Mutual Blessing
I am often asked the question, something to the effect of: “So, what do y’all actually do at Side by Side?”
When I try to answer this question I usually start by muttering something about eating tacos, fostering friendships, and singing songs together. By the end of my babbling, I start to spew out words like “kinship,” “mutuality,” and “belonging.” Most times, I think people just politely smile and nod, enjoying the way those words sound together–or something like that. But I think that it is in understanding these words that we begin to unlock the mystery of what we “actually do at Side by Side.”
For now, let’s look at just one: mutuality. One of my current heroes is a man named Father Gregory Boyle. He is a jolly Jesuit priest who helps run the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the whole world, Homeboy Industries. As you can imagine, they do a lot of “doing” at Homeboy. Work placements, continuing education, parenting classes; that kind of stuff. But, what sticks out to me about Homeboy and Father Greg’s leadership is the emphasis on “being” rather than “doing.” The focus is on being a community marked by compassion and mutuality rather than strictly doing things or offering services. What follows is remarkable and indelible transformation. Kind of funny how that works out, if you ask me.
When we seek mutuality, we live in sync - not always perfectly, but in stride with one another. This is what we seek in our life together at Side by Side. To be in stride with one another. This can take shape in a number of different ways: sharing our gifts and talents; offering an unexpected listening ear; inviting others into our pain and our woundedness...
One of my favorite ways to experience this mutuality within Side by Side is at our Morning Prayer gatherings. We conclude every gathering with a blessing–likely the oldest and most famous blessing from the bible. You might know it. It goes like this:
The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.
If you’ve heard it before, you’ve likely been the one who was blessed by the priest or pastor. But, we do it a bit differently at Side by Side. We bless one another. After every line is read we echo it back to the leader of the reading. What follows is a cacophony of blessing. A strangely liminal space where the lines are blurred and we aren’t really sure who is receiving the bigger blessing. We aren’t quite sure if we are the one giving or receiving. It blurs the lines between the “giver” and the “receiver,” the “blesser” and the “blessed,” the “us” and “them.” That is what mutuality does. And that is what we “do” at Side by Side.