Where I Live.

Over the past few months, I have found within myself a shift from being sad at injustice to being infuriated by it. I don't really know why this is. I do enjoy the anger a bit more. I feel like it is a more active emotion, which is not good in many instances as it leads to violence and vengeance and whatnot. But it can also mean positive change, motivation to no longer remain silent about injustice and to move on the behalf of those who are impacted. So, yes...rage.

When I read the papers and on the rare occasion that I watch the news, I can only sit and sigh (or on occasion curse). Stories of increasing home foreclosure means more people will be homeless, and these people will be families with children or elderly people with little income. Stories of increased crime and violence in all corners of the globe, the economies of entire countries nearing collapse, mounting global poverty as aid slows due to lack of funding. And I do not know how we got here or why this was allowed to happen. I am perplexed at the short-sightedness of all our solutions, not understanding that crime rises for a reason, that young men turn to terrorism for a reason, that even pirates have families. That nothing occurs in isolation of what has come before it. I do not believe that people turn to crime because they are lazy, or terrorism because they are evil. It is centuries of prejudice and acts of terrorism carried out by so-called liberators that have led us to this point.

But I guess it's easier to answer problems in isolation. To address terrorism rather than intolerance. To address piracy rather than poverty. And I don't say this in a self-righteous, 'look at me talkin' about lofty social problems" sort of way. I mean it for real. If we admit that we are responsible for these problems and that it is our responsibility to now solve them, then it can no longer be someone else's job to think about these things and to make them better. It's yours. This is where I'm living. So yes....wrath.

A Deep Breath.

I spend alot of time listening to other people's stories. And then another significant measure watching and reading other people's stories. The majority of these stories are sad, and frustrating, and frightening, at many turns, deeply disturbing. And so I find myself a bit weighed down most of the time. Sometimes very, very weighed down. So I watch less crime drama, and stop reading about war. I look for jobs working with refugees, with orphans, with prisoners, with veterans, in hospitals, in hopes of proactivity lessening my burden. I go back to work, and offer advice rather than listening as I should. I look for something outside myself--relationships, activities, uninvolved work, religion-- or something more deeply inside myself--meditation, focus, hope--to offer support. But I am too practical and cannot shake my feelings of responsibility to my fellow man, or my guilt at not giving enough, or at allowing my heart to get in the way.

I wish, oh how I wish, I was able to fully believe in something. At times I find myself envying some of my patients, because they can say with utmost certainty (however delusional it may be) to God speaks to them, and knows them, and has a purpose for them and for their suffering. But I cannot see this most of the time. This week I have watched a television show about child soldiers, read a story about the irreparable harm done to prisoners put in solitary confinement or by the social isolation of homelessness, and listened to scores of stories about desperation, and destitution, and deprivation. And I sleep less, and work more, and make an attempt at prayer, and contemplate another tattoo, or a drum, or an angsty pair of shoes. And I think about the possibility of God actually working that way. Of having a purpose for every person and every horrible occurrence, at hope coming from despair, and joy from sadness. I take a deep breath and I step off to begin a new day. And I hope that belief can come from wanting. That peace can come from belief.

Building Walls.

When the violence between Israel and Hamas was renewed at the end of last year, I decided that I needed to understand. I know that there are thousands of years of history that have led them to this point. Failed treaties; ignored agreements; violent acts committed by terrorists rather than governments, but bringing the organized retaliation of a government. Anyway, I decided that I needed to understand, so I bought Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter, in hopes that the president of my birth could help me out. And I feel that after reading this, I do understand, at least a little bit, why it is that this is so, so difficult and so long-lived a conflict. But really for me the most difficult part of it was the building of the wall between Israel and the West Bank, separating people from family members, and business enterprise, food and clothing, supplies, gasoline, electricity.

And then I read an article in the New Yorker about Mumbai, in the wake of Slumdog Millionaire. The children who live in the slums of Mumbai, like those portrayed in the movie, live off of what they can find to sell, what they can find that's edible. They die from preventable diseases, and have a rate of malnourishment equal to that of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. All of this with burgeoning business and tourist enterprises within reach, but blocked by walls of concrete topped with barbed wire and broken glass.

This brings me to our border fence. We read each week about new violence in Mexico, how the cities are not safe and it's spilling over into the US. We continue to build the fence to keep out the poverty we have forged that we must now keep on the other side of the wall.

We go to great troubles to separate ourselves from the disastrous world our greed and selfishness and prejudice has wrought. We create refugee camps and resettlement plans rather than find ways to forge a lasting peace. We create vast networks of homeless shelters and food pantries rather than creating affordable housing and assuring that every person is fed as they should be. Walls are no substitute for justice.

Chapter 4.

This morning, as I said good-bye to Nathan at the super swank Holiday Inn in LIC, I began to realize even more how different my life will be. I enjoy telling people our story, as the apparent mobility of my generation has made a friendship such as ours very rare. We met during our first semester at UT, and bonded over high school band memories. We finished college together and moved to NYC together. We helped start a church together. We watched alot of embarrassing television together (mostly my idea). The only time when have been apart over the last 11 years has been the first summer we were in college and the summer Nathan lived in Mexico. And tomorrow is the first day in a long, long time, we will wake up in different cities.

And so I find myself starting a new chapter in my life. I've decided it's chapter 4--childhood being chapter 1, Austin life chapter 2, early NYC chapter 3. When Nathan first confirmed for me that he was going home, I kind of panicked, not being super-fond of change. I have always had him there, as my go-to for advice, and ER escorts, and dinner, and drinks, and brunches (oh, the brunches), and the occasional financial bailout. And so I began to search for another point of stability, and I found CCfB. But then a few weeks ago, we were told that CCfB as we know it will soon cease to exist. The focal point of my week, going to PS 261 and talking to Joe and Laura, and the brilliant friends I've made there, will no longer be there due to issues of funding and logistics, and that stable point was gone. So again, I panic a little.

But I awoke this morning, knowing that I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. None at all. The fundamentals will be the same, but some fundamental things will be missing or just drastically different. My world will be rocked. And I have decided that this might be good. No matter how wild and impulsive I might seem, how edgy and adventurous, my every move is planned. Tomorrow, I begin chapter 4 with no idea what might come, and no idea what chapter 5 might look like. And maybe that's alright.

My Favorite Part...

Text of the benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery (pictured right with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) during President Barack Obama's inauguration:

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou, who has brought us thus far along the way, thou, who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.

Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to thee, oh God, and true to our native land.

We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day.

We pray now, oh Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration.

He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national, and indeed the global, fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hands, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations.

Our faith does not shrink though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.

For we know that, Lord, you are able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds, and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor, of the least of these, and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.

We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that yes we can work together to achieve a more perfect union.

And while we have sown the seeds of greed — the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountain top, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.

Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little angelic Sasha and Malia.

We go now to walk together as children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone. With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around...when yellow will be mellow...when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. Say Amen. And Amen.

What was your favorite moment today?

A New Year, A New Day.

I'm normally one to start the New Year with a post about my hopes for the coming year. However, I decided to wait for this year to begin. Today is my New Years Eve. I look to tomorrow with a hope unknown before and a knowledge that things do actually change, that my voice has been heard, that my hopes have become reality and I have been a part of an amazing day in our history. I do not know when it is that I will stop being brought to tears by the thought of Barack Obama and his family in the White House, but my tears of joy are a welcome change.

There is a program on NPR called "This I Believe." When I began listening to it, I also began thinking about what it is that I believe, above all things.

I believe in hope.

In the summer of 2008, I got my second tattoo—the word hope in a box on my left wrist. With time and the weathering caused by its odd location, and because of my penchant for punctuation, it has come to look like a command stamped permanently on me. The tattoo artist, Jeff P. (look him up, he’s very good), asked me why I was getting it. And I replied, “Because, sometimes I need a reminder.”

Since I got the tattoo, I’ve begun to notice the word everywhere, like when you buy a car and begin to see it all over the road. In the mundane, “I hope that goes on sale,” “I hope you are well,” “I hope this economy gets better soon.” In poetry, “Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul,/And sings the tune--without the words,/And never stops at all”. In politics, for “while we breathe, we will hope.” In a speech by Harvey Milk, “The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right.”

I’ve thought a lot this year about hope. What it really means to give someone hope. To show them what might be. In Spanish the word for “hope” is the same as the word for “wait.” Waiting for something better. Waiting for something to come along that will bring us out and make things better again. Hope moves us forward when things get rough. Hope is the last thing we turn to, and the last thing we lose. Hope gave us a new president.

Hope will spur us forward into tomorrow, despite our failing economy, our knowledge that the world is not as it should be—that millions of people live in poverty, their lives torn apart by war and disease, their hearts broken by the destruction of their homes and families, feeling forgotten by the world community—for tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow our president will close Guantanamo Bay. Tomorrow our president will listen to the millions of voices crying out for change. Millions of voices who have gone unheard until that day. But my hope does not lie with Barack Obama alone. It lies with the fact that millions of people actually believe that something better is possible, and that we have the power to make a better world.

Today, I can feel the collective inhalation of a coming global sigh of relief. The deep and cleansing breath of a New Day.

Memory.

Yesterday I was listening the podcast of the This American Life episode called "20 Acts in 60 Minutes." One of the acts is a man telling the story of seeing and greeting someone, and having no idea where he knows her from. Then agonizing over this until he sees her at the drive-thru window of his coffee spot...explaining the reason he felt that he might be in love with her.

So I thought this was very funny, because I am often having this "where do I know you from" dialogue in my head about people I pass on the street, or see at restaurants, or social gatherings. I have an impeccable memory. There was time when I could recall what I was wearing on any given day of a month, and on days many months before when something only minorly significant had happened. When Nathan was filling out med school applications, he called me to figure what his extracurriculars were in 1999. For real. But I seem to be fading.

Today I was walking to get some lunch (at 4pm) and saw these two women huddled next to a building smoking. I looked over at them, noticing the scarf that one of the women was wearing and deciding that it wouldn't work for me. Then one of the women excitedly greeted me, and asked me how I was. I, while continuing to walk, returned her greeting and then went on my way. I can say with great certainty, I have no idea who this woman was. None. There were some people that ran through my head, but they were discounted as they do not smoke, and it would make no sense for someone to start smoking in their mid-thirties. On the way back to my office, I found myself hoping that they were still out there, so I could stop and talk and gain some context clues, so I could know if it was a work, or church, or school, or social connection. But no such luck. The good news is I can enter 2009 knowing that I will never again get upset because someone does not remember me. But, sadly, also with the knowledge that someone might be kind of upset that I would just walk on by when we shared so much, so long ago.

A New Decade.

And so I have begun my third decade. This is not something I had been looking forward to, but really I'm enjoying year 3-1 so far. Most of my friends in NYC are older than me and passed this mark at least a couple of years ago. They have told me that everything is better after 30...not as much pressure, a sudden feeling of being a bit more self-assured, and maybe finally crossing-over to adulthood in the current climate of delayed growing up. And while I will miss being able to say "No...I'm still in my 20s," and the feeling of accomplishment that I've always felt at being younger than most everyone in my classes or at my various jobs, it's probably okay. I'm no longer advanced. I'm just normal now.

And now some highlights from the last year of my 20s:

• Made my first trip abroad, going to London for a friend's 30th birthday. And I managed to come back without an accent.
• Made a trip to San Francisco for the wedding of one my dearest.
• Got my nose pierced, as I have wanted to do since I was like 18. Don't tell my dad.
  
• Got another tattoo and shared my first one with a friend. Her husband has almost gotten to the acceptance phase.
  
• Made some wonderful (and certainly lifelong) friends.
• Helped elect a president. I still get a little overwhelmed when I see the pictures from this election, and think about what this meant, and could mean, to so many people.
  
• Learned a bunch of stuff...in books, and facts, and life.
• Have come to the conclusion once again that NYC, you and I, though sometimes you bring me down, are in this for the long haul.
  

It's All About Love.

I received an e-mail today from one of my activism groups, the Human Rights Campaign, about the response received by an article in this week's Newsweek called The Religious Case for Gay Marriage. Read it (all of it), and come back to me.

I have been really, really disappointed in the holiday season this year. I had hoped, however naively, that the current economy would lead people to put a different meaning on Christmas. "We can't really afford that Xbox this year, so we're just gonna love each other alot." But instead it has only increased our national greed and desperation for more, and more, and more, holding on with every fiber of our being to everything we can get our hands on. This was illustrated to me profoundly by the death of the poor man who was trampled by shoppers at a Wal-Mart in New York State. We are so thirsty for bargains that we do not notice that we are stepping on a person. Stop to think about that for a moment.

I try very hard to illustrate generosity to my clients, and to encourage them to be involved and do things for people who are even less fortunate than they, but I am mostly (not all the time) met with blank stares before the mad rush for whatever morsel I have placed before them. And I do understand the psychology of this. People who have lived in a state of constant deprivation have a fundamental drive to grab and hoard whatever they can find, as it may happen again that they are left without. And especially in a capitalist society, the poor are given very little room to be charitable. But this doesn't mean that it doesn't destroy me every time it happens. Recently, the participants in my program decided that if there was any food left over at the end of the day from the breakfasts, lunches and dinners that are provided to them free of charge, they would claim it to take it home and then throw the rest away, rather than taking it downstairs to the homeless people that live on our steps. I want to know how we got to this. I alternate between this making me profoundly sad, and making me profoundly angry, which leads me to want to withhold some of the resources I have been given for my clients as a means to show them what need is like. But then I know that they know (or have known) what desperation is like, and I wonder how they have so quickly forgotten.

So in reading this article (I know it's taken me a while to get back to it), the thing that struck me the most is strength of our collective inclination to deny other people something that has brought us profound joy, and to make enemies of people we do not understand. I believe that for most people who are married, this is one of the greatest things that has ever happened to them. And there is something so, so deeply wrong about turning this into a privilege for only a few, or into a weapon used to deprive about 10 percent of the population of their fundamental rights. There is inherent complication in the fact that an institution that is supposed to be based on partnership and love has become the basis for legal rights and privileges. And by denying certain people to right to marry, or by tying so many fundamental rights and privileges up in the institution of marriage, we are creating an underclass of people based on sexual orientation, or based simply on the fact that not everyone is cut out for marriage. And in so doing, we are missing the point, made even worse by tying all of this up in our religious beliefs, and denying people these rights based on what we believe our translation of the Bible is saying. But it also says that God is love. And it says that "love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." Never ends.

Giving Thanks (2).

As is the tradition of most families on Thanksgiving, I have more than once this week gone around the table and told what I am thankful for this year. My answers, for the past few years at least, are always the same.

(1) Work...Despite the fact that my job is at times so, so difficult and so, so frustrating, I know that I am one of very few people in the world who is doing something that they truly love, and who gets to daily follow their calling in life. On good days, I know that I am doing something that will change the world at least a little bit, so I will press on through the bad days, and be grateful for the opportunity to do it.

(2) The greatest thing in the whole wide world, my friends. The people I have collected in my journey over the years are amazing, brilliant, quirky, kind, hilarious people. They are people I have known since childhood, and with whom my relationship has at times waxed and waned, but who I know will always be a part of my life. And they are people who I've known for only a short time, but with whom I experience a sort of love at first sight, knowing the first time I meet them that we will indeed be wonderful friends. And people everywhere in between. It is one of the things unique to living in New York City, the power of friendships that are formed here. We all come here on our own unique exploratory expeditions, knowing maybe two people from our pre-New York lives, and we begin to build a life. These are the people with whom we spend holidays and birthdays, days good and bad and ugly, and all of the important moments of our lives. All but one of the people I spent Thanksgiving with yesterday were people who I didn't really know at all this time last year, but I can certainly say that it was one of the best, most love-filled holidays I have ever had.

(3) The opportunity to live in New York City. The extraordinary place that makes it all possible.