For the past four months I've been all over the south. In Orlando, Jackson, Memphis, Cincinnati, and Nashville I worked in the kitchen and played percussion for a Catholic Work Camp for five weeks. After that, I moved into a friend's empty apartment and led worship at a United Methodist Church where I have been interning for the last two semesters where I got to work with Junior High School students more than I ever have wanted to before. Then I returned to school for my Junior Year, studying non-profit business, worship leadership, and more importantly rowing and coxing for our school's crew team. I might not have my priorities in order now that we're in the thick of the fall semester.
In the last four months I've slept in over twenty-five different rooms, six air mattresses, 6 real beds, 5 couches, 1 cardboard box, 1 hammock, and a Philippine style bamboo floor. I've met hundreds of high school and junior high school students, dozens of young adults, and several new best friends, and all I can say is that people are the most beautiful and the most awful things that I have ever experienced.
They love so fully, but they love so selfishly. They lift each other up with their words, and then cut them down with their judgements. They open doors, purchase strangers coffee, and then blindly knock over the classmate they looked through on the sidewalk.
People are capable of great love, and great harm. And in these four months, I've experienced both extremes.
The folks that I worked with across the south this summer practiced the most faithful community life that I have ever experienced. As we got to know each other in only five weeks, we learned how to pray together multiple times a day, how to be vulnerable with each other, and how to hold each other accountable. Every person played an integral role in this family and every member of this family knew their worth, because the others would never let them forget it. For the first time in my life, I knew what community and family was supposed to look like.In Nashville, we had to say our goodbyes. We organized skype dates, reunions, and group text messages, but we knew that this family would never be together in the same way as it was this summer. This family was stronger. This family prayed harder. And this family has continued to stick together.
I suffered through another split community as this summer closed too. My best friend in high school, who was two years older than me, introduced me to her roommate right before she transferred out of the college I was about to attend. When I got to this school and I lost contact with my old best friend, this stranger of a roommate gave me rides to mass, invited me to talk over coffee, and eventually ended up saving me from some pretty dangerous situations. A complete stranger who had hardly any ties to me became (what I dare to call) my best friend after two years of pulling away. No matter the number of times I rejected her friendship and her acts of kindness she was always there, she was always introducing me to her community of solid friends, and she was adamant about teaching me that people don't suck. This fall she moved to Augusta and I was convinced that after the two weeks she spent with me in Birmingham that we would never see each other again. Again, I was mistaken. The love and community and prayer that surrounds this friendship has been one of the biggest blessings in my twenty years of life, and just might have proven her point that people don't always suck and there's very few things more important than community.
People are capable of great things. People are capable of great love.
Back in Alabama, I was privileged enough to chaperone the Junior High School service learning trip to SIFAT, or Servants In Faith And Technology in Lineville, AL. At SIFAT we spent 16 hours in an urban slum simulation, where I watched my seventh grade girls get "sold into prostitution" (simulation) to fee their families, I watched one of the father chaperones react to seeing his daughter as one of these girls, and I watched what desperate people do when they don't have a guaranteed place to sleep or a guaranteed source of food and water. It seemed cruel that 1 in 7 people on this earth live like this. And I was angry.
Later in the week I stayed up well into the morning trying to force these eighth grade girls to go to bed. Screaming and laughing and tormenting my sleep deprived soul, these girls were determined to wear themselves out before the real work even began. Even after seeing how exhausting life in other cultures can be, even after learning about how much work many people have to put into just one meal or just one cup of pasteurized water, these girls would not tire. It seemed cruel that we could so easily forget how easy we have it. And I was angry and frustrated.
Then I returned to campus where I learned what an invisibility cloak would feel like. As I had trouble sleeping for the first time in my life, I lacked the energy to defend myself from the students who don't look outside of themselves. If I had counted the number of times that someone has walked directly into me in well lit, public areas, then I would probably have counted the number of days I've been back on campus. It seemed cruel to me that people could be so selfish in just the way that they walked. It seemed cruel that no one seemed to care for the other people in their path. And I was angry and frustrated and defeated.
People are capable of great harm.
But it only takes little reminders for the lighter side to win. A daily reminder that people are capable of so much more love is often overlooked in the moment, but is the key to continued kindness and faith in mankind. A stranger with a wide open door, a friend with a fresh cup of coffee, an unexpected bear hug or encouraging phone call. These little things have been the things that have gotten me through these past four months. The communities, the families, and the teams that I've become a part of have saved me and saved my view on humanity. Sure, people are capable of great harm, but people are capable of so much more kindness than we ever choose to see.
I'll try to return in less than four months.
Until then, check out some of the other sites I've been working on.
-Laura Lynn
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