Helpless to Helpful, One Block at Time
As an empowered, white young woman with a college degree and healthy dose of idealism, the world is my oyster. But instead of embracing this freedom, I love to feign displeasure at all of the overwhelming choices I have to make on a daily basis:
As much as I pretend to get all flustered and overwhelmed and indignant that I am “too empowered,” the truth is, I love being in control. What I don’t love is not knowing what to do with this control. I want quick answers and color coded set of instructions.
But outside the protected walls of kindergarten and playtime, these manageable chunks are hard to come by and after a guilt-ridden semester abroad I found myself completely paralyzed, unable to determine block number one.
In the midst of depression and guilt, Love began to speak to me, to urge me out of my shell of shame. I discovered that regardless of my circumstances or how I felt about a situation or all of the million and one factors that conspired to render me frozen and hopeless, I could still choose love. You probably all realized this years ago and I'm just a bit of late bloomer, but I found (and still find) it incredibly empowering to know that I can choose my response. I can’t choose whether or not the world is fair or children die of starvation in Nicaragua (well, not as directly as I’d like), but I can choose my attitude and my next steps.
Instead of watching helplessly as my guilt spun out of control, I stopped doing the things that made me feel guilty. Shopping made me feel sick and guilty after a semester of living out of a backpack, so I decided not to buy clothes for the rest of the year. My roommates teased me and tempted me with shopping excursions and confounded looks, but I found peace in the fact that my actions were beginning to match my beliefs.
I discovered there were many ways I could help the poor, live more sustainably, and incorporate the ideals I had learned about in Costa Rica. But instead of knowing what I should do, but remaining ensnared in guilt, anger, and despair, I actually started to change, to act, to live. I volunteered my time. I began to let my mom and my friends back into my life. I was more intentional about what I bought and how I spent my money. I started going to church again not because I felt guilty or thought it was something I was supposed to do, but because I missed the community. And I didn’t fight every word the pastor said. In small ways, I found I could make a difference.
It was these manageable chunks—one step at a time, one foot in front of the other—that helped me climb reluctantly out of my post-study abroad poverty stupor.
Regardless of what phase of life you’re in, from complacent to content to contrite, I think these manageable chunks of love are the best way to bring about lasting change, the best way to learn to choose love. And I guess this isn’t so much of a new epiphany for me, but more of an addendum to my early days of block numbering.
It’s these baby, baby steps of selflessness and compassion that spur us toward becoming more loving, more compassionate, and more fully engaged in our world.
The knowledge that I can choose to love and empower and give through my thoughts and actions is has been incredibly redemptive for me. I can make a difference little by little. I can learn and grow little by little. I can love little by little.
Hound me later if you think I’m being trite, but welcome to my favorite obsession: “manageable chunks of love.”
Helpful?
February 2007
The acidic pineapple assaulted my mouth and I could barely keep my eyes open. It was 6:30 a.m. We walked on the cobbled dirt road past children in smoothed school uniforms, their dark eyes shining brilliantly in their smiling faces. They looked at me like I was an alien, a goddess, Britney Spears. How could I teach them English? How could I teach them anything? I pleaded with God that I could be helpful, if just for an hour. A year later and I still wanted more than anything to helpful; it’s just that I no longer pleaded with God.
Worship Wednesday
The tempo increased and she recognized the tune of her favorite worship song. The one about new life. She shut her eyes tightly and waited for the Holy Spirit.
Padre, Padre, Padre she murmured, Father, Father, Father, holding her hands out as if a shiny prize would be placed in the deep grooves of her palms if only she believed hard enough. Her body shook with excitement. She swayed slightly as the Spirit descended upon her.
Ven, Espiritu Santo, she entreated. Come, Holy Spirit.
As the words of worship flowed over her body, she relaxed. It was just her and God. His love coursed through her veins, speeding her heartbeat to a quick tempo like the maracas that were being shaken onstage. She felt God inside her chest. He was the air that she breathed, filling her lungs, her heart. She didn’t even feel the tears rolling down her soft cheeks. She could stay here forever, swaying rhythmically and receiving from an All-loving God.
Eres todopoderoso, she exhaled, You are all-powerful.
Her hands shot up in the air as she reached up to Heaven, feeling closer to God as she stretched her finger tips away from her own tired, sinful body and toward His love. Her heart beat with the music, with praise. Peace rained over her as He reigned in her.
Padre, Padre, Padre, she whispered again. Father, Father, Father.
He filled her as she emptied herself. The tempo slowed and everything seemed to hang in that moment, in that space between the heart of God and the heart of man.
The song ended. Her swaying stopped; she dropped her outstretched hands, opened her eyes and blinked. The church was clearing out. She quickly wiped her tears, smoothed her skirt, and went on with the rest of her day.
*In lieu of T.S. Tuesday (which I apologize I did not get to post yesterday), I was going to post a tardy Tuesday, but instead decided to go with the more timely, and still alliterative, Worship Wednesday. You'll have to catch my latest Eliot musings next Tuesday. This first-ever Worship Wednesday describes an experience I had worshipping in a Pentecostal church in Costa Rica with my host mom. Hope you enjoyed it.