Cultivating CommUNITY

Here’s the sermon I preached yesterday at Covenant!
(Reflection on sermon writing: It’s really strange writing how you would talk, and trying to make it sound natural and like you aren’t reading a piece of paper.)

Texts:

Psalm 133
How very good and pleasant it is
    when kindred live together in unity!
 It is like the precious oil on the head,
    running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
    running down over the collar of his robes.
It is like the dew of Hermon,
    which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there God ordained a blessing,
    life forevermore.

Mark 4:26-32
Jesus also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.  The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.  But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.

He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?  It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;  yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.

“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity.”

I have been doing a lot of living together in unity this past year. How very good and pleasant it has been! But when I read this verse a few weeks ago and started writing this sermon, I wondered who exactly my “kindred” are. Am I living with them? So, as any new sermon-writer does, I turned to the dictionary.

The first listing defines kindred as “a person’s relatives collectively.” Okay, yes, but I no longer live with any blood relatives, and I don’t think that’s really what this verse is talking about. I kept reading, and the fourth definition down is “natural relationship; affinity.” So, people who get along well together- like kindred spirits. As a young adult volunteer, that’s exactly who I’ve been living together in unity with- two kindred spirits. One of the 5 core tenets of the YAV program is living in Intentional Christian Community. Even though I’ve been living in one for the last ten months, I am still not entirely sure how to explain intentional community. Back to the Internet! Trusty Wikipedia told me that an intentional community is “a planned residential community designed from the start to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork.” This very piece of the YAV program was a big part of why I wanted to spend my first year out of college this way. I hungered to be part of a community that would be more than regular roommates- people who would love and support me and who I could love and support in return. I imagined myself so wrapped up in this community that I wouldn’t be available to other relationships. How good and pleasantly I was surprised! I have found myself with a piece of my heart in many different communities this year. All of them are unique and all of them feel like home, and all of them help me see God more clearly.

Living together in unity stretches beyond the people we share a roof and walls with. In addition to our little house of three YAVs, I have found a place to belong in the national and international YAV community, in my job placement at Women’s Lunch Place, and of course in this place- Church of the Covenant, while still maintaining relationships back home in Texas.

The first community I am loyal to is obviously my fellow Boston YAVs. In our YAV house, mustard is the favorite condiment. We’ve gone through jars of the stuff- Dijon, spicy brown, coarse ground- in salad dressings, on the thousands of pretzels consumed, in recipes, not by the spoonful, I think, although you’d have to double check with my roommate Jenn on that. In our favorite type of mustard, coarse ground, you can see the seeds almost as they are. Working in Food Justice, we think a lot about what our food looked like before it was put in jars, but with coarse ground mustard, you don’t have to use as much imagination. Those seeds are small. One of those seeds on a pretzel wouldn’t pack much of a punch. But according to the Gospel of Mark, faith that size can grow and put forth large branches.

Before my year started, I had some really beautiful images of what this YAV community would look like, although I did know it would be difficult at times. I envisioned us reading evening devotionals together every night, planning the meals for the week, and sitting around chatting about how God is at work in the world. That picture is close, but real life is not exactly that idyllic. Now that I’m ten months in, let me tell you: it seems to me that intentional community just means that your roommates are extra up in your business. But how lucky I am that the roommates who are all up in my business are two beautiful, strong, passionate, adventurous women who also want the world to be a better, less hungry place. We challenge each other. We DO sit around and talk about the injustice of the food system, the oppression of the poor, and how people (including ourselves) are rising up to help. These two kindred spirits show me how powerful God is on a regular basis.

There is another YAV community that it’s really fun to be part of. The greater YAV program has about 20 sites with 90 YAVs across the country and around the world. We were fortunate enough to all gather together last August for a week of orientation before we departed to our respective placements.  It was thrilling to be in the middle of the collective energy of 90 passionate young adults, getting ready to embark on the scariest year of our lives. After carrying around plenty of anticipation and many doubts by myself all summer, it was so refreshing to be around a bunch of other people with similar worries, excitement, and passion. Now, we keep up with each other through our blogs, a Facebook group, the monthly newsletter, and regional retreats. I see God in this group when I read a story on someone’s blog that sounds similar to an experience I had recently, or when I log into Facebook to see that someone across the globe has posted a prayer of encouragement. Although we are not living in the same dwelling, we are 90 kindred spirits living in unity- lives cast from the same mold but in all different colors, all doing God’s work.

Working at Women’s Lunch Place has given me a peek into a type of community that is entirely different than anything I’ve seen before. The women who go to WLP have a strong bond even if they have nothing else in common besides the food they eat for lunch every day. They look out for each other whether or not they are kindred spirits. A few months ago, at a memorial service, there was an open sharing time when the women could get up and say a few words about the two ladies who’d passed away recently. I heard amazing stories of these women protecting each other, caring for each other, despite their striking differences, bonded by the common thread of WLP. Being part of a community sometimes means connecting with those you wouldn’t relate to if you weren’t entwined in a web of unity.

I have been unconditionally accepted into this close-knit body of people here at church of the Covenant. It’s very easy to enter a place when people know you’re coming and have been preparing the warmest welcome, but I’ve also seen newcomers walk blindly into a service and meet just as genuine of a reception as I did. These people here at Covenant are the types who want to spend holidays together, They show up to support each other at life events, big and small. These people want to stay late after the service, gabbing and eating organic, vegan, local potluck dishes. And these people want to make sure you feel like you’re one of them, immediately. One way you know you’ve truly been integrated into a new place is when you are then expected to welcome those who’ve come after you. After attending Covenant for less than a month, I found myself chatting with newcomers about how wonderful this church is! Surely the Holy Spirit is between us and among us, fusing us together in love.

Two weeks ago, I went to Montana to be enfolded in yet another loving, graciously welcoming group: the EcoStewards. In the mornings, we practiced yoga together. As an intermittent yogi, I am familiar with the ending salutation “Namaste.” Yoga instructors will tell you it means, “the light in me recognizes the light in you.” But I have never practiced yoga in a purely Christian setting. Becky Evans, who was leading the sessions, ended our practice the first morning by narrowing down that broad explanation of Namaste as, “the God in me recognizes the God in you.”

One of my favorite parts of having faith is recognizing God in my surroundings. I love looking for God’s presence in nature, in experiences, in a good meal, and of course in other people. But until I heard this interpretation of the phrase Namaste, I had completely forgotten to look for God inside myself! It’s easy to see God in others when you look, just look around right now, but sometimes it can be challenging to remember that God is in oneself.

We need communities to remind us that God lives inside us.
We need to remind others that God is in them.
We need to remind ourselves to look for God in all these places.

Maybe God’s presence inside us is as small as a mustard seed.
Maybe someone else needs to sow a mustard seed-sized bit of God in our heart

Maybe we need to do the cultivating in others. We all sleep and rise, and the seeds sprout and grow, and we do not know how. Maybe, with the encouragement of our communities, that presence will grow up and become the greatest, and put forth large branches.

I recognize the God in you. In whom do you see God?

Springtime Transformation

This past week, the YAV houses from Boston and DC met up at a beautiful Presbyterian camp in New Jersey for our combined spring retreat to process the year so far and look ahead at how to best utilize the remaining time. I was shocked to realize that we only have three more months at our placements! Through the theme “Transformation,” we reflected on ways we’ve seen growth and change in each other and ourselves this year. We also discussed change in the world: how social justice movements in the past have generated social transformation and what further work is needed to heal the brokenness in the world.

These conversations about successful large-scale transformation (think Civil Rights, smoking, and women’s suffrage) partially answered a question I have had at all of the food justice events this year, and we’ve been to a lot of them. The Food Justice movement (or trend?) is gaining traction in this area with plentiful farmers’ markets, CSA options, Farm to Fork restaurants, rooftop gardens, low-income feeding programs, and unlimited Food Justice organizations and conferences. Regular citizens are starting to see how important it is to change the way we look at, acquire, and distribute our food. I can’t help but wonder when people will grow bored of this trend and move on to the next “hot” thing. How much work can be done, what can be accomplished, before the leaders of the movement lose steam and the followers forget about it?

Then, immediately after I think this question, I remember where I am. I usually wonder this after hearing a talk about some new progress gained in the Food Justice movement, while I am surrounded by hundreds of people learning and campaigning to change our food system. I look around and see powerful people with advanced degrees, students who have chosen to enter this field, people heavily involved with grassroots food justice organizations, and regular people who just care about feeding their neighbors and great-grandchildren well.

I don’t know if other cities have this kind of energy around Food Justice, or if Boston’s passion can spread to other states beyond New England. I don’t know if enough people think it’s a problem significant enough to pour tons of resources into to fix. I don’t know if the problems of our food system are too advanced to reverse, yet hidden from the public eye. But when I worry these things, I look at the past social movements that have succeeded -fully or in part- and at all of the people in Boston making sacrifices to work towards Food Justice, and I feel optimistic.

To the 3 People on the Redline Yesterday

As I was taking the T home from work yesterday, I overheard three people having a conversation opposite me. It wasn’t hard to hear. They were talking loudly and animatedly; obviously they were passionate about whatever they were discussing. After only a few exchanges it became abundantly clear: they were saying the most hurtful, hateful, and ignorant things about the homeless people who lived around their area.

It may come from working in a homeless shelter, but I am suddenly hyperaware of homeless people. I feel very protective of the panhandlers and huddlers, which is a striking change from feeling afraid of them as I was before. Now I know them. I know a lot of their names, I know some of their stories, I know their struggles.

As I listened to these three people sneer about cardboard signs and beer money, I could feel the rage building up inside me. My hands balled into fists and I glared at them, daring them to meet my glance so I could convey my disapproval through my eyes. I started rehearsing in my head what I would say to them as I walked past to get off the train. I was about to give them a strongly-worded piece of my mind.

Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” In this case, which neighbor was I supposed to love? Will I really show love to the homeless population by defending them in a fury-fueled rant? But I should not publicly berate these three T-riding children of God– that’s not showing love either. If they’d been harassing an actual individual, I would certainly have stepped in. But there was no clear victim in this instance, only the general faceless homeless person. I bit my tongue as I got off at my stop.

T people, I can hear you. I know what you’re talking about. If I can hear you, who else around is also listening?

Here’s what I should have said:

Please be careful of what you talk about in public. You never know who’s listening and what they’re experiencing.

Then I still would’ve stalked angrily off.

I Rode the Struggle Bike This Week.

Thanks to Kevin, a BFJYAV program board member and the pastor of First Pres Cambridge, I finally acquired a bike that is big enough for my long giraffe legs. It’s a beautiful green lightweight racing mountain bike with a stuffed dolphin friend hot-glued between the handlebars (now taking suggestions for names). The first week I had it, it rained every day- thanks a lot, Boston! But this week was perfect fall weather [almost] every day and I took full advantage of the cool air and sunshine to ride my bike to work four days.

The Google maps app suggested that it would take 37 minutes for me to travel down the Charles River Bike path to the Back Bay. I had been planning to practice the route on a weekend when there was no pressure to get there on time, but on Monday morning I decided there was NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT, so I hopped on and pedaled off. It took me an hour and a half to get to work. I had to stop every five minutes and check my phone map to see if I was going the right way, realize I wasn’t, turn around, and try again. It was so beautiful though. When I finally made it I had never felt such triumph to arrive anywhere, not even the first time I took the T to work! I had to stack up some boxes in my copy room/ office to make room to put it inside.

Biking 14 miles a day along the Charles River bike path is the most pleasant thing to happen to me since I got to Boston, and that’s saying something. I love seeing both the sunrise and sunset reflecting off the water, the leaves changing color, and tons of people kayaking, paddleboarding, sailing, and… crewing? (Do the Harvard crew team members say “YO, THAT’S MUH CREW”? I would.) I get extra exercise and breathe river air. I don’t even mind dodging the million other bikers and joggers during rush hour. After my long first hour-and-a-half commute, I did average around 40 minutes most other trips, which is exactly how long it takes me to travel on public transit.

Bicycle commuting to work is good for your wallet, good for the earth, good for your legs, and good for your soul, but there’s one pressing question about the whole situation: what the heck do you wear? There is NO WAY I’m biking 7 miles in a dress. Not in slacks, not in my boots, not even in jeans. The only thing I want to bike any miles in is my stretchy black leggings. I’ve been packing a change of business casual in my backpack and changing when I get to work, but it has resulted in some unfortunate hoarding of outfits in the church office. Seriously, how did I end up with four pairs of shoes at work? (It might have something to do with the rain on Wednesday morning that made me take the T to work, but when it cleared up immediately I felt cheated out of my pleasant autumn-air time. To reclaim it, I decided to run home, which meant I had to leave everything at work. Thank goodness I keep a set of workout clothes and shoes in my office! )

Thursday I decided it was the day to bring home my rainboots, fall boots, ballet flats, rain jacket, two full outfits, four dirty Tupperwares, extra bag, and laptop. (Whatever happened to that simple living thing, huh?) The Green Machine has a front rack, so I figured it had to be possible. I scoured the church for a box, and found two dusty milk crates under the stairs- perfect! I loosely tied one on the front rack with a short piece of rope I found in my copy room/office, loaded two pairs of boots into it, stuffed my backpack full of clothes, tied my rain jacket on the outside of my backpack, and set off. Unfortunately, (surprise) it is really hard to steer a bike with an extra load of pounds on the front half, especially when it’s not securely secured! I had a very scary and dangerous ride home with the sun blinding me, holding my milk crate on with ONE FINGER, all on my top-heavy, impossible to turn bike. I had to stop, get off, and walk my bike every time I wanted to turn a corner. I was terrified I’d run into someone because I A) couldn’t see them or B) couldn’t steer out of their way, and I’d topple over and all my spare outfits and shoes would spill into the street. How would you explain that to someone? But that didn’t happen, and one very long hour and a half later, I walked my bike into our driveway and breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

The Milk Crate of Fate.

See my dolphin friend? And the changing trees?

Alewife reservation on the way home from Community Day in Cambridge

biking is good for your soul

We CAN Do It: A Story of Storing Up for the Winter Like Chipmunks

One of the biggest components of the BFJYAV program is the local eating challenge. We are challenged to eat only food that is locally sourced for the first half of our year here- now until the end of February. “Locally sourced” for us is defined as anything that grows in New England (Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut) and in New York. That means the lovely fresh bread that is baked daily at the bakery next store doesn’t count if the wheat is from a far away land. It also means that King Arthur Flour, which is milled in Vermont, doesn’t count because some of their wheat is grown in the Midwest. Other large disappointments were Ben and Jerry’s and Sam Adams, which are both produced very near us but get most of their ingredients from all over.

We spent a day during our week of Boston orientation researching what we could get and where, and found numerous farmer’s markets, farms we can order from, and a funky local family owned grocery store called Russo’s. Above all, our CSA has been the saving grace. We pick up a large basket of fresh fruits and veggies every Monday, all grown by our new favorite friend (whom we have yet to meet), Farmer Dave. We are going to be quite dependent on our CSA the next few months, but will be horrified when it ends in November. The only solution is to preserve the massive quantities of fresh fruits and veggies we are picking up each Monday, which leads us to our largest project this season: canning and freezing.

The bounty of our first CSA pickup!

Canning, if done wrong, can result in botulism. This can KILL you. I learned this fact in microbiology a few semesters ago and vowed never to try it. I didn’t have any reason to until Audrey, the friendly BFJYAV from last year, showed up at our house to give us a canning lesson last Saturday afternoon. I love doing things I said I would never do; it was pretty exciting. And very, very hot. Boiling three large pots of hot water on our second floor kitchen in our air-conditioning-less house is nothing but hot and drippy. We cranked out 10 quart jars of tomatoes: blanched, peeled, and chopped. The jars were sterilized, lemon juice was added, tomatoes were ladled in, tops salted. They were sealed, processed, left to sit, and finally stored under the sink.

Ten jars of tomatoes.

It was very labor intensive, science focused, and clean. (And hot. Did I say hot?) We probably won’t die of botulism, but if we do, call Audrey in for questioning.* With all of these potential pitfalls, you may wonder why we aren’t just freezing everything. The answer to that is freezer space constraints. Even though a nice church lady has graciously donated half of the space in her deep freeze, we cannot possibly have room to store all of the produce we want to preserve unless some goes in the cabinet. Also, it’s really fun to play Grandma and can our own food!

Even after we packed away 2 ½ gallons of tomatoes last weekend, we got a huge box of tomatoes from our CSA a few days later. They started going bad after being in our house-that-does-not-have-A/C so they needed to be preserved ASAP. Despite our sweaty first attempt, I was ready to give it another go. I thought it would be the most practical to can them as a useful, real food, so I turned half of them into pasta sauce and half into peach salsa. If you’re mentally prepared for the heat, it isn’t as bad. We brought an extra fan into the kitchen window, and with half the warm bodies in the kitchen, it wasn’t even miserable. We finished processing the last jars at 11pm. This is why chipmunks treat their food preservation as a full time job!

*Disclaimer: We were very grateful Audrey donated her Saturday afternoon to show us that we can can. We had a lot of fun talking to her and hearing about their misadventures of last year. We also appreciated hearing her suggestions about how to make our year easier. No, she did not give us all the answers on how to do it– she left some mysteries for our own discovery.

A Year of Service for a Lifetime of Change

[warning: long post. lots happened. procrastination occurred.]

The first adventure came in the airport. I had received an email informing me that three other YAVs would be flying out of Love Field with me, and I was determined to find them all at the gate before anyone set foot on that airplane. I played that awkward are-you-a-YAV eye contact game for at least 15 minutes before I determined that the guy sitting in front of me had a 95% chance of being who I thought he was, and I finally gained the courage to wave him down and ask “by any chance, are you a YAV?” This may have had disastrously awkward consequences if he was not a YAV and I had to explain myself (or just run away) but I felt pretty confident since he was wearing a DOOR Denver shirt. (DOOR is a Mennonite mission partner of the YAV program.) From there we started talking and were easily able to locate the other two with the help of some good old-fashioned Facebook stalking. When we got on the plane and took our scattered middle seats, one of the other YAVs started talking to the lady on his left about where he was going and why, when the guy on his right chimed in and said “hey, me too!” Surprise- there was a fifth one of us on the flight that hadn’t made the email, and one of us had accidentally sat right next to him! 

We were all flying in to Newark from all over the country (and four girls from South Korea) to gather with 72 other first year YAVs getting ready to embark on our year of service. (90 total YAVs are serving this year, but second year YAVs don’t go to orientation.) Orientation, or as they called it, “disorientation” lasted a week and was full of listening, talking, meeting people, and a lot of sitting. They wanted to “disorient” us from the life we knew and prepare us to orient all year long to a new way of life. We heard lectures and sermons, talked in small groups, learned about different beliefs, bonded together, and were fed –spiritually AND with garden fresh vegetables! Stony Point Retreat Center is an amazing place with ¾ acre of gardens, 10 chickens that lay eggs for the kitchen, and an amazing interfaith “community of living traditions” (which means people of different faiths living together). The fresh food was out of this world.

Garden fresh tomatoes!

Chickadeechicks.

A fraction of the gardens I’ve seen so far…

 

The discussions centered around mission (the how and why), diversity, cultural differences, tolerance, simple living in Christian community, hearing God’s call, advocacy and faith, self-care, communication, and sharing our story. A lot of rapid growth was packed into 6 days. There were two things that stuck out to me during (dis)orientation: the 5 core tenets of the YAV program (which I’ll go into on another post), and the conversations we had surrounding why we do mission and what mission looks like.

My smallgroup was the best ever.

And my roommate was pretty awesome. 

This is the “before” picture–Boston girls on the last day. #NPNP

Since Stony Point is an hour north of NYC, we took a trip down there Thursday to learn to use the subway since many of us will be using it for the first time during our service year (me included). We were all split up into four groups to visit one of four different faith communities: an urban ministry in Harlem, a Sikh Gurdwara, the Presbyterian mission office of the UN, and a Hindu temple. My group was dropped off in the Bronx, and took the subway all the way up to Queens (it took almost 2 hours each way) to go to the first Hindu temple built in the US. We visited with a man there who told us about Hinduism, the temple, and the upcoming Ganesh Chaturthi festival (which is going on now), and enjoyed a delicious (but spicy!) authentic Indian lunch. I might have been the only one super excited about the Indian food. I just love it. Mango lassi was involved. 

We were also commissioned Sunday morning by various churches in the area. I went to Germonds Church in New City, NY with three other YAVs that I hadn’t connected with yet, so it was exciting to get to know them on the way to the church. They are now in Nashville, Austin, and Zambia! Although it was encouraging to be lifted up and supported by a congregation I’d never met, the part that stuck out to me the most was the question the pastor asked us over lunch: Do you guys feel like you’re part of a big 90-person team that is going out into the world to accomplish one greater goal? Yes. Overwhelmingly, yes, although I hadn’t thought of it that way until he asked. The connections and relationships I’d been forming all week created a huge support group of people in my exact situation, and although we are in very different places doing different things, we are all doing God’s work.

Now we’ve been split into our site groups to take all we’ve learned out into the world (well after another whole week of site-specific orientation, or two if you’re going internationally). To be, and not necessarily to do. As I got on the train to Boston, I had friends departing for New Orleans, Denver, Nashville, Zambia, Peru, Hollywood, Northern Ireland, and more.  The massive 90-person team has descended; get ready world. The YAV program is A Year of Service for a Lifetime of Change- this time in a year we will all be different people, and hopefully the world will be a little different too. 

Before the Beginning

Before I left last Monday, I made sure I soaked up all of the “Texas” I could get. I ate way too many tacos, stole from the backyard handfuls of cherry tomatoes still warm from the sun, had avocados at every meal, drank exclusively local Texas beers, ate enough salsa, and slurped sweet Texas peaches. I visited Mo Ranch, Austin, Waco, Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Denton all in one week. I sweated probably a liter, used a whole bottle of sunscreen, and counted down the days left that I had to feel like the air was burning my skin every time I stepped outside. We even went two-stepping. Most importantly, I spent every spare minute with my family and friends.

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Going away party!

Dropping this beautiful girl off at college!

 These are my favorite Whitnies in the world!

 

I am joining with 90 other Young Adult Volunteers across the US and around the world for a year of service for a lifetime of change. I am going to Boston with two other girls to live simply together in Christian community, serving God and the underprivileged and listening for God’s call in our lives. We are each working at separate sites, but all for the Boston Food Justice YAV program. I’ve been placed at Church of the Covenant in downtown Boston and the Women’s Lunch Place, a day shelter for homeless women in the Boston area. They serve breakfast and lunch every day, so I am excited to hopefully use my recently attained nutrition degree in my service placement.

 

We just finished a week of orientation in Stony Point, NY with 72 of the other YAVs for this year. I will post more very soon about orientation!