(no subject)

[dallaspaz]

It's amazing how far I've come since last December here in Florida. Do I have a permanent home here? I don't think so. Do I have a temporary home and a way in which to engage myself in my work? Yes.

All Echo students are required to write an end-of-year report. I wrote mine yesterday, thinking I would have to temper the negativity I've felt througout the year. But, I suppose that's why we wrote the report: to reflect on the negatives and see if we can find positives in them, positives that will guide us in the next half of our work. I think I was able to determine a few things after 7 pages of semi-organized processing and reflection:

• I now have a vision for the middle school youth group and thoughts on how to implement it.
• I have a sense of why and how I became so depressed last fall.
• Youth ministry uses catechetical techniques that are transferable to all other religious education programs.
• We must try to base all catechesis not on our ideas but on Revelation.
• I have a pretty good intuition of things to come but become paralyzed before them.
• I'm fairly sick of being insecure and underconfident (therefore under-compotent), but human value is not determined by compotency (difficult to really believe).
• I don't want to take anymore classes online.

In other news, I've felt drawn to the discipline of spiritual direction lately. And quite intimidated by it. Working one-on-one with people seems to be one of my strengths, as I combine a quick and discerning mind with an open heart that longs to invite others in for a meal. I asked a mentor-figure in my life, the diocesan Director of Catechist Formation, for any books she had on vocation and discernment. One of the books she gave me was about learning to be a better spiritual director! I, rather reluctantly, started reading it on Saturday, after hiding it under my Bible and Thomas Merton books for a few weeks. It's full of wisdom and lessons that are quite applicable to my own style of forming others in the Faith. It advises open and engaged listening, conscious awareness of my own notions of the Other and discernment over where each person I meet is in his or her relationship with God before I start talking. It's also written by two Jesuits who clearly love Jesus and admire Ignatius. Finally, they mention as a good resource a priest who came and spoke to our class with some regularity in 7th grade, Fr. Francis Tiso. That part was just crazy and reminded me how small our Catholic world can be.

So, basically, I have the beginnings of an inkling of what it might mean for me to be a "channel" of His peace, as St. Francis puts it.