The Way I See It.

My Jesuit Volunteer year is quickly coming to an end, and it’s both hard to believe and something I’m truly looking forward to. I’ve made really good friends and had some great experiences, but I’m ready to move forward and see what the next chapter holds.

I don’t have any clearer picture of what I want to do with my life than when I arrived in California last August, but one thing I’ve definitely seen this year is the value of commitment.

A few weeks ago I was at Starbucks and my tall cup of black coffee had on it “The Way I See It #76”:

"The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating – in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life." - Anne Morriss

The exciting part of the JV year is long gone—moving out to California, meeting other recent college grads, finding your own definition of the words “social justice,” becoming comfortable working with homeless clients—that was the exciting part. Right now for most JV’s their jobs are second-nature, they are tired of not making money and the truth of the matter is that it’d probably be more beneficial to go wait tables or find any other job.

But few, if any, will take the easy route. This is the part of the year that is truly a test. It is a test of your ability to live in the present moment, to give your best when you would rather be elsewhere and your commitment to serve marginalized populations.

That is the thing about social justice—it’s not always front page news. Actually, it’s rarely news at all. The headlines: “Man Needs Shower,” “Man Needs Cup of Coffee,” “Man Needs Referral to Overnight Shelter,” are not glitzy or attention grabbing. No, they are only true.

Change is slow and it takes a renewed commitment each day to serve your clients with dignity and patience, optimism and compassion without worry of outcome. And maybe, as I’ve experienced this year, you’ll see an old client on the street and he’ll be dressed nicely and thank you for your help. Or, as often happens, most clients will simply disappear from your life without a good-bye, and that’s okay too.

Stories, Freedom and a Picture of Lake Merritt.

Photo by José Antonio Galloso

On Thursday over 60 people came to St. Vincent de Paul to meet with the Public Defender and prepare for the upcoming Homeless Court that will be held next Friday in our community center. Due to the difficulties of reaching our clients, many of whom only have voice-mail boxes they check infrequently or phones that oscillate in and out of service, it would be nearly impossible to set up appointment times. So instead, we have everyone show up a little before 9:30 with a first-come, first-served policy. At best you could describe the situation as controlled-chaos--more accurately though, it was mostly just chaos. But really, as a whole all of the clients were extremely patient, understanding and excited to be part of the program.

Last night before bed, I opened up The Best American Short Stories 2008 edited by Salman Rushdie and in the introduction he wrote: “…The freedom to tell each other the stories of ourselves, to retell the stories of our culture and beliefs, is profoundly connected to the larger subject of freedom itself…”

That quotation reminded me of my clients who show tremendous strength in addressing their legal matters. We have them write a letter to the judge and document their personal progress, growth and achievements, which the court accepts in lieu of a financial payment.

Essentially, they are telling their own stories, many of which involve job loss, drug abuse, failed marriages and countless other peaks and valleys. For many people, these stories would be too painful and embarrassing, but as I’ve seen throughout this year, our clients refuse to indulge in false pride and they are better for it. It’s clear that the process of addressing their problems--refusing to hide in the shadows and watch their lives spin out of control--is incredibly liberating in a way that someone such as myself who doesn’t live in the margins of society, can ever fully comprehend.

The Dance of Life.

The chapel at the Jesuit Retreat Center.
I was reminded to stop and smell the roses.

To be alone with your thoughts for the better part of four days is an experience every person should have at one time in their life.

At the beginning of the retreat we all met with our spiritual directors. My spiritual director, S.J. Tom Weston, asked me how I was feeling and if I needed a break from work. I told him I went home the week prior and was feeling pretty refreshed, but about three hours later, with my window open and a nice breeze passing through the room, I was out cold.

Aside from sleeping, and eating ridiculously good food, I spent much of my silent time reading a compilation of Henri Nouwen’s writings called The Dance of Life, which spoke to me in a way few books ever have. The passage that stuck with me the most was: “When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.”

Part of the retreat included a peace vigil where the staff put out journals we could write down our thoughts on peace and the JV year as a whole. They also put out the journals from the prior years, and it was interesting to see how similar the entries were from year to year. There was always a funny guy, cynical guy, some girl taking herself way too seriously, but mostly there was a deep appreciation for the triumphs, struggles and conflicts they had endured throughout the year. I thought about the journals while I was reading more Nouwen and I recognized that the universal epiphany of this year is that “in solitude we discover that our life is not a possession but a gift to be shared.” We leave the comforts of family and friends at home and move to neighborhoods rougher and more impoverished than most of us have ever lived in, and instead of accepting fear and despair we attempt to find hope and dare to bring light where there is darkness.

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s easy to wonder if there’s any point, to question whether change will ever come, but I think the lesson I’ve taken away from this experience is that joy and sadness are not mutually exclusive. There are days when I’m biking to work and I have a million thoughts and worries running through my mind and I forget to stop and appreciate a crisp morning or blue sky. This was the case the other day when I was running late, still half-asleep when I looked at the park across from St. Vincent and saw one of our clients blasting music on his boom-box and busting a move. I watched him for a while longer, here was this man who has so little, wonders where he’ll get his next meal, where he’ll sleep, and yet he’s still able to find so much joy.

The dance of life doesn’t begin when poverty, mental illness, rampant substance abuse and violence is eradicated--it is here and now. To witness all that is wrong with the world juxtaposed with genuine laughter and untainted pleasure can only be explained through grace--in a word, it’s divine.

Silence, please...

The excitement of dollar dogs--it's hard to contain.
Hello! I thought I’d drop a line before I head to silent retreat on Monday for four days--this is definitely another reality check that the year is coming to close. The retreat is held in Los Altos at a Jesuit retreat center that is supposed to be very scenic and I hear the food is buffet style and delicious, so I’m looking forward to that and some time to read a few books and relax.

Not too much else is new around here. On Wednesday night I went to the Oakland Coliseum for the first time and saw the Oakland A’s beat the Kansas City Royals 7-2. It was also dollar hot dog night, unfortunately I’d already eaten dinner, so I only ate a couple, otherwise I think I’d be good for about a dozen—I guess that’s something I can look forward to next time.

Also this weekend is the much ballyhooed Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco where people wear wacky costumes and pull around wacky floats and have a real wacky time! So yeah, that should be fun…

"When you become aware of silence, immediately there is that state of inner still alertness. You are present. You have stepped out of thousands of years of collective human conditioning."
-Eckhart Tolle

Ladies and Gentlemen...Guest Cartoonist Brett Foreman

Here's a little current events humor from our talented culinary student services coordinator Brett Foreman. Enjoy.

Spring.

Once again, sorry I haven’t written in a while.  I guess I haven’t had a lot on my mind lately.  Maybe I should buy a hat...I said maybe I should buy a hat!  Am I right?

Now that we have that knee-slapper out of the way, not too much is new around here, but I’m back and feeling refreshed after taking a few days off while my family visited.  We were able to explore a bit of San Francisco and I showed them around Oakland and my apartment.  We also went to Muir Woods and Stinson beach, which were both lovely.  The place we rented had a hot tub and I was reminded why people work real jobs--big props to my pops who does not volunteer his time.

It’s hard to believe how much of this year has passed, but it’s been great to get some nice spring weather in the bay area in recent weeks.  I’m starting to get excited about the year coming to an end, but I’m also a little nervous, as I don’t have a job lined up.  Like most of this year, not making any real money to speak of, it’s been a challenge to live in the present moment and trust that good things are ahead.  But I’ve tried for so long, why stop now?

Along the same lines, maybe it’s just my imagination, or merely a couple isolated incidents, but I feel like people in Oakland have been a little pricklier than normal.  And by “pricklier,” I mean that they’ve been giving me the middle finger and cursing at me lately.  My personal theory is that all of the talk in the media about the recession and unemployment puts people in a foul mood.  Whether that’s true I’m not sure, but it’s the theory that allows me to take it less personally.

The past two times I’ve taken a mid-day stroll to Starbucks I’ve had people ask me for money.  I politely declined both times.  The first time I was with two other people walking past Taco Bell and we told the man we didn’t have any money but that he should check out the free dining room at St. Vincent de Paul.  That only served to infuriate the man and he started shouting obscenities at us as we walked away.  Though, I guess I can understand--sometimes you really need a Chalupa and nothing else will do.  The other time I was walking back from Starbucks another man asked if I had any money and I said I didn’t, but this time the man didn’t even pause to let me tell him about the SVdP dining room before he launched into a mini-diatribe laced with a few choice racial slurs.

Also, a few weeks ago as I pulled off the highway and was stopped at a red light on Jackson St. when a man pulled up beside me, and decided to flip me the bird, apparently I hadn’t given him the proper amount of room to maneuver past me and make a right turn.  Oh wait, I did give him the proper amount of room, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to pull beside me and flip me the bird.

I won’t attempt to weave these stories into some sort of metaphor about social justice or any commentary on the state of Oakland.  I will only say that the next time you have the urge to curse at someone who won’t buy you a taco, or maybe another frustrating situation of greater significance, you should take a deep breath or two and maybe the world will be a better place.

Now for some SVdP news, I’d like to give a big blog shout out to my fellow volunteer, miss Lorelei Alvarez, who recently received funding for her graduate studies in social work at UC Berkeley.  Also, I’d like to say congrats on her two-year anniversary with her boyfriend Carlos--I give him two thumbs up.  What’s that I hear?  Oh yeah, the distinct sound of wedding bells!

 

Forty Acres and a Mule.

It’s been a while since I’ve written. At certain times this year I’ve felt like I’ve had a lot to say and at other times I’ve needed to sit back and wait for the bigger picture to emerge.

The other week I went and visited another JV in Sacramento on my day off and we went to her agency, also a homeless drop-in facility. I was helping hand out tickets for their dining room when I recognized a familiar face--it was a client at St. Vincent de Paul who hadn’t been around in a couple of months.

The man--in his late 50s with graying dreadlocks--let out a guttural laugh and said, “Hey, boy!” as he often called me. “You move up here, too?”

“I’m just visiting for the day,” I said.

“Well you should. There’s nothing but trouble in Oakland,” he said. I nodded my head in agreement. We talked a little more and he asked, “You still got the book?”

The book is Forty Acres and a Mule. It’s missing its cover, it’s water damaged and I think it was taken from the Oakland Library at some point. While I was managing the men’s center there was hardly a day he wouldn’t pop into my office and talk about the book. For the most part I’d just nod and smile, but I always enjoyed hearing him talk about it. He’d tell me about how he was going to head down to Louisiana and homestead himself up a little farm complete with cows, chickens and horses. He’d say things like, “You think I’m going to end up like the rest of these dopes? Nope, I’m going to get me some land. You better believe I’m going to get me some land.”

“Still got it,” I said as I handed him his lunch ticket.

His eyes lit up and he said, “Yeah, that’s right. I’m still going to do it, boy. I’m going to get a big ol’ place in Louisiana and I’ll let you help me farm it.

“That’s a deal,” I said.

Later in the afternoon he came back to the counter I was working at and asked to get change for a dollar so he could use the vending machine. I gave him ten dimes in return and he left sixty cents on the counter so I could buy myself a soda. I told him I was okay, but he insisted that I take the money whether I wanted something to drink or not. “Boy,” he said, walking away, “these pockets are full of money.”

I felt bad taking his money. I wasn’t quite sure what I should do, but I didn’t want to belittle his generosity so I went over and inserted the sixty cents into the machine and drank a soda while I talked with my former client a little longer.

After not seeing the man for a couple of months, I have to admit I secretly hoped he'd really moved to Louisiana and was hoeing up some craggy piece of swamp land. But mostly I was happy to know he was doing okay.

In reality, I’m fairly certain he never will homestead a piece of land in Louisiana or anywhere else. Though, maybe the dream or fantasy of setting up a little rural farm is the glimmer of hope that gets him by each day, and if that’s the case, I hope he never stops believing it’s possible.

Later on in the day after the homeless facility in Sacramento had shut down we were walking back to the JV house and along the way I spotted the man again. He was slouched on a bench, sort of staring off into the distance at nothing in particular. When he was living in Oakland I saw him around town a couple of times, and like many of our clients I see outside of St. Vincent de Paul, he never had quite the same smile, and he seemed lost in the world, lacking the confidence, or maybe bravado is a more apt description, that he exuded while in the men’s center.

We’d snagged a bunch of Girl Scout cookies from the homeless facility’s warehouse, so I jay-walked across the street and gave him a box of Samoas. He thanked me, but once again he seemed unsure of himself, demeanor completely changed. I told him it was nice seeing him again and that maybe I’d be back later on in the year. He simply nodded and forced a bit of a smile.

It was a reminder of the barriers that exist between “us and them” and how difficult it is to create lasting change. But I thought about it for a while, and maybe that’s okay. Perhaps making one man’s world a little better, slightly more bearable, for one day, or one hour, or even one minute is enough.




“The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive.” -Thich Nhat Hanh