So no one has blogged in awhile, I suddenly felt inspired. I was telling some of my friends about our annual NOLA trip, when i realized something.

I have aspirations.

That may sound out of place, or obvious, I mean, we all have aspirations. What I mean by that is, I had a realization of the person I hope to become. So, I know I’m rambling, and I’m not thinking this out before I right, but this really does have to do with New Orleans.

What I realized is that I want to be like the ladies we’ve worked with in New Orleans. I know everyone has said this before, but today it struck me as a true goal. Ladies like Miss Dot, Miss Doris, Miss Joyce, and Miss Camille have such a love for life. Loving life is something that so many people forget to do. Living in the moment, and enjoying what you have is a thought which is so often put aside in out consumerist society. The ladies we work with see themselves as blessed. Blessed to be alive, blessed to be (mostly) healthy, blessed to be in the presence of those they love. As a result of this view of life, they are happy. Their lives are dotted with moments and years of suffering and hardship, yet that’s not how they view it. They look to the future.

Another reason I aspire to be like these women whom we love, is because of their love. They were willing to trust us, open their doors and get to know us, not as volunteers, or teenagers, or Seattlites, but as human beings, worth no more or less than their beautiful selves. They taught me that no matter what, there is always room in my heart to love more. Their levels of love, compassion and hopefulness are off the charts to be cliche. It constantly amazes me, and instills in me a sense of awe and wonder when I imagine being in their position. They all are such strong accomplished women who have so much to be proud of. Yet, they are some of the most humble, selfless people I’ve ever met in my life. To quote what many people from the trips have said, when we go down to help, we get more from them than we give. It is immeasurable the amount that these women have changed my life, and yes, I know I’m being corny and whatever else you want to call it, but its true.

As I looked at Lily’s pictures of Miss Dots garden, and Miss Doris’ house, another chord inside me was struck. Of course I felt the happiness of the (almost) complete Miss Doris’ house, but at the same time made me wonder. If we, a bunch of sometimes immature, inexperienced teenagers from the opposite side of the country cares enough to change the life of someone like Miss Doris, why can’t everyone else. If only everyone else cared a little bit more, had a little bit more compassion for those around them our world would be so much better off. I guess the point of this blog is not to be depressing, talking about how people of the world have failed, but rather, to remind us all to be role models to those people in society who resist helping others, who are selfish, and think of only themselves. Let us be reminded of the ladies in New Orleans, and use them as an example of the people we should all aspire to be like. Imagine if the world was filled with Miss Doris’, Miss Dot’s, Miss Joyce’s and Miss Camille’s…. I for sure know, that’s a world I would love to be a part of.

I’m just vibing off what Lori wrote in the last post. Before I came down to UCLA they made us read this book about this doctor who worked in Haiti setting up a clinic for the people living there. He started going down to Haiti when he was 23, between classes and med school, and just spending his free time doing whatever he could to help each of his patients individually, even if it meant that he had to walk hours just to get to them.

Anyway, this one man started his own organization, just to help him fundraise for this one community in Haiti, and over time, his ideas and commitment caught on, and his organization grew and expanded and he started doing the same things in Peru and Russia. Eventually he was running national programs in these countries, and making a huge difference in treating Tuberculosis for tens of thousands of people. What started as one man helping one community quickly became a worldwide organization, all because of one mans drive.

One of the things that surprised me about this book, was that despite this mans accomplishments, i didn’t like him. He worked harder than was healthy, took the burden of the world’s sick upon himself, sometimes he acted like a huge jerk to his close friends, and he was almost constantly absent as a husband and father. Anyway, the point I’m making is not that this guy was a jerk, but that he was human, that he had faults and flaws just like anyone else. He wasn’t a saint, but he was still able to effect thousands of lives for the better. Anyway, that’s what I had to say about Lori had to say, this is the second time Lori’s blog has inspired one of my blogs, so I guess you could say she’s my muse, in a non-creepy way. Sorry if this totally misses the mark Lori.

-Ben

Have you ever wanted something so much that you work and work at it but for some reason it never seems to be getting any closer.  Have you ever wanted something so much that every time you get even a little closer, you counteract that by telling yourself that it isn’t good enough.  Competativeness could be the key to our success.  Once you find something you are good at, it is only human nature that you want to be even better at it.  Then once you see that somebody else is good at that same thing, most, if not all of us want to be even better.  This is called competativeness, mind the spelling.  Some people may say that certaim people are tallented at what they do, and yes that is true, to a certain extent.  Sports for example are highly competative, that is why people get better and better at it.  It is because they constantly push themselves beyond their limit just to prove to THEMSELVES that they can do better, whether it is better than another person, or just better in general.  I know from experience that dance is also highly competative.  Girls in general will push themselves just to prove that they can be equal or possibly better than “that other girl in class”.  I have been a victim of this insanity myself.  As we do exersises across the floor, we watch eachother.  Once it’s my time to go, it’s only a dancer’s nature to want to prove yourself “worthy” of being watched.  It’s not a bad thing to be competative.  It improves your skills.  It pushes you beyond your limit.  And in an audition, or in a large race, or a large game, where there are hundreds of others just like you at the same skill level as you, you need to stand out in order to be noticed and remembered.  I know this may seem a little selfish to want to be the best at what you are good at, but if you think about it that is where the successful people are.  The successful people are not the ones that sat back relaxing, or hid in the crowd, or didn’t care as to where they are going in life.  The successful people are the ones that saw the other guy (or gal) and said, ‘you know what, I can be just as good, if not better than them’.  The successful people are the ones that jumped forward and got themselves noticed.  You have to stand out and prove yourself in a job interview.  That is how you get the job.  You can’t just walk in their looking scruffy and not care about what they think of you.  You have to prove yourself and succeed.  In dance class you can see it eachother.  Most people say that the dance world is just for fun.  People do it because they like it.  Yes that is the case, but what most people don’t know is that it is highly competative.  I can see it in my friends.  People will often join groups of the so-called talented people and challenge those people by jumping higher or farther when moving across the floor.  The only way to improve in something is to first like what you are doing because in reality to are not going to go very far if you are not interesed in what you are doing.  Second challenge yourself and work hard.  And (yes I know you can’t start a sentece with ‘and’) second find the people that challenge you and your strengths and see if you can top that.  See if you can challenge not only those people, but yourself. 

Take care,

Leens

(aka Colleen)

Everyone should read the page called “A New Mission” to the right of the web page, especially if you weren’t there tonight. Just saying because pages don’t get added to the post section.

Ben

I guess I’m just feeling good (except I’ve got a headache) so I’m blogging. I guess I just want to say thank you to the youth group in general and specifically. Most summers kind of suck. You sit around and wake up at 2 and don’t do much unless your mom decides to sign you up for some summer camp (maybe these are just my summers). Anyway I’ve got a good feeling about this summer. I don’t think I’m going to be spending a lot of time being really bored because the youth group is so tight. I’m not just saying thank you for being my friends (although it may sound like that). The more I think about our group, the more I’m startled by how different we are. Different ages, different interests, different social groups, but every time we meet we put that aside and we’re just one big, giant, super-cohesive group. Even for me, who’s on his way out, so to speak, it’s amazing that even though I’ve been part of this group for three years, I’m still meeting new people, and becoming with friends with people who I know I wouldn’t if it wasn’t for the youth group. This isn’t about one person in particular, but just about how glad I am that I go to a church where a group like this happens to meet every week. We have our issues and our drama like every other group, like every one else, but in the big picture, that stuff doesn’t really seem to matter.

Anyway, this mission trip, and this summer are about to be crazy. The title of this post doesn’t have anything to do with this post, it’s just that no one reads the blog anymore.

Ben

This is probably going to sound extremely similar to previous blogs of mine but bear with me because I think it’s important and it is at least comforting to write it down.

I just wanted myself, any, and all of you to know just how much we are challenging all that have, are, and will be expected of us. Anyone who decides to go to a completely different part of the world whether that be just the Rainier Beach Area or New Orleans or South East Asia and do what we are attempting to do which is to make a connection with the same human beings whom history and the past have told us to treat differently and in most cases unjustly. What we are doing partly is to question this long process of social dynamics or human interaction and ask why is it that we live according to geographical, social, racial, generational, gender, hierarchial lines that we, the people of now, perhaps never would have thought to make. Of course people always have explanations to why such gaps exist and that they are necessary to keep the social order. not only are we questioning but we are challenging by attempting to bridge the gaps ourselves. When we go down to New Orleans we don’t let the fact that we have to travel across the whole US stop us from going and we don’t let the fact that there are so few places for us to stay stop us. We are also majority white group that is going to learn and try to challenge racial formation that has allowed many to think it is normal for such lack of connection between races and lack of justice. We are challenging the notion that we are only kids with not much knowledge or strength to succeed. Well we’ve already challenged all that and more and that is probably some of the coolest things. I just wanted to point out that honestly we aren’t just helping people. We are going against the grain, we are making our own history and I hope that this stays in your mind because we are really trying to bring back the justice that all people have long deserved.

So please take that to heart and remember building houses is one and an important thing, but we are also building change and we are building our own history one that hopes for human equality and human justice. It’s no joke when we say that we are making a difference. So maybe you aren’t as good at construction or destruction. We are not just constructing damaged things but also stories to tell and bonds to be shared. Just by recognizing the people as human beings and recognizing how much of each other we need to survive already makes for a better future. Everyone has a part no matter how glorifying or dirty the jobs may seem.

When we go down to New Orleans, we have to think about what we are doing as renewing the human bonds rather than one group helping another to live more comfortably without much worries. From an outside perspective and in the simplest terms possible that is what we are doing, we are building or fixing houses for people to live in. Yet there are levels so much deeper than this notion that make this experience so great and worthy of making a difference. We are making a connection in which there is more or less an equal exchange between us and the ladies we are helping. We give by representing the hope of our generation, one that is inspired to make and maintain human bonds and one that is selfless. In return they give to us by trusting us and having the utmost faith in complete strangers to bond with and trust the future with. One great thing of equal exchange is of course love. This is the love that I think Jesus was talking about and the one that gets us closer to feeling the power of God and the one that makes us that much more one with each other. What we are doing is great, but let’s not forget it’s not a one way street because on the other side there are the ladies who that much courage to trust young whitey whipper-snappers.

-Danny

So it’s been a while for me. I guess one thing that’s on my mind right now is about the connection I made between a reading I did in my English class and the movie Babel. So I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie but it is pretty damn good, so see it and make your own interpretations out of it. What I got out of the movie was that even with this huge rise in efforts to push globalization we are as isolated as we can be. Especially in the western world, we claim that we have an idea about other people of different parts of the world and we claim ourselves to be the least ignorant and most advanced. Advanced in technology, advanced in economics maybe, but we still have the same level of empathy and understanding of the non-western world as we did two or three centuries ago. Our understanding of cultrual representation and social structure hasn’t changed one bit. Like Michael says there is still a “white” part of town, “black” part of town, etc. In fact I believe the way globalization is being approached is what’s making distinct barriers between people socially just as geographically. In order to save time and money we must make assumptions about each other and decide quickly who to do business with and who not to do it with. One mistake or one bad judgment by one person sticks with an entire nation or race. We are judged by our history, and there is no way to undo that. As unfair as that might sound, that is a result of a long process of human labeling according to race, gender, nationality, religion, etc.

So the movie is about four different locations in which each have different social and historical contexts. I guess the theme is that each location is unable to hear or see the actual context to why something might have occurred because it is blinded or deafened by its own assumptions about the other locations. For example, there was shooting involved in a Muslim country so the U.S. automatically assumed there to be terrorist activity although there wasn’t. So the reading I did in my English class was called “Notes on the Politics of Location” by Adrienne Rich. It’s a good text, although confusing at times. Anyways, she talks about how it is important to at least think about and attempt to understand the politics of different locations before assuming things or imposing what’s “right” or “wrong.” One example she uses is how the Western white feminists went around the world to unite women around the world for this cause to fight the patriarchal system of hierarchy. The problem with that was that everything they did was structured around what white women living in higher parts of the social structure were thinking. So these women would go around the world and tell women in the middle east to do certain things that went against the latter’s beliefs. So white women basically defined for women of other locations what is “right.” This connects to the movie in that because history and past social dynamics have led us to be separated clearly distinct lines, we have to realize that one country or one specific group of the social structure does not possess the all that is right for the entire globe.

I guess the moral of what I am trying to say is listen. We have got to try to understand one another before making any assumptions. We all talk too much. How is this relevant to New Orleans? Yeah we have been put into very fortunate places and yes it is great that we are going to help the less fortunate. But we are not the almighty and the nicest of the nicest bearing gifts bringing joy to those living through the adversity. We are going there to find the good in all the destruction and all the hardship. Or as Michael would say, we are there to find Jesus ourselves not bring Jesus to them. We are there to learn from them. Because they went through way more crap than we probably ever will. It is OUR privelege to go down there to be allowed to connect with such amazing people as Miss Doris, Camille, Beatrice, and Shirley. We are going to get better understanding about the truth and how to act on that truth. We are also going to remind ourselves and in turn remind others about the different parts of this world that exist outside of our own very very little worlds. We are going to challenge all the labels and assumtions history has placed on us to separate us in an effort to actually connect and eventually take those labels off. I just hope people think about this aspect too. Although we are rich in money and kindness we lack understanding and we haven’t quite cured ourselves of deafness yet. There are millions of people out there deserving of not only attention but the deserving of our understanding about the truth. I hope this makes sense, if it doesn’t please say something and I will respond.

—Danny

So, this is basically a response to Lori’s comment about my post, but I realized about halfway through that it should be it’s own blog.

Lori, you’re totally right, there is so little forgiveness in the world today. Especially considering that this is one of the main beliefs of the christian religion, that anyone can be saved, no matter what they’ve done, and that the best way we can practice christianity is to forgive other people and give them second chances.

This brings up a really big issue for me: the way that many american christians act, and how inconsistent it is with what they claim to believe. For instance, the man who is currently our president ran in no small part on the fact that he is a born again christian with fundamentalist values. But he has started a war that is directly repsonsible for the deaths of tens of thousands. Where exactly is “Thou shalt not kill.”

And it goes beyond that. Last year Pat Robertson, the founder of an all christian tv network and one of the main leaders of the fundamentalist movement in America, called for the government assassination of the president of venezuela. Basically, he called a fatwah on this guy. So many people in the bible belt are rabidly anti-abortion. They decry it as murder, but most of the same people favor the death penalty, which apparently doesn’t count.

The worst thing is that these movements give all christians a bad name. Secular America tends to see christians as a bunch of bible-beating, gay-bashing maniacs. When I tell people that I go to church regularly, I get weird looks. That’s what I like about our youth group, we are a christian group, but not because we sit around talking about the bible and trying to convert people, but because we do our best to act like christians. Anyway, this is my rant about the religous right. Thanks for listening.

-Ben

So today’s the day. 5 years ago today the Iraq War began. I remember going to a protest maybe a month before at my middle school. I made a sign that said “let exxon send it’s own soldiers” and walked around the school neighborhood. I knew then that the Iraq War was bad, but I had no idea why. Everyone else around me though so, so I thought so too.

Earlier this week, there was an article in the times that talked about how government strategists are predicting that today may be only the midpoint of the war. According to them, we could spend another five years in Iraq, and because these guys work for the government, it’s possible they’re just spinning the facts, and we could be in Iraq even longer.

My friend applied to Westpoint this year and he got in. In 4 years he’ll graduate from Westpoint, and he’ll be a soldier.

Today I know why the Iraq War is bad. It is bad because my friend, who saw the war start in middle school could be sent to fight it, and be put himself in harms way after he graduates from college.

-Ben