JVC Updates

Eight - August 22

Hi everyone,

Well I made it! I finished my year with the Jesuit
Volunteer Corps on August 9th, spent a few short
precious days at home, and moved down to Norman,
Oklahoma this week to start graduate school in
meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. It's all
been so fast the last few weeks that sometimes I have
to remind myself when I wake up..."now where am I...
oregon, kansas, oklahoma??" I am hoping that by the
time classes start tomorrow morning that I will pick
the right one.

My new contact info is:

1902 Oakcreek Dr.
Norman, OK 73071
cell: (405) 973-8554
home: (405) 329-0214
my email address will stay the same for now.

Speaking of classes, I'm a little scared of Advanced
Atmospheric Dynamics, Cloud Physics, and Partial
Differential Equations. What a good three to start
out with your first semester, right? From what I have
heard so far though, the grad students here form a
pretty close group (all 80 of us), and so I think even
though I took a year off, I will get a lot of help in
the places that I am struggling. I have met my two
office mates so far (yes I have my own office in the
meteorlogy building, my name's on the door already!)
and they seem very fun and interesting. Hopefully
over the next few weeks I'll form a lot of new
friendships.

I have also mapped out a bike route to and from campus
(3mi, 20min one way) which i will be riding every day,
started a compost pile in our yard, and i'm already
planning a garden for next spring. Talk about ruined
for life! =) Even in the few short weeks since my JV
year ended and I became an FJV, many realizations have
come of how valuable that year was for me. I am now
going through the process of integrating some of those
changes into my daily lifestyle in the mainstream
world... which is a lot harder to do than what it was
in JVC. Simplicity especially is challenging when the
financial income increases exponentially, and I feel
pressure to join in and buy everything I "need".
There is freedom in knowing that I can live without
all the added stress that "stuff" adds to your life.
I went to mass tonight at the catholic campus center
here in Norman, and was excited to find out that the
pastor is an excellent homilist. He explained that in
ancient Jerusalem, they would close the gates through
the city walls at night but leave open a small, narrow
opening, just barely wide enough for any traveller
needing safety to get inside the city for the night.
The entrance was so small that travellers would have
to take off whatever pack they were carrying and leave
it outside, and with it all the posessions they had.
So in the gospel when Jesus told the disciples to "try
to enter through the narrow gate", he was telling them
to rid their lives of all the unnecessary things that
were keeping them from following him. This was
probably the best I have ever heard the concept of
simplicity explained. Also, since I got here on
Wednesday, I've had a song from the radio stuck in my
head the entire time whose chorus goes something like:
"I don't wanna be anything other than what I've been
tryin to be lately". So here's hoping the four parts
of JVC - Simplicity, Community, Spirituality, and
Social Justice - continue to stick with me.

This will probably be my last email, because I am
anticipating classes to get started and things to get
pretty busy right away. However I would still love to
hear from all of you. Every one of you, large or
small, helped me to get to where I am right now, and
for that I am eternally grateful from the bottom of my
heart. One of my favorite prayers is a prayer that
Jack Morris, SJ founder of the JVC wrote:

Mighty God, Father of All
Compassionate God, Mother of All
Bless every person I have met
Every face I have seen
Every voice I have heard
Especially those most dear
Bless every city, town and street that I have known
Every sight I have seen
Every sound I have heard
Every object I have touched
In some mysterious way these have all fashioned my life
All that I am I have received
Great God, Bless the World!

So each one of you are now a part of my prayer. Thank you.
Blessings,
Eric