Yes, it's great writing...and he's willing to say it. PLEASE read below (Warning: May result in actually believing our country can look different).

"A More Perfect Union"
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
Constitution Center
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters.And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories tha t we didn't need to feel shame aboutmemories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicia ns, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.



And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committ ed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

behind this picture...

Labels: Great mustache

ap: (sleeping)

Riley: (internal voice)-God...that spot where his legs meet looks SOOOOOOOO inviting. I gotta get off my paws. They're killing me. This a-hole comes home, lays down on MY couch, and thinks its ok to fall asleep to NCAA basketball. He knows I can't stand college basketball until the tournament starts. I should eat his underwear for this.

ap: (sleeping)

Riley: (internal voice)-Oh well...and...up we go!

ap: (internal voice)-I will only have one child, Lord, as I have lost both testicles...

Labels: a nap awakened, Riley

I've decided to post Sophie's last email, not because it's uplifting (although ultimately I believe it is), not because it's long (though it's at least a good 10 minute read), and not because it's easy (this stuff is hard for me to wrestle through). I'm posting it because I'm still chewing on it, and learning from it, and dwelling on it, and my hope is you can too. No spelling changes, no punctuation improvements...you're getting it raw. Here it comes...

Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 09:36:49 -0500

Things here in sudan have been a little crazy. surprise surprise right? the past few weeks have flown by like a flash of light. It all kind of started when the staff here asked me if i would be interested in going to school with Mori Luka ( the epileptic boy i told you about in the first email). Apparently the staff had been praying for years that God would send someone who could give Mori the attention he needs to succeed in school; and little did they know that my original major was special education. Excitedly i agreed, and began attending school with Mori as his personal tutor. Seeing Mori learn and grow has been amazing and its been priceless to see how God had been working silently in the details of Mori's and my life, to bring us together.

Unfortunately though, this wonderful opportunity to work with Mori, turned into quite the eye opener to what is really going on in some of these classes. Last year, any teaching our service team did in the schools here, simply had us visiting classes for a short period of time, giving our seminar and then waving goodbye. And it wasn't until this year, when i was placed in the middle of a class, as a sort of "student", that i was able to discover what is really going on in these schools.

So much of the problem with the war (especially in this region; with it being a main headquarter for the army) is that most of the children here are exposed to unbelievable amounts of violence day in and day out. Contrary to how soldiers in America are often some of the nicest and most respectable people you know, the soldiers here are typically crude, rough and almost always drunk. just the structure of this place is so different that being a soldier in this city-is like wearing a big sign on your head that screams- "i can literally do anything i want---to you". And with that silent but dangerous connotation of authority and domination, the solders here naturally become rather aggressive. And so- as i began to see in the schools, the young children being parented by these soldiers, are growing up with violence and aggression immediately engrained in them.

Quite honestly, the state of mind that i found so many children in, has been one of the most terrifying realities i have ever come upon in my life. i wish so badly that you all could just see with your own eyes, the looks of these children because its honestly indescribable.

After about 3 or 4 days of the students mistaking me for a teacher, or some foreign creature from outer space, they finally stopped giggling any time i sneezed or moved, they stopped staring so closely at my skin that i could feel them breathing, and i was finally able to just sit and observe; almost--- like a fly on the wall. Something that has been really hard to get used to has been the structure of the educational system here. Nothing is ever done on time, and very little is ever done effectively. School which was supposed to start on Feb 4th, started on the 18th. and classes which are supposed to start at 830 am, start at about 10. Enrollment is open ended, and so for example, my primary one class ( which Mori is in), which is probably on a plot of ground about 10x15ft, has about 100-130 students depending on the day. And when i say "class" i mean huge walking sticks propped up to hold a grass roof. the children all sit on rocks or tin cans and such. P1 class only lasts for half the day, and yet in the 4.5 hours that these 4-8 year olds are sitting in their class, their teachers only manage to pop in once or twice, for a 10-30 minute teaching session. After that, these untrained and under qualified teachers go back and sit in a teachers lounge and waste life, leaving 100+ hellions to themselves. but no one ever sees the chaos that breaks out when no teacher is around. and im almost convinced they would rather it be that way. The only discipline these kids know is from the class monitor, which is the biggest kid in the class whom the teachers give a switch to, so that he can whip and beat any child whom he thinks is "acting out".

And this is where the violence began. a tall young boy of maybe 8 years old, strolls aound the class hut with his switch ready in hand. the anger in his eyes doesnt even make sense. if any student so much as statnds up, he whips them with a force you didnt know kid could have. this bigger, orlder boy, squeezing his face, and cocking back his arm to gain enough power to hit little girls as young as 4. But unfortunately, he wasn't the only violent kid in the class. Over time, he was joined by them all.

Over the past two weeks, i sat, hopelessly, and increasingly depressed, in the midst of a chaos and violence i have never known before. these are children of course, but the only thing small about them is their size. the strength of these children is utterly shocking. and the anger and poigniency with which they attack and fight eachother, is like that of an adult street fighter. And these kids are fearless. Regardless of the size or age, the kids stand ready in the face of their opponents, refusing to even flinch at a swing, as to show their strength. Helpless and shocked, i sat in the middle of boys punching eachother violently in the back of eachothers heads; girls slapping eachother dead across the face with a passionate heavy hand. Kids thrashing rocks across the class, slamming another in the head. Even boys bashing rocks into kids heads, as if it didnt scare them or even occurr to them that pain, brain damage or death was possible. i dont know where these kids learned this stuff, but i know that it has been a really rough and scary time for me as im wondering...is it possible that to some degree, violence is innate?

One day a small boy was getting beaten by an older boy in class. the older boy was clearly winning. the older boy took the younger boys head in his hand and pushed it to the ground so that the boy was bent over completely. and with a terrifying calm in his body, the older boy held his head down with one hand, and slowly cocked the other back to knock him to the ground. it was almost like a really violent video game where the fighter takes a last moment to look at his victim and bask in his violent glory, before he finishes him off. only this was real life; with 6 year olds. ive watched children bash rocks into eachothers heads, boys kick girls in the throat, and kids beating kids for no apparent reason. i have never heard the sound of flesh beating flesh like i have in this place. the sounds of their hits have completely shattered the blissful illusion i lived in that told me that small children only carried small fight; if kids are fighting, its nothing serious- its not like they can hurt eachother right? wrong. that first week, even though i did try to stop as many fights as i could, i will admit, i took somewhat of a back seat. i was there as a tutor to Mori, and class discipline wasn't my job. whether or not i was there, it was their teachers responsibility to keep them under control. but by week two, i saw that this wasn't happening. And on my second Wednesday, i took the drivers seat- and set out for opperation calm down and control; or so i thought. i took over the job of class monitor and DIDNT carry a stick. tried preventing fights rather than breaking them up. and finally after 2 or so hours of waiting for their teacher to show up, i said what the heck, and i took some chalk in my hand, and started teaching. The kids loved it. We made up songs, clapped our hands, used jestures, and smiles were everywhere. their excitement for something new was jumping from their faces. The teachers they have now, walk in, whip a few kids, turn their back to the class, draw a leg and a foot on the board,draw arrows and write "leg", "foot", "toes", and walk out. without any interaction or explanation, the kids then attempt to copy down what is on the board.--- all the while, the children have never even been taugh what the symbols "l", "e", "g" even are!!! and thats school for the day. the teachers are horrible and lazy. And for those few moments, with the kids eyes watching me closely , with excitement and longing in their bones, i felt chills run through me. After a little while, i sat down so that their actual teacher would feel free to come and teach; and the waiting began again. as we sat and waited, another fight broke out- only this fight, would be the worse id seen yet, and for me it was the final straw.

A brother and a sister were beating a young girl. the sister tackled the girl to the ground and began punching her in the face while sitting on top of her. And as i rean to the fight, the brother joined in and lifted his leg to his chest and then slammed it repeatedly into the girl legs, crushing them into the ground. The little girl was being beaten into the rocks, and her fight grew weaker. i pushed the brother away and reached to try to break the two girls apart. but from behind me the brother kept kicking at the girls body. in utter disgust and frustration, i turned from the girls and pushed the brother back, but he fought against me and came back at the girl. so i grabbed his arms and pushed him harder. And in that very instant it was like even though everything was moving so fast, God froze that one moment for me, as the boy flew to the ground, and i felt God face on my heart, like--- "what have you done....?" Half a second hadnt even passed before i knew, i had pushed him to hard. the boy flew to the ground and stared at me in shock. that moment was quite possibly the most shameful and disgusting moment of my life. of all of the crap, and inpurity, lust, and sin ive been a part of, this moment, cut me deeper than them all. my insides froze and my mind went blank. i have never been so emberrassed to be me. by no means did i hurt the kid even half as much as they hurt eachother in all their little fights, but nonetheless, nothing about that moment felt right or good to me. still though the sister was beating the girl to the ground and so i turned to the girls and pulled them apart.

A teacher had heard the noises the kids made when i threw the boy, and he came to calm the class down. As he calmed the class, i stood frozen. on the outside i wathced carefully to keep the siblings away from the girl, but on the inside i was a broken mess. i felt completely disoriented. i had lost self control maybe only for one moment, but that one moment was enough to make me just as ugly and hurtful as the evil i was fighting against. Suddenly this idea of "me" and all that i am, was shattered and i realized how messed up I was too, and how badly I needed a higher power to give me a truly divine patience. i shook myself out of it and set my eyes upon the young girl; battered and bruised and scratched all over, she stood in a broken silence. the pain on her face ran deep into her body. not like the fight had hurt her skin or her bones, but that with every hit, a message was being beaten into her heart. that "this is the way of life. this is what you deserve, this is your value. this is the roughness you have to adopt into your own heart". watching this thought process spin in the minds of kids here has been absolutely heartbreaking. its like you can see thier minds slowly coming to accept that they too, must be this rough; its the only way to survive. and eventually, with enough fights, and enough beatings, they learn--- and the tears stop flowing. her chest pounded and her eyes spoke words of sorrow and pain ive never even known, and yet- not a single tear flowed. i spoke broken arabic to her, and hugged her tenderly..... i dont know whom i was hugging in that moment. this broken girl; the boy i pushed to the ground; ALL of the youth in this broken place who are attacked each day by lies of violence and hatred?; or myself? the person id most recently discovered, was allowing herself to take those same lies into her heart-even if just for a moment. i dont know who that girl was to me as i hugged her; but i hugged her tightly and closed my eyes, just wishing so badly that nothing was the way it was.

So many people here have just accepted this daily chaos and disorganization , as a part of life. they have lived through so much and now the life that has been beaten out of them has left them with a lack of ambition to change anything for themselves. they watch their children fighting and hating eachother, and yet, they too are too tired and discouraged to do a thing about it. everyday i struggle with the negativity and somber vibes that cloud the air in this place and am continually challenged to look to God for my joy.

My main prayer request for you at this point is for the situation of violence amongst the children here. I didn’t share the story of me pushing the boy because I was proud, or because its fun for me to admit how much of a piece of crap I was in that moment- but I shared it for two reasons. 1) is that I want to become yoked to the spirit of God. I want to take his spirit as my bounded partner in life, and just as it says in Matthew 11:29, I want to learn to truly be exactly what it says; gentle and humble. Two of the most beautiful characteristics. And my soul yearns to be that. And since I have to start somewhere, here I am- humbled by my need for God’s Higher Power to come and clothe me with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience (Colossians 3:12). My other reason for sharing the story- is in hopes that it would illustrate the extreme depth and seriousness of this problem here. I don’t know how else to make you see how devastating the violence was, without being able to show you for yourself. Sitting in the midst of that for just two weeks, was enough to burden and depress my spirit enough that iwas pushed to the point that I acted out of frustration. And so my request is not just that you pray for me and my patience but that you, and everyone you know, would take this need seriously, and literally get down on your knees and pray with earnest and steadfast prayer, until this places is actually rocked and turned upside-down so that a blanket of peace and compassion would cover this place; and that the youth would not be raised to hate, and fight eachother. Nothing in this place will change- and I truly believe this- until this whole world, gets on its knees and prays aboutthe violence in these children. That’s how deep this problem is here. Please, please, please believe me.

Realizing what is a reality in a lot of schools within post-war countries, made me sit down and really reevaluate what it is that I hold to be most important in life. I started wondering- why am I working so hard towards a mission that’s centered on education? Why am I preaching that if only we can put these kids in school- their lives will be fixed, and we can feel good? Why am I pretending that I believe that education will leave these kids feeling fulfilled at the end of the day- when I know that education was never what did it for me….

Why am I not centering my entire missionary service on the one thing that I know has given me true life?

ive always known and believed that ministry can be anything. You can own a bakery, and through the work of God, that can be your ministry. you can be mother and that can be your purpose and ministry. You can be a teacher and that can be your ministry. and i believe with all of my heart that each of us were designed to have different fields of ministry that are all equally needed. but for me, im feeling like, there is a stirring in my heart for a reason. there is a reason that something in ME doesnt feel right to put all of my attention towards education as my ministry; and i have to pay attention to the stirring in my heart to make a change in my overall focus of ministry. whether that will be more of a pastoral focus, or something else i dont know. but im listening to the spirit.

Fortunately the schools which our scholarship aid went to, are all much better quality and far more serious in all areas (teaching, subjects, and class time devoted to interactive lessons) than the one im telling you about today. But regardless, my eyes had been opened and if I could put it into words, id say it was like God sat down right in front of my heart, and asked me, “sophie, is this really what your heart beats for?”… and I cant say yes..

At the end of the day I know that education is good and beneficial regardless of whether or not it should be the center of life. And so im not doubting that what we did was a good mission. I just want to be honest with myself and keep sight of what really matters at the end of a day; at the end of a life. And for me----- that’s nothing other than growing closer to God. So I guess now the question is- how do I make that the be-all and end-all of my ministry.

Thanks for reading- until next time- eat losts of ice cream and fruit for me :)

sophie b.

Labels: sophie god, Sudan

So the last few weeks have been REALLY good. One reason why has been a self imposed fast of all mindless internet world wide web surfing. It's been a few weeks now, and besides a lack of blog posts, I've really noticed how much time I've "recovered." Sounds stupid, but it's amazing to me how many hours I could past mindlessly wandering the web, reading and searching and zoning. I'm not sure what this means for me long-term, but I'm intrigued. This certainly isn't a value statement regarding the internet and those who use (and abuse) her...more like a personal journey, recognizing what I'm consumed by and making some conscious decisions about how my life is lived. I recently got another email from my friend Sophie in the Sudan...boy, to get your world rocked like that.

Ever wonder what life would look like if you lived making decisions based on what you believed? I mean, not just giving lip service to pithy sayings, but actively engaging in a life lived intentionally? One thing I've always railed against was the consumeristic mindset we have in the West, that says we need three extra bedrooms and a basement the size of an arena JUST BECAUSE. I've heard it said we could eliminate homelessness in a week if every person who "said" they believed in Christ (and his teachings) actually opened their homes to someone in need. Well, in two weeks we start that adventure. Some friends of ours recently had the house sold they were renting, and they have some serious debt they need to address. So R and I told them they could live with us. And they said yes. So in a few weeks we have a perfectly normal, fun couple moving into our basement, and I have a feeling we'll never be the same. There's a certain excitement level for me in knowing that all the carefully constructed plans I've made to make sure people like me and respect me and know what a GREAT person I am will soon all be a heaping pile of crap to a few more people, who will see how selfish, self-centered (and silly) I am when I'm alone (R has known this for years, and still she loves me! What an angel).

So begins the next adventure for R and I. And I guess it goes without saying that a few weeks after our friends arrive we'll have another house guest join the party, although she'll be a bit more permanent (as in our daughter, due May 5th!)

I'll be coming back here more often, as I miss this outlet...but I think I'll continue to enjoy the unplugged life.

Peace...

PS-Sophie's email is LONG, but I'm thinking about posting it...let me know if you want to read it...