Quarterly Review

On the wall near the spirituality space on the second floor of our home is a post it with a quote from Pedro Arrupe, SJ. It reads “una experiencia no reflexionada es una experiencia no vivida” - “an experience that is not reflected upon is an experience that is not lived.” Part of my nightly prayer involves review and reflection on the day, but a broader perspective can reveal themes that are missed. Sometimes we need to step back from examining the trees that make up the days and take in the forest of our lives.

March 4 was a special day. It marked 3 months since Erin and I arrived at Alejandro Velasco Astete airport in Cusco where we were met by Jacqueline, Victoria, and Nelson and driven to Andahuaylillas for the very first time. It also marked 2 years to the day since I first arrived at Jorge Chávez airport in Lima where I was met by Lali (the host director of IFSA-Butler Peru) and taken in a taxi to Miraflores to begin my first time living outside the US. Obviously that first trip to Peru was profoundly impactful – 18 months later I was looking for a way to move back. But these two stretches of life in Peru are very different. In 2013, I was a student in Lima, here to learn about a culture and gain proficiency in a language. In 2015, I'm a religious volunteer in Andahuaylillas, here to serve and accompany.

Looking back over the past three months I see two distinct but related themes: Building Community and Making Home.

First, Building Community. Community is one of the four values of JVC. Over the past three months, we have built our new community. It took some time to even get started - Theresa was gone for six weeks, Jacqueline and Victoria had visitors for much of January, and Lucia only just moved in last month. But here we all are.

On our first retreat, the JVs focused on the value of Community. We got to know each other in the intentional way that is so rare for casual roommates (how often do discuss how to be in conflict with someone?). On that weekend in the Sacred Valley, we created a sense of Us - the whole that is greater than the sum of five individuals. Jesuits talk about being men for others. Here in Mountain House we are a man and women for each other. There's a sense of care here. 'You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends,' the old saying goes. Yet friends come and go, but family remains. Here, we can't choose our community mates. We all chose the JVC program, and JVC picked our community mates for us. But even though we didn't choose each other from the get-go, we're choosing each other daily. I appreciated that choice on Monday when Theresa bought me cookies to celebrate the first day of school for staff and to welcome me to the workplace. I made that choice on Monday night when I stayed up to make English muffins for Community breakfast on Tuesday. I saw that choice last weekend when Victoria asked for Jacqueline's feedback on some writing and Jacqueline gave her careful, useful, and loving responses. I tasted that choice after our retreat when we all went out to eat at Papacho's. I hear that choice when Jacqueline plays her guitar and sings in the evenings. I smell that choice when Victoria brings a birthday cake back from the oven. I felt that choice Friday morning when Victoria and Jacqueline welcomed us back from Lima with hugs. 11 months ago I chose to live in intentional community, but I didn't chose these people. Now, I choose them daily.

And beyond the community in our house, we are blessed with a large volunteer/religious community. There are Marta and Victor, so generous and kind. Their visits always brighten the house. There's Padre Calilo with his sense of humor and a taste for fine food. There's Hermana Rosario who is the most impressive person I've met since moving here but approaches you with care, with confidence in your ability to achieve things, and the expectancy that you will achieve. As my mother would say based on her JVC year in Seattle, we are all working in the vineyard. We're in different parts of the vineyard, doing different tasks, but all working to the same goal, all conscious of each other's work. I hope that the product of this Quispicanchi vineyard is a fine wine (and not super sweet like most Peruvian red wine), but I know that that isn't up to me. It's up to all of us. It's up to this community which we have begun to build and will continue building as long as we are all here.

The second theme of this quarter has been Making Home. Boston has always been home for me. I have lived in the same neighborhood since I was 1 year old. I've been eating the same perfect sourdough bread from the same bakery since it opened in 1997. I've attended the same church all my life. I know where I'm from. I have deep roots that were not touched by the frost of my difficult college years. But now I find myself transplanted.

I can't say that this is the first time I've lived somewhere else (I've lived in this very country before), but this time is different. Living in Lima I always knew I was passing through, the end was easily in sight. I was there to learn, not to live. This time, I'm here to live. I'm here to be. I'm going to know so many people by the time I leave that I won't have enough paper and ink to write all the goodbye cards. I'm not from Andahuaylillas, I never will be, but there is a stronger sense of belonging. For the first time, somewhere other than Boston is home. For the first time ever, I don't live in the 617.

And that's sometimes hard.

But it's getting easier. I know which market to go to for which foods now. I have some friends outside of parish and work connections that I'm getting to know. On January 25^th, Erin and I trudged up the river-rock paved street after 22 hours on a bus from Lima and 30 minutes in a cab from Cusco. As our ankles worked to keep us upright and our legs sang in relief at the chance to move after almost an entire day spent sitting, Erin spoke. “There's something about coming back to a place after being away that makes it home.” She's right. Since we got back from our Lima trip, I've realized that the word I use in my head for this building that I live in has changed from “the house” to “home.” How strange to think that I, who have lived in the same neighborhood all my life* could now have a home across the globe.

How beautiful.

“The ‘home’ represents the most precious human treasures, that of encounter, that of relations among people, different in age, culture, and history, but who live together and together help one another to grow. For this reason, the ‘home’ is a crucial place in life, where life grows and can be fulfilled, because it is a place in which every person learns to receive love and to give love.”
-Pope Francis

*Technically the first year of my life I lived in Misison Hill, but it sounds better the way I wrote it.