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homanandrew · 8 years

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Free

I just finished filling out my ballot for this year’s election. It took me nearly an hour to fill out but it feels like over a year’s worth of effort.

Like many others, I’m sure, I’ve felt like this has been the longest, bitterest election ever. It’s challenged so many of us in so many ways: beliefs, identities, customs, friendships, to name a few.

At times, it was easy to feel as if there were vast, unseen forces manipulating everything behind the scenes, controlling my choices in leaders, in policies, in shaping my beliefs or in how I get information on any of the above.

But, as I sealed my ballot, I realized something:

I have more freedom than just about any person ever has had.

I am free to vote, obviously, but not only am I free to cast my vote, I am free to do so anonymously, without fear of recrimination.

I am free to choose a party, or, if I don’t feel like a party represents me, I’m free to not choose a party. There’s no requirement for me to align myself with a ruler, a guild, a church, a union or any other group. My voice is mine.

I am free to seek out the views of others, and, just as importantly, I am free to reject the opinions of many. I am free to change my mind as I gather new information and perspectives.

I am free to gather information in so many ways. Instead of being limited by what newspapers, magazines and television have to offer me I have the freedom to actively and easily scour information online. I am free to check, double-check, confirm and evaluate more information than any voter prior to the mid-1990s.

I am free to choose where to manage my money. If I don’t like the policies and practices of a bank or financial institution, I’m free to pull my money out and put it in a different bank or credit union. I can invest wherever I like. I don’t even have to leave home to do so.

I am free enough of time that I can devote some of my time to ensure others have the same freedoms.

Is it always easy? No, of course not. But what of any consequence ever was easy?

And, you know what? You are free, too. The heaviest shackle is complacency, but I think you’ll find that if you tug at that shackle it’ll fall off pretty easily.

Go fill out your ballot and turn it in. Your voice is important.

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homanandrew · 8 years

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Serb or Croat

“Are you a Serb or a Croat?”

“What?”

“You heard me: are you a Serb or a Croat? You have to be for one or the other!”

I had no idea who this young man was. It was the early 1990’s and I had wandered into the backyard of a party I was attending with a friend when this somewhat inebriated young man stepped into my path and demanded I let him know my alignment. I chose one (I don’t remember which, and I’m certain it wouldn’t have mattered) in an attempt to mollify him, but apparently I chose poorly. For that, I received a loud, incomprehensible, drunken lecture on world affairs that I hadn’t really signed up for. I finally escaped when my new teacher spied another obvious recipient of his wisdom trying to sneak past our impromptu classroom.

25 years later, though, I’d like to answer your question. You’ll have to forgive my tardiness, drunken young 90’s man, but I needed some time to think this over.

After careful consideration, my answer is a little bit of “both” and “neither”. But, more importantly, I feel that although you may think my answer incorrect, my belief is that your question is, in itself, incorrect.

You see, as I’ve mulled this over on occasion for the past quarter-century, I’ve had an opportunity to really think about who I am and what labels are important to me.

I come from a family that has lived on the North American continent for over 400 years. Our patronymic namesake came from Germany, but I don’t feel particularly Germanic. In the centuries since our arrival our name has blended with so many other races, faiths and cultures that the German identity has become so dilute as to be unrecognizable. This bothered me for many years as I witnessed others celebrate their heritage, be it Greek or Spanish or Arab. I have no particular ethnic food or dress, and I can’t dance for you the dance of my people, short of biting my lower lip and making a brave attempt to step side-to-side roughly along with a beat and not injure anyone nearby.

I come from a family that is welcoming of other races, faiths and cultures. In my immediate family we have welcomed Russian, Jewish and Hispanic to share our name. My parents were open to all, whether they be Arab or Asian, African or Aleutian.

I come from a family that is welcoming of other faiths. In my immediate family there are Catholics and Lutherans, Presbyterians and Jews, Atheists and Agnostics. The home I was raised in welcomed all of the above, along with Muslim, Hindu, and anything else.

I come from a family of all sorts of political affiliations. Some far to the left, some far to the right, some who couldn’t care less and some, like myself, somewhere in-between.

So, my soused friend, I find that I reject your desire to place an “either/or” condition on my identity. The problem with “either/or” is that it leaves no room for “both” and “neither”. It leaves no room for “a little of this and a little of that”. I reject the notion that I must pick from one of two options. I’m not terribly interested in stepping into a set of "tastes great/less filling", "Ford/Chevy", "Apple/Android", "black/white", "conservative/liberal" boxes.

The question, or questions, my poor inebriated friend, that I think you should be asking: Do you love? If not, what is standing in the way of that, and how can I help? Do you serve? There are many facing challenges today – what can you and I do to help? Do you dream? Tell me about them, and let’s see if we can give your dreams life.

You see, my young friend, I believe you will find if you put away the fermented beverages fueling your philosophies that if you were to ask a Serb or a Croat those very questions, if you would look past those labels, you would find human beings. And, as you tear away the labels and set aside the need to place everyone in a box, you’ll find that the world is not divided into us versus them.

There is only us.

#Serb #Croat #Us #Them

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homanandrew · 8 years

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Strangers In The Night

Thanksgiving 1985.

It’s nearly midnight and I’m thundering a mile a minute across the high, empty desert of central Arizona, singing loudly and pounding the steering wheel as the music from my new cassette tells me to Shout! Shout! Let it all out! And I was, because come on, they were talking to ME!

I’m on my way back to Phoenix from Flagstaff, having just spent Thanksgiving Day with my parents and cousins at my aunt and uncle’s house. I’m 17 and I couldn’t stay in Flagstaff for the whole weekend with my parents because I had a new job to be at the next morning.

I’m scared.

I’ve had my driver’s license for just over a year and this was my first long-distance solo trip. An hour earlier my uncle was admonishing me of the perils of the black ice that could lurk on the surface of overpasses waiting to snatch at the inexperienced wheels of a boy from sunny Phoenix and that thought, along with many other what-ifs, kept creeping around in my head. Alone, I sang loudly to hold them back but I was keenly aware of their glistening eyes peering out of the dark just behind me.

It’s cold, in that surprisingly harsh way the desert can be with scarce resources to trap heat, and even though I have the heat cranked the window is too cold to rest my hand against it, and it’s wet, with a chilly mist settling in the broad arroyos. All I’ve got is a thermos of coffee for a sword and a stack of cassettes for a shield to help me in the battle to stay alert on the empty highway.

And there they were.

My headlights plucked out the car on the shoulder, hazard lights flashing, three heads turning to look my way. In the thump of a heartbeat my foot lifted ever so slightly off the accelerator and a quart of adrenaline spilled in my gut.

What if they’re killers what if they’re rapists what if they kidnap me what if it’s Chester the Molester what will my parents say what will my uncle say I shouldn’t stop for hitchhikers what would Jesus do what would a Boy Scout do I’m trustworthy loyal helpful friendly courteous kind obedient cheerful thrifty brave clean reverent surely killers wouldn’t possibly work in packs maybe they are girls that like awkward teenage boys what’s the right thing to do should I stomp my foot back down on the gas all flooded through my head in the next heartbeat as I shifted my foot over to the brake pedal and slowed behind them.

I stopped a few car lengths behind them and watched as two men and a woman got out of the car and started towards me. I relaxed a little – they looked safe. They were smiling. They looked like me. They wore clothes I would wear.

They were white.

I rolled my window down a few inches as one of the men walked up and began to talk to me with a German accent. They were visiting the States and their rental car had stalled.

I said I would help them.

They grabbed a few things from their car, none of which looked like guns or rope or knives or rags soaked in chloroform, so I unlocked the doors and let two in the back seat and one up front with me. We drove twenty minutes or so down the highway and I let them out at the 24-hour truck stop in Cortes Junction, which in 1985 was just a handful of buildings that seemed to have been left accidentally near the turnoff to Prescott.

30 minutes later the road wound down off the high desert plateau. I ejected Tears for Fears telling me Everybody Wants To Rule The World as the chilly mist hugging the ground higher up was replaced by radio stations from Phoenix and the night was pushed away by streetlights and neon signs. I was home. I was safe. I made it.

I told my parents what I’d done when they returned a few days later and told my uncle when I saw him a month later at Christmas. They all were concerned and a little angry, but they all understood, too, and even then I knew that they were concerned not because I had done something wrong but because they cared about me and my safety. I was part of their tribe and they protected me.

Looking back thirty years later I like to think that I would have helped whomever had stepped out of that car, regardless of their color or race, but I can’t say that with any certainty. I’m certain that my foot continued to hold the brake down, though, because what I saw in front of me was familiar enough for me to feel safe.

In 1985 I didn’t really know anybody that wasn’t white. When I look at my high school yearbook there are few people that don’t look similar to me. A couple of Asians, a few Hispanic, one or two that were black, and Norman from somewhere in the Middle East. It wasn’t an intolerant community – I don’t think the “whiteness” was by design – but that part of Phoenix in 1985 was pretty homogenous. My parents had friends of all sorts: Filipino, Japanese, African and Apache. We even had the son of their Saudi friends stay with us for a year when I was in 6th grade. The only reason I didn’t like him was that he had a better bike than I did and could do that weird trick of turning his eyelids inside-out which, for some reason, made him popular and me jealous.

It wasn’t until two years later, when I was in Basic Training, that I made my first black friends. As I went through college and then came in the Army full-time I made friends of all sorts of races and nationalities: Guamanian, Samoan, Hmong, Hispanic, African, Persian, Korean – you name it. I don’t really think of them that way, though – they’re just whatever their name is. They’re just Peter and Alexander and Zanthia and Maritza and Mi.

When I think about it now I realize that fear has its place. The fear I felt as a young, inexperienced driver that cold November night was appropriate and served me well by making me drive more slowly and cautiously, something teenage males aren’t exactly known for. The fear I felt being out on that high desert plateau by myself was valid, too, because if I’d had car problems I would have been stranded; there were no cell phones in 1985 to call for help with. The fear pumping through my gut as I stopped behind the other car was legitimate, too – I had no way of knowing the intentions of the people in the other car. The fear, expressed as concern, from my family was appropriate, too – they were protecting their own, as they should. The fear of another race or color that may have caused my foot to slide back over to the accelerator and leave stranded people by the side of the road, though, was born from a limited world experience and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to leave that fear in my youth, tucked in a shoebox with memories of the Bogeyman and trolls living under bridges.

Our opposable thumb that allows us to grasp a log and use it as a tool makes us a primate. Using that log to control fire makes us Homo sapiens. Gathering others like us around the fire makes us human and forms our tribes.

Holding the log high, a torch to push out our circle of light, turning from the fire and stepping into the darkness, discerning which eyes are predatory and which eyes are pleading for refuge and bringing them to safety – that is when we become leaders.

#Fear #Strangers #Race #Leaders #Helping

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homanandrew · 9 years

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Prince of Peace

I remember well the day I discovered irony.

It was a weekday afternoon in the autumn of 1980. I was a new student at Ingleside Middle School in Phoenix, Arizona and I was trudging across a large piece of abandoned property that butted up against the east side of the school. I remember the ground being essentially destroyed: at one point I think it had been an orchard, but the citrus trees were all gone and the soil surrounding what was left of someone’s old home had been baked into the pale, weedy crust that returns quickly behind neglect in the desert.

I recalled as I walked around old tires and other garbage that my mother had recently told me that my father had joined a local group that was trying to get the land turned into a park. I had just been looking through the fence at recess and had seen a couple of cars doing donuts in the wrecked dirt and remember thinking that he and his group would have an awful lot of work to do to pull off something like a park, but I also remember boasting to one of my friends that he was part of that project.

I was on my way to my first real social event as a seventh-grader. Not a dance. Not a football game. Not a picnic. Not a birthday party.

I was going to a fight.

There was a large group of kids streaming across that field that day, all being drawn to the same place: a church just down the street on the other side of a big canal. The awareness of the irony had just burst into my head and I was quietly sharing the moment with my friend.

The irony? Not only was the fight taking place behind a church, but that the name of the church was “Prince of Peace”.

My friend and I had a good laugh at that, but we were quiet about it because, like most seventh-graders, we didn’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves for being overly intellectual. To do so would have risked being singled out, taunted, and possibly end up being one of the kids that was going to be who the other kids were going to see fight on another day.

I can’t tell you who was fighting that day, nor can I tell you what they were fighting about. Like most childhood squabbles I’m sure it probably wasn’t over much – some perceived slight or just someone trying to assert some sense of superiority. I can’t even tell you if there was a winner or if either of them was hurt very badly. I’ve never really cared for watching others fight, so I suspect that even though I was there I probably closed my eyes for much of it. I’m willing to bet, though, like all the other kids, that I probably added my voice to the noise, cheering one or the other on, shouting to be seen and heard and to feel like I belonged, and probably, because I could get away with it, used language I would not normally have used in front of my parents or any other grown-up.

Thirty-five years later I find myself thinking about this moment quite a bit. The world has changed in ways we could scarcely imagine then. I’m sure my parents were watching the presidential election news, but they only had 3 channels on which to see Jimmy Carter debate Ronald Reagan. To me, as a 12 year old boy, it already seemed like ancient history but the country was still emerging from the hangover of the war in Vietnam and few adults and even fewer kids could have told you with any certainty where Afghanistan was or if it were even a real place. Everyone knew where the Middle East was and even kids could point to Iran on a map because of the hostage crisis. Even as a 12 year old I could grasp that much of the country was worried about our economy.

Thirty-five years ago few, if any, of us would have known much about computers, let alone something as mystical as “the web” that was already in its early days of development. Discussion about all those topics was personal: either face-to-face or on the telephone.

Thirty-five years later, though, much of the conversation is the same. The country is agonizing over its direction and who to choose as its leader. A conflict in a curious corner of Asia has essentially ended, again without a climactic victory but with a gradual tapering off of aggression. Iran is still a concern, as is much of the Middle East.

Thirty-five years later we aren’t discussing the presidential race, the Middle East, Afghanistan or the economy in person. These conversations are largely occurring on social media.

Thirty-five years later, I see the same irony.

So often now I see that “social” media can be anything but social. I frequently see people writing mean things and hurtful comments, often with language that normally wouldn’t be used in front of their parents or other grown-ups.

Thirty-five years later, though, I have to ask myself: as I make my approach to the social gathering place, which side of the building do I want to head to? As I make my way will I head around to the back door? Will I plant my feet and curl my fists? Will I join in the chorus of taunts, snarling my support for something I don’t fully understand just to be seen? Will I use language that I wouldn’t use in front of my mother? Will I just close my eyes and try to shut out the unpleasantness?

Or will I walk around to the front door instead? Will I choose to open my arms and lower my defenses? Will I choose to build up those around me? Will I be civil, polite, and use kind language? Will I open my eyes to the needs and fears of others? Will I try to understand, rather than convince? Will I lend my efforts to building something that helps others do the same?

Will I choose the Prince of Peace?

Thirty-five years later, if I’m in Phoenix, I often drive past a wonderful park that stands where the wrecked orchard used to be. I see laughing children playing on the playground, families having birthday parties and adults exercising on the fitness stations that dot the edges of the well-maintained grass.

My father passed away twenty-four years ago. I can’t ask him what his views are on the economy, the Middle East or Afghanistan. I don’t know who he chose in the election that year.

I do know which door he chose.

#irony #Prince of Peace #social

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homanandrew · 9 years

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Them

I’ve been thinking a lot about “them” lately, and how if they would just see things the way I do the world would be such a better place. If only they would just understand - if they could only see! Sometimes I can’t believe how foolish they are, or how much they must not care, or what terrible people they are or what horrible parents they must have had to have raised them this way. It’s all their fault. I wish they would just get out of the way. They’re destroying our way of life, our country and our planet.

I decided to go looking for them to set them straight, but I never can find them. They must be hiding because they know they’re up to no good. They always seem to live somewhere else or they speak a different language or they dress differently, because I can’t ever seem to find them around here. Or maybe it’s because they’re being sneaky and they’re trying to blend in with the rest of us by dressing the same way and eating the same foods. I’m not sure yet. That sounds like something they would do.

I always seem to bump into new people when I go looking for them. I’ll ask the new person if they’ve seen them but they never have, either. Sometimes the new person will help me start looking for them, but we never seem to have much success. I don’t mind, though, because as we’re looking I always seem to learn more about this new person, which is nice. I’ve made some great friends while looking for them. I like the new friends because they have new, interesting stories I’ve not heard before that I can’t wait to share with my old friends, who are probably getting tired of hearing all of my old stories for the hundredth time.

My new friend often times has grown up somewhere else, which is fun because we often realize that we call the same item by a different name or pronounce something different, and we get a good laugh out of that. Sometimes we’ll cook something together and they’ll introduce me to something cool and exotic their grandmother used to make back in her old country. Some of my new friends have even invited me to come to their church and I got to meet some more great people and learn some new songs. Sometimes I meet a new person while I’m looking for them and we end up marveling at how similar we are or how odd it was we never met because we know all the same people. A few times, when I was almost halfway around the world trying to find them, I ran into new people who became new friends. My new friends from other countries haven’t had any luck finding them, either. Like I said – they hide really well.

One of the best things that happened, though, was that when one time I went looking for them I found you. I like you because you’re different than me and have interesting perspectives and have had some great experiences. I always seem to learn something from you. Many times you’ve helped me understand myself better. You make me laugh, and because we’ve really gotten to know each other, you can even make me cry. We don’t always see things the same way, but that’s okay because with you I feel safe. You’re not one of them.

Will we find them? I think so, eventually. And when we do, boy are they going to get it!

We can do it. I believe in us, my friend.

#them #us

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homanandrew · 9 years

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Cathedral

When I was 10 or 11 years old my Uncle Frank gave me a book titled “Cathedral”. It was an illustrated book, mainly, but the story that ran through it was about a fictional town in the 12th century that elected to build a new cathedral after their existing church had burned down. In this age this was no small decision: a building as large and as expensive as a cathedral could take over 100 years to construct, meaning that those who initiated the project were highly unlikely to see the finished product. What motivated them, then? Certainly not personal glory or fortune, as those rewards would not come in their lifetimes. Prestige for their town? Perhaps, but even that boast could not be claimed for many, many years, if at all. So just what would move a community to pitch in and undertake a difficult, costly goal with the payoff a century away?

In a word, the answer is faith. This may seem like a simple, pat answer, and you could be excused for saying it and walking away, thinking you had answered the question. But so often, when the answer is faith, that answer in itself is just a door that opens up to a much larger picture.

As a person of faith, I felt compelled when I first started working for the YMCA to donate a small amount of money to our annual campaign. It wasn’t any more difficult than slipping a few dollars in the offering plate at church. If you had asked me then why I gave, I probably would have said something along the lines that I was just doing my duty. It certainly wasn’t for recognition, as the amount I was able to give then wasn’t even enough to merit a plaque over a drinking fountain. But my faith compelled me to give a little, so a little I gave and a small, warm, fuzzy feeling I received.

About the time Sarah and I got married, however, we started feeling a tug to give a little more. We talked it over and made the difficult leap to give at a higher level. This wasn’t an easy decision – we were just married and had big life decisions in front of us, such as buying a house and starting a family. We took the leap of faith together, though, and made the commitment. And, in that leap, our understanding of faith changed – we knew we could trust that voice that was asking us to give more.

At our staff campaign kick-off the following year I was asked to speak to all our full-time staff to encourage them to consider giving to the annual campaign. I prepared a speech and rehearsed it a few times. But that morning, as I walked to the front of the room and stood next to my very pregnant wife, I was suddenly aware that what I had planned to say wasn’t coming from my heart. It wasn’t easy – I felt very vulnerable – but instead of delivering my speech, I shared with the staff that we were now giving because we believed in the work they were doing. We had faith that they, with their gifts, were going to make a huge difference in the lives of our children. Our understanding changed again – our faith grew by opening ourselves up to our community.

That was 11 years ago. Every year since we have reached a little further, stretched a little bit more and increased our gift to this community. In that 11 years the YMCA has more than doubled in size – we serve more people in more locations and in more ways than I think any of us ever dreamed possible back then. And, in that span of 11 years, my understanding of faith has been stretched, too, to where I now can begin to see how a community could make a decision 1000 years ago to erect a cathedral none of them would ever get to see. The decision was not just to build a building, but to build each other. The community does not build a cathedral; the cathedral builds a community.

Can you only imagine what we could build together? I invite you to take that step.

#cathedral #giving #charity #faith #YMCA

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homanandrew · 9 years

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Without light, nothing flowers

17 years ago I had an opportunity to visit a friend of mine stationed in Germany. About a week into our trip we found ourselves in Munich, and since I've always been an avid reader of history I suggested we visit the concentration camp memorial at Dachau, just northwest of the city. We drove up to the camp on a warm, sunny spring day and pulled into the lot, only to discover that the memorial was closed on Mondays. A little disappointed, but with a beautiful day still in front of us, we headed back down into Munich and, with beer and bratwurst to be had, Dachau was soon all but forgotten.

Less than 2 years later, however, I was fortunate enough to be able to return to Germany to visit another friend who had recently been assigned to a small base near Nuremberg, about 60 miles north of Munich. My friend was an Army Chaplain Assistant working alongside a Catholic priest from Munich who had contracted with the military to perform Mass for soldiers in the area. I told the priest about my failed attempt to visit Dachau and he offered to escort us there as it wasn't too far from the train station near his apartment. So, a few days after Christmas, a group of us bundled up as best we could and took the train down to the Dachau station.

When the priest had told us the camp was near the station we should have asked just what he meant by "near". We left the train station as dusk was falling and trudged down a sidewalk in a chilly, breezy mist, trying our best to keep our feet out of the puddles of dirty, slushy snow. I remember us shuffling along quietly, each of us trying to pull our not-quite adequate coats around us to hold off the piercing damp, wondering just how much further we were going to have to walk and, as night fell, hoping that the gates would be still be open. With the miserable conditions it felt like one of the longest walks of my life, even though in reality it was only maybe 2 miles.

The gates were open when we arrived, but the memorial was closing shortly. Annoyed at being rushed after our slog through the snow, we took 20 minutes or so to look at some exhibits before stepping back out into the snow to look at the rows of barracks that housed the prisoners. I can still picture well the long rows of buildings stretching into the darkening sky, cloaked in the dim, desperate fog hanging in the frigid night air. I remember feeling ashamed that I had only moments before been grumbling about wishing I'd worn a warmer coat and had been making plans to go find a hot meal, then feeling humbled by the knowledge that, unlike those who had been marched there against their will, possibly in the same sort of weather, I was free to go do just that.

We bent back into the wet wind and headed off into the night to seek some comfort, and as I shuffled through the slush it dawned on me that this, and not that sunny spring day, was how Dachau should be experienced.

15 years later I can still see it, still sense it, still remember feeling both the sense of horror and the sense of gratitude for having the freedom to leave.

Today, on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the world pauses to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. Pledges will be made to never forget, to never let this happen again in any corner of the world. I pray that these pledges are true, because, as Bodie Thoene once wrote, "apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand."

As dark as this may seem, though, I don't believe we are meant to dwell in darkness. For me, what I carried away from this experience was a sense of hope, a belief that in spite of that terrible December day I could count on the reassurance that there would once again be a warm, sunny April morning. That, in the words of the Reverend Dale Turner, "we must be hopeful gardeners of the spirit, knowing that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers".

#Dachau #Germany #BodieThoene #Holocaust #DaleTurner #Auschwitz

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