My Vocare experience at an elderly care facility was unfortunately interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, cutting my two weeks short and both severing the connections I started to build with residents at my site and leaving my service experience feeling quite unfinished. In grappling with the sudden reality of this disconnection and my frustrated helplessness, I asked myself: What now? It was the first time I realized that division, isolation, and disconnection are at the very heart of injustice, and that this is how all injustice functions, the pandemic being only one example: it gets in the way of forming genuine relationships with one another. As I moved onto college and post-grad life, I continued to understand that this connection with other people is the whole point, not only of service, but of life.

After finishing my undergraduate degree, I found myself with an opportunity to work at Homeboy Industries as a case manager through a year of service program with the Sisters of St. Joseph. Though I could talk for hours about my beautiful experiences at Homeboy, I’ve tried to come up with three specific insights I gained which might also be helpful for you all when thinking about how you can create genuine relationships during your two weeks of Vocare. The first is the importance of consistency and presence.

 As a case manager, I was responsible for accompanying clients through the programming that Homeboy offers— connecting them to mental health resources, employment opportunities, housing options... the list goes on. I often tell people that was about 30% of my job. The other 70% was simply getting to know my clients. After all, how could they trust me if they don’t know me or believe that I want to truly know them? Unsurprisingly and for very good reason, folks who have experienced immense amounts of trauma, gang violence, and extensive prison sentences aren’t exactly champing at the bit to trust a clear outsider. For this reason, building relationships with my clients took time, and it required both consistency and presence.

When I arrived at Homeboy, Ruben did not like or trust me (he told me I could tell you all this, by the way). Having had multiple case managers already, he knew what it was like to have trusted people leave his life, and quite frankly, I did not look like I could possibly understand him and his circumstances. Despite what I thought were my best efforts, I felt like I couldn’t connect with him. I was asking myself daily, how do I reach him? Eventually, I realized I was asking the wrong question: it's not about how I can reach him, but rather, how I can allow myself to be reached by him. Slowly but surely, we went from 15-second check-ins to hour-long conversations. Looking back, I didn’t do anything to foster that relationship besides showing up. I didn’t bestow any great wisdom or insight upon him; I didn’t come up with grand or creative solutions to his problems. I sat at my desk and left the door open—literally and figuratively—and the connection came. Ruben taught me one of my favorite expressions from Homeboy. Whenever I saw him, I’d ask, “What’s up?” He always responded, “Just right here.” It threw me off the first time he said it. Usually, we answer the question, “What’s up?” with an action: doing homework, eating dinner, going to class. And the thing is, it wasn’t that Ruben wasn’t doing anything; it was just that what seemed like the most helpful and relevant information to share with me in that moment was that he was simply present. Throughout my time at Homeboy, I used Ruben’s expression as a reminder to myself to be “just right here,” not only in my relationship with him but with all my clients. When I lost myself in the delusions that I could “save” or “fix” them, the reminder to be just right here grounded me in the relationality and mutuality of my work and returned me to consistency and being present.

My second insight is an invitation to think about how the relational nature of service and justice work asks us to look for and lean into moments of joy and connection with those we encounter. This might sound more daunting than it actually needs to be. Honestly, some of the most seemingly insignificant moments at Homeboy ended up becoming the most meaningful. One day, my coworker Kim and I were eating lunch on the patio during our break. As we were chatting, one of the clients on her caseload, Roy, came wandering by, and we called out to him. When he noticed us, he waved, lingering on the opposite side of the patio. We threw a few more questions at him (what are you up to, how’s your day going, etc) while he contemplated if he was going to come closer and engage in conversation with us or keep walking. Finally, he pulled up a chair (the question I asked about how his music career was going apparently got him hooked), and he sat down to join us. Mid-explanation of his latest recording session, he stopped talking, gaze fixated on the grape Uncrustable sandwich sitting in Kim’s lunchbox. Kim and I looked at each other, then back to Roy as he slowly and tenderly picked up the sandwich. He cradled it in both hands as his eyes swam with what felt like a million emotions and memories. For the next half hour, Roy talked about Uncrustable sandwiches, how he hadn’t seen one for thirty years, since he was an elementary school kid, eating them with his friends behind a cement wall on the school yard. You can only imagine the pure joy he expressed when Kim told him he was welcome to have it. As Roy stood up and literally skipped away from us, still cradling the Uncrustable gently in both hands, I was moved by the experience of joy and connection that came from a few simple questions and a peanut butter sandwich. As you enter into these two weeks of Vocare, it's natural to want happy memories and to want to create them for yourselves and the communities you are entering into. But don’t overcomplicate joy. Strike up conversations, and let the little things and moments amaze you.

My third and final thought for you on how to engage in genuine relationships will be this: Ask people who they really are, and believe them. The clients I ended up developing the closest relationships with were those who wound up in my office often, just to “kick it” as they’d say. One of these clients, Ignacio, loved to regularly plop himself down in a chair next to my desk to show me update pictures from painting his bedroom walls, fill me in on his motorcycle license progress, offer me a new excuse for why he still hadn’t finished his high school coursework, or invite me to come outside and see the mint he’d been growing in the community garden. One day, I was filming an Instagram takeover for my university, so I asked Ignacio if he’d participate by letting me film him sharing the following information: his name, his experience so far at Homeboy, and a fun fact. This was the first time he’d heard of the concept of a fun fact, so I tried to explain it to him as this: something interesting about him that we wouldn’t necessarily know just by looking at him. I gave my own example: I am left-handed. He nodded, indicating he was ready, so I began recording. Starting with his name, he continued to his experience at Homeboy, and then we got to the fun fact segment. At this point, he paused for a moment, reflecting, and then with confidence, stated, “A fun fact about me is that I am humble. I am kind. I am a good person, and I love to help people.” Instead of naming the places he’s traveled or the hand he writes with, Ignacio chose to share the thing that he believes to be the most central to his identity—the thing that makes him fundamentally who he is. And in listening to Ignacio and believing that these things are true about him, I realized I need to be asking more of my clients about their fun facts—not the superficial kind, but the kind that is integral to their understanding of themselves and their experience of the world. The work of justice is deeply relational. It’s about seeing folks uniquely and individually, caring to really know them, and allowing them to really know you, too. It's about more than asking folks who their favorite sports teams are, which is not to say these aren’t good conversation starters. But mutual relationships begin when we ask another person who they believe they are at their very core and crucially, when we believe their answer to that question.

One of the most important lessons I learned from Father Greg and folks at Homeboy is that when we seek to “fix” or “save” or even “make a difference,” then we are making it all about ourselves and what we can do for others, and as a result, we create unjust relationships. The very heart of your service work must be mutuality. There is no giver and receiver. In a mutual relationship, you offer your unique gifts, stories, and experiences, and so does the other person. Both of you learn, grow, and flourish not from the knowledge you impart on one another but from the connection and feeling of belonging you foster together.

For me, the great irony of service is that although we do it because we care about justice, it is never truly just. In your two weeks of Vocare, you are not going to solve the world’s problems. You won’t end suffering. You won’t uproot structurally embedded systems of racism, poverty, homelessness, hunger, and dehumanization. You won’t eradicate injustice. So, you might be thinking: then what’s the point? The point is the relationships. The people you get to know, and the ways in which you choose to open your hearts to those around you. This does not mean we should give up the fight for a more just world, but there is no fight for justice if there is no mutuality and authentic connection. You can’t fix people’s problems in two weeks, but you can learn about them. You can listen to and remember their stories, internalize them, really care about them, learn what breaks their hearts and allow that thing to break yours, notice the systems and structures that perpetuate injustice in their lives, and feel outraged by them. In the face of your own frustrated helplessness, ask the question: What now?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told us that “we are caught in an escapable network of mutuality.” As you begin these two weeks of Vocare, I invite you to locate yourself within that network. Lean into relationship building at your placement sites by being present and consistent, starting conversations, and seeking moments of joy, and getting to know who people really are. Why do we serve? Not to change the world but to share life together. Not to reach people, but to allow ourselves to be reached by them—to better understand the things that they carry—their stories, perspectives, struggles, frustrations, questions, joys, hopes, and dreams. To be changed by our encounters with others and to allow those encounters to give us the passion and courage to then become agents of solidarity and pursuers of justice in our fractured world. While you won’t end injustice in the next two weeks, you will have the opportunity to ask someone a question, to show up and be present each morning, to listen to people’s stories and believe them. These moments of genuine encounter are the reason why we do service— and you, Dashers, are overwhelmingly capable of creating these mutual relationships to spark the healing that our world so desperately needs.