Sunday, July 22, 2007
Walkin' to (from) New Orleans
"And if guilty's the question
truth is the answer I've been lyin' to me all alone.
There ain't nothin' worth savin' except one another/
And before you'll wake up I'll be gone.
Walking is better that running away/
And crawling ain't no good at all."--Walking, Willie Nelson
Back in 1974 Willie released one of the best albums of his career, which makes it one of the best albums ever recorded, an album about a failed relationship from both the male and female perspective called Phases and Stages. Personal failure creeps in on all of us at one point or another and it really stings the heart and soul. Whether it's in a relationship or in our work or in some cases, both.
Take for example tonight. Tonight a nonprofit organization that I volunteer for decided to hold a film discussion, and I chose the Spike Lee documentary from last year called When the Levees Broke. Now, I graduated with a degree in Emergency Management, and a passion that flows in me (since I tend to these days know about disasters professionally) is sharing the knowledge and education and dialogue to/with the public about disasters. About lessons learned personally and professionally; as a community from government as well as social service and personal (familial) concerns. And when you bring up Katrina there can still be some fascinating dialogue that comes about; personal fears of future disasters, real concerns about communities and the causes/effects of disasters.
The idea was to present this as a forum for a wide variety of artists and concerned citizens, and I hoped that many would agree that this topic would be worthy of attention. And five people did.
Don't get me wrong--the discussion afterwards was good; and thorough. They always are. But it just disturbs me that real lack of interest in knowledge about these issues; Katrina which will be ongoing for a long time but also for the community at large here in Providence and elsewhere. Did westside arts fail at promoting it? Certainly we didn't do the best job, sure. But many many people did know about this, and five showed up. Five great people, again who strongly contributed to intelligent conversation about many issues. So I suppose the hours of work I put into it were worth it, if only for that. But again, these were five middle class white folks. School teachers, a fellow who used to work for the UN; a former New Orleans resident. Was this really news to us?
And in work, I make it a point to push disaster readiness education, and am making it a priority of work that will be done by two AmeriCorps VISTA's that will be starting working with me next month. But really, America...do we listen to this? Are we prepared...not from a governmental level but from a personal one...for worldly disasters?
This time next week I will be in Haiti, directly working and serving alongside complete strangers. I don't know what that means, and I want to be clear that I'm saying that as humbly as I can, because there's really no other way to approach it. What is life but to love one another? And what is love? Well, it's serving. Right? And what does that mean? It could mean connecting to the old way of life. The way of community.
Reminds me of another song, one I happened to be listening to on the drive home tonight. Jimmy Buffett once wrote a song based upon Mark Twain's quote of "Be good and you will be lonesome." In his song That's What Living Is To Me he paints the picture:
On a timeless beach in Hispaniola
A young girl sips a diet cola
She's worlds apart; worlds apart.
The spirit of the black king still
Reverberates through Haitian hills
He rules the sea and all the fish
What if he had a TV dish?
And so it comes down to this; I believe that is such a wonderful portrait of the clash of the old world versus the new world. And how every day we get further and further away from the old way of living. And further away from the truth. And while we're treading water to try and keep afloat, we can find peace in knowing that it is possible to truly live with peace in our hearts. I believe that it is natural in us to find and have that peace; but the world gets in the way, attacks our subconscious without us even realizing it, and we can live our whole life without recognizing what is absolutely true and is inside of us all along. The answers to so many of our questions about life can be found right within our hearts and souls; but perhaps the world doesn't want us to recognize that.
Listen to some of the stories of disaster survivors and maybe you'll see what I'm talking about. Could be I'm off the mark. Could be. But I don't think so. I think we'll all be walkin' away from New Orleans for a long, long time until something else wakes us up. And I'm not talking about another disaster. I'm talking about something much, much more powerful. ¶ 7/22/2007 11:19:00 PM
truth is the answer I've been lyin' to me all alone.
There ain't nothin' worth savin' except one another/
And before you'll wake up I'll be gone.
Walking is better that running away/
And crawling ain't no good at all."--Walking, Willie Nelson
Back in 1974 Willie released one of the best albums of his career, which makes it one of the best albums ever recorded, an album about a failed relationship from both the male and female perspective called Phases and Stages. Personal failure creeps in on all of us at one point or another and it really stings the heart and soul. Whether it's in a relationship or in our work or in some cases, both.
Take for example tonight. Tonight a nonprofit organization that I volunteer for decided to hold a film discussion, and I chose the Spike Lee documentary from last year called When the Levees Broke. Now, I graduated with a degree in Emergency Management, and a passion that flows in me (since I tend to these days know about disasters professionally) is sharing the knowledge and education and dialogue to/with the public about disasters. About lessons learned personally and professionally; as a community from government as well as social service and personal (familial) concerns. And when you bring up Katrina there can still be some fascinating dialogue that comes about; personal fears of future disasters, real concerns about communities and the causes/effects of disasters.
The idea was to present this as a forum for a wide variety of artists and concerned citizens, and I hoped that many would agree that this topic would be worthy of attention. And five people did.
Don't get me wrong--the discussion afterwards was good; and thorough. They always are. But it just disturbs me that real lack of interest in knowledge about these issues; Katrina which will be ongoing for a long time but also for the community at large here in Providence and elsewhere. Did westside arts fail at promoting it? Certainly we didn't do the best job, sure. But many many people did know about this, and five showed up. Five great people, again who strongly contributed to intelligent conversation about many issues. So I suppose the hours of work I put into it were worth it, if only for that. But again, these were five middle class white folks. School teachers, a fellow who used to work for the UN; a former New Orleans resident. Was this really news to us?
And in work, I make it a point to push disaster readiness education, and am making it a priority of work that will be done by two AmeriCorps VISTA's that will be starting working with me next month. But really, America...do we listen to this? Are we prepared...not from a governmental level but from a personal one...for worldly disasters?
This time next week I will be in Haiti, directly working and serving alongside complete strangers. I don't know what that means, and I want to be clear that I'm saying that as humbly as I can, because there's really no other way to approach it. What is life but to love one another? And what is love? Well, it's serving. Right? And what does that mean? It could mean connecting to the old way of life. The way of community.
Reminds me of another song, one I happened to be listening to on the drive home tonight. Jimmy Buffett once wrote a song based upon Mark Twain's quote of "Be good and you will be lonesome." In his song That's What Living Is To Me he paints the picture:
On a timeless beach in Hispaniola
A young girl sips a diet cola
She's worlds apart; worlds apart.
The spirit of the black king still
Reverberates through Haitian hills
He rules the sea and all the fish
What if he had a TV dish?
And so it comes down to this; I believe that is such a wonderful portrait of the clash of the old world versus the new world. And how every day we get further and further away from the old way of living. And further away from the truth. And while we're treading water to try and keep afloat, we can find peace in knowing that it is possible to truly live with peace in our hearts. I believe that it is natural in us to find and have that peace; but the world gets in the way, attacks our subconscious without us even realizing it, and we can live our whole life without recognizing what is absolutely true and is inside of us all along. The answers to so many of our questions about life can be found right within our hearts and souls; but perhaps the world doesn't want us to recognize that.
Listen to some of the stories of disaster survivors and maybe you'll see what I'm talking about. Could be I'm off the mark. Could be. But I don't think so. I think we'll all be walkin' away from New Orleans for a long, long time until something else wakes us up. And I'm not talking about another disaster. I'm talking about something much, much more powerful. ¶ 7/22/2007 11:19:00 PM
