A Reflection on "The Inner Life of Rebellion" by Mariana Perez, ABSL Coordinator for Languages, Literature & Arts

At our staff retreat last weekend, Evans and Jess explained our staff covenant to the spring semester newcomers, including myself. Influential to the writing of the covenant was the poem "With That Moon Language." The next day we listened to a podcast entitled The Inner Life of Rebellion. The following is a reflection on that podcast, our staff covenant, the poem and the warm conversation that ensued.

I’m still holding on to the idea of balancing talking and listening.

One of the speakers said that we all have a voice worth speaking, and things worth saying.

A voice worth speaking, things worth saying.


I was taught to listen and learn, which is good. But I think that at some point, I, we, also need to speak. A voice worth speaking, things worth saying.


 Worth speaking, worth saying. Worth. Value.


It’s not just that we should say something, or that it is a duty to stand up and speak up, although sometimes it is. The emphasis is that what we have to say has value, we have value, worth.

The first conscious instance that I felt frustrated with not saying something was at work. In the summer, I work as a nursing assistant in a nursing home. Well, it’s not the best place to work. I love my job, I love working with the residents. But working with co-workers is difficult. And the nurses smoke a lot. They drink a lot of Mt. Dew. They’re not very nice. And no one (that works there) sees this as a problem. I mean, they do, but they also see it as something that just is. That’s how things are done. That’s just how things are.

It feels like the people that are actually trying to do their job well, treating residents with respect, dignity, are the ones that get screwed over. Respect, dignity, that doesn’t get residents to the dining hall on time. It doesn’t get them to bed “on time.”

And it seems that it’s like that for a lot of things. People that work “efficiently” without necessarily taking the time to think, to listen, to weigh, to question, are the ones that have the louder voice.


It’s hard to compete with that. But I think that it’s possible. And necessary.

Because we have a voice worth speaking, and things worth saying.

I, and people that question, should not shrink away from the fact that we question. It should be acknowledged and embraced. And I think that we, I, should be the first to do the acknowledging and the embracing.

I also think that this posture

A voice worth speaking, and things worth saying

is what is behind moon eyes.


There is chutzpah, and idealism, with having this perspective. Some would interpret this as naivete, greenness, inexperience. But mostly naivete, I think. Such silly hopes, to think you can create systemic change. To think you can keep the Sabbath. To think you can sustain your “idealism.” To think you make a difference. To think that what you are doing matters. To think you can be happy.

Such silly hopes, to think you can get from the bad simple, through the complexity, and to the good simple, to the wholeness.


I’m not even talking specifics yet. I’m not even being “excruciatingly specific” yet. [Insert your own hope here]. I’m just talking about the concept itself, the concept of moon eyes. We are met with so much more resistance, so much more criticism, when we actually do what we’re talking about.

But we shouldn’t shrink away from this. We shouldn’t shrink away from the criticism because then we get screwed over (perhaps this phrasing is not quite right...it creates too much of an us-them dynamic. But, I’m speaking generally, without the nuances of a specific situation, so I’ll keep it).

We shouldn’t shrink away from the criticism becausewe have a voice worth speaking, and things worth saying.

Believing this, and knowing this is true, is what characterizes an inner life of rebellion. And, hopefully, eventually, an outer life of rebellion, too.

I have a voice worth speaking, and things worth saying.

I.

The power of one. That’s another thing. Recognizing the power of one is part of inner rebellion. I mean, squirrels prevented humans from domesticating oak trees. That’s just kind of incredible!

But with the chutzpah, there has to be humility. And this balance is so hard.

But community makes it a lot easier. It diffuses the weight of the high and mighty labels of humility and rebelliousness.

Which brings me to another point: labels. This was mentioned in the podcast briefly, how labels are dangerous. I agree. What is interesting is that what is considered “rebellion” is simply how things should be. We talked about this. Martin Luther King Jr. can be labeled as being rebellious. But what he demanded for a people, the hope that he had, that’s how things should have been! Jesus was countercultural, he was a rebel. But what he lived and preached is how things should be!

We can’t put too much weight on labels. We can’t make them be too special. We can’t paint the thing (rebellion, truth, honesty, humility, whatever else) to be so rare that it seems exotic to us. We can acknowledge that the thing is rare, but we also have to acknowledge that it is ordinary. Rare-exotic is bad. Rare-ordinary is good. Rare-exotic is distancing and alienating and othering. Rare-ordinary acknowledges that something is not very common, but also that it should be common, and that is why it is ordinary. It’s how things should be.

So. I have a voice worth speaking, and things worth saying. Moon eyes. Chutzpah. Rebellion. Squirrels. Humility. Community. Labels. More humility. And I’ll throw in more community, too.

S-LC Spring Retreat

Three times a year the Service-Learning Center staff embarks on an overnight retreat. Two weeks ago we had our spring retreat in Chicago. We arrived in the late afternoon on Friday and stayed at an International Team (http://www.iteams.org/) community house in the Lawndale area. Over deep dish pizza that evening we heard about International Team’s ministry in Lawndale and then spent the rest of the evening playing games and laughing. The next day we stuffed newsletters for an organization called GRIP (http://www.gripyouth.com/) and in the afternoon headed home in two mini-vans.
Sometimes it’s hard to pull ourselves away from the homework we’re supposed to be doing, the friends we want to hang out with and the sleep we’d like to be getting in order have a retreat, but after each one, I’m reminded of why we have them.
Although a little cheesy, when I was pondering the reasons for our retreats I thought of three more “re” words besides “retreat” that describe well some of the great parts of our retreats.
First, the retreats are a time of reconnecting with other staff members. Because we’re a student staff we’re only in the office a couple of hours a day between our classes and can go a long time without having a conversation. For this reason the time in the car, during meals and relaxing is great for catching up on each other’s lives and processing our work together at the Service-Learning Center. This retreat we had a good time discussing some of the speakers we’ve had in past staff meetings and thinking about our roles as Service-Learning Center employees.
Second, through the activities we engage in during our retreats we are also able to remember the reasons that we do the work we do. This retreat we got to talk with Noel and Ashley from International Teams. They live in the Lawndale neighborhood working alongside members of a local church in youth development. Their philosophy of working with and learning from the people they are serving is central to what we hope to do at the Service-Learning Center. The time we spent with them was a good reminder and challenge for the work we do. In addition, we got to spend the morning helping out at a local Chicago agency, GRIP, which works to match mentors with Chicago teens. Often we at the Service-Learning Center coordinate service-learning opportunities for other students but don’t get to service-learn ourselves. Having the opportunity to do so on this retreat reminded us of some of the “nuts and bolts” of what we do; we experienced an agency orientation, got instructions to do our work and spent the morning helping out. It is good for us to remember the types of experiences our students have on an everyday basis so we can make them as helpful and applicable as possible.
Finally, the retreat is a great time for us to rest and be restored after many weeks of work. I always seem to forget how important it is both personally and as a staff just to have fun with each other. Time laughing, playing games and eating together is so important for our own mental health :) and for the productivity of our office.
Although it’s sometimes difficult to get the gumption up to go on a staff retreat, every time we do venture out I am thankful I did.

Fall Retreat

Ask what Calvin students did last weekend and you would probably hear stories ranging from the bubbling of answer sheets in plain-boring classrooms to the leisurely strolls along the beautiful Lake Michigan. Scores of students came to the Calvin campus to write the GRE and teacher certification tests, international students travelled to Chicago for their annual retreat, the Office of Christian Formation led a silent retreat at Camp Geneva, and the S-LC held their retreat at the Beversluis cottage.

As serious shalom farmers, intellectually inclined and socially engaged, we watched and discussed Meeting David Wilson http://meetingdavidwilson.com. The video introduced two men by the same name, one’s black and the other’s white. What’s significant was the fact that the black Wilson’s great grandfather was a slave to the white Wilson’s family 3 generations ago. Thus it was interesting to investigate how much of that history affects the two Wilsons, who live their lives as free men in the 21^st century.

What caught my attention most about this video was the journey of self-identity for the black Wilson. He not only has to consider who he is as an individual, which is a normal ongoing process for most conscious people, but also to make sense of what his ancestral heritage means in the context of contemporary America. Having to reconcile identity dissonance is tough, but his seems tougher. Perhaps that’s the extra challenge many African-Americans face.

Like a looking glass, this video mirrored the issue of race as an issue society knows exists but doesn’t quite know how to approach. The video encouraged the pursuing discussion in many directions, and I am sure it inspired our staff to identify better ways to further engage the Calvin community on the issue of race. Unfortunately, faithful to what retreat means, yours truly dozed off the last ten minutes of the video and couldn’t quite keep up with the multi-faceted discussion. So that partly explains his posting his thoughts here.

The retreat was also a wonderful time of getting-to-know fellow staff members. Like coordinating StreetFest, the retreat helped build camaraderie.Everyone communicated at deeper interpersonal levels and more extensively than what the little common time we had in the office allowed. Individuals shared their dreams for a better world, graduation plans, and even cooking tips.

If only we didn’t have homework, and learned how to lift the weight of the world off our tiny shoulders, we could have had let our hair down a little more.