Today is the best day
of your life. Today is a culmination of what you have learned from your beginnings
and on up to this present day. Life is what one makes of it and the influences
that are accumulated along the way. The path that one takes to get here is a unique
path that only that one individual can travel alone. No two life’s experiences
are ever going to be the same. This is
what I have learned so far from my Portland State University class on
Mobilizing Hope, a class that was created by Deborah Smith Arthur, Assistant
Professor. I say this also because of the assigned readings:
- Loeb, Paul: The Impossible Will Take a Little While 978-0465041664
- DeYoung, Curtis Paul Living Faith 978-0800638412
- Taylor, Adam Mobilizing Hope
These selected readings
had a great influence on what I felt was a good insight into becoming a mystic
activist, one who with the faith in their god and or religion could be
motivated to overcome all obstacles in their way, even if it meant their own
deaths in the process of achieving their human rights goals. These types of
individuals included the likes of Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, San Suu Kyi,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dalai Lama, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi,
Mother Teresa and so many others to name. These books told stories of their
struggles and what it took to have enough faith in their beliefs to motivate
them to do what ever it took to help their own people who were on the margins
of society to have a fair chance at justice in this world. This kind of course
can be a great motivator for change in ones life if one will embrace some of
the stories that were covered amongst the pages of the required readings. There
is a strong focus on religious faith as being a motivator for helping to
mobilize ones hope which causes one to do what these great people have done to
right the wrongs to people that are in the margins of our society and to make
this a better world for all of mankind. I
as a individual may never rise to the level of these great people but maybe in
some small way can be spurred to make a small contribution of giving back to
people that may need my talents. I am a artist attending Portland State
University to obtain my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree so that I may become a
professional painter and in doing so, I have had the opportunity to volunteer
my services through the Mobilizing Hope course to help others. I have proudly donated my time to help
wherever and whenever I can at the Janus Youth Programs, Inc. in Woodburn,
Oregon, which was organized by Kathleen Fullerton, MSed. I am working with a talented group of young
men that just needed a little bit of guidance and are now creating great art on
their own. What I have enjoyed in working with these young men is their own
self -motivation into to the world of art making. I could walk away and these
men would still be creating great works of art on their own. This kind of
motivation is what I love to see in people who have a desire to want to learn.
The desire was always there it was simply just having the opportunity to do so.
What I also carry away from this experience is creating a very nice
inter-relationship with these guys with the hope that these relationships will
last because they all have made a lasting impression on myself. Before I
started working with the Janus Group, I had no idea of all of the volunteer
programs and all of the dedicated people it took to make this, such a
successful program. I can now see that well before I had taken this course that
there were already in place many people with a mystic activist attitude about
helping others. People like Kathleen Fullerton and my very own instructor
Deborah Smith Arthur for which I am in awe of their accomplishments for their
unselfish dedication to what they believe in. It is people like this that has
motivated me to try harder and to try and do more than I have done in the past
but I can also say that I will never become as dedicated and committed as all
of these people have become and who will continue to be an inspiration to
people as myself.
I am a student in a class at Portland State
University in Portland Oregon and took a class in social organizing with an
emphasis on how one uses one faith in how one treats others in everyday life.
This has been an interesting experience for me because I am no longer a
Christian follower but I am a spiritual person. My basic Christian roots and believes
have not changed and I still apply my faith to everything that I do. When it
comes to people I still have a strong compassion for how I treat people, as I
would want to be treated. This is a testament on how this course and readings
have affected my future outlook going forward in my life, this was good for me
to experience.
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