Volunteering: A Giving
in to the sharing, in Nepal
When the
title hits first, it is like receiving an “intrusive word”, an obnoxious perhaps, announcement of a
beautiful gift becoming. We shall see
how this title that has found me, moves.
In September I will return to Nepal as a volunteer offering
training in Expressive Arts Therapy and Community Art practice to Nepali
nationals who serve as humanitarian workers, community outreach and development
specialists, social activists and care providers. The training and coaching offered is freely
given, with the help of many friends who have and will donate funds to http://www.gofundme.com/hoperisingamidstne.
To “offer oneself” though, to bring
and give freely of who one is, in a foreign context, amidst the complex
circumstances of recent systemic trauma, ongoing societal struggles and the
emerging qualities of resilience, is to become vulnerable.
As a volunteer serving in a foreign country, I am a cultural
stranger, linguistically incompetent, way-finding challenged, and utterly in
need of a cultural mentor to translate for me the mores and folkways abounding
in the midst of every interaction. Simply
put, whatever expertise I have been invited to share, is in need of major
reconstruction, on the fly, in the midst of a new and challenging culturally
different circumstance. I need help!
I am not alone.
The people in Nepal who have extended
invitation also are vulnerable, experiencing a need. Something is happening amidst the people that
requires support from others to fully emerge.
Sadhana Thapa and Reeta Bomjan the founders of Expressive Arts Nepal,
have identified the emerging presence and gift of Expressive Art and Community
Art in their country as pathways and practices that are life giving to Nepali
people. This has been true in all human society for
all times. I do not go to introduce
Expressive Art and Community Art practice as if it is something completely new to
the people of Nepal. I go to bring culturally
meaningful experiences of engaging creatively with the circumstances and
conditions of life people in Nepal are enduring and moving through. I bring these experiences as opportunities
for re-enlivening what is already in the hearts of humanity. We are all formed and informed, embodied
creatures possessing instinctual, innate ability to creatively meet life. We can always work to sense and imagine what
more Truth, Goodness, Love and Beauty can be brought into this world through us
for the healing of all living Creation.
This is the very essence for me of being “imago DEI” formed in the
image, the active ability of living as witness to who God is. This is for me what it means to live into my
faith in God and living as faithful witnessing of God’s sacred and Loving
existence.
It is indeed the volunteering in Nepal, the giving into the sharing, in
vulnerability with Nepali people, that makes way for Beauty to become amongst
us and the miraculous to appear.
The anthropologist Victor Turner
describes this as entering liminal space, a time out of time, where we leave
behind, detach from our “fixed” identities, knowledge, social status, community
conditions, public face, power, prestige and hierarchies and bring to the place
who we are. We come as people volunteering to be vulnerable, open to
experiencing one another anew through embodied presence while sharing what gifts
we have in the art of making. We enter liminal space willingly seeking
something new and helpful, even hopeful and transformative of us all,
individually and a s a group.
As I prepare to return soon to Nepal, I know that my volunteering will
provide opportunity for giving in to the
shared vulnerability of walking on land that resounds its current rumblings
visually. Volunteering is opportunity to give in to sharing in the sense of
physical and emotional vulnerability one cannot avoid as one walks through
Nepal’s crumbled history that resides now in heaps of stone crying out in
memorial of what was. There is no doubt that sharing time and space with Nepali
people in art making will include sharing in their expressions of grief, loss,
fear, anguish and struggle. And yet as has been demonstrated repeatedly, being
together vulnerably in expressive, improvisational art making, gives rise to
something so much more than pain! Dr. Brene Brown in a recent interview stated,
“We associate vulnerability with emotions we want to avoid such as fear, shame
and uncertainty. Yet we too often loose
sight of the fact that vulnerability is also the birthplace of joy, belonging
and creativity”. This is indeed what
comes forward when we settle into our senses and let art making lead us!
Expressive
Arts and Community Art practice have demonstrated great efficacy as processes
that facilitate recovery, resilience, renewal of imagination and hope in the
midst of working through trauma.
Expressive Art and Community Art practice engage humanity
through low skill high sensitivity processes that are accessible to anyone
regardless of prior experience in any artistic modality. All people who enter the liminal space of
artistic play and discovery can participate in contributing to the art piece
that is emerging.
In the experience of making art in liminal space, this other
worldly environment away from trauma, a bridge to the potential for rekindling
of internal resources and resiliency skills that bring people through traumatic
events can emerge in art making and be brought back into everyday life. Yes indeed, volunteering is a giving in to the sharing of Expressive Arts and
Community Art practice as opportunity for Nepali people to imagine what beauty
may come in Nepal.
Please consider sharing
in the work of supporting the emerging beauty in Nepal.
