So Who Am I? Part II

I am a man who delayed the start today by about half an hour to catch some of the first stage of the Tour de France.  I am a man who almost fainted or had collapsed lungs after going all out to get away from a chasing hyena thing for at least half a mile, up a hill, at 6000 feet (will write more in a couple of days). 

I am certainly a man who has a lot to live for.  But I'm also a man with blemishes.  As I mentioned yesterday, there are plenty of things that I could work on to overcome the obstacles within myself in order to truly help others in their time of need. 

Perhaps the most troubling part of who I am is the little itch of racism.  Let me explain, because I am not racist, per se.  I'm not sure where it comes from, really.  I remember being a high school student and becoming friends with a Jew.  I had no idea he is Jewish when I met him, and after I found out I didn't care.  At the time I didn't even fully know what being Jewish meant, but because I knew him I slowly but surely learned what the differences between my faith and his are.  Though I did not care at all that he is Jewish, and to the extent that I did care I was only fascinated and interested, I still made some jokes about his being Jewish.  To this day I have no idea where I learned to make those jokes.  My parents didn't speak that way, none of my friends spoke that way, and I didn't even know anything about Judaism. 

Very quickly I realized that Jewish jokes are not at all appropriate if they're in the form of, "haha, you're Jewish."  It's questionable whether jokes in the form of, "a Catholic priest, a rabbi, and whomever else are in a bar..." are appropriate, I guess it depends on the audience.  Over time as I've developed as a person, as a man of faith, and as a dude trying to live in love with and for others, I've come to see how serious the "they're different" disease is.  Whenever I come into contact with something different I have an instinctive reaction against it.  I may have learned not to voice certain thoughts that are inappropriate, offensive, or just plain wrong, and I may have learned to pray to God to help me wash those thoughts away, but I still must deal with the very human instinct of fearing what is different.

I remember as I went to school in Vermont, the whitest state in the United States, is when I first discovered my racist instinct.  Coming from Massachusetts, a mostly white state, also didn't help any.  But in Vermont I was at a convenience store one night buying gas as a somewhat beaten-down car pulled up and a young black man stepped out of the car.  He had his pants pulled down low, a bandana around his forehead, and it was late at night.  My first reaction was to go to the back of the store and then leave when the other man wasn't looking.  That reaction only stuck with me for a few seconds before I told myself I was giving a new meaning to 'unreasonable.'  I stayed where I was, got in line to pay for my gas pump, and left the store a few minutes later unscathed.  Of course I wasn't hurt, of course I had nothing to worry about, of course the black man was and is no different than me.  I left ashamed of myself.

Since that night I have given a whole lot of thought to the emotions within me that occasionally make themselves known.  I don't think that I am entirely unique, either.  Especially for those of us in states like New England or North Dakota, African-Americans are hard to come by sometimes.  Is it wrong of us to have an instinctive fear of something that we have no experience of?  No, I don't think so.  It's hard to prevent a natural or biological reaction.  But if we were to ever let that instinct consume us, then we are doing wrong.  I think the majority of people reading this blog agree with that already so I won't elaborate much.  What I want to focus on, though, is that if we were to fail to acknowledge and confront our instinctive reactions then we also do wrong. 

You see, if we go around thinking, "racists are such meanies, terrible people," and draw a big gap between them and ourselves, then we do wrong.  The reason is that we might think we are great people for not being racist, and then fail to realize that we didn't bother saying hello to the African-American or Hispanic walking down the street.  We might fail to realize that we do actually feel a bit uncomfortable around people of a different race.  We might fail to realize that we don't really empathize as much with New Orleans or Haiti as we do with Minnesota (or reversely, with New England as much as we do with New York City).  We need to be aware of our reactions and emotions so that we can be fully conscious of what we do about it.  Our instincts don't make us racist, so don't be afraid.  And even if you really are racist, don't be afraid to admit it.  The road to true love is through honesty with yourself and others.

These are important reflections for me and for all of us.  It is these hidden feelings that we fail to be honest about that may prevent us from joining the fight against injustice.  Many injustices are unfortunately driven by racism, or at least fueled by racism.  Remember the outcry following the response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans?  A heavy density of African-Americans may have led to a slow federal response.  We need to be honest about these things.  Are we slow to react to modern slavery because a great number of the 27 million slaves are of a different race?  Africans, Asians, and Hispanics are most often caught in danger zones that then suck them into slavery.  Are we not quick to compassion because we believe that those in slavery are different than we are? 

I don't know.  I'm not trying to imply that the answers to these questions are, "yes."  I have more faith in all of you and the rest of the human race than to pessimistically condemn you and everyone else.  I have more faith in all of you than I do in myself even.  But I continue to share with you my personal reflections to raise some questions for thought as we consider the fight against slavery.  Are there little instinctive reactions and emotions that we have that, without our knowing it, keep us from working as hard as we could or should to stop slavery?

Again I don't know.  I hope, though, that you will continue to really dig deep inside yourself and ask the appropriate questions to get involved in showing all the love inside you to the 27 million slaves in the world.  Instinctive racism is something that I must overcome to properly love.  What is it for you?

So Who Am I? Part I

I am not the Green Lantern (sad).  I am a guy who reached heights of over 5000 feet today in beautiful New Mexico.  I am a guy who is worried about his tires and tubes and whether or not they will survive the final nine days of riding on this trip.  I am a guy who has ridden nearly 20 million revolutions of my bike wheel and over 2000 miles.  I am a man who rode about 40 miles today with very little water (I forgot a bottle!).  I am a man who has published poems and written papers that, according to professors, should be turned into books.  I am a man who has graduated from college summa cum laude in the top 5 of my class, and graduated 4th in my graduating high school class.  I am a man who has won many hockey championships and many individual awards.  I am a man who has done, experienced, and accomplished a lot, but still feels worthless.

I am not practical.  I am a guy who prefers writing letters to e-mail or telephone communication.  I am a guy who would rather he didn't own a car.  I am a guy who hopes to one day only own clothes made from bamboo.  I am a man who wouldn't mind if he had no job and lived in poverty with the simple hope of writing a book or two, or so I say now.  I am a man who shies away from commitment and marriage even though a wonderful woman is right before me.  I am a man who, when it comes to close relationships and personal expectations, is very picky and demanding.

I am not sinless.  I am a guy who struggles mightily to return or make phone calls, or any other type of communication, when I feel like I have let someone down or will let someone down.  I am a guy who often takes teasing and joking with people a little too far.  I am a man who angers easily.  I am a man who isn't really sure if he believes in God but tries to live like he does.  I am a man who has struggled with pornography from an early age. 

What can I do to overcome myself for the sake of others?  I think it's rather clear.  I need to not expect other people, especially those closest to me, to be just like me.  I need to not expect them to even try to be like me.  I need to be more gentle, more loving, and not drag people on my speedboat to bring them to my little isolated paradise. Too often I push people to the false choice of "with me or against me."  While I think that dichotomy has some usefulness in many situations, not many people work well when they are essentially being yelled at to do something.  It's almost hypocritical of me to intellectually believe that every individual must come to their own conclusions with no outside influence for it to have any real meaning, yet getting angry with them when they don't listen to me.  On one hand I say that the only influence I should have on people is through my actions, but on the other hand I argue and argue with my words until the cock crows three times.

A lot of what I need to do to overcome myself for the sake of others involves trust.  I need to trust that God's love for me is all that I need, that I don't need to become some great influential writer or have any giant impact on the world to have meaning in my life.  I already have meaning in my life simply by living it and I need to trust that fact.  Without that trust, I divert to my "Please make me feel important" mode which does nothing but hurt others and derail the true love train.  I cannot truly love anyone, whether romantic love or Christian love, if I am seeking for something in return.  I cannot serve those held in torturous slavery if I am concerned about what others think of me and, even, what I think of myself.  I can try and think that my little emotional and spiritual squabbles don't affect anyone but those closest to me, but that's not true.  It affects all those that I am called to love--even if I weren't called to love, my moral conscience does not allow me to sit back while there are 27 million slaves.  Yet what can I do if I am working hard to end slavery just so that others might tell me that I'm a good person?  Very little.

And, of course, even if it were true that the emotional and spiritual bumps that I run into only affect those closest to me, that still has major impact on many people.  First of all, how can I love the world if I can't love my family or friends?  For those who see my actions and think that maybe they are inspirational enough to follow, but then see how miserable I am and how upsetting I can be to those around me, they might walk away from whatever inspiration I had given them because of my personal life. 

Probably the most important part of overcoming myself involves pornography.  All of us, I think, have a secret (or not so secret maybe) sin that haunts us.  We try to hide it from others and sometimes we try to hide it from ourselves.  When we can't resist temptation, we do our best to rationalize or block out our memory even while we are sinning to convince ourselves it's not a big deal.  I use the word "sin" because it's the most appropriate word from my faith background, but don't mistake yourselves and think that what I'm saying doesn't apply because you don't believe in God.  As far as I'm concerned, a sin is not something that rewards us with eternal damnation.  Instead, a sin is something that separates ourselves from God, from ourselves, from others, from love, whether we want to admit it or not.  Committing a sin is like smacking our potential truly content selves in the face.  Many times it also includes smacking potential content others in the face as well because our spirits don't like how it feels to have smacked ourselves. 

Watching pornography is a sin.  I've done well to significantly cut back, but still I fall into the trap now and then.  I get frustrated with myself because I know that I don't feel "good" after, and I'm contributing to the industry that degrades women (mostly) and men, and degrades all who watch it by instilling thoughts and desires in us that don't belong.  There's no rationalization imaginable that can erase the degradation that I cause by watching pornography, to myself, to those involved in the industry and those who feel like they have no choice but to become a porn star, and to the countless women that I will encounter in my life that I might not be able to fully love because there's a stain on my heart and soul.

Maybe you are uncomfortable with my talking about pornography.  I actually hope you are, strangely enough.  It is a rare person who doesn't live with some tough-to-talk-about habit or character flaw.  So, if I make you uncomfortable, then it is likely that you also make yourself uncomfortable.  I don't want you to feel bad about that.  What I want you to do is to really dig deep into yourself like I have tried to do to understand yourself, to understand what it is about you that holds you back from living the best life you are capable of living and that, I hope, includes helping put an end to slavery.  For me, the traits and habits I've listed in this post are the obstacles I must hurdle to reach my full potential and that I must obliterate if I want to see an end to slavery.

To be honest, these are not the only reflections that I've had in response to my own question from a few days ago.  I have one other major reflection that I will share with you all tomorrow.  For now, I have opened up my heart and soul to you quite a bit.  I hope it is helpful to you as you look inside yourself, perhaps I will give you courage to deal with what about yourself makes you uncomfortable.  But in some way I hope that your heart will also open up... not necessarily to me (though feel free to share your own reflections on the blog), but to those who need your heartfelt support and love the most.

Cold and Calculated

I've had some technical difficulties with putting up new posts, but we're up and running again.  Here are the lyrics to the Project 86 song, "Cold and Calculated."

"A life you built exploiting the dreams of innocents
Preying on the wide-eyed fantasies of those with the purest intent
As parasites, they always need a host (how many lives have you bled?)
Your crooked gain will always find a leech’s ending

There is a reason you cannot sleep
You found the wages you’ve sown in greed
There is no solace in what you seek
You found that although you have gained it all you had to sacrifice...

Your prize.

After all was said and done you lost...

Your pet.

Rest it eludes you as spirits fill your head
Longing for the days when ghosts you used won’t follow you into your bed
So now it’s cost the apple of your eyes (you’ll never see her again)
Why can’t you see that she is not your property when...

How many lives have you bled?

After all was said and done, you lost...

Your pet.

Your prize."

This song reminds me a lot of my favorite movie, Donnie Darko, but trying to explain why would take a long time.  Instead, I'll just point out how relevant this song is to the issue of slavery, sex slavery in particular.  The selfish greed that drives many of us silly human beings is not only a very temporary satisfaction, but a temporary satisfaction that causes permanent harm to the perpetrator.   Of course, permanent and irreparable harm is done to the victim and that is what we abolitionists are most concerned about, but we should need ignore the spiritual damage inflicted on the perpetrator as well.

One commonality between the Christian idea of sin and the Buddhist understanding of karma is that both express an undeniable truth: when we do wrong, it seriously and negatively affects us for the rest of our lives.  Once we have manipulated and used and hurt others their faces remain with us and we cannot escape.  We might not ever admit it to anyone or ourselves, but we are haunted by the people we have hurt and the people we have neglected to help.  More and more we need to find ways to put ourselves to sleep because on the brink of dreaming the voices of those who have cried out against us return.  Instead of confronting ourselves and all the wrong we have committed, we seek out more of the same instant and temporary pleasures so that we might forget or convince ourselves that we are, indeed, good and happy people.

Unfortunately, the truth is that we are not good and happy people.  The more we avoid that truth the more we avoid actually getting to know who we really are as individuals.  And the more we avoid who we really are, the less likely we are to ever find peace within ourselves and start walking down the long, hard road to some real contentment. 

"You've found the wages you've sown in greed, there is no solace in what you seek."  We just simply don't want to admit it, so we run after the solace-less pleasures more and more not recognizing the awful consequences. 

I invite you to seriously reflect on your life and who you are.  Are you willing to admit when you do wrong?  Are you willing to admit that maybe you're not as good a person as you think you are?  Have you really dealt with those instances in which you've hurt others or not helped others when you could/should have?  Do you seek temporary pleasures to forget, to convince yourself that you are happy and feel good? 

These are the questions we need to ask ourselves.  Trust me, we are a hair's breadth away from crumbling into some really bad people.  These are the questions that slaveholders and all the people that take advantage of slaves, especially sex slaves, do not ask themselves.  They decided long ago that they couldn't look themselves in the eye so instead chose the path of continual gratification and greed.  We, then, must take the risk of looking ourselves in the eye so that we do not contribute to the problem, and so that we might possibly hopefully God-willing encourage others to do the same.