‘a little less ruined than’
by Peter Graf

The Jesuit Volunteer Corp (JVC) informal credo is ruined for life. JVC volunteers work with the poor for one or two years and live in community, frequently soon after college graduation. The story goes that a parent who saw her son return from the JVC experience aware of the poor and changed, coined the phrase “ruined for life”.

Sometimes I and a few friends educated by the Jesuits and experienced with the poor feel like we too have been “ruined for life.” My Jesuit education and work with the poor motivates me, but often puts me at odds with Jesuit institutions. When I was a student at Marquette in the 60’s I fought for opening the school to minorities. Now I struggle to stop Marquette from teaching war.

My ruined fate started at a Jesuit high school in Milwaukee, Marquette University High School. I so believed in the mission of the Jesuits to put living the “way of Jesus” into everyday life that after high school I entered the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. After the successful struggle against “institutional racism” at Marquette I left the Jesuit order, but still kept the spirit of the Society of Jesus.

Being “ruined for life” gives me cover for my persistent advocating for peace and justice and the poor. It might mean giving a child and her mother a ride to the dentist, or it might mean writing a letter to the Marquette Tribune about how Marquette is the Only Jesuit Catholic University in the country that hosts base schools of the Army, Navy/Marines and Air Force that train military officers for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I did both today since I am “ruined for life”.

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