Running head: FINDING JOY

Initial Reflection: Finding Joy at Misericordia

Maggie Marx
EXPL 390: Social Justice Internship
Loyola University Chicago
Andrew Miller

January 25, 2016

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Part I: Past, Present and Future at Misericordia

Before beginning this assignment, I decided to review my journal entries from my first
weeks at Misericordia. I have a personal belief that you cannot make new goals for yourself
until you reflect on how far you have come. My first week at Misericordia was filled with
anxiety and awkwardness. I remember not realizing how nervous I was until I had close to a
panic attack the morning of my second day of work. In my journal reflection of the second week
I wrote, I acknowledge that this job will not be easy, but will be worth it (I hope). It did not
take long to realize how much worth this job has in my life. It surpasses a job in many ways.
Misericordia has become a community for me. Going into the position, I thought I was supposed
to be an assistanta teacherbut instead, I have been more of a student than anything else. I
have learned an unmentionable number of things. I have not only learned to care for and talk to
people with disabilities, I have learned to love them and find joys in their joy. The awkwardness
and anxiety of the first couple weeks at Misericordia faded away quickly, and I have found
comfort. I look forward to going to work and am able to leave the small details of my life behind
as I enjoy my time with the residents.
Although I have grown tremendously in my position in the Recreation and Leisure
Department, I want to challenge myself and continue to grow. This semester, I took on a
different schedule, which has allowed me to assist different classes than the first semester. While
I initially did this due to a change in my Loyola schedule, I was happy with my decision because
it will allow me to interact with different groups of residents and observe and assist with
different activities than last semester. My internship is unique to others in the Social Justice
Internship Program because it is rather static. My class schedule remained the same throughout
the entire first semester. I stayed with the same residents doing the same activities week by

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week. I enjoyed the stability because it allowed me to get to know each resident individually.
While I have grown up knowing that every person in the world is unique, the people at
Misericordia have proven this to be true over and over again. No degree of disability is the
same, anddespite their disabilitythe residents at Misericordia have their own likes and
dislikes, hobbies and favorites, quirks and talents. They are people who find joy in their lives
every day, and in turn I have found joy in their joys. I look forward to starting a new schedule in
order to find more joy in more residents every day.
However, I know this will be a challenge as well. I said before that I became comfortable
quickly at Misericordia. I learned how to talk to and care for each resident in an individual and
special way. With new classes and residents, I will have to start over in some way. I will
continue to use the skills I obtained from the first semester, but will create new relationships with
new people. Beyond forming these relationships, assisting with new classes (dance, bowling,
and adapted sports) requires some new training and skills in order to assist residents in the best
and most caring way possible.
In addition to changing my schedule and working with new staff members in the
department, I will be teaching my own class this semester. At the end of last semester, with some
encouragement from Sarah my supervisor, I asked Gail if I could start teaching a tap class. I will
begin teaching this class in a couple weeks after getting to know the residents in the class. I
taught tap classes throughout high school so I am excited to use some of those old skills in a new
way. It may be difficult for me to adapt my teaching style and tap combinations, but I look
forward to the challenge. When I met the residents this last week, they were already anxious to
start, which was encouraging. I think my anxiety and awkwardness during my first weeks at

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Misericordia in September pushed me to learn and adapt quickly. By challenging myself in new
ways, I will continue to grow exponentially and expand myself in unique ways.
Apart from my own personal challenges to growth, I also continue to learn new practical
knowledge as well. I have found in working with Sarahwho has been at Misericordia for
many yearsshe uses terminology I am unfamiliar with. This week alone she said positioning
and isolation, neither of which I was familiar with in regards to the population that lives at
Misericordia. Any time I am unfamiliar with a term or cannot figure out what it means in
context, I ask about it as soon as it is appropriate. Sarah has been an excellent mentor in this
way. With her years of experience, she explains things to me easily, which implements my
learning extensively.
In addition to my personal growth, my internship at Misericordia has implications for my
future professional work. Since I was seventeen years old, I have had my future decently set in
stone. For the last four years, I have been working toward the ultimate goal of a Masters of
Social Work/Juris Doctorate (MSW/JD) degree. I plan to be a public defender for youth in the
Juvenile Justice system. Ever since I decided to be a lawyer, I knew that I wanted to work in the
Juvenile Justice field and have never considered anything different. I would not go as far to say
that Misericordia has changed my professional goals in any way. However, my supervisors have
given me positive feedback a number of times in regards to the way I interact with and care for
residents. It is definitely something I have acknowledged in myself after my first few weeks. I
do think I have a talent with the population that lives at Misericordia, and I truly find joy in my
work there. Working with youth in the justice system will be challenging, but it will be
rewarding. I may not always find joy in my profession every day as I do now at Misericordia.
After reading and reviewing Palmers (2007) A New Professional, I do worry about burnout

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working within powerful institutionsand my ability to appropriately use my emotions in the

field to excel. I hope by the end of the semester, I can figure out how to incorporate my
experiences at Misericordia into my future life, especially to assuage some of my concerns about
working in a challenging field. I have already talked to Sarah about the possibility of continuing
to volunteer after this year is over. If nothing else, this experience has taught me about the
various levels and abilities/challenges of people living with disabilities. This is something that I
will continue to encounter both in my professional and personal life. I will be able to use the
knowledge I have obtained at Misericordia forever. Maybe I will even do some pro bono legal
representation on the side, who knows!
I mentioned briefly how my experience at Misericordia has been reciprocal thus far.
Even though I walked in thinking I was doing some form of service or good for the residents at
Misericordia, I walk out of work every day thankful for the good they do in my life. By the end
of my time at Misericordia, I hope that I have left a small print on some lives in the organization.
I have seen the joy in the residents eyes when they see it is my day to work. One resident in
particular always wants to know when I am working next. When I was gone for a month over
break, Sarah told me that many of the residents asked where I was. I see these as signs that I am
making an impact. I also hope that my tap class is a tangible way that the organization will grow
or change, and perhaps it is something that can continue even after I leave.
To conclude this first section of the reflection, I would summarize my growth at
Misericordia with two words: joy and faith. I have spoken extensively about joy, but not about
faith. During my fall semester, I began a process to re-identify with my Catholic identity.
Although I was born into the Catholic faith, I have neglected it by choice for a number of years.
At the beginning of the semester, I met a Jesuit scholastic who lived in a Larche community for

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a few months. We bonded over our passion and experiences working with adults with
disabilities. I started to meet with him a couple times over the course of the semester about my
faith journey as well as my time at Misericordia. Something he said to me in one of our first
meetings still stands out to me today. He said, Maggie, I dont think youre going to find God
just by going to church every Sunday. I think youve already found God in the residents at
Misericordia. He was entirely correct. Last semester was challenging for a number of reasons,
and I know this one is going to be even more difficult. However, I hope I continue to see God
and joy in the lives of every resident at Misericordia, and through this, it will continue to
challenge me to grow and learn.
Part II: Pieces of a Vision
In the first few pages of the tenth chapter of Soul of a Citizen: Living with conviction in
challenging times, Paul Loeb (2010) discusses the creation of a good society and what that
means. In my opinion, justice, accountability, balance, cohesiveness and care are all necessary to
create a livable and good society. Loeb (2010) writes, a good society fosters community in all
forms (p. 259). At Loyola and at Misericordia, the word community is used relentlessly.
Ultimately, I think community is a synonym for a good society, or at least it should be.
Communities require accountability, care, cohesiveness, and balance to function appropriately.
Perhaps most importantly, communities require justice.
In a community, justice can manifest in a number of ways. Again the words care and
accountability come to mind, but beyond those values, justice screams equality. For me, social
justice is about ensuring the human rights of every individual equally, while celebrating,
validating, and educating about diversity. Misericordia continues to prove to me that every
individual is unique, and regardless of how difficult a situation, a moment, or a life might be,

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there is always room for joy. The joy and uniqueness of every person must be celebrated,
acknowledged and encouraged in a socially just community. In my current position as a resident
assistant at Loyola and as an intern at Misericordia, the line between life and work is blurry.
However, both Loyola and Misericordia take a stand for social justice in their communities in
some way or another, though there is always room for growth. They function with the main goal
of making their communities a home for their residents. The value that informs this goal for me
which informs the definition of social justice as wellis care. At Loyola, we live under the
Jesuit value of Cura Personalis, and at Misericordia, every staff member strives to care for the
resident, not just as a person with a disability, but as a person first.
I will strive to pursue a person-first attitude in my future work in juvenile justice. Loeb
(2010) touches on how Virginia Ramirez believes human dignity is embodied in the ways we
treat our children (p. 258). This statement summarizes the reason why I want to go into juvenile
justice even better than I could summarize it. There is no arguing that children are the faces of
the future, but sometimes children mess up and commit crimes. Most often, these children come
from broken homes and challenging communities. They are the children that deserve the most
help and it is our job to validate their human dignity. By doing so, the people of the future will
be capable to create a better more just society. People learn by example, and an ethic of care is
contagious. In my future work, I will carry my experiences at Misericordia with me forever. I
will act with care, joy, and a continued desire to challenge not only myself, but others as well.
In an ideal world, social justice ensures that every person starts on the same rung of the
ladder and has the same opportunity to move up the ladder. I am not hopeful this ideal world can
ever exist, but this does not mean I will not stop working towards it. Just as Virginia Ramirez
says in Loebs (2010) book, Maybe the things were working on todaywont bring about

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changes for years. But its just as important that we do them (p. 261). I will continue to work
for the future with a vision of accountability, not only for myself but also for the people
around me (p. 216). It is only in doing this that we can be one step closer to an ideal world that
is a socially just, equitable, caring and good society.

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9
References

Loeb, P. (2010). Pieces of a Vision. In Soul of a citizen: Living with conviction in challenging
times (2nd ed., pp. 257-263). New York: St. Martins Griffin.
Palmer, P. (2007, November-December). A New Professional: The Aims of Education Revisited.
Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 6-12.