D O A: November 2010

How do you know when your done, a question asked by Anne Lamott, and answered in her response. She talks about the vision of students of someone pushing themselves away from their desk when they're done. Then, she counters when reality, and you are done when you cannot make any more changes that would make it any better. She appeals to logos through the octopus analogy, making a logical comparison to writing and putting an octopus to bed. The analogy is that it is hard, because when you think you've got it, there are more tentacles hanging out, like there are more things in your writing that could be changed. She establishes her credibility through ethos because she is a teacher. It has little appeal to pathos.

Here is the essay for workshop:

A. David Arrington

Murphy

English 110C

The Many Faces and Many Places:

Things That Have Shaped My Life

Its 5:30am, my cold fingers punch the combo into the ancient cypher lock, I walk in the door, and smell the hint of exhaust fumes and cleaners, and know I am in for 24 hours of fun. It’s dark and cold, even in July, I drearily place my gear on the floor next to the door of the truck I am riding, open the door and climb inside. I am gently greeted in the cab by the faint smell of smoke from the last training burns months before. I turn on my air pack, feel the vibra-alert, and hear the check beeps. I let the alarm cycle through, and check all the connections, making sure the pack will protect my life inside the hostile environment I probably won’t see today, but wish I would. Once all the equipment is checked, the driver pulls the truck out, and checks the engine, generator, and pump. After this, we walk across the street to the “greasy spoon” known as the Round Hill Diner, and order breakfast. We walk back with our food, and go upstairs to the hall for morning briefing over scrambled eggs, bacon, and home fries. After that, it was usually school work for an hour or two, then off to train and PT; followed by lunch, and more homework. Once all the work was done, the TV came on, cars got washed, stuff got cleaned, whatever needed to be done. After dinner, its showers and Round Hill Ology, or sitting in front of the station, sometimes with a cigar in hand, watching the world go by until it got dark, and it was off to bed. This process would get thrown off if there was a call, but that is what I’m there for, so it was okay to be interrupted to help someone.

This process, repeated by myself and the others, is the basis of how I am now. I spent many hundreds, probably thousands of hours in this building, learning what to do, and what not do. The Round Hill Fire Department has opened my eyes in a sense to how bad society can be, people that don’t care for themselves, don’t care for others, or want to hurt others. Through the calls whether trauma, medical, or fire I have witnessed, I have learned how to observe, note, and move on. The way I act, quick to respond, always with something to say was developed here, not only from having to defend myself from the barrage of insults flying through the air, but to be prepared if a situation turns south to get out alive. This ultimately turned into what some people think is a lack of care for my fellow humans.

The lack of care at a personal level is evident, but I still care for people. This caring is different though, caring is the empathy you have for others, and how you turn that empathy into an action. The type of care that patients receive is different. This type of care is business, I have to care for someone enough to do my job well, but I can’t care enough to feel for them. It is a complicated emotion, or state of mind I think only those that provide care for people can understand. I do care for people at a personal level such as my friends, colleagues, and people that I see daily. They are close to me, so as a human, I should care for them as people, not patients. I still watch out for the public, it’s my duty, but it won’t have the same effect on me than someone I know being hurt. This numbness to the world was gained through the fire department, but the independence, and respect for what I have was furthered elsewhere. The Gulf Coast is a place that I learned about myself and others.

When hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, it left a path of destruction hundreds of miles wide. In 2006, 2007, and 2008, I went with a group of people from our church to work on reconstructing the communities that were once visible, but at the time were evidenced by scraps of houses, foundations, and empty swimming pools. Our church went to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi for two years, where we worked with Lagniappe Presbyterian Church. Lagniappe is a Creole word that means “a little extra.” I heard that and knew that’s how I should live my life, always doing more than I needed to get by. We worked there for a week, building sheds for the people moving back in to have a place to put their salvageable belongings while they gutted and rebuilt their house. This showed me how thankful I was to have anything really, because most of the former residents there had not much more than a car and a house frame to their name. The impact we left there, not just me, and not just our church, but the entire project at Lagniappe left a strong footprint in the community, and many more people started coming to church there, and many people realized that there were people in the world that cared, people that cared enough to work for free, to pay to be there. The second year at Bay St. Louis, we were fortunate enough to be building and finishing houses. We had a large group, so we had several sites, and were able to work on several houses, again learning more to be thankful for what we have, and how easily it can all be taken away, and especially how long it takes to rebuild life after a disruption like that. The next year, 2008, we went to New Orleans, Louisiana. There we worked with Crossroads Presbyterian Church, in the Upper Ninth Ward. They assigned us to work with St. Roch Community Church, in the St. Roch neighborhood. There we worked on the church building and some surrounding houses. These houses were bought from renters by the church. These renters charged the tenants two to three times the amount the house should go for, so the church bought them so they could rent to families for an appropriate price. We therefore had to repair the houses from the destruction of the tenants and the storm. In the church, we jackhammered a floor to prepare it to be joined with another concrete floor, and framed an office. Working here showed me how greedy other people were, to take advantage of people that can make very little, and charging them many times what they needed. This was the most obvious affect on the community, the first day we were there, we were watched like hawks by everyone that lived around where we were working. By the end of the week, people were coming into the street and talking to us, even thanking us for the work we were doing. This was somewhere that we greatly affected, and it greatly affected us. Further mission trips have also had an impact on my life.

Two years ago, I went again with our church to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This city had been flooded the year before beyond the 10, 50, 100, and 1000 year flood planes. It was a true act of God, and there was no “global warming” that would explain it. We arrived at the church we were to stay at, and were directed around to the basement, which had house wrap dividing the basement into two, and air mattresses stacked up and laying on the floor. We were to live there for the next week. The next day we started work. We traveled into the city, and began work. We had a decent sized group, so again we worked on multiple sites. One site that had the most affect me was a set of two houses, both of which had water marks above my head from the ground, and when you went up the 3 steps onto the porch, you were at eye level with the separation between faded white, and light brown paint. Inside the house, there was plaster walls falling apart, resembling a melting wax figure. Our project that week was to remove everything down to the studs and plumbing. These houses showed clearly how bad the flood was. Another site that was more angering than sad was the home of a man in his 50s, that didn’t talk much, but seemed to be a functioning autistic. His house needed foundation work, and he hired a contractor to fix it. The person he hired dug the trench next to his house, and placed cinder blocks in the hole, and didn’t fix the problem. He then left, leaving his house unsecured, and the trench still there. This type of thing was happening all over Cedar Rapids, “Contractors” were getting hired to work on houses, then they would take the money and leave. At this house we finished digging the trench, and did some interior trim work. Here there was not as noticeable an impact of our church’s work on the community. Most of Cedar Rapids was atheist, so few people came out to talk to a church, staying away to avoid having to talk about religion. The few that came out and talked with us couldn’t understand why anyone would help the people of Cedar Rapids, especially for free. There was a physical sign of God’s work through our church, but no emotional effect other than leaving people puzzled. A place we did notice a large change was in Fairmont, West Virginia.

This summer, I went with our church to Fairmont, West Virginia. There we worked on a woman’s house named “Peaches.” She was a single grandmother, and had just bought a house that had been condemned. We arrived on Monday morning ready to work, and found out we were in for more than we thought. The group was small, and all of us had been on trips before, so we thought the work we were given would not be enough. However God had different plans. We were walking through the house, and asked Peaches if there was a bathroom we could use when she told us there was no running water. I looked at our leader, and knew I would be working on that. By Thursday, I had repaired 4 or 5 leaks, because the water was left in the pipes over the winter, and they froze, bursting the old copper pipes. We left Peaches with running water, freshly painted trim and walls of her porch, new railings on the stairways leading to her house, which was perched about 20 feet above the street on a steep hill, and 1 new window, with 2 more that were installed the next week by a different team. We left her that, but we left her neighbors with something else. The first day, her next door neighbor yelled at us for blocking her driveway, and by the end of the week, they were talking to us every time they came and went. Across the street, the neighbors watched us like hawks, shutting their door, and keeping their kids in. By the end of the week, she came out, thanked us for the work, told us how much better the house looked, and asked how she could get help. That was the most dramatic change of a person over such a short time I have ever seen. I hope to return next year and see what else has changed.

From Mississippi and Louisiana to Iowa and West Virginia, the trips I have taken with our church has left a huge impact on my life, and an impact on the communities we helped. I now know how grateful I must be to have a roof over my head, a place to keep my stuff, running water, clean water, and money to go to college. I now know that my worst day would be a great day for thousands, probably millions of people. I’m extremely thankful for what I have, but I take it for granted. This thankfulness was shown to me by my work in these places. I got thankfulness for what I have, knowledge on how to do many things, and a greater knowledge of other cultures within America.

These two seemingly different lives are brought together by the same principal. A paramedic friend of mine when asked if he saved someone from a call I heard about said, “I don’t save lives, God does, I’m just an instrument for God.” That statement I now realize, sums up my life as well. Through the gifts I have been given, I work as a firefighter, builder, helper, because it is what I am supposed to do. I care for people because it is what I believe is the right thing to do, and I only need the inspiration of God to do so. I feel called to serve others with the gifts I have in life, but I can’t let their bad situation get to me. The day that someone’s life starts to get to you is the day you need to retire. This seems odd, but once you start caring too much, you start to get desperate and make mistakes, which would contradict what I want to do. I don’t have the same relationship with someone that I help as someone I know for that reason. However, since the work on a mission trip is not an immediate matter of life and death, I can care more personally for those people.

These are the places I have been, and the things I have learned. All the work comes together to make me a helpful person willing to use my gifts for the benefit of others, with little consideration to my own comfort, safety, or life. Its just the right thing to do, to use my gifts for God, showing that there are people in the world that care, whether it is a demolished community, someone having a heart attack, or a kid with a cold. There has been many places, many faces that have shaped my life, some that I remember, some that have faded into the past, and many I have yet to see.