Blessings Blog

Currently I am distraught, frustrated, disappointed... which doesn't happen very often to me, except for when I feel I have let others down. An incident happened at work today that many would think nothing of, but it left me speechless and unsettled and I just keep returning to it. I have been coordinating volunteers to help with Northfield's brand-new summer lunch program for youth ages 1-18, and our main pool of volunteers is through faith communities, and we are also trying to involve the populations we are serving so we can work in solidarity to serve these youth. I am grateful for those who have a couple hours of their day that they want to put to use serving youth in this way, but part it is tough to broach the subject of privilege to do service work and volunteering. This is something that I think about often and still do not have the satisfactory words all of the time. Workin' on it.

Anyways, that's some context. Before we started serving lunch, one of the volunteers asked me politely what my plan for after my AmeriCorps service is, and I said I will be doing another service year program in Tucson to work more with Latino communities and justice for migrants from Latin America. He, well-intentioned, brought up how he and his wife had spent a winter in Green Valley, but then in response to my mention of working with migrants made some quip about how people joke around there about driving by ditches and "Oh you might see a migrant pop out of one!" And further, he made some comment about how there are "some of them" (continuing to use the term "migrant" in a derogatory sense" around here, which just let me speechless and sick to my stomach. A Mexican-American sister and brother were sitting maybe fifteen feet (and I dearly hope not within earshot from where this older white male was so callously talking about a group of people that could very well have included their family. Yes, some human beings have to resort to sneaking across an arbitrary border, giving away their life savings to a coyote who may or may not transport them to safety in this country, and figure things out from there. A "migrant sneaking through a ditch" in Green Valley is a person who, most likely, will have to walk for days in the desert, and evade thirst, cacti, rattlers, death, and the Border Patrol to first seek shelter and then economic sustainability.

And the question that is on repeat in my mind is how can I purport to be an advocate for the dignity of those who have fled their homeland for this one in times of hardship? How can I work to defend the honor and sacrifice of those children's parents who I do not know personally and do not want to make any assumptions about their story, when I can't even respond to a white male's attempt at humor by communicating my shock/hurt or attempting to talk about awareness and sensitivity, especially about "the other" in his own community? "The other" that he is serving?

I know that my natural reaction to conflict and confrontation is to run the other way, to let it roll off, or try to smooth things out and find a peaceable solution between people. I'd like to think I've made some progress in the vein of trying to open up conversations with my students when they call each other names or refer to others using derogatory stereotypes, and especially try to help them think about why they use such words so they can be more intentional about their language in general. I spend so much time choosing my words, which is part of the reason why I prefer the communication medium of writing rather than speaking - writing allows me the time to craft the message I want to convey. But when put on the spot, an educational conversation needs to happen! And in this instance it just didn't, and I will still be unsettled and disappointed in myself for a little while, so this is my prayer for the meantime.


Dear God,

My prayer tonight is for strength, love, and confidence to practice courageous conversations. May your Spirit fill me with the energy needed to always be on my toes and to not be caught off-guard, but rather to be prepared to respond with grace and the right questions to guide an open and educational conversation.

May you prepare all our hearts to speak with love and be filled with the right words to advocate for justice when we are called.

In the name of the One who stood up for the beggars, invited the outcasts into his home, and threw over the tables of injustice as the Spirit called him to do.


On other happier notes, it was awesome to spend some time with my former boss with Witness for Peace and start juggling a number of social justicey-projects (including button-making with a collective of past and present interns!), and it was so good to see three of my best high school girlfriends (this term always sounds weird for me, they were all friends who happened to be female and what one of my guy friends would call "friend girls" - maybe I'll just use that! inner dialogue aside...) for a nice walk around a lake, swatting mosquitos and swapping stories until one had to take off and the other two and I ended up doing something so rebellious on a Thursday night - we went out to a movie that didn't get us home until about 1am! Woah. But having not indulged in a movie in theaters in ages, and that being the fun time of choice with my high school friend crew, I'm so grateful all the pieces fell perfectly into place for Iron Man 3, to stay awake through the entire thing (something we might not do at work the next day...), and share more friend-time while we were all in the same place. I'm thankful to maintain these relationships after so many years, and wherever we end up and however little we keep in touch, whenever we end up in the same place, may our paths cross!