While corps members spend their days Monday through Thursday volunteering at one of our partner organizations, on Fridays we gather (virtually for now) for faith formation. In the fall we use this time for a course in servant leadership. For us, servant leadership means finding a balance between life’s inward journey and outward journey. The outward journey being the work of social justice, peace, and equity that we want to see in our communities and society. But we believe that in order to do that work really well you also have to take the journey inward, or as Annie Dillard beautifully puts it, “ride the monsters down.” Great inner work precedes great outer work.
So we’re offering a short series of video blogs from JSC alumni reflecting on the lessons they learned in servant leadership and how it continues to resonate with them years later. First up is Brother Aidan Owen. Aidan was a member of our program in 2008-2009 and 2009-2010. He is now a monk at Holy Cross Monastery in New York.