This is a poem by Wendell Berry. A friend introduced me to it last week. Best read aloud, in groups, considering the truth of each phrase.
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Dr. Tom Dooley
"I am only one, but I am one.
I cannot do everything, but I can do something.
What I can do, I ought to do,
and what I ought to do,
by the grace of God,
I will do."
Dr. Tom Dooley
Notre Dame alum, who built hospitals throughout Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 60s.
I cannot do everything, but I can do something.
What I can do, I ought to do,
and what I ought to do,
by the grace of God,
I will do."
Dr. Tom Dooley
Notre Dame alum, who built hospitals throughout Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 60s.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
A new school year...
Yeah, I don't think daily updates will happen now that the semester's started. But, I won't let this blog die, mostly because I really like to write.
Don't have time to dig through my journal now, but I promise to follow-up with a better entry than the last one.
Don't have time to dig through my journal now, but I promise to follow-up with a better entry than the last one.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Don't read if you're afraid to be shaken
More from the Cambodia journal…seriously heed the above warning.
Tuesday June 19, 10:06 p.m.
Yesterday, we went to the two places in Phnom Penh every visitor sees: Chuoung Ek (The Killing Fields) and the Tuol Sleng S-21 prison. I don’t know if I can describe those. I don’t think it’s possible to really fathom the suffering and death under the Khmer Rouge—2 million in four years—but I saw some of the punctured skulls. I saw clothes and bones and teeth in the ground around the hundreds of mass graves. Standing next to the Tuol Sleng’s torture instruments; around 20,000 people entered this prison, and 7 left alive. The thousands of headshot photos of prisoners in Tuol Sleng—faces staring at me as if their pain were not 30 years ago, but rather, at this very moment. I can’t even begin…
Then today, I also am overwhelmed by a sadness just below the surface. I’m not crying, so I’m not letting it out, but I feel it hard. We learned more about Maryknoll’s Seedling of Hope program from Ed, and then he took us to Chay Chumneas: a government referral hospital for AIDS and TB. I can’t…well, I’ll try to describe.
An open ward full of metal frame beds, possibly with straw mattresses, or just a sheet. All the patients’ belongings under their beds, a few clothes and pots and pans, because they have no safe home to leave things in. Maybe an IV stand. The people were all so incredibly sick, most with both AIDS and TB. A prisoner lay shackled to his bed, skin and bones and a diaper. How much longer does he have?
Maybe worse than the physical horror of the place was the total lack of hospital staff. No nurses or aids to make sure IVs don’t run dry. No one to offer any care. Only the patients’ families—if they have them—are present to care for people. Imagine a six-year-old child taking his mother to use the filthy outdoor latrine at night. What is it like there now, in the dark? What does it feel like to live in that pain and terror?
The pediatric ward was as bad. Nearly all the children in the over-filled ward have HIV and dengue fever—Cambodia’s new plague (the country has the highest burden of dengue in the world right now). I saw a baby—who knows how old?—who was a miniscule skeleton.
Why?
Tuesday June 19, 10:06 p.m.
Yesterday, we went to the two places in Phnom Penh every visitor sees: Chuoung Ek (The Killing Fields) and the Tuol Sleng S-21 prison. I don’t know if I can describe those. I don’t think it’s possible to really fathom the suffering and death under the Khmer Rouge—2 million in four years—but I saw some of the punctured skulls. I saw clothes and bones and teeth in the ground around the hundreds of mass graves. Standing next to the Tuol Sleng’s torture instruments; around 20,000 people entered this prison, and 7 left alive. The thousands of headshot photos of prisoners in Tuol Sleng—faces staring at me as if their pain were not 30 years ago, but rather, at this very moment. I can’t even begin…
Then today, I also am overwhelmed by a sadness just below the surface. I’m not crying, so I’m not letting it out, but I feel it hard. We learned more about Maryknoll’s Seedling of Hope program from Ed, and then he took us to Chay Chumneas: a government referral hospital for AIDS and TB. I can’t…well, I’ll try to describe.
An open ward full of metal frame beds, possibly with straw mattresses, or just a sheet. All the patients’ belongings under their beds, a few clothes and pots and pans, because they have no safe home to leave things in. Maybe an IV stand. The people were all so incredibly sick, most with both AIDS and TB. A prisoner lay shackled to his bed, skin and bones and a diaper. How much longer does he have?
Maybe worse than the physical horror of the place was the total lack of hospital staff. No nurses or aids to make sure IVs don’t run dry. No one to offer any care. Only the patients’ families—if they have them—are present to care for people. Imagine a six-year-old child taking his mother to use the filthy outdoor latrine at night. What is it like there now, in the dark? What does it feel like to live in that pain and terror?
The pediatric ward was as bad. Nearly all the children in the over-filled ward have HIV and dengue fever—Cambodia’s new plague (the country has the highest burden of dengue in the world right now). I saw a baby—who knows how old?—who was a miniscule skeleton.
Why?
Friday, August 17, 2007
By Popular Request: Cambodia
A little more than a week ago, I was halfway around the world. I miss that side of the globe—a lot. When thinking so often of the tiny country of Cambodia and all within it, I’m fortunate to have my precious journal as a memory. College-ruled notebook, I wrote 135 pages and counting…
When I started this blog, I promised myself I wouldn’t make it a personal diary thing. Instead, I wanted to write commentaries on current events and world issues, to learn through my typing fingers. However, several close friends have asked me to tell them all about Cambodia; I want to, but I can’t say everything. Yet I can share some of my experiences and thoughts, meticulously recorded as they happened, though I post chronologically. I suppose this writing is a form of commentary on the world.
Saturday June 16, 10:10 pm
Yesterday morning, I was sitting on the balcony watching the HI “squeakers” start their collection. People pull rented wooden carts around and pick up recyclables to turn in for a few hundred riel—next to nothing, but their only chance for income. Imagine collecting pop can deposits for a living. They use bathtub squeaky toys to announce their presence. One little boy, with an empty cart, motioned to me. I hurried inside to get my single Coke can, but I undershot my throw, so it fell within the apartment gate. I made a sorry face to the boy. He shrugged, smiled, and walked on, squeaking.
Thursday July 26, 6:26 am
I will miss the sounds of Cambodia, the chirping/burping of geckos at night (though the ones on my bedroom walls don’t really chirp). And in the morning, I wake to the squeaks and “HI” calls of the recycling collectors—tiny children and adults, all barefoot and poor. And to the bread man calling “Pang, pang” in his throaty voice, selling baguettes for 500 riel (12.5 cents) from a wicker basket on his bicycle, and to the egg man playing his monotone recording that some haughty foreigners complained about in letters to the editor. Yet I love waking to sounds of people living—trying to live anyway—to draw me to face the day with some generosity, knowing there’s life and hope even in a desperate world.
When I started this blog, I promised myself I wouldn’t make it a personal diary thing. Instead, I wanted to write commentaries on current events and world issues, to learn through my typing fingers. However, several close friends have asked me to tell them all about Cambodia; I want to, but I can’t say everything. Yet I can share some of my experiences and thoughts, meticulously recorded as they happened, though I post chronologically. I suppose this writing is a form of commentary on the world.
Saturday June 16, 10:10 pm
Yesterday morning, I was sitting on the balcony watching the HI “squeakers” start their collection. People pull rented wooden carts around and pick up recyclables to turn in for a few hundred riel—next to nothing, but their only chance for income. Imagine collecting pop can deposits for a living. They use bathtub squeaky toys to announce their presence. One little boy, with an empty cart, motioned to me. I hurried inside to get my single Coke can, but I undershot my throw, so it fell within the apartment gate. I made a sorry face to the boy. He shrugged, smiled, and walked on, squeaking.
Thursday July 26, 6:26 am
I will miss the sounds of Cambodia, the chirping/burping of geckos at night (though the ones on my bedroom walls don’t really chirp). And in the morning, I wake to the squeaks and “HI” calls of the recycling collectors—tiny children and adults, all barefoot and poor. And to the bread man calling “Pang, pang” in his throaty voice, selling baguettes for 500 riel (12.5 cents) from a wicker basket on his bicycle, and to the egg man playing his monotone recording that some haughty foreigners complained about in letters to the editor. Yet I love waking to sounds of people living—trying to live anyway—to draw me to face the day with some generosity, knowing there’s life and hope even in a desperate world.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Hiatus
I meant to write several posts in the last several days, but got too busy. A response to Andrew's question about health and human rights (well, I do have to say a yes--a right--to the cancer treatment question). Comments on the media coverage of the XDR-TB patient: they're missing the point. Other musings. Comments on an email a friend sent me about faith and service. Probably nothing very interesting.
Alas for failed good intentions.
However, if anyone does happen to read this blog, it is not defunct, but will not be updated until at least early August. Maybe then I'll have more to say. Or maybe I'll figure out that I have nothing to say. Maybe I'll fail to see the point.
Life, mine at least, is Pachelbel's Canon.
Peace friends.
Alas for failed good intentions.
However, if anyone does happen to read this blog, it is not defunct, but will not be updated until at least early August. Maybe then I'll have more to say. Or maybe I'll figure out that I have nothing to say. Maybe I'll fail to see the point.
Life, mine at least, is Pachelbel's Canon.
Peace friends.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Unwarranted and Undeserved
Yesterday, I fainted in the local hospital. I had been stupid—donated blood on an empty stomach, ate breakfast, and then immediately went for a run in the thickly hot morning. I finished breathing harder than normal and utterly drenched in sweat. Right after showering, I drove to the hospital to pick up a family member from an endoscopic procedure. Standing by the bed, I started to feel lightheaded. I knew I was going to faint, but at the point of that realization, it’s impossible to stop.
So I passed out in a chair. Three nurses jumped to me, and within 45 seconds of coming to, I had an air pipe and smelling salts up my nostrils, a blood pressure cuff on my bicep, a pulse monitor clamped on my finger, and an IV needle jammed in my brachial vein. Within five minutes, I had been loaded into a bed and wheeled to the emergency room. Within 30 minutes, I had recovered from all lightheadness, yet I still waited through an EKG—just in case I had an arrhythmia. I didn’t, of course. I was simply dehydrated from being stupid enough to run immediately after removing a pint of blood.
Both the nurses in the endoscopy unit and the ER were amazingly kind and forgiving of my inconvenient noncompliance. And they followed our nation’s copious medical protocol for such situations. But I didn’t need that care or really deserve it. Dehydration from an unwise run wouldn’t kill me. And it was my fault.
At least 1.6 million children die each year from diarrhea complications. Unlike in my case, the dehydration is not their fault. They can’t choose to avoid the fetid water they drink. There is no other choice. These children deserve care.
I am grateful for the luxurious care that I enjoyed—and the insurance that paid for it, insurance unavailable to nearly one in six in our richest of countries. Reflecting on my healthcare experiences and thinking about the complete lack of healthcare for so many forgotten people makes this conviction difficult to believe: healthcare, just like food and clean water, are basic human rights. More important than any other right is the right to survive. But as Dr. Farmer writes (Pathologies of Power, I think) “If healthcare is a basic human right, who is considered human enough to have that right?”
So I am human. How many are with me? Surely fewer than those denied humanity. Haitians have such a hopeful proverb, “tout moun se moun” (every person is a person). Yet, only 54% of Haitians have access to safe water. They count themselves each as human. Why can’t we?
So I passed out in a chair. Three nurses jumped to me, and within 45 seconds of coming to, I had an air pipe and smelling salts up my nostrils, a blood pressure cuff on my bicep, a pulse monitor clamped on my finger, and an IV needle jammed in my brachial vein. Within five minutes, I had been loaded into a bed and wheeled to the emergency room. Within 30 minutes, I had recovered from all lightheadness, yet I still waited through an EKG—just in case I had an arrhythmia. I didn’t, of course. I was simply dehydrated from being stupid enough to run immediately after removing a pint of blood.
Both the nurses in the endoscopy unit and the ER were amazingly kind and forgiving of my inconvenient noncompliance. And they followed our nation’s copious medical protocol for such situations. But I didn’t need that care or really deserve it. Dehydration from an unwise run wouldn’t kill me. And it was my fault.
At least 1.6 million children die each year from diarrhea complications. Unlike in my case, the dehydration is not their fault. They can’t choose to avoid the fetid water they drink. There is no other choice. These children deserve care.
I am grateful for the luxurious care that I enjoyed—and the insurance that paid for it, insurance unavailable to nearly one in six in our richest of countries. Reflecting on my healthcare experiences and thinking about the complete lack of healthcare for so many forgotten people makes this conviction difficult to believe: healthcare, just like food and clean water, are basic human rights. More important than any other right is the right to survive. But as Dr. Farmer writes (Pathologies of Power, I think) “If healthcare is a basic human right, who is considered human enough to have that right?”
So I am human. How many are with me? Surely fewer than those denied humanity. Haitians have such a hopeful proverb, “tout moun se moun” (every person is a person). Yet, only 54% of Haitians have access to safe water. They count themselves each as human. Why can’t we?
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