Bundt Cake and Bananas

Dominican Volunteer Hannah Abalos shares community with the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose at Immaculate Conception Priory.

I get a lot of strange looks when people learn I live in a convent. And almost every time without fail, they have the same question for me: “Do you have a curfew?” To which I smile and tell them about my first week in the convent, when one of the sisters gave me a big wink and told me to go out that night, have a good time, “and don’t come back till 1 AM!” If that doesn’t assuage their skepticism, the fact that I get free room and board certainly does. In San Francisco, that’s solid gold.

Of all the DV communities, mine is the largest. I live with seventeen other women—fifteen religious sisters and two other Dominican Volunteers. Our community is multicultural: we have Mexican sisters, Irish sisters, a Korean sister, a Polish sister, and of course, American sisters. Many of the sisters are San Francisco natives who have seen the city transform before their very eyes. Our community is also intergenerational: being in our early twenties, we DVs bring the average age of the convent way down; the sisters, on the other hand, range in age from 32 to 89.

In general, community life has been good. I've matured immensely as a result of an intergenerational community. The sisters bring so much wisdom from their experiences in life and ministry. They have so many stories to share, from seeing John F. Kennedy the night before he was assassinated, to the much humbler story of Fluffy the (spoiled, beloved) cat. Years from now, I know I’ll think fondly to the times we gathered around the dinner table, simply enjoying each others’ presences. (I’ll also miss the five-second commute to my ministry at Immaculate Conception Academy, but that’s another story.)

Because our community is so big, there is almost always conflict. Personalities grate, for one thing. And things aren’t helped that nearly everyone has a packed schedule between ministry and social life. We recently had our April Community Chapter, where we convened to continue our discussion on Becoming Community. In our meeting, it was brought to our attention that in the hustle and bustle of spring, one sister felt that we seemed to have forgotten what it meant to be part of a community. To participate in common life—especially with regards to housekeeping.

“For example, this morning in the kitchen,” recounted the irate sister, “we had a mango bundt cake out for breakfast. And you know what? There were crumbs left all over the counter. Just left there, for someone else to clean up! And I know that many slices of the bundt cake were eaten, which meant multiple people took a slice and didn’t bother to clean it up! So thoughtless!”

“And here’s another good example,” agreed another sister. “The bananas. We know we’re a community of monkeys based on how quickly the bananas go. But sometimes, someone will take the last banana and they won’t replenish the supply—even though as we all know, there are bananas just waiting in the kitchen closet!”

Galvanized, various sisters started sharing other foibles they had noticed: the community room door left open and unattended—dangerous, in the city; or a sharp knife left in the dishpan, almost causing one sister to cut herself. Sometimes, the culprits even admitted their guilt: “That was me,” said one sister unabashedly when the butter dish was brought up. “All me.”

Some of these points might seem overly fastidious. Fussy, even. But in an intentional community, it’s these little annoyances, born from complacency, that build up and cause friction. They are a manifestation of a shift from a “We” mindset to an “I” mindset. It is perhaps an inevitable shift—but thankfully, not an irreversible one.

From my seat in the community circle, I couldn’t help but notice that the conversation taking place before me was almost exactly the same conversation that had taken place back in September, at my very first community chapter. One might be tempted to look at the two community meetings as evidence of a failed community, thanks to human nature and the impossibility of change. But perhaps there’s a way to look at the situation positively.

If there’s anything that living in community has taught me, it’s that we as humans fail. Constantly. No matter what goals we aspire to as a community (and believe me, we set pretty lofty goals this year), we will always fall short, leaving our community to deal with bundt cake crumbs and hair in the shower drain. It may be age, or forgetfulness, or even selfishness. But whatever the reason behind absent bananas or overflowing garbage bags, what gives me hope is that there is always an opportunity for an act of charity. For redemption. That act of charity might be cleaning up the crumbs myself—or it might be gently confronting my housemate to let her know what she has forgotten. Either way, if I take this opportunity to act with hope, mercy, and patience—and not just turn a complacent or disgusted eye the other way—our community wins. And together, we grow only stronger. In a way, this struggle is holy, for it is not unlike our own dynamic relationships with God.

In the three months I have left here, then, I’ll continue to do my best to be a member of my community. Together, we DVs and the sisters will continue to become community. And, while I’m at it, I’ll make sure I replenish those bananas when I snag the last one for “breakfast-on-the-go”

Hannah and some of her community

Embrace the Unknown

Brian Manjarrez is a current volunteer with the Hope Center in Racine Wisconsin

“At any given moment you have the power to say: This is not how the story is going to end.”

This quote has been very inspiring to me ever since I discovered it on my Kairos experience during my senior year of college. For those of you unfamiliar with Kairos, Kairos is a weekend retreat with the aim of providing participants the chance to "contemplate God's role in their lives.” The above quote pushed me to finish my senior year strong and has helped me many times during my volunteer year.

My ministry site is the HOPES Center. The HOPES Center helps those who are homeless and/or have a mental illness by providing counseling and other resources around Racine. It has been a truly eye opening experience to hear clients’ stories. I am very grateful that I have the opportunity to help clients when I can. My coworkers are amazing and have given me wise life advice. I am the only Dominican Volunteer this year in Racine, Wisconsin, which has been difficult at times. There are days that I wish I had another volunteer with me to share my experiences in Racine. I have the Kairos quote on the wall above my bed; this helps remind me every day that I can be sad and cry over the fact that I am the only volunteer – or I can change my approach. I have that power and I will change my story! After my midyear retreat I had to relearn that. It took a while but this is my story, these are my memories, and this is my journey. Sometimes you have to go through things alone to see the big picture. I have no regrets over my decision of coming to Racine. I knew the risks of being the only volunteer; I took the risk and I would probably do it again. I love my ministry site and would never change that.  

Brian and 2 of the sisters with whom he lives in community

Brian and Sr. Christin Tomy singing at a Hope Center event

Through this experience I have figured out my plans for next year. I have been accepted into Dominican University’s Graduate School of Social Work. My hope is to become a high school social worker or counselor. I hope to use what I have learned and experienced during my volunteer year in my future endeavors.

For those of you who are thinking about becoming a Dominican Volunteer, I say to you: Take the risk. Embrace the unknown. Have the power to choose how your story ends. This is a life changing experience. Lastly, have fun. 

Conquering Death

Liz Engle is currently a Dominican Volunteer in Chicago at Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly

                I have a friend who is Greek Orthodox, and when Orthodox Easter comes around, she spends the whole day telling everyone she meets, “Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!” She is so excited about Jesus’ resurrection that she has to tell each person she sees, regardless of whether they’re Christian (or for that matter, whether they understand Greek). She wants everyone to know that, as she puts it, “Christ has conquered death.” This was, after all, the first gospel, the first good news that the disciples set out to preach, and which we are supposed to preach through our ministry. But how do I preach that Christ has conquered death to people who so often feel that death is conquering them?

                One elder lost her husband a couple months ago. The two of them met in a workshop program for people with developmental disabilities and had been married for 43 years. After she was placed in a nursing home, he came to spend the day with her every day. He was bringing cupcakes to her on New Year’s Day when he had a heart attack and collapsed in the middle of the road. She fought DNR recommendations and had him brought to her nursing home; the staff even moved her roommate so he could stay in the other bed. Now that he’s gone, she’s left with a new roommate and a clock that’s no longer set 5 minutes fast, the way he liked it.

                Another elder is terrified that she’s losing her memory. She writes a detailed daily schedule in her calendar, then forgets to look at the calendar. By the end of a movie, she is unsure of how it began. She once told me that, in between our visits, she can’t remember what I look like, so she always imagines me as the Channel 7 weather girl. It’s only a matter of time before her landlord evicts her for forgetting to pay rent.

                A third elder received a bag of birthday gifts which is decorated with images of hot air balloons. After we’ve gone through the gifts and eaten our cupcakes, she examines the bag, entranced. “I always wanted to go up in a hot air balloon,” she says. “Although I suppose it’s a bit too late for that now.”

                It is in these moments – these times when I can’t tell an elder that it will get better or it will be alright or keep fighting or we can fix it, when I am reduced to simply holding hands and acknowledging pains – that I feel I am most preaching the message of Easter. Christ conquered death not by fighting death, but by dying. Death is part of the story, and God chose to live it, feel it, and suffer it because God knows that it is part of our story, too.

To See Our Own Light

Kay Samuelson currently serves as a Computer Literacy / Job Readiness ESL Instructor with The Opening Word Program on Long Island. She lives at St. Hugh’s Convent in Huntington Station, NY where she shares community with four Amityville Dominican Sisters and fellow volunteer Angela Chiappone.

Before I entered life as a Dominican Volunteer, my Catholic education was reduced to what I had learned in History of Christianity general requirements, been told by my Southern Baptist friends, and picked up in my readings of Saint Hildegard. Mystic, botanist, and all around empowered woman, Hildegard’s work called to me in my years as an undergrad. I found myself returning to her words in my first weeks as a volunteer. A single quote stood out to me as I contemplated my purpose in ministry: “We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening. To use our own voice. To see our own light.”

The Opening Word Literacy Program aims to unlock the language ability of immigrant women, providing them the key to future empowerment. My ministry position is to travel between all three of The Opening Word schools (Amityville, Huntington Station, and Wyandanch) to provide the students computer, technology, and job readiness classes. As a mild perfectionist and Type A worker, I entered into this ministry with structured lesson plans, regimented worksheets, and sharpened pencils at the ready. By God, I was prepared to enrich and educate; my purpose was clear – gifting female empowerment. Little did I know, the women of The Opening Word, my 90 students hailing from El Salvador, Haiti, Turkey, Jordan, Mexico, Dominican Republic, and elsewhere, would be the ones to give me my voice, to show me my own light.

The education program at all three schools focuses on holistic approach: addressing the needs of the individual, so they may be at their very best, so they may reach their goals. This has privileged me to one-on-one time with the women and this is what broke down my strict barriers of what I thought it meant to be a teacher. I discovered that my students have become my ray of shining light. In our pedestrian encounters, those moments outside of lesson plans, with pencils down, is where the most profound education happens. My El Salvadorian mothers have taken me on as their own kin, asking about grad school applications and giving me relationship advice in broken English (“If he is good, be good to him. But know that you are good too”). I help conversationally with their sentence structure so they may communicate their stories of migration, loss, and growth. My young Turkish and Afghani students educate me on where to find the local mosque, Arabic cultural differences, and how to compliment the other women in their native tongue (“Shaista di mashallah!”). We scour job search engines and community college registrars during breaks to find their options for next year. The education is specialized and special to all who encounter these driven yet loving women.

The St. Hugh of Lincoln Community celebrates Halloween!

I was unaware, as a Mid-West redhead who had only ever heard Spanish on television, of the true realities of our immigrant sisters and brothers. I was unaware of the radical work being done by American Catholics to help those men and women who simply want to take part in this national dream, to earn a living for themselves and their children and to give back to the communities surrounding them. The women of The Opening Word truly embody Hildegard’s message and can act as an example for all of us: Catholic, black, American, straight, Korean, trans, Pagan, white… whatever!  You must first take back your own listening, open your heart and mind to the knowledge others have to give. Then, use your own voice to give compassion to others. Finally, see your own light - know that a small act, something as simple as a conversation between classes, can change a life.

For more information about The Opening Word Program, please visit our website http://www.openingword.org/ or follow us on FB https://www.facebook.com/theopeningword/ !

Insha' Allah Part 2

Chris Bargeron currently serves at Catholic Charities Atlanta in Refugee Resettlement as an employment specialist with Dominican Volunteers USA. He lives in community at the Penn Community in Atlanta, GA with two Dominican sisters of Sinsinawa, a husband and wife with a one year old boy, a former Peace Corps/Episcopal Volunteer, and one other Dominican Volunteer, Holly Sammons.

                  They say that if you look at a picture at a different angle, something new will speak to you. Maybe you didn’t catch that shade of blue in the sky when you looked at it before or you didn’t realize the true emotion of someone’s mannerisms until you looked at it in a different angle. Last year when I was serving as an ESL teacher in Chicago, I was moved by this phrase, “Insha’Allah” which means “God willing.” I think I have a different perspective of that phrase after some of my experiences in Atlanta this year.

                  As an employment specialist, there are a lot of different moving parts that I need to control at the same time in order for a refugee to be happy. “Is that job close to home? Is it accessible by bus? Does it pay well? Can I work second shift?” are a few of the many questions I get asked in deciding if this is a job that a particular refugee wants. It gets tough sometimes— having to reject a refugee’s desires to work in a sushi restaurant because you know that they will not be able to live off of the unjust wages that most workers working in Asian restaurants in Georgia receive. Sometimes, with all my might, prayers and power, I am not able to sway refugees in the direction that I perceive as correct. Are these the type of outcomes that God wills? Am I doing something wrong in not trying harder? There’s an incredible amount of pressure trying not to “drop the ball” on these refugees. At any given time, I am helping out 30-35 refugees, at different points in their lives, find gainful employment in order to be self-sufficient, a term that is highly taken for granted by many people in this country.

                  I’ve realized that there are many aspects of life that are taken for granted by Americans in general. I have come to this realization on a deeper level after the catastrophic attacks in Paris. I had no idea that I would continue to be mentally impacted by this event for weeks and months afterward.

Above is a photograph I took before the Paris attacks of a wonderful little picture showing Atlanta endorsing the lives of refugees moving and resettling here, making Atlanta their home. It says, “Refugees, Welcome… Bring your families.”

                                                 

                  

Here is a picture I took of the same place, three days after the Paris attacks.

                  As I drove past this, my heart sank. Not to mention, I’m living in a country that has condemned not only Syrian refugees, but all refugees. Syrian refugees were being denied to come into this country, to receive benefits, food stamps, to live. I thought, “What a disgusting moment in time for America.”

                  It was a rough time to wake up every morning and go to work knowing that I might be hated by many, many people that don’t even know me around the country. It was hard for me to also hear that fellow resettlement agencies had received death threats and cryptic phone calls in the weeks following the Paris attacks. I was wondering at the time if God willed these incredulous acts and responses, and if some kind of devastating attack on my resettlement agency would happen because of such hate towards ones that are what, escaping fear themselves and the ones helping them rebuild a new life? I also remembered that God also gave each individual free will. To me, the thought of each person having free will allowed me to be peaceful just the slightest bit and continue my work every day. I know that God will protect not only me but also all of us trying to rebuild the lives of those displaced.

                 To make it even better, during those 4-6 weeks of what I want to consider as a dark moral time in America, I had the incredible honor to place a Syrian refugee in a job. That was the moment in time that made everything worth it. And it continues to drive my passion to continue to help these refugees gain employment, live a life that they deserve to live and not have to fear anymore.

                This is a time in America to become more educated about who lives around us and about the refugees that come to this country to live a better life, to live a life without fear. It is not the time to be shunning the existence of those who haven’t even committed crimes. If things were to turn for the worst in our own country, I’m sure that many of us wouldn’t want to be denied entrance into other countries. I continue to be blessed everyday with refugees that come in with different stories and journeys with the same common goal. They want to be able to provide for their family. They want to be able to know the feeling of living how an average American feels, without fear. So I will continue to advocate for refugees and to be their rock and their helper in their continuing journeys, Insha’Allah. But I know that God will always will my actions.

For more information about refugee resettlement and other services Catholic Charities Atlanta provides, please visit catholiccharitiesatlanta.org

Both Chris Bargeron and Holly Sammons, work in Catholic Charities Atlanta serving in refugee resettlement.