A Place to Heal

This may contain graphic and violent images not appropriate to young audiences, but unfortunately it is true.

We stand after sunset around the labarynth with torches as she sings Sanctuary

Image from http://andychirch.com/labyrinth/

"Lord, teach the children 

To stop the fighting
Start uniting
Live as one
Let’s get together
Love each forever
Sanctuary for you."

All I think of is "I am in a holy place."  So much emotion. So much pain. So much healing was felt here and is felt here now.

The labarynth was built by students from Westside Middle School, Columbine and other schools who came to Ferncliff from 1998-2003 for healing camps and retreats after experienceing school violence.  Rocks from places all over the world hurt by school violence have been placed at the center of this labarynth.  Christina who was in class the day of the Columbine shooting is singing this song at the labarynth she helped build.

http://andychirch.com/labyrinth/

All images from http://andychirch.com/labyrinth/

Young children died.  Others who survive are left with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental struggles.  Families now live without children.  Students now grow up having lost best friends, team mates, siblings.

Wednesday April 7, Ferncliff, in partnership with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance hosted a workshop and training for camps across the nation on how they could be active in response to human-violence disasters and school violence in particular. It was attended and lead by Jessica, and Brandy, two Westside shooting survivors who attended the Ferncliff healing camps, Christina from Columbine, Erika daughter of Dawn Hochsprung, former principle of Sandy Hook Elementary School, and Richard Martinez whose son was killed at UC Davis a year ago in California.

I find myself holding sacred the names Natalie and Paige who did not survive the shooting at Westiside.  Images from these stories fill my mind.  I am drawn to tears as I attempt to empathise with the middle school girl stepping over the body of her friend who was just locked arm in arm with her.  A bullet went right by her ear, another hit her pants leg, one hit her friend. Her friend is dead.  She is alive.  Natalie and Paige are dead.  She was twelve.

This scene she described could be taken from Saving Private Ryan and it happened to her in Middle School.  WTF?

Unfortunately we are at a place in this country where school shootings are very common, and although devastating we hear of them so much it is almost becoming normal to hear about it on the news.  We have to do drills in schools on how to react when a shooter comes in.  Schools are preparing for violence as often as they prepare for fires.  WTF?

Why is this ok?  Why is this normal?  Last Wednesday this phenomenon became all too real as I heard survivors of Westside’s shooting tell about that day that changed their lives forever.

http://andychirch.com/labyrinth/

Triggers bring these kids-now-adults back to this place often and emotions control thier lives. It is who they are now.

All of this rings true and deep with me as I sometimes get triggered into a dark place remembering images of my best friend deranged by mental illness stabbing his father in the face before he killed himself.

In my attempt to make sense of it all 1 Corinthians 13 comes to mind. I would like to share some observations from the day interspersed with some scripture that kept playing in my head throughout the day. A song of the scripture is here http://stevelindsley.bandcamp.com/track/greatest-of-these

In general, one on one therapy sessions were not always successful for the children because there wasn't a well established level of trust. One girl spilled her guts out to a therapist in one session and the therapist didn't recognize her on the next visit.  Even an attempt at a summer camp for a similar group of kids in Nevada just last fall, the campers did not trust the counselors and they missed out on some valuable healing conversation.  I cannot express the importance of having someone to talk to about emotional and mental health.  My parents have always recommended finding a counselor.  And I would recommend it.  However trust is a major consideration especially for children.

And now I will show you a more excellent way.

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowlege and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love I gain nothing.

Even the experts cannot hold an audience with those that need the most help if they do not have love for the client or at least establish trust.  David and Ferncliff approached the situation with love. That was key. Ferncliff was a place of safety, and a loving space where the survivors could play as kids again.

Granted Ferncliff didn’t just have love and leave it at that.  They also did their homework.  David was in constant communication with leaders in Jonesboro like pastor Jack, and one of the school teachers he knew before he ever reached out to families.  He approached families through these other community leaders.  He found funding through PDA and the Presbytery to sponsor the kids so they wouldn't have to pay to go to a healing camp.  They found professional counselors to train the camp counselors basics for recognizing signs of trauma and PTSD, while also having the professionals there when camp staff couldn't handle a situation.

And it wasn't perfect.  Camp sparked triggers with games in open fields, and a crazy sereies of events that week that brought most of the kids back to the dark spot on the day of the shooting.  One day a girl tripped and fell as they were all walking outside, she cut her wrist, bled on the sidewalk, and due to another condition was sent home early in an ambulance, to no longer be with them (for camp).  All the unforseen events on a Tuesday was spookily reminescent about the day of the shooting and most everyone was triggered back into that traumatic state of mind.  It was a hot mess as they recalled.

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  

It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts. Always hopes always perserveres.

http://andychirch.com/labyrinth/

Jessica said, "They didn't talk to us like we needed to be 'fixed,' They just held us."  I think when it all comes down to it the essentials for healing is a community of love and support.  That is what all of the images of Ferncliff as a healing retreat space, and the experience of these kids was.  And even some of the kids who did not go to therapy or come to Ferncliff never found that community of love and support in which to heal and according to their neighbors at the conference they are heavily involved in drugs, alcohol, or other harmful coping measures, which the individuals recieving support avoided.

It's likely just a loving household who supports me is the only thing that separates me from most people in jail.

Erika found that community of love in others who "just get it" when she was invited to speak in DC about gun safety.  A guy named Chris was her mentor. He told her to speak to a politician. He told her it would be hard and they wouldn't listen, but she should keep saying, "You should listen to me because my mother is dead."  She's been able to heal better than her neighbors because she is in a community of support where she is comfortable to grieve, talk about her mother, and take action.  Not all people after a tragedy have this support or open space because our society has trouble encouraging people to talk about it.

I would be lost without the YAV community, and my family and friends as I've been dealing with the tragic loss of my friend Gus.

Camps can provide a great space for healing because of the community where everyone is loved, accepted and celebrated for who they are no matter what they've been through.  That's just what camp counselors do.  That is how we can change the world, that is how we can sucessfully cope with tragic loss-----LOVE.

So what do we do about it?
1.  We can take on the big problems by campainging for better mental health, better gun control, getting more people gun locks, teaching more people gun safety.  We can treat gun violence like a public health problem and drop all the crap about the right for all people to carry assault rifles protected by the second ammendment.

Kids are dead.  We need to do something as a nation.  The NRA can get back to promoting gun safety before gun access.

2.  We can start loving each other, our kids, our neighbor's kids, our friends at school.  It sounds silly beacuse we learned to "love your neighbor" when we were kids but these Westside kids showed me how important that really truly is.  We can create places of love and support and prevent these things from happening. We can be a sanctuary.  "And I will show you a more excellent way" Paul writes---LOVE.

Relationship Status Update

YAV has taught me words like solidarity, reciprocity, compassion

These are a slightly different angle at which to view the word "mission" or "service" than the words charity, relief, donating, that tend to pop up in short term missions.

Opposite sides of a coin perhaps.

My little brother Isaac once interpreted a pastor's speech to me as this:  "Jesus probably wouldn't just reach out a hand while he was standing above you and pull you up to stand and walk.  Jesus would probably sit down with you, talk to you and learn what it's like to sit in your position for a while.  Then he might take your hand and you arise together."  The story of his life and death we remember at Easter is one of God as Jesus setting aside his privilege, honor, power, and highness as God (the highest he could be) to sit down with us in the nasty body of a human and feel pain, gooey emotion, and sit down with us to experience our life and death.  He did all this beside and among us before he rose from the dead so we might arise together.  Allelujah! AMEN!

It is through this lens of let's call it "sitting down service" I've gained as a YAV that I now view the world of service.  I am not here to just throw money at the problem to fix it, or even just donate cans of food.  In order to follow Christ's example with service I think I'm just here to empathize with and understand what it feels like to be in a vulnerable position of those I serve.  I am here to love my neighbor, to feel what my neighbor feels in joy or pain.  That's compassion literally from it's latin roots "com"(-with) "passion"(-feeling or pain).

I read from Isaiah 58 to some Lyon College students last week. Verses 6-9 come to mind. and are presented well in the NRSV translation:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
    and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
⁸ Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator^[a] shall go before you,
    the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
    you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

This is an amazing passage, please read the whole chapter.  I like how NRSV writes verse 7 as "share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house"  These are commands that not only remind us to "love your neighbor," but command us to do it in a way that involves SHARING a little with those we serve.  Isaiah didn't tell the Hebrews to donate money for the hungry to eat, he asked us to share bread from our plate.  Isaiah didn't tell the Hebrews to support a homeless ministry with your paycheck, he said, "invite the homeless poor into YOUR house"  When John the baptist quoted Isaiah, He didn't say "buy some clothes for the clothes closet," he said, "you who have two shirts give one to your brother who has none, those who have food do likewise".

By giving from our supply of food or clothing directly to another, I think it puts us just one step closer to those we serve.  For the purpose of this article I'll call that level 2 service.  So pretend level 1 is-give money to a charity to buy food for someone else, and level 2 is-give someone bread you already have on your plate:  Recognizing neither one are evil acts, just different ways to meet the needs.  The difference is small but worth exploring.

Level 1--

• meeting needs from our abundance
• giving money or support for someone else to do the work meeting the needs

Level 2--

• Sacrificing something to give to a neighbor in a way that gives you at least a taste of what your neighbor is dealing with.  
• Setting aside "our" place to sit with "them" as God set aside his high place to be with us.
• Realizing that putting quotes around "us" and "them" is really kind of silly because we're all equally as sinful, and all equally loved by God.  I don't know if I can say it any better than that.  We're more alike than we tell ourselves.  God's high place is just as accessible to each of "us" and each of "them."  God loves the whole world no exceptions.

All this big picture stuff is making some sense as I prepare for a short term mission trip with Living Waters for the World.  I've been brainstorming a lot about the role of short term mission to meet immediate needs verses this "level 2" stuff I'm just barely starting to understand as a YAV.

A brief flashback to my first level 1 short term mission:
-----

When I was 16 I found myself in San Diego in the parking lot of Motel 6 ready to go to Mexico and build a house for someone I called then, "a needy farm worker." As loud airplanes flew close overhead, Mac, the trip leader told us one thing that really challenged me.  He said "we are not here to build houses, we are here to build relationships"

I said to myself then, "Well I came to build a house, I don't know what this guy is talking about."  After nine years of trying to figure that out, I find myself preparing for another trip south of the boarder with Mac; this time to Guatemala to build a Living Waters for the World System for a school, visit another school where his team built a system several years ago, see a few other sites, and come home.

This brings me back to the ideas of level 1 service, one angle at which to view mission or service.  "Feed the hungry,  Clothe the naked, give to those who have less, sometimes even get them 'saved' (depending on who you are)"  All mostly good things which I like to believe have good intentions.

The YAV principles of solidarity, empathy, siting down and arising together give me a cynical view of short term mission and the "level 1 service". We have such detailed work to do building the water system and teaching the Guatemalans to use it that it can easily become a hero mindset.  A tone of "we rich, white (mostly retired) people are coming to build you a system or a house, save your life, and feel good about ourselves" can easily come to mind.  Myself and other YAVs sometimes take this critical stance about short term mission.  It can easily skip over, or gloss over the relationship-building part and be destructive.  Books like Toxic Charity, and When Helping Hurts explore the negatives of unsustainable mission work.  This happens when we say to ourselves, "Well I came to build a house, I don't know what this guy is talking about"

The mindset I hear in fundraising sometimes "we are helping them because we are so blessed"  can further draw that line that "we are better off than them and that means we know how to fix their problems."  What I see in Isaiah 58 is a subtle clue that this should be done in a way that makes us equals, that highlights that common struggle we all share.  And even though "we" may never truly know what "they" are going through, we are attempting to learn.

It's a fine line to make.  I don't want to discount the good work LWW is doing  but I recognize YAV has a different focus than LWW.  YAVs are focused more on relationship building and understanding the social system and situation than just getting work done, and LWW is all about, "providing clean water to all God's children for a generation."  We are on the same team of building the kingdom of God and spreading love.  We're all doing what Isaiah is yelling to the masses, but we emphasize different parts of the goals.

Mac our trip leader has great long term relationships he's made with community leaders in Guatemala already.  He is friends with Israel, the driver they've used on past trips and who will guide us this time.  He already knows and has been communicating with leaders at the second school we're visiting and close to ten people in the Yucatan LWW network.  So the guy who first told me this type of thing is all about relationships is not lacking in relationships he's already built.

And I know LWW is moving in a direction of sustainability, local in-country ownership, and emphasizing "teach the teacher" so that the community can run the system.  They have some of that mindset of short term mission, "us fixing their problems"

Best I can tell, LWW has level 2 in mind with most of it's members, but by it's very nature someone doing level 1 can easily jump in andget away with only doing level 1 service with them.

So after nine years of trying to understand, "we are not here to build houses we are here to build relationships" and almost two of those being YAV years, I have some personal goals for the Guatemala trip.

I want to actually build relationships with people in Guatemala
I want to actually remember the name of someone I meet there
I want to not be the dumb white gringo who doesn't know Spanish
I want to learn what life is like in Guatemala
I want to say something different when I come back than "I went to give them something, but they gave me so much more"
I want to enhance the remainder of my time at Ferncliff with this trip by bringing back ideas for sustainability in service

All things I didn't do as a naive young 16 year old in Mexico.

So how do I do these things?
I find myself taking a risk, and building relationships in Little Rock before I travel.

To learn Spanish as a YAV, I really can't afford to pay a tutor. Sorry tutors out there, I know you have to eat too.  Best of luck!

So I asked around to see who is offering free Spanish lessons.  The library system has done some in the past, and a local church hosts a free weekly Spanish bible class for members led by Carlos a super awesome pastor Carlos from Cuba.  Please pray for Carlos, and his wife Sally.  Carlos has been ill for a few weeks.

I also reached out to a friend in El Zocala, a local immigrant support group working with the Hispanic population.  She encouraged me to volunteer with their English Second Language (ESL) class and pick up some Spanish, and we're even looking into a "language exchange" for one or a few of the students to teach me some Spanish and I help them with English.  In fact next week I have a one-on-one session with a lady from El Salvador who will teach me some Spanish, especially about Guatemalan food which is much like El Salvador's food.  So I'm adding and checking off "talk to a lady from El Salvador" on my list of life goals.  That's something I'd call Gus about, which makes me feel I'm doing something right.

I am also doing a little bit of online "pen pal writing" in Spanish for practice with an old high school friend from Columbia, and another YAV from Puerto Rico.  I've been in touch with a few YAVA who have spent time in Guatemala, and have even been in contact with a YAVA who lives in Guatemala now and we may even meet her on our trip.

Questions about shots and where to get them have given me more reasons to talk with a local doctor at church.  And I'm car pooling with another LWW student from Conway, AR to get to the water system training in Mississippi.

Guess what Mac, I've already started this relationship building before I've even gotten to Guatemala.  Yo tengo muchos amigos nuevos!!!!! Yo estudio espanol con mi amigos nuevos!

I've come a long way since I was 16 on my first mission trip.  The church has come a much longer way on it's mission trips throughout history.  I am encouraged by groups like YAV that emphasize the compassion and work toward a world where we realize there really isn't all that much difference between "us" and "them" especially on the things that matter to God.  I just believe so deeply that all that really matters in life is that we just love each other like Christ, and even providing clean water takes second place to that.

I challenge you to do a level 2 service this week and this month, something that invites you into sharing or dialogue with your partners in service and those whom you serve.  Can you do one of the following at least 3 times before May 1?

Try to make yourself aware of someone else's situation.  Try to experience it.
Sit down with someone you don't know
Look up the definitions of solidarity, compassion, empathy, and reciprocity
Talk to a neighbor, colleague, or a friend about something instead of looking it up by yourself

Please let me know your thoughts on doing "level 2" or "sitting down service" in the comments below. How did these things go?  Am I crazy?