. And yet come September? They will all be mine. So, to me, this is an opportunity for me to start to get to know them--and for them to know me.

The theme of the retreat is service. My school has a unique service program for seniors in which every senior must complete over 100 hours of service in her senior year. They get a day "off" from school to complete these hours. They serve in daycare centers, hospitals, elementary schools, nursing homes, and soup kitchens all over the city. It's an amazing program and the chance to run and coordinate it made this my dream job.

We currently have no formal service program/requirement for 9th-11th grades. Some of the girls are active in the community, others have done a service day here and there, and still others have little to no experience with service. So, going from 0 to 150 or even 40 to 150 is a lot. It's a big commitment. So the goal of tomorrow is to get the girls to think about their own individual strengths and talents, and where those gifts can be best put to use during their service year. They commit their entire year to one site.

I want to know what they think about service--why we as a school think it's important, why THEY think it's important (do they think it's important?) and why I think it's important. I hope to share some of my own experiences with service, about how service is about more than giving; it's about receiving. It's about letting the experience change and transform you, listening to the people you serve, being with them, laughing with them. I've been lucky enough to serve as a tutor, as a house-builder, as an advocate, as a teacher, as a mentor. It's not always easy and it's not always comfortable. Sometimes you're tired, or frustrated, or in a bad mood...and you still have to go. Sometimes you feel useless--and yet you keep trying.

There are so many things I want to tell them--I could fill almost the whole 4 hours with my own voice. But I won't. I want to hear from them too. I want them to discover their own gifts and strengths (which is why they will take a Myers-Briggs test and discover their personality), and to take ownership of the service program (which is why they will work on writing a mission statement for our program).

As I said above, this service program (with all of its headaches and complexities--of which there are MANY) is my favorite part of the job. Hopefully, I can convey that tomorrow, and get the girls as excited and engaged as I am...

last day

We've arrived at the end of Lent! My daily commitment has ended, and now it's a matter of what comes next. I think I want this to be the place that I flesh out my ideas, come up with a plan. I'm a great "big idea" girl, but I sometimes fall short on follow through. This can be a place for me to think ideas through "out loud" so to speak, to come up with game plans, to talk through the struggles, challenges, and obstacles. (Not that I mean to imply there are *any* obstacles, struggles, or challenges associated with working with teenage girls!! Every day is a joy and a cakewalk, of course!)

I thank my friend D for inspiring me to set out on this Lenten journey...we walked the road together, borrowing ideas and sharing resources--uncovering similarities we didn't know existed along the way.

were you there?

Good Friday. Some 2,000ish years ago, a great man, a prophet, the Son of God refused to deny his truest identity. And so he was mocked, whipped, and nailed to a cross. It is a violent and horrifying story--and yet it is a story that has inspired millions to faith.

I find myself thinking about those that Jesus left behind...this band of misfit believers, frightened for their own lives, confused by what they just witnessed. After all, they believed their friend to be the Messiah, God's Chosen One, the Savior. Could he really have been any of those things? Would the Messiah have simply hung on that cross until the end? What was next? Would the soldiers and the Pharisees come for them? Did the last 3 years of their lives mean nothing? Had they been led to a dead end, literally and figuratively?

An event that could have been the destruction of a faith--that could have caused them all to flee to their separate corners--in fact brought them closer together. These apostles and disciples spent the next days and weeks in the company of one another, trying to decipher the death (and eventual resurrection) of their humble leader and Lord. In this community of believers, they found their voices and the strength to go forward. They continued the work of Jesus, not without fear, but with the knowledge that they were not alone.

music part 2

I didn't blog yesterday. So close! It was a long day, a not-so-great day, a day where I came home from work and collapsed into bed and didn't get up til the morning hours. I'm on Easter break! Hooray!

So, in my first music post, I didn't address music in ministry--music as a way to connect to students, for students to connect with love and God and each other. Music has played a powerful role in my own faith life. I don't just mean liturgical music, though there are certainly some powerful favorites in there, from the Offertory based on Micah 6:8 to the traditional You Are Mine that I found myself singing almost daily on the 5 day silent retreat that condensed the lessons of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. I don't limit it to Sundays at St. Monica's in Los Angeles and the best sung Our Father you will ever hear. I don't even mean Christmas music, even though O Holy Night is practically a religious experience in and of itself.

What I mean, however, is the impact of (for lack of a better term) secular music/mainstream music in ministry. To this day, the opening chords of the Indigo Girls' Galileo brings me back to my elementary school library and a youth group meeting, while The Five Stairsteps' O-O-H Child sends me to our college retreat house on Cape Cod following my friend Susie's talk about her struggles during her year abroad. Guster's Window takes me to Cuernavaca, Mexico, while Dave Matthews Band's Pig reminds me of the senior class during my junior year of college. Retreats and weekly Pax Christi meetings were full of music--music that made us think, reflect, smile, and cry.

I have not figured out a way to work music into my ministry yet. I haven't figured out how to pick songs and artists that will connect with my girls in a meaningful way. A challenge for the future, I suppose. I want to find a way to make that connection. I want them to hear the opening chords of a song 10 or 15 years from now and think of their high school experience, think of a story or a retreat or a moment of connection with God.

music

Another late night, another short post. We had our Lenten Mass at school today. One of my fellow new teachers offered to start a choir for the girls earlier this year. She's put in time and energy, and as is typical of our girls, their commitment has been spotty and shaky. It's so frustrating. It's so difficult to feel like your time and effort means anything when you have a regular meeting and a different 2 girls show up every time (though 10 find you in the hall to say they want to join your fill-in-the-blank club).

But she had a good little choir today--though apparently some of them had never been to one rehearsal. And she picked some more obscure songs, but all had great beat and were more contemporary than some of the traditional (though lovely) Catholic hymns you'd normally hear at a school liturgy. She ended with a spiritual called "Change My Name." Well, wouldn't you know that all 350 girls in the school suddenly stopped some of their whispering and began snapping their fingers and dancing in their seats.

It is the power of music. Music has always been important to me, but in the last seven or eight years, I need some music every day. Maybe that has to do with the advent of the iPod, I don't know, but I do know that I notice music more too. I'm more likely to keep tuning in to a TV show that has good music (of course, that means iTunes gets more of my $!) and I sing to myself more than I care to admit. Music is a mood setter--and a mood changer. It connects with us on basic and primal level. There are very few songs or artists that I'm "eh" about. I find that I have very strong gut reactions to music--I really like or love it, or I really want to get as far away from it as possible and never hear it again.

Music is prayer. It is meditation. It clears my head, centers me, lets me think. It can make me smile and it can make me cry.

I could write for hours and pages about music. I mean, I'm writing right now because of music. Music led me to a fantabulous folk festival, which led me to a cozy living room full of friends and fellow writers. It was there that I gained the courage to put myself out into the world, it is there that I found parts of myself I never knew existed. It is in that space that I heard dear friends sing songs for the very first time, many of which live on my iPod now--which means I have my friends in my pocket.

To wrap up this post, here's a little Townes Van Zandt for you...a song I downloaded last night and have been listening to it almost non-stop ever since:

If I needed you, would you come to me?
Would you come to me for to ease my pain?
If you needed me, I would come to you.
I would swim the sea for to ease your pain.

timecards, timecards, yellow timecards

I can't stay tonight. I am in yellow timecard hell. My seniors must complete 140 hours of service--5 hours every Wednesday--in order to graduate. We track their progress using yellow timecards that their supervisors must sign on-site. Sounds easy...but the things are evil. Some are turned in late, others not at all; I chase girls up and down the hallways hoping to squeeze the things out of them. I feel like a parole officer sometimes--checking for forgeries (yup, I've found at least one) and recognizing chronic lateness. What should be (and is) a wonderful, life-giving project becomes an albatross.

Must go count hours!

two and a half days

So much for devoting more time to an entry today. I need to get through the next 2 1/2 days, and I'm free (at least for a week and a half!)...I will be on Easter break. The next 2.5 days are packed with to do lists that mostly have to do with service, and a school Mass on Tuesday, but then I can breathe a big sigh of relief. Time for bed so I can maybe get up and out early and buckle down for the day.

(I'm also behind on my homework for my photography class. Argh. And of course, it's going to be raining tomorrow!)