In the almost 6 years that I have been part of the anti-sex trafficking organization, Second Life of Chattanooga, I have found myself in a variety of settings/meetings/events, all of which were hopefully designed to help our cause of bringing an end to the terror of human sex trafficking in Greater Chattanooga/Southeast Tennessee. Many of these gatherings have been encouraging, inspiring and transformational. Others, not so much. But of all the events I have attended during this time, the one I was part of last night was definitely one of the most personally impactful.
Every Fall, Lee University in Cleveland, TN has a competition between their residence halls called "Dorm Wars." Dorm Wars is now a 20-year long tradition at Lee and consists of a night of some of the craziest, loudest, most intense competition you have ever seen. The winning dorms (1 men's residence hall winner, 1 women's residence hall winner) get trophies, medals, serious bragging rights, as well as prize money that they donate to the local service organization they have decided to sponsor for that year's Dorm Wars. This year the women of Simmons/Nora Chambers contacted us and asked us if we would be interested in being their service organization. Even though I did my undergrad work at Lee, given the fact that I went to school there 100 years ago, Dorm Wars was something new to me, but hey, any opportunity to further our cause is something we say "yes" to.
A few weeks before the competition my Second Life partner, Terri Self, and I met with the resident director of Simmons/Nora Chambers and several of the residents so that they could get to know more about us and us them. It was a fun, engaging time and they told us they would love to have us come to the competition, which we of course said that we would. So, last night we show up at Walker Arena and they're waiting in the lobby for us with our own "SNORA" t-shirts and direct us to their section in the arena.
I swear I've been to quieter rock shows. The place was packed, each of the dorms had their own specific uniforms, performed an opening routine when they were introduced and never sat down or stopped screaming during the entire 2 hour event. The music never stopped and was everything from hip-hop to pop to 80's rock to Bieber (which we all know is a genre unto itself).
Dorm Wars's competition involves things like 3-legged races, sack races and an obstacle course. But it was during the shopping cart relay (complete with crash helmets and students throwing themselves out of the cart so their next teammate could jump in) that what was really going on began to hit me. The various service organizations for which each of the dorms were competing are all fine organizations and do great work. But as I watched our SNORA girls go all-out on behalf of Second Life during the shopping cart relay I was struck by the thought that in the middle of the screaming, music and mayhem as the carts sped through the course something else was speaking even louder: the power of human joy. I witnessed, was surrounded by and participated in the joy of being alive, of knowing that in spite of how hard and at times dark life can be, sometimes a shopping cart relay is exactly what you need to remind you that life is precious, laughter and music are gifts from above, and everybody deserves them.
Terri and I, along with the scores of others who make up our organization, fight trafficking every day with awareness that creates collaborative action. We sit in meetings, we leverage relationships, we utilize media, we advocate, we use every tool at our disposal to see the captives set free and the traffickers shut down. Last night the women of SNORA used a shopping cart against the backdrop of un-contained human joy. I don't think I've ever seen a more powerful weapon.
My ears rang most of today from how loud it was in that arena last night. It is my hope that the echo of last night will somehow reach the ears of those who are waiting on all of us who fight on their behalf, that they will hold on because we are doing our best to get to them, to get them free, to get them home. In this fight we use weapons like passion, belief, un-ending faith, hope. And joy. And shopping carts.
