Day Two

Day one was real long and real tiring and has sort of melded into day two. So here's an update:

• It's wicked hot here. Like 98 degrees with humidity that wraps up your whole body and even your eyeballs 
• The Tulane campus is absolutely gorgeous, with open courtyards everywhere and fantastic buildings with walls of windows to take in all the green! (note: I can't quite shake the colorado/chicago mindset and my first thought about our outdoor hallway dorms was how they keep the snow out in the winter...)
• Everyone stays cool with 'air' (aka AC) turned down to roughly 37 degrees 
• We spend our time in a room with this freezing air doing our training from about 9am until 9pm - learning great things like how to equally distribute oranges (read: what is power) and express the inherent dignity and worth of workers to the faith communities near our sites
  
• My crash course in southern speaking: "Honey" and "Sugar" are ways of greeting strangers you've never met and must be tacked onto the beginning and possibly the end of any question: "Shuga, what can I help you with today honey?"
• Cockroaches live in the south. Apparently it's not a sign of being somewhere dirty, just a clue that you're still in the south and you're still five feet below sea level. I'm just glad my bed is lofted.
• Internet doesn't reach into our dorms. We all reconvene about 15 minutes after out last session to sit in the dark in the courtyard with the mosquitos and roaches to feed our addictions to facebook, email, and the like

So those are some things I'm doing. Outwardly.

Inwardly, I'm a mess. And I don't have any clever jokes or comments about it, not yet at least. 

But I am being refined. I know I am, I must be. I am struggling harder than I have in a long time; and I had thought that I had a rough past 6 months. 

I've found myself in a community different from any other I've encountered before. I'm not among people of no faith - nearly all my fellow interns claim some sort of religious affiliation from Islam to Judaism to Christianity and a whole gamut of expressions in-between - but I'm also not among people who know and honor the same God that I do. I'm with this motley crew of people who've signed on to bring justice through interfaith interactions. The problem is, I'm beginning to wonder if it's possible, and more importantly, if it's a biblical or God-honoring pursuit. 

Today was particularly difficult but also frighteningly revealing. We had a few sessions about the philosophy of things like work, faith, and power. After much initial frustration, I realized that the basic terms we were all using have much different meaning in this context and conversation than in the conversations I have with friends at church and school. Our speaker today was a bit irritated with me for not agreeing that all truth is relative and constantly being transformed by experience. Well, probably not so much irritated with my disagreement but my challenging his worldview. I could go into so much detail about the nuances of our conversation and the philosophies of an understanding of truth that is not constant, but it's late and I get to wake up to more of it just a few short hours! BUT - I would love to discuss this more, so if you have any insight or thoughts or just a little compassion on my already burnt out soul, call me! I'd love to chat it up a bit.

Anyway, I am struggling with how I can express to my fellow workers how my understanding of grace and salvation permeates everything I do - especially the way I pursue justice for the oppressed - when it is to them, almost a non-issue. I read through much of romans last night (it's incredible how my apathy towards soaking up scripture is absolutely gone and I'm craving and dependent on time in the word!) and was reminded again of the beauty of this relationship we've been grafted into by the grace of God, and how such truth provides new life and purpose. God's been so gracious in giving me opportunities to express my love for him through relationship building today: in conversations with my roommates, and through the excitement of shared passions for social justice concerns, and even in silly laughter over newly formed inside jokes. I'm so thankful to be rooted in Truth, especially when I can feel the yearning for absolutes among my fellow workers and supervisors. It really is amazing to be reminded of the brilliance of light in a dark room. 

So this is my dark room. And this is day two. I still have 8 days until I'm officially on the job. 

Please pray for increased endurance and stamina to continue engaging in conversations where God's truth is challenged. My brain is tired of 12 hours of constant confrontation, and I'm trying to somehow start developing my own framework for how I'm going to continue engaging these issues and this community all summer in my work. I know the God I serve is doing greater things than I can see, and I'm clinging to his promises. It's certainly humbling to realize that the powers of spiritual warfare are so much stronger than I am alone, and that I must equip myself with truth, arm myself with scripture, and look intently and unwaveringly at the God of my salvation. 

Oh my foolish lips that said just three days ago that I was 'ready' to finally be used in doing God's work and bringing his truth and justice to his world. How much I have to learn, and how gracious God is to use me now anyway!