Two weeks ago, before many Christians celebrated the Resurrection Sunday, my beloved Jolene had the opportunity to visit Brooklyn. NYC schools worked Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and during that time Jolene was able to interview with several schools. It really made her upcoming move to NYC much more real! Two of those schools are moving forward with Jolene to the next levels of the interview process. They are both exciting charter schools in Brooklyn. What a blessing it would be to be able to share Radical Living with Jolene during this first year of our close proximity! My days off on Thursday and Friday included welcome hours of rest as well as a little bit of work on taxes and time in graduate class. Resting time included a date to hear some Bulgarian folk music, some time in Chinatown over lunch and some engagement ring shopping.

Hace dos semanas, antes de la fecha cuando muchos de los cristianos del mundo celebraron el Domingo de la Resurrección, mi querida Jolene tuvo la oportunidad visitar a Brooklyn. Las escuelas por nuestras partes estaban abiertas el lunes, martes y miercoles y yo trabajaba eses días. Jolene tuvo algunas entrevistas con escuelas en la ciudad y a traves de tales días en los cuales ambos dos de nosotros trabajabamos era más claro que Jolene va a vivir acá en Nueva York en realidad. ¡Hasta ahora solo hemos hablado de la posibilidad! Dos de las escuelas, las que están acá en Brooklyn, siguen con interés en invitar a Jolene trabajar con ellas y Jolene adelantará en sus próximos niveles del proceso de la entrevista. ¡Qué bendición sería compartir lo bueno de la comunidad cristiana Radical Living con Jolene durante el primer año de nuestra proximidad! La vacación mia empezó el jueves y viernes de la semana santa y despues de un poco trabajo en mandar mis impuestos al gobierno y asistir una clase en la universidad, podiamos descansar. El descanso incluyó una cita escuchar música folklorica de Bulgaria, un almuerzo en Chinatown y también un camino mientras ir de compras para un anillo de compromiso.

Преди две седмици, преди много християни отпразнува Възкресение неделя, моят любим Джолийн имаше възможността да посети Бруклън. Училищета работиха понеделник, вторник и сряда, а през това време Джолийн имаше интервю с няколко училища тука. Такиви опити на интервю направеше, че беше много по-ясно, че тя наистина ще премести в NYC! Две от тези училища напредват с Джолийн към следващата нива на процес на интервю. Те са едновременно вълнуващо чартърни училища в Бруклин. Какво благословение ще бъде да има възможността да споделя христанската общност където живея, която се казва Радикал Ливинг с Джолийн през тази първа година от нашето близост! Моят почивни дни започваха в четвъртък и петък. Имаше почивка само след като направих малка от работата по данъци и по Завършва класа. След това злизохме за да чуваме някои българска народна музика /на искина!/, някой път в Чайнатаун над обяд и някои пазаруване за пръстен /такъв пръстен е нещо, които даваме преди да има сватба, а не знам как се казва на Български език/.

I was thinking about starting a new blog to start over again, but that doesn't make much sense. There's a lot between August of 2008 and now, and a lot between August of 2008 and times when I wrote more. I'm not going to try to catch up. I'll just write about lo que sea (whatever) and see how it goes. I hope this finds you well!

Мисля да започвам да пиша от ново. Не съм написал от много време на блога и нищо не съм написал на имейлът. Съжалявам, но така е. Понякога ще пиша на български за нещата. Надявам се, че ще мога да помня български за много години напред и за да направя това ще трябва да пиша! Освен това, аз харесвам да пиша. Ще видим какво става! Поздрави от Бруклън! Да сте живи и здраве!

Yo estaba pensando empezar escribir acá de nuevo. Hace mucho tiempo que no he escrito y por eso pensaba en crear otro blog. Sin embargo, no me parece necesario hacerlo así. Me gusta escribir y lo voy a hacer. Vamos a ver que pasa. Espero que este le encuentre bien hoy en día. ¡Saludos desde Brooklyn!

My palms were sweating and my heart racing. I was on a bus and there didn't seem to be anything exciting outside, nothing different sounding, and nothing really even happening inside the bus itself. I was, though, arriving in a little known corner of Bulgaria, Nikolaevo, where I did my 2 years of Peace Corps service. Two years had past since I had seen this place last. The geographic landmarks were fresh in my memory, though, and each of them came into sight as if they were perfectly fitting pieces of my memory's puzzle.

I flew into Sofia and was greeted immediately with fresh sounding Bulgarian. Bulgarian signs glowed in my mind... I've missed this language so much! It is barely known even in the huge, every-language-included New York City...

I was greeted at the airport on Wednesday by Ania, Valentin, and Evlogi... friends who I met through my dear friends Dyado Stefan and Baba Minka, musicians and poets in Nikolaevo. I had food put in front of me right away and then had lots of time to rest after the long travel. I stayed in Sofia Thursday and found my way through the maze of public transportation downtown in order to find my colleagues at Outward Bound and Peace Corps' offices. What a joy to find out that my Bulgarian hadn't gotten horribly lost in the craziness of life over the past 2 years! I hope that my visits in those offices was well received... it was a total surprise to have me there! I think it was good, though, since in the context of being a teacher a loose summer schedule is quite acceptable. It seemed, too, that my switch to teaching brought about positive reactions. I could use my multi-cultural and Peace Corps grassroots development skills and do so for good reasons even if it wasn't abroad.

I visited with my hosts Thursday night and we shared stories of Dyado Stefan since he passed away just last month. Stefan loved me and wrote about me for newspapers. He wrote songs about Nikolaevo and about his love for Baba Minka. He was a great example of a loving, caring man. And in such conversations I was able to bring up how God cares for us. As our conversations drifted from topic to topic, God continued to come up, and it was such a blessing! I had felt uncomfortable as a Peace Corps Volunteer talking about God before, but now I was free to make connections between difficulties in this life and love shared with all of the good that flows from reading the Bible and learning about Jesus. As I traveled to Nikolaevo on the train and then on the bus, Ania and I were able to share more about our understanding of God's love.

Getting off the bus I was greeted with big hugs by Baba Minka, fresh with tears for Dyado Stefan and in full black outfit. Others greeted me with big smiles as they waited for other buses and hadn't expected to see me. I was surprising many people! Indeed as we walked into town, a couple cars stopped to greet me, a little crowd gathered, and I arranged to meet Ania and Minka for lunch after I got through saying initial hellos. There were lots of smiles and I made a few jokes about sitting around with everyone to eat sunflower seeds and talk "stupid stuff" (a colloquial joke). I made sure to let folks know I was just visiting since several people asked if I was back to start working again. I've had so many dreams of seeing my friends again and there we were in front of the places only we knew so well laughing about things only we know about.

Since my first arrival, I've been back to walking around the back passages to get to friends houses. I surprised Bai Belcho and we spent most of a day eating, catching up, and hiking some hidden trails and trailblazing around some nearby cliffs and rivers. Several good friends prepared beds for me and others gave me their house key. I am overwhelmed with food and drink... lots of drink and food. I need to find a good way to offer something to my friends and so it seems that I will gather many for a big party on Saturday night. I hope we can have dance and song and good memories!

With a new mayor many of those who I worked with here have been replaced even though others didn't have the experience and training. It makes it clear that some things are harder than they were. Even the flowers and gardens are in disrepair because the city workers are not able to keep up with those I got to know 2 years ago. I am staying with Mitko and his wife, with whom I worked most closely as a PCV, and their lives have changed in big ways since the new mayor was elected. Tanya was isolated and when she was laid off Mitko had to start traveling for work. This September Tanya will start working at the community school, which is filling with nearly 100% Roma students. Bulgarian as a Second Language will be very important, but the thought of using different teaching approaches for BSL as opposed to regular Bulgarian Language Arts is foreign here. It has been good to talk about ESL practices a little...

I had the chance over the weekend, then, to visit Boris (Borkata) and Deana (Ditka) with their daughter up in their mountain lodge. We lounged and chatted. We got to talk about God, too. What a blessing! Nonetheless, I knew it was time to go to the Roma part of town when I got the chance to do so today. I saw many who remembered me and was especially glad to see several from the small church I visited on ocassion back in the day. The poverty is so transparent, but so is their faith! Through hard work displayed on their skin-peeled hands they have been trusting God all this time and their ministry is growing. I can't wait to worship with them on Thursday! I wish I remembered more Turkish, but I don't. God forgive me.

And so here I am in Nikolaevo half-way through my visit. And it is such a joy to see how much community I have here. My time here was about the relationships! We made a youth center while I was here, but it isn't working any more. Nope, God had different plans. And here we go learning about what they are...

Since I wrote last I have finished my first year of teaching in Brooklyn, found out that they did not expect enough students to have me back at the same school for the next school year, looked fervently for a new position at a different school, and gone on a few trips in the midst of a move to a different apartment on the same street I have lived on for the past year.

My students finished their year with improved marks and improved standardized test scores. Hopefully, though, they finished with a better idea of what it takes to be better people in general, too. Hopefully they left 6th grade with more tools to face the complications this crazy life has to offer. Only God knows and in God I trust that my relationships with them were positive experiences. Although I won't teach in the same school where they will start 7th grade, I have hope that they will continue to grow in good ways. As it turns out, about 10 of us from the same school will be switching schools because of lower numbers of students (elementary schools are starting to add 6th, 7th, and 8th grades), so a good number of us teachers will have to have such faith as we move on (although perhaps more experienced teachers are used to doing this!). I'm not sure I think it is a bad thing that IS 296 is getting smaller...

The first trip after the end of the school year was with folks from the Christian commune (intentional Christian community), Radical Living. We headed to upstate New York for a retreat that gave us the chance to build memories together while eating, talking, traveling, swimming, praying, and worshipping. It was great!

Although previous interviews and contacts with schools did not result in gaining a new teaching position, I left for Gallup, New Mexico on my next trip after a couple excellent interviews. Then, my visit with Jolene in Gallup was kind of dreamy. I stayed with family friends, but spent most of my time with her hiking, hanging out, meeting with her friends and church, and even traveling around the region a bit on day trips. I even got the chance to meet most of her family as they came down from Canada. Smiles all around!

After nearly 3 weeks in New Mexico I was able to pull off another interview including a demo lesson at IS 93 (http://is93.org) 9 hours after arriving in NYC the night before. It was an ESL lesson about contrary signs and went very well! I got the job and am very happy about it. I was immediately invited to go with a group to the Bronx Zoo the next day and get to know some colleagues and some of the kids. The school is technology oriented, progressive, and very active. They even hired me with the idea of involving me in the development of their new Spanish-English Dual-Language program, and it is within biking distance from Radical Living...

With only a week back in Brooklyn, finishing up the moving to and setting up of the new apartment, I packed for 2 weeks in Bulgaria...

The past few months have been a crazy ride. Perhaps I am diving into writing again because I need to figure some of it out, put it out in words. I’m still just as much in the middle of it. Well, sort of. It’s spring break for the NYC department of education. So I have a little bit more time to throw some stories at ya.

I had a break for Christmas, too, and I even had another during February and my girlfriend visited recently as well. So overall it can’t be thaaat bad, right? Christmas break was a week and a half long and I remember spending it in Maryland by the family. That seems like a very, very long time ago, though. It was great to spend time with my parents and my grandmother. My beppe (grandma in Friesian) is an amazing lady. She’s so strong in the face of loss after 63 years of marriage. During that visit, I even got to see a couple friends from high school.

February wasn’t as long ago. I took that break and went to New Mexico to see a lady friend there. Got to snow shoe on Mt. Taylor with her and kind of fell for her on a hill called Heartbreak Hill. But that is the super short version of that story. Yikes. Jolene is a great! That visit and the ensuing drama… yes, I think I made it a proper drama for myself… simply proved once again that I am stubborn. Deciding to date Jolene was an excellent decision to make now that I have made it and it’s been very good since then. Yes.

Jolene even came, then, to visit me here in Brooklyn for her spring break in the beginning of April! One down side of it was that I decided that my schedule had been beating me down too much to take proper care of my beloved dog, Moby, so I sent him back with Jolene when she left (more on that later). Our visit together included my parents getting a proper introduction to her (and the community where I’m living), sharing a story about the end of Apartheid in South Africa, hanging out and walking together, some good food, some fun exploring of a Broadway play about Latinos in Manhattan (In the Heights… it’s good!), sharing my classroom, Middle Eastern food, the beach, and a visit with my community and the Bruderhof community in Harlem. It was busy, busy, busy, and lots of fun!

In the midst of these breaks I have been surviving day by day, but there have been a couple other really bright spots that shine peace in my presence here in Brooklyn. One has been the experiment I’m living in that is a part of the new monasticism deal. That means a lot of things, but basically it comes down to living with other Christians and meeting to keep in touch and do things for each other and for our neighbors together. We are mostly new to the neighborhood, though, and we’re just really forming the community now since it only started back in August. We meet to pray once a week on Friday mornings, gather to study books sometimes, meet once a month for potlucks and to discuss things that come up, meet once a month to talk business, and study the bible most weeks, too. It is exciting to bring the Christian faith outside of the church and into daily living.

Another goodness has come from the little church community where I have become a member. It’s got a big history for the 120 some of us who are members now, and that history includes lots of movement for social justice in terms of the Black church. I’m not sure that I’m the first European American to join there, but it certainly doesn’t feel as though I am thought of any differently than any other brother-in-Christ. I sing in the little choir, and even if I sometimes mess up, well, they still seem to try to love me! I’m learning lots through Rev. Tillard and the sermons that bring current issues face to face with historical references to parts of African American history I never knew. And it’s good! Especially since it is all so much about a great God.

Also, although I’ve given up on running for a long while now, I’ve taken to rock climbing. A indoor gym in Manhattan served for an escape from urban non-outdoorsiness. And now that the weather is shaping up, I’ve joined the Appalachian Mountain Club and will be climbing on weekend trips with their rock climbing committee. It starts this coming weekend!

So these positive vibrations have been making a joyful noise in the midst of the craziness that goes with my teaching experience. Perhaps balancing all these things doesn’t make teaching any easier, but it sure does help me stay a bit saner!

The picture of the blackboard that starts off the previous post is from the initial lesson that got my class thinking about how to make a bean grow faster. We were going to dive into a unit reviewing the parts of a scientific experiment…

Why is it that I am a first-year teacher working in a situation that requires the most experienced and effective teacher our larger community can offer? Why is it that the kids who need the best teachers to start bringing them up to the possibility of avoiding cycles of poverty and the many abuses that go along with that are the kids who are getting the most inexperienced teachers? Or maybe I am deducing the situation to the institutional level simply because I do not want to face the idea that I am not cut out to be a good teacher. Maybe I shouldn’t be in this career.

It could be both. It is a horrible injustice that new teachers with very little training are sent to places that need the best teachers and most experienced teachers. My students should have a structured environment to learn and I cannot give that to them. It might also be that I don’t have the personality and natural ability needed to teach. I don’t know this though, and won’t, until I try it again for a second year. I also don’t know how influential the school itself is in terms of my experience.

The most controlled experiment, then, would be for me to continue teaching in the same situation next year and to see if it gets better based on my increased level of experience. Controlled experiments don’t happen in the field of education, though. My students would be different no matter what, so many more of the variables would be very different no matter what and a pure comparison of my first and second year teaching would be impossible.

It’s much like the experiment with the beans, then. Although we laid out lots of different factors that would make a bean grow faster or slower, all the groups decided to make 2 or 3 differences between each of their samples. That is, each team had 2 or 3 independent variables. Each group grew 4 little pots of beans, but one group made each pot have different amounts of water and different amounts of coffee grounds mixed into the dirt. I decided to let them try this in order to show them later that they couldn’t clearly decipher which of the differences caused the effect they observed (was it the water that did it or the coffee?). This would have been fine and dandy if we had had a good way to record how much water we gave each pot and to record observations about the bean plants. Oops! Maria put miracle grow on her groups plants today because she wanted them to grow faster than the other groups! Ack! And now all the plants are getting as much water as will flow out of the students’ water bottles! How much is that??!! Ah hell. Whatever. We’ll see what happens.

And so it goes with my teaching career, too? Well, hopefully not completely so. Maybe I’ll go ahead and make sure that one more variable is changed. It doesn’t seem wise to continue fighting, as a moldable inexperienced teacher, within a school that is not trying very hard to change its teachers for the better. Right now, the most important thing, at this school I’m in, seems to be to have a warm body in the classroom with the students. It doesn’t seem as though this school will change based on the teachers who do know what they are doing there, either.

Perhaps the best thing to do, as a new teacher, will be to vote against the way this school is being run by moving my feet. Other first-year teachers are far ahead of me because of the support that they had from the start of the school year, as strict as it might have been. Other schools are not run in such a negative and threatening way in terms of behavior. So here I go, trying to find a new job! Tomorrow I will meet with my university’s career counseling office to shape up my resume and cover letter.

No, I won’t be able to keep track of what variables will help this bean plant of a teacher grow, but maybe I’ll be able to observe some of the differences along the way. I’ll let you know about my students’ beans, too.

Although I started with 28 students, it took until late October to clear up whose families wanted their children in my bilingual classroom and where the other students would fit. Those 12 students who remained with me were mainly from the Dominican Republic, with a sprinkling of Puerto Rico and Mexico. Some had arrived in NYC as recently as last year and others have been here for seven years. Some have not gained much in terms of English, and others are heavily English dominant. Reading levels range from kindergarten to nearing 6th grade levels, and those levels vary depending on what language is being assessed. Their families are all just barely getting food on the table and most involve broken marriages.

Practically speaking, I am overwhelmed with materials in my classroom that I do not know how to use. The room is overflowing with books, even though many are beyond the reading levels of my students. With the huge diversity of learning needs presented by my students, I feel as though I’m running a one-room school house like that one show “Christy” about the teacher in the Appalachian mountains. I am experimenting each week with slightly different routines and different styles of lessons as I try to invent this crazy wheel that will turn on a seemingly bent axle. The amount of change and instability is hard on all the students, either personally or through extension of the disruptions from those who are effected more personally. I wish I knew how to use the materials we have in an organized way, but I don’t and so it’s kind of like steering a huge sail boat around a harbor without any understanding of the rudder or the sails… look out!

I’ve had a bad number of fights in the classroom (only one with a weapon that ended uneventfully), racism and bullying are very prevalent between the students, their language is filthy, distractions are more common than teachable moments, tests I create based on lessons I think they are understanding are largely being failed, levels on standardized tests are falling (although it should be noted that this is a city-wide trend for middle school students), and the tone in the classroom is generally negative. The negativity fades when I get into rare form and pretend I’m magic and can thus make them silent by waving my hands at them, or when I stand up on a desk to get their attention, or when I do something, anything, that they generally don’t expect and then end up laughing about. One time it was a pair of enormous boots that I wore so that I could slosh through the muck of the snowstorm that day without having wet socks all day like everyone else… wow, their reaction to those boots was insane!

Beyond struggling to set up academic learning for my students, the school’s tone is largely negative. Our students are quite immature 12-year-olds who have to go through metal detectors and police searches at least once a month, constantly witness the school’s police officers leading students out of classrooms or through the hallway in handcuffs, are required to navigate a slew of 13 school rules that almost all start with the word “don’t,” are put on an “exclusion list” for infractions so that they cannot participate in assemblies or trips, and are more likely to be greeted with a negative comment from a faculty or staff member than with a simple “hello” or “good morning.” It certainly doesn’t help that those on staff who are hired to handle behavioral issues consistently take the student’s side over the faculty member’s, usually let kids off the hook if they are consistent about breaking the rules, and sometimes come in to work drunk. Overall, I have learned that threats do not do much for helping an adolescent think through a decision or reflect on making a different decision!

And so this is all a bit about my first year of teaching. Of course there is the student who has turned around from throwing desks at me to now helping me get the rest of the class paying attention, and there are a couple other students who clearly bask in my attention, whether it be positive or negative. Yet, I cannot help but to sit back and think, during some of the worst of the situations I have witnessed, about how it seems that this would all be impossible if I only knew what I was doing.

How did I get here? It's a question that has come up for me today. It has surfaced for me when I was in other intriguing places and situations, so here I go looking at it a little bit just to reflect.

It’s been 11 months since I arrived in New York City to pursue teaching. I don’t remember where I left off, but it has been a long time since I have written. I’m tired. It has been a non-stop adventure that has thrown me down into the dirt more times than it has lifted me up. I am very much a fool to be here trying to do what I am trying to do. Most of the time I don’t know what I’m really trying to do.

I can report on the experience, though, and give some insight as to the trappings that lead me here and will probably help me to stay.

I came with a conviction that education is the most important part of community development. I came believing that students who speak another language at home should be able to get an education in the language of their family as well as the language of the economy around them. I wanted to start getting into dual-language education program development, but I did not want to get into that without seeing the situation from a teacher’s perspective. I had some options for getting into teaching given my degree outside of the field of education and these mostly came in the form of fellows programs for returned Peace Corps volunteers. I could be accepted as a teacher in a “high needs” place, a place with students dealing with high rates of poverty.

I took it for what it was and looked into programs in New Mexico, in Louisiana, in Maryland, and in NYC. I was deciding between New Mexico and NYC, but NYC won out because of it would allow me to get a degree in bilingual education from one of the top graduate schools, allow me to teach in bilingual education my first year, put me in closer proximity to my nuclear family, and give me the chance to explore the empire’s urban capital. I came with high hopes of adjusting well and perhaps even feeling good about what I was doing within the first year.

Last summer, I interviewed at 20 schools and had 4 offers. One was a position that was for a special education program that was beyond the certification I would be getting. Another offer came early in my search, was for teaching only the English side of a dual-language program, came amidst some curious interactions between teachers and the administrator interviewing me, and I thought for sure I was up to teaching both languages in a dual-language program. The next offer was an hour and a half away from where I would be taking classes and was passed on to someone else before I could confirm that another school would not be offering me a position. The final offer came from a school that seemed very excited about me, had me visit them in Brooklyn the same day a tornado touched down there, and came late enough in the summer that I did not expect to do much more interviewing before school started. I had three days in my classroom before students arrived. They were excited that I was a Christian.

I needed to move to Brooklyn. I would have to commute an hour to get to classes. I started calling brokers to find a studio apartment. I looked in online classifieds. I found a brand new intentionally Christian community and I had just become aware of and intrigued about such efforts of congregation several months before. I moved about two weeks after learning about it.

It turns out that the middle school I’m teaching in is in a rougher neighborhood than most and received failing evaluation marks from the city’s school grading system. Even though NYC public schools are struggling in general, only a small percentage of schools scored as low as our school. It didn’t seem to take too long to start feeling it. Some of my colleagues from the university program were getting drowned in lesson plan requirements and stringent curriculum planning requirements from their administration. I was set free. “You know your students and know what they need.” “You will figure it out.” Perhaps the freedom is what many experienced teachers covet, but in my situation it seems to have been a mistake that created a greater injustice for my 6th grade students.

So here is Brooklyn and the school I started teaching at and the intentional Christian community I'm living in. Here is where I am and I have a voice telling me to not be anywhere other than where I am... even if that still allows me to think about where I might want to be later on...

I'd rather be anywhere but

HERE.

And I'm bolstered by the

comfort I find in the

DISCOMFORT.

What?! How could he have been

elected mayor...

THERE?

Indeed I think of places

beyond... yet it confirms

that I need to be where

I AM.

Feeling the pains around me

is living right

NOW.

So what of this greedy

nature and its

FUTURE?

The sleeplessness reminds

my soul of

INJUSTICE

that is found to have

rest in one

FIRE.

The ashes feed all at

one table

TOGETHER

continually energizing the

flow of

ETERNITY.

I build on a warring

calm to

STRIVE.

Hello. Here are 2 excerpts that I want to share from the words of Rumi.

WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WE ARE.

You

sit here

for days saying,

"This is strange business."

You're the strange business. You

have the energy of the sun in you,

but you keep knotting it up

at the base of your spine.

You're some weird kind of gold

that wants to stay melted

in the furnace, so you won't have to

become coins.

Say ONE in your lonesome house.

Loving all the rest is hiding

inside a lie.

You've

gotten

drunk

on so many kinds of wine.

Taste this. It won't

make you wild.

It's fire. Give up,

if you don't understand

by this time

that your living is firewood.

This wave of talking

builds. Better

we should not speak,

but let it grow within.

- Rumi

Dear Rumi,

You've caught me at a moment when I have been fighting the strangeness that builds inside me as I see more of it around me. The conflict that strangeness nourishes grows into different shapes, but it remains constant in size. It was always there, from as long as I can remember. If there were no recognition of the fire, it would also grow in size and smother me. Yet, at the time when I neglect that fire I do not give up, for I know that some unknown wave will come and awaken me. It isn't a wave of talking, but a wave of mysterious love revealed in Grace and Love.

It is regained awareness that allows me to burn. The fire is indeed inside, though as it is revealed it cools and serves to barter. It is a process that cannot be modeled. Yes, I do say ONE at times, but what do you mean when you refer to "the rest"? Do you call this kind of fire to be a fire of static margins? If so, I disagree. It does require new pieces in solitude, and their addition is a coolness that dims the light, albeit temporarily; however, the energy shared does pull and embolden the flame. Even as it may dim the sense of the cool environment surrounding, it is an element of the fire that I dare not test, lest it allow the strangeness to smother me and retreat my reflection.

Sincerely,

Greg

***

RISE UP NIMBLY & GO ON YOUR STRANGE JOURNEY - THE REAL WORK

There is one thing in this world that you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there's nothing to worry about; but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life.

It's as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human beings come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don't do it, it's as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It's a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It's a knife of the finest temperring nailed into a wall to hang things on.

You say, "But look, I'm using the dagger. It's not lying idle." Do you hear how ludicrous that sounds? For a penny, an iron nail could be bought to serve the purpose. You say, "But I spend my energies on lofty enterprises. I study jurisprudence and philosophy and logic and astronomy and medicine and all the rest." But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself.

Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give your life to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. If you don't, you will be exactly like the man who takes a precious dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. You'll be wasting valuable keenness and foolishly ignoring your dignity and your purpose.

- Rumi

Dear Rumi,

Thank you for your keen insight here, that reminds me to keep on keepin' on. No, wait. It reminds me to return to evaluate what is going on at a later point. I am purposefully challenged now, but is it the challenge that reflects my purpose? I think often of comfort and of finding a way to do something more comfortable. Is comfort doing what we are made for? Would a fancy knife be more comfortable being honored with fancy tasks? Perhaps it would. Is the discomfort I feel now a part of my eventual use, is it the process of being temperred? Where does the blade gain insight? Ah! But for the mark of the maker we would be lost! For as blades we have no eyes and may, if it be, only reflect light around us. And may the mark lead the hands guiding us, that we might make the appropriate cut!

Respectfully,

Greg

I am sorry that I have been quite "missing in action." My emails are backed up 3 months. I do enjoy getting notes from everyone, but I fear the implications regarding my character based on my inaction to reply. The phone may be the best way to reach me: 443-974-2440.

Also, you can read about the community where I am living on our blog:

www.radicallivingnyc.com.

Address:

32 Hart St.

Brooklyn, NY 11206

Today I was asked if I am Egyptian. My imagination let fly. What would I be like if I were Egyptian? Would I be a teacher in Egypt? Or maybe I would have emigrated to Europe somehow? Maybe I would have still ended up in New York City. I did clear up the confusion about my nationality, but there was still confusion when I mentioned that the music I was listening to was from Bulgaria, near Greece, sort of near Italy, and… well… near Turkey. Finally, the student recognized one of the countries I was listing. He wasn’t one of my students, but rather a student passing in the hallway. Who knows what he went off and said after that.

Observing people as they try to figure me out is a lot of fun here in Brooklyn. I speak Spanish and I don’t look like I should. I don’t fit the schemata folks have around here. I have a strange way of speaking, in either English or Spanish, that seems to follow a completely different pattern. Some are clearly set at ease by it, others clearly find it too far out (pun regarding me being a European American-sometimes-hippie-type intended).

My grandfather, aka pake, got diagnosed with returned cancer just before school started. He died a few weeks ago already and I am just now starting to realize how big of a deal it was as I took on a new semester and an incredibly intense new job at the same time. I can’t believe how, other than by the Grace of God, I stayed healthy during all of that time. I visited my parents and grandparents a few times during the entire ordeal. It went from going with pake to get his x-rays and holding him up after he lost his dinner, to sitting next to him by his bed and talking with him briefly when he was awake while offering water and chap-stick for his parched mouth, and finally to spending a little time with grandma, aka beppe, to simply be there as we all said farewell to pake.

Pake is a huge part of my inspiration for becoming a teacher. Growing up, I watched him do hard physical labor whenever they would visit for their 2-week summer visit. I learned to enjoy feeling tired after completing a difficult task. He taught me to pursue little interests and curiosities, like painting by number. He taught me the power of language with his ever present crossword puzzles. He talked about regretting the loss of his family’s native Friesian language and the way he didn’t talk about how his teachers changed his name when he was in school because it wasn’t American enough was also telling. His parents did not name him what we all knew him by. I only was able to reflect on this after living in the Balkans and seeing similar things currently occurring, and now here I am fighting to convince students and their families that bilingualism is a gift. That language, each and every one, is a treasure.

In my last conversation with pake, I was reminded that we never are sure if we have lived the right way or done the right things. The ambiguousness of life does not end before life itself, and in order to cope with that fact there is a God. When we should be fearful for death, there is a God that calms us. Yet, pake was not ready. He worried about his wife of 61 years and how she would be without him. He did not want to go before her.

Visiting with other family members was a relief, too. The funeral was packed with short notice and despite the fact that it was in a town he had been in for only 5 years. Pake loved to visit and talk and listen. He had bad jokes that were quite good and a charm grown through lots of practice. I suppose that’s just what happens with a ton of butter pecan ice cream and lots of love. The family didn’t eat butter pecan ice cream together, but we did make it known that we will all be trying to honor our memories as best as we can.

The people around me here in NYC were very gracious, too. My students’ parents are more forgiving than they need to be after I went all of September with barely a peep about their students’ start to the school year. The teachers covered for me so that I didn’t even have to make contingency lesson plans for when I was out. Paper deadlines were extended and so were professional document deadlines. My housemates prayed for me, as did newly befriended brothers and sisters.

It all happened in ways that allowed me to be a part of my family in ways I haven’t been able to enjoy over the past few years. I am only 4 hours away. Although I had hoped to extend my service in Bulgaria last year, I was reluctant to do so for more than 6 months. I didn’t really know why, either. It turned out to mean that I did not extend at all. It is exactly one year today from when I signed out of the Peace Corps.

I digress. Supposedly, pake wrote a 70-page memoir about his life and finished it a couple months ago. I look forward to reading it someday, if beppe approves, of course. Here’s to a great guy who helped me learn to enjoy life and God. Love you, pake.

My pake (grandpa) has been sick with cancer that is spreading all through him. He was just moved a few days ago to a care center where he is sleeping lots and his body is shutting down. It was good to be able to visit him and to visit with the family that has surrounded him, too. Reading some of the cards piled in stacks that show their love for him and my beppe (grandma) was really neat. My pake has lived as a hard-working, God-loving, determined man. Parts of his growing up inspired my career in bilingual education and have most definitely challenged me to work harder. He served in Europe during the war and moved his family more than a thousand miles so that his son wouldn't suffer from asthma in New Jersey. He has always been a steady strength in our lives with letters and then emails nearly every week.

I sat next to him and we prayed and we shared words I'm not sure I remember enough about. I walked with beppe to go see him and she got teary, but also cracked jokes about unrelated things. She called herself "stupid" for not learning many of the things that pake did around the house, but then perked up thinking about maybe learning how to use the cell phone and the computer. I programed the phone with speed dial, so yesterday she showed that she knew how to make calls. She does forget things the next day sometimes, but maybe one day she'll call me to say hello sometime.

The unknown about the future is what bothered pake the most. The unknown about how his bride of 60+ years will be after he goes, mostly I think. And yet pake is able to sleep. He decided not to be hooked up to tubes and machines, and the hospice program will let him die that way as per his request. It seems that that might even be more comfortable that way. Comfort is no small thing as the body shuts down. The Spirit is with pake, too, and he will get to go Home before the rest of us. Lucky guy. I pray that he goes in his sleep one night.

Did I write that I got a job? Well, I can’t quite remember and I’m starting to write this time as I leave Chinatown in Manhattan on a bus going to Baltimore. The job has me acting as a 6th grade teacher in a transitional bilingual Spanish-English classroom in a tougher part of Brooklyn. First, I gotta give myself a bit of a pep rally by saying that I don’t belong anywhere else right now. It is very uncomfortable these days, though.

Before I started, there was a week of “new teacher orientation” and 11 of us were introduced to I.S. 296 – The Halsey Middle School. The way things were run didn’t really impress me much since we were lectured to about not lecturing to our students. I got the point, but I didn’t get any idea about what they do besides lecturing. I have my own ideas and I’ll be relying on them quite a bit.

Let me back up a bit here. I’m skipping important things and if I do that I wouldn’t want to be skipping the good just to say what comes out first. I’m tired and that might just require a list. I like lists. This one is a timeline kind of list.

- First week in August: got hired, finished up my second summer class requirements, learned that my grandpa had cancer again, and learned that a close family friend was diagnosed with untreatable cancer.

- Second week in August: visited family in Maryland and finished assignments to complete my portfolio for transitional (emergency) teacher certification.

- Third week in August: Started my third grad school course of the summer – a weeklong seminar on teaching reading.

- Forth week in August: new teacher orientation at I.S. 296 and finished up papers for that course on teaching reading.

- First week in September: attended my uncle’s wedding in Iowa with my dad and my grandma and all my cousins, celebrated my birthday, taught my first week of school, and started 2 more fall semester grad school courses.

- Second week in September: learned that my grandpa decided to move into a hospice program, taught another week of school, continued courses, and now I’m on my way to Maryland again.

Mainly, I want to write about the part about I.S. 296, but I have a hard time focusing. My family is praying a lot these days about my pake (grandpa), that he might go Home as comfortably as possible. To see the family and his friends rallying to show their love has been awesome. To say goodbye sucks. I can’t help but think, though, that this had something to do with why I didn’t extend my service in Bulgaria for another year when I really should have (I was ready to do it for 6 months, but hesitant to do it for a year even though that hesitation went against all other decision making processes I usually use). I should still be in Bulgaria probably, but now I am so glad that I can go visit my family during this time and to do so while doing something challenging here.

Challenging. That isn’t exactly the right word. It is a disastrous injustice that I am teaching kids that are below their grade level. I am a first year teacher and what my students need is an exceptional and experienced teacher. Their poverty and the illiteracy in their homes and communities means that in order to have anything close to equal opportunity to that of their peers in affluent communities they need teachers that know what they are doing. I have no idea. Ha! But didn’t I just write that I would be using my ideas a lot? Uh oh.

I had 5 afternoons in my classroom before the first day. Books were everywhere from the past 4 decades. The resources were overwhelming. I got them in a reasonable order of categories, although the library of books for the students to read is in disarray still. I put up a word wall in the back of the classroom with the title “El poder de las palabras – Word Power” and a snappy picture of Dr. King. I got the schedule, a fire drill poster, and flags of places I’ve been up around the room. Once the desks were arranged other teachers seemed to be impressed with it.

Then the students arrived on the first day and I bombed the first lesson. It was only the class rules. I wanted to teach the first lesson about how dignity, involving respect and honor, allows for graceful change. That’s not too hard, right? Ooops. When I got blank stares looking back at me, and my teacher assistant noting that “Sepember” had been misspelled on the board, I had to think quick and get them doing something else useful. Writing! I love writing. Choices! I love choices. So they got to write about something from the summer or dictionaries. This would be the start of our notorious “classroom notebook.” The catch all place for class work these first weeks because I have no idea what I’m doing. I started in Spanish, too, only to find out that 4 or 5 of my students didn’t know any. That was something my assistant realized for me, too, so by the end of the first 2 periods she said, “Okay, so next time we’ll come with a plan.” Thanks.

The afternoon of the first day went much better. I made stuff up as I went, but I was more on the students’ level. I felt like a teacher and my confidence came back a little.

The big thing now, after two weeks, is that I have 23 students and will have that cut in half by sometime soon. The first handful of my students that will go will be those who were put in on accident. There’s a student from Bangladesh, from Mali, from Haiti, and from Dominica and they do not speak Spanish. The second group to go will be those who scored at grade level in English and were also placed in my classroom by mistake. The state has funding for transitional bilingual programs (ones that teach in two languages while slowly taking away the minority language, as is extremely prevalent in African schools) only for those that score low on their English tests. Finally, my classroom can only have students whose parents decide that they want their student there. The third group of students that will leave will be those that have parents that decide that they want them to be in regular classes while having English as a Second Language (ESL) classes instead of English Language Arts classes.

A big problem so far has been that many of these students who will not be in my classroom know it. They thus think that there is no reason for them to listen to me, and they are almost right. That only adds to the frustration, then, that all of these students would benefit from bilingual instruction. The double standard is such that, in elite circles, bilingualism is an asset, but in communities facing poverty, it is seen as a problem. Research backs up the idea that bilingualism creates more opportunities than barriers. Funny we should have a system that in some ways keeps those in poverty away from an opportunity that seems to be staring them in the face, right?

I also have 5 students who have not returned from summer vacations in their home countries. I received curriculum after having the students for 5 days. Interesting? Challenging? Unjust? The bottom line is that my students loose September as their peers pull ahead.

Oh, and I can’t quite forget to mention the school motto stated every morning:

“Make it a great day, or NOT!”

Here are some images I needed to record in order to relax during one of my lunch breaks this second week. I’ll be back with more soon!

Ok, so I'm flipping out a bit...

And I feel like I should know enough to make my brain stretch my cranium a foot higher...

And I might need 3 eyes for some unforeseen reason...

But I really am just a drop in the bucket...

And, yes, I grew out a beard for a bit just to try it out and not have a baby face...

But mostly I am still smiling even when it seems like it is pouring.

>

Some weeks come and go, and nothing seems to be too exciting. Others present themselves with unchangeable aspects that change us to the core. The week that began on Friday the 3rd of August was a big week for me.

The weekend of the 3rd started off on Friday with news from my family that my dear Pake (grandpa in Frisian... or is it Dutch?) was sick. He had just saved my Beppe's (grandma in Frisian) life after she was stung by a bee and he rushed her to the hospital after administering her allergy shot, but overall he was showing signs of slowing down. The doctor's visit showed that some problems were growing in his abdomen and the suspicion was that it was cancer in his liver and lymph nodes.

That sent me into a sort of daze that lasted the weekend, until I learned on Sunday that a close family friend in New Mexico, who had taken me in during much of my time there this past winter/spring, was diagnosed with cancer. In John's situation, the doctors didn't suspect he would be able to fight it for very long since it had spread through his pancreas and spread out from there. I would have to tell my family about his condition while Pake was undergoing tests and uncertainty was already high. It was a big deal, too, that it was cancer, since my family has so much baggage associated with cancer (my sister lost her Dad when he was 33 and my Mom had cancer 4-5 years ago).

On top of these family health concerns, August had began and I still did not have a teaching job lined up. I was assured a position no matter what, as the New York City Department of Education had issued me a letter of commitment that it would place me in a school come September no matter what, but it would not be ideal to be "placed." A much better option would be to get hired at a school where the administration was on the same page and the position itself was in line with what I wanted to be doing. I had a lot of interviews lined up for the week of the 5th and part of that was a job fair in Brooklyn. It looked like I would have to dig in a bit to face these interviews head on without letting the weekend's news get to me.

Monday included two interviews, one of which resulted in an offer to teach 7th and 8th grade, that I wouldn't be able to accept due to my certification being up to 6th grade. Tuesday morning I went all the way out to Staten Island (a 2 hour commute) and was offered what seemed to be an excellent job teaching 4th grade in a very supportive environment. The problem with that was that I would have to move to a part of New York City I knew very little about other than the fact that it was largely suburban and white, a fact that did not show in the school's largely Mexican student population and poverty rate of 86%. Yet, I had heard from a tiny k-8 dual-language school, Cyprus Hills, that sounded like an even better situation and that afternoon at a job fair (a mad house of hundreds of schools) I spoke with the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer principal and had an appointment to interview there the next day. On a whim, I also set up an interview appointment with a middle school near Cyprus Hills since an assistant principal there intrigued me with his books-of-the-Bible tie. I decided to wait to make a decision about the Staten Island job.

Tuesday night I was feeling some pressure. I still hadn't told my family about our friend John's illness. I played guitar and a song giving up my worries to God flowed out of me. I felt a weight come off of my shoulders only to learn that the fireworks I thought I had heard during that song (we hear fireworks often out in the street) were actually gun shots. A youth had been shot in the leg in front of our building. I had had enough for the day so I went to sleep without talking to the detectives who banged on everyone's doors. I wouldn't have known what to tell them anyways.

Wednesday I left at 6:30am in order to make it to my 8:30 interview in Brooklyn at Cyprus Hills. As it turned out, though, there had been flooding in the subways and it was going to take a lot longer. I called and notified my appointments. I didn't know that there had also been a tornado that touched down in Brooklyn, but I did finally arrive at Cyprus Hills at 11:30 after a slow train and then a bus that was leaking water from the air conditioner so badly that people had to open their umbrellas up inside the bus to stay dry and then 2 more trains. I pulled myself together and the interview went well, although I did mention the fact that I was stressed about my grandpa being sick (possibly a positive point of relation in terms of Latino culture). I was told I was a strong candidate, but my fluency in Spanish was a concern. In other words, I wasn't a native speaker nor did I sound like I could be.

Before I could get back to the school in Staten Island, though, they contacted me and told me they would be hiring someone else they had interviewed that morning. The delay in the trains was just enough to cost me that opportunity.

So it was off to Halsey middle school and, as I was trying to figure out which subway station to get off at (it was running again by then), the woman next to me asked if I was lost. I didn't look like I was supposed to be there. Great. That's about how I felt, too.

I arrived at Halsey and was impressed with the fact that there were 4 other candidates for jobs being processed in the office at the same time. It was hot outside and I was sweating hard so I was glad to sit and read some youth literature as I waited. I learned during my wait that there was a woman pirate back in the 16th century from Ireland who carried one of my family's names, O'Malley. Great. If my great-great-great-times-20-grandma (she had 4 kids as a pirate) could be a pirate I could get through this day. In the dizzying half-hour that followed I was hired to teach a 6th grade bilingual classroom, given a packet to read, and told to report back to the school on the 27th since the school would be closed for vacation the following day. Wham. Bam. Kapoom.

I had interviewed at 20 schools over the course of the summer (including 4 offers) and I finally had a job.

I had a final presentation for my second summer semester class that evening and I arrived to that nearly an hour late. Luckily my professor and teammates were forgiving and the presentation went without anyone complaining that I stunk. I smelled sort of funky.

Wednesday night I called family to tell them the news and to tell them about our friend John. At least the news about John was not without some relieving news about my employment status on the side. Since the Halsey school is a 1.5 hour commute from where I live now, I decided to check craigslist (internet classifieds) and the classifieds on a NYC church website for Brooklyn apartments. I emailed 10 places about setting up appointments to see what they had (mostly studios and 1-bedroom apartments).

Thursday I finally got to return to the regular morning sessions that make up the teacher certification program, which I had been missing on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It was great to see my colleagues again and to get a couple hugs and high fives about my new job. That evening I also had a discussion group and immediately following that I went to blow off some steam rock climbing at the gym down in mid-town with a friend. I was beginning to worry a little about moving to Brooklyn. What had I gotten myself into? Would I be able to find something within the week and then move between my week trip to Delaware and Maryland, a 3-credit course that will be 35 hours in one week, and my week of orientation the week of the 27th just before going to my uncle’s wedding labor day weekend?

There is a bit of a blur in my memory as to how it all transpired time wise, but somewhere in there I had a nasty email correspondence with an apartment broker who didn’t seem to want my business and then I was also invited to apply for residence in a Christian community called Radical Living. All the other apartments I had emailed about were taken or did not want to have a tenet with a dog.

I had become interested in the movement of intentional Christian communities earlier this spring after a friend in Gallup gave me a book about it, called Irresistible Revolution. I even attended a workshop put on by the Christian Community Development Association when I had arrived in NYC and had been impressed with the fact that NYC didn’t seem to have any houses such as those being talked about in an extensive international network of intentional Christian communities. I applied immediately and wrote in my application about the amazing timing of the opportunity. They wanted someone to rent rooms starting on August 15.

Radical Living (http://radicalliving.wordpress.com) is just getting going and I would be part of the process of developing monthly meetings or something of the sort. After attending a BBQ on Saturday, which included some fun folk tale sharing from Ghana, the Navajo nation, and the Dominican Republic, I returned on Sunday to see rooms and to talk with the owners, Jason and Vonetta, about their vision for the place. It was a great time of fellowship and we are all excited about my transition to live there. It is 30 minutes or less to get to my school from there, and will be a bit more than 1 hour to get to my classes at Teachers College once a week. The neighborhood itself, Bedford-Stuyvesant, has lots of history and I'm looking forward to learning more.

What an incredible set of weekends and week between. Another week has gone by since, and now I am visiting my parents and grandparents in Maryland. I was sad to miss the final party with the Peace Corps fellows group this week since we've gotten to know each other fairly well having had meetings every day for 3 hours all summer. Yet, it is very good to be here with my family and to pray with them. Please keep raising the family up in prayer as much is unknown about my Pake's condition...

A little while back, my uncle announced that he would be getting married on Labor Day weekend. I said, with a heavy heart, that I would not be able to go because it was going to be the weekend before the first week of school. Although I had not yet been hired for a teaching position, I felt I should leave that time to get ready.

Then a friend contacted me about going to New Orleans to meet up with some Bulgarians he worked with during our Peace Corps service. I had been hearing about New Orleans from a young adult group that did a service trip down there from here in NYC, and a new friend will be moving there to offer his talents this fall. The situation is appalling there and I was very excited about my friend's idea of going down to help the Bulgarians out, camp on the coast, and catch up.

Yet, I had already told my family that I wouldn't make it to the wedding. And if I was really considering the New Orleans trip that seriously, well, why wouldn't I just go ahead and go to the wedding? Obviously I wasn't THAT worried about not being in town the weekend before school started. Maybe it was that I still didn't know where I would be working. It was possible that I would get a job in a place far enough away within NYC that I would have to move, and maybe that would have to happen during that weekend.

I felt a peace about it, though, when I decided to not worry about it. God will help things work out. Fellowship with my family was the priority and so I bought a ticket to Iowa. I know I am doing a bad job of articulating the situation here, but it really does seem like the sequence of events was full of tricks to get me to go. So why fight it? It will be a blast! And chances are that being in NYC an extra 3 days before school starts won't make piles of difference anyways...

New Orleans, on the other hand, will continue to be in my heart. My prayers go out for brothes and sisters and neighbors hurting there. My buddy won't be going down without me, either, but maybe he will consider going another time, even if his Bulgarian friends aren't there...

The 4th of July was on Wednesday this year, and I was fortunate enough to have the Thursday and Friday following that off from the summer program at Teachers College! Where else would I head but to the hills! The woods! The lakes!

For 3 gloriously woodsy days I backpacked with my friends Jessica and Jolene. I decided to leave Moby behind in the city this time, given our previous experience. Jessica was a great expert to have along since she had the maps and also completed the Appalachian Trail last year after coming back from her Peace Corps service in Tanzania. Jolene is a great Canadian friend who I met through family friends in Gallup, NM and came all the way to NYC to visit!

I was glad to escape the fireworks (they always seem to, strangely enough, remind me of bombs and war and people killing each other). We also saw more deer than people.

We took the train out of the city with our gear and hiked 100 yards to get to the trail head. That evening we camped near a lake and got settled before it began raining. There was a little cave nearby and we cooked under its shelter. I swam in the rain and it was good. Our tents kept us dry and the sun of the next morning help what did get wet to become dry again.

The second day we hiked and hiked and found another lake to camp at. Once again, swimming helped for relaxing, but since it was dry on shore I was reminded (thank you, Jessica) that if I pack a hatchet I had better use it. We made a camp fire and Jolene reminded us that she had the smores materials packed! Yum!

The third day involved a plan to hike a ways, but it ended up being stopped short when we found a picture perfect lake with a huge rope swing. We stayed until the last minute when we had to hike 3 miles directly back to the train... well, almost. We made sure there was time for an end-of-the-trip beer at the pub before getting on the train and seeing lots of people!

Here are some pictures:

Here are a few thoughts that add to my understandings. Special thanks to friends who responded and helped me gain these perspectives. I have so much more to learn!

The layers are of race, class, gender, and nationality are all intertwined and unclear. What a complex mix!

I may be racist because of the societal system I come out of, but I may choose to act against that system on many levels.

Being a part of a racist societal system, I can still hold onto hope by remembering that I can act to limit my personal prejudices.God made me white and I can be, and should be, OK with that. I must trust God and believe that there is a purpose behind who She made me to be.Irregardless of colloquial uses of the word, racism involves economic and political power. My minority neighbors cannot, then, be racist. All people can hold and act on prejudices, though, and this hurts me personally. I have a right to identify prejudices against me and to advocate that they stop. I must also listen for understanding when my attitudes or actions are perceived as being hurtful.How can our schools work against racist trends, especially since our supreme court just ruled that it is unconstitutional for schools to use race to determine where kids can go to school even when the goal is racial integration? What can we all do?What social issues are most important to you? Poverty? Gender inequalities or inequities? Racial reconciliation? Religious tolerance? Sexual orientation equality?

Note: I wrote the following post and emailed it to a few friends (of various backgrounds) in order to get their ideas about my thoughts before I published them here. I decided to post it as it was, and soon I will write again with enlightenments I have had through the open discussion with these friends.

The Peace Corps Fellows program at Columbia University's Teachers College started in the middle of May. The program is similar to the Teach For America and NYC Teaching Fellows programs, however, it is specifically for those who served in the Peace Corps and for those who want to teach in NYC for at least 2 years after completing the program, which itself takes 2-3 years. This summer is filled with school observation, coursework to begin our masters degrees (the program includes masters degrees in math ed, science ed, English ed, English as a second language, and bilingual/bicultural ed), and daily sessions training us in all things having to do with teaching in NYC public schools.

Until this last week we had touched on issues of race, class, and other demographics once. We were starving to talk about it, though. I especially wanted to get a grasp on the divisions I see around me and on my own attitudes about it. I live in a Dominican neighborhood just north of the largely African American and Latino Harlem and to the south of that there is a clear shift to European American (white) residents. After observing in 8 schools in many grades I had only seen one public school classroom with European American children.

Let me clarify, first, that I see a general discomfort here in NYC when things are simplified to state that issues have a black/white element to them. This is especially true when there are clear community and identification differences between African American, African, and Caribbean (such as Puerto Ricans and Dominicans). Since things are so complex this way, why would I continue to simplify things in terms of "whites." My friends in the Balkans always would remind me that I wasn't "American." My blood was European in their minds. This connection sticks for me because it reminds me of the truth about who is really from this land we call America and the truth about how my roots are very much a result of global events. So I'll use the both terms. I'm European American and I'm white. Maybe it's a minor detail, but language use is not a minor detail. It is everything.

Getting back to this session the other day, I have come to the concession that I am racist. I come from a society that is still very much affected by its history of racism, to the extent that attitudes and phenomena currently at work are racist. The gap in public education for our community's children of different races is probably the biggest indicator of the truth in such a statement. After all, it was a court decision regarding our public schools that brought about the civil rights movement TEN YEARS later.

That concession did not come very easy and as I reflect on it I can start to understand why. The presentation on the Wednesday before last, called "The Unexamined Whiteness of Teaching" included results from a qualitative research that investigated what was termed the "tools of Whiteness." It is important to think about the dynamics and effects the largely European American teaching force has on the development of children's attitudes about race, but we did not hear anything about what the effect was on children. The focus was on college students' attitudes. The presenter, racially white, but possibly Latino, had interviewed European American education majors regarding what they thought about minorities and had found attitudes catagorized as being either emotional, ideological, or performative. We heard about:

* the emotionally-based attitudes that

o "I never owned a slave,"

o "Stop making me feel guilty,"

o "It's not like I live in a mansion,"

* the ideologically-based attitudes that

o "Everyone is oppressed,"

o "It's personal not political,"

o "Now that things are equal,"

o "I can't related,"

o "It's out of my control,"

o "Just be nice," and

* the performative-based attitudes that

o "Shhhh...,"

o "I've got your back,"

o "I just want to help them," and

o "I would kiss a minority."

I was intrigued by these attitudes, and found myself identifying with a few of them. I can find, in my own reasons for working for justice between the majority and minorities, attitudes such as that of "Everyone is oppressed" and "I just want to help them." Also, in discussion about the attitude that "I never owned a slave," racial discrimination was said to be denied by holding other parts of one's identity as most important in a way that allows relating to the minority experience.

I have continually related my experiences to that of minority groups, and I think many others from communities like Gallup, NM (where I was born) do as well. In Gallup, "Anglos" make up about 10% of the population and we are a minority there racially. But can a group with most of the economic power be a minority? Can the Anglos in Gallup really experience the feeling of isolation or even oppression in terms of cultural capital when all it takes is an excursion to Colorado or consideration of the USA as a whole to reverse such perceptions? Can a European American ever feel or experience oppression? Does it make any difference that I had to basically hide my religion for 2 years during my Peace Corps service so that my neighbors would not reject me? Or am I just fooling myself since American economy, cultural capital, and political power are so strong around the globe?

I think that the term "minority" needs to be put in terms of what it is. There are religious minorities, sexual orientation minorities, racial minorities, class minorities, gender minorities, language minorities, and age minorities. Minorities are defined, also, in terms of the community being discussed. If we're talking about the entire country, then I am not a minority ever. If we're talking about my hometown or maybe even NYC, then maybe I am. Discussion about minorities comes into play in democracies where the majority has political power, though, so on the global scale I’m not sure it works the same way. American citizens would be nowhere near holding political power if there were a worldwide democracy, but the current reality is far from worldwide democracy. USA citizens are privileged in ways that make it hard to argue that we could experience, or have experienced, oppression. The balance, then, has to be between consideration of global and local situations. It is the reality that there are groups of USA citizens in the USA that are experiencing oppression.

Although the presentation remained focused on the list of attitudes above in terms of a few case studies in New York City, my intrigue was turned off when the term "whiteness" was used interchangeably with "racist." When I confronted this idea, discussion moved to consider the difference between personal and institutional/systemic racism. I continued to be offended until a few days thereafter. What I realized days later, was that it was never said that racial minorities can be racist just as much, or even more than, European Americans like me. Racism was never defined and it left me feeling isolated and defensive.

The consideration of distinctions and connections between institutional and personal racism is important, but what is the good of pointing fingers to say that all European American’s are racist? Such are the generalizations that create the problems in the first place! Whistle-blowing advocacy has its place, but in my mind it requires a focus on the goal. Advocacy without a goal is irresponsible. Maybe it is clear that this advocacy’s aim is to reverse trends of racism and the oppression it creates, yet, if racism is defined in terms of “whiteness,” then reversal of it would only create oppression in the opposite direction and that would not be justice.

Justice for me is something that has to reflect projections of thought about the future of younger generations. Having my children experience oppression because of their skin color is not a just answer. Rather, racism must be defined in terms of hate and hurtful actions that happen along lines of race. Justice will be not only as Dr. King said it, where African and European Americans will play together, but even more it will be black and white adults working together equally on personal and on institutional levels.

The society that I live in is racist. Here are some statistics that Teachers College holds as its foundations for working for educational equity:

* By age three, children of professionals have vocabularies that are nearly 50 percent greater than those of working class children, and twice as large as those of children whose families are on welfare.

* By the end of fourth grade, African American, Latino, and poor students of all races are two years behind their wealthier, predominantly white peers in reading and math. By eighth grade, they have slipped three years behind, and by twelfth grade, four years behind.

* Only one in 50 Hispanic and black 17-year-olds can read and gain information from specialized text (such as the science section of a newspaper) compared to about one in 12 white students

* By the end of high school, black and Hispanic students' reading and mathematics skills are roughly the same as those of white students in the eighth grade

* African American students are three times more likely than white students to be placed in special education programs, and are half as likely to be in gifted programs in elementary and secondary schools.

* Among 18- to 24-year olds, about 90 percent of whites have either completed high school or earned a GED. Among blacks, the rate is 81 percent; among Hispanics, 63 percent. However, a much larger share of blacks earn GEDs than whites, and only about 50 percent of black students earn regular diplomas, compared with about 75 percent of whites.

* Black students are only about half as likely (and Hispanics about one-third as likely) as white students to earn a bachelor's degree by age 29.**

Yet, how can I personally be racist if I am feeling the rage that I feel towards the injustices of this system? How can I be racist if I have dedicated my life to reconciliation and justice between people of different demographics? How can I be racist if I do not hate anything other than hate itself?

Further discussion in our fellows group (largely European American with a few minority representatives) brought up the idea that maybe we are racist because we consume in an economy that maintains class boundaries along racial and nationality lines. So much more was said, too, but my mind was fogged. I needed time to process. I was thoroughly challenged and uncomfortable. What a wonderful thing! Those are the feelings that come just before making meaning and growth.

Indeed, my roots in Gallup are missionary and racist. The racial divisions there are strong and to follow them takes no effort whatsoever. Nonetheless, I'm not prepared to say that racism doesn't exist across racial groups in the majority of people in that community. There is a lot of hate towards European Americans. Nothing makes hate fair. Nothing makes hate justified. I believe that this is exactly how Dr. King would feel, too.

I am dedicated to racial reconciliation and the elimination of gaps between different demographic and socio-economic groups. It is not because of pity and it is certainly not because I want to prove that I would kiss a person from a minority group as our presenter mentioned as a tool of whiteness. My experiences in Peace Corps lead me to see the destructive nature of racially based hate on institutional and personal levels. To live in a region that had experienced racial genocide in the past decade was the most challenging thing I had done up to that point in my life. Bulgaria hadn't experienced the war, but many of the attitudes, and their subsequent systems, were very much the same as their Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian neighbors. The experience of keeping my faith a secret in order to avoid rejection from atheist neighbors brought them to a personal level, too.

I was a European American visitor in the Balkans, though. Now I want to make it even more personal. I want to learn about my own country and its divisions. I want to live and work to decrease them. It isn't that I want to help others, it is that I want to help myself, and indeed I want to help myself build a better relationship with my God. I cannot do this without building better relationships with my neighbors, and ALL of my neighbors are children of God in my faith's understanding.

I will attach the most recent picture of myself to this entry. I am white. I am flawed in many ways, more flawed perhaps than many of my neighbors, and I have never deserved so much of the privilege I have had and continue to have. May God forgive me! May my neighbors forgive me! Although I will never make up for these privileges, I hope that I might die creating more justice, and love, in this world. That injustice, and hate, may take a brutal blow from my existence.

*http://www.tc.columbia.edu/equitycampaign/detail.asp?Id=The+Equity+Gap&Info=Facts+and+Figures

In honor of my friend Erin returning from her Peace Corps service this week, I would like to post a great piece of prose that I saw on the wall of a friend's home there in Uganda (the Kiyeyi Medical Center near Tororo) when I visited last October. In copying it down, though, a couple parts are missing. The paper I wrote it down on was in my pocket for a while during my travels and got too tattered to read those parts...

Daily Mirror

I will live each day as fully and confidently as I can and let God take care of the rest.

I will be unafraid of life and death, unafraid to enjoy the beautiful and to be happy.

I will realize that I am a part of mankind as a ___ and know that as I give to the world so the world will give to me.

I will accept responsibility for my acts and decisions and I will not blame someone else when things go wrong.

I will not automatically resent criticism because I realize that it may contain a suggestion for improving myself.

I will not lose my temper readily, or find fault with "every little thing."

I will keep my head in emergencies and deal with them reasonably and with due consideration. I will accept reasonable delays without impatience, realizing that I must adjust myself to the convenience of others.

I will not worry unnecessarily about things I can do nothing about.

I will not boast or "show off" but when I am praised or complimented I will accept with grace and appreciation.

I will rejoice in the good fortune of and success of others without petty jealousy or envy.

I will listen politely to the opinions of others even when they hold opposing views.

I will make reasonable plans for my activities and try them out in orderly ways.

I will find time to relax, time to ____ about God and get a better perspective on myself.

Last weekend was fairly revealing in terms of my experience so far living in New York City, so I'll share.

Friday morning I had the second part of an interview. I was to teach a lesson to a second grade class so that the principal could be confident enough to hire me. Or at least that is what I thought was happening. HA! I have to be careful thinking about what is happening! In retrospect it seems that they most likely already had a candidate that they wanted to

hire, not me, and so they gave me a tremendous task. My lesson was to teach inference and was to include something about bridges. Yikes. Well, I tried and it didn't go very well. My observers in the back of the room left me with memories of twisted faces before they left early and gave me no other feedback. Frustrated, I consulted my program advisers and luckily had a call about another interview for Monday.

Friday afternoon I returned to my apartment and went to bed at 4:30pm, exhausted.

Saturday, I woke up and realized that I had deprived myself of sleep the week before, which probably didn't help my lesson or my attitude. I also realized that I had to get out of the city and that I had to do it with my dog, Moby. I had been on the fence as to whether or not to bring Moby on the day-hike I had planned with new friends from my program. My day Friday pretty much decided it, though, so I gathered up what we would need and we headed out the door. Now, I'm not exactly proud of how this trip with Moby was done, and I probably won't do it again, but it makes for a good story.

Dogs are not allowed on NYC trains. That is, unless they are in a box, and Moby's box is way too big. In order to get to our hiking destination, Moby and I would have to take the subway down to Penn Station and then get on the New Jersey transit and transfer once in New Jersey. The subway was a cinch. Moby sat next to me as we waited, sat under my legs on the train itself, and only a couple people stared. It is fairly normal for young people to wear sunglasses on the subway (in order to avoid lots of eye contact attention, I guess), but my big glasses made me look blind and yet my dog did not look anything like a "service animal." Indeed, the only way to have a dog on a train legally is by having a "service animal" that can "perform specific services" to its owner, as per the regulations stated on the website. Yet, no trouble whatsoever on the subway.

Once we were in Penn Station, however, there was a bit more excitement. First of all, we were late arriving 4 minutes before our train was to leave. We ran through the station trying to find the platform that my friend was telling me, on the cell phone, to go to. Moby and I arrived just as the doors were shutting and the official helping the last people on (my friends waiting for me) stopped when he saw Moby. I had just ran to the platform. With my sunglasses. Moby was running next to me, not in front of me. "Wait, sir, the dog?" "Yes, it is a service animal" I had to be careful not to say that it was MY service dog, because that really wouldn't fly with what had just been witnessed. "You have ID?" "Yes." And this was true, I had ID, but not for the dog, which is obviously what he meant. So we got on the train without any more questions asked.

There was no trouble at our switch on to the next train, nobody asked any questions and indeed this time Moby and I could walk slower with him ever so slightly in front of me... but still not looking anything like a service dog. When the tickets were punched on the train itself Moby laid tucked under my legs and day-pack, invisible.

Hiking was wonderful. The woods are absolutely beautiful. The four of us walked through the green shadows while Moby pranced, jumping like a deer, through the trees up and down and zig-zagging across the trail in front of and behind us. He came back several times, as we found our way along a part of the Appalachian Trail and more side trails, madly covered in magnificently mucky mud. My goodness! We had lunch on a grassy hill with boulders and a few trees overlooking a Walden-esque pond. It looked like a garden someone had planted! And we ate watching a pair of orioles swing on some branches.

:-)

The return trip was what made me decide that it wasn't good to try and trick the system in order to bring Moby to the woods. The official who was to help us on the train on our way back wanted to see Moby's papers. Of course I didn't have anything to show and I said so. I also mentioned that we hadn't had any trouble getting from Penn Station to that location earlier in the day. He let me on, but I could see in his eyes that he was troubled by the situation. He was trying to protect his job, which he would lose if my dog happened to go crazy about something and worry someone. It did not help my conscience that the two officials who had let me get on the trains were racial minorities and I am clearly not. I couldn't help but feel as though I was going along with the norms that implicitly state that a white guy like me can pretty much get his way if he wants. I'm uncomfortable with that. I don't deserve any different from anyone else.

There weren't any problems for the rest of the trip back to my apartment in Washington Heights (Manhattan, just north of Harlem). When I got back I decided that it was a good time to solve the problem of Moby shedding little animals of furballs that populated the floor. I got out my clippers and shaved him. Well, not all of him. I ran out of time before it was time to get ready for the evening myself. It was an uneven job, but Moby didn't mind. He sat still and didn't seem to notice the difference afterwards.

The evening was set to be a good time, too, since I had invited all the Peace Corps fellows who are also in NYC to become teachers after their service abroad. However, as I looked outside, as I do often, I saw a vigil being set up in the entry way to the building across the street. After my shower I went down to go to the grocery store for the evening's supplies and I asked my neighbors about it. I learned then that one of the four or five neighbors who had spoken with me on the street had killed himself the day before.

+++

My meeting with Rey had been brief, but it had made for a story I shared with people around me. During my first weeks in the city I still had my car and although this wasn't too much of a problem I did come home to a surprise one day. My car was parked directly in front of my building that day and when I approached the building I noticed a bit of a crowd and then I saw four guys up on the side of my car. It looked like they were peering into it and playing with the door. What would you think?

Well, my reaction was to ask, "Hey, guys, what's up?" and to state, "That's my car." It turned out that two of the guys had badges around their necks and were immediately interested in why I would be so bold as to approach them during an arrest. There was a bit of confusion, they checked my ID and asked about the car mostly, I believe, in order to be sure that I wasn't involved somehow, and then I was sent on my way.

Later, though, Rey approached me and I recognized him as one of the guys being arrested. He slapped my hand and thanked me for what I had done to try to help. I struggled to know what he meant, so I went ahead and told him the truth. I told him that I hadn't known what was going on and that I was just trying to look out for myself. He had a smile that betrayed a bit of disappointment and hurt. He had respected me enough to think that I had been trying to help in some way, and I responded with the confession that I didn't trust him and maybe I didn't even respect him.

I had met Rey two or three weeks before, but I couldn't help feeling like I had failed miserably in being a follower of Christ in my interaction with him. Even though I know that there was a lot of things that were going on in Rey's life that could have lead to his death, I can't deny feeling connected. I attended his funeral on Monday, but I didn't know how to think about it.

The guilt is nothing new to me, not even in the dramatic form it took after my interactions with Rey and his death. I know that just paying taxes in this country helps to kill people. I know that companies I have bought from have killed employees or enslaved them. I know that injustice is everywhere and I am connected to it. I have my ways, through Christianity's teachings, to cope with it and to strive to eliminate as many of the connections I have with these injustices. I think they are more transparent in urban settings, though, and that is indeed one reason I am here. I suppose I hope that my actions for justice and reconciliation and love will be more noticeable here.

I suppose that my connections to injustices and separation and hate will be as well.

+++

The party continued as planned for Saturday night, but I was glad that it was lower key than it might have been. I told two friends at the party about what I had learned and requested, through a text message, that a few other friends pray for me. We sang karaoke and I think the that a couple awkward moments revealed that I wasn't completely there in the gathering. A part of me wanted to talk about it with everyone there, but maybe I wasn't ready. Maybe another part of me was simply subject to the expectations that the evening would be fun. Either way, it was good to be around new friends.

Sunday lifted my spirit. I went to church, the Riverside Church, with a friend and learned a bit about Thomas Murton. My first visit to Riverside was a bit controversial. My parents were visiting for the weekend and it was probably the most liberal sermon I've ever heard. It offended my folks, but parts of it (not the parts that offended my parents) really moved me. And all 3 of the services I've been to thereafter have surprised me with words that keep waking me up inside. Although it is obviously filled with people, and I believe that we are all pretty messed up along with the things we create, it's a place with a language, a lifestyle and history, of love and I like it so far. I hope I can get into one or a couple of its programs of fellowship and outreach.

My friend had the grace to visit with me the most of the day, too, even as I did some work for the week. Encouragements to go to the park later got Moby out running next to me as I rode the bike down through Harlem towards Central Park. The celebrations for Fathers Day were in full swing and many pointed towards the doggy and called him over to them. Needless to say I was a bit perturbed that if Moby actually went over towards them then I would wreck my bike! Anyways, we made it safely all the way, 70 blocks one way (20 blocks being a mile), and it was refreshing to learn that Moby had no trouble with it. We will be going back! Maybe I won't be so conscious of his spotty hair cut on future trips!

There are a few versions of the story of how I decided to spend 6-7 weeks in Gallup and all are true, but it’s fair to put them all side by side so it makes a bit more sense. As many of you know, my Mom had been a part of the church with her first husband, and when he was sick with melanoma (I think he was sick for 4 years) the church took care of them in many ways. My sister lost her Dad when she was 8 years old. My parents met through choir at Westminster Church when my Dad decided to seek a faith community again, and they were married during a church service not too long after that (it was the first Sunday of the month so that there was pot luck!).

I was born at IHS back in 1981 where I was a bit different as a redhead. I was baptized UCC and Presbyterian and grew up in the church having buddies to play with on the rocks. Amy Brower and I even “got married” during one of the choir rehearsals, which lead to playing house in the sandbox where we went to 1st grade together at Jefferson Elementary. My sister went through school at Rehobeth, though, and graduated after a wonderful experience there. Once she had graduated, my Dad took an offer to advance his career in Maryland. I remember the week we left. There was a big going away party with church friends and my Dad took me to go see the Gallup Ceremonial as a break from packing boxes.

Most of my “growing up” was done in Maryland, then I studied at Elon University in North Carolina, and through it all I honestly didn’t give Gallup much thought. Until I went through a very tough time readjusting to the USA after a semester studying in Uruguay. I wondered why I had been able to jump into another culture, and language, so quickly. A big part of it was my personality, but I began to reflect that my experience in Gallup had been a big part of forming that personality. Between my college graduation and leaving to go into the Peace Corps, my parents and I took our summer vacation together visiting Gallup. I began to see my parents in a different way. I began to realize that the friendships they have in Gallup are special, the move to Maryland was a VERY difficult thing for them to do, and all along it has been their faith in God that has kept them going.

The Peace Corps was a great match for me, but I hadn’t expected to find myself talking about Gallup and the ethnic diversity here as much as I ended up doing. I served in the Balkans and the ethnic hate (often separated along the lines of language differences) added more curiosity about my own family history in Gallup. Was there more ethnic tension in Gallup than I knew about when I was a child? How did kids in my first grade class learn to read when our teacher didn’t speak Spanish or Navajo? Or did she? I also learned, through sometimes long, painful growing spurts, of God speaking to me about trying out the teacher role myself and using my language abilities to match minority literacy needs. Maybe I could even empower other families to help their children become biliterate. After all, I was also learning of my own Grandparents’ regrets about how our family had lost our Dutch cultural heritage when we lost the ability to use the Dutch language. That was a result of the 1930s, but what excuses do we have now?

I ended up finishing the Peace Corps last October. I had been traveling all the while, through Uganda, Greece, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, and the Midwest, until I arrived in Gallup again at the end of February. The decision to come to Gallup came because I remembered how I felt welcomed when my family visited in 2004. The Nasis had emailed with me in Bulgaria as well, and they had offered me room at their house if I ever needed it. The timing just worked out. I knew my travels would empty my pockets big time, and I needed to get a temporary job substitute teaching somewhere, so why not Gallup?

I was setting my sights on the Peace Corps Fellows program at Teachers College (Columbia University) where I could earn a Bilingual Teaching Licensure, teach in a Bilingual school, and work towards a BA in Bilingual/Bicultural education all at once. I was sure, that of all the places I could substitute closer to family (Maryland, Delaware, etc) I would never find a match to the rich language diversity of Gallup. Nor did I figure that I would have another chance anytime soon to get to know my parents’ good friends here. And heavens! If I was going to live in New York City I had better get my outdoors fix for a while, and Gallup is a great place for trail running, hiking, rock climbing, and mountain biking. Indeed, my coming to Gallup was a “God thing.” There is no other way the stars could have aligned so perfectly.

Since I have been here, a lot has happened. I do not feel ready to reflect deeply on all of it yet, but I do feel like I can say that I have gained new insights about my family, language education, and about the way God works. I continue to be impressed with how, with all the hateful things in this world, there continues to be a spark of hope in the eyes of so many. May God bless you all at Westminster Church as you seek to share the Fire of the Spirit and to wonder in the Grace of Jesus’ gift.

Friends and family, hello!

I have not written here in a long while. Much has "gone down" since then. I'll start by posting something I wrote about my trip through the Midwest to land in Gallup, New Mexico once again. I'll then do a couple quick posts to give a little idea of other things that have happened that were important to me, although it sure won't include everything that is important to me. EVERY SINGLE HOUR IS IMPORTANT! :-)

Oh, and then I'll get to writing about how things are going here in New York City as I try to become a teacher in the most segregated school system in the country (separation of Europeans -that'd be folks like me- from Hispanics and Asians... NYC is 3rd with segregation of Blacks). It's a wild ride and I've only been here 6 weeks.

Lots of Love,

Greg

hello everyone!

just wishing you all the best as MLK day comes to an end. please don't forget to dream and to take some risks following them.

i don't deserve what i've been given, and i've said that over and over because i continue to be reminded of it. i suppose i seek out ways to be reminded.

i'm not convinced that i take enough risks to do what it would take to make up for the inheritances that have fallen on me (family, health, country, etc). i'm not sure i take enough risks to follow enough of my dreams, either.

i have accepted the fact that terrible injustices will always be with us. i haven't felt as much pain from those injustices as i probably should. although, my curiousities have taken me to places where i have seen and heard of a lot of pain caused by injustice.

i suppose that accepting the existence of perpetual injustice isn't the same as apathy, but that doesn't settle it for me. i fear comfort and the negative balance of injustice it most likely creates.

i am angry that dr. king did not live longer to share more of his energy and inspiration. i guess today i just wanted to write to say that even when in face-to-face conversation i am always joking about something, well, the truth is that i'm very angry. may god help me control it in order to use it to do something that would honor the legacy of MLK. i am so grateful to have the chance to learn about that legacy, to read dr. king's words... it was about so much more than race...

in as much peace as i know,

greg

"...faith, hope, and love. and the greatest of these is love."

general:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King%2C_Jr.

writings and speeches:

http://members.aol.com/klove01/martinsp.htm

http://history1900s.about.com/cs/mlkspeeches/index.htm

JFK's role in the civil rights movement:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/encyclopedia/enc_JFK.htm

UNEMPLOYED!!!???

So here I am in the USA and I don't have a job. I went to the church where I grew up a couple times and it seemed like I would have a job within 2 weeks if I only stayed there in that town. But, no, I left and am now staying with my sister's family in a town where I have not lived before.

I was encouraged by the enthusiasm people had when they learned about what kind of work I wanted to do, but I found myself responding with tones of disengagement. It isn't that I'm running from the commitment of work. (or is it? Haha!) I don't think I'm running from my hometown, either. No, I found myself almost jealous when I met the person who took on the Director of Education and Youth Ministry job at my old church... that job would have been a dream job.

Yet, why hurry? Why rush around to be busy? Why not take my time so that I get into something that I know will match a more solid fit between my experiences and talents, my inspirations and my motivations, and the needs and hopes of an employer? The job at my home church was one that needed to be filled before I was available. The jobs I might otherwise get in that town wouldn't allow me the educational opportunities that I am looking for, and beyond that I have a hard time imagining a lifestyle as it would be there. I do not see suburbia as being all that stimulating for me as a single 20-something-year-old.

So taking all that into consideration, I get a kick out of seeing people's reactions to the fact that I am currently not working. There are comments like, "So what are you going to DO?" not to mention the announcement at church about the fact that I am looking for work. Anyways, it seems that there is a stigma regarding people who are not working. It is as if it implies that something is wrong. Nothing is wrong. I am letting the spirit guide me. And in the meanwhile I'm lovin' the time I'm getting with my nephews and neice. Don't worry, there is a plan and it is a good one!

:-)