Making My Own Decisions

Ten years after volunteering with the Catholic Charities Volunteer Corps in the Twin Cities, I still regard that time as being the most crucial to my personal and spiritual development into adulthood. I could spend countless numbers of paragraphs describing how our tradition’s rich social teaching has impacted my faith life or what communication skills one needs to be able to live in community with integrity. But the most important lesson occurred the previous year when I decided to pursue a full-time volunteer program. I realized then it was time to make my own choices.

I was in a public relations job with the so-called great career prospects. I dreaded it and I didn’t get the sense that what I was doing was benefiting anyone, but I was traveling along what I perceived as the road to adulthood—having a good, well-paying job, buying a new car, living in my first apartment, and trying to stay in contact with college friends.But this lifestyle left me passionless. I found myself wanting desperately to be inspired because, frankly, I was downright bored. Was life just getting up for work, making a good income, buying things, and going out with friends?Wasn’t there supposed to be more to life? Once I actually found the courage to ask these questions—let’s face it, theses are scary questions that promise to topple any notion of success—I found a spirit and drive within me that has carried me to the present.

Years earlier during college, I would have been able to define what was important to me. I was head and shoulders deep into planning volunteer projects and retreats for a club of fellow students in campus ministry, and I loved every minute of it. For too many reasons to explain here, I lost track of this sense of purpose when I graduated from college, and I had to reflect upon those passions, hopes and dreams that I had during my college years to reconnect with them.

I remember clearly one Friday afternoon my senior year when a woman from a volunteer corps program in New Mexico came to speak about her experiences. It was a cold, gray, blustery day, yet I had a sense of warmth, joy and enthusiasm as I listened to her. This was the first time I had heard of such volunteer opportunities, and I was energized by the prospects. Unfortunately, I immediately disregarded the idea because I knew my parents would not approve. The following year as I worked in my public relations job, the enthusiasm to volunteer returned, and I couldn’t ignore it any longer. But this change would require something I had been able to avoid throughout college—challenging my parents’ expectations of me.

I told my dad over the phone that I wanted to quit my job and volunteer full-time. My dad, being the rational pragmatist, asked me to come home and talk. My parents were supportive of me quitting because they knew I was unhappy, but they didn’t like the idea of me just “wasting my time” in a volunteer year. Plus, I wanted to move hundreds of miles away. They already had one daughter overseas; they weren’t looking for another to move out of state. I somehow had managed to win over my dad by explaining I would have free housing, a monthly stipend, health insurance and job experience. My mother, however, didn’t speak to me for days. Fortunately, my mother being the good woman that she is couldn’t maintain the silent treatment. As my family would say, she caved. She eventually got used to the idea of me moving out of state.

Somehow I knew the worst was over. During those seemingly long days of my mother’s silent treatment, I had grown up. I had challenged my parents in such a way that they too realized that I wasn’t there little girl any longer, and I was ready for what the future held for me.

The following year during another cold (frigid), blustery day in Minneapolis, I had that same warm, peaceful sensation when I was attending Mass at the host parish of the volunteer corps. The congregation was singing one of my favorite songs, “The Servant Song” by John Bell. “Will you come and follow me if I but call your name.”

I certainly could respond yes to this, but I had a deeper appreciation of what it meant to follow God’s call at that point. Following God’s call just doesn’t mean that one day a person decides to work among the poor and live a simple lifestyle. It means that we as individuals agree to enter into a relationship with God and grow in our own awareness of our gifts, desires, dreams, and even weaknesses. By getting to know God, we get to know ourselves. We begin to identify what we really want to do with our lives.

The volunteer corps proved to be exactly what I needed. I had a direct supervisor that provided the mentoring and guidance I needed for being a young professional, and I found friends that understood my own personal motivations and desires. I knew that I always wanted to be in positions where I could be of service to others, but now I could identify my own God-given gifts, my strengths and weaknesses. I even uncovered some deeply held dreams since my childhood and fulfilled them. In May 2004 I graduated from Georgetown University with a master’s degree in Islam/Muslim-Christian Relations. Now, I am living in my favorite U.S. city, Chicago, working with young adults and able to maintain a connection to the field of interfaith dialogue. I never would have imagined I could accomplish these dreams of mine, but amazing things do happen when we heed our own expectations, and not those of others.

Not everyone needs to break free from their family’s expectations, nor do the people who do have such an easy time as I. We each have to respond to the invitation of God’s call in our own way, but with a little patience with ourselves, and a lot of stubborn tenacity, we will come into our own sense of self.

JoEllen Windau