hopeful

I started scribbling my first 2008 blog entry well over a week ago, but like most things, it’s somehow taken me a disproportionate amount of time (and at least three half-written drafts) to find a few stolen moments to actually sort of finish something. Where have I hidden myself away, you may ask? Why, on an airplane, of course!

It’s not another African adventure, just a quick trip to London for a few days of meetings. Comparatively, I may as well be flying to Texas – that’s how easy it feels, in both my luggage weight and anxiety level. I speak the language, it’s only one six-hour flight – no problem!

But this need to “write in ’08” has lingered like a fog, and honestly, has been quite distracting. During our few lovely days of springtime warmth amid a bleak Baltimore winter, I literally couldn’t stop staring out the window at work, thinking of metaphors for “the naked winter trees stretching their finger-like branches upward against the cloudless sapphire sky” (it was a poetic moment in the most lifeless of seasons – I couldn’t help it!) Yet, aside from a few metaphorical lines, when I tried to actually write, my thoughts would repeatedly turn to one of the bleakest of blah subjects – politics.

As you join me in reeling in disgust at such a notion, maybe I should try to share what I think I’ve traced it to, my own 2007 metamorphosis of sorts = I started working as an advocate, and somewhere along the way, I think I may have actually become one.

The objective of my “day job” is to raise awareness about malaria and educate those holding the global purse-strings about what’s working so they can allocate resources so those programs can continue and grow (ah, it sounds so simple when I write it!). But for me to do that with at least some credibility, I needed to be educated as well – thus one of the main reasons I spent much of last year traipsing around Africa. The cumulative effect of these experiences was a jarring realization of the inequity in our world – not to mention the personally riveting impact of specific aspects like, well, the desolation of refugee camps and overflowing hospitals bursting with people sick from preventable and easily treatable diseases, just to name two…

Yes, I’d traveled and lived abroad before, but largely in a post-disaster context, in a place where, frankly, people really weren’t doing too bad before the unthinkably awful tragedy of the tsunami. And as infrastructure and housing were restored, people were (economically at least) often doing even better than they were before. Extreme poverty (in all its ugly manifestations) was not and had not destroyed their society from the inside out. So, this past year, when I spent extended periods of time in villages and cities and countries with such incredible deprivation, I couldn’t help but be dramatically impacted by it.

As the months flew by, and I settled into my new work, my new life, little by little between trips, I increasingly found myself turning (albeit subconsciously) to books, to magazines, to the news and world events, looking for something (anything!) that could help me understand what I had been seeing and experiencing, and to grasp why when I came home, it seemed like most everyone around me (most people in our great country) had no idea what was going on in Africa and really didn’t really seem to care.

And that’s where I’m at. Needless to say, I’m still searching and questioning and praying and don’t have very many answers yet, but one thing I do know for sure is that every single one of us can make some kind of an impact. Sure, it may sound cliché (“the power of one”), but let the truth of it sink in for a minute… We have, in America, so many, many blessings and privileges that millions of people (dare I say billions even) around the world do not = education, resources, access to the mass media, the power of our vote – just to name a few. We have the choice of who leads our country and how (if we don’t like it, we can vote them out); we can hold those elected officials accountable through and with the media (think: letters to the editor, blogs, etc.); we have an equal opportunity educational system that gives everyone (really, it does) a chance to succeed and excel; and we are the wealthiest country on earth, overflowing with resources of all kinds… but so often (as individuals and as a nation) our “wants” get in the way of being truly generous and helping to lessen the gap between us (at one end of the have/have not spectrum) and them (at the other).

For me, last year, I put a face and a name and a place to that enigmatic “them”… and because of them, I may never, ever be the same.

So, all of that to say, I have started paying attention to politics, among other things, as part of my own commitment to make an impact. And despite how infuriating some politicians are, it’s regular people (like our neighbors in Iowa) who remind me to be hopeful, who can demonstrate to all of us (and the rest of the world, who’s closely watching) that there are Americans who are demanding something different from our leaders, who want change in our country and a positive impact on our world.

So, if you needed the reminder in ’08, here it is = you can make a difference. Every little act of service, every contribution of time or money, every effort made to speak out, to look beyond yourself, your life and your own little bubble (we all have them) and attempt to understand our complex world better – it all matters.

But for goodness sakes, if you do nothing else at all, at least vote! It’s an election year – it *really* matters! There are candidates on both sides of the aisle that seem promising, some more than others (I dare you to read this article and not have your interested piqued a bit). But personally, I am too much an independent thinker to be convinced this early in the process. We shall see how that changes by November…

All in all, I guess I’ve emerged from the strains of a little learning last year to a lot of resoluteness in ’08. Some questions, some struggles (like the battle against malaria, for one) do indeed have answers and solutions. For the rest, we can only continue to search, work, and pray. But I fully believe that change is in the air, and really, not all the news is bad these days (or so I was recently reminded). I have a new favorite CD playing softly in my ears, and though London’s likely to be rainy, I’ll have fresh memories of last week’s spring-like poetic days when I’m in the land of Wordsworth and Coleridge. Things are looking up...

And so thick thoughts like London’s fog
lifted with the sunrise of letters against a page
shaped upon a weightless canvas
a placeholder among moments
almost forgotten