a man walks a thousand days

on hot sand and on the thousandth night comes rain. he cups his hands and catches the water. the clouds part against a black sky and the stars peer up at him from the water's shimmering surface, seeing their reflection in his eyes looking back. the water slips through his hands and into the sand, and on that spot he sleeps, deeply. morning comes in its own sweet time, rich and rested, silent and perfect, every color, every everything 5/7/2013

be it love or loss

loving into emptiness
the heart grows larger

for late night withdrawals

Knowledge is a burden

because by knowing, we begin to bear responsibility, and responsibility can be uncomfortable and inconvenient.   Even if we can't appropriately act on all that we know, we must at the very least feel and be effected.

I know people who are steadfastly resistant to new information and learning.   They're deeply un-interested and profoundly un-curious.  And they believe that these qualities keep them free.  Free from the unwelcome burdens and intrusions on their chosen beliefs.

True freedom comes from the ability and strength to change our minds, about anything and everything.  Without that freedom, we're stuck in a self imposed exile.

Peace Corps volunteers

are a very diverse group, I would posit. 

Many may look the same, but they're not. 

I started volunteering in the late 80's.  I'll be turning 50 in a few months.  My first year of Peace Corps service was during the 25th anniversary of the agency, and my last assignment was during the 50th anniversary.  Over the years, I've served 5 times, once in the Peace Corps, twice in the Crisis Corps, and twice in the Peace Corps Response agency.

I was lucky to be accepted for my first term of service, because I was 21 years old and had no college experience.  Typically the Peace Corps requires at least an undergraduate degree, but I gained entry on the basis of my work experience at the time.  I had done a fairly sizable community organizing job, sizable enough to prove some requisite skills for my assignment, and I was interviewed by a very engaging recruiter who felt that I would be a good fit.  It was a stroke of luck that changed my life forever.

When I shipped out, first to Philadelphia and then on to the desert of West Africa, I remember the rush of my world changing so rapidly.  On the plane, I was surrounded by a group of fellow volunteers, from whom I felt estranged at first.  These were mostly college kids, they looked a lot alike, a couple of women in our group were in their 60's, one guy was a returning volunteer in his 50's, but far and away most of the volunteers were recent college grads.

It was easy to feel different.

Over the period of my two year hitch, our group bonded tightly.  Everyone was a part, including me.  During our term of service, we shared among ourselves all that we could, including everyone.  Some of our friendships have spanned all of these years, and we remain in touch.

They all turned out to be, surprisingly or predictably, very different people, with different life stories, different cultural influences, different ways at looking at the world, different obstacles to overcome and different personal gifts to offer.

Not all Peace Corps training groups have the experience that I had.  I was lucky like that.

Along the way, a volunteer or two backed out of their service commitment.  One or two had medical issues that required early departure.  One or two that may have seemed unlikely to embrace the experience ended up being star players, with hugely successful development projects that elevated the lives of their African friends and neighbors.  Some of us struggled against a labyrinth of unpredictable local challenges and our own personal growth.  One guy, in the most remote post assignment, bought a few camels, married a local girl, and is still there in his desert village nearly 30 years later.

Among all of us, it seems as though no particular volunteer's experience was like that of the rest.  There are no neat and tidy generalizations to be made, regardless of surface characteristics of statistical import. 

I don't buy the sweeping characterizations and commentary that people make about "voluntourism", nor the hand-wringing over being a white (or black, or asian, or latino) American from the land of milk and honey trying to be a savior in a foreign land.  That wasn't me.

I was a lucky young man coming from a background that was tougher and more challenging than most, grabbing the best opportunity that had ever come my way to learn about the world.  At that time, I had no doubt at all that my volunteer service would certainly, definitely and indelibly change at least one life:  my own.

I knew that I needed every bit of extra experience and learning opportunity that I could get my hands on, the same as the people I was aiming to serve, and I never saw that as a contradiction to the basic mission of being a development volunteer.

From the day that I was accepted and offered an assignment on the other side of the world, I've had no confusion that this twist of fate may have been among my luckiest.

These days, after returning four times to serve again, I think the (non)pattern has continued.  My assignments have been progressively demanding and increasingly rewarding in terms of my ongoing professional growth.

I achieved a few modest successes in my program work, and touched a few lives significantly.  Each assignment has been an absolutely unique challenge requiring me to my revisit core beliefs and reinvent myself in the face of the demands placed on me.  Perhaps it's a bit cliche, but the Peace Corps probably was, in fact, "the toughest job I ever loved".

If I could offer one insight to an aspiring Peace Corps volunteer (of any age, race, cultural influence, socio-economic group or background) it would be this:  Whatever makes you different is exactly the reason that you're a great fit, in the Peace Corps and in any community in the world where you may choose to share yourself.  Listen to the stories of your friends and family who have already served, and be assured that your own experience will quite likely be completely different from theirs. 

My eulogy for Phillip Seymour Hoffman

The best actor, the actor that creates for me a transcendent experience, draws me in to his character, puts me in the story being told, will also often remind me of who I am and bring me home inside of myself.


A great movie can be, for me, such a healing experience, regardless of the storyline but depending on a fantastic job of acting. A journey through the complexity of a fascinating character who is, after all, me.


It's impossible for me not to ponder the real person, the actor, that is behind the character.


And I'd guess that it's impossible for an actor to completely hide themselves behind a character. I think we humans are too perceptive. When we see enough of an actor, we get a good feeling for their depth as a human being, for their emotional intelligence in the art of living, for the boundaries of their compassion and limits upon their interest in the world.


When we can see within another person so deeply the nameless atoms and molecules of energy that make them like us, inseparable from us, that is true beauty. Original beauty. Beauty that runs so much deeper than the physical characteristics that Hollywood pushes at us as though boobs and biceps were the currency of love. Physical beauty is not the currency of love. Sharing the crazy experience of life is the currency of love.


Women obsess on physical beauty, can be ruthlessly competitive, and would like to convince men that their obsession and vanity is not of their own making. They miss the boat.


Men can be captured and imprisoned, duped by physical beauty. They miss out. The real experience of life escapes, and this skin-deep beauty brings no reward, nothing.


Phillip Seymour Hoffman looked like just some guy from anywhere that you might meet on a bus or plane.


But he gave his audience, through his genius of passion and compassion, such soaringly beautiful experiences. Such fearless and unflinching portrayals of ourselves in a mirror. Such a strong feeling that his own heart was laid absolutely bare to his audience in the honesty of acting. And that we, the audience, could be trusted to actually see, feel, live the experience.


How subversive, this rare beauty, in an industry like Hollywood.


And how inspirational for an average guy like me, passionately in love with life.

It's no secret

that the U.S. is a very politically polarized place in these times.  As for me, I like to see people I know using the internet to express and challenge one another's points of view,  because the occasional moments of social progress that have moved us forward as a society have inevitably resulted from debates like these and of all kinds.

But here's the thing:  I've just seen someone make a clever and indirect endorsement of the use of mustard gas,  with a "God Bless"  and a smiley emoticon.

I'm a bit taken aback.

Even when the "heroes" of our personal political views do hideous things, dogma can trap us into a defensive place of unnecessary justification.

I hope I never become that for the Obama's of the world.  I hope I never completely lose my objectivity and sense of humanity,  just to stick with team colors.  Up to now I can say with confidence that my sense of right and wrong have not been disposed of for the sake of rhetoric.

And to my friend who places a smiley face and her God's Blessing on the mass murder of innocent people,  I know I will never reach this person with reason.   Something is very very disconnected.   It's probably true that in an internet forum or in life,  this person has chosen a set of beliefs that can have little if any relation to reality,  the reality where human life everywhere is precious, and a world where even the people you can't see and touch do actually exist.

For me, it's a personal struggle.  

I know with absolute clarity something that is very slow to dawn on people of my country and culture:

No amount of killing of innocent people is, or will ever be, an acceptable action. 

A society that indulges mass killing can never be "free". 

A people that accepts these acts will always be imprisoned and enslaved by falseness and evil.

The progress of humankind is stuck on this, polarized and mired in a debate that shouldn't be.

life's little heart trips

cleverly repeat themselves
like falling in love

first with a mexican desert

then with a lesbian comedian

the open doors of a hindu temple

the best veg fried rice ever

the moods of the indian ocean

swahili  huevos rancheros

Wow, what a quagmire

for Christian right-wingers, as gay marriage is upheld in the courts of Utah.

Even Pope Francis has been credited of late for his recognition of the church's need to ease up on its oppressive prior posture of judgement against gays.

Now, in a Mormon state, where polygamy and other forms of marriage are in common practice, the court has upheld the right of gay couples to marry, against the strong sentiment of the organized Mormon opposition.

Of course, some Christians say that Mormons, like those in Utah who supported the gay marriage ban, are not truly Christian. But Mormons count themselves as Christian believers. And many Christians believe that Catholics are not true Christians. But Catholics feel otherwise, obviously. And it doesn't end there. Are you confused yet? Many Christians also say that Protestants have abandoned Christianity. Protestant believers of course feeling steadfastly otherwise.

Maybe it's time for right wing Christian activists to wade into the question of defining Christianity once and for all, hopefully in a way that Christians can agree to. And hopefully without causing a war or wiping each other out in the process - no "holy" wars, please.

Then, in this land of religious liberty, we could weed out the right kind of Christian from the wrong kind, while we attempt to base our system of government (and liberty, of course) on The One Pure Truth.

Wow, what a quagmire.

Congrats though, to the state of Utah, for joining the tide of justice and equal protection, even while there is much work left to be done.

Hi Art,

It's heartbreaking news. 

 

I'm sorry for the fear and powerlessness that Jennifer must be feeling.  Because she is family to you, my brother, and because people I love are precisely walking in Jennifer's shoes.

 

And the subject ignites for me a rekindled anger at a very important element of this big picture, most often overlooked by all of us who are effected by the love and loss of friends and family to all kinds of cancer, but as you say, especially breast cancer.

 

I would Love to see ALL of the women effected by this reality turn their focus to include accountability of research organizations: to act as if every financial resource dedicated to research is a life and death question of management.

 

Perhaps I'm naïve in my expectation that research funds for finding cures of breast cancer be funnelled toward scientific progress - in every dollar and cent. 

 

I've read some really disturbing portrayals of the Susan B. Komen​ organization, i.e. their copyright of the color pink in reference to cancer, the huge budget for defending that copyright, the enormous budget and salaries for marketing, executive salaries on par with private corporations, unflinching budgets for luxury office spaces, etc.

 

I wish that cancer research was research for cancer.

 

I don't doubt the likelihood that I must someday face the reality of a diagnosis, and the cascade of emotions that must certainly follow.

 

Like we experienced when we worked as activist fundraisers, there must be a radical shift in the paradigm of organizations' structures in order for those organizations to go on requesting and dispensing precious funding, year after year, decade after decade. 

 

You've raised an important and timely concern around congressional allocation.

 

I wish that people affected by cancer would organize their passions and the compassion that all of us feel around these points that I'm raising.  If that happened, I believe that the organizations involved would respond, and the outcome would have an equal or possibly greater effect on hastening the progress toward a cure.