Pseudo-community, Chaos, Emptiness, Community....
These are the four basic phases that LVC told us would lead to a real life community. It would start like this: everyone would emulate closeness (telling overly personal stories, crying, hugging etc) be overly nice yet still not be up front with one another about their true thought and feeling (pseudo-community). Next comes chaos; something happens to tip the scales, someone says something, does something, and there is an explosion. Suddenly pent up frustrations and aggressions are spilling out in every direction. The next transitions is the hardest to make, from chaos to emptiness. Even, just the words, as a science-type thinker, tell me that this one is the most challenging and will require the most energy. Entropy is working against you, the world around you is descending into chaos and mass amounts of energy must be pumped into the system in order to create order (emptiness), and the faster you want this to happen the more energy is needed.
Now, the emptiness that they told us about may not be what you are initially thinking of in terms of community. It is the emptiness of the individuals in the community to listen to one another without prejudice or judgment. The emptiness of ones own agendas and a willingness to create a new one, together. From this a community will naturally blossom
I think all communities would love to skip this chaos stage and just go right into the community, the true community, part. I think that it may actually be possible to do, but it would require a very unique group of individuals. I've personally been working on this whole idea of being empty in all relationships for the past year or so. I haven't called it this, rather said that I was trying to met people where they are. This has manifest in different ways. As a program director I had varied expectations of the counselors I supervised, but was always trying to get them all to be the best they could. At Trinity it means knowing and being patient with the Sudanese as they continue to adapt to American culture. In community it means knowing that we all have different expectations, and those will be manifest by how we live out community.
The hardest part is meeting someone where they are without compromising your own ground, being empty to someone when it seems as though they are full of judgment and agendas. I suppose all you can really do is hope that they too become empty so they may be a vessel for your ideas, thoughts, and feelings rather than theirs alone.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Oppression....
I am oppressed.
I will remain oppressed until all children have good and reliable role models. I will remain oppressed until all people are properly cared for at the end of life. I will remain oppressed until all people have food to eat and have shelter and heat. I am oppressed until people are free to love whomever they choose without judgment. I will be oppressed until having an "ethnic name" doesn't result in you job application being thrown away. I am oppressed until the hoarders and haves loosen their grips on the world's resources and start to live an abundant life rather than a life with abundance. I oppress myself as I oppress others.
Two quotes for consideration:
1 Corinthians 12:25-26, "...that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it." NRSV
"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together..." - Lila Watson, Australina aboriginal woman, in response to mission workers
As I sat in a Bible study today covering the familiar text of 1 Corinthians 12 (we are all one body in Christ), the second quote forced its way to the front of my thoughts. This is the quote that LVC has made its quote or motto or catchphrase or something this year. I loved it from the moment I heard it way back in my first interview for LVC in February. It echoed my own desire to make my year in LVC not a time to "give back to the community" and then get back to real life, but rather the continuation of my life long journey to work for social justice in the world (I would say the start of my journey but I have been blessed with a family that has put me on that path long before I knew it, so continuation is more appropriate).
I am still not sure I really know what social justice is, in the strictest sense. I seem to have a much better idea of what social injustice is. It's once of those things that can be really hard to explain to someone. How do you explain to someone that American society has hardwired us to ignore and overlook the social injustice in the world, to turn a blind eye to how all of our own actions and inaction feed into it every day? Simply knowing this can't be enough, can it? How can I really combat it while still living and working within it? I could always just become one of those people who leaves society and lives on an isolated, self sustaining farm, but then I wouldn't be doing much to help other break the chains of injustice and oppression. How do I accept my own institutionalization and fight against it at the same time?
I suppose the only thing I can really do is not allow myself to be paralyzed by the helplessness I feel when looking at the overwhelmingly larger picture. I've situated myself in a place where I can see the things that limit us, that hold people back, and that fuel the status quo. I just can't allow myself to be comfortable there, to every be blind to the injustice that surrounds me. To know that I too will remain oppressed until all have been liberated.
I don't know what my vocation is yet, but I do know I am not called to sit ideally by while other members of the body are suffering, I must suffer with them. Then, perhaps one day, we will all rejoice in our liberation together.
I will remain oppressed until all children have good and reliable role models. I will remain oppressed until all people are properly cared for at the end of life. I will remain oppressed until all people have food to eat and have shelter and heat. I am oppressed until people are free to love whomever they choose without judgment. I will be oppressed until having an "ethnic name" doesn't result in you job application being thrown away. I am oppressed until the hoarders and haves loosen their grips on the world's resources and start to live an abundant life rather than a life with abundance. I oppress myself as I oppress others.
Two quotes for consideration:
1 Corinthians 12:25-26, "...that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it." NRSV
"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together..." - Lila Watson, Australina aboriginal woman, in response to mission workers
As I sat in a Bible study today covering the familiar text of 1 Corinthians 12 (we are all one body in Christ), the second quote forced its way to the front of my thoughts. This is the quote that LVC has made its quote or motto or catchphrase or something this year. I loved it from the moment I heard it way back in my first interview for LVC in February. It echoed my own desire to make my year in LVC not a time to "give back to the community" and then get back to real life, but rather the continuation of my life long journey to work for social justice in the world (I would say the start of my journey but I have been blessed with a family that has put me on that path long before I knew it, so continuation is more appropriate).
I am still not sure I really know what social justice is, in the strictest sense. I seem to have a much better idea of what social injustice is. It's once of those things that can be really hard to explain to someone. How do you explain to someone that American society has hardwired us to ignore and overlook the social injustice in the world, to turn a blind eye to how all of our own actions and inaction feed into it every day? Simply knowing this can't be enough, can it? How can I really combat it while still living and working within it? I could always just become one of those people who leaves society and lives on an isolated, self sustaining farm, but then I wouldn't be doing much to help other break the chains of injustice and oppression. How do I accept my own institutionalization and fight against it at the same time?
I suppose the only thing I can really do is not allow myself to be paralyzed by the helplessness I feel when looking at the overwhelmingly larger picture. I've situated myself in a place where I can see the things that limit us, that hold people back, and that fuel the status quo. I just can't allow myself to be comfortable there, to every be blind to the injustice that surrounds me. To know that I too will remain oppressed until all have been liberated.
I don't know what my vocation is yet, but I do know I am not called to sit ideally by while other members of the body are suffering, I must suffer with them. Then, perhaps one day, we will all rejoice in our liberation together.
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