Three6ix5ive's Blog
Three-hundred sixty-five days. One at a time.Archive for vocation
Day 220: CCSC Plug Part 1
So this is the time of the year where people usually start stamping down post-graduate service if college is ending.
This time last year I was courting and being courted by a service program I thought was 100% right for me. After I graduated I got the sad news that I wasn’t going to be a part of the service program I had been looking at. I was pretty crushed I gotta say, and it showed. After spending some time moping and cursing and crying I started looking again.
It was the end of June before I found the CCSC while searching for service opportunities on the CNVS website. If you are interested in Catholic Network of Volunteer Service, click here. All programs are faith-based. A variety of different (but as far as I know they’re all Christian) faiths, time commitments, educational requirements, and program structures are offered. After talking with Amy, the program director, quite a bit and thinking things over for some time, I decided to apply for the program. It was June 22nd when I first sent Amy en email. July 23rd was the day that everything finally got squared away. I was in the CCSC, I had a placement, and it felt right. 3 weeks later I was on a plane to Buffalo. I’m recounting that because during that week in June, and various other points in my senior year of college, I was so unsure of my next step it was unbearable. Looking back it, I wasn’t too late for anything. I was stuck in the mindset that says you gotta have August planned out by the time May is ending. That’s BS.
So for those of you are are getting to this page from the CCSC site, let me know if you’ve got any questions or concerns that I could address about full-time volunteer service and even specifically about our program. For those of you coming from elsewhere and interested in service, the same invitation goes out. You can also take a look at the CCSC here(CCSC-izzle Applic-izzle). It’s more to get you thinking and reflecting on some things before you plunge into an application. Don’t worry about right or wrong answers, just don’t say you eat babies or anything. I can’t see that being good.
Peace all.
Day 58: Three Left Feet
One of the things that I’m really missing is dancing and having so much freedom to dance and just mess around with an amazing assortment of artists. I’ve known for a while that dancing was going to be a very big part of my life. During this year I thought it would be worthwhile to see how I incorporate it into my day and if I would be okay with making it more of a hobby.
Well, it’s a great time for learning I guess. I’m not okay with the downgrade. In the words of Norman Bates “A hobby should pass the time, not fill it.” I feel really lucky to know what I love. The puzzle is how to marry that with peace, justice, love and all that good stuff.
A friend of mine, as I threw myself in a desperate search for my vocation, gave me a book with a line I keep going back to. “You should find the place where your great passion and the world’s great need meet” That’s your vocation. I’m very happy with that picture. I am invigorated by it. When I think of that idea, I don’t feel so selfish for wanting to dance so much. I don’t feel so lost for not recognizing the solutions to our societies problems. It’s not so selfish to embrace a blessing and I shouldn’t worry about the biggest picture when what I have control over is a small square of it.
If the world we live in and our lives are like a large cloth making a beautiful picture, then each of us are like the threads woven to form it. Each one contributes something unique to the scene and is as important as the next when we want to enjoy the picture.
Well, now I’m getting off on my metaphors. So before I go any further I just want to say that I am so glad to have friends who would mess around with some choreo on a Sunday night during finals week because I felt like dancing. I’m glad to know people who have woken up at an absurd hour on a Saturday morning to work on a duet all day so we could perform it that night. I am incredibly thankful for the people who haven’t walked out of a rehearsal after hearing me say “Well, I don’t have choreo tonight. But I do have a vibe. Your boyfriend of two years just dumped you have a midterm in the morning worth 50% of your grade. That’s what we’re doing today… so make sure you stretch!” And also, thank you to every Pemco kid who still drops for pushups when I say so, every South Quad groupie that does handstands cuz I feel like it, and every FLF-er who knows how cool it is to know all the choreography to Hairspray.
Enjoy some videos from messing around when I coulda been studying and good times with Noodle.
