Happy Halloween

It was our house responsibility to host the last "volunteer night". This included making a meal and coming up with entertainment activities (you will recall at the last one I won a zucchini for my dominance in twister). Well, our activity didn't work out, but we did have a costume requirement. Check out the pictures I posted. I was a little disappointed in that I, in the spirit of the upcoming season, decided to dress up as Baby New Year 2009. But to my chagrin I discovered that not all youth are familiar with who Baby New Year is. Oh well. The manicotti was good, as was the company. Happy Halloween everyone. Hope you are still smiling.

Not much to report

So I have been generally just working along, doing miscellaneous work along with my day to day. We went to a conference in Durango which was actually beneficial. The best part of this trip was Wolf Creek Pass. It is a very beautiful ride, as well as an amazing engineering feat. I pulled muscles in both my legs playing football this morning. Hopefully that pain won't last long. Overall it is just life in the SLV as normal. It was a beautiful sunrise this morning. The sky looked like it was on fire. These are not uncommon sunrises here. This place has a beauty to it that is hard to describe. My son is now in Japan for a year. It was hard not to be there to say goodbye, but at the same time was not that different than when he was at college. I am proud of the individuals both my children have become, and after seeing how some families exist around here, am constantly thankful for the wisdom and guidance my wife has provided for our family. So that's about it. Haven't heard from anyone in a while, so say hi if you want. Monday I start singing in a small group in Monte Vista that should be fun. Hope all is well in your life, and remember to wake up each morning and thank whoever you wish for the fact that you can open your eyes on one more glorious day, and be able to interact with people who love you.

Looking for Feedback - Too Late to Ignore

In my current job it becomes more and more apparent to me that the work I do is only helping to “stop the bleeding” of many of the people receiving aid. The concept of homelessness as something we can cure is entirely misleading. I believe the effort to end homelessness in 10 years is noble, but it will never catch those on the edge of poverty, living pay check to pay check. These people are right on the edge of falling into homelessness, one minor medical bill or illness from losing a job and all their money. Sure we can provide them a home, give them aid, but they always will be struggling if we don’t make fundamental changes to our society. The reason is that homelessness is not the real problem; it’s a symptom of some fundamental issues that even those battling homelessness don’t seem to want to take on. That is because in large part it is political, and calls for challenging ourselves to make some fundamental shifts in our thinking as Americans. Non-profits can’t afford to go down this road, as they risk alienating donors, foundations, and government funding sources. Given how much competition there is for the non-profit buck, there is no room to challenge the way things are. I believe there are several major areas that need to be addressed to actually give people a chance.

The first is obvious. It’s adequate, affordable health care that is available to all individuals. The current candidates don’t even talk along this line. They talk about tax breaks and more money available to us to pay for rising costs. What we need is policies that limit profits with any business associated with medical costs. We need to stop rising costs in all medical areas. We need to make it less costly for doctors to practice medicine by reserving malpractice for true negligence. We need to encourage doctors to work in low income areas by giving relief of their medical loans if they do service in these areas. Health care fundamentally needs to be viewed as a right, not as a commodity. We should be embarrassed as a nation that with all our wealth, we allow people to live in a state of physical and mental illness when we have the means to fix it.

The second thing we need to change as a nation is our concept of minimum wage. We should devise a way that people get extra money if working at livable wage. Perhaps we need a sliding scale for businesses depending on their size and ability to pay. For example we should determine a livable wage of $9. If a business is large enough to support this, they should pay it, but if they can’t we need to determine the minimum wage a business can afford. For instance if a business can afford $7 per hour, we should pay the individual through the government an additional $2 an hour to give them a reasonable hourly rate. What unfortunately occurs is that often, between day care (another thing we need to change) and fuel costs, it is easier for someone to try and pull government and aid money than work. This costs us so much more that $2 or even $5 an hour. This would also give neighborhood businesses a chance to compete against the Wal-Marts of the world but equalizing the cost of wages based on the profitability and size of the company.

Just these two things alone would keep many people living a better life, with more money in their pocket to keep them better fed, to pay energy bills, to help their children with education. There are many other things we could do. The problem is that this all feels a bit like socialism, and perhaps it tends that way. But our government has more than once bailed out businesses. What about bailing out our own people? And of course those of us who are fortunate enough to make a good income may have to look at our own lives differently. We may need to pay more taxes, or at least become involved enough in our politics to try and change the way money we give to our government is allocated. So how do we start friends? Let me hear your ideas.

Dostoevsky

I forgot how much I really loved The Brothers Karamozov. I suppose when I first read it, I didn’t quite get it all. Reading it again has given me a whole different appreciation for it. The philosophical spectrum he presents with his characters creates more questions than it answers. Anyway I really enjoyed this little passage from the Elder Zosima in response to people criticizing monks for being isolationists.

“For all men in our age are separated into units, each seeks seclusion in his own hole, each withdraws from others, hides himself and hides what he has, and ends by pushing himself away from people and pushing people away from himself. He accumulates wealth in solitude, thinking: how strong, how secure I am now; and does not see, madman as he is, that the more he accumulates, the more he sinks into suicidal impotence. For he is accustomed to relying only on himself, he has separated his unit from the whole, he has accustomed his soul to not believing in people’s help, in people or in mankind, and now only trembles lest his money and his acquired privileges perish. Everywhere now the human mind has begun laughably not to understand that a man’s true security lies not in his own solitary effort but in the general wholeness of humanity.”

Isn’t this really where many of us are at? We worry about all of our acquisitions, worry about our retirement security, worry about whether we can afford a new house in a better neighborhood. But the reality is if we all recognize how we are all connected we could build a more secure feeling for everyone. I won’t go on about health care (yet) or our economic system (yet), but this is exactly where we are at. Encouraging the individual to make good, and ignoring the involvement with the community. Think about how you measure success. Please. If you are happy with your answer, whatever it is, I applaud you. If you aren’t, try to decide how you would like to answer and pursue that course in your life.

Thanks Galina for giving me the wonderful translation of The Brothers Karamazov before I left. It makes for wonderful reading and thought.

So I've Been Busy

Last week was our first week without our manager. We probably will get another come mid-November. Anyway I have been doing lots of data entry, and developed some simple, very poorly designed databases to allow for better collection of some data. It is hard building something that you know you have to make simple so people without any background in databases can maintain it. Pretty shabby stuff. Anyway, I meant to write more often, but just have been going with life, watching baseball, working, actually playing football (and my body reminds me often now that I really don't have my muscles in shape for that). I miss home at times, only for the warmth of my friends and family. It feels isolated out here. This area feels sad to me, and I am thankful that I have come here with such a great group of volunteers. Their presence takes away some of that edge, and their kindness towards each other is uplifting. I am trying to write something up on symptom vs. disease of things like homelessness and poverty. I am discouraged by both of our primary presidential candidates in that they really say very little new. When I hear change, I like to see 90 degree departures, not 5 degree variances. Hopefully once elected, whoever wins will show their true ideas instead of the sugar coated platitudes they throw out in speeches and debates. Hope all is well with you (whoever you may be) and remember to always be thankful for what you have, no matter how little it seems. And also remember that your most precious possession is your relationships with other, so cherish and nurture them. I read a great paragraph in The Brothers Karamozov (yes Galina, still reading) that I will share with you at a later date that speaks to the point of our relationship to each other and the importance of it. I love you all, and I understand that more each day.

Hope Week

This week is Hope Week at La Puente. It attempts to get the community involved and help them understand aspects of volunteerism, homelessness, etc. It ends with a grand community picnic at the shelter. Tonight we had a candlelight vigil walking from the shelter to a church with 3 stops along the way where reflections were read at the railroad tracks, at a dumpster, and at a bank. I had the honor of doing a reflection at the bank (symbolizing the value we put in money). I post it here for your enjoyment (or laughter or anger or whatever). Kind of a repeat for most of you, but for those who don't read regular, it shares a bit of my motivation for being here.

Bank Statement
There was a day when I measured my wealth by my possessions. Not just money or my house but also my job title and how much other’s valued me. I contributed to charities and donated a small part of my time as an obligation and perhaps as a way to make up for my accumulations. As I grew older and my wealth increased, I only felt emptier. There was something beyond possessions that I was missing.

Now I see that regardless of how wealthy I am, my true friends are still my friends, my family still loves me, and my happiness isn’t measured by what I have, but how I view the world around me. As humans, our worth comes not from wealth, but from the compassion, love, and respect we hold for others. Seeing the connection between us all allows us to realize that true happiness comes not from material possessions but from loving ourselves as we are, and letting that love flow through us to others.