A few afternoons a week I spend time with children, youth and young adults who live and/or work the busiest downtown train station and transportation hub in Buenos Aires. Hundreds of thousands of people pass through the Retiro station every day. Because of this, many youth and young adults living in situations of poverty come to Retiro to seek out opportunities to make money to live. When I first arrive to Retiro for the afternoon and greet my friends, the first question is almost always the same, “Did you bring mate?” As we sit together on the train station floor or in the park across the street, drinking mate is an important part of our community time together with our friends. We all look forward to it. Read the rest of this entry →

In his book Tattoos on the Heart, Jesuit priest Greg Boyle writes about his work with gang members in Los Angeles. Tattoos is a beautiful book, full of stories both tragic and redemptive about his and other’s efforts to serve a population truly on the margins of American life. I am reading the book this semester with a group of Freshmen to whom I have been assigned as academic advisor. Yesterday, we discussed compassion, which Boyle believes, is at the heart of the Christian life. We have to be able to imagine ourselves in the lives of others, he says, especially those we have formerly dismissed and written off, the way many Angelinos dismiss and write off the members and gangs who terrorize parts of their city. Read the rest of this entry →

My heart is broken. I can’t believe this is happening. It is not what I had expected, planned, or been working towards. And now I’m left with a decision to make, which path to take. I go through the questions of discernment desperately seeking another answer, a way out. It is almost as if Iggy himself were whispering in my ear:

What is going on inside of you? What is your deepest desire for this situation? Really, what does your heart long for?
What is logical to do here? Is your heart aware of what you head is saying?
What would you advise a friend in this situation? What are the signs of the times telling you? Read the rest of this entry →

It is not Pascal’s wager…except maybe on my worst days. It is not blind man’s bluff…except when I cannot feel Her presence. It is not the God of the Gaps…except for when I look at Hubble images. God is not any of these things, really, except for when I need Him to be. Then I turn to those old proofs because, at the time, I cannot recognize God in the here and now. I need the structure because I cannot always find the presence of Grace on my own.

Yet, when I want to find a space for myself that does not hurt others – I AM. When I want to see the world through eyes of hope – I AM. When I want to speak Truth and I realize that there is nothing I can say that a doubter cannot doubt, and nothing that I would want to say that a believer would not believe – I AM. I am blind and groping. I am aware but completely ignorant as I learn how to love with all of creation into some unknown future that I hope brings us closer to the One. Read the rest of this entry →

Word Made Flesh, the community I serve with, has a quarterly publication called The Cry. This article I wrote for the summer 2011 issue on Obedience. Full issue here.

Obedience comes from the Latin root word oboedire, which means “to listen.” In Word Made Flesh we commit to obedience; a listening for the voice of God. Obedience naturally follows Intimacy in the ladder of our Lifestyle Celebrations for it is because we know the sound of God’s voice that we are able to discern how it is calling us.

One way that we learn to know the voice of God is by hearing it in others. “But you know [the Spirit], for [the Spirit] lives with you and will be in you.” (Jn 14: 17, NIV). For the Benedictines, obedience is taken very seriously as one of their Rules of life. St. Benedict intended this vow of obedience to God to take practical form as obedience to the other members of the religious order. This understanding of obedience is not conformity or blind obedience, but an obedience that can see and respond to the grace God gives to the people with whom we are called into community. I love how Sister Joan Chittister talks about obedience: Read the rest of this entry →