White Culture.

Long time, no post. Sorry about the delay.

LVC is officially in full swing. We began two weeks ago now with our 124-LVCers converging on DC for a week long orientation. We had a very full week of community building, anti-racism training, personal safety training, and discussions about sustainability/simplicity. We got there on Sunday night and left on Saturday afternoon.

Then Sunday morning (after a 17.5 hour train ride!) we arrived in Chicago. We've now been here a week. We have been given time to settle into our new homes, communities, and city. We were able to see everyone in our house's placements (which was really interesting and gave us a solid framework). We officially started work on Thursday, but I haven't been back to my placement yet. I've spent those two days in training for LI-Heap (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) which begins on September 1. My first day at Howard Area Community Center will be on Monday! Wish me luck! Today we had a potluck at the lake with all of the Chicago Area LVCers (there are 13 of us in three houses: Casa Romero, Sojourner Truth and Carter Heywood).

It's all been good and overwhelming and about just settling in. But I really wanted to share some thoughts about something we discussed in our two days of anti-racism training: White Culture.

First this poem was shown to us and I wanted to share it with you.

It's called "Southern Heritage" by Jason Carney.

In light of this and my anti-racist training. I am a white American. I know very few details about my heritage outside of a few legendary references (I may have some Native American and French), but my ancestry has never been chronicled. Throughout the years I have felt a little lost, lacking true identity and culture. I have always prized cultures where there is a strong community, a strong sense of identity attached to belonging in that community. I have always felt a sense of loss at my own lack of culture. However, I've never been forced, or even asked, to look at my true culture within the United States: White Culture.

___________

I wrote that several months ago and never really got around to finishing the post. Primarily because I think I have yet to find a true answer as to what white culture is and how I fit into that legacy.

Having recently returned from Fall Retreat, these thoughts are forefront in my mind again. We were once again asked to revisit our anti-racism training and to continue the process we began in D.C.. I am struggling to claim an anti-racist identity. I am struggling not to be lost in the truly terrible aspects of my white culture. I have been overwhelmed by my own _____participation? benefits? role?

What I am failing to articulate as clearly as I would like is this: I am struggling. I am struggling with the guilt I have for being a white United States of American, the difficulty I have in reclaiming a white culture that can be positive and honoring to all, and I have yet to find a way to live into an anti-racist identity.

Peace,

Amanda

"Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I really love my church in Los Angeles. If you are ever in Los Angeles on a Sunday morning and are looking for a good contemporary worship experience in a great community atmosphere, you should stop by St. Stephen’s.

One of my favorite things about the service on Sunday is that the sermon is usually a conversation. Our rector, Jaime, provides some background or historical context for the passage and often some popular interpretations. He may preach for a bit, but that is always followed by a discussion with the congregation. This week, in particular, we had a really good conversation. The gospel reading for today was from Mark 10:17-31 (which I have copied and pasted below). It's a passage I've always kind of struggled with and so it was really wonderful to grapple with it in my worship community and to hear other perspectives on what it means for us. Jaime also usually starts the conversation by throwing out a few questions: what strikes you about this passage? What is the good news in this passage? What is the bad news in this passage?


Mark 10:17-31 (NRSV)


As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.” ’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ They were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’

Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’



So, what is the bad news and what is the good news? What strikes you about this passage?

To be perfectly honest, this passage has a whole lot of bad news for me. I love stuff. My MacBook and DVR are a couple of my favorite things. I brought two suitcases and a box of stuff to California but still have a room and closet full of my possessions back in Ohio. Material possessions give a certain level of comfort; they make me feel more settled and more at home. I have thirteen pairs of shoes with me in California. Do I really need all four pairs of sneakers I have? Or all five pairs of sandals? Of course not. Am I going to do anything about the fact that I have way more than I need? Maybe. Maybe not. So, for me, this passage has a lot of bad news. How am I going to get into the kingdom of heaven when I have all of this STUFF? Some people say that this passage is a metaphor for ridding ourselves of everything that stands between us and God, or that Jesus doesn't really mean that we have to sell everything and give it to the poor, but just give up some things (after all, if everyone who had stuff sold it all and gave to the poor, then the situation would flip. Those who are poor now would have stuff and they'd have to sell everything and give to US. Right? Right? Right...)

Wrong. Well, kind of wrong. To me, this passage does speak to the necessity of ridding ourselves of everything that stands between ourselves and God. I think that includes all of the material crap we have (Sure, I’ll admit it, all of the stuff I have distracts me from more important things in life.) If it weren’t for the internet and DVR, among other things, I’d probably be more intentional in my community interactions and more conscious of a lot of the things happening around me. I do think, however, that this speaks to more than just the material things but also all of the other things in our lives that distract us from being in communion with God, whether those things are concrete or abstract.

One of the reasons I decided to do a year in EUIP was to try to live without as many of those things to distract me from God. I did leave a lot of things behind, but I haven’t gotten rid of everything. I’m working on it. I’m trying. I’m not there yet. But the thing is, I never will be. At least not by myself. And this is where the good news of this passage comes in. (No pun intended with the use of the phrase “good news,” by the way). When Jesus said how hard it would be for a rich man to get into heaven, even if he lived out the commandments in his everyday life, the disciples were seriously disturbed. I bet they were thinking "oh crap. If this guy can't do it, who can? And then, to make matters worse, Jesus says “For mortals it is impossible..." At first, this can be really hard to hear. For mortals it’s impossible? Well, where is the hope in that? We’re all screwed. Right? Right? Right…

Wrong again. For God, all things are possible. We can’t do it. But God can. As much as we follow the commandments and live out the Gospel in our everyday lives, that’s all we can do. All we can do is try (and hopefully try our best). The rest is up to God. We can’t save ourselves, so matter how hard we try. This can be hard to hear, too, though. I know I like to take charge, to be in control. When you like to be in control, how hard can it be to accept that you can’t do anything? I think we all know the answer to this question. It's hard. Really hard. Marta even talked about this in her blog a few weeks ago...

Something else that struck me about this passage (and was brought up by someone else in church today) was how this was kind of a call-to-action from Jesus to the rich man. The rich guy had spent his life following all of these commandments that we've been given. He doesn't murder, or commit adultery, or steal, or bear false witness. So what does he do? These commandments are all about not doing something. I mean, sure, the guy honors his parents but even that is very passive. So Jesus tells him to get active, to go out and do something!

Finally, the last thing that really stood out to me (and which was also pointed out in church) was how Jesus wasn't just rebuking this guy. He wasn't writing him off as not being good enough. Sure, he could be doing more, but "Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’" Jesus loved him.


Well, this turned out to be much more preachy than I expected it to be, so my apologies. I've been struggling to find something to write for quite some time (hence my lack of posts for the past few weeks), but after church today I could stop thinking about this. So, for you, what is the bad news in this and what is the good news? You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but I enjoyed contemplating it.

God Is Already There- One Less Thing To Pack!

Many great insights were passed on to the 50 YAGMs during our Orientation in Chicago at the end of August. Advice, discussions, counsel, and poignant theology made our week with presenters, alumni, and Global Mission personnel such a worthwhile week. A week for which now, a month into my experience, I’m so grateful. I’d like to share a story of how one such piece of insight has slapped me on the face as I experienced its relevance this week in England.

There are a variety of misconceptions about mission work. We discussed many of these notions at orientation as a way to dissect what it is we are (and aren’t) doing this year as Young Adults in Global Mission. A misconception may be a missionary takes God with them to an area that doesn’t have God already.
Like- “Hello (different area of the world)!! America is here! Surprise!!! And look who I brought with me??…..Jesssuuuuus!!!” “Awe…..you…shouldn’t have…??”
Surely I was to pack a good pair of walking shoes…..some pictures…a durable coat…ranch dressing…..a bible……did I forget the big man upstairs??

Joking aside, the point of our discussion was to realize our aim is not to bring God with us; rather we are sent out to discover how God is already there and at work.
The congregation at St. Peter’s in London Colney did not need Marta the happy American missionary to bring Jesus. My experience attending worship this Sunday made that clearly evident.

Ya know that type of energy that keeps you anxiously excited while nervously inhabiting the pit of your stomach? That energy that creeps up before interviews, auditions, when getting lost, and when you know you’ve done something completely stupid and wrong that needs fixing…? I had that energy going to church on Sunday morning by myself? Am I dressed appropriately? Will they be able to peg me as an outsider? Would I be able to follow directions and actually find the church? Will my attempt at finding a happy Protestant counterpart to SPEC go awry?
Because this placement/community/country sometimes feels similar to home, those moments that remind me that I’m far from home sneak up and, well, produce that nervous “audition energy”.

Fortunately, I got to St. Peter’s early and had some time to survey my surroundings. There were happy over-involved church ladies in the back greeting me. (“Isn’t that speeecial??”) There were only a few others sitting in the 15-20 pews of the small congregation. There was an overly-welcoming and carefully designed and detailed bulletin. There were hymns I knew and loved. From there I can’t count how many times throughout that morning I thought to myself, “Awe….bless their hearts!!” (In true Sue Diehm fashion…thanks mom.) As 10am drew closer, in came the babies. Lots and lots of babies. I was a minority not because I was American but because I didn’t have a 0-3 yr. old on my hip. At about 9:55am, I looked down to my left and found a little toddler friend taking up occupancy next to me in the pew. She looked up at me with big beautiful blue eyes and I nearly teared up. Little sis proceeded to spit her pacifier onto the floor later picking it up to give to me. Before I could graciously grab it, her apologetic mother (who looked like Helen Hunt) came and whisked her away back to their pew a few rows back.

There service was lovingly and awesomely disheveled. Their female pastor doubles as an organist and the rest of the music is on a backing track controlled by a chap in the balcony. Babies crying and crawling and many other little incidents that made me giggle inside. The final anthem was Shine Jesus Shine; complete with a cheesy contemporary Christian backing track and a box of instruments for the children of the congregation to play. I had held back most of my tears throughout the service, but kids playing instruments is where I draw the line. I took it all in and happily cried as the 2 year old in front of me shook his upside down maraca with his chubby little fist.

As I witnessed a little baby named Ava being baptized; as I was invited to the Lord’s Supper for the first time since being here; as I was affectionately sought out after church by two women delighted to see a new SPEC face, it dawned on me. Beyond the ministry at SPEC, it was here at St. Peter’s that I discovered God already at work in the UK. Not because I’m equipped with more tools, wisdom, or faith than anyone I encounter this year. Not because of my own personal decisions or feelings in the pit of my stomach. Not because I brought God in a big ole package with a bow on top. But rather because he brought me here to discover, discern, learn, relate and love.

Another tidbit I will always remember from orientation strikes me as I reflect on St. Peter’s: “The will of God will never take you where the grace of God cannot protect you.” Thanks be to God for the love and grace I nervously stumbled upon at St. Peter’s on Sunday! I have been so enriched in so many ways this past month. I look forward to all the things God will continue to have in store for me during this Global Mission year and beyond.

a very long week..

I think the title of this blog pretty much sums it up; this past week of work just seemed really long. Thanks to Labor Day the previous week, this was actually my first 40-hour week at Common Ground so it really was longer than what I was used to. At the same time, however, this week's feeling of endlessness had nothing to do with the number of hours I worked and everything to do with the fact that I actually started doing all of the things I'll be doing this year.

Coming into the program, I knew that my work would be intense. I'm working in an HIV center so many of our clients are HIV positive and/or have Hepatitis C and/or are injection drug users, etc. For me, in particular, I work with mostly homeless youth and young adults. Many of my clients are into hard drugs, some have kids, and a lot of them are kind of on the run from the police due to some minor infraction that turned into something much greater.

My week started off busily but still pretty low key. Because we receive a lot of government funding, we have to put records of every test we do into a state database (HIRS). Each test record includes basic client info (name, DOB, zip code, race/ethnicity, etc), the info from the lab slip (when the test was done, time it was done, temperature in the room, lot number, expiration date, etc), and then one or two forms that detail a client's sexual behavior, substance use, and STD history. Unfortunately, HIRS has been down since the beginning of July for some system changes and so no one in the office has been able to enter records for two and a half months. This week, however, we were once again able to put in records so we were trained on how to do that and given stacks of files to enter. It's not a bad job, though since I'm still new to it, it can be time consuming. Depending on how much information is in a particular record, it can take anywhere from 5-10 minutes to as much as 20 minutes. Sometimes clients don't fill things out completely correctly or HIRS still has some glitches, so I've had a couple of files take as much as 30 minutes to enter. Imagine doing that for two and a half months worth of files... Luckily, with a few of us working on it, we were able to get all the way through the July files this week and started on the August files.

Learning HIRS was actually really good because it gave me something to do (I probably spent 10+ hours this week on HIRS records), but it was the easy part of the week. One of the cool things about Common Ground is that we have several remote testing sites which include a high school and a drug/alcohol treatment center; this, in turn, allows us to reach a much larger population. Since I am the youth specialist in our prevention department, I will be in charge of the remote testing at Santa Monica High School (Samohi). So, on Thursday mornings for the next nine months or so, I will be doing HIV tests for Samohi students. I did not, however, know I would be doing this. Until this part Thursday, I hadn't even done an actual test but had just observed one of our more experienced counselors. So, I was taken over to Samohi on Thursday morning and given a room in which to test and then I was on my own. I was told it would probably be slow because it was the beginning of the year and that I probably should have brought a book. Well, that was completely incorrect. I actually ended up doing three tests! My first three tests. Ever.

I think the idea of testing at Samohi is GREAT. It makes the service so accessible to students who otherwise might not have the courage to go to a different, more public, testing center. In practice, however, it was a REALLY tough way to start my career in testing. The hardest part of testing at Samohi, at least for me, was that the kids are so young! I try to stay away from calling people kids because a lot of people find it kind of demeaning (plus, I'm only 22 and barely an adult myself), but that's really all these people were. Just kids. They were in kindergarten when 9/11 happened. They were toddlers when NSYNC and BSB broke onto the music scene.

It was so hard to sit in a room talking about sex, STDs, and HIV with these kids. The first test I did was for a girl who was so obviously scared and, although we talked for a while about her situation, there was little I could do to assuage her fears. I think that is when it really hit me how intense this year is going to be. It was a frustrating day and, to be perfectly honest, I'm still working on processing that experience.

Friday was another tough day; my co-worker who is in charge of our evening drop-in times was out sick so I had to lead drop-in by myself! I was so stressed about it all day. It ended up going fairly well, but it was still really hard because I haven't been there long enough to feel like a strong authority figure and so, had there been any big problems, I wouldn't have had a clue how to handle it.

Despite it being a really rough week, I do like my job. Even though testing at Samohi was really tough, it was also a really good experience because I felt like I could really help the kids over there because they're young and uninformed. They seemed more receptive to information than some older clients. And even though drop-in was tough, I know I can do it.

Sorry this is kind of ending abruptly, but I need to get some stuff done and get some sleep before the new weeks starts!


Peace,

Jordan

St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Hollywood

I know I just posted last night, but I wanted to take a minute to write about how much I love our new church!

One of the great things about EUIP is that we actually live at a church and so we're very closely linked with a spiritual community. We occupy the upstairs of the parish house on the campus of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Hollywood. Downstairs is the main church office as well as a preschool by day. St. Stephen's has two preschools on campus (one Head State preschool and a fine arts pre-school) and also has a theater company on campus, called Write Act. Overall, it's just a really great place to be.

Today after church, there was an informal ministry fair where we all sat around and talked about the different ministries of the church and how to get involved. There are a lot of different ministries at St. Stephen's, from the ride ministry (giving elderly people a lift to church) to altar guild (setting up for the service). I'm hoping to get involved in a couple of different ministries: baking communion bread and working in the community garden we're trying to start. I think some of my roommates are going to be working with the Sunday School and youth group ministries. There really is something for everyone.

The really awesome thing I want to highlight, though, is that nearly 100 percent of St. Stephen's parishioners are involved in at least one of the different ministries (and many are involved in more than one)! I've seen plenty of churches where most people just go to a service once a week but contribute very little else to the life of the church. Especially in small churches with tiny budgets, parishioners are needed to help out with different things, plus it really helps build a strong church community. I'm really looking forward to my involvement with St. Stephen's this year; it's so refreshing to be a part of such a thriving, giving church community!

emotional tourism

I've felt like a tourist a lot lately. Moving to a new place always leaves me feeling like that for a little while, and in a city like Los Angeles (particularly where we live in Hollywood) where there actually are tons of tourists all the time, it's really easy to get caught up in it. But I've now been in the city for a few weeks and while I'll admit that a few weeks isn't an extremely long period of time, it's actually starting to feel like I'm an Angeleno and not just a tourist. I've figured out the subway, used the bus, and driven not only through LA but on the freeways around the city. I've found grocery stores and thrift stores, a couple of bars I'll probably frequent, and a few other hangouts.

I was so happy when I realized I no longer felt so much like a tourist (I still feel that way a little, but the feeling is going away a bit every day...), but this week I've experienced feelings relating to tourism again, but this time I feel like an emotional tourist. My housemate Adam, who also works with me, used this phrase the other day and I think it really fits what I'm feeling in regard to my job right now.

To begin, let me say that I really do like my job. The people are great and I can see already that Common Ground provides so many great services. One of the main parts of my job is working with the Homeless Youth Peer Education program (HYPE). HYPE is three evenings a week; Common Ground stays open and we provide food, a place to hang out, clothing, counseling, needle exchange, internet access, and various other services. As great as Common Ground and HYPE are, however, I feel like an emotional tourist. So many of the clients, particularly with HYPE, are people who come in all the time for services. They've built relationships with the other people who work there but so far, I'm just an outsider. I don't know them and I don't know there stories. It will take time to build rapport and strong relationships. In the meanwhile, I kind of feel like I don't belong. Like a tourist going to a new place, I can really enjoy my time at Common Ground and learn a lot, but for a while I'm just a tourist.

It's a strange period of transition. I really love what I'm doing and I look forward to the day that I feel like I've built really solid relationships with my clients the way many of my co-workers have. I've now worked three evenings at HYPE and it gets easier every shift. I'm sure that soon I'll stop being an emotional tourist; like with going to a new place, it's all about stepping out of your comfort zone.

Other than feeling like an emotional tourist, I'm totally loving my job. I've been doing a lot of needle exchanges and observed my first HIV test/counseling session. After a few more observations, I'll be out on my own. I'm realizing already that this is going to be an intense year, but I have a supportive staff at work, great roommates, and excellent family and friends (even if they are scattered around the world).

Peace,
Jordan

U2Charist

My roommates and I were invited out to a U2Charist here in Chicago. 3 of us were able to attend. I have never listened to a lot of U2 music, but I knew the general premise of the service and could definitely get on board with the idea. For those that are unaware about 5 years ago an Episcopalian woman (congrats Jordan) decided to create a worship service using the songs of the rock band U2 to create a theme of social justice. U2 has been gracious enough to allow these type of worship services to continue as long as all the money donated goes to an organization that is furthering the UN Millennium Development Goals. (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/) I was lucky enough to be invited to a service with a live tribute band. I had a really great time, now granted I know it would've been even better if I really knew the songs, but even so just the general atmosphere was fantastic. Also this was a way I could honor the memory of 9/11/2001 while still recognizing all of the terror this day and our country has caused worldwide.

Several thoughts occurred to me as I was participating in this goal. One in particular still sticks with me. The church we were worshiping was Fourth Presbyterian right across from the John Hancock Center down on Michigan Ave. As my roommate Bret put it, it was a "serious sanctuary." The sanctuary was beautiful. A very regal place. http://www.fourthchurch.org/worship2.html That's a picture of the sanctuary. As I listened to the lyrics of a modern day rock band in "God's house" and stared up at the stained glass window of Jesus with his arms outstretched I felt a true sense of awe that the church, the community, Christ could be open in a way that really allows us to reach people where they are. Now a U2Charist is not going to appeal to everyone, but I was so impressed by these opportunities that the Christian community has created to reach out and really speak to the message of the Gospel.

Speaking of the Gospel the short message given this quote sticks with me, "If you think the Gospel is about anything but changing the world then you're mistaken." Another important quote from the evening was given during the benediction, "Go out and remember who you are, remember who God is, know who God is calling you to be."

As we left I saw two young individuals and who appeared to be a mother with her two children (probably around the ages of 8 and 6) sitting around a bench outside the church, on the bench was the remnants of a McDonald's dinner. As I walked outside I over heard the young man talking to the woman about who Christ was. He was saying, "yeah, that's what we're trying to do, love people because he loved people. He tells us that's how we're supposed to live, just loving each other." The other young woman was talking to the boy just about his life. I was reminded so wholly of the way that Christ reaches out to us and how Christ reaches out to others through us. I think this is something I've been forgetting lately.

This is a song we turned into our prayer. Let it be your prayer to:

Lose Control

Greetings blog readers!

My name is Marta Diehm- recent Capital grad serving through the ELCA's Young Adults in Global Mission program in the UK. I am living and working with a youth retreat ministry outside of London. Here is one of my latest musings about a particularly poignant moment from this week:


I lost my control yesterday. My laptop was relaxing comfortably on my desk when my deordorant stick fell from the overhead shelf and landed on the keyboard, therefore popping off the bottom left-hand corner CTRL key.
After a vailant yet unsuccessful effort from my friend Anthony to pop it back on, I am without a control key.
I've lost my control. Interesting indeed.
Ever since my wildly eventful and interesing YAGM Discernment weekend that led me to the UK, there has been many-a small reminders of God's presence and his work and plan throughout this year. I know this year will continue throwing me all kinds of surprises, challenges, joys, and lessons that remind me that its ok to just be. Its ok not to have a plan. Its ok to let go...and that God is certainly good!
I was later told that there is a 2nd CTRL key to the right of the spacebar. Good to know its there, I suppose. But I'm gonna try to live without it.


--Marta

Finally here...

I've been in Los Angeles for six days now and though a lot has happened and I'm still processing quite a bit of it, I do want to share a few experiences and thoughts I've had so far.

I arrived in Los Angeles at 11:00am on Wednesday and met up with two of the other interns at the airport and we were then picked up by our program coordinator and taken to our orientation retreat at the retreat center at the Cathedral Center of St. Paul. We were the first three interns there and so we wandered around the neighborhood (Echo Park area) for a while. It was so wonderful to finally meet the other interns. We spent the rest of the evening getting to know each other and going over program information and then a late night chat.

Thursday, my first full day in Los Angeles, started bright and early. Along with the other Common Ground intern, I had to go to the Office of Aids Programs and Policy to take a pre-test to be fully admitted to counseling/testing training. We were given bus directions and tokens by our program director the night before, with more instructions on where to meet the rest of the interns when we were finished. We set off early the next morning (8:18) to make the "ten minute walk" to our bus stop for our 8:33 bus. Unfortunately, the ten minute walk was really a fifteen minute walk and we arrived at the stop just in time to see our bus driving off. EUIP Life Lesson #1: Always allow plenty of time for travel in LA. We waited and took the next bus fifteen minutes later, but were very worried we'd be unable to take the test and have to wait for the next testing session which would have meant we'd miss much of the day's orientation activities. Luckily, we were still allowed to take the test (and we felt slightly comforted by the fact that someone walked in fifteen minutes later than us!). We passed with flying colors and then set off on the next leg of our adventure, meeting the other interns down on Skid Row.

Down on Skid Row, we had a sort of orientation to the area by a couple of social services workers from the area. They told us (and showed us) a lot about low income housing and different shelters and clinics that are on Skid Row. It is my understanding that LA's Skid Row has one of the largest stable homeless populations in the country (7,000-8,000). We had the opportunity to see a low-income housing building and meet with the manager to talk about what he does and how he runs his building. We also visited Los Angeles Mission and a brand new clinic on Skid Row. It was an eye-opening experience to see such extreme poverty in the city. I actually saw a drug deal take place only about five feet from where I was standing, and had people scream about the evils of white people as we walked by on the sidewalk. Although it's been a few days since this took place, I'm still having a very difficult time processing the experience of spending the morning on Skid Row. Throughout this entire experience, I've been really struggling with feelings of extreme guilt about my white privilege. I'm trying to work through those feelings because I know that simply feeling guilty is neither healthy nor productive. The experience on Skid Row, though, was difficult because we were a predominately white, middle class group being led around a poverty-stricken urban area. I think it was important to see Skid Row, but I really just felt like I was on a campus tour back in the days when I was looking at colleges. I realize that any of us probably would have looked completely out of place, but I still felt uncomfortable.

Despite a rough morning on Skid Row, the rest of the day's orientation was really great. We spent the afternoon and early evening going through information about our living situation, appointing different housemates to different jobs which will rotate throughout the year, including chaplain and meal coordinator. We spent the rest of the night just sitting around and talking with each other around an outdoor propane campfire on the roof of the retreat center.

On Friday we had our Americorps day with mounds of paperwork and then moved into our apartment! We live on the second floor of the parish house at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Hollywood. Over the past few weeks, the members of the church worked so hard to re-do the apartment, which had been church offices until the beginning of August. They painted, re-did all of the hardwood floors, and put in a beautiful kitchen, as well as a bit of other decorating. We spent most of the weekend settling in and were officially welcomed to the church on Sunday. There was a great bilingual service (there are usually two - one English and one Spanish) and a lovely potluck. They even made us care packages with a homemade guide of things to do in the area, a t-shit and CD, some goodies, and beautiful stationary. They have also given us tons of food, including a lot of great produce and several bags of groceries to start out.

Today was my first day of training for my job as an HIV tester/counselor. Some of the training was a little boring, but it was pretty good overall and I definitely learned a lot. The day ended with our OraQuick Advance HIV Proficiency Exam. In short, we had to perform five HIV antibody tests on some controls, document them, pass an observation, and then interpret the results from pictures of other tests to see if they were negative, preliminary positive (positive results always mean a second test will be done), or invalid. It was a bit stressful, but I survived day one. We had a little bit of review homework, which I just finished, but it wasn't too much. It's just helping to reinforce what I've been learning...

One exciting thing about today was that I took the subway! It was my first time on the LA subway system. Though not too extensive, it did seem pretty nice. In fact, I'd heard so many terrible things about LA public transit but I've been generally pretty happy with it so far.

I'm going to try and post a bit more often now that I'm here and getting settled, so hopefully I'll have some new and exciting things to share soon! Thanks for reading...


Peace,
Jordan

Grace not Perfection

One of the purposes of taking this year off from school was to give me time to complete the candidacy process to become a pastor with the ELCA. There were two initial goals here. One, I wanted to gain real life ministry experience that can simply not be gained in a classroom. This experience will hopefully serve as part of the discernment process for me and give me a chance to fully explore some of my ministry options. Second, there is a lot of paperwork and interviews and such that goes into becoming a pastor and it was simply more than I could complete during my senior year of college (though I have a new respect for those who did complete it during that time).

It turns out that the ELCA does not just allow anyone with a Masters of Divinity become a pastor. I suppose that’s for the best and there is certainly good reason to ensure that modern pastors will actually be able to care for their church and community. Nonetheless, there is a lot of work that has to be done before I even begin seminary. I have already completed a four-page application with an attached six-page essay. I completed a twenty-five page psychological autobiography and health questionnaire and took numerous personality profiles and tests. My most recent experience culminated the psychological portion of my evaluation process.

Last week I spent three full days (essentially from 9-5 on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) at the Midwest Ministry Development office as part of the group Group Candidate Program. What does that mean? Well that is an excellent question. And since you are still reading at this point I am operating under the assumption that you want to know. The Group Candidate Program is an evaluation that is designed to 1) save various churches money by doing a group process rather than individual and 2) allow for group interaction as part of the learning process. Since that doesn’t actually answer your question, I spent three days looking at who I was and how that fit into my picture of what my ministry was. I did this with five other future seminarians (3 other Lutherans at 2 United Church of Christ). We looked in depth at our Myers-Briggs tests as well as the Wagner Enneagram Personality Styles Scale (I really just like to say that one fast so it sounds more impressive). These allowed the group to look at how we interact with other people and offer feedback to one another on how this may positively or negatively affect our ministries.

The psychology major in me actually enjoyed most of it. The masochist in me particularly enjoyed the opportunity to take the MMPI-2 (Minnesota Multi-Phasic Inventory- Second Version, another fun one to say quickly and impressively). The MMPI is composed of 567 true or false questions. It seems simple enough until you are about an hour and a half in and you realize you still aren’t done. Typically the MMPI is used in clinical assessment to determine what, if any, psychological concerns the subject may have. If you have ever been psychologically evaluated for a court trial you would have taken the MMPI. It allows psychologists to test for depression, psychosis, phobia, mania, delusions, and a wide array of other concerns. It also contains validity scales that allow psychologists to see if the subject is lying, exaggerating, or underplaying their symptoms. It is all very statistical and I don’t know exactly how it works. Anyway, after 2 hours of testing and an hour session with a psychologist it turns out that I’m not crazy. In fact, despite my sister’s opinion, it may even be said, especially by a psychologist that was evaluating me, that I’m a “well-adjusted young adult.”

I have since had some time to reflect on this and the importance of this process. This psychological evaluation comes as a burden to many who are going through the candidacy process. I heard a number of horror stories going into the process that made me fairly nervous about the whole thing. Pastors who said that their words were misinterpreted to mean things that they didn’t intend or that the counselors were just digging for issues where there weren’t any. I don’t doubt that their experiences were legitimate. Perhaps the process has changed since their day. Certainly there are at least new counselors working here. Nonetheless, I think it is important that we as future pastors take the time to evaluate our own lives past and present.

Pastors do not need to be perfect, praise God. If we expected perfection we wouldn’t have any pastors left. But pastors should be in-tune with themselves and their own experiences. If a pastor is unaware of their tendency to be overly extraverted then they may actually be scaring people off without knowing it. A more serious example would be a pastor that went through a divorce without really dealing with and understanding their emotions and experiences attached to that. How would this pastor be expected to counsel a couple going through marital problems or even a couple looking to get married? Divorce, or other tragic experiences, should not exclude anyone from the candidacy process but it is important that we seek healing and understanding in our own lives before we try to pass that healing and understanding on to others.

Christ does not demand perfection. While we were still sinners he died for us (Romans 5:8). And it is by grace, not our own works, that we are saved through faith and this is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8-10). But to serve God’s people we must serve ourselves. The ever famous, though perhaps clichéd, analogy of a cup comes to mind. We, if you imagine our lives as cups, have a limited amount of water to pour out. Worse yet if our water is tainted by our own lives we will simply be pouring tainted water out to the children. But Jesus says in John that he is the living water that does not end and whoever drinks of it will never thirst (John 4). When we focus our lives in the grace and forgiveness of God we are overfilled with pure clean water that runs to all of those around us. This is the call for pastors, and frankly all children of God. Not perfection, but an awareness of our own brokenness and a dependence of the forgiveness and strength of God! In this we will serve His Kingdom through the works of our hands. For if we focus ourselves on his grace how can we stop from showing this grace to those who need it most.