my heart, right now

The plight of refugees was something that I never really considered until I came to Baltimore to work. Since then I have been exposed to many of the realities of refugees and IDP’s, through my work and through reading books about Afghanistan and other places. The issues that effect refugees and IDP’s have become very real to me, and its very very sad. When you see these images of Darfur, you can look at the people depicted and realize that many have not known a life without conflict (the civil war in Sudan has been going on for 20 years). It makes you feel so selfish. At a time in my life where I look forward to the possibilities of the future, of a wide open world where I could do very many things, these people just hope to live with their families in peace. Simply having options would be a wonderful thing to them.

I also thought about this last week when I ran across this article from the BBC. Who can say for sure why these women have chosen to do this, but I know that my experience and understanding of South Asia would indicate its because they have no choice. They may see no hope in their future, no potential for life outside of the one that has been decided for them. It is very sad, and it makes me feel lucky that I have an education, options, a future, potential, the ability to dream and hope that those dreams become reality.

It also makes me feel that I could have just as easily been one of them…….

quotables

From People magazine

Stephen Colbert, this year’s Sexiest Men with Glasses:

“I am sexy. This isn’t ego talking: People magazine says I’m sexy, and I accept that. Who am I to argue? I’m just a person. They’re People.”

november?

Last week was very busy at work. We had a few consultants in for a two-day security training that I was in charge of making sure happened…which meant that I had some late nights at the grocery store and early mornings brewing coffee and setting up a room with easel paper and markers. That said, the training itself is very interesting and I now know how to react if someone throws a live grenade at me (and its not immediately fall to your knees and beg for the rapture!). That info could come in handy someday.

Anyway, I was exhausted once Friday came around and I desperately wanted to sleep in on Saturday morning. However, I was awakened at 7 in the morning by a jackhammer outside my window. They are constructing a “green space” near my apartment (I don’t know how they are going to accomplish that with all the concrete they have been pouring) and they were working early in the morning. So, I had a restless sleep in and a pretty casual Saturday, which included walking to the Barnes and Noble in the Inner Harbor and listening to Christmas music (even though it was like a summer day!). Sunday was spent in Fed Hill cheering for the Ravens. Overall, the NFL was good to me this weekend….the Ravens won, the Bengals lost (my pick in the pool), and the Packers beat Minnesota IN Minnesota (wahoo!).

I have succumbed and finally pulled out my Christmas music for the season, even though it seems wrong because it doesn’t FEEL like Christmas around here. I haven’t even pulled out my winter coat yet! Hopefully it will get colder, and there will be snow in December (although I have a feeling that is wishful thinking).

tired but happy

I am tired this morning. Why? Because I got way too caught up in watching the results last night. I spent significant amounts of time flipping tv stations and hitting the refresh button on the political blogs and cnn.com. What I all boils down to is that I am apparently very much a politics geek, but we all have to be true to ourselves.

Needless to say, I am happy this morning, though no doubt there are many people who aren’t (like my friend Brent). All across the country the Dems won races, including the Senate race in Minnesota which saw Mark Kennedy defeated (if there was ever a snarky politician in the world, it would be Mark Kennedy). Maryland has a new Governor and Senator, both who are democrats. And in my home state of Wisconsin, Doyle defeated Green (yay), Kagen defeated Gard (yay) and Kohl remained a senator. The abortion ban in South Dakota was defeated (double yay). First female speaker (fabulous!). The only sad point for me was that WI approved the amendment to ban gay marriage (an argument for another time).

Watching all the coverage last night, I was shocked at how the media has not seemed to have learned the lesson that so many years of tight races should have taught them: projections are not results. It irritates me to no end that they project the winners of races even when the actual precinct reports don’t match up. Last night in MD both O’Malley (Governor) and Cardin (Senate) were anointed winners while the results were still showing Ehrlich and Steele in the lead. It bothers me a lot.

Anyway, that’s all I’m going to write about politics.

vote!

I voted today, did you? It was the first time I ever voted in MD, first time I ever voted on an electronic machine, the first time I was ever not asked for an ID while voting (which I find scary), and the first time I ever voted for a Republican (I only voted for one..)

Go vote!

fun

I have been, pleasantly, too busy to write recently. Work picked up a bit at the end of last week, and Friday was crazy because I had to leave early.

Sarah, Kirsten and I went to Philly on Friday to see The Fray at the Electric Factory. Sarah was very jazzed about it all, but I was more enthusiastic about the chance to see Philly again than I was about seeing the The Fray (although, The Fray is very cool). So, needless to say I was very mellow when the opening act, a group I had never heard of called The Feeling, came out. But oh how that attitude changed very quickly. In short, The Feeling are awesome. They are a band from the UK who don’t actually have a cd out here yet, but they will in March. That night they did what all good bands do, they came out onstage and performed for an audience (me) who had never heard of them before and by the end of the set they had fans (me) who were really excited about them and their music who ran to their booth to pick up their cd. I am so excited about this group, that in a lapse of self control I bought their full length cd from HMV in the UK and am having it shipped here. I mean, do they honestly expect me to wait until March to hear it? Its worth the extra $5 to buy the British version, and it makes me happy.

Anyway, another thought that I have been having lately is just how random it is for me to feel like I am in a fun moment in my life right now. I have always been really serious about life, perhaps too serious. But in Baltimore I seem to be surrounded by people who are much more chill than me, and I am adjusting. Its not that I am shirking responsibilities, its just that for whatever reason I am enjoying being young…running off to Philly for the weekend, watching football at friends homes, just hanging out, reading books, seeing films, going out. In some ways, I feel like for this moment in time some of the weight I have been carrying around (for whatever reason, who really knows why I felt weighed down) has been lifted and I feel like I can fun. I feel like my life is full and fun, not empty, boring and useless.

Maybe I’ve just been in a crabby mood and I’m just getting out of it now…the last few months have been a bit intense.

weekend

After many boring weeks and weekends of doing nothing special because of general lack of plans and/or bad weather, this past weekend was pretty full of things to do.

My mom was here for a quick one-night visit on Friday/Saturday. She was staying with family friends in PA for a visit, and was flying out of Baltimore, so she spent the night at my place. It was great to see her, and it was nice for her to meet Kirsten….I think that it’s hard for me sometimes to adjust to the reality of my life here, in some ways. I haven’t been back to WI since I moved out here, so while it is normal for me to be here every once in a while I think “I live in Maryland”. It’s like that when your mom is at your apartment…its like “This is weird…I don’t live with you anymore. I live on the other side of the country now…” Just something to get used to, I guess.

On Saturday after dropping my mom at the airport, Kirsten and I headed to Flugtag in the Inner Harbor. Let me say, it was great! If Red Bull ever sponsors a party…go. They played great music, it was a fun atmosphere, and the weather was beautiful. Plus, there is the added benefit of laughing at everyone jumping into the Inner Harbor. Let me tell you, though, I don’t think I would have ever voluntarily jumped into that water. Its so dirty, rumor had it they had chemical showers on site to hose everyone down after they jumped.

Anyway, after Flugtag a friend was hosting a party, so we headed there for awhile; and then Kirsten, Sarah, Ben and I went to see The Last King of Scotland at The Charles. The movie was actually very good, I was surprised. I wasn’t that jazzed to see it, but it turned out to be a good one to discuss. A Scottish doctor who goes to Uganda to escape his home and help those in need, and gets wrapped up in the power of the new President via-a coup. I would recommend it, but it has touches of uncomfortable violence so beware!

pointless nostalgic

As I wrote before, I bought a few Jamie Cullum CD’s after seeing him live in DC earlier this month. Below are the liner notes (which I love) from his album “Pointless Nostalgic” (which I ALSO love):

“I once met a man who, when asked why he never took photographs of his kids, simply tapped the side of his head and said “it’s all in here.” I admired that greatly, because I simply don’t have enough trust in my memory. I need reminders, markers that point the brain in the right direction amongst the most complex of mazes.

Why is it so hard to let go of that piece of paper scrawled on by someone once loved? These pointless artifacts are the proof of a moment lost in time, but they can never tell the full story.

Nostalgia takes hold, dishing out its rose-colored glasses to watch the show that is the past as you remember it. This is the show I love to watch, pointlessly, again and again.

Music has a far greater potency- it can make time more immediate whilst simultaneously placing you effortlessly back to a moment in your childhood, a particular summer or just last week. Song become a blueprint for your own personal mind map, who cares that “It Ain’t Necessarily So” was written in 1935, it has got all my own baggage attached to it now-not just the many and varied interpretations of it. There is always room for reinterpretation of a song because every radically different human being has his or her collective and emerging lifetime to impress upon it.

Music takes hold, and it is far more dangerous than nostalgia. Good times, bad times, and boring times can be returned to with startling clarity; but it is the moment that becomes most important, where life is meant to be, for there can be no lie in a sweet melody or an evil groove.

The perfect cure for my pointless nostalgia.”

This is true to my life. I can’t tell you how music takes me back to moments, feelings and smells in a way nothing else does.

Every time I listen to my Kelly Clarkson CD I remember the moment I slipped in into my CD player in India. It was a time when I was desperate to feel connected to my American culture and longed to escape to being my silly American self. I can smell the room I was sitting in the moment I first heard it, and remember how important it was for me to fall into a different world for an afternoon.

Its true of one of my Switchfoot CD’s too. Their album “Nothing is Sound” came out while I was living in Madison, and I had it in my stereo that fall and listened to it everywhere I went. Every time I hear that music I remember driving to and from coffeehouses late at night to study for the GRE’s, when the winter was just beginning and wisps of snow were falling. I remember the feelings of frustration and fear that were associated with those drives, me praying for God’s grace on my test and my future; that I would be able to achieve the dreams I held and that my life wouldn’t go to waste.

Even Jamie Cullum’s music reminds me of working at the coffee shop. The owner loved jazz and had his CD’s, and I would listen to them over and over while I worked, closed and cleaned the place. His song “Twentysomething” was particularly appropriate; it was all about figuring out what to do with your life after college and aligning what you learned in classes with what is really valuable in the world.

Anyway, I loved these notes and thought I should share.

busy-ness

I am sorry for my lack of writing lately. It was because of a number of things....work being really busy, my not wanting to talk/share about what has been happening, my not feeling like I have anything to talk about.

Anyway, things have calmed down a bit at work, in a matter of speaking, I suppose. It's still as wild as it usually is, but it is less crazy than it has been recently.

I saw Jamie Cullum in DC at the 9:30 earlier this month; he was awesome live....very cool. I actually don't OWN any of his albums, but I used to listen to them at the cafe' all the time while I served coffee/slaved/cleaned the place. Some of his earlier albums talked about trying to figure out what to do after you graduate from college...needless to say I related to it at the time. Anyway, the morning after the concert I went online and bought his music. I couldn't wait any longer!

AND next month I am going to see Madam Butterfly at the National Opera with Kirsten! It's at the Kennedy Center...I am way excited. Placido Domingo runs the National Opera, and according to the website he is directing the performance. I'm such a dork..but it's very exciting!

compliment

In the past week someone told me they thought I lived the words of Micah 6:8. It's one of the biggest compliments I have ever recieved.

fortune cookie

A frivolous gift is a gift, nonetheless.

i love this!

birthday thoughts

When I look back on this week (you know, when I am REALLY old, like 40-wink, wink) I truly believe that it will live in infamy as one of the hardest weeks of my life. I saw the gruesome death of a very important friendship this week because of the actions of myself and someone I care about greatly. It’s funny how we can take the gifts that God gives us and allow human nature to completely destroy them. Baltimore has been hard for me and my life here has been greatly improved by the few friendships that I have, and to lose one of the ones that is most dear to my heart seems, at times, unbearable.

The other reason this week has been hard is that this wrenching experience has made me realize that an arch of growing adulthood has edged closer to completion. I’ve always wondered when I would finally feel like an adult, and I expect that there will be more “maturing moments” ahead, but getting up this morning on my birthday makes me realize that I have grown quite a bit since last year. The first time I ever really viewed myself as an adult was when I was in India and exposed to regular challenges in taking care of myself and watching out for my well being. As I came home, I wondered if my family would notice the change in me that I felt-that I matured into more of an adult. I don’t really know if anyone noticed, but I also feel that this week has had the same sort of effect. And imagine crammed 9 months of maturing into 5 days...It would leave anyone emotionally destroyed.

I can only hope that the next year will be more stable for me, and that there will not be so many wrenching experiences. I guess a lot has changed since my birthday last year: I was working in a coffee shop when I turned 23, a recent grad who was trying to decide on next steps and battling depression over the state of her life, who felt like a failure because of having to live in her mother’s home in a city that held no future for her. As I turn 24 I am living in a new city on a different side of the country, working in the field I dreamed of in college, and traveling to places for work I could only read about in the papers last year.

Despite the gains, part of me still feels that I should have accomplished more in my life by this age. Its not that I feel like a failure, I just worry that I haven’t done all that I can with the years that I have had. But I guess all we can do is the best we can...

quotables

Me: Did Sarah come back yet? Did she have a CD with her?

Kirsten: Yes, she came back but I don't know about the CD.

Me: If she has Justin Timberlake with her, I'll be happy...The CD, not the man.....Acutally, the man would make me happy too.

kevin sites in the hotzone

One of my new favorite bloggers is Kevin Sites. In the fall of last year, he set out to cover all of the world's conflict zones, or at least some of the most active conflicts currently.

Below is his year in review article, as posted on his site today. I thought it was really interesting, and many of the places he visits are potential places where my organization could work in the future.

Our Journey So Far
A Year of the Hot Zone Completed
By Kevin Sites, Mon Sep 11, 1:36 PM ET

For nearly a year, through 22 conflict zones and 19 countries, I waited for this moment: a sense of absolution, something to wash me clean of what at times felt like an endless trail of sorrow.

The moment comes out of a murky blue, 60 feet below the ocean's surface. It comes suddenly and against the current; three shadows in the water, black and white angels, giant manta rays hovering over us in a liquid ballet.

As I watch them circle overhead, I well with emotion, sucking gulps of air from my scuba regulator. Their peaceful, silent beauty seems such a contrast to the nearly overwhelming suffering and death that I had witnessed this year.

Even underwater, I have a video camera with me. Something I routinely pointed in the direction of destruction and tragedy — the rubble of Lebanon's Bint Jbail, a funeral in northern Israel. But at this moment I cannot bring myself to point the lens in the direction of these magnificent creatures. Instead, I follow them only with my eyes, full of gratitude for this bit of serenity.

This is both a holiday and pilgrimage of sorts, a present my girlfriend Caitlin and I have given to each other after a long and difficult separation. Being here under the ocean off the Micronesian island of Yap is as seemingly far away as we can get from any war zone. And now I finally feel the journey has ended while watching what is mundane for the mantas, being cleaned of parasites by tiny fish, but magical for us.

But when an odyssey like this ends, especially one invested in the gravity of trying to report on all the world's conflict zones in one year, there is both personal and public accounting to be done.

What was accomplished? What have we learned? Did anything or anyone change because of it? There is no easy answer for any of these questions, and we will be examining them for some time to come.

Reporting from all these places felt at times both evolutionary and revolutionary.
We used some of the latest digital equipment to put a human face on global conflict and share it with the world. But technically, physically and mentally, the process was exhausting both for me, doing the physical coverage, and my Mission Control team of Senior Producer Robert Padavick, Producer Erin Green and Researcher Lisa Liu planning, prepping, packaging and posting our work.

From our first conflict zone in Somalia in September 2005 to our last in Israel this August, we had to make changes, improvise, and often work around the clock to try to make the places and the people we've met relevant to you.

People like the Afghan child bride, Gulsoma, who was given away in marriage at the age of four and tortured nearly to death by her in-law family; a Congolese woman named Serapina who was repeatedly raped by rebel soldiers and then forced to eat the flesh of her husband who was killed in front of her; a Nepalese boy named Yubaraj who at the age of 12 became head of the household when his father died and who now parks motorcycles 16 hours a day to support his family when he wishes he could be in school.

But while many of these stories are steeped in tragedy, we also hoped you could see the strength and resilience of their human spirit.

That is one of the two most important lessons that I believe were revealed to me on this journey. First, that the world is indeed filled with conflict, pain and suffering, and that amazing people overcome it everyday.

And second, that in war, it is not the combatants, but the civilian population that ultimately pays the highest price in death, injury and the legacy of destruction.
We raise statues around the world in honor of our war dead, but often forget the innocent civilian victims of conflict.

In that vein, we want to reintroduce you to the extraordinary people we met and the places we reported on during this journey, so over the course of the next four to six weeks, we are going to repost all the stories, text, video and still images, from each country in the order we covered them.

This will give you a chance to see the full scope of our year's work in a condensed time period, while also allowing us to rest and retool for the launch of the next phase of the Hot Zone, which will primarily focus on putting a face on the untold stories in America.

Thank you for sharing our journey so far.

do, do, do you, do you wanna

I am totally obsessed with my new Franz Ferdinand CD. I keep listening to it over and over...I think it may be driving Sarah a little crazy. It makes me so angry that they played DC in April and I had no idea! Who knows when the next time they will be in the States will be. I actually got a bunch of new CD's last week, and I uploaded into iTunes at work. Now that I have music to listen to, I am totally oblivious to the world while I sit in my cube. Whenever people stop by to try to have be do something or because they need my help, it takes me awhile to realize they are there. The other day, Kirsten came by and put her hand on my shoulder and it startled me so badly!

Today was such a beautiful day! After church, Kirsten and I didn't want to go back to the concrete hell of B'more, so she and I decided randomly that we were going to go to Alexandria. Neither one of us had ever been there before, so that's a good enough reason for us to visit. We ended up taking a walking tour of historic Old Town Alexandria, and its 200 years of historical glory. I love walking around the DC-area and being around all the tourists...its a totally different communal vibe than from Baltimore. The people-watching dynamics change. Anyway, while we were wandering we took a slight detour; one of the homes in the neighborhood was having an open house and we wandered through it. It was beautiful, but a skinny, tall rowhouse. The asked price? $1.25 million. Guess I shouldn't expect to ever want to buy a house in this part of the country. K and I also bumped into the last guided tour of the Carlyle House, this big colonial mansion. As we were "toured" through the building, I was having serious American Girl dejavu. When I was a girl, I was obsessed with the American Girl's and all of their stories and places in history. Walking through the house was like perusing Felicity's clothes and belongings in the catalog. I actually knew a bit about the colonial lifestyles of 10 year old girls, which made me feel intellectually superior for all of 5 seconds!

Tomorrow K and I are going up to Philadelphia on our day off. Hopefully some of the historical stuff will be open, so we can get a sense of the history of the place. I couldn't stand the idea of spending my day off just running errands...you have to enjoy those days when you can.

I can't believe it's September! Very weird.

fortune cookie

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

real men wear kilts

I had a great night last night. Val was performing at an open mike at an Irish pub in Annapolis (her first time!) so a group of us headed down there to cheer her on and be her crazed groupies. It was so fun, and the scene was pretty eclectic. The highlight of the night (other than Val, who rocked) was the old man wearing a “Real Men Wear Kilts” T-shirt who played the bagpipes for 15 minutes. While he was playing, Val leaned over to me and said, “You just know his wife begs him to get out of the house to play that thing.” It was so loud; it would definitely drive her and the neighbors crazy.

Recently, I have been absolutely obsessed with the blog the Christian Science Monitor has been running with articles from Jill Carroll about her time in captivity with the insurgents in Iraq. It’s interesting; when she was released in March, I remember thinking “Wow, she was lucky”, but there is so much more to the story. She wasn’t lucky, she was smart. From the very beginning, everything to her was a strategy about staying alive. The paper and her parents, and the foreign media in Iraq all took steps to try to ensure that she would stay alive. Jill, in turn, worked very hard at befriending her captors and trying to ensure her safety. She also talks briefly about family structure in the insurgency and the role of women. It’s all very interesting, people should read it!

Work has been busier this week and last. Finally, I have things to do! It’s great, if not totally fulfilling; but it’s a lot better than it was. Other than that, not much else is going on.

busy week (and weekend)

Ok, can I just say that I am SOO relevant? In my blog the day of the foiled attacks, I talked about immigration in the US and Britain and how it's different. Remember? And then there was that article in Time? Well, this morning there is an article about the differences in the US and British Pakistani communities in the New York Times...Hah! I just think it's funny.

So, Jonny Lang last week was incredible. I have never seen him live before, and he just rocks. He opened with my favorite song from his last album “Long Time Coming”, which was great! More than anything else, he really worked hard, and was clearly having fun. I don’t think I have ever seen a performer enjoy his audience more…I don’t know whether it was just an exceptionally good night or he just really enjoys being up there, but he grinned ear to ear every time he let the cheers and screams wash over him.

Sarah (my roommate) had her birthday last week, the same day as the concert. We went out for drinks to celebrate before the show, and I randomly decided to throw her a birthday party. So I spent most of Saturday shopping and cleaning (Seriously, cleaning your house so it's perfect and then having people over to mess it up? That doesn’t make very much sense). Anyway, I think the party was a wild success. It's been awhile since I threw a get together, and it was fun...and Sarah had fun which is the most important thing.

After a few people headed home, a group of us went out to Gardel’s to try out Baltimore’s salsa scene. A few of us have tried to go to this place a few times, but we never have seemed to make it. I have never been salsa dancing before, although when I lived in Minneapolis it was one of my goals to learn. It was never realized, however, because the salsa scene there can be very touch and go...my friends had quite a few awkward nights where the only people in the clubs were creepy, dodgy men. Gardel’s was definitely not that way at all, and all the guys who asked me to dance were really nice and patient. But if you want to learn to salsa, it's probably not a great idea to go to THE place to salsa at 12 on a Saturday...there were no beginners in that crowd. I’ll just have to go to a few lessons.

Other than that, not much going on here. I was supposed to go see Little Miss Sunshine with Kirsten on Saturday, but she cancelled our plans at the last minute. Hopefully I will still get a chance to see it this week. My favorite tapas place in the city is right next door to the theater, so hopefully I’ll be able to catch dinner there beforehand.

Later!

hmm....

So, this is an article in Time that addresses some of the questions I brought up in my August 11th post, after the whole US-UK terror plot thing. It's pretty interesting.

"Such Lovely Lads" from Time magazine this week.

goings on

The US government has come through! They have paid me what they owe me (or more accurately my father) in back tax credits...which means that the balance on my large credit card is going to be gone! It makes me soo happy to think that now I will have significantly decreased my leftover school credit card debt. It is so rare that money matters make me happy.

I really enjoyed this little piece from the New York Times magazine, from this week.

I am going to see Jonny Lang tonight at Ram's Head Live with Kirsten! I've never seen him before, but I have heard that he is incredible in person. I can't wait...

this scary world

This whole plane plot is really scary. I have become much more aware of terrorism and how it affects my life since moving to Baltimore. When I lived in Wisconsin and Minnesota, I was never that worried. There is no way either of those places would be the first hit in a terrorist attack, and there would be time to flee to Canada before what was occurring affected me there; but now that I live within 30 miles of DC and in a city that boasts a major port, it has become more real to me.

A few weeks ago I got into a debate with one of the guys from work about who handles immigration policy better, countries in Europe or the US. I argued that the people in Europe have their act together, that their policies were better and they dealt with the multi-cultural makeup of their countries with greater ease than here. He argued that the US was better. I asked that same question to Chris, the British guy I met in June, while he was here. His opinion was that immigrants in America identify and align themselves more with the US than immigrants in Britain do. I think that is very interesting, considering what happened yesterday (and last year) with young men who grow up in the UK but don’t align their allegiances to their country.

All this stuff is also crazy to me because I am so passionate about South Asian culture and politics. I have ached over the close relationship the US has with Pakistan, because it disenfranchises the future relationships that the US can have with India, the world’s largest democracy AND a democracy that could desperately use the support of the US (especially because China is getting all cozy with their relations with India in recent years). But, sadly, the US-Pakistan relationship is necessary in this world. With the terror threats and the precarious situation in Afghanistan, the US has to maintain its close ties….even though the relationship is far from perfect.

I was thinking this morning about how these men would even be able to enter the United States….how would they ever get an approved visa from our government? And then I remembered….they were British citizens. They wouldn’t need one! That is also really scary to me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that issue gets addressed in the future. The reality of this situation is that these men would have been able to enter the country, no questions asked, because of our diplomatic relationship with the UK.

The world has changed…..

I hate terrorism……

umm, yeah.

If I had a quote book, this would be one of the infamous ones:

"Good people make good decisions. That’s why they’re good people"--Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the N.R.A., as quoted in the New York Times.

Umm, yeah....because how many good people do you know who make good decisions all the time. Definitely not me!

the flags of our sons

This op-ed piece appeared in today's New York Times:

The Flags of Our Sons

By BILLY SHORE
Published: August 4, 2006
Washington

WHEN you fly as often as I do you learn to mind your own business as soon as you take your seat. But that wasn’t possible once I saw the military honor guard boarding US Airways’ 1:45 p.m. flight from Boston to Washington earlier this week.

I was heading through the gate when I first noticed Senator Ted Kennedy, walking down the concourse and arriving fashionably late, not an uncommon sight on this route. I stepped aside and followed him down the ramp.

As we got to the arched entrance of the plane, the members of a Marine honor guard in their dress blues were coming up that outside staircase usually used for stowing strollers and allowing mechanics on board. The marine in charge held in both hands a flag that had been folded into a triangle as if it had been previously draping a coffin, which it had.

Senator Kennedy extended his hand to the marine and said, “Thank you for your service.”

“Thank you, sir,” replied the marine.

“Are you escorting remains?” asked Senator Kennedy.

“Yes, sir, a marine.”

“And the funeral is at Arlington Cemetery?”

“Yes, sir, on Wednesday.”

“Thank you, I’ll try to get out there.”

The marine went back to sit in coach, but a man in the last row of the first-class cabin went over to him, shook hands and offered his seat. The marine reluctantly accepted. Half the passengers broke into applause.

The rest of the flight was uneventful, though quieter than usual. When we landed, the marine took his white gloves from where he’d stowed them inside his hat, put them on, and again gripped with both hands the precious cargo of the folded flag.

Then he went over to two people quietly sitting in first class — the parents of the fallen marine. None of us had known they were there.

He escorted them off the plane and into the terminal. Because of the afternoon’s oppressive heat and humidity, he had persuaded them to wait inside instead of on the tarmac.

The father looked as if he might have once been a marine himself, a handsome man of perfect posture, with bristly silver hair, dressed smartly in a blue blazer and gray slacks. The mother, blond, wore light-colored pants and an orange jacket. Her glasses made her eyes seem bigger than they were. They both looked calm, if a little lost, and gave off an aura of deep quiet. As she walked by me she noticed that a tie had fallen as I was removing something from my carry-on bag and she stopped and pointed. “I think you dropped something,” she said softly.

They stood at the window between Gates 43 and 45 and watched as a full Marine honor guard marched up the tarmac, coming to attention between the plane and a silver military hearse. The unloading of their son’s coffin from the cargo hold was very slow, and every time someone inside the terminal noticed and stopped to stare, someone else noticed and did the same, and this kept happening until about 20 people stood in silence watching out the window.

The mom leaned her elbows on the window ledge, supporting her chin and cheeks with both hands. She remained perfectly still. She stared for 10 or 15 long minutes and never moved. The father stood nearby, rocking from foot to foot and pacing a bit. They did not touch; they did not say a word to each other. Neither wore a wedding band. Perhaps they were divorced, or simply isolated in their pain.

Standing nearby was a man wearing the T-shirt of a suburban fire and rescue department that he may have earned 20 years and 35 pounds ago. He went over to the parents to chat, not knowing who they were, just one curious spectator to another.

But whatever he said to the mother caused her to turn and look at him in disbelief. Her lips didn’t move, which only encouraged him to repeat it. Her eyes widened and her chin tilted upward like a boxer who had taken a blow. She stared at him and then looked back outside toward her son. Down on the tarmac the white gloves of eight marines snapped their final salute as the doors of the hearse closed.

The P.A. system announced flights for Atlanta and Chicago. Travelers rushed to business meetings or summer vacations. The line for Auntie Anne’s pretzels was as long as ever.

Except for a handful of us standing frozen at a respectful distance from the window, the war and its carnage might as well have been on another planet. The disconnect between those who serve and those of us who are beneficiaries of their service has always felt great to me, but never greater than at that moment.

The mom and dad stepped away from the man in the T-shirt and to another window, still not touching, their movement synchronized by grief. They waited until the marine in charge came back up from the runway to escort them to a government vehicle. I went to my car and drove to work with no ambition for the day other than to be worthy.

age and life

So, I have noticed that this week is the 25th birthday of both MTV and the PC. It has been making me think about how both of these things have dramatically influenced and changed life forever, particularly for those of us who were born after the advent of both of those things (like me!).

What would life have been like without the advent of the pop-culture machine of MTV? Its influence over young people is undeniable. Even though I was never really allowed to watch it as a teen, (or I just scorned it, I can’t really remember) MTV has influenced pop-culture to an extreme, especially when you consider that it single-handedly spawned reality TV (which now permeates our culture to a sickening degree!).

And PC’s! I remember when I was in the 4th grade, learning how to us a computer with MS DOS….the pitch black screen with blinking green letters. That led to hours and hours playing Oregon Trail (which I STILL think is one of the greatest computer games ever). In today’s world of online banking, online stores, online news agencies, email, chat rooms, etc, what life would have been like if we didn’t have computers?

Anyway, this is just something that has been running through my head this week. Another funny thing that happened to me: I visited PA this weekend (because Leah was there visiting friends of ours) and she had some more of my stuff they had discovered in the house in WI. I was going through some of the papers last night; old choir programs (really funny), pictures from high school (also highly entertaining), my first driver’s license AND my birth certificate (which I hadn’t seen in ages). I was looking at it, and something struck me. My parent’s ages. It’s funny, because I know how old my parents were when they had me, but seeing their ages in print on my birth certificate was just oddly real. My mom was 22 and my dad was 23 when I was born. I will be 24 next month. Scary!

female aid workers and pakistan

This article came through the AlertNet wire this morning as a flash. I guess that there is an organization in Pakistan that does not like western women aid workers in their area. Interestingly enough, the article does not mention what type of dress this organization deems as inappropriate, whether they are objecting to the women mixing with foreign or local men (and even if they are, how impossible would it be for a woman to NOT work with local men in a country like Pakistan, where women are often not present in the workforce-especially in emergency relief), or where the drinking alcohol occurs. It sounds like this situation is not really an issue and is being dealt with locally, judging by the way the expat NGO workers are quoted in the article.

What this article doesn’t mention is in Islamic nations female aid workers are even more important than in other environments because they are the only ones who can have contact with women to ensure that their needs are being met by the NGO’s responding to these issues. Without female aid workers in these environments (and they don’t HAVE to be expats), half of the affected population would not be included in needs assessments and other important activities.

It’s just interesting to me, since after the earthquake I considered applying for a job in Pakistan (that I was hopelessly unqualified for!) to aid in the response. You can link to the article here, or see the text below.



No women aid workers in Pakistan quake area -clerics
25 Jul 2006 13:43:45 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Waheed Khan

MANSEHRA, Pakistan, July 25 (Reuters) - Muslim clerics in Pakistan's conservative North West Frontier Province want local authorities to expel all women working for international relief agencies in earthquake affected areas by the end of this month.

The clerics accuse the women, including Pakistanis employed by foreign non-government organisations (NGOs), of dressing improperly, mixing with men and drinking alcohol, which is banned in Islamic Pakistan.

"We are not against the NGOs, but we are against them spreading obscenity in society and trying to weaken our faith by corrupting our women," Moazzam Ali Shah, head of Tehreek-e-Islaha Muashra, or Movement to Cleanse Society, told Reuters in Mansehra town.

The clerics have not said what action they might take if the women aid workers are not asked to leave.

More than 50 international NGOs are based in Mansehra carrying out relief and rehabilitation projects for the victims of a massive earthquake that killed over 73,000 people and rendered millions homeless in Pakistan's Kashmir and Frontier province last October.

Mansehra is the district where Balakot, one of the towns hardest hit by a massive earthquake last October, is located.

"We know an ultimatum has been given and we are waiting to see what happens," said Frank Lehmann, a senior official with World Vision, an NGO involved in providing schooling for children still living in tent encampments.

"We respect the local culture and try to behave accordingly," Lehmann said, adding that the relief agencies had raised their concerns with the local authorities.

Police have given assurances that aid workers will be protected, while talks are held with clerics to settle the issue.

"No one would be allowed to disrupt relief work and we are absolutely serious about security issues," Waqas Aziz, a district police officer, said.

"We see this as a local issue, which is being defused. But we have told the NGOs to take care about local sensitivities while working in this area," he said.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an Islamic charity with links with a banned militant organisation, Lashkar-e-Taiba, is active in the area, and its officials in Balakot told Reuters they supported the allegations against the foreign aid workers.

The United States added the charity to a list of terrorist organisations earlier this year, but there have been no moves against it by the Pakistani authorities.

plans

I was tidying up my desk this morning and I saw a random slip from a fortune cookie that I had saved from some Chinese lunch run. I was getting ready to toss it, when I read the fortune. It says: “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” I think I will hold on to that one for awhile….

My boss is getting married tomorrow, and I have just been invited. They are having a really small, intimate ceremony and reception, and since I am so new to the organization and all, he felt it wasn’t fair to his fiancée’ to invite everyone from work. They have had a few cancellations since then, and more of us from DR have been invited. I am so excited to see him get married! This man has walked around the office for months completely goofy and in love, and it will be great to see them take their vows.

Anyway, last minute wedding invite = emergency dress shopping. Kirsten has a wedding she needs to go to in a few weeks as well, so she and I are going to run to Arundel Mills tonight to see what we can find. I can’t believe that I have not a single dress in my closet! Just goes to show how much of a jeans/pants girl I truly am (my mother would be so sad to know that I have no dresses!).

Val is in a show on Saturday night, so Kirsten and I will go down to Annapolis tomorrow to see her perform. I am really excited about that, too. She is amazing live, and when we saw her last (in March) she was performing with a few other people. Val stood out completely. She was the most professional, polished, and talented person in the show, and I hope that this performance will be even better! Plus, any excuse to run to Annapolis is great….I love that place.

Other than that, there is not much going on. Despite all the planned activity for this weekend, I am continuing to be bored in Baltimore (mostly because of the lack of freedom I feel from not having a car). It is so frustrating to live on this side of the country, which has so much great American history and is full of cities I have never seen, and be limited to what I can do or where I can go. There is simply not enough to do in this town to keep me interested. It is SOO small!

my long weekend

I can’t believe its Thursday already…this holiday weekend thing really throws off the schedule.

I was pretty happy to come into work on Wednesday, funnily enough. The long weekend was great, and it was just long enough to make me want to be productive again. Kirsten and I once again had some crazy times.

Friday was pretty normal. We saw The Devil Wears Prada (awesome movie, Meryl Streep rocks in it). On Saturday I called her at about mid-day to see what she was up to, and she had been talking with the police all day. Someone broke into her car, smashed her passenger side window and mangled her dashboard while stealing the CD player. Then they went into the trunk and took her laptop, ipod, and all of her cds. She was pretty blue, and after spending the morning dealing with the Baltimore police (they were crabby to her, but it is Baltimore, I am sure they had other places to be and things to do) she needed a respite. I was hanging out with her trying to cheer her up when she gets a call from some random guy who says he has her laptop and does she want it back.

Of course she wants it back, so she and I run out at 11 at night to go to a 24 hour diner called the Sip N’ Bite so she can meet him and get her computer back. The situation was pretty shady, but the guy we met was really nice and sorta cute. It wasn’t a horrible experience, just really random and odd. (The best part of this story, though, is that I was watching Syriana last night and all of a sudden, the Sip N’ Bite is on the screen! Christopher Plummer and George Clooney taped a scene in the diner and sat right in the booth where we sat…. as soon as I saw it I called Kirsten and we had a great laugh about it).

My Fourth of July was pretty good. On Monday we drove up to see some family friends of mine who are moving to PA, only an hour and a half away from me. They have two little girls, and I thought they would need a few extra hands to help unpack boxes. It was great to see them and their new house, and to catch up with them about what is happening with me here in Bmore. I only wish I had a car, so that I could go up there more often. It would be great to see trees on a regular basis and get away from all the concrete that surrounds me all the time.

I did see the Baltimore fireworks. It was a pretty fun experience, the Inner Harbor was decked out in red, white and blue, and they shot fireworks off of a barge in the inner harbor and the Domino Sugar factory. We had a primo viewing spot, too….on the balcony of Uno’s. Pizza and fireworks on the fourth of July…that’s a pretty typical American experience, right?

tiresome

It has been an eventfull, and tiresome, weekend thus far full of stress and bad feelings, although it started off promising enough. Here is hoping that Monday and Tuesday will bring happiness and the long weekend will redeem itself.

Anyway, before the 4th is over I wanted to post this tidbit I found in the event pages of the City Paper here in Baltimore. I just thought it was an interesting editorial on Independence Day.

Tuesday 4
Fourth of July
All day, the United States of America
www.foxnews.com, free.
Fireworks in the Inner Harbor. Cookouts. Swimming pools. Apple pie. Smiling children. Grandma and grandpa. The beach. Baseball games. Oppressive humidity. Batsh*t gas prices. Seasonal allergies. Cost of living on the rise. Street crime. A president with a flat-lining approval rating. Proposed draconian policies for illegal immigrants. Gay rights embattled in every state. Erosion of the Fourth Amendment. 2,500 U.S. soldiers, plus or minus a couple hundred. Playing chicken with Iran's nuclear capabilities. Love it or leave it, motherf****rs.

happy 4th!

Work has dragged this week. It was raining continuously here until Thursday, so everyone was in a grumpy mood. Rainy days are only great if you have nowhere to go and you don’t care what condition you are in when you get there. I love the rain, but only if I can stay in bed listening to it fall….

Anyway, I’m happy the week is over. All of my bosses will be gone next week, out of the country for work or vacation. So that, combined with a 3 day work week will hopefully make the road to next weekend fast and painless. We have family friends who are moving to the area this weekend, so on Monday I am driving up there to help them move in to their new house and lend a helping hand. They have the most adorable little girls who I love to death, and who I haven’t seen in almost 7 months. I have heard from Leah that they are really big now….they grow up so fast…. Hopefully I will be back in Bmore to see the fireworks, but its suppposed to rain on Tuesday so they may be delayed.

Happy 4th everyone! Have a good weekend.

procrastination

I have no desire to work at the moment. The beginning of the week can be so hard! Kirsten and I had a really good weekend. She is house sitting for one of our bosses who is in Mozambique at the moment, so we plotted a mini-escape from Baltimore for the weekend. It was great. I didn’t realize just how much being surrounded by concrete all the time has influenced my psyche, but as we drove down to Columbia and saw, gasp, trees and green I realized how much all the downtown buildings can depress me. Without a car, I often feel trapped in the urban jungle, destined to never see foliage again! (Ok, maybe I am being a little overdramatic there).

Columbia was a great respite. We slept in late on Saturday morning and watched television all day, mesmerized by the cable neither one of us has in our homes. There were so many channels! After vegging out all day long, we drove into DC to see Christine for the evening and went out dancing in Adams Morgan. So fun! Ever since Christine’s bday in April I have wanted to go back there and hang out. It is a very unique space, with club after club in old row homes and people everywhere. We ended up in the lounge of The Blue Room, and once that closed grabbed some pizza at Jumbo Slice. Now, that may seem like a normal activity except that this particular pizza place had a disco ball, neon lights and the best dance music we had heard all night. People danced in line as they waited for their food, it was bizarre and great.

We didn’t end up in Columbia again until 4, and I slept away Sunday morning while Kirsten was good and went to church. I was too tired from the night before to go, so I hope God forgives! All in all, it was a great weekend which makes it harder to sit at my desk today.

A few interesting things in the news:
Loved this article from last week's New York Times about pigeons in Trafalgar’s Square. Every time I have gone to London I have made an effort to people watch there, and I guess now a “radical splinter group” of pigeon feeders is destroying the Mayor’s plan to get rid of the pigeons.

This is a really sad piece about an African woman who lost her daughter to FGM. I cannon imagine how difficult it would be to make a choice for your child that you believe will allow her to grow up healthy and well, and then she ends up dying because of that choice. Truly tragic.

This is an article from today’s NY Times about women in Indonesia and some of their struggles. Once again, it makes me thankful that I am a woman who grew up in America.

just another weekend

This weekend has been very relaxed. It’s been great. You know you have crossed a new threshold into adulthood when suddenly weekends aren’t for sleeping in or relaxing, but running all the errands you can’t do during the week while you are at work. Luckily, I didn’t have any of those this past weekend.

Saturday was so nice! I got to sleep in and bum around the apartment, and then I headed down to a coffee place down the street, Spoons, to check my email and read a bit. Kirsten and I went out for dinner (yet another tapas place!) and ended up the night in typical fashion, with coffee and a walk in Fells Point.

Today I went shopping with a few of the girls. Lynnae has a wedding to go to next weekend, so we wanted to find something for her to wear. Of course, she ended up with nothing for the wedding and I ended up with a new dress and a haircut. I really need to stop joining people on their shopping trips, its becoming seriously dangerous for my budget.

Anyway, like I said it’s been very relaxed. I am not looking forward to rolling out of bed tomorrow morning. Sometimes I wish the week was nothing but Saturdays, but I suppose then I’d get bored with relaxing and look forward to work.

life's randomness

So, I can say that I am a lot happier now in Baltimore than I was the last time I blogged. Kirsten and I are becoming better friends, and having her to talk to is saving my mind and sanity in this place! Plus, I have a few stories to tell.

Work is the same. I just finished a killer concept paper this week about volunteers in the field and how we can better accommodate them. I successfully procrastinated on it all week long until today, the day it was due. I have had quite a few distractions this week!
For a while, it looked like work was going to send me to Indonesia to help set up their office there. Alas, that is not meant to be. We have decided not to go operational there after all, so I will not be going. I am very bummed about it, because the experience would have been incredible, but I have been promised that I will get some international experience yet this year so I still have hope!

Kirsten and I had a bit of an adventure last week. Somehow we ended up on a British Royal Navy ship. We were in Fells Point on Wednesday wandering around, and we happened to walk by this ship docked on the pier. We were chatting about what kind of ship it could be when a British guy came by and said it was a Navy ship. He asked if we wanted a tour (of course we said yes!) and he took us onboard and showed us around. We saw the bridge, and I sat in the chair where the steering wheel was, and then he took us down into the communications room where all the radars were. It was really cool and very unexpected. After the tour, we sat in a lounge on the ship and talked to a few of the British guys. We left our numbers and email, since they were going to be in town for a few days.

The next day I got a call from one of them, Chris, and he invited us to dinner with a bunch of the Navy guys from the ship. It was pretty funny, since Kirsten and I had left our number with a few of them, we had no idea which guy was calling us so we wandered into the restaurant hoping that we would recognize accents. We ended up having dinner at the Bay Café and then going back to Fells Point to hang out. Kirsten and I had so much fun; every single guy there was interesting to talk to and there was such a drastic contrast between guys I have known in the American Navy and these guys from the Royal Navy. It was like night and day.

Anyway, Chris and I ended up going out for dinner on Sunday. I had a fabulous time but, of course, their ship left on Monday morning. Now they are somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic and I am still here. I guess that’s what email is for...

letting go

Letting go is hard. Essentially, it sucks. I am a control freak; anyone who really knows me knows that about me. If I am in charge of a project, or a task I want to have ultimate control in everything. I have a feeling that if I hand over my job to someone else they will only screw it up.

This explains the predicament I am in at the moment. I want to have control over my life. After all, its mine right? Well, evidently that’s wrong. God has been trying to wrestle my future from my tightly clenched fists since last May, and he is still working on it. When I graduated like most graduates I wasn’t really sure what would come next. I knew that at some point in my life I need to go to grad school, so I thought that would be the most reasonable course to pursue until I figured out whether that was what I really was supposed to do. I always questioned whether that was really what God wanted, but I knew that if it wasn’t His plan confirmation would come in some way and I would end up somewhere else, right where I was supposed to be. My passion to go to grad school is real, but my passion to go to grad school NOW was influenced more by my lack of direction to do anything else than it was explicit confirmation from God.

During that time, I battled with my timeline for my future. I examined what age I would be when, and tried to determine what experiences I should have when, and where they would be. My timeline was getting frustrated by a bad performance on my GRE and lukewarm recommendations from my profs at school, which made me less than a stellar candidate for grad school.

Once I started letting my timeline go, once I began accepting that God is really in control of what is happening with me and that his timeline is better than mine…poof! I got an entry level job on the east coast with an aid agency. It was pretty obvious what He was trying to teach me.

Well, since I moved here my fist has only released ever so slightly. I have forgotten completely my initial surrender to God that got me here, and I have been diligently planning my next steps without focusing on what I have to do NOW to make me happy. Not worrying about tomorrow because there is nothing I can really do about it anyway, that should be how I live right? Well, that’s hard for a planner (which is what I am, I need a plan!).

I guess this is a long story. But letting go sucks. It’s hard!

24 hours in d.c.

So, I had a crazy weekend. Really. Sarah, Kirsten and I had been planning for 6 weeks to go to DC on the 29th for a sleep-out called the “Global Night Commute” for children of the Northern Uganda conflict. This event was sponsored by Invisible Children, and others like it happened in different cities all over the country. Well, Friday night we found out that the police were prohibiting people from sleeping in the park. They had the proper permit to gather all night long, but no one would be allowed to sleep. After hearing this, all three of us decided we would go to DC, hang out for a few hours and then go back up to Baltimore and come down the next day for the Darfur rally on the mall. When we arrived at the Commute there were 1,500 people there with sleeping bags ready to sleep and stay all night. The three of us decided we wanted to stay, but we hadn’t brought anything for the night. After some borrowing, we ended up with three blankets and a few granola bars to sustain us throughout the cold night. Kirsten and I cuddled all night to keep warm, and I ended up praying all night long that we wouldn’t be exhausted the next day when we were going to our other rally.

We woke up pretty cold on Sunday morning. Not sure of what to do after the Commute event, Kirsten and I ran back to the cars with the blankets we borrowed off the cuff from Sarah’s sister and ran to Starbucks for much needed coffee. After that, we wandered toward the staging area for the “Save Darfur” rally. We plopped ourselves down front-and-center at 9:30 to wait for the event to start (at 1:30).

The Darfur rally was incredible. There is a great article from the Post about it that I think describes the scene and event well. It was absolutely bizarre to be so close to so many influential people. I kept scanning the VIP crowd and spotting people that I have only seen in pictures like Gayle King, Oprah’s best friend, or Russell Simmons, the record producer, or Chris Rock. Hearing the speeches people gave was incredible as well.

The most moving speech was from Elie Wiesel. He was the first speaker, was brief and eloquent. It is amazing to watch him speak and realize what he lived through. I wondered how he felt as a survivor, standing in front of a huge crowd of people dedicated to stopping this genocide and preventing others.

The best speech was Al Sharpton’s, by far. He is an amazing speaker, and really rallied the crowd. I have never been a huge fan of him, but I have never had any real problems with him either. Sunday he really captured the moment and feelings of his audience and used it to write the best speech of the day.

The most important speech was by far Barack Obama’s. His presence at the rally gave it a political legitimacy that no one else at the event could have given it. The response from the crowd was incredible when he came up. One of the people in the front screamed “Run for President!” which made him smile and laugh a bit into the microphone. It was a great moment, because it seemed to catch him by surprise (which caught me by surprise, because I figured that this was probably in the back of his mind somewhere).

The most honest speech was the one Joey Cheek made. He was the last speaker, and before he approached the podium he looked very nervous. He very honestly talked about what he did (“I’m an ice skater”), and why he gave away his Olympic bonuses to the kids of Darfur. He really made it seem like an everyday thing, to win an Olympic gold medal and instead of basking in the media glory, using that media to talk about Darfur.

The most important presence, though, went to George Clooney. This was blatantly evident by the amount of media on stage when he and his dad spoke about their recent trip to Darfur and Chad. It’s interesting that this gathering of people, with Obama, Sharpton, and others, gives an event legitimacy; but Clooney really brings the media. There were so many incredible speakers, and great personal testimony, that may have been lost as “yet another rally for Africa”. But with Clooney, who hasn’t really taken on social justice issues of this magnitude before, you have the front page of CNN.

What is great about this rally is that it will get people talking about Darfur. Oprah did a special last week to raise awareness about the rally and the issues in Darfur. One of her guests blamed the media, saying that it is not that Americans don’t care about these issues but they don’t know about Darfur because the media doesn’t present it to them. That is true, coverage of Darfur in America has been completely covered by the New York Times, and it rarely hits any of the networks or CNN. But I also think that the media covers what they believe will get their station attention and ratings, and they don’t believe Americans will watch or read about Africa as much as they watch or read about Tom Cruise’s baby.

I think that is true. Reading about what is going on in Darfur will prick your conscience. It will make you uncomfortable, sad and angry that a genocide like this can go on even today. Those feelings will not make you happy, and it will not allow you to continue to live in blissful ignorance of the world. Part of me really believes that people would rather shut off the world and focus and read other things. It is fine to live your life according to your own passions and pursuits, the world would not be a diverse place if that didn’t occur. But I do not believe that anyone should choose to live their lives in ignorance, to ignore the truth about the world around them and to never think critically about their beliefs or their lives.

Another note about the event. I was crammed next to a group of students who were with the student advocacy group S.T.A.N.D from Georgetown. Instead of allowing the event to soak in, to listen with respect to the speakers and marvel at the response of the crowd, they spent the whole time talking on cell phones and being preoccupied with getting their banner on CNN. I could not believe how insensitive they were, bragging about getting quote in the Orlando Sentinel while members of an inter-faith coalition were praying onstage! It reminds you about some of the worst aspects of advocacy.

Advocacy is only effective when you remember the cause that spurs you to action. When being an activist and advocate leads you to worry more about getting the name of your group into the press than drawing attention to the actual cause itself, you are being ineffective and insensitive. I think that student advocacy groups are important, they have been vital to promoting the Darfur issue. But there has to be a line drawn, and those kids crossed it.

Also, in the “it’s a small world” category, I met a few people at the rally from Marinette, Wisconsin who went to high school with my uncle and parents. How bizarre!

mediocre days

I haven’t written much recently because it seems that there isn’t a lot going on, nothing particularly remarkable or exciting. That may be because I have a very delicate balance going on between o.k. days and downright awful days. It’s odd and frustrating at the same time. God is trying to teach me something, and its bumming me out. Should it? I have no real idea.

Baltimore is really frustrating me. Once again, I feel like I am in a holding cell, waiting for the next step in my life without really enjoying where I am. That was the way it was when I got back from India, and that is the way it is now. I know that I need office experience at a NGO before I go out into the field again, but every day I get more frustrated with the cream colored walls of my cubicle. Other people are out there, changing the world and I am here hammering out financial coding and getting people’s plane tickets. Not that these are important assistant-like tasks, but I feel like I was made for so much more. My intellectual mind is not being tapped at all, and I find myself explaining my political beliefs to the wall because there is no one else to talk to.

There are a few girls here and there at work that are great, and they are people I can go out to dinner with or see a movie with. But they aren’t people I can really talk to. They don’t necessarily care about the same things as I do, or view their faith in the same way. It’s making me lethargic, and instead of encouraging me to go out and find friends (where would I find them anyway?) it just makes me want to curl up in my apartment with a book or a movie and wait out my time in Baltimore.

But I don’t feel like that is what this is supposed to be like. Everyone else at work seems happy with where they live, the churches they go to, and the life they have. I am the only one who seems to have problems with it, which makes me feel like a spoiled brat who is too stubborn to change (I don’t want to be that person and I desperately hope I am NOT that person!). It’s just frustrating that all the things I love to do, I can’t do here. Baltimore has no significant arts community, only a single coffee house in the whole city open past 9 pm on weekdays (err) and a very bad public transportation system.

I’m just bored, tired, and once again wishing that I could skip the next 6 years of my life and be comfortable in 2012 where I would hopefully have a more fulfilling life in a more fulfilling location.

switchfoot

Switchfoot last night was great. I had so much fun! I seen them twice before; but one of the times doesn’t really count since I didn’t really SEE them, but I was there. Anyway, I had been really excited to see their opening act, a British band named Athlete. But, unfortunately, they had to return to England because of a family emergency. So Switchfoot has a few bands alternating opening for them, and last night was Mutemath. I thought they started off really well, and they have an incredible drummer who was doing great rhythmic stuff. But the end of their set was pretty weak, and I was just waiting for Switchfoot to come out.

Kirsten and I thought they would open with “Stars”, or something completely unexpected. They went for the unexpected, opening with “Shadow Proves the Sunshine” and then leading into “Stars”. I thought that they were much more personable in the small club atmosphere than they were in their big stage shows. It seemed like they were having more fun with each other than the last time, and they played around a bit more. However, the show I saw at the state fair was a better performance musically. I don’t have much to complain about though because they did all the songs I wanted them to do. I was so happy to hear “Daisy” and “Easier than Love”.

It was great to be seeing them with Kirsten, because she is just as crazy about them as me. I had always dragged Leah along with me to see them before, so having a fellow fan who knew all the words to the songs was fun. We ran into someone we knew from church who decided to hang out with us, and ended up sorta making friends with a few people just because we were jammed up against them. I went home exhausted and collapsed into bed almost immediately. I almost overslept this morning.

One other random thing: the weather here is completely bi-polar. I thought Wisconsin weather was insane, but it’s also nuts here too. On Saturday it was really cloudy, but warm, in the high 60’s, low 70’s. Sunday was beautiful, mid-70’s, sunny. Monday was cloudy and we had a Tornado watch that I freaked out about. And now today, we have had snow interspersed with clear blue sky and the temp is down to 45. Freaky!

irrational

I have an irrational fear of several natural phenomena, namely tornadoes and fire. And because I have a fear of these two things, I am scared of anything that would cause these two things to happen, especially thunderstorms. Anyone who knows me well knows how deep my panic can be when a stormed brewed up, so you can imagine how I felt at the end of the day today when our intern told me we were under a tornado watch.

I instantly panicked and quickly became extremely fearful. What do you do if there is a tornado and you live in the 15th floor of a 26 floor building? Is it better to stay in the middle, or should you go to the ground floor where if the building toppled over you would be crushed? Needless to say, I am sure my irrational panic over the slight chance that I would be in a tornado instilled great confidence in my ability to compose myself should a great disaster occur and the Disaster Response unit of World Relief would be dispatched to the site. Maybe this is God's way of telling me I need to get over it.

It really stems from Little House on the Prairie. Yes, the harmless t.v. show (or harmFUL depending on how you look at it). I loved that show as a child and would watch it all the time. There were two significant episodes that remain ingrained in my mind: a fire that burned down the orphanage in Walnut Grove and killed two main characters, and the tornado that destroyed the Wilder house when Almanzo was gone and Laura was all alone with baby Rose. I still remember the cries of that little baby all alone in the root cellar...

Anyway, those stories have deeply impacted me, and now I have irrational fears. I don't think Michael Landon would be happy about that.

In other news, I see Switchfoot tomorrow! I'm so excited...can't wait!

cherry blossoms

I was lucky enough to convince a few of the girls here to go down to DC on Saturday to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom. They were so pretty! It was such fun to walk around and enjoy them while watching everyone else walking around and enjoying them. DC is the greatest people watching place I have ever been to, outside of an airport that is. There were so many interesting people hanging out by the tidal basin, it was fun to watch and participate.

I must say, though, that I was really disappointed in some of the events. There was a cultural stage at the Jefferson Memorial and I was hoping it would mean attending a Japanese performance of some kind, but it was pop bands and stuff. Not that fun.

We spent the afternoon at the American History Museum. It was great, exploring the history of the presidency and pop culture. In these museums it becomes really obvious just how young our country really is. When I have gone to museums in Europe they have artifacts that are truly ancient, and American history is extremely young in comparison.

On Sunday I was a victim of daylight savings time. I thought my phone would automatically adjust to the time change, but I was wrong. I felt very insecure about what the time was all day! The weather was really nice out, and instead of staying inside I wandered around for a while. I haven’t had too many opportunities to do that since I have moved here, because the weather has been cold or windy. I haven’t been in the mood to wander aimlessly, but I enjoyed not having a plan and getting lost (a little).

It’s strange with me. Sometimes when I am alone, I don’t want to be alone and then being alone is not fun. But other times, like on Sunday, I like to be alone with my thoughts and not be with another person. I think that maybe spending all day on Saturday with Kirsten and Sarah did me in, and I needed some alone time.

I have wondered why I have felt so unsettled recently about being on my own. When I bummed around in India by myself I very rarely felt unhappy about it, but here all suddenly it’s like I have nothing to do because I have no one to do things with. It’s a habit I need to kick.

coffee blues

So now that I’m poor (and I mean really, really poor-$12 in my checking account for the next two weeks poor) I am trying to kick my expensive coffee habit, and it seems that it is not working as well as I had hoped. We have fairly decent beans at work right now for the “non-coffee snob” people who drink regular coffee, so I have been trying to drink that to wake me up in the morning. It’s been a rough go. What I can usually accomplish in one 16 oz espresso drink now takes 24 oz of the regular stuff. I had 3 cups of coffee this morning before I felt even remotely awake. It’s such a bad habit!

It’s sad that the way to my heart is paved with espresso beans and foamed milk. Give me a Starbucks gift card and I’ll love you forever!

A funny thing happened at work today....

This was a conversation yelled over cubicles today

Jordan: “Hey Brandon, does the word “brine” in French mean hoe?”
Brandon: “Mean what? Hope?”
J: “No, hoe.”

(assorted laughs and giggles)

Courtney laughing: “Hope?”
B: “Are you saying ‘hope’, or do you mean, like the slang term?”

(more laughs and giggles)

J: “You guys need to go to church. Hoe, H-O-E!”

enfj

So, we were circulating a personality test at work, and it turns out I'm an ENFJ (Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging). The description of my type is below. Do you think it sounds like me?

"ENFJs are the benevolent 'pedagogues' of humanity. They have tremendous charisma by which many are drawn into their nurturant tutelage and/or grand schemes. Many ENFJs have tremendous power to manipulate others with their phenomenal interpersonal skills and unique salesmanship. But it's usually not meant as manipulation -- ENFJs generally believe in their dreams, and see themselves as helpers and enablers, which they usually are.

ENFJs are global learners. They see the big picture. The ENFJs focus is expansive. Some can juggle an amazing number of responsibilities or projects simultaneously. Many ENFJs have tremendous entrepreneurial ability.

ENFJs are, by definition, Js, with whom we associate organization and decisiveness. But they don't resemble the SJs or even the NTJs in organization of the environment nor occasional recalcitrance. ENFJs are organized in the arena of interpersonal affairs. Their offices may or may not be cluttered, but their conclusions (reached through feelings) about people and motives are drawn much more quickly and are more resilient than those of their NFP counterparts.

ENFJs know and appreciate people. Like most NFs, (and Feelers in general), they are apt to neglect themselves and their own needs for the needs of others. They have thinner psychological boundaries than most, and are at risk for being hurt or even abused by less sensitive people. ENFJs often take on more of the burdens of others than they can bear.

TRADEMARK: "The first shall be last"
This refers to the open-door policy of ENFJs. One ENFJ colleague always welcomes me into his office regardless of his own circumstances. If another person comes to the door, he allows them to interrupt our conversation with their need. While discussing that need, the phone rings and he stops to answer it. Others drop in with a 'quick question.' I finally get up, go to my office and use the call waiting feature on the telephone. When he hangs up, I have his undivided attention!

Functional Analysis:

Extraverted Feeling
Extraverted Feeling rules the ENFJ's psyche. In the sway of this rational function, these folks are predisposed to closure in matters pertaining to people, and especially on behalf of their beloved. As extraverts, their contacts are wide ranging. Face-to-face relationships are intense, personable and warm, though they may be so infrequently achieved that intimate friendships are rare.

Introverted iNtuition
Like their INFJ cousins, ENFJs are blessed through introverted intuition with clarity of perception in the inner, unconscious world. Dominant Feeling prefers to find the silver lining in even the most beggarly perceptions of those in their expanding circle of friends and, of course, in themselves. In less balanced individuals, such mitigation of the unseemly eventually undermines the ENFJ's integrity and frequently their good name. In healthier individuals, deft use of this awareness of the inner needs and desires of others enables this astute type to win friends, influence people, and avoid compromising entanglements.
The dynamic nature of their intuition moves ENFJs from one project to another with the assurance that the next one will be perfect, or much more nearly so than the last. ENFJs are continually looking for newer and better solutions to benefit their extensive family, staff, or organization.

Extraverted Sensing
Sensing is extraverted. ENFJs can manage details, particularly those necessary to implement the prevailing vision. These data have, however, a magical flexible quality. Something to be bought can be had for a song; the same something is invaluable when it's time to sell. (We are not certain, but we suspect that such is the influence of the primary function.) This wavering of sensory perception is made possible by the weaker and less mature status with which the tertiary is endowed.

Introverted Thinking
Introverted Thinking is least apparent and most enigmatic in this type. In fact, it often appears only when summoned by Feeling. At times only in jest, but in earnest if need be, Thinking entertains as logical only those conclusions which support Feeling's values. Other scenarios can be shown invalid or at best significantly inferior. Such "Thinking in the service of Feeling" has the appearance of logic, but somehow it never quite adds up.

Introverted Thinking is frequently the focus of the spiritual quest of ENFJs. David's lengthiest psalm, 119, pays it homage. "Law," "precept," "commandment," "statute:" these essences of inner thinking are the mysteries of Deity for which this great Feeler's soul searched."

There is also a section that lists famous ENFJ's. Included among them were Johnny Depp, Oprah Winfrey, and David, King of Israel. Go figure!

on this day

On this day in 1988...

monday morning

Every week on Monday morning we have a chapel service at work. Each department takes turns being in charge, and this morning it was Microfinance’s turn. Most of the time, departments will ask pastors to come in and speak, or a visiting field member will come in and talk about their work. Most of the Microfinance team is actually gone right now, they are in Africa checking in with the projects we have. Anyway, the few remaining people did chapel today and even though they went in a more non-traditional route, I think they did a fabulous job.

They basically did a background piece on their project, explaining what was new with the MFI division and talking about stories of things that are going on in our project countries. There were numerous slides of people who do programming overseas with us, and as we were watching I found myself being touched. There are so many incredible projects going on in this organization that are making a real difference in people’s lives, especially in microfinance. The loans that our field offices give out everyday help people be another step closer to self-sustaining, and it encourages them to feel empowered when they get the chance to pay back part or all of what they may owe. It is especially interesting, because this organization specializes in establishing microfinance in post-conflict environments that are particularly vulnerable and unstable. These are people who are in desperate need of help, whose countries have a completely demolished infrastructure and no way to provide its citizens aid.

Being here everyday and dealing with mostly administrative stuff that has very little direct impact on programming, it is easy for me to lose sight of my job and whether it is really important or not. It is so easy to think about my frustrations with go-to work, faxing this, copying that, checking this expense report, booking this plane ticket. It becomes frustrating because I don’t feel as if I am making an impact, and I feel like my resources would be better spent out in the field somewhere rather than in a headquarters environment. But when I see faces and hear stories of people who are impacted by our programming, I realize that even the most menial jobs are worth it if it can enable those results, if it can truly help make a difference in people’s lives. I know that despite my unhappiness at times, all the menial jobs I do everyday in my department frees up hours of time from other people who need to devote all of their time to programming. So, at least for today I feel happy about my job.

olympic couch potato

You would think that a sporting event like the Olympics would inspire most people to leave their homes and enjoy the great outdoors. Instead, the Olympics makes me a couch potato. I have spent so much time this week sitting in front of the television watching the Olympics. It entrances me. I am the prototype of the type of person NBC caters to in their Olympic coverage. All the heart-tugging bio pieces about this person being orphaned, or that person overcoming injury, or another person getting the gold medal in their last chance, I eat it up. I mean, how many people do you know that would actually cry watching coverage of Michelle Kwan withdrawing, or Shaun White on the medal podium. Come to think of it, how many people you know would admit to crying watching that?

Part of this stems from my belief that everyone should have the opportunity in their life to receive a standing ovation for something they did, and for something they deserve. I know from experience the overwhelming accomplishment and satisfaction you can have from that type of experience, and it makes me happy that other people can achieve that feeling.

I will say, however, that this Olympic coverage has made me much more interested in snowboarding than I was before. I have never really been into winter sports all that much, but that might be because I have such limited exposure (for example, I have never been skiing). But, watching snowboarding makes me interested in trying it.

Anyway, there isn’t much going on with me here (possibly because I have been watching the Olympics all week). I am still trying to adjust to everything. I am getting more used to being here, and feeling more comfortable at work. I am just beginning to figure out who I need to talk to to handle certain situations, so that is making things easier on me.

My boss is super quirky. He can be really random, and really funny. I just switched cubes, so we are right next to each other. It makes it easier to ask questions from him. Sometimes, though, he likes to sit and work with earplugs in to help him concentrate, so he told me yesterday if I called for him and he didn’t answer, that I should just ball up a piece of paper and through it over the wall to get his attention. Last night, right before I left for the day he started singing to himself “I’m a lumberjack and I’m ok.” And I sang back “I sleep all night and I work all day.” That really surprised him. He didn’t think someone my age would know Monty Python.

editorial

I read this on startribune.com today. I thought it was really interesting, since you don't see alot of commentary anywhere on pro-choice feminists who are Christian. And really, who hasn't understood the calming effect that eating your body weight in chocolate has?


Everything was going swimmingly on the panel. The subject was politics and faith, and I was on stage with two priests with progressive spiritual leanings, and a moderator who is a liberal and a Catholic. We were having a discussion with the audience of 1,300 people in Washington about many of the social justice topics on which we agree -- the immorality of the federal budget, the wrongness of the president's war in Iraq. Then an older man came to the mike and raised the issue of abortion, and everyone just lost his or her mind. Or, at any rate, I did.
Maybe it was the way in which the man couched the question, which was about how we should reconcile our progressive stances on peace and justice with the "murder of a million babies every year in America." The man who asked the question was soft-spoken, neatly and casually dressed.

First Richard, a Franciscan priest, answered that this is indeed a painful issue but that it is not the only "pro-life" issue that progressives -- even Catholics -- should concern themselves with during elections. There are also the matters of capital punishment and the war in Iraq, and of HIV. Then Jim, an evangelical, spoke about the need to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, and the need to defuse abortion as a political issue, by welcoming prochoice and prolife supporters to the discussion, with equal respect for their positions. He spoke gently about how "morally ambiguous" the issue is.

I sat there simmering, like a samovar; nice Jesusy me. The moderator turned to me and asked quietly if I would like to respond. I did: I wanted to respond by pushing over our table.

Instead, I shook my head. I love and respect the Franciscan and the evangelical, and agree with them 90-plus percent of the time. So I did not say anything, at first.

Then, when I was asked to answer the next question, I paused, and returned to the topic of abortion. There was a loud buzzing in my head, the voice of reason that says, "You have the right to remain silent," but the voice of my conscience was insistent. I wanted to express calmly, eloquently, that prochoice people understand that there are two lives involved in an abortion -- one born (the pregnant woman) and one not (the fetus) -- but that the born person must be allowed to decide what is right.

Also, I wanted to wave a gun around, to show what a real murder looks like. This tipped me off that I should hold my tongue, until further notice. And I tried.

But then I announced that I needed to speak out on behalf of the many women present in the crowd, including myself, who had had abortions, and the women whose daughters might need one in the not-too-distant future -- people who must know that teenage girls will have abortions, whether in clinics or dirty backrooms. Women whose lives had been righted and redeemed by Roe vs. Wade. My answer was met with some applause but mostly a shocked silence.

Pall is a good word. And it did not feel good to be the cause of that pall. I knew what I was supposed to have said, as a progressive Christian: that it's all very complicated and painful, and that Jim was right in saying that the abortion rate in America is way too high for a caring and compassionate society.

But I did the only thing I could think to do: plunge on, and tell my truth. I said that this is the most intimate decision a woman makes, and she makes it all alone, in her deepest heart of hearts, sometimes with the man by whom she is pregnant, with her dearest friends or with her doctor -- but without the personal opinion of say, Tom DeLay or Karl Rove.

I said I could not believe that men committed to equality and civil rights were still challenging the basic rights of women. I thought about all the photo ops at which President Bush had signed legislation limiting abortion rights, surrounded by 10 or so white, self-righteous married men, who have forced God knows how many girlfriends into doing God knows what. I thought of the time Bush appeared on stage with children born from frozen embryos, children he calls "snowflake babies," and of the embryos themselves, which he calls the youngest and most vulnerable Americans.

And somehow, as I was answering, I got louder and maybe even more emphatic than I actually felt, and said it was not a morally ambiguous issue for me at all. I said that fetuses are not babies yet; that there was actually a real difference between proabortion people, like me, and Klaus Barbie.

Then I said that a woman's right to choose was nobody else's god damn business. This got their attention.

A cloud of misery fell over the room and the stage. Finally, Jim said something unifying enough for us to proceed -- that liberals must not treat people with opposing opinions on abortion with contempt and exclusion, partly because it's tough material, and partly because it is so critical that we win these next big elections.

It was not until the reception that I finally realized part of the problem -- no one had told me that the crowd was made up largely of Catholics.

I had flown in at dawn on a red-eye, and, in my exhaustion, had somehow missed this one tiny bit of information. I was mortified: I had to eat my body weight in chocolate just to calm myself.

But then I asked myself: Would I, should I, have given a calmer answer? Wouldn't it have been more useful and harder to dismiss me if I had sounded more reasonable, less -- what is the word -- spewy?

Maybe I could have presented my position in a less strident, divisive manner. But the questioner's use of the words "murder" and "babies" had put me on the defensive. Plus I am so confused about why we are still having to argue with patriarchal sentimentality about teeny weenie so-called babies -- some microscopic, some no bigger than the sea monkeys we used to send away for -- when real, live, already born women, many of them desperately poor, get such short shrift from the current administration.

Most women like me would much rather use our time and energy fighting to make the world safe and just and fair for the children we do have, and do love -- and for the children of New Orleans and the children of Darfur. I am old and tired and menopausal and would mostly like to be left alone: I have had my abortions, and I have had a child.

But as a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women is a crucial part of that: It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present. We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society.

During the reception, an old woman came up to me, and said, "If you hadn't spoken out, I would have spit," and then she raised her fist in the power salute. We huddled together for a while, and ate M&M's to give us strength. It was a kind of communion, for those of us who still believe that civil rights and equality and even common sense will somehow be sovereign, some day.


Anne Lamott, a novelist and essayist, wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times.

oscars for politics

This was on Anderson Coopers blog the other day. I know the State of the Union was last week, but it is hilarious.

Oscars for politics
I was riding the Metro train to work in Washington, D.C., this morning, bleary-eyed and headachy from staying up half the night to cover the State of the Union, when a thought hit me like a football to Marcia Brady's nose: If politics has really devolved into only so much political theater, why don't we treat it that way?

Now, I know that there are plenty of Democrats and Republicans who really want to help with the serious work of the nation: Spurring the economy, supporting families, protecting our security. But these Super Bowl political events, such as the State of the Union address, are really about policy second, putting on a show first.

So I thought, let's go through all the moments of the speech and give out some awards, just like we do for movies.

Best Actor: Senator Bill Frist acting like he wasn't using every moment in front of the camera to campaign for his own presidency.

Worst Actress: Hillary Clinton trying to force a smile after President Bush invoked the name of her husband in a bid for Democratic applause.

Best Drama: Samuel Alito's agonizing struggle over whether or not to clap.

Best Direction: Mindless lockstep of Reds and Blues cheering or grousing on cue.

Best Walk-On: Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco...a not so subtle reminder that big problems remain in the Deep South.

Worst Walk-Off: Anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan. She got herself into the chamber, but then got thrown out for revealing her antiwar t-shirt before the president even arrived. Talk about missing your cue.

Best Supporting Actress: Laura Bush. Who can argue?

Best Comedy: Dave Chappelle. No, he wasn't there, but it sure would have been funny.

Best Picture: OK, no kidding here. The family of Marine Staff Sergeant Dan Clay, who was killed in Iraq, displayed dignity, bravery and respect in a room full of political posturing. By far, their appearance was the most compelling moment of the night.

Anyway, we're cutting tape on this piece now and tonight we'll roll it out: Step aside Oscar, the COOPERS are coming!

cartoon riots

I don’t know what to think about the Muslim cartoon riots going on. My thoughts are sort of fragmented based on a few issues.

I am so thankful that no one in our country has chosen to print these cartoons. The absolute last thing our country needs at this point in its relations with the Islamic world are to have them burning our embassies over this issue.

At the core of my beliefs in human rights and freedoms are the sustaining virtues of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. All people should be able to believe what they want to believe, and say what they want to say without the worry of censorship of government or society. But I don’t believe that those freedoms mean that you are free to use them to incite hate or intolerance. Freedom comes with responsibility. To me, to have the freedom of speech does not mean that you have the right to mouth off to anyone at anytime about anything and not suffer consequences. This freedom requires you to understand how your words impact others. People need to be aware of the consequences of what they say. The Danish newspaper that started this all had a responsibility to understand that the cartoons they were printing would be condemned by believers in Islam. (To be fair, even if they did know that Islam prohibits pictures of Muhammad, and that their publication of the cartoons would be received harshly by the Muslim community, I don’t believe that ever would have imagined that Danish embassies around the world would be burned because of their choice to print these images. Who would have imagined this?)

Freedom of religion has its responsibilities too. Of course, people should be free to believe what they want to believe. Of course, people’s opinions of God and spirituality and life will be different from person to person and faith to faith. What is important when considering this freedom is to have respect for other people’s faiths, and understand that with your right to believe what you want comes with a responsibility to not force that belief onto others. I am a Christian. This faith forms the basis of my worldview and is fundamental to my identity. The freedom to be a Christian is fundamental to my life. I have many friends who are not Christians, but it is not my job to condemn them for their choices. If I chose to live my life that way, I would have missed out on so many great friends and relationships that have enriched me as a person and deepened my faith.

I also have a hard time with the riots because so many people make fun of Jesus all the time. His image is no longer considered to be strictly holy or religious, and has been used many times to market kitschy items from Urban Outfitters or used in political cartoons. I have made my peace with the fact that not everyone in the world considers Christ to be as important and sacred a figure as I do. I have made peace with the secularization of my God, so I feel like others should have to endure it as well.

This secularization can also be used as a tool to understand the world and how they view my faith. I think it is important for Christians to understand how the world views us and our faith, and that can often be revealed in a movie like “Saved” or in a political cartoon. I understand that the cartoons were outrageous, but I think that this Islamic community may need to recognize that the cartoon symbolizes how some in the world feel about their faith.

There is also another issue of great concern to discuss. Why don’t Christians react in the same way as these Muslims have when our God is defamed? Why aren’t more Christians outraged at the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar” or a Jesus Christ football bobble head (which I have seen)? Is that a failure on our part, that we are no longer impassioned for our God like others around the world are for theirs? What does it mean about the evolution of our faith? I don’t have the answer for this one, but I think it is worthy of asking.