OCCUPIED

So I walked around Boston today getting some footage for a video project I am working on.  Part of my afternoon was spent walking along the Greenway which curves around the length of where the rt93 tunnel. I saw a large group at the end of the greenway, I decided to check it out. Turns out it was forty or fifty tents and a couple hundred people all part of Occupy Boston. The Occupy America movement is a fascinating sociological event with a branch in our backyard. People (mostly students) staying in tents, with signs for various political, socioeconomic and other issues, and regardless of Republican or Democrat everyone seemed to be getting along. I took in a group meeting to discuss the greatness of Marxist philosophy, there was a veterans for peace tent, I saw a tent where clothing was being given away, they even have a library. Folk music was being played for everyone's enjoyment and it was actually pretty good.

As I walked through the encampment I got the sense that this was a place for the free exchange of ideas and life philosophy (well, I did not see any representatives from corporate America there). I am pretty sure that there was even a small group freely sharing some ganja; they seemed really happy.

This gathering of people in Dewey Square and the hundreds of people who show up for the scheduled General Assemblies tells me a few things about people in general and Boston in particular. First, there is an undercurrent in Boston (and probably every city in America for that matter) of discontentment with "the system". The system is the conglomeration of impersonal regulations, guidelines, parameters, etc. that seem to be arbitrarily superimposed on society and dictate how a person should live their life and spend their money if they are going to be successful. Discontentment has spurred Americans on to technological innovation for generations, it has spurred community organizers on to bring change to their neighborhoods, it has even spurred corporate executives to make shady deals behind closed doors. People from all walks of life experience some degree of discontentment. We all wrestle with a lack of contentment at some point. Discontentment must simmer for a while before it motivates us to try and bring change to something. What is your simmering discontentment?

The second is that people are desperate to be heard, young and old. Everyone has an opinion, but a cause like "Occupy America" gives people a chance to put a megaphone to their ideals and opinions and be heard much more so than if they stood alone. The need to be heard is what many people from North African nations are fighting for right now. When you are heard you are validated; your station in life has legitimacy. All people long for validation, they long to be heard. People want to be heard. Who listens to you??

Third, I discovered that not everyone there was there for the stated purposes of the movement. Some where there because their friends were there and they wanted to support their friends. Some were there because it is where the attention is and they simply want to be a part; they want to belong. Everyone wants to be part of something big, a cause to fight for. It gives us a sense of identity. In some places in the world the cause is your family; you stand for your family and they give you identity. Here in America it is often your ideals. Your ideals give you something to fight for and give you an identity. When you don't have either of these you long for them, you look for them in anything. Many a high school student and college student has gone through this "looking to belong" stage. From what do you derive your sense of identity??? Is it enough? Are you fulfilled?

In some ways these are the longings of every person who has ever drawn breath on planet earth; they make us human. Being discontent, the desire to be heard, and our sense of identity will shape us and define us. We will be healthy people depending on what our source is for these three aspects of our soul. You may be looking for money, or love. You may be motivated by greed or loneliness. The longings of your soul says something about who you are. How you fulfill those longings says something about who you are willing to be and who you are becoming.

Just a Meandering Thought...

PATHRIE

On Sunday afternoon I traveled to a town called Pathrie. Actually we were just outside a small farming community which was just outside of Pathrie. The village is very poor, made up mostly of farmers.

The grounds owned by the school taken from the roof. The center of the picture is the faculty housing building. In the lower right you can see a couple hundred bikes which the kids ride to get to school.

It was a predominantly Muslim area until about twenty years ago or so. The government needed to supply more electricity to the area and so they planned to build a hydro electric plant on a river some twenty kilometers away. The result however was that many villagers from that area would be flooded out of their communities.

Students stand in rows every morning for their morning routine, which includes the pledge of allegiance, singing the national anthem, and reciting the Lord's prayer.

The government informed the people of their plans and told them that they were providing a space for them to move to and resettle. That area just happened to be right outside of Pathrie near this already existing Muslim community.

A student stands and reads during class time.

What resulted was a growing tension between the two communities. The Muslims had their own established community for years and years, and they did not appreciate being imposed on by the government. To them the Hindu’s are unclean (spiritually speaking). Fast forward about eighteen years, and this Christian school gets its start literally between the boundary lines of these two communities. The boundary line actually consists of Sugar Cane fields and wheat fields.

This was the first class in which I sang a song. I was drawing a blank with the guitar in my hand and ended up sing "Amazing Grace" / "Grace like Rain"

Classes for the school begin at 7:40am and conclude at 1pm. At that time the students are dismissed and the teachers get a break. A few of them live on the School grounds in housing that was built for faculty and staff. At 4pm an afternoon program begins which goes until 6pm. This program is sponsored by Compassion International.

At the end of a long day here the Compassion sponsored students get some food in the evening

Each of the students who attend this program do not have the money to attend the school so instead they attend the government schools. However the government school do not really provide much of an education. Each student progress from one grade to the next regardless of performance, and the class sizes are as small as 30 to 40 all the way up to as many as 80 per class. Sometimes the teachers don’t show up. Needless to say it is not an environment that is geared towards learning and education.

The school here actually has a class on personal heighten. It is an attempt to educate the younger generation on how to maintain clean living. Here a teacher inspects a students "First Aid" kit as part of their curriculum.

The after school program is designed to be a time of tutoring and helping with homework, and since these are the poorest of the poor they also get a meal as part of the sponsorship. Most of my time there the kids just wanted to hear about America, so I talked with them about what America was like. Some found out they I play guitar so I played and sang for all the classes I visited after word got out. I visited the little kids the next day and could not avoid singing and playing for them either. A lot of kids wanted my name and email address, I relented. The real story though is the principal and the assistant principal. Their dedication to the work here is commendable. They have seen this place go from Sugar Cane field to a one and a half level school.

Work progresses slowly on the building project where they are adding a second floor. This structure was designed to be a three story school. Though they have to take it a stage at a time as the get the funding.

Soon it will be a complete two level school. They have worked hard to make the School in Pathrie what it is and just as hard to maintain a solid reputation in the community. Along with that Matt and I stayed in Ajay’s home (the assistant principal).

Ajay, the assistant principal, and his family.

When we arrived they showed us to the guest room. It was small and the bed was basically a low table with blankets on it. It was not until the second morning when I got up a little early and happened to see the kids room and I saw Ajay sleeping on a blanket on the floor that I realized he and his wife gave us their bed, and they were sleeping on the floor in their kids’ room. These are the kind of people I stayed with. I will write a short post on Ajay later…

WITHERED

Have you ever bought flowers for someone (or yourself?? So sad...) You know how the flowers comes with that packet of stuff that you are supposed to put in the water after you find a vase to put them in. So then, why do you put the stuff from the packet into the water?? Well, we have figured out that when we pick flowers we are actually killing them and the stuff in the packet that goes in water is like flower life support. The only problem is that their condition is terminal; when we cut the flowers from their roots we are killing them. It is kind of weird that people seem to enjoy flowers so much that they would kill them. In short, the upside is that flowers bring a little beauty into the house; the downside is that you have to ultimately kill the flowers. Every flower that is cut from its root will eventually wither and die - even with the flower food.

At the Hectic pace that life moves today it is easy to find ourselves feeling a little disconnected or maybe cut off. We often times will neglect the importance of being connected altogether. It's easy to become so busy with the business of life that we cease to really live; we don't notice that we have been living disconnected lives. By the time we realize it we have neglected our soul for so long that we have done some serious damage; our soul is withered - like a flower cut from its roots.

Have you ever looked into the face of someone who has withered on the inside. You can see a loss of hope, and purpose, you can sense neglect, and lack of direction. Without connection to a source of strength we also will wither and die, maybe not physically but our soul will certainly shrivel to nothing.

What do we do? Jesus put it this way, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers..." Jesus gives life to our soul. Jesus at the center of who we are gives a whole new level of meaning and purpose to everything we do. We no longer work and live for ourselves, but for something - someone - greater than we are, and somehow that gives us a new level of meaning - gives life to our soul. It would be like that flower growing an entirely new root system. It gives new life. We go from withered, shriveled, and empty, to healed, healthy, and whole.

The wholeness we feel that comes with success lasts only as long as the success lasts - it is temporary - like the food you give a flower after it has been cut. As the flower food does not bring life or wholeness to the flower so success or anything else does not bring true wholeness to us. This is true for anything we use to help us feel healed, healthy or whole. Jesus came that we could have life and have it to the full.

So the next time you buy flowers at the store or just put some freshly cut flowers from the yard in a vase, ask yourself how you may have cut yourself from the true source, and perhaps how you have tried to use a temporary source to help you feel alive...

Just a meandering thought...