Turn, Turn, Turn

When explaining that we would host a spring break trip from Creighton, our director repeated the line, "I want you to be one community." For the week, we weren't to have two groups occupying one space; we were to become one group. The way that VSC groups live Sister's request differs as widely as communities differ each year. This year, we were happy to get to know and love the 8 of them for the 7 days we shared.

And then, yesterday, the Creighton group pulled out at 9:15 and left. We have clean house, a folder of evaluations, and a sprinkling of Omaha dirt by Mary's home in the backyard, and that's all that remains of the week. Except they also left the questions which I had to answer every week the summer of YouthWorks and regularly through my senior year at college, the questions I am beginning to ask about my year here.

We only had a week with them. YouthWorks happened the same way : we only had a week with each group of kids. Two and a half months as staff. New friends senior year, only for a few months. With VSC, a year, now scant months for anyone new. I am constantly meeting people for a day, an afternoon, an hour.

Two questions arise : What is the point? and How much do we give?

I had a professor who explained during the first class that he wasn't going to do much that day, because he didn't want to invest in us if we hadn't committed to the whole class and we would only be together for that one hour. He compared it to plane rides, where he never spoke to people, because the relationship never continued after the plane landed. Why bother to invest in what has no long term return?

This attitude presents a problem. It leaves open the question of how long is long enough to invest in someone. A plane ride is not. What about a day? A week? A month? A year? At what point do you reach out of yourself? Lines are arbitrary.

My reply and my answer comes from the simple premise that people are ends unto themselves. So each moment we spend with another person matters. It is hard to live this way, but it makes sense. And it means that when someone stays at your house for a week, you invest in them, knowing that you might never see them again.

Building off that premise, God uses us for each other. He certainly used the Creighton students, here one week, to reveal a little more of Himself to me. I hope I imaged Him as well. He uses us for a time, for a season, and then we move on to new adventures, but not without leaving His fingerprints, so that even if we forget each other, we carry something of the Other with us. That something might just look like God instead of the human person we met. And that is more valuable than anything else.