Volunteer Diaries: Fieldwork

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.”

• Rumi

The hardest part of my job “in the field” is seeing the stark contrast between the life I came from, and the life of “the other” and how easily we accept that some humans must suffer because of the geography of their birth.

Just because people are on the margins of the mainstream narrative does not mean that they as human beings are less significant…

But I remain floored at the number of people who deny the truth I see with my own eyes because it doesn’t align with their perception of reality.

How can they ignore desperate cries for help?

How can they not see themselves or their loved ones in those living out the disasters that make headlines?

Today it all became clear to me as I woke up with a pit in my stomach and a pending sense of dread. Intuitively I knew today was going to be a tough day. And I wanted to avoid it.

I dreaded the things I would see and hear because they would remind me of the injustice of my situation- living incredibly comfortably in a city of juxtapositions.

I would be reminded of my privilege.

I would be reminded that people I love do not have the same privileges as I do and because of this, they are in danger.

I would be reminded of the injustice we still have to tackle and the ways we’ve fallen short.

I was bitter and angry and resentful the entire morning. I had formulated a plan to become a Botox nurse and a trophy wife so I’d never have to face this ugly side of reality again.

Of course this feeling immediately dissipated when I saw the radiant smile of one of my beloved little brothers, but that was when it hit me like a ton of bricks: I have failed.

I let the unpleasant and problematic, but ultimately superficial, parts of this reality consume me and I lost sight of what really matters.

The most important part about my job is being present for people who need me to listen to them and validate their reality.

No one gives a shit about grocery cards or food packs or shoes. People don’t refer to me as the BIM card lady or Shoe Girl, and I don’t refer to them as a case number or Scabies Guy.

We are brothers and sisters in our humanity. We know each other’s names, likes and dislikes, and we are up-to-date about current events in each other’s lives. We share our hardships and we celebrate our joys- I truly feel their happiness and victories as if they are my own.

Although the injustice of this world means that we are likely destined for very different life paths, we are nonetheless on a common one right here and now, and that is the biggest gift of my life.

We are supposed to take these sacred minutes and hours and be fully present since we all know how quickly they are taken away.

I did all of us a disservice by forgetting that.

I am on a front line that the world will not even admit exists.

If everyone could just take a moment to confront this inconvenient truth and their role in it, I wholeheartedly believe that I would be out of a job by tomorrow.

Do not let guilt and fear cloud your empathetic imagination. Do not let the surface-level suffering lead you to believe the wrong narrative and to distract you from the humanity.

We need you here with us. We can’t keep doing this alone. Especially when we have to battle structural violence along with tsunamis of white guilt every single fucking day.

People often say “I don’t know how you do it” but they never ask. I’ll tell you my secret:

The top tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is “self-actualization” which is defined as the complete realization of one’s potential, and the full development of one’s abilities and appreciation for life. Some scholars who sit with their heads twenty miles up their ass and are never in the arena getting their hands dirty argue that few people ever reach self-actualization, but I can assure you that it’s far more common than they think, and self-actualized individuals are cloaked in the mystique of everyday miracles.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.”

When the soul lies down in that grass,

The world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’

Doesn’t make any sense.”

If, when you open your eyes, you also open your heart, you’ll find this field. It’s full of unspoken words and a love deeper than you could have imagined exists.

When you pass the threshold beyond comfort and beyond the limits of fear, you are seized by an ethereal sense of purpose and meaning and your life will never be the same again.

We are here, self-actualized, with battered, broken, but open hearts.

We have surrendered to destiny and we live guided by love.

This is the field.

Meet me here.