Kim,
I appreciate you comments and sentiments. I can only speak for myself regarding IMPACT. I think it is a great organization. Because of IMPACT the discussion of affordable housing is being discussed in the news and in city and county government meetings and in budget discussions. I'm grateful. There is still much to be done. It is such a complex matter - it is daunting to wrap your arms around it.

My frustration with the  IMPACT process is that I don't think you get the best suggesstions about what the local social injustice issues are by talking to middle class suburbanites (and I'll put myself in that group). I have a greater sense of what some of the challenges are for the working poor because I work with them in my current job. Last year at our IMPACT house meeting discussions, most of the folks had a hard time identifying with the issues or the people we are trying to help. It wasn't that they didn't care, they just had no experience on which to draw from.  


That's why it's been hard for me to work up the energy to engage in more "questioning/listening" sessions with people of our congregation's demographic makeup. I keep saying to myself that if I'm going to invest more time on social justice issues - I need to be having these conversations with employees at work - who are living with economic struggles every day. That's why at last years IMPACT meeting when we were voting on issues to tackle  - I wanted to know how the church across the isle from us was voting  - because I knew from their conversations and demographics that they were more familiar with the issues and challenges of the poor than our church was. I was happy to throw my vote in with theirs because I felt they had a better grasp of the issues.

I think IMPACT needs to be talking to the people they are trying to help, to find out what the issues are that need to be addressed. I know on some levels they are doing that. Some congregations are better suited to this than congregations such as Peace.

I also thought it was odd, that more of the people we were trying to help - weren't present for the IMPACT meetings. (Maybe it's because they weren't notified or invited or weren't affiliated with a congregation - maybe they couldn't come because they were working a second job or didn't have transportation ----does the city bus system have night service to Charlottesville Performaning Arts Center? But I think initiating change is more effective if the people we are trying to help have some ownership and greater involvement in the process.


My more active participation on social justice is done most often through work. Example: I've come to learn about the struggles of non-native English speakers in Charlottesville - people that get routed here through the International Rescue Committee through our offering of ESL classes at work. These folks want to work and  are hard workers when they are able to grasp enough of the language to be able to get a job. They have so many hurdles to overcome - affordable housing being just the tip of the iceburg.

UVA just implimented a total on-line job application process which is a huge barrier to folks working in trades and manual labor jobs such as housekeeping....jobs that don't require computer literacy to do, but which require that you have computer literacy in order to apply for the job. Now, to find out about job opportunities -you need to be able to master the computer, the internet, and be able to type, etc. Yes- applicants have 24/7 access to search and apply for jobs - but that only means something if you have access to computers in the first place and know how to use one. And if this is hard for folks who speak English, imagine the hardship of finding a job for non-native English speakers. (This is my current frustration with University Human Resources - and they are taking some steps to help people who have no computer skills to type job applications). However,helping these folks find the right building to go to and ask the right questions to access the help is problematic. I'm working with the Charlottesville Adult Education Center who sponsors many of the ESL classes to brainstorm ways of helping people with this new challenge. This is just one example of social justice issues that I see through my work. But after dealing with issues like this all day long - I have little energy left over for dealing with it on nights and weekends through Church and IMPACT. I'm doing what I can on a smaller scale, within my own realm of influence. I've been trying to think of things that will require a larger scale support network that are more suitbable for an IMPACT study.

Ed sees through his daily work - how the problems of substance abuse play a factor in people's being able to cope and survive, socially and economically. And we both see the problems with the lack of sufficient mental health services in Charlottesville - because mental health problems often contribute to substance abuse and are a factor in many employee relations issues that impact one's ability to hold down a job. Ed raised the issue of limited mental health services in IMPACT meetings last year - but when that issue got lumped in with everyone else's issues - it got dropped. It probably needs to be raised again.

So, I'm probably one of the people that falls into your "luke warm" category at Peace. I haven't been very responsive to your e-mails about IMPACT. And it's not that I don't care or that I'm not committed. It's just that I'm working on social justice issues in another venue and it wears me out.

I also have to admit that I've become a little cynical over the last few years. Example: I have worked so hard to help people aquire the skills that would enable them to get better paying jobs. (example: I schedule computer classes and the department pays for the classes and allows the employees work release time to attend them. The individuals say they want to come, and then don't show up. I rarely get the curtesy of a phone call to let me know why they didn't show. (And it's really bad when you've set up a class for 12 and lined up a very capeable instructor and only 2 people show up). I even provide pick up and drop off transportation to the class! I helped a person get in to a GED class. I worked with the instructor to have a volunteer tutor to work with them one -on-one in the only subject matter area that they still needed to pass. The person just decided on their own, to only come one out of the two days a week to class and chose not to take the GED exam when we shceuled it and paid for it.

We (my office HR team) help people with completing job applications and I invest time getting them oriented into a job once hired. Then they prove to be unreliable and find ways to abuse the system - abuse sick leave, etc.

So part of me feels compassion and sees true injustices and am compelled to respond and do what I can. (Support and Participate in IMPACT initiatives and continue to help the people I come across daily at work). Part of me sees that in the US - there is a sense of entitlement and an unwillingness on the part of the people we are trying to help - to do their share to help themselves. Some people continue to make bad choices repeatedly - never seeming to learn from their mistakes.  And at some point I'm unwilling to enable their behavior any further.  It's a hard tension to hold. And I've been struggling with it a lot lately, due to some frustrations at work.

With the mission work in India - I saw poverty and social injustice on another scale all together. I guess I felt even more compelled to help there - because those folks had NO safety net. Even the poorest of the poor in the US have more than the folks we saw in the tribal areas of India.

As a passionate follower of Christ - I know I need to do my part to address injustice when and where I see it. But I learned from the song we were taught in India, that God doesn't expect us to do it all. That belongs to Him. He just expects us to do our part - the part he's gifted us for and called us to. My call has been to help those in India, and to help those he's placed in my path at work. At church I have felt called to invest my time, tallents and gifts in other leadership areas.

It's clear he's called you, Kim, to involvement in IMPACT, just as he's called Sue and Diane to PACEM. I'm grateful for your leadership in IMPACT on behalf of Peace, and for your communication efforts and for your reminders to sign up and go to the major IMPACT meetings, which I am more than happy to do.

And I'll make a better effort in the week ahead to raise the IMPACT initiative with my triad and with the prayer shawl ministry. Both groups had really focused needs recently - so I didn't want to draw them away from their central purpose without some forethought and communication.

So that's my perspective. Please continue to do what you have a passion to do and what God is calling you to. That's all He asks - be faithful and do your part. The rest you have to leave in His hands. And although it's hard (this is MY biggest challenge) try not to judge others. We don't know what's going on in their lives and what they might be involved in outside of Peace. So just because they don't jump on a particular band wagon - doesn't mean that they're not following God's call in their own lives.

Deb

Eric & Deb,

Thank you for your comments.  With MLK speaking to me from the past and you in the present, I reluctantly affirm that working in social justice ministry is a calling regardless of how ineffective and unprepared I may feel (I know, this is where God comes in, but patience is not one of my virtues).

I am still convicted by the notion that we don't really understand the social injustices in our community because we don't live it.  As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said "Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world?"  This certainly feeds my  long-standing fear about organized religion.  Now that I've begun to grasp the enormity of God, I desperately want Peace to continue to step up and out to help save the world.  

Deb,

I know I have a biased perspective, but I especially appreciated the 'stewardship' aspects of your sharing. Nothing I would add or subtract. except to offer my prayers, and encouragement.

Kim,

I am all for disorganized religion, if that means giving up what is man-contrived rather than God-inspired. Having seen a spiritual community in Honduras, and a proto-type spiritual sub-community within Peace try to emerge, I don't ascribe the problem to community or organization, as much as I do to institution and structure and order being used to exclude and partition and control what God has intended to include and unify and set free.

***

Can an organization -- Peace -- that so easily chooses to cling to stereotypes and aphorisms that have outlived their usefulness, be a force that challenges the status quo? Not without stepping out -- probably as individuals as Deb has, knowing that they have a spiritual network to nurture and support them. Is this, then, the role of the church -- organized, or disorganized -- just to be the 'body' of Christ? To extend across all boundaries and -- to borrow word from Deb -- point to God? A loving, and caring God?