I was almost late for church this morning — finally fell asleep around 5 or 6 or some such a.m. and then woke up at 9:05. But I made it to UCC by 10, and good thing.

Rob talked about empathy today. He talked about meeting a couple who go around to different places where there are long-held grudges and misunderstandings; they use improv nights as an outreach to bring people together.

“The thing with improv is that you have to build on someone else’s story. The thing with improv is that you have to say, ‘Yes, and…’; it builds empathy by getting you out of the story in your own head and into the story that someone else is telling. And after a while you look around and see this thing you’re building together and you discover that there’s more joy in it than anything you were coming up with yourself.”

He talked about our faith, and about how God often places us in situations that don’t match the picture in our head. Rob said that it’s up to us to take what we’re given and build on it, to improvise, to build something with God.

“Yes, and…”

It made me think about where I am now, how it doesn’t match the picture in my head, and what I’m going to do with it. Acadia is beautiful, no question there, but there rest has been interesting. For example:

I thought I would be working with people my age. Seth and Ashley were just out of graduate school when they went through the program and I assumed that it was full of people like them. I was so hoping to find friends who were grounded, who had studied, who had a few years of life experience, who would sit around a campfire and talk about faith and hope and big things they’d been learning. But these are really kids, good ones, but kids with a lot of things to sort through. They’re about half my age.

On the other hand I’m rooming with women twice my age. I like my roommate (she was a social worker before she retired, a victim advocate…), but there are others who are touchy and grumpy and who frankly don’t like me. Sometimes they snore so and I just lie awake and pretty much cry.

I thought I would be upstairs selling art in the “Maine crafted gallery” and was looking forward to it. Turns out I work most of the time downstairs in retail. I fold t-shirts a lot of the day; I walk through the store and turn all the jars of jam to face the same direction. I put paper bags of popover mix into boxes and print shipping labels for them. I handle money at a cash register and have said, “Hey, welcome!” so many times already there’s no way to count them. I was hoping just to spend my time learning about and appreciating beautiful things and then sending them home with others who saw the same value and loved them too.

YES, AND…

Rob Browne says you make the most difference with people who are half your age: here they are. I work with about 20 of them, both on the ministry team and in the shops. Maybe I’m here to be the friend someone else needs.

Being around women twice my age is also good for me. Every day I have to ask myself, one way or another, who am I becoming? When I’m twice my age, will I be gentle and understanding, or will I stomp and be touchy and find fault? Will I see the people around me, the younger ones? How set in my ways will I be? And what can I do for these women now? I’ve been trying to keep the common areas clean — sweeping for all of us, taking the trashes out at least.

There are skills that I’m learning in retail. I’m learning a lot about cash handling and shipping. I see people behind counters in a way I’ve never before seen them. I’m building an understanding for entirely new groups of people — people at registers, people doing seasonal work — like really seeing the faces of Asians after living in China. And I’m learning all the good that can be done merely by showing strangers that you recognize and share in their humanity — laughing together, having patience while they dig for pennies, finding sincere pleasure in wrapping their purchase in two pieces of tissue please.

Yes, and…

Improvisation.