mission

The Business of Living the Mission

Cassy Mission and Ministry, Mission Weekly , , , ,

Updates, resources, and events highlighting the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the daily life and work of the university community.

MISSION MONDAY

Vincent at his writing desk

The Business of Living the Mission

Besides adeptly demonstrating strategic business acumen, Vincent simultaneously managed to incarnate the very same values that guided his life into the seventeenth-century marketplace.

                                   IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER

NOVEMBER 20 | Gathering of Remembrance 2025

Each year, the DePaul community comes together for the Gathering of Remembrance, an interfaith service to honor the lives of DePaul faculty, staff, and students who have passed away this year. The ceremony includes the reading of names of those who have lost their loved ones and prayers from multiple faith traditions, creating a space for reflection, healing, and unity. RSVP

December 4 | Day with Vincent at the Art Institute

Join us for Day with Vincent at the Art Institute, a reflective and enriching experience exploring the intersection of art, beauty, and Vincentian values. Together, we’ll visit featured exhibits, engage in guided conversation, and take time for contemplation and community building. RSVP

The Business of Living the Mission

Cassy Mission and Ministry, Mission Weekly , , , ,

Updates, resources, and events highlighting the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the daily life and work of the university community.

MISSION MONDAY

Vincent at his writing desk

The Business of Living the Mission

Besides adeptly demonstrating strategic business acumen, Vincent simultaneously managed to incarnate the very same values that guided his life into the seventeenth-century marketplace.

                                   IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER

NOVEMBER 12 | Lunch with Vincent:

DePaul faculty and staff, you are warmly invited to Lunch with Vincent where we will be joined by DePaul University Board of Trustees chair, Michael Scudder. Scudder will discuss his role as Board chair and how DePaul’s mission helps to guide his leadership during these challenging times for our university.  Hope to see you there!  RSVP

NOVEMBER 20 | Gathering of Remembrance 2025

Each year, the DePaul community comes together for the Gathering of Remembrance, an interfaith service to honor the lives of DePaul faculty, staff, and students who have passed away this year. The ceremony includes the reading of names of those who have lost their loved ones and prayers from multiple faith traditions, creating a space for reflection, healing, and unity. RSVP

The Business of Living the Mission

Cassy Mission and Ministry, Mission Monday , , , ,

Written by: Siobhan O’Donoghue, PhD, Director of Faculty and Staff Engagement, Division of Mission and Ministry

St.Vincent at his writing desk

In spiritual circles, it is sometimes said that a person of faith should be in the world but not of the world. This expression has always perplexed me, and I have never truly understood it. How can a person be in the world but not of it? If this were even possible, why would a person want to live in such a bifurcated manner? Surely, such a dualistic way of being must lie at odds with the holistic Catholic and Vincentian worldview to which our mission at DePaul invites us.

I recently found myself musing over this while considering the challenging times we’re facing. Whether it be at our institution, in our city, or on a national or global scale, this is undoubtedly a turbulent period. It might be understandable to want to distance ourselves from the messiness of life right now, and to ensconce ourselves behind a wall of ideas and pristine principles, but that would not be in keeping with our mission. Rather, Vincentian wisdom calls on us to do quite the opposite. Instead, it invites us to gain practical knowledge (that can only be obtained in the doing) to weave together seemingly disparate worlds into a single, value-threaded tapestry.[i]

My intellectual meandering led me to turn to the life of our founder. When Vincent de Paul engaged in the world of business he did so anchored by a spiritual vision that upheld the dignity of all, particularly those who existed on the margins of society. Even if not always successful, Vincent’s quest was rooted in service of a higher cause to serve those who were economically poor.

According to Thomas McKenna, “Vincent’s sanctity came to blossom in a world of political hard knocks, financial and legal risk taking, and sometimes fierce corporate pressures. His heavy involvement in the institutional world evolved because it was necessary to finance all the initiatives he undertook. Hospitals, shelters, seminaries, half-way houses, preaching teams, orphanages, soup kitchens, war relief campaigns—they all needed sound and long-term backing.”[ii] With the goal of sustaining such ministries, Vincent would spend many hours requesting donations from the rich and powerful, establishing endowments, and buying, selling, and managing real estate. He utilized such financial approaches to help the ministries he founded thrive, not unlike many of the business strategies that DePaul University employs today to sustain our institution.

Furthermore, Vincent had a very hands-on approach to business. He would travel extensively throughout France to oversee negotiations in person. Sometimes, because of business ventures backfiring, Vincent would have to deal with “uncollected rents, unjust taxes, court suits, ruined harvests, delinquent debtors, contested wills, and crippling war damages.”[iii] Yet, Vincent remained a shrewd negotiator and steadfast administrator who, at times, possessed a clarity of thought that others lacked. Vincent’s words to the head of a retreat house clearly reveal this dynamic: “I’m glad you always have plenty of people on retreat. But you should be aware that quite a number of them, on the pretext of making a retreat, come only for the food. There are types who are only too happy to spend a peaceful seven or eight days at no expense to them!”[iv]

Over the course of his business dealings, Vincent certainly had to learn how to endure myriad institutional pressures. Yet, at no point did he understand himself as inhabiting two disparate worlds. Rather, “Vincent’s saintliness existed right in engagement with commerce and politics and bottom lines. For Vincent, the kingdom was pursued in the rough oceans and not in the calm of a mountain lake.”[v]

Fundamentally, besides adeptly demonstrating strategic business acumen, Vincent simultaneously managed to incarnate the very same values that guided his life into the seventeenth-century marketplace. Yet all the while, Vincent’s gaze never deviated from his end goal to support the foundations he had established to assist those who were socioeconomically poor and neglected.

At DePaul today, as unforeseen headwinds threaten to deviate us from our course, Vincent’s ability to sail in the powerful institutional currents of his day, and to learn from his struggles, must surely offer us a beacon of hope. In essence, when stormy seas loom, Vincent’s journey offers us key insights in how to steer a steady course while never losing sight of our desired end destination.

Reflection Questions

  1. Where do you turn for support so you can remain true to reaching your end destination when headwinds threaten to throw you off course?
  2. What spoke to you most about Vincent’s story of the saint who kept his worlds together? What might you learn from this insight both professionally and personally?

Reflection by: Siobhan O’Donoghue, PhD, Director of Faculty and Staff Engagement, Division of Mission and Ministry

[i] Thomas McKenna, C.M., “Vincent de Paul: A Saint Who Got His Worlds Together,” Vincentian Heritage 18:1 (1997), 1. See https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol18/iss1/1/.

[ii] Ibid., 5.

[iii] Ibid., 7.

[iv] Ibid., 8.

[v] Ibid., 12.

During These Anxious Times, What Must Be Done?

Cassy Mission and Ministry, Mission Monday , , , ,

Written by: Tom Judge, Chaplain, Division of Mission and Ministry

A student whom I’ve known for several years (I’ll call them Alex, not their real name) reached out recently to ask if we could chat. They wanted to talk about their future, potential graduate programs, and other things one thinks about when the end of college is near. We set a time to meet and on the appointed day Alex was at my office early, as is typical, and well prepared for our conversation. Thoughtful questions, attentive listening, and a nice rapport followed. We settled in, and I was enjoying the visit, but I noticed that when I asked Alex how they were doing outside of the classroom, they shied away and answered simply “I’m ok…there’ve been some ups and downs”.

I soon learned what was behind those ups and downs. Several weeks before, one of Alex’s parents had been detained by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and had then been deported. Prior to this detention and deportation, Alex’s parent had been living, working, and raising a family in the US for over 20 years, without incident. But now, in a matter of days, Alex’s parent had been sent away from their home, job, and family because they were undocumented. Now Alex is terrified for the well-being of their remaining parent, while also struggling to help support their family as their household income has dropped dramatically. Alex has recently taken on a part-time job to help make ends meet, even though they already have a full-time job and are managing a full course load.

I was astonished by what Alex was sharing with me as they described their families’ anguish, and we began to brainstorm how the university might be of help. Since the day that we met, and thanks to their own courage and openness, Alex has been connected to generous members of the DePaul community who have made time and stepped up to provide support in real ways. But even now, as I think about Alex and their situation, I ask myself how many more people at DePaul are like them? How many have had their lives, or the lives of their loved ones, profoundly impacted by these disruptions beyond their control? I also ask, what can the DePaul community do to help them feel supported during these anxious times?

These questions confound me. However, I know that thoughtful people at our university are working to help educate and prepare our community for any eventuality that might arise, and this does reassure me.[i] But I also believe that at DePaul, with our Vincentian, Catholic identity, when difficult circumstances like this present themselves, we are called to look to our mission and heritage for insight, inspiration, and to ask that proverbial question: what must be done? We are also called to discern an answer that is informed, at least in part, by our mission, which originated with Vincent de Paul.

In turning to Vincent, we remember that when problems arose or disaster struck, his heart always went first to the poor, the vulnerable, and the ones in greatest need.[ii] In his time, like our own, it was refugees who were often in most urgent need. These were people compelled to migrate from violent or desperately poor regions to a new place that offered them greater security and hope. This is why Vincent gently urged his community members to take in refugees from war-torn regions outside of France, even if there was some risk to their own community. We see this in an excerpt from a letter he wrote to one of his confreres:

“If you grant asylum to so many refugees, your house may be sacked sooner by the soldiers; I see that clearly. The question is, however, whether, because of this danger, you should refuse to practice such a beautiful virtue as charity.”[iii]

Seeking out those most in need and finding the means to provide them with generous and compassionate support, both materially and spiritually, even at some cost to yourself, was what Vincent was urging his community to do. This example still resonates with Vincentian communities today.

What else from our Vincentian heritage might help to illuminate our response to our present circumstances? How can Vincent de Paul’s example infuse the ways we address burdens and injustices not just at the personal level, as in the case of Alex, but on a larger, more systemic scale? This may be a more difficult answer to discern. Vincent and his contemporaries did not have an understanding of social justice or systemic change like we do today. Put succinctly, more often than not their vision would have been to work within the system to address society’s ills, not to change the system itself.

That said, one thing Vincent was not afraid to do when the common good was at stake was to go to those who held authority, the “powers that be.” He would gently but firmly express to them his heartfelt observations, concerns, and entreaties, always from a place of respect and always after a period of discernment. Vincent spoke “truth to power” in this way to the likes of Queen Anne, the wealthy aristocrats who ran the Confraternities and Ladies of Charity and, most perilously, to the two most powerful men in the kingdom after the king, Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin. Sometimes such confrontations caused fractures in Vincent’s relations with these leaders, but never was the break total or permanent. He always acted in accordance with following the will of Providence, and frequently his fearless interventions contributed to the common good.

Looking at this distant mirror of some 400 years, we can begin to see how the challenges we face in our time are not altogether different than the challenges Vincent, Louise, and their communities faced in theirs. It is heartening to believe that perhaps our Vincentian mission has grown stronger in wisdom, resilience, and applicability over these many years and through countless challenges. May it now be put to good use for students like Alex and others, both inside and outside our DePaul community. And, may it lead us safely, as Vincent would wish, where Providence intends for us to go.

Reflection Questions

  • Do you know someone within or outside of DePaul who may be vulnerable because of their immigration status? How are they? Is there anything you can do to provide support?
  • How do you think being a part of a Vincentian community calls you to “care”? Is it in small, personal ways? Or in large, more systemic ways, or both? How can you contribute to making DePaul a more “caring” community?

Reflection by: Tom Judge, Chaplain, Division of Mission and Ministry

[i] To learn about immigration enforcement policies and support at DePaul go to the Office of General Counsel’s website at: https://offices.depaul.edu/general-counsel/services/immigration/Pages/faqs-related-to-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-officers-on-campus.aspx.

[ii] For example, “Now, the Little Company of the Mission strives to devote itself ardently to serve persons who are poor, the well-beloved of God; in this way, we have good reason to hope that, for love of them, God will love us. Come then, my dear confreres, let’s devote ourselves with renewed love to serve persons who are poor, and even to seek out those who are the poorest and most abandoned.…” Conference 164, Love for the Poor, January 1657, CCD, 11:349.

[iii] Letter 1678, To Louis Champion, Superior, In Montmirail, 6 November 1653, CCD, 5:49.

During These Anxious Times, What Must Be Done?

Cassy Mission and Ministry, Mission Weekly , , , ,

Updates, resources, and events highlighting the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the daily life and work of the university community.

MISSION MONDAY

During These Anxious Times, What Must Be Done?

How might Vincent have urged us to respond to our current circumstances?

                                   IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER

OCTOBER 24 | DePaul Family Luncheon

For faculty/staff with children or dependents who are students at DePaul – and for your students too! Bring the family to this annual luncheon! Meet others sharing your experience during what is always an uplifting event. RSVP

NOVEMBER 5 | DePaul Managers’ Forum: Fall 2025

As we navigate challenging times at DePaul—and in our nation more broadly—this fall’s Vincentian Managers’ Forum will focus on “Staying Grounded and Resilient While Leading Through Change.”  RSVP

NOVEMBER 12 | Lunch with Vincent: Special Guest DePaul University Board of Trustees President Michael ScudderFaculty and staff, please join us for lunch and a conversation with DePaul Board of Trustees Chair Mike Scudder, as we continue to explore the topic of Vincentian Higher Education in 2025.  RSVP

NOVEMBER 20 | Gathering of Remembrance 2025

All members of the DePaul community are invited to join the Division of Mission and Ministry for our annual Gathering of Remembrance, an interfaith memorial service for DePaul community members who have lost loved ones over the past year. RSVP

The Emerald Isle and the Little School Under the El

Pradnya Mission and Ministry, Mission Weekly , , ,

Updates, resources, and events highlighting the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the daily life and work of the university community.

 

MISSION MONDAY

The Emerald Isle and the Little School Under the El

In light of St. Patrick’s Day, let’s consider how the Irish have made an impact on our university.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Please Join…

With the intent of nurturing our DePaul Catholic community spiritually (mass), and corporally (lunch and good community after!) we would love to have faculty and staff join us at this Catholic faculty and staff mass. 

Please RSVP HERE to let us know you will be attending. 

On the third Wednesday of each month, rotating between both campuses, DMM will now host a mass/lunch, especially for faculty and staff. 

 

The Emerald Isle and the Little School Under the El

Pradnya Mission and Ministry, Mission Monday , , ,

Written By: Tom Judge, Chaplain and Assistant Director, Division of Mission and Ministry.
This ‘Best of Mission Monday’ post revisits a reflection on the intertwined spiritual seasons of Lent and Ramadan. 

President of Ireland, Sean T. O’Kelly, receives honorary degree from the Rev. Comerford O’Malley, CM, in 1959. Image courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, DePaul University Libraries.

In honor of the Feast of St. Patrick or what we more colloquially know as St. Patrick’s Day, I found myself wondering: What has the relationship been like between DePaul and the Irish (or, as time passed, Irish Americans)? What may be some of the highlights that have marked the special bond between the Emerald Isle and the Little School under the El? As a proud, and curious, Irish American, I decided to do a little investigating.

When our university was founded as St. Vincent’s College in 1898, the City of Chicago had over 1 million citizens, making it the third-largest metropolis on the globe. It was teeming with new arrivals from all over the country and the world, so that fully half the city’s population were either immigrants or the children of immigrants. One of the largest of these migrant communities, and the most Catholic, were the Irish. Most were drawn to Chicago because of the twin opportunities it offered. There was work (in construction, the stockyards or on the railroads and waterways that made Chicago the transportation hub of the United States). And there was also freedom (to worship or advance or express themselves in ways that were not supported in the places from which they came).

To achieve their desired upward social mobility, the new Chicagoans required access to education. To answer this need, the Archdiocese of Chicago asked Vincentian priests to found a school on the city’s North Side for male children of the Catholic immigrant and working classes, most of whom were Irish. [1] One can only imagine the comfort felt by many of these early students when they were addressed by DePaul’s first president, Rev. Peter Byrne, CM, and as they heard the familiar brogue he spoke with as a native of County Carlow in Ireland.

It was DePaul’s third president, Rev. Frances McCabe, CM, himself an Irish American, who sparked early controversy at the young university. In 1919, he presented the man destined to become Ireland’s dominant political personality of the twentieth century, Eamon de Valera, with an honorary degree. De Valera, who had been a leader of the Irish rebellion and only narrowly avoided execution by the British, was then touring the United States to acquire official recognition and money for those across the Atlantic who were battling for Irish independence. DePaul again bestowed an honorary degree upon a president of Ireland, this time Seán Thomas O’Kelly, in 1959. Similarly, the Vincentian priest conveying this honor was another first-generation Irish American, DePaul’s seventh president, Rev. Comerford O’Malley, CM.

Perhaps it was in recognition of this early, and inimitable, connection of the Irish with DePaul that led the Illinois Chapter of the American-Irish Historical Society to move their library to the university in 1927 in hopes of reaching a larger audience. [2] Their choice turned out to be prescient. DePaul’s special collection of Irish literature, begun by the donation from the American-Irish Society, has broadened and deepened over the years. It includes works by W. B. Yeats, Samuel Becket, and Seamus Heaney, all Irish Nobel Prize winners, as well as other authors who represent the best of Irish literature from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a time that has come to be known as the Irish Renaissance.

As is the case when we engage with any diverse culture and community, DePaul has been made better by our relationship with the Irish and Irish Americans. To this very day, our university’s touchpoints with the Land of Saints and Scholars remain vital, unique, a little playful, and too numerous to list here. Classes continue to be offered through the university’s Irish Studies Program, and students continue to trek downtown to enjoy the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the dyeing of the Chicago River green.

But there is one more contemporary connection between DePaul and Ireland that deserves to be highlighted. In just a few days, a study abroad class centered around Irish Literature will leave Chicago for Dublin. As part of their curriculum, the class instructors have arranged for their students to spend time engaging in community service with local Daughters of Charity—the order of religious women founded by Sts. Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac—in the Irish city of Cork. This coming together in Ireland, of peoples from near and far, in the Vincentian spirit of relationship and service calls to mind the long-ago days of the 1640s, when Vincent de Paul first sent a small group of missionaries from France to serve on the distant shores of Ireland. Vincent de Paul could have been speaking for many of us, Irish or not, who look with fondness towards this small island across the sea, when he wrote to the Bishop of Limerick upon their departure, “Would to God that I were worthy to be one of their numbers. God knows how willingly I would go.” [3]

Reflection Questions:

  • Whether it be wearing green, ordering a serving of corned beef and cabbage, or attending a social gathering to mark the occasion, do you have any special St. Patrick’s Day memories or rituals that you celebrate?
  • What might be a cultural heritage that you treasure? How do you celebrate or observe this heritage?
  • Consider the new arrivals coming to Chicago in 2025. Do we as a university or larger community welcome their presence and affirm their dignity, as our Vincentian mission urges us to do?

Reflection by: Tom Judge, Chaplain and Assistant Director, Division of Mission and Ministry

[1] From its earliest days, DePaul was unique among higher education institutions in admitting students from many faith traditions, not just Catholic, without quotas being attached. Unfortunately, at the beginning we were less inclusive when it came to women, not admitting our first female students until 1911.

[2] “The Enduring Legacy of Rare Gifts: Irish Collection,” Department of Special Collections and Archives, DePaul University Library, March 12, 2025, https://‌‌dpuspecialcollections.omeka.net/exhibits/show/enduring/irish.

[3] Sean T. O’Kelly, “St. Vincent and the Irish,” DePaul Magazine, Spring 1959, p. 10, https://cdm16106.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/depaulmag/id/3184/rec/1. To read the letter itself see, Letter 876, To Edmund Dwyer, Bishop of Limerick, 15 October 1646, CCD, 3:90.

Our Habits Make Us Who We Are

Pradnya Mission and Ministry, Mission Weekly , , , ,

Updates, resources, and events highlighting the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the daily life and work of the university community.

 

MISSION MONDAY

Our Habits Make Us Who We Are

As Christians around the world initiate the season of Lent, we are reminded that what we practice regularly shapes who we are and who we will become.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

All are invited to join for the following prayer services on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten Season in the Christian tradition—a season for prayer, fasting, and giving alms in preparation for Easter. Come for prayer, community, and ashes that remind us of our ultimate reliance on God. 

 

Faculty and Staff are Invited…

Join the Global Engagement Conversation! DePaul faculty and staff, connect with our award-winning Global Engagement team to explore how Vincentian values shape multicultural experiences on campus and abroad. Learn how they support international students and discover ways to get involved in Global DePaul. Enjoy engaging conversation, community building, and a delicious lunch!

Please RSVP HERE!

 

Please Join…

With the intent of nurturing our DePaul Catholic community spiritually (mass), and corporally (lunch and good community after!) we would love to have faculty and staff join us at this Catholic faculty and staff mass. 

Please RSVP HERE to let us know you will be attending. 

On the third Wednesday of each month, rotating between both campuses, DMM will now host a mass/lunch, especially for faculty and staff. 

 

Our Habits Make Us Who We Are

Pradnya Mission and Ministry, Mission Monday , , ,

 

This week the worldwide Christian community celebrates Ash Wednesday, the traditional beginning of the Lenten season. The annual season of Lent is an individual and communal religious practice inviting Christians to a period of focused attention on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. It lasts over 40 days, the amount of time Jesus faced temptation in the desert before his public ministry began, as recorded in three of the four Christian gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).

Religious holy days, holy weeks, holy months, or holy seasons, such as Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, are commonplace in many religious traditions. The global Muslim community recently initiated the annual religious practice of Ramadan. Jewish people will soon celebrate Passover in April. Other major and minor religious holidays occur throughout the year among these three Abrahamic faiths, as well as in many other religious, spiritual, and cultural communities.

Human beings are often aided by ritual practice. Aristotle said that we are what we do repeatedly. Mindfulness practitioners speak of the importance of the consistency of its practice, and psychologists tell us that habits practiced regularly over time can lead to the changes we seek. Through the pervasiveness of religious holidays, and, as Christians initiate the season of Lent, we are reminded that what we practice regularly shapes who we are and who we become.

Conveniently falling a few months after New Year’s resolutions were pronounced, perhaps these next 40 days of Lent can offer a booster shot or a restart to the vision you may have identified for yourself at the time. Repeating encouragement from a past pre-Lenten reflection, perhaps we might also use this season of Lent for organizational purposes, as an institution founded in the Catholic tradition, to reflect together on how we can refresh our work with renewed positivity, hope, creativity, and commitment. To quote an often-used Scripture text [1] during Ash Wednesday services: “Behold, now is a very acceptable time” to get started on habits that will aid us in becoming more fully who we are called or inspired to be.

Reflection Questions:

  • What is the vision you had for the year 2025 when it began three months ago, and what is still possible for you to renew or begin (again)?
  • What is one individual or communal practice that you could strive to make a regular habit over the next 40 days?
  • Is there a team or group of people with whom you might initiate a shared practice?

The season of Lent runs from Ash Wednesday on March 5th through Easter on Sunday, April 20th. Learn more about DePaul University’s Ash Wednesday services here.

Reflection by: Mark Laboe, Interim VP for Mission and Ministry

[1] 2 Cor. 5:20–6:2.

Practicing Persistence

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Reflection by: Roxanne Farwick Owens, Associate Professor, Teacher Education, College of Education


“God allows [us] to give rise to the practice of two beautiful virtues: perseverance, which leads us to attain the goal, and constancy, which helps us to overcome difficulties.” [1] — Vincent de Paul

In this season of setting resolutions, let’s think about the virtues of perseverance and constancy. If those came naturally to us, we would not be among the 43% of Americans who give up their goals by mid-January, or the 91% who throw in the towel by early March. Examining Saint Vincent’s quote above more closely, we see a few important words beyond perseverance and constancy: “practice” and “overcoming difficulties.” There are going to be roadblocks and we’re going to have to practice how to get around them. Why are we surprised when we are presented with difficulties in meeting our goals?

We live in a society that values immediacy and quick results. We can’t order express delivery of accomplished resolutions from Amazon. Success takes time. We have to remind ourselves to celebrate each success along the way. We may not have hit our final target yet, but we’re on the way. And we have to grant ourselves grace if we take a step off the path once in a while.

Speaking of hitting targets, I love to bowl, even though I am terrible at it. (I’m not being modest. I am really bad, but I have a good time.) In bowling, the ultimate goal is to knock down the ten pins at the end of the 60-foot lane. There is a lot involved in a proper bowler’s stance, the steps you take, how you hold the ball, the way you swing your arms, and your follow-through. One of the biggest surprises to me? Successful bowlers don’t focus primarily on the 10 pins at the end of the 60-foot lane. They use the arrows and dots on the lane just past the foul line to help them aim their ball at the target. In other words, they focus on what is right in front of them. They know where the strike zone is—but they keep their eyes on what is closer to them to guide their path to success.

Another interesting thing about bowling is that the ball doesn’t have to actually hit all 10 pins to result in a strike. If the ball hits 4 specific key pins, there is a domino effect, and the rest will all fall. If the ball hits other random pins, it can result in dreaded combinations of splits. It will still be possible to achieve a strike, but it will be more difficult. So, as we fine-tune our resolutions, perhaps rather than considering all the many ways we could improve ourselves, we can narrow down to a few “key pins.” Working toward achieving a few key targets sounds so much more do-able than splitting our focus among multiple goals.

And perhaps on those really tough days when we want to abandon our resolutions, we can say to ourselves, “Saint Vincent said there would be days like this.” And then we can pick up the next ball and smash right through that obstacle.

I am going to consistently ask myself four key questions this year that might also be useful to you:

  1. How have I practiced taking risks toward growth this week?
  2. In what ways have I assessed and avoided conditions that might make me veer off-course, so I don’t get stuck behind a roadblock?
  3. Have I regularly granted myself grace and celebrated victories large and small to keep up motivation and maintain perseverance?
  4. Am I remembering to use the arrows right in front of me to guide the steps along my path, rather than focusing only on the end goal?

Reflection by: Roxanne Farwick Owens, Associate Professor, Teacher Education, College of Education

[1] The original quote is in reference to boredom, but making this slight change to the wording (see bracketed “us”) does not alter Vincent’s intentions nor the quote’s universal meaning. Letter 1228, “To Guillaume Cornaire, in Le Mans,” June 15, 1650, CCD, 4:36–7.