Just do it

     You might have noticed that I haven’t written a blog post since September 16th, 2013.  I sincerely apologize for that 3-month-long gap in my communication.  These few months that I have been in Mexico have simultaneously been some of the most difficult, rewarding, challenging, uplifting, depressing, fun, informative, and, clearly, overwhelming times in my life.

     Though I would love to tell you that I took an intentional 3-month hiatus to prepare to communicate what I am experiencing, that would be far from the truth.  Truth is, I have started over seven different blog posts only to become confused, frustrated, and extremely emotional and give up after a few sentences.

The view of Huixquilucan slums and suburbs
from my window.

How do I talk about my friend who would give anything to give his mom a hug for Christmas, but can’t go back because the gang that controls his neighborhood has a price on his head, without crying?

I can’t.

How can I share the lessons I'm learning about living out faith on a daily basis from my very religious family here, without seeming overly idealistic?

I can't.

How do I tell you about my friend who was denied refugee status because his fear of being kidnapped and tortured (again) then executed (like the four people who didn't escape with him the first time) is deemed “subjective” in the eyes of the law, without being infuriated?

I can’t.

How do I describe the extreme socioeconomic disparity that confronts me as soon as I look out my window in the morning and see the elite high-rise apartment complexes towering above the rubble that lines my valley, without getting conflicted about my role as a wealthy white U.S. American living in a working class mestizo Mexican community?

I can’t.

     How, how, how, do I write these stories?  That how has been keeping me from sharing what I see, hear, feel, learn, and wonder.  Now, however, I finally have come to a realization that is compelling me to write.  It doesn't really matter all that much HOW I tell these stories.  It matters THAT I tell them.

     T.S. Eliot writes, “Go, go, go said the bird.  Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”  But here is reality, daily shoving its hard truths, beautiful glimpses of this world’s potential, and their piercing contrast right into my face all day every day.  I cannot “Go, go, go” anymore.  Running away is not an option.  Though reality is indeed hard to bear, we have to.

So, how do I tell these stories?  The way I experience them.

Are you ready for some of this reality?  Because here it comes, ready or not.

Just do it.

Skyline view from the General Hospital in Mexico City

Dependence

Here we are: 4 weeks into the program,

3 weeks into Mexico,

and 1 week into living on my own here.

     Although, really, I am not by any means “on my own” in this place.  If I were actually on my own I would not have made it this far; that is for certain.  If it hadn't been for all the people giving me directions, correcting my Spanish, having the patience to endure my pantomiming, double-checking that I understood everything from the staff meeting, and giving me the opportunity to express myself, (not to mention the people sustaining me from home!) I would be completely lost, literally and figuratively.

     My time in Mexico has been characterized with me coming to terms with my profound dependence on other people.  In the States, I am usually a very capable person.  I can navigate my way through a variety of places and situations.  I know how to act at a store, a dinner, or a workplace.  I know the implications of a hug, the connotations of a word, how to make a joke.  Here, everything is new. And I need major help figuring it all out.

     As I've mentioned several times, the ELCA's model of mission is that of Accompaniment: “Walking together in solidarity, characterized by mutuality and interdependence.”

Celebrating Mexico & Central America's independence at
Tochan with some of the people I have depended upon.

     Until we come to terms with our dependence on others, we will never be able to appreciate or intentionally practice “interdependence.”  If we fail to recognize that we are dependent on others for many of the various things that keep us going – from food to family – we will ultimately fall into the trap of thinking of our relationships as a hierarchy, with ourselves at the top.  We will make the mistake of thinking that we are here to save others, that we have all the resources, answers, and validity, that we are independent and that those we accompany are at our loving mercy.

     What I've seen, done, and experienced would in no way be possible without:

My amazing host mothers who feed me, house me, and show me unrestrained love,

Their nephews who gave me an extensive tour of our colonia, complete with tips and tricks,

My co-volunteers at Tochan who explain the shelter's programs and purposes to me (and who occasionally translate key phrases in our meetings),

My fellow YAGMexico participants who check in on me and comparten mi pena,

The men currently at Tochan who cook our meals and break up the boredom of office organization with conversation,

The strangers who offer unsolicited random acts of kindness,

and everyone else who has been a part of my survival and growth.

     They have shown me what Ephesians 4:2 means: "Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults because of your love."  Someday my time will come to reciprocate, and I have been learning profound lessons on how to do so.

In My End is My Beginning

     Today marks the end of all our YAGM orientation – Chicago, and in-country – and the beginning of our actual, non-preparatory lives here in México. As we were talking this morning, the YAGMéxico group discussed how much this day felt like an end, rather than a beginning. We have spent the last three and a half weeks together, growing, learning, and sharing life. We have practiced accompaniment and vulnerability in ways that we never had before, building a solid crew to support each other throughout the challenges and joys of this year. To leave each other and go our separate ways feels like the end of something profound.

     These last few weeks we have also developed connections to local communities that have held us together in our place of vulnerability – being in a new country, culture, and people with the knowledge that they will become integral parts of our lives. We spent one week living with families in Tepoztlán, Morelos, Mexico as we also took language classes to improve our Spanish abilities. Tepoztlán is a beautiful town with entirely cobblestone streets and upwards of 135 fiestas every year. Our family was incredibly welcoming, which often manifested itself by our mom feeding us enough food to feed a small family each. It was an intense week spent with beautiful people.

Sign for the Guadalupanas

     This last week we spent in a convent of Guadalupanas, Catholic nuns who follow the teachings of La Virgen de Guadalupe. They are pretty radical and practice incredible hospitality. Most all of them have masters or doctorates in theology and they talk about La Virgen de Guadalupe and Christianity in the most liberating way. From Hermana Fabiola, who perpetually captivates the table with knowledge of Mexican politics, society, and history, to Hermana Margarita, who always greets us with a heart-melting smile and jumps at every opportunity to practice her few English phrases, the Hermanas have taught us invaluable lessons about life, faith, passion, and hope. I’m only beginning to process the things I’ve learned from the Guadalupanas, and I’ll no doubt continue to draw upon those lessons throughout this year.

     So as we talked this morning about all of the things that are coming to a close, I was reminded of another part of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets (this poem will come up often in this blog – be prepared!):

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

(T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, East Coker, V:190-209)

     As we leave the tight YAGMéxico group and the families and the Guadalupanas, we also go out into our new communities, into new experiences, into new challenges and joys. “In my end is my beginning.” And the people we met, the lessons we’ve learned, the selves we are becoming, are not going to suddenly disappear. We aren’t living “the intense moment/Isolated, with no before and after”, but we will carry those relationships and lessons with us so that there will always be “a lifetime burning in every moment.”

Now the challenge is to “be still and still moving/Into another intensity/For a further union, a deeper communion.”

Challenge accepted.

YAGMéxico

(This was written on Saturday April 8^th, but internet access didn’t allow me to post until now.)

Questions, Answers, and More Questions - The Tale of Orientation

My YAGM doodle - a body of
interconnected members.

     In T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, Eliot writes that:

...every moment is a new and shocking

Valuation of all we have been

(East Coker, II 86-87)

      If I could pick a set of words to describe the last week of my life, those would be the ones. Since Wednesday, August 14th, the official crew of YAGMs (Young Adults in Global Mission) have been gathered at the University of Chicago and Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago preparing for our coming year of service in Global Mission with the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America).  This time, for me, has already been transformative. Each day of this orientation week the sixty-five of us participating in the YAGM program have encountered new theological frameworks, models of mission, concepts of power and privilege, perspectives on interfaith dialogue, and people (each other and guests) who have challenged "all we have been," forcing us into "new and shocking" reevaluations of our selves.

     Coming into this domestic orientation week, I was full of questions.  Since the last time I posted anything, I have found out that I will be serving in Mexico City this next year, working at Tochan, a shelter for migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, and displaced peoples.  However, I am still unsure of a multitude of details about my life this year:

Where, within Mexico City, will I be living?  What will my host family be like?  Will I have stable internet access?  What will my job description be?  Who will be my coworkers?  Will I make friends?

You get the idea.

     Orientation provided me with some answers. I now know that once I arrive in Mexico at 2:00pm today, the six of us serving in Mexico will begin a 17-day in-country orientation to familiarize ourselves with Mexico, Mexico City and Tepotzlan, and the Spanish language before we begin our years of service.

     However, orientation also managed to dislodge some of the comfortable answers I thought I had.  As a graduate of the Sociology/Anthropology, Women’s and Gender Studies, American Racial and Multicultural Studies, and Latino/Latin American Studies departments at my college, I went into sessions like “Power, Privilege, and Identity” expecting to be the one with all the answers.  However, I was bluntly confronted with the limits of my expectations and the one-sidedness of my philosophy.  One of the first questions Sunitha Mortha asked was,

“Diversity is fine when it’s someone who agrees with you, but how do you react when someone you are accompanying holds profoundly different political views than your own?”

That was all it took to send me reeling.  How can I accompany people, be they my friends, family, coworkers, fellow YAGMs, or perfect strangers, who might think that the ideals to which I have dedicated my education and work are inherently wrong?

My Accompaniment doodle -
an endless give-and-take

     Accompaniment, the ELCA’s model of mission is the idea that we do God’s work in the world by “walking together in solidarity, characterized by mutuality and interdependence.”  And I suppose that is my tenuous answer: I am called to depend upon, be dependable for, reciprocate, and stand with the people I serve.

     Right now all I have are the words of this answer.  Words that are beautiful, meaningful, and powerful certainly, but words nevertheless.  And, to again quote Eliot’s Four Quartets,

…Words strain

Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,

Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,

Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,

Will not stay still.

(Burnt Norton, V 149-153).

     They slip and slide, crack and break, under the pressure, under the burden of preparing me, preparing us, for the next year of our lives.  A year where we won’t have simple answers, where we won’t know what’s happening next, perhaps even what’s happening in the moment.  But then again, do we ever really know?  Is this year so different, or is it just more apparent?  I don’t know (a common fact of my life right now), but I will find out.

     Just like with orientation, I go into this year with many questions, some big, some small.  And I expect that I many of those questions will go unanswered for a long time, perhaps forever.  As I search for answers I remember the advice that Janelle Newbauer lifted up in the YAGM community on day one of orientation:  “Lean into the discomfort.”

I am leaning in; who will catch me?

How It Began...

This was my face after I read the email inviting me to the Discernment, Placement, Interview weekend.

And this was the sign I made to tell YAGM (as well as my friends and family) that I had accepted the offer.

At the DIP weekend, I met these fabulous people with whom I will be spending my next year of service...

... in Mexico!

The Adventure Begins.