We shall overcome.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. We listened to part of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and spent some time in reflection. The worship team used pictures from the march in the slideshow between the lyrics of tonight's songs. Powerful stuff. It kept coming up, how far we've come, and how far we have yet to go, and how we are a part of this grand overarching movement of peace and justice.

Today we also discussed community and relationships and housing and culture shock. One of the cool things about the YAV program is the intentional community aspect-- the eight of us NOLA ladies are not just living together, but striving to foster a very intentional faith-based, collaborative community. We all have different jobs, but will be sharing space and a meager food budget, and community service projects and Bible studies and retreats and our lives and works with each other.

In our discussions about our community today, we were encouraged to really focus on the intentional community this year, which might mean distancing ourselves a little bit from other relationships. I brought up with my team that I need to be clear: I am pretty committed to Mike, but I am also committed to my intentional community in New Orleans. The reason this works isn't just because he's already seen me through a community that absorbed a great deal of my time and energy, but because he is kind and understanding and supportive of basically everything I do. He knows I call when I can, and while it's really hard sometimes, I think we do a pretty good job of communicating and making this work across the country. Goodness, he's already been in Arizona for more than a year.

So this lead to another big reflection that I kind of struggled with this summer: my life is so easy. I am a middle class white girl, engaged to a middle class white boy. Granted, he has some non-white ethnicities to his heritage, but they don't really show and his name is Hennessey. Regardless, people can see my ring, and once they get past how weird I am and that it's got a piece of petrified wood instead of a diamond, they can celebrate this very seemingly normal arrangement. I do not struggle with my promise to marry Mike. He's awesome and I'm excited. I struggle that I'm so privileged that it's generally accepted. A good friend of mine came out this summer, and I'm overjoyed that he feels safe and comfortable enough to share this minor personal detail-- truly, this is not the most interesting thing about him. But I'm so sad that he feels it is a big part of his identity, because I think that comes from having to fight to be himself, to be with the man he loves. It's not fully accepted.

It breaks my heart that there are so many people out there in the same situation. Are we not all created in God's image? I don't understand why the world can't just accept each other as we all are. Don't tell me because it's in the Bible, because the Bible was written by humans, and humans are not perfect. Humans are the worst. Humans screw up a lot of things, like loving and accepting each other.

Thankfully, when I expressed this frustration about my own privilege to other YAV's in my small group and my site group, they credited my position but celebrated that I am fortunate, and aware of my many blessings. Earlier in (dis)orientation, we talked about being people of privilege, and overcoming that by using the power for good. We've come so far since Dr. King gave that awesome speech, but we have so far to go. I like to think that I'm a small part of it (even though my work is primarily with natural resources), and am hopeful that this year of service supports a greater good that I can feel proud to be part of.

/end rant. My life is awesome.

(This is probably a good time to remind you that this blog is full of my thoughts and opinions which may or may not reflect those of PC(USA) and the YAV program.)