the begining until now...

I started my internship at FareStart over 2 weeks ago today. It has been a fun journey so far, but I think that I am learning the importance of deeply relfecting on my experiences here, otherwise they will just pass through my life and I will not glean knowledge or wisdom from them. This is a quick sketch of what the last two weeks have been like here, from here on out I will be posting weekly, with my reflection and thoughts about the events.

When I first found out that I was given the opprotunity to work at FareStart, I felt completely privilaged and blessed. To know that this organization practices so many of the principles I desire to live my life by is an incredible feeling. I love that my heart smiles when I tell people about FareStart and I love that I have been trusted enough to be let into the process of it. This is a perspective that I must keep. It is easy to get bogged down in the details and the data entry, forgetting that the small onces of work I do on a computer do directly translate into transformed lives and a healthly helping model of change.

This idea of remembering is difficult to keep. My natural tendency is to inflate my position, judging my role in the company and my place on the totem pole as the parameters of service, rather than having the end goal in mind. Right now it is difficult for me to see a passion in the people that I am working with. There is a great deal of seperation from the students, many of the people in the office are just simply not physically around them, but I feel as though there is a subtle division in their brains as well. I have yet to hear a conversation about a student or about the joy that working at FareStart gives them and that is something that is really difficult.

I think that I am learning the importance of substainable passion. It seems like the most dangerous people in the world are the ones that attract people, engage them in their ideas, pursade them that they are nobel and worth supporting, and then expolde in a cloud of exhaustion and burnout. This is how things start and then fizzle out. If we are to be people of purpose and reflecting God's will here on earth, that is a will of substainability, resurrection, and eternity. There are situations in life that are here for a season and then gone, but the intimate connections to lives and livelihoods is something that requires consistancy and maturity. A wavering, mountiantop passion is great to start programs and organizations, but combining that passion with intellegent processes and realistic goals leaves people in a much better place in the end.

To achieve that substainable passion, it is essential to balance the now with the not yet. We must be dillegent and efficent now, with the grimey details and boring telephone calls because the not yet is so important. The not yet of graduates recieving diplomas and the not yet of moving from a men's shelter to a low-income housing apartment and the not yet of self-esteem that independent of damaging elements. The motivation for every action must be a greater good. Forgetting that greater good leads to passionless drudgery and that is no spirit with which to medel with someone else's life.

I have learned a little bit about equality while being here at FareStart. The term 'student' is regarded with high respect and there is a level of achievement to even hold that title. Having guidelines and prerequisits to be a student allow the staff to forget questions of character and competance that would hurt the helping relationship, and quantify both parties as compatable. There is also a fine line between discipline and grace that is flirted with very well here and I am excited to discover more of that.