Random Saturday Writing

Today was cold again and wet and rainy. I am sitting here in my apartment, drinking coffee and listening to old singles from Blues Traveler and Barenaked Ladies (I must have spent too much time in the B section of iTunes) and feeling the wind hit the drafts in all my windows and rush through my apartment, blowing doors closed and rattling the unwashed dishes in the sink like a mother reminding me to do my chores. I spent the day reading articles from the New York Times and plowing through another Mao biography, laying in bed and not washing those dishes and not doing laundry and not sweeping the dust that all this wind assaults my apartment with and not even picking up the paperbacks and old magazines that lay half hazard around the foot of my bed.

It’s one of those days when the whole world seems to be in turmoil—blowing around in this spring wind. The Times tells me that the cost of rice is rising sharply throughout the world; and that the conflict a few provinces over is not resolved and that my students will never know for sure which side they can believe or trust; and that the American War in Iraq (what it’s called over here—odd that that’s also the structure they used to refer to the one in Vietnam all those years and lessons in world conflict ago) is again unhinged; and that the Kenyans are still at a stalemate while their neighbors in Somalia exchanged gunfire over sacks of grain; and that something to do with sub-primes and hedges and shares could cause, or has already caused, the big D in the US economy…

And I am 23 and can’t wrap my head around any of it. And I desperately want to. I want to be able to understand the web of connections that define globalization. I want to inspire my students to think critically about the news that’s fed to them—but without making the rookie mistake of wading in over my head. I want to show through my response to all of this swirling news that there is something that makes me IN but not OF all of the uncertainty, that calls for me to find a way to help, that shows me that these are all stories of a Family who I love, because they all were made to reflect Him.

After September 11, Mr. Rogers appeared on a PBS public service announcement, discussing ways that parents can help their children respond to what happened. He said that when he was a child and passed a car accident or saw a tragedy on tv, his mother would say, “Look for the helpers, Fred. Look at all the people helping.”

I think about that all the time. I get carried away thinking about my role here sometimes. It has something to do with the American mindset in general, I think, this urge to teach or respond or cure or just comment on the situation that I see—this urge to use my classroom as a forum to pontificate on the ways of Freedom of speech, press, religion…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And then I stop and take a deep breath and remember how JC refused to be dragged into commentary on the swirling politics and current events of his day—simply saying “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” and going about His business. And I remember that my business is His business—and that right now, I’m called to be a helper. Maybe someday I will be wise enough to wade into the social/political justice issues of the world—maybe someday I will be called to work for human rights and civil rights and obtaining the freedoms of speech, press, religion for everyone—but now I am a learner. Now I am just a helper. And now I am 23 and there's plenty of time to figure out the rest...