Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Service Analysis

In "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost, he talks about two neighbors that have both a physical and metaphorical wall between them. Both neighbors repair this wall every spring but the narrator doesn't understand why the wall is there.  The neighbor tells the narrator that "Good fences make good neighbors." The narrator questions this though and says, "Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it where there are cows? But there are no cows." Clearly these two characters have different feelings regarding the wall and the narrator seems to take the wall personally, believing that the wall was made specifically to keep him out. Its important to remember to consider other peoples feelings because though we think we may not be hurting someone's feelings, we may be doing just that. During my summers and high school I worked at a camp called Anchor. Camp Anchor was a camp for people with special needs, mainly people with down syndrome and autism. The most important thing that I would teach new people who came to work at the camp was to always be positive with the campers and to realize that the campers look up to you. I would tell them that though you may not mean to offend anyone, coming to camp with a bad attitude in itself can be offensive because the campers will pick up on it and may blame themselves.

In "Accident, Mass Ave." by Jill McDonough, she writes about an incident where the narrator gets in a minor car accident with another woman in Boston. Both woman immediately react to screaming at each other before even checking if each other or if the cars were okay. After screaming at each they both realize that there is no damage to the car and that they're yelling over nothing. Both women were stereotyping not only each other but themselves as well because they thought that they had to act a certain way solely because they are from Boston. This poem reminds me that you should always be yourself and not give in to stereotypes. When I was a freshmen I worked at Our Daily Bread in Baltimore through the CCSJ program. There I met a homeless man who told me his story of how he became homeless and how at one point in his life he was a successful entrepreneur till his business went under. I always feel bad when I think of that man because when I met him my first thought was that he probably dropped out of high school and never really tried to make anything of himself. It still angers me that I let those stereotypes get to me and make me think a certain way, so now whenever I notice myself stereotyping someone I stop and remember that man.

In " Learning to Read", Frances E. W. Harper talks about a slave by the name of Chloe and other slaves related to Chloe and the different ways they learned to read even though it was not allowed or accepted by people in the south. People from the north though still came down to the south and helped the slaves learn to read even though they didn't have to but chose to because it was the right thing to do. When you first start working at Camp Anchor you initially have to volunteer for a few summers before you start getting paid. So when I first started working there I wasn't doing it to get a paid, I was doing it because I truly enjoyed it and felt it was the right thing to do and I'm proud to say that I worked there. I'm sure that the people that help the slaves learned to read would say the same thing, that they were proud in what they did.

Based on the reading "The Service of Faith and Promotion of Justice in Jesuit Higher Education" by Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, the importance of the Jesuit approach lies behind helping others. The northerners that helped the slaves read portrayed this and showed great examples of the Jesuit way.


No comments:

Post a Comment