Service Blog 3

Nicholas Zwobot

Dr. Ellis

11 October 2017

Blog 3

My Time at Catholic Heart Work Camp

            Giving time to serve is one of the best feelings one can have. The only factor that can make this experience more beautiful is when you do service for God. I was able to not only give my time to help others, but I did it in an area that was surrounded by God and by those who loved God.  My entire time serving, I was there helping those who have been affected by natural disasters, or hardships, or even just by the fact that they no longer can do anything for themselves due to injury or illness. My days were filled with either these service adventures or spending time as large groups thanking God for all he has done. Although the service was hard work, every instance had a story book ending, because at the end of the week, our projects were finished and the smiles on the faces of those who have received said projects were nothing but extraordinary.

            First, I would start by comparing this trip to the poem Cincinnati. Even though this poem is different from the experience that I had faced during my trip, this poem sadly correlates all to well with the people of New Orleans. Many years had passed since the devastating storm, Katrina, decimated much of Louisiana, but the people who were still living in this impoverished area still felt the pain. These people, like narrator of this poem are alone. Even though the narrator says “Everyone knows me”. He says that everyone knows his face, but not him as a person. In a similar situation, everyone knows the faces of those still affected. The sad fact is, when it comes time to coming face to face with these people and helping them, they become a face in the crowed. Another saddening aspect of this was many people still feel as if they are unsafe to help those in this area. People take race as a factor as to why there is no hope to help them. Many of the people living in this area told our work group that people do not help them because they are afraid. I see that in the poem, because I see as if race stems from fear, because many people do not know how to react when they see a face or color unlike their own. This is seen in the poem, when the narrator says “No one knew me. No one except one hissing voice that said dirty Jap”. The disheartening fact, is this view of others still has yet to change, and people do not seem to even want to correct their wrongs.

            I feel as if the story The Cask of Amontillado and My Papa’s Waltz, seemingly are a cause and effect when it comes to the area that I had completed my service. The reason that I see these two works stack up that way, is due to the hardships faced and anger people feel. People see that the storm was a punishment or beating that they did not deserve, which fits My Papa’s Waltz. The people are then very angry by what has happened, and want to seemingly punish God, by turning their back on him, which would be similar to the revenge sought out in The Cask of Amontillado. In My Papa’s Waltz, many quotes such as the mentioning of death, beating, and holding on can be used to describe the innocent people affected by this disastrous storm. So many people were hanging on for dear life to just miss death, and or taking the beating handed out by the storm. Those affected were the child, that was being beaten ruthlessly in the poem My Papa’s Waltz.

            These same children that held on, blamed there “Papa” or God for the harsh and unfair beating that they had to withstand with no reasoning. Many people were left with nothing except harsh memories of the storm and scares that forced them to remember what had happened. To this day they still feel as if turning from God is a way of getting revenge. At the end of the story when we are told that the act of sealing Fortunato in and leaving him for death has happened fifty years ago, correlates with the testimonies of many people. Forgiveness is not in their hearts similar to Montresor, who plans and executes his revenge on Fortunato. Both situations are heart breaking, because both situations can be fixed merely through the act of forgiveness, but in an imperfect world, people learn to enact revenge before the thought of forgiveness crosses their mind.

            All three stories correlate well with the attitudes of those that were affected. The one difference is none of these stories have happy endings. Those that were helped by this service project do have happy endings, because some people were given many different, but useful gifts. At the end, you could almost see in their eyes, the love and potential forgiveness. They almost saw the work we had done as an olive branch from God.