Spirituality: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”
— Anthony Bourdain
Spirituality these days is a squishy subject. The Traveler’s Edge won’t ask you to join a monastery or convent, take a vow of silence, or take a three-month pilgrimage around the 88 temples on the island of Shikoku, Japan. (To be clear: you are welcome to do these things, and they may be varying degrees of amazing for you, but it’s not the level of practicality we’re aiming for in The Traveler’s Edge.) The version of spirituality we’re considering here is focused on becoming more at one with yourself, others, and the world at large. We’re talking about realizing that there is more to life than the self, and that there is more to the self than you’ve probably considered for most of your life.
For our final destination we will explore Latin America one last time. I hope that all of you have enjoyed this journey with me these last few weeks. I will keep the posts coming but sadly for the foreseeable future this will be the last of the teaser stories from The Traveler’s Edge. My wish is that you the reader took something out of this adventure together. Thanks for reading!
Destination 7
Fred Rooney’s journey began when he was just a kid in Garden City, New York. Fred developed a fascination with what would become his second language after his fourth grade teacher taught the class to count to ten in Spanish. Fast forward to college, when he elected to go abroad for a year to build his proficiency and learn more about Latin American culture. When classmates and teachers told him to go to Spain, Fred bristled. “I wanted to go to Latin America, and people were telling me that I was nuts because back in the early ’70s people had no concept of what it was about. But it did really change my life in a meaningful way and set the stage for the rest of my life until now.”
So in his junior year, Fred studied abroad in Bogotá. In that time, he became very aware of the country’s wealth disparity and how so many were living in poverty. Fred had always been interested in helping other people, but his experiences in Colombia made him determined to do work that would serve those less privileged. This commitment to service would not just be a career for him, but a spiritual calling to go above and beyond to do whatever he could for his fellow humans.
In the decades since that trip, Fred has made good on his goal. According to a friend, Fred’s work has saved “hundreds, if not thousands, of people’s lives. Literally. He finds money for sick children to get a surgery they can’t afford. He represents women who need to leave abusive relationships. He makes sure people have heat in their apartment during the cold New York City winters. He finds scholarships for kids to go to college. He opens his home to strangers. The list goes on and on.”
Fred continued to travel after that initial perspective-shifting journey. He lived in Israel and Puerto Rico, and spent significant time in India and Cuba. He was particularly attracted to places that had very specific narratives to the average American, as he quickly learned that his perceptions of these places could not be farther from the reality. Eventually, Fred came back to the U.S. to pursue a career as a social worker and English instructor for immigrants. But he soon changed course again.
“During my years working with immigrants, I was able to see how difficult life is in a foreign country where immigrants are not always welcome. Many of my clients/students were victimized by discrimination and racism. I realized that to be more effective as an advocate for the most marginalized and vulnerable members of my community, I needed to become a lawyer.”
But being a lawyer wasn’t a magic bullet; like many lawyers, Fred realized, “Law school doesn’t teach you how to practice law.” Instead, most recent grads depend on mentors and employers to guide them through the practicalities of the legal system. For JDs with jobs at law firms or well known service organizations, this was no issue. But Fred wanted to strike out on his own, to do the kind of legal work that he knew was necessary from his own experiences abroad and doing social work. And Fred wanted to help as many people as possible rather than simply chase the dollar.
After all, Fred follows the creed of Stephen Grellet, a Quaker missionary: “I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.”
So he put in the work to figure out how to blaze his own trail, and that trail led him right back to law school. Fred wanted to help other young lawyers avoid the pitfalls that he faced during his early years. He created a legal incubator system at the law-school level, modeling his organization after incubators in other industries (tech, graphic design, even baking). He provided a way for new lawyers to get the mentorship that his legal education didn’t want to provide. There are now over 60 of these incubators around the U.S. And through all of them, there is the core principle that Fred learned, to hone your skills by helping those in need.
“When I was young, I always believed that I could change the world. As I got older, I realized that changing the world wasn’t a realistic goal, but helping to change the lives of individuals so that their lives were more rewarding and fruitful was a more achievable goal. Once I became a lawyer, I quickly found out that lawyers can be catalysts for social change, brokers for justice and equality and valuable members of society when they use their knowledge and skills to ensure the rights of each individual in our community are respected and protected.”
Fred has been doing this work for decades, and has begun to expand his vision internationally. “Through my travels, I would interact with lawyers from all over the world, and everyone would tell me the same thing, that everybody had the same issues when it comes to the legal system.” His incubators have now expanded to the Dominican Republic, Spain, and Pakistan.
Fred is also both a Fulbright Scholar and a Fulbright Specialist, meaning he is part of a cultural exchange program seeking to improve intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the U.S. and other countries through the exchange of persons, knowledge, and skills.
The difference between a job and a calling is simple: you do a job as a means to an end (to put a roof over your head, to provide for your loved ones, etc.), but a calling is an end in itself. What transforms a job into a calling is the spiritual clarity that Fred found in Bogotá and keeps finding in his work today.
Most lawyers don’t love their jobs, but Fred does. “As lawyers, we have the potential to engage in the ongoing creation of a world that truly strives to embrace the notion that all men and women are created equal and therefore deserve to be treated as such. Helping to improve the lives of the most vulnerable members of our community, while also ensuring that we are able to adequately support ourselves and our families, will make the practice of law more analogous to a vocation than to a profession and will inevitably make that world a better place in which to live.”
Souvenirs:
● Fred Rooney is inspired by the ways that real people, especially people from different countries and cultures, can defy the preconceived notions we have of each other.
- It’s easy to have wrong-headed ideas about people who are different from you if you never bother to get to know them. But we all owe it to each other to treat each other as people, first and foremost. Start there, rather than with assumptions, and you’ll find a lot of common ground.
● Fred’s travels initially led him to do social work; he later pursued a law degree in order to establish himself in the position from which he could do the most good.
- Once you’ve figured out your inspiration, assess what qualifications you need to have the greatest impact. Sometimes, a few more years of school are worth the effort — especially when they will help you help more people.
● Fred saw the shortfalls in his legal training and sought to solve that problem for others, all while continuing to promote his priorities of serving those in need.
- If you’re passionate about your work, if you consider it a calling rather than a job, you will want to share it with everyone.
If you’d like this story and would like to read more, you can order a copy of my book on Amazon — here is the link. If you want to connect, you can reach me here via email thetravelersedgebook@gmail.com or connect with me on Instagram: @thestandbyguy. I would love to hear your feedback so please let me know what you think!
