Out of Silence and Into Silence

Often in the arena of justice and politics we interpret silence as oppression and marginalization. Undoubtedly, silence is often exactly that, a cue to the overt or implicit domination of a person or group of people in such a way that they do not even have the potential to contribute in a meaningful way to the society that they live in. I wonder, though, can silence ever represent something productive? I do not mean that the oppression or marginalization of a person or people could ever be productive, but rather, I wonder whether there could be other species of silence. Sometimes I think that for many people, including myself, spoken words act like a mirror, they remind me that I am alive and recognized by something other than my conscious self. Thus, in the anxiety of existence, we find ourselves chattering, so desperate to hold on to ourselves in this world. Perhaps what is necessary, though, is to be alert to the silence of the oppressed, who are all around us, and learn to make their silence our own. Thus by choosing to still our anxious tongues, we create a space for another to speak. What I imagine here is not the impersonal, faceless interactions of us and the masses, but rather the real encounters we have with other people throughout our day. This silence that we adopt is not the silence of oppression, merely the reversal of roles, but rather the silence that expresses itself as community. It is a silence that is bound up with words, each giving the other meaning, allowing a dialog to take shape.

A Documentary

Last week I had the privilege of watching a beautiful documentary that was filmed by a recent Calvin alumnus, Chris Mills. The documentary details some of his experiences on a Calvin service-learning spring break trip in Houma, Louisiana. I have posted that documentary here in this post, and invite you to watch. Besides the fact that I think that from a technical perspective this is an excellent documentary, and thus reason for posting, I also think that this documentary reminds us what is happening when people talk about taking part in service-learning. Behind the theory are the voices, footsteps, and fingerprints that breath life into this way of engaging the world and the lives we lead together in community. Below is the documentary presented in two parts due to space limitations on YouTube*.


*No longer available

Finding Meaning in Spaces

What determines the nature of the places we inhabit? At the end of my street, construction workers are tearing apart what used to be a hospital. The hospital recently moved further out into the suburbs to a new building, while their old building was to be demolished. In the past two sentences that I just wrote, I have used the word "hospital" in two different ways. In the first sentence, I used the term "hospital" to denote a building, while in the second, "hospital" refers to the collective community (staff, doctors, patients, and administrators). It is this ambiguity of the term that makes me wonder, do we understand a place through its architecture or the people and their work that happen to be in a certain building? I am inclined to say that it is the people and the work they do that gives a space its meaning. Whether it is a hospital, a school, a non-profit or a for-profit company, the buildings that populate the landscape of our lives, on closer inspection, derive their meaning from the communities within and around. This strikes me as remarkable. Human beings are architects of meaning through their daily work. In the case of the hospital that used to be at the end of my street, workers and patients infused the raw materials of that particular space with a significance and purpose beyond what any professional architect could have done. Now, the hospital has not been destroyed, but rather only relocated because the hospital is where the community is. This realization can be applied to any building that we recognize as operating for a certain function. It is incredible, really, that we recognize any particular building as performing a certain function (i.e. education, healing, worship, serving the community, etc), this is a radical testament not to the design or signage of the building, but rather to the work of the people inside and out.

Spoken Language is Not Meant to Be Everything

There is a fierceness to the way that complexity and magnanimity invade our overly simplistic conceptions of the nature of life and the world, at times shattering what we thought we knew and understood. G.K. Chesterton did well to observe that the human tendency is to shrink our world to a manageable size, wherein we can pretend to predict and control. As I write about service-learning, I frequently write about "communities," but upon reflection, I realize that while it is easy to type the letters that assemble the word "communities," the actual reality that this word signifies is not nearly so easy to articulate or reveal. Communities are not simple, they are complex and expansive. They rarely have clear cut boundaries, and even when one boundary appears, it is gone before it can be meaningful because communities are never stagnant, but rather dynamic and living entities, simultaneous with the continued tread of human existence. My intent here is not to abandon human language, but rather to acknowledge its shortcomings to ever fully express the complexity and bigger than me-ness of this life and world that I am blessed to be in and part of. My invitation is for us all to consider that when we use terms like "community" and "us" and "them" that the ease with which we can say or write these words belies the depth and profundity of their actual reality. We must be constantly committed to the task of expanding our worlds, and sometimes this just means opening our eyes to the world that we are actually talking about.

That Superwoman in the Bible

So one of the reasons I spend Tuesday afternoons each week at Alexander Elementary School, a public school near my house, and one where Calvin students have been serving and learning for many years, is to stay close to reality and avoid the dangers of ivory tower disconnectedness. This paid off for me yesterday when one of the students (the ONLY student yesterday, a 4th grader who was supposed to get on the bus but came alone to Bible Club instead) came up with one of those precious questions that keeps me going. This particular student has been unusually faithful in attending our Tuesday after school Bible Club, and she has paid good attention not only in Bible Club, but also during other church opportunities at our church, just a block from the school, and another block from her house. So yesterday, prompted by a hodgepodge of thoughts only a fourth grader could relate to, Katuska blurted out "Is that story of the superwoman the only one about girls in the Bible?" To which Barb, my co-teacher and I replied in great confusion, "Superwoman?" "You know, that girl who only had one penny and when she gave it, even though all those rich people gave more money, she was the one the story says gave the most?"

I don't remember our response, and frankly, it wasn't important - it couldn't match her question, no matter what we said. Off topic, out of the blue, random as anything, Katuska's question, and the way her mind has internalized the story of how much it matters to give out of whatever you have available - this seems to be how the Spirit works. I say (to myself and to you) "pay attention" and listen for that Spirit's words, and don't ever be surprised when they come from unexpected places.

Is there a teacher in this classroom?

When we are practicing service-learning, simple understandings of server and servee dissolve. In service-learning practice there is a reciprocity that complicates general language labels. Should we then maintain the labels of teacher and student in a classroom that is oriented around service-learning pedagogy? It seems to me that if we are going to hope for a dynamic serving and learning experience for students in community organizations then we should emulate the same dynamic environment in the classroom. In the service-learning oriented classroom those traditionally labeled "students" should have the opportunity to offer input in course design and goals. Those traditionally understood as the "teacher" should leave the podium for a few moments and join the class in the growing process. But is this too much to hope for? Such a model or practice challenges long standing traditions in academia. The neat and easy to understand labels of teacher and student would become more vague, and perhaps most of all the obvious relationship of power between teacher and student would become something closer to equal. Service-learning can be something radical, can traditional academia handle it?

Committed to Broken Communities

"Nothing is perfect" is perhaps a statement that we bandy about too easily, not really giving it due consideration. Indeed, though, nothing is perfect, and that means our families, neighborhoods, schools, clubs, businesses, churches, and governments are all broken and wounded communities of people. So often we retreat from these communities having been wounded ourselves by the community's brokenness. We become disillusioned by the church, by our school, by our government, family, and the list goes on. However, if we are going to take the realization that nothing is perfect seriously, then we must also realize that we ourselves are not perfect, and we do our part to contribute to the wrongdoing of our communities. Still more we will never find a perfect community. Instead, we find ourselves facing the radical challenge to be committed to communities of brokenness. Imaginably, these communities will disappoint and wound us, as we will disappoint and wound them as well, but so it goes in this "nothing is perfect world." As broken individuals we daily set to renewing and rebuilding our communities, realizing that the solution is not merely to stand on the sidelines, or retreat, but rather to stay committed. It is easy, even cowardly, I think, to criticize from afar, but it is something remarkable when we acknowledge the shortcomings of ourselves as part of these broken communities, and then set about to helping to heal some of the brokenness. I confess my own shortcomings in too often taking the route of criticizing from afar, but it is my hope and goal to diligently seek to be committed to my communities.