Balance and Composition

10:43 AM

Dresses:

12:00 PM

Naivity VS Intentional Vulerability

9:20 AM

Tory and I went to our first block club meeting yesterday. It was really great to meet neighbors and connect with those we've seen around. At one point during our discussion with the crime prevention officer the conversation turned to our neighbors who rent across the street from us (they weren't at the meeting) and people were offering us solutions with the assumption that we want them out, which we did; until we met them.

Neighbors know when a house is selling drugs because of the amount of traffic that is generated around the place and the instability that seems to be present with people coming and going at all hours and we are aware that these neighbors fit the bill. When we got to know them a little though, we found out that the main resident has 8 older children, many with families of their own, so though we still question the activities that go on, much of the "traffic" is actually family coming and going. The main resident is a softy with a tough guy presence and takes special interest in and care for the neighbors he knows. It's an odd role because he is essentially protecting his neighbors from the people his lifestyle may bring around. Their presence has not brought about any events that have made us feel unsafe, but they are not a traditional stable family like many of the other houses around and their company likes to hang out in the street and drop trash in front of our house. It is morally difficult for us to call them into the police on the grounds that we "know" something is going on, but even more difficult when we know he would prefer traditional (legal) employment and that calling in pushes them out further. Even if we are more vulnerable because they live across the street and are connected to other volatile people, their safety is in jeopardy day to day because the majority of people they know and are connected to are volatile. We can only hope to be a listening ear or a connection to stability for them. All this was received with (kind) disagreement by all our neighbors at the block club meeting. We defended our reasons, but I decided it was not the time or place to ask the questions that were in my mind...

How can we support the weakest members of our community when we are trying to push them out? "Loving them and hating what they do" gets complicated when they hate it too but have few or no other choices. And if you hate what they do more than you love them, you are not loving them at all.
Are they less valuable than increasing the value our homes? Should we further alienate them from stable society in order to preserve our idea of a clean street? And the most difficult question: is attempting to secure our safety and control our environment more important than loving our neighbors?

For now, I believe the answer to all these questions is "No" and for this, we are considered naive. I prefer to call it, "intentional vulerability". I will not be too afraid. To love. God help us.

The Impossible Will Take a Little While

12:28 PM

I wrote a book reflection for Americorps about "The Impossible Will Take a Little While" which I have been thinking about a lot lately. It includes stories and essays from the likes of Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Arundhati Roy, Tony Kushner, and Vaclav Havel, Alice Walker, Jonathan Kozol, Diane Ackerman, Susan Griffin, Marian Wright Edelman, Cornel West, Terry Tempest Williams, Jim Hightower, Desmond Tutu, and Howard Zinn. I don't know, that might be all of them. Here it is. This book was monumental. It is a compilation of stories and essays by strong, thoughtful authors who discussed different movements and small actions throughout history that helped change history-sometimes suddenly, sometimes slowly over time. It is subtitled, "a citizen's guide to hope in a time of fear," and is illustrated beautifully with acts of hope by average citizens. I fully believe that we must challenge fear if we are to hope, and to love. I went to this book for a reaffirmation that the little things I can do to make change can make a difference in the world because as Americorps members, every day we do little things that we hope make a difference. One of the best outcomes I noticed in the youth surveys we have the program participants fill out at the end of the school year long program was that everyone agreed with the statement, "Teens can make positive change." This was so exciting to me because I do believe that teens can make positive change and I was so glad to hear that they believed it of themselves as well. There are times when I doubt for myself whether I can make positive change, but they there are little stories that emerge months or years later about how I impacted someone without knowing it and that is encouraging. This book was basically a collection of these types of stories-people taking action that eventually become turning points in movements for change along with small stories that didn't become the main stories of change in human history, but were stepping stones towards change. These stories, small and large encouraged me, but the overall tone of the book was quite dark. It was written just after George W. Bush began his second term, so for those that had begun to feel hopeless about the plight of the poor and underserved, environmental degredation and policy and America's role in the world, among other things, during the first (many of these authors among them), it was a time when one really needed to fight to remain hopeful in America. Though I was encouraged by the election of President Obama, this book is a sobering reminder that the problems that existed before have not all gone away and that we still need to do every small thing we can to make the world a better place and maintain hope, because, "The Impossible Will Take a Little While."