Sit With Them

     For two years of my almost twenty five years of life, I was a white missionary, sent to a region still reeling from trauma inflicted by white missionaries. I had the potential to do a lot of damage. Thankfully, I was trained to step back and listen. I quickly learned that a big part of being a white missionary in a place that is not predominately white is learning to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I'm sure there were many times I did the wrong thing without even realizing it, and I may never know all of the mistakes I made as a white person trying to be a positive influence on youth who are part of a culture that I quite honestly knew nothing about before moving to Nome.
     There's a story I've never told because it's so special to me that I wanted to save it for the right time. It's a story about a youth who was struggling and the way her peers stayed with her through her struggle.
     This story starts right as the Boys and Girls Club was about to close on a Friday night. The last five minutes on Friday nights always seemed to bring up strong feelings, probably because many youth were facing a weekend in an unstable home.
     I didn't do much during that hour, but it stands out as possibly the most important hour of my mission experience. By that time I had enough experience with our youth having panic attacks that I had a pretty good idea of what to do. I was prepared to sit with her after everyone left. but as closing time came and went, I realized we were not alone. The group of teens there that night had no intention of leaving until they could all leave together.
     That night, I watched teenage boys call home to say they would miss curfew because the were doing something important, because they were helping a friend. I watched these young men put their Friday night plans on hold without a second thought in order to support a friend. I watched them quietly sit down on the floor beside her.
     Not once did they suggest that she should just get over it. Not once did they make fun of her or invalidate her feelings in any way. Instead, they sat with her. Some of them shared stories of their own struggles with the same thing, and the significance of young men being vulnerable about their emotions was not lost on me.
     We sat together on the floor for an hour. We talked about the science of panic attacks, and how it takes the brain a while to process that there is no actual danger. We shared jokes and moments of comfortable silence. We counted every tile in the ceiling, twice. After an hour, she felt good enough to walk home, and I watched that whole group of teens leave together. I can't recall a time I was ever more proud of all of them.
     Most of the young men in this story are not white. I struggled with whether or not to share this story at this time because they aren't black either. In the spirit of being comfortable with being uncomfortable and after weighing the risk of saying the wrong thing against the risk of saying nothing, I decided that now is not the time for silence.
     I have worried about these Alaska Native boys for as long as I have known them, and the devastating realization that I live in a country where men of color are murdered in broad daylight by the very people who are supposed to protect them has greatly deepened that worry. I wish these young men lived in a world that would treat them the way they treated their friend that night. I wish I didn't worry about them when I see them walking around town with their hoods up and their hands in their pockets, because that is not a crime and I hate that it even crosses my mine that it might be considered one. I wish they lived in a world that would not suspect them, harass them, and murder them because of their brown skin. I wish they were growing up in a society that knew how to sit with them and seek to understand them.

If they can do it for their peers, why can't we do it for them?

The Art of Pondering

     I once had a writing professor who upon hearing any story about some challenge one of her students was facing would get this wild look in her eye and exclaim,"writing material!" This particular professor would also take swigs from a large bottle that we were all convinced was champagne, until someone finally confronted her about it and we learned that it was mineral water. She was one of those teachers who had a genuine passion for the subject she taught, and I really felt that I thrived in her classroom. I've thought about her over the past few weeks, as Covid-19 has transitioned from something that was barely on my radar into something that has affected several aspects of my life and brought my regular routine to a screeching halt. She would surely see this situation as excellent writing material.
     Every time I try to write anything about this surreal experience we are all going through, my mind goes back to a picture I took when I was visiting my family in August, when I took exactly one week of vacation after finishing two years at an incredibly demanding job before jumping right into the next one. We went to Nags Head for a day, and stopped at Jeanette's Pier right as the sun was setting. At some point each of us went off on our own for a few minutes, and when I turned around from whatever I was doing, I saw a sight that brought comfort to my weary heart. My father and brother in a stance I've seen both of them in from time to time for as long as I can remember; hands in their pockets, staring off into the distance. Sometimes the object of their attention is a truck or a boat, sometimes it's just whatever scenery happens to be in front of them at the moment. I've never asked them what they are thinking about during these moments, because it doesn't really matter and I don't want to interrupt them. I just know that it brings me a sense of peace and a bit of pride to know that I grew up around men who are comfortable being alone with their thoughts, and I can't help but believe that the world would be a bit better if more of us were.
     I've always thought of this habit of theirs as pondering, and it's something that I hope to do more of while my regular routine is interrupted. Whenever I set out to write, I always try to connect a deeper meaning to my life experiences, to uncover some profound wisdom that people will find interesting. But maybe we don't have to uncover a deep spiritual meaning to all of this. Maybe we don't have to find three new hobbies or dive into full Marie Kondo mode while we have extra time at home. We certainly do not need to engage in spirited debates online about whose fault this is, because some things are no ones fault, and that conversation does nothing to improve what is happening.
 Sure, it's good to be productive and to not let our minds spiral into despair. But I also believe that in between our periods of productivity, this is a good time to practice the art of pondering. To find a window to look out of, or a large body of water or field if one is accessible while exercising social distancing, and just stand still for a few moments. Be alone with whatever thoughts you have, and acknowledge them without analyzing them. Just be still, and see what comes to you. You've got nothing but time, and you're not missing anything by taking a few moments to just exist.
     Right now, no one can really say when all of this will end. It is an uncertain time, and like everyone else I have plenty of worries about what the next few months of my life are going to look like. I worry for people who are sick or have sick loved ones, and for those who put themselves at risk every day for the benefit of the rest of us. While I recognize the seriousness of this pandemic and hope that it goes away sooner than later, I'm trying to remember that all that has really changed in my life is the illusion that I was ever in control of anything. And while I was at first slightly terrified by that revelation, I am gradually becoming relieved by it. It's nice to stop and realize that the world is so much bigger than me. Maybe that's what those two pondering men have understood all along.

Under the Same Moon

Since my time of service as a missionary for the Methodist church ended in August, I've written several honest reflections about the experience, without trying to put a positive spin on them or wrap them up with some sort of motivational message. With each post, I've watched the number of readers decline. It seems that everyone is getting tired of listening to me complain, and I've come to the point where life is starting to move on, as life does, and the hurt is not so fresh anymore. It's still there, but I've stared it down and confronted it directly and it has lost some of it's power. And so, I will climb down off of my soapbox with no guarantee that I might not get back on it at some point.
So if I'm going to stop regaling my ever shrinking audience with tales of the perils of being a missionary, what will I talk about? I guess will have to stop talking about the past and move into the present.
I'm working at a smaller non-profit now. The experience of working closely with someone who very genuinely cares about the work we are doing and gets excited about being able to help people has already started to remove some of the cynicism about the non-profit world that I had developed over the past two years. I'm getting to experience what it's like to be respected at work, and that has been very important for me.
I also have a really interesting job through the hospital that I can't talk about for privacy reasons, but I feel that it is a very good opportunity for me. Although my feelings of hurt are very real and completely valid, they are able to coexist with the positive feelings I have about the opportunities I am currently experiencing.
Yesterday, I stood waiting for an airplane to pick me up in Wales, Alaska, which is almost as far west as you can get and still be in the U.S.A. It was a cold, clear day and I could see the moon in one direction and turn around the other way and watch the sun set. I thought about my eighth grade world geography teacher, who was such a good teacher that she got me into the school's geography bee even though to this day I can hardly read a map. She would probably be one of the few people who could understand what I was feeling in that moment, because her class and the way she taught unlocked my fascination with the world outside of the small town I grew up in.
I will never be able to fully describe what it's like to travel to an Alaska Native village in January, and hear stories of polar bears and whales from an elder, and to see the moon over the tundra and know that everywhere in the world, people are seeing that same moon.
I will also never be able to fully describe what it feels like to move across the country because you genuinely believe in your heart that it is what God is telling you to do, only to be met with what is hopefully the most challenging workplace experience you will ever face. I may never have the words to convey what it feels like when you tell the truth about your experience believing that open communication and honesty will lead to reconciliation, and it doesn't.
All I know is that I stood there fascinated by the moon, I remembered the children who experienced unspeakable traumas and were still able to experience pure excitement upon seeing a rainbow. How wonderful it is to realize that even when we have experienced hurt that seems insurmountable, we have been given the capacity to fight through it and experience wonder again, if only we are brave enough to reject the tempting choice of cynicism.