At RISC, Jaya helped individuals acclimate to the United States, navigate the systems of government they needed to use and get settled in a new life. The work she did here wasn’t complicated: filling out leases and driver’s license applications and other essentials of American life. It was, as they used to call it in her previous role at the Policy Institute, small-scale work—serving one person at a time. The institute hadn’t funded programs like this because they were not scalable; their growth was restricted by the supply of individual volunteers like her. Jaya’s previous job had been to seek out effective programs that could be expanded to serve larger populations quickly, through technology or grassroots efforts. In that world, she’d tried to solve problems on a systemic level. But all systems are, after all, made up of people, and most change fails because of them—through corruption, politics, egos. That work was illusory, drawing her away from what was real.

She had come to understand that the trials she faced on earth were meant to help her connect to the pain and suffering of others—to practice universal love and kindness, to be less connected to earthly concerns and more connected to the spiritual sphere. It was hard work, but it was a world view that made sense and felt gratifying to her. She endeavored to make each of her interactions authentic now, to touch others personally as she had been touched. At RISC, Jaya was making a real impact, a true and meaningful difference to actual people. God had created human individuals, not systems. When you lost that connection with personal touch, you lost what made us essentially human.

“Let’s practice some interview questions, shall we?” Jaya said, keen to help build Christophe’s confidence before his next interview.

“Okay, missus.” He straightened his back and tugged at the lapels of his jacket. “I am ready.”

39 | Serotina

April 2015

“At this pace, we should be done with the whole batch in two weeks,” Serotina said to Micah. She and Jasmine had been working long days to trim the first harvest of plants they had grown from scratch. “And our total yield will be about ten pounds.”

Micah grinned. “Fantastic. Hey, Rufus, come over here. Bring the laptop.”

Rufus joined them and placed his computer in front of them. “Presenting . . . Greenfields, the web’s finest purveyor of licensed medical-grade marijuana.” On the screen was the brand name with a logo featuring the cartoon image of a smiling sun in sunglasses. “For our website. And I’ll print it on our package labels.”

“Ooh,” said Jasmine, leaning on Rufus’s shoulder to see.

“Looks cool, man.” Micah slapped him on the back. “Bringing a smile to faces everywhere. Sero says we’ll have ten pounds ready in two weeks, so let’s turn on the website and get this show rolling.”

The next day, orders began coming in. Rufus started preparing the shipping labels and packages, while Sero and Jasmine continued to trim the buds.