The social worker I want to be

I have a lot of peace lately. Peace and hope.

There's nothing more wonderful than stepping outside and breathing in the cold crisp air while looking up into trees that splash bright red and soft gold across a brilliant blue sky. Leaves dance down from the branches and across paths on campus, getting caught on still so green grass. Jeans and sweatshirts and socks replace summer sheer and everyone is more settled. Comfortable. At rest. There's not yet a need to rush into the waiting warmth of a building, but we no longer carry the wet air with us. So we wander, we linger. Fall is like the pause at the end of a sentence: the rush of words has passed and now we sit and enjoy their fullness. Dwelling with them. Reflecting. Enjoying.

And in this space, I am settling more into myself.

I think it's rooted in a new and renewed sense of the person I want to be. A few weeks ago I wrote a bit on the type of social worker I want to be - one that seems to contrast pretty sharply with the portrait of a typical social worker. Sometimes it's so frustrating and isolating to find your vision and ethos set so far apart from the norm and so instead of resting in the pause, I was anxious to get onto the next thought, the next rallying cry. To sit and ruminate on the differences seemed oppressive and alienating.

But then fall came - that cold bit of clarity - in this short essay.

So as rudimentary as it is...

The Social Worker I Want to Be

In the many hours of reflecting and dreaming an reading about christian community that I've logged lately, I'm learning more about who I am and coming to find who I was, perhaps, created to be. Julianne, who has spent much of her life as a daughter, sister, friend, mini-mom and student- is finally coming into a personhood defined by relationships and duties yet to be known.

In studying the theory and practice of social work over the last two years, I have found community and passion and a place to grow in my own zeal to serve others by seeking the Kingdom on earth now. These experiences have revealed a greater passion and desire to study community by growing with and in community, struggling through conflict, and working to establish right and reconciled relationships. Viewing these interactions as necessarily related and dependent upon one another has helped me to begin developing a changed attitude towards the vocation (but essentially and wholly, work) of serving others; not merely by my knowledge, skills and values, but with my life, my relational offerings, my history and my future.

I am beginning to note a disconnect with some of the profession's basic premises of boundaries, goals, investment level and attitude towards relationships with my own personal (yet developing) ethos of practice. I know I have much to learn and experience and that such experiences will lend themselves to the creation of new perspective sand attitudes.

So I struggle, now, with the idea of what sort of social worker I want to be, acknowledging that I will be a life-long learner, but also eventually settling into some routine norms of behavior and boundary. I want goals that will propel me forward towards a more whole and biblically rooted model of community development, accomplished perhaps though social work practice.

I think I am yearning to a social worker at heart, not merely at work. To find a sense of self in posturing my entire life towards others - meeting them in relationships with a humility that echoes Lila Watson's well quoted phrase "If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." As a daughter of the Creator and a member of his kingdom I can yearn with all creation toward our liberation. My motivation of gospel truth and life offers me purpose and direction for such pursuit - but it is one I feel most suited for service through dynamic and enduring relationships.

I do not want to be a social worker working for change that cannot be communicated or fully realized because it rejects it's inherent moralism. I aspire to be a social worker that can humbly emulate our Savior who practiced holistic community - addressing the physical and spiritual needs of his image bearers, even when and though we are utterly ignorant of our depravity.

Perhaps what I am discovering is that social work may not be my profession, but rather a lens through which I can view the world and my purpose within it. Maybe my desire for community is really a desire to engage others in relationships that bring about social change, God's Justice, through a right understanding of such purposed identity.

Then again, maybe not. Surely there is much more to be known and unlearned and re-imagined about this short bit of life in vocation. So I desire wisdom that graciously extends itself to purpose - through a calling to social work practice or elsewhere - and the peace to accept and live out of such identity.