A Morning-Forward-Falling Hum

---

I have been doing a fair amount of creative writing recently. And I think, though doctored up for poetic voice, the passage that follows might sum up my intention for this blog:

In a dream, I found history’s last pedestal. And I tell you, with all my friends and their friends, measured from end to end, we had moved and proved that strength is measured in numbers organized.



The sleep peeled away slower from my eyes this morning. It might have been the decaffeinated coffee that I had, or maybe I woke out of synch with my REM cycles. Whatever the reason, as I sat on my patio in the San Antonio morning sun, I was struck by the soundtrack of my neighborhood. I became aware of the constant humming of the freeways that encircle my neighborhood: When looking at a map of San Antonio, the city makes a sort of bull’s-eye. It is encircled by two highways, split down the middle by two, and a number stem from the center, going in diagonal directions. This is a city that moves. I have no idea how, throughout the past 3 months, I have been unaware of the noise this infrastructure creates: it is a constant, dull, and forward moving hum.

The past month may be compared to this sound. I have been moving: in many directions. Work with COPS/Metro is challenging me to reconceive the role of congregations in urban environments today. After our GOTV effort, I have been analyzing voter data in varying precincts, city districts, and neighborhoods surrounding COPS/Metro neighborhoods. The constant question I am asking myself and those with whom I work is: How can we better understand our congregation because of this experience? I have begun to work more closely with a single congregation. The process of working as an organizer for COPS/Metro involves getting to know a congregation at its very base: the congregation members. I have begun to set up one-on-ones, I have begun to have those conversations where individuals, groups and organizations begin to question and understand themselves as systematic structures in a community.

Life in community is challenging. And it is changing. At times, it is a process that involves sacrifice of one’s autonomy. It involves a new sense of accountability. For myself, this is challenging. I feel that my four years at college have taught me, among many other things, how to be independent; how to balance living with others, while taking care of myself, my desires, my needs, and my problems. Our society has taught us to be self-sufficient, and it is a challenge, I think, for us to be dependent and accountable to others for our ways of life. And most specifically, for me, this has manifested itself in small, more minute behaviors: arriving on time to social events, to eating habits, and most especially to establishing and maintaining the balance between work and community life (I have yet to fully understand the balance between taking care of one’s occupation, one’s self, one’s community and one’s relationships with those whom are very near and dear yet far away).

And yet I find peace in the little moments. I find peace in reading others’ thoughts about this balance, and the challenge of carrying out one’s passions. I recently posted a brief reflection upon a passage by Manfred Max-Neef. It was a slower afternoon at the office, and being toward the end of the week, I was able to finish some reading (see the previous post for full quotation). The sun slanted through the office windows and the Westside of San Antonio took on a bit more of a glitter than it usually does. This morning too, as I sat on my patio amongst the humming of the freeways, I was reading “Barefoot Economics.” Again, as I flew in from my visit to Michigan during the Thanksgiving break, I was welcomed by the city of San Antonio. As we approached the airport, you are provided with a wide view of the city. It spreads for miles. In each of these moments I was given a sense of peace. A sense that the work I am doing here is good work. That it is meaningful. First, through the airplane window: as the city spread before me I was given a sense that I am coming to a place that is getting to know me (and vice versa). I am investing in San Antonio through its places, its people and its landscape. I have left bits and pieces of me throughout. Second, through the morning-forward-falling hum. It reminds me of how I am one among many: that my work will only mean something if it is connected to something larger and that no one person is nearly as strong as two working together. Last, in the office:

After I had read Max-Neef’s thoughts on the power of uncovering those issues and mysteries that are within and around us all individually, I stood up. And I made a cup of coffee. It was one of moments where the idea of continuing on and reading would have cheapened the truth of those words. Our lives are distinctly individual. But I am constantly reminded of how my problems are not my problems, but rather they are experiences that resonate or fall in discord with others around me. My concern for my community pushes me to believe certain truths about the world. Who I am, though individual, is found only in contrast or commonality with others around me. We live in society. And specifically, those who work for the betterment of it are much stronger when they work, and the goals are set within, community levels.

---