Early on during our cohort's pre-service training (PST), we were asked to write a creative piece starting with the words, "I am." The following is my response to that invitation; I hope that readers are able to glean something from it, as one trainee's perspective out of thirty-four.
"I am a thinker, a doer, a dreamer, a poet
A curious heart and a curious mind
Bent on to know and to serve and to love
"I am a woman, a daughter and friend,
A singer of songs to redeem and to mend
The truth in my heart, through sorrow and pain,
Reaches out to grab the hand of a friend
Through something as simple as grasping a pen
"I've walked and I've traveled, not so far as some,
But I know that our journey has barely begun
Together we stumble, tomorrow we leap
Over boundaries and fences that we used to keep
Distant
Separate
Different still, but stronger together, learning to love no matter the weather because service from any other motive loses connection; the value of grace is in the generous giving of ourselves, out of our places of comfort to joy, of knowing the other and being known fully."
Inspired in part by 1 Corinthians 13, roughly and partially transcribed below:
"If I can speak all the languages of the earth and of angels, but have not love, I am noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
"If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries or possess all knowledge, and have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
"If I give everything I have to the poor and give over my body to hardship, I could boast about it, but if I do not have love, I gain nothing.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
"But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."