Stones in the River

The ELCA’s model of mission is one of accompaniment, which means a focus on “being” rather than “doing.” Before I left, I spoke about this often.  I talked about how I was going to walk with people and hear their stories.   It all sounded relatively simple, I mean I was going to do something that I love.  However, coming from a culture that bases a persons worth on measurable productivity and outcomes, this is much easier said than done.

After being here for four months and learning about the complexity of life here, I often find myself despairing. Is my time here is “worth it.”  Am I creating any change?  Am I actually doing any good?  Am I actually accomplishing anything?  These doubts and struggles came to the forefront during our recent tour of a settlement.   It was here that I began to understand just how much I don’t understand.   I have spent a lot of time struggling with this experience, talking about my reactions journaling to sort out my thoughts, and writing a blog sharing my reflections.   I am sure I will continue to do these things for a long time to try to wrap my head around this entire experience.  I don’t yet have any answers to the questions that were raised for me that day and I am not sure I ever will.

However, while I was journaling the other night listening to Carrie Newcomer, I heard her song “Stones in the River” with new ears.    The lyrics to the chorus are:

So today I’ll drop stones into the river

And the current takes them out into forever

And the truth is most of us will never know

Where our best intentions go

And still I’ll drop another stone

I think that for most YAGMs, our year of service is a year of learning to drop stones into the river and being contend with never knowing where they will go.  In fact, the YAGM year is one big stone and we when decided to release it into the river, we don’t know the impact it will have on the lives of the people we work with, or on our lives.   Despite the uncertainty, each one of us commits to living a year in accompaniment with the people we work with and opening our hearts and minds to the inevitable change that will come.

I recently listened to a TED talk given by Joan Halifax called “Compassion and the true meaning of empathy.”  In this TED talk, she proposes that:

Compassion has another component, and that component is really essential.  That component is that we cannot be attached to outcome…any attachment to outcome would distort deeply my capacity to be fully present.  

The more I reflect on her words, the more I find myself agreeing with her.  After all, if I care about more about outcome of my actions than the story of the people I am interacting with, it is easy to become overwhelmed with the seeming impossibility of it all.  When I become overwhelmed I decide it is easier just to hold on to my stone until I can be guaranteed of a positive outcome, after all what can one stone do?

But each day I go to school, each greeting I offer, each high five I give, each story I hear, each blog I write, is a stone I drop into the river.  With this in mind, I am striving each day to make a conscious choice to let go of my attachment to measurable outcomes.  I am striving to release each stone, blessing its journey and trusting that it will end up where it is most needed.