So yea. IV staff sounds just so cool. And even from the student perspective--I liked the "staff," these people seemed to have it together, conversed and interacted with non-christians well and the like.
But geez is it hard. For one, it's just simply weird when you think about it that I'm a college graduate--not even from Georgetown....waltzing onto campus every day. Maybe it feels weird because I know that most of the people looking back at me don't know I don;t go to school here.
It seems to easy to fall into the pattern of only knowing intervarsity students. What other legitimacy do I have to be here? Am I supposed to go along as though I'm a freshman again, making friends and getting involved......in my off time? Then only to later "spring" on people that.......oh yea, I'm not actually in college......I just hang out here alot.....um, yea I do get paid....well........
Also what's dawning on me a bit is how much this is throwing me into Christian culture in a way I've never really experienced before as well. In my experience, I was often the person who semi-affiliated with InterVarsity, went to a lot of things....but in some ways prided myself on my semi-diaffiliation and ability to be present in multiple communities on campus....never too deep in the Christian one. Here--well, IV is my job. Identifying with it--well that's kind of inherent.
Today when we were doing surveys on campus......(WM IV has done surveys for years, I've never directly participated, mostly as an Orientation Aide, but still).....and guess who was the one going up to people asking them to fill out a survey asking them whether they believed in God? What did they think was the greatest moral issue? Did their belief in God affect the way they lived? Would they like to be contacted about a Bible Study. Yes it works, people do sign up....however, its just not my usual position. I get a high voice....and start apologizing for what I'm doing--"It will only take a few minutes"...."Umm...it's about beliefs on campus"...."No, you don't have to give your name."
What about this idea that we're offering people "living water"--that Jesus isn't some kind of excusable, throw-away toy.....but the most thirst-quencing, life-giving, exciting thing.....well ever?!? Is that lost in this? I don't think so--but when I act like I'm embarassed to be doing it--well yes, it is.
It will be a challenge to be in many ways representing the institution in this job (must I?). I'm not sure how I'll adjust to this new kind of paradigm. I also don't think I need to feel sucked in or like I've suddenly started in some way "working for the man." How will I be true to myself? my God? My general tendency to draw closer to the non-core group people? What will this look like? Will I get bored?
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2 comments:
good post and good questions. weird to find yourself on the other side of the IV coin.
(figured a little positive response would encourage you to keep blogging regularly)
Kate,
I too am used to being an outsider. Of course, as an outsider I've known insiders who are doing wonderful things. The following is my very brief experience working from the outside with insiders of a wonderful, long-standing organization. The Night Ministry is doing God's work in San Francisco, as I tried to explain in the following paper I wrote months ago to share with Brent Burford's Sunday school class at White's Chapel UMC in Southlake, Texas, when we were studying St. Francis. Francis in many ways considered himself an outsider but worked within the church, which generally did not understand him, to carry out Jesus' example of true, unconditional love.
Saint Francis' Love Is Being Shared at Night on the Streets of San Francisco -- The Night Ministry
A remarkable religious ministry that helps primarily the poor and distraught is the San Francisco Night Ministry. Brother Jude Hill, a Franciscan friar who was trained in Switzerland as a Jungian therapist, has helped maintain the Night Ministry in the context of Saint Francis' life including his various conversion experiences.
One of the Night Ministers is the Reverend Donald Fox, an old friend of mine and my family starting from years ago when he was a priest at St. Francis Episcopal Church in San Francisco. (He officiated at the funerals of both my parents, almost 30 years apart.) I've walked the streets with Father Don from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. on two occasions during the last two summers, through the Tenderloin, Haight Ashbury, and Polk Street poor areas of San Francisco, visiting people in bars, coffee and donut shops, hotel rooms, and on sidewalks. The people we encountered at night of course came in all conditions, including lonely, depressed, mentally ill, physically disabled or diseased, elderly and infirm or in the prime of life, straight or gay, socially outcast or important parts of their particular society, drunk or stoned, mean or nice, eccentric or insane, bright or dull, angry, sad or happy, boring or exciting, usually poor but sometimes apparently financially comfortable (including night owls like me), with various mixtures of all these conditions.
At the same time a Night Minister is working each night, a Night Ministry volunteer takes phone calls from people with problems who want to talk to the volunteer or to have the Night Minister visit them. Most people call with legitimate concerns and the need to talk, but some apparently try to trick the volunteers by repeatedly calling under different names and describing different problems. This behavior may itself be an indication that such callers are lonely, loony, and in need of loving help, but it is hard on the morale of the volunteers who feel they are being kept from talking to others with more definite problems. Volunteers of a separate Suicide Hot Line organization do not have their own representatives to visit their callers but immediately refer them to the Night Minister if they want to be visited.
The bars in the areas we walked are places of relief for many patrons who otherwise would spend most their time in extremely small rooms with poor or non-working TVs or on the street. A wall in one Tenderloin bar is a loving shrine with pictures of past patrons and owners who have died but are never forgotten. The current owner sets up fund raisers for the Night Ministry and other charities at which some of his talented patrons perform. The bartenders in these areas are often a mixture of business manager, psychologist, and social worker and help maintain a communications network that informs the Night Minister of the presence of desperate people who need his help and understanding.
From just my two nights, one year apart, with the Night Minister on the streets, many memories and visions come to my mind. Most of the people we encountered needed help and many were open about this need, but a talented street artist in the Haight Ashbury said he was happy living on the street, except for the shortage of public toilets. (The Night Minister has written about and worked on alleviating this shortage.) As we talked, a young man wandered by asking if we could provide some drugs. Most we encountered in these areas were men, but there were a fair number of women only some of whom were working the streets. We encountered some openly gay women at a Tenderloin bar who were surprised to see, and reluctant at first to talk with, a priest in a collar because they felt the Roman Catholic Church had abandoned them and would turn its back on them again. The distinction that we are Anglo Catholics was not meaningful to them, but they ultimately were surprised and pleased that finally a priest and his sidekick were not judging them. Outside a nearby bar, a woman with an unforgettable weathered face was yelling at everyone in great anger. We spoke with her, and she explained that she had always paid her taxes and done her duty but people were taking advantage of her. She calmed down, and we went with her and some of the others into the bar. Before long she was angrily bossing people again. One guy suddenly told her off and threw some papers she had on the floor. She dropped to her knees to pick them up, and I joined her to help. As we kneeled together, I saw a tear in her eye and a picture of a young man amongst the papers, who she explained was her son who she had not seen in many years.
Most of the people we encountered displayed wonderful senses of humor, even in the midst of bleakness, like the man lying on his bed in his small Tenderloin room, which the Night Minister congratulated him on since it was three times better than his previous one, surrounded by diapers and somewhat foul air, describing his situation with humor and then asking why God wanted things this way and wondering how life would be if he had not been gay, had a wife and children, and had not been run over twenty years ago by a motor cyclist, leaving him incontinent and able to walk only with difficulty. He was depressed that he is on medication that makes him sleepy and slept through that night's opportunity to attend a weekly event at the library, but talked happily to us about some plays and his plan to start a class the following week on theatre appreciation, if only his social worker could be found to help him get there (the Night Minister made arrangements to get them together) and he could stay awake. On our way out, he walked with us to the lobby and when the Night Minister did not recall something that this man mentioned he made light about how good his own memory is and added a comment about his abundant hair as he looked at the balding Night Minister and the bald me. When the Night Minister and I got to the sidewalk, a large man was lying on it thrashing like a fish and making loud noises. Sadly, to most of us who were nearby he seemed like just another drunk on the streets of San Francisco. But fortunately the Night Minister talked to him long enough to decide that he seemed not to need 911 emergency assistance, teaching me a lesson of compassion in the wee hours of the morning. From there we went to the best donut shop in the City, Bob's at Polk Street, in time to catch donuts at their freshest and talk to a few more wonderful people of the night.
I hope my brief experience with the Night Ministry helps illuminate a bit how the insiders of this ministry are bringing alive, and actually being, the Gospel of Jesus, through actively loving God and their neighbor, and finding themselves blessed by each person they encounter who, as pointed out by Brother Jude, "like God, knows what it is like to be vulnerable, poor, powerless, rejected and without hope."
I've never been an insider with this or any similar organization. It's much more comfortable to be in my position of popping in when I am in town. But my accomplishments are severely limited, and primarily amount to having received some free education about an important part of life. I have tremendous respect for those who are actually insiders of the organization, weathering the inherent frustrations and making sacrifices year after year to provide true love, hope, and help to countless people, because it is the right thing to do, they are full of love for their neighbors, and Jesus set the example and told us what to do.
Jeff Thomas
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