|
Who Am I? I turned 29 last week. I am young, white, American, and female. I have suffered little, if any, in life. The world, for the most part, is a bright, hopeful, place that works on my behalf. The “accident” of my class, race and nationality has given me confidence to face the world. Over the past several years, as I have discerned my place in life, I have deconstructed this confidence. Where and how has it come to me? Are the benefits of being young white and middle-class earned rights or privileges? What are my obligations? To my family? My country? To those without all that I have “inherited”? To God? Surprisingly, I have found myself most at home, here in the least suspecting of places--North Philadelphia. It is not where society, and definitely not where my parents, would expect to find me. It is here, where my confidence is most often shaken, that I have found a place to call home. I was raised in rural western Pennsylvania, on forty acres of fields, “secret hideouts” and dirt roads. There was one African-American in my high school class, and when I reached college I had never heard of “AP” classes and assumed everyone went hunting with their father. My native “culture” expected me to marry someone who looks like me and settle down in a small mining town, staying home and raising children as my husband worked at a simple-labor job. Instead, I went to college across the state. College was a wonderful, gentle introduction to the world, and the learning curve was as much social as academic. After college, I went to graduate school to become a physician assistant in North Jersey and was a part of a predominantly Asian church. Here, the expectations for my life were wearing designer labels, driving a Honda, and going to night clubs in NYC on the weekend. I did fill all these expectations at one time or another during my three years there, but again knew that my heart had not found its home. I did not want the high-paying medical job that came with suburban living and the pressures of keeping up with the American dream. So I visited the Catholic Worker House of Grace in Philadelphia. For one of the first times I felt at peace with the Gospel being lived out. The values of simplicity, compassion, generosity, justice and resistance resonated deeply with me. I decided to join the community, especially because I would be able to practice medicine at the Catholic Worker Free Clinic. I volunteer at the Catholic Worker Free Clinic about 20 hours a week and work about the same number of hours at the Care Clinic, which is an HIV/AIDS clinic. My patients have endured physical and emotional abuse, homelessness, addictions, mental illnesses and disease. The underlying assumption is being the “underdog,” quite opposite from my assuming confidence. They entrust their health, and in some sense their lives, with me. My profession as a physician assistant grants me a bewildering authority that causes perfect strangers to bare their soul to me. My typical patient is at least 20 years older than I, has different-colored skin than mine, as well as culture. I feel honored to listen, but at times uncomfortable with this access to stories so intimate and at times painful. My advice feels small and my knowledge limited. Yet, I consider it a joy to be with them, to receive from them and to give the little I can. I feel so privileged to be in this role. Who am I to be entrusted with their health? I spent a week in Haiti in January and have already, so quickly, allowed the severity of the situation to dwindle in my heart. Haiti is a tired, destitute, hopeless country, yet full of a surprising number of hopeful, faithful and loving disciples. The disparity of my life with those I met there is difficult to reconcile in my mind. There are no easy answers and all I can truly do is be present with those who are struggling daily to survive there and to pray for peace and justice to prevail. Who am I to walk with them? I stand weekly with others in front of the Federal Building in downtown Philadelphia, holding signs in protest of the war in Iraq. Three years ago I was arrested in front of the same building as part of an action of civil disobedience. As I stand there week by week, I try to imagine the lives of the Iraqi people. I wonder if my pacifism is genuine without experiencing the threat of my life by violence. I pray that my faith in peace may grow. Who am I to stand on their behalf? I attend a predominantly African American church in a crime-ridden North Philadelphia neighborhood. The attendance is a mere 40 people on a good week, but I experience a religion of power and love that is greater than my experience at a church with 1,000 members. I spent last Saturday frying chicken to raise money to pay the oil bill. We stopped partway through to hold each others’ greasy hands and pray for a church member whose grandson was shot a block away the night before. My heart breaks to imagine the fear that dominates the streets and the lack of hope felt by the community. I am hopeful to become more active in the work of the church, but know that my race will limit my understanding of the struggle. Who am I to pray with them? In all these places, I feel uncomfortable at times; my life experiences do not qualify me to stand with them. I have not suffered. I have been handed so much by the “accident” of my race and class. My understanding is so limited. Yet I feel deeply called to these places of injustice and need. Not only to help, but to be helped. It is here that I know God, that I see a Gospel that is both genuinely exciting and challenging. My husband and I try to live simply and give generously, to love beyond where it is easy. We have tasted the goodness of the Kingdom and do not want to look back. But when we look in the direction of those we follow, we know we have barely entered into the call of discipleship. The words of Jesus, Dorothy Day, Gandhi, our pastor Donna Jones tug at our hearts, asking us to go deeper. We pray for the strength to look to them and not to ourselves, never to settle for having “done enough.” The call of Jesus is clear that discipleship is giving all. May each one of us, day by day, little by little, be faithful to take up our cross and walk a step farther in following this radical call. Katie Roberts Katie is a Physician Assistant and a member of the House of Grace Catholic Worker |