David

I often wonder if you are still alive.

Fwd: Let's talk about hope

Begin forwarded message:

From: Will Watson <watsonwilliamb@gmail.com>
Date: November 25, 2009 6:01:27 PM CST

Subject: Let's talk about hope

Quotes from the road and geez magazine.

Is it naive?

Does it lead us to violent ideologies?

Is it the "heart of change" or a "psychological crutch" of the privileged?

"if we put all our eggs in the basket of hope, will we still be able to lament, console, confess, redeem, love, and believe?"

"for those in tune with the spirit, who open their ears within ears, hope will be as familiar as the firmament. That we can conceive of something grand, that as mortals we have perceived that which we feebly call divine--not out of this world, but the very essence of this world--reveals an opportunity to participate in something larger, fuller, prior to ourselves, worlds, histories, and futures."



"I want to be with you.

You can't.

Please.

You can't. You have to carry the fire.

I don't know how to.

Yes you do.

Is it real? The fire?

Yes.

Where is it? I don't know where it is.

Yes you do. It's inside you. It was always there. I can see it."


Realism or idealism. They seem so mutually exclusive, and yet I don't want them to be. The idealists lose touch with reality and become inconsequential, lost in their hope of other worlds. But the realists, become complacent because nothing we do will ever change anything. I'll give my life fighting for freedom, love and beauty and all the things in which I believe, but it won't change anything. Me and/or all the other fighters. But our world needs both.

And either way, the fire says I keep burning.

soon

"what is love? commitment to another person's mess. it's being willing to follow another person into the nastiest darkest places in their heart and risk them hating you for having followed them, and staying. for the mess, not despite it."

andrew wrote that, and as hard as it is, i completely agree.

firetower sunrise 2

after night, comes a light.

"the daylight seems to want you, just as much as i want you."

i grew up

two years ago today.

the boy in the alley. nairobi. pre-dawn streets. blood everywhere, intermingled with trash and broken glass. body shaking. face convulsed in pain. and that single tear that went down his cheek silently.

it took me a month, but eventually i wrote about it. or tried to. i had nothing to say, so i tried to say everything.

basically, the mob beat him. accused of stealing, he was beaten to the ground and stoned and kicked. we found him barely alive. his brother, wild with glue, had come to find us screaming for help. so we found the broken body in a back alleyway, and took him to the hospital, but i've always suspected he didn't make it because of internal bleeding and blunt force trauma to the head.

yeah, it sucks. but i never want his story to be suppressed. i don't even know his name, but that was a life, worth more than anything material in this world.

there's still 300,000 street children in Kenya alone. street children are a product of the desperation of extreme poverty. let's do something about that. i don't have all the answers, but i know that in light of the excess at our fingertips, that is wrong. it's estimated that 20 billion dollars would alleviate world hunger. 20 billion dollars is equal to 9 days of global spending on weapons and defense. and we will spend 47 billion dollars on ice cream this year.

why? why is it that those children on nairobi's streets use glue to get high so they don't feel hunger pains when 9 days of military spending around the world would feed the world's hunger? it seems elementary that we could give up 9 days of building more bombs to feed the hungry.

why hasn't it already been done?

it will take you.me.all.of.us.

facebook's latest

My roommate just showed me how the latest newest most bestest more
better greatest more connected more powerful more exciting and smarter
facebook now gives you suggestions on who you should catch up with,
whose wall you should write on, and other things you should do in your
virtual world.

The implications of that are just terrifying, and absolutely ridiculous.

I really just want to learn what it means to truly be present.

Firetower sunrise

even the sunset...

...seemed tainted tonight with the knowledge that it's beauty comes
from the destruction of our world by the same beings that deem it
beautiful.

choosing a book to read...

just reminds me of all the paradoxes and dichotomies and confusing strings pulling at me from all directions. do i choose the revolutionary and anarchist fiction, or the theological treatise, or the history of revolution or oppression, or the social commentary, or the radical christian autobiography, or the literary masterpiece, or the photodocumentary, or the postmodern literature, or academic essay on the world's issues and possible solutions? or do i choose the children's book?

do i work to become an activist, a pastor, a leader of a social movement, an NGO worker, a radical Christian community member, a writer, a photographer, an artist, or an activist? or do i try to escape? or in the case of the last, is that choice actually the choice just to love?

the indecision of the paradox of choice freezes us from everything i believe. one choice or the other isn't going to matter in the end, because the importance is in the love and the grace one might give in any of those things.

the choice for today: les miserables.

soundtrack: brian eno- "ambient 1 music for airports."

walk on...

I saw U2 in concert with Muse on Tuesday. I was in the floor section with some friends, and we were about 20 feet from the outer ring of U2's epic stage. Sometimes those moments when you feel God talking to you, or you feel connected to everything, or something makes sense again seem few and far between... Tuesday night I had multiple moments like that... More later, but for now:

"And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage that you can bring...
Is all that you can't leave behind."

a day in the life of a college student?

This morning I took a shower.

And seconds after I got out of the shower, my suitemates burst into my room with me standing all proud and long-legged in my boxers chasing a snake that had apparently crawled out of the shower drain seconds after I got out of the shower.

He stayed content in our warm room all day, and my roommate just found him. They thought it was a water moccasin, but it was actually a baby copperhead.

I caught him and threw him into the woods, but seriously?

What would you do if you were taking a shower and a snake crawls up through the shower drain while you're shampooing your hair?

Eeeeek!

It is amazing to me how different life was two years ago... Last
spring too.

And how much I miss those times for different reasons.

And want now to change.

two years

my feet touched kenya's red dirt two years ago today. it feels like forever, but now as i remember, it feels like yesterday. in the weeks leading up to today, it's hurt a lot thinking about that, and thinking about where i am now pounding the books every night and trying to keep my head above water.

one misses the clarity of that clear, thin air.

i'm going back. when remains the question, but it's going to be soon. bummer that in the grand scheme of things, "soon" is relative.

Thinking about that mountaintop, and how clear it was remains in stark contrast with the valley. The valley has been stuffy lately, and maybe at some point I'll write about it, if studies and life would let me breathe. Funny how I think of this as the valley, when I go to school on a mountain... maybe I've just got to go the bluff and breathe. From the Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis:

"Stand still. In a moment I will blow. But first, remember remember remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the signs. And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and to pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters. And now, daughter of Eve, farewell--"

The voice had been growing softer toward the end of this speech and now it faded away all together. Jill looked behind her. To her astonishment she saw the cliff already more than a hundred yards behind her, and the Lion himself a speck of bright gold on the edge of it. She had been setting her teeth and clenching her fists for a terrible blast of lion's breath; but the breath had really been so gentle that she had not even noticed the moment at which she left the earth. And now, there was nothing but air for thousands upon thousands of feet below her."

and when does one sleep?

This is your century...

http://www.fallingwhistles.com/blog

"This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it."

Commencement Speech given by Paul Hawkins to the University of Portland

"When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” No pressure there.

Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food—but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown — Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood — and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, non-governmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe, which is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It is called life. This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it."

back at sewanee

and it's peaceful.

tonight, i visited my beloved fire tower for the first time since i've been back. the first time in a long time. it's an old, abandoned fire tower on the edge of the cumberland plateau looking down off to south pittsburg and chattanooga. sunrises. sunsets. stars.

and wind.
and sometimes you just need the wind to blow everything off of you, to leave room for the new. or maybe to blow the things that linger on the surface deeper inside, to make room for new things that will just continue to be a part of who you are. i think for me right now, some of both is going on.

in your atmosphere

fourth of july.

malibu, california.

july 2009.

"i don't think i wanna go to LA anymore.

get lost on the boulevard at night.

without your voice to tell me, 'i love you, take a right.'

the 10 and the 2 is the loneliest sight.

wherever i go, whatever i do

wonder where i am in my relationship to you

wherever you go, wherever you are

i watch that pretty life play out in pictures from afar."

-john mayer

can you hear the sound of melodies rising?

puppeting

The young man torn between all that he loves,

and that for which he hopes:

to be and to do.

Entrapped, and possibly imprisoned,

by the paradox of that which he wants,

and that which he feels he ought.

How he feels the tug of the strings

of a dichotomy, of the dichotomy(ies)

in which he seemingly places himself.

As if he, being both the puppeteer and the puppet,

lives imprisoned by pulling strings

that he himself will orchestrate.

Maybe he wants to cut loose the puppet

and his other half, to be cut loose,

freed from this opposing paradox.

How he feels the pull of strings

yet he himself shall pull them:

a result of reason opposing passion.

If strings are severed, the question remains,

will this puppet go limp without external

direction or with freedom step anew?

storms in texas

Thunderstorms are one of those things in life that make me feel most
alive.

So i'm finally home, and all afternoon I'm sitting, waiting, wishing
that the darkening sky might mean a thunderstorm is rolling in.
Finally, I see a flash through a window and wait with hopeful
expectation. Yes! Thunder. Then, as it always happens in the summer in
Texas, you hear the wind begin to howl and then the rain hits, but
it's more like sheets of sideways knives blown by the 60 mile an hour
straight winds.

I launch from the couch and throw open the garage door, sprinting
outside to watch the incoming storm: my first Texas thunderstorm in
over a year. I'm so excited about this, and as I run through the
garage with my eyes on the lightning, I feel this stab of white hot
pain in my foot.

Beesting. Real bad one.

Cool. Really cool. My first thunderstorm in a year and I get stung by
a bee.

I don't think that's technically ironic, but Alanis Morisette would
think so... Isn't it ironic?

At any rate, good storm. Good sunset. Missed you Texas, and things
here inside of you.

reassurance

"Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.

'Pooh,' he whispered.

'Yes, Piglet?'

'Nothing,' said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. 'I just wanted to be sure
of you.'"

Dear Secretary-General Moon,

Please do not treat this as politics as usual, and may you and your assembly move beyond the said responsibility to protect into a new era of a practice to protect. However, while you work within the system, and wait for deliberations and reports, we the people will try our hardest to do what we can to pursue our collective liberty.

In an article that came out today, Secretary-General Moon urged the international community to move beyond its responsibility to protect, as outlined in 2005, to a practice of protecting. Read the article here.

“Never forget, too, the complacency and cynicism that often prevented this Organization from acting as early or as effectively as it should have,” he added. “Our publics judged us then, and found us wanting. They will be watching again this week, and they will – rightfully – judge us harshly if we treat these deliberations as politics as usual.”

-Ban Ki-Moon

30 October 2008
Sewanee, TN
Green's View

"as we fall asleep
the woods will cover us
lull us with the sounds
of blowing leaves
in the wind.

and this peace will guide us home
to the stillness and the quiet."

The grind has gotten to me. Motivation is sometimes hard to come by, and due to my youth, it's hard to remember the larger picture, knowing that the small reports I write daily are a part of something much larger than myself. And sometimes, you come across something that just puts chills down your spine. Oh the beauty of this language and this vision.

Let us not, I beseech you sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope.

If we wish to be free-- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!

-Patrick Henry, 1775

the spotless mind.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
"Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;"
Desires compos'd, affections ever ev'n,
Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heav'n.
Grace shines around her with serenest beams,
And whisp'ring angels prompt her golden dreams.
For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms,
And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes,
For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring,
For her white virgins hymeneals sing,
To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.

-Alexander Pope "Heloise to Abelard"

i really don't care...

you know, sometimes i really don't care if you don't care to hear my stories... do they make you uncomfortable? well damn, they should, you know that. and i got to tell them, because they've started scratching again, because i'm reading about more of them every day and they're clawing to come out... you know? you know what that feels like, because sometimes it hurts and sometimes you just ignore it and let them scratch and cover it all up 'cuz it's easier that way, until in the stillness of the night, you remember and they rip ya one more time.

sorry if you don't want to hear it, i gots to tell it now. you, whoever you are, stifled them and told me you don't want to hear, and you told me there won't be no change... you won't change anything and you can't change it and it's not even that way, young man, so you just take your ideas and your ideals and your dreams and put them away 'cuz we don't got no room for those 'round here.

but see good sir, i believe in a revolution that's been happenin' since the beginning of time and it's still happenin' in all these small revolutions that happen every time someone loves somebody else and every time somebody somewhere says, "no. i'm mad as hell, and i'm not going to take it anymore." and they stand up and they scream and yell and say somebody listen to me because this is wrong and i want it to stop and i ain't never gonna be free until it stops.

until it stops.

so... it's gonna make you uncomfortable, and i'm already uncomfortable with this. but i'm real sorry because these stories, it's time to tell them. mebbe you need to hear them, but i think i need to tell them. and since they are demanding to be told, i ain't gonna be free until that women who told me her story is free. because somewhere in the space between, our freedom will come together.

i will tell your story. along with everyone else who's saying, "i'm mad as hell, and i'm not gonna take it anymore."

we believe in revolution. but it's nothing new. it's just a love and a search and a hope in all the things that we feel there must be to life and we are going to find them.

and someday, we're gonna be free.

"washington square."

counting crows.

one tree hill.

eagle canyon, utah.

may 30, 2009.

all of this actually feels like summer. LA. beach. kites. windy sunny golden days. back home in Texas, steamy hot blazing asphalt on which you can fry an egg summer... that's just hot. 

but here in LA, now I know why everyone writes songs about California summer. 

so today... let's have some summer. left the house, ran to the beach, sprinting across the streets in front of flying cars... nice cars, with owners in too much of a hurry to see the clouds wafting across the sky... the kid with the ice cream cone all over his face. the couple hand in hand. all the remarkables. 

sprint 'cross the street. through the crowd. onto the sand. pause to shed clothes. straight into the surf. so cold. exhilaration. and sucked into the surf. back out. grab clothes, shoes, across the sand, through the crowd, sprinting all the way home with the legs of adrenaline. 

so, i say, that's what summer is. i've been wondering for so long. 

waves.

california. 

golden summer sunbeams glinting through the clouds. sky turns pink. sand between my toes. tide crashes in. LA lights down the beach. planes taking off. the breakwater breaks. waves launch upward and man i gotta learn how to surf. 

water runs up around my feet. and i dream about the lands across that ocean, wondering what they thought when they didn't know what lay across the horizon, those other lands on the other side of the world. they didn't know. but i do. and i wanna go there. 

and the ocean's breathing real salty tonight. you can feel it on your face, in your hair. on your skin. smell it laced in the air. that sea smell. 

and look up at the stars. think 'bout distant lands brings distant yous to mind. we breathed the salty together. 

where are you now? 

you know how the waves crash, and the surf roars and the birds beating their wings overhead and the wind in your ears drowns out all thought and all imagining... you know? but then that moment of beautiful silence. the peace. waves stop for only a moment. wind dies. and in that moment, the ocean is still, and everything goes white. clear. just a glimpse of the light. 

then crash. 

les miserables.

freedom. sometimes words just can't express the deepest emotions of the human heart. the deepest beauty. the deepest pain. the deepest love. can't even come close. 

"jean valjean, you are free."

long live the revolution.

freedom. 

you got eyes.

drivin'drivin' cross the usa cross the usa. big mountains little towns colors cross the sky cross the sky. independence pass and you're weaving turning up and around and around 12,000 ft top of the world it seems. point where rivers meet and break up. you go this way i go mine. 

walk cross the snow cross the snow in my chacos watch the skiers in may cross the mount cross the mount. keep drivin'drivin' down down follow the river rages in white water all the way down. all.the.way.down. keep drivin'drivin' oh this is aspen and it's something new. oh how it's something new. look at those streets with those shops and those girls dressed up in summer sun summer sun. strands of hair you shine on me in summer sun. shine on me. shine on me. 

through the speakers comes edge blazin' through those strings and we're singing in god's country in god's country. look at the map joshua tree too far south so we just listen 'cuz it still fits out here as green hills of aspen turn to open lands. 

drivin'drivin' cross the usa cross the usa. utah. sign for moab. big sky country, that's what this is and the clouds just go up up up into blue. sky so blue it's just right there at my fingertips. that's what it is. cross the barren lands and now into river valley. might colorado goes on forever red-brown water red-brown hills this is america. i mean, this is america. and i'm alive. oh so alive. arches national park and red arches stand up and grab the sky the sky but fall back down locked into rock forever. down through mountains, deserts, deserts, deserts endless lands forsaken by man and beast alike. but still, life everywhere. that's it. life everywhere. spinnin' horizons. skew the frame. don't listen to them. do something new. that's what the sky told me. that's what she told me. she's gotta be a she. because she's beautiful and i want her. i want her. this is what i dream about on nights layin up and looking deep lookin deep cross the sky cross the sky. 

then camp. 

cream of wheat and moving again. cross the mount cross the mount down into valley and this is Zion National Park and sandstone cliffs grab grab grab for something up there. something outside of us. outside of me. mountain lion country. i'm imagining him there, silhouetted against that same blue that same blue. in god's country again. but eddie, you sing, you sing that it's a big hard sun but we ain't goin' back no more no more. nomorenomorenomore. we singin' no more. pool against cliffs. too many people. 

"they try to tear the mountains down, to bring in a couple more. 

more people, more scars across the land." -john denver

nevada desert. shiny mirrors blinding me. city in a desert? who thought 'o that? crazy people, we americans. americans we. vegas shines and screams it's mantra... screams screams it. 

cross the sand cross the sand. california baby. baby come with me california. new state and mountains turn be hills be green be hazed.in smog. LA huge oh so big. but no more crossin' usa crossin' usa this the end, man, this the end. so rad. beach and surf and sunset on an ocean. now that's new. land face west and go west no more young man. you gone west and here you are the end of the road venice beach baby that's where we are. 

i told me (myself and i) gonna change the world, man, we gonna change the world. you say no, but man i believe we gonna change the world. that love gonna come set me free set me free man. free we gonna be free no matter what it takes 'cuz we were born to run. cuz they ain't no reason man they ain't no reason that things gonna stay this way. now we gonna blow these whistles round our necks round our necks. this ain't just america man. it's the world. and it's beautiful this world this world. we're here and we're alive and we can see. you got eyes baby. you got eyes. 

"Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice with little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of this world.

To Robert Frank I now give this message: You got eyes. "

baby you got eyes so look me in mine open mine cuz i can't see i can't see. 

for katherine.

lapli.

cange, haiti.

12 May 2009.

zeus was mad.

moonburn.

cange, haiti.

12 May 2009

Two nights ago, we sat on the edge of the balcony here in Cange and watched the tropical storm moving across the horizon right behind our mountains. Shooting stars streaked across the sky of the humid night, and lightning did muted battle with the clouds. And we sat in stunned silence as bolt after bolt lit up the towering clouds in a furious array of silent fireworks, from which we were distracted only as the meteors fell to earth in competition for our attention.

And thankfully, for once in my life, I listened. Pradip held out his beer can and said, 

"Will, it's a bit like this beer can. If you pour it all out, the can will be empty before you're ready. And if you hold on to it too tightly, you will crush it, and it will all spill out anyway. But if you just hold it lightly and steadily, like this, you will have it when you need it, and you can take from it when you will. So you just have to sometimes let it go, and set it down, like this..." 

He was talking about my time in Africa last year. And how sometimes it hurts the people I love most when I hold on to it too tightly, afraid to let it go, and eager to revisit it constantly. Both done because during that time, life felt meaningful. Like I had purpose and fulfillment and passion and love, all at the same time. 

Wise, wise words. Letting go has always been the hardest thing for me, and it keeps coming up. But now right now today here this moment.is.beautiful. And to continue Pradip's metaphor, when you're holding on to the beer can too tightly in the one hand (even the Prestige), it's easy to miss the Rhum Barbancourt in the other. Since I go to Sewanee, I'm sure it'll be hard to live that one down. Chuckle. 

After he said that, he silently stood up and went to bed, and I sat, still watching zeus' fury behind the mountains...sitting praying thinking. about letting go. So Kenya, Congo, Bunyonyi, I'll be back soon. But right now, I'm here with you, Haiti. 

And next week, LA, here I come. 

keep blowing the whistles.

for peace.will.

"Our contemplation is our life. It is not a matter of doing but being. [...] We shall not waste our time in looking for extraordinary experiences in our life of contemplation but live by pure faith, ever watchful, [...] doing our day-to-day duties with extraordinary love and devotion."

-Mother Teresa

falling.whistles.discover.the.journey.

So there's this war that most of us haven't heard about. It's pretty complex, and with it's different parts, has become the world's most deadly and longest running war. In the last eight years, at least 5.4 million people have died, a death toll not unlike that of the holocaust. 70% of the world's rapes are in this region and are a product of the instability and destruction from this war. Thousands of children have been abducted and conscripted into the rebel armies to fight in the war, children mainly between the ages of 5 and 15. 

Because of these horrors and atrocities, people are starting to wake up, and we're beginning to find out and see images and video of what's going on, here in living rooms, and on our computer screens. But the choice is ours as to whether we too will wake up and realize that there are things that are wrong in this world, and that we DO have the power to do something about them. 

Falling Whistles is an organization based in Los Angeles that is trying to expose the story of this war and someday bring an end to it. They're passionate, brilliant, and creative in the ways they're tirelessly working to combat this war and bring peace to Congo. Read the story, and their blog, at http://www.fallingwhistles.com. They've chosen the image of the whistle (you'll read about the origins of that in the story on their website) as a symbol of blowing the whistle for change. Become a whistleblower and buy a whistle. Raise awareness and blow the whistle for change. 

Discover the journey is another initiative trying to bring peace to Congo. They've got this beautiful vision of peace and they're selling sets of t-shirts. One for you to wear to raise awareness and bring a message of peace, and the other for a former child soldier in Congo to wear to be a messenger of peace in Congo. Watch the video at:http://www.discoverthejourney.org/paix/paixstore. Buy a shirt. 

Now you know. And now it's your turn to respond, which takes some effort and some work. Read the Falling Whistles story. Watch the Discovery the Journey video. It's important that you do. There's this quote from this man on the streets in Haiti that has come to define who I am: 

"If you came to help me, you are wasting your time, but if you came because you understand your liberation to be bound with mine, then let us walk together."

Read the story

and 

Watch the video

because our liberation as people in this world is bound together. 

Become a whistleblower for peace.

Love wins.

the power of one.

"The music of Africa is too wild, too free, too accustomed to death for romance. Africa is too crude a stage for the small scratching of the violin, too majestic for the piano. Africa is only right for drums. The drum carries its rhythm but does not steal its music. Timpani is the background, the music of Africa is in the voices of the people. They are its instruments, more subtle, more beautiful, infinitely more noble than the scratching, thumping, banging, and blowing of brass and vellum, strings and keyboard."

i shall be reading that book soon. 

stars are burning...

“My Guide and I crossed over and began to mount that little known and lightless road to ascend into the shining world again. 

 

He first, I second, without thought of rest we climbed the dark until we reached the point where a round opening brought in sight the blest and beauteous shining of the Heavenly cars. 

 

And we walked out once more beneath the Stars.”

 

-Dante Alighieri

adopting an orphan, or a kidnapped child?

Mother Jones article on Subash, a boy adopted from an orphanage in India who was found to be kidnapped about ten years go. 

Human trafficking. 

art blog.

This is my blog at Sewanee for artwork and thoughts and other links... 

Check it out.... 

easter.

"I believe in the kingdom come

When all the colors will bleed into one,

bleed into one, you know i believe it."

-U2

intended consequences.

Intended Consequences by Jonathan Torgovnik

An estimated 20,000 children were born from rapes committed during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Intended Consequences chronicles the lives of these women. Their narratives are embodied in portrait photographs, interviews and oral reflections about the daily challenges they face today. See the project at http://mediastorm.org/0024.htm.

New U2 tour. 

i wanna go just a little bit. 

epic.

no line on the horizon...

I'm a traffic cop, rue du Marais

The sirens are wailing but it's met that wants to get away...

No, no line on the horizon.

Chattanooga. Lookout Mountain. The lights shimmering out in the distance and below as we sat in silence, watching, waiting, hoping. 

Spring. Days in the 70s. Clear blue skies.

Papers, midterms, tests, applications, grant proposals. The conspiracy theory of colleges everywhere not to give students any sleep so we don't complain about how much it costs to go to school. Or something. Calculus... die. 

I'm leaving for Haiti tonight at 11pm. While I'm gone, you can check updates from the trip at Sewanee's Twitter site.

I'm so excited to have a break. Haven't slept for more than 4 hours in the past week. Exhausted, and my last test ended at 11:30am this morning. Which means I haven't packed. Sigh. 

But all of today the releasing excitement of the prospect of being back in the tropics, back in a culture with an African connection, back in the developing world has been building.building. I'm most excited about the smells. The good and the bad. And the stars. And this pack of letters I've got. 

I'm going to Haiti for 10 days with the Outreach Office here at school. It's primarily a relief trip (as opposed to development), which is good because we'll only be there a week. We'll be doing a dental and medical clinic as well as working on a house for someone. I don't really know any details because I came in late (trip mostly paid for for me!) and have had a lot to do. Lot is the understatement of the century. But it's slowly sinking in that I'm going and there will soon be one less page on my visa pages in my passport. Which means I only have five left, I think. 

The best part... the part I'm most excited about, is that I'll get to do a lot of photography on the trip. Woohooo. And be silent. And still. And read. 

Reading list: 

1) Poisonwood Bible

2) Pathologies of Power-Paul Farmer

3) Mountains Beyond Mountains-Tracy Kidder

4) Witness in our Time- Ken Light.

Uh-oh, I'm about to get really excited about life. 

"Every road is a ray of light

It goes on

Time can only lead you on

Still it's such a beautiful night...

Oh LOVE don't let me go,

Won't you take me where the streetlights glow

I can hear it coming

Like a serenade of sound

Now my feet won't touch the ground

And gravity release me."

"I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life."

-Tolstoy Family Happiness

"It should not be denied... that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppressors and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom."

- Wallace Stegner

The American West as Living Space

Oh, here we go...