In the Margins

Lately

For the past six weeks I have been living in eastern Andhra Pradesh, India, dividing my time between the city of Vijayawada and a small village an hour and a half away, Srikakulam. I’m working with a grass-roots non-profit agency called Arthik Samata Mandal (ASM), which began as a disaster relief organization, and now works in a broad range of areas, including AIDS education and awareness, holistic community development, health and hygiene, women’s economic empowerment and micro-finance.

Yesterday

Part of the work I have been doing has been designing, shooting photography and writing copy for a series of brochures on three of their programs. As an outgrowth of that, I had a good session yesterday with my friend Subha, who was interested in learning the little bit I know about layout and design. We looked at a series of brochures— some impressive and some a little less-so— and talked about what worked and what didn’t from a design point of view.

ASM has tended to try to get as many words on a page as possible in most of the material they’ve published, and one of the options I suggested was that some bigger spaces and careful placement of photos and other graphics can make people feel a little less overwhelmed by type. That can make a page more accessible, and give the reader a way in. The margins were very thin on some of the pages we looked at. It was a crush of words, with very little room to move, breathe or pause for reflection.

Last night

A few hours later I was on the back of a motorcycle, weaving through the whirling waterfall of metal and glass that is Indian traffic. The cars seem to lunge and pile on top of each other like football players trying to push through an opposing team’s defensive line. They almost push each other out of the way, with no suggestion of lanes being observed, only an inch or so between them at times, though in my experience they very seldom actually collide.

There are very thin margins, and so much to fit in.

This Morning

Today I visited several areas of Vijayawada, including what was described to me as a ‘slum.’ It is a government project to give better housing to people who were living in makeshift agglomerations of cardboard and plastic beside the Krishna River, or simply lying on the ground exposed, before they came here. At the first glance of a western eye it looks like intense poverty— extremely small houses crammed together, garbage on the ground and open sewers flowing beside the dirt streets. But this is the ‘after’ picture, not the ‘before.’ It is a huge step forward— living in rows of very small cinder block houses and cooking on small gas burners instead of burning garbage and dung to cook over. Having any kind of toilet at all is also a significant change. The government’s adjustment of the margins has made a meaningful positive difference.

Needless to say, I am uncomfortable with my own wealth here. Though very few people in my own U.S. context would consider me affluent (an erstwhile professional musician and current student, married to a teacher and very slowly buying a 1000-square-foot home from the bank). Here in India, though, I am unspeakably wealthy. I have several pairs of shoes, a camera, a laptop, etc.

Now

The technological doodads I travel with these days are the tools of my trade, and I can justify them from at least one angle, sitting a little uncomfortably next to my belief in simplicity. On other days, though, my justifications appear rather pale. A woman I interviewed in the weavers’ village of Ghantasala a couple of weeks ago proudly told me that her daughter now had a job where she is making 1000 rupees per month, and out of that she’s sending money home to help her family. 1000 rupees, at the current exchange rate, is about $22. My laptop alone is equivalent to five and a half years of that salary.

I am not the first to struggle with the question of how to deal with my own privilege and live a life of integrity. Many observations have been offered before, including the Libertarian perspective that the way to help the poor is not to increase their ranks by joining them. The point has also been made that wealth is not only material— the social poverty of a country like mine, where most people do not know their neighbors beyond a nodding acquaintance and would never consider asking them to watch their kids while they go to the market (without even mentioning the lack of markets), is staggering from the context of a village like the one where we are living now.

Still, the inequity of distribution of money is inescapable, and the choices I make as to how to spend my own are sometimes hard for me to defend, even to myself. In the end, I make many choices each time I spend money: a choice to spend it on one thing and many choices not to spend it on others.

A more important difference than cash flow, or even balance sheet, though, is safety net. Arguably the most significant economic dividing line between myself and the people I’m spending my days with now and many people in the West struggling to make ends meet is that I have credit cards in my pocket. I have a margin of error. If I get sick, if I melt down, I can go home anytime; I can go to a good hospital; I can check into a good hotel.

These thoughts and feelings can quickly become as confused and chaotic as the traffic I hear outside as I write these words— a constant roaring and winding of engines large and small, and a cacophony of car horns playing loud musical snatches of songs in different keys, like an orchestra tuning up.

Next

Everyone must find their own way to live and seek to make their own peace with these challenges. Gandhi, whose face looks out from every denomination of Indian money, would remind us that making peace is not the same as finding it. My task isn’t to find effective justifications to allow me to avoid the problem. My task is to engage the problem and wrestle actively with it; it is to seek truth and integrity in my thoughts and deeds, while understanding that finding those two things may be an unachievable goal.

The questions I start with are these— What actions should I take? How do I live with the imperfection of any course available, and find peace there, “walking lightly over the earth,” as Quakers say? What is true regarding questions of justice and distribution of wealth? These are my queries, to be contemplated and engaged, and simply to be present with. I will continue to think and write about them, and to experiment with my own life and actions. I will have many more late-night conversations and continue to read the thoughts of others on these questions, and I doubt that I will ever stop scribbling in the margins.

More pictures from India

Here are forty+ more pictures from India. This batch focuses a bit more on the work done by the organization I’m working with, Arthik Samata Mandal. There are some cute Mason pictures as well, though.

India is an incredible place to shoot pictures. I visited another village today and I took 243 pictures. That’s with only the first round of editing and I will edit more, but you get the idea.

Thanks for checking in. Click on the picture below to go to the photo album, then double-click on the first picture to see it. I recommend that you forgo the slideshow option, since some of the captions need a little more time to read.

Namaste,

David

India II

A Brief Article on Heroes

I was asked to write a short piece for the Eagle, a quarterly magazine published by the Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane, on Desmond Tutu. Here it is…

From Tutu

Desmond Tutu speaking at the Rotary World Peace Symposium

Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu is a hero of mine. I make that statement with full awareness that the whole concept of ‘heroes’ is a bit problematic, but I stand behind it. Tutu is known all over the world for his role as a leader of the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, which led to radical governmental and social changes there. Throughout the struggle, guided by his faith, Tutu raised his voice to argue for non-violent resistance. Though there was certainly violence in those turbulent years, the world was amazed that the expected bloodbath failed to materialize, partly due to Tutu’s leadership and that of his friend Nelson Mandela.

One frequently misunderstood feature of peace work is that it requires us to step directly toward conflict, not away from it. There is nothing passive about pacifism; it requires action. Literally, the word pacifist comes from the Latin pax (peace) and ficare (to do or to make), so it means to make peace – to take action to bring it about. In the face of staggering oppression in South Africa, Tutu did not tell everyone to calm down and get over it. He did not quietly back away. In classic prophetic style, he spoke truth to power, helped to motivate the people to bring about much needed change, and he did not confuse peace with placidity. He also refused to resort to violence, though, understanding that the greatest danger in a moral conflict is not to be defeated by one’s enemies, but to become them.

One of the dangers of having heroes is that we can consider them ‘other’: heroes have special qualities that normal people like us don’t have, so we don’t need to wrestle with whether or not we may be called to similar choices— we’re just normal people. “Don’t call us saints,” the Catholic activist Dorothy Day once said, “we don’t want to be dismissed that easily.” Tutu is such a larger-than-life figure that it would be easy to forget his humanity. Another possibility, though, is that a hero can challenge us to grow and stretch toward our ideals, and there’s no question that Desmond Tutu has done that for me.

Last year I gave up an eighteen-year music career at its height in order to pursue a masters degree in Peace and Conflict Resolution as a Rotary World Peace Fellow. When I told friends about my plans, the most common reaction was a raised eyebrow, a sardonic smile and a playfully sarcastic “World peace? …good luck with that!” Conversations about peacemaking frequently draw on the conventional wisdom that proponents of peace are fundamentally naive. “That’s nice while you’re young,” the script says, “and when you grow up and have a taste of the ‘real world,’ you’ll come to your senses and realize that violence is pragmatically necessary and non-violence is unrealistic.” Tutu would disagree, however, and his life negates the foolish logic of the statement; it’s extremely difficult to make a convincing argument that he hasn’t experienced enough of the ‘real world’ to know better. Rather, his experience has taught him otherwise. He knows that things can be otherwise, and that it is up to us to change them.

In June I traveled to Birmingham, England to take part in the second Rotary World Peace Symposium along with Peace Fellows from all over the world. Desmond Tutu spoke to us there. He affirmed our choices to work for peace, and kindly took the time for a photo, which made this peace fellow’s day.

Are we naive to work for peace? If the question is “Can we bring about world peace?” then we may well be naive to answer in the affirmative. I think that’s the wrong question, though. The more important question is “Can we do any better than we’re doing right now?” It is clear to me that we can, and the example provided by Desmond Tutu helps to show us how.

From Tutu

Pictures and captions from India

Here are fifty+ pictures and captions showing our first couple of weeks in India and some of the work that ASM is doing. It’s been quite an adventure thus far. Click on the picture below to go to the photo album:

India One

Of AIDS education and office space

Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh, India

Our first full day in Srikakulam is drawing to a close and Deanna’s taking her turn going down to dinner. There are two volunteers from a non-profit in the U.K., Becky and Hannah, who are teaching English here, and we all usually have meals together. Since Mason goes to sleep before dinner is ready for the adults, though, one of us has to stay here with him while the other goes to dinner. The upside of not getting to hang with them, though, is that I get to check in with you and fill you in on my day.

From India One

Left to right: Hanna, Becky, Mason, a man I don’t know and Deanna

I’ve been provided with access to another of the guest rooms here to use as office space, and it has already proven invaluable in terms of productivity. As much as I love Mason, he’s not a boon to my to-do list, and having some quiet solitary space is a treat. The guest room/office is on the second floor of a four-story building, and the third floor has another just like it. The fourth floor is a water tank and the first is the pump house for it. It sits at the end of the palm-lined road that runs down the middle of the grounds and the view out the door next to my desk looks down that road to the gate. The breeze is frequent and sunlight bountiful. My favorite part of the building, though, is the mural of Gandhi and a small child on the fourth floor. The caption says “My life is my message.”

From India One

I have to admit, reluctantly, that having no internet access is also tremendously helpful in terms of getting things done. I have a full outbox to match my full inbox, but not being constantly interrupted by more incoming stuff allows me to deal with the innumerable things I flagged to get to later, but haven’t. Of course I dread the incoming data the next time I sign on, but for now I’m reveling in the productivity.

From India One

After a good morning session of catching up on stuff I spent the afternoon traveling to a high school in a nearby village with one of the staff members here, Mr. Somayajulu (yes, it’s quite a multi-syllabic country!). He was going there to give an HIV/AIDS awareness talk and asked if I wanted to tag along. HIV/AIDS education is actually a relatively small part of the huge work that ASM does, so it’s sort of a strange place to start telling their story, but it’s what I did today, so I’ll fill you in.

From India One

The principal was away and a science teacher was filling in on the administration duties for the day. She offered us chai and we spent a few minutes talking while we waited for the class periods to change. The school is small and rural and serves primarily the children of illiterate agricultural workers. We talked about their struggles and the difficult choices their parents have to make during the current harvest season about whether to send their kids to school or have them work in the fields. Many of the parents only have work for six or seven months of the year, during the planting and harvesting seasons, and the extra income provided by another laborer in the family is not easily lost.
We chatted (some in English and some translated back and forth to Telugu) about the irony that people from other countries are often fascinated by India, but the children here just want to go somewhere else, and Mr. Somayajulu told her a bit of my story and how I cam to be here. Then, when our chai was done and the students were ready down the hall, we rose to go. Translated through Mr. Somayajulu, this bright and capable woman who must have been almost my age told me that I was the first foreigner she had ever met, and asked if I would write down a few words to leave with her. In the hours since our visit I’ve been chewing on the fact that this teacher had never met anyone from anywhere but India. This is a world that is pretty far from my own in more ways than one.
India has a significant problem with HIV/AIDS. According to Mr. Somayajulu (citing a national AIDS organization, NACO), Andhra Pradesh, the state where I’m working, ranks number 2 among India’s 25 states. Intravenous drug use is not a huge problem here, comparatively, so only about 3% of infections arise from it. 91% arise from unprotected sex.

From India One

Today, tomorrow and the next day ASM staff will conduct workshops in ten area high schools and one workshop for youth who are not in school. They distribute informational booklets in advance, and the students did a good job answering the questions that Mr. Somayajulu asked them. The most impressive answer, though, came when he mentioned their good fortune at being in school and having access to this information, then asked what would happen to the kids who are working in the fields. A young man in the back enthusiastically responded “we’ll teach them.”
Because I’m a funny-looking foreigner, I guess, I was asked to speak for a few minutes at the end, and I took the opportunity mostly to congratulate them on being in school, which strikes me as not only smart, but wise, given that it is a long-term investment against a significant short-term loss. And I talked a bit at the end about the relationship between believing something is possible and making it happen. In a nutshell, I pointed out that if you have a dream but you don’t do the work to make it real, then it never happens, but if you don’t believe in the first place you’ll never do the work. Either way, the first step is believing, and the second is getting to work.
The great thing about speaking to groups like that, of course, is that I have to listen to my own words. That’s why I’ve always written songs about things that I don’t have figured out rather than things that I do. There seems to be a surfeit of songs about time, for instance, in my repertoire, because I have such a hard time apportioning mine in a way that feels right to me. Little did I know that all I had to do was move to a village in India without internet in order to work it out and get some things done.

From India One

the view from the office

Arthik Samata Mandal

Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India

From India One

As I write this note I am sitting under a ceiling fan in a simple room with concrete walls and screenless windows on a bed that is covered by a mosquito net. Mason is sleeping in his little tent/crib just beside the bed. The room is on the third floor of a three story building in the heart of the city of Vijayawada, where I am one of roughly a million people going about our lives. It is a pleasantly warm day, topped off by a lovely breeze, and outside I can hear the sounds of construction workers adding a floor to a building next door, though that consists mostly of the sound of masonry hammers and clanging rebar, and not so much of machinery.

From India One

I can also hear the sound of excited children’s voices. The little balcony overlooks a courtyard where literally thousands of children have been streaming through for the last three days to view a free Science Exhibition being offered by the Gora Science Center, which is part of an umbrella organization which also includes Arthik Samata Mandal, the organization I am working with here in India.

I’ll be blogging a lot in the next two or three months, so I should set the stage and explain why I’m here and who I’m working with. As part of the Rotary World Peace Fellowship, which I am honored to have received, Fellows not only pursue a masters degree in International Relations, Peace and Conflict Resolution at one of six partner universities worldwide, we are also funded to create and complete an Applied Field Experience with an organization in a location and field that we choose (subject to approval). I chose to work with a grass roots organization in rural India, where I am now and will be through most of February.

From India One

Arthik Samata Mandal is a Gandhian non-profit organization which works with poor and disenfranchised people in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. I am here to work with them and study their operation for the next ten weeks. ASM was founded in 1977 in response to massive destruction (10,000 lives lost) in the Krishna district caused by a cyclone and subsequent tsunami. Because all communications from the region were cut off, most of the outside world was unaware of the devastation there in the days following the disaster, and the people who were first to arrive there later went on to create ASM. They responded to the needs of the people they encountered, setting up emergency shelter and food stations, disposing of bodies, etc. The need in that area was great, and responding to one need led to the emergence of another. It became clear to Gora and his partner, J.C. Kumarappa, that their beliefs and values demanded that they become more involved in work that would alleviate the ongoing problems that made the people of this region so vulnerable to these kinds of disasters, rather than simply cleaning up the destruction when one occurred. They developed an integrated approach to development which seeks to address the complex interrelated causes of poverty and vulnerability.

Gora was a legendary social reformer and political activist who had worked with Gandhi in the fight for Indian self-rule, marched with him and was imprisoned with him. ‘Gora’ is a chosen name, created from letters in his first and last birth names. Last names have traditionally been associated with caste in India, and therefore have enabled discrimination by allowing people to automatically typecast each other, so Gora chose to create a new name as a way to avoid participating in that system. His wife, nine children and their descendants have since taken Gora as their last name.

From India One

Deanna, Mason and I arrived here a week ago after some travel adventures— we got sick in the opposite order that most people do when traveling to India: Deanna came down with a stomach flu on the day we were supposed to leave Australia and we had to delay our departure, and Mason and I soon followed suit; so we got sick and then came to India rather than coming to India and then getting sick. We’ve been living in the center in Vijayawada where the main office ASM is located, and will leave for a field office in two days. I’ll be visiting villages where the various projects are located in the coming weeks, documenting this work and helping out where I can, and we’ll be living in the small village of Srikakulam (not to be confused with a larger town by that name eight hours north of here).

ASM has such a broad mandate that it’s difficult to summarize their work. I’ll be outlining various aspects of it as I get to know it intimately in the next few weeks, but in short, they work with community development, education, women’s issues and economic development in disaster-prone areas of Andhra Pradesh. The economic, environmental and social issues here are extreme, and the work they are doing is clearly having a significant impact. I’ll be writing more about the details of this work in the future, so I won’t try to cover it all now.

From India One

Our life here is simple, as one might expect working with Gandhians. We don’t have hot water, a bath or a shower, but we can heat water in a five liter bucket, which is enough for both adults to wash ourselves, or one adult and some laundry. We live in a white room with a concrete floor, a bed, a desk, two small wooden tables and two plastic chairs, and usually at least one large gecko. There are no screens on the windows, but the breeze is usually blowing and there is a highly valued ceiling fan. In southern India, even winter feels hot to me (though the kids come to school in earmuffs and ski masks!).

From India One

We have fallen into a large family here. Most of the nine sons and daughters of Gora and Saraswathi Gora, and several of their descendants, work together and live together in a compound of various apartments, offices and houses. That means that Mason is swimming in adopted aunts, uncles and grandparents. Several of the family are prominent doctors, actually, in case anyone is worried about Mason’s health. The incoming president of the Indian Medical Association, Dr. Samaram, lives just downstairs. He’s the author of 195 books on health issues and is a bit of a rock star around here.

From India One

Soon we will head out to the field office, where we will be living for a while, and where internet will be unavailable. That will be another scenario again, but we trust it will hold good gifts as this one has, and it looks like we’ll be back and forth a bit anyway.

We’re well into a big adventure here, and so grateful to have the opportunity. So far, our experiences have been as rich as Indian spices, and we’re looking forward to many more helpings.

From India One

holiday giving article

Here is the final article that Bekah wrote. I think she did a great job (actually it reads much better than my unedited answers below). Kudos, Bekah.

An Interview

From blog pix

About a week ago I received an interview request from Rebekah Tucker, the Editor of Longwood University’s newspaper, the Rotunda. She sent a few questions along and I thought it would be appropriate to post the answers here. They are good and important questions, and I’m glad that people like Rebekah are wrestling with them, just as I am.

1. How did you start in your activism with PEG?

Actually, the PEG project kind of fell into our laps. We went to Guatemala on our honeymoon, not looking for a project, but while we were there we learned some things that led us to take action. We learned about the conditions that children were studying and living in and the lack of much government funding for education. We also learned how far US dollars can go in Guatemala, and it occurred to me that I have the opportunity, as a musician, to speak to thousands of people each year, and we might be able to raise some money to help out. Five years later we had raised about $100,000, which in Guatemala is a lot of money (we built a one-room school there for $2500 about three years ago).

I should be clear, though, that I don’t think we have to go to distant lands to find meaningful work to do. We just have to pay attention to what is in front of us and look for ways to be of service and have an impact.

One way to explore your own calling is to ask yourself three questions: first, what really winds you up? What frustrates you when you read the news, or gets you really excited? That’s another way of asking “what are you passionate about?” The next question is “What is one small thing you can do about it?” I choose the word ’small’ intentionally. Don’t start huge, just think of one small thing you can do and let that lead you to the next small thing. We can become overwhelmed and immobilized if we take on too much, but all big things are made up of small things. Doing something small is much better than doing nothing, and may even be better than trying to do something big. After you do it, you ask the third question, which is “What next?”

2. What do you feel are the benefits of working with the project (or any project like this)?

If you’re asking about the benefits for me, I think the main benefit is that it has been extraordinarily empowering. No one can tell me I can’t change the world. There are kids getting an education in Guatemala who likely would not be if it weren’t for PEG. When people start talking about “changing the world” there are always people who will roll their eyes and say that it’s naive to talk and think like that, people who argue that idealism evaporates with a dose of “real world.” They’re wrong, though. It may be naive to think you can *fix* the world, but it’s not naive to think you can change the world. In fact, it’s just the opposite: it’s naive to think you could possibly be in the world and NOT change it. Everything you do changes the world whether you like it or not. It’s just a question of deciding what matters, and which changes you are going to make.

One other simple answer to your question, though, is “Because it feels good.” Sharing what we have deepens our connectedness, and turning outside of ourselves can heal our isolation. It’s the right thing to do, but it’s not just about self-sacrifice; giving of yourself has deep benefits for you too.

3. What are some of the best ways you’ve found to spread the word to others about this project?

Part of what led me to take this on was the fact that because I was a performer I had a public platform to reach people, but the truth is that if you have something worth saying, there are always places to say it and people who are interested. Civic groups like the Rotary Club, Kiwanis or the Lions, church groups, school groups, various publications, etc.— they’re all looking for compelling stories. One myth about this kind of work is that you have to be somebody special to do it. You don’t. Or maybe you do, but you ARE somebody special. The famous Catholic activist Dorothy Day said “Don’t call us saints, we don’t want to be dismissed that easily.” I think what she was getting at was that if we leave good works to heroes, then that gets us off to the hook from actually doing anything. The work gets done by the people who decide to do it.

4. What advice would you give to someone who is looking to start a project like this, or give to a project like this?

I guess I’ll answer that in two parts. My advice to someone who is interested in starting a project like this is twofold: First, pay attention. Find mentors who are doing work similar to the work you’re doing and ask for their guidance. Study up on your topic and on how others have approached these kinds of issues, investigate what the main pitfalls are, some common errors, etc. Mentors will save you from making some mistakes so that you’ll have the opportunity to make other mistakes.

My other tip contrasts with the first one, though. Namely, go for it! If you wait until you have it all figured out, you’re an expert on the subject, you have the perfect plan, etc., you’ll never do anything. Jump in and make some mistakes and get some things done. A lot of people focus on the errors, and there can be some costly goofs in this kind of work. It seems to me, though, that apathy and inaction are much bigger problems than faulty models. It is true that in the worst case scenario you can make things even worse, but I think it’s also true that if you set out to have a positive impact and you’re fairly smart about how you approach things, you’re likely to have a positive impact.

In terms of giving, I think that’s great too. Not everyone is called to go into the field and spend their lives in community with poor and oppressed people, but there are a lot of other ways to be involved too. One of my favorite quotations is from Howard Thurman, who was a big influence on a young Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He said “”Don’t just ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and then go and do it, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” I like that a lot. I think what he was trying to say was that we have different callings. What brings you joy? How can you use that to make the world a better place? The answer may not be obvious, but if you keep chewing on it some creative possibilities may emerge. I know some guys who are passionate about cycling and they raised over $12,000 for PEG a couple of years ago cycling across Canada in a fund raiser. They had a blast, and they also had a huge impact on a school in the village of Chacaya, Guatemala.

5. Why do you feel it is important to give to those less fortunate, especially during the holiday season?

Honestly, I don’t use the term “less fortunate” much. Honestly, I’ve learned a lot about community and how to live a full life from people who have a lot less than I do materially. I think we’re pretty impoverished in the western world in terms of community— we’re n less fortunate in some ways, and ironically, we’re burdened by our comfort. Sometimes it isolates us and we end up lonely in a way that I rarely see in the third world (or “the two-thirds” world, as some friends of mine say— the vast majority of the people in the world live in what most people in the U.S. would consider abject poverty). Still, the poor are definitely less fortunate in a lot of ways, so it’s not really an inaccurate term. One of the main differences is that there is no ‘net’ for people living in poverty. I’ve got a credit card, and if things go terribly wrong for me, I can run up the bill, I can call the U.S. Embassy for help getting home, I can turn to my family, etc. Yesterday I squatted in the home of a hand loom weaver in rural Andhra Pradesh, India. It’s a mud hut with a palm frond roof. His whole family lives on about 80 cents a day, and if a storm blows the hut away, he can’t go to Home Depot and get building materials. If he gets sick, he simply can’t go to the doctor because he can’t pay the doctor. If he has no money, he has no food. On the other hand, he has a village where everyone knows everyone and helps when there is a problem. I think it’s important for all of us to know each other and to deal with each other compassionately. Caring about each other, learning from each other, saving all the energy we expend trying to avoid the harsh realities of our privilege— engaging with each other makes all of our lives richer.

The holiday season is about faith, arguably for everyone— though for some it is religious faith and for others it is faith that our happiness lies in ’stuff.’ I think that giving, in whatever way you feel called to give (money, time, compassion, etc.), deepens our connectedness with each other, and that is holy in and of itself. My own religious faith tradition teaches that this is also a very basic way in which we can be faithful to God, and in fact all of the world’s major religions teach that, so it makes good sense that especially at this time of year we should give some thought, prayer and action to these questions.

From blog pix

a hand loom weaver I visited yesterday

Hair Changing 101

It’s been some time since I’ve checked in, and much has happened in the meantime.  I’ve finished the second semester of my Masters program, Mason turned one, I’ve made trips to Newcastle and Canberra for Rotary, friends have visited from the U.S. and New Zealand, and yesterday Deanna had her thirty-fifth birthday, just to name a few. Crowding all of that our of our minds at the moment, though, is our upcoming adventure in India. We leave tomorrow, and I have much to say about that, but first, a bit of silliness that we need to cover in order to move on (in order to avoid quite a few “huh?!?!” comments later).

After over twenty years with long hair (my entire adult life) I took radical steps last weekend: I shaved my head.

I had been chewing on the idea for at least a couple of years. Partly because I was losing the battle anyway and comb-overs just never did it for me.  I like the idea of embracing change when it comes (though I do better with it at some times than others), so it seemed like the right course of action.

The particular timing, though, was due to the fact that I am leaving for India tomorrow to spend some time working with a Gandhian aid organization there, and though it is winter in India, the forecast low for tonight in the town we’ll be living in is 79 degrees.

More compellingly, we learned some interesting things about our lodging in recent email correspondences. We had been told that we will have a private room to share between myself, Deanna and Mason, and that we will have a private bathroom. Thinking about bathing our one-year-old, Deanna asked in a follow-up email whether the bathroom has a bath or a shower, and we learned that actually it has neither. It has a bucket and a mug. That is the normal way of bathing in India, apparently, and bathtubs are generally only seen in hotels. That’s fine with us, but it did provide a good reason to finally take the proverbial plunge.

My friend David Stuart makes documentaries, and he brought his camera and gear to my other friend Dave’s house where we did the deed. He shot this brief documentary (thanks David!).

Dave James, whose house we were at, is a semi-pro photographer, so things were well documented in stills as well (thanks Dave!).

We invited everyone at the party to have a go with the clippers, including 4-year-old Hani (with some spotting from Aunt Maree).

Several friends who heard I was going to do this expressed concern for how our one-year-old Mason would react, so we made sure that he saw what was going on and felt OK. The sound of the clippers seemed to scare him at first, but I stopped to hold him and laugh with him and let him know everything was OK throughout the process and he did just fine. He especially enjoyed patting my head when it was over. The next morning when he saw me he didn’t even look surprised. He reacted more or less like I had changed my shirt.

And on the whole, Mason’s reaction seems indicative of most of our friends’ and family’s, and my own for that matter:  I look a lot more like me than I expected to.  In short, it hasn’t been nearly as drastic as I thought it would be.

The whole thing happened rather spontaneously, so I didn’t have much time to organize a big fundraiser, but we did put the word out on Facebook that people could bid for my hair on Facebook. The money went to the non-profit that Deanna and I founded to support school and library projects in Guatemala, PEG Partners, and the hair went to an organization called “Wigs for Kids,” which provides free wigs to children who have lost their hair due to chemotherapy or other illness. We raised about $900, which in Guatemala pays for about three-quarters of an annual school teacher’s salary. Not bad for a few hours’ fun on line.

I’ve been really enjoying the new style, not to mention the very short showers. In the end, I guess the change is really representative of so many other good changes in my life lately. Much to celebrate.

As I write these words we have 21.5 hours to go until we leave, turning the page to another chapter which promises to be exciting, challenging and powerful. Being finished with my second semester of the masters program, I’m in the groove for writing, so I look forward to keeping this spot up to date as things unfold in India. Thanks for staying in touch.

Namaste,
David

The answer, my friend…

A few weeks ago I heard a man speaking about aid work. At one point, in the middle of a litany of problems in the world, he spoke of “countries where the winds of political change are blowing.”

I don’t know whether anyone else noticed what was happening through the plate glass windows behind him as he spoke, though: just as he dropped the tempest-as-politics metaphor a man walked into view in the background carrying a leaf blower, cleaning up outside while we sat inside listening. And there they were: the winds of change.

The contrast couldn’t have been much more stark: an older white man in an air-conditioned room talking about how we respond when the winds of change blow, discussing our reaction to the uncontrollable and unpredictable forces of political nature; and outside, a sweaty, dark-skinned man in his thirties making the wind blow, harnessing it to get the job done.

Maybe I should go on record here and say that I don’t actually think very highly of leaf blowers. Good old fashioned raking is good for me, doesn’t pollute the air and can actually get wet leaves as well as dry ones. And while I’m qualifying, I don’t want to pick on older white men or play into tired stereotypes. Actually, I’m seeing some particular older white men do amazing and visionary work these days. My point has more to do with the winds of political change. I think it’s important to realize that they don’t just blow, people make them blow.

The consequences of the distinction are notable, and significant in at least two ways. First, if we perceive the world as something that happens to us, then the best we can hope for is to react well. If we perceive the world as a space in which we move, however, our choices are much broader, and our sense of possibility much richer. We don’t just react, we act.

Perhaps more importantly, if we put the agency back into politics, i.e. we remember that movements and events don’t ‘just happen,’ but are chosen by individuals, then we are more likely to perceive not only the possibility of different choices, but also the humanity of the people involved in making them. That last part is particularly important, I think, and in a social context that so often tries to force complex reality into dichotomies— Democrat/Republican, Israeli/Palestinian, rich/poor, Christian/Muslim, us/them— it takes conscious intention to maintain a nuanced and human perspective.

When that ironic moment presented itself I almost chuckled out loud, but I caught myself, and I spent the rest of the day thinking about what it meant.

And what does it mean? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.