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Feeling Sick

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I’m feeling sick and trying hard to get over it.

Normally I wouldn’t use this venue to talk about an illness, but it has bothered me enough to compel my address of it.  It has even hampered my ability to compose entries here in recent weeks.  But I’m compelled to write about a disease that has become omnipresent, a low-grade ache that I cannot seem to shake and which even keeps me awake at night.  Aspirin doesn’t help.  In the midst of my best years, I am finding myself hampered from enjoying my days to their fullest.  Worst of all, there seems to be no forthcoming cure.  I find myself wondering whether I’m simply relegated to suffering through the symptoms, which are like some unrelenting fever.

I can trace the earliest signs of my discomfort to a visit in Nicaragua.  I tried to ignore the feeling because I didn’t really have any idea what to do about it there.  (Lots of people become sick when they’re traveling and it just seems easier to try to forget about the knot in your stomach than to seek treatment from someone who doesn’t even speak your language.)  I remember being in a conversation with a group of Nicaraguan producers who spoke of their children leaving the country, in search of work and opportunity, and the anguish that it was causing the parents and community.  I can’t recall too much about the specifics of what they were saying because of my growing ache; that was my first awareness that something wasn’t right.

I felt a bit better after I returned home.  At first I thought maybe it I just needed to get back to the comforts of my own home, diet and routines.  Every once in a while the distress returned, sometimes for a short time and on other occasions for days on end.  The symptoms always subsided, however, and I was able to resume my daily activities without being slowed down.  I just kept hoping that it would go away.  Sometimes denial of a complaint seems like the best treatment for it.  But the condition has worsened and ignoring it becomes more difficult for me every day.

I wish I had known about this disorder earlier and that I had acquired some awareness of its potential severity.  Like most of us, I found it easier to pay no attention to what was happening until one day I came down with it.  For a long time, I don’t think people in the U.S. talked too much about the extent of the malady.  Lately, though, I hear more conversation from those who have been affected.  A friend of mine even forwarded a blog that someone had written about the problem.

It seems strange, but “misery does love company” and I gain some sense of hope from the increase in the numbers of those who are experiencing the same festering that I am.  Long-term remedies often come about only when a significant number of people are afflicted and calls for relief can no longer be denied.  I know that our Federal government is aware of the problem, though I’m not aware of any significant work that is being done toward developing a cure as yet.

I never envisioned myself becoming much of an activist in the eradication of an epidemic.  I guess I never thought I’d become a victim.  But I’m hoping that by speaking out on something that can be rightfully considered the early stages of a pandemic, I might encourage others to help find a way toward a more successful treatment.

Of course, to treat the symptoms, we’ll have to get to the viral cause of the ailment.  And that will necessitate a full-out humanitarian effort to embrace the nearly 60,000 illegal migrants- mostly young boys and girls- being warehoused after apprehension on the southern border of the U.S.  For their circumstance is the source of my discomfort.  From Nicaragua and many other points south, refugees are risking their lives to cross our borders, not for nefarious reasons but for their outright survival.  And their plight is making me sick.

There is a recognition in the wellness community which holds that we can never attain our own maximum well-being as long as those around us are not well.  I can think of no more dramatic example of such truth than the border tragedy, which in time will infect each of us.  It’s time that we stopped denying the symptoms and dealt openly with the disease….

 

Interdependence, Interdependence

Taking the Week Off

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Things were quiet in Nicaragua last week, a good change from the previous week’s earthquake-filled excitements. They were quiet for another reason, too. This was holy week, a time when Nicaraguan life in general slows down to allow reflection about this meaningful time in the Christian church. There are celebrations and observances and worship, of course, as time approaches the hope-filled day of Easter. Hope is a major need in Nicaragua, and any occasion to reinforce optimism is cherished. Nicaraguans continuously hope for change, even as the Christians among them contemplate their religious faith at this most important time of the year.

There were similar slowdowns taking place elsewhere around the world, and for many of the same reasons. The approach of Easter provides a context for pausing just a moment and reflecting about the state of the world and our own lives in it. We become engaged in a type of collective contemplation about conflict and resolution, forgiveness and redemption. Even those who consider themselves less than faithful admit to at least moments of such thoughtfulness, intrigued by visions of what “could be” in this life.

It’s a freeing and valuable process, this immersion into calmer waters of contemplation. We can temporarily transport ourselves to more peaceful places and imagine a world more worthy of the sacrifice that Easter represents. There is a certain sense of serenity and healing, and we are left pondering what the world might be like if it could only experience such tranquillity more permanently; the longing for peace lies deep and innately within us.

Regrettably, such ruminations do not last long. The immensity of the difficulties faced by all of humanity are too great, too deeply-seated to encourage long deliberation. Like the very universe we inhabit, the enormity and complexity of our collective lives is more than we can tolerate in anything but small moments. Faced with such proportions, we feel small, impotent, frozen in indecision. Even those of us privileged to work with institutions which possess resources for change, the obstacles to hope are titanic: where to start, when to proceed, how to finish.

I was thinking about these things during Easter week, indulging in dreams, imagining a different worldly model and my place in it, envisioning creative initiatives but always stumbling before the mountain of reality. And quite unexpectedly, I received a stunning affirmation of a truth well-known but under-appreciated.

As the United States approached the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, news coverage took on a decidedly Boston feel. News stories of survivors and heroes and those determined to stage an even better and stronger Boston Marathon filled nearly every newscast during last week. Vignettes about enhanced security salved the fears of even the anxious among the “Boston strong.” But it wasn’t the flexing of security muscles or determined runners or dedicated first responders that caught my attention. Rather, the message came from an eight year-old little boy.

Martin Richard died at last year’s marathon bombing.  Much has been written and recited about him from his family and others who knew him. He was, in most ways, quite typical for an eight year-old. But what captured my attention and reminded me of where I stand in this complexity called human existence, was a photograph of Martin holding a sign that he had fashioned as part of a school initiative. In eight year-old lettering of simplistic truth were his words, “No more hurting people.”

images

Perhaps you have seen the image, too. It is heartbreaking and ironic and a message seared into our history now as an iconic lesson. It’s simple: stop hurting one another.

The lesson is one-size-fits-all.  It’s the one thing you and I can do in the face of impossibility.  At work, in our homes, our neighborhoods, within our communities and relationships, at every venue we inhabit, Martin’s call is for no more hurting people.  The words set a simple standard against which our decisions and actions can be honestly regarded as to their true intent and content. We know what we intend, and we know if there is hurt within. It’s as true in Nicaragua as in the U.S. and every place where human thought and emotion take place.

The filter is simple; the discipline and the desire to live by it are not. We would be naive to presume that such a strategy is as easy as making up our minds.  Yet those who engage in contemplative reflection are not likely to expect easy resolution to hard matters. To the contrary, to engage in the search is to admit the hard work of any quest for a more sensible human existence. During this past week of reflection and introspection, perhaps the gravity and poignancy of Martin’s sign tells us all we need to know for now….

 

 

 

 

 

Life in the U.S., Life in the U.S., Life in the U.S.

Feeling Good About What You Do

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One of the speakers at last weekend’s Peace Prize Forum was Michael Posner, Professor of Business and Society at NYU’s Stern School of Business.  Posner has been a prominent voice in support of human rights protections in global business operations and the force behind the first-ever center on business and human rights at a business school.  He had much to observe about the state of business integrity and corporate values, but one of his comments stood out especially.  In response to an audience question, he mused, ” I have no doubt that there are corporate people who want to go home at night feeling good about what they do.”  I missed a good deal of the rest of the program as I considered his observation.

It seems likely to me that most of us, given a choice, would prefer going home at the end of the day feeling good about how we had spent our time.  It’s hard to imagine that there might really be those who would prefer having wasted their time or, worse, engaged in activities that impacted others and the world negatively.  (This belief acknowledges the exception of sociopaths and other deviants who are outliers in the range of human norms.)  The vast majority of us seek not only positive monetary rewards for what we do, but also the intrinsic rewards of bringing something positive to our workplace and to others, however large or small that might be.  But  I find myself wondering how many of us actually succeed in doing so.  And I’m a bit nervous about the answer to the corollary question: how does my own view about what I do compare to how the world sees my efforts?

The reality is likely that there’s a gulf between wanting to feel good about what we do and actually having the basis for doing so.  Feeling good about what we do presupposes that we are actually doing something that warrants feeling good about.  And therein lies the potential problem, because too often we have little or no understanding of the impact of what we do, intended or not.

Nowhere is this conundrum more puzzling and maddening than in development work, like that undertaken by Winds of Peace in Nicaragua.  In a place of such need, where any gesture of assistance might seem to be an act of uplifting compassion,  I have witnessed the occasional unintended, undermining effects that such generosity can create.  Even Winds of Peace has experienced its moments when we have reflected on a grant or loan and recognized only after the fact that our support may have actually eroded a community’s sense of independence, sustainability or even their dignity.   Maybe it even enabled some self-defeating behaviors.  (Learning is a wonderful phenomenon, but it can be painful as it occurs.)

Doing good work, whether in a corporation or a foundation or on a farm, doesn’t simply happen.  It requires not only whatever technical tools are needed for the job to be done, but also a careful introspection of our motives, a sensitivity to equitable results, an understanding of the outcomes, and the discipline to bring those outcomes into reality.  Simply feeling good about what we do can be achieved by anyone-  all it takes is  a willingness to fool ourselves.  If the “feeling good” part of the equation is for our own benefit, then the work that has been done  begs for scrutiny.   More important than how we feel when we go home at night is whether those we  serve feel good about what has transpired.

Significant accomplishments never come easily.  The works of Nobel Peace Prize laureates are immersed in decades of persistence, selflessness and courage.  Advances in medicine and science occur after generations of trial-and-error, careful analysis of fact and relentless commitment.  Sustainable development in the world has been built upon the listening partnerships forged between the weak and the strong who share a need for justice.  Doing vocation that truly allows us to go home at night feeling good about what we do will never be the result of self-delusion.  It only happens as a result of intentionality, integrity and  careful hard work….

Personal Notes, Personal Notes

Restlessness

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This has been a particularly busy season, as WPF finds its way forward without either of its founders for the first time ever.  The holiday season imposes its usual demands upon us even as we seek to find ways to slow down and live in the moments that make it up.  We have anticipated, reveled in, and now reminisced about the presence of family, delighted that many could be together and wistful about the absence of those who could not.  And through it all, I have been feeling a bit restless thinking about gifts.

Now, I’m not referring to the presents under the tree that I received this year; they have long ago become more a cause of guilt than of giddy entitlement.  The gifts that I’ve been contemplating are the ones that take the form of everyday joys and wonders, the ones that we might take for granted if we allow ourselves to do so, the ones that are easy to miss simply because they are so commonplace, so seemingly mundane.  I’ve been thinking about the gifts that make up our everyday lives. Continue reading Restlessness →

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A Voice for the Poor

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I attended a forum recently where the topic of discussion centered on the notion of happiness, and the elements that contribute to that state of mind.  As someone who thinks of himself as a “happy” person (however one might choose to define that term), I’m always interested in learning more about where that attitude comes from and what makes some of us more that way than others.  Discussions about the topic are always interesting because it’s a subject that virtually everyone has feelings about, and our perspectives about our happiness are so diverse.  Nonetheless, the makeup of this group proved to be without great diversity: caucasian, middle-to-upper class, college-educated, and  I can’t say that anyone presented a startling new view.  But I did come away with an affirmed belief about happiness and the poor.

At some point in the discussion, as they inevitably do, the topics of wealth and income inequality were broached.  “Money does not assure happiness,” someone observed, and I thought of Santa Maria de Wasaka in Nicaragua where there are few financial resources of any sort.  “But a base level of income to meet essential needs is a given for that statement,” our facilitator amended, and I called to mind the women of Genesis cooperative who worked on their dreams every day, and often without compensation.  “CEOs make way too much money,” a woman observed, and I thought about the earnings threshold of $2 a day for many Nicaraguans.  “The wealthy are unfairly vilified today, and they do a lot of good works,” responded another, and I contemplated what a billion dollars might look like.  “Poor people are still happy, though, because they have learned to be content with what they have,” commented one.  “They lead happy lives,”  and I couldn’t help but wonder what my Nicaraguan acquaintances might have said in response to such a claim.

It was an interesting discussion, to be sure.  But for those of us in the group, the nature of the debate was largely academic; there were no poor people sitting around our table to talk about their happiness.  It’s easy to make sweeping statements about our relative happiness- and the presumed happiness of people living a planet away- when  we’ve just come from breakfast (really more than we should eat) in the latest Nike shoes.  The fact is that there were certain voices missing from the conversation and I felt great unease, unhappiness, in not being able to adequately represent those who were missing.

Measures of happiness, including statistics about health, education, longevity, social mobility and literacy, among others, are relatively easy to quantify.  We can get our arms around such statistics and critique their meaning as well well as their shortcomings, and whether they truly provide us with a clear representation of people’s happiness.  We can even soften the vaguely uneasy feeling that many in the world are not nearly as happy as we are.  We can rationalize the stats and make them suit our own biases and opinions.  But a voice for the poor would have brought a new dimension to our understanding.  Getting our arms around that person, that reality, would have proven far more difficult than merely speculating about happiness.  Staring truth in the face often has that impact on us.

A more complete understanding of happiness, in our own lives and the lives of others, derives from being able to know truths other than our own.  We are not required to become poor to know poverty, but we do have to confront it face-to-face.  We are not required to become despairing in order to know unhappiness, but we have to get close enough to feel the oppressive weight of need in order to assess our own posture.  If we are not personally possessed of this experiential understanding in ourselves, then we need the voice of one who has lived in such shadows to help us illuminate our own journey of understanding.  Or at least a voice to remind us that there is a wide range in this scale of happiness, and many are quite far distant from where we find ourselves.

In the roundtable, I spoke of Nicaragua.  I talked of the poor I have met.  I contrasted their realities with those experienced by the rest of us.  But it was a weak voice that spoke and I need to learn how to do better.  In their absence, the poor deserve it.  Those who have not experienced it personally deserve it, as a testimony to truth.  We owe it to ourselves if we seek to know reality and understand something like happiness.

Being a voice for the poor.  It’s the highest calling, the highest honor, I can imagine….

WPF partners

Empty Hands

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I take the opportunity to read many things about Nicaragua. Some are by Nicaraguans, opining about life in that country.  Others are by North Americans who have traveled to the country and been moved to offer written reflections about their experiences.  The following is a portion of a thoughtful and moving piece written by Harvard Divinity School scholar Desiree Bernard upon a meeting she had with Father Fernando Cardenal, the Jesuit priest whose commitment to the poor in Nicaragua has been unwavering over the course of his long service there.  I thank Ms. Bernard for her  reflection which appeared in the March 2013 ProNica‘s “News from Nicaragua:”

Father Fernando Cardenal gave us advice on our last full day as a group in Nicaragua.  He said, first, to stay connected in community.  When one is connected with others and not isolated, it makes the possibility of progress much more vital and accessible.  Also, he said, to think of our children who, perhaps ten years from now, will be asking us the question: where were you, Father?  Where were you, Mother, when this or that event was transpiring in history?  You want to be able to say you were there, said Father Cardenal.  You want to make them proud.

Finally, he told a story of a person who was dying and bemoaning the sense of leaving this world with “hands empty.”  What he meant by this, he explained, was that this dying person was suffering with existential anguish because they felt they had not done anything important, anything that mattered, with their life.  Father Cardenal warned us not to end up this way.  Do not die with your hands empty, he said, do something that matters.  Do not just exist for yourself.  Join with others and serve others.  This exchange from one hand to the other, this giving, is the practice that generates a sense of our life as an offering when it comes time to die.  This is what brings ultimate peace.  Our hands are not empty, because they are full of our offerings.

The stories as told by Father Cardenal remind me of two distinct truths.  First, Father Cardenal understands and communicates the truth of our lives when we often miss such realities ourselves.  When he speaks, either through his stories or visions for the future, he has the capacity to softly touch us in places of the heart, awakening what we know to be true about our lives, what we are here for, what we owe to each other and the world at-large.  The words are gentle, yet often difficult to hear because of what they say about ourselves, our priorities, our missed chances as well as our great opportunities.  He is an avuncular voice of conscience.

Second, the lesson of empty hands reveals one of the most difficult and counter-intuitive truths of human existence.  Our innate tendencies push us to matters of self, to concentrate our energies in pursuit of achievement or acquisitions that can never satisfy an insatiable push for more.  We know that our possessions and accolades are so much “dust in the wind,” and yet pursuit of them is what drives many of us throughout our days.  In that sense, we DO leave this earth with empty hands, unable to maintain our hold on virtually any of these things.  But the work we have done for others during our time here- the answer to the question “where were you?”-  THAT will be the true measure of the fullness of our hands and lives.  It’s a reality that is tough for most of us to live by.  Father Cardenal asks, as a gift to ourselves, that we try….

 

 

 

Making An Impact, Making An Impact, Making An Impact, Making An Impact, Making An Impact, Making An Impact, Rural development

When I’m Sixty-Four

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“When I get older, losing my hair, Many years from now…. Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?”

The Beatles recorded a song in 1966  called, “When I’m Sixty-Four,” a whimsical tune sung by a young man to his girl, an inquiry about their life in future.  The song is also a cute reference to the generation gap, as the young singer tries to imagine life at that ripe old age.  History says that Paul McCartney wrote the song at a very young age and when his father was about to turn sixty-four.  Anyone of my generation hearing the song back in the 1960’s were a little curious to think about becoming as old as sixty-four, an age that seemed nearly as ancient as the planetary system.  For a teenager, imagining a life at such an advanced age was a bit like envisioning life on the moon: it was distant, other-worldly and unlikely.  But suddenly, I am at the threshold of turning sixty-four.

It’s not a cataclysm or even a very important milestone.  I mean, I’m still gainfully employed in a role that I cherish, I’m in good health, physically and mentally active, with a wife whom I love very deeply still, with four grown children who still call and visit.  Life hardly seems to be ebbing away.  Yet statistically speaking, I’m well within the last quarter of my life.  So The Beatles’ tune has given me pause, to think about whatever impacts I might have created thus far, whether good or bad, to consider accomplishments yet to be achieved, and to wonder out loud whether my being here has demonstrated good stewardship of the life with which I’ve been blessed.  It’s a tenuous exercise born out of both a need for affirmation and an avoidance of fears: I hope to leave good tracks, yet fearful that I will not.

I suspect the same uncertainties stir within many of us.  We have been told by others that by simply asking the questions we have demonstrated our awareness of a stewardship obligation, which by itself might assure the high character of our passage on this earth.  I’m not too confident in that conclusion.  Questions make for a good start but an incomplete finish.  So I continue to look for that “report card” to tell me whether I’m passing this stewardship class called life.  And I have anxiety that the test isn’t likely to be graded on a curve, but rather according to more absolute measure.  I look over my life notes, including my “top ten list” of stewardship measures, and see issues like honesty, generosity, respect for others, environmentalism, conservation, lifelong learning, spirituality, care for my physical self.  I wish I knew what was on the test for each of these.  Have I already been quizzed?

“Give me your answer, fill in a form…”

Management author Peter Block wrote a book about stewardship years ago (1993) called, appropriately, Stewardship.  It’s still some of the best writing on the subject that I have ever encountered and one portion of that work stays in my consciousness even today, twenty years after my original reading and long after my corporate management roles.  Block referred to stewardship as “choosing service over self-interest and creating redistribution of power, purpose and wealth.”   In other words, Block suggested that the in the interest of becoming good at stewardship (in this case, organizational strengthening), the key would be found in the elevation of others.

About the same time, Robert Greenleaf was teaching much the same thinking in his paradoxical booklet, The Servant Leader.  “The servant leader makes sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served.  The best test, and difficult to administer, is: do those served grow as persons; do they,while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?  And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will he benefit,or, at least, will he not be further deprived?”  The words of both authors opened up vistas of thinking for me that dramatically shaped my behaviors, both at work and in my personal life.  But I still wonder whether they ultimately made me a better steward.  I wish I had studied harder for the test.

“Doing the garden, digging the weeds, who could ask for more?”

So as I approach McCartney’s mythic sixty-four,  I cherish the life that has evolved over those years by claiming that I am, in fact, the most fortunate man on the face of the earth.  I really believe it.  But as blessed as that sounds, it simply raises my introspection about good stewardship.  Can one be a truly good steward while at the same time feeling the good fortunes of a lucky man?  Maybe I’ll come to understand the answer to that sometime over the coming year, when I’m sixty-four….

 

 

 

 

Reflections, Reflections, Reflections, Reflections, Reflections, Reflections, Reflections, Reflections

Thanksgiving Tale

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There was a holiday, once, that was designated for mostly one thing: for people to give thanks out loud for the manifold blessings in their lives.   The populace agreed that on that day, the normal busy-ness of life should take a time out, families should gather together to renew their bonds of kinship, good fellows would acknowledge their close friendships, and for at least this one occasion all should reflect on the largess and gifts of life.  The day begged nothing from its participants but willing hearts to recognize such abundant bounties and the spirit of thankfulness for all that had been bestowed.  It was said that the uniqueness of the day  mirrored the originality of the people, a society of grateful and generous souls who seemed to comprehend the good fortunes of their existence and to embrace the modesty by which all such generosities surely are to be received.  The day served as a respite, a deep breath within the breathless pace of industry and social intercourse; men and women everywhere lauded this time set aside for a gratitude which they recognized as the debt owed upon their wealth.

Of all places, the initial fractures in this day of thankfulness emerged from sport, that vicarious balm which at times competes with thankfulness for the filling of the spirit.  It seduced people into feeling good, not through personal gratitude, but through reverence to what others were achieving.  Sport invaded the sanctity of the special day, vying for its time and its adulation.   The noise and tensions of competition gradually interrupted the regenerating, languid rest of the holiday.  Families seemed to find a balance within the day and there was coexistence, although an uneasy one.  But the traditional game featured over many years was soon followed by a second contest, and a third, creating an entire afternoon-into-evening of sport enchantment, sufficient to lure many feasting families away from the quiet bonds of fellowship.

Yet the greatest wound occurred when industry made the decision to separate itself from this day and to abduct its meaning for commercial purpose.  Building upon sport’s invasion of the holiday, the commercial moneymakers perceived a profit vacuum.   Not content with dominating people’s consciousness immediately after a day of thanks (an ironic contradiction by itself), the merchants mounted a relentless assault upon the clock and calendar.  Hour by hour, they crept ever closer to that special day with commercial intrusions.  And when the strain against tradition and gratitude could be stemmed no longer, the floodgates of insatiable desires finally broke open in a wild melee of shopping, inundating the people and their culture in unabashed materialism.  Contemplation of simple things soon found itself trampled beneath the onrushing hoards of frenzied consumption.

The deterioration of the day managed to sidestep the conscience of the commonwealth, and still more opportunities were invented for acquiring things.     In place of a shared gratitude, the people shared space upon sidewalks and parking lots, waiting for the moment when the masses would lunge for their portion of discounted excess,  seeking items not needed and spending resources not affordable. Rich family histories yielded to shopping mall  disorder.  Encroachment upon a single day of leisure multiplied itself to encompass nearly a fortnight’s worth of convulsions.

From afar, people in other places looked upon these events with both envy and sadness.  The world recognized the wealth of which no other lands could boast, but they possessed a perspective which allowed clarity of what was being lost.   Other affluent nations looked inward, to examine their own souls.  Impoverished countries watched outward, in needful disbelief.   And some wondered where the slide from humility might finally end….