Called to Listen and Learn

When I began my volunteer time in Chillán, Chile in 2008, I believed I was there to serve with the local people and that I was not there to do anything for them. I intended to honor the abilities and leadership in this community where I was but a temporary guest and helper, and I saw this as one of the many meanings of humility in being an HM volunteer. I also believed that getting outside of my home country and culture would be one of the best ways to better understand my self and my home. Lately, I have been reflecting on how my understanding of service and justice work has continued to grow since then.

I love what Jennifer wrote in her post here a few weeks ago, “Service is yearning to understand the experience of others in the hope that we can all be made better by that understanding.” True to this, some of my most treasured memories from Chile are the times when people opened up to me with trust and honesty, telling stories about their fear, pain and losses living under the dictatorship in the 1970s and 80s. And the times I was invited into family gatherings around the fire where multiple generations played guitar and sang traditional folk songs and current pop hits. And the times we went to festivals with musicians and artists expressing a vision of a better world. These were all sacred opportunities to listen, witness and learn from the experiences of people with lives, histories and identities different from my own.

Me in front of Casa Ursulina, the women's
community center where I served in Chillán, Chile.  

When I first came home to Canton, Ohio from Chile in 2010, I remember seeing my home community through new eyes. I remember the reverse culture shock: how hard it was to feel comfortable again in a place that had once seemed familiar but now seemed strange. I went looking  for and found like-minded community in new pockets of my home town that I had not been connected to before: a Unitarian Universalist church, a yoga and dance studio, meditation groups, artists, gardeners, local food activists. I also had the chance to work for nonprofits and to continue to travel frequently for a few more years, and then to try out working in the public and for-profit sectors.

For the past two years I have been grappling with how to serve the wider world while caring for my daughter as a stay-at-home parent. In this chapter of life, I often feel frustrated with how to take meaningful action in response to the many justice and peace issues that I hear about every day in local and national news. Lately, my approach has been to return to listening and learning. One of the biggest influences in my journey lately has been a friend who is a fellow mom I met at an exercise class. She is a Black activist, social justice educator, and the founder of her own grassroots organization. Conversations with her and other friends who have different identities and lived experiences than I do have challenged me in new ways and pushed me to continue reflecting honestly and deeply when I am shocked, confused or made uncomfortable by someone else’s truth. I have also been seeking out podcasts, audiobooks, reputable news sources and scholarly articles. My own understanding has widened and deepened so much regarding the complexity of social justice issues, intersectionality, and the pervasiveness of racial injustice.

Like being a guest volunteer in Chile, being an ally to people who are marginalized in the U.S. requires me to be respectful, humble, and attentive to the experiences, stories, and leadership of the people with whom I wish to serve. By continuing to listen to and learn from diverse voices within my own home community and country, I am finally starting to understand what it means to be a member of the dominant culture as a white cis woman and how my own identity affects how I should become involved, when I should speak and when I should listen. More than anything, I have been reminded that I will always have more to learn about service, justice, and my role in our shared pursuit of a more equitable and peaceful world.

I was blessed to serve in Immokalee, FL, for most of 2001-02, and finished my year with two months at Villa Maria, working on the organic farm. 

I learned two valuable life lessons during my volunteer year with the HMs (well, more than two, but there are two I'll talk about here).  The first was about not being afraid to ask for help when you need it, and the second was about being open to what God has in his plan for you (even if it seems wildly different than what you have in mind).

During my year in Immokalee, though I loved the work I was doing at the after-school program, with the domestic violence shelter, and with Habitat, I was struggling.  I felt overly emotional, exhausted, and cranky - all the time.  It was hard to complete daily tasks, and I was not the roommate I wanted to be for my community members.  Eventually I realized that I needed to leave Immokalee and come home to Ohio - and figure out what was going on.  It was a hard decision - I felt embarrassed about how difficult I had been to live with, and felt like I'd somehow failed by not making it through the year in Florida.  But asking for help was the best thing I could have done - it turned out that I needed to begin taking medication for anxiety and depression. Sixteen years later, I still take medication, and I am willing to share this experience with others who might be hesitant to address their own mental health issues.

And asking for help led me to spending the last two months of my volunteer year working on the organic farm at Villa Maria.   The Villa is just 20 minutes from my parents' home outside Youngstown, so it was perfect - I could be at home with the support of my family, and still complete a full year of volunteer work.  To be honest, I don't remember being really excited about the idea of working on the organic farm.  But that's what God had in mind - and, as usual, he was right.  Spending my days planting pumpkins, weeding vegetable beds, braiding garlic, and soaking in the chance to be outside all day long was just what I needed.  And I was lucky enough to develop close relationships with other farm volunteers, and with Frank Romeo, who is one of the world's sweetest and gentlest humans. God knew exactly what he was doing.

After that year, my path took me to Denver, then to St. Louis for graduate school, and back to Ohio, to Cleveland, where I started my career as a Licensed Social Worker.  In December of 2016, I became the Director of Clinical Services for the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center.  We serve survivors of all ages with individual and group therapy, court and hospital advocacy, outreach in the community, and prevention programming for middle and high school students. I am certain that my HM year has greatly influenced the decisions I've made in the time since, and will continue to do so long into the future.  And I continue to remember to ask for help when I need it, and to trust God's plan for my life.

Where do I start?

I started this post intending to write a summary of my experiences and why the program was so amazing for me, but as I began to write I ended up somewhere completely unexpected. In the hope that I will write future posts and can share many things with you all, I will leave you with the following. 

Where do I start? When I graduated college I found myself aimless and experiencing some serious failure to launch. Grasping for direction, I began to look into volunteer opportunities. I discovered The Humility of Mary Volunteer Service and I leaped at the chance to join a program that sounded supportive and exciting. The fact that I wasn't remotely familiar with the finer points of Catholicism (let alone the sisters themselves) didn't matter to them. They were excited that I was excited. Thus began two years of incredible life-changing service. With so many lessons learned and so many stories to share, where do I start? 

Some of the Sisters at the Humility of Mary Ministry Center in Cleveland, Oh 
admiring the directors new baby!

In some future post I'll tell you all about the amazing individuals I served with my second year and the incredible city I made my own, but today I'll tell you about my first year. My first year I was a community of one. I started out with another volunteer, but when he left the program I found myself flying solo. Living alone forced me re-define what community was going to mean to me. So I began to gravitate toward the sisters themselves. These women...This community....Their service... I was shook.


A faith I had been raised in but felt absolutely no affection for, took on a whole new life. There was joy...That was a feeling the church had never evoked in me and yet, these women exuded it. If the congregation is the heart of the church, these women showed me the hands. There was passion and peace and laughter and more than once I found myself moved to stillness by it. (That feeling you get walking into a winter night when it's silent and dark and the snow is falling.) Now, this is not to suggest there weren't moments of conflict; I am headstrong and not mild-mannered. But underneath those moments, there was something unspoken. A peacefulness and a sense that everything was going to be okay. Was this what faith did? I'm not sure I ever had that. 


As I write, I sit under my afghan, stretched out with my laptop, wishing I could tell you that now I do; That I had some come to Jesus experience. I don't. I didn't. This isn't a conversion story and I didn't exactly find my calling. But what I do have now is understanding. For the first time in my life, I get it. I understand that faith is not a routine or a collection of practices. Faith can be a foundation of peace and safety. Faith can be an achingly joyful love that drives you to create, and give, and empower. I get it. This new understanding changes everything and nothing. My world is not different, but my understanding of the world is. And that's what service is. Service is not giving to the poor or riding in on a white horse to save the day. Service is yearning to understand the experience of others in the hope that we can all be made better by that understanding. HMVS gave me that.

Sisters Ruth Mary and Josie at my wedding. 
A year after my service ended I am thrilled
to be able to continue sharing my life 
with so many of these women. 

These days I work at a non-profit therapy center, helping teenage girls learn to be stronger than the worse moment of their lives. Because of my years with HMVS I understand that I cannot save or fix these girls (mostly because no one is ever truly lost or broken), but I can have faith. I can believe in them when they do not believe in themselves. I can provide safety and a sense that everything will be okay. I can feel an aching joyful love that drives me to help them create and empower themselves. 


I didn't get what I expected from my year of service. I still don't really know what I'm doing or where I'm going in life. But at least I have a good idea of where to start. 

One of my kids left me a note in game tiles. 
If you know teenagers then you know I cling to this picture 
on days when they hate my face. 

Community Beyond Community

My experiences of community both inside and outside of the house and HMVS program while living in Immokalee in 2010-2011 have shaped who I am and how I run my household today.

I blame the lovely Kristina O’Hern and Margaret Gleeson Benze who though technically not HMVS volunteers during my year were permanent fixtures in the house, not to mention the brothers, friends, and lovers of my housemates and myself who passed through the halls that year.

 This community taught me to be welcoming, patient (two bathrooms for six+ people is rough), flexible, and caring. It taught me that I love having people in my house and making every space feel full of life.

Official community mates - Immokalee 2010-2011
(Sara, me, Vitina, Dennis)

It was this experience that has prompted me to open my partner’s and my home to roommates in hopes of building community and bringing life into our house to fill its spaces. It isn’t the same as delivering letters to the managers of Publix or driving fifteen-passenger vans, but it is how I continue to incorporate my service experience into my life.

In the almost three years of homeownership, we have been a space for folks in all stages of life. We’ve been able to be home, at least for a brief period of time, to two HMVS alumni (not including me), two college students, a few close friends, a 2-year-old (mom too, of course) and one lovely Michigander.

Sometimes I do still make it to actions!
(Spot all the HMVS alumni & comment below
for a prize... JK)

We’ve also welcomed out of town guests, that we may or may not have known prior, from all over the country including Seattle, Wisconsin, and Immokalee.

In direct service-year correlation, we are often able to act as a home base for members and allies of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Though I am not always able to join the CIW actions, fasts, and events to help raise awareness and lift up the efforts of these awesome men and women who are fighting for human rights, I am able to provide a place to refresh and rejuvenate when they’ve had a long day of advocacy and education in Cleveland.

Each guest and roommate comes with their own baggage and blessings. We’ve inherited a highchair, dirty socks, half-empty shampoo bottles, and Netflix accounts. We’ve gained friendships, honey, cheese curds, and a lot of great conversations. Of course, the adventure of hospitality and community is just beginning. Guests are always welcome, and so are you. We’re community members after all.

Welcome to the HMVS Alumni blog!

Humility of Mary Volunteer Service was founded in 1991 and is a ministry of the Sisters of the Humility of Mary.  For over 25 years, volunteers have served in a variety of ministries, both domestically and internationally, connecting with those they serve, each other, and the HM community, and bringing more abundant life to God's people.

We are so proud of our alumni and the ways that they continue to live out the mission and charism of the program in their post service life.  This blog serves as a way to highlight their post service lives and offer a space for story-telling, connection, and reflection.  Enjoy the window into their lives and how their service experience with HMVS continues to enrich and affect them. 

HMVS volunteers, alumni, and Sr. Judy gather at the volunteer house in Immokalee, FL

 

 

Are you an alum who would like to share your story?  Email Ellen at hmvsalums@gmail.com!