I thought I had something...

So I´m sitting here at the Monte Sinai cyber (which just got internet), and I remember sitting down with an idea for a blog entry but now I have forgotten what it is. I think that´s one of my ultimate problems: forgetting ideas. I´m a very absent minded person and I always have been, but I just wish sometimes I would remember why I open up my blog and decide to write in it.

Perhaps it was about my community´s ongoing conversation concerning faith and God. I don´t quite know how to go into that in this public of a forum, but suffice to say that it´s been a very enriching and "life-giving" (a phrase used a lot down here) conversation. Maybe that´s something I can just go on. I am a very absent minded person unless I constantly remind myself of important things, like, for example, my family´s constant support, or my three year anniversary with Christine is this Wednesday, or her phone number, or her address, or her constant loyalty and feelings for me, or the fact that I have all sorts of friends in the states that care for me. Every day I wake up thanking God for these things in my life, and they become a larger part of my reality while I´m down here so that, as I immerse myself in the culture down here, I can explain better to people (and to myself) who I am and why I do what I do.

The ¨life giving¨part of this conversation about faith here in Monte Sinai has been that I am constantly reminding myself of the aspects of my faith that I can loose. Being in Ecuador and worrying about getting on the correct bus, making sure I´m being safe, keep in touch with the Dúran volunteers, setting up visits with neighbors, etc., can tend to take up most of my time, to the point where I am so focused on those things my faith gets lost in the shuffle. It´s not like at SJU where I was always surrounded by it with statues and chapel choir and sju weekly service. Here, faith is a little more abstract because there isn´t a controlled space where I can express it like in Wolfington or in the Chapel.

The value in this, though, is that I can begin to formulate a vocabulary for expressing my faith outside of these controlled venues. The opportunity for faith discourse here is much; we have daily night prayer and weekly spirituality night. But these things are intentional choices we all take to make faith discourse happen. I have to make that choice every single night to make sure that I am being open and honest about my faith so that I can constantly remind myself about my whole faith. It´s not just about jusice, it´s about faith. It´s not just about faith, it´s about justice. And if I don´t take that step to remind myself by sharing my faith with others, I am missing the opportunity to really build on my foundation of faith.

It may be Aristotelean of me, but repetition seems to work well when building faith. I keep on reminding myself of the depth of Christ´s love for me and for the world that I become less absent minded and become more open minded to those around me and the faith that leads me to justice as well as the justice that leads to my faith. Huh, this turned out to be a better blog entry than I thought. Maybe I should start making lists...or maybe I should just always forget about my blog entry ideas. Especially because it allows me to be more vulnerable on here. Here´s to faith, justice, and word vomit, I suppose.