We're actually travelling for one of my JVC community mate's weddings, and thinking about being back East has me feeling all nostalgic about our service year - and the house journal.
I am very excited about plans Paul and I have to travel to the East Coast next month. We'll be going to a good friend's wedding and stopping in Rochester, Ithica, New York City, and Hartford. We're both really looking forward to seeing friends we don't get to see often. I've mentioned here before that Paul and I met while we were serving in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) program, a program for young people serving at non-profits and living in community. Paul lived in the Hartford house, and I lived in the Syracuse house - we met up at retreats and parties all across the East Coast. It was all very glamorous, except for the part where we were only making $85/month. We're actually travelling for one of my JVC community mate's weddings, and thinking about being back East has me feeling all nostalgic about our service year - and the house journal. During my year of service my roommates and I started a house journal - lovingly referred to as the house "gurnal." We each took turns writing our thoughts and reflections in it, and it became a great collection of our best memories together. After our service year was finished and we all moved on to our various cities, we decided to take turns with the journal. Six years later, the journal has made the rounds a few times and is looking well loved. I love when the journal surprises me in the mail, and it's my turn to catch up on what everybody's doing in their lives and record my updates in the journal. I love that we can still have a way to stay connected - and also love that we have a communal record of our lives. It's a great way to continue to support each other in a simple way in our long distance friendships. Sometimes the journal ends up forgotten under somebody's couch for a few months, and sometimes people write somewhat sarcastic entries (see above), but it all adds to the joy and adventure of the communal house journal. Looking forward to seeing who gets the journal next when it's passed off at the wedding in May. Probably won't be me since I may be the one who forgot the journal for a few months....I'll have to wait my turn until everybody else has another go at it :)
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First, I want to say how thankful I am for so many things in my life. That's basically what this post was going to be about. Except I was going to say it without using those exact words by talking about how happy I was at the community night Paul and I hosted Wednesday, and how proud Paul was to share his homemade Pancit, and how much I love the Great Pumpkin, and how delicious and beautiful cupcakes are. So I think that says it all. Community nights (with flowers, good food, good people, and good wine) + the Great Pumpkin + homemade cupcakes I was really proud of = lots and lots of gratitude. Happy Friday :) Vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese icing. Cupcake recipe here. I used the cream cheese icing from the cupcakes below and just left out the cinnamon. Added food coloring and sprinkles for extra flare. Pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon icing. Please stop whatever you're doing and make these immediately. Recipe found on Pinterest.
This is our first picture together, taken when we still little baby Jesuit Volunteers. We both loved our respective communities (mine in Syracuse, New York, and yours in Hartford, Connecticut). We loved community life so much that when we later moved to Milwaukee, we decided to start our own intential community.
We had a vision of a "grown-up" community, an intentional housing space for young adults who wanted to continue the experience they had in their volunteer programs. We would share meals and groceries and participate in community and spirituality nights. Community life would help us live our values of simple living and working to make the world a better place. Because we had friends that were interested in the experiment but couldn't live in the actual community space, we also invented an option for "associate members." These members would join us for community events and be considered part of our extended community. Later we decided this was the greatest strength of the community. People thought we were crazy for starting a community as an engaged couple, but people thinking we're crazy never stopped us from doing anything. Two years ago, we moved into our new community, the Casey Sister-Brotherhood, and invited a few others to live with us. We put so much work into starting the project, and we both grew in unexpected ways from the experience. The personality combination in our house was a struggle, and through that I learned the value of being honest with difficult feelings and the power of reconciliation. We also made some of our best Milwaukee friendships through our community and found comfort in friends who understood our values and where we were coming from. Neither of our baby Jesuit Volunteer selves could have predicted the challenges and rewards of "grown-up" community life. But I know they would have been really happy that we gave this dream a chance. Twenty four months after we signed our first lease, we've decided it's time to move out and to live on our own for the first time as a married couple. We'll now be associate members and get to enjoy the support of community relationships without the ups and downs of living with people we're not married to. I can't wait. To my former-baby-Jesuit-Volunteer-love: thank you so much for going on this adventure with me. Couldn't think of anyone better to have by my side. This weekend I flew to New York to reunite with my JVC roommates. We lived for a year together in Syracuse, New York, from 2007-2008, working at area non-profits, having lots of adventures, and learning to live the JVC values of community, simple living, social justice, and spirituality. This was our 5th annual reunion, and we decided to go back where it all started. We were missing our roommate Devin, but she was definitely there with us in spirit! This weekend I... was picked up by this lovely lady in New York City after spending a six hour layover in the Milwaukee airport. We started our adventure with a taxi, train, and car ride to get to Syracuse. ... met Kara's new dog Miller ... missed my days working with refugee families while attending the Syracuse World Refugee Day celebration ... had a delicious ice cream at Gannon's, THE place to go for ice cream in Syracuse (check out those crazy tables!) ... helped Brian finish his Snickers Explosion (it was too much for him to handle since it was an explosion - not a "controlled demolition" as he pointed out)... took pictures at our old JVC house... took a pilgrimage to my favorite grocery store of all time (also the site of mine and Paul's first date - we were JVs without any money when we started dating) spent the rest of the weekend in Kara's beautiful lake house off Lake Ontario... read through our old predictions for where we would be now - everyone writes three predictions for each roommate and includes a few fun ones too (Brian confused fun with morbid. Why would anyone want to predict that Sean Connery would be dead? At least he included a sad face)... busted out "the whipped cream trick," the one where you throw whipped cream in the air and catch it in your mouth. I can provide a tutorial if anyone is interested... found interesting tree decorations... took pictures of the super moon... and met up with our fantastic support person Beth in her hometown of Oswego. Gotta love timed pictures in the middle of restaurants. This weekend was so amazing. Having spent a year together finding simple ways to entertain ourselves, we've been able to keep our reunions very basic and inexpensive. We spent the majority of our time just relaxing and catching up, and the time together felt so meaningful. Thanks JVC!
I'm off to Syracuse, New York to spend a weekend with these crazy cats. I served for a year with them in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, and we all loved each other so much we've made it a tradition to get back together for annual shenanigans. We counted my wedding at the 4th reunion, and I've shared photos from reunion one and two (reunion three is missing in my photo archives somewhere). It's so great to be able to share being "ruined for life" with truly amazing people. More photos and stories to come next week!
This week marks our last week living in community. Our last roommate has taken a job working with the Franciscan Action Network in Washington, D.C. which means when we come back from Europe, we'll be living on our own. Tonight we're celebrating our final community night dinner with the extended members of our community.
Tonight brings up lots of mixed feelings. I still question whether or not we were successful with this community endeavor. I wonder if our community was "good enough." With the bumps we had a community I wonder if Paul and I were failures as community starters. I don't know if my heart will ever resolve answers to these questions. I do know that I've put my blood, sweat, and tears into this community, and the past two years have taught me a so much about community, myself, my relationships, my marriage, conflict, and commitment. It would take too long to go through all the ups and downs, joys and challenges of the community so I'll just leave it at this: being in this community has made me a better, more confident, more patient, more loving person. I'm glad Paul and I had the crazy idea to start this community, and I'm glad we were crazy enough to stick with it this long. Even though it was difficult to be in community as a married couple, I believe it ultimately brough us closer and made us a better couple. Living in community as a couple helped me realize the importance of being connected to a community (though not necessarily a live in one) for the continued strength of our marriage - and our growth as individuals. It's difficult to know what affect our community had on other people, and ultimately I don't think that's what's really important about a community. The real secret to community life is that by being in relationship with others, you are transformed and grow to so much more than you could be on your own. I'm excited that our extended community will continue even though it will just be Paul and me living in the community space. We've made some great friends through this community, and I want to continue to grow in our relationships. We intentionally set up our community to have connections between live-in and live-out members of the community which turned out to be one of the community's greatest strengths. Now the Casey Sister-Brotherhood will be more of a network of young people which will be a good fit for where Paul and I are right now. We're ready to step into the next stage of our marriage together, and we are both so excited to be able to focus on each other as the main priorities in our lives. Ah the joys and pains of community life. I have learned so much, and I wouldn't be the person I am today without it. Paul and I spent Easter in Milwaukee this year (the life of being married to a nurse - a life of a spouse who has to work holidays). Luckily, we have a great Milwaukee family we could celebrate the holiday with! Being in Milwaukee for Easter meant we had a chance to attend Easter services at our church, which were so energizing and were such wonderful celebrations of community. The Spanish and Gospel choirs came together and played some fantabulous music. On Easter Sunday, we got together with friends for a late brunch and enjoyed some DELICIOUS home cooked food. Seriously, we went all out. Included on the menu were these cinnamon rolls, my first attempt at making them from scratch. I'm happy to say they turned out really well. Check out America's Test Kitchen for the recipe. Mouth watering yet? I also shared my first quiche attempt! I replaced the cream and some of the cheese with actual cream cheese and thought it turned out well. I added vegetarian sausage to the top for extra taste (and because I'm a sucker for vegetarian sausage). And what brunch is complete without a tasty mimosa? We made ours with fresh squeezed orange juice and the champagne of champagnes: Andre's. Also on the brunch menu: crepes with nutella and whipped cream, spinach caserole, and fruit salad. YUMMAY. And since this brunch post has focused almost entirely on food, how about I add a picture of my other favorite post topic? PEDRO! How adorable is that beagle? Answer: too adorable.
Hope you had a great weekend! This weekend, our community hosted an Oscar Romero service with All People's Church, a Lutheran church close to our neighborhood. It was my first time at All People's, and I was so impressed with the people I met from their church community and with the church itself. This building is a hidden gem - such beautiful architecture, stained glass windows, and artwork! Oscar Romero is one of my social justice heories heroes. I first learned about him in 7th grade thanks to this film Mrs. Guarino showed us (weird - I have totally forgetten how to spell my teacher's name!). Here's a bit about the Salvadoran Archbishop that we shared at the service: In the 1970’s and early 80’s in El Salvador, a violent and oppressive military government kidnapped and executed dissenters. When Oscar Romero became Archbishop of San Salvador on Feb. 22, 1977, he was expected to remain quiet about the situation. Instead, he became an outspoken critic of violence and injustice. Our faith, Romero said, must cause us to speak out; we cannot remain in silence. Today, we are still inspired by the words of San Romero de las Americas and we pray that we might listen to his words carefully and follow his example in challenging injustice in our world, especially in the Latin American region he loved. Romero was killed on March 24, 1980, by a military assassin while he was saying mass. The Salvadoran civil war started after his death until 1981 and ended with peace talks in 1992. Before his death, Romero prophecized that if he were killed, he would rise again in the Salvadoran people. His prophecy proved correct as Romero is remembered for being a hero and martyr both in El Salvador and around the world. We also shared the prayer that is often attributed to Romero, but was actually written by Bishop Ken Untener. The prayer captures the essence of what many social justice advocates strive to remember and work for It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own. Since Paul helped organize the event, he asked me to speak about my Jesuit martyr paintings. I was very brave, and said "yes, of course I will!" The Jesuit martyrs knew Romero and came to have a deep respect for him - their legacies and messages are closely tied. It was such an honor to share about my paintings again, and I was excited to find out that All People's will be displaying the framed picture in their sanctuary!
What a great way to spend a Sunday - justice and ecumenism! Here's a link to my friend Laura's blog who currently works at All People's and links to my previous posts on the Jesuit martyrs (parts 1 and 2). My favorite part of spring is that it brings signs of hope when you most need it. Seeing a forecast of negative seven with windchill for today has me doubting the calendar, but I know I'm ready for a break from this cold. Others I talk to from around the country are more than ready too. At the end of all this bleakness, we pay extra close attention to our surroundings, on the look out for any sign of warmth and new life.
In the midst of this never ending winter, I found the first sign of spring during a walk through our neighborhood. Small snowbells peaking up out of the snow covered ground. If I hadn't been on the look out for new growth, I could have easily walked right by them. Over the weekend, we got sad news that two of our good friends will be moving away. One of these friends expressed his concerns about leaving friends but said that he needed to go so that his husband could take a new job opportunity. He explained: "I have to do what's best for my family. I can't stand in his way. He is so excited about this. I'm so proud of him." I felt blown away by his sacrifice and his love. Signs of hope and love in the darkest of times. As a Jesuit Volunteer, I was always humbled by the generosity of the people we knew in Syracuse. People had us over to dinner, offered us rides, gave us lots of tasty basked goods and adult beverages, and just generally watched out for us. Being a former volunteer, I really enjoy sharing this same generosity and hospitality with current volunteers. It's all about paying it forward right?
We had one of the volunteers groups in Milwaukee over last night, and Paul made a big delicious pot of chili for dinner. We had great conversation and ended the night by sending the volunteers home with the rest of the pumpkin bread and beer (Paul couldn't part with the rest of the pumpkin pie). I love the freedom and joy that comes from sharing what I have with others, especially in this case knowing that the volunteers will be able to pay forward the gift of hospitality to others in the future. Chili recipe: Saute 2 onions, 3 cloves garlic, and 1 teaspoon each cumin, coriander, and oregano with 2 tablespoons canola oil in large pot. Brown 2 coarsely chopped green bell peppers and 2 coarsely chopped red bell peppers. Add 4 12oz cans diced tomatoes (48 oz total). Rinse, drain, and add 2 cans of black beans and 2 cans kidney beans. (Optional: Add bouillon cube mixed with about 1/4 cup water at this point). Add 1 small packet frozen corn. Add small, medium, or large pinch of cayenne pepper. Add 1 teaspoon honey. Let simmer for 45 minutes. Add 1-2 small cans tomato paste to thicken to desired consistency. Adapted from Simply in Season. Use sour cream and cheese to garnish. We always serve our chili over rice. We also enjoyed it with corn bread muffins the volunteers brought over. They made us keep the corn bread leftovers - they're already paying it forward! |