My experience as an intern at the Catholic Worker Farm this summer has been nothing short of intense: emotionally, physically, relationally and of course spiritually. I have stepped into a community which is characterized by paradox: there is struggle and strife, yet peace and beauty; there is hopelessness in people’s situations, yet hopeful people; it is a refuge for the refugee, yet a home which is held captive to the extraordinary cost of living in England. I am not surrounded by people who look like me, who think like me, or even who have been raised like me. In fact, the majority of people around me were born into what the world considers wretched and poor circumstances. I have sat with individuals and have listened to their stories, I have looked into their eyes and heard them say “there is nothing for me.” I have cried with them in my arms, cried with my supervisor discussing their situations, and cried in my room alone, asking God “why?” All of this is a part of the journey of following Christ. I haven’t got nearly anything right—I cannot boast of my eagerness to step into this situation, I can only boast in Christ. As Christians we go into situations thinking we are going to be doing all the helping. At the farm, I am the one who has been helped, because God is showing me just how big his family is, how much He loves, and how much He requires of us to give. We have been baptized into a family, a body of believers. Have we ever stopped to consider that this family includes an extraordinary large amount of hungry, hopeless, desperate people? With that in mind, we are called to love each other deeply. What does this mean for you and I today? How much are you willing to give up to follow Christ? This community, this family, does not do everything right by any means. But the reason I love it is because the leaders of it love God so much that they took all of their wisdom and experience, evaluated, prayed, and decided to give up comfort, security, normalcy for the sake of how they discern Christ bidding them come and die. In the end of Joshua, he urges the people to “yield their hearts” to God and to thereby stop putting other things in front of God in importance. I am left wondering how long I will continue to live like everyone else in the world and if I will truly ever want to answer the question of what it means to die to yourself, take up my cross and follow Christ, because I am too afraid of the answer?
