Much Needed Update: The Craziness Continues

It's been a while since I've posted and I apologize for that. To be entirely honest things have been hectic and busy. Additionally, doing posts like this require quite a bit of energy, something I didn't realize at first. However, as one could imagine a ton has happened since my last post and it would be impossible to include it all. Granted there are a couple of things that did happen that are worth mentioning.

First off is the teaching. This has proved to be quite difficult. I teach in 3 different communities (Rosebud, Parmelee, and Spring Creek) 4 days a week. In total I teach 11 different classes grades K-8 and they are almost always mixed. A couple of these classes have now exceeded 20 students and when I only see each class once a week, it becomes difficult to remember names and connect with the kids. Granted there are some I've connected with better than others. However, the biggest challenge is discipline. Some of these kids have none and some just have so much energy they just can't focus and sit still. Finally, add in the fact I'm trying to teach these kids about Catholicism, which in all honesty, is a very complex topic that ends up getting watered down in order to teach most of the kids. An unfortunate result is that what makes it special is lost in the process. However, overall the kids are in all honesty wicked cute and wonderful. That being said, I have a new found respect for elementary and middle-school teachers who teach five to six classes a day. I struggle through getting four classes on Wednesday. Feels like a marathon.

Second, is the craziness of what's been going on. To set the stage, I've learned so much about myself in such a short period of time that it's honestly overwhelming. The result is that sometimes an outlet is needed. Generally I prefer to work out as we have a ton of weights and chains and other heavy objects which work really well. However, sometimes, just sometimes...ya gotta do something different. Sometimes, you just have to do something crazy. I've already done that with the earring. The other night, in much need of a haircut (last one was six weeks ago) it was decided that I was getting a mohawk. While the process was a little stressful and the outcome I was unsure of...I have to say a few things that have surprised me. First, I have received almost endless affirmation of how good the mohawk looks. I was expecting the opposite. Second, I look at myself in the mirror and sometimes I don't recognize the random dude staring back and that's exactly how I feel about myself sometimes. I don't know myself like I thought I did so the mohawk has become a physical manifestation of my inner spiritual struggle. Bold (Mike thinks I look like some cage fighter dude), different, chaotic, and aggressive (in conjuncture with the earring). So that has been very surprising.

(Also, I've secretly been excited about the recent expression of appreciation for angsty music among my community. As a matter of fact as I write this I'm listening to Linkin Park cause they're my jam, yo.)

Finally, today we went to a one year memorial service. It was an interesting experience for a couple of reasons. First off culturally, it was once again incredible to see the dramatic difference between Lakota and Mainstream American culture. In this case I think the Lakota have the right idea. The family morning cooks for everyone who comes and does a massive giveaway of goods and things. This may seem confusing until you look at it this way: the people coming are supporting the family that has suffered the loss of a love one while the family takes care of the people supporting them. It's a mutual two-way relationship of give and take, the way healthy relationships are. So we were invited and we arrived there and were fed very well and received a lot of very nice gifts during the give-away. In all honesty we received some very nice things that obviously weren't cheap. We did the best to show appreciation by staying after to help clean up which I hope got how grateful we were across.

The second part that was very interesting was the role reversal of going from majority to minority. I never really considered my privilege before but this experience put that in perspective. Being the minority and strangers we (the JVs) were watched because people were probably suspicious of us. Wondering what we were doing there and what our intentions were. We were the only white people in the room and also strangers. Without a doubt there were probably sweeping generalizations made about us and understandably so considering history. But our actions, either broke down or built up the stereotypes of our race and nation. Something that was never really a factor before. Thus I wasn't just representing myself but everyone else who was of the same skin color and nationality. That was a very eyeopening being on the other side of that perception.

As always thanks for reading. Prayers for Jessica, Mike and myself are always welcomed and appreciated. God Bless and keep checking back for more posts!

Learning About Myself: A Lesson in Humility

The past couple of days have been in short, extremely eye-opening. In particular, as the title suggests, I've finally began to understand what humility truly is. This is rather significant in relation to the fact that I've lived the past few years of my life with a particular understanding of humility that I now recognize has been particularly harmful. There is a slight back story, and I'd like to say it helps it all make sense but considering that I still am in the process of making connections between so many moving pieces I still don't see the entire picture.

What initially moved me towards consciously practicing humility was reading St. Augustine's comments on pride. It was particularly influencing as, in brief, he talks about pride being at the source of a lot of other vain and sinful activities. So I tried to avoid being prideful like the plague. I tried to minimize any positive attribution to myself as I thought that was being puffed up with pride and being to focused on myself. Instead I tried to focus on others, divert compliments to other people and lift them up and tried not to draw positive attention to myself. I would accept thank yous and gestures of appreciation but in a shy awkward kind of way since to be honest I didn't really know how to. On top of that there was a whole guilt factor like I didn't really deserve these compliments and gestures. Sometimes that was indeed the case; however, in retrospect sometimes I really deserved those for some of the hard work I did.

Of course being me this whole "humility" attitude was amplified by a sense of perfectionism. I'd always hold myself up to an extremely high standard, sometimes impossible standards, and expected myself to achieve them. I did this with everything: academic work, campus ministry work, RAing, relationships, helping people, giving advice, etc. It was quite exhausting considering I did a lot in college and nothing ever seemed up to par. Even in those moments in which I felt I achieved success there was no joy or celebration. Merely a, "Good I didn't fail here, now onto the next task." So a false sense of humility fused with perfectionism became a very dangerous and harmful thing that in the end, as hard as it is to admit, led me to really not being satisfied with myself or what I was doing.

So this going on I'm siting down with my community member, Mike (aka: The Sundance Kid) and we're talking in our living room late at night about some vocational stuff I was stressed out about. The conversation turned to the fact that I couldn't do anything about it right now since that's not why I'm in SoDak. That's when he went into his blunt, I'm-going-to-tell-you-to-your-face-how-it-is mode (which I'm grateful for) and pretty much said, "You shit on yourself all the time." While I can't remember everything else word for word but in essence he pointed out how since he's met me (a mere 3-4 weeks) all he's seen me do is shit all over myself, not take a compliment, etc. Basically he made the point that I couldn't fulfill any real vocation without learning to love myself first which is maybe why I was in SoDak in the first place. I want to say I already knew that but that hit me in a way that it never had before and that was only the beginning.

That following day was Sunday so we had a couple of Masses to go to. I was previously aware that the readings surrounded the theme of humility. However, it did not make the connection or realize it immediately. So at Mass I was rocked by both the reflection in the provided the WORD among us magazines and the homily Fr. Jim gave. They both talked about the true nature of humility which in a nutshell is accepting the gifts and talents given to you by God and using them to glorify God. This being done by using them and accepting compliments and gestures as a way of praising God and thanking God for working through you. Denying one's self isn't glorifying God as it is denial of the gifts that God gave you to use. Additionally, in relation to others, it is exalting and honoring our brothers and sisters (other people) for their gifts and talents as well even in times of jealousy, in which we have to recognize that those are their gifts from God and not necessarily ours. Thus it is a false sense of who we are (in terms of what we lack in this case) but of who God is (working through the that particular individual) and of course this is far from easy and hence it's a virtue. Thus humility isn't this thinking poorly of oneself or feeling worthless which I was used to. Rather it is being aware of ourselves and who we and knowing our place in relation to others and God and acknowledging, respecting, and acting on those relations. This was mind blowing in a lot of ways on an a spiritual and emotional level.

This still leaves my perfectionism. This was addressed by Fr. Jim in between Masses in which he told me that while we are called to be perfect like our Father, the just man falls seven times a day (scripture reference, which I unfortunately cannot remember). Basically, we need to strive for the best we can but recognize we are not perfect. Using Ignatian Spirituality Fr. Jim helped me explore this and we concluded that this sense and desire for perfectionism was not from God but from what Ignatius called, "evil spirits" due to the fact that my perfectionism never led me to any sense of peace and away from God.

So putting some of these pieces into motion together the major realization I've had is in order to be truly humble I need to cut beating the crap out of myself over everything and learn not only to accept love from other people but also to accept love from God and to love myself. Then I can be truly humble and at that point perhaps, God willing, I'll be ready to accept my vocation. As Mike The Sundance Kid put it, I've found my demon that I'll be facing this year. And in the words of the great MC Eminem (I know, I know, bear with me),

"Thought I had it mapped out but I guess I didn't, this fucking black cloud

Still follows, me around but it's time to exorcise these demons

These motherfuckers are doing jumping jacks now!"

So to close out, here's a song by Jason Gray that I think is pretty much a good summary of this whole post. As always thanks for reading, prayers for Jessica, Mike, and myself are always very appreciated as we wade through all the stuff SoDak throws at us. God bless!

A Light Update: Doing Cool and Crazy Things In SoDak

So while I'm composing a more serious post, I realized I've done a ton of cool and crazy stuff in the past week and I should probably post about it. I can't let everyone think that all we do in SoDak is super serious and never any fun! So I'll take you through a couple of crazy things I've experienced here in SoDak.

First, Rosebud Fair. The Rosebud Fair was a really cool experience. I may have mentioned it before but it's worth mentioning again. Considering it was an entire weekend I'll try to keep my explanation within reason. First, I was able to work at the radio station booth (KINI 96.1 FM) with my community for a number of days. We set up the tents, served food, met tons of great people including family members of our boss at the radio station. We also hung out with some really awesome people from the A.A. Recovery program in White River and who help out with the St. Francis Mission Family Recovery program. They were setting up a tipi for A.A. meetings at the fair and my community was able to help set that up as well. While that was a cool experience in itself, getting to know these guys better was an amazing, fruitful, and very life-giving experience. I have to say I've really connected with a couple of these guys and they've already had a huge impact on me 3 weeks in. We also were able to see some dancing at the Pow-Wow. One word: incredible. The dancers were incredible and the costumes amazing. We even got to see on of our friends from the recovery program dance which was really cool. Unfortunately we missed the rodeo and mud-races, but with so much to do it was hard to do it all!

Second, our first Community Night. Community Night is a time (usually in the evening) set aside to intentionally spend time with one's JV community in order to grow, get to know each other, etc. Well being in SoDak, we go crazy and hard. So our first Community Night was ear-piercing. Jessica, being an expert ear-piercer compared to the Mikes was designated the one to pierce ears (granted she also totally offered so that might have played a bit of a role too). So Mike had two more holes pierced in his ears so that he now has two on the left and one on the right. Then, shattering my own image, shell, box, or whatever you want to call it, had my left ear pierced. So now I have a turquoise/teal stud in my left ear. Never thought I'd ever do that, but after being in SoDak for a couple of weeks, you change pretty quick and you begin to do things with a kind of, "screw it, lets see what happens attitude."

Finally, picking choke cherries and plums. As a community, we got up at O'Dark Thirty so we could leave our house at about 6:30 AM. We drove some 30ish minutes to a town called Spring Creek in order to catch a gorgeous sunrise. It was chilly but the flannel shirt I picked up made cheap while thrift-shopping in Rapid City proved very effective in staying warm. Same with the cowboy hat when it came to keeping the sun off my neck and face, which I received from one of the Jesuits. We picked tons of choke cherries, plums, and even a little bit of sage. It was some of the most fun I've had since being here in SoDak. It was excellent community time. What really struck me was at first how unnatural the activity was, but by the end it felt very much like who I was: getting up early, experiencing the start of the day, harvesting what God's earth had to offer and with people who matter to you. It was a very revealing experience in conjuncture with other revealing experiences I've had about myself in prayer. It draws into question a lot about what I want for myself and what I want in my future. It's pretty cool.

So stay tuned for another blog post coming soonish. As always prayers for Jessica, Mike, and myself are always appreciated as we try to survive this crazy year in SoDak! Thanks for reading and God bless!