Sacrifice

Major themes always have a way of repeating in one’s life. For me, the themes of failure, transformation, and honest keep repeating. These themes are also related to a larger theme of healing. My name means healer, and I feel very connected to that meaning both in the sense of one who heals and in the sense of one who sacrifices.

The latter sense has found ways to be both helpful and hindering. The act of sacrifice, for me, has traditionally meant losing my self to others. I grew up Catholic, and the ultimate sacrifice was martyrdom – dying for one’s convictions. I could never live up to the pressure of dying for my beliefs.

Instead, I sacrificed parts of my identity. I would deny and sometimes kill pieces of me that I knew others had a hard time with. I am queer, and I have known this since Kindergarten. However, being queer was tantamount to suicide – pure evil in the eyes of Catholicism. I hi, lied, denied, a cut it out of me – even when it was staring both my family and me in the face.

And I thought this was my duty as a son and as a Catholic. I thought that everyone was the better because of my sacrifice. In some ways, others were better. My church was better because it meant that I could still volunteer my time and skills. My family was momentarily better because there wasn’t any division among us as a family unit. And I thought I was better because I didn’t need to confront the conflicts that would arise due to coming out.

The burden of sacrificing my identity became unbearable. I found myself alone in an unknown sea. I didn’t know how to escape drowning, so I came out. Through a series of coincidental events, everyone in my life knew in about one month. Then, I began understanding the sacrifice Gandhi writes about: “Sacrifice is the law of life…We can do nothing of get nothing without paying a price for it…True sacrifice lies in deriving the greatest pleasure from the deed, no matter what the risk.”

I thought I was sacrificing myself by denying a part of my self. However, there was very little risk involved in hiding. Personally, I risked suicide. But in relation to my community, I was complacent. I didn’t risk the humiliation that I knew would happen. I didn’t risk the challenges and conflict that could move my community towards social change. I was scared, and I let that fear dictate my path and decisions.

Thirteen years later, I still find myself grappling with the notion of sacrifice. I find myself repeating similar patterns of denying parts of my identity, or even acknowledging pieces of my identity others perceive.

I am a leader in the field of youth development. This is a position I am really uncomfortable in. For years, I have been in position of middle management. These positions definitely had influence – influence in logistical details, relationships with youth and families, and school and community collaborations. But I had very little true decision-making power. I could recommend, advise, and critique. Ultimately, the decisions resided with others higher up.

In these previous positions, I was always sacrificing. I remember a very concrete sacrifice I had to make. I was working on a collaborative literacy project. This project helped middle school youth find their voices through autobiographical storytelling. I was the facilitator of the collaborative helping keep everyone informed about what was going on. At the table were two schools, a literary arts organization, and my organization.

The first three years of the collaborative were amazing. We assessed the needs of youth, parents, community, and school and crafted a project that met their stated needs. In the first semester of the program, we had our rough patches. Youth were not that interested in the program and parents kept pulling their children early from the program. With a few minor changes, we solved these problems and the program saw tremendous growth.

The close of our third year saw the collaborative come back together and determine a future course. This meant reapplying for funds together and embarking on a strategic planning process. About a third of the way through this process, I was pulled into a meeting with my supervisor. I was told that the literary arts organization was going to be cut out of the grant after we were awarded a renewal. I was also told not to tell the organization, to pretend that everything was moving forward as it had for the last three years, and to take the literary arts organization’s curriculum and train my staff on it.

The reasons given to me for this were understandable: our organization was facing a major budget shortfall and this was the only way to ensure that we could keep all of our staff. I was not sold that this was in the best interest of the literacy development of our youth. My staff were amazing youth workers. They were not literacy experts. They had a hard time understanding content standards and their application. I knew that the youth would suffer if this organization was cut out completely from the grant. I also didn’t, and still don’t, believe in the backhandedness of non-disclosure.

Instead of accepting this position I was placed in, I decided to inform all parties of what was going to happen. And on all sides I was between a rock and a hard place. I was told that there was very little I could actually do. My organization was the lead organization and if, after receiving the funds, they wanted to do something different they were at liberty to do so.

I remember many sleepless nights: nightmares of the world spinning out of control. I remember coming home and getting into arguments with my partner because of my lack of control on the job and need to find it somewhere. I remember becoming an unbearable coworker because I no longer trusted the organization as a whole. I remember feeling like I had lost a piece of my identity. I was sacrificing my values in order to be a part of the process.

Ultimately, I left this job. I remember finally looking inward and asking myself where I drew my line. Where was that point of sacrifice where I was no longer myself?

I found it during this process, and I vowed not to cross it. I was sacrificing quality programming for youth for the self preservation of my organization.

My ultimate commitment and responsibility in my career has been to youth. When youth are compromised, I can no longer be a part of what I am involved in. I need to find something that I can connect to and commit to fully. That was and is my greatest learning.

Now that I am in a new position, on that has much more power and influence, I must continue to keep these learnings at the forefront of my mind. I must also continue to grapple with the concept of sacrifice. Compromise – the giving and taking to accomplish a larger collective aim – has many points where sacrifice must be made. If was as a field want to change the world, we must be willing to sacrifice in order to realize out vision. By we must also know the power we hold and not sacrifice the progress we have made for simple political expediency.

This means honestly evaluating our failures and shortcomings. We must take this one step further – we must openly share with one another these failures. Gandhi wrote “the work before them [young Indians in South Africa] is not work of a day or a few months but…the work of years, nor is it work which can be done without strenuous labor.” We have our work cut out for us. And to continue down this path means years of labor. My hope is that love, courage, honesty, and intentionality ground our work and that we seek continuous self and collective improvement. For the true beauty of sacrifice comes not from the losing of the self. It comes from the releasing of one’s self from the bonds of the ego.