For Honors, we were supposed to go on some sort of fast for a matter of 24 hours. We could chose a liquid only fast, or fast from a specific food, or even take a fast from something in our daily lives. During the 24 hour period, we were encouraged to add prayer, bible reading, and meditation to our fast. The fast started after class on Tuesday, at around 9:20, and went until the end of class on Wednesday, at around 9:20.
This experience was used to get us more connected personally to what we saw in the faces of children around the world in the pictures we've seen and in the movies we've watched. This exercise worked to make what is reality for people around the world more real for us.
Personally, I didn't really get as much out of this as I should have. I think in the end, I only became really self-involved with my hunger. I didn't do my scripture readings as planned, although I did journal once. I did notice myself being more touchy than usual as well. Like Dr. Schuler said in class today, it is so terrible to think that so many people deal with this every day and are still expected to do basically everything I do in a day as well. It didn't open my eyes as much as I was expecting it to or wanted it to, but I suppose my own failings in self-involvement opened my eyes in a different way. And I must add, it was so weird how I was so used to just grabbing food when I wanted it, though, or complaining about being hungry. It's so weird how I have grown up and how things have always been for me compared to how the majority of the world reacts and sees things.
February 2007 Archives
For the assignment on Sunday, we were supposed to go to “worship with the poor.” I’m not exactly sure what that meant, but a group of us Honors kids went to Trinity First Lutheran Church, which is located in the Philips neighborhood in Minneapolis. Trinity First is affiliated with the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and was very similar to many area churches. It was full of elderly white people, was led by an ordained pastor, and had a mix of contemporary songs and hymns from the Lutheran Worship.
I didn’t really feel like this assignment pertained to the class very much. The people were very friendly and welcoming, more so than at many churches I’ve been to, but it was a church full of old white people, but statistics say that the population of old white people in the Philips neighborhood is on the decline (census statistics from the website mentioned in previous blog). There were not a lot of races or ethnicities represented there, as there are in the neighborhood itself. Although the elderly can also be marginalized, I’m not sure that seeing them was what Dr. Schuler had in mind when he made this assignment. I don’t think it pertained to the course very well, but church in and of itself was very good.
I really enjoyed church this morning. The sermon was good, about finding joy and happiness in life in Christ. I was going to write something about being disappointed in not having been able to worship with the people of the Philips neighborhood, but I find that saying that makes it even more important for myself and others to witness to the people of the neighborhood. It also makes me realize that we can still witness to the people around us as well. If we keep focusing on the people we don’t know, we may forget about witnessing to those people we do know, and neglecting them is not good either. Just don’t be so focused on witnessing to one group that you miss the other groups as well.
On Saturday, we took the bus and the light rail into the Philips neighborhood in Minneapolis, MN. The Philips neighborhood is a 10-block by 10-block area that is extremely impoverished and filled with crime. The Philips neighborhood extends from Lake Street (southern border) to Interstate 94 (northern border) and from Interstate 35 (western border) to Hiawatha Avenue (eastern border). (taken from website*) We then proceeded to walk to Trinity First Lutheran Chuch and School, located in the Philips neighborhood. We asked questions of the pastor there, Pastor Jake Gillard, as well as a DCE who attends the church and lives in the neighborhood.
This was an excellent connection to the course especially because it shows us an excellent opportunity to serve others off campus. It showed us a place to go to find different areas to possibly do our Honors projects next year, and I think also showed us a different way of life.
I really enjoyed going. I really feel like we (our group of white Americans) are so used to taking our cars, our sanitary homes, and our (for the most part) completely functional and non-addicted families for granted. We often take the fact that we are in the top 4% of the world (economically) completely for granted, myself included. In reality, we didn’t see that much poverty, but I’ve been there before and seen that sort of things that may suggest and impoverished life in the children who attend school there. And knowing the facts and figures of the situation definitely helped me to better understand the situation there. I really enjoyed going, because just being there makes me want to go more often and see what I can do to help.
*I found this excellent website which addresses the statistics of the Philips neighborhood based on the census and other reliable information. It is put out by the city of Minneapolis itself, and is probably extremely reliable. Please check it out if you have a chance; it is very interesting.
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/neighborhoods/phillips_profile_home.asp#TopOfPage
From this website and the data given from the census, I was able to gather very valuable information about the area. Almost 20,000 people live in this neighborhood, and the average age of the tenants is 27. The Latino population there has grown by over 500% in the past ten years. Also, the white and American Indian population has been declining. Very interesting stuff.
Hunger 101 is a stimulation of what it is like for a Minnesotan to be hungry. We were given the profile of an actual Minnesotan who is having trouble getting proper calories and nutrients every day. The names had been changed to protect those families, but the situations were the same. You were possibly given a spouse or child and were told to come up with the calories needed for one day based on a simple budgeting system. The monthly income, minus taxes, minus health care, minus clothing needs, minus rent and utilities, divided by 30 days (to find the average daily allowance) gave you your daily food allowance. With that sum, you were to find proper calories from a variety of food groups from a combination of the grocery store or the food bank. If you had trouble coming up with enough money to buy these calories, you were allowed to apply for food stamps. However, the application was sixteen pages long, and the office was only open for a total of 20 minutes out of the full hour we were given for the stimulation. This daily amount usually came to around $6 or less per day, which for two to four people is hard to purchase 4-8,000 calories with. We did not succeed in our stimulation to provide adequate calories for our entire family.
This stimulation gave a more real look at what we've seen but not experienced in the past few weeks. We have looked at photographs, read books, and heard music about the poor, but as for what it is really like, we really have no idea. This stimulation is far from actual experience, but at least it has opened at least my eyes a bit more to what poverty and hunger really are.
This experience was absolutely amazing and truly eye-opening. It was fascinating to see how hard life was. I was a mother of two, unemployed to take care of the kids, with a working husband, and could not manage to speak very much English, as we had just moved from Mexico six years previously. I was left to fill out the application forms for the food stamps, and it was near impossible for me to do it all in the mere twenty minutes allowed. And I'm not even dealing with a language barrier! We ended up having 1000 calories for my husband, 1480 for me (because I was a nursing mother), and 1580 for our child (which was adequate). As you can see, we failed extremely at providing adequate food for everyone. When you factor in when your children go to school and need money for field trips, or when Christmas and birthdays come around, or when you want to save up to buy a television or go see that new movie, things seem pretty hopeless. I know that I, myself, relax by watching a bit of television or a movie. How can you function if you living an unbalanced life of all work and no relaxation? How can you do this on a literally starving stomach? How can you tell your children they don't get birthday presents because mommy and daddy need to eat? It seems pretty much near impossible, and is just plain heartbreaking. How one can live a life like this seems miraculous. Poverty is a huge issue that should be remedied, and soon.
