How to get involved

Over the course of the past couple months since 291 of my brothers and sisters and I were snatched up by the LAPD in a paramilitary operation designed by the Department of Homeland Security, I’ve been asked this question a lot: “How do I get involved with Occupy?” I have gone to people’s homes, I have spoken to schools and organizations, I have spoken to folks on the bus, and my answer is always the same—“Well, what is Occupy to you?” Somewhere in the dialogue that ensues, we connect, and we both come out with a better sense of where to go.

So, what is Occupy to you? To some people it’s the revolution, to others a racist White middle-class reformist movement, and to others a nuisance. To me, Occupy is bigger than all of that. On my way down to the first day we were going to occupy, I posted the following on my facebook wall:

“What's interesting about calling the movement "occupy" los angeles, is that, technically, we already "occupy" los angeles. We live here, we work here, we sleep here, we eat here, we die here, it almost seems silly to call it an occupation in this light. This language, however, is indicative of a deeper and more honest truth: yes we live and die and do our daily rounds here, but this city, this country has not felt like ours in a long time, if ever. The fact is, like all those peasants and share-croppers living on rented lands, lands which they cultivated, lands they sustained, lands owned by kings, lords, and nobles, we are living on land that at our core we know does not truly belong to us--not under the current power structure anyways. So we are on foreign lands, everyday, immigrant and citizen alike, we are on land that has been divvied up and is policed by the new feudal powers of the modern era.

Really the call to occupy is a call to awakening, a call to give up the false notions of "inhabiting" a place where we are viewed as passerby and trespassers. In the instant we awaken we move forward, and in the instant we decide that we want to inhabit, that we want to live on this foreign land, then we must occupy what we now know is rightly ours, regardless of what classist and racist legislation has told us.

But where do we go from occupation? How do we make this foreign land ours? These are the questions that we must answer together with love, patience, determination, and open hearts.
Occupy Los Angeles. Occupy the world.”

In the past four months my thoughts have shifted about the movement, but the core ideas of taking back, empowerment, liberation and transformation, have always remained central. It’s not about Wall St., it’s not about the government, it’s not about the cops, it’s not even wholly about Capitalism for me. All those things are major players in the struggle, but they do not completely define the struggle. For me, Occupy is about taking back our humanity from those that have defined it in their own terms and in their own system, and in the taking back we redefine and we transform ourselves and our world. Indeed, for me it is a very personal and a very spiritual struggle. I see the forces at play—the dishonesty, the hatred, the manipulation, the greed, the envy, the pride, the lust for power, and so many others—and I see those that perpetrate those forces to oppress, colonize, and dehumanize people all over the world, and in that I see my struggle. I recognize that while my struggle is in part mine, it is not singular, it is a human struggle, and in pushing back on oppression, I see my struggle as one with those who are doing the same any and everywhere in the world. I see my brothers and sisters in foreign lands, in places like Syria, Nigeria, Chile, Egypt, truly everywhere; I see them as nurses and doctors in hospitals, challenging a medical system that sees patients as medical ID numbers, and not human beings; I see them as teachers in schools, viewing their students as humans and not just robots to be trained and pushed towards some future they have had no say in; I see them as clergy and lay, looking deeper than dogma into the mysteries of the divine to find the Oneness of humanity; I see them in all those who are brave enough to question and stand for truth, love, and justice.

So how do we take back our humanity? How do we take back our lives? How do we reshape ways of being? These can be overwhelming theoretical questions that can easily lose people in the abstract so I will try to be concrete and specific—we fight these things by combating those forces in our everyday lives. When we see an injustice, we speak up; when we do wrong, we ask forgiveness; we be honest with ourselves and with each other; we begin to embody the world we would like to see. But it is not enough to combat it, we must also create new ways of being. We question and we push others to question, and we try to understand the nature of our oppression and the nature of the systems that oppress us…and from there we can begin to imagine new things free of our current state. We begin the process of liberation…a process that is never complete or static. Most importantly, however, we do not do it alone.

If my time at City Hall taught me anything, it was that proximity to, and interaction with, other human beings matters. When I say interactions, I am not talking about buying something at a store or chatting online, and when I say proximity, I am not talking about sitting next to someone on the bus. When I say these things, I mean, engaging with people, talking with them; who is them? Everyone is them. People on the bus, at the store, at the mall, at your job…your neighbors, your family, your friends, everybody. When I say talk, I really mean dialogue—be brave and talk about the things that matter to you, not just politically, but personally, and listen when they share themselves as well. If we can learn to speak honestly and listen earnestly, we will be making great progress towards our better world. It takes courage. Indeed, in my opinion, I don’t know if there is a more revolutionary act in this country than to go over to a neighbor’s house to whom you have never spoken, and invite them over to dinner to discuss, not only what is going on in the world, but what it going on in your lives.

If you are reading this and wondering how to join Occupy, I have a couple of thoughts. First, whether you want to call it Occupy or not, you and I are most likely already in the same Movement. If you are about social justice, truth, and love, and you try your best to live those things out daily and work with others to bring about change in your community, we are in the same Movement, we are working in solidarity with each other. Second, what would joining Occupy look like to you? Would it be coming to the general assembly, meeting some people and having them tell you what to do? Please don’t expect that, because then both parties would be betraying the Movement.

I acknowledge that the term “occupy” has come to mean certain things to certain people. When I first made the decision to sleep out at city hall, I thought that “occupy” could be the banner under which people united, but I don’t know that that is the case anymore. There were some really bad things that happened under the name of occupy that hurt people, that hurt people of Color, that hurt friends of mine, and I don’t know if that can be mended. It’s a shame too, because some of the best people that were disrespected, betrayed, ignored, verbally assaulted, were people that could have really helped occupy be what it should have been…what it might still be.

Regardless, my point is this: to invite you or to try to win you over to Occupy would be silly and a waste of time in my book. My call is not to Occupy, my call is to consciousness, to love, to courage, to fighting against oppression. In my opinion, the Movement is stronger when it is decentralized, when it is made up of individuals who operate in collectives for the greater collective good, and who recognize that they are part of a larger collective—perhaps the largest collective is indeed humanity. That is the piece that is missing, and I don’t have the answer, but I want to know how we can know that we are working for the same thing. How can we, you and I, who may never meet each other, act against the system in different ways, but still know that we are in solidarity, that we are together? We need to know that we are not alone, so how do we ensure that? It is important, not only so that we do not feel alone, but so that we are focused and energized and hopeful in our efforts. What can our common call be? I don’t know and this is a real question for us all to think about.

On Thanksgiving day at my home parish, in a Catholic mass of about 300 people, I stood up in the middle of the congregation right after the priest finished his homily and criticized the overt nationalism in his homily and in the entire mass. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. It was not planned, nor was it primarily politically motivated. It was reaction to what I saw as an assault on my faith and a misuse of true teachings of Love to indoctrinate people with love for the Nation.

My call to you is to get involved. My call to you is to fight injustice and bring light to your everyday. How do you do that? How do you do that in ways that are not oppressive? How do you do that in ways that do not alienate people, but rather push them to think and challenge them? These are things we all have to think about.

I think we start by reflecting deeply on what we see as unjust, what we see as wrong, and then from there, allow that to inform our actions. Indeed, mistakes are inevitable, but we cannot let a fear of mistakes paralyze us, for then we have already lost to our ego. I think we have to find allies, and together act, and then together reflect on our actions, and then repeat the process. The road is a difficult one, a point alluded to by so many people throughout history, Jesus not excluded, but we must tread it for it is the only way. Indeed, as the title to a great book says, “We make the road by walking.” I am so excited to be walking with you.

A Reflection on Remembrance

What is remembrance without reflection? And what is reflection without honesty?

Today was a day to remember, but what are we remembering? I am asked to mourn the victims of 9/11, and I do, but what about the victims of 9/13, 9/14, 9/15…and onward. What about the thousands upon thousands of innocents killed as they slept in their homes in the deserts of Iraq or the mountains of Afghanistan? Do we remember them?

And how do we remember? Do we remember that crazy men flew planes into buildings belonging to a peaceful country? Is that what we remember? Do you have the courage to ask yourself this question: What could possibly drive you to fly a plane into a building? Answer honestly. What could possibly drive you to blow yourself up on a roadside to kill a few people?

We are taught that there are people who are simply evil in the world, and that helps us sleep at night. If there are just evil crazy people, then we do not have to actually consider why they act the way that they do, because the answer is self-evident: they are evil and they are crazy. This is a myth that has been employed by governments and militaries throughout all of history to gather armies and drive them into battle against their enemies.

The fact, however, is that people are not just crazy and evil…people are people, and their actions are responses to other actions and events.

Those who choose to see 9/11 as an unprovoked attack have chosen to be ignorant of all the history that led up to that day. Ignorance is always a choice, and it is a choice that stands in direct opposition to honesty and truth.

If my government was overthrown by a foreign military, if my people were bombed and my family killed by strange soldiers from strange lands, if my country was forced into poverty by multinational corporations backed by mercenaries…I may well consider sacrificing my life for some idea of freedom from those people, no matter how insane that sacrifice may seem. I mourn the loss of life and the negation of basic rights to people all over the world. Do I mourn the loss of American lives more than those of Iraq? Absolutely not. Life is life, and to kill one person, as is said in the Quran, “Is to kill all of humanity.” I mourn and I lament the oppression of people throughout history, and I acknowledge that oppression across all social, cultural, class, and racial lines.

Do I support the attacks of 9/11? Obviously not, but I do understand them. Besides, I do not see the attacks of 9/11 as attacks on America, I see them as attacks by the poor and oppressed against those who are seen as their oppressors. I see them as acts of desperation, not insanity. Osama Bin Laden was far from poor, but his everyday soldiers and martyrs were always, and will always be, like the everyday soldiers and martyrs in most places in the world—the poor and oppressed. Since 1945, American and European based corporations, backed by the U.S. military, have gone unchecked throughout the world, sacking governments and basically enslaving people to create markets, and provide cheap sources of labor and natural resources to feed the ever expanding consumer demands here in the U.S. This is not a conspiracy theory, this is fact. The U.S., in this way, is no different from any empire throughout history. We are no worse (though perhaps more efficient in our conquest), but we should leave our notions of innocence and righteousness at the door.

These are the things I remember, these are the things I think of, and if we do not change ourselves, if we do not reflect honestly, there will be more dates to “remember” and the corpses will continue to pile from the suburban streets of Clovis, CA to the deep jungles of the Congo, to the rugged mountains of Central Asia.

If this sounds angry, it is not. If this sounds crazy, it is not. If this sounds desperate, it is. This is a desperate plea from someone who deeply loves humanity and is tired of watching humans continue telling the same lies, dying for the same “causes”, over and over again. This is a desperate call to courage and truth.

Peace and Love. Salaam Waleykum.

Home Comings

8 years ago, a woman by the name of Katie Zanto created an alternative education program called Adventure, Risk, Challenge, or ARC. The program is a summer course that takes ten 9th/10th graders, who are classified as ELL into the woods for 40 days. During their time in the course, the students go on four separate expeditions into the wilderness. The first expedition is 8 days straight, and the last expedition is completely led and organized by the students. During their expeditions students are taught science, topography, cartography, leadership, wilderness survival, as well as intrapersonal skills. In between expeditions, students spend their days at base camp working on improving their reading and writing skills, as well as bettering their communication skills in order to live more effectively and peacefully in community.

About 2 weeks ago, as night was setting on Truckee, California, you could find me making my way down to the river banks to try to find a place to pitch my tent for the night. Just as I was pulling my tent from my pack, my phone rang. “Hey buddy, where you at?” It was my buddy Joe. For the last leg of my recent trip I decided to go up to visit Joe at his field site (he studies the social behavior of slave-making ants), which just so happens to be the same site used by ARC. 45 minutes after he called, he came and picked me up in front of the nearby 7/11, where I had already been labeled the new neighborhood homeless man. (For real. I had to turn down change from a guy walking into the market. Stop laughing.)

“You know, ARC is still going on. You should talk to some of the people there. I think they get back from their last expedition tomorrow or the day after.” 3 years ago, when I had first arrived back from my long trip in Africa, Joe had told me about ARC and had encouraged me to apply. Unfortunately, the director, Jen, told me that while I seemed a great fit for the program, I lacked a certain wilderness certificate to meet criteria. Unfortunately, at the time, I also lacked the money to pay for the course to receive it.

2 days after arriving at Sagehen Creek with Joe, I woke up to the sound of kids running around and shouting back and forth outside my cabin. After having my breakfast I walked out on the deck of the large cabin, and tapped on the shoulder of the nearest counselor. “Excuse me, do you know Jen by any chance?” The counselor turned her head, her brown hair whipping over her shoulder, a crooked grin on her face, and said, “I’m Jen.”

For the last 6 days of this summer’s ARC program, I had the opportunity to work side by side with 10 amazing students and 5 incredible educators. Though my efforts were tiny in comparison to the counselors working for the full 40 days, I got the chance to coach Minnie, Emily, Angela, Aldana, Jaira, Oscar, Brandon, Zach, Gerardo, and Jose through writing very personal works, and then performing those before the local community. More than that, I got a chance to listen to them as they shared their stories with me over meals, during free time, and while we worked; stories of separation, stories of mourning, stories of immigration, stories of loss, stories of alienation in a culture and a world that doesn’t seem to accept them for what they are—stories of perseverance. I welled with pride as they recited their poems in front of 50 community members on Tuesday night; as they taught science lessons to local elementary school children on Thursday; and as they read their “transformational essays” in front of their families this Saturday morning. Their words, so much more confident than when they arrived 40 days prior (according to the other counselors), tried to do what words have always tried to do: explain, connect, convey. “I was….now I am,” said Aldana.

For 40 days those 10 kids got a chance to be away from all the confines, material and otherwise, of their everyday lives. For 40 days, they were given the safety and security to be themselves fully, to explore themselves, to face themselves, to love themselves—to grow, and to learn. In getting a chance to step outside of their realities for a moment, they got to glimpse into one of the great truths that many people are never lucky enough, brave enough, or supported enough to see—they got a chance to see that they are truly valuable. They gained the confidence that we should hope for any of our youth. This is real education.

At the end of the closing lunch, I gave the kids hugs, and wished them well. I watched them as they reintegrated with their families, and while I saw the love between them, I also saw the awkwardness in their interactions. I heard them try to explain stories to their families, and I watched some of the families return blank stares, feigned nods of understanding, and the looks of confusion at inside jokes. I watched frustration start to creep on the faces of the students, for no matter the great strides they’d made in language they were learning another great truth: sometimes words will never be enough.

It has been 5 days now, and for as life-changing as their experience was, it is likely that many of them are struggling with applying much of what they learned to their lives at home. Home comings have a tendency to be like that after great journeys; for all that you learned out there, while beautiful and right, the world is a complex place made of complex beings that don’t work perfectly, and nothing ever fits just right. We all have truths and beliefs, and often times those conflict, so our solutions, though logical and plausible in our minds, are not so in the minds of everyone else. In its nature, the world then presents us with three choices: 1) Embrace the way the world is 2) Reject the world for what it is 3) Accept that the world is one way, but never forget that nothing is absolute, and human beings have the power to recreate and renew. There is always hope, and we are always free if we choose to be.

On the road, things are always so much clearer, but here I am on the porch swing in my mother’s front yard, and a haze is setting in. 3 nights ago I was sleeping out in a random field at the base of the Sierras, and all I could think about was the cold and the adventure of it all, but today I’m thinking about jobs, about money, about debt, about car insurance, of all things. In the end, I’m left with the realization that anyone who wants to have a shred of happiness must come to: there are no easy answers, no final solutions, no perfect plans; there is only life and the compromises that we must come to if we choose to live our lives together. Life with others requires patience.

Does this make the journeying meaningless? Does this make all the great lessons learned along the way worthless? No, because without those moments of reflection and clarity we might lose sight of our dreams and hopes, caught in the mire of the everyday struggles. “Ideals are like stars…we may never reach them, but they can guide us,” my priest once said in a homily. Our ideals, our dreams, our hopes, though often unrealistic, give us a sense of what matters and of who we are, allowing us to rethink those things that seem so set.

Perhaps it is in the moments of retreat and in the irrationality of our imaginings that our better selves connect.

on the banks

I have no plan here. I am just writing, and maybe you’ll gain something from it. Maybe, like a man in the late evening hours troubled by restless thoughts and questions going out for a walk, I’ll tire myself with the wandering and find peace in the curving of the crescent moon…and then soundly sleep. I really don’t know.

It’s exhausting sometimes. “What’s exhausting?” you ask. You know quite well what I’m referring to; you have found yourself worn down by it many times throughout your life, though now you drink wine and eat pleasant meals with friends, and you laugh so much that you cannot remember the feeling of heavy strained eyes staring into everything you once knew and seeing nothing but grains of sand and crashing tides.

In the womb I swam happily about, but then one day I was born into a world that was full of big loud things. The womb was far away. The womb is far away. My eyes developed slowly, my ears and hands as well. I let the womb go, and found that there was much to explore in the world. I crawled around the small living room floor, and when I bumped my head on a table leg I cried until my mother picked me up and rubbed me on the back.

On another day I stood up and started walking. I don’t know why that day was different from others, nor do I know quite how I did it, but I did it, and there I was walking around the living room, then the bathroom, then the kitchen, then the porch, and 12 years later I found myself holding hands with a girl I liked, walking into the woods for my first kiss. The stars were bright that night, the pine trees fragrant, the river rushing. I let go of my house and the small things in it.

But not without heartache.

A man I know built a small cottage on the east side of a little known creek deep in the Himalayas. He spends his winters by the fireside, eating jerky and reading books on agriculture and spirituality…always alternating between the two. When spring comes, a wild garden grows on the back side of the house, with little cultivation on his part. On most afternoons he fishes or walks to the houses of his distant neighbors to eat or go on small hunting trips. He has written me for years, and always in his letters is an underlying peace that I must admit I long for.

On restless nights like tonight, I imagine him there in his cottage sitting quietly and alone, with nothing but the cracking of the knots in the burning wood, and the muffled hush of the creek outside. I love this image, even if imagining it leaves a slight tinge of envy in the recesses of my mind, but I wonder if the image is true. Is peace like that true? In my wondering about this acquaintance of mine, I wonder further if he will ever cross the creek by which he lives and dare to venture past the great river he has written about, 50 miles to the east. By all accounts, the river is nearly impossible to forge, and beyond its banks are a collection of remote villages and people with customs and beliefs completely unique to that part of the world.

When does peace become comfort, and comfort slip into sloth? How long can a man hear a river incessantly calling and not decide to go to it? And can he cross that river and meet those people and not be changed, in turn feeling the pain that comes with it? Is peace possible without moments of war? Is growth?

Sitting on the banks, I sit and listen.

Why I do this

It took me 2 days to climb Mt. Whitney. Looking at the map I thought, “Oh, I can do these 22 miles in a day.” 4 ½ hours later, when I arrived at Trail Camp, 12,000 feet up, and only 6 miles into the hike, my knees were shaky, my heart was beating out of my chest, my eyes were swirly, and my breath was short. Unable to move any further, I set my pack down and slowly set my tent up for the night.

Though it was only 5:30 in the afternoon when I arrived at the camp, the sun was already blocked out by the mountains encircling Trail Camp, which sits in a bowl-like valley. On almost all sides, nearly vertical sheets of rock and snow stretch up 2,000 feet from the valley floor to the surrounding craggy peaks of Mt. Irvine to the South, Mt. Muir to the West, Keeler Needle to the Northwest, Pinnacle Ridge to the North, and Wotans Throne to the East. Whitney itself is hidden behind Pinnacle Ridge. There are 2 small lakes in the valley in which Trail Camp is located, both of which were nearly completely frozen over. Just south and north from camp about a ½ mile in either direction, are larger lakes, Consultation and Iceberg, both of which are still frozen through. Due to the elevation and the cold there is nearly no vegetation, giving the valley a Martian or moon-like appearance. There, among the lakes and the growing dusk, I set up camp with 5 or 6 other small groups.

When my mom dropped me off in Mojave early in the morning on Tuesday, I had no real intention of climbing Whitney. It’s not that I didn’t want to, it’s just that when I had looked it up the day prior, it seemed that it would be nearly impossible to obtain a hiking permit. When the ranger at Lone Pine station said, “Yeah, we have a bunch of permits open,” I was surprised, but nearly as much as when I showed up at Whitney Portal, where the trail begins. Dressed in shorts, a t-shirt, and water shoes, I laughed as I looked around and saw men and women in specialized pants, jackets, boots and packs, with ice shoe cramp-ons and ice axes in tow. “So you going on a day hike?” a man in a group asked me. “No, I’m going to the top.” The group looked at me in unison perplexed by my reply, “In those?!” they asked, referring to my water shoes. “They’re all I’ve got,” I answered.

On the first day the snow wasn’t too bad, and through both days, there turned out to only be about 3 or 4 relatively intimidating snow crossings. Each of those 4 stretched nearly a football field in length which wasn’t a big deal, except for the fact that if your foot was to slip the slightest bit you were looking at a 600 – 1,000 foot slide down an ice sheet into huge boulders at the bottom. No, the snow wasn’t bad, it was the altitude sickness that was the hardest to overcome.
After sluggishly setting up my camp, I changed into warmer clothes, forced myself to eat some canned tuna and trail mix, took a couple Excedrin tablets that a woman was kind enough to give me, and retreated into my tent. My head was really shaky, and it was hard to hold a thought. As tired as I was, my eyes kept fluttering, and my heart rate was still above normal, which made me anxious. I could feel my heart beat in my throat and shoulders. I had the momentary thought that I might die, but that’s just because I’m dramatic. Somehow I slipped into a shallow sleep, and an hour later I woke up much calmer and aware of my surroundings.

Outside the tent, the last bit of light was still lingering in the sky. I stepped out to take a breath and stretch my legs. An 18 year old Vietnamese boy named Brandon, there on a trip with his older family friends, was out taking pictures. I asked him if he’d like to walk with me around the bend to see if we could spot Whitney’s peak.

For the next hour and a half we sat together on a collection of rocks talking about many things. Mostly I listened to him tell me about his current struggles and questions concerning love, manhood, and his life path. We laughed as we talked about how amazing it was that when your body is so beat, a simple energy bar sounds like the greatest meal you could ever have. “I’ve never done anything this hard before,” he told me. “I really like it, but it’s so hard. I didn’t think I’d make it.” The night had set, and the moon reflected off the lakes, the rocks, and the snow creating a soft glow that sat like mist above our heads and the valley floor. The air was stiller than I’ve ever known air to be. There were no critters and no leaves or plants to rustle in any breeze. The only sound was silence, interrupted intermittently by the cracking of ice on the hills and lakes. The earth felt bare, and still my senses were fuller than almost any time I’ve ever known.

People often ask why I travel the way that I do. Part of it is financial, but that is the smallest part. I hitch, I hike, I camp, and try to live on very little because in doing so I am stripped down to my core. I suppose this is a type of escape, though unlike most escapes, the intention is not to flee from reality, but rather to delve deeper into it. Our lives are filled with so many things, so many distractions, that our finer senses are numbed, and we become detached from all the things that matter most. In denying the body for as while we can grow closer with the Spirit, which is what I believe we are in the end anyways. We come closer to the essence of ourselves, both in our interactions with nature and in our interactions with others. This is a sort of fast, and I believe it to be the reason all religions call for a period of fasting: in depleting and depriving the material self, the spiritual self can grow.

In the past 6 days, I have been given rides by 9 different cars, and have shared some very real and important conversations with at least another 10 people. In 6 days I have connected on a very deep level with 20 – 30 people, and in that connection we have shared a bit of our lives together. Somehow my adventure has become their’s, and their lives mine. Meeting people in such humbled circumstances creates a vulnerability which allows for a deeper honesty than is usually possible on such short encounters. The usual walls that are thrown up in our everyday routines for the sake of stability and security, are stripped down, and there we are standing face-to-face, fully present. In such ways, the soul is refreshed.

Still, personally, I know that an entire life in the barren wilderness is not for me.
I must live among the living things. For now I trek…

The State of Hawaii

One thing struck me from the moment I got off the plane in Hawaii: “WHERE THE HELL ARE THE HULA GIRLS WITH MY LEI?!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I figured starting light was probably best for this entry. Truthfully, the first thing that struck me was a simple and incredibly obvious thought: “This is a different country.” I’ve been to my fair share of foreign countries and Hawaii was no different: poor indigenous class, wealthy foreign class, large tourism sector, heavily marketed “local” culture.

Hawaii is not a part of the United States, and the fact that we call it so is honestly an abomination.

Did you know that Hawaii is the most remote populated archipelago (group of islands) in the entire world? This means that it is the most distant place, really, in the world from anything and anyone. How is that a part of our country? 3,000 miles in the middle of the ocean, and that is a part of America? That doesn’t make sense. To be honest, staring at a map it hasn’t made sense for a long time, but being there called it all to present mind.

Did you know that Hawaii imports 90 – 95% of its food? It has some of the most fertile ground in the world, yet it does not grow its own food. Why? Because the natives are too stupid? Because the natives are too lazy? Because they don’t have a good education? Because the natives rightfully signed away all rights to their own land to the landowners? None of the above. Because wealthy people came and pushed them off their land to grow pineapple and sugar for a global economy. The landowners grow rich, the indigenous people struggle. This is our country? Maybe it is.

The fact of the matter is the United States was faced with a dilemma in the 1950s: it needed Hawaii for its strategic location (it’s a crucial stopping point for all cargo going West to Asia across the Pacific), but it didn’t want to have a “colony” because all the colonies around the world were in revolt. How do we solve this? Let’s make it a state!!! So in 1959, as Cuba, Vietnam, Algeria, etc., were in revolt, Hawaii was busy becoming a “state”. But what makes it a state? The fact that it has McDonald’s everywhere? The fact that it has a Wal-Mart and Costco? Explain to me, what makes it America?

And really, this begs the bigger question: what makes America, America? I’ve been lucky enough to travel this country more than most people. I’ve been to 49 of the 50 states. I’ve slept in, ate in, stayed in every single one of those 49. I’ve driven across the country 7 times and each time I was left with this general feeling: “I love America. It’s amazing how it can be so different, yet still so unified.” That observation, I have come to realize, is a farce.

America is not united. The unification and the “oneness” that I felt with all the different regions had nothing to do with “America” and had much more to do with the commonality and general unity that exists within the human race. As I drove around America I marveled at the fact that we were all so different, yet that we were still a part of this one country. The fact is, however, that we ARE all so different, but our unity is not in our country, but rather in the fact that we are all human beings.

What makes America, America? What makes a nation a nation? How can a government 3,000 miles away from me, represent me and provide for me? How is that logical? Why should that be the goal? How am I a part of America? Am I truly an American, and what does that mean?

These are the questions we must ask ourselves. What is the nation-state? I believe it to be an illusion, but what do you think? We can only manage so many relationships in our lives, so how can we believe that a government governing hundreds of millions of lives can govern honestly and effectively? And if it can’t, what are the answers? Where do we go from here? Is the development of the nation-state, the way that it exists, real progress? I live in a community and I don’t believe that Washington can represent us, so why shouldn’t we have our own government? Why is bigger better, and if bigger is better, then at what point do we stop?

Hawaii is more than palm trees and Waikiki. Hawaii is a microcosm for some of the world’s most important questions.

The Word of the Lord

I remember the first time the idea really dawned on me. I was lied up in a hole of a room in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. “Hole of a room” isn’t descriptive enough. The room had a springy mattress full of mites, covered with a dingy floral patterned comforter. I slept in my sleeping bag. The walls were bare, stained yellow and brown from water leaks, and the pain was chipping onto the creaky floor boards through which I often heard mice scurrying. Outside the solitary window in the door leading out to the back lot, the sky remained grey for the full week I was there, and I’m sure this played into much of the gloom I felt in those days.

In those days I did a lot of peering, outside and inside. Under those dingy covers I flipped pages of a book that to me seemed to be much more than a book. I followed the Brothers Karamazov from the depths of sin to the heights of sanctity in pursuit of Truth and Redemption…in pursuit of God. I wept with them, I laughed with them, I learned from them and with them.

The day before I packed up and headed to northern Ethiopia, where they say the Arc of the Covenant lays hidden in the small town of Axum, I finished my journey with the Brothers and their illustrious storyteller, Dostoevsky. Upon finishing the last page I closed the book and whispered, “The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.”

In mass on Sundays there are 3 readings from the Bible. Exempting Easter Season, those three readings are broken down as such: 1) An Old Testament reading 2) A new Testament reading 3) A Gospel Reading. Upon finishing the first two readings, the lector says, “the Word of the Lord,” to which the congregation responds, “Thanks be to God.”

Now some, my mother included, may call me a blasphemer for suggesting that The Brothers Karamazov, a story told by a womanizing drunkard, who by all accounts was brash, anti-social and repulsive by most standards, is equivalent to readings from the Bible. Fortunately for me, I do not fear being called a blasphemer, though true blasphemy is something I should hope to avoid.

In reading The Brothers Karamazov I came to really question what the “Word of the Lord” really was, and in questioning that, I was also forced to question what “The Lord” was. So what is the Lord?

I will not attempt to define God here, because to do so might truly be blasphemy, and because I would be lying to say that I know what God is, when in fact, I have but the slightest inkling as to what God is, and I’m sure something may come to sweep my inkling away.

What I do know is this: The journey towards Truths is a journey towards God, and the Word of the Lord must be something that carries me towards that Truth. So what is Truth? Or, better asked, how do I know if something is leading me towards the Truth?

The Truth is out there, everywhere, around us, and within us, but we don’t see it….why? We don’t see it because it is veiled, by who? by all of us, by our insecurities and our fears. In this context, I believe that the Word of the Lord must be anything that helps to unveil Truth, and so to limit that power to the Bible would be folly and in my opinion blasphemous for it goes to ignore all the other channels through which divinity is constantly speaking to us. Indeed it goes to ignore the fact that we all have the Word of the Lord and the capability to speak It within us.

These are threatening ideas to some, but I believe they can be liberating ideas for all. They are ideas that I have seen further echoed this year as I’ve studied Education, and on which I hope to expound in the coming months.

Today I finished quite possibly the most challenging book I’ve ever read—Walden, by Henry David Thoreau. Upon finishing the book, I felt much the same way I felt 4 years ago in Ethiopia. I closed it, and set it on my floor, ironically, next to my Bible.

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”—page. 359 Walden, Henry David Thoreau