Having a "Career" is not for me.

I've been thinking about what the next step in my so-called career is going to be.  I say, "so called" because I'm not really seeing what I do as a career.  I don't expect that you'd ever hear an exchange like... 

Person A: "that Ben he's a good (insert profession here)." 

Person B: "I agree.  Since he (insert verb) my (insert noun) I can't see going to any other (insert profession)." 

end scene

I don't want to call it a career because I've always tried to do what I love doing while having someone pay me to do it.  I say "tried" because my stint at Spaghetti Warehouse in Oklahoma City was not the thing I love to do.  I think about striving to reach the top of the heap within a career.  I don't really want that.  I want to be happy doing my thing.  I want to know that I'm doing good for others.  I want to do nothing that gets placed before being a good husband and a great Dad.  If I forge something that meets these three conditions, I will know I'm doing what I should be doing for the time being.

Here's something that looks like it could meet my requirements:

BUILDING AND GROWING ON COMMON GROUND

Community gardens provide many physical, psychological and social benefits—not to mention fresh food and outdoor exercise. They also provide opportunities for experiential learning which can be especially helpful for children and youth growing up in environments of disadvantage.

In this collaborative project, undergraduates and graduates from CU work with students at a K-12 school for special-needs and at-risk youth in Lafayette, Colorado, to create and maintain a vegetable garden and a straw-bale greenhouse. The goal of the project is to create common ground, literally and figuratively, for the university students and these youth, while including also residents from the surrounding neighborhood, which houses a low-income, minority population, with little public space and few opportunities for growing flowers or vegetables.

Students working on the project develop an understanding of the difficult challenges facing others, who are less privileged. The garden offers an opportunity for cross-cultural sharing of practices and traditions in agriculture and food preparation. It also will provide a space for community and school social events, gatherings and celebrations.

The project prepares design students for professional practice after graduation that engages with the needs of nontraditional clienteles. It implements the University of Colorado’s Vision 2010, which calls for innovative initiatives that bridge disciplines and connect the campus with the community.

Funding for this project was provided by the CU Boulder Outreach Committee; the CU President’s Office for Diversity and Excellence; the Service-Learning Program; and Flatiron Academy. The National Wildlife Federation offered a workshop for participating students and teachers.

For more information, contact cye@colorado.edu 

Something to put in the palate of possibilities.

1996 Interview with a pre-political Obama

Barrack Obama on what he wanted to accomplished if he entered public life, from an interview with photographer Mariana Cook:

"My overriding vision is driven by children and what I see happening to children. And as African American, I end up being concerned about children in the inner cities, and what is happening to them, and the complete lack of any kind of stable framework in which they can grow and develop. A lot of that is determined by economics and the life chances and opportunities that they face or their parents face. A lot of it has to do with values, things like family values that are talked about all the time, and bandied about by politicians. But I think values aren't just individual. Values are collective. Children learn values from what they see around them, and if they see that their parents' lives are not valued, or that their community is not valued; if their schools are falling apart, and their streets are falling apart, and their homes are falling apart, and people's lives are falling apart -- because they don't have jobs or opportunity -- then it's very hard for children, out of thin air, to create values for themselves that can sustain them.

'And so I think that my priority is to restore a sense of public values, or a collective value to the debate. And that means recognizing that we are one big family, and that across racial lines, and across class lines, that we have mutual obligations and mutual responsibilities. Maybe that's where the public and the private meet, when it comes to couples or relationships, or families or tribes. But the overriding priority in all those associations is a sense of mutual responsibility and empathy, then being able to put yourself in another person's shoes. That's how the marriage between Michelle and me sustains itself. We can imagine the other person's hopes or pains or struggles. And we have to extend that beyond just the individual families to other people."

Story from PRI

Enough for EVERYONE

originally posted here

As my year with the Presbyterian Hunger Program progresses, I find myself thinking about the many challenges we face in our Nation and the World.

The specters of hunger and disease manifest themselves in many ways. Political posturing and civil war enter the mix and a bad situation becomes hell on Earth. Zimbabwe is currently in such a mess. Hyper inflation, political corruption and micro organisms have all conspired to bring an entire country to its knees and worse.

As a child that knew hunger, every time I see a child in the US or overseas suffering with too little my heart aches. Looking at these pictures from the NY Times, I find it hard to understand how a President can selfishly cling to power while a people waste away. It's hard to believe that neighboring leaders, whose citizens are beginning to suffer the same death, aren't crying out for action. It's awful to think that the average American knows little to nothing about these atrocities and those that do are rendered speechless.

Zimbabwe has become a scene from Lamentations and we see, hear and do nothing.

Three and a half months into my internship and I'm still figuring out with what "Enough for Everyone" means to me. Enough for Everyone. "Enough" is well and good. I can handle having enough. It keeps me in food and cloths. "Comfortable" in a word. It is the "Everyone" part that is hard to get my brain around. As an American I am especially challenged by anything that even resembles socialism. "Everyone" is big. In the land of plenty it is easy to forget that everything we consume had to come from somewhere and was made by someone. The challenge of "Everyone" is not mine alone, our culture has real problems with it. In order to come to grips with the "Everyone" part, we as a people have to accept that our plenty comes at the expense of so many people in Africa. Our plenty was extracted from what used to be mountains in Appalachia. And our waste is being spewed on to Peruvian school yards.

What can we do to change our ways?

The book of Luke opens with John the Baptist conducting a Q&A session with a gathering crowd. As a preface to Jesus' ministry and teachings John outlines a few planks of the platform:

"What should we do then?" the crowd asked.

John answered, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same."

Tax collectors also came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?"

"Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them.

Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?"

He replied, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely-be content with your pay."

Luke 3:10-14 (NIV)

WE are these people. We need to ask the question, "What should we do?"

The answer according to John the Baptist: We should share. We should take no more than is required. We should no longer use intimidation to get more for less. We should be contented.

But we aren't. And all of creation is groaning under the weight of our discontent. If we sat quietly and listened, we would hear the rocks crying out (Luke 19:40). Now it is our turn to do the same.

Here are several organizations that are helping deal with the Cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe:

• Give to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (write "Zimbabwe" in the comments box)

• Unicef's emergency response

• Oxfam responds

Here is information on how we can begin to reform our consumptive lifestyles to bring them more in line with John's message:

• Enough for Everyone

• Just Living

• New American Dream

Kenyan by Nature

During our visit to Kenya in 2002, I had an adventure that ended up with me drinking with a white Kenyan that had just gotten a huge promotion with Bayer East Africa. He was buying and I was drinking. Something he told me was, "Be careful. First you will get African soil under your finger nails. Next thing you know it will go to your heart and you'll never be able to get this place out of your mind."

This video reminds me of the African soil still streaming through my veins:

Obama and the White Supremacists

Here's a story you won't see on the evening news:

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Universal Healthcare or Universal Healthinsurance?

I just entered my opinion into the discussion on Health Care that's being conducted by President-elect Obama's transition team. As promised Mr. Obama is opening the many processes that go into a presidential transition up to the light of day and the eyes of an interested electorate. It's up to us to share our opinions, to add our unique points-of-view and find common ground from which to start reforming the way we do business in the USA. It's time for our ideals to match up with our actions. Join the Healthcare Discussion HERE. Or just share where you think the country should be going and in what ways it should be changing HERE.

Here's a discussion starter I posted on the Healthcare discussion:

One of the challenges we face with this issue is the vocabulary which we use to talk about it. I respect Senator Daschle and Ms. Erinson but even in this video we see part of the problem. We have come to use the phrase "Health Care" improperly. It has unfortunately become synonymous with "Health Insurance." Health care is what we get when we go to the doctor. He or She checks us out, makes a diagnosis and prescribes a treatment. In other words doctors cares for our health.

In this video we hear about a CEO of a small non-profit that is providing "health care" to her full-time employees. This usage means something entirely different. Her company is not providing its employees "health care" in the way a doctor does. The company is providing access to "health insurance." It may sound like splitting hairs, but I think it's a hair worth splitting. This is why:

In the current discussion, when we talk about providing "Universal Health Care," are we saying that people should have universal access to doctors that will care for their health? Probably not. More likely we mean universal access to health insurance.

The proposals I hear from most elected officials (including President-elect Obama) include expanding Health Insurance to those that don't already have it through a system of mandates and subsidies, covering everybody with insurance through Medicare, Medicaid and/or Private Insurance (both employer based and federally subsidized). Are we really getting any closer to true Universal Health Care? I would argue "No." Anyone that's ever dealt with a Health Insurance company knows that they don't really Care about your Health. The bottom line is always the bottom line. It makes no sense to support the broken system that is Health Insurance by expanding it to everybody with Tax Payer money.

If we are striving for Universal Health Care, why are we still talking about Universal Health Insurance?

My Story as Told to the Obama Website

It's strange how giving a little more money to a political campaign can bring out such sentimental thoughts, but it did. I just donated my last of the election and was provided an outlet to tell my story of why I became involved in Obama's campaign and this is what came out:

I have long thought that my story set me apart and somehow kept me from experiencing the "normal life." I was raised by a single mom and didn't know my dad until I was 26. As the youngest of three, I was an only child after my brother and sister moved out. In some ways, they were lucky to leave before my mom's alcoholism began to consume her. I took a trip to Australia after graduating high school. When I returned, my mom told me the news that she had moved from the our home of 11 years and was now living in a one bedroom apartment. If ever I was growing up faster than my peers, it was then. Four years ago, I lost my mom. She spent the last two years of her life bumming her way down the Eastern seaboard. From Virginia to Florida, she was incommunicado and relying on homeless shelters and the kindness of strangers. When she returned we were able to get her into city housing and on SSI due to debilitating mental illness gradually made worse through years of denial on her parents part and decades of alcohol and drug abuse. On Tuesday November 2, 2004 we lost her to liver failure. The same day, I watched as John Kerry failed to beat Bush. Since February, I have volunteered for this campaign because I believe in our candidate. I know he will change the direction in which this country is going and help improve the lives of many people like my mom that are caught up in circumstances beyond their control in a society that is rigged against them. I am truly inspired by his story and his presence and am convinced that if my fellow momma's boy can do so much starting out from so little I can as well.