Keep on Living

Today was Day 1 of leadership on the beautiful island of Crete. I was excited to refocus and get in the right mindset for this learning portion of our trip. Our lecture this morning was given by Garrett who spoke about the Power of Living. First we split into community groups to discuss what it really means to live. My group had so many great ideas and I enjoyed listening to each person’s opinion about what was important to them. Afterwards we read a powerful article about a man named James Shepherd whose horrible surfing accident and tough recovery inspired him to open The Shepherd Center, a catastrophic care hospital in Atlanta. One of the takeaway points of the story was persistence even in difficult situations and it helped illustrate a theory that Garrett presented: it either takes an incident or a tragedy to truly live life; sometimes called tragic optimism which leads to reevaluating one’s life. Robbie gave us three things that he strives for in travel and life in general: be intentional, be aware, be grateful. After sharing personal stories about this topic, we watched the film Darius Goes West. Even though I have seen it multiple times it still makes me laugh and cry every time. After the movie, we walked to a local cemetery. It really was one of the most beautiful cemeteries I’ve ever seen. It was small and surrounded an adorable little church. I loved how it was set up. All the graves were above ground and made of white marble. Each one was different and most of them were decorated with flowers, pictures, and letters. Some had glass keepsake boxes with various personal things inside. This is where we ended the lecture with an activity call the Dash Project. Basically this was a way to examine our lives by writing about what we plan to do with “the Dash in the Middle” which represents our live from birth to death. Visually it is the – between the two dates on our tombstone. It was a powerful activity that really made us think hard about what matters most in life. Today was very emotional and I believe everyone was a little shaken by the reflection, atmosphere, and location within the cemetery. I really enjoyed writing and reading mine out loud. If I wasn’t so verbose, I would insert my entire Dash in the Middle Project here but I’ve already said enough. So I will end with the last two sentences of my Dash assignment: “I want to use the whole dash- no dotted lines. I want my life to be made up of moments and memories that I’ll never forget until the end of my Dash.”

Jenna Chancey