a future not our own

top ten reasons i don't celebrate valentine's day

2007-02-15T14:56:00.000-05:00

10. It's yet another reason for Hallmark and friends to invent lame new love poems.

9. Cupid is an ugly creature.

8. And who ever thought shooting people with a bow and arrow was romantic?

7. I prefer to celebrate love EVERY day of the year, thank you very much.

6. What if I'm in a bad mood on February 14th?

5. Let's be honest; watching a bunch of lovebirds parade around town really DOES make people who don't have a significant other feel like crap. It just does.

4. It encourages superficiality. They're just buying flowers because society TELLS them they have to.

3. It's a scam! In case you haven't noticed, flowers don't cost that much the entire year. You're getting screwed!

2. Love is not about stuff. Or at least it shouldn't be.

And the number one reason I don't celebrate Valentine's Day:
1. I like gifts and gestures of love better on the other 364 days of the year! It's SO much better when I don't expect the love and get it anyway!

Huh, turns out I probably could have come up with MORE than ten reasons. Go figure :-)

Happy un-Valentine's Day.

----

Addendum: My loving husband broke our agreement and got me a card on Valentine's Day. Ok, three cards. Two from him and one from the cats (yes, we're totally lame). He also got me a cd, but he says it's because he wanted it. How sweet! So on Valentine's morning, all snowed in (or shall I say all wintry mix-ed in?) and unable to drive, I dug out an old card from a drawer that I had bought him for Valentine's day a few years ago and never gave to him (this was before my ban on the "holiday," and it was one of those last minute cards when all the good ones were picked over, but then I found a better one). I signed it, added an "un" after the "Happy" and before the "Valentine's Day," just to make my point, and went online and bought the stainless steel coffee carafe he's been wanting. I then printed a picture of the carafe, wrote a note from the carafe to Ken, including a message that it would arrive in as long as it takes Amazon to get their Free Super Saver Shipping orders to Pennsylvania, and inserted it in the card. So much for standing up for principles and refusing to support corporate America for V-Day. I'm such a lightweight!

thoughts on wrestling and other such banned activities

2007-01-28T11:20:00.000-05:00

Ken and I were having dinner with friends (two other couples) last night and one of the husbands was discussing his high school son's wrestling team with the other husband, whose son had also wrestled when he was in high school. (Yes, we were hanging out with people much older than us - we're cool like that.) Because we didn't have a whole lot to contribute to the topic at hand, we had our own little side conversation. It went a little like this (in quiet tones):

me: "Our child is NOT wrestling." [Ken laughs.] "In fact, we're just not having boys. They're too physical and it makes me nervous."

Ken: "Well, I don't want to have girls."

me: "Why not? Girls are so much less violent."

Ken: "I guess we can have girls if I can put ankle bracelets on them."

me: "Let's just come up with a list of sports our kids can play."

We then proceeded to brainstorm a list that included tennis, golf, baseball, volleyball, dance, and other such non-violent sports and activities. Cheerleading, however, is one of the non-violent no-nos. My favorite allowable activity is community service (no surprise). For some reason I'm much more ok with my (to date non-existent) children being in the inner-city or third world than I am with them playing football.

I'm still on the fence about ice hockey. I have fond memories of cheering for the Bruins with my dad as a child, but I really don't want my kid in dentures by the time s/he is 16.

I also have a problem with sports that aren't offered for both genders. Notable examples again include football and wrestling. The former is especially undesirable because it also condones the objectification of women (also known as cheerleading). Ugggh. What ever happened to equal opportunity?

Now that I think of it, toy guns/weapons and video games are also on the list of banned activities.

I know, I know, this is all very easy to say pre-kids. The challenge will come when that little girl in the ankle bracelet wants to put on makeup at age 6 or when our pacifistic son notices that all his friends own Nintendo 3000 or whatever the newest mind-numbing version happens to be.

At least they'll have a chance at growing up to appreciate independent thought, creative expression, and service to others. I hope.

a little girl from santo domingo

2007-01-15T21:40:00.000-05:00

I'm still processing my trip to the Dominican Republic. It's hard to sort out the reactions to a people burdened by such poverty yet filled with such generosity. It's overwhelming trying to write about all that I felt and experienced. And it's impossible to put into words the genuine, unquestioning love we were shown.

For now I'm reflecting on the relationships I formed, the connections I made, and the people who touched me so deeply. Although there are many people I wished I could take home with me, closest to my heart is Lisbet, a little girl with a serious face and a persistent hug that replaced the words we didn't speak because of our language barrier. I am left wondering so much about her life - past, present, and future. I didn't get to see her house, but if it's anything like those I did see, I am in awe at her good nature despite the hand she's been dealt.

I've found myself missing Lisbet the past few days, especially after the long, tight hug she gave me before I left her behind in her barrio. She, like the rest of the children we met, yearned for the love and attention that her parents struggled to give because of their hard lives in a poor country. She, like the rest of them, had so much love to give, and gave it unconditionally.

The words I heard in her hug asked me not to go, but I had to. They asked me to return, and I hope I will. But for now, while I fight the guilt, she'll be in my heart.

worst blogger ever

2007-01-05T15:53:00.000-05:00

Yup. That's me. I had no idea it had been a month since I last updated this! Time sure does fly.

Anyway, I'll jump on that January bandwagon and resolve to get better with this blog thing, though that won't happen for real (if at all) until after the 13th. You see, I'm leaving tomorrow for the Dominican Republic and won't be back until next Saturday. And by tomorrow I mean 3.00 in the morning, from work. Work is an hour from home, so this means I don't go home from work tonight. I will attempt to sleep in one of two places - either the couch in our office area or a room in the convent on campus. Hmmm... big decision. Haven't made it yet. Won't get enough sleep for it to really matter anyway.

So wish me luck! I'm spending the next week in a foreign country with 12 other people from work - college students, nuns, other employees. Anything could happen! We'll be working in a school with young kids, helping to repair the roof on a home that leaks when it rains (occupied by a young brother and sister who recently lost their parents), playing lots of baseball (it is the Dominican, after all - home of Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz - I brought my Red Sox shirt for good measure), going to the beach for a day, touring the area, hanging out with Spanish-speaking nuns... You know, the usual :-)

Here's hoping the anti-malarials I'm taking don't make me too sick and the Hep A vaccine I got two days ago kicks in before the predicted two week mark!

------------------

(I'll miss you, K.)

a little perspective

2006-12-05T22:00:00.000-05:00

I recently ran a soup kitchen service project for college students. The way this particular soup kitchen is set up, the volunteers bring the food they will cook and serve. Which means, of course, that Kristen goes grocery shopping for 300 people the day before. Prior to this thrilling trip, the woman in charge of the soup kitchen gives me an EXACT list of what to buy - quantities, size of packaging, store I must go to, and all. Because I'm buying in bulk, she makes me go to Sam's Club.

Stop there. Kristen does NOT shop at Wal Mart or any other establishment owned by that family. You know who they are. If you don't know or cannot figure out why, I'm afraid to say that you may not know me as well as you think (read as: I'm pretty predictable). Suffice it to say that I cannot support a business that does not treat its employees fairly, discriminates based on gender, has substandard environmental protection practices, supports sweatshop and child labor in order to offer products for the cheapest possible prices, and is, at the end of the day, horrible for the American economy, especially small, local businesses. If you want to know more, go to www.walmartwatch.com or watch PBS's "The High Cost of Low Prices" documentary. I don't CARE that they sell things more cheaply than anyone else. Someone pays for that and I care about them more than I care about a few extra dollars in my wallet! Don't mistake this for a disregard for Americans that HAVE to shop there because of the low prices and their genuine inability to earn a living wage and shop where they want in the richest country in the world. This inequity is all tied together and I could tangentially rant about that issue, but I'll save that for a later post.

Anyway, back to the soup kitchen shopping trip. As you can imagine, there was a fierce battle occuring within me as I put this Sam's shopping trip off as long as possible. Given that soup kitchen lady did not give me this ultra-specific grocery list very far in advance, I had no other choice but to cooperate with her request to go to said dreaded store. In fact, our college even has a membership there, so I couldn't even choose another one of the slightly less evil bulk-selling stores. (Don't even get me started on the fact that our Catholic "mission-based" school has a membership to this place.)

How do I reconcile going to this place for a soup kitchen, which HELPS people, when I know that ultimately I am HURTING other people in the process?

Well, I am quite ashamed to say that I just did that thing when one knows she is doing something wrong, feels extreme guilt, but does it anyway because of seeming lack of any other feasible option. The worst part was the burning feeling that there HAD to be another option and that I was just taking the easy way out because I had a busy day at work and didn't have time to be more thoughtful and considerate. I'm serious - this thing really tore me up. Maybe I'm crazy, but this story is not an exaggeration.

I won't go into too much detail about the trip, except to say that I tried not to make eye contact with anyone and, despite the fact that my shopping cart was about the size of the SUVs that filled the parking lot outside, it was still stacked higher than I could see over the top of (I know, doesn't take much) and heavier than I could steer by the time I got to the cash register. Not only was I supporting this store, but I was buying a LOT from them at once. The trip ended, appropriately, by me faking my identity and pretending to be someone I'm not (our secretary is the person from our department with the Sam's Club membership card; did you think I would have my name on it?!). (Random sidenote: what's up, by the way, with the fact that you need membership cards to these places? It's like some kind of cult.)

I got home later that evening and had to admit my sin to my husband. He boycotts the Walton family empire as well (I did marry the man). I struggled with how to tell him, but finally managed a barely audible whisper: "I committed a near crime today." Had to repeat it a few times before he actually heard me, then, of course, had to tell him what I did.

His response (after the obligatory "you did WHAT?"): "why didn't you just order the food from your food service on campus?" My worst nightmare - an alternative to my wrongdoing that I didn't choose. In fact, I didn't even think of it. Though truthfully I didn't actually have enough time to do this, but this didn't assuage the guilt at all.

Still feeling guilty, fastforward to the soup kitchen.

Soup kitchen lady, in a random conversation, offers the following enraging comment: "I won't shop at BJ's because they won't call them Christmas trees. They say holiday trees instead. So I'll only shop at Sam's Club."

AAAAAAAAHHHH! Do you think Jesus would really care what we call the trees?! Or that we find the strange need to kill them and put them in our living rooms every year in his "honor?" I happen to think that he would care more about the PEOPLE being harmed in order to offer us lower prices. What a novel idea.

Perspective so often evades us in this developed, consumerist world.

solidaridad

2006-11-29T20:58:00.000-05:00

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I took students on a trip to Fort Benning, Georgia, home of a combat training facility for Latin American soldiers called WHINSEC (Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), formerly and more commonly known as the School of the Americas, or SOA. The SOA, according to the human rights-centered SOA Watch (www.soaw.org), “has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, “disappeared,” massacred, and forced into refugee by those trained at the School of [the Americas].” Oscar Romero was assassinated by SOA grads while he celebrated mass in the chapel of an oncology hospital.

Each year during the same weekend, tens of thousands of concerned people descend on Fort Benning for a peaceful protest aimed at closing the SOA. There are events held in a convention center nearby, mostly seminars and sessions for people interested in various peace and social justice groups. We attended a session with Sr. Helen Prejean, known nationally for her work toward a moratorium on the death penalty, where she “interviewed” the session’s attendees as a way to spark conversation about topics of justice and non-violence. The main events of the weekend occur right outside the gates of Fort Benning, and on the street leading up to it. The street is lined with vendors selling products with messages of peace and justice, representatives from organizations around the country with similar motives, and thousands of engaged and excited people from around the country and the world. There is a rally on Saturday, which includes speakers, musicians, and people who have been affected by SOA trained soldiers giving testimony and sharing their stories.

Sunday was the most powerful day for me and, I think, for most of the 22,000 people at the protest. First there were a few speakers and musicians, the last of which led the attentive crowd in song: “No mas, no more, we must stop the dirty wars, compañeros, compañeras we cry out, no mas, no more.” Following this was the funeral procession for all of the victims who died at the hands of SOA graduates in Latin America. Most of the 22,000 people carried white crosses with the name, age, and country of one of these victims printed on them in black. Someone on stage sang the names of many victims, and after each name, the crowd raised its crosses and sang “Presente,” (present) in response. During this, the crowd processed slowly down the street and ended at the gate to the SOA, where they left their crosses and flowers. Imagine 22,000 crosses stuck in this gate, left for all to see. It was a powerful image, and a powerful experience. For me it was certainly a time of solidarity with other like-minded people working for peace and justice around the country and the world.

People have asked me what the point of the protest is if it’s been done for a number of years now and the SOA is still open. I already mentioned its symbolic and powerful feeling of solidarity (there were also many other demonstrations around Latin America on the same weekend). It also allowed many people the opportunity to connect with other people and organizations working for change. It certainly got media coverage, which helps to get the word out about our cause. There was renewed hope this year for the SOA to be closed by the U.S. Congress, as many of the Republican Congresspeople who previously voted (in a close vote) to keep it open have recently been defeated and are soon to be replaced in Washington. And finally and perhaps most importantly, 22,000 people honored those who have died at the hands of SOA graduates. If nothing else was accomplished, this certainly was.

I hope that the SOA closes before next November and that I don’t have to go back, but if it remains open I will go back, and I will look forward to the feeling of "solidaridad" with the people of Latin America and with others united in a common cause.

pet therapy

2006-11-07T22:10:00.001-05:00

What is it about our pets that always seems to cheer us up no matter what our mood?

We have four cats. I've been called a cat lady on many occasions. I'm ok with that. Here's why:

That's Sebastian on top of a door. Yes, a door. And Lucy's admiring him from below.

Toby's latest pose.

Lucy's favorite rule to break - don't climb the clothes in my closet.

The princess. We have no incriminating photos of Chloe. Probably because we're too shocked when she decides to pee in the laundry basket or when she jumps on the kitchen counter and lands smack in the middle of the birthday cake Ken just made me.

Seriously, though, despite all of these reasons to question our decision to own four cats, they still manage to cheer me up on days when I'm feeling frustrated with the world's injustices. I mean, let's be honest - they're cats. They have their own agendas, each one of them. They're busy doing important things all day long. Or at least they seem to think so. But when I get home at the end of the day, I always know I have at least four little beings who rely on me to love and care for them. And isn't that what we all want - to feel adequate and appreciated because we're able to love and provide for others and fulfill their needs?

Call it selfish, but I have a sneaking suspicion this is why most of us have pets. It's easy to love them when they never get mad at us!

man, it's hot outside

2006-11-01T20:40:00.000-05:00

So me being me, I decided when I got back from El Salvador last March that I would use ALL of the Spanish words I learned WHENEVER possible. In May I moved into our new apartment building, and much to my pleasure, the superintendent of our building, Jose, is from Colombia and decided to befriend us. He's great! I was so excited that I finally had someone to practice my Spanish with. So I made a pact with myself that every time I saw Jose I would use some Spanish. Even if it was only one word (you see, I realized that I somehow learned mostly nouns and a few random adjectives, so this makes it quite difficult to string together a sentence - turns out those verb things are pretty important after all). I convinced myself that next year in El Salvador I would be MUCH better at Spanish, since Jose was going to teach me a new word or two every time I saw him.

Well, all was going as planned, and a few months later it was summer. One day I got home from work and it was really hot outside. Like 95 degrees hot. I walked up the front steps to the building and saw Jose mowing the lawn beside me. PERFECT opportunity for me to practice some of that Espanol! (Sorry - I'm not talented enough to make accent signs or those little squiggly lines over the n.) So, proud as can be, I yell (over the buzz of the mower), "Hola Jose! Muy caliente!" (translation: "Hi Jose! Very hot!) And picture me, mid-Spanish sentence, doing that hand motion where you pretend to fan yourself off because it's really hot outside. Well, Jose chuckled and said in stride, "Si. Muy caliente!" Then we proceeded to exchange a few words in English (his English is FAR better than my Spanish, in case you hadn't figured that out yet), and I proceeded upstairs, still very proud. In fact, the first thing I told the husband was, "guess what?! I just practiced my Spanish with Jose!" I then recounted the conversation for husband, who humored me, as is his way, by smiling and nodding and saying something like, "that's nice, honey." You see, he doesn't speak Spanish either. (Side note: isn't there someone somewhere who makes it their business to go around telling students that studying German is not going to be helpful in real life?)

Ok, so fast forward about three months to this past weekend in Camden. Friday night we went to a legitimate Mexican restaurant for dinner. The menu was all in Spanish. Our waitress spoke only Spanish. If this were Jose, I would have been excited to practice my Spanish. But this was an actual situation in which the people around me spoke ONLY Spanish. I wasn't excited (well, I was because I love Mexican food and cultural experiences, but I wasn't because I REALLY wanted to know Spanish at that moment, and the sad truth is that I don't). Anyway, we had a few American Spanish speakers in the group (you know, the kind who learned it in high school and attempt to translate the menu, which really gets only half translated if it's a good day). So, we all finally figure out what we want, or at least decipher one thing on the menu and decide that it sounds relatively edible, so we're ready to order. The waitress comes over, which is quite the scene, as most encounters are when you speak two different languages. Our resident Spanish speaking college student asks the waitress a question, in broken Spanish, and I am excited to recognize a word - none other than the abovementioned "caliente!" So the waitress leaves after our painstaking exchange, and I say to the group, "I know the word caliente! It means hot!" And then someone says, "yes, well it means spicy hot. But you should never use that word when you want to say that you're hot or that it's hot outside." And I say, remembering the mid-summer exchange with Jose, "oh no, why not?" "Well," said my dinner mate, "when you say it in that context it means you're [ready for this?] horny."

So, turns out I told my building's superintendent that I'm horny. Did I mention that Jose's about 60? And that he knows my husband quite well? Or that I left him a note about a month ago about a leaky pipe in our bathroom and it remains leaky?

Yes, that's what I do. I get so excited about something new that I end up embarrassing myself and remaining proud of it for the next three months.

Anyway, today when I'm at work, I tell the story to my Ecuadorean friend. She laughs and tells me that caliente doesn't mean horny in all Spanish-speaking countries. For example, she said, it doesn't mean that in her country, because slang differs from place to place. She asks what country Jose is from. I say Colombia. Her response: "oh yeah, it means horny there!"

Great. Can't a girl get a break?

-----

I always tell my students that they should never go into another country pretending they know what's best for the people there simply because they are the ones there to "serve" and because they are from the wealthier country. Instead they should seek to learn from these people they meet, ask for help, remain open.

Maybe it's time for me to start practicing what I preach! Next time I think I'll ASK Jose how to say something in Spanish instead of assuming.

To all the Joses in my life, mea culpa.

the world is given to all

2006-10-30T22:12:00.000-05:00

I spent the weekend in Camden, New Jersey with two college students and two nuns. We stayed at the Romero Center, a Catholic retreat and social justice center whose mission is "to build bridges of understanding between people of faith in urban and suburban churches, leading people to a deeper awareness of our prophetic vocation, as we respond to our sisters and brothers in remarkable need."

There's a lot I could say about the weekend. I could tell you that Camden is the poorest city in our rich nation and that only 28% of its residents graduate from high school. 28%! Or that the reported unemployment rate is almost 16% and the actual rate may be as high as 32%. You may be surprised to know that the food stamp allotment per person per meal in the state of New Jersey is 86 cents. That's less than $3 per day! As part of our immersion experience we shopped for a day's worth of food on this amount of money and ate only that food, and it was HARD. I could recount the stories of a woman who directs one of the only HIV/AIDS ministries in Camden, about people with the virus being abandoned and scoffed by their families, about nurses refusing to enter their hospital rooms, as if the very air they breathe is infected with AIDS, as if they hold no dignity, as if their suffering is nothing. I could talk about the rampant drug crime or the lack of affordable housing. There's the homelessness problem and the continuous corruption of city government, the condemned homes and the environmental hazards.

I could talk about all this. But I won't.

Instead I'm going to tell you this. New Jersey is the wealthiest state in the nation.

That's right - the poorest city is in the richest state in the richest country on earth. This serves only to magnify the injustices on perpetual display in Camden. And there are very few people who care. As one of the staff of the Romero Center put it, not many people wake up in the morning and say, "I think I'll go to Camden today." This is not to discount all of the people who do very good work to put an end to poverty, its causes and effects in Camden. On the contrary, their efforts are well noted. It is, however, to highlight what is, in my estimation, our greatest failure as a people. A rich people, that is.

Let me take a step back in order to explain. One of our prayers at the Romero Center included this song:

Bryan Sirchio
"If You Eat Each Day"

Haiti is the poorest country in this hemisphere
I go there now and then to get my vision clear
Sometimes it gets so hazy in this land of
I consume therefore I am

I was working in this clinic for the dying & diseased
Living skeletons with AIDS and TB
Organized and run by Mother Teresa and her sisters of Charity
I asked the nun in charge, Sister, what should I do?
She smiled and said I've got a job for you
Then she gave me a pair of scissors, and said,
See that man right there
He'd like for you to cut his hair
I said, oh, Sister are you sure?...

I mean its not like I have given
many haircuts in my day
But I was there to help, so I just smiled and said, OK
So there I was, this natural born Vidal Sassoon
just snipping that hair away

We struck up conversation as best we could
His English was broken, my Creole's not too good
But we managed to communicate enough for him to say
Something I never will forget

You see I asked him, do you think I'm rich?
And this was his response to me
He said, well how many times a week do you eat?
Well his question took my voice away
And then he said, you mean you eat every day?
And I said, yeah, and he just said this
Well if you eat each day, you're rich

Somehow that moment felt to me like Holy Ground
I finished his haircut and when I turned around
There was a whole line of customers
who kinda like the way I cut that one man's hair!

So I gave them haircuts but they gave me so much more
They gave me the perspective of the poorest of the poor
And I know I'll spend the rest of my life
trying to somehow respond

'Cause if its true as we often say that wealth is relative
It just might take the dying poor in a place like Port au Prince
To help us see this relativity from God's point of view
To cut through our first world denial with gospel Truth
And as for me, I know I need to receive this paradigm shift
That in a hungry world, if we eat each day...
We're rich

Haiti is the poorest country in this hemisphere
I go there now and then to get my vision clear
Sometimes it gets so hazy in this land of
I consume therefore I am

Words & Music by Bryan C. Sirchio
© 1999 Crosswind Music Ministries
All Rights Reserved - www.sirchio.com

I know Haiti isn’t Camden and the developing world is not our world. But the unemployment and education rates in Camden certainly are more akin to those in the third world than to our national averages. Camden and other places like it are our third world right here at home. There are differences, to be sure, and I’m not making a comparison of degree, but a point of our failure to care for our own.

Our failure as a rich people is that we don’t care about the powerless. In fact, we go further. We curse them, fear them, blame them. We pretend that our collections of material comfort – our SUVs and McMansions, our designer clothes made in sweatshops and our computers dumped in toxic heaps in China when we no longer want them – we pretend that these things somehow matter more than the dignity and livelihood of another human being.

We don’t choose the situation into which we are born. I know I wasn’t asked if I’d rather be born in a middle-class suburb or a despicable, rat-infested city. And I’ve come to believe that when we make assumptions and stereotypes about our brothers and sisters born into that other world, when we deny our responsibility to share our education, resources, and wealth and open our hearts to them, treat them as equals, acknowledge that we have failed to recognize God’s intention for his people, we are being just as racist and classist as slaveholders of the Old South or the champions of apartheid in South Africa.

The people of Camden reinforced this for me. They blessed me with the gift of discomfort. Not the kind of being away from my daily comfort zone, but the sort in which I’m reminded of a very daunting and vital task. And so I will continue to explore what this means for me, what life is like for them, and what we share as a people on a common journey.

-----

“You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor person. You are handing over to him [her] what is his [hers]. For what has been given in common for the use of all, you have abrogated to yourself. The world is given to all, and not only to the rich.” ~Saint Ambrose

i stand corrected

2006-10-24T21:51:00.000-04:00

While writing yesterday's post the husband asked me what I was writing about. I told him that he needed to wait and read it just like everyone else. He thought I should have him proofread it before publishing it. I told him that I am very good at proofreading my own writing, thank you very much. Well, the lack of humility came back to kick me in the butt (doesn't it always...). Turns out our lunch was a pasty shade of white (pale) instead of what you use to carry sand at the beach (pail). I've since edited the word, so you can't go back and see my mistake.

Husband, I stand corrected. But don't take too much pride. It's still a BAG, not a pail anyway.

-----

"Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all." ~William Temple

"If I only had a little humility, I would be perfect." ~Ted Turner

a step back

2006-10-23T20:09:00.000-04:00

I realized after my last post that I may not have sounded like a real person. In case there's any doubt in your mind, here is the conversation my husband and I just had:

me: "Honey, how did dimes and nickels get in the laundry quarter jar?" [we still live in an apartment building and have the college-style coin-operated washer/dryer combo shared by the entire hallway]

husband: "I don't know."

me: "You don't know?" [in one of those "yeah, right" tones]

husband: "Maybe it's kinda like how you left our lunch pail at work and denied it." [we now share his lunch bag because I accidentally left my lunch bag in my trunk with old egg salad in it over the summer; I made him throw the whole thing away at a trash can outside the grocery store. my entire car smelled like rotten egg salad, as if non-rotten egg salad doesn't smell bad enough]

me: "It's a bag, not a pail."

-----

So a friend told me today that my blog is "intriguing." When I asked for clarification, he gave me a couple of reasons for his comment, one of which was that he doesn't understand why anyone would want to create a public blog. It's a good question. There are so many ideas out there, so many websites. And everyone will continue to have their own opinions anyway, no matter my ramblings.

I gave him some unconvincing and generic answer like "I guess I just see it as a way to share what I feel are worthwhile thoughts and experiences with other people."

Then I came home and checked my friends' blogs for new posts -- all three of them. Three blogs that is, not three friends. A college friend of mine has a parenthood blog in which she shares the joys and trials of being a new mom, in an engaging and endearing, non soccer-mom sort of way, I might add. (I guess five month old babies can't play soccer anyway, but I don't think my friend will ever be this mom even when her daughter is of soccer-playing age.) Anyway, in her blog this friend mentioned that my first post made her think about more than her newly domestic life centered around her child, and that, for a moment, it made her feel small and that she easily forgets the larger world. So then I realized that this is exactly my fear of sharing my thoughts on our first-world responsibilities and obligations. I don't want anyone to feel like what they do is not good enough. I don't want to sound preachy. And I certainly don't want anyone to get the impression that I think I have all the answers. It was then that I realized that this is why I'm blogging. I'm doing this because I, like the rest of us, am searching. I'm looking for answers, or at least for other opinions on my thoughts. It just so happens that I like to take on the world's problems on a daily basis :-) And writing helps me to channel my thoughts and feelings into something more comprehensible. Doing it in blog form allows my friends and family that I may not get to talk to very frequently to be in conversation with me about my thoughts, or to just ignore me on any given day when they can't handle me! It doesn't mean that I think devoting most of one's time, energy, and love to their child is wasteful, or that anyone should think that! No, this is one of the most important, foundational, agapic things we as people do! So my friend may be at a different point than me right now, but her contribution is no less important to making our world a better place.

All of this by way of saying I welcome your thoughts on my daily musings and hope this is a way I can let you in, since many of you are not as geographically close as I would like. I hope you might even, at some point, get something worthwhile from what I have to say...

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"True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared."
~Thomas Merton

taking the long view

2006-10-22T18:29:00.000-04:00

So I've been thinking about starting a blog for awhile now, but it took time to convince myself that I have enough to share to make it worthwhile (I'm still not fully convinced, but I guess it's worth a shot). This, as it turns out, is how I do most things; I think about something long enough to get sick of it as a mental topic, and then I just pull the trigger (ew, bad gun reference, but it works) and do it. Or don't do it, as the case may be.

Anyway, my blog's title, perhaps unoriginally, is a reference to one of my favorite passages/prayers/quotes (whatever you want to call it) by Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, the liberationist church leader who lived - and died - for his impoverished brothers and sisters in then war-torn El Salvador. Romero's story has gripped me since I first learned of him in an undergraduate Liberation Theology course, but it became real to me when I spent a week with the poor in his native country last March. If you know me, you know that I question the inequities in our world and our first-world response to them pretty regularly. Well, during that week in El Salvador the reality of these inequities, the real human side of our vastly unequal world, slapped me in the face. It's not that I hadn't known of poverty or even been exposed to the American version of it at length before, but for me the unimaginable (and it is that way to most Americans) destitution of the developing world became all of a sudden real. I experienced their one room tin-walled, dirt-floor homes, their polluted and parasitic drinking/bathing/cooking/laundry water, their dusty and trash-strewn roads, their pregnant and barefoot women carrying four concrete blocks on their heads at once to help build a road for their community, their hungry children, their starving dogs, their sickly grandparents, their longing, their despair, their sense of abandonment, for the first time. But I also experienced their smiles, their children's enthusiasm for learning, their deep faith in a personal and real God, their generosity, their gratefulness, their willingness to pitch in for the good of their community, their gentleness of spirit, and, mostly, their love. These conflicting images will stay with me always and no words or photos will ever do them justice. I remind myself, as I do the college students I take on service trips to Latin America, that our short visits there, while well-intentioned, do not really improve life for the people we "serve." Instead, they open our eyes, they expand our horizons, they implant in us a deep and conflicting sense of harsh inequality and agapic love. We are now obliged, responsible, COMPELLED to be their advocates. Anything short of this would become our own contribution to their unrelenting poverty.

And so I question, I teach, I advocate, and now, I blog. I told my husband that I want to move to El Salvador and work for justice. I really do. I haven't, and I may not ever, but I will continue to try to do my part and call others to do theirs. I'm sure, given who I am, I will never feel that I do enough, and maybe this is why Romero's passage speaks to me so clearly.

There will be more to my blog than El Salvador and poverty; there is much more that I am passionate about, and much that I'm sure I'll feel compelled to share on a more mundane level. But this is where I'm at right now, it's a good introduction to me, at least the more serious and productive side of me, and we'll see where it leads. If you're still reading, thanks (!), and I will leave you with the full version of Romero's prophetic words, and perhaps a photo or two from El Salvador.

Prophets of a Future Not Our Own
by Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Romero as he is depicted in the Catholic Church in Las Granadillas, El Salvador

This is Vanessa

Me with baby Joanna

This little girl is playing in the polluted, trash-strewn drinking and cooking water

This family is lucky; their home is made of concrete blocks