Grad at Grad reflection by Shannon McNamee ('12)

This speech was delivered at morning assembly on Monday, December 12, 2011, by Shannon McNamee (’12).

A Loyola Student is Becoming More Loving…

When I was first asked to make this speech, I was pretty nervous. I was really happy to be invited to speak to you about what it means to be loving, but then I started thinking of everything that could go wrong if I were to say “yes.” I might get nervous and start stumbling over my words and my face would turn really red, or I might just trip over the chair getting up to speak. I can barely talk in front of twenty people without feeling uneasy; I wasn’t sure about speaking in front of two hundred. Ms. Baber saw the concern on my face and told me that I should feel free to say “no,” but I decided to say “yes” in spite of my nervousness.

A Loyola student is becoming more loving. A person who is becoming more loving is beginning to appreciate the satisfaction of giving oneself through service for and with others. Last year, during spring break, I went on the service trip to Kentucky.

It was one of the best experiences I have had at Loyola. Prior to the trip, I thought I was the one who was being loving because I had volunteered to spend the first week of my break renovating a home in rural Kentucky, while other people had chosen to hang out with friends or go on vacation. When I look back on my experience there, though, I realize that I was not the only one being loving. While I was demonstrating this Grad at Grad characteristic in some ways, the people we were serving showed me in another way of being loving. We met a couple there who were the parents of the family whose home we were renovating. They lived right down the hill from where we were

working. The parents had no idea who we were or where we came from. They just knew that we were there to help their daughter live a more comfortable life at her home with her husband and baby. They expressed their gratitude toward us through their kindness. Being grateful for what we were doing, on the second day that we were there they had a barbeque and prepared us all hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch (in place of the peanut butter sandwiches we had brought with us.) On the third day, it was about 40 degrees outside and raining the entire day. They invited us into their home to sit by the fire when we wanted to take breaks, and they offered us food and drink while we were there. The father even spent an hour that day out in the rain trying to make a fire at the worksite to keep us warm. Their kindness taught me that it does not matter how well you know a person when you show acts of love.

A Loyola student is becoming more loving. A person who is loving has personally experienced support from members of the school community. As much as the Kentucky trip was about the people we were serving, it was also about the people with whom we were traveling and working – our classmates and our teachers. In some schools it may not be exciting to travel with the Headmaster and the Dean of Students. At Loyola, though, that’s not case. I thought I would have a great time spending a week with Ms. Coop and Mr. Lyness out of their academic environments.

Along with the rest of the students -- in vans for hours and at the Red Bird Mission in Kentucky – I experienced what it means to be loving through these adults both at the worksite and during reflection. In school, we usually see them in charge; in Kentucky, they were workers just like the rest of us, and let Mr. Bludgus worry about everything.

The students and adults worked side by side – sometimes the adults helped the

students, and sometimes the students helped the adults. This gave us all the chance to be together in a relaxed environment where we could joke around with each other, but also be serious in times when it was needed. During reflections, I can remember both Mr. Lyness and Ms. Coop saying that something they were grateful for that day was having help from students and working together with us at the worksite renovating parts of the home that were really difficult. Having heard that from both of them shows the support they give their students not as a part of their role – Headmaster or Dean of Students – but in this case as people giving up part of their break, stepping back from the stress of school, and going to Kentucky to renovate a home.

The week after I returned from Kentucky, I went to Camden for the first time.

Since I had just been on a service trip the week before, I was still in a more spiritual frame of mind, which helped me prepare for the trip. Because I had discovered in Kentucky what it means to be loving through the actions of individuals, I kept my mind open as I left for Holy Week Camden and was ready to experience what it means to be loving through someone else’s actions. The first day or two passed there, but I did not feel that I had met anyone yet who had demonstrated this as powerfully as in Kentucky. On the third day of the trip, though, I experienced yet another way of being loving. Each year on Good Friday, members of the community walk together through the streets of Camden while reenacting and praying the stations of the cross. During this experience, I saw love demonstrated by the community that welcomed me and my classmates to join in their prayer. I will never forget that experience I had in Camden.

While some people were walking with the crowd, others were standing outside their homes in order to be a part of this reenactment. It was a very prayerful and peaceful

environment as songs were sung and prayers spoken. One of my most memorable moments was walking in the community and experiencing how much love they showed towards those they did not know; another was having the chance to help carry the cross with other students alongside the members of the Camden community . It was great to feel part of something as important to this community as it is to our religion.

Having never had an experience of this many people coming together to be with each other and think about the importance of that day, it is an memory I will think about each Good Friday.

A Loyola student is becoming more loving. A person who is loving is becoming increasingly empathetic.

My third service experience last spring was the Covenant

House Solidarity Sleep-Out in April. I did not understand much about the importance of that day until after I had experienced it. Each year, Covenant House organizes a day to be in solidarity with the teenagers in this country who do not have homes and have to sleep on the streets. Many of them are on their own. It was not until the end of the Solidarity Sleep-Out experience, which included a Brownbaggers run, hearing speakers from Covenant House, and sleeping outside in the cold in Xavier’s Quad that I started to figure out how this experience taught me to be more loving. I thought I was being more loving simply by being one out of the students who spent the night sleeping outside while many were in a bed in their warm homes. What I have realized in the months since is that, as a result of that experience, every time it is cold, I think back to the Sleep-Out and I think about all the teenagers who are sleeping on the streets.

Before the Solidarity Sleep-Out, I never thought anything of it. Winter would come and go and I would never stop to think about those homeless teenagers on the streets on

cold or wet nights.

A Loyola student is becoming more loving. A person who is loving is learning to trust friends, family, and adults, and has begun to appreciate deeper personal friendships, while also learning that not all relationships are profound and long- lasting. While I have experienced much of the Grad at Grad ideal of being loving through my service trips and teachers at Loyola, I also encounter it through relationships I have with friends and family, giving up time to spend with them. Two weeks ago, a distant cousin of mine was hit by a drunk driver and killed. He just graduated from college. He had his whole life ahead of him, and will never get the chance to live it because of the mistakes of others. It made me realize how important love is, and how important it is to express to those who are close to you how much they mean to you.

I have experienced the Grad at Grad ideal of being loving through actions of individuals, welcome into a community, and growing awareness of worldwide issues.

Pedro Arupe said that, “Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.� Thank you.