Volunteering in Chicago

It’s no secret that I have been missing Bread for the City since I left in August. While I left six months ago, I still think about Bread for the City daily, about memories with clients, with coworkers, and with my JVC house. I am ruined for life and can never look at the world the same way. Indeed, I have written about this experience many times and have referred to the word, accompaniment. My time at Gonzaga trained me to strive to accompany others in the service we do, to recognize how we are mutually indebted, and to help us realize that we aren’t heroes in the work we do. And, the attorneys at Bread for the City taught me this same lesson day by day when I would meet with our clients. In fact, I believe my own viewpoint shifted as I watched myself understand what it means to truly be in relationships with others, and to suspend my own hero complex.

This repositioning of my own viewpoints has left me craving relationships with clients. Graduate school can be isolated, and my days are often full of me in my apartment reading sociological books and articles. I love my work and find a different type of fulfillment in it. Yet, because I feel my viewpoint seems to be with the client of Bread for the City, it is sometimes hard to always know how to juggle a life that is now focused purely on my own academic development. I was glad when a fellow friend in graduate school suggested we start volunteering and we found a program affiliated with Loyola. We signed up to go once a week with other Loyola students to a local soup kitchen. I became excited with this new opportunity to try and be in relationship with clients and to leave academia for a couple of hours.

I have to admit, being away from Bread for the City now for six months, I found that I was nervous about my accompaniment skills. Bread for the City gave me the opportunity to practice them forty plus hours each week; in addition, I would go home to a house full of others trying to practice and dinner conversation was frequently about how to be more present with our clients. Not doing this for six months left me nervous about my own abilities and I found myself nervous and anxious at our service placement tonight.

Beginning a new service placement is always difficult and uncomfortable, especially when trying to practice accompaniment rather than service as a heroic deed. We arrived to a shelter that looked nothing like Miriam’s Kitchen, the place I was used to in D.C. The walls were painted a pale yellow that did not emulate feelings of glowing sunshine, but rather of mediocrity. We awkwardly stood around until we were told to just hang out in the kitchen while the guests set up the tables.

The next step made me feel joyous as we were instructed to simply sit with guests. I was struck with how difficult accompaniment is initially. While the guests I sat with were friendly, I found myself unsure what to share of myself. What questions should I ask? How can I be open and honest, but not offensive? How can I talk without displaying my privilege so candidly? I found it was easiest for me to ask questions about the city, as I am new here. I asked Johnny about where he grew up and where his favorite places were, and we laughed at how cold I was in the snow. Ok, perhaps this is an entry into that accompaniment is about.

We then were told to come help serve the meal, and I must admit, this made my heart sick. The director, probably not maliciously, announced our group name, and the group of guests applauded for our “generosity of time.” Heroism replaced accompaniment as now, our “sacrifice” is paraded to make us feel appreciated. Is this what service should be about?

We lined up to serve the meal – I was horrified to see such a undignified meal: white rice not cooked adequately, pork in a sauce that is mostly grease, beans in a gruel looking dish with hot dogs, and bread that looks like it is the cheapest hamburger quality the supermarket sells. No, this is not the dinner of Miriam’s, where Steve spends time perfecting the meals so that the guests can have the most dignifying meal. This isn’t Miriam’s Kitchen, where Adam and Kierstin conduct outreach to guests, making artwork and sharing coffee and laughs.

No, this is not accompaniment. This is white guilt repackaged as charity, as a heroism done, a pat on the back for helping the homeless.

If it weren’t enough, as we were ready to leave, the guests applauded us, to once again, give us a trophy to stroke our egos and inform us, that yes, we are actually superior, generous, wealthy, and perfect citizens.

Where does this leave us in the interaction? Certainly not mutually indebted. Rather, I have become the hero whose charity is paraded for all to see. And the guest as “other” has become reinforced and solidified. I am able to leave this hell to return to my luxurious life of entitlement. I can feel good about this too, for I have given to “the homeless.” And the other is left to continue a life of oppression.

And I have signed up to participate in this week after week for the next semester.

But yet – it doesn’t seem right to quit. Surely, perhaps, accompaniment and dignity can happen if our group works at it. Perhaps the ideal models of Bread for the City and Miriam’s Kitchen will never be actualized again. But perhaps, I need to strive to live this model so that others can see its power in building kinship with one another.

It’s not time to give up hope, but to remember to be faithful and continue growing toward a vision of simply us.

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Ideas and context, as always, were taken from these sources:

Ausland, A. (2005). Staying for tea: Five principles for the community service volunteer. TheGlobal Citizen 2 pp. 5-15.

Boyle, Gregory, SJ. (2005). The voices of those who sing. Spiritus5:1, 79-87.

Searching for Meaning

I treasure those moments when you are reading for school and you suddenly find yourself captivated by the author’s reflections. Indeed, this was the ongoing experience I had when reading Jerome Baggett’s book, Sense of the Faithful, documenting how American Catholics today are living and negotiating their faith. In his rich ethnographic portrayal, Baggett eloquently describes the many ways Catholics are taking their faith seriously and grappling with the realities of a complex world. Particularly resonating to me was the following quote:

Though we may have lost the strongly prescribed identities that largely characterized tightly bounded societies of the past, in their place has emerged a generalized concern for individual authenticity. This language of authenticity reflects people’s still unextinguished desire to do the often difficult work of discovering a sense of meaningfulness that is now not so readily attainable (65).

Yes, it is difficult to discover a sense of meaningfulness, but it is inscribed on our hearts and offers us fulfillment and joy. It is this sense of meaningfulness that I crave in my own life – in my relationships, in my work, in my faith, and in my daily desire to follow God. It truly is an unextinguished desire for me.

As a former Jesuit Volunteer, I have spent time in the past reflecting on the writings of Dorothy Day, specifically from her book, The Long Loneliness. In her book, at the end, she writes, “We have all know the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.”

I think that we find our sense of meaningfulness when we have a strong sense of community, one that strives to teach us authenticity. For, it is true, we learn how to love in community¸ and we are able to search for meaning. When I think back on my experiences – my faith-filled loving family, my still treasured friends from high school, the memories and community I experienced through Gonzaga University and the relationships I still hold, my experience with JVC in the District of Columbia, and now, here at Loyola Chicago, I can’t helped but think that Day is right – community has taught me what it means to love, and has made the “difficult work of discovering a sense of meaningfulness” that much easier.

It’s funny when you’re working on that slow literature review, when you’re looking out your window drinking your morning cup of coffee in the midst of our daily lives as graduate students, and you are suddenly struck by a passage from the literature you are reading. No – it’s not just relevant literature for your research proposal, but rather, it’s nurturing for your own self growth. It’s an affirmation of that Jesuit phrase that is etched into any Jesuit alumni’s heart, that yes, you can find God in all things. And it’s a reminder to continue to trust in God, and to continue sipping that cup of coffee, working on that literature proposal, know to always, as Teihard de Chardin, S.J. reminds us,

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

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Works Cited

Baggett, Jerome P. 2009. Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their Faith. New York: Oxford University Press.

Looking at Welfare Reform through Another Lens Besides My Own

Quadagno & Street (2005) state that the United States follows the neo-liberal model of government, especially in regards to our perspectives of individualism and individual rights. We are a country built on a model of self sufficiency and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” language. It is easy to see in the discourse and criticisms of many of our urban poor: they need to work harder… they need to stop depending on welfare… I can’t believe I’m paying my taxes and working hard so that those poor people can just depend on the government. The comments are numerous, degrading, and continually divisive, but they reinforce our perspectives of individual rights.

Quadagno & Street continue to state that voluntarism is also highly valued in the United States. Voluntarism places an emphasis on private donations by individuals rather than governmental assistance as a means to redistribute income to lower income members of society. For example, leading economist Milton Friedman makes an argument for voluntarism in his book, Free to Choose. Essentially, Friedman argues that if taxes were lower, and governmental services for income maintenance and redistribution were privatized, people would have the altruistic desire to give more to charitable organizations to continue this work. Regardless if Friedman’s point is correct, voluntarism is not an effective means to achieving social justice; for, rather than creating a system of dependency on the government, the poor are dependent on charitable organizations that in turn are dependent on charitable and altruistic individuals. Dependency still exists; charity (giving from one’s surplus) perpetuates inequality as there is no structural level change happening. So, while valued in United States, it doesn’t seem that reliance on voluntarism is the correct social policy to achieve social justice.

Working at Bread for the City last year, I found myself often asking the question, how can we encourage those on welfare to find jobs and go back to work? I was asking this, not from a judging condemning viewpoint, but more so, from an attempt to reflect on how can we make policies that make sense and actually work, and that act as a safety net for those who are in need without creating cyclical dependency. Can we create any social justice with our conceptions of welfare policy?

However, I found it interesting to reflect on Orloff (2005)’s article on United States welfare reform. Orfloff argues that the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was an attempt to eliminate the social right for poor single mothers to care for their children full time. Instead, as Orloff writes, “Staying at home full time to care for children has come to be understood as something to be earned through one’s efforts in the labor market – as a reward from an employer who gives paid leave” (pp.109-110). Reflecting on this point sheds light into my own thoughts on TANF last year.

Turning to myself, raised in a two-parent household, my parents were able to make our family function happen on one income during my younger years. Yet, this was a choice they had simply by being a two parent household. And in fact, I believe those years having my mother at home shaped our family, the way I look at the world, and consequently, I cannot list all the benefits our family has experienced because of those years. For my mother, raising children full time was a full time job and right in our family, something that is denied to other lower income women, simply because they are low income.

So returning to the ideological rhetoric we commonly hear about welfare benefits and the “laziness” of “welfare queens,” it is interesting to see how my own middle class perspectives shaped my own understanding of welfare. Instead of thinking about the same model of child-rearing I experienced, I projected my own values of individualism and self sufficiency, middle class values drilled into me by the American process of socialization. In my own reflections (all with positive non-judgmental intentions), I too was contributing to the common statements that, because these women are poor, they don’t share the right my mother had to stay at home with their children.

Works Cited

Friedman, M. & Friedman, R. (1990). Free to choose: A personal statement. Orlando, FL: Harcourt.

Orloff, A. (2005). Examining US welfare reform: Power, gender, race, and the US policy legacy. Critical Social Policy, 22(1) 96-118.

Quadagno, J. & Street, D. (2005). Ideology and public policy: Antistatism in American welfare state transformation. The Journal of Policy History, 17(1) 52-71.

Returning to Graduate School – Comparing the Abstract with the Concrete

In many ways, I think I will have an advantage in graduate school because of my year as a volunteer. Working at Bread for the City, I was able to link many sociological theories with the actual experiences of our clients. My exposure to poverty, institutional racism, and real relationships with our clients informs how I look at the world, and indeed, how I view stratification. My heart is transformed because of these real relationships. In many ways, it is this exposure with the concrete that will help in my graduate studies.

Yet in other ways, I believe my year away from academia poses different challenges as I begin my courses. Much theory seems to be abstract. For example, in my culture class, we began with a discussion of what defines culture, what culture looks like, and who creates culture. Ultimately, the readings and discussion pointed us towards meaning-making – that culture is our attempt to make meaning; something becomes a cultural object because it has assigned meaning.

This is the first of many discussions that, while important, are different from the type of discussions at Bread for the City. Our work at Bread focuses on the concrete because we saw poverty as real. Our advocacy was not founded on theories of sociology, but on the relationships we had with our clients, and the aggregation of the multiple client stories we listened to each day.

So now, in graduate school, I look at the world through the lenses of the abstract and the concrete. I continue to think about my client experience as a Jesuit Volunteer, the advocacy we undertook, and the ways I continue to be ruined for life. Yet at the same time, I return to many conversations of the abstract – looking at the theories of many sociologists who have come before me; it will be my job to examine that abstract, to interpret it, to critique it, and to add to the conversation.

So the ultimate challenge at Loyola University Chicago will be to synthesize the abstract and the concrete. By doing this, perhaps an even more fruitful dialogue will happen, and we will continue to work for a more just world

Reflections on Amiel

“The stationary condition is the beginning of the end” – Henri Frederic Amiel.

A few months ago, this quote appeared in our house on the side of a magazine. Since then, I have seen it often and been pondering its meaning and relevance in my life. Perhaps it has provoked an inner stirring in me instantly because it’s the end of my year as a Jesuit Volunteer. I am preparing to leave Washington, to travel to Chicago, and to begin a new life in my work at Loyola University Chicago.

Does it strike me because I perhaps have done all the growing I can for this year? That is certainly not true, for I’ve often found most growth happens after the experience. It happens when we take our experience, and we translate it into tangible goals for our lifestyle. It happens because we reflect, we discuss with our closest friends and family, and we discern its meaning and impact on us.

When something becomes stationary, it is no longer migratory or changing. It has a fixed position, and it remains in the same spot.

Am I in a stationary condition now? Are things not changing, fixed in one spot? While I have no context for Amiel’s quote, I suspect it has struck a strong chord with me because I perhaps have felt my life become stationary over these past couple of months. We have established our routine as a house – we have figured out how to save money, how make our food budget stretch farther and farther each week, and have found ease in the comfortability of our relationships with one another. We know our faults and know the blessings that each of us bring to one another.

Looking broader into the values of JVC, I know that I’ve become quite stationary in my job, my understanding of simplicity, and my faith. Though I still love my work and could continue finding fulfillment in my interactions with clients and coworkers, it has become stationary. In terms of simple living, I no longer find myself challenging how I live, or how we as a community live. And, in my faith, I have come to a routine that seems easy and does not give much additional growth.

Perhaps this is the key word – growth. When something is stationary, it isn’t growing. But – that’s not the right way to look at my JVC experience. For I am still growing in relationships – relationships in my house, my work, and my broader D.C. community. And, I am grappling with inequality, with racism, with fear, with our common American values each day as I walk into Bread for the City. I am still challenged by my interactions.

I think Amiel’s quote has reemerged in my reflections because something did become stationary, despite some growth that I still may experience. And, in that stationary state, I think Amiel was signaling that the end is soon – that it will be soon time to allow my life to change. And it is true. I am essentially done with my work at Bread for the City. I am saying my goodbyes in D.C. and preparing myself for our closing retreat, and really, for a vacation to Washington State and a move to Chicago, where life will not be stationary.

But what I grapple with now is how to strike the balance between allowing oneself to continue to always grow, and yet become comfortable – to establish relationships and a sense of normalcy without falling into a completely stationary state.

Perhaps then, when we are really living, we never reach the stationary condition, but only get close. It is like a curve that begins dramatically and begins to have a smaller slope as time goes by. It is not a parabola – the growth never reaches a point of regression; rather, it continue to increase and grow, but its growth becomes slower and approaches a state of stationary condition.

Is that what has happened here? Have I found myself experience less and less growth, or rather growth that is lower as this year has happened?

Perhaps. Perhaps we aren’t capable of reaching a purely stationary condition? Perhaps because I value growth, I can get close but can’t reach it.

Perhaps that is why leaving is so painful. I am still growing in my interactions with my housemates. I still love going to work each day. I still feel a sense of connection to Washington, and to the clients at Bread for the City.

But perhaps because the growth has slowed, perhaps that’s my equivalent of a stationary condition. And as Amiel says, it’s a sign. It’s the beginning of the end.

Alas, it is true. The end is in sight. The end of this experience, and the beginning of my reflections into how to take this experience and make it forever part of my lifestyle.