1) Brad and I had a group of middle school girls sing the “Hippo Noodle Song” to us.
2) A nine year old girl showed up to a show with two hand drawn (and very bloody) vampires for us.
“The gain in life comes so slowly and the losses come on suddenly.”
“The slow rate of learning is discouraging to the older man, but thank God for illumination at whatever age.”
[via "Love Me" by Garrison Keillor]
If I were president the first things I would advocate for:
1) Return the dollar back the to gold standard Take monetary policy out of the hands of people and places it in the hands of the free market. In the short term the market would be a better reflection of the economy. In the long term the market would be healthier.
2) Eliminate the Electoral College Allow presidential elections to be fought in all states, not just swing states.
3) Impose term limits on senators and congressmen Professional politician server themselves and lobbyist more than they serve the people.
4) Statehood for the District of Columbia 500,000 people pay Federal Income Tax and have no representation. A little war was fought somewhere in the North East over this issue. Today’s situation is a crime.
I have been out of LA for weeks now, but still somehow I haven’t wrapped my head around all I experienced and saw. With that being said, with each passing moment it seems to become more and more distant.
Twice I have read my mothers reflections of the experience to audiences. In both cases I could not get through them with out choking up. The wound is still very raw when it is rubbed, but it is becoming more and more like a dull headache. In the moment you can’t feel it, but the moment you pause you are reminded it is there.
That is what happens with cuts a burses. They heal. Maybe not completely. They leave marks of remembrance, but some how we carry on.
We have to carry on, because other wise we would be crushed by the growing pain and sorrow we add in our lives.
In some way, I still need the pain. I need to be re-reminded what is out there. How the human family is struggling.
The School of Empathy
When I was in sixth grade I corrected by teacher. She was talking about feeling empathy. I raised my hand, “Don’t you mean sympathy?” Empathy was a word that I had not been introduced to. Even though my life is full of empaths, my heart was not introduced to empathy until I stood in that shelter.
I have felt sympathy many times before. I felt sympathy for my friends who lost so much in the gulf cost. I called, texted, and e-mailed them to let them know I was thinking of them and felt sorry for there plight and made feeble offers to help.
By Monday afternoon (my first day in the shelter) my heart broke open. I can’t say I have any clue what it feels like to go through all those in the gulf region had gone (and are going) through. My heard did not feel those emotions. Instead, my heart gave the ugly duckling reflection in the pond water of their emotions. My heart felt a fraction of a distorted replica of their feelings.
Oh, how my heart ached. I did not feel sorry. I felt pain. It is embarrassing to think how much I ached, know it was only a small part of what those who’s lives have to turned upside down felt.
I think that is part of the reason I feel helpless in this moment. I feel like I have less of a grasp on the problem before I went down. I fell like I have less of an understanding of how I have help. It is not a intellectual puzzle that needs to be put back together.
It reminds me of the old Judybats’ line. “Hearts cannot be broken. They are small squishy things. They don’t break like glass, but they bruise easily.”
How Not To Help
Offering help is tricky business. How do you go into a situation and provide help without saying, “You are not capable of doing anything. Let me fix you.”?
I learned a great lesson of dignity from the Cajon people. They way they over and over again provided aide in a fashion that was not a put down. Unfortunately, I saw the exact opposite from people who are suppose to do this right.
I must preface this with the fact this is one experience. It is not good to judge any organization on a small group of people that represent it. There were a few media accounts of similar things happening in other places. I am not sure if this is because they truly were isolated instances, or a story the mainstream media wants to steer away from.
Eleven days after land fall the Red Cross finally showed up. I don’t blame them for that. Their first act was to take over the shelter and turn away all the local volunteers. That was a crime. The people, who from there own blood, sweet, and tears had built a shelter out of nothing (included working showers and the ability to feed 2,100 a meal) were turned away. The people who, as one local volunteer put it, “always take care of their own during hurricanes.” They replaced the people who had relationships with those who were living in the shelter with untrained volunteers from California.
By day two the locals forced their way back in.
Only after 24 hours the RedCross had instituted many of it own rules. Their rules come from years of experience working with tragedy. But they also come from a large stuff of lawyers. Suddenly, people were restricted where they were allowed to go. They would only take donations of money. They changed the way the food was prepared (with the end result cause a significant drop in quality). They would not do many of the things the locals were willing to do help because of the liability. (For example they would not give anyone a ride. How exactly are you going to get to the dentist office, the social security office, or the DMV with out a ride when you have lost everything you own?)
They patronized the local. We were asked to move some clothing on Monday (the first full day with both locals and RedCross in the shelter). One of my friends who had been the shelter since day one was a little stunned as he was being ordered around. The volunteer then turned to him and said (like you would to a first grader), “You did such a good job. Keep up the good work.” It was as if they felt they needed to be cheerleaders to these back woods locals to make sure they kept their spirits up.
This may seem like a small thing, but in moment it was so hurtful. Some of the RedCross volunteers complained out loud. They complained about long hours, sore feet, having to sleep on cots, and the lack of sleep. They made these complaints without thought of who was standing around them (such as people who had lost everything they owned less than two weeks earlier).
There are times when we all need to blow off steam. On more than one occasion I heard, “Let’s step outside for a smoke,” from the shelter director. It was code for, “Come outside and stand next to me so I can blow off steam in a healthy way.”
If the locals complained or were blowing off steam they were doing it about the situation. They complained about the slow response of the government, the red tape that was slowing down funds, how people being treated, or the fact that there was a problem the could not solve for one of their guests.
I never once heard a local complain about their own plight. They understood the magnitude of what was happening around them. They felt lucking. They gave as much as they could and then quietly went home after a few hugs for the other volunteers.
Yes, there are two things that needed to be pointed out.
First, I as well was an outsider. This was not my community. I was prompted by some sense of hubris that I could make a difference. It is possible that I was an ugly outsider as well. I hope I was more help than harm.
Second, there were some really awesome RedCross volunteers. They brought in some great medical help, and a number of the regular volunteers (once they sensed the tension that was forming between the RedCross and the locals) would just walk up to local and say, “Tell me how I can help you.”
In the end the locals treated the RedCross as one more obstacle to helping the people in the shelter.
By the time I had left, they had finally gotten the from photo copied (it took four days) so those displaced could apply for vouchers. The vouchers would ultimately bring the cash that was so generously donated from all over the world, into the hands of those in need.
Back To My Point
My goal was not to write a RedCross bash. It was simply very frustrating to see it happen. Good meaning people do a poor job at help.
The take away from me is the caution it now raises when I think I am going to “help.” The struggle is how do I, with dignity, walk with my fellow man?
A task that is much harder solving a problem or fixing something that is broke.