How to be Useful

January 23, 2008, 1:00 pm; posted by
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Sister Janice Brown said to me last Sunday, “Erin, you’ll know my car by the gold emblems on the back where it says Nissan — you know us black people, we always got to have our gold and nice stuff.” She said to me yesterday, “You’ll hear a lot of open talk from me about race, about racism. You can’t hide from it, not here.” She then launched into a story about one of her previous interns who was white-as-white-can-get, and how she did her best to train him in the city, but wasn’t entirely successful. The whole time she spoke, I thought to myself, oh, God, that’s me, isn’t it?

Every time I enter Sister Brown’s house (only a few times thus far), she tells me to be at peace, to be blessed of God, to have the Spirit rest on me and nourish me. She is on the pastoral staff at the Pentecostal Miracle Deliverance Center Church (PMDCC), on the corner of St. Paul and Upper Falls Boulevard in Rochester, but she wears about as many hats as there are townhouses in the 19th Ward. When she speaks, her words are almost always teasing, instructing, or praying; sometimes all three.

This weekend when I worked for my internship at her house/office, I felt useful, which is a lot more than I can say for much of my college experience. That ‘experience’ has usually consisted of cramming, reading, writing, and generally getting on the nerves of those unfortunate enough to live with me and not be in the Kierkegaard seminar (consider this my apology, housemates). The oddest thing about this feeling, however, was the fact that what I did seemed so minor. So what if I showed Sister Brown how to look up articles on segregation vs. integration on the internet? So what if I put together a program for a Youth Association rally? So what if I semi-translated and reformatted a registration form? So what if I played soccer with Yaser, Roby, Mateo, Carmilo, etc.?

Why, if all of these seem so minor to me (and, no doubt, to you), did I feel like I actually did something — or that I am doing something?

I grew up being taught that if I didn’t take initiative when I saw something wrong or something out of place, then it was my fault if the conditions turned worse. Usually, this was just my mom’s way of telling me to do laundry when the laundry room got so full that we couldn’t step inside it, but I really value the point that she made and it has stuck with me. There is something to be done. There are new ways to be learned.

And if I am in a position where I can learn those new ways, where my stupid I-just-met-you-so-I’m-kind-of-shy tendency can be stretched to teach me what it truly means to have interracial friendships, to work with teens who have never known the luxuries I have known (and now feel almost desperate to leave behind) — then by all means, I want to do this! I want to feel like in some small way, I am useful. That I am serving and learning at the same time. That my future isn’t as bleak as it sometimes seems.

This may be nothing more than a rant for hope from a hopelessly idealistic student. But I think the answer to the question ‘How can I be useful?‘ is strikingly simple: find a need. Fill it. And if you can’t find a need where you are, go somewhere else.


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