the profound and the petty

so last tuesday i went to my first alumni event for my high school. it was a "dialouge and discourse" with a priest who graduated the year i was born (he wasn't a priest when he graduated, of course), who works at a parish in lawrence, mass and runs a meal center there (check it out: corunummealcenter.org). the story behind it was cool, he and his board (or whoever) dreamed up their ideal meal center for the hungry in lawrence: what it would be like if they could do whatever they wanted. they came up with things like serving prime rib and lobster tails instead of soup and PBJ, having waiters and waitresses so that people weren't sitting in a long line, having a huge beautiful building, seating people at round tables so it felt more like a resturant than the long rectangular institutional seating. and then they did it. they've only been open for a few months, but they raised money, got partnerships with resturants, and are operating out of that ideal.

according to this priest, a big part of operating out of that ideal is affirming the dignity of the poor...just because people are hungry doesn't mean they don't deserve the best. it reminded me of a book i read, The Amnesty of Grace, by Elsa Tamez. it was for my justice and justification class, and one phrase has profoundly affected me...Tamez defines justification and justice as "the affirmation of life". what does it mean to affirm the lives of those who have much less than i do? is it just by throwing money their way? or is it affording them the same dignity i would anyone else? it's the latter of course, but that's also the harder, more time consuming, more sacrificial (and i don't mean just monetarily or materialistically -- it's hard sometimes to admit that all of our stuff and education and learned skills doesn't make us better people than someone who has none of that) action. my volunteer time at sarah's circle in chicago was so meaningful to me because it taught me how to affirm life, it forced me away from typical soup kitchen volunteering and out into relationships with the women at the center...serving up dinner and cleaning the kitchen was much easier than sitting down and conversing with the women, listening to their stories and telling them my own. but sitting across from them, women who others might scurry away from on the streets, women with greasy hair or missing teeth or dirty clothes, it was a way to affirm their lives, to say, no matter what anyone says, you're worth listening to, and for them to do the same for me. of course, i haven't created the same opportunities for me to do that here...as with everything, it's an ongoing process...


and in the petty: aj and leslie, both gone from american idol! american public, what have you done??!?