The following Grad at Grad reflection was delivered at morning assembly by Hanna May (’15) A Loyola Student is Becoming More Committed to Doing Justice
Schola Brevis is one of the most wonderful days at Loyola -- 12 minutes of classes, with enough time for introductions and syllabi to be handed out but not much else. It was second period of my first ever Schola Brevis, and I found myself gathered with 17 classmates in the Gannon in my first ever Christian Service class. I was 100% positive that after Ms. Baber projected and scrolled through the Moodle page on the SmartBoard, the next eight minutes would fly by as the excited freshmen chatter took advantage of the small break in activity. Ms. Baber quieted the class down and laid this on us, in true campus ministry fashion: “What do you think is the fundamental difference between charity and justice?” The next eight minutes were filled with Ms. Baber suggesting to us that we were off the mark. With each shake of her head, I became increasingly convinced that this was not what I signed up for. Though we had written many reflections on the issue as the year passed (which I would not want to reread now), the question remained in the back of my mind. Prior to freshman year and for most of it, I had never really made a distinction between charity and justice. I thought handing out sandwiches was, well, handing out sandwiches, and didn’t beg some philosophical musings about totally unfreshmanly ideas like distribution or sustainability. As I advanced in my Loyola career, I found that Ms. Baber’s question paralleled my own growing experience in the field of Christian Service, and my own life. I never really knew the answers, but I felt with each new placement or service trip, I was provided with a new idea that would help me piece together the bridge between charity and justice. My attitudes towards service changed when I went to Camden for the first time as a freshman. I distinctly remember sitting in the parking lot and watching the kids run while trying to keep their feet inside shoes that were clearly their brothers’ beforehand. I began to think of all the struggles these children faced on a daily basis, compared my own privileges and circumstances, and something inside of me shut off. From that instance on, I never really felt “happy” about service. Of course, I would enjoy the countless immeasurable connections and experiences that I would make in the moment, but the laughs and friendship were always punctuated by late night thoughts along the lines of “I wonder what they’ll have for breakfast tomorrow?” In a sense, my enjoyment was taken out of completing service because I was so plagued by the fact, simply put, that I had, and they had not. The connections and the experiences did not register as strongly, because I felt bad because seeing the stark contrast between their situations and mine. Service became more about trying my best to find band aid fixes for all the troubles these people faced without really looking them in the eye, hoping to alleviate some of their pain in the time I spent with them. How could I? I felt like no matter what I did, my imagined feeling of coming across as being “above” them would be what they remembered. I realized now that this assumption only made the glass of their fishbowl thicker, as I tapped on the outside hoping to make a difference.
A Loyola graduate is growing in awareness of the global nature of many social problems such as human rights, population displacement, resource distribution, war/terrorism, etc., and their impact on human communities. Over spring break, along with several other Loyolans I ventured to West Virginia on a service/immersion trip. Though we had ample opportunities for service and an overall memorable experience, the most important part of the week for me was breaking free of my mindset that had so significantly limited my service interactions in the past. We had just driven about 45 minutes through the mountains to meet the family who would receive the trailer we had been constructing for the past few days. When we finally pulled into the field in front of their house, I was immediately struck by the direness of the situation and began to shy away. Later that night, during reflections, I thought about how I did react and how I should have reacted. On our 13 hour drive back home, I thought about how my circumstances were not anything to be ashamed of, but rather, how my circumstances give me both an opportunity and a responsibility. Social justice is not, in essence, a great “equalizer.” It’s not about pooling resources and splitting them so that everyone in the world has equal access to water, food, and shelter. It’s about making sure everyone has enough to meet their basic needs for a solid foundation that they can then further expand upon. As Americans, and students of Loyola, we are so blessed to have our needs beyond met. So with this, we have an obligation: we can afford to focus our time and energy to making sure everyone in our global community can one day have that same time and energy to better their own lives. This sounds like a selfish philosophy. It sounds like we first look after ourselves, get our own house in order and then see what other people are up to. And at first, it was this idea that was preventing me from fully immersing myself in the service experience. Now, I realize that my position in life is not one of being ashamed of my resources, but rather viewing them as absolute justification that service is and will continue to be an essential part of my life. With this realization, I came to think about how Ms. Baber’s question about charity and justice fit in. Charity could define my service experiences in freshman year and my clouded views of the true meaning of service up until West Virginia: it is all essentially good work, and it involves self giving to leave the marginalized, if only momentarily, above where we had first met them. West Virginia taught me that justice does not necessarily have to entail giving. The just person envisions a system that can utilize the circumstantial talents and gifts to create and more equal global community, starting with first person interactions with our brothers and sisters. It’s hard to imagine the sustainability of justice when we live in a country where pet food is a $43 billion industry. However, what West Virginia has left me with and what I challenge us all today to do is to use our talents to perpetuate justice. All the Father Boyles and Susan Piliros of the
world have committed themselves to justice in their own individual spheres, using their own God-given talents and passions. Structural change flows from passionate commitments of individuals which then grow into shared commitments of communities. The pursuit of justice requires structural change. While it might seem like an unrealistic goal, we are the main force behind making justice a reality.