Mission Year.

This post has probably been a long time coming. I still have this deep-down urge to write a book - a memoir about my year in Mission Year (www.missionyear.org).

I recently encouraged a friend of mine to do Mission Year. I still haven't decided if I helped in some small way to contribute to growth and life or to his isolation and metaphorical death. It's been 5 years since I started Mission Year. Five years to the day. And I haven't talked about it nearly as much as I should have.

The most powerful moment of recollection happened in a class I took in college: Performance of Literature. The last performance we did was a multi-media presentation, in which we were allowed to perform one of our own pieces, so long as it had a multi-media outlet. During my performance, I re-entered my experience in such a visceral way that by the end of the performance, my body was shaking from anger and adrenaline. At least two of my classmates were in tears. And I was on the brink.

I cry when I'm sad. I cry when I'm enraged. I cry when I feel powerless. When I feel powerless. When I recognize that with white privilege I'm still never as powerless as I feel. When I realize my friends suffer. When I realize that if I were to suffer in similar ways, that my needs would be met more immediately, that the general population would be concerned and that I would probably be justified in the end. I cry when I stop to think of my friends who have lost loved ones, ended up in jail, been involved in gangs or intimidated by gangs, who have never had anyone shed a tear or even blink over their predicament.

It's been a drastic shift to move from Chicago, where social justice issues are at least widely known (though often ignored), to a smallish city in the South, where there might not even be the recognition of white privilege. Where I have been warned about "the minorities", called by names more derogatory than "the minorities". Blah. Fair or not fair, that has been my experience.

I still ache to share stories of the people I love in Englewood. But I fear the judgement that will almost inevitably pour forth from those listening. Not of me, but of the friends I care about so dearly who have dealt with circumstances that I have only witnessed and tasted. Judge me. Judge me for being "too liberal". Judge me for caring about people who "didn't have a real job". Judge me for loving and walking with mothers who turned tricks. Judge me for loving "dead-beat" fathers who ended up in jail because of bad decisions. Judge me for not blaming them for their "predicaments".

Unless you have either walked in their shoes or walked alongside them, your judgements are invalid to me. You can talk about policies. You can talk about ideas. I can talk about people. I can talk about systemic racism and injustice. Maybe I'm wrong on a lot. Maybe I am "too liberal". I'd rather err on the side of grace and walk alongside, even if it costs me everything rather than fight to maintain a tight grasp on my own while castigating others who haven't had access to the same privileges I have had.

I have a hard time talking about my experiences in Mission Year. I still struggle with guilt over privileges I was born with. I still struggle with what it means to be a Christian and to have these values, and to desire to live like Jesus whose sole mission was to "proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor." I don't like telling stories about Mission Year because I don't like sharing stories of vulnerability of my friends to others just to have to defend them because people think I'm taking some "political stance". Damn it, just listen to the story. Listen. Stop talking. Stop assuming. Stop planning what you will say in repsonse to my story to invalidate the entire lives of people I care deeply about. 

I've kept quiet because I want to protect those I love. Either I do a disservice to them by sharing about their lives to people who will disregard their lives to the same extent that they disregard their stories, or I do a disservice to people like me, who simply didn't know the full story, simply because we've been privileged enough to not have to care. 

It's easy not to know. It's easier not to care. I hope for a world where we love and care about "the Other". Where we see the "Other" as just "another me". Where we regard them and treat them in that way, both interpersonally and in government policies. If you are a Christian and have a problem with that, take it up with Jesus, who looked down on those literally killing him and said, "Forgive them. They don't know what they're doing" when every indication (you know, like gambling over his underwear) seemed to show that they knew exactly what they were doing. 

As a young white American, I contribute to oppression almost daily. How dare I blame those that I have oppressed for "acting like" they have had a tough life. How dare us. Forgive us. We know not what we do. Help us to care. Help us to see the Other as "another me", like Adam to Eve, Ish to Ish-sha. God, like you to us. You humbled yourself, not using your own Godness to your own advantage. How dare us use any stupid characteristic we deem ourselves worthy of having in order to put ourselves over any other people group, any other person, any other story. 

Stories aren't meant to compete. They are meant to complete the grand narrative. Stop invalidating the stories of others. We do it with our lives, we do it with our ears, we do it with our mouths. Let's stop. Our stories aren't at stake if we listen to others. They all have credence if we have mutual respect. And until respect is a universal value, some of us will have to sacrifice and take the fall to give credence to others when our own stories haven't been validated. That's sacrifice. That's love. I hope to always be the person that does that. I hope to trust that others will validate my story - regardless of whether they do or not. I hope to give preference to the Other. Only by each of us doing this will the Story be complete. Only in this way can respect be universal. Only in this way can individuals not feel threatened or not take offense. Only when others take precedence. 

Yeah, Mission Year messed me up. It showed me that such an ideal should be strived for. It gave me hope that such an ideal is possible. Yet I know it's not likely in my lifetime or until the Kingdom comes, should such a Kingdom exist. Thus, it means that my life is, in essence, a sacrifice. I think *that* is THE message of Jesus, and of unadulterated Christianity. It also means this is my journey. Ever since Mission Year I have felt an isolation because of the stories, because of this realization. The hope is that I am not alone. That a community values these things. I hope and think that's the Church's call. I am grateful for those who walk with me. I hope for more of those. I hope for less isolation. And I hope that I remain true to my convictions regardless of the sacrifice and the isolation it seems to bring. 

I've come a long way in 5 years. I hope I never stop.