JVC experience
This is an essay that was submitted to JVC to use in their newsletter. It has some ideas common to previous blogs...
A Buddhist proverb states: To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell. If this statement is true, then the Jerusalem cross we received upon our initiation into JVC aptly symbolizes this key.
Jean-Paul Sartre argued that hell is other people. After spending a year in JVC, I find it difficult to challenge this assertion. Fortunately, however, the above proverb reveals that heaven is other people too. In other words, we have the opportunity to create heaven here and now, but we must consciously work toward this goal and not the other. This is not always easy.
Working with the homeless exposed me to a large contingent of angry, self-interested men. In addition I lived with fellow social workers who experienced similar tensions and hardships as I did. In many ways it was good to have each other for support. But without a proper understanding of how to relate to the inhabitants of this high-stress, volatile environment, I felt vulnerable to conflict and fear.
During silent retreat, grateful for my continuing guidance but still without a concrete remedy for the growing tension, I turned to Christ as He hung on the cross. This dramatic setting was my only access to the intense personalities and feelings I experienced at work and home. There, confronting unbearable suffering and anger equally as violent, Jesus gave me, despite his desperately human appearance, a divine answer: ease His pain.
It is fitting that I plan to pursue a career healing others’ physical ailments. I can think of no better preparation than a program that gave me the key, provided the dynamic environment and support to test it and pushed me to work, through the healing of others, toward heaven and not hell.
A Buddhist proverb states: To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell. If this statement is true, then the Jerusalem cross we received upon our initiation into JVC aptly symbolizes this key.
Jean-Paul Sartre argued that hell is other people. After spending a year in JVC, I find it difficult to challenge this assertion. Fortunately, however, the above proverb reveals that heaven is other people too. In other words, we have the opportunity to create heaven here and now, but we must consciously work toward this goal and not the other. This is not always easy.
Working with the homeless exposed me to a large contingent of angry, self-interested men. In addition I lived with fellow social workers who experienced similar tensions and hardships as I did. In many ways it was good to have each other for support. But without a proper understanding of how to relate to the inhabitants of this high-stress, volatile environment, I felt vulnerable to conflict and fear.
During silent retreat, grateful for my continuing guidance but still without a concrete remedy for the growing tension, I turned to Christ as He hung on the cross. This dramatic setting was my only access to the intense personalities and feelings I experienced at work and home. There, confronting unbearable suffering and anger equally as violent, Jesus gave me, despite his desperately human appearance, a divine answer: ease His pain.
It is fitting that I plan to pursue a career healing others’ physical ailments. I can think of no better preparation than a program that gave me the key, provided the dynamic environment and support to test it and pushed me to work, through the healing of others, toward heaven and not hell.
posted by Ryan at 3:47 PM
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