Week 1

Well, my first week working for the Franciscan Action Network is over and it was a mouthful of a week.  As a little friend for peace, I'm trying to live peacefully in all walks of my life.  For me, this means that I need a few hours in the morning to get up and face the day.  Now, it's not that I'm not a morning person, it just is that I take a while to get going in a peaceful manner.  If I had to, I could be up and out in 20 minutes, but I'd be rushed and scattered a bit.  I much prefer waking up at 7, as the light streams in the window, and then sitting with coffee and morning quiet until I have to leave for work at 9:15 or 9:30 to catch the metro downtown.
Things I really like about my job:
1) Metro-accessible! I'm so excited that I can take public transportation and reduce my carbon footprint
2) The people I work with! Everyone in the office is excited about the public advocacy and action alerts that we do.  Since we're Franciscan-based, our foci are: immigration, environment, health care and peacemaking.  I see how my coworkers, at least in the office, really live what we're fighting for.

I think the hardest thing about peacemaking for me though, is when I run into people who are fighting strongly for things that seem to be opposite to what matters to me.  I don't have an easy time understanding greed or seeing how people could not care for the poor and disenfranchised.


Tomorrow I start a class called JustFaith which is supposed to further expose us to Catholic Social Teaching. I'm excited for it and for what I might learn in addition to what I already know.

Tomorrow also starts week 2 of peacemaking as a living.  Let's see how it goes. :)  I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post, but my goal is to track things at least 2x a week.  I want to talk about peacemakers that I meet as well-- both in work and in books.  So, I'll try to feature some of them.