Peacebuilder's Initiative

Hey Turtles! I spent the last week working with a group of young people as a part of the Peacebuilder’s Initiative. It is a program that identifies young people with leadership potential and educates them about Catholic Social Teaching and then empowers them to go out an make a difference in the world. The young people spent last week learning about CST and experiencing various different Catholic social services in Chicago. This coming year, they will be designing and implementing various peace projects throughout the area.

This past week we learned about dreams, biblical foundations for peace building, forgiveness and reconciliation, the seven pillars of social justice and the movement of God in the modern world. All of these sessions were taught by the faculty and students of the Catholic Theological Union.

In addition to attending these sessions with the kids, each day I accompanied a group of five students to the Peace Corner in Austin. The Peace Corner is a teen drop in center that is owned and operated by the youth of Austin themselves. My teens and I spent time sharing stories with the youth there, painting a mural, playing basketball and having a cookout. This was an opportunity for some cross cultural (my students were mostly suburban) dialogue and relationship building.

At the end of a very intense week, within the context of prayer, we asked the students to share with us the dreams that they had for the world. Their responses included:

“I envision a world without violence.”
“I envision a world of forgiveness and reconciliation.”
“I envision a world where no diagnosis is without hope.”
“I envision a world where nobody goes hungry.”
“... where children can feel safe and loved.”
“... where people choose dialogue and not war.”
“... where all live in harmony with the environment.”

I found myself choking back tears as these young people dreamed of their ideal world... a world that they would later dedicate themselves to building during our final commissioning service.

I relax knowing that our world in the the hands of these very beautiful young people. Thank you everyone for a great week! Peace turtles!

CHILL OUT

If anyone was following along with the Gospels readings for this week, I hope that you noticed a theme. This is the week that the Church remembers that a good portion of Jesus’ teachings were calling everyone to CHILL OUT.

Let’s take a closer look...

Sunday, Luke 7- Pharisee invites Jesus over for dinner... unworthy woman annoints Jesus’ feet... pharisee freaks... Jesus tells him to CHILL OUT.

Monday, Matthew 5- Jesus says, “You have heard it said ‘an eye for an eye’ but [I tell you to CHILL OUT and resist the urge to be violent].”

Tuesday, Matthew 5- Jesus says, “You have heard it said to love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you [CHILL OUT and just love from now on].”

Wednesday, Matthew 6- Jesus warns against public displays of piety. Asking his disciples to CHILL OUT and simply pray in secret.

Thursday, Matthew 6- Jesus warns against heaping empty phrases onto heaven when praying. He says, “CHILL OUT and simply pray like this... Our Father....”

Friday, Matthew 6- Jesus says, “Do not worry about storing up for yourselves treasures on earth, CHILL OUT and store treasures in heaven.”

Saturday, Matthew 6- Jesus says, “Do not worry about tomorrow, CHILL OUT, it will take care of itself.”

I hope you realize that the above is an extremely elementary interpretation of these scripture passages, but the message is still the same... CHILL OUT!!!!

Peace turtles!

My Adventure

I went home to see my parents in Detroit for a couple days last week. I was very relaxing and quiet... until it came time for me to come back to Chicago!

I bought a ticket on Megabus.com, a method of travel that I have used successfully many times to travel between the two cities. The bus was supposed to leave at 7:30pm on Friday evening.

My mom drove me to the bus stop and we waited for over an hour for the bus to come, but it didn’t come. We tried calling customer service but the representatives could tell us nothing about the bus’s estimated arrival time. We were stumped.

Then the unthinkable happened... a HUGE thunderstorm broke out and began soaking everyone at the uncovered bus stop. Thunder, lightening and high winds sent people running back to their cars.

When my mom and I were safely back to our car we realized that a young couple was still stranded out in the rain. They had no car to run to. So we drove up to them and invited them to jump into our back seat. They did.

After another twenty minutes a bus finally did come.... but it wasn’t coming to pick us up. It was the bus coming FROM Chicago which needed to drop people at other stops, change drivers, refuel and then pick everyone up. The driver said that it could take him up to another four hours to come and pick us up (a total delay of almost six hours).

The couple in our backseat (who had gotten engaged to one another the night before and who were going to Chicago for a relaxing vacation) decided to go and get one of their cars and simply drive to Chicago. They offered me a ride, and needing to get back to Chicago so that I could go to work on Saturday, I accepted! (I was reasonably sure that they were not ax murderers).

So for the next four and a half hours I drove to Chicago with two complete strangers. They were a very wonderful couple and they shared wonderful stories about their lives with me. I feel very blessed to have spent that short period with them.

I hope that by reading this short account, you can learn what I learned... that there are tremendously good people out in the world! Sometimes a healthy sense of adventure can bring you in contact with lots of amazing people! People on the same journey as ourselves (whether going to Chicago or on a pathway to God!).

Peace turtles!