the value of conversation

Admittedly I have neglected sharing my experience with you all. After you all caught your respective flights out of New Orleans my internship experience began to truly take shape. Prior to this summer, I had no organizing experience, no real experience with the labor movement, so my time here has been quite eye-opening as I have begun to discover this whole new world. After much reflection, I offer to you all some thoughts about my time here so far.

As a person who has had several years of full-time ministry work, I have struggled this summer. The challenges I have recognized have been mostly with my lack of awareness of the realities of life in post-Katrina New Orleans, struggling with feelings of guilt surrounding the privileges I have, feeling restricted by the shortness of this internship, and experiencing the realities of the limited resources that this one staff member office has available. Even though as time has gone on these struggles have not disappeared, time has provided many valuable conversations and experiences that have moved me from a sense of being paralyzed by these struggles to an awareness of the beauty of being able to bring all of who I am (struggles, gifts, etc.) to each day. I appreciate this awareness because I feel that it makes it possible for me to be in communion with the people I encounter each day. As we attempt to be in solidarity with those around us and to enter into relationships in a spirit of God's love, we need to move beyond that which is paralyzing. (As I have tried to move beyond that which I have recognized as paralyzing, I wonder what things (whether real or perceived) paralyze other individuals and movements for social change? How do we move beyond that which holds us back?)

At this point in my reflection on my internship thus far what I have valued most have been the conversations that I have been a part of. Conversations about health care, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and recovery of N.O., public housing, community outreach, religion, forced evictions, social justice, and racism are the ones which immediately come to mind as the most powerful.

It is through conversations that my eyes have been opened to see injustice and oppression. It is through conversations that I experience God in the midst of this place in which I find myself. It is through conversations that I find hope. It is through conversations that we are going to be able to come together to change the systems and structures so that all people can know justice and peace.

It seems to me that today often times it is our fear of conversation (of open dialog with the "other") that paralyzes us.

I look forward to the conversations that I will have during my last days here as well as those which we will share during debrief.