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Sunday, January 04, 2004 |
What kind of world do I want?
I want a world in which the primary values are health, love, and creative power:
- Everyone has enough to eat.
- Everyone has clean air to breathe.
- Everyone has clean water.
- Everyone has shelter and clothes.
- Everyone has love – people who listen and care.
- Everyone has a chance to do something fulfilling – to make the contribution they most want to make, that makes them feel most alive.
- Relationships are I-Thou relationships – subject to subject relating, not subject to object relating - not only among people, but between people and all other coinhabitants on earth – so that freedom and wildness are honored.
Really, #7 would take care of it all, wouldn’t it? But it's always the food that comes first to my mind. It's interesting that the food, air, water, shelter and clothes have clear limits. Human beings need all these, but real need is quite limited. That is, it doesn't take vast quantities of any of these things to meet one human being's need, or one family's needs. (I mean needs here, not wants.)
But love, a chance to do something fulfilling, and engaging in I-Thou relationships - these things are virtually unlimited. One person could expand and expand and expand in these things. One moment, one gesture can be enough to change a life. And at the same time, more of these things is always good.
I'm stating obvious things. But I seem to need to state them clearly anyway. It's like drawing myself a little map.
11:31:23 PM 
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While considering how to live, click daily at the Hunger Site to give hungry people food. From there, there are quick links to other sites where just a mouse click makes a positive difference in the world.
Enough? No. Something? Yes.
11:18:13 PM
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Today I finished reading the newest book by Tracy Kidder, called Mountains Beyond Mountains. Tracy Kidder is one of my most favorite authors. Two of his books, The Soul of a New Machine, and House, I've read many times. So when I saw his latest book at the library, I checked it out right away.
Mountains Beyond Mountains is disturbing to read. Halfway through, I considered stopping. I'm glad I went on till the end.
It's about Paul Farmer, an anthropologist and doctor who is revolutionizing the way that world health problems are addressed. Instead of theorizing about cost effectiveness and how to use limited resources, he treats patients. He does whatever it takes to change their living situation to one that promotes health: decent shelter, food, water, and education along with medical treatment. And he's shown that it can be done in Haiti, perhaps the world's most desperately poor country. But his patients are all over the world.
The book makes it impossible to ignore the poor. Even more uncomfortably, the book makes it impossible to ignore the relationships between the poverty of Haiti and the world's poor, and the relative wealth of First World countries. (These are the countries that Mathew Fox calls the "overdeveloped world.") In other words, our gain was their loss. And it wasn't because we're more deserving, smarter people (in case you're wondering.) At one point in the book, Farmer jokes that bankers must not get enough sex, because they're always screwing the poor.
Needless to say, I'm not through thinking about this book. It isn't that Tracy Kidder or Paul Farmer or anyone else is trying to convince us to be like Paul Farmer. That's probably impossible anyway. But at the same time, it's probably not possible to read this book and not be changed.
Now that's what Rilke would call a good book. (Isn't Rilke the one who said something along the lines of "if a poem doesn't change your life completely, it's not worth reading?") Actually, I'd expect no less of Tracy Kidder.
10:56:16 PM
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Whew. Deer hunting season is over for another year. Just saw a big herd filing through the woods near the cabin, so that family survived. Mostly I'm glad for my own selfish reasons. I can walk through the woods without wearing an orange vest. I don't have to remember to take a colored bandanna for a handkerchief instead of my usual white ones. (Pulling a white handkerchief out of my pocket could look a lot like the flash of a deer's tail.)
The end of deer hunting season starts a time of year here that's calm and exciting at the same time. (That's the state of mind I call "That State of Mind" - a relaxed calm combined with the excitement of following a kind of trail of feeling.) The woods are very open now, with long views. Even on cold days, afternoons are often sunny and warm. The woods are open to the sky. It's a great time to walk, to absorb the feeling of the trees. Usually this is when I absorb the inspiration for the bowls to come for the rest of the year.
Today was also a sort of official, final end of the holiday season for our family. We had a last gathering to exchange presents with those who'd gone to Mexico and just returned. So it's as if a great space-time has been cleared now for work. I'm ready.
10:27:43 PM
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© Copyright 2004 Catherine Jo Morgan.
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