Leaving Los Angeles

This is the letter I wrote to my community in LA. I meant every word of it. So all you Champaign folks, get ready for a different Sam when I get there on the 6th:


To my fellow community members,
As you all know, my time here at the Los Angeles Catholic Worker has come to an end. And what can I say? This is a beautiful place that I am very sorry to have to leave. Honestly, I would be committing to another year if I had not fell in love with Allison. Life is a mysterious thing, it is impossible to live it exactly how you plan to. But yet when plans change it is always a blessing.
I have learned so much from every person in this community. You will always be my role models, my mentors, my heroes, and of course, my friends.
Through out my childhood and early adulthood I was always a Christian. Not particularly because I wanted to be but because I was born into it. Not that I didn't like being a Christian, I did. But it was just a part of who I was. I went to church, I enjoyed it sometimes. But my faith was bland. The problem was I was talking the talk but I wasn't walking the walk. The "pursuit for personal holiness" that most Christians in our country seek didn't really get me fired up. I always thought that there must be so much more to being like Christ than just trying as hard as I can to be perfect. As I sang worship songs in church I didn't "feel" anything the way the people around me did with their hands in the air the way a toddler does when they want to be held. I had a deep skepticism of christian book stores who made money off of God. But I didn't have the radical Christian teachers who could affirm the problems I had with my faith.
Other Christians are born again. I was born again and then I was born a third time when I found the Catholic Worker. Both times were significant points in my spirituality. And there is no way I would be were I am today if it wasn't for this group of people. So thank you for being willing to teach me and for giving me that priceless gift. Of all the things that this community does I think the one thing that is most important is the mentoring and teaching that you have done for so many Catholic Workers.
I remember the first day that I showed up at the kitchen. It is a memory that I will never forget. To you guys I was just another newbie volunteer who needed so much instruction. But for me, I went away from that first day of work knowing that I had found something very special. I still think that today. This place, this house, this kitchen, they are all very special places. So as I go I want to encourage you to remember when you go to the kitchen and you have 15 new faces and you think "oh shit", just remember that one of them might be your newest community member.
I may be going off to Illinois to be a jet mechanic. I may be many things through out my life but no matter what I do I will always be able to say that I AM a Catholic Worker. Just as I can always say I AM a Christian. And if it wasn't for this group of people I might have never been able to say that. So once again, Thank You.

Grace and Peace,
Sam