No good deed goes unpunished

As any of you who have encountered me in the last year or so know, my brother is in the midst of a cross country bicycle trip (he is in the South group) to benefit Habitat for Humanity. I am so proud of him for what he has chosen to do, and for his commitment to this very intense proposition. I hope that one day I will have the drive to commit to such an endeavor.

Reuben embarked on this trip with a good friend of his from high school, Dan Lewis. Dan is a student at Yale and it was through Dan that Reuben found out about the trip. On Saturday July 7th Dan was hit by a car while the team biked through Kansas. He has sustained severe injuries, and has been in a medically induced coma since that time. He is currently in the hospital in Wichita, and his family is with him.

Dan's father has been maintaining a blog (They won't let people link directly to the pages, but if you follow the link to read the blog you can register for carepages, it is free, and Dan's page is danlewis2007) of the news from Wichita, which my father shared with me this Monday. Since then I have been going through and reading all of the entries as well as the comments of support and love that people have given the family.

Today's entry made me feel very contemplative:

In thinking about how love spreads, we were also reminded about the senseless horrors of violence and war. We began thinking about the Peace Vigil sponsored by Colorado Citizens for Peace that takes place every Saturday in Arvada. They've been there every Saturday without fail for almost three years. On July 6 (the day before Dan's accident), our family and several dear friends began a similar demonstration for peace at the NW corner of 8th and Colorado every Friday from 12:00-1:00.

Especially as I recall this report I heard on NPR this morning. I don't know if I should feel grateful or not that I don't have much interaction with veterans, but as I listened to the report this morning I couldn't help but think about Dan and his family.

The world is full of people who are working very hard to make life better for people they've never met, and never will. I listen to the reports about the families of men who were killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, and across the board, they reflect on how their son or husband was committed to helping others. I don't agree with the reasons we went into Afghanistan or Iraq, I was adamantly against the Iraq invasion at the time and I have remained staunchly so in the intervening years. I am not quite a pacifist, but I have not in my life encountered a set of circumstances that compel me to say that armed force was necessary for resolution. And then I see stories like this and I just want to cry.

During my four years at Guilford I learned the beauty of silence, the attraction of non-violence and pacifism, and the reality behind the romance of social action. But more than anything I gained a tiny understanding of the Quaker tradition of holding others in the light. So much appeals to me about Quakerism, but I think that this is the most appealing to me. Right now I cannot find a way to express what appeals to me about this without denigrating the idea of prayer, which is neither what I mean, nor what I intend, so at this point I'll refrain from explaining.

I guess what I'm really trying to get at is that there is a kid, a friend of my brother's, a student, a biker, a cellist, a good person, and he is lying in the hospital in his third week of unconsciousness. He was doing something amazing, doing a little bit to make the world a better place. He put music in the air, and he built houses for people who need them. His parents have been very strong, but I can only imagine what happens inside their heads after a long day at the hospital, when the lights are out and they have only one another to distract themselves. So please, for those of you who can, hold Dan Lewis and his family in the light, or pray for them if that is your inclination. I can only imagine how much strength they need.

Note to self:
Probably don't read O magazine about the women your organization helps in Africa while on the metro. Crying on the train is so cliche.

Anyone out there who's curious about what I do, why I put up with the days that make me post stuff like I did last night, and the night before that, check out O magazine for the month of December (currently on the stands). Page 283. These are not stories that are easy to read, but this is why I do it. Knowing that in my own abstract way I am doing something to help these women.

I am faced with the question, how can this be the world I live in? Do men rape women when civil society degrades to a level that there is no reason for them not to? Would the men I know act in the same way if our society collapsed completely? Is this what anarchism really means? If it's not the collapse of the rule of law that allows such atrociety, what are other possible explanations? Is this the normal state of the cultures in which these women live, or is this caused by the illness that began three hundred years ago with European "exploration"?

I'm tired, and I don't know if I make sense right now. I would like to believe that there aren't cultures whose default position is to endorse violence (towards women or anyone else) but my knowledge of the Old Testament belies that belief.

I need to think on this more.

Today I met a woman who is truly living a life of courage, tenacity and hope. She lives in a war zone and helps women to support themselves and their families. She goes to work every day down different routes so that she decreases the opportunity for those who don't like what she does to hurt or kill her. She lives the decisions that she makes every day, and she is aware of their implications. Her temerity is tempered by realism. She is scared, and she is angry and she despairs.

I got to spend time with this amazing woman, and as much as I enjoyed being near her, listening to her, I felt unqualified to exist near her. In a way, being near to her made me feel like a spoiled, whining child. I had nothing of worth to share with her from my life, nothing that I could give to her that had the power and importance of what she gave to me. I have lived a life of privilege tempered by social conscious and responsibility. I am not embarrased of the life I have lived to this point, and that I was lucky enough to be born in a safe place and time. I have a fair enough understanding of odds to know that I am damn lucky in drawing the life I did.

She told me stories that broke my heart, and all I could do was listen, but listening seemed like too little. How should I respond to stories about rape, murder, societal corruption, the overwhelming and paralyzing affects of poverty? Every day she wakes up and faces the visceral, intellectual and emotional cost of war head on. It reminds me of visiting the zoo as a small child. I always wanted to go see the rhinocerous pen, because you could see on the painted metal door where she rammed it with her head. The door was dented and the paint was chipped, and looking at it you knew that it was a small battle won by the animal, because at some point the zoo stopped repainting the door.

Every time I get in a car,or buy a piece of fruit from New Zealand I feel as though in a small way I am enabling the war to continue. Every time I turn off the radio, ignore the newspaper or watch a stupid sitcome I want to do penance for my escapism. How can I justify wanting to ignore the world, when I live safely and calmly in the wealthiest nation in the world? How can I stand next to women who risk their lives every day to make a world that does not notice their existance a better place?

I have a responsibility to these women, to do my best from where I am and with what I have, to honor their risk, their courage, their fear and their pain every day with the life I lead.