The Dance of Life.

The chapel at the Jesuit Retreat Center.
I was reminded to stop and smell the roses.

To be alone with your thoughts for the better part of four days is an experience every person should have at one time in their life.

At the beginning of the retreat we all met with our spiritual directors. My spiritual director, S.J. Tom Weston, asked me how I was feeling and if I needed a break from work. I told him I went home the week prior and was feeling pretty refreshed, but about three hours later, with my window open and a nice breeze passing through the room, I was out cold.

Aside from sleeping, and eating ridiculously good food, I spent much of my silent time reading a compilation of Henri Nouwen’s writings called The Dance of Life, which spoke to me in a way few books ever have. The passage that stuck with me the most was: “When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.”

Part of the retreat included a peace vigil where the staff put out journals we could write down our thoughts on peace and the JV year as a whole. They also put out the journals from the prior years, and it was interesting to see how similar the entries were from year to year. There was always a funny guy, cynical guy, some girl taking herself way too seriously, but mostly there was a deep appreciation for the triumphs, struggles and conflicts they had endured throughout the year. I thought about the journals while I was reading more Nouwen and I recognized that the universal epiphany of this year is that “in solitude we discover that our life is not a possession but a gift to be shared.” We leave the comforts of family and friends at home and move to neighborhoods rougher and more impoverished than most of us have ever lived in, and instead of accepting fear and despair we attempt to find hope and dare to bring light where there is darkness.

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s easy to wonder if there’s any point, to question whether change will ever come, but I think the lesson I’ve taken away from this experience is that joy and sadness are not mutually exclusive. There are days when I’m biking to work and I have a million thoughts and worries running through my mind and I forget to stop and appreciate a crisp morning or blue sky. This was the case the other day when I was running late, still half-asleep when I looked at the park across from St. Vincent and saw one of our clients blasting music on his boom-box and busting a move. I watched him for a while longer, here was this man who has so little, wonders where he’ll get his next meal, where he’ll sleep, and yet he’s still able to find so much joy.

The dance of life doesn’t begin when poverty, mental illness, rampant substance abuse and violence is eradicated--it is here and now. To witness all that is wrong with the world juxtaposed with genuine laughter and untainted pleasure can only be explained through grace--in a word, it’s divine.