bridges

I'm happy. I've decided the point of college!
For the next three years, I will learn how to navigate as many different cultural spaces as possible. This is done by cultivating meaningful relationships with people in those spaces, who will teach me profoundly about their experience. Generally, what people do isn't as important as why they do it.
This is part of a lifelong strategy to find my place in building a culture of global citizenship, in the world, and especially in the United States as the dominating power. (as a disclaimer, note that we all need motivatation. this ideal is my motivation for nagivating different spaces. it is not, however, a normative. I'm too ignorant to lay claim to normatives yet! I lay it out as my bias, here for you:)
One goal I had this spring was to figure out how to cultivate that kind of a culture, amidst so much that runs counter to it--capitalism, segregated communities, guilt and condenscension. I went on a little journey, starting with the realization that #1, my place in all of this is to educate those of my own mother culture (this post). 2, I allowed myself to do some introspection in the cultural arena, and the process helped me internalize a decent amount of pain. 3, I was struck again and again by how much better life would be for everyone if we all spent more time w/those whom we don't understand, and especially those w/whom we disagree. 4, I concluded that basically one of the most wonderful things we can do for each other is to let each other exist--to listen, and to learn, seeking to be in real community (this post). I seek to validate every person's lived experience, while critically acknowledging that while our lived experience is valid, it can be made so much better when we refrain from defining reality for others. This means that I am naturally drawn to the spaces of those at the margins, whose realities have been devalidiated and bastardized to make way for the realities of the more powerful. However, if I stay in the margins, what will change? I must also learn to navigate the spaces of the powerful, that i may validate their lived experiences authentically, in order to make room for the voices of the marginalized to be heard. I'll translate; I'll bridge. I remake myself hundreds of times; people will change me, people will move me, we will become together. It will be a dance of narratives. It will hurt sometimes; I will be hurt and I will hurt others. I'll probably be confused most of the time. But that's the point, right? To heal, to be vulnerable...because then, all that is left for us to cling to is the acknowledgement that love is possible, real, and profound, and love is lived in movement towards one another; love is lived in diffusing fear, in traversing barriers, in tearing down walls and in ripping through insulation.

See why I'm happy?

Who wants to join me...

I know it's going to be hard. (so many spaces have left me wounds that are still fresh...) But if it weren't difficult, would we be so quick to fear, and to condemn? Courage, wisdom, compassion...these are qualities that become part of us when we kick down the fences around our own worlds, in favor of not knowing where my reality ends and yours begins.

Finally, I must add that this process by no means allows for paralysis or non-commitment. If we embrace ambiguity at the expense of determined action, we miss the point of embracing ambiguity in the first place!

More on SIDAREC

I received word that SIDAREC (the NGO I'll be working with) kids especially like Elf, Tom and Jerry, and Scoobydoo. And they don't have a VCR, only a dvd player.

Also if any of you have connections with computer people, i'm soliciting donations of 40-60 GB hard disk drives for Pentium IV, Windows XP computers/processors. They have 30 computers but would love upgrades for 10-15 of them.

Kenya-bound!

This is where I'll be in 3.5 weeks! (Nairobi, Kenya)
From the Blizzard will become my travel journal at that point.

If any of you have dvds of children's cartoons, SIDAREC would love them. I'd prefer those of the non- American Empire sort. Also if any of you have a cam corder just, you know, sitting around that you might be able to loan to me for...you know, the summer...let me know. Finally if you know anyone who's trying to get rid of a few laptops, SIDAREC could use those too! ;-)

Because we're all a little brainwashed

Terry Tempest Williams writes in The Open Space of Democracy that she would die, and live her life, for free speech. I’ve decided I agree with her. How she defines free speech I’ll paraphrase as valuing every voice. Let’s be serious here—we all like hanging out with people who think just like us. Friends are important; community is important. But I think those with whom we vehemently disagree have just as much to teach us as those who think like us. This goes beyond “challenging our views” or making us a little uncomfortable with our cocky selves. Truly listening—truly valuing their voices—means we stop taking ourselves so seriously and recognize that maybe God didn’t hand us truth on a silver platter. In fact, maybe truth will be found when we not only listen to those with whom we disagree, but seek to be in community with them.

This can be freaky. We live in a reality that trains us to pit ourselves against others. We demonize our enemies; when we say we “love” them what we mean is we’re going to keep working on them until they agree with us. We go to great ends to close our eyes to the humanity that resides in those who stand in our way. We’ve all got one of those relationships where “we just don’t talk about politics.” We all find ourselves afraid, deep down, to talk to about because we don’t want to offend her, or because we’re afraid he won’t understand. Too often, our fears are justified. When deep pain is involved, sometimes even we don’t realize how much it will hurt when the other person shrugs off our pain because they’ve constructed walls around their own reality and won’t let us in. But if we make them monsters, we forget that they are just as oppressed by their oppressive acts as we are. Who's going to listen first? May God give us the grace, the strength, the endurance, to listen for as long as it takes.


Oh, and Happy Birthday to me. Now I can buy liquor everywhere in Canada, and my age is a prime number. I’ve been waiting for this since I was like, 17.

Darfur, activism, and vacation

It was a turning point. 30-40,000 people streamed from across the country, to stand for 4 hours and hear the same message over and over again--one we had long ago internalized, but one we never tire of hearing...We are all Sudanese...Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere...This is about embracing our humanity...

600+ students lobbied Senators and Representatives from 45 states; we discovered there are people besides ourselves in the U.S. who can list more than three African countries; we discovered mutual heroes and diverse motivations; we discovered that when we embrace authenticity and refuse to give insulation control over our souls, we do so in community with so many others in so many places.
There is much to be done. But the world is listening now, and for one day, the world listened to thousands of Americans who insisted that the world listen to Africa.

I'm excited, envigorated, surprised and happy.

Sitting on a clean bench, inhaling sweet cedar, watching a squirrel play hide and seek with the flowers, I remembered that this is what privilege means. It means being able to come, rally, and go home to think about whatever I want. It means taking three days of vacation from studying to philosophize, reflect, and dress in fancy clothes so the Hill dwellers will "take me seriously." Privilege is exchanging a few words with a woman who is homeless, dwelling in her reality and crying inside because she has so much to teach me about life, and then walking away, back to my bed and dinner.


There is no joy in this.

Joy is reserved for those who give up privilege...who lose power to the powerless.

Sometimes, losing power can only mean giving up 3 days to advocate on behalf of those who can't speak for themselves right now, because their hell is too real. Always, we must speak to power with the quiet confidence that comes when we are not speaking for ourselves, but for us--all of us. And we depend on the resilience given us by the refugees, and we seize their destiny as our own, and we dream of a time when we will no longer speak from a place of privilege.