I realized I haven’t really filled anyone on in what my life looks like these days, mostly because that life has drained my free time.

I’m in my third and fourth classes at Xavier. Survey of Christian Doctrine II and Catholic Social Teaching. The doctrine class is pretty work-intensive. Lots of reading and written analyses every week. I’m also realizing I’m not as excited about theology as I am about ethics. I know there isn’t a lot of separation, or shouldn’t be, between the two. It’s more a matter of emphasis. I tend to want to focus on the “then this is how we act” part.

The Catholic Social Teaching class has been very good. Lots of excellent documents in the Papal encyclicals of the last century or so. I’m starting a paper now on the School of the Americas. It’ll be my final for the course. There are many catholic high school teachers in the Theology program and many of them say how Catholic Social Teaching is the best kept secret among catholics. I’m not sure why it’s “secret” except that it’s hard to pay attention to it without feeling the need to sacrifice something. Kind of the same way protestants ignore a lot of what Christ had to say.

I’m also working in the Graduate Assistant program. I’m helping with two classes this semester, Prophets of Nonviolence (which just ended) and Parables of Jesus (which just began). This has been really excellent. It’s given me opportunities to help teach, grade papers, lead class lectures and discussions, etc. It also has allowed me to participate in classes I wanted to take anyway, and to do so for free. It payed my tuition this semester. So basically, I’ve received four classes for free. And the books for the assistantship classes were given to me for free. Excellent.

I’ve also started an internship at an organization called Let Justice Roll. It’s working to raise the minimum wage in ohio. Some of you may have noticed that the congress passed a bill on Wednesday to raise Ohio’s minimum wage from 4.25 an hour to 5.15. While that’s all well and good, it was done for partisan purposes. The wage increase was attached to a bill that democrats likely would not have passed, but it was attached so that the republicans could claim the democrats didn’t want the minimum wage raised. So if the bill gets confirmed, the wage will be raised, but without any increases in the near future. LJR is trying to get a ballot initiative to raise the wage to 6.85, which is still not a living wage, but the wage would then increase every year with inflation. If you are interested in learning more, or helping get the word out (we need help in every ohio city), let me know.

Last year, before I had even started school, I applied for the Brueggemann Fellowship from Xavier. Of course I didnt get it, but I think I have a good chance this time. I’ve taken a class from and become friendly with the professor who runs the Brueggemann center. We’ve talked about the fellowship several times and he knows I’m very interested in it. I’ll be applying this year to do research on religious conflicts around the world. The hope is to travel to Belfast, Ireland and possibly places like Bosnia-Herzegovina or even Rwanda. I really hope I can experience this as a part of my program.

Here’s an article today that lifted my spirits:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/03/10/human.rights.school.ap/index.html