Prior to JVC, I had fallen into Christian community on several occasions, each an experience of joy and consolation. Part of my motivation for applying to be a Jesuit Volunteer was to consciously re-enter community and reflect on it as a means of entering more deeply into relationship with God. I would have been wise to bear in mind at the outset that God can only bring about real insight and transformation when one’s identity and way of ‘seeing’ is challenged. Half way into the JVC year, my understanding of community and myself has altered more radically than I ever anticipated.
Communication and conflict
Meeting my community at Orientation was exciting and affirming. Our discussions over the week led me to realise that we shared a similar vision of what living the core values might mean. The evident potential for dialogue and shared life felt like an affirmation of my reasons for choosing JVC. This initial consolation was a gift on which I have learnt to draw for hope and inspiration during our journey.
By the November residential, elements of our common life were in place. Some aspects of our domestic life were worked out and we had established a routine for prayer. However, I had a sense of uneasiness. I had imagined passionate discussions and an opportunity to reflect together on how we were encountering God and the core values, but for the most part this had not begun to happen. Furthermore, some practical issues had not been addressed at all. While we had shared moments of togetherness and productivity, far more common was a sense of estrangement, awkwardness and inertia
I found much of the work around conflict resolution at the residential puzzling. It assumed that there would be a point at which conflict in community would be angrily verbalised. Talking to members of other communities, past and present, I heard stories of stand up rows, tears and door slamming. Life in JVC Manchester didn’t look this messy or unrestrained, yet something wasn’t working. We weren’t engaging.
Gradually we came to realise that the trouble is not that we have nothing in common: it is that we have too much in common. At heart we are four highly idealistic, independent and introverted people. All these qualities can make an important contribution to JVC, but they need to be counterbalanced by other qualities such as interdependence, pragmatism and communicativeness. None of us instinctively pays much attention to the niceties that grease the wheels of everyday life, so we constantly run the risk of falling down over the mundane. Conflict for us does not take the form of expressing concerns and needs confrontationally, but of not expressing them at all. It is a breakdown in communication.
A new understanding of engagement
We are in a process of coming to recognise that in order for us to function as a community, we must consciously engage with each other. It is not enough to wait until we have something important to say and then say it. If there is no light-hearted chat about the day or the latest terrible joke from work, no room for musing and half-formed ideas, then there is no soil in which ‘deep’ communication can take root.
Initially it was embarrassing to realise that we were falling down because we lacked social skills that other people take for granted. I was overwhelmed by a sense of my own failure. If I couldn’t get something that came so naturally to other people right, what did I have to offer? Our sheer bloody-mindedness kept us going. We learnt by trial and error that community meetings and regular times to share faith and everyday experiences are necessary for our communal life.
It is not easy to admit that things are going wrong and look for solutions. My instinct is to withdraw and bury my head in the sand rather than get to the heart of the issue. It is taking time to accept that making mistakes is part of our journey of being community, but I am coming to realise that that our ability to acknowledge our failure is what makes us strong. In the process of sitting down, talking, and recognising anew our shared desires, we reaffirm our commitment to each other and find practical ways of living it out. Instead of giving up we keep coming back to our common vision, striving to make it a reality.
Community as a place of healing
Recognising that in order to make the community function I must be more open and communicative is the most difficult part of JVC. It has forced me to see that I have become used to dealing with the world on my own terms. I have a public face: I like to appear impassive and capable because it feels safe, but this public persona divides me from the people around me.
My commitment to my community forces me to be a person who says that I am in a bad mood today, rather than pretending that I’m not; who says that I don’t understand something when I want to appear knowledgeable; who looks weak when I want to appear strong. I am learning to act out of consideration for the emotions of those around me rather than in order to protect my own.
I don’t think any of us expected life in community to be so difficult. Instead of hiding our weakness, each of us is constantly challenged to confront and express it. But to our surprise, these moments when our weaknesses are exposed and acknowledged have become our most graced place of engagement.
The more I see the vulnerability and struggles of my community members, the more I am moved by love for them. This love is pure gift: the blossoming of a seed I did not know had been planted in me. God, however, is not content to leave it at that. We may ask for silver, but he longs to give us gold. This love for my community is bringing about healing in my own soul. In loving others in all their weakness, I am beginning to glimpse the love that God feels for me for me in my own brokenness.
The scandal of our faith is that God brings about transformation where there is pain and failure. We are becoming able to engage deeply and creatively because of the journey we have travelled together. I am proud of us for having the courage to face the pain and frustration of our first months and strive to overcome it. Adversity has brought forth humility, perseverance and the ability to laugh at our own stupidity. Our community is becoming a place of healing and tenderness.
Community as a constant process
The challenge for us is to maintain a sufficient level of communication to make our ideas reality. Moments of deep engagement have taken place in our time together: magical instances of presence to the moment and each other in which God has reached through the pores of reality. As we continue in our halting dance, I realise that the invitation for this particular community is to learn not to have big ideas but to act on little ones. We are asked to realise that the reality of communication takes place within the mundane practicalities of everyday life, not in spite of them. Relationship is a process constantly unfolding, minute by minute and word by word, not a static concept.
In engaging in this process I am learning what it is to be human and how to exist in a world which God enters into and reveals himself through. I am striving to bear witness to a God who is embodied in every person and present in all things. I am discovering what it is to love a God who constantly reaches out in desire, despite the possibility of rejection. I see that my own failure is not a place of shame but an invitation to enter into the unfolding dance of creation. I am becoming more fully alive.
Sarah is a JVC volunteer in Manchester. She volunteers at MERC and a refugee welcome centre in Cheetham Hill
