Passover Remembered Unpacked

Passover Remembered…..

by Alla Bozarth-Campbell

 

I find myself repeatedly going back to this poem that was read for us at orientation. Its a great poem, and very appropriate to what the YAGM year truly is. And the further into my experience I become, the more I'm starting to see just how appropriate it really is and understand and read it in a completely new way.

 

Pack nothing.

Bring only your determination to serve

and your willingness to be free.

 

When first hearing this stanza I think I took it in more of a literal context then I truly realized. Pack nothing: from the instant I left for Chicago I found myself regretting how much stuff I had brought. I usually am on the lighter end when it comes to packing, but for some reason there were things that I thought I couldn't live without for a year. I was greatly mistaken. By the time I did land in South Africa I took it upon myself to completely unpack and reevaluate everything I had decided to bring. Needless to say I cut down what I truly needed vs. what I had wanted by over half. But still I don't think this line simply applies to the material things we carry with us when we go. We must also come with not an empty mind, but an open heart. For if you came with an empty mind to simply be filled then you wouldn't truly be walking in accompaniment with your host communities. Your heart though must be open, and most of all vulnerable. Allowing yourself to be truly vulnerable is probably one of the most terrifying feelings in the world. More then any adrenaline junkies craziest nightmare. Yet it's in that vulnerable space that we find and learn who and what we truly are. Maybe that is what is the most terrifying about it?

Bring only your determination to serve and your willingness to be free: well isn't that why i've given a year of my life as a volunteer?? Wrong. I've found since being in country that this line has changed in meaning greatly for me. We know that YAGM isn't about "fixing" or "doing" when it comes to the year of service, but our American enculturation is so deeply engrained for most of us that we still have this crazy idea that we are going somewhere in the world to "do" something. Then you get there, and you finally realize that "being" really is why you are here and your host community hasn't planned for you to be "doing" anything. It's at this point that I found myself reaching for familiar comforts. Technology, electronics, and anything else that could establish some sense of security in my desire to be accomplishing something or at least "doing" something productive in my minds eye. As the story goes, this just made me even more miserable. I had thrown up a barrier. I had divided myself from my host community by reaching for these comforts. What in the hell had I gotten myself into? This practice went on for a couple days with the feelings of "what the hell" coming and going as I moved through out my day. Then finally it clicked for me. I realized the barriers I was placing between my community and myself by taking part in what I found to simply be comfortable norms. That day I put up a new barrier. A barrier between myself and my own comforts. I forced myself to starting living alongside my community and its members. It was then, in that space, that I found new meaning in the last line of this stanza. I had found a new willingness to be removed from the comforts of my technology and electronics and to be truly free in and among my people. It made all the difference. Almost instantly I found the dark areas turning into light and began to find a new comfort in vulnerability.

 

Don't wait for the bread to rise.

Take nourishment for the journey, be eat standing.

Be ready to move at a moment's notice.

 

In many ways I think I have spent the entirety of my life doing just the opposite of this. I have spent the last five years of my life merely going through the motions to get by, waiting for the bread to rise. I went to college and got my degree. Never mind the fact that I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to go to college in the first place, let alone what I really wanted to study. I got a job, and not only a job but one if the field I had studied in college. It was even shaping up to turn into a rather successful career path if I so chose to make it one. Needless to say I chose a different path. One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from the Martin Sheen film "The Way". It goes something a little bit like this, "You don't choose a life, you live one." Life is not about all the planning we have been conditioned to understand it as. You get your diploma, you go to college, you get your degree, you get a job, you start a career, you start a family, you retire, and you die. Is that really what life and living are? Instead, follow what your heart is telling you, do something you love with your one wild and precious life. For me, when all the planning and "choosing" were put aside and I started living through and listening to my heart is when life really begin to happen. With that you must be ready to move at a moments notice and be ok with it, because you can never truly know where it is your heart and your passion will take you in this world.

 

Do not hesitate to leave your old ways behind-

fear, silence, submission.

Only surrender to the need of the time-

love justice and walk humbly with your God.

 

My old ways were exactly that, fear, silence, and submission. Every person has hopes, dreams, and aspirations. The difference comes when people decide to chase them or not. "Only surrender to the need of the time", the need of this time for me was to surrender those very traits and its been the greatest thing I've ever done for myself. For the first time in my life I am chasing my hopes and my dreams. Ive laid fear of failure aside and allowed myself to made vulnerable. Ive stopped submitting to the doubts in my mind and started living out the what if's rather then regretting them.

 

Do not take time to explain to the neighbors.

Tell only a few trusted friends and family members.

Then begin quickly, before you have time

to sink back into old slavery.

 

When reading this stanza I can't help but feel like I have spent my entire life, "explaining to the neighbors". Until the decision to do YAGM I had always spent my entire life seeking everyones approval. As much as I tried to convey that I really didn't care. I placed expectations on myself that others for the most part hadn't, but I used them as a crutch and an excuse not to fully live my life. When it comes down to it it's only a few very close friends and my family that I need worry myself with. And even at that, I still have to live my life and go where i'm feeling called regardless of anyone else's thoughts or perceptions of what's best for me. Beginning quickly is the key. When you take too much time to think and ponder things you already know are right in your heart and mind, you convince yourself that what you want and your plan is whats best for you. Comfort and security now, can and likely will become its own prison later.

 

Set out in the dark.

I will send fire to warm and encourage you.

I will be with you in the fire, and i will be with you in the cloud.

 

I can't help but feel like the darkness that is spoke of in this stanza is your expectations. As humans we all have them. Alongside our prejudices and single stories of different and foreign places to us. When you set out truly in the dark to these things and ideas is when you start seeing things for what they really are. Rather then through the lens you've placed in front of your vision.

 

You will learn to eat new food

and find refuge in new places.

I will give you dreams in the desert

to guide you safely to the place you have not yet seen.

The stories you tell one another around the fires in the dark

will make you strong and wise.

 

As human beings we of coarse need physical nourishment to survive, but its not merely our bodies that must learn to eat new foods. Our souls too must me nourished and fed in order for us to survive. In new foreign places, it can be hard. You become so consumed with merely surviving you forget to take time to nurture the part of you that in the end makes you who you are. Old practices and routines mostly likely are no longer an option. Moving to South Africa I lost my greatest source of nourishment and refugee all in one fellow swoop. My Montana mountains and wilderness is was no longer there. Things like hikes, bike rides, and hikes instantly were snatched away from me. The freedom to aimlessly wander the streets at night amongst your own thoughts, gone. You gain a whole new appreciation for what you once had. But eventually, you find new food and new refuge in places that you maybe never expected to. Amongst some of the darkest, loneliest days you can usually find a dream. Something that pulls at your heart and shows you a glimpse of light. The further you follow that light the more you begin to see and understand things that you may have never thought of or felt. Yet you had to be here, in this place and this space, to see and feel it. Things you have spent your entire life trying to understand, all of a sudden become clear as day.

This entire journey is about stories. Its about your story, their story, and ultimately our story. It's in those stories that we find ourselves. And it's through those stories that we help others to see their own stories they may have never written otherwise. Life is a book of many chapters. With many characters, settings, and beautiful imagery. The plot is a never ending story line into eternity that has now climax and no fall. Just a continuation from one chapter into the next.

 

Outsiders will attack you, and some follow you

and at times you will get weary and turn on each other

from fear, fatigue and blind forgetfulness.

 

There were a lot of people before I left for my YAGM year that questioned why I was doing this. I had a career path well lined up for a very safe, secure and comfortable future. It wasn't that path for me though. I still every once and awhile meet people here who don't understand what it is I'm doing here or why I'm even here at all. The fact that someone wants to learn about the people here is a hard pill to swollen for some South Africans. I also can't begin to express the amount of support I have received. From home, from friends, from my new family here in country. They have all been an amazing stronghold since day one. A stronghold I will continue to need and lean to during my times of fear, fatigue, and blind forgetfulness that are sure to come.

 

You have been preparing for this

for hundreds of years.

 

This one for me was pretty simple. My entire life, everything I have done. The good, the bad, the things I'm proud of and those I'm not so proud of, have all been leading me to here. I would not be the person I am today or have made it to this point in my life with out the knowledge and wisdom I have gained from all those experiences. I have no regrets, just a lot of experiences.

 

I am sending you into the wilderness to make a new way

and to learn my ways more deeply.

 

I have spent my entire life trying desperately to follow MY way. This YAGM year was the first step in my truly living life to live it rather then plan it. And for the first time I'm living my life while listening. There are no more plans and really no more directions, just the here and the now. What comes next will present itself when it's time. For now I'm learning the ways of life, living, and being among creation on a deeper level.

 

Some of you will be so changed by weathers and wanderings

that even your closest friends will have to learn your features

as though for the first time.

 

Within hours of landing in country I felt myself begin to change. For me personally, I don't know how I could go through this experience and not change. I have begin to see the world and its people in an entirely knew light already and its only been six weeks. The amount of growth and personal change I will continue to go through on this journey is very likely to change my identity. I will come home a different person then you all said goodbye to in August. There may be parts of the new me that some people don't understand. My closest family is going to have to meet me for the first time in many ways. At the same time I know my family and close friends will be right there beside me when I return. And my understanding of them and my own appreciation for the love they give to me, will be grown and embraced more then ever before.

 

Some of you will not change at all.

 

This statement is not the case for me. Yet it is a good reminder to myself that some of my fellow YAGM all around the world may not change. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Each one of us will have unique stories and experiences to share when we return home. It's impossible to compare or judge one experience with another.

 

Some will be abandoned by your dearest loves

and misunderstood by those who have know you since birth

who feel abandoned by you.

 

This fact has been something I have had to come to accept since arriving here in South Africa. As I stated before, I have already grown and changed on a very profound level. The amount of personal growth and change that will continue through out this year will redefine who I am. There are people back home who will be continue with there day to day routines the entire time I am here. The fact of the matter is that they may not like or understand the person I have become through this experience. I can only hope that I find ways to help them see and understand the changes in me just as I have come to identify and understand them for myself.

 

Some will find new friendships in unlikely faces,

and old true friends as faithful and true

as the pillar of God's flame.

 

I can't echo this statement enough. Sixty five young people from all across the United States came together for one weeks time this August. The friendships and bonds formed in that time are those of friends who have known each other for a lifetime. They have become the friends that you can go for months, even years, without seeing and when reunited it's as if you saw them yesterday. For this blessing I am grateful. Some of us have grown closer then others, and will continue our friendships more intentionally then others. But at the end of the day we are all YAGM 2013-2014 and are all brothers and sisters in christ forever.

 

Sing songs as you go,

and hold close together.

You may at times grow confused

and lose your way.

 

You have to sing songs together along this journey. I can't speak for other country groups, but when I read this I can't help but think of my own country group. In our short time together during our orientations the ten of us became very much a family. I would be a bold face liar if I told you that this experience hasn't had its challenges. But in every challenge we have faced, we have faced them together. Though we are spread out all across the country we have become an amazing support system for each other when we need it.

 

Continue to call each other by the names i've given you

to help remember who you are.

Touch each other,

and keep telling the stories.

 

I have to remind myself of this everyday. Whether the day brought amazing growth with my community or it felt like maybe a less then productive day, I have to remind myself and each other that we are children of God. And that I am so incredibly loved and blessed with a grace I will never fully understand. This experience, community, and life are stories. Stories that are meant to be shared with each other. Stories that help us to grow not only personally but together as a world community. It's through these stories that life happens. It's through these stories that we begin to understand each other in knew and previously misunderstood ways. It's through our true stories that a world community becomes a reality.

 

Makes maps as you go,

remembering the way back from before you were born.

So you will be only the first of many waves

of deliverance on the desert seas.

It is in the first of many beginnings-

your Paschaltide.

 

You can't appreciate where you are if you don't remember where you came from. When you makes maps for yourself you also make maps for others. Maps too are stories that others can hear and follow. It's a saying we all know well, " Be the change you want to see in the world." Draw a map for someone else to follow and the world just might start to look like a different place. You can be the first of many blessings.

 

Remain true to the mystery.

Pass on the whole story.

Do not go back.

I am with you now and I am waiting for you.

We never truly will understand the mystery that is this life. Yet we can find ways to see and witness that beauty that is amongst it everyday. When we pass of the whole story and not just a single story we change the narrative. We challenge the preconceived prejudices this world tells us otherwise. The best part about it is that once you have the whole story you don't have to return to the lies you once maybe believed. Rather then jumping to judgement, you learn to turn to wonder and embrace those things you don't fully understand.

 

 

 

Peace

 

*written October 13