Change Happens on the Journey

During our Jesuit Volunteer Corps closing retreat, we talked about the concept of a pilgrimage or journey. In that journey, often, the growth happens throughout the journey, but it is realized after the journey is complete. In a talk given by Sharon of the JVC staff, she mentioned the Wise Men of the Gospel and said,

"The wisemen were changed by their experience of Jesus and took a different route home."

When I look back on this year and the journey of JVC, I am most radically changed in my understanding of what it means to accompany others, to live on solidarity, and to develop kinship.

The idea of accompanying someone suggest a journey is to be had. In fact, all relationships are a journey, full of pockets of what St. Ignatius calls consolation and desolation. On a journey with others, we sense the times when we can tangible feel the presence of God, and others where we have a striking fear or perception that God has been absent.

I began working with clients at Bread during the first days of my experience, and as you know, soon received my own caseload of persons applying for Social Security Disability benefits. Working with clients consistently began to open my eyes to the realities of accompaniment. In the past, I have reflecting on winning Mr. R's SSI case and watching him fill with hope. This man, suffering from a long discouraging litany of impairments, has been finally granted some solace on his journey. I too felt hope, and God's presence in these moments.

Throughout the year, I became much more comfortable with, and well equipped to understand the experiences of the clients we serve at Bread for the City, and the larger systemic and underlying hurdles that cause our clients? life experience. Perhaps these realizations made it easier to understand what it means to accompany others. When individuals would walk into Bread towards the end of the year, I felt myself able to simply accompany them through the complexities of the legal system.

Yet, these same moments on the journey - the same moments of consolation - have hinted at, and often have been smothered by the overwhelming presence of desolation. My clients live an experience muddled by a system of classism, sexism, and especially racism. Theirs (and arguably, our own) lives are tainted by a system that predisposes them to lives of inequality, increased disparity, disadvantages, prejudices, and cyclical poverty. How can I possible see or experience a loving God in the midst of such suffering and desolation?

It is in the moments working on Mr. R's case, when he says he too wants to go to the City Council to advocate on behalf of programs that have fostered growth and self-actualization in him

It is in the moments of goodbye, when Mr. J. tells me to "never quit the books," even if it is hard, and I promise him that I won't quit.

It is in the moments of simply being present during walk-ins, listening, sharing my experience, growing...

It is in these moments and the many more moments this year that I have most closely felt God. And it is precisely because I have seen the true and authentic humanity in people society pretends do not exist.

"The wisemen were changed by their experience of Jesus and took a different route home."

Indeed, I have been radically changed through my experience of accompaniment this year, and in the moments of consolation and desolation. It is because of this year that I know I must always continue to explore what it means to truly accompany others, and to always work to make positive social and structural change.

The Importance of Walking

Last Sunday was one of my last morning walks to St. Patricks, the Catholic Church I have been attending for the past year. Each Sunday morning, I wake up, get ready, and walk 45 minutes to go to Mass. It is clearly avoidable – there are buses and metro lines that go to St. Patricks as it is in the heart of downtown D.C. However, I have found something special about walking this year.

I used to take the metro and bus a lot more, especially when we were in the thick of the winter. Yet, perhaps partly out of financial necessity, and partly out of desire to see more of the city, I began walking more places.

There is something to be said about these walks. If I would have taken the metro or bus to Landlord-Tenant Court in April, I would have taken the same route and seen the same streets. Yet, instead of taking the bus down 7th/Georgia Ave, I walked down 4th Street from our home. In the process, I saw different housing developments, smiled at different people, and felt as if I knew one more piece of Washington.

Walking like this has almost become a sort of ritual for me. Despite the heat of July, I walked to Lindsy and Andrews near the Navy yard, exploring new parts of NE and Capitol Hill through the walk. I took different streets when walking back from Foggy Bottom, and from various meetings this year, and walked the neighborhoods of Shaw and Columbia Heights.

Washington is relatively small, and the portions that tourists see are only a fraction of the city. Tourists know only the Mall, the White House, and perhaps parts of downtown. By living north of Shaw, working at Bread for the City (in both NW and SE), I feel a real connection to the city of D.C. I see real people living their own life experience.

Looking past the stereotypes that emerge about the neighborhood I live in, and the many neighborhoods of our clients, walking has given me the opportunity to confirm that perhaps I feel more comfortable here, rather than in Georgetown or in a distant suburb. Perhaps it is because I’ve smiled at real residents of D.C., and felt myself truly at home.

It is from this experience of walking that I came to know the city. I hope that I will continue to do the same as I move onto my next few years in Chicago.