Tuesday, March 30, 2010

This is my story

Hey friends. Here it is, at long last, my story. I am sorry for its length.

Growing up in a small town, I was surrounded by people who, for the most part, looked and talked like me. For all I knew everybody believed like me as well. Religion was something that was assumed but rarely talked about.

I was raised in ELCA Lutheran church going to church and Sunday School every Sunday, attending Bible Camp in summer, learning all my memory work and, as I got older, teaching Sunday school and serving as an Assisting Minister.

Yet, my lessons about what it meant to call myself Christian were learned by watching my parents and the way their faith was apparent in the way they lived their lives. My parents were always helping in any way that they could.

In Decorah, there are a group of artists, called StoryPeople, who believe in the power of stories to connect people. They do this through the sharing of short stories such as the following:

I asked her why she never told us about the Ten Commandments & she said she wasn't ever that good with numbers so she loved everything as best she could & I remember thinking who needs all those rules anyway with a mother like her around.

Now, my mother is actually quite good with numbers, but this was my experience growing up. My mother’s faith was something that seemed to be something that was difficultly simple. She never denied to us that living a life of faith would present some challenges but she also believed that our Christian faith was simple-it was about loving everybody.

This belief translated into a non-tolerance of intolerance in our house. She always encouraged my sister and me to consider the way another’s story impacted their decisions and to find our similarities. My mother often reminded us that for a large part of the gospels, Jesus was found ministering and friending the social outcasts of his day.

The summer before my junior year, I had the honor of being a part of my cousin, Kari Beth’s, wedding. In many ways it was a traditional wedding, with family gathered, an adorable flower girl, and a beautiful outdoor ceremony. The one thing that made it untraditional was that it was two women getting married.

At this ceremony I saw my mother’s lessons being lived out in my entire family. The day was all about how to best welcome Pat and her daughter Alex. My relationship with Kari Beth, Pat and Alex, also meant for the first time I had a direct relationship with somebody who identified as differently than me. Because of this, I could no longer stand idly by while derogatory comments were made about members of the LGBTQ community.

As I was learning to make these assertions, I was also beginning to become more active in my church, I was teaching Sunday School, assisting with worship and participating with our youth group. As I became more active, I had to also start to define why my faith was important to me. Until this point, I had gone to church and Sunday School because my parents had told me I was, but as I became more active it was my decision.

These two journeys started turning my world from black and white to gray which carried me through my last two years of High School, right to Luther College, were I have spend the past four years being challenged and questioned, comforted and consoled in my faith. Through these challenges I meet people who knew how to walk the line of give and take, to challenge and comfort. I was also continually introduced to people who identified as differently then me, but was always surprised to find that more powerful than the things that made us different, where the things that made us similar. As I made these friends, my world began to once again shift from a dull gray to a vibrant rainbow, where differences only made my life more beautiful.

However, my final semester at Luther, this past fall semester has perhaps been one of the most transformative. Our fall convocation speaker was Eboo Patel, founder of Inter-faith Youth Core and author of Acts of Faith, and he present a picture of interfaith cooperation that was inspiring to me. Knowing IFYC was based in Chicago and that I would be spending the coming semester in Chicago, I was hopeful to find ways to become involved and started to work to find was to complete my social work internship with IFYC.

As I worked for this goal, I had the honor of participating in Luther’s first interfaith Dialogue group- JourneyConversations. Every other week for twelve weeks(6 meetings), we would gather to hear about people’s faith journeys. These were people who identified as Christian’s, Muslims, Hindu’s or no particular faith at all. Yet despite the outward differences, each week as people shared, I heard a part of my story in their story.

As the semester came to a close, I was excited to hear that I would be able to complete my internship with IFYC. But with this excitement, has also come pain, as it has meant the loss of some dear relationships because I have chosen a path of religious pluralism. It has meant having challenging conversations and having to repeatedly defend my identity as a Christian and inter-faith leader.

Yet, despite the pain, I continue to move forward, because as a pastor I deeply admire said in one of her sermons this fall:

"Jesus tells us the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. Our neighbors include people of all faith traditions and no faith tradition I believe dialogue with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, agnostics and secular humanists has made me a better Christian. I am a better interfaith leader because of my deep Christian commitments. I believe my deep faith helps me to be more welcoming of people who hold deep commitments in other traditions.”

The challenges along the way have only made me a stronger person. And the relationship I have formed with my co-workers this semester who are Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Secular Humanists or who claim no faith tradition at all, have inspired me to be a stronger Christian and have empowered me to fully claim my beliefs. As I listen to their stories, I hear a part of my story woven in there, and I find that our stories are inextricably linked. Each day I spend with the IFYC staff, I become more confident in the power of my story and my belief that I can be a Christian and an interfaith leader.

And when my time at IFYC is done, this will be work I continue to do throughout my life, so that when I come to the pearly gates and I am asked what I did with my life my answer can be “I loved everything the best that I could”

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The project, My inspiration

Hey Friends- So once again I apologize for not getting things posted earlier. It is amazing how much time flies when you are having fun-or just working full-time :) ) Anywho, I will hopefully get "my story" posted soon, it is a challenge to get it typed up, I also attended a conference this past Friday about Interfaith and the Environment which has been really thought-provoking so I will hopefully blog about that as well. Other than that, life is going amazingly well.

While you are waiting for all the promised blogs, here is a blog that I wrote about One Chicago, One Nation.


In his song, If You’re Out There, John Legend sings ,

“We’re the generation. / We can’tafford to wait.

The future started yesterday. / We’re already late.”

These lyrics present the kind of call to action that Gandhi made when he asked us to “be the change you wish to see in the world.” Legend’s lyrics expand on Gandhi’s call continuing:

“Oh I was looking for a song to sing / I searched fora leader

But the leader was me… / We don't have to wait for destiny

We should be the change that we want to see.”

When I was younger, my parents taught me by the way they lived their lives that our Christian faith is deeply linked to the way we live our lives. This lesson has led me to embrace my Christian faith as a lifestyle. Each day I find faith intersecting and overlapping with my day-to-day activities and decisions. As a senior social work major at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, I’ve been working to discern how I’m going to connect my faith to social work in way that allows me to bring my entire self to the table, not leaving my faith behind.

This spring, I’ve been interning in Chicago with a non-profit organization, Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC). IFYC’s work to build mutual respect and pluralism among different religious and philosophical traditions spoke directly to my desire for my work and faith to intersect, allowing me to explore new concepts of change. At IFYC, every day I work with people who identify as Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and some who claim no religious tradition at all. Yet, rather than focusing on those things that could potentially separate and divide us, we find commonality through empowering young people from diverse religious and non religious backgrounds to serve the common good.

One way we’re doing this is through a new Chicago-based civic engagement program, One Chicago, One Nation that we’ve launched in partnership with The Chicago Community Trust, Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN), One Nation, and Link TV. As part of the program, One Chicago, One Nation is looking for 100 intergenerational Chicagoland leaders from diverse social, religious, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds to work for the common good in their own communities. These leaders will serve as One Chicago, One Nation Community Ambassadors.

Community Ambassadors will receive training by IFYC and IMAN in storytelling, interfaith and intercultural dialogue facilitation, community listening, and community service strategies. Using the training, Community Ambassadors will facilitate conversations around Chicago about issues that are relevant to their communities, and they’ll have the opportunity apply for service grants to enable collaborative community service projects.

As I get the opportunity to read applications from potential Community Ambassadors, I’m inspired by a refusal to sit idly by and let others define the world we live in. By simply applying to be a part of the program, Chicagoans are embracing the challenge and changing the world. In these applications, I find that for many of us, our identities and our lifestyles are inextricably linked together through a desire to work for a better world.

To learn more about One Chicago, One Nation, see: http://onechicago-onenation.org. To apply to be a Community Ambassador, please see: http://onechicago-onenation.org/community-ambassador-application/.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

AMAZING WEEKEND!!!

So I had a fantastic weekend.  As I mentioned in my last blog the weather turning into spring so we have had some absolutely fantastic weather (ok, so maybe yesterday was really nasty, windy and wet but at least it was rain not snow!).   I had an absolutely wonderful weekend and I would love to share some of if with you now. 

Friday:  After work, a couple of us from the office went to Sayira's(a former intern who finished about two weeks ago) place and she cooked us a wonderful supper.   Otherwise, we just chilled out and had wonderful conversation.   

Saturday:  Cold, nasty and rainy day so I was grateful for my rainboots to keep my feet dry.  Since it was St. Patty's day weekend there was a fair amount of stuff going on downtown so I wandered(aka took the CTA) downtown.   I got to see the river dyed green, which was quite impressive.  I also got a chance to see a lot of ridiculous green outfits!   Then it was off to the parade, which was led by an impressive group of bagpipers wearing kilts (could not have been warm at all!).   After the parade it was time to head home, relax and do some laundry.   I found out some of the people from the floor below us were going to a Cajun dance so I tagged along to that.   For those of you at Luther, it reminded me a lot of the freshman contra dance that is at the begining of every year, without the pizza ranch or the freshman.   The three of us were the youngest ones there by at least ten years but we still had a GREAT time and learned how to do the Cajun waltz and attempted the Cajun two step.   

Sunday- This morning, after figuring out the wonderfulness of Daylight Savings time, I went for a nice run (8 miles- I am over half way there!!!!!  5 more to go) along the river.  It was a bit windy and a little chilly but once I got moving I was loving running a long the beach listening to the waves crashing in to the rocks and slapping at the beach.   Also, there was a group of surfers  (yes, surfers in Lake Michigan) which I had to laugh at a little bit and then decided they were a little crazy.   After my run it was home to clean up and chill out before heading to Julie's (one of my co-workers) for a surprise party for Erin(co-worker/un-official supervisor).  There I got to help make Navajo flatbread.   After eating, we had a pinata which Erin destroyed and then it was hanging out and visiting. Then home again to get ready for tomorrow!

So that was my wonderful weekend.  On another note, I mentioned in my last blog that I had shared with a group "my story," hopefully sometime this week I will get that typed up and shared on the blog!  

peace to you all!

Monday, March 8, 2010

Why do I come to work?

Sorry, I haven't beeen so great at keeping this updated.  Life has been going amazing!  I am loving my time with IFYC and enjoying exploring Chicago on the weekend.  As the weather is getting nice, I have been taking advantage of being so close to the lake to go running.    It is hard to imagine at this point that I have been here for a month, which is about 1/3 of my time.  It has seemed like such short time but it also seems like I have been here for longer.  

Last Wednesday, I went with Hind to talk to a group of Chicago Semester students, much like what I am doing but not all social workers.  Part of this training was sharing our story about why we are committed to religious pluralism.  It was intimidating to present such a personal story with a group of people my age, who I had no idea how they would respond.  Hind was really supportive and it was good to have to articulate why I do interfaith work in concrete terms.   

Today before going into our weekly staff meeting we were told that Eboo was going to ask us why we were inspired to come to work each morning.  My first immediate thought was the obivious, if I don't get my required hours in, I don't graduate.  Yet, it is something more than that.  As I sat and listened to the members of the team go around and share the things that inspired them to come to work, I heard all the reasons I came to work and was inspired: the fellows, the people in the office, stories  from other interfaith leaders, etc.   I love going to work because while each day is a little repeatitive I still never know what entertainment or meaningful conversation a day is going to bring.   Each day, somebody will take time to explain something to me that I don't understand or that I need to know.  

I also love the work I do because in the work I do I get to see example of how my education as a social worker and my life as a person of faith can intersect.   Again as I hear the stories that are brought to our staff meetings and circulated in e-mails, I get to see ways that my call to a life of faith and my passion for social justice work together in a unique way.