Joseph's House

I frequently recollect my short time participating in the life and work of Joseph's House--a local community that provides hospice care to low income residents of DC who are diagnosed with AIDS and/or cancer.  This amazing work is quietly being done in the neighborhood of Adam's Morgan.  It's a place where volunteers and some staff spend their days providing care--medical, domestic, and emotional--to the residents.

I find that I've internalized a fast-paced culture where there's pressure to maximize the productivity of each moment, to seek efficiency through expanding my access to technology, and to disregard those who don't prove themselves to be useful.  There are few place where I've found this oppressive and addictive mode of existence challenged as it is challenged through work of Joseph's House.  I can easily speak about how my time there contributed to my understanding of hospitality, simplicity, friendship, and grief.  However, I was also taught about the grace (the abundance, the gift)that's found in caring for and being with those who suffer in small--seemingly insignificant--ways.

There's grace in remembering that making breakfast and sweeping the floor is an act of love.  Or in realizing that showing hospitality happens both in sharing space, meals, and conversation.  Or in the face of imminent death, finding that there's nothing that you have nothing to give and still remaining available.  And there's grace in actively remembering those who pass away.  These gestures are not efficient, goal-oriented, or calculated through cost/benefit analysis, but they bring about a invaluable transformation the lives of the volunteers, the staff, and the residents.  In their simplicity, I find that these small gestures are not only works of compassion, but the seeds of resistance and hope in our dehumanizing and destructive culture.