Blessed to Be a Blessing

‘Blessed to be a blessing’ is a quote that I love. I heard it at church over the summer and continue to find it more and more true in my life. And even though StreetFest 2011 wrap-up is officially complete as of October, 1, I will not soon forget this summer and how amazingly blessed I am to have had the opportunity to be a blessing to others in just a small way. For a short time following StreetFest, it was hard to see the positive outcomes. The evaluations that
flooded in were encouraging at times, but also discouraging at others- seeing what went bad, what didn’t run smoothly, what could have gone better, and so on.


BUT, Just a few days ago, a transfer student stopped in the office and asked me how he could get involved with StreetFest next year!! A transfer student! Who liked StreetFest! Who now wants to get involved! Ahh!!! This just about made my day. Ok not even just about, it DID make my day. Some days, the awesomeness of what was StreetFest 2011 still catches me off guard.

Anyways… this run-in was just one more reminder for me of how the work we do isn’t really about us and what we get from it, but rather it’s about inspiring other people to get involved – and that THAT is the best outcome. In the big picture things won't always go perfectly, and there will always be people who don’t enjoy StreetFest, but what’s more important and trumps all of that is that some people actually DO like it, or maybe even love it! Those stories are the ones that make all the work worth it, because in the long run it’s about helping people find the ‘on-ramp’ to the highway of living as a lifelong service-learner. That's what we do here at the Service-Learning Center and I will forever be glad to do so.

Now and always I am be blessed to be a blessing.

What about you?

Emily

S-LC Covenant 2011-2012

Our covenant this year is composed of a series of questions focusing on love, justice, hope, humility, and presence. Two questions in particular have been swimming around in my mind since our written covenant was completed:

How does mercy envelop justice? How does mercy shape justice in light of the coming kingdom?

Let me start with a story:
In Matthew 20, Jesus tells the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. The owner goes out to the marketplace early in the morning to hire workers. He agrees to pay them a certain amount for their work. He hires more workers in the middle of the day for the same wage, and he hires more workers in the evening, again for the same wage. At the end of the day, as all the workers are receiving their wages, the workers hired in the morning begin to complain that the workers hired later in the day are receiving the same wage as they even though they worked for longer. The owner of the vineyard says this: "I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?"

I throw around the term justice a lot, partly because I think the theoretical idea of justice is such a beautiful ideal. However, I also recognize the need to think about what true justice means for Christians, for non-Christians, for the world.

My priest talked about justice a couple Sundays ago, and I found his thoughts insightful and surprisingly poignant. In human terms justice, or fairness, he said, comes in three types: the justice of common rules we follow, the justice of inclusion, and the justice of distribution. Common rules and distribution are familiar to us. We have a judicial system that, in its own way, attempts to ensure that wrongs are righted or at least that some form of payment is made for a breach of law. We hear all the time about distribution of wealth and the failures of distributive utopias.

As kids we probably all threw at least one fit saying, "It's not fair! She won't let me play!" As adults, injustice concerning inclusion holds more serious social consequences, so again we have laws with varying degrees of efficiency prohibiting discrimination. I think it's worth thinking about the justice of inclusion as it relates to Christians, though. The Christianity I was familiar with while growing up played by the rules of inclusion/exclusion. If I was "saved" I would be permitted to enter the pearly gates. However, if I refused God's free gift of grace, I would be separated from God forever in a very, very bad place. That was it. Yes or no. One choice. Boom. I have found this concept increasingly hard to swallow as I've met people of different faiths earnestly trying to live well in the world while seeking truth.

At this point some of you are probably thinking of Love Wins, but I hope you'll hear me out. How does mercy envelop justice? Is God not a loving and merciful, as well as just, God? Is this inclusion/exclusion rule what we mean when we say justice will roll down like waters? Call me an universalist, but I have a hunch that true justice means more than that wronged "good" people receive the satisfaction of knowing that those who trespassed against them were punished thoroughly or even that we "were elected" or said a certain prayer. True justice, perhaps, can be tempered with mercy.

How does mercy shape justice in light of the coming kingdom? Well, back to what my priest said. According to him, Jesus' parable of the vineyard workers may shed some light on the topic at hand. The owner of the vineyard chose to give the workers the same pay regardless of the time they spent working, and then he said, "Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?" God sees much that we cannot. Perhaps, our place is not in telling God what he can do with his own money, if you will; but rather to live well in love with the knowledge and wisdom we have been given.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know nearly enough to speak conclusively on this topic, but I hope I can speak from my own experiences and internal tousles with these questions of justice and faith. My intent was not to step on toes but to communicate the heart of openness to questioning with which we composed our covenant.

Peace,
Anna

Lesson in Humility

First of all, the start of the year has been wonderful. The new staff had 2 great weeks of training where we bonded, became experts on service-learning, and pulled off StreetFest smoothly as a team after Emily Wolffis spent the summer preparing. It was a blast.

We wrote a new covenant. Some of you may remember last year's two word phrases. This year is quite a bit different, as is typical with a tide of new people. We have picked 5 main words that we will focus on this year. They are love, justice, hope, humility, and patience. Along with each word, we have written several questions that we will seek to "answer." These questions will never be fully answered, but maybe someone else can expound on the covenant itself in another post.

I realize that the title "a lesson in humility" is difficult to gulp down in and of itself. It's not really an attractive heading and some people may have even stopped reading right then and there. Who really wants to learn how to be humble? That is certainly not our natural mode in life. We prefer pride and self absorption, don't we? It is a harsh reality. I would rather think about my day and the set of problems placed on my plate, rather than spend time trying to understand someone else's worries. And helping them? Boy, that's a stretch. I am a college student, a nursing student, in fact. I will help people the rest of my life, why must I set aside time now to invest in understanding and helping others? Right now my sole purpose in life is to grow and learn as much as I can.

Here's the thing, I grow through my experiences and interactions with other people and the attitude I take while doing that changes how much I will truly learn. If you really set back and think about how much you are learning from other people, versus how much you are putting into other people, it's often disproportionate. Disproportionate because they teach you so much more than you could ever hope to give back. This is true for many relationships in life. Professor to student is certainly like that. I would hope that some of your friendships are like that. What about parent to son or daughter?* Realizing this truth is helpful in intentionally taking on a humble mode of existence. It is helpful in being open to other worldviews (yeah, I was going to try and avoid Calvin language, but I can't help it.) It is helpful in finding a sense of peace about your own imperfections. It is helpful in so many ways, I'm sure you can think of more.

This is the Service-Learning Center mantra. Reciprocity. Learning to serve and serving to learn. It's become so engrained in the way I think, I am hoping I've said enough here to fully explain. If anything, I hope that this is just a starting point for peer conversations. Also, feel free to add feedback or correct me in the comments. :)
Thank you for reading.

*There are plenty of cases where this is not true, after all, we are broken people. I have not meant to be hurtful and I apologize if this is off mark for anyone. Perhaps your relationship with parents is not ideal. I hope that you have then found a mentoring relationship that serves a similar purpose.

-Melanie Roorda, ABSL Coordinator

Beautiful Brokenness

One of the themes of our staff covenant this past year was “beautiful brokenness,” the idea that God is present in even our deepest flaws and greatest weaknesses. This spring, I studied a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins in my Victorian Lit class that sums up “beautiful brokenness” better than anything I can think of. It’s dense, but I’ll unpack it a bit, just as my professor did in class.

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

The poem begins with two images for how God’s greatness is present in brokenness: God’s grandeur is like an electric charge in shaken metal foil, and it’s also like oil, which is produced by the action of crushing. Something to ponder: what does it mean that God shines through things that are “shaken” and “crushed”?

“Why do men then now not reck his rod?” means “why do men not regard or obey God?” The following lines give a description of our broken world and our separation from society. Linger a bit over these words. Hear how their sounds echo their meaning, try to see the images they describe, feel how their rhythm gives the sense of trudging through a devastated landscape.

“And for all this, nature is never spent.” God’s presence and hope wells up from the things that are broken. The sun sets in the west, but it rises with the morning in the east. God is present in our brokenness.

One reason I love this poem is that it offers hope, but this hope doesn’t come cheap. Hopkins was intimately acquainted with both personal and communal brokenness. When he converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, he became estranged from his family. For years, he suffered from depression and doubt. It could not have been easy to see God in his brokenness.

The temptation is strong to avoid pain, to try not to see how broken our world is. As I leave this community and move into the unknown, I am facing the fact that my life will become less comfortable, that I will face challenges that will force me to confront the brokenness in society and in myself. What this poem communicates to me is that we can acknowledge brokenness for what it is and still possess a rebellious hope that God is restoring what is fallen. We will all feel “shaken” and “crushed” in life, but it is my prayer that we will be able to see, or at least trust, that God’s beauty is made manifest in our brokenness.

--Maria

Graduation and Saying Goodbye

For this blog entry I’m going to write about graduation and saying goodbye. Many of you are before or after that threshold so your perspectives may be keener and wiser than my own. The future works on my brain like a highway sign works on my eyes. As it draws closer my eyes fuzz over and zone out. When the sign is directly next to my car window there is not a good chance I’ll see that the speed limit is 70 (while I’ve likely been pushing 90). Now I can imagine what it would be like for a road sign to come closer and closer and then actually hit me in eye. I don’t think I would be able to focus on the sign or any other aspect of my worldly surroundings. Likely I would have closed my eyes and tensed up my muscles the moments before initial contact. Right now graduation is coming closer and closer and it’s about to hit me square in the eyes. Both of them. And it’s going to hurt a little bit. So naturally I have my eyes closed and my muscles tensed up. In other words, bear with my impaired sense of vision on my own future happenings.

I’ve been wondering, while considering how to go about saying goodbye to my dearest friends and colleagues, notably the ones in the S-LC, whether goodbye is actually a word. By this I mean, what does the abstraction actually imply? To me it sounds like “have a good bye”. A bye must mean something significant, but on Wikipedia it’s defined as a special kind of point one can score in the game of Cricket. That doesn’t make sense (maybe it does, but to say “have a good cricket point” is a bit too flippant a phrase for what a serious graduation ceremony requires). Whenever I say goodbye to someone I think, oh that was a formality—something to fill in the silence. So maybe it’s just a value-empty human grunt meant for little more than its utility in breaking silences. But in the context of a ceremonious and poignant departing (like leaving friends after graduation), something needs to be said that has meaning, not just a grunt. And for people to have used the word “goodbye” for so many generations, the term must hold some significance sufficient for such a circumstance.

All of this internal conversation, though, is getting old. I would rather spend time telling my revision of the Biblical parable, the Good Samaritan, as it takes place at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI. The story begins on an early fall evening, sometime in September, when college bound Jane Smith walks onto Calvin’s campus for the first time. She is beginning her first semester at Calvin. All alone and with high anxiety levels, Jane Smith finds herself in a void of healthy social interaction, a ditch of sorts. As she sits in her room, a local resident walks in her room to say hi. This person is very kind and outgoing, a modern “priest” of sorts. She is clearly high on some social ladder Jane isn’t aware of. “Hello” she says, and as Jane starts to talk, the priestly girl zones out and cuts off the conversation early. Later the resident Barnabas for Jane’s floor comes up to her. The Barnabas was clearly put into the position because of some great personal qualification, which she undoubtedly possesses. She is a modern “Levite” of sorts. This Levitical resident says hi, asks if Jane would like to become involved (a very kind gesture), then leaves with Jane’s appropriate response (“yeah, sure I’d love to. Let me know when you’re doing stuff”). Lastly, another girl walks in. Her name is Liz, and she’s not from around here. In fact, her situation is quite similar to Jane’s—lonely and alienated. After a brief introduction, the new girl walks into her room, sits on an unmade bed, and quietly the two go on biding their boredom together. >> FAST FORWARD >> It is now three and three fourths (?) years later and Jane is graduating. Jane recollects her first interaction with the priestly girl. Still very appreciative of that first encounter, Jane goes up and gives the priestly girl a big hug. The priestly girl, says, “Wow, it was great to know you. I hope you have a great future! Never change! Goodbye.” Then they hug and part ways. Jane makes her way over to the Levitical girl and taps her on the shoulder. The girl says, in a very spiritually tempered manner, “Thanks for everything Jane. God will bless you in your future.” They shake hands, say goodbye, and part ways. However, Jane doesn’t see Liz anywhere that day. No worry, Liz is her best friend. Goodbye isn’t necessary at this point.

Why do I relate to this story? Because I rarely say goodbye to my best friends. I say goodbye to the people for whom the formality of our relationship requires closure. But to say goodbye to a friend isn’t fitting. And then, why do I compare a friend to the subtly alluded Samaritan in the narrative above? Because the story of the Good Samaritan ends like this: “The next day [the Samaritan] took out two denarii [money I think] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have’.” It is important to note that the Samaritan left when the main character was not fully conscious and able to respond. But the Samaritan promised a return. And further, upon his return the Samaritan promised to pay off his debts. What is the content of their relationship? It is the closest friendship, one that is bound by service. The Samaritan left with the promise of a future where he would continue to serve, continue to care, and never really be gone from the side of his friend. When I leave my friends and colleagues after this year, I will not say goodbye and mean it (if I say it that’s because our conversation got to that awkward silence—sorry). Instead I’m leaving my friends with the promise of a future with them. And in this future I’m going to be there serving them, in whatever form service will present itself. I’m looking forward to that. And like Jeff Bouman playing whirly-ball, I say, bring it on!

Hope

One of my cousins is currently working in Maputo, Mozambique. I try to check her blog once in awhile, and the other day as I was skimming through the blog I ran across an interesting topic: hope.

I was particularly drawn to this because at one of our staff meetings at the S-LC this semester the idea of hope was brought to light. In that instance we were all a little shaken by the fact that there are just some things in this world that we don’t have control over and can do very little to change. As much as we want so badly to bring hope, life, and success to others sometimes there is nothing more we can do. With the more recent events involving Libya and Japan, I think this idea of lost hope hits home even more now than when our original conversation took place.

After reading this aforementioned blog from my cousin’s experience in Mozambique, I think I have a slightly better grasp on this difficult topic of hope and Christian longing for change in our suffering world. My cousin’s words are hard to summarize because she says them so well, so I’ll let you read a portion of these powerful words for yourself.

Upon reflection of the many cases of children struggling with HIV and the constant state of death surrounding this African community, my cousin wrote these words:

“But this death doesn’t mean that people stop living. In fact, it’s quite the opposite in these parts. I have found more community, more love, more beauty and more friendships here than in any other part of the country I’ve visited. One night, a few weeks ago, I was dwelling on this agape kind of love I was feeling God draping over us while sitting outside admiring the stars, conversations and food of the evening."

Yet, talking to a co-worker, Ruth, brought a different sense. Ruth gives medicine and check-ups at a local orphanage of HIV+ children. Ruth began to break down as she explained the story of one girl with stage four AIDS who still had not received treatment. When Ruth called the local government to demand distribution of the free medication to the orphanage, the officials on the other end of the line lackadaisically said they would be there by the end of the month. She knows these kids don’t have that long.

So there we sat. The joy, the tears, the heartbrokenness and the love all hovered there in the air around us, mixing together and getting hazy. But the weirdest thing was that it was totally okay. Pain held hands with beauty, and joy pulled up a chair next to sorrow. And there we all dwelled. I didn’t feel guilty for the laughter we had a few moments before her story, and the breaking of Ruth’s heart in no way diminished the love it still contained. I still knew that I was exactly where I should be, and despite all of the death around me, I didn’t want to be anywhere else. Around this same time, a dear friend from home shared with me a quote from a pastor of the church we used to attend:

‘Ultimately our gift to the world around us is hope. Not blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to acknowledge how things are. But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that this is all there is. It is what we need—hope that comes not from going around suffering but from going through it...It is in the flow of real life, in the places we live and move with the people we're on the journey with, that we are reminded it is God’s world and we’re going to be okay.’

This is what hope means. Sure, babies still cry, funerals still occur and the water still inexplicably goes out in the middle of a dinner party. BUT the sun still rises every morning and joy is still available in the presence of utter destruction. And I think God stands in the messy middle between suffering and bliss and says ‘It’s alright. I got this.’ “

Wow. Powerful stuff, right? Every time I read this I have to sit back for a second because still don’t know exactly how to respond to such a deep thought other than to feel completely awed and amazed that we serve a God that holds this broken, struggling, damaged, hurt world in the palms of his comforting hands and offers not only hope, but love in abundance as he takes all our pain – every single ounce of it no matter how small or how insurmountably painful – and says He’s got it under control. I have realized that I must everyday dwell in this reassurance.

Peace and Blessings,
-Emily

Living in the Tension

ten·sion noun \ten(t)-shən:

1. the act or action of stretching or the condition or degree of being stretched to stiffness

2. either of two balancing forces causing or tending to cause extension

3. inner striving, unrest, or imbalance often with physiological indication of emotion

What is it about human nature that craves simplicity? We categorize our world by race, class, nationality, gender, religion and countless others until our lives are so black and white that we forget what the color grey looks like. When this delicate world of dichotomy is disturbed, we riot, lynch, segregate, debate, and condemn in an effort to scratch and claw our way back to equilibrium. What about tension do we so dread that we are willing to avoid it even at the cost of community, genuine relationship, justice, and equality?

Last week, over 130 Calvin students chose to embrace tension. On Friday, March 18 the Service-Learning Center commissioned 136 students, staff members, and faculty to travel to 10 communities across the U.S. to seek out and embrace ambiguity and complexity. Students traveled to Kermit, West Virginia and learned that mountaintop removal gets complicated when they meet people whose livelihoods depend on it. Students went to Knoxville, Tennessee and learned that not all at-risk women are strung-out crack addicts; victims of their own self-destructive lifestyles. Students visited Boston, MA and discovered that the roots of urban poverty are far too complex and interconnected to be boiled down to a sweeping condemnation of personal irresponsibility. For one week, these groups lived firmly in the tension. They did not seek perfect answers or even tangible solutions. They simply experienced and participated in the lives of those that we all too often try so hard to avoid and, believe it or not, they lived to tell about it! More than simply living through it, however, these students were challenged in ways they never had been, grew in ways they never imagined, and learned more than they ever anticipated. Can it be that tension and ambiguity aren’t all that terrifying after all? Are there lessons to be learned from embracing the grey- from asking the tough questions without seeking the absolute answers?

All this point, the cynics cry, “How much good can a week of ‘living in the tension’ possibly do? There’s a distinct possibility that your week of grey only made the lives of those you came into contact with worse. A week is not enough time to do anything of consequence in a community”. My response: You’re absolutely right…sort of. Certainly, the dangers of short-term missions are in play when we send groups of college students to communities for only 7 days. A week of tension-living is undoubtedly unsatisfactory in a world so desperate for engagement and relationship. My critique of the cynic’s critique is this: Cynicism is easy; hope is hard. Cynicism gives in; hope rebels. In the face of a broken world that, at every turn, reminds us that our efforts are futile, hope perseveres. Last week, 130 plus students witnessed the stubborn hope of faithful Christians throughout the United States who are refusing to believe the cynics. Faithful Christians who have made a commitment to the grey and are resting in the hope that somehow their work is making a difference. In fact, isn’t that the call of every Christian? To be faithful, no matter how persistently the world tells them to give up, trusting that God is powerful enough to take their broken, imperfect efforts and do the rest. After all, “This is what we are about. We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise…We are prophets of a future not our own.” (Ken Untener)

-Kyle Schaap