The Virtual Abbess, Peggy Brown, tagged me, oh, about a week ago, at the end of her Caring, Compassion, and Charity post. (Check out the origins and full rules of this meme from Alex Shalman. It’s a very intriguing exercise in net-tracking an internetwork of people who give.) Here is the short version of the rules:

In a new blog post, list and write about the top 1 or 2 causes that simply make your palms sweat, your heart bleed, and send tears rolling down your cheeks. Make sure you tell everyone why this cause is so important to you as an individual.

So here it is. If you read my previous post on the 10-20-30 meme tag game, my response here will likely make more sense … 

What do I care about so much that I can’t NOT do it? I am passionate about assisting people who don’t understand themselves and need an interpreter, who’ve been misunderstood/marginalized and need an advocate, and/or who have some huge project they need help with that is way far beyond them to finish alone and need a strategist-project manager-editor-friend-partner. Due to energy limitations from chronic illness, I have a relatively small social network, and these three ways of serving occur almost exclusively within that network. 

What drives me in this particular direction of service? Actually, I see myself as co-passioning with such people as I just mentioned, because I am such a person myself – in need of an interpreter, an advocate, a project partners.If there were an award for the person who least fit in during grade school and high school, I’d probably win it. [But then, wouldn’t winning any kind of award have made me just a little too “mainstream”? Oh well …] If you read the post that included background on my Myers-Briggs Temperament Indicator scores, you’ll know that the last time I took the MBTI, they were E/I (borderline), N (clear), F (slight), P (slight). Those are all counterbalanced with other learning style considerations that make everything seem to turn out a “tie.” So, I can relate with just about anyone on their internal conflicts, which, with a gift of listening, allows me to help people interpret some of the possible roots of their cognitive dissonances, emotional ambivalences, relational conflicts, mortifying mysticisms, and volitional indecisions.  

Because I found almost no one to help me interpret my own life when I was in my 20s, I made a commitment to become the kind of person who would help others figure themselves out. Why, at one point in my early 30s, I even applied to a graduate school for a master’s in Christian counseling – but didn’t get accepted. (Which actually was a good thing, but it also turns out to be one of my “most embarrassing moments of all time.” Ummm … let’s leave that painful story dormant for the time being …) So, it should be no surprise that I end up spending a lot of time with 20/30-somethings especially, listening to their stories of triumphs and traumas, asking questions to help them gain perspective while unpacking their lives, and suggesting how their “providential package deal” that includes such confusion and pain might actually be a redemptive thing in the long run. No need to advertise to friends this willingness to spend time with them; I just trust the Lord will send me those who are ready, and that He won’t send so many that I’m overwhelmed. (It’s hard for us introverts to spend so much time talkin’, yuh know. It wears us out!)  

Also, no need to advertise my willingness to advocate for people who’ve been marginalized. As sort of a legacy of having “people of peace” on both sides of my family tree, it seems to be in my nature to move toward being an ADVOCATE: Actively Defend Verbally Or Concretely And Thereby Enrich. (Okay, so it’s not the best acronym in the world, but I made it up myself and it works well enough to describe that role.) Over the past 35 years, I’ve been involved in such areas of social activism and advocacy as: environmentalism; inclusion of both genders and multiple generations in leadership opportunities; support for survivors of domestic violence; HIV/AIDS ministry; support for those seeking transformation in their gender identity, orientation, and addiction issues; multicultural and inter-religious dialogues; and off-the-radar Kingdom enterprises. 

Friends with unusual and/or gargantuan projects seek me out, too. Many of them have projects that will never be lucrative commercial ventures. However, these projects are still important for their encouragement and for the development of the Kingdom. Whether it’s project managing a book, or doing an emergency edit on a dissertation, or talking through esoteric stuff like “qualitative assessments for apostolic ministry in post-Christendom settings” – I let friends know that I will do what I can, when I can, within the parameters of low energy from chronic illness. (But, it’s surprising – or perhaps not – that the energy needed is there for the project at hand, and then goes away immediately afterwards. This means services comes at a cost, but then, doesn’t all real service?) 

I do find great joy in this work, especially in knowing that most of the friends I help are likewise least likely to fit in, and/or most likely to be rejected in their projects. Yet, my hunch is that sometimes these very ones are among those making the most precious of contributions to the Kingdom, for they follow the Spirit’s leading into personal transformation and Kingdom ministries where they cannot do it all on their own. Actually … isn’t that where we all should be? And, actually, that is where I am myself: Both in navigating through coping with life in generation, and seeking to launch my own humongous project, the founding of some kind of center related to research/development of cultural formation and transformation. (The details will be a topic for some later post.) 

Last note: Go ahead and think that such wide-ranging involvements means I am ADHD if you want to. But I think it’s an indicator of a deep internal drive for multidisciplinary experiences in order to be integrative toward an interdisciplinary perspective. If that happens to resonate with you, or you’re otherwise interested in people way outside the norm who fit in the category of polymathology, you may want to read my article on “Interpolators” to see the difficult issues people like face, and the redemptive sides of what we are created to be and to do. 

So, there you have it. Thanks for the tag, Peggy. But whom to pick as my meme-spliced next generations for Caring, Compassion, and Charity? I decided to invite several people I’m getting to know from the Allelon Seabeck summit on formation of a “Missional Order.” And so, the next generation of this ”Tag! You’re it! meme” goes out to: 

* Lori  

* Rob R.