ch-ch-ch-changes

As of last Friday, I am no longer working at Bread and Roses Café part-time and am instead working full-time in the culinary training program (CTP). I was part of the decision process in this move, and it comes after four and a half months of me trying to run the administrative side of CTP in just the few afternoon hours I have following Bread and Roses services. I'm looking forward to the chance to really be involved in making changes to the program and helping it reach its potential, but I will also miss Bread and Roses.

My interactions with clients at B&R were not in a case management context, and one could argue that Bread and Roses doesn't contribute too much toward St. Joseph Center's model of self-sufficiency. In the least, it's easy to argue that we lean more towards charity than social justice at B&R. This, though, is what made working at B&R fulfilling in such a unique way.

My stint as café manager was, more than anything else, a ministry of presence. I wasn't the person our clients went to for bus tokens or for help with an SSI application. I was never the one to come up with a harm reduction plan for a client's substance abuse. I wasn't even in charge of whether or not they were signed up for a meal. But, I was consistently present as a fellow person. On a daily basis, I affirmed our clients' dignity by paying attention to them. Perhaps for that 45 minutes that they spend dining at B&R, I could help them know that they are not defined by their present situation of experiencing homelessness. I affirmed their humanity simply by knowing their names. Names are so deeply personal, and the human ache to be known and loved can so easily be soothed by speaking to a person using his or her name.

At first I was hesitant to accept this shift of responsibilities; I wanted so badly (and so selfishly) to hold on to my last few months at Bread and Roses. In the words of Fr. Greg Boyle, "I knew that the poor had some privileged delivery system for giving me access to the gospel" (Tattoos on the Heart), and the clients we serve at Bread and Roses are among the most marginalized and poor, certainly more so than my clients in the Culinary Training Program.

But my faith in the potential of CTP as a program that can promote genuine change in a person's life compels me to let go of my fears -- of missing out on B&R experiences, of disappointing clients, of leaving volunteers in a lurch, and of being inadequate in CTP -- and to look forward. I do hope I am able to feel a sense of fulfillment in my work in CTP over the next few months. Even if I cannot always see the positive effects of our program (students tend to disappear once they receive their certificates), I can at least take pride in the fact that I have made some small but significant contributions to the curriculum and to the efficiency of the program's administration.

So, here's to a great last 11 weeks of JVC, wherever it may take me!


**Regarding the title of this post: I can't say the word "changes" without thinking of that David Bowie song, and in particular the Shrek 2 version of the song.

Remembering Romero

"Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty."

Oscar Romero (d. March 24, 1980). Presente. 

No te salves

A poem my casamate Maria shared with all the Southwest JVs at our Re-Orientation as a call to action in working for social justice.


No te salves / Don’t Save Yourself Mario Benedetti

Don’t remain immobile
At the edge of the road
Don’t freeze the joy
Don’t love with reluctance
Don’t save yourself now
or ever
Don’t save yourself
Don’t fill with calm
Don’t reserve in the world
Only a secure place
Don’t let your eyelids fall
Heavily as judgments
Don’t speak without lips
Don’t sleep without sleepiness
Don’t imagine yourself without blood
Don’t judge yourself without time.
But if
in spite of everything
You can’t help it,
And you freeze the joy,
And you love with reluctance,
And you save yourself now,
And you fill with calm
And you reserve in the world
Only a calm place,
And you let fall your eyelids
Heavily as judgments,
And you speak without lips,
And you sleep without sleepiness,
And you imagine yourself without blood,
And you judge yourself without time,
And you remain immobile
At the edge of the road,
And you save yourself,
Then…
Don’t stay with me.

"Shame on Ceasar! ... Seniors! ... Cedars! I meant Cedars!"

A couple weeks ago for one of our community nights we attended a candlelit vigil/protest of the closing of the psych ward at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in L.A. This is the latest in a trend of psychiatric services being cut across the state, including MediCal cutting much of its coverage for psych services. Most of us work with persons with mental illness in some capacity or another, so we see daily how essential these outpatient and inpatient services are. I'm happy that one of the speakers at the vigil made the point of saying that without psychiatric care, many people would end up in prison or on the streets. Unfortunately, the decision has already been made, and plans are already being carried out to close the 60-bed psych ward at Cedars, but we attended the vigil to help make the point that mental health is just as important as any other piece of healthcare. As a psychology major, it's natural for me to consider mental illness as a part of overall health, but there is certainly still a stigma attached to disorders of the brain.

After the vigil, we walked around the massive block of buildings that makes up Cedars Sinai, chanting "Cedars must reconsider!" and "Shame on Cedars!" Try repeating that for about 20 minutes at a high volume. I kept saying things like "Shame on Ceasar!' and "Shame on seniors!" And my voice was pretty hoarse at work the  next day...

one more year?

I'm applying for an additional year of JVC. Crazy? Maybe...but no more so than it was to move across the country in the first place to share oh-so-limited resources with six strangers who are intensely passionate about working with the marginalized. To share some insight into my crazed mind, here is an excerpt of my application, from the essay prompt about motivations. It's not my finest literary work, but I think it aptly depicts why I am even considering this next leap of faith...

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       I wrote in my application to JVC last year that “I see JVC as an opportunity to adapt an orientation of myself towards others and towards the world -- an orientation of self-giving love, rather than selfishness and greed.” I could not have understood the degree to which that statement would be true just one year later. I could not have understood how working intimately with the marginalized would motivate me to fight for change; how living in a community would nurture my faith; or how running out of cash could make me reassess “necessities.” Although I had previously accepted the values of JVC on face value, actually living them has begun forming me into the loving person I long to be. I know that there is much room for still further growth before I will have the confidence and courage to truly integrate these counter-cultural ideals into my life beyond JVC.

      In this sense, my motivations for applying for an additional year are much the same as they were last year. Yet this year, I apply with greater conviction and understanding. I apply with the knowledge that being loving to community members does not always mean being “nice,” and that giving of myself fully to clients requires more than a solid work ethic. I apply with a genuine enthusiasm to continue along the path of growth as a self-giving and loving woman for others, rooted in an Ignatian sense of spirituality. Being a JV this year has made me certain that I want to commit my life to social justice -- and in particular to work at the intersection of medicine and social justice. My work this year has also convinced me of the type of physician I long to be: one that treats each patient with dignity and respect regardless of socioeconomic status, and one that advocates for justice in the systems that preclude some from necessary healthcare. I know that an additional year of JVC would foster the attitude and conviction I need in order to develop into this person.

      I also know that an additional year of JVC would be challenging, and in many ways more so than this current year. Simply maintaining the level of energy I have now for both my placement and my community will be a challenge. I had not anticipated how much effort would be required to support community after a long day of working, but I believe in the fruits of community enough to put in that effort. I anticipate being challenged by the transition to a new community, too. Beyond uprooting myself from the known to the unknown, I foresee facing a constant temptation to judgmentally compare my new community to Casa Maura Clarke. I acknowledge that the mental comparisons sometimes cannot be avoided and may be valuable, but I do hope to keep my self-judgment to a minimum. Whether or not I live in an additional year community, I know that my views toward community will be shaded by the successes and failures of my present community; I hope to learn to appreciate these insights without imposing upon the organic development of my new community.

      I believe I have been more present in the past six months than at any point during my college career. Unlike my previous life of constant stress over future plans, I have been taking each day and learning from my interactions with new and familiar people. I know that I will struggle next year to balance presence to community and clients with my goal to simultaneously apply for medical programs. However, I hope to find inspiration in the knowledge that this presence to my JV years will positively impact my life as a student and physician.

      I desire to accept these challenges, and to continue grappling with the challenges I currently face in my JV year. I want to live in closer solidarity with the individuals I serve. I want to commit to a simple lifestyle beyond my superficial acceptance of the challenge to make it through each month within stipend. I want to nurture the strong drive for social justice that the past few months have planted in me. There are many ways in which I hope to strengthen my commitment to the JVC values, and I am excited by the opportunity to do so in the next year and a half. 

Boring, but true. Cheers to you for reading this far.

MLK's Dream

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! Although MLK is known for his role in a very particular social movement, this nobel laureate's ideas about social justice and change are clearly applicable to the many challenges we face in society today. I want to share a few provocative quotes from Dr. King, as well as what I think is an interesting (and spot-on) take on King's legacy from the NYTimes Sunday Review this weekend.

This must have been an incredible moment to experience.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

There are a lot of reasons why I choose to fight for social justice, even when I myself am fortunate (through my happenstance birth as an upper-middle-class white woman) not to face most of these injustices day-to-day, and this (above) is one of them.

"Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."

For a community night in November, Maria led our community in a great discussion about power (the community organizing group she works for is called POWER, and power is a critical part of community organizing). It's interesting to think about the power that each person has within his or her own community.


"One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change."

Is complacency, then, a society's greatest enemy in the movement towards justice? Perhaps, and this is as much an incrimination of myself as it is of our nation's ability to sweep injustices under the rug when they don't directly impact the majority of us as individuals (which brings us back to the first quote...).

What injustice would Dr. King be non-violently working against if he were alive today? Nobel-prize-winning economist and NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman says, in sum, "Goodbye, Jim Crow, hello class system." After a discussion about the lack of mobility in societies of great economic inequality, his concluding paragraph speaks volumes:

"Mitt Romney says that we should discuss income inequality, if at all, only in 'quiet rooms.' There was a time when people said the same thing about racial inequality. Luckily, however, there were people like Martin Luther King who refused to stay quiet. And we should follow their example today. For the fact is that rising inequality threatens to make America a different and worse place -- and we need to reverse that trend to preserve both our values and our dreams." 

And, finally, just because it makes me think, one last King quote..."Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?"

International Human Rights Day

Yesterday (December 10) was International Human Rights Day. We went to a demonstration put on by the L.A. Human Right to Housing Collective. I urge you to consider: Do you look at housing as a universal human right? It is an easy thing to keep out of mind, since basic shelter is so taken for granted in our lives. Yet, in L.A. County alone, over 50,000 sleep on the streets every night because of the incredible lack of affordable housing.

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, closes to home -- so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."

-Eleanor Roosevelt in remarks at the United Nations, March 27, 1958

Memorial of the Martyrs

December 2 was a special day for Casa Maura Clarke, Casa Ita Ford and Casa Dorothy Kazel of L.A. It was the anniversary of the deaths of the namesakes of our JVC houses. The fourth martyr, Jean Donovan, also had a JVC community, Casa Jean Donovan, until it was consolidated into DK and Ita this year. All four women were beaten, raped and murdered by a Salvadoran death squad on Dec. 2, 1980. Two were Maryknoll sisters, one an Ursuline sister, and the fourth a laywoman; all were Catholic missionaries working with the poor in El Salvador before their untimely deaths.

We attended a memorial service at Mount Saint Mary's College last Friday night, with about 30 sisters, including a few Maryknoll sisters and more than a few who knew the women. Rather than recount the service, I'll share a quote from each of the four martyrs:

"We have refugees, women and children, outside our door and some of their stories are incredible.  What is happening here is all so impossible, but happening.  The endurance of the poor and their faith through this terrible pain is constantly pulling me to a deeper faith response. My fear of death is being challenged constantly as children, lovely young girls, and old people are being shot and some cut up with machetes and bodies thrown by the road and people prohibited from burying them. One cries out:  ‘O God, how long?’  And then, too, what creeps into my mind is the little fear, or big, that when it touches me very personally, will I be faithful? I want to stay on now.  I believe now that this is right. God is very present in seeming absence."

-Sister Maura Clarke, M.M.

"Several times I have decided to leave El Salvador. I almost could except for the children, the poor bruised victimes of adult lunacy. Who would care for them? Whose heart would be so staunch as to favor the reasonable thing in a sea of their tears and helplessness? Not mind, dear friend, not mine."

-Jean Donovan

"[El Salvador is] writhing in pain—a country that daily faces the loss of so many of its people – and yet a country that is waiting, hoping, yearning for peace.  The steadfast faith and courage our leaders have to continue preaching the Word of God even though it may mean ‘laying down your life’ in the very REAL sense is always a point of admiration and a vivid realization that JESUS is HERE with us. Yes, we have a sense of waiting, hoping and yearning for a complete realization of the Kingdom, and yet we know it will come because we can celebrate Jesus here right now."

-Sister Dorothy Kazel, O.S.U.

"I hope you come to find that which gives life a deep meaning for you; something worth living for -- maybe even worth dying for; something that energizes you, enthuses you, enables you to keep moving ahead. I can't tell you what it might be -- that's for you to find, to choose, to love. I can just encourage you to start looking ahead and support you in the search."

-Sister Ita Ford, M.M., in a letter to her 16-year-old niece

World AIDS Day

(Delayed posting that I've been meaning to write for over a week...) For spirituality night last week, we as a community attended an interfaith prayer service for World AIDS Day, which was on Thurs., Dec. 1. Interfaith services truly inspire me. It was a beautiful demonstration of how compassion, among so many other things, is a common thread among world religions. The atmosphere was somber and powerful, with just about 40 people spread in the dimly lit St. Monica's Church.

Photo of a random wedding I found online to show the inside of St. Monica's.

The service was comprised of meditative singing in the tradition of Taizé Prayer, a form of prayer that originated with an ecumenical monastic order in Taizé, France. My favorite Sunday evening Mass at Georgetown often featured post-Communion Taizé meditations, so I was already familiar with the melodies and words, but I've never experienced an entire prayer service with these meditations. Apart from being a powerful communal experience of music, listening to these short, repetitive songs can also be a great way to center yourself as you begin personal prayer. Here are a few of my favorites: Ubi Caritas (Where Charity and Love Prevail), Laudate Dominum (Sing Praise and Bless the Lord), Nada Te Turbe (Nothing Can Trouble). Ignatius, a big fan of repetitio, would probably endorse this form of prayer.

In between each song, a different religious leader reflected prayerfully on a different aspect of the reality of AIDS in our world...for those who have died, hope for the cure, women affected, minorities affected, LGBTQ community, caring for those in need, orphans of HIV/AIDS. Simply living in D.C. exposed me to one perspective of the reality of HIV/AIDS (in the District, 3 percent of adults are infected with HIV, and another 3 percent are infected but don't know it), and working with a research team at Whitman Walker AIDS clinic for a year helped educate me a little bit more. Still, it was shocking to hear the congregation speak so many names during the intercessions of people in their lives affected by AIDS.

On one hand, I am grateful that AIDS is an easy thing for me to forget about on a day-to-day basis. Yet my ignorance is still embarrassing, since it has such a global and tragic impact in millions of lives daily. I recognize that I cannot be involved in the fight against every global injustice; but the injustice of HIV infection interacting with racial and socioeconomic disparity is something I hope to delve more deeply into in medical school.

Labor Day: 'Bread and roses! Bread and roses!'

In honor of Labor Day, here's a background on the phrase "bread and roses." It's associated with the fight for fair wages for women, and in particular with a textile strike in 1912 in Massachusetts. The slogan comes from James Oppenheim's poem, where "bread and roses" refers to the call for both fair wages and dignified working conditions. It's pertinent as we think about labor and living wages today, but also as a background story to the name of the café I'm working in this year!

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!


So even though Bread and Roses Café is not just for women, the roots of the phrase make it clear that, just as the fight for fair wages was about more than the need for money, feeding the hungry is about more than the food itself -- it's about treating each person with dignity. "Hearts starve as well as bodies..."


In L.A., we celebrated the long weekend with the other JVs in the Southwest region with a party and a day at the beach. Casa Maura Clarke also visited the Getty Villa in Malibu, which houses J. Paul Getty's collection of Greek and Italian art.

 

Zuma Beach & the Getty Villa.

 

Gardens on the grounds of the villa.