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Mission and Ministry wins grant to develop Student Bridgebuilding Fellowship

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New Student Fellowship will focus on interfaith dialogue and bridgebuilding

As a Vincentian institution, DePaul’s mission calls the university community to support the integral human development of students in a diverse, multifaith and inclusive community. A new student fellowship program will contribute to this goal by combining Interfaith America’s curriculum and a sustainable, distributed program model rooted in the student experience to engage students in leveraging their strengths to find solutions to issues important to them.

Between 40 and 50 students will have the opportunity to gain transformative skills in interfaith dialogue and facilitation through a $6,832 grant from Interfaith America, a Chicago-based nonprofit that provides consultation and training to “unlock the potential” of religious diversity and to foster a vibrant pluralism. Fellowships are open to student leaders in the Division of Mission and Ministry (DMM) and from the broader campus community.

At a time when many DePaul community members are personally experiencing the pain and anguish of a divided and war-torn world, this collaboration with Interfaith America offers opportunities for the healing, sharing and restoration that our community needs.

The Student Bridgebuilding Fellowship begins with information sessions and a community building brunch on Nov. 1, 2024, in Arts and Letters room 211.  Sessions will take place at 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. and will last an hour.  Attendance at one of the information brunches is required to apply to the fellowship.  Students will then complete a brief application and be notified of their selection for the program.

Throughout the winter quarter, fellows will participate in sessions co-facilitated and guided by staff members who were trained last summer at the Interfaith America Bridging the Gap seminar. Each session will include time for making connections between DePaul’s Vincentian mission and the curriculum called the “Vincentian Voice.”

Using a distributed model of leadership, each student leader will be asked to engage their peers in bridgebuilding skills during the spring quarter. Fellows will use the spring quarter to share their wisdom and new skills with peers on campus, generating enthusiasm and invitations for the following year. Seniors will be gifted special cords for graduation, indicating their training as a Bridgebuilding Fellow.

Louise de Marillac and the World of Disability

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With this reflection, we continue our celebration of Louise Week 2023, highlighting Saint Louise de Marillac’s example of transformative leadership and compassionate care for the marginalized.

According to the World Health Organization, 1.3 billion people around the world live with disabilities.[1] Disabled people are much more likely than nondisabled people to live in poverty and to be excluded from societies that do not accommodate their needs. As part of the Vincentian Family, a community dedicated to serving those in need, DePaul University has a special commitment to those who are excluded. Inspired by our recent celebration of “Louise Week,” it is therefore fitting to examine Louise de Marillac’s engagement with disabled people.

Louise de Marillac had a deep relationship with disability. Her son, Michel, was born prematurely[2] and experienced developmental delays and learning challenges.[3] A single parent after the death of her husband, Louise herself experienced intense anxiety over her son that may have been worsened because he was a nontypical child. In fact, she often wrote to Vincent de Paul about this, seeking his advice and support.[4] She herself also had health issues, experiencing frequent migraines and chronic bronchitis.[5] Like many people who are chronically ill, she had to change life plans because of her illness: her health prevented her from entering the Capuchins, which had been a dream of hers as a teenager.[6] Louise knew what it was like to have her daily life curtailed by illness or treatment for illness. Several of her letters contain notes about this: “I took some medication this morning which limits my activity.”[7] She also experienced mental health issues. For instance, she suffered depression so intensely that, as she wrote, “the force of my emotions sometimes resulted in physical pain.”[8]

Louise’s experiences enabled her to better empathize with what members of her community were going through. As she wrote to one Daughter of Charity, “I share in the suffering that I know you are enduring because of your attacks of sadness and depression. … I wish you could share them with me, my very dear Sister, along with the thoughts they have evoked in you. I will try to be of some help to you in this matter having, perhaps, experienced the same difficulties myself.”[9] Many of her letters are filled with remedies for sisters and other colleagues who were sick, and she also cautioned against overexertion for those who were trying to carry out their duties even when they were ill: “Keep Sister Françoise until this evening, but do not let her carry the soup pot because she is not feeling well.”[10] Louise had a very holistic approach to the health of those under her that we would do well to emulate today. She recognized that it would be wrong for a community such as hers, devoted to healthcare and the service of the poor, not to treat its members with the same compassion and concern.

But Louise went beyond empathy and made strides toward inclusion. Although people with preexisting conditions were normally barred from joining the Daughters of Charity, Louise recognized that sick and disabled people could contribute to her community’s work. In the first surviving letter we have from her to Vincent, she speaks of “the good blind girl from Vertus” who was a Lady of Charity—a member of a group that worked with the Daughters.[11]

One of the most trusted leaders within the Daughters of Charity was Élisabeth Martin, who, among other things, oversaw the hospital communities in Angers and Nantes and supervised the new sisters at the motherhouse.[12] The editors of Spiritual Writings tell us that Martin was chronically ill.[13] Improving Martin’s health was a frequent subject of letters, but Louise apparently never considered relieving Martin of her responsibilities. On more than one occasion, Louise told Martin that she was not a burden and encouraged her to make what we today would term requests for accommodations. Consider this letter from Louise to Martin: “State your needs very simply and do not be upset that your illness makes you useless. You are the only one who thinks so.”[14] Louise always wanted a true picture of Martin’s physical and mental state, writing “speak to me openly of your suffering. I will read and understand everything.”[15]

This evidence clearly shows that, although it wasn’t perfect, a tradition of receptiveness and inclusion toward disabled people started with Louise. It’s important to understand the conditions of disabled lives. Disabled people should be able to state the exact nature of their abilities without fear and to request the modifications that they need to thrive. Only then can we build a society that truly serves everyone. We at DePaul should ask ourselves how we can continue Louise’s work toward inclusion.

Reflection Questions:

How can you work toward creating a more inclusive and supportive community for people with disabilities in your life and work at DePaul?

How does the example of Louise de Marillac inspire you to build and sustain a commitment to community?

Reflection by: Miranda Lukatch, Editor, Vincentian Studies Institute

Join us this week for more Louise Week events!

[2] Kieran Kneaves, D.C., “A Woman Named Louise: 1591–1633,” Vincentian Heritage Journal 12:2 (1991): 124. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol12/iss2/3/.

[3] Élisabeth Charpy, Louise de Marillac: Come Winds or High Waters (Chicago: Vincentian Studies Institute, 2018), 14. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/43/.

[4] Charpy, Louise de Marillac, 25.

[6] Charpy, Louise de Marillac, 10.

[7] Letter 20, “To Monsieur L’Abbé de Vaux at Angers,” May 6, 1640, Spiritual Writings, 28. Hereinafter referred to as SW. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/ldm/.

[8] Document A.13, “An Interior Trial,” (c. 1621), SW, 691–92.

[9] Letter 102, “To Sister Claude (Brigide), the First,” (c. June 1642), SW, 74.

[10] Letter 127, “To My Very Dear Sister Barbe Angiboust,” (c. 1642), SW, 83.

[11] Letter 1, “To Monsieur Vincent,” June 5, 1627, SW, 6, n. 1.

[12] SW, 30–31, n. 3.

[13] SW, 39, n. 1.

[14] Letter 58B, “To Sister Élisabeth Martin,” August 7, (1641), SW, 56.

[15] Letter 23, “To Sister Élisabeth Martin,” (1640), SW, 34.

Vincent de Paul: An Essential Memory

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This week we are celebrating the best of our spiritual heritage: the life of Saint Vincent de Paul.

I discovered St. Vincent when I joined the Congregation of the Mission at 18 years of age on February 5, 1984. I was looking for community and a communal experience. I rapidly felt in love with him, his life, his commitment, his humanism, and his endless creativity. Over the past 38 years I have come to understand that Vincent is an important part of an infinite constellation of guardians, prophets, and witnesses. He is part of a constant, sacred memory of the God of a thousand names and expressions in a vast array of religions, cultures, and spiritualities.

Vincent de Paul is a very human prophet and teacher capable of provoking a yearning within us for God, the God of the poor and the most abandoned. This memory and our yearning take concrete form as something bigger than our own egos. We recognize it as something essential for a peaceful and sustainable coexistence in this, our common home. Vincent’s life and his work were inspired by the memory of God, a memory and yearning for compassion, mercy, solidarity, transformation, and love and justice. The memory of God in Vincent’s life is a strength that forces us to go to the margins, to welcome the stranger, to console the afflicted, to free the oppressed, and to “leave no one behind.”[1]

Today Vincent de Paul is a living memory, and our yearning must therefore include working for racial equity and to overcome structural racism and systems of white supremacy. For us, we must recognize the historical reality of the unfortunate connections some members of the Congregation of the Mission had to slavery in the nineteenth century. And we must articulate the connections that enslavement and the legacy of institutional racism have to our present. The yearning of God must be a yearning for truth and transformation.

I am certain that Vincent himself experienced a memory and yearning for God early in life. “He left his home diocese, Dax, and moved to the capital around 1607, where he began to make contacts among the ecclesiastical and even social elite. Being surrounded with refugees, the poor, and the marginalized, his attention gradually shifted away from his personal advancement toward service given to his needy sisters and brothers.”[2] The poor provoked in Vincent an essential memory of who he was called to be. They became both unique human beings endowed with sacred dignity and a living memory of the revelation of God. Every single day they called him to service, to compassion, to solidarity, and to transformation. In Vincent’s heart relationships with those who were poor led to a constant yearning for God, for the best of our human experience. They transformed his very existence.

Vincent was a humble man. He never aspired or claimed to be a “little god” or tried to control everything and everyone. He lived with a yearning and sense of God’s presence throughout his life, especially when doubts or conflict surrounded him. He felt this essential yearning and connection to God in his daily work, in the loving coexistence of his community, and in the day-to-day struggles to sustain all the projects he created to help victims of war, peasants, men in prisons, the destitute, the sick, and abandoned children. More than believing in God, Vincent de Paul knew God, served God, and committed his life to God as present to him in all those most abandoned by society. It was in the poor that he knew God, loved God, and felt the living God. His commitment to the excluded, the ones on the margins, the most abandoned, became one of those essential and perennial memories in his developing a deeper form of humanity.

Therefore, our Vincentian theological-spiritual approach is not of a pious type. Instead, it attempts to make a leap from religious devotion to ethical dedication in favor of social and environmental justice for the defense of vulnerable and threatened life. Vincent de Paul gave religion an ethical horizon. He taught us that the recognition and care for the dignity of the other, especially the ones on the margins of society, is essential to really experience God, to know God, and to serve God.

In this celebration of the feast of Saint Vincent my Vincentian heart feels a yearning for God, a yearning for compassion and solidarity, for equity and inclusion, and for respect, recognition, and care.

Happy feast of Saint Vincent to our students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Over this week, let us experience together a yearning for those essential things that bring us joy and inner peace.

Reflection by: Fr. Memo Campuzano, C.M., Vice-President for Mission and Ministry

[1] Cf. Luke 4:16-21.

[2] John E. Rybolt, C.M., Ph.D., “Vincent de Paul and Hospitality,” Vincentian Heritage 33:1 (2016), at: https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.edu/vhj/vol33/iss1/5/.

 

 

Stories of Life Made New

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The 1947 French film Monsieur Vincent opens with a striking sequence during which Vincent de Paul arrives at the city of Châtillon to serve as a priest. Châtillon is depicted as a place where the sick and the poor are left to die. Meanwhile, the rich party behind closed doors as the plague sweeps through town. Everyone has seemingly lost faith. People laugh when Vincent tells them he has come to serve as priest, horrified that he intends to assist the poor and the sick most of all. While Vincentian historians may point out the many ways this dramatization conflicts with historical record, it does bear a thematic resemblance to some of the testimonies given by residents during the investigation for the canonization of Vincent after his death.

Although we are fortunate to have many volumes of letters and conferences by Saint Vincent, we are sometimes stymied in our search to better understand details of Vincent’s life. He seems to have been reluctant to talk about himself, especially his past. In his spiritual urging of others, Vincent was often self-deprecating and humble. He was fond of referring to his peasant origins and his childhood tending animals, which was understood to be very humble work. Of course, in many spiritual traditions the work of the shepherd is linked to the tasks of prophets and other servants of the divine. Indeed, in the Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad affirms that in his youth he too served as a humble shepherd and that in fact this is true of all the prophets of God.

In addition to the inherent humility of this occupation, many have written of the important lessons one learns from this type of work in order to “pastor” human persons. In another hadith, or prophetic teaching, Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, is reported to have said, “All of you are shepherds and each of you is responsible for their flock.” A central aspect of the value of personalism embraced at DePaul can be found in this shared human understanding of pastoral responsibility. Margarita Mooney Suarez has described personalism as a “middle way between radical individualism and collective authoritarianism.”[1] In the pastoral wisdom of personalism one may be responsible for a group, whether large or small, but one can only fulfill that responsibility by recognizing the sacred dignity and uniqueness of each of the persons under their care.

The Qur’an calls the attention of the listener to the revival of the earth, which appears dead, with the coming of the rain: “And among His signs is that you see the earth devoid of life, but as soon as We send down rain upon it, it begins to stir ˹to life˺ and swell. Indeed, the One Who revives it can easily revive the dead.”[2] In this and other verses like it, the Qur’an affirms both an everlasting life for the soul after death and the revival of hearts which appear dead. I would argue that in the sacred attention and care that accompanies personalism, one can find not only a revival of individual hearts but of communities that may appear dead or devoid of vibrancy.

This is one lens through which to understand the testimonies of those in Châtillon detailing Monsieur Vincent’s effect over several months in 1617. After someone has a wonderful revival experience it is often difficult to communicate the depth of that to others. When individuals testify to an important life-giving change they often emphasize or even exaggerate the more negative aspects of their prior life. Sometimes this is done to make their story more compelling or dramatic, but just as often it is a desperate attempt to convey just how important and beautiful the change was for them.

Both individually and as an institution, as we continue the process of revival in emerging from the depths of the pandemic and the many other difficulties we have faced, let us embrace sacred attention to all those under our care. Furthermore, let us remember and celebrate the countless sacred acts that carried us through our lowest moments and prepared us for the coming of a new spring.

Reflection by: Abdul-Malik Ryan, Asst. Director Religious Diversity & Pastoral Care, Muslim Chaplain

[1] Margarita Mooney Suarez, “Being Human in the Modern World: Why Personalism Matters for Education and Culture,” 25 June 2018, Public Discourse, at: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/06/21942/.

[2] Quran 41:39.

Out of Many, One

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The motto on which the U.S. is built, its very foundation, is the Latin phrase E Pluribus Unum: “Out of many, one.” This motto has never been more relevant and urgent than today.

I have been insisting in different forums over the past couple of years that equity at DePaul is not simply a social, cultural, or political option. It is a concrete way for us to understand who we are. Our identity and our mission need to refer to equity intentionally and systemically. Our work to end all inequities within our institutional and social fabric is a basic consequence of this same principle.

“Out of many, one” only happens when the singularity of each member of the many is recognized, respected, and protected. Then all the singularities weave together naturally to become a beautiful pluralistic One. There is no space today for any ideology that denigrates the right to be any of the infinite forms of the Many that enable the One to be authentic, embracing all.

I am convinced that this is precisely the beauty of DePaul and our Vincentian DNA, which is connected to the national motto. I am also convinced that legislation or policy alone cannot solve the many problems we have with intolerance, hatred, exclusion, or violence. I have worked on political advocacy with other members of the Vincentian Family to promote systemic change and the eradication of all forms of social and environmental injustices. We believe this is also something that each one of us needs to incorporate into a personal way of being and relating.

In the 70s and 80s, the focus on social work and Catholic Social Teaching was almost exclusively on poverty. However, poverty is a consequence of a bigger systemic problem. Our focus is changing. Today the focus is on inequity. Attention to equity is attention to sustainable models. Equity is essential for DePaul, for society, and for humanity to be sustainable.

At the beginning of this new academic year, from my position in the Division of Mission and Ministry and from my identity as a Vincentian, I invite us to always preserve the dignity of each one and of all in everything we say and do. We must preserve the dignity of the Many so that we can honestly be One.

Each one of us should be aware of the healing, restorative power of our words; the transformative supportive power of our listening; and the compassionate, fulfilling experience of our presence in our relationships.

In Vincent de Paul’s teaching, there is a movement from religious devotion to transformative ethical actions that defend the most vulnerable and threatened. This ethical relationship with the Other, especially the vulnerable, can give us a full understanding of the mystery of life. So let us all, individually and collectively, use this new academic year as an opportunity to heal, to rebuild relationships, and to create new networks of support and care, always in the spirit of equity and the motto it embraces—out of many, one. We are all equal in our dignity. We are all worthy in our many, many differences. What a beautiful expression of our collective humanity in this microcosm that is DePaul University.

As we welcome the new members of our community, let’s all act in the spirit of hospitality, which calls us to embrace new members as our own. We are one family, a family that is always growing and being transformed, not just by new faces but also by new decisions, new opportunities, and by our decision to be new people in the way we see and treat each other.

Happy New Academic Year, DePaul University.

Let’s continue to work together. We are DePaul. Go, DePaul!

 

Reflection by: Fr. Guillermo Campuzano, C.M., Vice President for Mission and Ministry

Quiet awaits you!

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St. Vincent once said to Saint Louis, “It seems to me that you are killing yourself from the little care you take of yourself.” (Vincent de Paul , n.d. [c.1632], CCD 1:145.)

As the quarter comes to an end it is important for all members of DePaul’s community to be mindful of taking care of themselves. Solid and significant rest, a healthy diet, exercise, and hydration are all essential to one’s well-being during the stresses of finishing up the quarter.

But, equally important is making time to simply be still. The Division of Mission and Ministry (DMM) staff know the importance of quiet reflection, prayer, and meditation—especially in the midst of hyper busyness. And, so DMM invites you to stop the madness and enter into stillness by visiting the Interfaith Sacred Spaces.

 

 A newly blessed Sacred Space just opened in the Loop and is located on the 11th floor of the Student Center, room 11008.

If you’re in Lincoln Park, please feel free to stop by the Sacred Space located on the first floor of the Student Center, next to the chapel. In this season of finals, may you find your quiet space and engage in caring for YOU!

—————-

Information on the Interfaith Sacred Spaces on campus:

DePaul University is a school not only dedicated to celebrating diversity, but it also encourages students to develop their full selves while on campus.

In order to support religious diversity on campus and provide students with space to develop their spirituality, faith, or purpose, the university has several places set aside for prayer, worship, reflection, and study. In addition to two chapels as well as the Lincoln Park Interfaith Sacred Space, an Interfaith Sacred Space was recently dedicated in the Loop. The Loop Interfaith Sacred Space is located in the Student Center, room 11008, and is available to any member of the university community  (university ID card necessary for swipe entry) seeking an oasis for reflection, prayer, and quiet. All are welcome to stop by and use the space on a first come, first served basis or information on reserving the space for recurring prayer, reflection, worship, or study can be obtained by contacting Diane Dardón, ddardon@depaul.edu.

“Healing Grief, Inspiring Hope: the Prophetic Practices of Ramadan”

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This is the khutbah (sermon) I delivered for the Eid ul Fitr prayers marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan at the University of Chicago on June 25, 2017.

In it, I try to examine the reality of grief and trauma as pervasive aspects of the human experience and how true prophetic religion does not seek to cover up or pretend away such realities but rather acknowledges them directly. It also provides individual and communal practices for healing such grief and trauma, while at the same time always inspiring hope in a reality greater than what we can perceive in the moment. Examples of this prophetic methodology are mentioned from the Qur’an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him!). The worship practices of the month of Ramadan can be some of the best examples of these practices in our community and we should build on that model and work to create real and healthy communities throughout the year.

I welcome feedback and please share with others if you think the message is important.

Peace and Blessings,

Abdul-Malik

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Catholic Character of DePaul

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The “Catholic Character of DePaul” is a chapter in the book The Playful Hand of God: Memoir of John T. Richardson, C.M. (pp. 74-79) published in 2011 by DePaul University, Chicago, IL.  Fr. Richardson served as President of DePaul University from 1981-1993.  In this chapter the author recounts the great history of the Catholic Church’s involvement in higher education both in Europe and in the United States over the past several hundred years.  He muses on how DePaul University had implemented some of the liberating spirit of Vatican Council II long before the beginning of that Council in 1962 and how later changes in the Church’s Canon Law in 1983 seemed an attempt to rein in some of the freedoms envisioned in Vatican II documents.  He noted Chicago’s Joseph Cardinal Bernardine’s opposition to those very restrictions and the University’s total agreement with the Cardinal. In addition, he reflects on the “space race” situation in the Cold War years when federal monies became available for research in science, technology and space exploration.  Were such monies to be available to colleges and universities with religious or church affiliations; or would grants to such institutions be considered unconstitutional?  This question was especially important to DePaul as the Music School of the University had been given special recognition by the Vatican years earlier affiliating it with the Pontifical Institute in the Vatican.  In 1966, the Board of Trustees voted to terminate that special arrangement with the Vatican and the issue became moot.

Bottom line is this (in his own words): “The Catholic identity of DePaul has not restricted learning to a sectarian point of view….the University respects the basic religious freedom of belief and practice enjoyed by its students, faculty and staff.  This explains why our undergraduate curriculum includes studies in many religions as well as the study of Catholic theology.  Catholics form the largest single religious group of student, but slightly more than half of the student body consists of other religious or no-religion groups.”

Vincentian Moments

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Part of our work with the Interfaith Scholars is to make moves to draw people closer together through our different faiths. Our purpose is to transcend differences and better understand one another and the role that our faith plays in our day to day lives. One of the ways that the scholars do this is by creating what we call Vincentian Moments. These moments take an aspect of each faith tradition and draw a comparison to an aspect of St. Vincent Depaul’s teachings. 

The first installment comes from Scholar Thano Prokos who decided to on his own background in the Greek Orthodox Faith.

St. Vincent says,

 “Our Lord humbles in order to raise up, and allows the suffering of interior and exterior afflictions in order to bring about peace. He often desires some things more than we do, but wants us to merit the grace of accomplishing them by several practices of virtue and to beg for this with many prayers.”

In “Taking the More Excellent Way,” Fr. Anthony Hughes talks about the story of St. Mary of Egypt and uses it to explain on how we make use of personal suffering. He argues that our trials and suffering are the things that make us grow and we become beautiful human beings.

St. Vincent stresses the same idea, that when we are humbled in our lives it’s our duty to rise back up.  What both men are saying, is that the hardships we face are not necessarily what we should focus on. We shouldn’t be consumed by our grief. Rather, it’s important to focus on what the next step is. How do we respond to tragedy? Both men encourage a detachment from the experience of grief and a focus on the divine through prayer.

Vincent asks us to say our own personal prayers to God with the hope that our prayer focuses our attention on what is good and how we can strive to be better. Fr. Anthony asks us to pray for others, particularly those who hurt us. The goal of this practice is less “divine intervention” but more to remind us that those who hurt us are every bit as human as we are. It changes our perception of them from the evil other into someone that we can be compassionate towards in the hopes that in the future, we can demonstrate our growth by meeting  hostility with love.

New Scholars. New Reflections.

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Over the summer, a group of our interfaith scholars headed to New York City in order to experience each other’s faith in such a way that we could move past any preconceived notions and actually grasp what the others believed. For most college age students, a trip to New York is all about the kind of shenanigans that can be accomplished and summer is about losing all responsibility and just relaxing. This summer shifted our focus because we were not letting time idly pass by. We were pushed out of our comfort zones in an effort to bring all of us closer together. We had the rest of the summer to reflect and decide if that plan worked or not. 

Each scholar was asked to reflect on:

  • What experience was inspiring?
  • What was surprising?
  •  

    What challenges were confronted?

  • What made you care?

Interfaith Scholar extraordinaire Kamieshia Graves gave us her reflection:

“New York. (insert happy sigh here) The city of wonders and great opportunities. The place to be with all its magnificent city lights illuminating the picturesque skyline. All the snazzy people with ambitions and dreams that are out of this world. Forget Home, Dorothy! There’s no place like New York!!!!!!”

Yeah… definitely not how I felt initially. May I offer a bit of my reality?

I never had the burning desire to go to NY. In fact, I was so dedicated to being a Chicagoan that I was almost positive that I would never partake in the blasphemous act of going to New York. It sounds ridiculous because it was ridiculous– don’t judge me. I think NY simply terrified me causing the lack of motivation to visit; however, I agreed to go with Interfaith Scholars 2013-2014 (woot woot!) and the adventure began.

You see, the day of travel came and butterflies are too cute to describe how I felt. I hadn’t previously met any of my team members with whom I would be riding all the way to NY. I’m a pretty easygoing person, but the thought of not being accepted into the group worried me quite a bit and I must say that first day was quite a challenge for me. It was like transferring to a new high school during senior year—I know from experience. Everyone was already comfortable and easily initiated conversations and laughed. Meanwhile, I fought to find a cool way to just jump in, which I never figured out. Instead, I randomly would ask a question, like a dork, never realizing that the focus was on the Game of Thrones, which I knew nothing about. (PS. Thanks guys for inspiring me to watch it. It is good!) Needless to say, I slept most of that ride.

Fast-forward:

We arrived and had arrangements to stay in the Bronx! I loved the Bronx immediately because it gave me a sense of comfort when I needed it most. I felt more connected with the residents of that area more so than I did with the individuals I was to live with. I felt that if I walked into a random group of New Yorkers they would listen to me, but I did not feel that way with my own team. Then all of a sudden, a bright light broke through the sky and we had a “Haaaaaaallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelu-u-u-u-jahhhh” moment and one person from my group struck up a conversation with me and then another and we just clicked, which actually surprised me! Although I believe that the foundation of Christianity with regards to behavior towards others is to be Christ-like by loving everyone despite differences, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I, a nondenominational Christian, had so much in common, including some religious beliefs, with the two young women who are both Muslim. The shared commonalities even extended to the other faith practices represented in the group. Can you imagine the look on my face when I met the Greek Orthodox priest and learned that he is just as crazy hilarious as my own pastor?! I’m sorry, but when I first heard Greek Orthodox I let my preconceived notions nurture the idea of taking a nap before going to that church. I expected it to be boring, but I happily admitted my error after learning that the St Nick is Santa. I had to send silent prayers of forgiveness to each of the faith practices many times that trip; I wouldn’t have changed it though because I learned a great deal about others as well as myself.

Though some may disagree, I would be comfortable saying that we are all working toward the same goal, but simply using different paths. I love it!

During a free day, I got to explore this a bit more when the leaders of the group gave us the challenge of initiating a conversation with a native and, if not too strenuous, centering the conversation on religion. I, along with the same two young ladies, found it rather easy to achieve this at Union Square with a bunch of random men from different faith practices. We got into this really crazy discussion (borderline debate at times) about Christianity, Atheism, and Islam with a man who identified himself as atheist. More and more people joined, and we developed this cycle of discussing religion and being silly. In the midst of all this enjoyable chaos, there was an older Islamic woman whose mere presence was awe-inspiring. This woman was selling water to make a profit. A couple of the guys bought water, and one said that he had done it because he felt sorry for her. The crazy thing is this lady was joyous and goofy. At least for the moment, she had not let life steal her love of living. I remember that she had jokingly asked one of the men why he hadn’t made a pass at one of us ladies and she laughed with us. It seems so simple, but I found it inspirational because life has dealt some crazy cards to me and I had allowed it to start having an effect on my perspective, but her presence reminded me of what I do have- laughter. (I have this crazy obnoxious laugh but I love it because it makes others laugh too.) I let the hard stuff blur my positive and optimistic outlook, but her presence.

Jumping gears to a not so religious moment that I have to share because it touched me:

I cannot remember where we were or why we were there but we were at a very small park- it was literally a fountain with benches around it- and there was this little girl who was in her own little world. She danced and danced without a care in the world, and all of us just watched her, but not in a creepy way. She eventually realized she had an audience and she stopped and returned the favor. She just looked at me… and looked… and looked until she smiled a big cheerful smile provoking me to do the same. She waved at me giddily twice before her mother looked back to check on the fuss. Her daughter ran to her and pointed at me and waved again. Our group had turned to leave, but before leaving to proceed to our next destination I turned to see her awaiting a goodbye. We waved one last time and I walked away touched by the purity of that carefree child.

I could go on and on about the IFS trip to NY, but I think I have already talked waaaaay too much. What can I say? Because of the memories I was gifted, I had a lot to say about the remarkable city of New York. As of right now, there is no place like it.