Children Learn What they Live....one of those posters from the 70s or 80s that dared to claim that children watch the world around them and them repeat what they see.
I remember reading it and worrying about all the bad habits my kids were picking up. Once, a bag of groceries burst and everything went rolling down the stairs. I had been climbing the stairs to our second floor apartment with groceries, a 2 year old and a 3 month old in a snugli pack. The result of the grocery collapse was annoyance and a single not-so-printable expletive. My 2 year old repeated it perfectly - intonation, facial expression, head shake following. Not once, but multiple times. for days afterward
Whoops.
NO, I thought. Clearly, she thought, Cool...that got a rise out of mom.
My daughter eventually forgot about the grocery expletive. Today, she is a poised woman who doesn't swear like a sailor. I didn't ruin everything....
As I get to know more women here in the Tenderloin, I hear their stories. Recurrent themes include foster care, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, domestic violence, abandonment, multiple generations of drug and alcohol addiction and mental illness.
We talk about basic relationship skills. How to say No. What are boundaries anyway? Your body is yours - not his. YOU are not for sale! There is a God and He loves you....Yes, YOU.
Recently I gently explained to someone why wearing a hot pink micro mini skirt and a bikini top might give men the message that her body was "available." I said, "You get to think about what you want. How you want to be treated. You get to decide."
How would she know this? No one had ever taught her anything. No one had parented her. In fact, her parents' abuse and neglect was so severe they should have been arrested and imprisoned. They weren't.
The older woman on the streets who had tried to protect and love her had all died...drugs, accidents, illness. Every one.
"My grandma used to get wasted and start to throw things at everybody," said V - who startles easily and cries out in fear when anyone raises their voice or conflict occurs.
"I raised myself," K said. "Since I was 10."
S's grandmother had been mom, dad and everything else since S was 5. Before that, S's parents dragged themselves and their child from hotel to crack house to abandoned building as they stuck needles in their arms and lived for the next fix. At 15, grandma died and S returned to mom and dad...both were sick and aged by years of drug abuse. They all stayed in a single room until S ran away.
L's entire family were alcoholics. M's single mother held down multiple jobs to feed her children. She loved her children - yet raged and was frightening.
Z's loving parents never knew she was being molested for nearly a decade. A's parents did know - because they earned money by trafficking their daughter to men.
It's no mystery how woman end up in the Tenderloin. They are victims. Often, they are simply doing what they learned as children. Or, doing what they see others do to survive.
And given their family backgrounds, they should be considered courageous survivors. Yet, even in survival, woman often hurt and harm themselves because they were never taught to do differently.
What I see, every day, is Because Justice Matters staff loving. This is not a ministry of big numbers. We don't operate the valuable
and important services like shelters or medical clinics. We honor and need those
who do, but BJM's calling is different.
BJM is about relationships. Giving and loving. Forgiving and loving. Laughing, welcoming, serving, and loving.
Love looks like something - Heidi Baker said. And love looks like serving at Because Justice Matters.
Since I came, I've seen the staff make and serve coffee and tea. And clean up afterward. Prepare and present and clean up from art projects, bible studies, and Nail Day. Visit sick women, Accompany grieving women to funerals or bedsides of sick relatives. Find clothing. Hold smelly, trembling bodies. Massage lotion into chapped, street-roughened hands. Cover a shivering, scantily clothed woman with their own sweater or jacket. I see BJM staff serve and serve and serve.
We don't serve because the women are helpless or because we feel sorry for them. BJM staff serve because these woman deserve to be honored. To be treated as precious and special. To be loved and served. I often think of the many ways mothers serve their children or friends serve each other. That's the kind of serving that happens here. Love looks like something!
On Thursday, love happened. Art for the Heart - a group using art and inner healing prayer to help women understand and find freedom from past hurts and heart-wounds. K always comes. That day, she brought a new friend.
Coffee mugs and a pot of hot coffee with "fixings" were ready when the women came. The art table was prepared. We listened to worship music - as we always do. The women have learned the words to "You Are my Beautiful God" and other songs.
I read the story of Jesus and the storm. How he was sleeping in the boat and everybody said, "Jesus, WAKE UP...don't you care we're going to drown here?" Then, he commanded the storm to stop. Be Still!
We did an art project - painting the "color and feelings" of a stormy time in each person's life. We shared and prayed. Laughed and cried. A good time.
I took one woman aside to talk further. K rose from the table and began to put away all the art supplies. Washed out every water cup used for painting. Rinsed the brushes.
Then, K went into the living room and gathered up the coffee mugs. Load by load, she climbed the stairs to the kitchen, carrying mugs, sugar and cream, the empty coffee pot. I heard the sound of running water as K rinsed the mugs in the sink.
No one had said, "Would you help?" No one had asked anyone to do anything except receive. This was all K's idea. Love looks like something - and love was happening!
K was doing what had been learned. K was giving what she had received. She was following after the people who had loved her. K was serving.
I don't know what K was thinking. But I was thinking COOL! Look at this! Something is happening. Love is reproducing itself - bearing fruit. More love.
Wow.
