On Worrying and Failing

Hey again, friends!

As a lot of you know I've spent the last week at YAV orientation in Stony Point, New York...and it's been an interesting time (even besides the earthquake and the hurricane). I feel like I'm just now starting to process a lot of last year, and suddenly I've found myself thrown into an entirely different community surrounded by entirely different expectations. Orientation is largely full of potentially intimidating talks on globalization, culture shock and living in intentional community (including tales from YAVA facilitators), and it can be overwhelming even the second time around.

During our opening worship service last Monday, the YAVA (aka YAV alum) that was preaching asked a question. What if we are called to fail? That's not an easy question. But YAV years aren't perfect. And we all fail some time or another. Not always in huge catastrophic ways, but it happens. And what if those happenings are so essential that they become part of our calling? The YAVA continued by asking: what if we aren't supposed to be "successful" yet? Whatever successful means, what if we aren't supposed to get it right yet?

During one of our workshops on communication, we were asked to get in smaller groups and write down three things we worry about, each on a separate card. Things about our year, about life in general, about whatever.  After we wrote our worries down, we shared them with our groups. This was hands down the most difficult part of the week, for me. To write down things that truly, deeply worry me, and to say them out loud...that was hard. And by "hard" I mean my hand was physically trembling as I put the paper down on the ground. I've got to say that that surprised me a little. Sure I knew I had worries, but I s'pose I'm just pretty good at not thinking about them too much. As it turns out though, despite our apprehensions about the exercise, every single person in my little group had at least one worry in common, if not more.

It all got me thinking about how many of my worries are tied to last year, or at least affected by last year. I didn't have a whole lot of blatant outward struggles last year, but I think I'm starting to realize what a huge impact last year really did have on me. I think I'll continue to realize that over the course of this year and afterwards, especially as I head to our YAV re-entry retreat with last year's YAVs at the end of September (more about that when the time comes).

While it was truly a blessing to find solidarity with worrying friends, it's also been rather intimidating to realize just how unsure about this year I am. I'm sure that I'm supposed to be here. And I'm sure that I'll grow as close to some of these new friends as I have to those I met last year. But I'm not sure what working in a hospital chaplaincy department will be like, except that it will probably be one of the more challenging experiences of my life.

So probably I'll fail. Certainly I'll worry. It'll take a while to get to know New Orleans and to really get to know my fellow YAVs. It'll take a while to figure out how to work in a hospital. It'll take a while to figure out exactly what's next. YAV years (and life in general, I s'pose) aren't always full of rainbows and glitter and warm fuzzies. Sometimes it's hard, and I'm not sure I've talked a whole lot about that here.

All this isn't to say that I disliked my time at orientation, or that I'm not excited about this year. It was still a fantastic week full of new relationships and new ideas, and I still maintain that singing in a room full of YAVs is one of the most powerful forms of prayer I have ever experienced.

Even as we stumble through our lives worrying and failing, surely we'll pick up little tidbits of grace and assurance too. Learning from our failures hopefully we'll figure it out eventually. And maybe some of our worries will come true, but in those worries we are most certainly not alone, friends.

Love,
Allison