The Blackout — Love Your World

I get to work just like I always do. I pull my car into the driveway. I go to the side entrance and unlock the door to the office. “Weird… why are the lights off?” Then I look down the hallway… “Oh man, we don't have power.” Turns out a tree had fallen down on some power cords less than a block away. We were without power for almost 12 hours. I was only there for four of those hours.

Crisis reveals a lot. It often shows the position of your heart and it exposes your vulnerabilities. A lot was revealed during that four hours, but I want to talk about one person in particular and how he shows a beautiful picture of who Indwell is. Where I work, Indwell owns three buildings next to each other. The first contains independent apartments, the second is a group home, and the third is made up of independent apartments with supports. I know everyone in the group home and in the third building. The first building is very independent - so much so that I have barely met some of the people living there and not met quite a few. This is mostly due to the fact that I am a part-time employee and am mostly there on week-ends.

One of the most beautiful things I have observed at Indwell is its deep connection and sense of community. It’s not something that you can force and it is not something that you can snap your fingers and create. It comes with consistency of care from staff and being rooted in Indwell values. Indwell’s values are so special because of how much emphasis they place on each life as valuable and cherished before we were even a part of their lives. Our role is to be a consistent reminder of that value and its existence in each tenant and staff member.

Because of these values, each tenant takes on ownership in some sense or another of being a part of Indwell. For some, that means caring for their other housemates on a daily basis; for others, that means the bigger picture and being invested in the broader organization. It can be picking up groceries for someone, cleaning tables after a meal, or writing a song or poetry about what Indwell has meant to them.

Back to the blackout. There we are, sitting in the dark, playing 20 questions or any other silly game I can think of. In the front door comes one of the tenants from the first building. I had spoken to him pretty briefly on a few occasions but couldn’t remember his name off the top of my head. In his hand, he has a bag of tea light candles. He explains to me that he had these sitting in the back of his van and he figured we could use them (he was completely right because our emergency lights were all slowly dying). I thanked him and he explained that it was no big deal since he had bought them a while ago at Value Village. He then helped me light a bunch so that we had them all over tables in the dining room. He left for a while and then came back and offered to go out to a store for us to grab anything we might need. He gave us his number just in case we needed anything.

To put this into context, he offered this because the group home requires staff to be present 24 hours a day. He knows that if only one of us is there, then we can't leave if we need something. That was something that he brought up and he wanted to make sure that everyone would be okay and that we had back-up if we needed it. Crisis reveals a lot. It often shows the position of your heart and it exposes your vulnerabilities.

Indwell is technically a landlord. I don’t know a lot of cases where people reach out to their landlords to see if they need anything in a blackout. I don’t know a lot of places where you would walk over to your landlord’s building and offer candles to light up their dining room. Crisis reveals a lot. It often shows the position of your heart and it exposes your vulnerabilities.

Another important thing to ask is would you go over to your neighbour’s house in a blackout and check on them? I would hope that a lot of us would but the reality is that people are pretty self-centred and it wouldn’t cross most of our minds. What if your next door neighbour was a group home? Then would you go and check on them in a blackout? I don’t know if I would.

Right now, we are in the midst of another blackout. The world is filled with fear, loneliness and isolation. A lot are overcome by fear and have lost hope. I have lost it a few times. It is a consistent wrestling match to remember to have hope. Most of us are in a blackout with regard to community. Feeling isolated and far from the people we love. The Internet only brings you so close. Finding ways to connect deeply is harder than it used to be. But it is also more crucial than it used to be. Crisis reveals a lot. It often shows the position of your heart and it exposes your vulnerabilities.

What is this crisis going to reveal in you? Something beautiful or something ugly?

What are you going to do with that? Are you going to grow or hide?

I hope to be a little more like Indwell and go into others’ lives bringing little candles as I go. Bringing hope and light even in a time that requires physical distance.