By Sarah Ceponis, Bon
Secours Volunteer Ministry
Nine months ago during my graduation weekend, I sat in an
audience of students committed to post-graduate service, and listened as a
speaker shared with us her thoughts on our coming year. Though not all her
words stuck that day, I do remember those she borrowed from renowned Irish poet
Seamus Heaney. From his poem Postscript,
she read: “You are neither here nor there/ A hurry through which known and
strange things pass/As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways/And catch
the heart off guard and blow it open.”
I find myself living Heaney’s poetry this year. I am “neither here nor there” in the sense
that I occupy two worlds at once. Half of my heart—my upbringing, my family,
many friends—resides hundreds of miles and infinite degrees of difference away.
The other half of my heart has become deeply rooted in a whole other world,
that of Southwest Baltimore. The first time I walked through this new world, my
wide eyes took in decaying row houses, boarded-up storefronts, uneven sidewalks
strewn with litter, junkies sitting on stoops with their brown paper bags held
tight. I was tempted, so tempted, to
simply hurry through this place, stunningly different from anything I had ever
known.
In my workplace at a family support center for young mothers
and children, the differences could not have been any more palpable. The
mothers, though many my age or younger, had one or two or three children. Snippets of conversation wafted over me,
about boyfriends in jail, friends who’d been shot, relatives who were
addicts. The toddlers I coaxed to sleep
at naptime would jerk awake the minute I stopped patting their back, but
incredibly, did not even wake up to the roar of police sirens. My hope—stemming from my desire to fight for
justice in this neighborhood—was to find a way to fit in here; my fear was that
nobody even wanted me to try. It was a toddler, hardly able to walk or talk, who was somehow able to assuage my fear. After being at work for about a month, I came in a few hours late one morning. When I slipped through the playground gate, usually timid 18-month-old Javon spotted me. He swooped down the slide, exuberantly shouting baby-speak, and scrambled right into my arms. A radiant grin stretched across his face, and my coworker shouted, “You’re his girl, Ms. Sarah. He was waiting for you.” I spun Javon around, tossed him in the air, made him squeal with delight, all the while dancing inside with the knowledge that one baby, at least, thinks I fit in just fine.
From this moment of acceptance tumbled “big soft
buffetings,” as Seamus Heaney might say, day in and day out. I started, slowly
but surely, to discover that building relationships—and consequently working
for justice—starts the same way regardless of what world you are in: with an
outstretched hand and a genuine smile.
When I was unsure of this early on, it was the babies and toddlers who
set an example. “Ms. Sarah,” Kamora said
to me one afternoon, “What are these? I like them.” She trailed her fingers
over the freckles on my arms: “Can I have one?”
Before I could come up with a suitable answer, she took my hand and
said, “Oh never mind. Let’s play.” The
children disarmed me completely, showing unbounded trust and love, and holding
tight to my hand, rooting me to the ground when I would’ve been tempted to turn
away. The neighborhood seemed so full of
problems: drugs, guns, poverty, crime. And yet, through the eyes of these tiny,
innocent kids, I started to see solutions.
Mainly, I saw love.
Recently, I looked on as three-year-old Emonie comforted her crying
infant sister: “Ji’Yah, don’t cry. You’re ok, Mommy’s in class.. I’m here now.
I love you—really. Don’t cry.” In an equally
breathtaking moment, I stood and watched an older brother sitting next to his
little brother in the classroom. Amari
was very carefully untying Tarhijae’s shoes, and I looked on as he gently
tugged one sneaker off, then the other.
Tarhijae hadn’t been himself all day—cried at breakfast, ripped a book,
threw a tantrum—and now he sat, sock-clad toes wriggling, and giggled. Amari
motioned for me to take Tarhijae’s sneakers. “Here. He told me they were too
small.” Even though Tarhijae doesn’t
speak yet, somehow, I knew Amari was telling the truth.
From babies and toddlers—from the people we look to least for answers—I have learned the most lessons this year. I have discovered, under their spell, what seeking social justice is all about. It is not, as I first thought, about the big picture, about eradicating poverty and solving world hunger, about rebuilding Baltimore’s vacant homes and getting drugs off its street. It is the much smaller picture that matters; it is all in the freckles and shoelaces. Most importantly, it is not being afraid to stumble into a new world, take a deep breath, and surrender your heart. The fight for justice can only begin when, to borrow the words of Seamus Heaney, you let your heart be caught off guard, and blown wide open.
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