What are we?! – MEN!
What are men?! – RESPECTFUL!!!!
Let’s hear it louder! What are we?!!! – MEN!!!!
What are men?!!! – SENSITIVE!!!!
WHAT ARE WE?! – MEN!!!!!!
WHAT ARE MEN?!!!!??! – COMPASSIONATE!!!!!!
I will always remember “Boy’s Night” at the Face to Face/Faith to Faith intensive, during summer 2010. That is a vivid, beautiful memory – Steve, our boss, rallying us into a tight huddle and leading our chant so loud as to ensure that the women’s night gathering would hear us on the other side of camp. I will always remember the story of the prophet Elijah, who embodies hospitality and compassion in Jewish tradition, that Rabbi Reuven Barkan told that night. Silhouetted against the campfire, I worried that he would trip and fall onto the flames, as he energetically paced around our circle. That night I began to truly understand what I was hired to help nurture in program participants: a love for heritage and identity – Judaism, in my case – and a comfort with self, born out in the compassionate and respectful embrace of others. That job has become my professional calling.
F2F brings together students of diverse religious backgrounds from the across U.S., Northern Ireland, South Africa, Israel, and Palestine, for a year-long peace-building program centered around a summer intensive in upstate New York. The staff spent three weeks together, first preparing ourselves for a rigorous schedule of interfaith workshops, athletics, music, and crafts that would fill the students’ two week program, and then guiding them through the 24-7 immersion experience. I am thrilled to continue my own journey as a member of the F2F community, as I work towards launching a program of kindred spirit – “Interfaith Appalachia”. The lessons I learned that summer have been invaluable, especially when I was recently living in a missionary center in rural Kentucky, and partnering with ministries in the community. The arch of my experience has introduced me to the essentials of interfaith organizing, not only in the nuts and bolts but in purpose and theory, equipping me to approach social and ecological complexities central my continuing work in the heart of coal country.
The last day of our time with the participants at F2F included an opportunity to reflect on where we had been together, and how they could translate their personally transformative experiences into progress for their communities at home. As a staff member, I was focused on helping the students through that transition. They embodied a boldness and sensitivity that is critical in intercultural exchange and social change.
During that final afternoon, my co-facilitator and I asked each of our group participants to think of a self-affirmation. They had already shared inspiring thoughts on what they learned from each other, so we encouraged them to also consider how they had inspired themselves. Going around the circle, they shared glowing reflections on personal growth and hopefulness. Yousef, a relatively quiet and deeply intelligent Muslim participant from Northern Ireland admitted that he was not sure what to say. Two Jewish students, one from South Africa and another from Israel, eagerly shared how impressed they were with his genuinely attentive listening during their time together. They loved that he carried an unusually open mind alongside his confidently held values and beliefs. He exemplified a bold self-confidence, coupled with openness to understanding others’ interests alongside his own.
Only two weeks earlier, the same young people had been meeting each other for the first time, hesitantly falling off of tables into each other’s arms, in order to “build trust.” Now they were prepared to return to their home communities, trusting in their new team to help them change the world. As F2F participants, they would be taking on significant projects at home, fostering pluralism and peace with tools and inspiration that they garnered from their experience in New York.
Our boisterous boys’ night cheer had been a surprising metaphor to me, encompassing the ideals of F2F. As they built trust in each other, we helped to create spaces where they could confront – sometimes comfortably and sometimes not – core differences over religion and politics. We encouraged participants to speak boldly, to share their minds with each other, and to approach their differences as an opportunity for learning and personal growth. These goals were embedded in each part of the program: intentional listening exercises, historical timeline workshops, daily dialogue group meetings, and more. Working across such differences, sensitivity and open ears are themselves a bold statement and often a departure from the status quo. So, on boys’ night, we bellowed our respect for the world to hear.
Later that summer, I often reflected on my time at F2F as I began preparations for an alternative break trip to Harlan County, Kentucky, with a delegation of Oberlin College volunteers. F2F had hooked me on interreligious work, and I eagerly dug into this next project with phone calls, research, and logistical planning. Watching the program participants returning home to pursue their own projects, I didn’t want to be left out.
After three months of planning, our team arrived in Kentucky to partner with Heritage Ministries during the last week in October 2010. The stunning autumn landscape stood in stark contrast with local and regional challenges surrounding mountaintop removal (MTR) coal-mining. Our visit was also awash with hospitality, and even more good food than both of my own Jewish grandmothers combined would ever ask me to eat. The loving people we met were an inspiration amid social challenges of the region, where local poverty rates exceed 30%. The more I learned about the immediate Harlan County community and Appalachian region more broadly, the more I appreciated the generosity of the culture and the more I realized the complexity of ecological and social challenges that the people are facing.
The Appalachia region has a rich cultural heritage, sustained amidst political and ecological challenges. The long coal mining history has inspired its own music, novels, poetry, films and more. Recently, a shift toward mechanization and MTR has decreased the number of jobs available while increasing the local ecological impact of mining operations. Coal is a powerful industry which offers some employment, but the region remains one of the most impoverished in America. These dueling economic and environmental forces are often highly divisive, calling for a renewed dedication to peace-making and direct aid.
As the first Jew to have an opportunity to work with a ministry in the area, I admit that I did carry some nervousness alongside my hopes for collaboration. We arrived on a Sunday evening, and the first thing I was going to have to explain to our host on Monday morning was that we had misplaced the check for our lodging fee, and would need to send it after returning home. Our delegation came on behalf of a student organization, Immerse Yourself in Service, a group that provides alternative fall/spring break opportunities. I had hoped that our work with Heritage Ministries would blossom into a robust and long-term partnership for many years to come. On day one though, we couldn’t pay for our lodging. So there I was: the first Jew, the first Oberlin student to organize work in the area – and I knew that I was about to make a great impression. This was my state of mind as our group of seven gathered in the living room of a house we did not have rent money for, to meet with our host, Jeff Sim. And, partnering with his evangelical ministry, the missing check was just one item on the healthy list of concerns I had about working together.
Jeff sat with us and explained his eagerness and curiosity to work together, although we were the first non-church group to partner for community service with Heritage Ministries, which he and his wife direct together. His calm demeanor would remain a centering presence throughout the week, whether he was methodically building a roof or sitting with us at a campfire and roasting a hot dog. Jeff has a quiet and calming clarity of purpose, and stamina for long days and weeks of leading home-repair teams. He warmly welcomed us in joining him for a week of working with the local community, and cautiously explained that he would enjoy learning about our beliefs while sharing his own, if we were interested to ask. Then I nervously told him about the check, and I should have known that he would not mind – these things happen, and that was that. We shook hands and went out to begin insulating windows for the winter.
As we drove from job to job that week, I familiarized myself with the car radio, and decided that the best music for our diverse group of left-leaning college students would be the Christian rock station. As we rolled through the week listening to music that had at first felt quite foreign, we started to realize that the soundtrack was a perfect match for our week in rural Kentucky: for those who sang, Jesus was an expression of absolute justice, the fullest compassion, forgiving and loving.
Going between the Christian rock of our van, the hammer and paintbrush rhythms of our work, and the conversations we had in our group and in the community, I often thought about the central lessons of working at F2F. I remembered the guiding philosophy of our work that had accompanied participants along their path that previous summer; a way of nurturing the qualities that they valued in themselves and in each other. Our job was to create spaces where participants could learn to embrace one another, in spite of differences. As I moved through my time in Kentucky, I did what I could to facilitate an open mixing of different life-stances, reminding my team: “people here might speak in ways that we are entirely unfamiliar with, but we have to remember that our ways of speaking and believing are usually just as unfamiliar to them.”
That last thought was particularly present on my mind during the Thursday evening of our trip, as we drove past a beautiful river and roadside coal mines on the way to a community barbeque (“weenie roast” in local parlance) at the Cloverlick Freewill Baptist Church. Having discovered that I am a vegan, the hosts did their best to help me find sustenance in light of my kashrut-inspired dietary ethic. I always smile when I remember answering their many questions: “Yes, soda is vegan. No, I don’t eat pork. Thank you for the potato chips!”
To my pleasant surprise, my friend Ed told me about his niece, also vegan, who had been part of a team that trespassed onto a factory farm in Ohio and recorded gross animal-welfare violations. Ed beamed as he finished the brief story: when her team’s video footage made it onto CNN, the company decided to change their practices rather prosecute the trespassers. One by one, the assumptions and anxieties that I had held about local culture were falling away.
As everyone settled down and finished our dinner conversations, guitars came out around the circle. I asked if I could share a story with the gathering. Our hosts welcomed the idea, and the circle became expectantly quiet: I had a few moments pause to consider how I would introduce it. I knew that almost nobody except for Jeff was aware that I was Jewish, and I also knew that most had never had the opportunity to meet someone from the Jewish community:
“The story I would like to offer is my favorite tale of the prophet Elijah, who embodies hospitality in the Jewish tradition. I heard this story just a few months before now, at a campfire of similar warmth and spirit in Upstate New York.”
Both of those campfires were seminal moments – Rabbi Reuven silhouetted against the fire; my own rapt audience, faces bright from the light at the center of our circle. My mentors were with me that night, as I told the story of compassion and hospitality, thanking the community members for welcoming us so warmly.
As the signing died down, I struck up a conversation with Chad, the young preacher at the Cloverlick Church, while his dad played gospel songs for the group. As I’ve gotten to know him, Chad has been a man full of surprises. He is a fourth generation coalminer, and has always been anti-MTR. He is an avid self-taught naturalist, can quote the Bible with great expertise, and will eagerly explain – to any willing listener – that Star Wars is a clear allegory for the Trinity. (Didn’t I realize that Midiclorines symbolize the Holy Ghost?) Do we agree on core issues, including the human role in climate change, evolution, abortion, heaven and hell, or gay marriage? Not quite. Beyond learning from – and respectfully challenging – each other’s differences, the question must be whether we agree on the message of Elijah. Can our communities find a way of working together, for the benefit of a society that we share? On this, the answer is clear. This past spring, he told the Elijah story during one of his sermons. Our task is in striving to understand, respect, and empower each other’s deepest differences while holding onto the common purpose of our work.
The people I meet in eastern Kentucky have taught me, gently and consistently, that I should not make assumptions about who they are. They are also connected to my everyday life, living and working in a coal-producing community that supports our electrical grid and makes it possible to type this essay on my computer. Building friendship across our differences is critical for our society today, if we are to have any hope of true empathy for the future generations that our ecological choices will also – and in all likelihood more harshly – affect.
Moving forward from my experience at F2F, and building on the connection that began with Oberlin and Heritage Ministries, I returned to Harlan County for a month this past summer. I had the opportunity to live with several groups of missionaries and community volunteers, while working with the network of local community service ministries. I shadowed ministers repairing homes, building food-pantry shelving, educating youth, and providing back-to-school supplies. Friends would visit me for Shabbat dinners, and I would visit their churches on Sundays. Ministers offered their call to share Christian faith with me, and I shared my own dedication to living by the spirit and law of Torah. Friends struggled with my confidence in not accepting Jesus, and I struggled to understand their community’s defense of a coal-industry that will – at current rates of consumption – disappear within our lifetimes and leave behind a legacy of ecological crisis. I recited Sabbath prayers while watching the sunset over the hills, gazing through the large windows of the mission center where I lived. My own faith deepened alongside my friendships.
I am now working towards the spring 2012 launch of Interfaith Appalachia, with support from both local partners and mentors around the country. As a project of the Dalai Lama Fellowship and Davis Projects for Peace, I.A. aspires to harness the universal human value of serving others. Working in the Appalachian region, we are focused on bridging an inter-religious commitment to service with a cross-cultural understanding of ecological and socio-economic challenges. Starting in 2012, we plan to offer lively, immersive service-learning programs that work with communities in eastern Kentucky.
I.A. is built on a three-pillar mission of service, friendship, and environment, and we plan to begin offering weeklong service trips in 2012. Working for the common good, we aim to bring together people of all backgrounds and identities. Friendship across cultural, religious, and political differences allows us to learn from each other, to ease social tensions and to question toxic political discourse. As we work together to meet the needs of society today, we must be careful not to compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
From the quiet campgrounds of rural New York, to the mountains of eastern Kentucky, energy builds when people come together around a shared commitment to humanity and peace. The human sense of fulfillment in trusting others can ease tension within ourselves, and so within our societies. There are many obstacles in the road forward, and potholes may be hard to avoid on a road not yet fully charted. My work increasingly convinces me of the promise of interfaith organizing, as I clasp hands with others and deepen my own commitment to Judaism.