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.