Next week is my last week here in Milwaukee. It will
be strange not having to wake up at 6am every morning for a shower,
breakfast, and then to catch a bus. I will also be strange not seeing
all the children I have gotten to know. It will be strange coming home
at the end of the day and not be able to go to Mass, then to the
basement to have a drink and some popcorn with a dozen priests and
their great jokes and stories. I may very well never see some of the
other guys that are in this program, guys I have become best friends
with over the past few weeks.
    There have been days that I awoke and went about my
routine, forgetting completely that I am a college student and not a
Jesuit. Sometimes I forgot that I am not at home, that I am away from
home. The only memory of my “life” back in Iowa that remained constant
was Mystery Girl, kept flickering by the photograph of her that I keep
inside the cover of my poetry journal. I kept in touch with my family,
my parents mostly, but looking back I seriously feel like college and
all else passed years ago and I have been living here working with the
Jesuits for at least a couple years.
    It is semi-frightening and strangely comforting to
realize this, realize how quickly I slipped into this life of ministry
and forgot almost completely that it was a temporary existance, at
least for the time being. It has so far been a wonderful experience,
and I feel it is an existance I may choose one day to prolong
perpetually. I don’t expect to make a decision any time soon, though
after a couple more months of the Mystery Girl endeavor I will probably
be approaching the point of decision in a greater state of readiness
and acceptance. For all those who pray, please keep my discernment in
your prayers. For all those who do not pray, please keep me in your
thoughts. It is a very tough decision; the choosing between two
wonderfully good things. I hope I eventually make a good choice.

Just a long comment I gave a friend who is having some trouble with a child at the daycare she works at. I know it is a sorry excuse for an update but it is late and I am tired. Here ya go, for all those wondering what I’ve been up to lately.

“It seems to me that this little girl needs the most care of any of the children. I’m up here in Milwaukee spending six weeks in a religious community (the Jesuits, if you’ve ever heard of them.) From 8-12 in the morning I help teach inner city kids (African-American for the most part) in seventh grade English. From 12-5 I teach five and six year old Hispanic children, some of whom do not speak English. I speak NO Spanish, but we communicate in other ways. I have several children whom I would lable. “troublemakers.” A person’s first instinct is to try and get rid of them, remove the problem so to speak. However, I could never do that.

    These Hispanic children come from extremely poor families. The program that they come to is something that their parents can take them where they have a chance to have fun and learn in a positive environment. The other day one child, a kid named Christian, was climbing all over my friend Alex. Alex got to the point where his shoulders hurt too much from the kid climbing on him that he asked the kid to stop, but Christian wouldn’t stop. Eventually Alex pried him off and asked, “Why didn’t you stop climbing on me when I asked you?” Christian replied, “Because I don’t get to do it at home.”

     There are other kids who are sometimes rough and disruptive, and you find out that they have only been in America for a year and feel like they don’t belong, so they feel like they must prove themselves to everyone around them so they can be accepted. There are children who are just children and see “fun” where we see “trouble.” The point is that all children must be loved, even if you have to make yourself love them in spite of what they do. Same applies to people.

     It is good to hear that you spend time with this girl, and I really hope you don’t give up on her. I promise you one thing: you may very well change this girl’s life. The children I work with, though very young, still remember vividly the young men that taught them last year, and they miss them dearly. They will miss me too, and it nearly breaks my heart knowing I’ll have to leave them in a couple weeks.”

:: original work ::

My memories of you are like dried roses

Brittle but everlasting remnants of a flourishing

Moment of beauty

Now devoid of taste, of scent,

But still some color remains in the petals,

Though no longer do they feel like your lips when

Pressed to mine.

Ah to grasp my memories as I wish to grasp you!

Embrace you, crush you gently within my arms. . .

Alas, the memory would be crushed

Reduced to dust

So I refrain and view thee from afar

Across the rift of time.

Mystery Girl, it’s been three months. . .