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?
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
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?
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?
Friday, June 4, 2010
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.
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.
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