Yo No Sé Mañana

"We can live any way we want...The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse. This is yielding, not fighting…to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp where it takes you; seize it and let it seize you up aloft even, till your eyes burn out and drop."

- Annie Dillard, Teaching A Stone to Talk -

Just a few days the new volunteers arrived in Ecuador. Incredible group of individuals. It’s absolutely unbelievable how quickly a year can go by; it still seems so surreal that after 12 months we are in a couple weeks of orientation with the incoming group. As I share in this time of teaching and transitioning I realize that due to the craziness of going home in May, I have yet to share my experience of retreat groups: a major portion of the Rostro de Cristo year of service and perhaps one of the largest blessings I’ve had in my on-going discernment process for my future.

For the majority of my life I have followed a path of pursuing a medical career and I entered freshman year of college as a biology major. Year after year, through being a Campus Ministry intern, working at the Center for Service and Justice, and talking to wonderful mentors, I questioned my motivation to go to medical school and slowly began to realize my love for social ministry. I decided then to switch to a Physician’s Assistant path as I was told there is more of a chance to really be with patients. I can recognize now that that, along with changing my major to Theology my sophomore year, was a step I took towards a vocational redirection, but my fear and a lack of self-awareness prevented me from letting go of that part of my identity.

Then came my time for a year with Rostro de Cristo in Ecuador. I would say I came in with hopes to apply to Physician’s Assistant school afterwards, but never felt to overly-excited about it. All those years I told myself that the excitement would come…and that with enough exposure I’d get over my distaste for blood and cotton balls (could the signs have been any more blatant?). And yet I let another slip by when I didn’t take the job at the health office at Hogar de Cristo. It involved giving HIV tests, visiting clinics in the sectors, helping children receive the proper nutrients, and yet I felt so much more of a pull towards community organizing. Well, it took this year as a whole with the help of an amazing group of guys from Fairfield Prep to wake up, smell the café con leche and pay attention to what has given me the most life over the last few years.

Fairfield and the Youth Group
after Tuesday Rosary

In April I led my first and only retreat group from Fairfield Preparatory high school in Connecticut. It is the leader’s responsibility to be with the group the whole week, introduce them to the neighborhood, work sites, and participate in daily reflection. That week was a highlight to my year. I was blessed to be able to work with 3 inspirational adult leaders from the school—Corey, Anthony, and Steve—and would not have had such a smooth week without them. In short, I lucked out. During that week I found myself with a renewed energy as I got to know the students and leaders, answered and asked questions, laughed, and journeyed with them as they reflected on their week. Sharing with them my experience, embracing hospitality, introducing them to a community I’ve grown to love: I found consolation in that kind of ministry and they affirmed for me a joy that shouldn’t be ignored.

The half that played extremely
intense soccer at Casa Don Bosco

Meeting Padre John at the church,
Corpus Cristi

I learned a lot from that group, including my own passion for social and student ministry. I remember being in high school and being in awe of Mr. Johnson (our campus minister) and his way of interacting with the students, even imagining myself in his position. I relived those feelings watching the Fairfield leaders interact with the students. I used to always push those thoughts to the back of my mind because I was “supposed to be a doctor.” You only have to tell yourself something so many times before you believe it to be true. I had attached that career so tightly to my identity that giving it up meant giving up a part of who I was. Yet I got to a point where I had to ask myself why I was still pursuing medicine. I invented this external pressure that was never there because it was easier to feel motivated if people were counting on me. It turns out, of course, that it was just me and that my parents, family, and friends are an incredibly supportive group of people who would love for me to find and hold onto that thing “that energizes me, enthuses me, and enables me to keep moving ahead.”

Luis swears he studies better with
my glasses on

I know I could do medical school, and I know it would challenge me in a good way. But this year taught me something else, and that is that vocational discernment is a privilege. We, the college-educated percentage of the world, have the opportunity to choose a career and pursue it. It can be easy to kid yourself, to say “yeah, I like this” and pursue a life because it is successful, stable, and productive. Fr. Dean Brackley says that stories shape us when we recognize part of our own story in them. This year I’ve met countless numbers of children and youth alike with dreams to become a professional, with dreams to at least graduate from high school. Parents who sacrifice everything to help their children get there. Kids who tell me they want to be a doctor with the same enthusiasm I had in kindergarten. The reality is, they are going to have to fight far harder and jump through far more hoops to make that dream a reality. Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture, talks about showing gratitude to those who have influenced his life is by paying it forward day after day. I think my paying it forward--with respect for those I love here who don’t have that opportunity to discern their vocation and pursue it—starts with recognizing where I find life, how I can pour my heart into my work, and where I can best use the talents I’ve been blessed with.

“We discover our callings in response to the world…Our surroundings shake us, sift us, and draw our vocation from us.” I’ve never found Brackley’s quote to be so true. In April I accepted a job for when I return at the Creighton Center for Service and Justice in Omaha as their Graduate Fellow and will be simultaneously pursuing a Masters in Ministry. I am extremely blessed to have this opportunity as soon as I get back from Ecuador. This year, with exponential gratitude to my retreat group, helped me find the confidence to apply for this job and continue my vocational journey in the realm of social and student ministry pursuing a degree I can find joy in.

Y yo no sé mañana. I remind myself that I do not know the whole journey, that where I’m headed now may not be where I end up. Medicine may be a part of my future, but I believe this is at least the next right thing. And I thank my friends - neighbors, the Fairfield group, my community, the children here - for helping me understand the importance of taking risks, expanding my heart, the value of unending hospitality, and finding purpose so that love can glow in what you do.

This week will be busy with orientation, but I hope to find time for a final reflection as I continue my goodbyes and prepare to leave Ecuador. Until then,

Miguelito