Monday, January 16, 2017

Building Beloved Community

Building beloved community.

The phrase has been ringing through my head all day. 

I remember during my Mission Year during our National Orientation in Atlanta we walked to the MLK Jr. National Historic Site. There was a flame encircled in brick, forever bubbling from the ground, with a plaque that read "The Eternal Flame symbolizes the continuing effort to realize Dr. King's ideals for the 'Beloved Community' which requires lasting personal commitment that cannot weaken when faced with obstacles." 

Building beloved community. 

"I want to canvas on D'vyne's street and bring her coffee," I whisper to Ruth. We were down at the Summit Lake Community Center gathering with other local leaders to hand out flyers to let people know about our community meeting this Thursday. 

Our community council is a crew of unlikely partners, all brought together by a deep care for the Summit Lake community. We've revitalized the monthly neighborhood meetings, with a desire to build greater connection in our neighborhood. And here we were, 9am with Dunkin' Donuts in hand, getting ready to go out in pairs on MLK Jr. Day and hand out flyers.

"LET'S GO TEAM!" I screech in excitement as we walk outside in the cold. My enthusiasm is met by laughter, but I just can't contain it. So many people I respect and care about walking around talking to my neighbors whom I respect and care about about a community meeting that I respect and care about. It's like a Director of Communication and Advocacy's dream!

My team is Jeremy, Ruth and I and we get in my car and park at my house because we were given Long St. as a canvassing route. I'm really excited about it because it gives me an excuse to meet a lot of neighbors I haven't gotten a chance to meet organically, and a chance to visit neighbors I haven't seen in a while. Darren meets us so then we're a team of four, splitting up the street and taking sides. Ruth and I are having a blast, walking from door to door, cracking jokes, making Instagram stories. I watch her be a complete rock star, telling people about our community meeting, the importance of their perspectives, and an invitation to come join us. She leads in confidence at such a young age. 

We visit our Girls Studio friends, I see some AfterSchool loves, and we connect with parents, grandparents, teens--people in our community who remember Summit Lake in many different seasons. We hear concerns for our community and curiosity about the neighborhood association. We are connecting people, connecting story, sharing life. 

Somewhere at the end of Long St. I realize that we are building beloved community.
 

*  *  *

We're back at the community center and Jeremy and Darren have left and it's just Ruth and I. "I want to go bring D'vyne some of this coffee," I state. Aliyah joins us and we hop in my car with the coffee to bring some to D'vyne. It feels like we're having a mini Girls Studio reunion and I love it. 

We pull up to her house and hop out of the car and stumble onto the porch, rap on the door to see an unfamiliar face opening the curtain, asking who we are.

"We're here for D'vyne--it's Aliyah, Ruth, and Amber." We hear the message relayed to the adjoining room and then we hear an excited scream and D'vyne tumbles out of the house and wraps us in a hug. We're laughing, just laughing, shoving Dunkin' Donuts coffee in her face and she's grabbing her shoes and vanilla coffee creamer and Mama comes out and says she can go wherever because she trusts us. 

All of life is but an adventure.

We end up at Save-a-Lot because it's Aliyah and Ruth's mom's birthday so we decide to make a surprise birthday cake for her. She likes chocolate a lot but there's no chocolate icing so we choose brownies and powdered sugar instead. I grab chocolate pudding, Ruth grabs candles, D'vyne grabs frozen Chinese food and we're hustling through the check-out line. 

Finally we're in my house taking off our shoes and letting out a sigh of relief. This space is a safe place--a place where we've laughed and cried, a place where we've met for Studio, a central hub, a hang out spot. They said they just wanted to chill, and so we chill. We bake a surprise birthday cake. I make us lunch. We take a nap. They do the dishes. We laugh. We live life.

We are building beloved community.

*  *  *

Later in the day I'm at our AfterSchool volunteer orientation, laughing with our incoming interns and volunteers. One is a high school friend of mine, two are interns from Malone, and the third is stepping into being Program Director while I begin to do more Communications and Advocacy work at South Street Ministries. We play a couple of games, eat pizza and wings, and talk about AfterSchool as a program. I think about the AfterSchool families I visited today while canvassing, telling them that program was starting this week (to which one grandma firmly said: "Oh, they'll be there!" as her four grandkids buzzed around her asking question after question). 

In the same day I've connected with AfterSchool families and AfterSchool volunteers. It's such an unlikely partnership, but that's what we're about at South Street. We're about putting people that don't make sense together into relationship because we believe that God is there in those in-between spaces. We believe that shared risks are the vulnerability on which trust, empathy, and healing are built. We believe that renewing our community is a process that is always undergoing and never complete. We believe in Jesus, who taught us to be a neighbor--who taught us to center our lives and decisions to include and amplify the voices of the most marginalized.

After orientation David insists that we go get the mango drink at the taqueria that I rave about. We pile into the South Street van and head to the plaza in Firestone Park, only to find that the place is closed for the day. Thankfully the little grocery store next to it is open, so we walk out with three Jarritos and a wave to the local store owner.  

We are building beloved community.

*  *  *

"Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Mom
Happy birthday to you!"

My heart is so full of the laughter and love for this place, for these people, for this work. 

We are building beloved community as an active verb and not a passive, idealistic noun. 

What a raw, clumsy, tangibly beautiful life. 






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