NEED HELP!!

The struggle of Witnessing.

There's something about imminent departure form a place you've grown to call home, from the people you've learned to pass almost every day and you get comfort from just seeing pass you by and smile, from the sounds that make up the space around you, from the tastes that swirl through a culture, that gets you to start thinking about annoyingly meaningful or at least seemingly meaningful things.

I have started to think now, as I am ending JVI, why I did JVI in the first place, and what this here and now means for the there and then.

So I have decided to go through the 4 values that I wanted to support and live when I signed up for this excursion, just to see what would happen.

For those of you that lack familiarity with the components of JVI, they are :

Living Simply, Witnessing Faith, Community, and Social Justice.

Today's blog has been brought to us by the letter F... for Faith... and for Failure and for Footwash and Fungus, and Flakes, and Feathers, and Fuck, and Franklin, and Farts, and my all time favorite (that too) Fraternization.

Witnessing faith seemed like such a loaded set of words to me when I first looked into JVI. It sounds pretentious to me to some degree. Not only does it assume that I have faith, which is ok to assume, but it assumes that that faith is worth sharing, that my faith can somehow be exemplary of something.

When I thought about it in that context it totally turned me off, and not to anyone's surprise, it was probably the component I most treated like a salad bar choice I could leave under the uncomfortable lighting and glass casing.

Faith, to me, is in constant flux between incredible strength, pride, and passion, and a complete and utter nihilistic darkness that can consume me and sometimes incapacitate me in bouts of depression at the meaninglessness of the universe. Sometimes the universe seems perfect and balanced, with God at its center, or being it itself in its pantheistic glory. While at other times the cold tiny speck of dust in the bitter cold and black of space is much more real to me.

I have found powerful feelings and experiences in and through most of the world's religions in my travels and explorations of the world and of my place in it. Yet, I return to the language of Christianity because, despite my differences with the Church in practice and theology on many, some would even say deal breaking, occasions, I also find great comfort, motivation, and love inside of it.

So, faith to me in a journey, a struggle, and passionate search for the embrace of God through following a way of virtue and love... so basically be a nice guy and look for the meaning behind it. Love others and treat others as best you can. All of that in its simplicity is also a Huge struggle in and of itself.

I have faith, then.

But what bothers me is this witness part. Because to witness is to be one who has seen something, who has experienced something, who knows something and who can reveal the Truth of it to those who do not know. One who can prove something through their existence and word.

Think about witnesses in other contexts. In court a witness is the holder of a truth they experienced and who swears to tell the truth of that experience for the benefit and knowledge of others' struggle for truth.

A witness at a wedding or an event is someone who can testify to the truth of what they experienced.

To put that word with faith seems wrong to me. Sure I can witness through my words to the teachings of the Church, and I can witness to my passion or to my struggle with religion because I was there and I can explain my own thoughts and emotions, but can I or anyone else be a witness to FAITH?

Isn't faith, by definition, a leap over a gap in knowledge, a jump based hopefully on clear reasons to a conclusion that is UNPROVABLE, that is UNKNOWABLE.

How then can anyone testify to an experienced TRUTH, when the best they can do is recount a feeling, a thought, an emotion, an idea... a belief.

How can anyone be a light for someone else of some universal and divine TRUTH, when faith itself is the struggle to try and discover that truth?

And, even if that is all possible in people of great connections with the universe, the divine, God, Ultimate Reality, or whatever you wish to call it, who am I to think that I am that person? ME?

No that seems rather pretentious to me. If I were that person, I probably would be unable to admit it because of the amazing humility in my heart, or would simply live it and not think about it. But I am not someone who has any more of something to offer in terms of what is really going on than anyone else...

so unless we can all be constant witnesses to each other of divine truth (which arguably we can through LOVE) then I am far from being able to meet this component of JVI either in my time here OR in my life afterwards.

I can meet something close though, something a little reworded...

I have so far through my time in JVI witnessed my own personal struggle with my faith.

Here in Majuro, where the pressure from society seems to be believe or die, where most of the kids question their faith but shut it up for fear of others and of hell, who are told not to question, not to think, not to reason, and so have more or less dead or dying faiths (on a general scale)... saying that its OK to doubt, and showing then when you do you don't just give up but keep trying seems to be more of something that I can witness to. It also seems like something I can continue to witness to.

Where I am now, I see that there is one underlying thread that has kept my passionate moments of living Christian or religious faith intense and burning, and that has kept me more good than not when I fall into pits of despair... especially in the recent past. That thread is the idea that what is most important is to find, first, what motivates me each day to be a better person, to love more, to care more, to treat better, to show more kindness, to be more generous, to put others before myself no matter the cost, to sacrifice anything for the well being of others... finding that motivating power is the first step to a more profound faith. That is not to say that when you find it it will be sunshine and rainbows ever after, sometimes even that will falter in your head, but finding that first and realizing that you have found it for yourself, not for its imposition on others... is something I have come to truly take a leap of faith into, and a struggle with I can continue to show to the people around me.

Maybe that's not what JVI was looking for, but that's what I've found.

Food for thought... again

Recently, we did a retreat (this last weekend) and I broke the door fo the kitchen to the retreat center clear off (well, not the hinged side, but the locked side...). It was mostly an accident, though its hard to explain... I didn't mean to break it while I was trying to break in...

but it will be ok... I hope.

The main point of this, though, is in support of Boeke's dilemma's/dedication to/attempt at totally stripping himself naked with honestly... and, because of the value I've come to see in that, and in fact the necessity I'm slowly starting to think of it as... I bring forth the following thought (which comes from looking at JC's trial for the whole Holy Week theme):

Many of us are not a completely open book all the time because to get ridiculed, mocked, or judged (or misjudged) by people who don't completely understand us, by those who we can tell ourselves don't truly know who we are... is easier. Then we can just say (and many of us do all the time), "Oh, they just don't understand."

To totally let ourselves be honest about all our ourselves makes us totally vulnerable because when we are judged, ridiculed, mocked, pitied, or any of those other things we don't want to be... it is because of who we actually are. Someone is rejecting or attacking our fully, honest, naked, unprotected selves... and suddenly, we have no shield of misunderstanding to hide behind... we are left with the simple reality and pain of being unaccepted for who we are, and there is little in life that hurts more.

The question is... will all the good things we want from people, be even better? What about when the people in your life love, admire, respect, and care for who you really are... openly, honestly, and at your most vulnerable...

is that posible pain worth taking for the amazing reality of truthful relationships?

I think it is.

But... maybe not.

Just a visual of what I spent a lot of words saying

On the Cultural Exchange thing

So I've been forced to think about this all throughout the last two years, and I think I have figured it out.

No, that's a lie that can never be true. I think I have figured it out for myself... I don't think it really applies to anyone else. it might, but it probably doesn't. I have no idea.

I also think I've learned in my endeavor to read Harold Bloom's Canon of Western Literature (yea, I know I havn't told anyone that really... and yes I know it will tak eme a long long time), that I think I side with Socrates on many points, but primarily on the essential wisdom of my total lack of knowledge. In comparison to all the knowledge there is to know, the knowledge I do knwo is negligible, therefore: I know nothing.

Taking that to heart makes most of my opinions great for myself and the time, but also, realistically, open to change.

Anyway, I've been thinking about living in a different country, and trying to accompany people in poverty, and work for social justice, adn witness faith, and live simply, and adapt to the culture, but also to be yourself, and to juggle all of those ocmplicated and hard to define things while also doing it for another 5 or 6 not mentioned other things that are equally as complex. If you feel as comfused as I at the end of redain that sentence then you know what every day feels like in the position we're in.
How do you handle that? How much of yourself do you sacrifice and force into the new cultural mold and where do you draw the line and say, I hold this value, and I have to go against your culture and stand for this, no matter what!? When, where, how do you even begin to make those decisions.
In the end, I always have a panic attack (but not a real one, just in my head) and freeze up because I default to "Who the EFF am i to make those decisions?"
But practically, I still have to go outside every day and decide how to behave.

This becomes especially complicated when you've been told that you should be "an example" with no clear definition of what that means.

So here's my plan of action: maybe its come to late, maybe its come right on time, or maybe, seeing as I hope to spend a lot of my life in the world and not just at home... I have come here to figure this out.

For me, I have come to learn, not to teach. If you go into a different culture with the mentality of changing a place then you will fail, create more injustice, or jus tbe disappointed in some way. Real sustainable development has to come from within not from without. People need to make change for themselves, and they can do that, and figure out how, if they see that they want to.
There's a lot thats really quite terrible about the way we Americans see and relate to the world and other people, as well as a lot that is good. So we have to sacrifice many of the things that make us comfortable to be able to learn from others. We have to throw some of ourself away and take in some of their ways.

It also requires a decent amount fo security in your own deep values though. You cannot completely abandon everything you believe in, because you are never going to go into a perfect culture. The things youcan learn are great, but there are also things that you can teach without thinking about it. You have to question yourself deeply and say, what things do I hold to be true and important and why? and how can I express that simultaneously respecting the parts of the culture that might make me uncomfortable but are not mutually exclusive to my values and which parts to I have to contradict and challenge just byt he way I live?
This challenge cannot come from a place of, "Wow, you guys are so wrong." As long as it comes from a place of, "I have to be true to myself," then others will see it and make up their own mind. They'll ask themselves, "Why does he/she do that?" and either dismiss it or take it in, and if many people like it then some change may eventually happen, but in their own way, not in yours. And, more likely than not, you will never see it.

One example, which many people might disagree with me on, in my time here would be in gender relations. I don't think its wrong for women to wear pants, but the local people do. While this may be a big issue of women's lib in the west, I would rather let that part of me go. Also while I see nothing wrong with male or female exposure of their bodies for purposes of things liek swimming or heat... they do hear and everyone requres more modest and formal dress, which drives me up the wall to no end, but I am uncomfrtable for.
But, here, women and men don't really talk to each other unless they're sleeping together. If I am seen taking a walk or having a long talk with a girl, then I am dating her. This is a tricky balance becasue there is little I can do to stop that rumor from spreading, but I also hold high value in hte non-sexual relationships I have had with a lot of women, and I refuse to let that part go, I refuse to give in and say, ok, I'll agree, men and women should have purely superficial relationships or they should be sleeping together. There is a lot men and women can learn from each other, and I could not spend two years somewhere without sharing in the wisdom of the women here. So I made friends with students who were girls, women in the office, and mothers of people. I don't really get to know single young women, but hey, I'm still friends with women in a slightly more safe way (although, I've dated many an old gal in the rumorville of Majuro)...
I put up with the questions about my sexual promiscuity, with a conversation about how that is not true and I can have friends, to questions about my sexuality when the reality finally hits home and everyone knows I never did sleep with anyone. And I accept and deal with those things calmly though repetatively, because I would rather stick to that part of myself.
Not because I think I need to change the culture (though I think the culture does need to cahnge its not my job to do that, nor do I know how to do it, nor do I know if its the right time, nor do I know what it should necissarily change to) but because I need to be true to myself.

So where does this example crap fit in?
Well, I think it would be really naive of someone to think they can live in a different culture without affecting the peopel around them (hell... to live ANYWHERE without affecting the people around them) but more so in a different culture that looks at you sin either a good or bad way as "an American." So taking into the realization that you are being looked at and evaluated in some ways... then the best thing to do is be true to yourself... know what you are able to sacrifice to learn, respect the parts that you can and cannot adapt to, show interest in different thoughts and ideas, and stick to being true to yourself...
then some things you do won't mesh with the local style, and peopel can make up their won minds about that.

That seems like more words than were necessary to explain what I think is a much more ismple Idea, but I havn't written in a long time, and I felt like waxing rhetorical.
Good night.

On the health thing...

I recently watched Michael Moore's Sicko...
and so I've been thinking a lot about the health care system in the US, and outside of it, about propaganda, and about right and wrong, and about the whole general pool of things related to and about movie making, documentaries, journalism, and mostly though, our health.
I have finally determined that even though I don't always agree with the way that michael moore conducts his business, mainly because I'm not particualrly a fan of Hammurabi and so the eye for an eye system of combating angry white men with an angry white man ont he other side of the fence seems counterproductive (though usually hilarious), and even though I don't think the movie portrays all sides fairly because there are instances when the insurance companies do something good, I refuse to believe that they're the incarnation of greed, nor are the universal health care systems of other countries perfect by any means...
it all comes down to some simple truths, that may be painful, but they're true:

First: The health care system in the US is based on profit, which is, well... lets face it... EXTREMELY STUPID.... the main concern of the agencies in charge of making health care available to everyone should be MAKING HEALTH CARE AVAILABLE... not profit... that is just plain logic.
Secondly: Becuase of this primary focus on profit, many many people get screwed out of needed health care and coverage... health care is already easily available to those who can help pay for it, the whole point of insurance is to make it available to those who can't.. but when health insurance is only available ot the wealthy or the healthy, well... then who the EFF are they covering?
Third: I don't have health insurance in the US... and I never have... and I probably never will.
Why? Because I have dual citizenship with a "third world country" where we are "starving for development" and where I can go and get all the medical attention I need, for very little money, and excellent care. where i can go to docotrs that are primarily concerned with my health and not with the money that they will get out of it. where every time i go to the eye doctor, because its so infrequent, as i have to travel halfway around the world, he give me total care on the house. where when you get sick at home and you call the health services, you have immediate medical house call at any time of day or night.
When I was in college I was mildly ill, very mildly... but the student health services had no idea what was wrong with me and what was causing the mild stomach pain I had...
So the Dean said I had to go to the hospital. I refused adamantly, saying I had no health insurance and would not go. He said the College would cover the costs... my health came first (hint hint ... maybe the attitude health insurance companies should adopt?). So I went, they stuck me with an IV, which to this Day I don't know why... I wasn't in need of nutrition, I was eating fine. They made me wait for a long itme, they left me alone for hours in a bed, they took some blood and left me alone for many more hours (and the problem with universalized health care is the waiting time and the lack of personal attention???)... and then they said there was nothing wrong with me, I should take some aspring, take a nap and I'd feel better... thank you, have a nice day.
then they kicked me out, and I had to drowsily call the college to pick me up... that was no concern of theirs. And I was a paying csutomer... well, my college was.
the bill? Close to $4,000. I took up precious time, space, and resources in teh 10 minutes I was attended to in those 8 hours, and they cost $4,000.....
I didn't pay it, my college did, but still... EFFING RIDICULOUS.
And now, in the Marshall Islands, while I may not be as confident of my medical care here as I owuld be in South America, where there are amazingly qualified, US trained doctors...
Any person in this country can get anything from a checkup to serious surgry for FIVE american dollars, any foreigner can get the same for SEVENTEEN american dollars, and medicine is somewhere between free and affordable. So its pretty damn close to universal health care.
BUT, the most shocking thing about it is that WE'RE paying for it!
Instead of having a system in the US that would benefit everyone by using our tax dollars to create a socialized health care system, we are using our tax dollars to fund the RMI health care system. Not that I think that the money to the RMI should stop (although most times I do since its being radically misused) but the reality is that our tax dollars are paying for other peopels health and letting us die...
and that simply makes no sense.

The reality is simple:
having certain institiutions that are socialized does not totally remove the option of privitized businesses, and it is not the same as totall socialism.
We already have socialised establishements in the US: where we get our books, transportation, mail, and EDUCATION! ar ethey with probelms, of course, will a socialized health care ystem have problems like long waits and other issues? YES!, but will people be left homeless because of medical debt, without treatment, without care, or without required medicines because they are not rich hoity toitys.... no.

Let's face it.
Life is temporary, and I would rahter go out in the end having lived a full healthy life, than swimming in a pool of profit off the lives of other people that is not going to go with me whether its to an afterlife or to nothingness.

I love America.
I think its sad that as long as things continue how they are, when it comes to my health, I will always leave America and get treated like a human being somewhere else.

Come on America, step it up.

Where in the World?

I failed to put up all the pictures I promised... mainly because I put them up on facebook.
And that took like 2 hours. I think I might later, if I get motivated. I'll start with an update though, since I havn't done that in a while. Politics, religion, and the Pacific, will wait for a bit.

I'm still in Majuro. I'll be in Majuro for another 4 months. That should seem like a very short amount of time, especially after looking back and realizing that I have been floating about the Pacific on this ridiculously small and neglected piece of humanity for 18 months and 3 days.
Yet, right now it feels infinately long. I guess you've infered at this point that I am probably nto doing so hot. That would be true.
If I am to be truly honest, I barely feel like waking up in the morning every single day. By barely, I mean I don't. Its an odd feeling to open your eyes in teh morning and to be disappointed. That sounds odd maybe. It's not suicidal, I'm not disappointed or disillusioned by waking up at all... just by waking up here, again, and again, and again.

I think the worst part of this rather deep mote of depression is that I can objectively see everything that I love and care about int his place. I think it might be exactly that that is making it worse. Now, before you go on to think that this is some sentimental and overdramatic early reaction to my having to leave, let me clarify.
I think I've hit reality and sobered up, I've gotten over the euphoria of island beauty and people I'm in love with, I've gotten over the hump of cultural discomfort and extremem negativity over issues that don't really matter, and now I should be in the comfortable place of acceptance and enjoyment of my last few weeks. But I can't be there.
I can't be there because I have to be a teacher to students that are too close to my age and that I sympathize with a lot more than with the administration of the school I work for. While I may be totally comfortable with having to yell at them fo things they should nto be doing, I feel stupid and useless being the agent of petty meaningless rules and archaic conservative usless systems I don't believe in. I feel pressured each day to succumb to this authority, without ever questioning because I am here to serve, but feeling unable and unwilling to do so.
I believe that respecting authority is important, but that should never mean that it should not be questioned, challenged, and sometimes, overturned.
I hate my days because I have to pretedn like I care to be part of the system, when I would choose to dismantle many parts of it overnight if I could.
I hate going to work every single day and pretending to be someone I'm not, I hate not being able to really get to know Marshallese people or have tem know me becasue every day in and outside of school I can never be myself. I hate having to pretend I'm the Catholic I maybe would like to be, but am not yet. I hate having to pretend I'm the person they want me to be or at least I'm told I'm wanted to be, but I'm not.
This is especially hard when adult women will nto speak to me seriously or for a long time because men and women are not friends, they are only intimate or not involved, when adult men are too busy or simply uninterested in another foreigner to deal with, leaving, the only available people left to share genuine thoughts and meaningful conversations with the very kids you have to yell at for things you don't even understand or care about or think are ridiculous and unfair.

I'm an adult, I understand rules, I understand why they exist and why they should be followed. It isn't like I don't understnad those things. But, rules feel oppressive if they aren't convincingly necessary, or if you on a more deep and core level stand against them.

I want to be here for 4 more months because I have many people that I love, though few I really know as well as I could or should because that chance is not available to me being part of JVI and being part of Assumption. I want to be here because I lvoe drinking coconuts, I love talking to my kids, I love running around with Small Island children when I'm not too tired, I love walking on coral, I love Bata's homily's, I love Marshallese singing, I love the half performed dances, I love the Good Night's in the middle of the afternoon, I love the lack of chalk, I love Pablo and Florence, and Sr. Monika, and all teh otehr sisters, I love bubsi the dog, I love going for walks to payless, I love power outages, I love sashimi for free, I love the sunsets, I love peopel who are into things liek Wutmi and YTYIH, I love the youth group when they're doing well, I love the awkward parish events, I love not knowing what to do on saturday nights, I love majuro, I even love the headaches and the toothaches and the waiting and the frustration and the loneliness and the joyfulness and the ukelele and the rice and BBQ chicken all day.

I love it.
But I cannot enjoy it because I cannot be me, and I'm pretty sick of that.

I do strongly believe that Christ and many of the other world's faiths have called us to die to self. But, I believe that that is fighting out own selfishness, dedicating our time to others, and sacrificing of ourselves for the greater good.
But not giving up our person for meaningless and petty things, not being unable to enjoy or be true to ourselves.

I love a lot of things about Marshallese culture, but it is the general attitude of submission at all times, the suffocating fear and the powerlessness that is promoted by the culture that stops people from standing against things that are endangering or destroying their world, the blind and unquestioning bow to authority that is not deserved that depresses me. And me having to be yet another example of not questioning or actively fighting what is unfair or unnecessary, me trying to promote and be an example of that powerlessness sends me hurtling down into a darkness that makes me count the days until I can leave, when all I want to do is enjoy being here, which depresses me even more.

So tommorow, I will force myself out of bed again, and be an example I loathe, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks, I will find a way to enjoy what I love.

Adventures in the world of Christmas

I was apprehensive about spending the holidays in the community.
Now, I know that seems to be the opposite of what you'd expect me to say, but its true.
Last year I benefited a lot from getting the hell outta dodge.
But, this year, seeing as the planes have been grounded for months, the boats are highly unreliable, and we really only have like 10 days off school...
I stayed.

The following is a short list of what we have done so far:
On Christmas Eve we went out to dinner. We dressed up and went to The Stone House, which is a Japanese restaurant past the bridge....
Dressing up was really bizarre. I havn't warn a tie and been told I looked liek Regis Philbin in a very very long time. Mos tof hte time I played with it like a cat toy or tried to figure out exactly what made it make me look any different or special. Steve told me a few minutes ago they make you smarter... which is true, but I didn't wanna be smarter for Christmas, just cuddlier really.
I mean, its Christmas for goodness sakes!
I'm a little concerned about having to do it more often when I get back.
OR maybe I'm really just concerned about thinking its normal again.

Midnight mass was fun, as Bata Rich pointed out at the beginning, we had some Japanese visitors all the way from Japan.
Like at every Catholic Midnight mass, there were more poeople there than I had seen ever in the last year in that church, since the last midnight mass... since we weren't here for easter...
The decrations were lighttastic, and i didn't fall asleep! (see, mom!)

On Chistmas day we went to our vice principal, Luke's house. I ate more food than I have ever eaten in 2 sittings in my entire life... at teh end of desert I literally felt like exploding, it hurt to move, and brething was a fantastically difficult thing for about 4 hours...we all just lay around for 4 hours, and then we went home and watched a Charlie Brown Christmas... and I watched Evan Almighty, read and went to sleep. I really liked that day.

And yesterday we went to the resort, where our friendly neighborhood Condons got themselves a room for the holidays. I took a hot shower, had some vodka and orange soda, laughed really hard, and talked way to much about demon manifestation adn vajayjays... while sittin gon a veranda on the lagoon looking at the full moon... amazing maybe?

Really selfish things this holiday season:
I wish I had an Ipod and it wasn't stolen and possibly at the bottom of the ocean if rumors can be trusted
I wish I could take all my friends and hang out in one big party full of love
I wish I could drink more, even though its not that big a deal, it only is because I feel like I its not really my own choice
I wish I had a "job" and could buy and get presents.

Really good things this holiday season:
I think i finally really understood and enjoyed the "Holidays is about people thing"
I felt at home a lot on this vacation
Holidays are really about children, and I'm slowly falling in love with them again
Also, the whole birth of Christ saga hit a warm spot, and whether or not he's God, that story blows my mind, and the idea that God would give himself so fully to humanity, even if its just in our hearts, is mindblowing, and it makes me feel undeserving and ungrateful and loved like nothing else.

I think I'm going to order myself His Dark Materials trilogy as a present.
I want to know what happens after end of Season 2 of the American office!
I'm excited that we're going to Micronesia for ReO/DisO.

That's all for random facts about the week. I have 2 specific things in mind fo rthe next 2 goes, so... later
and Merry Christmas.

The Quarter Life: Careers

Where would I even begin to define how my career and my views on the divine mix and match, or don't.
I don't know how to talk about both at the same time. So I'll deal with film first, then God in that.
Oh, I almost forgot, if you are interested in the original version of the Quarter Life and not just the dark-alley island copy, then check out the dynamic Aaron and Bryce Duo.

So, Film and its place in my "career":
I had a really hard time thinking about this so I looked up the word career in the dictionary and it said this:
"an occupation or profession, esp. one requiring special training, followed as one's lifework"
If that is the case, then my career is filmmaking. I passionately believe in the medium as a form of communication, education, and entertainment. I’ve struggled with it for a long time because I have wrestled with doubts about whether or not filmmaking makes any contribution to greater society and what my place in the artistic world should and will be. Hopefully, I can dedicate my life to films, both documentary and narrative, which help to amplify the voices of people around the world fighting to be heard. I aspire to make films that remind us of our universal duty to embrace and help each other as a worldwide human community, and that place me personally in situations where I can accompany those that lack what my life has blessed me with. Through my short life I’ve seen film be a mean which can lead to powerful ends. I have seen film used to promote local culture and to destroy it, to bring people together and to set them apart, to produce debate and to produce animosity. Through doing what I love, I would like to build a more intimate and direct connection with people and their cultures, I would like to solidify my foreign language skills, and I would like to, in a small way, repay the kindnesses and gifts that have been given me by so many people I am so removed from. I hope to make films that entertain, educate, and inspire youth to action. I hope to come to a more full understanding of how western culture has impacted the world, how the world has impacted me, and how we can achieve equilibrium, if not on a large scale level than on the level of everyday relationships.
That is why I want to make films.
BUT,
(and on to God)
the dictionary also said this:
"a person's progress or general course of action through life or through a phase of life, as in some profession or undertaking"
If that is the case, then my career is not filmmaking at all. Filmmaking is just a part of it, at least right now as I see and hope it to be. But if I am to say that I am a deist, that I believe in an all pervading divine force that not only overpowers the universe but also cares about me personally, in other words, if I am to let God be God, then I cannot limit God. To say that I need to be in full control of what that course I call my life is to take is to say that God can't handle it. That God is too small for me.
My career, in the cheesiest words I can place on it, is to discern what God wants from my life. To give up the need for control and to trust in that divinity I profess to believe in.
Now that can sound down right stupid in some ways. Only, though, if giving up control to you means giving up action. I still have to be responsible for my own destiny, I still have to act adn commit to the choices I make everyday. But, what is behind that action is sincerely seeking to understand what God wants me to do, and to do that, even if it may not seem like the best financial option, or the smartest "career move."
How do I, you, any of us discern God's will?
Well, who the eff knows? I don't.
But there is something that, at least right now, is stearing me in the right direction. That is the idea that God is always talking to us (no I didn't get that from "Conversations with God", I find that guy a bit creepy, even though I agree with some of the things he says). There is a whisper, a still voice, a constant connection to the divine found deeply inside each of us. SO, digging deeply, being honest and real with ourselves (which is usually the person it is hardest to be honest with!) we can hear it. If we are true to who God created us, to our talents and strengths, to pursuing what we love and what frustrates us, and we constantly listen for how we can shape that person into someone dedicated to love and to others, THAT is discerning God's will for us.
It's not about forcing ourselves into a mold created for everyone 2 thousand years ago in a desert, but that 2 thousand years ago in a desert someone told us that we each have our own mold, and figuring out what that original, true version of ourselves is is discovering God. Now, some anti-deists might say, well finding your true self is not finding God, its just figuring out what makes you happy. Is that possible, is it possible that it is not God?
Sure. of course its possible.
But I see it this way. God, to me, is love.
So if you find your true self, the one that leads you to real happiness, then you will love yourself. That is God.
If you live like you were meant to live, if you live your true self, then you will dedicate your talents and full self to other people, to empowering others, to engaging others, to respect, and kindness, and compassion, and trust, and honesty, and joy, etc, etc, etc. So, you will truly love others.
That is God.
If you sincerely love others and yourself, others will love you.
That is God.
Maybe its all crap. Sure. Maybe none of that is a greater divine power and its all just cuddly wuddly chemicals. If I were to deny that possiblity I would be a fool.
But, Belief is a choice, and right now, all the evidence that shows me that that purity of love is inside all of us, and connects all of us, leads me to the conclusion that it is something greater than cuddly-wuddly chemicals reactions.
Right now, as a personal choice, and as a career, I choose God.
and, if the discernment system is all wrong, well I hope Thomas Merton was right when he said that the very act of trying to please God is what is pleasing to God.
and if the entire theistic system is wrong, well, then I'll do my best spending my life trying to make myself happy in the deepest ways possible, dedicating my life to the service of others, and pushing myself to love more for all the wrong reasons.
Dammit, I'm really going to regret that... NOT.

After the arrival of the second wind

I will post some pictures. Really, I will.
Promise.

This is mostly a test run, to see if I can post things from this computer.

So, without further ado:
My top ten ways to be in the height of Marshallese teenage fashion and attitude:

10. Wear unusually baggy clothing. If you are a guy, wear polo shirts that reach your ankles, hopefully with stripes. If you are a girl, wear pants, but never say you do!
9. Have at least one gold tooth, but more is better. If not enough commitment is available, have some fake ones.
8. At any moment when called to interact with the opposite sex. RUN. not figuratively, literally, as fast as you humanly can.
7. Write your nickname in as many places as you can, usually with awkward combinations of Lowercase and Uppercase letters, underscores, and your number. Also, with some nonsensical, island style "ghetto"cized words: like so:
La-Mike #13 w/ hea biotshhh!!
6. If attenging a school dance, whatever you do, DO NOT DANCE!.
5. Get really excited about learning new languages. Get really bummed about learning math.
4. Cut little designs into your sideburns, like some horizontal lines, or, if adventurous, zig-zags.
3. Ask your teachers uncomfortably personal questions.
2. Play basketball if you are a boy, play volleyball if you are a girl.
1. Have a sweet rat-tail mullet! OR a little mustache... if really hardcore, COMBINE!

Now, after following these careful instructions, you will be able to fit right into the pop group at your local friendly high school student body!

See you all next time on, "Being cool" with Mike.
Next week we will give you the top ten things to do to fit in the Serbian hill towns.
Have a ncie day.

Tired

I wish I could talk right now,
or write I guess.
I wish I could share the rattling tumbling speedy passions and discolorations that pass through my emotional windshield, but the truth is that right now, at this moment, I feel pretty numbed by routine.

It is interesting how you could put 5 people in a house that don't get a long and they can get along quite well. it can be fun and you can find or at least feel like youc an find support.
Then, it is interesting when you mix it up and get 5 different people together, some old, some new, and you can have more in common, you can get along better, you can objectivly like each other more, yet find yourself completely alone.

I don't know how I feel right now.
I don't even know what I think.

The process of aculturation to the RMI has been an unsteady process.
Truth: I have grown to love this place adn its people with inmense depth and soul.
Truth: I have grown siginificantly more commited to a erlationship with God and better relationships with other people.
Truth: I have fallen in love with life. (more than ever before at least)

Yet, I can't help but consitantly be frustrated with the Marshallese, my community memebers, myself, and especially God.
I know that is ok, frustration means caring, it means active participation, it can lead to inspiration, action, motivation.
Yet, right now, its only leading me to get tired.
I'm tired of thinking about everything in a deep and analytical way, I'm tired of living in an isolated bubble away from the heart of marshallese life, I'm tired fo trying to make friends with people who don't seem to think they have time for it, I'm tired of not really knowing what people think, i'm tired of being so far from people I wish i could be around, I'm tired of thinking and caring and processing.

I just want to live my life in the way I think is good, not enclsoed by a system of rules that seems arbitary and pointless.
I feel like that may be how many people here feel on a day to day basis. Hence the drug addiction, adn the alcoholism, and the numbness and indifference and lack of action.

I feel like a teenage girl who is so caged and overprotected by her parents who want, more than anything to keep her chaste, that she wants nothing but to sneak men in through the window.
Given the responsibility over her own choices, she would most likely never choose that path, but having that responsibility taken and denied, that choice becomes the only visible root.

I find myself over stressed and disconnected.
I would love to live in Majuro not in Assupmtion.
I would love to represent myself not a reputation, or a combination of them.
I would love to make my own choices and stand against systems of opression that are part of everyday thought and have been imposed by over a hundred year old Puritanical Europeans.
I would like to be myself and not try to force myself into this mold I don't even like.

I do think, as Megan Romey told me when she was here a few weeks ago, that there is great value in learning what you don't believe and what you don't agree with.
I think i've learned it though.
And I don't want to keep learning it everyday.

I need a vacation.

A little bit much maybe

It's been a while, and its hard to trly be able to regurgitate to you all the events of the following last months without not being able to really do justice to it all, but I'll start with some highlights:

1) Adding Insult to Injury
My Ipod crashed and burned. I have been musicless for a few months now and I am sad for the many joys that come from music and from being able to use some of my songs in class for various reasons.
BUT, right after my Ipod broke... it got stolen... who the hell steals a broken Ipod? It was reported to me under tha table that one of the students did it, and angered by its non-functionality.. threw it in the ocean. So it is another small bit of my life that the great blue has swallowed. I miss not the machine, its no big deal, I will replace it someday in the future... its just the injury of the saltwater, and the insult that I may be a bad enough teacher to incur a student's fingery wrath...

2)Facing a New World Order
The new JVs arrived in a splay of flashing colors, whirling airplanes, and crashing expectations on all sides. Crashing both into the mountains of beauty and goodness and into the dark voids of chaos. Change is in the air, and unlike last year where the 2nd years yearned for change in many ways, we yearned for stability. But, all things end and new things start, so we're trying to figure out how to live.
We're so far overcome:
differences in expectations of what JVI is all about
long, long, long awkward silences
skirting around major issues
not really enjoying each other
We still must overcome:
issues of honesty
not really having actual conversations
tiredness

3) Catnip
We got a cat. His name is buttons, Edgar, Shiva, and Mujik.
He's a pain in the ass.
First he cried, now he bites.
The point was to get rid of the 30+ rats we had living in our roof... which brings us to the next point:

4) We have no roof.
Everything is soaked.
Theyre fixing it.
Everything smells like it got wet with water filtered through rat crap.
Yummy!
Me and Aaron and living in Bata's house.

and last but not least 5) applications, the future, and you

I just finished sending my Fulbright application today and it wasn't completely complete, dispite my own personal overworking and triple working to get it done on time. I spent all my money, neglected my community and my students, and stayed up until all hours of he night for months really...
I requested that they understand my circumstances and allow direct delvery of my recommendations to them.

I would find it quite entertaining and intruiging if they didn't, since they require of their applicats flexibility and adaptablity to unforseen situations. Wouldn't it be quite hypocritical of them not to provide the same attitude they require?
I think I have noticed recently that this is a common trend in America... and it may be everywhere in the world, why do we all require things of others that we are not willing to provide ourselves? We ask people to be on time, but we're not. We ask people to be frank, but we're apssive agressive. We ask people to be honest, but we keep important htings to ourselves, We ask people to be responsible, to know themselves, to know what they want, to know what to do.. but most fo the time we are just as lost and dazed as those we crtiticize.
I've been thinking about what I require of my students. It is similar to what was required of me. But they don't really do it. thing is: NEITHER DID I!
So why should I expect it? Is it lowering my standards to require less or different things? Or is it being realistic and fair?

I havn't made a decision. Obviously, in terms of faith... God in no relgion I have met so far lowers his standards to say, "hey, realistically, this might be too hard for you..." but simultaneously... God in every religion I have experienced so far lives up to his own standards...
Jesus definately didn't slack off on living up to his own standards.
Jesus reminds me of Socrates, or maybe Socarates reminds me of Jesus... I don't know. But I hope in the end of my days, when I am old and grey or in my 30s and destined to go, I will be able to hold up my standards in a court of law and say no... this is what I stand for, while I have been open to new views and ideas and reworked my thoughts accordingly, this is still what i stand for. I have not danced around the bush of thought, I have not wishy washed my way through this existance... and, in the end, I am willing to have you sentence me to my death before I betray myself.
If I can do that, I can require whatever I want from people... because I require it of myself.

Universally awsome

The first picture is from our trip to Ebeye. We were on the line waiting to get ont he ferry to the miliraty base to get on teh plane to come back to Majuro, and here is the coolest baby ever. The second one making a yucky face is some relative of Stiffney's (then a junior at the senior graduation, but now one of my seniors). Who, unsure... but awsome nonetheless.

I would walk 30 miles

We decided in our oddity to walk to entire island of Majuro... from Lauren Bacal to Rita Heyworth.... (I probably spelled Bacal wrong)

We decided to finally get it done for Greg's Birthday... and we left laura Beach at around 8:30 PM...

12 and a half hours later everyone else had

reached Rita and I was asleep at home...

Sorry.
I made it to the Embassy.. the US Embassy, and I stopped at about 7:30 am...
I made it a whopping 22 miles... beating Chris Keeney who stopped at the airport... but I hear we'll probably go again in October... so I'll finish it then.

Ummm... yea

So, this update has been a long time coming... but a few months back, we got into the ridiculousness of our lives even more by branching out with our "spirituality nights" and performing the most Christian-nerdy night of fun ever to have arisen in teh minds of liberal minded Majuro JVis... we went BIBLICAL BOWLING...

It was quite an adventure in an of itself, but then Jacqueling made sure that we WALKED to the bowling alley in full costume, Later on I'll put up the picture of me walkign down the street and the cab driver driving by with his mouth wide open.

Any way, the point is we got there, and it was fun, in the end, even if it was ridiculous.

The breakdown was as follows:

Jaqueline and Greg were team #1, the old testament:

Salome and Solomon

Emily and I were Team #2, the new testament:

(See how the second years gang up on the first?)

Mary Magdalane and Mary the Mother of Jesus

Greg and jaqueline wupped our asses, but they never ended up getting the back massages that they won as a prize.

Later in teh week Emily found a bowling trophy on the side of the road while running, and of course she picked it up and brought it home... she does that a lot...

And I, well... I am still embarrased, but in a small way.. a little closer to God.

teaser trailer 1

SO SO SO MUCH TO COME... i am back from ther outer Islands with pictures, stories, and having had gaved at wild dolphins... which are amazing...

I am burnt and crispy after a 2 hour boat ride to a mini-plane.
I am one year older.
I am one year into missing some people who are probably reading this more than I have missed anyone ever, since I've rarelyREALLY missed people, never feeling them too far for too long.
I am one year into loving and falling in love with people, nature, ocean, God, and a wild assortment of youth.
I am one year from seeing my mom and dad.
I am burnt and crisy.
I must go pass out.

The Presence of Luxury

Last night was a fantastic night. We were invited over to dinner at this girl Sarah's house. She's very awsome and her sister is coming in a few weeks... That'll be funny too because she has NO idea what she is getting into.
Anyway, she cooked some great food: artichokes, which I havn't had in a loooong time, an apple and onion stuffed chicken, and this fatastic muchroom pumpkin curry. We brought over some wine and I made a coffee cream and raisin pie. (I bake a lot now, by the way, especially on Sunday afternoons).
So, we drank, we laughed,we sat.
At the end of the evening, me and Sarah had a converstaion that went in circles, but that was the only place it could go.

She was here for a year working with "World Teach" a good idea that doesn't always play out so well here in the Marshalls, at least thats our opinion, due to some, SOME, American volunteers that are just too into their Americanness and their way of doing things. They are here only to teach and some are not so opne to learning, which I think is the first and main failure of any international volunteer, missionary, or any other type of similar expedition. It HAS to be a mutually growing experience, or else someone is going to thinktoo much of themselves. Anyway, after her program she decided to stay for another year, working under contract for WUTMI, which is an NGO like org that works for women's issues. They recently put together a great documentary about violence against women in Marshallese (one of 2 or maybe 3 things in the language on TV). SHe stayed because she wanted to and not because she thought they NEEDED her, which I think is fault number 2 of international volunteers and etc. Somehow, especially if you were part of a program, you MUST realize you personally are not desperately needed, and somehow the people and culture cannot and should not continue without you. Can you make an impact? yes. can you be remembered? Possibly. Can you even form some life long relationships? hopefully you'll get that close to some people. But no one really NEEDS you, and they WILL survive, and do well without you. Someone will come after you, and if not, they'll manage as they have for a few thousand years.

Anyway, I digress again... She works with a woman named Daisy Momotaro, considered a model Catholic in a lot of ways, who runs WUTMI. She works hard, but she has her flaws, as everyone does. Yet, despite all the good work she does for women and their rights in this country, she also gets manicures and pedicures all the time, takes the 5000 health package to the phillipines, and lives very very comfortably. There are a gaggle of other examples of people who do the samething in all ranges of wealth, from Oprah to Daisy, the question then remains: Where does it become hypocritical? Where does it become not so impressive that they help people?

Quickly we both acknowledged that we would be no different. And so we went in circles. IT is a question which I cannot, and she simply cannot answer. I also wondered because some of the examples I had that seemed better ended up in the same place. The guy I heard about from Chris at IV in Claremont that madelike 150 thousand a year or something and gave most of it to charity, was annually audited, lived in a low income neighborhood off of liek 30 or 40 thousand a year... even he, as far as I understand, may live on what he needs, but I don't think he lets himself ever live off of an amount of money where he WORRIES about not having enough to eat or worries about not having enough of anything. He gets what he needs and no more, but he never has to think about just that, what he needs, which a lot of people DO have to think about. Maybe he does, I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't thinkhe does.

So, maybe the idea is a model life in emulation of the great religions leaders: like Buddha, like Mohammad, like Jesus did, and like Jesus said over and over and over... to drop EVERYTHING and follow him. Maybe that is the ideal, but are all the attempts that don't meet it not as valuable?

I have no idea...but what I think right now is this:
What matters is that you care, that you are aware, that you ARE doing SOMETHING. Maybe its just a bandaid, maybe not, but that you see the wounds in humanity and you try to treat them. OK, Daisy takes the health package to the Phillipines and gets the best possible medical care, she doesn't deserve it for what she does, but she does DO what she does. She could just as easily choose to take her luxuries and turn a blind eye to the places in her country that need help and healing. I think that counts for a lot.

I don't know in life how much money I will make, and I will most likely give what I don't need to others in some way. But will I ever just trust God enought o watch my back? I don't know... right now I have placed tangible security and comfort before God, I have placed money before God, and I trust what it brings in the world. Even if I just use it for what I need, and the occasional but not overpowering wants, I still abide in the house of the all american dollar...

Monetary security is my golden calf, is it yours?

Moon Landing

I have to say that I have been emphatically reading discover magazines that were graciously sent to me by one amazingly beautiful pair of people. Thank you...
Unfortuantely, the pink monkey got wet and is a little grimey... but overall he is a happy fellow.

All I have to say is wow, thank you, and the nutella lasted about 4 hours...
Oh, and that I'm not so keen right now on living in north carolina, but I am excited for you, and it sounds like a good place to freeload for a few holidays each year...

On that note I would like to talk about NASA's plans to rearrange their budget to center work on:
A: Returning to the moon
B: Attempting a Space colony
and all of that really just being practice for
C: Landing on Mars.

While many people in our current times of rising global crises may see this as a foolish waste of money, I'm going to go with Steven Hawkings and support the obvoius,
Too many people and rising global instability does dictate that the future of the human race may not lie solely on earth. While that may be ridiculous science fiction to some, so was "The New World" or landing on the moon in the First place.
That being said, I am not thinking that space colonization will be an element of reality in my lifetime, (while going to space for a joy ride to create revenue for NASA and Virgin might be), but I am glad to see that SOME of the taxpayers' money is going to something significantly more cool and interesting than the "war on terror" or anything having to do with the billions of dollars spent on election campaigns.

What about problems here on Earth? Some would say, what about AIDS research, poverty, hunger, cancer!!!! and the heat... my god! ... THE HEAT!!!

Well, I say, no LESS money is going into those things, money is simply being refocused from mechanized missions, to human involved missions, which, to me is another plus. Adding the human element back into space research helps eleimate the science fiction and bring ont eh reality, it also helps us push ourselves harder to develop technology for the safety and plausibility of humans spending a long time in space.

AIDS research is hard because it may be, whether we like it or not, have to be added to the list of diseases we CANNOT vaccinate against, like malaria and tuberculosis, and then.. oh dear, the responsibility to protect humans from AIDS will completely be on education and personal responsibility... I know that that is a great fear for many.... What? We can't just get something done to us to make our lives easier, so that we can do whatever we want without thinking about it?.... At the pace we are going, according to most scientists, it will be a decade or a few decades before we reach a vaccine, but the most likely end result will probably not be one...
Obviously, I am not making a jab at people with AIDS. Its a disease, and it sucks, and I feel a lot of sympathy and compassion for those who have it, especially for those who did educate and protect themselves and still contracted the disease. But, seeing as it is not the easiest disease to catch, as opposed to say malaria or tuberculosis, I do often wonder if our moeny would not be better spent on funding good sexual education programs, that lead with abstiance as the forefront, but don't presume that that people won't still have sex, and educates our teenagers on how and why to protect themselves.

Poverty, hunger and the rest of the legitimate problems in the world, and in our country, i think have a more pressing battle to fight than that of being short on change. Until, which may never happen totally, but until there is a radical change in the mindset of the importance of material gain, and the revered cult of the glorious American Individual, those probelsm will continue to fester and grow, and many people will be taken in the wake. As long as there are still Sunday Christians praising the Bible but not listening to its call for simplicity and communal care, as long as there are the few and far between churches preaching that people deserve to be poor, as long as there are atheist materialists instead of atheist moralists at the forfront of our country, well... don't expect a bigger budget to change much. Before anything can change, WE have to change, the way we think and the way we live our lives, and especially the way we run our companies. As long as CEOs are making millions by paying workers 5 dollars an hour and never training them, as long as people keep getting absurdly more money than they will ever need, and as long as children are taught that the goal of life is to bring yourself to the top, no matter who you step on or leave behind... we will be pleaged by the consequences we have raught upon ourselves. Unfortuantely, it is not the ones with that mentallity that usually suffer. Pure materialsim is a religion all its own, with its own safty measueres. If you are that far gone, you don't CARE about making others suffer, and so that happens.. over and over again... its a great saftey mechanism.

Anyway.. the whole point is let's go to the moon. Heck, I'm ready to go myself... as long as we don't put an american flag on it, declare it the 51st state and start whipping out the shotgun when other countries' astronauts try to land.

Some Simplicity

Things I have learned, amd learning, and daily struggle with, but feel are important:

1. Nothing is permanent.
2. Speak only the truth at all times, no matter how inconvenient.
3. Speak only when you need to speak.
4. God and peace may be frequently found in solitude.
5. All relationships are also God, if they are what they are supposed to be.
6. Logic usually supercedes goodness or good nature, many virtuous people have harmed others with good intentions and miserably execution. Yet Logic without a good moral base can be equally dangerous.
7. Many things are interconnected, any imbalance usually causes the house of cards to crumble.

I hope everyone is well.