The Journey Continues

Dear family & friends,

I hope that this letter finds you well and enjoying summer!

One year ago I wrote many of you asking for your support as I prepared to begin a year of service with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest (JVC NW). I wrote in the wake of graduating from Seattle Pacific and the shooting which occurred there a week prior to graduation. Those events led me to more deeply recognize and appreciate how many people I love and how many people love me and have shaped me. During that time all I wanted was to be those I love and to be held by my community. But I had a commitment to keep, so, after a confusing summer, I headed to a new place, with new people to offer a year of service and discover what it held for me. I’m writing to share an update on my past year in Gresham, OR, and what I am up to next.

Of course, a single letter cannot contain what the last year has been for me, and I cannot summarize what all has happened, but I will try to share a glimpse of where my soul has travelled.

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I’ve dwelled in the sorrow of loneliness and loss of the community I knew at SPU. I’ve resided in the confusion of transition, feeling unknown and not knowing the place and people in my presence.

And, yet, I have also experienced the joy of new connections and new community. I have come to deeply love my housemates. When I have trusted others to be with me when I have sat in grief and anxiety, I have received tenderness and care.

I have borne the weight of accompanying people experiencing trauma in extreme poverty. I have stood in awe of what people carry, and I have struggled to be present to such suffering.

And, yet, I have also borne witness to the resilience, determination, creativity, and humor which people can demonstrate in the midst of the most difficult of circumstances. I have stood in awe of people finding a way and overcoming.

I have witnessed violence, mental illness, addiction, racism, profound isolation, and the human toll of systemic injustice.

And, yet, I have seen the care, healing, and love that people are capable of, even when all material possessions are stripped away. I have seen individuals and communities come together to carry a vision and work together toward a city where all people may flourish and contribute meaningfully.

I have known frustration, uncertainty, and isolation at work. At times, I have felt unsupported, and I have not extended support. At times, I have failed or felt like a failure.

And, yet, I have continued to show up. I learned and grew through the challenges. I have taken ownership and felt accomplished.

I have wandered with absence. My faith has felt hollow. I struggle to pray.

And, yet, in the desert, in the absence, somehow life enlarges. Doubts and questions have been my prayers. Even as I do not always believe, I trust that I am not alone and that I am a beloved child. I choose to trust the mystery that God is present in the absence – for even Jesus knew this absence.

And I have encountered Incarnation - places and people have offered me a fresh water; I have drank in wonder and Presence.

I have seen the sun rise over desert canyons, beheld waterfalls by moonlight, gazed over endless forest with the sun and moon suspended over opposite horizons, stood still with trees and birds as my sole companions, and danced to the beat of ocean waves and singing of the sea breeze. And I have danced in the living room, talked late into the night, and received the gift of community in so many ways. With companions, I have walked, wept, adventured, been bored, laughed, sang, shared meals, shared stories, dared, prayed, played, questioned, listened, reconciled, loved and received love, sojourned, and traveled far.

This has been one of the hardest years of my life, but it has been good. It has been gift, and it has been grace.

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I want to thank you for your support. I appreciate the prayers, letters, messages, times people have let me crash at their place, and visitors I’ve received. Even for those of you who I have not directly been in contact with this year, thank you for how you have touched my life. Thank you for the love, care and wisdom and which has shaped my life and who I am becoming as I seek to live a life of service.

I would like to ask for your continued support as I have signed on for another year of service with JVC NW. I am committing to spend another year examining and deepening my practice of the values of community, social & ecological justice, simple living and spirituality. Come August, I will head off to orientation and then move into a JV house in Portland with seven new community-mates. In mid-August, I will begin my service as the Volunteer Coordinator, Editorial and Vendor Program Assistant with Street Roots, the street newspaper in Portland. I will accompany people experiencing homelessness and poverty supporting their work in selling the paper to improve their quality of life, and I will support the organization in fulfilling its mission to be a catalyst for individual and social change.

I am fortunate to be a part of a service program which covers my basic living expenses so that I do not need to ask for financial support. However, I still cherish your support in other forms. If you are a person of faith, I covet your prayer and blessing (I’ve included prayer requests beneath my signature line). I always love receiving letters and notes, and will do my best to write back. I do not know my address yet, but if you email me, I will send it to you as soon as I know. You also are welcome to follow my blog which I occasionally update and hope to contribute to more consistently next year. And, if you are ever in the Portland area let’s meet up! I love hosting visitors.

Thank you. Hope to see you soon.

With love,
Scott

Prayer requests:
 For peace as I say many goodbyes and many helloes transitioning from my current community and service placement to the next
 For wisdom, hope, renewal, love and humility as I continue to be in relationship with people on the margins
 For healing, reconciliation and justice in the places of violence, suffering and oppression in our world, and in our own hearts

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