LA Times features former DOOR participant

Stephanie Pashby, a YAV/Dwell participant in Hollywood 2007-2008, was featured in a recent LA Times article about her work with PATH Outreach in LA. Click Here for article.

My freshman year of college I took Congregational Worship, an elective course. We learned about many things, but I got wrapped up in theology of space. What does our space say about our theology? What should our theology speak into our space? As I travel around the DOOR network, I am drawn to look churches in this way. I find it fascinating and also very important.

This morning, I participated with a Discover team at Oakleaf Farm, a farm run by Berea Mennonite Church, a partner church of DOOR Atlanta. Oakleaf Farm is actually in the yard of Berea Mennonite. I learned that the church has been trying to decide how to use its space for awhile now, and this idea of having a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm was born out of that process. In the front, back, and side yards of this church there are rows of vegetables in which 10% goes to the community free of charge and much of the rest is purchased by getting a share in the CSA.

This redefines the theology of space for me. Its not just the chapel, the fellowship hall and the Sunday School rooms, but also how we use all our space, including the yard. May we continue to figure out new ways to use the space around us to live out what we believe!

Some more thoughts on Washington DC

If I think about it too long, I worry that my new desire to research Robert E Lee is a bit misguided. Should I be interested in the general who lead the charge to continue enslaving people in the South? True to my love of history, and in debt to my history teachers along the way, I have become reinterested in his life thanks to a recent trip to Arlington National Cemetery.

My 8th grade history teacher may be horrified to know that I forgot about Robert E Lee’s story. He was a West Point graduate. President Lincoln offered him the top job in the Union Army, Lee said no even though he didn’t agree with secession or the Confederacy which he mocked in letters before the Civil War. Why? His allegiance was to his home state of Virginia, and when Virginia seceded, Lee left the Union Army and joined the Virginia state troops. If that isn’t interesting enough, once the Union won, the land around Lee’s house (passed down from his in-laws who happened to be related to George Washington) was declared to become the National Cemetery, including a big monument in the family’s rose garden.

General Lee’s story makes me wonder about my allegiances. Slavery was and is wrong. Period. Lee, in my opinion, made the wrong decision. So the questions become – What is my allegiance to? What or Who in my life plays the role of Virginia that could sway my opinions and decisions so drastically? How can I show my concern and my commitment to people without giving them complete allegiance?

Living in the midst of the City

I just finished Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block by Judith Matloff. I could relate in many ways to the story of this woman who has chosen to purchase a house in West Harlem, a place that was not on most realtor’s maps and her friends wouldn’t come visit during the early 2000s. Her story is humbling, funny, and reflective.

She reflects at several points in the book about gentrification. As she sees her neighborhood change from a Dominician stronghold and a place that realtors have labeled frontier and those that were interested in buying there as pioneers to a multicultural block with closer amenities, she struggles with understanding whose side she was on.

Was Miguel the local head drug guy really that bad? Were her fears of her next door neighbor who liked crack founded? Should she worry about being in this neighborhood? Would it be hell to pay if Miguel found out that while relating with him she also attended community activism meetings to try to get the drug trade to move from her street?

These are good questions, for Matloff, for me, and for our DOOR year long (Dwell) participants. By living in a place that doesn’t have clear cut answers within a complex intentional community and in a neighborhood filled with stories, the answers won’t come easy.

Maybe in asking of the questions we are able to live more intentionally?

Vacation

I thought I was on vacation.

While touring the American Museum of History last month my husband and I sat down for a presentation about the Civil Rights Movement in front of the Woolworth lunch counter from Greensboro, North Carolina where four students had participated in a sit in. For more information about the event and to see the counter, click here.

The presentation was about how folks prepared for these acts of non-violent action and at one point the presenter handed out historic Woolworth’s menus “to help prepare us for what was ahead”. Like good schoolchildren, we passed around these menus until everyone had seen them. The presenter asked where the menus were, there was one laying on the chair next to me and like 3 others in the audience, held the menu up expecting to be asked to pass it to the front. Instead, the four of us were asked to come sit at the lunch counter.

While sitting at the lunch counter, we were given instructions not to react to negative responses and that we were to just sit. Then after awhile we were surrounded by the rest of audience to represent the people who gave negative responses to the original four protesters.

Tears came to my eyes. This is what I believe in….working to bring a diverse world to the table, and standing up (or in this case sitting down) to injustices that prevent this from happening.

I was on vacation, but this is my life. I hear DOOR participants talk about being on vacation while in our Discover program and often hear about “taking a year off” for service. However, like my experience with the Greensboro lunch counter, I hope that participants see their time at DOOR as a part of their journey instead of a special instance of service, God, or reflection. My prayer is that participants will commit or recommit to their passions, to God, and to a life of reflection in new ways while at DOOR because cultivating a life of service and reflection isn’t something that can be left for vacation.

Discovering the City

When groups register for our week-long discover program, we don’t just ask for their name, contact information and a check. Instead we start the process of reflection by asking several questions which include expectations, goals and ideas of service. A group recently registered with the following.

Q:“What are some images you have of the inner city?”
A.“A place where vibrant life meets real struggles and needs.”


Yes. Yes. And Amen. The City is full of life and needs. May the vibrant life be witnessed by the Discover participants this summer.

Generalizations and Reflections

Here is a recent reflection from Anna Yoder, serving in a partner program of Radical Journey. Anna is serving in South Africa and yet I think she captures many of feelings that I hear around the DOOR network.

It's really hard to sit there, unsure what to say, when people make generalizations right at you. This surprisingly hasn't happened a lot since we've been here, but earlier this week it seemed to come with full force. I was sitting in the office trying to work on BCA's annual report when someone came and started talking to me forever about how Americans are.

Uh…

Don't get me wrong, I am the first to admit that there are lots of things that have gone wrong in the States. After all, we have a lot of blood (and high fructose corn syrup) on our hands. Part of the reason I wanted to do this program as to get out of the United States for awhile. I have found that it's hard to explain that to people here, even if they don't like the US they are often surprised when I say that as whole, I do not either.

I've been struggling with this a lot since being here. I miss home, which means I miss the States. And that sounds weird and out of place to me. Yet, when I think about that, it's not that unnatural since what I love about the States comes down to people (well, and ice cream. Ha) – my family, friends, and people who have impacted my life (and that I'm tired of being far away from). When this someone told me that Americans (as in our Radical Journey group here) are more prone to stay in the states as oppose to the Canadians who are more open to it (I'm not sure where this guy got this from), I wanted to tell him that for me I guess that is true but it comes down to the fact that Barb, Sanford, Aaron, Janice, Titus, Michaela, Leah, Jeron, Kare, Jille, Drea, Laura, Krista, Steph, and Jills live there than easy access to cheap, corn feed and filled food.

Regardless, I get really frustrated when South Africans come up to me and tell me everything that is wrong with the States, especially when they loop me in with their generalizations. I find it very difficult to say anything in these situations. Sometimes, I wonder if would do anything if I spoke up for myself at all. After all, the States needs to be lectured on lots of things. Often, it is also that I don't even know what to say. How do you tell someone who tells you to your face that all Americans are materialistic and only care about clothes and make-up when hello! I'm right here in front of them with practically no make-up, my hair frizzy from the humidity, and the fact that I've been wearing the same pair of pants consistently for the past week.

I'm pretty bad at sticking up for myself, especially when I sometimes agree with everything they are saying. Still, I don't like to be lumped into the "you Americans" group, when I rather be lumped in with those environmental, pro-Palestinian, God's kingdom on earth, anti-corn syrup, anti-blind consumerism, jubilee economics, simple living, third way Jesus' shalom type of hippy freaks so would rather challenge the system they live in rather than become just like it or run from it. Obviously, I don't have these things down. But it's hard to express that there is so much more to me than being an America. Or that doesn't always have to mean the terrible connotations that it holds throughout the world. Maybe God has placed me there for a reason – to be a part of a movement that challenges what my government is doing with my tax dollars, that doesn't live with a blind eye to the world, but rather engages, yet never fully participates in order to bring about radical generosity and love to the places I find myself in.

I want to live in a way in which people are confused as to why I don't fit into their "you Americans" generalizations. Am I there yet? I am not sure…

For the blog in its entirety, see http://radicaljourney-annayoder.blogspot.com/2010/04/you-americans.html