Lost in Boston

The F Word

2007-04-17T21:45:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to preach this time, I promise. Tonight I just want to share a little realization that I've made recently. I've heard all kinds of cliches about friendship, but this one is really striking to me this month: "Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same." How true! Graduation is less than 5 weeks away, and I've been see-sawing between excitement and trepidation for the next stage of my life. I've been worried that leaving BC will be the same as starting over completely and that I'll lose the friends I have here. Then I realized that I've been able to keep at least one good friend from kindergarten, another from high school, a third from the summer before college, and there will be many from college that I know I will still have after I graduate. Life doesn't just start over at every new phase as long as we cherish the friends who leave footprints on our hearts. Acquaintances come and go, but finding a faithful friend is really a treasure. I'm so grateful for the friends I know will always be there for me and will always make the effort to maintain our friendship. I'm so grateful that I don't have to start over!

Disabling Ability

2007-03-20T11:50:00.000-05:00

I haven't updated for a long time because I've been ridiculously busy with school, work, my other work, and grad school stuff. My new part-time job as a residential case manager at a group home for older adults with developmental disabilities is keeping my life nice and hectic, just the way I like it. This is my first experience with direct care and it's quite unique. There's nothing like helping a 70 year old woman with low cognitive function shower at 9 in the morning on a Saturday. Once you get past the "uhhh, wierd!!!" factor, it's one of the simplest and most rewarding things you could do. Have you ever helped someone do something as simple as brushing their teeth or washing their face? cutting their food for them so they don't choke or holding your hands under their head during a seizure so they don't injure themselves? That's what I do now, and life would've been much more fulfilling if I'd discovered this job earlier.

Not only does working with this population make you really appreciate the opportunities you're given and your ability to simply take care of yourself and make decisions, it makes you see quite plainly that every person is an individual and every individual has rights. It also makes you realize that our ability to do things for ourselves often ends up stunting our ability to help others. When we have the ability to do whatever we want in life, we end up doing just that- what we want- and it's not usually altruistic. Not that there really is such a thing as altruism anyway- we feel good when we help others, and that motivates us to help more. Still, mildly selfish service is better than no service at all, and when we have the time and money to take vacations or buy expensive clothes we do that instead of giving it up to help someone else. Why do we take the ability and opportunity we've been blessed with and use it for selfish reasons? Yes, maybe our hard work paid off and we feel we owe it to ourselves, but it wasn't our hard work that gave us, in the first place, the capacity to learn, work, and get an education. God gave us the mind, our parents gave us the upbringing and probably the money for education, and our teachers help us get the information. What if we have none of those things? What if we weren't given a mind capable of learning or a body that moves the way it should? what if our parents had no money for our education or we lived in a community with an impoverished, poorly run school that will ultimately deny us any chance of going to college? Do these people, who didn't have the capacity for higher education, independence, or work in the first place deserve a less fulfilling and happy life than others? Of course not! So why do we so often behave as though our achievements are entitled to us and we are deserving of the rewards, while others less fortunate are to destined to suffer? Why don't we share the wealth and help those who never got the chances we did? Wouldn't the world be a beautiful place of we did?

This Week's Q&A

2007-02-08T17:54:00.001-05:00

On the topic of asking ourselves questions, I had 2 big ones for myself this week. The question "What the heck am I going to do when I graduate in May?!" remains unanswered. However, the other question "Is my faith worth fighting for?" as been answered with a nice strong "yes."

Here's the story.

A year ago this week I went one of the Kairos retreats that BC organizes several times each year. You're only allowed to go once, and the demand is so long that you put your name on a waiting list and are entered into a lottery. I signed up my first year and was drawn the second year. It was a Catholic retreat, and most of my experiences of Catholicism were lukewarm at best. My mom is a crazy conservative Catholic (C cubed) and after her countless admonitions of "be a good girl!" and "God doesn't like that" I half expected her to be a guest speaker. Still, I let myself be talked into going by my boyfriend at the time, who had gone a few years prior. I got on the bus, miserable and reluctant to talk to anyone.

Needless to say, since I'm bothering to write this, the next 3 days were not at all what I expected. If you know anyone who's been on Kairos you know there's a "big secret" that nobody ever talks about with people who haven't gone. It sounds cultish and scary, but believe me when I say that that "big secret" was the most moving experience of my life. I'd love to detail it here, but in case this is ever read by someone who's going on the retreat (It's a widespread thing, not just BC) I don't want to spoil it. I will say, however, that I've never felt as spiritual as I did during that weekend and the following few weeks. Even then I wasn't a big fan of any organized religion, not just Catholicism, but I still had faith, and it bloomed on that retreat.

After the weekend was over the leaders asked us to write letters to ourselves that they would deliver in 1 year. My memory stinks and I totally forgot about it until today, when a letter came from Campus Ministry. That was odd, what would Campus Ministry want with me? Inside was another envelope addressed to me.... by me.

Cara,
When you feel like staying in bed would have been easier than getting through the day, think of what the world would have been like without you and find meaning for your life in the knowledge that other peoples' lives would have been very different without you. In the way of "It's a Wonderful Life", picture your parents never having you for a daughter. Your mom would've been without a kid in the house for 4 extra years. She wouldn't be able to brag about you to everyone she knows. Your dad wouldn't have had to learn to show emotion and love. Pete might not have found a reason to be as strong and make as many changes as he has. His parents wouldn't feel as though they had gained a daughter. Lance would have no healthy competition. Your grandparents wouldn't have a granddaughter at all. Emily wouldn't have incentive to get up early and run. She wouldn't have the feeling of constant friendship and companionship that she has with you. Jon may not have learned how to care about another person for years. Tante Irene wouldn't have someone to share her pain with and empathize with.

You have made so much progress. Don't stop now. Life is what you make of it, and you have the potential, strength, and intelligence to make it amazing. Take nothing for granted. Love. Think. Feel. Question your path constantly and be sure to always be on the road you need to be on. Volunteer, go abroad, and remember that rushing through life is such a waste of the short time we are given. Show those you love that you love them and be thankful every day that they love in you return. Be the beautiful, kind, considerate, intelligent woman you have always been. Be yourself, believe in yourself, and love yourself as God loves you.

Stay strong,
you

I don't tend to believe in coincidence, so I definitely don't believe it's a coincidence that my 1 year anniversary of Kairos, the re-reading of this letter, my conversation with Jason, and my friend Emily's conversations about faith with one of her friends, all happened within 2 days. How else to explain it except that God wanted to show me that he's not just the distant clockmaker I've come to imagine.

The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything

2007-02-07T15:27:00.000-05:00

At one time or another in our lives, and sometimes more frequently than that, we become preoccupied with the meaning of life. What's the point of all this? we wonder. Is life just a big test that we have to pass in order to get to heaven? Does failure send us to hell? What is failure, anyway? Say we never do anything wrong, but don't really stand out as great philanthropists either. Do we still go to heaven? IS there a heaven? If not, it doesn't really matter what we do because we've only got about 90 years of existance anyway. That's a sad outlook, I much prefer heaven or reincarnation. Unfortunately for me, I'm not arrogant enough to pretend I know what's going to happen after death, so I'm just stuck wondering.

According to Douglas Adams's fictional computer "Deep Thought", the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42. A bit silly, perhaps, but a striking point when you think about it. The answer could be anything because we don't really know what the question is.

"Forty-two!" yelled Loonquawl. "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?"

"I checked it very thoroughly, it's 42" said the computer, "and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."

Some of us get so caught up in looking for answers that we forget to ask what the question is first. Asking ourselves questions is how we really come to understand ourselves. It's a shame more people don't do it. I keep hearing stories of Lawyers and CEOs who reach their 50's before realizing they never wanted to be Lawyers and CEOs in the first place. Then they make huge life changes, become social workers, and get praised by everyone they know for taking 30 years to figure out that helping others is a rewarding thing. Maybe if they'd just asked themselves at 22 "hey, self... do you think law school is really right for you?" they wouldn't have spent 30 years doing work they hated.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are those of us so good at asking ourselves questions that every question raises two more and it seems impossible to answer them all. The simple solution to this dilemma, of course, is to be the first to build a real time machine so we can try each path and go back if it doesn't turn out the way we'd hoped. Now I just need to figure out how "42" answers the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything: "how do I build a time machine?"

The End of Faith?

2007-02-02T14:45:00.000-05:00

I apologize in advance for the offensive and inflammatory nature of this post.

My work study job (at which I am currently "punched in") is hardly fulfilling. Consequently, I spend a great deal of time surfing the internet for purely educational purposes. Today's endeavor was two-fold. First, I set out to thoroughly inform myself on the Israel-Palestine conflict, since it's always a source of sad news and is at the heart of so much of the Western Civilization vs. Islam problem. Second, I decided to read, in its entirety, the "blogalogue" between atheist author Sam Harris (The End of Faith, and Letter to a Christian Nation) and Christian Andrew Sullivan (Conservative Soul). You can find their exchange here: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/209/story_20904_1.html

Reading academic arguments for and against religion is always dangerous for an Agnostic Theist like myself. Dangerous, I say, because the arguments of atheists more often than not have some darn good points. True, Andrew Sullivan does start out at a disadvantage, because Sam Harris is well versed in the Bible, Torah, and Koran, and is attaining a PhD in Neuroscience. Furthermore, Sullivan is a self-proclaimed homosexual with HIV: hardly a good start for a practicing Catholic. In my opinion, he's a walking hypocrisy. Still, I am forever searching for an argument that will strengthen my faith and not cut it into tiny bits, so I give him the benefit of the doubt. Like so many other Christians, however, he finds himself instantly on the defensive against the logical and articulate Harris, and never manages to take the offensive. He fails to respond to many of Harris' trickier points, including the ridiculous claim, by Christians, that Christianity is the only true religion. Other religions, of course, argue the same thing, and none of them can "prove" their claim. Yes, yes, I know, proof isn't necessary for faith and indeed negates faith even when it supports the belief in question, but claiming to be the one true religion is preposterous. First and foremost, because religions were started by men. Whether Abraham, Peter and Paul, Muhammad, or Joseph Smith, Jr, every religion begins with a person claiming divine inspiration. Yes, perhaps one of those founders was spoken to by God, but certainly not all of them were. If that were the case then either A) there's more than one God starting various churches or B) everyone is lying except for one person, and there's no way to know which one (ergo, Christianity can't claim authenticity over the others) because all we have is the word of a fallible human.

Second, you can say that the God was the author of the Bible, but unless the Holy Spirit actually picked up the charcoal or the pen and ink and began writing, that isn't true. MEN physically wrote the Bible, and the Torah, and the Koran (which, more suspiciously, wasn't even written down by Muhammad but was only compiled from memory and the scribbles of his followers after his death), and the Book of Morman. What's more, in the case of the Bible at least, more than one man wrote it. That leaves room for error, interpretation, and exaggeration. There's also something suspicious about the idea of manufacturing a religion, Muhammad and Joseph Smith being the more recent examples of this. Go off into the wilderness alone with no witnesses, then come back to town and claim an angel visited you and revealed to you the true nature of God. Hm. It seems particularly suspicious when the ultimate benefit of claiming divine inspiration is fame, authority, support for a territorial war, or *gasp* cold hard cash (the Catholic Church has, historically, been especially proficient at earning big bucks from its followers, even to the extent of selling the "get out of purgatory free" cards (i.e., Indulgences) that sparked Martin Luther's 95 Theses and were supposed to pay for the sinfully ornate St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. I realize that's slightly off the subject, since Catholicism wasn't originally founded for financial reasons... but I digress).

This all brings us to an even more poignant point: Even assuming there is one true religion, directed by one true God, and assuming it's one of the major ones (let's stick to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity for practical purposes and leave the Mormans alone), no matter which one is the "true" one, it has been directly responsible for blood shed and suffering. I do understand that warfare, genocide, and selective persecution tend to be at the hands of fundamentalists, but A) this isn't always the case and B) fundamentalists are generally those who follow doctrine stricter than the rest of their fellow believers, and are therefore the most legitimately religious.

Let's briefly visit "A" first. There are many instances of prosecution and religious wars fought by majorities, not fundamentalist minorities, of religious sects. The French Wars of Religion between the Protestant Huguenots and the Catholics is one such instance. These wars were characterized by guerilla-type neighbor vs. neighbor warfare in which everyone was involved and nobody was exempt. At the very conception of Islam there was religious warfare, when the Meccans drove Muhammad out and he and his new followers responded a few years later by capturing Mecca. Again, not extremists, but the majority, and in this case the very founders of the religion.

And now let's tackle point B, the point that fundamentalists are actually the most religious folks and the strictest adherents to doctrine, not the misguided or the misinformed as more moderate believers would like to believe. Islamic fundamentalists follow the Koran quite strictly. Indeed, Jihad and martyrdom are in the holy book. Christian fundamentalists strictly follow scripture, believe they are the only legitimate religion, and, historically, often kill over it. Further more, the various sects of Christianity now kill each other, even though few of their basic beliefs differ. We saw this with the French Religious Wars and it can still be seen in Ireland. Even Jewish fundamentalism exists, though it is rarely discussed, particularly in America. The Zionist movement and displacement of the Arab Palestinians was, indeed, fundamentalists and extremist, even though it was approved by the UN and never considered a terrorist act. In the case of the towns of Lydda and Ramle in 1948, 40,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes at gunpoint by the Jewish Israel Defense Forces. Extreme, yes, but quite religious. The Zionist movement is based on the return of Jews to their ancient homeland, and what could be more spiritual?

All this pondering on my part just convinces me more firmly that organized religion, although a moral anchor for many and a driving force behind countless good acts and benevolent organizations (e.g., the Jesuit Volunteer Corps), is a tragically powerful and unconquerable division in humanity. It may not seem that way to the pious, country-dwelling church goer who hold bake sales for charity and has parish BBQs monthly, but to the millions killed or made refugees because of religion, it is a sad corruption of spirituality. Churches, rules, and hierarchies shouldn't be necessary for the faithful to pray and love their God. Moreover, a good and loving God shouldn't be the impetus behind massacres. I can't help but agree with Sam Harris, that religion is one of the most harmful inventions of mankind. Not spirituality, mind you, and not belief, but religion. There's an important distinction there I want to make clear, because I do believe in God. I just find it horribly sad that others who believe take their faith to such destructive lengths, preaching violence and intolerance instead of love and acceptance.

Looking for Answers

2007-02-01T17:21:00.000-05:00

My last post made me sound more religious/faithful than I am. That was a good day for me, I guess. The truth is that I'm a rollercoaster of faith. Yes, Hold Me Now does always manage to cheer me up and make me feel stronger, but unfortunately I can't have that playing every second of the day, and when i'm not being convinced of God's goodness, I question it.

Whenever i see something really beautiful in the world or study something in a biology class that amazes me with complexity, I'm convinced that there must be a God. Then I see a homeless person or hear about a bombing on TV and I wonder how there could be one. Sure, there could be a creator who did his thing, stepped back, and let events unfold without intervention, but that's not what Christians believe. How can there be a good God who loves his creation when there's so many awful things in the world? I've heard the arguments that there's no proof because if there was proof, there'd be no need for faith, and that all the evil in the world is a product of our free will and can be seen as a test of faith. But, well, that just doesn't make sense. If I created something and loved it I'd protect it and make sure no harm came to it. I wouldn't let it fend for itself and test it to see if it had faith in me even during hard times. I'd intervene so that the innocent didn't suffer. Unfortunately, that's something only humans can do, and most don't bother.

I've been reading Turning Stones, a book written by a man who worked in Emergency Children's Services in NY City. The organization would get calls from kids, teachers, psychologists, doctors, etc reporting cases of child abuse and neglect throughout the city, and the agents would respond to those calls, usually by intervening in the family to protect the children. Some of the cases of abuse are too terrible to imagine. How a parent could treat their child in a way most people wouldn't even fathom treating the lowliest animal baffles me. But what's more, how could a good God could let that happen?

Maybe on the one hand it's good for me to doubt, because it forces me into action. If I thought that God were good, everything followed a plan, and things were as he meant them to be, why bother helping others and trying to change the world? wouldn't it be enough to love God and not sin? I wouldn't think I were doing good deeds for the world FOR God, or because of him, because if that were the case, if he was intervening and did want us to love each other, helpful agents of God wouldn't be the minority of the population. God would have ALL of us help one another. That's not the case. As it is, I don't believe God will intervene to help the downtrodden, so I feel it's my duty to do so. Maybe that's the proof of God's existence- he speaks to me through my doubt, and that encourages me to help others. But, again, that seems like the long way around things, and he's still intervening by communicating with me, so why not just take the next step and help people himself without making me doubtful?

I can easily believe in a "clockmaker" God, as I think people used to call him, one who just let creation run it's course freely. That explains the complexity of life, the beauty of nature, our bizzare and inexplicable appearance out of nothing, etc. Yet, it's too troubling to believe in a good God because there just seems to be too much wrong with the world for it to have a divine protector. Don't get me wrong, I want to believe, I really do, but it takes more than blind faith for me. My faith has eyes, and it sees the sad state of the world around me. I've never heard an argument that convinced me or that I couldn't find a way to shrug off. Everlasting gratitude to you if you can be the first to provide me with one (J, I'm counting on you to save my soul, here!)

Getting Burned

2007-01-28T14:30:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about home a lot recently... my NH bubble. I keep wishing I felt the way I did the summer before college when I would spend every day at work with my friends, and every evening at someone's house or at the lake just talking. I miss having that one person you can always talk to about anything. I guess for me that's God, now, but I'm not spiritual enough to hear what he says back. I keep listening to "Hold me now" by Kirk Franklin, and even though it makes me feel better I still wish I had that concrete someone who would just sit beside me and listen and understand.

Somebody told me that You would wash all my sins
And cleanse me from the scars that are so deep within
So I'm calling to You, if You can hear me I don't know how
I was wondering can You hold me now
You are the only one that's patient when I fall
Your angels come to save me every time I call
You don't laugh at me when I make mistakes and cry
You're not like man
You understand me...
Don't you worry God is faithful and He cares
About the tears you cry and the pain you feel, He's there
When you are weak, that's when He's strong
Even though you don't know how
God can and He will hold you now

I'm at one of the many forks in the road of life where you can only see a few miles down each path and it's hard to decide which one to take. I feel like I'm just floating around without a purpose or a goal. There's always some excuse not to do something, and I've let those excuses get the best of me. I should be volunteering more than I do...or I should take a year off between undergrad and grad school and work for Americorps. Or maybe I'm on the right track after all, and going straight into a master's program is the right choice because I can start doing social work a year sooner. Or maybe I should stay on the med school track and changing my career path is the easy way out. Maybe I should be single for once, and cut all ties to my past and do Peace Corps abroad for 2 years like I always think about doing. Maybe if my friends could talk to me the way I need them to they'd help me figure it out. Maybe if I could hear the other side of my conversations with God I'd know what I was supposed to do.

Or maybe I still do have the relationships I thought I lost in NH. Maybe I can still talk to those people, or my college friends, the way I need to. Maybe they would understand after all if I would just let them in. But it's like running your hand through the fire after you've already been burned a bunch of times. It seems stupid to do it again, when past experience tells you you'll just get burned. Each day that I pass by the fire without reaching in is a day I lose. Maybe it's time to risk getting burned again.

Don't wait, Don't wait
The road is now a sudden sea
And suddenly, you're deep enough
To lay your armor down
Don't wait, Don't wait
The lights will flash and fade away
The days will pass you by
Don't wait
To lay your armor down

Bursting my Bubble

2007-01-26T12:06:00.000-05:00

So I've never done the whole blogging thing... I'm not sure why I'm starting now. Perhaps it's on the off chance that there's someone out there just like me whose friends don't really 'get it' and who needs a different outlet.

I'm from New Hampshire. That says a lot about me by itself. My town had 700 people in it when I was there. All white, all middle class, all modestly educated. I came to Boston for college totally naive and not realizing that doing so would challenge everything I knew about life. See, in NH things are easy. You don't have to be rich, you don't have to be a college graduate, and most importantly you hardly ever see people suffer. You don't really realize that there is suffering, because you're hundreds of miles away from places on the news. You live in a plastic bubble that's easy and comfortable to live in and there's really no reason to leave. A lot of people never do. I did.

Boston is only 3.5 hours from my town, but it's a world away. I think the first time that really hit me was a few weeks into my freshman year at BC. I was a mentor with Big Sister and my Little Sister's school, though in a decent neighborhood, was the poorest I'd ever seen. It was small, dark, dirty, tragically underfunded, and surrounded by an ominous barbed wire fence. Most of the teachers were fresh out of college, and they wouldn't last long. The kids got bussed in from all over the city. My little sister was a 9 year old from Dorchester, and she told me once that she was too afraid of drivebys and rapes to walk down the block to the local convenience store.

Now I'm a group mentor, and in my 2 years doing that I've heard girls tell me stories so sad and frightening I wouldn't have believed them 3 years ago. One of my girls, at the age of 12, was anorexic, had alcoholic parents and a brother in prison, and was being abused by her 16 year old boyfriend. These stories horrify me, and I'm glad they do. It should terrify us that these girls can speak casually about the wost violations of basic human rights. They think it's the way things should be, because it's how things have always been, and nobody has told them that they deserve better.

Is anyone else out there as angry as I am that more people aren't losing sleep over this?

I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love. ~Mother Teresa

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. ~Anne Frank

It seems to me that any full grown, mature adult would have a desire to be responsible, to help where he can in a world that needs so very much, that threatens us so very much. ~Norman Lear

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. ~Edward Everett Hale