Community

I've been meaning to write on intentional community for a while.

Living in community is one of the main reasons I chose to do MVS instead of the SALT program (which is a 1 year service abroad organization through the Mennonite Central Committee). In MVS, volunteers live together in a common space and share food, money, chores, sometimes a car, etc etc etc. I chose to come to Baltimore because our house is such a unique community. Instead of just having MVS volunteers, we have 13 housemates from 6 different countries. We have 5 refugees, 4 Mennonite volunteers, 1 Brethren volunteer, and 4 community members/ renters. We share chores, space, basic foods like flour, sugar, and spices, and of course our lives. When I have a hard day, there is always someone in the kitchen who will listen to me talk about it. When I am excited about something, someone will probably be in the living room to be excited with me. Community is a beautiful thing- when it works. But like everything else in the world, it doesn't work all the time.

Before there was sin in the world, God saw that it wasn't good for man to be alone. A lot of people take this verse to mean that God wants everyone to get married, but those people are idiots. Not everyone is supposed to get married, and marriage is not the most sacred institution or relationship on earth; one's relationship with God is. I think far fewer people need to get married and instead devote their lives to service and, yes, community. But I digress. I LOVE that after God makes (evolves) the world, the animals, and humans, He looks and sees that it isn't good enough to have just one person. It isn't sin that separates man from God or the animals, it's simply how we're made: we need each other. There is nothing wrong with feeling lonely. Wanting to be with others isn't weakness, it's instinct. Community is huge throughout the whole Bible. The Hebrews are selected and saved AS A PEOPLE. Jesus intentionally forms a tight-knit core group of disciples. Disciples are always sent out in pairs to go serve and heal and preach. The early church lived together and shared everything in common. Paul's epistles are written to entire church bodies and communities of believers. We were never meant to go it alone, and the gospel looks and feels different when it is lived out in it's proper context- that is, in community.

That being said, let me also say that community is really, really, really hard. Forming a "community" of a Bible study or even a group of friends while I was in college was an entirely different process than LIVING in community. Senior year I lived with 9 other girls, but I CHOSE those girls. We knew each other and made the conscious decision to live together. I did NOT chose the people I live with now, and to be honest, if I had a choice, there are some that I would not chose to live with. But I wasn't given a choice, I was given a family and asked to function with respect and even love within it.

I would say about 60- 65% of the time, my community is a good thing. When I'm cleaning the kitchen and someone helps me, even though it isn't their kitchen cleaning day, or when someone makes me tea because I'm sick, or teaches me to cook a food from their country, or shares a story about life before Baltimore, it feels like we really are one unit, here to serve each other.

But then there is that pesky 35- 40% of the time. The other times. The times when for the 6th time in a row I didn't use the last of the toilet paper, but the toilet paper is gone with no new roll in sight (yeah, the toilet paper fairy who magically replaces the roll when you use the last of it and leave the cardboard there? That's me). The times when no one communicated about using the car and now it's gone and no one knows where it is. The times when I just want to sit by myself and watch the Office online in my room and a housemate WILL NOT LEAVE or STOP TALKING about something irrelevant. Those times are hard. Really hard.

More than that, though, I've been shocked by how painfully lonely living in community can be. After all, loneliness isn't about being around people or not being around people; it's about feeling loved and understood and known and wanted. Living with 13 people doesn't mean that 13 people love and understand and know and want me, it just means they're obligated to give me phone messages and save me some of their dinner.

This community has not been what I expected or, to be honest, what I wanted. But more and more, at work and at home, I'm learning to die to myself and thrive on service. My life is not my own, and nothing drives that point home more than working 8 hours at a homeless shelter and coming home and having to cook dinner for all the volunteers and clean the bathroom, putting my needs and desires aside. I don't have the luxury of taking a nap or going to Starbucks or having cereal for dinner. I have certain obligations I need to do and certain relationships that I need to nurture, like it or not. Sometimes I do it well, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes other people in the house take care or me and nurture me well, and sometimes they don't. But for now, it works more often that it doesn't, and it's enriching, even when it's hard. And maybe that's all we can ask for.

Wow.

There is no such thing as a normal day at this job. I mean, there are certain things that I do every day or every week, but there is never a day that is exactly the same as any other.

A few days ago, a female client of ours got $700 on a a food stamp card (which works like a debit card, but only on food). The average food stamp award for a single person is only $160 a month, but she hadn't received them for quite a while even though she was entitled to them, so they gave them to her all at once. She has been clean for less than a month, and she told staff that she was concerned she would use the card to buy drugs. My first thought was, holy crap, I knew this was a bad area but they sell COCAINE in the GROCERY STORE?, but that wasn't it. She was afraid she would sell the card, then use that money to buy drugs, which is apparently pretty common (reason #64 why I would be a pretty bad drug addict).

She and the rest of the staff agreed that the best thing to do would be to spend the money on the card so it would be less of a temptation. I had my car here today, so I was given the task of taking her to the store to spend the money. She was really excited about being able to get lots of "extras" to share with the house. The shelter is fully stocked with food, of course, but only basic things, and they're the same all the time. So, off to Save-a-Lot we go, her food card in my hand, to feed the homeless.

The main thing she wanted was crab legs. We got $45 worth (about 5 pounds). We got tons of chips and cookies and soda and pies. I threw in a few bags of grapes, apples, and bananas. We got about 6 boxes of "fancy" cereal (off-brand Lucky Charms, Cookie Crisp, etc). We also got a 10 pound bucket (yes, BUCKET) of chitterlings. Google it. Then guess which one of us picked THAT one out.

It was nice being out with her, walking around the store, talking about our families and what foods we like and don't like. She was surprised but pleased that I don't have kids. She has 4 and is currently pregnant. But at the same time, it just seemed so odd. I wondered what the cashier thought as I pulled the card out of my pocket and gave it to her to use to pay. Of course, the reason they switched to cards was to make it less obvious that people were purchasing food with government assistance, but they're still pretty recognizable (and the fact that they have "INDEPENDENCE CARD" written in big red letters doesn't really help). We ended up spending about $300, mostly on junk. I was torn between being excited for our residents, some of whom have spent years living on the streets, who now get to have special things like cookies and cake and soda and crab. Another part of me was thinking about the dead babies I saw in Kenya who had starved to death. From anorexia to involuntary starvation to compulsive eating to $700 in back payments on food stamps that need to not be spent on drugs.... we, as a collective humanity, have a pretty f-ed up relationship with food.

When I got back to the shelter, I went through the mail, which I do every day. I also alphabetize it every day, but the overnight staff always mess it up. WHY? I don't know. You should ask them. Anyway, today we had a letter from prison. I LOVE when we have letters from prison, because I get to be the one to answer them. Granted, it's with a form letter explaining that we do take ex-offenders and has numbers and addresses for them to use to get housing through us, but I still like answering them. I like reading them and feeling like I get to help a person I might never see.

This letter wasn't seeking housing, though. It was from a 58 year old man seeking employment. He didn't say how long he had been in prison for, but he did say he has his masters degree in social work. He also said he has schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder. He ended the letter with, "I need to get back to work. I am sober now for the long run. Starting over is hard at my age. Please help me." When I took the letter to my manager to ask what I should write back, she pointed out that his release date had already passed and that he hadn't left an address other than the one of the prison, so we have no way to contact him.

Educationally (which is probably not a word), that man is more qualified for this job than I am. Actually, he is probably more qualified based on life experiences, too, and would probably not have to use urbandictionary.com to translate the drug slang the clients use. But here I am, working, smelling the crab legs that a client is so excited to serve her friends. And where he is? I can't know.

Housing.

I just got off the phone with a woman who was trying to reach our intake counselor, who doesn't actually work at this building. I told her she should call the main office and gave her the extension of the person she wanted to reach. She asked me if I could give her the name and number of someone who could help her if she couldn't get through to the first person, so I asked her what the call was regarding so I could know to whom I should refer her.

She told me that she had spoken with our intake person a year or so ago about getting housing and has been on the wait list. She is currently facing foreclosure on her house and just lost her job. She won't get her last paycheck from work until her eviction date, which is, of course, too late to stop the eviction from happening.

She was desperate; I could hear the sadness in her voice. I told her that there really wasn't anyone else for her to speak with, that the intake person is in charge of the wait list and all new clients. She asked what to do if the intake counselor didn't answer, and I told her to leave a detailed message, stating what was going on and emphasizing the fact that it is urgent, and that the counselor would get back to her.

She was persistent; I don't blame her. "And if she doesn't? What do I do? Who can I call or go to if she doesn't get back to me in time?"
I was silent. What do you say to that? This woman was asking me, point blank, how to avoid becoming homeless. What was I supposed to say? "Oh, I'm just a volunteer, I have a degree in art, I haven't worked here that long, I'm not a social worker...." I mean, what do you say to that?

I told her I didn't know who to call. I told her that the counselor WOULD call her back, that we understand that sometimes quick and decisive action is needed. I told her we would do everything we could to help her, and we will.

And if we don't? If we fail? If she falls between the cracks, and is literally left out in the cold?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

choices

"Geography is no cure for what's the matter with you." -Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

I used to think that I needed to get as far away as possible from everything I knew in order to be happy. Throughout college, most of what I talked about was moving to a developing country when I graduated so I could start my "real" life. A lot of people, myself included, were quite surprised when I turned down an offer to teach English and art in Nicaragua in order to come to Baltimore. At the time, I couldn't really give a good reason for the decision, except that going to Nicaragua just didn't feel right. To be honest, if I could do it over, I might make a different choice, but I am also thankful for the opportunity to experience Baltimore for year.

A lot of what I'm learning here is what I don't want to do. I know now that I don't want to spend my life in the inner city. I know I don't want to be a social worker. I know I don't want to work with adults with addictions. It isn't that I don't love my job, because I do, I'm just not that good at it. I'm not cut out for this type of work- I am too trusting, too sensitive, and too naive. I know that, with time, these things would change, but I'm not sure I want them to. I LIKE that I'm a trusting and sensitive person. Naivete is perhaps a less desirable trait, but I have trouble seeing myself losing these things without becoming cynical and detached.

Some of the people I work with- most of them, actually- are fabulous at what they do. If, for example, a client's urinalysis comes back positive for cocaine, and I have a conference with the client and ask if they used cocaine, and they tell me no, and start crying, and insist it must be a mistake, I believe them. If one of my coworkers were to have a conference with the same client, they would be able to see through every lie they told and somehow get them to admit the type, amount, and location of every drug in their possession. I don't know how. They're just that good.

Earlier this week two of our female residents moved out. They weren't kicked out, and they didn't find permanent housing, they just left. Both of them had stayed in bed after 7am (which is against the rules) and so our manager had a conference with each of them individually. In the course of these meetings, she somehow got them to both admit that they had used drugs in the past week. This, by itself, is not grounds for being removed from the shelter, but it is a serious offence. The manager was in the process of discussing how to better address the clients' substance abuse issues, and both clients became frustrated and resistant. The manager said something like "do you really want to be here? are you ready for help? are you ready to quit using drugs?" and the women both said no. They threw what few possessions they have into garbage bags and walked out.

I was fighting back tears. I wanted to chase them into the street screaming for them to come back, pleading for them to give US another chance, asking them to fully consider the consequences of their decisions. I didn't, though. I sat at my computer and entered urinalysis results into the computer. Over lunch, the other counselors and I were discussing what happened. The consensus among the experienced counselors was very much that what had happened was a shame, but that the women needed to make their own mistakes, that they were not ready for help, and that we had done everything we could do. I hate that. I hate feeling so helpless, I hate working so hard and having everything I've done be so fragile, and I hate letting go of people I've come to love. But I also knew that the other counselors were right; I can't fix anyone, I can't force anyone into recovery, and try as I might, I can't love someone back to sanity or sobriety or happiness (though I plan on continuing to try).

Somewhat in line with the thought that moving far away would mean leaving all my problems behind, I used to think that only the hardest work was worth doing. I thought that, somehow, my life would only have value if I was working in the poorest country with the most vulnerable population doing the most draining work. I am now more than comfortable with the concept that some work is really just too hard for me. I would have been ashamed in college to ever say that a job- particularly a job serving people who are so often ignored and oppressed- was too tough for me, but guess what: this one is. Of course I will finish my year here, and I know I will be stronger for having done so, but I can say with confidence that this is not my calling. Nothing has ever confirmed in my love for and desire to work with children as much as working with adults and nothing has made me want to live in a rural area of an unindustrialized country more than living in the inner city. Thus, I can't really say that coming here was a mistake or wasted time, because I AM having confirmations of my vocation... just not for THIS vocation.

By the way, today, two days after she left, one of the residents who left on Monday came back, welcomed with open arms by staff and clients alike. And that, my friends, is an example of what will help me last here until August.