Go, then.

My heart has many homes. When it dreams, it returns to crisp autumn evenings spent munching on Sour Patch Kids and waiting to perform at high school football half time shows in Farm Town, Illinois. It ponders questions of poverty and social responsibility while sharing stale bologna sandwiches and burnt coffee with guests at a Chicago soup kitchen. It rejoices in a garden apartment in Seattle, where it shared a bottle of wine and Lebanese food with its life-long companion for the first time.

In its most reminiscent moments, my heart travels across the sea to the continent of humanity’s motherland where, with a simple serving of beans and rice, it learns how deeply it can be broken and, more importantly, how deeply it can fall in love. My heart pounds in the pursuit of solidarity and is grounded in the belief that the well-being of our global human family is dependent on the dignity of each individual person.

My heart wants nothing more than to love.

The Vincentians have a go, then theology. Simply put, it means that we are called to go into the world, learn its realities, meet those who are poor, and build relationships with those on the margins. Then, we make meaning of the experience. We allow their stories to transform our hearts and lives. We take steps, ever-so-slowly, to be able to walk humbly with them on their life journeys and to invite them to walk with us on ours.

In all of the places my heart calls home, I have gone, then. I have seen hunger in 60-year-old men in Chicago and 4-year-old children in Kenya. I have struggled with the task of being an advocate for survivors of human trafficking rather than raising my voice with them in the Pacific Northwest. My heart has grown complacent with the knowledge that I will never have the answers and ripped open again with restlessness at the question, “Why?”

The word companion has its etymology in the Latin words com panis, which translate to mean with bread. We are a social species, even to the extent that our language irrevocably weds our most essential source of nourishment to community. I believe at our very core, we are a people who understand that we need each other to survive. However, in an age when unjust legislation governs food and the average working American spends more time in front of a screen rather than face-to-face with a person, it is easy to forget that we belong to one another, as well as to the Earth.

I hope that this blog will be an avenue on my journey to return to humanity’s most basic roots. By reflecting on the values of small food, simple living, homesteading, and community, I hope to make meaning of faith and justice. My goal is not to gain a fan base or to convince myself that my thoughts are worth immortalizing on the world wide web. Rather, I aim to explore the joy that can come from an intentional lifestyle.

I invite your heart to join mine as we discover what it means to break bread together, to answer the question, “Go, then. Then what?”