What JVC Taught Me

My last day of JVC/Casa DK/Urban Compass was August 3rd. The last few weeks were a prolonged goodbye--birthday celebrations for me and the Mikes, DisOrientation, blessings, goodbye parties... it was hard to say goodbye to everyone. The kids had varying reactions--some were genuinely angry with me that I was leaving, some cried, some didn't seem to grasp the situation. I fell in love with the children of Urban Compass and I miss them so much already. As they get older, they may not remember me, but I know I will never forget them.

As for my community and coworkers--I cannot imagine my life without them now. It has been bizarre having less contact with them in the last month and a half, but we are trying to still stay in touch and be involved in each others' lives, though obviously it cannot be at such a high level.

It's been almost two months since the end of JVC and I don't think I've adequately written about this year, so I present to you: What JVC Taught Me.

JVC taught me about humility. From the very beginning of orientation, we were warned that we would not be able to "save" our students/clients/the world with our work. And as much as I heard those words, I don't think I truly understood how small a piece of the puzzle I was until I had worked at Urban Compass for a while. Cerebrally, I knew the challenges and the struggles that my students faced, yet how could you be prepared for the stories they told? How could you be prepared to have a second grader tell you how she witnessed her uncle's murder in a carjacking? How could you be prepared to hear the story of a father's deportation? How could you be prepared to hear about the abuse? I was reminded daily of my humanity. There was no way I could just take these children out of the poverty and violence of their lives; there was no way I could even singlehandedly guarantee that they would make it to the next grade level.

But what I could do was commit myself wholeheartedly into my work at Urban Compass and give my kids my whole self every afternoon. I helped them with their homework. I listened to their stories. I encouraged them. I disciplined them when needed. I hugged them. I loved them--and that was all I could do. It's hard to realize how little control we have on other people's lives--but taught me an important lesson in humility. I will not save the world. But the world might save me.

JVC taught me about taking chances. Living in community, we ate meals together a few times a week. I'm not much of a cook, but to hold up my share, I started cooking more often. (Though, honestly, not nearly as often as other members of my community, but I did try to make an effort) Not every dish was excellent, but I started to have a few signatures that were even requested. I've always loved exploring, and living in LA for a year meant a whole new world to see. We made a LA Bucket List, and tried to knock off something every weekend. I went and saw Wicked at Pantages alone with Christmas money. LA has so many museums, and I loved exploring them. Moving to LA itself was taking a chance, and brought on a new mindset for me in my year in JVC.

JVC taught me about making connections. I have long made connections through dance--and this year was no different, even if I didn't dance as much as I would have liked. One of my favorite memories with one of my favorite students was a day we had a dance party in the classroom after homework time was over. Putnam and I went dancing a couple times, and I started actually letting him lead when we danced. I taught "Shackles," a dance we did in Heavenly Expressions at Mt. Level to my community. A fourth grader and I did the entire "Single Ladies" dance one day in the program (she knew it better than I did, I have to confess). The ladies of DK went to Richard Simmons' workout class, and sweated our butts off and had the time of our lives.

Besides dance, I learned to make connections other ways. Hayden and I sang duets occasionally; our best one was "Jackson" but I think "Another Day" was pretty good too. We had dinner as a community about four times a week, which I think was one of the most valuable aspects of our community. We'd recap our days, share our joys and struggles, laugh a lot and often get into deep discussions. This was one of the more informal ways we came together, while our support team, Shannon and Maria, had us come together more formally. Our support team came over every other week and we had structured time as a community--they facilitated conversations that needed to be had and brought out parts of us that we were more reluctant to show. I have learned there is a place for both of these situations in forming lasting connections. Sometimes you need to have structured conversations, but sometimes you just need to spend some time together, and laugh.

JVC taught me about faith. Once a week we did spirituality nights, and we took turns planning them, occasionally teaming up. We watched movies and documentaries, danced, prayed, wrote letters, poems and journal entries, read essays, listened to talks, faith shared, made resolutions, read the bible, meditated... We explored and expanded our spirituality both together and personally. The JVC Silent Retreat was in early May, and came at a time that I most needed to recharge my faith. Immediately after this retreat, I headed home to see my mom in the hospital. There were some structured activities, but in general it was up to us to be silent and listen to God and embrace ourselves as spiritual beings. At our final "DisO" retreat, different Casas led the group in prayer--and many were very powerful, all about making peace with the year and moving forward. It was a renewal of my faith that I could move forward and take this experience with me.

JVC taught me about perseverance. The first time I was in charge of a classroom was at age 18, teaching Vacation Bible School at Mt. Level in the 2/3 year old classroom. That week was one of the most stressful of my life and I was not too interested in teaching after that. Fast forward to the summer before JVC and teaching VBS at First Baptist--things went a lot smoother. I was teaching older kids (the same age as I would be teaching later at Urban Compass) and I had a better idea of what I was doing.

When I accepted the job at Urban Compass, I hoped I would be working with older elementary--age 8 to 10 or so, but instead I was placed in the K/1 classroom. I was very apprehensive about this, and I had a very difficult time at first establishing routine, rules and consequences. But as time passed, the job got easier. I became more comfortable and the kids started responding better to me. We had our bad days, but by the end of the year, I was much more confident in my teaching abilities.

JVC taught me about beauty. Through our exploration as a community, and mine personally, I found myself constantly encountering God's beautiful creation. As a community we traveled to San Diego, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Sequoia National Park. We went to the beach pretty often; the many beaches of the Southland area are all beautiful in their own way. One of my favorite places I found was the rose garden at USC. I fell in love with those gorgeous California roses and loved spending time there when I needed some time away from the house.

JVC taught me about compromise. I grew up in a big family in a small space, so I figured living in community wouldn't be too hard. Well, living in intentional community is hard. There's a lot of compromise that goes on, from taking turns cooking to taking turns doing the dishes, from noise levels to movie choices, from being chatty to being quiet, from diet restrictions to trying new foods, from keeping personal stuff in common areas to a minimum to hanging out in the common areas and intentionally spending time with one another... and then of course, what to do with the cat that just walked in the house. There were a lot of arguments. But when it came down to it, we were not willing to let these things come between us as a community, and we always managed to compromise.

JVC taught me about being silly. Taking on a full time volunteer job at a nonprofit that worked with children that live in the biggest housing development west of the Mississippi was a serious undertaking. Fortunately, children are silly, and brought out my silliness. Outside of work, as a community we also took time to unwind. A particularly memorable night was Halloween, when we bobbed for apples and ate donuts off a string... We threw and attended many house parties (that's how to have fun on a budget), many of which were themed, most notably 90's prom. We'd go to Yogurtland and only eat samples (dessert on a budget) and I began to perfect my rendition of Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" as my go-to karaoke song. And the only celebrity I really had contact with was Wayne Brady when we went to a taping of "Let's Make a Deal," where I touched his leg when he walked by. (Yes, that's my big LA celeb moment)

JVC taught me about hope. At the beginning the year, I started the quote wall at DK. I updated it pretty often, and when we left, there was only the bottom quarter of the door uncovered. These quotes were a daily reminder to us of what we were doing, and why we were doing it. They reminded us to hope. The stories that we told at the dinner table or during community/spirituality nights gave me hope too. Though the stories were often painful, I was hopeful knowing that my community and I were working to give others hope; we were committing our lives to people who needed hope.

My classroom, Room 203, gave me hope. More specifically, the sixteen loud and crazy 5/6/7 year olds that seemed to rarely actually be sitting down in it. I loved seeing the Aha! moments on my students' faces when a math problem made sense or they read a sentence perfectly. The resiliency of those children gives me hope that they will be able to break the cycle of poverty and violence they were born into. And when the fifth grade of 112th St graduated and sang "We Are the World," I found hope that these children will change the world.

JVC taught me about strength. JVC is no picnic--we are placed in difficult, demanding jobs, live with strangers, are far away from family and friends... As someone who already struggles with depression, there were times during JVC that my spirits got to an all time low, but each day I managed to get out of bed in the morning was a victory. I marched for Trayvon Martin and it was a rare monsoon rainstorm in LA--my umbrella broke and still we marched in the flooded streets; all I could think was it was the least I could do. I may have been soaked all the way through, but Trayvon Martin had been murdered, and I wasn't going to let the rain stop me from showing my solidarity.

The real test of my strength, though, came in early April with my mom's diagnosis. I didn't know how to handle it. I spent a lot of time hiding in my closet, because it felt safer in there. My community supported me. And I found strength from my mother. The first thing she said to me after she was diagnosed was "I'm a fighter, baby. We can trust God. I gave my life to him long ago, and I do have a deep peace right now. It won't be easy tho, I'll need my number one fan to cheer me." Those words came from the woman I am so much like both from genetics and because she raised me--and I knew that her strength was in me too. And she told me she wanted me to stay in JVC for the rest of my year--so I did.

JVC taught me about love. I fell in love with Casa Dorothy Kazel. I fell in love with Urban Compass. I fell in love with the City of Angels. I saw whole new worlds through my community's and kids' eyes. I found love as Ms. B/Queen Bee/Nay/Shanaynay in a city with so much to offer. I lived and worked in South Central LA, a fact that makes people gasp. People gave it up as hopeless. I found love in that hopeless place. And I found that it was hopeful. I found love in a hopeful place.

DisOrientation: You Got Off the Boat

DisOrientation is currently happening, meaning there is a lot of reflection going on--how life has changed in the last year, how to say goodbye, etc.

Something that has struck me is remembering the night of August 6, 2011. We had an opening mass for JVC Orientation on the beach and the priest spoke about the story of Jesus's disciples on the boat. Jesus miraculously walked on the water toward the disciples' boat during a storm, and Peter called out, "if it is you, Lord, tell me to get off the boat and walk to you" (on the water, as Jesus was doing). Jesus does, and Peter walks toward him. He then gets scared and starts sinking, and Jesus saves him and tells him he should not have doubted.

The priest took this story to describe the journey we were embarking in our year of JVC. That we would need to have faith to carry us through, but the fact that we were even there at orientation meant that we had gotten off the boat.

Toward the end of orientation, we each got a piece of paper to write a simple reflection of what we learned/would carry with us for the coming year. We wrote many phrases such as "AMDG" or from different speakers we'd had or activities we'd done. We hung them up on the wall at the retreat center. What had continually stayed with me that week was that I had taken this chance, I had gotten off the boat. I wrote "YOU GOT OFF THE BOAT."

We got to DisO today and the retreat center is decorated with many of the things we have made at retreats over this year, including those phrases. Why, I don't know, but mine is hanging on the podium. I hope it serves as a reminder to have faith, and get off the boat.

Spirituality Night: Closing Prayer

God, Our heavenly mother,

We come to You as humbly as we know how. We thank You for the beauty You have given us on this planet--the sky, the earth, the trees, the people, the love, the art, the generosity, the perseverance. We thank You also for the beauty of pain, of suffering, of fear, of exhaustion, of vulnerability.

We ask that You help us to always remember that we can still find You through the entire span of human experience, through the struggle. Be with us as we seek You out in our daily lives.

Be with us as we live in community. Be with us in our work. Be with us in our relationships with others. Be with us during the "life is good" moments, and in the moments we want to give up.

Thank You for showing us that we are all connected. Help us to always remember that we can always find common ground.

Guide us to the places we will find You, and guide us to find You in places we never imagined.

Bless our community and our work. Bless our families and friends that have paved the way for us. Bless the world and use us to heal the pain. Help us learn from everyone--for everyone can teach us something.

We must remember that You aren't through with us yet.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.

Spirituality Night: The Happiness Project

I led spirituality night last week, and in the spirit of the new year, focused on positive changes to make in our lives. As part of my 50 books I read last year, I read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. I was inspired by her book to begin my own happiness project, by focusing on what makes me happy. I decided to share a lot of what I learned from the book with my community.

The idea behind the happiness project is to approach happiness as a journey instead of a goal. Change habits so that you can focus on being happy. In our society, success is measured by wealth and not happiness. Happiness is viewed as a luxury that we can only afford if we purchase it. With that mindset, we will never find happiness, because it involves trying to get to a certain point of, "oh, if XYZ happens, THEN I'll be happy." But why wait? Happiness is available to all of us now if we look at things differently.

After first explaining what the Happiness Project was, I read some of the commandments/tips/"secrets of adulthood" for happiness from the book that I thought were useful.

A sampling:
One minute rule: If you can do it in a minute, get it done
Let it go
Forgive
Just because someone else enjoys something doesn't mean you will, and vice versa
Sing in the morning
Spend ten minutes before you go to bed cleaning
The days are long but the years are short
It's okay to ask for help
Be nice
Always say 'thank you'
You can choose what you do, you can't choose what you LIKE to do
You can do ANYTHING you want, but you can't do EVERYTHING you want
If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough
Don't keep score
One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make others happy; one of the best ways to make others happy is to be happy yourself
Enjoy the process
Act the way you want to feel

The best resolutions take vague statements like "I want to be a better friend" or "I want to exercise more" or "I want to meet new people," and turn them into concrete goals, like "I will call a friend at least once a week" and "I am going to go to the gym every day" and "I am going to join an organization so I meet people with similar interests."

I then invited my community to reflect on their own about what their own mini happiness project would look like/their own resolutions for 2012. I also wanted everyone to think about happiness and its connection to spirituality (this was spirituality night after all...), and also how they might want to explore their spirituality in the coming year. We journaled for a little while and then came back together for a short discussion. I had everyone share at least one "resolution," because we need to hold each other accountable. I wrapped up with this quote:

Happiness is the spiritual experience of love, grace and gratitude.

For more on the Happiness Project, visit Gretchen Rubin's website.


Soundtrack to the evening:
Surely We Can Change-David Crowder Band
Better Get to Livin'-Dolly Parton
I Was Here-Beyoncé
Be Happy-Mary Mary
Come Awake-David Crowder Band
Let Go-Frou Frou
Turntable-TLC
Shining Like the Sun-Kate Campbell
It's A New Day-will.i.am

Spirituality Night: With Such a Cloud of Witnesses

I led Spirituality Night again a few weeks ago, as a combination of day of the dead honoring/remembrance, discussion of who has been influential in our spirituality/faith, and a bit of reflection through Bible verses. I read some passages, we reflected and shared with the community, and I wrapped it up with another passage.

I read Romans 8 first. Some of the most powerful verses I focused on:

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.


Romans 8:31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Then I read Hebrews 12.

Hebrews 12:1-3 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

We then had a few minutes of silence to reflect on the passages, before sharing about our clouds of witnesses.

Spirituality Night: Liturgical Dance

Thursday night was my turn to facilitate spirituality night, and I decided to focus on liturgical dance. I have been a dancer my entire life and part of liturgical dance groups since 9 years old.

I started a discussion on any background information my community mates knew about liturgical dance and any experience they had. I then shared a little bit about my experience, and some research I had done. Dance has been a part of Christianity from the beginning; David danced in the Bible. It was during the Reformation that dance and a lot of art got shoved out of the church and it became more of a head-y religion, sometimes at the expense of the body. We are still trying to break out of that hundreds of years later and liturgical dance is one of the ways to show we can still praise God, but in a different way.

In my own life, the church I grew up in had a liturgical dance group, but we only danced in programs outside of the 11:00 Sunday service. And we danced a lot--youth revivals, Easter Program, Christmas Program, Black History program, etc. But it wasn't until Pentacost 2005 that things changed, and we danced in the 11:00 service for the first time. There were only a couple of years I was still there afterwards, but now they are able to dance in the Sunday service often. In my Austin church, I became the choreographer of the liturgical dance group within six months. We danced about once every quarter or semester, depending on the schedule of the dancers and the church.

So, on Spirituality Night, I shared a dance we had done at Mt. Level when I was 13: "Shackles" (MaryMary). I have reused this dance often when sharing liturgical dance with others, because it is fun and simple. Most recently, I taught the girls in Chile on our mission trip in 2009. I showed my community mates that video as well.

We then had a debriefing discussion of how they felt about the dancing as an expression of faith, dancing in the church, what they learned, etc. My community mates were very responsive and totally game for the dancing which I really appreciated :) I enjoyed sharing with them a part of me that is so important. 


I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche

What's happening next year?

I will be moving to Los Angeles, California on August 6, 2011.

Surprise!

Actually, this shouldn't be a surprise to most of you. I don't even know who reads this, but I'm going to hazard a guess that we know each other. So, if you know me, you know that before I graduated last fall, I had thought about doing a service year, and that in February I decided on five programs I wanted to apply to, and that in March and April, I applied to four of them, and that in May I was accepted into three, and also in May, I officially decided to become a Jesuit Volunteer.

The programs I applied to were Mission Year, Good Shepherd Volunteers, Lutheran Volunteer Corps, and Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

Why did I pick JVC?

It was a difficult decision. All of these programs are similar in some ways and then each have distinctions that set them apart. So my reasons weren't necessarily picking JVC over MY or LVC, but just when I added up all the pros for JVC, it felt right.

So what were those reasons? They're easily summed up by the four values of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

COMMUNITY
Community has always been an important aspect of my life. I've always loved my big family, my church families, my dance families. The communities I am part of are a big part of why I am the way I am. Community is important in shaping who we are, in being our support in times of struggle, allowing us to teach each other. During my year in JVC, I will be living in community with other Jesuit Volunteers.

SOCIAL JUSTICE
The agencies JV's work with are all involved in some aspect of social justice. The homeless, intimate partner violence, prisons, refugees, immigrants, hunger, disease... etc. We have a responsibility to the downtrodden of our society. This is why I chose to a service year in the first place. I may try to act for social justice in my daily life, but I have never taken the time to devote my life completely to service. And now I will.

SPIRITUALITY
JVC is faith based, in the Jesuit Catholic tradition. The last few years I have explored a lot in my spirituality. I have come to my own decisions and had my own conversations with God, instead of relying on others to tell me what to believe. My sense of justice has also stemmed strongly from my faith. Throughout the year, we will have spiritual retreats and learn more about our spirituality as part of the JVC program.

SIMPLICITY
The world has gotten so busy these days. We just have so much stuff. With JVC, I will be paid enough to get by and pay all my bills, but it will be a different lifestyle than I am even used to now. I am going to have to improve my cooking skills and learn to get by with less. As part of preparation for this, I am trying to rid myself of unnecessary junk I have. I won't be able to take much with me, so I'm packing things up, both as part of learning simplicity, as well as the fact that this is the fourth time I've moved in four years, I'm tired of moving all this crap every year.

I will be working with Urban Compass in Los Angeles. My assignment is for a year, from August 2011-August 2012. Probably the real tipping point on why I chose JVC was the particular interview I had for placement with Urban Compass. I am drawn to urban ministry, and have always been drawn to prevention programs for temptations that affect young people, especially in an urban setting: gangs, drugs, dating violence, crime, gun violence, teen pregnancy, etc. Urban Compass is a partnership between Verbum Dei High School and 112th Street Elementary School, serving the children of the Watts neighborhood in LA, one of the most economically depressed in the nation. It's an after school and summer program designed to give these kids homework help, enrichment activities, even field trips to show there is a world outside of Watts. It is also simply serves as a place for kids to go, and keep them off the streets. As my dad said when he was working on keeping after school programs in Durham--the hours between 4 to 6 are prime time for juvenile crime.


The director of the program I will be working with next year was interested in my experience growing up in Durham. I by no means grew up in the ghetto, but it's hard to escape some of the issues Durham has because of the pervasiveness. There are people I grew up with that joined gangs, some of whom are now dead or in prison. And I've known people that have died by gun violence. She was also very interested in my dance experience. I do have an interesting background--I am most trained in modern dance, but for the last four years have been very active in my ballet folklórico troupe at St. Ed's. I also know a bit about quite a lot of other types of dance: African, tap, ballet, hip-hop, lyrical, jazz... Dance for me has always been a way to connect with people, and I am so excited about teaching dance.


Next year is going to be a life changing experience. I don't expect it to be easy, I know it will be one of the most difficult things I've ever done, but I also know that it's part of my journey.


Thank you for reading. If you would like to donate to JVC, to help fund me and other volunteers and support us, please follow this link.