Crossing Borders

Community Service-Learning Reflection

—Candace Walworth

I.

I was feeling under the weather and thought about cancelling my participation in Naropa’s community service at the Boulder Homeless Shelter, Practice Day, 2011. I wasn’t sure if I was just tired or coming down with the flu.

I concluded that I was not contagious and set off for the Boulder Homeless Shelter where I spent the afternoon cleaning counter-tops, washing down windows, and hanging out with Naropa students who were there for the Day of Service and Learning.

 For a few short hours, we were simply co-workers with rags and spray-bottles in hand, humans with homes to return to at the end of the day, extending ourselves in a small yet direct, touchable way.

As I peered at a bulletin board announcing the closure of the Shelter on May 1 for the season, a student told me about his experience of being homeless in a rural area of Pennsylvania without the benefit of services such as those provided at the Boulder Shelter.

I listened.

Another student and I visited about her research project on the role of ritual in environmental movements and Joanna Macy’s recent visit to Naropa. The role of ritual in peacebuilding is one of my passions, so I shared connections to recent scholarship in Peace Studies and Ritual Studies while learning more about the Environmental Studies weekend immersion with Joanna.

As John (MA Environmental Leadership student) and I wiped down tables, I found myself telling stories about my father and my undergraduate education at the University of Illinois. We discovered that John’s father had attended the University of Illinois at the same time I had.

 John and I gaped at the mounds and pounds of red meat thawing on a kitchen counter, experiencing viscerally what it takes to feed one-hundred and seventy-seven people a single dinner —not only that, but also the volunteer people-power needed to serve a single dinner at the Shelter.

I learned about John’s experience as an undergraduate at Southern Illinois University in the first decade of the 21st century while sharing stories about student life at the Big U in the mid-70s. It was a time-traveling conversation, crossing borders from one generation to another.

As I cleaned windows in the men's dorm room with 111 beds (each bed was numbered), a bed sagged under my weight, my hopes and fears mixing with those of the men who nightly share this bunk-house with friends, foes, strangers, whoever happens to draw Bed # 66, # 67, #68 in the lottery.

 At the end of the afternoon, we stood in a circle to reflect on community service and practice, and I surprised myself by saying how energized and revitalized I felt. What is it about faculty and students sharing community service that is vital to my personal health and well-being and to faculty-student relationships?

Could it be -- the sense perceptions awakened at the Shelter area different than those in Sycamore 8150?

I hold in my hands a rag, which touches the window, clearing the view for the person who, come dusk, will stand at the window, looking out.

Service-learning is one of the ways in which we renew, awaken, and connect with our sense perceptions, and what other than our sense perceptions have the power to wake us up to what it means to care for one another? 

II.

Naropa’s mission: “Meet the world as it is, and change it for the better.”

 III.

I left my poncho on one of the kitchen tables so returned to the Shelter in the evening, arriving as a young woman unleashed her anger and frustration at a staff member who was checking folks in.

Hearing intensified.

After calming and reassuring the woman, letting her know the logistics of the Shelter lottery, the staff member turned to me. It was Rob Colbert, a Naropa alum and former student in two of my classes.

I told Rob that I'm working with a team of faculty to develop a new course  (“Contemplative Learning Seminar: Crossing Borders”) for the fall. I asked what he thought about first-year students coming to the Shelter for service-learning. "Yes," he said, and offered to talk with students about his work at the Shelter and the role his undergraduate education at Naropa played in his pursuit of right livelihood.

Currently a graduate student in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology, Rob helped me find my poncho, and I headed home.