AVODAH Orientation officially began Sunday with move-in and some planned programming.
Moving in to a house with 12 near-strangers is an anxiety inducing experience. It's also not possible to address every concern at once, so there is this bit of living in limbo, where you know you have things to talk about and decide on, but you can't decide on yet. The way the program works is that on Sunday everyone just puts there stuff in a room and picks a bed temporarily, then on Wednesday there is a meeting to settle on the rooming situation.
Monday, we went to Gary Rosenthal's Art Studio. He is a huge supporter of AVODAH and just a cool guy. We made Mezzuzot and built a community covenant. During that time, the AVODAH DC director who has been leading a lot of programming this week shared a self-care metaphor with us that I think I will be using a lot. She said that our energy is like a cup of water and we want to be able to give water to everyone so we give a little and a little a little and then eventually we run out of water and we don't even have enough for ourself. So the goal is to do things to fill your cup so that it overflows and give to other people from the overflow so you don't deplete your own cup and can continue sustaining yourself. I feel like that's going to be something I refer to a lot when I discuss my energy level. This week has been exhausting, so by the end of the day I just have nothing left to give.
One of the coolest parts of Monday was an Introduction to Urban Poverty with Ed Lazere, the Executive Director of DC Fiscal Policy. It was just a lot of statistics that were interesting and depressing, but he ended on a positive note with recent success in the DC area including minimum wage increases, paid sick leave mandates, legislation to prohibit discrimination against returning citizens (people who have been in prison), and a living wage of $14/hr for all city contracts.
Tuesday was a very long day. We were at Washington Hebrew Congregation. We heard an amazing motivational talk from Rabbi Lustig and then a super cool Torah study session with Rabbi Aaron Miller. We were learning about this weeks torah portion Ki Tavo. In it, we learn about tithing some of the first fruits of a harvest to give to those in the community that do not have land. It was a really interesting discussion and in the end Rabbi Miller said our AVODAH year was a bit like tithing crops. We give our first year out of school towards serving others before we serve ourselves.
The rest of the day was spent learning about AVODAH and the learning structure for the year. One of the things I really love is that one of the core values is joy. I know that the way I talk about things creates a narrative in my head that will then reflect in reality. If I talk about how hard the year is, then that is all I will focus on, so I am committed to remember and speaking about the joy that I have gotten and will get out of this year so that when things get tough, I can carry on.
One of the most important things we've done in our different sessions is write and give voice to our concerns individually. We've found that a lot of us are concerned for the same things and excited for the same things.
Today was the fourth day and was spent mostly in the house. We learned about facilitating meetings, group formation, creating a pluralistic Jewish community, our needs and desires for Kashrut and Shabbat practices and then at the end we had our roommate discussion.
We learned that there are generally two type of group decision making styles. There is Majority Rules wherein there is a vote and there is Consensus Decision Making. The Consensus Decision making style allows for more opinions and voices to be heard and complexities discussed before instating new policy. We went way more in depth with the process though.
We learned that there are generally two type of group decision making styles. There is Majority Rules wherein there is a vote and there is Consensus Decision Making. The Consensus Decision making style allows for more opinions and voices to be heard and complexities discussed before instating new policy. We went way more in depth with the process though.
After a day of learning about facilitation and Consensus Decision Making, the roommate meeting went really well. Two corps members facilitated the discussion and we were able to calmly make a plan that made everyone happy. I was actually pretty surprised how well it went! We all had a lot of anxiety about it and then it was just so pleasant! (I thought). It definitely wasn't without tension, but it was smooth.
I feel way calmer about a lot of stuff after today. I am moved in officially, so I feel settled and seeing our group come together on something that had a a lot of anxiety and a lot of potential to go poorly really gave me confidence in the group and our ability to navigate the challenges of the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment