Junior Campaign

September 13, 2017 at 8:14 pm

As I begin my junior campaign here at Boston University, I feel the pressure of the moment and the need to do something. There has to be a focus this year. Moves have to be made and I met push myself to new heights. The pressure comes from myself, it’s what’s gotten me thus far. I live for the pressure. It’s the thing I think about the most. I’ve always been my own worst critic.

Since establishing myself as a student leader on campus and finding ways to leave a legacy at this university. I have focused on this idea of stagnation. It’s a fear of mine. Being in the same place, doing the same thing and having the same impact. Thus, this junior year I decided I have to go. My next move post undergrad must place me in an environment that requires me to grow once again.  Perhaps I will come back to Boston, but for now I have to go in order to be the person I want to be.

 

So, this junior year, I will begin to take steps that make stagnation impossible. I’m excited about my last two years here at BU, but I’m  also excited about what’s next. The present moment is a blessing and I am very aware of that and I will enjoy those moments. But, my vision is tunneled and my focus has shifted to constant movement and growth.

By Devin Harvin | Posted in Devin, Fall 2017 | Comments (0)

Last Firsts

September 12, 2017 at 10:15 pm

Hello, my name is Nick Rodriguez, and this is my last first blog post in the Marsh Vocation Internship blog.

I am a senior here at Boston University studying Computer Engineering(woot woot Senior Design).

This year, I am the President of SojournBU and the Vice-President of EpiscopalBU, two of the Christian student groups on campus. They are both great and I am thankful for the community I found there.

I am also an undergraduate teaching fellow (really, I am just a Teaching Assistant, but my old school professor calls me a UTF) in the College of Engineering in an introductory engineering course where students build their own musical instruments and relate it to electrical-acoustics and engineering design. It's a lot of fun; I get to help students build ridiculously cool instruments and I also get to teach them about circuitry and machinery.

It's nice to be back on campus. This past summer, I spent my time on MIT's campus at iD Tech Camps (think like really geeky summer camp with educational coursework) as an instructor teaching a technology course to Middle Schoolers about computer architecture and programming in Python. It was a really crazy and fun course -- we would build laptops using the Raspberry Pi micro-controller. Then, we would install a lightweight operating system (a version of Linux) onto them. Finally, using a Python development environment called IDLE, I would teach them as much about Python (a high-level programming language) as I could fit into a week, and then they would make a final project. The friendships I helped build, the information I could teach, and inspiration into STEM that I could give to my students gave me life, and I am really glad I got the opportunity to work there. It was really rewarding when I could see the impact I had on others.

This year, for my internship, I am helping with Children's Education at Marsh Chapel and I am also helping with leading MOVE (the Marsh Organization for Volunteer Engagement). I am extremely excited to work with the other interns and staff at Marsh!

It's a little crazy -- and slightly frightening -- to be a Senior. I have one more year until I (ideally) obtain my undergraduate degree and move onto the next stage in my life. I have to already begin my planning, but I am still not entirely sure where I am going. I know I definitely want to stay in Boston, but I don't know what I am going to do, and how I am going to mix my eclectic passions in technology, theology, philosophy, and education together.

But that's okay. I am sure it will all work out.

Over this past year, I have noticed I have grown a lot, and I have certainly become more sure of myself. I think I can finally make sense of what I was trying to say in my introductory blog post last year. I will be completely honest, I have been pulled into the present ever since my summer as a Student Advisor at Orientation(shout-out to Summer '16). It has been since then that I have been much more alive as a person and feel genuinely like myself.

I have begun to genuinely feel like myself. It's as if I am now more Nick than I was before. Like I am right now who I should be.

I have changed as a person, I have grown as a person, but I have not lost sight of who I am. In fact, I feel more like who I should be than I have before. This is what I think Jon Bellion meant in his song "He is the Same" which I talked about a year ago in my first blog post.

See, Jon has recently become a much more famous artist, but despite his newfound professional growth, he has not let it get to him, and he has stuck to his values and beliefs. He is still the same Jon Bellion.

So, yeah, here I am. Sitting next to my girlfriend Sarah in the basement of 518, waiting for my laundry to dry and doing homework. Each moment is passing by, and there's an energy about this semester. Where is everything headed?

I honestly don't exactly know, I just pray I keep sight of what matters to me and move forward with the life I have been filled with.

And interestingly, the song playing in my headphones is "Don't Let Me Fall" by B.o.B.

 

By Nickholas Rodriguez | Posted in Fall 2017, Nick | Comments (0)

Good Trouble

September 12, 2017 at 8:26 pm

It is good to be back at school, but I had a great summer. It was hard to leave. I have struggled to explain why this summer was so special to me, because while I had great experiences none of them truly stand out. Its meaning came from a series of small moments that together prompted me to re-examine the world and my place in it.

I think if I was forced to pick the defining moment of my summer, it would be an experience in St. Simons, Georgia. I was there for a meeting of the United Methodist Division on Ministries with Young People. Following an intense day of difficult conversation, one of the Division members played a Tom Jones song “Did Trouble Me”. You can listen to it here. We were all still raw from our experiences, still struggling to process and reconcile all that we had heard. It was exactly what we needed in that moment and has been on my heart ever since.

This summer was troubling. I had difficult conversations, witnessed and learned upsetting things. There were moments I struggled to process, conversations that struck me to the core. Yet, these moments were always followed by the feeling I got as we sat in a circle listening to Tom Jones-a certainty that something is happening here. Through discomfort, I was able to see God at work in and around me. I witnessed the beauty of a group of people struggling to love one another in the midst of profound disagreement and pain. I grew. These experiences gave the summer an ineffable quality. All I can say is something happened.

As we begin this semester, my deepest hope is that God continues to trouble me. In the midst of discomfort I have found community and experienced growth.  I think that is a beautiful thing and I pray it never stops.

By Denise-Nicole Stone | Posted in Denise-Nicole, Fall 2017 | Comments (0)

Starting from Somewhere

September 11, 2017 at 11:24 pm

And so begins my first blog post as a Marsh Associate! My name is Maritt Nowak, and I'm a senior majoring in international relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and minoring in religion here at Boston University. I'm infinitely happy to begin my internship at Marsh, and especially excited to be working with the incredible staff here on vocational discernment in the coming months. I'm hoping to use this blog as a space to meditate on some big questions in a small way. Of course, the "higher mysteries" of life are usually pretty intimidating, but I like to think we are blessed with God's presence every day, we just have to open our eyes to it.

As I settle back into the semester amid the bustle of new classes, the unfamiliarity of my first solo apartment and the excitement of beginning my new chapter at Marsh, I've set a goal I hope to carry with me this year. Be Present. Instead of just completing the page count for readings I'm assigned for my classes, I'm really going to try to get something out of each one. When I'm with my friends, I'll set my phone aside so I can be a better listener. Every day, I'll set aside time to be outdoors, listen to music, work on something I really enjoy or maybe just meditate in prayer.

Sitting here in the apartment I'll call home for this academic year, listening to the Amtrak and Commuter Rail roll past, my mind wanders to the house my father grew up in. It belonged to his grandmother and I was blessed to visit it often as a child while my grandparents still lived there. When I was a little girl, I would climb up the cellar doors and slide back down, over and over again for hours. It seemed like that was my biggest mountain. This summer, I climbed Mont Salève in France. There's no way of knowing where we might end up. I can't say I like looking out my window at I-90 as much as the view of my grandfather's vegetable garden from those cellar doors, but when I hear his favorite song, Sweet Caroline, blasting from Fenway Park, I know I'm in the right place.

By marittn | Posted in Fall 2017, Maritt | Comments (5)

Blessed Moments in Time

May 19, 2017 at 7:16 pm

I have now been back with my parents in New Jersey for a week now. Seven days. It has honestly just now occurred to me that roughly seven days ago, just 168 hours ago, just 10080 minutes ago – each minute being only a brief moment in time – I was just arriving back to the home I grew up in after a long day of cleaning out my room in the Engineering House and singing way too many songs in a five-hour car ride.

It’s crazy how just a little over a day before that, I was preparing on going out to dinner with my girlfriend and finally getting a moments rest after a long semester.

And roughly 14 hours earlier that day – Thursday morning at 4am – I was just finishing my final programming assignment and preparing to hand it in and complete my semester before finally being able to exit Photonics and travel home.

As I have experienced my heart, mind, and soul decelerate from hundreds of miles per hour to an almost full stop, I can’t help but for a moment reflect on a heart, mind, and soul’s journey through time.

It doesn’t really matter what the velocity your soul is moving at each day.
Fast
or
slow,
it is all relative to time,
and
time
keeps
pacing
the same.

And each moment is exactly that: a moment. And at each moment, our states of being are affected by those around us.

Sometimes, the effects that others have on our states are positive. Sometimes, not so much.

Sometimes, the impacts on our states are small. Other times, they are massive, potentially affecting the trajectory of our being in massive, eternal ways.

Sometimes, another soul only crosses our paths for a brief moment.
And other times, their existences are almost permanent.

And if we are lucky, some of those individuals who impact us in massive positive ways are also people who have a more permanent existence in our lives.

But sometimes, loss and farewells do occur. Our existences are finite – only moments in time.

And, can we honestly, ever, really expect complete permanence in those that we cherish?

I find there are many ways we can respond to our finitude,
either with fear,
anxiety,
or distance.

Or, we can respond to our existence with both
a sense of courage,
and
a sense of thankfulness for existence.

And truly, in the present moment, we can cherish our existences – because that is our only guarantee.

And we can courageously know that, loss and pain do occur, but that doesn’t mean we cannot have love and hope, and it most certainly doesn’t mean we cannot love our existences and those around us.

And also, we can make sure that those who have had impacts on our lives know that we are thankful we have had the blessing of having them cross our paths in time.

And so, thank you to my fellow Marshians.

Thank you Ian, you one time wrote that I had courage, but I it is only thanks to the kindness and support from you and others. You are one of the most other-aware individuals I have ever met, and I am most certainly sure that wherever you go, you will continue to bring a massive and positive impact on those around you.

Thank you Kasey, your humor, and your passion for justice has been an inspiration to me. Thank you for the many memories in the community dinners at Marsh Chapel, and at our Monday night dinners. Your spirit and heart always brought a wonderful dynamic to our community, and your passion and heart will be a blessing to the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

Thank you Denise, Devin, Matt, and Tom. Your persistence in my life has been a blessing, and I always looked forward to laughing, talking, and hanging out with you on Sunday mornings, and on Monday nights. Your hearts and our conversations filled me with life and courage that carried me through the stresses of the semester. Thank you to the rest of the Marsh community, and thank you to my mentors and leaders. Our conversations were a regular retreat from my day to day challenges, and your thought-provoking conversations that challenged me to change are still impacting me today. I cannot wait to see you all again next semester.

Thank you to the Sojourn community. Our conversations as an eclectic bunch were life-giving, and the community you have given me is something I cannot wait to return to this summer and over the next semester.

Thank you to EpiscopalBU for providing me a time of meditation, fellowship, and community every week. You are all wonderful people, and something I always looked forward to on Wednesday evenings after a long day of classes.

Thank you to my friends from Orientation. Thank you my friends from Engineering. Thank you to my professors this semester who gave me assistance when I struggled and who spoke with me regularly. Thank you to every friend I have made and every new wonderful person in my life.

I don’t even know how to close a sentimental blog post. To those who are moving on to the next chapters in their lives and to those I have had to say goodbye to: thank you – I honestly am unsure if I can put into language the impacts you have had on me as a person. And to those I will see again in September, or in a week, thank you so much for a wonderful semester. I look forward to many more conversations, fellowship, and moments together.

Thank you, God, for each and every moment I have had on this earth. Thank you for the tough moments, and for the bright moments. Thank you for the heartbeat I have in my chest, and the air in my lungs. Thank you for those I have been blessed to know.

Thank you.

By Nickholas Rodriguez | Posted in Nick, Spring 2017 | Comments (0)

The Last Page of the First Chapter

May 9, 2017 at 8:37 am

Today I write my blog post from room 909 in Sleeper Hall. Just nine months ago I began my college career by moving into this same room with fear, anticipation, and curiosity. Now, I sit in the same room with with very different feelings: thankfulness, hope, and excitement.

I will be leaving room 909 at approximately 3:00 pm today, and board a plane that will take me home. (Or at least my home for a month until my family moves to San Diego.) I feel extremely lucky to say that BU is my second home. With so much transition this past academic year, it is nice to be able to feel comfortable with the school I chose.

I am thankful that I was able to begin work at such a positive place of thinking and growth. I've met some of the nicest and most thoughtful friends anyone could ask for and I feel so grateful to have them in my life. I wish Kasey and Ian the best as they venture forth from BU and begin their success in their respective fields.

I am hopeful that the other Marsh associates and I can be as passionate and focused next year as Ian and Kasey were this year. Devin, Denise, Nick, and Matt all inspired me to work harder and I see hope in each of them every time we check-in on Monday nights at our weekly meetings.

Finally, I am excited for my own future at BU. There is so much opportunity I see around me. I am no longer fearful. I feel secure. I feel as though I have matured this year in some respects, and I am looking forward to the many more changes to come in the future.

To anyone who is reading this, I wish you a wonderful summer. And to my fellow Marsh associates, I can't wait to laugh and work with you all soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Thomas Batson | Posted in Spring 2017, Tom | Comments (0)

Conclusion

May 6, 2017 at 11:46 pm

We have come to that time of year again—the wrapping up of classes, the slow dwindling of my to-do list as I cross off papers and exams in a steady slog to the end of the semester. As I sit in the chapel now—9:30 pm on Saturday, May 6th in the year 2017—I have one exam standing between me and graduation. It’s strange to think that in less than three weeks, I will get on a train to Seattle with no definite plans of when/if I will return. Meanwhile many of my friends are preparing for one-way trips of their own and the surreal finality of it all is starting to sink in. It’s crazy to think back four years ago to my eighteen-year-old self who decided to pack up and move across the country. So many things have happened in my life since then—my family moved from Holden Village in central Washington to Seattle via a seven-month road trip around the country, I visited 22 new states but also traveled outside the U.S., spending time in Tanzania and Ecuador, I gained a much clearer sense of my own identity, my place in the world, and my sense of call. I became more comfortable living in ambiguity and I became better at truly listening to the people around me. My brother started college and my parents started new jobs, I published one novel and wrote a second. The political landscape shifted dramatically. I met so many people that my ability to remember faces and names has drastically diminished. I grew in my faith, my confidence, and my understanding of the world.

On some level I can’t believe that four years have already gone by but on the other hand, my first days at BU feel like faded memories lodged on a high shelf far away, dusty from disuse and the passage of time. And now, thinking about leaving feels like I’m on an ice floe that’s broken off from the mainland and is slowly drifting out to sea. There are so many people here who have been woven into my life and it’s hard to imagine a life where I don’t get to see them every week. But I know that is the nature of college life—it is a temporary alignment of people and events. It is beautiful while it lasts but must inevitably transition into something new.

Last Monday, the Marsh Associates had our end of the year dinner. We laughed and ate delicious food and then the other associates presented me with a parting gift—a binder full of every blog post I have written during my three years in the internship program. It is fulfilling to have a physical representation of all the work I have done here but the part that I will cherish the most is the last section of the binder where they all wrote letters of love, wishing me well and remembering the work I have done here. Reading these letters, I was overwhelmed with gratitude and surrounded with love and community. As I prepare to move on to the next part of my journey, it will be hard to say goodbye but I am excited to follow my call. I know there will be things about next year that will be difficult but it is comforting to know that I have so many wonderful people who love me and will be praying for me. I have been blessed to be a part of this community during my time here in Boston and I can only hope that I have been a blessing to others as well. Peace and love to all of you.

 

O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.

By kmshultz | Posted in Kasey, Spring 2017 | Comments (0)

Thankful

May 4, 2017 at 7:11 pm

I am regularly floored by the year that I have had.

At our Monday meeting last week we asked each other a series of questions. It is one of my favorite things that we did this year. One of our questions was where have you seen God this year?

I love that question, because it challenges me to examine my life and pay more attention to the big and small ways God breaks through.

This year, I consistently saw God in the people in my life. I have been blessed with the most supportive friends and family. It blows me away. The relationships I have formed this year have sustained me through exhaustion and uncertainty.

This is true of my colleagues here at Marsh. Over this year, they have become like family to me. They never fail to make me laugh. They never fail to make me think. They are thoughtful, kind and passionate. They each bring their unique perspectives, life-experiences and selves to the table and our conversation is rich because of it.

They push me to re-examine my own assumptions, to think deeply about my faith. They have taught me so much about faith, humility, patience and openness to God in these last few months. I have witnessed God at work through them and I have enjoyed every step of this journey thus far. They inspire me.

I cannot even begin to describe the ways that they have blessed my life this far, but I am a better person for knowing them.

My final blog post of the year is dedicated to them. My friends, who have reminded me of the love and grace of God every single day. Thank you.

By Denise-Nicole Stone | Posted in Denise-Nicole, Spring 2017 | Comments (0)

Where the Heart Is

April 28, 2017 at 11:25 pm

There is a saying that home is where the heart is. When I first came to BU, I wanted to create a new space that I could call home. Perhaps I could have gone further away from Brookline, the town near Boston where I grew up, to accomplish this. But when I came to Marsh Chapel my freshman year, I found a place that grounded me where I could place roots.

Marsh Chapel has been described as a heart for the heart of the city, and a service in the service of the city. I would take the first part of this phrase and add an “h” to the word heart: Marsh chapel has become a hearth, as well as a heart for the city and a home for me. When I say hearth, I mean a space where people can find rest, food, warmth. Most of all, I believe a hearth is a space where people can find solace, growth, and change. I believe in building such hearths through acts of hospitality, listening, and yielding.

This belief stems from spending Tuesday nights cooking dinner for students in a basement kitchen and sharing it over conversation and laughter. It emerges from nights I would spend cleaning dishes and just listening to the simple peace of water flowing and dirt being washed away. It comes from my experiences sitting down with people and yielding space and time to them—space for them to comfortably be themselves, and time for them to tell me their stories.

I believe that one of the greatest challenges as a student is learning how to listen. This is more than just paying attention in class so that you don’t miss something. It involves not thinking about how you’ll respond to what someone is telling you, and just being present with them. Listening is becoming comfortable with your own silence so that you can discern the voices of others, the sound of your surroundings, and maybe the gentle whisper of the Divine. Once you’ve discerned that, you then have a choice to make: how do I respond to what I’ve heard?

I believe that sometimes the hardest power to master is not knowing when to act, but knowing when to yield. This is not the same as giving up, or being complacent. Yielding is knowing how much you can do to support someone before stepping back, and letting them make decisions for themselves with the tools they’ve been given. It is knowing when to let go of your ego while still preserving your worth as a person for the sake of another. It is knowing that you don’t have to fix every problem to have hope, hope that when all else is said and done, survives best at the hearth you’ve created for yourself and for others.

These are the beliefs I’ve developed at Marsh Chapel. They are the flames that nurture me as I leave my home. They are where my hearth and heart is.

By iquillen | Posted in Ian, Spring 2017 | Comments (1)

Privilege

April 27, 2017 at 1:50 am

Walking up the steep hill to my externship at Hebrew College, which I did not apply to because I knew well the assistant director, I realized my privilege. I have two internships that pay me and also care about my development fully. While I've had a "rough" semester, I've received a full ride to BU and just recently was awarded another scholarship for BU center for humanities. I got to move into a room that met my own desires and I've been presented with opportunities to lead in many different areas. I led an ASB trip that changed my whole perspective on the South and education, and became a CAS Dean's Host. This rough semester has been filled with blessings and so I had to pause while on that hill and check my privilege.

My semester hasn't been ideal. However, it was a non-ideal semester at one of the top schools in the country, in one of the best cities in the world and I still live to tell my story. Too often this semester I've dwelled on the negative. I've focused on what BU hasn't done for me or the stress college has caused me. So for the rest of the semester, I will acknowledge the good.

By Devin Harvin | Posted in Devin, Spring 2017 | Comments (0)