I wish I could capture this moment
And send it to a friend
Nothing special about the moment
And yet so much hidden in its details
I would draw you the scene:
Roof tops and powerlines
A balding tree
A room filled with white windows
Chairs pulled back as if waiting for sitters
I would draw it all for you, but how do you render life's anticipation in pencil lines?
I would paint you the morning:
Bright white crowning deep purple
Sparkling green
Calm blue
Reds, browns, beiges
Framed in pealing white windows
I would paint it all for you, but how do you render life's dance in brush strokes?
I would shoot you a photo:
Travelers on their way to O'hare
Birds dancing with telephone lines
Leaves gathering sun
Rays of light leaping through my window
I would compose it all for you, but how do you render life's dimensions in a flat photograph?
I would sing you a song
Of car horns
And the first heat of winter
Of whistling wind
And engines high and low
Of the quiet stillness of housemates sleep,
Beyond the window's reach
I would sing it all for you, but how do you render life's symphony with just one voice?
I try, my friend to write you this poem
A sketch
A portrait
A picture
A melody
I try to write it all for you, but how do you render life's details in simple letters?
Temporarily ran out of work to do here at AFC so thought I would write the weekly update...
Since I'm at AFC I'll start here. My work has been kinda up and down. Sometimes I get stuff I find really cool to work on and sometimes I have work that nearly puts me to sleep and sometimes (like right now) I have no work at all.
One of the cool things I got to do was make a pamphlet for participants in the Chicago Housing for Health Partnership Program. The program officially began in early September. I described it in an earlier letter, but it basically tries to put chronically ill homeless people in housing as soon as possible, and combine housing with support like drug treatment programs, mental health counseling, medical care, and intensive case management. It has a research component built in so that program effectiveness can be measured. Anyway, they had a meeting of clients taken into the program where a need for something to take home that described the program came up. I got to make it! I guess the CHHP coordinator showed it to the case managers and they really liked it!
Not so cool to do, but useful thing I did this week:
Found out what the average utility bill for clients is when they enter our rent subsidy program.
Why it is useful: currently our "short term" rent subsidy program is well, uh long term. We've been getting an exception from the local Housing and Urban Development Department to keep clients on there longer than they should be allowed by HUD rules. We aren't going to be given that exception anymore. We are developing a long-term program, but it will not be able to handle the large numbers of people currently getting short term help. Therefore we need to think of ways that the short term program can provide more assistance while remaining short term. One of the ways may be to help pay utilities in addition to rent, giving clients a little more of a financial break.
Why it wasn't fun:Our case management database does not record this information, even though we collect it. I had to go through 411 paper files to find the info :(
Home is still good. Had a snack-n-yak meeting where two members of the local support committee come and lead a discussion on a topic. They also bring snacks!! We had a discussion about how to make our house covenant. We also had a quick business meeting so we finally assigned October's chores - maybe something will get cleaned! and maybe we'll have groceries!!
Yeah! I was just given back the housing rights manual I was working on last week to make more corrections on, so I better get to work...
40,000 people are diagnosed with HIV each year (down from 150,000 in the late '80s due to prevention)
Between 1990 and 1995, AIDS incidence among people 13- to 25- years-old rose nearly 20%
1 in 4 new HIV infections occur in youth under the age of 20.
Between 27-54 young people under 20 are infected by HIV EACH day.
60.6% of US AIDS cases in youth 13-24 were because of sexual contact
PROPERLY used condoms GREATLY reduce the transmission of diseases like HIV
Please, if you are in a role of mentor or parent to a youth talk to them about sex! Be frank. Don't let their only source of sexual education be what they see in the media or the rumors they hear from their friends. Also, with increased pressure on schools to offer abstinence-only sex education (or even none at all) you cannot count on the school system to answer all of your youth's questions about sex. The more open you are with them, the more comfortable they will be coming to you with questions about sex.
This weekend the Chicago Marathon ran through the streets. It was cool to see streets mobbed with people instead of cars! One of my housemates ran (and finished in just over 4 hours!) as did several of my coworkers who had participated in the AIDS Marathon Training Program. I just went and cheered myself hoarse. While the excitement of the day didn't make ME want to go out and run 26+ miles, I am now even more convinced I want to participate in a long bike ride.
Work was pretty much more of the same, which is to say I didn't have a whole lot to do. Needless to say, this does not make me happy. Today I have been nearly asleep the whole day since all I am doing is data entry. I really admire the people who can show up to work everyday and do 8 hours of data entry. They have a lot of patience and perseverence. I am not one of those people so after 6 hours, 15 minutes I am about to go crazy. While it would be highly entertaining for the others here on the 5th floor, I don't think it would be a good thing, so I am taking a break. AHHHHHHHH. I keep telling myself "at least this is for a good cause, at least this is for a good cause..." I keep hearing rumors of projects to come, but right now they are all in a holding pattern and have yet to land for various reasons. Gripe, Gripe, Gripe. I actually do enjoy it here most of the time, I just can't stand to be bored and it seems there has been a lot of that lately. I wish I knew enough to make my own work. I have tried a few times, some of the things I have come up with have been helpful, and others ended up just being time occupiers (but since I learned from them, I guess they were worth it.
Things at home still seem ok. A lot of the housemates were gone at various times over the weekend. Sometimes I feel like a complete outsider to the bunch, but I'm very greatful for having them there, even if I'm not so sure they are greatful I'm there. We all pretty much do are own thing, and yet also seem to share time together. I'm growing more used to having people around and when they are gone it gets WAY too quiet around the house.
Really missing my friends right now. Have gotten several letters and e-mails and cry reading most of them. I am so sick of constantly moving away. I feel like I haven't really made any new friends here beyond those forced to know me. I finally found a church that meets my spiritual needs, but it doesn't seem to be meeting my fellowship needs. The hour commute tends to limit evening activities, so not sure I could even participate if I did find activities.
Speaking of church, two Sundays ago I made it to Broadway UMC's later service (yesterday I was cheering marathoners so didn't make it). It was amazing! I love the way scripture is interpreted by all three of the pastors. The words seem to come alive and force you into action. I love the way they challenge me to read the words differently, and to take action in what I say I believe. I used to describe the type of church I was looking for as one that pushes you to the edge of your faith but then holds on to you so you don't fall off. That's very much the feeling I get from Broadway. Add to that the power of having a smaller sancuary (smaller than both UUMC and Kelso) packed full of people and it is a really amazing worship. I was blown away by our Call to Worship and nearly in tears the entire service because it was so powerful. Two weeks ago the service celebrated World Communion by presenting multiple loaves of bread each one representing a different people and the struggles they have gone through (and still going through).
Ok, I think I have rested sufficiently from entering data, better get back to doing something "for a good cause"...
You know you work at a not-for-profit when 5 people have resigned in less than a month. I'm beginning to wonder if anyone will still be here next month. They keep assuring me that this is unusual, afterall one of the gals who left had been here 5 years, but you really start wondering. Fortunately none of the people I directly work with have left, although 3 of the 5 are from my floor.
Well, this is a wimpy update, but there really isn't a whole lot new going on here. Haven't had a whole lot of work because everyone here is busy. Still enjoying great conversations with my roommates. Still enjoying the theological challenges of Broadway. Still enjoying the city although I am sick of seeing the same stretch along my hour commute on the brown line.
Pops died last week. I don't know when. I don't know how. I just found his memorial. I didn't really know him, but it was still a shock. Pops always sat on the corner of Drake and Lawrence on an overturned crate. He usually had a bottle of alcohol, much of it already gone, now just a scent on his breath. Often there would be a crowd of younger guys around him, just hanging out. He was there nearly every night I came home. At first I would just smile and say hi. Eventually I got up the nerve to ask him other questions. Didn't exchange much. He knew I lived down the street and was a volunteer. I knew he dreamed of getting approved for SSI and using the money to move somewhere warm - Alabama was first on his list. We didn't even exchange names. I heard others call him Pops, and he probably heard others call me Keri. Just the Sunday before I had asked my Bible Study group to pray for him because it was getting cold. I guess he got his dream. He is somewhere warm now, it may not be Alabama, but it surely will be warmer than his street corner here in Chicago.
Had an interesting meeting of the Support Providers Council Housing committee last week. A new provider came to the meeting and it was neat to hear about their program ideas. They are really at the very start of planning. At the meeting they were able to meet a bunch of other providers and also meet housing advocates, so that will help them develop a better program.
Because there were folks new to working with persons with HIV/AIDS an interesting question came up. One of the gals wanted to be able to tell landlords that she would be placing people living with HIV/AIDS in the apartments. This, however, is illegal since a person's HIV/AIDS status is supposed to be confidential. In fact it is highly discouraged for people living with HIV/AIDS themselves to disclose their HIV status to landlords. The gal was concerned since she wanted to let landlords know who would be living in their apartments, believing that this would create greater trust and therefore a higher potential for landlord participation. She felt landlords should have a right to know the history of the people who live there. The housing advocates brought up that a persons "history" and their "status" are two different things. Disclosing history, something that is legal, would be doing things like background checks, criminal history checks, and credit checks. Disclosing HIV status is more like disclosing if a client has diabetes or asthma.
I've been reading a collection of Martin Luther King Jrs works. A lot of good thoughts contained, I thought I would share a few with you...
"Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concernedabout the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial." (in "Pilgramage to Nonviolence" pg 38)
"Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word. It is the word "maladjusted". Now we should seek to live a well adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of physical violence and to tragic militarism. I call upon you to be maladjusted to such things."(in "The Power of nonviolence" pg 14)
"(...)we cannot believe, or we cannot go with the idea that the end justifies the means because the end is preexistent in the means. So the idea of nonviolent resistance, the philosophy of nonviolent resistance, is the philosophy which says that the means must be as pure as the end, that in the long run of history, immoral destructive means cannot bring about moreal and constructive ends." (in "Love, Law and Civil Disobedience" pg 45)
(All page references are to: King ML, 1986. A Testament of Hope: the essential writings and speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., JM Washington ed. San Francisco: Harper)
Although his calls for nonviolent resistance were directed toward an oppressed american population seeking to gain equality in the 50s and 60s, I think Dr. King's call is also to us "majority" Americans now in the 00s. We are justifying numerous wars around the war in the name of "stopping the evil of terrorism" but is committing terrorism ourselves a justifiable means to accomplish the ending of terrorism? Is waging wars a justifiable means of accomplishing the ending of all warfare?
Many have said (and still say) that Dr. King's nonviolence didn't fight hard enough. That it bowed too much to the oppressors. Today those of us who seek nonviolent answers to terrorism are considered unpatriotic, anti-american, catering to the terroists. But as Dr. King repeated over and over nonviolence is not nonresistance. It is a resistance that practices in the struggle what is hoped for in the end. It is a resistance that is willing to be mocked, arrested, ridiculed, hurt, and even killed, but a resistance that will not stop until a just end, brought about by a just means is accomplished. I urge you to resist not only terrorism, but also the belief that evil and violence can accomplish good and peace.
This has been a great week. So much so that I really wanted to write all about it, but have been so busy at work I'm not sure I'll be able to get everything written!
Earlier this week I attended a protest. I have to admit that at first I was a rather reluctant protester. We were out asking the Chicago city council to give $1 million in additional funding for AIDS prevention services. While there are lots of good justifications for why the funding is needed, I don't feel comfortable trying to influence funding when I have no idea what else would have to be cut in order to give the full $1 million. (Don't tell our policy department I said that or I may no longer be an AFC intern!!!) However, I ended up being very glad I went. I was carrying signs giving statistics about HIV/AIDS in Chicago (for example there are 22,000 living with HIV and it is the leading killer of young African-Americans). One lady stopped when she read how many people are infected each year in Chicago, and how many die. She thought that AIDS had gone away, that we had a treatment for it. It was so cool to be able to talk with her about what the current epidemic is like. Another woman thanked me for being out there. I also had a guy scream at me that it was all a hoax because HIV was curable by putting oxygen in your blood. (There has been some preliminary research that shows some hope that oxygen administered to a person in a hyperbaric(higher pressure) chamber can help fight off some of the opportunistic infections that prey on people with AIDS. It may also slow the reproduction of HIV. - This however is not a cure, it simply allows people to live longer with HIV rather than to become cured, about what current therapies offer. Also there have not been many trials and the treatment would be VERY expensive.)
I also got to go to a meeting of the Chicago Housing for Health Partnership's(CHHP) case managers. I've been doing some projects for CHHP so it was really neat to see the case managers in action. I got to see how they decide where to send clients (they really take into account what the client says they need which is very cool), the effort they make to track down clients that don't make it from the hospital to the shelter. Shelters are not very popular (for good reason!) But, because there is a shortage of permanant housing there are often waitlists so there isn't much choice but to send people to shelters. If the case managers can track down the people who don't go to the shelter they can still work with them to get permanant housing.
At home I am constantly amazed by the conversations I have with my community. LVC requires us to have weekly "community nights" and monthly "faith nights". These meeting times rarely live up to the spontaneous conversations we have at other times (in fact, we have kinda slacked on the official faith night time). Four of us decided to do a Bible study together (the fifth wasn't there so we haven't asked her yet). Whenever we do something cool we come home and tell each other about it. Wednesdays and Sundays tend to be our best discussion nights since we come home from church, Bible study, youth group meetings, etc. Interestingly, Wednesday is our official "non-community" night when we agreed not to have dinner together :) I just can't believe how cool it is to be able to have such meaningful conversations at the drop of a hat. I was probably most apprehensive about the communtity aspect of LVC, but it is probably the one I am most enjoying so far.
Well, I'm out of time, and have so much more to say! I'll be at a statewide conference next week so may not be able to give an update...
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