"Come here friend, and listen to my story"

Well, admittedly, this was the topic I hoped I would get to write about...but now I am actually facing the daunting task at hand, staring at a white sheet of paper with that obnoxious cursor blinking, and not sure entirely what to write about. I’m sure that this is a common feeling, especially in this group, but I often catch myself doing laps in my head about different justice topics...Chemical Warfare in Syria, healthcare in politics, food ethics in general, GMOs labeling in Washington, guns everywhere, rape in Guatemala, international development ethics in Egypt/everywhere, women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, etc. I struggled in deciding what or how to even approach writing a blog on justice. WHAT THE HECK DOES JUSTICE EVEN MEAN? For example, a friend and I were talking a few weeks ago about guns. We both are fighting for a world  where we can feel safe and violent discrimination does not occur...but this friend felt the need to buy a gun to protect himself. Same ends (arguably...ish), but different means to the end. His interpretation of justice is so far different than mine, but not… It is the conversations like these and the government shutdown that I go around in circles like a Looney Tunes cartoon and seemingly burn up the carpet by doing so. I’ll save this for a dissertation later though...

So then I thought about what would be helpful for us to be thinking about as we prepare for departure/arrival soon. The more I thought about it...the more I was able to revel in actual questions of justice that don’t seem too overwhelming (correction, are a bit more approachable to think about, not a ton easier though, ha), but also will result in less of a rant and hopefully a good reminder.

The justice of listening.

It was a few months ago, and I was sitting in a small legal office with peach walls. A 26 year old mother who didn’t have an education beyond the 5th grade sat before me with her hands in her lap nervously tugging on the plastic bag she had brought with her. We began asking her a few questions to which she quickly replied with short answers in a staccato-like voice. Then we asked her why her voice mattered...why her identity as a woman empowered her instead of made her inferior in society..why women have and deserve rights. Her voice changed from the high-pitched nervous replies to a strong, steady voice, with an unwavering reply. The interview suddenly became a chance for her to open up and express her thoughts. The answers were inspiring, and the tone of the interview changed. Her dreams of becoming a lawyer to how she was raising her daughter to be an empowered woman...It was a really beautiful, encouraging, hope-filled interview to witness.

I was quite fortunate to sit in on several of these interviews, but equally as many where women were just beginning to talk about their stories and the different injustices they had experienced. Basically, it was a chance for them to give a testimony of sorts, but it was also an incredible experience of listening and receiving and witnessing. This honest, vulnerable, truth-filled conversation brought both sides, from two completely different social locations (me being, well, me, and the woman being a Guatemalan), into a room to share stories and accompany each other. The root meanings of accompaniment literally mean to share bread together...to come to a table seeking to find equality and mutuality to create community. This is a step...but it isn’t enough.

Another story that has been highly impactful was Magé, my professor and friend in Argentina. We were in class, having a conversation around the US’s role in the Dirty War, which lead to a broader conversation around the voice, or lack thereof, that people from the Global South have. She stared us in the eye and beseeched us to use this opportunity of living abroad to learn, marinate, listen, and understand. As US citizens with the privilege of an education, the US passport, and countless other privileged identities, we have a voice that echoes and that is listened to in a corporate, capitalistic, monetary-driven world. Thus, it becomes part of our responsibility as women and men for others to be not only compassionate and open to listening, but to choose to move in the world differently to honor the stories and the people that have walked with us as we have walked with them. It becomes our responsibility to commit to acting as advocates for the voiceless and to empower them. This is an honor and a privilege to sit in the kitchens of mothers and grandmothers, to sit at the dinner table with fathers and grandfathers, to witness children learning and playing. Listening is a step, but I pray and hope that the justice of listening (the receiving and the telling) doesn’t just stop there, but changes the way we move in the world.

I hope this doesn’t sound like a privileged white person trying to use and abuse the inevitable power that my social location grants me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m such a huge advocate of self-reflection and understanding the doors that are opened virtually automatically to me with who I am/look like/come from. Yet, I just want to push a bit further to see what sphere of influence I have...what circles of power I can step foot in and start advocating in. Listening is the first step towards creating change.

So, a few parting questions for reflection:

How do I imagine listening and starting up conversations with the community I will be living in--both in the JVC house and the towns/cities?

How will I enter into conversations with my shoes off, humbly, and with my feet grounded?

What have I learned from previous service/accompaniment experiences? What has been positive? What has been tough?

And...this is a lofty one that I don’t necessarily want to impose or say...but going to anyways. Ha. How do I imagine honoring the stories and relationships I will make in the future?

Justice and Forgiveness?

“Social justice” is a large topic (understatement of the year?). Knowing I had to write this post, I’ve been thinking about which sub-topic I would choose to make it a little more manageable. Recent events in my life have led me to ponder the complexities of forgiveness more than usual. Do forgiveness and justice have a relationship? I thought this would be a smaller topic to tackle and turns out, it’s absolutely not. Bare with me while I attempt to unpack a tiny piece of it.

For the sake of context or understanding me without thinking I’m totally crazy, I hope some of you can relate to my experience of “best friend turned more turned ambiguous complicated relationship turned all out failure.” Without using the actual words, we’ve both decided it’s healthiest for us to walk away right now, and boom: broken relationship. What are the roles of forgiveness here, on both sides of the equation? How does forgiveness in my personal life relate to forgiveness of larger, systemic injustice issues, if at all?

In my experience, forgiveness has not been one of the “social justice buzzwords,” and I feel like it should have a greater presence. I believe that social justice begins with right relationship, and forgiveness is a definite step in the direction of forming right relationship. Right relationships are formed when the dignity of each human being is recognized and upheld, at the very least. If I am not in right relationship with those closest to me, how can I preach or work for a stronger global community to live in right relationship to create a more just society for the future?

As I was working on this post, I got a little caught in my head so I e-mailed one of my mentors at Xavier. He reminded me that though forgiveness is a two-way street, it is a three party relationship: forgiver, forgiven, healer (God). In my recent situation, I had been trying to feel the effects of forgiveness solely through my intellect and with God, leaving out the other person entirely, and it wasn’t working (surprise!). Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” It may take longer than we would hope in our personal relationships for all parties to offer/accept forgiveness (though God is always ready and willing immediately, once we ask) because it doesn’t work on our time schedule. Forgiveness is ultimately God’s to give; forgiveness does not “belong” to us.

We don’t get to decide to forgive and then magically have everything snap into good-standing. (Bummer.) Similarly, justice does not “belong” to us, either. That is also God’s to give, but these gifts are channeled through us as beings in relationship with one another. As Dean Brackley said, “Healing, liberating forgiveness is a gift we cannot force. If it comes ultimately from God, however, it normally comes through others. It is channeled by people who accept and forgive us in their own human way.”

Like our own personal relationships, in many situations in need of social justice, there’s often a lot of hurt present; if forgiveness and justice are not ours to ultimately give on our own, how can we help heal or work towards an elimination of that hurt? Why do we work for social justice? How do we be that channel? We can pray for God’s healing mercy. I feel like this piece is often lost in a lot of talk regarding social justice, yet is so important if we are to move forward in a stronger, more loving, more just world. We focus on issues that lead to the problems of injustice, and we focus on creating relationships and solidarity with those suffering, but do we talk about the forgiveness needed to help heal all involved? One article I found stated it well:

… Justice focuses not on the past but on the future--on building a just future characterized by peace, by shalom, which means not mere absence of conflict and harm but positive well-being, a world in right relationship. ... 

Forgiveness, as we’ve been describing it, is virtually the same thing. It works by     maintaining a basic sense of community with the rest of the human race and by     looking forward, even when there is little encouragement from the data, to a time when    others will join us in God’s household for the creation of a new world. Justice seeks the    world of shalom, the life of the age to come. It will do nothing that would make such a     world impossible. It will do anything that might actually bring it closer. It will even     forgive. Instead of dedicating ourselves, then, to the impossible task of getting the past     right, we find ourselves freed by forgiveness to live fully in the present and to begin    building something new and better.

My first reaction to reading something like this would probably be, okay, so what do I do now? More Dean Brackely helped me here:

The experience of acceptance and forgiveness empowers us to face our part in the evil of the world. The New Testament says that God offers this forgiveness no matter what we have done—not because we are good, but because God is good. People we have offended and other victims can mediate that healing and liberating news. Of course, it takes two to reconcile. Our part in the bargain includes admitting our faults and changing.

The doing item here, then, is being aware of and making changes to our own actions. That’s what we can do and can control. Another article I came across by a professor at Gonzaga University, stated: “Socially, both forgiveness and the disciplined process of reconciliation draw us into a crucible from which we can emerge more refined, more willing to see the heart of another, and more able to create just and lasting relationships.” If we can turn inward and learn to continually seek forgiveness in our current personal relationships, which are small (but important) in the grand scheme of the world, we can better learn seek it on a much larger scale, can be examples for others, and pray that reconciliation, healing, and a brighter future can take place through God’s granting.

Though we may live in a broken world with broken relationships, God’s love and God’s justice are perfect and always present. It is our job to be in right relationship with God and others so that we can be channels of that love and justice for those who need it. For now, I’ll start small by admitting my own faults and working on that change in my life, in hope of a brighter future for all.

Witnessing Faith

The idea of witnessing faith often brings up a checklist of what it means to be a “good Christian”: pray, read the Bible, reflect on spiritual writings, attend church, etc. These items are wonderful if they are viewed as the fruit of faith; however, they are vastly insufficient as the foundation and fuel for faith. 

The problem for me is that far too often these “good Christian activities” just become something else to strike off my to-do list. When I get attached to the idea that I can fuel my faith by my own actions, I become entrenched in a perfectionistic, self-centered and control-craving mindset.  The theological problem with this version of faith is that the focus is on what I do and not on what God has done for me.  And the practical problem is that this type of checklist faith becomes dry, brittle and boring very quickly. 

In contrast, the faith that I read about in the Bible is passionate, adventure-filled and mysterious.  For example, faith led David to slay a giant, Daniel to fight lions, Esther to stand up to the King and countless prophets and apostles to travel to the ends of the earth.  That’s the kind of faith that I want! And I love the definition given in Hebrews 11:1 that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  What a beautiful, profound mystery!

So what’s the difference between a checklist faith and the living, active faith that I see in the Bible? I think the key is found in Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”  Therefore, when God is truly at the center of my life and His love and grace are the fuel for everything that I do, then I will have the kind of faith that I desire. That faith will undoubtedly blossom into the fruit of powerful prayer, a passion for God’s word, meaningful reflections and a longing to worship with other believers.  What a wonderful witness to God’s goodness that fruit-bearing faith will be!

Finding grace, faith and love in loneliness

I started writing this post several days ago on the subject of loneliness: a feeling that friends and family here have already moved on to a place that accepts and supports the idea of Mary in Tanzania and the absence of her physical body here, (even now!) as one to hang out with, connect with, and grow with.  Meanwhile, here I am still, waiting and reflecting and navigating pseudo-friendships made with newly acquainted co-workers whom I'll be ditching in just a few weeks when I stop working to spend more time with my family. It's a loneliness often comprised of feeling incomplete, impatient and downright sad about not knowing the plan of how all of the relationships with my closest friends will evolve.

Then, I recently had a conversation about receiving grace and thought I would change my post to that since the preceding paragraph seemed unsubstantial for the topic of 'witnessing faith'. What exactly is grace, you (hypothetically) ask? According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church- a resource which has been described to me as “in many ways, a greater necessity to read than the Bible,” (though, this is the first time since my 8^th grade Confirmation that I have used it)- grace is a participation in the life of God, otherwise defined as God's life within us. Grace, however, escapes our human experience; we cannot rely on our feelings or our works to know that we have received grace; we must rely on our faith.
     I experience faith as the 'letting go' of expectations, judgments and ideals to embrace our inner calling, the most relevant calling being the one to serve with JVC and leave our friends and family for two years.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes about faith in Buddhism and Christian practices in Living Buddha, Living Christ, emphasizing how we can practice faith:

Our faith must be alive, always growing, like a tree. It is our true religious experience that nourishes our faith and allows it to grow....For genuine awakening to be possible, we must let go of notions and concepts about nirvana, and about God. We must let go not just of our notions and concepts about the ultimate but also of our notions and concepts about things in the phenomenal realm. In Buddhist practice, we contemplate impermanence, non-self, emptiness, and interbeing to help us touch the phenomenal world more deeply, release our notions and concepts about things, and penetrate the heart of reality.

One way for faith to grow is through prayer, and the source of prayer is love. Back to the Catechism I found myself, reading on how a church filled with love is encouraged:

If the church was a body, it must have a Heart, and a Heart burning with LOVE...LOVE, IN FACT, IS THE VOCATION WHICH INCLUDES ALL OTHERS; IT'S A UNIVERSE OF ITS OWN, COMPRISING ALL TIME AND SPACE-IT'S ETERNAL! (caps copied from the text)

I didn't major in theology, or philosophy, or physics for that matter, so contemplating this universe of love that seems to collide with the phenomenal world that Thich Nhat Hanh writes about, is a daunting, then exhausting process. But, I've come to believe that God's love is the love being contemplated, and God's love comprises the grace that each of us are gifted with as we grow in our faith.

Just when I thought I could wrap up this rabbit-hole-of-a-post, I stumbled upon an article on love by Fr. Brendan Busse, S.J.,titled: Remain in Love: To Live Without Leaving.  Fr. Busse reflects on the the feelings of leaving; how leaving “feels like a sickness, like a pit in the stomach or an ache in my heart.” He goes on to say, “The complementarity of our temporal being and Love's eternal becoming is our only hope. Stay in my love and my love will stay in you.”
     Remember Jimmy's presentation about Pedro Arrupe? [Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.] When we are feeling lonely, struggling with unsure good-byes and passing through this time of transition with diplomatic, programmed responses to questions and comments that may harbor feelings of impatience, incompleteness and sadness as we anticipate the difficult good-byes still to come, we can be sure that we have love- love for those we are leaving, love for God, and above all, God's love in and with us throughout it all.

Fr. Busse concludes with:

I read once in a synagogue prayer book that, “We hate leaving, but God loves becoming.” To live without leaving is simply to remain in love’s becoming. To remain in this place is to know that nothing can come between us, and that love alone will fill the space of our longing. So when our heart aches and our friends are gone we do the only thing we ever ought to do – we remain in love.

So, I guess my original idea for this post related to the JVC pillar after all: this time of leaving can be opportune for witnessing faith by witnessing the love of God we find in our becoming as we grow in grace during times of loneliness.
...

I hope you find the time to read the article by Fr. Busse! I found it very thought-provoking and would love to hear your reflections on it, or anything in this post for that matter.  

Witnessing Faith

MY FRIENDS! Hi! How are you? I think of you all often. I hope you are well.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m going to post about witnessing faith. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to post so I searched for some videos and articles but came up empty handed.

I’m working on an organic urban farm close to my house in Cincinnati. The farm is 200 acres but we do most of the farming on 8. The “crew” is made up of 4 people- Me, Ellie, Gretchen, and Dan. We do most of the everyday garden work. We harvest vegetables (dudes- I picked green beans for like 2 hours today), we plant seeds, we take care of the gardens, we hoe, we use badass farm equipment, etc. Sometimes we talk to each other and have conversations and sometimes we don’t. The silence never feels awkward or cumbersome, but I sure do find myself humming a lot of really bad 90’s rap songs.

So today, while working—picking beans, actually, I was thinking about why I was having trouble posting about witnessing faith. And then I realized that it’s because “witnessing faith” is completely ambiguous, which shouldn’t have been a shocker, given the whole “embrace ambiguity” motif during orientation.  But with the ambiguity of faith, comes difficulty of communication. How can we express our faith to each other and to our communities when it is so interwoven with who we are and the work we have chosen to do? To talk about faith like it’s something separate from ourselves, like it’s something tangible might be impossible, for me, anyway.

I think we can witness our faith in every aspect of who we are. We can witness faith in the mere work we are about to embark, the people we are going to meet, this time of waiting and anticipation. I can find faith in the silence that sits between me, Ellie, Gretchen, and Dan. I can find faith in the ambiguity of faith itself. I think witnessing faith means opening your eyes, taking a step back and realizing that where you are, what you see, and who you’re talking to is in itself an act of trusting God (I’ll try to remember this tomorrow when I’m yelling at the hose for getting tangled into an impossible knot for the 40^th time).

Faith is literally everywhere. Recognizing it, however, becomes our responsibility, and our commitment as volunteers.

This, too, will pass...

...is a lens through which I have felt myself trying to view life, especially pertaining to specific situations that have come up these past few weeks.  As a few of you might remember, our fellow JV in Micronesia Chris Pieterick has this phrase tattooed on his body.  Thanks to Chris, Big-Orientation was the first time I had come into contact with this exact phrasing.  However, as profound as I knew it to be, it didn't shift my life in anyway during that first interaction.  Looking back, that quote alone was not enough to provide a formative moment in my life - I had not yet consciously used this framework to guide my thoughts and sensations during any particular life experience.

Lately, I've been reading A New Earth: Awakening to your life's purpose by Eckhart Tolle, which speaks to the idea of raising one's awareness of one's ego in order to begin cultivating a stronger relationship to the present as well as one's true presence.  This book, given to me as a graduation gift from a college professor, has been helpful to me in so many ways.  In regards to interacting with a difficult supervisor and the anger that would frequently arise within me this summer, I find myself reflecting back on what I might have recently read in this book.  For example, there's a section  called "Allowing the diminishment of the ego" that has been the most helpful.  In the section, Tolle says "one of the most common ego-repair mechanisms is anger, which causes a temporary but huge ego inflation."  One way to allow for the diminishment of the ego is "when someone criticizes you, blames you, or calls you names, instead of immediately retaliating or defending yourself - do nothing.  Allow the self-image to remain diminished and become alert to what that feels like deep inside you.  For a few seconds, it may feel uncomfortable, as if you had shrunk in size.  Then you may sense an inner spaciousness that feels intensely alive."  Let's be real, I may not know what it feels to be "intensely alive," but the "do nothing" part is what I practice when my supervisor unreasonably scolds me or criticizes me on my work.  

There are a few things about myself that I would like to improve; anger is one of them and the desire for recognition is another - both of which feed the ego.  However, throughout these past 2-3 weeks, after experiencing on-going difficulties with a supervisor, cars getting towed left and right, a record-breaking rise and fall of a potential short-term fling with a guy, accomplishing tasks well at my internship but feeling under-appreciated, the philosophy of This, too, will pass in addition to a growing awareness of my own ego have kept me grounded in the present.  I grapple with the sense that these are small, insignificant moments in my own life while half-way around the world, war is at Syria's doorstep.  I'm not sure if this lens is helpful for issues of that kind of magnitude - from an individual on the outside looking in - I guess what I mean when I bring this up is that this this philosophy does have some drawbacks...It's something personal that an individual needs to realize his/herself, not something to be forced upon another.

Just to wrap such a long and (probably) confusing blog post up, I thought it would be helpful to share what Tolle wrote about "This, too, will pass" and I invite you all to share your thoughts or moments when or if this lens might have been helpful for you.

How to Build a Super Fantastic Community

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all doing well with the in-between time! Its been a good, challenging, and fun phase for me so far, I hope the same goes for all of you.

As all of you know, I possess all of the knowledge there is to know about living in community (I’ve done one year in a JVC community, so pretty much an expert right here). Ok, maybe not, but I thought I’d list a few of the most helpful practices that I came across in the past year. Big shout out to Maddie, Edwin, and Rose for already doing great, thought-provoking posts on community, so I’ll try to keep this one short and sweet.

Pin pricks – Everyone has their pet peeves. Dirty dishes left in the sink, using the blender at 6am, leaving hair in the drain, you name it. Set aside a quick, intentional time to voice what’s getting on your nerves (in a non-accusatory, I-statement format, of course). It’s a great way to air out the little stuff so that it doesn’t turn in to the big stuff. If there’s intentional time set aside for talking about little things that annoy you, it makes it a whole lot easier to clear the air and keep tensions low.

Fist to five – Making group decisions is hard. Deciding which movie to watch, where to go grocery shopping, and everything else can get tedious when there are a lot of people involved. A quick way to make sure everyone’s voice is heard is to use fist to five. For example, a community may have to decide whether they want to spend community night building a blanket fort or not. Everyone involved throws up fingers to accurately indicate their enthusiasm level (hopefully everyone would put five fingers up in this scenario). Obviously this is not applicable to some of the harder decisions your community will have to make, but its good for the everyday one’s that keep coming up.

The challenge jar – A great idea to keep challenging your community to grow in new ways throughout the year(s). Everyone writes a few challenges on slips of paper and puts them in to a jar. For example, this week we will have an energy fast. Each week the community pulls a slip and takes the challenge on. It’s a good way to experiment with creative challenges and it keeps it varied and interesting enough to not feel like a chore.

Pray together the community that prays together stays together! Ok, so maybe not that cliché – but the times that our community was strongest was when we kept coming back to spirituality night every week and getting vulnerable with eachother. If we kept it consistent, any tension that built up during the week didn’t stand a chance when we came together for Monday night spirituality nights – anything from examens, to collages, to meditation.

Be silly – I don’t have much of an explanation for this one. We’re all making a serious commitment, working in challenging situations, and trying to do a really good job at it. Community has to get silly or it gets way too serious. Have fun, we all know how to do that!

3 months and counting, love to all of you!

Emily