My Job Part 2: Justice Walking

Justice Walking is the social justice and faith group here on campus. Every semester there is a theme picked for us to learn about, weekly service, and bi-weekly reflection. Last semester we worked with Hospice, who is an organization near and dear to my heart. They were great when my grandfather was losing his battle with cancer. I visited a man all last semester. It took awhile for him to warm up to me and the girl I was partnered with, but eventually we were laughing and really looking forward to our visits every week. We got to know a very humble, faithful, and funny man. We got to give him something to look forward to every Wednesday and we too looked forward to our weekly visit. Once I became a coordinator, I was in charge of planning the weekly reflections. I also helped us get ready for our fall break trip to Tuscan (which I have already written quite a bit about on this blog), and I helped plan our closing ceremony.

Another aspect of this part of my job was to plan this semester’s Justice Walking theme. I chose education because it is something that I really care about. I guess it is a good thing that I am an education major! We are going to be GED and ESL tutoring. I picked this because not only it is an important service needed in this world, but I know that it will make us a little bit uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. Teaching people older than me is always a little scary. They have so much more life experience than I do. Will they resent me for “knowing more”? I don’t know. I hope not. I would love to get to know these people for who they are; they deserve my respect. But, I am glad it makes my uncomfortable. Service shouldn’t be easy. It should stretch us, make us confront and reexamine our ideals, morals, and views of the world. Service should help us grow and help the world become a better place to live. Anyway, I am excited and nervous about the semester. Mostly this is because the whole idea of this semester was mine. If it fails, then I will feel like I failed.