Wandering

I have been immersed in the book From the Pews in the Back: Young Women and Catholicism, edited by Kate Dugan and Jennifer Owens for the past two days. I'm about 2/3 of the way through, and I will most likely finish it this evening. It's a book that I actually borrowed from my community member Megan, who borrowed it from a JV in the other Houston casa, Emily. It's a collection of different short personal stories about the female experience with Catholicism, both positive and negative, serious and funny.

I like it because some of the women raise the same questions about their faith that I have, and while they may not have the answers, it's at least a different point of view and perspective on the issue. I have been trying to really work on spirituality the most of the four pillars of JVC, because since leaving my faith community bubble at PC, I have felt really distant from God.

The distance actually started when I went to Ireland as a junior... I had just returned to PC from an amazing immerison experience in Kenya, been super active in PC Campus Ministry, and was feeling very much at peace with my faith and very spiritually connected. When I went to Ireland, I found myself in a surprisingly secular culture. I church-shopped, and while I found a church to go to for weekly mass, it wasn't a place I could really feel at home in. Six long months went by, and I was so excited to come back to Providence for the summer to really reconnect with the Friars and my faith.

Enter: one of the best summers of my life so far. I lived in a great house with Kathleen, and she, Kelly, and I shared amazing dinners, adventures, and conversations. We got closer with the Friars, especially Fr. Cuddy, and talked about and lived our faith through kind words and actions, and through pure joy. We had a tradition each night at dinner where we shared the "grace of our day." It was sometimes a person and sometimes an instance where we saw God in the day, but the grace of my day was most often our dinner conversation. I was propelled into senior year with a strong sense of faith again, and while the looming g-word (graduation) left me with slightly less peace than I had when I came back from Kenya, I felt connected to God.

Graduation was of course heart-wrenching (have you noticed I miss PC?), and I fell out of the habit of going to mass when I was home over the summer. I read a lot about faith, and was very excited to have this year to try to reconnect and get back into a good place with my relationship with God.

I'm definitely having to work harder than I was hoping, but that's not a bad thing. And I'm not just talking about at work, I mean with my faith. I go weekly mass, and I love our Sunday morning routine, but I miss my OPs and the community at PC. I just submitted an application for Spiritual Direction at a retreat center in Houston where the specialty is faith formation, and the best part is that it's free for JVs! In the mean time, I'll be praying, reading, and researching new ways to connect to God. The cool thing is that I am working for social justice every day while I'm here, and that is something I can very easily connect to.

This is a year of growth for sure, and I look at it as an opportunity to explore my faith. Not all those who wander are lost, and I don't feel lost- just wandering, looking for a place to get comfortable. I also know that my journey of faith is a lifelong one, and that this is just a stop.

Any book suggestions for me? I'd gladly take them :). And I promise If I read any other good ones, I'll pass them along to you!