To Prospective Applicants [Or: Family and Brokenness]

Good day.
Today I would like to address you who are considering joining SPIRITUS in the coming year.

Perhaps you've heard that SPIRITUS is a "retreat youth evangelization team" based out of Menasha, Wisconsin. That we put on about one hundred fifty retreats over the last nine months. That we reached about 6,000 young people this year. That we live in community. We work in community. We eat in community. We pray in community... We do a lot of stuff in community.

To some extent, I don't know what else to tell you. As you may have been told already, "you just have to come and experience it to find out what it's like."

But I want to tell you, for me personally, it's been a rollercoaster. I don't think we would gain anything by pretending that every moment of every day has been a bed of roses. It's been difficult. In other jobs, you work for 8 hours a day, then you go home to your dog or other people. But we live with each other and often spend upwards of 15 hours a day together.

We intimately know each other's weaknesses and faults; each other's quirks, pet peeves, and habits; in a word, we know each other's brokenness. And sometimes I want nothing more than to go to my own room and get away from the family.


But that’s what it is: a family. In the midst of the frustrations and conflict, there is always a sense of family. In the last nine months, each of us has grown immensely as persons. In the words of my spiritual director, I have learned so much about myself because of the difficulties of living in this family – and thank God! Because of this family, I am a better man than I was a year ago. I am wiser, stronger, and OH so much humbler because of what I have learned about myself and my faults which have been made very clear to me. I have a family who I know will always be here for me, who for nine months has become my blood, and who has called me to a higher standard, held me accountable to that standard, and sometimes even dragged me when I didn't want to live up to that standard.

SPIRITUS is my family. “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Rom 8:18) St. Paul is referring to the glory of heaven, but it’s also our temporal lives.
Yes, SPIRITUS was hard. I was hard-hearted. Jealous. Angry. Prideful. Even hateful… But my family loves me, and the difficulties we have all faced in this time are absolutely nothing compared to the beauty and glory - the family - that we have received.

If you’re on the fence, I cannot urge you enough. Sign up now. It will be hard and there will be times you will want to quit. But it couldn’t be more worth it.

Sam
spiritussam@gmail.com
facebook.com/theafrosam