USC: One Month In

Wow, so much for the weekly updates huh?

Urban Servant Corps, community living, job site training and day-to-day, this is an EXPERIENCE. I don't really know how else to describe it. It is an amazing, frustrating, humbling, joyful, heartbreaking, building experience. Every day is a distinct roller coaster ride of emotions where you can be happy and excited for a person one minute and the next heartbroken and despairing about the world and society as a whole ignoring or downplaying or refusing to help our neighbors. Ok, it's not really minute to minute. It's here and there. Some days will obviously be more positive than others, some days will be more challenging.

Highlights: I've been blessed to get to know some great people. Volunteers, participants, all sorts of people. Today I heard an amazing story of a landlord who returned a check to the church not because the individual had been evicted, but because he spoke with her and decided to work with her on his own. His exact words? "Give the money to another person". That is cool.

Lowlights: It's a hard lesson to recognize that you cannot help everyone... it's impossible. I have seen for the first time a writ of restitution. How does one explain the connotations of that to someone sitting across the table?

Overall: I have been incredibly blessed to be a part of this. The community I live in, the people I serve, it's amazing. Every day I am asked to jump headfirst into whatever I am working on for the day. Some days it feels like I'm jumping into a kiddie pool, but I love it none the less.

USC Week One: Oriented Yet?

Wow, a week! That was fast, and slow, and impossibly long, and really really short. I have known my housemates for technically only a week now, seven days. That is not a long time but here, we have bonded. The house started out with eight people, and (not unsurprisingly) we have a myriad of backgrounds and perspectives and experiences. We laugh a lot, we play games and drink, we plan pranks and gather around the dinner table. The week truly was action packed, so I'll give you a quick day-by-day, but don't expect this for every week! That just isn't going to happen :)

Day 1 (Sun) - Total whirlwind of activity, moving in, meeting everybody. That was quickly followed by answering the same questions again & again. Where are you from? Where did you go to college? What house are you living in? What are your placement sites? It was a little bit overwhelming, a lot crazy, and super fun.

Day 2 (Mon) - Today's buzzword: intentional community. There's an interesting style of facilitation, I'm often reminding myself to participate. Today I got to check out the HRAC, that's an intense orientation. Beers in the backyard led to some fun conversation and the creation of a quote book.

Day 3 (Tue) - So we are touring around different places that volunteers will be serving in the afternoons. It's amazing and awe inspiring to see the passion of people touring different sites. Today we found out that one of our housemates is leaving. Sad sad day, just wasn't working.

Day 4 (Wed) - After touring HRAC for a second time I am very excited to go to work there. Worked on all the Americorps paperwork in the morning. Americorps has this awesome pledge, and crazy rules.

Day 5 (Thu) - Workshop on feedback, I wasn't impressed but that wasn't the point. More tours of placement sites, it's amazing how all of these places work together and refer clients to others services and are so interconnected. D took off. :( sad. Almost called you to be a part of the house meeting!

Day 6 (Fri) - The most emotionally draining and involved day by far. Today we shared our faith stories/journeys with our housemates. I feel privileged and in awe that in 5 days we have been able to come together as a community, to create a safe space that people can share this deeply personal aspect of their lives with one another.

Oh yeah! We got paid our first months stipend! You can talk about seventy-five dollars, and try to imagine it, and rationalize it all you want. When you are holding those 5 bills in your hand the reality hits you pretty fast. SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS. FOR ONE MONTH. REALLY? How's this going to work?

T minus One Day: Urban Servant Corps

Here it goes. Tomorrow starts a whole new adventure/phase of life/something seemingly really (impossibly?) large. A year of volunteer service with the Urban Servant Corps. I am honestly having a hard time putting my thoughts down into something coherent and readable, so there are the four main questions I will attempt to answer tonight.

What is it?/What will I be doing?: According to the website, the Urban Servant Corps (USC) is a one-year, full-time Lutheran volunteer program involved in ministries serving inner-city Denver. Volunteers are placed with non-profits, so this year I will be working with two organizations, the St. Paul Local Assistance Ministry, and the Harm Reduction Action Center. As part of the experience I will be living w/ other volunteers as part of an intentional christian community.

Why am I doing this?: It's a funny story actually. The short version is that I am somehow supposed to, don't ask me why or how, but I just know. Longer version, I knew someone a long time ago who participated and encouraged me to do the same. Then, when I moved to Montana the pastor up there said 'Hey, you should think about doing this'. Moved to New Jersey, moved back to Colorado and a pastor here said the exact same thing. Don't worry, I picked up the message this time and applied. :)

Overall, this year accomplishes several things for me:

• My philosophy and approach to life is very simple: Have fun, do good. This is a great way to intentionally do this, apply my philosophy in the most direct way possible.
• There are a lot of problems and challenges facing us today that I have no experience or even baseline knowledge of. How can I participate in discussions and help work for a solution if I know nothing about the subjects? (homelessness, poverty, etc.)
• I want to live intentionally this year. (More on that later, probably)

Any questions/expectations going in?: I think that the questions I face going in are the same that everybody faces, or is thinking about right now. Pretty basic including, what did I sign up to do? Am I out of my mind? What are the other volunteers going to be like? Expectations, I'm trying to intentionally stay pretty blank on this one.

I just want to say a quick thank you to all the people who are supporting me this year. Your thoughts and prayers are welcome. I'm hoping to post a USC related post about once a week on average. I was thinking about doing posts about community life, the organizations I will be working in, and the fabulous volunteers I'll be getting to know a lot better. If you have any questions, comments or ideas I'd love to hear them!

Cheers,

An Event I Wish I Was There For...

So this past Sunday was a big, big, awesome deal. A moment waited for and prayed for and about that was years in the making. What's that? You don't really follow events in the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) or issues regarding gay partnered clergy? That's ok, I'll tell you about it!

So, for a while 'teh gays' have been allowed to serve as ordained ministers in the ELCA, but only if they were celibate. Some were and not and actually were removed from the roster. (The roster is a list of all ordained people in the denomination, they can be called by a church, preside over a worship service, etc., etc.) Others were just never allowed on the roster. So after a monumental vote now GLBT folks who are in long-term, monogamous, committed relationships can be called and ordained. Important side note here: It is still the church calling their pastor. If they don't want to call someone who happens to be gay they don't have to.

Anyway, it's been all over the news. The New York Times did a story on it. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/us/26lutheran.html?_r=1 The Washington Post did a story on it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/24/AR2010072402243.html And they had this amazing service to welcome and receive/reinstate seven of these folks in the San Francisco area. For the video portion of todays post I am thrilled to bring you the sermon from the event, preached by Denver's own Nadia Bolz-Weber, from House for All Sinners and Saints. I know it's in three parts. They are short, don't worry about it. Plus, on a really cool side note, she lays out so eloquently what I love about... well... all of it. Enjoy! :)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Thanks to Megan Rohrer for posting the videos!

and oh yeah, if you want to see the official site of this event HERE it is

Have You Laughed Out Loud Today?

If not, this should help.



The things that I find for your random enjoyment. Really. What? I work hard at it! All for you. :) Also, I highly recommend watching the full show, find it on Hulu.