On being a cheerful servant

Student: If you could be any food, what food would you be?

Me: Hmm. I’m going to cheat with this one: I would be a cup of coffee.

Student: Why would you be a cup of coffee?

Me: Because it’s warm, inviting, it’s like a hug in a cup, and it wakes you up in the morning.

Student: I like that answer!

From the time that I was in High School, I have had trouble getting out of bed in the morning. So much so, that during my sophomore, junior, and senior years of high school I would arise ten minutes before I had to leave the house. My alarm would go off at 6:15am, I would then repeatedly hit snooze for a half hour, and finally arise at 6:45am. My Mom and I would then leave the house between 6:55 and 7:00am. I was a master at getting ready within ten minutes. I had the routine down to a science. My bags would be packed with my breakfast, lunch, and water bottle (at this time I hadn’t discovered the sweetness that is a cup of coffee). I would roll out of bed, brush my hair, use the bathroom, brush my teeth, and finally change. This became my routine each and every morning.

As I transitioned into college, this struggle became even more real since I had to do so on my own and drive 30-45 minutes to my college campus every morning. It was during this time that I discovered the wonderful perks of caffeinated beverages. I had a Dunkin Donuts gift card from my summer job and decided to use it each morning during my commute. This struggle of trying to wake up at a decent time has continued to be a struggle through my college and post-college career.

As I began my year of service with Capuchin Youth & Family Ministries, I knew that one of my greatest challenges of the year would be getting up and ready for the day before the students on the retreat. This proved to be especially difficult being that our retreats typically don’t wind down until about 11:30pm. This means that most of the retreatants don’t settle down until after midnight, sometimes much later. Being the “adult” it is my job to make sure that everyone is safe, in their beds, and attempting to sleep. I repeatedly tell them, “You know that I love you all, but do you know what I love even more? Sleeping.”

These odd work hours have become one of the greatest struggles of my Cap Corps year as well as one of my greatest joys. It is definitely the most difficult part of my job this past year. We constantly rearrange our sleep schedule based on different retreat programs. This is physically demanding, and lying in bed until the last possible minute doesn’t work in this field. One of the ways that I know helps me each day is waking up before the retreatants and being ready to wake them up. One of the struggles of this is doing it with a smile.

I realized early on in the year that this would be a challenge for me. In October of 2015, CYFM put on a Lock-In because of an unexpected open weekend. As bright-eyed, baby CCVs, we were so excited to put on a program that we were able to plan from scratch. However, with an overnight program filled with activities came little to no sleep. I believe I slept for a total of three hours during that retreat. The morning came, and myself along with four other volunteers and two friars had to be bright eyed, smiling servants.

As we prepared breakfast, and as the cherubs slowly rose and made their way down to the dining hall, I was actually cheery. To be honest, I still don’t know how this miracle occurred, being that I was actually exhausted. Fr. Tomas, being his normal, joyful self commented on my cheeriness and appearance of alertness. However, holding my warm cup of coffee in my hands, the only answer that I could come up with for him was that I was “faking it”.

This idea, for me, goes back to my time training to be a peer leader when I was in High School. I was a part of a ministry team that would be running the icebreakers, liturgy, and behind the scenes tasks at a youth conference in upstate New York (everything north of Westchester is upstate to a Long Islander, don’t yell at me!). The week involved Discipleship training, as well as practicing skits, games, etc. On our final day of the youth conference we were all exhausted. We rose at 6am to begin preparation for the final day of Ministry, and my youth minister was particularly cheery, as the rest of us were, well not.

I remember looking at him, with tired eyes, and asking, “Tom, how are you so awake right now?!” His response was simple, and it stuck with me (and stayed with me throughout my year of service).

“I’m not,” he replied “I’m faking it,” and he still had a smile on his face.

This idea stuck with me, not because it made my youth minister inauthentic, or made the job of ministry seem easy. This idea stuck with me because it made me realize that my youth minister was a real person, who genuinely cared about our well-being, and our souls. And although we were all exhausted, we were still there to serve, and we were there to be cheerful servants, not grumbly servants.

“Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world, as you hold on to the word of life, so that my boast for the day of Christ may be that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. But, even if I am poured out as a libation upon the sacrificial service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with all of you. In the same way you also should rejoice and share your joy with me.” Philippians 2: 14-18

And so, that morning in October, I was reminded of that encounter and the lesson that it taught me way back when.

Whether or not I kept this lesson in mind during later retreats is a different story. However I was reminded of this lesson towards the end of the year at one of the CAM orientation days. We were playing a question game, and one question that I was asked went like this:

Student: If you could be any food, what food would you be?

I thought for a minute and couldn’t think of a food. But, for some reason at that moment, I was reminded of one of my struggles this year: getting up on time, and doing it with a smile. And so, I cheated.

Me: Hmm. I’m going to cheat with this one: I would be a cup of coffee.

When I was asked why, I responded honestly, hoping that these attributes were part of my year. I hope that I was warm, and inviting to each retreatant, and to my fellow leaders. And I hope that I was able to wake everyone up in the morning.

Mornings like these

This morning was just one of those mornings that was absolutely perfect. Now, the pictures above isn’t from this morning, but I feel as though it captures what this morning was for me. Relaxing bliss, and sunshine. Lots of sunshine.

You see, this all started last night when I asked Chris to say a prayer that I would actually get up in the morning and make it to mass. I knew that we would have a slow morning, because we didn’t have to be at work until the late afternoon to set up for the retreat this weekend.

Every morning, my alarm clock is set for 7:30am, exactly a half hour before mass, which is about 50 steps from my front door. The Cap Corps Volunteers live in an old convent on the property of the parish here in Beacon. It’s lovely, because if we don’t have mass as a community, we can hop on over to the parish for mass with the greater Beacon community. I’ve been wanting to make it to mass at the parish for a few weeks now, but I hadn’t been very successful. But, this morning was the morning. My alarm went off at 7:30 and I hit snooze (per usual), but then I received a text message asking if I was getting up for mass. I internally groaned, and replied “If I get out of bed, yes.” I then remembered that I asked Chris to hold me accountable, so that I would indeed get up. With that, I rolled out of bed, put on pants and a shirt, threw on my vest, brushed through my hair, brushed my teeth, grabbed my keys, and set out for 8am mass.

I was a couple of minutes late, which to be honest is pretty embarrassing because I live next door to the church. I sat down as the first reading began, and prayerfully entered into the mass.

After mass, I walked back over to the Red House, and grabbed my wallet. The nearest Dunkin Donuts is about 15 minutes away, so I decided to use a gift card that I have and get a cup of coffee. It was really nice to take a ride by myself down beautiful NY-9D, listening to music that I like.

I arrived back at the Red House around 9am and expected people to start making their way downstairs. They didn’t though. They must have taken advantage of the opportunity to sleep. So, I sat down at the dining room table, made some breakfast and enjoyed my coffee in the quiet. I read a few articles, perused twitter, read the Blessed Is She devotion, and realized that my favorite show, Fixer Upper is now on Netflix. And so, I went upstairs, closed my door, and watched an episode on Netflix. Now, for those of you who don’t know, the Red House has very basic cable, which is fine because we don’t spend much time at home, and we still get basic stations. With that, I haven’t watched HGTV since I moved up to Beacon. So this morning, when I realized that my favorite show was on Netflix, I thought to myself, “Wow, Jesus must love me.”

I relaxed, tidied up my room, and then got ready for my day. I packed for the retreat this weekend, showered, dressed for work, and even said a rosary. This morning was slow and lovely. I feel as though I had an entire day before I saw any of my housemates. From time to time, I think I need that. God is Good.