In a few short days my commitment to St. Benedict's Prep and the Newark Abbey will be complete. Graduation is on Sunday, I have a final faculty meeting on Monday (I'm debating skipping out on it but I'd be nice to be able to say a final goodbye and get some closure) and then grades are due Tuesday. Then Tues. afternoon I fly back to Minnesota to get on with the rest of my life.
I think it's way too soon to discuss what I learned and what I'll take away from my year of service. I think as I continue to think back on my time here throughout the years the experience will deepen. I don't think I'm a different person but I do know that I've been abundantly blessed to have grown up in my small town of Le Sueur in the Minnesota River valley away from gun fire, sirens, and gangs. I never worried about getting in with the wrong crowd, about not finishing high school, or where my next meal was coming from. I thought that because of all I've accomplished in school and my life in general that I was some hot shot who had hit a home run in life. It turns out because of my wonderful family and by sheer luck that I was born to them that I started my life already standing on third base. Sure, I worked hard (sometimes), got things done, took my education seriously but failure was never really lurking in the background. I got such a huge head start in life that I never really had the darkness of failure lurking in the background. I feel that as I grow up the worst I can be in mediocre. And because of that I am seriously blessed.
This has been such a great year. It was very challenging, fun, rewarding, hectic at times, boring at other times and it has been a year of spiritual growth, financial loss, new friendships were forged while others from back home have faded. It's going to be hard trying to pick up where I left off in MN. But because of this year of being a volunteer, I like the hard.
