Finding Discernment

What does it mean to be human? Does it mean to bare the fruits of the spirit? Does it mean that we are capable of building so many diversely beautiful ways of life and yet capable of bringing so much pain and destruction onto one another? Can I express what it means to be human in a mere blog, painting, poem, song, etc.?  Can anybody express what it means to be human so simply? We all have different interpretations of what humanity is and neither interpretation is more right or more wrong than the other. They are all different; each interpretation is as beautifully unique as the person who composed their ideas on humanity. 

I am no moral compass. I do not speak for all humans. I am simple a woman of faith that yearns to know the truth. I do not have all the answers, and since I do not have all the answers you are free to agree or disagree with this blog all you want. But I believe, coming from experience, being human means being able to love and be love. Let’s be honest, life is a journey of constant struggles. Within those struggles we all crave the need to beloved, to be accepted, to have a voice say, “I love you. No exceptions.” I believe that voice is God, but sometimes people can’t hear that voice, so it is our duty to be that voice of God that says, “I love you. No exceptions.” It is our duty to be that love that God has called us to be.

That love is a light that we all have in our hearts. It shines in many different ways, and sometimes it’s difficult to figure out where God wants us to point our light. Part of my DOOR year is to figure out the direction that my light should shine. Although, I have a clue where God wants my light to be in this world. For several years I have been interested in counseling, and it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I have been interested in spiritual counseling. I believe God has given me the empathetic power to listen to the demons and insecurities of people. I do not judge them for their insecurities, I do not shame them for their demons, and I simple give them the space to be. This is something that I believe all therapists and counselors should acquire, but I believe this intentional state of mind of just letting someone be holds more weight when it is viewed from a place of spirituality. In order to give love, we must experience love, and I know God is love.

I can write a book about God’s love, but that has already been done before (several times in fact.) I think it is quite clear that I have a strong connection in working with people’s emotional and spiritual needs, the upper half of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I am not really interested in working with the lower half of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the physical needs. This is why I studied social work, in order to prepare myself for a degree in counseling. Overall, I enjoyed being a social work major, and I’m proud of my BSW, but there were times when I did not enjoy it. I felt like a lot of my social work classes focused on the physical needs of a client and not the emotional needs of a client. I felt like my social work classes focused more on the bottom levels of the hierarchy and not the top levels. (At the time I did not realize this but that is ok since it is a bachelors level and not a masters level.) It made me feel uncomfortable, as if the emotional and spiritual work did not matter as much as the physical work. It was like the physical issues were more important than the work I wanted to do. I am embarrassed to admit this, but I began to resent social services because of this.

Now how does this feeling fit into my DOOR year? Well the agency that I’ve been assigned to is PATH, people assisting the homeless. At PATH, it is focused on getting housing for the homeless, the physical work; PATH address issues that are at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy. Since I built up a little resentment in college to social services, I was not thrilled about working at PATH at first. I’d prefer to work with the kids during neighborhood hours, something that I consider working with their emotional needs. By giving the neighborhood kids a safe place to express themselves, I am addressing issues at the top of the hierarchy. While I see the importance of PATH, I am not ashamed to admit that I enjoy the neighborhood hours more. To me, working with the kids seemed to fit my personality more.

However, several questions came up while thinking about this. Is it bad for me to enjoy working with the kids more than working at PATH? Isn’t working at PATH more important than the neighborhood hours because it addresses the physical needs, the building grounds of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Or is working with the kids more important because it addresses the needs that are on the top of the hierarchy? Which is more important the physical needs at the bottom or the emotional needs at the top? I feel like it was forced upon me to believe the physical needs are more important, but it took me awhile to realize that is only because they are the ground level for the pyramid. In away, the physical needs hold an extremely high importance in heeling someone because those needs are the groundwork. For example, if a client has to worry about dinner for the night, that person is not going to be concerned with “Am I living a joyful and meaningful life.” NO. That person is going to be concerned with, “How am I going to feed myself tonight?” We must first understand the physical needs in order to understand the emotional needs. That is why the hierarchy of needs is shaped like a pyramid and not a wall.

Although learning about the bottom levels are important to understand the top levels, I do not think one is more important than the other (this takes a lot of grace for me to say considering the struggles in college that I went through.) What happens if a case manager has a client who is addicted to meth because that person does not know how to express their feelings? Or what if a counselor has a client who ran into money trouble and now has no water or electricity? In these situations the case manager is going to need the skills of the counselor and the counselor is going to need the skills of the case manager. It is not a question of who is better, it is a question of how can we share our resources. Maybe a pyramid isn’t the best illustration for the hierarchy of needs because it promotes a since of superiority and competition, but maybe scale is a better illustration. Some times the physical needs are going to weigh more than the emotional needs and vice versa.

Plus if I’m saying one need is more valued than the other, then I am not honoring God. God created all different types of people, with all different types of light, to work with all different aspects of the human condition. If I say the counselor does more important work than the case manager, then I am saying that the counselor’s light is more important than the case manager’s light. This is not fair to the case manager, and it is not fair to God. God is a God of diversity and acceptance, not one of favoritism and competition. I think all levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are something that our Lord wants us to address, not just one particular issue. As a woman with her BSW, I need to respect all areas of social services, and as a faithful follower of Christ, I need to respect all different types of light God has created.

Be a Dragon and Love Cats

This is a story about a dragon and a cat…Actually it is a story about vulnerability and learning to be our true selves around others. And it isn’t even one story; it is two; one about a dragon, and one about a cat. The first story (the dragon story) happened during Sabbath Saturday, an annual one-day retreat that the church, that I’ve been recently attending, hosts. If you can’t tell by my hinting on this blog, and posts on Facebook, I have really been able to connect to the young adult group, City Lights, through the church (but I don't think anybody really calls it City Lights.)

The main reason I went to Sabbath Saturday was to connect even more to those fabulous people, as well as make my face more present within the congregation. (I really want to apart of a church this year where I am not just a spectator.) Sabbath Saturday, without a doubt, was the highlight of my weekend. Hiking, sketching, rock wall climbing, and deepening friendships. There were a couple moments that stood out me as the highlight of my day, mainly rock climbing with the guys (or attempting), but one conversation that stood out to me was talking to Will when I should him a couple of my sketches.

Needless to say, Will, is involved in the young adult group that I hope to deepen a friendship with throughout the year. We have actually had the chance to bond over cats. Yes, I found another person that loves cats just as much as I do (I didn't know that was possible.) While I was showing Will some of my sketches, of a dragon sketch in particular, he commented about how much he liked. We spent several minutes just talking about dragons. During those minutes I explained to him why dragons have such a symbolic meaning to me. I believe that we all have a dragon inside us. We all have a demon or insecurity that we are constantly fighting against, and that’s ok, it is part of human nature. However, we should not focus on the ugliness of the monster, instead we should focus on what the demon or monster we are fighting has to teach us. To me, the beauty of the demons we face is illustrated in a dragon. A dragon is a dangerous beast and has an unpredictable nature. Yet at the same time a dragon is mysterious, beautiful and inspirational. These are all aspects that our inner demons and insecurities have, if we have the courage and wisdom to seek them.

I also told Will that to me, part of being human means being able to be vulnerable with one another. Vulnerability means different things to different people, but to me it means having the courage and respect for human life to be able to be open about our dragons to other people. (Will saw a little bit of the Brene Brown side of me that day.) I continued to tell him that I even thought about getting a little dragon tattoo on my right wrist to symbolize that we have to be vulnerable with one another about our dragons and be able to “wear our dragons on our sleeve.” Will told me that he thought that was pretty cool, but don't worry mom I’m not totally convinced I’m going to get it. Now I didn't tell Will about my insecurities, I didn't want to scare the poor boy, but I was definitely honest and vulnerable with him that day. I’m not going to blog about any conversations that day in detail (out of respect for others) but I will say that I was surprised at how vulnerable I was with him. Why am I being so open with a guy I just meet? True, I was open and honest with some people I just meet at orientation, but we were all YAVs. Will isn’t a YAV or a Dweller so we don't have that connection. What connection do we have? We both live in LA (although I may or may not be temporally), we are followers of Christ and we both love cats.

Some drawings I did about two summers ago. I included them to illustrate the point of how much I love dragons, and how inspirational I find them to be.

Those are pretty good reasons to be open with a person but for someone who used to struggle, and I MEAN STRUGGLE, with trust issues, it was really hard for me to open up to people. To me, I usually needed more connections with a person before I was comfortable opening up to that person. That is, that was the old me. The new me is in a transition of being vulnerable. I don’t consider the “new” me completely comfortable with opening up to everyone, I have to learn who is worthy of listening to the secrets of my inner heart, but I am not as stingy as the “old” me by not letting anybody be worthy of listening to my heart. So if I’m in the middle of learning how to be vulnerable then the question goes back to why did I decide to be vulnerable with Will. What connection did we have that made me feel like I can be open and honest with him? The connection is simple; we are both human. We both breathe the same air, we both smile, we both cry and we both bleed the same color blood. Will, and other people like Will, deserve to hear my stories and beliefs because they are human, but as me being a human myself, I deserve the right to choose who gets to hear my story. I was not opening exposing too much of my heart to Will, but I had enough wisdom and confidence to say to myself, “this guy seems pretty cool. I think he is worth hearing my story.”

So that is the dragon story about vulnerability but what about the cat story about being our selves? Well part of the reason why I was and am still able to be myself around Will is because of our connection with cats, but he is not the only one who I was able to be myself because of cats. I was able to connect to several of the neighborhood kids because of Salem, aka Luna. The neighborhood that we, the Dwellers, live in has several stray cats (I’m in Heaven!) Several of these stray cats just leave us alone, but there is this one stray cat that LOVES attention. She will come up to whomever and beg for attention. I call her Salem because she is all black like Salem from Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and I don't think stray is even the right word to describe her. She is more like the neighborhood cat that will occasionally visit us; in fact several of the neighbors will set out cat food for her. Just like the house we are living in is the community house, Salem is the community cat. Several of the past dwellers tell me that she has been here for years and that each year she gets a new name. As well as her name changing, there will usually be at least one person each year who ADORES Salem. I’m the dweller who adores Salem this DOOR year.

Since Salem lives in this community, several of the kids are also familiar with Salem and love her as well. They call her Luna, but I will only call her Luna when the neighborhood kids are around, to me she will always be Salem. I actually had the chance to bond with some of the kids by talking about Luna. We talked about different names the cat has, where we think she might go during the day, etc. I feel like I was able to be myself around the kids because of our common love for Salem. I even saw some of the walls the kids had come down when I started to talk to them about Luna. Now my cat story is not as story oriented as my dragon story with Will, to be honest I just wanted to write about Salem because of the therapeutic value she has had on me over the last couple of weeks. (Plus I was able to write more about Will because I had his permission.) However, the moral of the cat story is that cats are awesome and they bring people together. The moral of both stories is that commonality brings people together and we don't have to look far to find something in common. The first common thing we share with anybody is that we are all people.

A Struggle with Church

            Let me tell you of the time I almost cried during World Communion Sunday…. But to fully understand the impact of those almost tears; I have to explain my history on church and what church currently means to me now (which could change in the time one of my fellow readers reads this blog in the future.) I grew up in a Christian household and we went to church when I was little, but church was never forced on us. The church that I went to was a church that, I felt, focused more on numbers and doing things “their way,” than on spirituality and forming connections. As someone who walks to the beat of her own drum, needless to say, I did not appreciate this. I stopped going to church there because I was socially overwhelmed, I was overwhelmed by how everybody wore masks at church (and yes, a 5 year can pick up on those vibes.)

            During the time I stopped going to church my early childhood years, I was always spiritual just not religious. (But that’s a story for another time.) In middle school, my mom was in seminary and several of her assignments included her visiting different churches. Because of my deep desire for reconciliation of people of multi faiths (I was weird in middle school. I focused on interfaith dialogue instead of boys.) I decided to tag along with my mom for those assignments. Throughout the years my mom was in seminary, and even during her ordination process, I considered myself a church jumper. I believe my dad and brother tagged along for some of those church jumping years, but I can’t speak for them for that. Because of my faith at the time and my experience with church jumping, I considered church an outlet for worship but not an actual family or community. I usually just went where my mom was preaching.

            Fast forward several years, my mom became the head pastor of what I consider my home church today. My faith matured, my perspective started to change and I started to go to church more regularly. Several times I was asked, “Do you want to be a member here?” “Do you want to go through the new members class?” And every time my answer was the same, “No.” I’m going to be leaving this church and attend a different church one some day right, so why would I become a member? I had church attachment issues. What if my mom leaves the church, wouldn't it be awkward if I were still a member there? That is some PK (preacher’s kid) stuff. Do I really need to be a member of a church to be a good Christian? Still believe there is some theological truth to that, but open to other interpretations. But despite all these questions and opinions, I still decided to get confirmed as a new member last spring (I’m officially PRESBYTARIAN!). Why you ask? Honestly, I can’t tell you in words. I just felt like it was important to have a home church for emotional support as I embark on my Californian adventure.

            The day I was confirmed as a new member was actually a much more emotional day than I thought. I have been attending that church for a good 4-5 years. A lot of people already knew me, and after the service several people came up to me and asked, “I thought you already were a member?” “Now it’s official,” was my reply. So, why am I telling you this fellow reader? Simple, because I’ve been missing my home church. Something that I never thought I would experience as someone who used to church hop. This feeling comes and goes and honestly I cannot explain it. The sensation is just so new to me. I’m starting to see the church as an embodiment and not just a building.  Which is really hard to do considering all the church politics. Trust me, I’m a Presbyterian PK, I know about church politics. Another new sensation that I felt often is the fact that I’m Presbyterian. To me, all denominations are beautiful. People choose his or her denomination that connects them most to Christ, how can a pathway to God not be beautiful? So for me, as long as you are not sacrificing chickens, we are good. But during orientation in New York, since the YAV program is through the PC(USA), there was a heavily influence of Presbyterianism. The worship used inclusive language but I could still tell that PC(USA) was a big component of the YAV program. I don’t think this was a bad thing. But when I came to LA, I had to leave that Presbyterian environment (for lack of a better term). I am still in a Christian environment, but it’s interesting being going from a group of 40+ Presbyterian to the only Presbyterian in the house. Why is this something that matters to me? We are all Christians so it shouldn't matter to me. Maybe it has something to do with familiarity? However, it does not matter as much as processing my emotions on World Communion Sunday.

            I have partaken in World Communion Sunday before, while I acknowledge the spiritual presence of that day and am humbled by the importance of it, it is something that I often forget about. If I missed out in participating in communion that day it wouldn't be the end of the world. However, on that Sunday I became very upset that I couldn't partake in World Communion Sunday with my church family. I had no idea why that was. Maybe it has something to do with it being one of my mom’s favorite holy days, and I can intuitively pick up on that tap into it. If I was back home missing out on having communion with my church that day would not have bothered me as much. It’s as if I’ve been juggling so many balls that Sunday I ended up dropping some of them. By me dropping one these balls that Ive been juggling, I was able to see what I the balls were trying to hide. I wont get into the details of what my metaphoric balls were trying to hide, but I will say that a big part of what I they were trying to hide is faith and rediscovery my faith (although life is constantly a journey of rediscovering our faith). Yes, I miss my church family, but on a deeper level I have been spiritually struggling to find joy.

            Overall, I think I’ve been living a fruitful life in LA, or at least I’ve been trying my best. I’ve been talking to God, trying my best to listen, practicing Lectio Divina and going to church.  However, I have been spiritually fruitless in the fact that I have not found joy in what I have been doing here. I did my best to explain this to some friends and got several wise answers. I tried to explain it to one friend but it did not come out fully as I wanted it to because of all the emotions I was sorting out (ball dropping). Plus I couldn't explain it to my friend because of the physical dynamic of where we were; it was not my preferred place to be emotionally vulnerable. Despite the conversation going in the direction that I did not want it to go, my friend said something very insightful to me when I told him I’m having trouble finding joy, “Well, where do you find joy?"

            Looking back, that is a logical question to ask in that circumstance, but there is something in that question that made me realize I need to take a step back. The question is so simple, but so profound. For the sake of keeping the conversation going, I said that I find joy in people being vulnerable with me. This is true but I believe there is something deeper than that. When thinking about what my answer to that question would be, it made me realize that I don't exactly know what joy is. I’ve been told several times what joy is but I either forget or it doesn't stick for some reason. So joy is spiritual happiness but you can also be said right? Isn’t joy spiritual peace? The truth is I have NO IDEA what joy is and how it plays a part of my spiritual life. And another truth is that I’m not Gandhi or Mother Teresa, so it’s ok that I don’t know what joy is. I don't need to add stress to my life of adaption and add another ball to juggle that ‘s titled, “The What Is Joy Ball.” Even though I’m not going to overanalyze what joy is and how it plays apart of my spiritual life, I am still going to make an effort this year to figure that out. Because no matter what spiritual problems I’m facing, no matter what emotions are eating at us, no matter what balls we are juggling, God is with us. God is whispering into every one of our hearts, “Just Breathe.”