LVC Culture and Me

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it! Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

During a reflection time one day in DC, this quote by Thurgood Marshall scanned across the screen. There were always many quotes scanning the screen but this one really hit my spirit, for a couple reasons probably.

I noticed in my first couple days at orientation what a very defined culture LVC is in itself. There is a group dynamic of getting very emotionally wrapped up in the hard core progressive liberal life style. (I will put a disclaimer in right now – I really respect this lifestyle) This is the life where every drop of water used is saved and reused for something else, where worm compost inhabits every city home, where women don’t shave, where the best hobbies are protesting, loudly fighting for social justice, and “sticking it to the man” so to speak.

None of these things are bad. I appreciate each of them in fact. But I was struck by how out of place I felt. I was overwhelmed by the intensity of pressure to live by each of these means and the guilt I suddenly felt when I shaved my legs in the morning or chose to read a stupid mindless novel instead of engaging in intense conversation about health care reform. When this progressive culture affect me in this way I wondered how it affected the people everyone in LVC is trying to reach out to? Afterall, I have grown up with strong Amish roots, and who lives more simply than the Amish? I mean – really… So how does this culture feel to someone who as grown up on the streets? How does if feel to suddenly be expect to always eat vegan organic to someone who grew up solely on good southern home cooking?

So my question that I am wrestling with at the moment is, “Is it possible to become so radical that we’re irrelevant?” I’ll probably blog more on this as the year goes on…

But, it was soon after I started grappling with this question that I read this quote from Marshal. If I live in the ways that give me life, the pressure to be as progressive and liberal and outspoken as many of the other LVCers is off. I am free to live in the ways that bring life to both me and others. Some of those ways will be in line with the LVC culture, some will not and that’s ok. I don’t have to fight for health care reform I don’t know enough about, even though I know the world desperately needs it. I don’t have to call my senators to tell them what I think of everything, even though the world could possibly need that influence. I don’t have to put a bucket in my shower every morning and then take it outside to water the garden for the rest of my life.

One goal for the year is to explore the things that do make me come alive. I want to find those things, hold onto them, and grow them, because I so desperately want to share myself with the world and that is what the world needs.