Computer's been down
Hey everybody,
the motherboard on my computer died probably the day i got on campus at ND. It should be coming back any day now, so I've pretty much just been living in the computer clusters (well, i'm not quite
that pathetic, i do spend some time elsewhere :). Anyway, that's kind of inhibited my posting obviously, sorry about that. But today i feel like slacking off and if other people have homework to do on the computers...well I'll just be fast I guess.
Classes this year are looking good. My seminar class is amazing. The theme is Faith, Doubt, and Reason, and so far (in three classes) we've discussed the dark night of the soul, why God allows suffering, if doubt is a crucial element of faith, the definition of piety (Plato), and heard personal testimonies coming out through the course of the discussion. I also heard possibly the best getting-to-know you line ever: "You Catholic?" "Yup, and you" "Well, I'm Methodist now...but, eh, I'll probably be converting pretty soon." The noncholance of the statement was really amusing (and he was serious too). That class is followed by my Music History class, which is the most Catholic class I've ever had at ND. The prof starts the class by having us chant the Pater Noster in Latin, soon to be followed by the Salve Regina and Ave Maria (oh, and he doesn't give translations). Our homework for last class was to become familiar with the format of the Mass, after a lecture during which we discussed the awesomeness of monestaries in the middle ages. Literature after that is ok, the prof isn't very interesting but we get to read books, yay.
So that's Tuesday/Thursday, MWF I have theology in the morning, which i'm still very undecided about. He makes us think from all these weird angles and uncomfortable questions...but he usually ends up at a place somewhat reconcilable with orthodoxy, even if it's not quite in outright defense of it. Then I finish up with History, political history of the US since the civil war, which is quite intruiging.
Yay for being a sophmore and choosing your own classes. More later, when i have my laptop and late night procrastination begins to works its magic.
SSP papers, weeks seven and eight
Week SevenWhite privilege and racism
After camp, I ride the bus back to Sibley Manor with many of the campers, and then walk through the neighborhood to the Family Center where my car has parked. Doing this has evidently led to a lot of confusion for the children, because they’re forever asking me where I live and where my car is. Some think that I live in Sibley Manor and a few even thought that I slept at the Family Center. So one day, when nine year old Yordanos asked me where I was from, I wasn’t too surprised. But then she went on to clarify, “Where did you come from?”
My first thought, I’m ashamed to say, was, ”Oh, she thinks I’m one of them.” Who did I mean by them? Immigrants, refugees, people living in the lower classes of our society. I quickly curbed my thought, but deep down I knew that however much I liked these children, I didn’t really want to be them.
Racism and white privilege are not fun things to think about, no matter what your color. I personally would much rather pretend that they don’t exist at all. The situation has certainly improved in the past 50 years, through the era of civil rights and affirmative action. Now, I think, it has become a very hidden, and rarely expressed sentiment: that a given person has had or will have a more difficult life simply because of the color of their skin.
The difficult part, of course, is that is often true. As Margaret Pfeil writes, “Those citizens on the socioeconomic periphery of society, disproportionately people of color, are unlikely to have access to…significant financial, political, educational, and organizational forms of capital” (130-131). Currently, racism in America manifests itself, I believe, by overemphasizing this fact. Race, poverty, and a disadvantaged condition have become closely linked in the minds of many white Americans. As Patricia Williams explains, “the new rhetoric of race never mentions race. It wasn’t race but risk with which the bank was so concerned” (113).
I’m not going to come up with a solution to this problem in a page of writing -- books upon books haven’t solved it. Theologically, however, the answer is clear. As St. Paul wrote, “In Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, free nor slave.” The dignity of every person is the same, no matter what their perceived station in life.
Racism at Summer in the City
When I was looking over the syllabus for this class, I thought these two papers would be fairly easy to write. After all, I was going to be dealing with children of multiple skin tones and ethnicities. Some of them probably come from warring racial groups; others from countries where everyone looks the same and racial prejudice is a non-issue.
However, when I tried to think of an incident to focus my paper on, I realized I could not think of a single one. For the entirety of camp, spread over five weeks (or twenty-five days, or one hundred hours, however you want to count it), there was not a single conflict between the children about race. This, of course, doesn’t mean that they didn’t fight. Use of the swing, attention from the counselor, budging in line, not sharing a toy, athletic ability – all these were reasons for arguments among the kids. But in all these debates, race was never an issue.
I believe that this a good sign not only for these children and their neighborhood, but also for the general population, because it shows that racial prejudice must be a learned trait. Peggy McIntosh touches on this when she writes about white privilege: “My schooling followed the pattern which Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught that…when we work to benefit others…[it is] work which will allow ‘them’ to be more like ‘us’” (120, emphasis mine). In discussions with workers at the Family Center, someone brought up the point that people from Northern Ireland, where religious divisions run deep, are as incredulous of our racial discrimination as we are at their religious discrimination. We must be taught, perhaps in very subtle ways, to see another category of people as “different.” The hope for the future, then, is the conclusion that prejudice is not a universal human flaw, but something that was taught, and therefore can be unlearned
Week EightIt ain’t over till it’s over
This last week of my SSPI hasn’t been as interesting as the weeks at camp were. We’ve just been finishing up administrative tasks, looking over our budget, cleaning up and packing away for next year. But suddenly a few incidents have reminded me that I’m not quite done yet.
For example, on Wednesday night we took a group on one of our “Family Fun Days” trips to a Minnesota Twins baseball game. On the bus ride home, I sat with a girl named Kenean, who opened up to me about her life in Ethiopia without any prompting on my part. She told me about the starving people in the countryside, the torture threatened by various groups, and how her father had to flee the country and they didn’t see him for nine years. This morning, on a Family Fun Days trip to the pool, Nardos told me that her family went to a “white people’s church” on Summit Avenue, one of the richest residential streets in St. Paul. While swimming in the shallowest pool later that day, Obssa scraped his nose on the bottom. His tears, I think, were more because his was afraid of what his father would say then because of any pain. He told me that his father would be very mad at him and would probably hit him with a belt, maybe hard enough to leave marks.
These were all issues that I was prepared to deal with eight weeks ago. Then, I knew that I’d have two months dedicated to helping solve these problems. But the summer is over and I have to reenter the real world – only now I know more. I can’t pretend that I left everything neatly resolved just in time for school to start.
David Hollenbach writes in his book, Justice, Peace, and Human Rights, that “There is a gap between every human effort and the final achievement of true justice” (158). As finite creatures in the pursuit of infinite qualities such as justice, equality, and joy, we will always fall short. However, Hollenbach continues, “It is precisely because there is such a gap that courage remains a constant necessity” (158). The problem doesn’t begin when we leave difficulties unresolved and fail to eradicate poverty, racism, and injustice; the problem is when we are content with our failures and stop striving for the common good. Pope John Paul II described this universal call in very simple terms: “We are all called, indeed obliged, to face the tremendous challenge of the last decade of the second millennium, also because the present dangers threaten everyone” (71).
What I learnedThis program is called the Summer Service Learning Project, and for good reason. I obviously fulfilled the “summer” component, and did my fair share of service. I’ve also learned a lot about myself and the world around me:
I’ve learned that diversity is a fancy word whose meaning is as simple as a bunch of children playing together. I’ve learned that living just twenty-five miles from my house are a group of really cool kids who have already had life experiences far exceeding my own. I know a little bit more about when jokes and ethnic slurs are no longer funny, and can see more clearly when people are making unfounded generalizations about unknown “others” who are “different.” I’ve learned that it’s safe for a white girl to walk alone through a housing project in the daytime.
Through the SSPI, I’ve learned more about the call to service, or what Himes describes as the need to “give oneself away as completely, fully and richly” (52). I’ve also come to recognize some parts of me that resist the demand to “take away suffering [by] entering it “ (Nouwen 153) and instead wants to maintain my aloofness. I’ve experienced times where it felt like I wasn’t accomplishing anything, and moments where I knew I was demonstrating agape love to the children.
While playing with the kids, I rediscovered the joys of eating ice cream cones, finger-painting, and having a cold cup of water poured down your back on a hot day. I heard stories about “wusps” (wasps), Spiderman, and memorable childhood injuries. I learned that I can control a group of eight young children while crossing the street or touring the zoo, and be patient with them long enough to deserve hugs on the last day of camp. I created a budget for the first time, and honed my Spanish language skills.
I’ve learned that with greater responsibilities, the consequences of your mistakes grow, like when a child’s father punished him for going in the deep end of the pool when I had been the one not watching him or telling him where to stay. I’ve also experienced the fulfillment that comes when careful planning pays off.
Finally, I’ve learned that because of who I am, the faith that I profess, and the society I live in, my work should not and cannot end here.
You know you haven't posted for awhile...
...when you have to try like six combinations of your favorite screen names and passwords to finally be able to log in! :)
Anyway, both
Emily and
Holly have already commented on my brilliant masterpiece, "500 Times," a parody of "500 Miles" during which the listener discovers that St. Monica prayed for her son, St. Augustine, 500 times. (And then she prayed 500 more.) Maybe it's a calling...I can write Catholic parodies of those annoying songs that get stuck in your head! For example, you all remember the Barney song about cleaning up, right? "Clean up, clean up/sins committed everywhere!/Clean up, clean up/confess, repent, and say your prayers"
My apologies to anyone who now goes around with that song stuck in your head.
(Emily has the lyrics to 500 Times posted if you're interested; one of the advantages of not posting often is other people do your legwork!)
Free write
Well I'm really tired but not sleepy so I'm just writing off the top of my head till i fill the screen...did you know that buying a new battery for a laptop is freaking expensive? Geez maybe I can live with the short battery life for awhile after school starts. Ahh school is starting in like two weeks and it kind of scares me, I don' t think I changed a whole lot at school but that somehow I was a squisher version of me, like a sponge that's farther away from the water source. I've just been trying to soak up as much as i can while i'm still home. I mean at college, i didn't change that much, i was still a sponge but smaller i thinkn...yeah this analogy isn't going much further. By squishier, i meant more squished, not more squishy, i'm moving on now. Ow my legs are sore, i've gone running, swimming, and biking today, i feel like a triathlete. but my room is still messy and i didn't practice violin today, how could i have done nothing before noon today? you could play twister on the circles on my rug, if you were really skinny. I need to buy a blanket before school starts. Oh I love this song "Faith without works, is like a song that you can't sing, it's about as useless as a screen door on a submarine." Kind of a random song, theologically speaking, to be on KTIS. HA! The commentator just explained, "It's by faith through grace that we're actually saved, but the faith has to be useful too." Talk about good timing. Well I've filled up the window and stopped making sense a looooong time ago so i'd better stop. Goodnight!
