The Burden of Sowing
by Mike Uca-Dorn

Students visit Jonah House several times a year through an alternative break to experience nonviolence, community, and resistance. Despite correspondence preceding the trip, students do not receive a full picture of what they'll experience during their week in an Irish-Catholic cemetery in west Baltimore. I've noticed that several appreciate that part when having to answer parent's questions, given our controversial work in resistance.

It's an anxiety-provoking question to ask, ‘what is our responsibility to these students?' It calls us to reflect deeply on the privilege (as well as the burden) we have of becoming sowers of nonviolent consciousness in the empire at a crucial moment in their lives.

Students quickly learn that Jonah House has not ‘arrived' in its efforts to be nonviolent; rather, it works to create an environment where its own violence and the violence of our country can be addressed and unpacked. Students are presented with diverse forms of resistance- from hammering on Tridents to saving water in toilets, and from street theater about Guantanamo detainees to growing gardens. We highlight Walter Wink's “Myth of Redemptive Violence”, outline the National Nuclear Security Administration's plans for Complex 2030, and perform manual labor in the cemetery, among other things. Throughout the week, there is an exchange of stories, something often lost in our sound-bite culture. We explain our history which stems from the resistance to the war in Vietnam. That period of resistance directly involved nonviolence and community, three pillars that still sustain us today.

For some students, the week here is the last opportunity before life after college to pose critical questions about our country's foreign and domestic policies, which may inform what kind of history teachers, social workers, or ministers they become. For others, it may be a new experience of practicing one's faith, given our daily bible study and house church on Sundays. Still for others, the week may serve as a time to distance themselves from a lifestyle largely created and supported by the culture, which includes the “American Dream”, we've always been taught.

These are just a few examples of how this week can be experienced. As a community member, I receive a priceless gift when students share what they're passionate about. At the same time, I feel a burden to help facilitate an experience that cultivates their interest in our work rather than stifling it. I often pray those weeks that God uses our community as a vehicle to do God's Will for them, and part of the burden lies in having the faith that God will work amid the brokenness of our community.

It is in such brokenness that we hope students experience accessibility to our ideals, realizing that one does not have to be of flawless character to do our work. There have been times when my wife Eda and I have given hour-long presentations to students away from Jonah House. We have been told by the students how composed our presence appears, at which Eda candidly states, “What are you kidding, it's nothing to hold it together for an hour!” I couldn't agree more.

Writing this article has surfaced intense feelings as I remind myself that the burden of sowing for Jonah House becomes the burden of knowing for the students. That is, the burden of knowing about our military-industrial complex, our U.S. lifestyle and its implications around the world, and our responsibility to uphold international law. How can one make sense of such grave issues unless consoled by those who try to struggle with it daily? This is one of the most important things we can do for these students- create a relationship.

I feel it's the relationship that guides them through the week, operating at a different pace for everyone. Wherever the students go, I hope these relationships bear fruit. I hope that a story, a witness, a gesture, or an approach, benefits their own journey. I cannot begin to know what the burden of knowing for a college student is like, and so I extend an invitation to students to write to us about their experiences at Jonah House. It would greatly assist us, though we also hope it assists their continued discernment.

As the burdens of sowing and knowing will most likely remain, relief is never far away from the memories of wrestling with it all together. Thank you to all of the students, parents, faculty, and staff for making the trip possible this year! Psalm 111 states that reverence for God is the beginning of wisdom. You've all blessed us with a special opportunity to reverence God, one student at a time.