Orientation

Orientation has been a fast-paced blur. Once we arrived it has been non-stop until the last few days. In short, orientation has centered around the five tenets of Amate House which are: community, stewardship, social justice, faith, service. In order to keep the last few days straight, I'll shall organize my blog today in those categories.

Community:

One of the most staggering aspects of this program is its size. Currently, Amate House has 36 volunteers that live in three houses situated around Chicago (ideally) near the work sites. North House is located near Wrigley Field and holds 14 volunteers, Little Village is located in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood about 5 miles west of downtown holds 9 volunteers, and South House (my residence) is located about 5 miles southwest of downtown and holds 13 volunteers.
I soon realized that 13 is a really, really large number. I know that probably sounds obvious to most people, but it really hits home when you go to the store to buy 5 gallons of milk on Sunday, and it doesn't last until Wednesday. When I imagined living in a community, I think I had about 7 people in mind whereas 13 is really a difficult sized group to manage.
Another thing that struck me early on is that this program is striving for more than 13 volunteers merely cohabitating the same space. The tenet of community really emphasizes that my housemates are supposed to mean more to me than any previous living situation. The buzzword commonly used by the staff is "Intentional Community." Initially, that phrased sounded merely redundant, but we truly do have a remarkable program. This quote read to us on the first day has really stuck with me so far:

Community has something to do with being open enough to share weaknesses, to accept one's vulnerability and finitude not only in the secret recesses of one's hear, but also in the presence of others. Paradoxically, that's where the real power of community comes from. -Dick Westley

The 13 of us really strive to open ourselves before each other. Many of our talks have been uncomfortable but powerful. Ultimately, this communial aspect is why I choose Amate House over programs such as Teach For America because I knew that I needed a strong support network for what I wanted to do this year. Social workers have a tremendous burnout rate because their job is demanding. I knew that for a year of service I would need a support network to turn to.
Much of orientation has been filled with discussions and activity focusing on building our community. Some of our more fun activies involved the beach, a low ropes course, etc. The variety of activities at orientation has been nice and made the week fly by while remaining interesting.

Stewardship

The third day centered around the idea of stewardship. Stewarship most frequently involves the following lines from Matthew:

Jesus sent out the twelve after instructing them thus, "Go...to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: 'The Kingdom of God is at hand.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons..." etc etc.

The verse to me was always about using the gifts God gave you to better the world. In reality, the verse is also about being good stewards of all gifts given to us, including the earth and all those who inhabit it. We spent the day learning about things such the enviornmental disasters that occurred in South Chicago. Chicago industrial parks were all located on the South Side; plants produced products such as steel, coal (for power) and meat (Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle is about the meat processing plants located in Chicago and the abuses that were occuring). We walked around Little Village and observered parks that were dumping grounds for these factories for years. The people living there now, mostly poor Hispanics, have to constantly fight and lobby the EPA and the former companies to clean up the enviornmental disasters. For example, they examined a site and found that carcinogenic compounds were 1000x higher than what is considered safe. This tenet seeks to make us more aware of the products we buy and where they come from. Homework for you all: check your tags in your clothes and see where they were made. We made a list of all the countries and the list was over a page long for the house. Sweatshop labor is sadly still a major problem.

Faith

We met with a Loyola professor to talk about what he called the Spirituality of Transitions. It was a very interesting presentation about, psychologically and spiritually, what will occur during a state of transistions. Afterwards, we were asked to share in our House our spiritual journey. It was actually an immensely powerful but difficult talk because despite being a theology major, discussing one's faith is immensely stressful and nerve-wracking. It was a very special experience.

Social Justice

*brief interlude: we did our first grocery run before talking about the next tenet. Imagine for a moment shopping with 13 people for a weeks worth of groceries. It was one of the most stressful things I've ever done.

The talks on Social Justice really centered on solidarity and what it truly meant. This blog is getting long so I will summarize our talk with these two quotes:

"Solidarity is not just 'vague compassion or a shallow distress at the misfortune of others' but rather 'a firm and perserving determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and to each individual, because we are really responsibile for all."- Papal documents

"What worries me most is that 'solidarity' is understood as a disposition: one can have it for a while, put it aside for whatever reason, and then pick it up again. I am also worried about the fact that 'solidarity' has come to mean 'agreement with' and that it is given an ephemeral sense of supporting others that has little to do with liberative praxis." - Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz

Service

Not much to say here because to me, this is really what the program is about. However, this tenet will likely be the center of most of my blogs from now on. My first day of work is Monday and my posts will focus on my work at the Marjorie Kovler Center for the Survivors of Torture. I HIGHLY recommend a book for everyone interested in my work to read. It is called The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth by Sister Dianna Ortiz. I'm only about 100 pages in (it's a long read) but it was written by an American Nun who was tortured in Guatemala in 1989 and her attempts to return to "normalcy". The truly remarkable part is the woman used the Marjorie Kovler Center in Chicago during her rehabilitation. I actually had to call my boss the same day I read a passage from the book describing her initial call to the same man. It is truly the best source I can offer about the center, but I will warn you it not as easy book to read.

Sorry it was so long! I promise they will be shorter in the future.