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| 12:28am 19/10/2009 |
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Because I'm tired and just finished writing a paper this intro will be short. Below is a sermon I gave today at the outdoor/homelessness ministry I work at for grad-school. As always I welcome any comments you may have.
“Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
I can think of no other words throughout the New Testament which so beautifully summarizes Christ’s mission on Earth and his vision for humanity as simply as these do. In just two sentences he tells us why he’s here and how to follow his example, and what he tells us isn’t a complicated set of codes and instructions, but in fact very simple. So simple that many people think there’s secretly more to it then that, but all that’s being asked is for us to show our love by serving each other.
When Jesus walked the earth he received resistance from the power structures of his day because he wasn’t the leader people were expecting him to be. They thought the messiah would be a military figure of great pomp and circumstance who would use force to destroy the powers of evil in the world. They were waiting for someone with a huge crown, lots of fancy clothes and a massive army behind him. This was going to be a guy who could have whatever he wanted when he wanted it, a political person who would overthrow Rome (the superpower of the day) and bring in the New Jerusalem whether people wanted it or not. Someone who would kick butt and take names. Instead he was a homeless guy who spent most of his time walking around helping out day-laborers’ and talking to prostitutes. Most people didn’t really get what he was talking about half the time and he ended up getting executed as a enemy of the state. To think of Jesus as the messiah was not only absurd but offensive. It was never thought that their great leader would be a servant.
The idea of a leader acting as a servant remains a revolutionary concept to us now. Imagine what your reaction would be if Barrack Obama showed up wherever you’re staying and offered to wash your dirty underwear, I know I would be shocked and probably laugh because it’s such a weird thought. We’re used to thinking of leaders as people above us with a lot of power and authority who can make things happen at a whim, but being a leader isn’t about making people bend to your will.
Real leadership isn’t about just making people do what you want, it’s about creating a community where each member has the chance to be the best person they can be. It’s about building the relationships that allow us to share this rich experience of life in this world together. Of celebrating each other’s successes, mourning each other’s losses, and supporting each other in our times of need.
What I want to suggest here is that a leader isn’t just a single person but a collection of people. Because we are one in the body of Christ, and because we gather together as members of a community, every person has a role in the Christ-like leadership of the church. We all have a stake in what happens around us and each of us has the power to lead the same way Jesus did when he washed his disciple’s feet. Sometimes we do this in a small way, like getting a cup of coffee for someone when you don’t really want too, or in a big way like letting someone stay at your place for a few days when they don’t have anywhere else to go. But each time you serve, whether it’s with coffee or space or even your time, you’re being a leader in this community and displaying what it means to be Christ-like. And I want to thank each one of you for doing that.
Thank you, Amen |
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| You are the light of the world |
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| 04:47pm 22/08/2009 |
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Finished the final draft of my sermon for tomorrow, let me know if you have any thoughts
-TJ
On 1st Kings 8:22-30: We are the hands of God
This is my first sermon, which made me start thinking about other the firsts in my life. My first kiss, my first time out of the country, my first drink, and my first experience that Christianity was the path I needed to walk. How strong and dramatic it was, how crystalline, like an intervention from God. A clear signal that Christ needed to become the focal point of my life. Which got me thinking about how God can sometimes act in strong and dramatic ways in our lives, but all too often works subtly. Someone once said that coincidences are God smiling at us, and I think that is all too true.
In college I used to get in a lot of tipsy late-night arguments with people, as you tend to do in college. I remember one night talking with somebody from a Christian ethics class about how God intervenes in the world. This person believed that because the bible says ‘pray and you shall receive’, and he didn’t always get whatever he prayed for, he had taken that as part of his evidence of the non-existence of God. There are many theologically flawed points in this argument, but what I want to focus on is that God isn’t a kind of magic wand. He’s is not a kind of magicical incantation that we can plead to with the same effects as an Aladdin’s lamp.
There is an old saying that goes along the lines of; “pray, but tie up your horse”; meaning that it’s good to pray and hope for the best but it’s important to make sure you’ve done everything you can to make it happen. An ongoing argument throughout the New Testament is over which is it better to have, Faith or Good Deeds? I’m hoping to go to seminary this fall because I’ve come to realize that, for me the two are so intertwined that I can’t have one without the other. I’ve worked in various community programs such as Americorps and Peace Corps, and I’ve worked with them because I love the work of building communities. But more so then that, it is in the different things we do that we show our allegiance to God and our trust in him, each other and humanity at large. We hear from so many different spheres of thought that life is harsh, that it’s a dog eat dog world and you need to be cut throat in order to make it too the top. But if the world is like this, and if we do live in a world of exploitation and cruelty, it is only because we have made it that way. In our everyday actions, we create our world and our legacy. Every thing we do and every word we speak contributes to our world in some way, for better or worst.
In the reading from First Kings, Solomon consecrates the temple he has diligently built after years of hard work and effort. God has given him gifts which he then uses and dedicates his work back to the Lord in thanks and gratitude, but the temple doesn’t just appear, it is only after strenuous effort that it becomes manifest and is transformed into a centerpiece of worship. Considering the logistics of coordinating 200,000 workers; architects, carpenters, stonemasons, manual laborers, bronze smiths and the signing of contracts, settling of disputes, and trying to keep such an eclectic group of people working smoothly together, it’s fair to assume that things didn’t always run smoothly, that during either the planning or the implementation phase obstacles would come up that didn’t have an immediate solution.
Even though God wanted this to happen it didn’t just magically appear one day by divine will. We say that God uses us-which is true- but only if we give ourselves over to be used, it’s crucial to remember the struggle that those who choose to be used by God go through (and it is a choice). It’s easy to look at figures from the bible in retrospect and say ‘ well of course they could do that, that was Mary (or Paul or John or whoever)’. But when we say these things then we are setting these people apart from us and create a distinction between their connection to God and our own. We loose confidence in our own ability to let ourselves step aside and allow God to guide our actions because it might not be as large or consequential as other things people have done. But as the preacher Sydney Smith once said “It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing when you can only do a little, do what you can”. Mother Teresa echoed this with her comment that “we can do no great things, only small things with great love…we feel that what we are doing is one drop in the ocean, but if we did nothing the ocean would be one drop less”.
As people, it is all too easy to forget our own capacity for the divine. One of my favorite prayers, the prayer of St. Francis, begins with the phrase ‘lord, make ME an instrument of your peace”. It’s an image that’s always been very potent too me, when we begin to realize that we have the opportunity to be the hands of God it’s both daunting and exciting. It can be hard to imagine that smiling at somebody you don’t like, or helping somebody with their lawn when you don’t really want too, or anything else can be a act of divine love. But if we are, as a church and as a community the body of Christ, then our words and our actions have weight, implications and meaning. Every moment of every day we decide on what we will let push through the static of the back round, and what becomes the focus of our lives. We, each one of us here and every person outside these walls, are the body of Christ and the hands of God,
The choices we make are what allows God through the Holy Spirit to become present in the everyday. God uses us to make his will manifest in the world, and each day we decide to either help or hinder. Solomon wants to do something beautiful for God and so builds a temple the likes of which has never been seen, our temples are our bodies, which is the dwelling place for the sprit and so it is the things we do which become our offering to God.
It’s easy to sit aside and assume that if God wants something to be done that he’ll do it in his own time and in his own way, which to an extent is true. But we must be open to the reality that God has given us the choice to use the various gifts he has given us, or to ignore them and then wonder why nothing ever happens.
With a final quote from one of my favorite musicians Ani DiFranco “God’s work isn’t done by God, it’s done by people”. Amen. |
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| Sermon |
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| 01:08pm 15/08/2009 |
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Below is a rough draft of the sermon I'm giving next week, I'm to expand on it and connect it with a reading from Kings, but this is the jest of what I'll be talking about. Let me know what you think.
-TJ
"This is my first sermon, which made me start thinking about other the firsts in my life. My first kiss, my first time out of the country, my first drink, and my first experience that Christianity was the path I needed to walk. How strong and dramatic it was, how crystalline, like a intervention from God. Which got me thinking about how God can sometimes act in strong and dramatic ways in our lives, but all too often works in subtlety. Someone once said that coincidences are God smiling at us, and I think that is all too true.
In college I used to get in a lot of tipsy late-night arguments with people, as you tend to do in college. I remember one night talking with somebody from a Christian ethics class about how God intervenes in the world. This person believed that because the bible says ‘prayer and you shall receive’, and he didn’t always get whatever he prayed for, he had taken that as part of his evidence of the non-existence of God. There are many theologically flawed points in this argument, but what I want to focus on is that God isn’t a kind of magic wand. She is not a kind of magicical incantation that we can plead to with the same effects as a Aladdin’s lamp.
There is an old saying that goes along the lines of; pray, but make sure you tie up your horse. An ongoing argument throughout the new Testament is over which is it better to have, Faith or Good Deeds? I’m hoping to go to seminary this fall because I’ve come to realize that, for me they are so intertwined that I can’t have one without the other. I’ve worked in a lot of different community programs, Americorps, Peace Corps etc. and I do these things because I love it. But more so then that, it is in the different things that we do that we show our allegiance to God and our trust in him, each other and humanity at large. We hear from so many different spheres of thought that life is harsh, that it’s a dog eat dog world and you need to be cut throat in order to make it too the top. But if the world is like this, it is only because we have made it that way. In our everyday actions, we create our world and our legacy.
As people, it is all too easy to forget our own capacity for the divine. One of my favorite prayers, the prayer of St. Francis, begins with the phrase ‘lord, make ME an instrument of your peace”. It’s an image that’s always been very potent too me, when you begin to realize that you have the opportunity to be the hands of God it can be both daunting and exciting. It can be hard to imagine that smiling at somebody you don’t like, or helping somebody with their lawn when you don’t really want too, or anything else can be a act of divine love. But if we are, as a church and as a community the body of Christ, then our words and our actions have weight and implications. We’re like radios, and every moment of every day we decide on what we will allow to push through the static of the back round, and what we will allow to become the focus of our lives. You, each one of us here and every person outside these walls, are the body of Christ and the hands of God, let God push through and become your station. Amen." |
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| 10:22am 13/08/2009 |
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I'm applying to Episcopal Divinity School for this fall, I'm suppose to find out either today or tomorrow about getting in. Bellow is an admissions essay I wrote about my faith and why I want to go. I'm actually fairly proud of this essay and I think it summarizes this part of my life nicely.
I'll be giving my first sermon to a small church here in Cape Vincent in another week and a half. It's the church I was baptized in so there's something very metaphoric in that, a launching point for a new state of life. Right now I only have a rough draft of the sermon and it's not quite ready to be thrown into the public sphere, I'll probably post it in another day or two. Anyway here is the story of my faith journey, if you have any thoughts or comments definitely let me know, I love to hear from people.
Much love
TJ
Growing up, most people around me tended to inherent their faith from their parents without examining and experiencing the reasons behind their religious beliefs for themselves. I never wanted my faith to be passed down to me like a heirloom; I believe too much that God is alive and present within our daily lives and for us to truly understand what we believe and to deepen our life in prayer and worship, our relationship to and experience of God needs to become personal. I entered St. Bonaventure University as an undergraduate intending to major in Theology, but my classes focused almost exclusively on the formal rules of the church and while I appreciate the importance of that knowledge, I longed to deepen my own personal understanding of the divine. I desperately longed for experiences that could bring me to a life in Christ. I was determined to kept exploring and pushing myself to discover different traditions of faith for myself.
As part of my spiritual exploration, I spent some time in India during my junior year of college and visited the sacred Buddhist sites. During this time, mediation was my primary form of prayer, and I spent a great deal of time in meditation hoping it would bring me closer to God. A good friend and professor of mine, who was an avid Buddhist, introduced me to his Llama who in turn invited me to his monastery in Nepal. While there I took refuge (the equivalent of baptism) and declared myself a Buddhist. I believed that in order to find the inner peace I was looking for I had to throw myself into the Buddhist faith even though there were significant elements which didn’t make sense to me. I was desperately waiting for something to click, for a flash of understanding to hit me so I could speak confidently about my faith and religion with a sense of ownership. I wanted a spirituality I could claim as my own, a distinct relationship between me and the divine. I was waiting to have some kind of miraculous insight that would guide me to the path of the divine, but it never came as I waited and prayed in Nepal. Several weeks after declaring myself a Buddhist, I didn’t feel fulfilled and peaceful but empty and sad, like I was missing something and wasn’t where I needed to be.
I took this sense of unease to Australia where I spent 4 months studying in Sydney. While there I became friends with a group of engaging Christians who thrived on conversation and discussing religious life. As I spent time with this community, participated in intense dialogs and shared in their spiritual journeys, I began to realize that it was through such interpersonal relationship that one becomes closer to God. I began to experience God as something new, not the detached dogma of a distant church, but the warm, human connections we make with others. I felt I had finally found my faith, a feeling that was confirmed through one particularly powerful experience. I was praying together with a friend and he placed his hand on my shoulder as we prayed together, I felt immersed in the Holy Spirit. Like being submerged in a hot bath or a shot of electricity which runs through your whole body from your skin to your marrow, this was the moment of dreamlike understanding I had be looking for. At this point I understood that the person praying with me had a deep knowing, that he understood something profound and important about life that was foreign to me. And for the first time I truly felt at home and at peace.
When I returned to the States after my travels and returned to school, I got involved with a student prayer group and started organizing a series of meditation workshops. I began teaching at Sunday school and started to realize that this was the direction I wanted my life to take, not just my personal life, but every aspect of my life. I wanted to share my peace and love in God and humanity with others. I spent the summer as an intern at a Franciscan retreat center and fell in love with Franciscan spirituality; the prayerful life of the Brothers and their open acceptance of people of all faiths resonated deeply with what I believe to be the message of Christ and left a profound impact on me. For some time I struggled with my vocation and whether or not to enter the Friary, but too many personal disagreements with the theology of the Catholic Church has left me happily embracing my religious upbringing.
Since my time in Australia my faith has grown and matured in ways I couldn’t have imagined or prepared myself for. The last few years I have been working at different nonprofits and service organizations (Americorps, PeaceCorps, HandsOn, etc), because of my deep dedication to living a life of service. My understanding of service has evolved over the years, and I have discovered that it is important to me because I believe that giving our time and energy to each other is an act of worship and prayer. I am most happy when I am actively doing something positive for the larger community and sharing my spiritual life with others. It is this component, the shared experience of the spiritual life that my service has lacked for the last few years and I have come to realize that I don’t want one without the other. I want to embrace my spirituality and my service together fully as the most fundamental parts of my life.
I want to go to Episcopal Divinity School because I don’t want there to be any distinction between my spiritual and professional life. I want to explore my spirituality in a deeper and richer academic context while being actively engaged with my surrounding community. Whatever career I chose a background in Theology will be critical both to deepen my own understanding of the divine as well as to help me reach out and give to others. Spending a year at EDS will help me discover my vocation as I strive to understand if God is calling me to serve in the priesthood or in another way. This year will be the perfect opportunity to discover what it means to live a life of service while being immersed in a community of kindred sprits to grow with and encourage one another. |
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| 08:35pm 04/03/2009 |
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I just finished watching this movie:
Parts of it definitely came off as being melodramatic and it didn’t offer too much in practical everyday things a person can do to curb climate change, but it connected with a few other things I’m reading right now so I have these things swirling around in my head.
It’s a amazing paradox to me how oil and petroleum have empowered our civilization to advance in ways that we never would have thought possible a few hundred years ago, and yet at the same time caused so much damage. The fertilizers and farming techniques we use now have enabled a massive population boom that has never been seen by humans before, industrial revolution has created a surplus of goods and disposable wealth never before seen and has created a host of jobs for countless people around the globe. While doing this it has also created a multitude of other issues from climate change and huge rates of mass extinction to increased health problems like childhood asthma and poor water quality. I find it interesting that the very thing we use to produce goods for certain groups of people can end up harming others.
But (and I think this might be my point) not by harming people by default. I think the main issue with industrialization isn’t that it can provide people with more stuff, but that it can help nurture a culture of consumerism that can be so hurtful in so many ways. It seems so very critical to me to maintain perspective: that industrialization is a tool to serve the needs of people and not visa versa.
I’ve been reading this. book lately and it’s been making me think about how developing nations can lean on industrialization jobs as a means of pulling themselves out of poverty and gradually building a larger GDP. So the question arises: how does a community create empowering and dignified jobs that don’t have a negative impact on the environment and create a sustainable form of industry that will help that society both in the short and the long term?
This might be a really obvious thing to ask, but I think traditionally when I look at different forms of poverty it elects an emotional response (as it should) and I don’t look beyond that to the real causes. The more I think about it the more fascinating I find that all these different issues; environmentalism, public health, disease control, global poverty, etc. connect back to politics and public policy, it’s like it’s at the center of one massive, interwoven web.
I’m totally ranting and haven’t really said what I want to say and I’m not sure I can (I’m pretty tired and inarticulate), but I think it’s interesting the way that societies play off of each other and I’m trying to figure out in what way a person should direct their efforts towards the common good. |
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| 08:56pm 12/02/2009 |
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Also: I want to buy a new computer, I'm looking for a laptop around $500 or so, a fairly large hard drive with at least 2 gig of RAM. Any suggestions? |
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| "Beauty" |
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| 08:44pm 12/02/2009 |
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I think it’s amazing how frequently conceptions of ‘beauty’ or ‘normalcy’ are based on fabrications and fictions (yes I like alliteration). Not just in the world of fashion and ascetics but also in our general world view about how society and people operate. How often does it happen where some impressionable youth mistake something satirical for reality and try to impersonate it? Or even worst, internalize it and curse themselves for not being able to embody something that isn’t real.
It’s worth mentioning that the part I found most striking was the part where they used Photoshop on the image and changed the physical construct of her body. To me that clearly drove home the point that there are some things that no matter how hard you strive to embody, you can’t because it isn’t based on reality. It goes beyond the way that people look and also into the way that people act.
I’ve seen it a few times where the kids I work with see a character (comic, cartoon etc) that isn’t real and for whatever reasons begin to impersonate idiosyncrasies that aren’t their own. To an extent I don’t’ think it’s necessarily a bad thing, partly it’s just connected to growing up and tying out different personas and seeing what fits you as a person. The tragedy comes in once a person starts to loose the distinction between what’s uniquely their own and what’s adopted.
Two examples:
1) When I was little I used to read Calvin and Hobbes a lot (a great comic which actually helped me learn how to read when I was growing up). I always knew it was funny (although I didn’t always understand why) and so I began to parrot comments they would make in the strip to see if I could invoke the same kind of response (I never really did and thankfully I grew out of that).
2) I was hanging out with a few people once and for some reason one of them casually made a really weird comment in a strange growl-ly voice (sadly I don’t remember the comment, only the voice), and none of us really understood why. It turned out they were quoting a movie and had done it so often with their friends that it just kinda became a normal thing (I catch myself doing that all the time with Napoleon Dynamite and Anchorman).
I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing for companies to be showing their products in a ascetically pleasing light (it’s to be expected), but there’s something sad and tragic happening when people’s expectations are manipulated as collateral damage. |
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| 09:39am 05/02/2009 |
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Last night a few students held a public showing of this documentary. There were a number of guest speakers, including a few members from the Public Health Department, and was followed by a really interesting conversation. We were talking about how the area where we live completely affects the status of our health, not just whether you live by mountains or in a desert, but what kind of community resources are in your neighborhood. It makes me think of the area around the school I work in. There are a number of people who have health problems, who don’t eat healthy and nutritious food and get little exercise (which increases the likelihood of high-cholesterol, heart problems etc.), but then you look at what the community has available. There are soo many cheap (but filling) fast food places around here that can provide you with an absurd amount of calories per serving, and if you’re a kid growing up in a low-income community it totally makes sense to buy that ‘two for 1$’ deal at taco bell because it fills you up and you’re probably not aware (or care) about what the nutritional value of those French fries are and what your nutritional needs are, plus you’re hungry anyway and you know this is going to fill you up. So then it starts to connect to education and showing youth the importance of good nutrition, which starts to turn it into policy decisions.
Something that really struck me during this conversation was how often the word “hope” popped up. Granted it’s become a huge buzz word ever since Barak started campaigning, but something a lot of people commented on was the need for long-term opportunities for youth. At one point in the documentary they were talking to a group of middle school-ers, and none of them expected to live to the age of 20 because of the gang violence in their neighborhood. This sets the tone for somebody’s life, how can you tell a kid to eat healthy and exercise because it’ll help them when their older, and they don’t think they’re going to make it to 20.
I don’t think there’s any one group or policy that you can point at and blame (public health can be hugely complicated and it’s amazing how many issues are interwoven into it), but I do think that in the end what it really boils down to is building strong communities with a culture of caring, and easily assessable (and affordable) alternatives and creating an environment where we aren’t alienated from our neighbors (I’ve lived in the same place for over a year and I still don’t know who lives next door). The question is how do we go about doing that…any thoughts? |
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| E360 |
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| 01:19pm 02/02/2009 |
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A few weeks ago I was asked to sit on a panel for E360. It’s a program that helps students start their own businesses and gives them grants to help them get up and running. This is really closely related to my Youth Venture program (I focus on nonprofits and Clubs and they focus on businesses), so they asked me to help critique some business plans. I’ve been doing this kind of thing a lot lately so I didn’t really think much about it. Then I actually got to the panel. There where five other people on the panel and I was the only person that wasn’t either a CEO, Director or held a Ph.D. At first it was one of those ‘oh crap I should’ve prepared or worn something more then a T-shirt and jeans’ moments, but after the presentations started getting underway we all started getting into it and it was just really cool to see local entrepreneurs encouraging local youth to become active participants in their communities. None of them where as community focused as I would have like to see, but it was still impressive how seriously the students took their projects and how much thought and foresight went into the planning process. We gave out three grants and I’m working with another one of the teams to launch them as a Youth Venture. As frustrated as I feel with my job sometimes, it’s really encouraging to see something like this take place and know that there are kids who are more active then I was when I was in high-school.
For more info, below are two articles from the ProJo about the competition:
http://www.projo.com/business/content/BZ_MET_BUSINESS_PLAN_01-23-09_KAD1SA4_v13.34c3495.html
http://www.pbn.com/detail/39693.html |
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| 01:51pm 06/12/2008 |
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Classic Heather Quote:
Heather: “ I think we both use Metafilter for very different reasons, I look at it and go ‘”Ohh! A really interesting article on gender equality” you look at it and go “Ohh! A walrus playing the saxophone’” |
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| 02:14pm 04/12/2008 |
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Below is an email one of the teachers at my school wrote about one of my teams. If you have a chance Please go to this website and vote for them. You can also vote for them by texting BBYV25 to the number 32075.
Hello friends, family, and educators!
A number of my students are in a Youth Venture group called the Resychos who are working on some really great projects this year and next year.
They can be one of 15 groups to win $10,000 to use for some crazy projects here at school, and you can help!
All you need to do is vote for them (and one other group), here, at:
www.genv.net/bestbuy
You can vote Once a Day, so Please, Keep On Voting!
Also, spread the word, share the email, post a link, send it to your friends and students.
Help our students help our world, our school, and our community, to help our environment!
So far they have accomplished:
-Beginning and maintaining paper and container recycling at Peace St.
for the first time ever, and recycling thousands of pounds of paper waste and drinking containers.
-They have also planted a memory garden in honor of a student who passed on.
-Beginning and maintaining composting at Peace.
-Recording our first Resychos song-The Tomato Song.
Projects we are currently working on and which will be helped hugely by this grant include:
-Converting a bus to run as a Veggie Oil/Diesel hybrid.
-Constructing and Maintaining a Community garden in our neighborhood that is used as a community education center -Reducing energy dependency at Peace St. and adding Solar Energy to the school -Creating a sing along CD of environmentally themed music.
-Creating and sharing a brief DVD documenting all of these projects and ways we can all improve our impact on the community.
-Educational trips with the Magic Veggie Bus to present to schools about ways that they can get involved in helping the environment, sharing our DVD, live music, and educational activities around alternative fuels, urban gardening, recycling, and solar power.
So again, please cast your vote here, and do it every day if you can!
www.genv.net/bestbuy
Thank you so much!
--
Michael David Gore |
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| 02:44pm 15/07/2008 |
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I really enjoy what I’ve been doing this year and I like being in a position where I get to be at the center of a newly created program that’s already in such demand and scaling out so quickly, but it’s kind of annoying that it’s part of such a huge program with so much bureaucratic oversight. I work within an alternative school system as the representative of this huge Nonprofit creating this new partnership. I had maybe four or five days of training before being shipped off to another state where I’ve been left for the last year to try and figure how to do this. So far it’s been going alright but the times I feel the most frustrated is when I’m in contact with my main office. They’re good people doing good work, but it’s a hieratical system that works from the top down instead of the bottom up. There’s a lot of systematic organizational stuff going on, but not a lot of direct involvement with the people they’re working with. There’s a lot of distance.
I wrote a paragraph description a few weeks ago that explains who we are and what we do. This is going to be used at Big Bang-a huge nation wide conference where all the schools get together and talk about new programs and plans for next year. I’m using this as a launching point to bring my program up to a nationwide level, and will be holding workshops for dozens of principals and teachers across the country (no pressure). But it’s weird because even though I have very little interaction or exposure the whole YV world I still have to conform to trademark and copywrite phrases. I’m so isolated with what I’m doing that it’s easy to forget there’s other people working for the same company (the fact that I think of it as a company and not a nonprofit seems meaningful in itself).
The director asked me to rewrite the paragraph with ® and ©, which is no big deal, but it’s becoming symbolic of how even through I have huge amounts of freedom within this group (at times an intimidating amount), I’m still not where I want to be. I'm starting to get itchy feet and getting tired of working in a high-school. Honestly I’ll be fine doing this for another year but after that I’m really looking forward to the prospect of gong back to school. This place in Arkansas is so kickass, I’m really excited about being surrounded by people with similar passions who are enthusiastic about being active in the world. One more year. |
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| Road Trippin!! |
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| 06:11pm 27/06/2008 |
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"As some of you may already know, I'm planning a cross-country road trip this summer. Want to come for all or part? I'm serious - give me a shout if you do.
We have a tentative list! Unfortunately, Mexico, Southwestern U.S., and the South are not going to happen in this trip. Highlights include getting to see some cities in the midwest I haven't seen, spending time in Chicago and looking at schools out there, spending some time in every awesome city on the West Coast (duh!), the Redwoods (which are amazing), seeing Seattle for the first time, and runing across the country with some crazy cool amazing people.
Please please please comment if you live in any of the following places or know someone that I also know who lives in any of the following places. We're lookin out both for people to see and for places to stay, especially in the less trendy cities in our itinery.
Friday, July 25: leave Providence
Friday, July 25 or Saturday, July 26: Buffalo, NY
Saturday July 26 thru Monday 28: Chicago, IL
Tuesday July 29: Madison, WI; St.Paul/Minneapolis, MN
Wednesday July 30: Rapid City, SD (Mt. Rushmore)
Thursday July 31: Yellowstone Park, Wyoming
Thursday/Friday July 31/August 1: probably camping somewhere in Montana, Idaho, or Western Washington. Anyone have an idea?
Friday Aug 1: Ellensberg, WA; Seattle, WA
Saturday August 2 - Sunday August 3: Seattle, WA; Olympia, WA (Kaaaaate?)
Monday Aug 4: Portland, OR
Tuesday/Wednesday Aug 5-6: Arcada/Humboldt County, CA (anyone?)
Thursday Aug 7 - Sunday Aug. 10: San Francisco/Bay Area
Monday Aug. 11 - Wednesday Aug. 13: Los Angeles
Wednesday/Thursday Aug. 14: Las Vegas
Thursday Aug. 14 - Saturday Aug. 16: Denver, CO; Boulder, CO
Saturday/Sunday Aug. 16-17: Omaha, Nebraska (anyone?)
Sunday/Monday Aug. 17-18: Iowa City, IA (open to other places in Iowa, too. Anyone?)
Monday Aug. 18 - Thursday Aug. 21: Chicago, IL
Thursday/Friday Aug. 21-22: somewhere in Pennslyvania or New York
Friday/Saturday Aug. 22-23: New York City
Monday Aug. 25: Back to work in Providence.
Additionally, we're obviously open to juggling this around within certain constraints. Give me a shout out if you've got a place recommendation |
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| 11:48am 10/06/2008 |
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| 09:44pm 12/05/2008 |
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Ok, looking back I’ve realized that I only really use my livejournal to make vague comments about life when I’m either stressed or mad about something. If you were to look through my last few entries it would seem like I’m normally angry and bitter about something, which really isn’t true. Just a FYI.
Work is really the only thing I have going on right now, work and the landtrust. I’ve officially signed my life away for another year as a VISTA in RI, and as much as I like what I’m doing and even though it’s going well (they keep hinting that they want to make this a ‘full time’ position for me, like, a real job and not a VISTA thing) I don’t think I want to stay beyond that. There’s too much other stuff in the world I want to work on and get involved with. Starting these little nonprofits is a good stepping stone for what I want to be doing, but it’s not engaging social issues on the level that I want to be on, not yet anyway.
I’ve found this amazing school in Little Rock Arkansas that sounds like it was custom made for me. A lot of what you do in this program is direct involvement with different NGOs, both in local community and internationally, building resources and getting involved, I freaking love it. Someday I would really like to help recreate a place like Biloxi where everyone had this strong communal feeling of togetherness and intense bonding, while doing a ton of incredibly creative and beneficial work. Yea, I’d like to create something like that with a component that teaches youth the importance of sustainability, sort of like the farms that Trevor and Mike ran, (I’m wishing I spent more time with those guys in college and that I took more advantage of stuff like canticle farm, but at least I got exposed to it). I was hanging out with this guy today who built the first Biodiesel luxury RV and this guy was so freaking well informed and knowledgeable, he built a borderline perpetual-motion machine on his dashboard just for shits and giggles for crying out loud! How do you respond to something like that?
It’s crazy and amazing and cool, it’s people like that who really inspire me in life and make me want to keep going and try to do something with myself. I just kinda wish I had more to offer. |
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| 06:33pm 08/05/2008 |
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Fuck Seven Corners |
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