Breathing and being.
I didn’t see Paris before we landed. The high fog levels caused us to land at a time and place that we all assumed was still in the clouds. And then suddenly, we were slammed simultaneously onto a runway and into the seats in front of us. The hum and buzz of nervous laughter filled the air we’d all be sharing for the past eight hours. And suddenly, I was in Paris. As this happened, I smiled and continued writing in my journal that would be my lifeline for the next 10 days.
“I kind of love this”, I wrote. “I’m going to absorb in this city through every step I take, every scent I smell, not through any aerial expectations.”
I had to do everything I could to get my body onto the plane to Paris, and my mind and soul were definitely not present. For the first couple days of our trip, I walked every step I was supposed to, and definitely enjoyed smelling the streets filled with fresh produce and flowers. But my mind kept wandering back home, to unfinished business and unsavory narratives.
The people around me, my fellow Vincentians, are what helped me become grounded. They gave me the ability to share intentional conversation, as well as intentional silence. It was in one of the moments of intentional silence that I feel as if I made the transition into being present in my surroundings.
During a lunch break, I strayed away from the pals I was eating sandwiches alongside, and walked alone in a magnificent garden. This garden had some sort of power over me, I saw and heard and smelled and felt more than I had in the past couple days, in the past couple weeks. The sun was shining for the first time since our arrival, and I sat down in a green chair angled ever so perfectly so that my face was kissed by the sun. For a few moments I just sat and I breathed in a way that I hadn’t in awhile. I sat and I breathed in the beauty around me. The beauty of simplicity, the beauty of the nature and culture that is foreign to me. I sat and I breathed. And I realized that I was doing just then all I needed to. Letting myself breathe. Letting myself just be.
I begin here because this is when I let myself ‘be’ and ‘breathe’ enough to truly reflect on why I was in Paris and what I gained from this experience and who helped me get there.
I’m going to start with the who part.
I am undoubtedly the lady that I am, one that is standing up and speaking out, because of the hands that raised me. They taught me to fight the good fight before I knew what the good fight really meant. My parents, my siblings, we talked about things that other parents and siblings don’t talk about. The uncomfortable. The unjust. The silent forms of oppression laced into our inherent privileges.
I attended rallies and protests, but also community meetings and organizing trainings. At a young age, I learned of the Vincentian traits of personalism and professionalism without even realizing it. I was taught to view my community through a lens that simultaneously focuses on a need for systemic change, while seeing the humanity in every individual.
My roots, my family, have led me to grow in the direction of good people. I have been privileged enough to have friends and mentors back home and in Chicago alike, who have shown me the power of love in action and servant leadership. Being a Community Service Scholar at DePaul has given me the opportunity to intern at a number of nonprofits in the Chicagoland area working for justice. The selflessness of those I have met through this program humbles me on a daily basis, and helps me focus my life on the direction I hope to be heading.
So, why am I here? Why am I caring to learn about Vincent DePaul and Louise? Why do I even go to DePaul?
I was originally drawn to DePaul because of the communal spirit I saw the second I stepped on campus. Students genuinely cared about something. Those ‘somethings’ could be different, but they all were well-intentioned, and usually a bit idealistic. I couldn’t put a label on this communal spirit until I learned more about the foundation that our university sits on: Vincentian tradition.
Us DePaul students, we often don’t realize how closely the work we are doing aligns with the teachings, practices, and legacy of Vincent and Louise. Vincent and Louise didn’t just question the status quo, they politely declined to succumb to it. Vincent brought on Louise as his equal, at a time where women were either a daughter, wife, widow, or old maid. They cared about the poor at a time where France focused most of its energy on, frankly, being bourgeois. They knew how to effectively balance working both within and against systems and institutions. They knew the power of people. They knew the power of organizing.
So, what did these individuals teach me? How do they influence my life?
Going on the Vincentian Heritage Tour humanized Vincent and Louise for me. They are not theoretical characters in a fable, they were real people with real lives and real problems. The life of Louise de Marillac hit home with me this trip. Louise’s life wasn’t easy. She was born out of wedlock and was considered second-class in her own family. She had a not-so-great marriage, and then ended up raising her children alone.
She was a changemaking lady, embracing all aspects of her humanity.
Her womanhood.
Louise didn’t always know what was going to come out of her life, but she made the best of it that she could. Louise did so much good for the world and her community and the poor people of Paris. But Louise also had to do good for herself. Louise painted. She saw beauty in the natural world around her. As one of our trip leaders, Georgie Torres-Reyes said, Louise was the kind of person who would pull over on the side of the road simply to pick a flower. Louise breathed. She learned to just ‘be’.
During this trip, I did a lot of flower picking. A lot of flower viewing. A lot of flower picture taking. Vincent and Louise were servant leaders that worked for systemic change, while caring about each individual person. This I knew going into this trip. This I knew matched my personal philosophy.
But I didn’t expect me to be profoundly in awe by the flowers in Versailles. Or by the foggy countryside in the backdrop of Folleville where Vincent originally asked, “What Must be Done?” Or by the silence filling a full church of Parisians praying to St. Louise 400 years after her death. I didn’t expect to be in awe by the beauty of simplicity.
This trip made me slow down in a way that shocked me. It opened my eyes to the ways that us student leaders can burn ourselves out, inherently hurting ourselves and detracting from ‘the good fight’, if we never stop to, ya know, smell the roses.
It opened my eyes to opening my eyes. Appreciating the flowers. Taking photos of things that make my heart want to burst. Writing about the people and places and spaces that have formatively shaped me. Sitting in a chair and feeling the sun in every pore of my body. Breathing. Living for a moment just to ‘be’.
Vincent and Louise did a lot of good. Enough good that we’re still talking about it 400 years later. Enough good that it is inherent in the work us DePaul students are doing, whether we realize (or want to admit it) or not.
But they also lived and breathed and struggled and wrote and painted and saw the world in front of them and appreciated it along with all the people in it.
“What must be done?” is a profoundly simple question with an unlimited number of debatable answers. It’s philosophical and theoretical, yet practical and ordinary. What must be done in our own communities? What must be done for our neighbor? What must be done for those who are so marginalized that our lives never cross geographic paths?
It’s a question we are trained, as DePaul students, to ask without falter. This trip has shown me how these questions must be asked in an idealistic way. We must work for our ideals in order to move the arc of the moral universe closer to justice. We must ask these questions in the classroom and in our jobs, but also in our personal relationships, and to ourselves.
We must take care of each other. We must take care of our community and our world without falter.
We must take care of ourselves.
I’m glad I didn’t go into Paris with any aerial expectations. I truly absorbed the city through my experiences, and learned of the beautiful simplicity that my good friends Vinny and Louise are always talkin’ about.
I learned to breathe and to be, and I could not have without the people, places, and spaces who have formatively shaped me.
