awareness

Engaging Your Host Community

eamaya1 Guided Reflections ,

Questions to Ask Your Host Site Partners During a Dinner/Reflection

Could Also Be Used for Group Discussion or Journaling

From Joe Holland and Peter Henriot, SJ

  1. What do you notice about our situation here today? What are people experiencing?
  2. What changes have occurred in the past twenty years? What have been the most important events?
  3. What influence does money have in our situation today? Why?
  4. Who makes the most important decisions around here? Why?
  5. What are the most important relationships people have here? Why?
  6. What are the most important traditions of the people? Why?
  7. What do people want most in life? Why?
  8. What will things be like in 10 years if they keep going in the same way? Why?
  9. What are the most important causes of the way things are today? Why?

What to Look For: Keeping Our Eyes and Hearts Open

From Santa Clara University Reflection Resources

  • Signs of hope, courage, humanity, humility
  • Commonality between you and the people you meet/see
  • Depth of political awareness among all we meet
  • How history affects the present
  • Signs of the presence of life
  • How you are challenged by what you see
  • How women experience each reality differently from men
  • Violence and how it affects people’s lives
  • The role of work and what it offers/provides
  • The role of education in people’s lives
  • The availability of schools and difficulty of learning

The Siddur of Shir Chadash

eamaya1 Prayers and Meditations
From The Jewish Prayer Book
May the door of my inner home be wide enough to receive those who hunger for kindness, those who are lonely, or isolated from friendship.
May it welcome those who have cares to unburden, thanks to express, hopes to nurture.
May the door of my heart be narrow enough to shut out pettiness and pride, envy and enmity.
May the door of my heart be closed to self righteousness, selfishness, and harshness.
May its threshold be no stumbling block to receiving those who are different than I am.
May my inner home be for all who enter, the doorway to spiritual richness and a more meaningful life.

Rakku’s Baby

eamaya1 Guided Reflections

Story based on a book by Sheila Zubrigg

This is an exercise to practice asking “why” questions. Listen to this story. Take a few minutes to journal or think about it, and then discuss. 

Rakku did not breastfeed her baby; she had to work in the landowner’s field from dawn to dusk. As both a landless peasant and a woman, Rakku was paid far too little to feed her family, so she took her seven-year-old and ten-year-old children to work to help her earn more. She left the baby in the hut under the care of the five-year-old daughter. Even with the older children working beside her in the fields, Rakku’s earnings could not buy enough food. Often times the baby went hungry. A vicious cycle resulted with the baby’s increasing under-nutrition and repeated bouts of diarrhea. One day, the baby had severe diarrhea and grew limp, and Rakku decided to take her into the hospital in the city. To do this, Rakku had to miss a day’s work. At best, this meant a day without food, for the family had no reserves. At worst, she could lose her job—the consequences which she was afraid to think about. She knew a wiser mother would let her baby die to preserve the family, but Rakku loved her baby too much.

Rakku sold the last of her possessions to pay for the bus fare and took the child to the hospital. After waiting in line for hours, she was told she was too late and must come back the next day. Rakku slept in the street with the baby and returned the next morning. By then the baby was near death. The doctor scolded Rakku for waiting so long and for not taking better care of the baby. He referred her to a nurse, who carefully explained the importance of breastfeeding and hygiene. Rakku listened silently. Meanwhile, the doctor skillfully rehydrated the baby with an intravenous sugar water. The doctor gave Rakku a prescription for medicines to buy at a pharmacy and sent her home.

Back home, with no food or money in the house, the baby soon died.

Discuss: Take a few moments to think to yourself, write it down if you would like: “Why did Rakku’s baby die?” Make a list of all the reasons.

 

Conscientization

eamaya1 Guided Reflections

Read or excerpt the following quotes on conscientization:

“The term [conscientization] refers to learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality.” – Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“Conscientization is where one achieves an in-depth understanding of the forces that shape one’s life space, and becomes an active agent in constructing a different… reality.” – Caffarella & Merriam, 1999

“Through entering into the world of the poor and touching the vital core of their lives, they touch the vital core of ours. We then come to a profound realization, the realization of our own poverty. It is a kind of experiential enlightenment…. It begins with the awareness that the poor are the subjects of their own liberation, not the object of the efforts of conscientized, middle-class people and leaders. We discover that we must have been considering the poor as the needy, and that we must somehow reach out and save them. We may cooperate with the poor, or teach them to help themselves, or empower them, but fundamentally we have treated them as needy. Now we discover that the poor are perfectly capable of solving their own problems, know what to do and how to do it, and in fact are in a better position to effect structural change than we are. We learn that these needed changes in systems and institutions will come only from the poor themselves, from the oppressed, from the ‘Third World’ itself. We realize that we are not needed in the way we thought, that rather we must learn from the poor, learn their wisdom…” – T. Weisner

“We sometimes play off service and reflection against one another, as if to question our experience critically in some way to sap it of its vitality. That is an immense mistake. One cannot, even with the best intentions and deepest concern for one’s neighbor, plunge into any action of service without recognizing that critical questions need to be asked about the situation: What is really needed, how did the need arise, what means are available for responding, what resources does one have for dealing with it? To assume that we can brush such questions aside and move directly into action is as immense a mistake as thinking that all we need do is analyze the neighbor’s situation and not act to meet his or her need. Reflection and action must be held in tension with one another…. unless reflection and action are held together, no truly effective service will be given (except, possibly, by accident) and no real growth will occur. The deepest reason for this is that we are called as full human beings to serve others. Human beings have hearts and heads, and both must be brought to service. To act as though one need only be led by the promptings of the heart is to decapitate oneself. The head has been left out.” – M. Himes

Discussion Questions

  • How have you been conscientized during this experience?
  • What have you learned about:
    • Why this need exists?
    • Why these conditions exist?
    • How this need arose?
    • What is really needed here?

The Call

eamaya1 Prayers and Meditations ,

By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I have heard it all my life,
A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.

Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper.
Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.

But always it says: Wake up my love. You are walking asleep.
There’s no safety in that!

Remember what you are and let this knowing take you home to the Beloved with every breath.
Hold tenderly who you are and let a deeper knowing colour the shape of your humanness.
There is nowhere to go. What you are looking for is right here.

Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand.
There is no waiting for something to happen, no point in the future to get to.

All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.
You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.
Come home and rest.

How much longer can you live like this?

Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying.
Give it up!

Let yourself be one of the God-mad, faithful only to the Beauty you are.
Let the Lover pull you to your
feet and hold you close, dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.

Remember- there is one word you are here to say with your whole being. When it finds you, give your life to it.

Don’t be tight-lipped and stingy.
Spend yourself completely on the saying.
Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together.

 

Oriah Mountain Dreamer is a Canadian writer and mystic.

Note Who is Next to You

eamaya1 Guided Reflections

Look to your left and right and note who is there.  Silently answer the following questions for yourself:

  • What are the differences between us that separate us as people?
  • Where are they from?
  • Do I know their past experiences?
  • Did they have a date to the high school prom?
  • What does this person like to do?
  • What do they like to eat?
  • Are they an only child?
  • What injustices have they endured?
  • Where do they feel most comfortable?
  • What do they want to do with their lives?
  • Is this person politically charged?  If so, where do they stand?
  • Is this person introverted or extroverted?

Reflecting on Stress

eamaya1 Guided Reflections

A psychology professor walked around on a stage while teaching stress management principles to an auditorium filled with students. As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they’d be asked the typical “glass half empty or glass half full” question. Instead, with a smile on her face, the professor asked, “How heavy is this glass of water I’m holding?”

Students shouted out answers ranging from eight ounces to a couple pounds. She replied, “From my perspective, the absolute weight of this glass doesn’t matter. It all depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute or two, it’s fairly light. If I hold it for an hour straight, its weight might make my arm ache a little. If I hold it for a day straight, my arm will likely cramp up and feel completely numb and paralyzed, forcing me to drop the glass to the floor. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it feels to me.”

As the class shook their heads in agreement, she continued, “Your stresses and worries in life are very much like this glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and you begin to ache a little. Think about them all day long, and you will feel completely numb and paralyzed – incapable of doing anything else until you drop them.”

It’s important to remember to let go of your stresses and worries. No matter what happens during the day, as early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don’t carry them through the night and into the next day with you. If you still feel the weight of yesterday’s stress, it’s a strong sign that it’s time to put the glass down.