tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8728671168625487992024-03-12T19:59:33.434-06:00ParadigmsWe all approach life from our setting. From our point of view. From our paradigm. Well, I'm no different, so I'm thinking about life and its happenings from my paradigm in hopes of encountering others and their paradigms. Maybe, just maybe, we'll start to shift our paradigms toward the greater good together...Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-48121520411592048862015-01-16T14:03:00.003-07:002015-01-16T14:03:47.641-07:00When I remember...
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The snow – big, thick flakes – were swirling around outside
the massive windows of the voluminous fourth floor ballroom of the Dudley-Davis
Center at the University of Vermont in Burlington as our group of 25 food
system enthusiasts sat down in a circle of chairs to get to know each other.
Knowing it was sub-zero outside, watching the heavy snow falling, and looking
forward to a hopefully great week set the stage really well for the inaugural
Food Hub Management Certificate Program – the first of its kind in the nation.
We 25 participants came from all walks of life and represented all spectrums of
the burgeoning local food systems world. Though Michigan and the East Coast
were dominantly represented, four of us were from Colorado, New Mexico, and
California. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As we all have I’m sure, I’ve participated in more than what
I would call a necessary number of get-to-know-you circles. Often I approach
these circles with an unhealthy impatience – wanting to get through them to the
content of the course or program that waits on the other side. Yet I say
unhealthy because what does that content matter if not for the people it
affects? If not for the people who wrestle with it? Teach with it? Implement
it? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So instead of being present for the first part of the
circle, as people went around and introduced themselves and their various
businesses or organizations, I debated with myself this paradox and tried to
justify and simultaneously knock back my innate impatience with the exercise.
Then a phrase that someone said cut through for some reason. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“When I remember…”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I can’t really say exactly why these three words caught me,
but I literally felt a wave of emotion – a chill running through my body and a
deep sense of gratitude, almost verging on tears. It was said simply talking
about a part of this guy’s daily routine I think, but my internal debate was
suddenly flooded out by a wave of reminders about all the ways in which I was
blessed in that moment – that I had been selected to participate in this course
in the first place; that I was financially and physically healthy enough to be
able to travel to Vermont; that Re:Vision helped pay for this opportunity;
that, if our endeavors succeed, community members lives will be impacted; that
I enjoy countless privileges as a white, middle-class male I often don’t even
realize when I’m debating things in my head and not paying attention to the
real people right in front of me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And on and on. Thank you. That was it. And all of a sudden I
was jerked back into the present – into the moment and starting to look around
me and see the people sitting there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Thank you.</span></div>
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</span>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-9796973891546727622014-12-31T14:42:00.001-07:002014-12-31T14:42:09.706-07:00Adoption Journey - Ground Zero
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“I want our adopted child to know my Papa, and Nana &
Grandy.” Ash said in the car as we drove through the wintery flatlands of
Nebraska. The statement was profound and we both acknowledged it with a brief
silence as we passed through the frozen countryside. We were on our way back
from Christmas with her family in South Dakota and it was 10 degrees outside.
The wind was creating mesmerizing swirls on the road as it forced the resistant
snow flakes from their comfy place in the fields and pushed them into beautiful
waves, skimming over the pavement. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ash and I have been married for 5 ½ incredible years. Even
as we got engaged back in 2008 we knew neither of us were convinced we wanted
to have kids – definitely not anytime soon, and perhaps never. Equally as
strong was the non-desire for our own biological children. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if we someday decided we wanted kids, we
reasoned, we wanted to adopt a child who faced the prospect of a long and
difficult life without the support of parents who loved them unconditionally.
So I got a vasectomy. I was 22. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That’s how we make decisions together, especially big ones.
We recognize and trust we’re on the same page about something, and, if it makes
sense, we act. No need to second-guess or get lost in endless ‘what-ifs’ that
could dead-end in indecision or missed opportunities. This is how we turned in
our application for Peace Corps three weeks after we got married. Or how
decided to buy a house. It just made sense.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But kids, we thought, were different. For the first five
years of our marriage, we were extremely unsure we’d ever want to be parents.
We felt we weren’t mature enough, weren’t ready, were too selfish, etc. Yet, in
the last few months, slowly, we’ve started to drop comments to each other that
perhaps adopting wouldn’t mean the end of our lives. That perhaps kids, five
years off of course, could be a part of our lives. So this slow acceptance of
realizing that we perhaps did indeed want to adopt someday, combined with Ash’s
statement yesterday in Nebraska, set off our minds and hearts. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And so it begins. True to our style, in the last 24 hours
we’ve decided that we indeed would start looking into adoption, signed up for
two informational sessions at two different adoption agencies, created a Google
Spreadsheet to gather research in, and have narrowed our search to either a
domestic Foster-to-Adopt program, or an international adoption from a Latin
American country. We’ve known for a long time that we’d want to find a child
who is probably older than 2 years old, and that we didn’t have a strong gender
or race preference.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So the journey has started. I’ll do my best to chronicle our
progress, our thoughts, our desires, our fears, our successes and challenges.
We want to journey through this with our family, with our friends. So please
join us. </span></div>
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</span>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-78988399449450696592014-03-31T18:30:00.000-06:002014-03-31T18:30:00.612-06:00Impact Reminder<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H2g3kfZ6k78/Uy4F846WZfI/AAAAAAAAA5A/eG60ayDiwcU/s3200/14.3.22_Dump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H2g3kfZ6k78/Uy4F846WZfI/AAAAAAAAA5A/eG60ayDiwcU/s3200/14.3.22_Dump.jpg" height="337" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For years now people
have mistook <a href="http://www.revisioninternational.org/" target="_blank">Re:Vision</a>’s
Kepner Middle School Educational Farm for a dumping ground and left trash there
– anything from lawn mowers that don’t work to tires, old sections of plastic
fence, and empty oil drums. As countless volunteers have helped Re:Vision grow
the garden’s size and scope over the years, cleaning up this trash pile always
seems to fall to the bottom of the to-do list. The small patch of space with
tall grasses and a few trees offers a convenient and out-of-the-way place to
pile the trash for ‘later’. Well, today was later. Yesterday a team of
volunteers loaded the trash high in a large dump trailer and this morning I
hooked it up to the truck, checked the straps to ensure nothing wouldn’t make
it all the way out to the landfill, and began the trip across town.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Have you ever been to a landfill? I know its been about
three years for me. I worked landscaping through college and there were a few
trips back then to carry various types of debris out to ‘somewhere else’. Every
time I see a landfill, whether here in Denver, or abroad in Nicaragua or Niger
(very different experiences mind you), I am struck with both gratefulness and guilt.
Wonder and disgust. Mindfulness and a desire not to know. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Gratefulness that I don’t have to see the vast wreckage
called a landfill every day. Guilt that my trash’s ‘away’ is here – buried
beneath this dirt and littered across hundreds of acres. Wonder at the shear
mass of garbage and the massive machines running around the clock to pile dirt
on top of it. Disgust with myself and my brothers and sisters who are so
wasteful so as to consume and throw away so much. Mindfulness that forces
recognition and acknowledgment of my imperfection and the imperfection of
society. The desire not to know, not to be reminded of this horrible truth the
machines are working so hard to cover up – the impact we humans have on the
planet is immense and undeniable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And those dots in the sky? Seagulls, thousands and thousands
of seagulls. When I was still about ½ a mile away from the dump site I could
see a column of them swarming and circling hundreds of feet high. The sight
made my stomach sink. It made me think of death, of vultures, of tragic
imbalance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What other creature produces
so much waste that cannot be reused by another creature? What other species
rips minerals from the earth and converts them (ingeniously) into products that
are only designed to be useful for a few years (at best) but whose materials
are toxic pollutants that take centuries to break down? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Was this what God meant when he said to Adam and Eve to rule
over the Earth and subdue it? Nothing could feel further from the truth as I
stood there, almost weeping at the enormity and gravity of the landfill. What
would happen if every man, woman and child had to spend a few hours at the
landfill each year? Would our culture begin to realize that when the trash
truck comes for our dumpsters or bins, ‘away’ is actually a very real place?
Would it change our behavior? Would we opt for recycling more, for composting
more? For consuming less, for reusing more?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I think so.</span></div>
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Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-44821110467170359822014-03-22T15:41:00.000-06:002014-03-22T15:41:45.843-06:00Dualism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Wondering is a word connoting at least three things: </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 21.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>Standing in disbelief</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 21.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>Standing in the question itself</span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 21.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>Standing in awe before something</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Try letting all three ‘standings’ remain open inside of
you.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Words and thoughts are invariably dualistic, but pure
experience is always non-dualistic.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>- <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Naked Now, </i>Richard Rohr</span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Perhaps this is a glimpse into my soul. Maybe I’ve felt this
for a long time and that is part of why I find myself so hesitant to talk
sometimes. Its on my mind constantly how words cannot capture experience. I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">feel</i> words cannot do justice to reality,
to faith, to pain, to love, to God. I sense somehow when I try to speak or
write words (yes, irony wins out as I type this..) that I must try to simplify
that which can not be simplified without losing a vital piece of itself. My
spirit, more accurately, my breath of life God continues to give me, mutters
unclearly about everything. And perhaps my goal shouldn’t be to understand or
discern clearly what it means. But instead to simply hear it. To live and be
present as it speaks.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Indeed even pondering something stands in this paradox
unlike ‘wondering’. To ponder means I try to put words or thoughts in order and
understand or comprehend whatever it is I’m experiencing. Yet the words I
choose and the conclusions they lead me to are invariably tainted with my
paradigm, my previous experiences, my previous conclusions. So because words
are the foundation for so much of our communication, our mutual interactions,
perhaps the challenge is not to negate them, or hold disdain for them, but
instead to embrace them in full light of their inadequacies. Words will never
be 100% true. Only basic, un-filtered experience is true. </span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Though I appreciate that as broken relational beings, as
humans who, in spite of being impregnated with “inherent dignity and
importance” as Richard Rohr puts it, by our Creator, have chosen another
direction than what God intended for us, we must use our words. We must try to
capture the truth and communicate it with these imperfect tools. Conceivably
this is why we in Western culture and traditions get so frustrated, angry,
rageful even, when we hear others claiming to be describing the perfect, the
right, the truth, using such inadequate things as words. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Just think about our political leaders, about the religious
elite, about the corporate CEOs. They can hardly ever agree. And instead of
accepting that this might be more due to the defectiveness of language and therefore
trying to seek greater understanding, they instead fall into the same pit and
pitch their own tent in the sand, claiming that it will stand the ferocious
winds while those of their opponents wash away. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What would happen if we all stepped out of our tents and
stood in wonder together at the sunrise over the ocean? What if we all realized
our tents of posture, ego, and pride are all fleeting and fragile and staked
into the shifting sands of our experiences? Would we then turn and help clear
the beach of these wigwams of futility? Would we work together to dig down to
the bedrock of commonality and build a structure of solid love that would stand
firm in the shifting sands of time, the winds of extremism, and the crashing
waves of hatred?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span></div>
Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-89879986306405416132013-04-18T14:49:00.002-06:002013-04-18T14:49:44.433-06:00Water - the low down<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
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It is something which permeates every facet of our lives –
it is the foundation of hydration, our food, our heating and cooling
systems, our construction, our clothing and shelter.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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And we’re using A LOT of it. According to Denver Water, the
City & County of Denver uses 265,000 acre-feet of water. Imagine a football
field with a foot of water standing on it – then picture 265,000 of those.
Let’s put it another way. The average person in Denver uses 168 gallons of water
per day! And lest you think its all those restaurants and businesses
squandering all that water, in all reality, residential (single and multi-family
homes) usage accounts for over 65% of all usage (172,000 football fields full
of water!).<o:p></o:p></div>
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To top it all off, 55% of all water usage at the residential
level is for outdoor irrigation/use, i.e. your sprinkler system. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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A quick scenario to bring this home. My wife and I recently purchased our
first home in the Barnum neighborhood in August. The average sprinkler head sprays about 3.5 gallons per minute, and the home had a sprinkler
system consisting of about 10 heads. Now, if we watered as per <a href="http://www.denverwater.org/Drought/DroughtRules/">Denver Water’s Stage 2
watering rules</a> (in effect as of April 1<sup>st</sup> this year), which is
only <i>twice per week</i>, we’d use about
27,000 gallons from May through September and spend about $75 in water bills.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Now, if we switched entirely over to drip irrigation and
grew vegetables (which we’re doing), and <i>watered 45 minutes every single day</i>, in that same five month period we’d use
approximately 3,200 gallons and spend $8.32!!! Not only would we save $67, we’d
also save enough water to provide the average Denver home with 141 days of
water!!!! Not to mention all the money we’d be saving on food from the wondrous
produce we’ll be harvesting.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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And this is a reality for 200 low-income families this year
through <a href="http://www.revisioninternational.org/index.php/en/our-impact/refarm-denver" target="_blank">Revision’s Re:farm Denver</a> program. 200 families are receiving
drip-irrigation systems, using less water, saving money, and are empowered to
lead healthier lives. Want to help them out? <a href="https://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50531/donate_page/invest-now" target="_blank">Donate now</a>. <o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-42316498729006127382012-07-14T09:20:00.003-06:002012-07-14T09:20:35.059-06:00Education<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
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It all starts with education. Think about it, from the
moment we were born, our parents were trying to teach us, to educate us how we
should comport ourselves – what we should eat, how we should speak, what we
should wear, and on and on. The first eighteen to twenty-two years of our lives
are spent dedicated full-time to becoming more educated and even after we
‘graduate’ from institutional learning, our personal journeys are always
influenced by what we’re learning.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Even though I’m no expert in history, I think its pretty
easy to look back<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and see how societies
and the global community has been shaped and has evolved according to what
people were taught (or not taught). Adam Smith teaching there is an
invisible hand out there called the market altered the course of history as
people began to focus more on appeasing the market than on their local
contexts. William Wilberforce was educated by his contemporaries about the
evils of slavery and in turn he educated and inspired the United Kingdom to
abolish the trade. Martin Luther King Jr. educated a generation about the
hypocrisy of American culture; preaching freedom as a founding principle while
practicing systematic and cruel oppression on a huge segment of her citizens.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Change begins with education. Without realizing there is a
problem (or a solution), no one can work towards fixing it. The world today is
in need of education. As ‘rich’ countries continue to half-heartedly try to
help ‘poor’ countries ‘develop’, more and more people continue to slip into
poverty. True development has stalled and is in peril of sliding backward. I
believe this juncture is a result of a decision which needs to be made about
how development is done and how education around development should be
developed (pun intended). The ongoing criticism of development as being a hand-out instead of
truly empowering people to help themselves is well based. As long as
development ignores the environmental challenges which everyone on this planet
faces, it will continue to be a hand-out. If people and cultures are given
economic opportunity while destroying that which sustains their lives, that
economic opportunity is actually a disservice and will increase their
dependency on outside aid in the future. If people or cultures cannot grow
their own food because all the farmland is being used for exporting ‘cash’ crops
which are depleting the soil only to leave them worse off in the future, that
‘cash’ is again increasing their reliance on foreign aid. (I use foreign to
refer to anything outside a community, not necessarily following border lines).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Environmental education and increasing the focus of
environmental work in development is absolutely necessary. One project which is
seeking to address this important work is the <a href="http://globalsustainability.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Global Sustainability Project</a>,
led by Bill Gugerty. It seeks to document case studies of when and how
environmental projects are increasing development in developing countries
around the world. Understanding sustainability projects’ impact on development
is the first step towards changing the fabric of development itself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So educate with me and <a href="http://globalsustainability.weebly.com/fund.html" target="_blank">support Bill’s project</a>. If you’re
into helping out more at home than abroad, that’s great, because 5% of the
money raised for the Project goes directly to <a href="http://www.revisioninternational.org/index.php/en/" target="_blank">Revision International</a>, a
Denver-based organization focused on educating, inspiring, and empowering individuals
and communities to achieve transformational change.<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-13164295237652677172012-06-03T20:15:00.002-06:002012-06-03T20:15:51.305-06:00I can't see the forest through all the trees<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Suddenly I could feel, even while speaking words I had
spoken a half dozen times before, that familiar tightness in my throat. My eyes
began to burn as I tried to keep my cool and finish my sentence but the welling
up in my throat wouldn’t allow it and somehow the muscles attaching my chin and
lower lip were colluding with my vocal chords as both started to tremble.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yep. I was crying. And the feeling is familiar because I actually
cry quite often. I don’t know what it is, but I find myself touched in profound
ways by other people’s stories, even if they are fictional. Extremely Loud and
Incredibly Close (the book and movie) had me in tears multiple times, as did
Up, The Intouchables, the wedding I was at this weekend (well, if I’m being
honest, pretty much every wedding I go to), and countless other times
throughout my young adult life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This particular moment I was sitting across from my dad at
my favorite breakfast place in Buena Vista; the Evergreen Café. I had ordered
the eggs St. Elmo, named after a deserted 19<sup>th</sup> century mining town
nestled in the Chalk Creek canyon between Mt. Princeton and Mt. Antero just
Southwest of BV, the dish was home potato fries covered in melted cheese, two
eggs any style (sunnyside up for me), and wheat toast. The coffee aroma wafting
from my cup came from beans carefully roasted just down on main street at BV
Roastery. Yet all this took a backseat as I tried to figure out my own
overpowering reaction to the words I had just said.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I was talking about the work of Revision International,
which I often do. I was telling my dad about an exciting new partnership we’re
entering into with the Denver Foundation and members of the Somali Bantu
refugee population living in Denver. We’re helping forty Somali Bantu families
start farming a one-acre vacant lot in Southwest Denver. Not only is this going
to provide fresh, healthy food for their families and the surrounding
community, it is also reconnecting the Somalis to their culture – their
heritage. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The Bantu people in Somalia were an especially persecuted
group of people, having been brought as slaves to that country from mainly
Southeast Africa in the 18<sup>th</sup> century, but having chosen to try to
retain their unique language and culture instead of assimilating. After
spending years and years in refugee camps in Kenya, some were offered asylum in
the US. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Since coming to Denver, these families (trickling in over
the past ten or so years, now there are about 400 refugee families in the
Denver-metro area) have been struggling to get their feet under them, and find
their own way in this foreign society. On a walking tour of the vacant plot
about a month ago with Revision’s ED, Eric Kornacki, one elder started to cry
as he stood looking at the land. Eric asked him, through another Bantu named Rasulo
who speaks excellent English, why he was crying. The words came back from
Rasulo’s lips saying the man had the same feeling at that moment – gazing upon
land which he might be able to start farming – that he had first had the moment
he heard he would be able to bring his family to the United States from the
refugee camp. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I’ve been processing this ever since Eric told me of the
exchange the next day. It takes immense imagination to try and place myself in
a refugee camp in Kenya, forced into exile from the land which had persecuted
him. Then held there, in that camp, for a decade before hearing that there was
hope for a different future. I try to ask myself; would he have lost hope at
that point? What did he do in his time in the camps? Were his children born in
the camps? Had he any reason to think they might have a better future than that
he had had? Then to hear that there was an end in sight. How immense the
excitement must have been. How tangible the hope and how incredible the joy on
his face and in his heart when he told his family the news.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I can’t imagine. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Nor can I comprehend how important farming and growing food
must be to him and the Somali Bantu culture to have those same feelings standing
on an overgrown acre of land surrounded by the cityscape as when his life
changed and he moved continents. We take so much for granted as a culture here
in the US, as “Americans”. We don’t give a second thought to food. Perhaps we
enjoy cooking, or maybe gardening, but it can’t be said it’s a part of who we
are as a people. In fact I struggle to think of anything aside from technology
that defines the American culture. Do we have something, anything connected to
nature or the Earth that sustains us which we feel anything close to these
emotions when we think about it? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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How amazing to be a part of this opportunity for these
families, this beautiful sub-culture of human beings. I feel honored to have
met them. To have the possibility of getting to know them deeper and hear more
of their stories. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Perhaps I was crying this particular time of recounting the
story because I had lost sight of why I was working so hard. Maybe I couldn’t
see the beauty of the forest because I was stuck wading through the thicket of
trees. But I feel for some reason in that moment I had stumbled onto a hilltop
or broke out of the dense trees and had to squint my eyes and reset my paradigm
as I took in the awe-inspiring landscape surrounding me. The forest and its
immensity couldn’t be more breath taking. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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And yet I feel the awe precisely because I know the forest
wouldn’t exist without each tree. Each tree is every act of kindness. Every
action toward justice. Every person who decides to honor someone else before
fulfilling their own instant desires. Gratitude overwhelms me realizing that I
am simply one tree in this forest of humanity. My roots draw life from the same
soil as the Somali Bantu; my leaves stretch toward the same sunlight which
bathes the Hispanic/Latino families of Southwest Denver; the rain which
stimulates my growth also falls on the refugees still in camps in Kenya and
drenches those who are struggling with fear of deportation from the States or
living with loved ones who are stuck in the middle of drug wars back home or
those who are dying from famine in the Republic of Niger or living repressed by
Israeli settlements or fighting for justice in the streets of Cairo or working
grueling hours in sweatshops with no chance for a brighter future let-alone a
vacation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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We are all human. The forest wouldn’t exist without each one
of us, and yet alone, we’d wither and die under the scorching heat of the sun. <o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-44621597493643557082012-01-15T03:37:00.000-07:002012-01-15T03:37:00.643-07:00Gratitude<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Even though I was on the inside looking out the window at
the frozen and snow-dusted Earth my breath still made its presence known before
disappearing into the air. The dark lines of the
plowed soil in the garden formed patterns on the ground, providing visual
relief from the otherwise white land. The sun kept threatening to break through
the hazy layer of clouds which were holding it back. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My body was in the summer kitchen of
our host family’s house (i.e. unheated kitchen in the winter), cooking banana
pancakes made with milk from a neighbor’s cow and a touch of cinnamon. But my
mind was back in Colorado. Back with friends. With our old small group. With my
family in Buena Vista. With <a href="http://www.revisioninternational.org/" target="_blank">Revision International</a> and the communities it
serves. With our faith community <a href="http://www.denverchurch.org/" target="_blank">Denver Community Church</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I looked down into the cast iron pan to see the edges of the pancake starting to harden and the
bubbles appearing briefly in the middle of the batter before popping. My hand
extended, already holding the metal spatula, and seemingly on its own deftly
flipped the pancake over to expose the golden brown goodness waiting on the other side. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the midst of
the beginning of a new year; exactly a year since our evacuation from Niger;
after the holidays we just missed at our homes; about to move into a new house
here in our village in Moldova. So many emotions are stirring in my mind and
heart. Over the past few months it has begun to dawn on me just how much Ash
and I have to be thankful for back in Colorado. And in those moments, perhaps
aided by the aroma of cinnamon banana pancakes and the anticipation of dowsing
them in homemade raspberry syrup before slowly enjoying each bite between sips
of coffee, I was reminded once again how much we have to be thankful for in general. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The birds were flying in and out of the bare branches of the
trees out back. The grape vines lay dormant, hanging on the wires strung
between the concrete posts and waiting with what I imagined to be something
akin to the same anticipation I felt toward breakfast toward the coming spring
and the chance to bloom and bring forth life once more. The clucks and crows of
the chickens reached my ears from their coup. The light shifted with the clouds, changing
ever-so-slightly my perspective on the frost-bitten village and surrounding
hills. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am surrounded by life. I am surrounded by miracles every
second. Indeed the breath I see dissipating into the air is itself the
culmination of a million miracles within my body. The biggest miracle of all;
God having created all of it and deeming it all good. Him who is endlessly
knowable having created something (really trillions of things) so complex and
so interconnected that we will never fully grasp how they exist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The wave of gratitude helped lessen how much I was missing
home and ground me again in the knowledge that wherever we are, we can be
thankful.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-4498232632710447662012-01-12T00:36:00.000-07:002012-01-12T00:36:36.165-07:00Human Virtues<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How can we fully express our human virtue in the decisions
we make?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ask not, What shall I do? Ask, What kind of person do I want
to be? Then act as that person would act. You are what you do. To be the sort
of person who helps move the world toward shared, sustainable flourishing will
require a strong set of virtues:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A sense of
wonder, to perceive and value the extraordinary beauty and mystery of the
thriving world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Compassion, to
feel the suffering of both human and nonhuman animals caused by climate change
and ecological collapse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Imagination, to
envision new and sustainable ways to provide for human needs without plundering
the planet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Independence of
mind, to distinguish true from false, to distinguish real needs from created
markets, to understand how to make good moral decision under conditions of
uncertainty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Integrity, to
do what one thinks is right, even if it means making decisions that are
radically different from the decisions one’s friends and neighbors make,
decisions contrary to what is well advertised or easy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Justice, to
honor the needs of other people and other species as highly as one’s own, and
to respect in others the rights one claims for oneself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Courage, to do
what needs to be done even if the lonely odds are against you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So now. Choose one virtue. Make a decision (what to
purchase, how to travel, where to donate time) that embodies that virtue. Now choose
another virtue. Make a decision that embodies both of them. Continue. Virtues
are habits of the mind and heart. Habits are developed by practice, over time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.75in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">- Moral
Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril. Edited by Moore & Nelson.
Trinity University Press. 2010.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-830070828284260682012-01-07T12:24:00.000-07:002012-01-07T12:24:39.102-07:00Song<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I know now I had no idea how much it meant back then; how
much I had nor how unique it was. Every year ten or fifteen families as well as
a few stragglers would show up a few days before Christmas, each carrying some
sort of dish to share. Main dishes, salads, breads, desserts, dressings,
drinks, chips, salsas, the list goes on and on. Mum would have made her famous
homemade lasagna, both a meat and a vegetarian, their rich aromas barely
contained by the aluminum foil before billowing forth to fill the house with
their intoxicating goodness. Two families would always come earlier than the
rest. These were our closest friends. We would do a gift exchange before the
others arrived and I relished in the feeling of importance. Not that they came
over just for me, but that for bit of time, I had a friend or two all to
myself, before other kids came and stole them from me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When the others arrived, the kids would immediately tear
away from their parental units to our unfinished but spacious attic to play
with any number of toys. Cardboard bricks, one pair of rollerblades accompanied
by two battered hockey sticks and a puck, plastic golf clubs, and of course,
the annual <span lang="ES-TRAD" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;">piñata</span>
that my brother, myself, and mum had painstakingly made out of paper mach<span lang="ES-TRAD" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;">é</span>. We would play our
hearts out while the parents did whatever boring things parents did. Finally the
call to eat would ring up the ladder from the kitchen and we would push and
shove to be first in line to fill our plates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After shoveling down the food without a thought, we’d return
back upstairs until the second call came. A little less hurriedly we’d make our
way downstairs to the living room and sit with each of our families as my mum
would hand out the lyrics packets. She would take her place behind a guitar and
the singing would begin. Timidly at first, as we all fell into rhythm, as we
all remembered that we could trust each other and actually let our voices be
heard. Soon the carols filled the room and threatened to burst through the
windows into the frigid night air. We would stop only to vie and vote for the
next song, then once again our voices and hearts would unite into one song. O
Holy Night. What Child is This. In the Bleak Midwinter. Deck the Halls. Little Drummer
Boy. And on and on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The agenda for the night never changed. But we grew. The two
families coming early; the gift exchange followed by the eager anticipation of
others arriving; the kids grouping together, each year trying to act more
mature but not join the boring adults. Finally the call to food; each year my
curiosity and appreciation growing as I tried to find out who had brought which
dish and whether they had made it by hand or bought it from the store. Then the
climax of the night. The singing was always the part that I didn’t look forward
to, but that I enjoyed the most when I was in it. Mum always played the guitar
while the rest of us simply gave our vocal chords.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This tradition went on. By the time it ended the year of my
parents separation, it was the 16<sup>th</sup> annual sing and I had begun to
look forward to the singing part just as much as the food (if not more, but
shh, don’t tell anyone). There is something powerful in singing together. In
uniting our voices into one song. Even this Christmas Eve, Ash and I attended a
church service in the historic Black Church in the center of Bra<span lang="RO" style="mso-ansi-language: RO;">șov</span>, Romania. The service was conducted in
German, so we understood nothing of what was said or sung. But then, the choir sang
Silent Night, and the congregation joined in. A thousand voices became one
powerful, pounding chorus. The lights were turned off and the only the candles
sitting precariously on the Christmas trees at the front of the church and on
the alter shone. Though we couldn’t join in the German version, we closed our
eyes and let our souls join the thousand others singing in the darkness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’m sure there were a lot of different people in that church
that night, as I know there were different people who came to our home for so
many years. Each with their different view points. Their different political
orientations, passions, hopes, dreams and sorrows. But it didn’t matter. Nothing
mattered as the height of the chorus peaked. We were together. All of us.
Together in the song. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How beautiful would it be if the whole world joined together
in a song?</span><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;">annuadr of hockey sticks and
a pNourse, the annual pins, one pair of rollerblades accompanied by a pair of
hockey sticks and a p</span><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-35445243175373495042012-01-04T09:04:00.000-07:002012-01-04T09:06:37.428-07:00Holiday Meats<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This blog entry was written for <a href="http://feelgoodnow.com/" target="_blank">FeelGoodNow</a>. If you'd like to read that version, <a href="http://www.feelgoodnow.com/health-news/seasonal/what-meat-to-eat/" target="_blank">click here</a>. Sorry for posting it late, but the message still applies :)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What to serve? What to make the centerpiece of the table for family
and friends this Christmas? Admittedly I have to beg the forgiveness of
vegetarians and vegans as I’m going to focus on meat for now. Thanksgiving was
a no-brainer for most, roasting a turkey was the obvious answer. Yet I know for
me growing up I never had a traditional Christmas meal. We had ham a few years,
turkey some others, and I even remember throwing some steaks on the grill in
the snow one year. But since I’ve started learning more about where our food
comes from and how it’s processed, I’ve been forced to reconsider the question
of what kind of meat, if any, to serve.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Though there has been a lot more awareness raised in recent years as
to the sorry state of our food industry and in particular our meat industry by
well-known authors and filmmakers like Michael Pollan (Omnivore’s Dilemma, In
Defense of Food, etc), Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Robert Kenner (Food
Inc.) and Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me), much of the relevance to each of our
personal lives has unfortunately remained elusive every time we walk into the
grocery store. The food we eat literally shapes who we are. And because of its
centrality to our culture today, meat has a special potency to either enrich
our health, or destroy it. Because overconsumption of meat leads to heart
disease, obesity, hypertension, and other illnesses, we must first choose to
consume less meat. Then, once we’ve reached moderation, choose the meats which
in and of themselves offer the highest of qualities with the smallest of costs
to our personal health, the public health, and the environment which sustains
us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So we return to Christmas dinner. Pork? Turkey? Beef? Chicken?
Though an in-depth analysis of each of these merits its own thesis, I’ll do my
best to highlight the basics here:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';">
</span>Pork. Unfortunately, only four massive companies produce over half
the pork consumed in the United States through Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations (CAFOs), where pigs (not uncommon numbers for the industry are
25,000 swine) are so crammed together and so stressed that the managers of the
firms have to chop off their tails to keep them from biting them off one
another in their panic. But don’t fear, there are local producers which allow
pigs to roam in their natural state and act as only pigs can before providing
them as humane a death as possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';">
</span>Turkey and chickens. Not the same, but both awkward birds that can’t
fly. Some 99% of all poultry grown in the States is genetically modified to
grow faster (life spans for meat chickens is down to only 48 days). They live
short, brutish lives crammed together by the thousands – up to 100,000 – under
one roof for meat birds, called broilers, or confined to one-foot square cages for
egg laying hens, called layers. There are local producers of chickens and
turkeys, though they are certainly only found through famers markets or direct
farm-to-consumer programs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';">
</span>Beef. The vast majority of cows in this country (dairy and beef) are
grown in CAFOs. There, they are fed mainly grain diets, which increases the
amount of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">e coli</i> viruses in their gut
and increases the amount of fat in their muscles. If you’re planning a beef BBQ
for the holidays, search for grass-fed and finished beef. This way you’ll know
that at least the cows ate a diet for which their bodies were designed. This
meat will also be more lean and healthy for you!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In general, purchasing USDA Certified Organic meat is a step up from
regular meat. This certification, while not necessarily changing the living
conditions of CAFOs, prevents the harmful overuse of antibiotics as well as
avoids the synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the food chain to
result in less toxic meat, happier animals, and a healthier environment. It is
always best to buy meat directly from a local producer. This increases the
accountability between producer and consumer, usually means the farmers don’t
use CAFOs to produce their meat, and supports the local economy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, if you’re looking for meat to serve this holiday, give it a
second glance: a second thought. If we rethink how we buy, tending towards
healthier, leaner, more consciously grown meat (and less meat in general!), the
producers will produce meat which is grown in accordance with nature, not
against it. For Denver residents, I strongly suggest a visit to In Season Local
Market for all your holiday food needs. They source all their food from within
250 miles of the store and have done all the research for you. I’ve
fact-checked their meats and the farms they source from are top-notch. You’ll
fiind them up on 32<sup>nd</sup> and Wyandot in the Highlands. For those
outside the Denver-metro area, check out eatwild.com to find the nearest source
of natural meat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Happy holidays and all the best.</span></div>
</div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-59547806023019808052011-11-30T23:22:00.001-07:002011-11-30T23:23:43.213-07:00Killing a Turkey<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I took a course in
hunter safety and received my hunter’s safety license so I could go hunting.
Only one small problem: I didn’t believe in hunting. I had a problem with the
idea of killing an animal to eat it. Yet apparently this problem wasn’t big
enough to keep me from eating meat, I think I simply didn’t think about it. My
brother went hunting one year and bagged a buck. I was morally opposed but
secretly fascinated to sneak down to the garage where dad was working with our
neighbor the Game Warden to skin, gut, and butcher the deer carcass. Somehow it
took me another 10 or so years to realize that my moral objection to personally
killing an animal was just plain hypocrisy and denial. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had learned much more about our food system and how it
abuses, mutilates (both genetically and otherwise), then slaughters literally
billions of animals to provide us all with our meat cravings at a cheap price
tag. I had to confront my hypocrisy face to face. How could I judge hunters
then walk to the freezer and pull out a bag of Tyson frozen chicken strips
(boneless of course!) to eat for dinner? So, Ash and I became vegetarians,
mostly. We only ate meat when we could verify where the meat came from, the
conditions in which the animal was raised and slaughtered, and what it was fed.
Since arriving in Moldova, I have, rightly or wrongly, let go of this
distinction. Mostly because almost all of the meat Moldovans eat comes from
their backyard or that of a neighbor. Yet every time I eat meat, I think about
the animal it once was, and wonder, where and how did it live? Did it know it
was going to be eaten? Did it understand that it was only fed in order to
become food?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then Ash signed me up (ok, I also volunteered…) to help kill
the Thanksgiving turkeys with a few other volunteers and then help prepare them
for the big volunteer meal the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Although I jumped
at the opportunity, I did so with an understanding that I would again have to
confront my beliefs, thoughts, convictions, feelings, and motivations for
eating meat. Yet this time I’d be doing it with an ax in my hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I travelled to the volunteer’s village in which we’d be
doing the deed on Thanksgiving and helped him start to prepare pumpkin pie
filling and crust as well as cooking a vegetarian chili to eat with his host
family and the other volunteers who would be joining us that night. Friday
morning we awoke early and, with Gri<span lang="RO" style="mso-ansi-language: RO;">șa</span>, the host dad, hopped in the car and drove across the village to
pick out the turkeys. The sun was setting the strips of clouds on the horizon
afire and making the backdrop of sky appear a deep purple as we got out of the
car and walked through the gate to greet the family who had agreed to sell us
six of their turkeys. Us five Americans were obviously clueless as to how to
carry live turkeys as we struggled to hold onto their wings and carry them over
to the house from the massive yard in which they lived with their about thirty
or forty fellow gobblers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Soon we were on our way back to the house, six live turkeys,
incredibly docile, occupying the trunk of the aging white Lada. Back within the
confines of the low green wooden fence of Gri<span lang="RO" style="mso-ansi-language: RO;">șa</span>’s house, we carefully unloaded the live cargo, which, with their
legs tied, simply plopped down on the grass quietly. We then worked together to
start the fire which would boil the water to loosen the turkey’s skin’s hold on
their feathers. Soon came the time. Gri<span lang="RO" style="mso-ansi-language: RO;">șa took hold of the first turkey, saying he would show us how then we could
each have out turn. Holding the wings together in one hand with the feet looked
simple enough. He held the bird upside down like that with his left hand,
slowly and gently placing its head on the small block of wood before picking up
the small ax with his right. The bird was completely calm, not making a noise
nor moving at all as the ax came down perfectly on its neck, severing
everything but a tiny bit of skin. Grișa held the body upside down to let the
blood come out, then handed it to me to hold until it stopped twitching, at
which point he showed me how to dip the whole bird in the boiling water quickly
before pulling it out and tasking a few of us with the tedious job of plucking.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="RO" style="mso-ansi-language: RO;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Each of us went
in turn, and suddenly it was my turn, the last bird a pure white turkey
weighing around 6 kilograms. It was quickly obvious that the skill of holding
both wings and both feet in one hand firmly enough to not let a wing erupt was
a skill Grișa had acquired over many years. I managed to get the grip, and to
place the birds head on the block. As I reached for the ax, I thanked God for
the turkey in my hands. I thanked him for making it, for the life it had lived,
and for the nourishment it was going to provide our bodies. Then the ax fell
and I was again holding a twitching body.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span lang="RO" style="mso-ansi-language: RO;">The experience
was one which I would not have missed, and, if given the chance, will do again.
I don</span>’t enjoy killing things. To the contrary, I take the deed with the
utmost responsibility and seriousness, knowing that what once was living is now
not because of a movement of my arm. It makes me confront profound questions
about the meaning of life, humans and our place on this Earth, and how we
should be filling our role as stewards of the ecosystems on which we depend for
life. We are indeed a part of this world, not separate from, above, or below
it. Yet somehow we are apart. We have the power to take a life and to reflect
on the life we took. Because we have this power, we have the responsibility to
use it. To reflect on our impact on those around us and the world in which we
live. To reflect on the consequences of our actions, both large and small. Will
you reflect with me?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-26089459525956617012011-11-28T01:22:00.001-07:002011-11-28T01:40:03.831-07:00Urban Agriculture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Urban agriculture is an oxymoron. People that believe in
that are just fooling themselves.” This was the response of a man who was
presenting to my Peace Corps program group during a training session recently.
He had asked for us each to say our name, where we were from, and if we had any
experience with agriculture. Given my experience with Revision International’s
program Re:farm Denver, I said that I have some experience in urban
agriculture. The man, we’ll call him Bob, was a Ph.D. biologist who specialized
in high-output greenhouse vegetable production. He had been brought to Moldova
by an amazing program that brings experts in different agricultural fields from
the States to consult and help Moldovan farmers for usually around 15 days. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although his session was extremely informative and it was
obvious he had an abundance of knowledge about how to get the most production
out of any given greenhouse setting, I couldn’t help but ponder his somewhat
upsetting comment about urban agriculture. Indeed his sentiments are nothing
new. I’ve seen the same thoughts tracking across the faces of most farmers whom
I’ve told about the work we do with Re:farm Denver in the city; they simply
think we’re not doing real work. Their looks say that if we’re serious about feeding
the world, we’d go lease 1000 acres, get a John Deere tractor, sprayer, and
combine to plant, inundate, and harvest a single commodity crop which would
then more than likely make its way into the stomachs of animals who weren’t
meant to eat that kind of food anyway before the fat on their bones makes it to
our mouths. The only exception to this has been my father-in-law, a South
Dakotan farmer who has shown a genuine interest in my work with food in the
city.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Don’t misunderstand me, large-scale farms (perhaps not as
large as today’s farms though), technical equipment like tractors, ploughs,
combines, etc, do indeed need to play an important role in the future or our
food. Yet, with the global population creeping (read: racing) away from the
rural lifestyle and toward the urban and suburban cityscapes, we must engage those
settings with the question of how to feed themselves. Oil is dwindling
worldwide; fossil-fuel based fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides,
are growing ever-more expensive; and the transportation to fly, ship, and drive
food from the farm to the table is today longer and therefore requires more
inputs than ever before in history. All this put together means that using the
spaces which are available to us in the urban setting to grow what we can is more
than simply not an oxymoron, it is a vital component of creating a future for
our children when oil runs out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is also important to remember that we (most people in ‘developed’
nations) are forgetting both what real food is, and how to grow it. With
grocery stores packed with tens of thousands of combinations of the compounds
thought up by food scientists, and an increasingly urban population, we’ve
firmly lost touch with where our food comes from. Unlike here in Moldova, where
every family has a garden as well as a small plot of land on which they grow
corn, grapes, sunflowers (for the seeds and the oil), having a garden in the
States is largely considered a luxury or a hobby. Less than 2% of our
population are farmers, and that number is still shrinking as my generation
grows up and wants to leave the small towns for the big cities. Programs like
Re:farm Denver are reteaching people about food. Reshowing people what it means
to eat healthy. Reminding people that growing food is always cheaper than buying
it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All the families Revision works with for establishing
household gardens are living at or below the Federal poverty line. They also
live in food deserts, areas of the city where there is no grocery store. Where
the only option for food is the junk food at the cornerstore. These families
can’t afford to eat healthy thanks to our current national food system and
policies (a topic for another blog), so they have higher rates of Type II
diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. I have seen the difference a backyard
garden can make in these families’ lives. When a family of four living on a
household income of less than fifteen thousand dollars a year saves $40 per
week by having a household garden, that is real. When kids are involved in
growing their own food and now are excited to eat the vegetables they have
helped grow, that is real.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, urban agriculture can’t be an oxymoron. Cities can, do,
and need to continue growing as much food as they possibly can within their own
city limits. A very viable path for low-income families toward a healthier
lifestyle is through relearning how to garden, which not only connects them
with the Earth which sustains us, but also, inevitably, with their neighbors as
they search for venues to share their surplus harvests. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Join the movement. Grow some of your own food next year and
volunteer or donate to an organization like Revision which helps low-income
neighborhoods do the same.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-73523698077266200892011-11-19T06:37:00.001-07:002011-11-19T06:39:08.692-07:00We are all pro-life<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s a shame the terms ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ have been
co-opted into the narrow-sighted and polarizing argument about the morality of
abortion (and, by the way, they are not, by definition, opposites; if you
really oppose pro-life, doesn’t that mean you’re pro-death? And if you oppose
pro-choice, are you pro-indecision?). In reality, there is so much in this
world in need of our attention, that perhaps its time we expand the scope of
these terms. Indeed the leaders of two of the largest branches of the Christian
church, have already expanded the idea of what it means to be ‘pro-life’. In
2002, Pope John Paul II and Ecumenical Patriarch His Holiness Bartholomew I
(leader of the Eastern Orthodox church), after concluding a symposium on
religion, science, and the environment, together signed <a href="http://conservation.catholic.org/declaration.htm" target="_blank">a statement detailing a code of environmental ethics</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The unfortunate unwillingness of the majority of Christians worldwide
to engage our responsibility to the environment as a mandate from God the
Creator is amazing. Not only does this ignore the teachings of Jesus, but it
also ignores the entire of purpose of our lives, as Bartholomew of
Constantinople and the late John Paul II so eloquently articulate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“A new approach and a new culture are
needed, based on the centrality of the human person within creation and inspired
by environmentally ethical behavior stemming from our triple relationship to
God, to self, and to creation. Such an ethics fosters interdependence and
stresses the principles of universal solidarity, social justice, and
responsibility, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in order to promote a
true culture of life</i>.” (emphasis mine)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They are calling all of humanity, every person of every
faith to join together and become pro-life and pro-choice. We must realize that
this ‘culture of life’ cherishes the inherent value of all life. To be pro-life
should mean that we all “…think of the world’s children [indeed all future
generations] when we reflect on and evaluate our options for action.” To be
pro-choice should mean to choose to allow this “… love for our children [to]
show us the path that we must follow into the future.” So in reality, if we
step back and reflect rationally, we should all be pro-life <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> pro-choice. Yet reason and logic
only take us so far in this quest to rethink how we live together with each
other and with the Earth that sustains us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“The problem is not simply economic and
technological; it is moral and spiritual. A solution at the economic and
technological level can be found only if we undergo, in the most radical way,
an inner change of heart, which can lead to a change in lifestyle and of
unsustainable patterns of consumption and production.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Let us deepen our definitions of pro-life and pro-choice. Or
perhaps, let us take our eyes off the symptom that abortion is and commit
ourselves to addressing the actual illness. We have, as humanity, stepped away
from the original purpose we were given; to be stewards of creation, working it
and keeping it for our children.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-68188161107565036212011-10-28T01:06:00.001-06:002011-10-28T06:24:35.679-06:00What is your contribution?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We walked into the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sala
de festivă</i>, the all purpose room of the school. Its recently rehabbed
interior buzzing with tens of different conversations between the hundreds of
townspeople seated on the cold, metal and fake-wood benches which were
positioned in rows facing the stage. Women of all ages, most of them wearing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">basme</i>, head scarves, each folded in half
to form a triangle and encircling its owner’s face and covering their hair, the other two ends tied loosely under their
chins with the knots struggling to hold onto themselves against the constant
motion of the women’s chins as they talked. Almost immediately we realized the
people had segregated themselves by gender. The women sitting toward the front,
the men either sitting in the couple of last rows or standing in the back in
pairs, hands in their pockets as they discussed whatever it was that Moldovans
seem to be able to talk about for hours on end non-stop.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We had come to the general parents’ meeting of the school
(serving 1<sup>st</sup> grade through 12<sup>th</sup>) out of interest, to see
what would be discussed, and what a mass meeting in Moldova was like. We sat
down, still bundled in our jackets against the chill of the room, on an empty
bench two-thirds of the way back on the right side of the auditorium behind our
host mom Tania. As we looked around, it seemed most of the teachers were
already present and seated in a loose group in the front right, furthest from
entry door. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The meeting actually started almost right on time (highly
unusual), even though stragglers kept streaming in every few minutes until the
room was filled to standing room only. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Doamna
Maria</i>, the school director (principal as we would think of it) called the
meeting to order by thanking the parents for being there and inviting the
mayor, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Domnul Petru</i>, and the
vice-mayor, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Doamna Nina</i>, to sit down
at the table at the front of the meeting, facing the crowd. She also asked for
a volunteer to be secretary of the meeting, and asked for another community
member to volunteer for something else that Ash and I didn’t catch. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Though the format of the meeting was brutally boring (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Doamna Maria</i> or another woman simply
standing at the front and speaking into the microphone for what turned out to
be two and a quarter hours), trying to understand their Romanian and being
curious about what they talked about kept Ash and I focused for most of it.
Soon, the speaker was asking for input from the parents on different
needs/issues/ideas for their school. In the ensuing yelling match, two parents
in particular offered complaints which drew heated sounds and responses from
other parents and from the speakers. One main issue which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Doamna Maria</i> had raised was about the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">veceu</i> (bathroom) situation. The current ‘bathroom’ for over six
hundred students plus teachers, is an outhouse with two holes, no lighting, and
no heating, situated about a hundred yards from the main school building. With
help from the parent’s association – parents can voluntarily give money which
goes into a pool for clubs and small projects for their kids – a small indoor
bathroom (one stall for girls and one for boys) was recently installed on the
first floor, but the sewage system can’t handle much usage, so its only open
for the 1<sup>st</sup> grade to use. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So in response, a man in his late thirties sitting against
the back wall, stood up and said that the school director should simply apply
to a fund somewhere to get the money to rehab the sewage system and install
more bathrooms on the other floors of the school. Simple enough, right? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thankfully, that’s when <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Doamna
Elena</i>, our next door neighbor and Romanian tutor, stood up from the front
of the room and turned to face the hundreds of eyes now trained on her. She
said something pretty close to the following (English paraphrase of Romanian…):
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“I’ve been teaching here since 1976.
How many years is that? A little math practice… 30 something right? 34 or 35
years. Every year, I have taught here, I have walked out to that outhouse to
use it. Every year I’ve taught here, I’ve sat in a cold classroom [another note
of the meeting was how the school hasn’t turned on the heat yet because gas
prices are going up and they won’t be able to afford it in the middle of
winter. Which means that its downright cold in the school all day.] and watched
the kids bundle themselves up and still try to learn. Do you know, if every
family gave 10 lei each month, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">10 lei</i>!,
that is nothing, we can all afford that, that we could probably install
bathrooms on the second and third floors? It helps no one to offer criticisms
without solutions. What have you personally contributed sir [speaking to the
man who suggested simply writing a grant]? Do not offer suggestions if you are
not willing to invest with your own money and time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> As <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Doamna Elena</i> sat down, applause swept
through the room. She had made a powerful, often over-looked point, summed up
with one question: what is your contribution? The more I learn about the
problems of the world, the easier it is to point out more problems. The more
often half-assed solutions touted by short-sighted politicians or businessmen
fail, the easier it is to simply say no to whatever is proposed. Yet the
Romanian teacher with 35 years of teaching in the same school in the same town
in Moldova challenges that paradigm. What is my contribution? Have I offered
anything of my own or have I simply shot down what exists? Have I put forward
empty solutions (i.e. “just write a grant to some funder”), or have I invested
my own time and money in the work of bettering this Earth and the people who
live on it? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What is your contribution? </span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-19620077279020249812011-10-14T01:33:00.001-06:002011-10-14T01:33:58.808-06:00365 Days of Peace and Friendship<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A quick note... </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Peace Corps Moldova created a blog site in celebration of Peace Corps' 50th Anniversary and volunteers in Moldova have been posting a new blog about their experiences/thoughts every single day so far! I just posted an excerpt from a journal I wrote about a Moldovan funeral I attended. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Check out my post and the posts of other volunteers here:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<a href="https://sites.google.com/a/365peaceandfriendship.com/365peaceandfriendship/events/pcv-event---october/october6th-amoldovanfuneral"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">https://sites.google.com/a/365peaceandfriendship.com/365peaceandfriendship/events/pcv-event---october/october6th-amoldovanfuneral</span></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Enjoy!!</span></div>
</div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-10105833909441412782011-10-08T13:12:00.001-06:002011-10-08T13:12:42.198-06:00Memories<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Memory is a crazy thing.<br /><br />There is a slight nip in the air. Just enough to signify the height of the rafting (read: tourist) season has not yet descended upon the valley, and that therefore the Eddyline brewery will be only normally crowded instead so packed as to make the comer second-guess waiting to be seated at all. We're riding down there on the townie bikes. Ash and I and mum and Mark. It's all downhill on the way so it's an easy cruise which only intensifies the feeling of serenity. The only thing on my mind is a half pound of grass-fed beef with hatch green chilies and black pepper mixed into the meat, which is topped with local goat cheese and sandwiched between two perfectly toasted buns, one smothered in house-made spicy brown mustard. Next in line in my mind is the dark and smooth porter, whose complex combination of chocolate and coffee seem to enrich the tastes of the burger even further. Holding up all this is the sense of belonging. The knowledge that I'm with family, who know me and love me and I know them and love them. All this in a flash of a memory.<br /><br />The memory is one which at the moment - five months into living in a foreign land and trying to communicate in a foreign tongue - makes my heart ache for home. Yet when I try to dig deeper, to identify what I'm missing and why, I find that that memory only a part of a broader context. A context in which Ash and I were preparing to leave (again) on the journey of Peace Corps. We had a sense of purpose. We had direction. We weren't simply enjoying life, we were living with purpose, with a higher calling.<br /><br />Other memories of the recent past again point to this larger context. The reality of the enjoyment of the moments I remember aren't diminished by the realization of this bigger picture, instead it is deepened by the awareness of it. Working alongside community members to get the community farm ready for the season, singing in unison with hundreds of others on Sunday mornings or being touched by a challenging teaching, or sharing a cup of coffee with my best friend and soulmate on a lazy morning. They are all extraordinary moments which weave together the tapestry of my life. Yet they are just that; individual threads. To focus on one or two or even a hundred pieces of thread leaves one missing the way in which those threads come together to form the whole work of art. To simply assume that missing home or a quality meal with family means that somehow my present circumstances are lacking or need to change is like unweaving an intricate tapestry down to a thread only to find that you have to then start over and make it again from scratch.<br /><br />In this way I try to remind myself that though I may miss "home," would it really be the same as my memory if I went back right now? Would I really be happier to pursue the threads of the past or should I concentrate on weaving the tapestry of today? When I stop to put the memories in this light, I remember too that the memories I'm making now, many incredibly special in their own right, also have a larger context. And though I've never actually weaved a tapestry by hand, I imagine it's a slow and frustrating process, one which requires the utmost attention, perseverance, and patience.<br /><br />Așa e viața. So is life.</span></span></div>
Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-45387974693298623292011-09-16T01:16:00.000-06:002011-09-16T01:16:56.259-06:00Time is Nuetral<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">Impermanence. If there is another single word which conveys more profundity or captures more feelings or carries with it more insight, I can't think of it at the moment (which, granted, might not be saying much). What's more is that it is a profoundly spiritual word. We all pay tribute to the far off idea that change is the only constant in our lives, yet how often do we truly stop and ponder it? Everything changes. Everything. Even history changes depending on which historian you ask or which volume of the past you read. Our climate changes, our seasons change, our weather changes, our relationships are constantly in flux, our appearance, values, beliefs, priorities, emotions, they all change. Yet somehow, it seems it is human nature to fight that change at every turn.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">We somehow kid ourselves everyday by buying into a myth that we can slow or stop change. Whether its the advertisements convincing us we can look young for longer, or simply our mis-directed attempts at control which lead us down the slippery slope of believing we can count on things staying as they are a bit longer. Even in daily life, if something 'unexpected' happens, we seem blindsided and often (at least I do), take it as a personal affront - how dare this happen! I wasn't ready for that. Why wasn't I told about this? Yet impermanence persists. In his book "<i>Turning the Mind into an Ally</i>", Sakyong Mipham puts it this way: "When a cup breaks or we forget something or somebody dies or the seasons change, we're surprised. We can't quite believe its over."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">So why keep kidding ourselves? I think perhaps the strongest indicator of how much we grasp at the things which continue to slip through our fingers is worry. Worry is the litmus test which glaringly tells us we are trying to control the ever-changing circumstances of life. When we think about an upcoming event, or tomorrow, or a relationship or our appearance, the amount that we worry betrays how much we're really trying to control what happens. But if we become more aware of our worry, perhaps we could start to understand when we're trying to control the uncontrollable, make permanent the impermanent. Worry, identified through awareness, can become a valuable tool which helps us to let go of our constant pursuit of control and permanence. Again, Mipham: "As we relinquish our attachment to permanence, pain begins to diminish because we're no longer fooled. Accepting impermanence means that we spend less energy resisting reality."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">Jesus uses the reality of impermanence to ask this question: "...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?... Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?... </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">" (Mat. 6:25-34, NKJ)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">So we need to let go of control. Of permanence. Yet there is danger in letting the pendulum swing too far the other way. Many people might reason that if everything changes and we can't control much at all, then why try? Why care? Why work for the betterment of society or others, or ourselves if it all will change anyway? We seem to be attached as a culture to the idea of either/or thinking. Indeed it is far easier to grasp something if it is either right or wrong, this way or that, black or white. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">Yet life was never meant to be easy, nor was it meant to be the comprised of simple extremes or opposites. Mipham speaks of a right understanding of impermanence in the context of a journey to become a warrior in the world who's sole purpose is to radiate love and compassion towards, and on behalf of others. Jesus says not to worry, but in the context of trusting that God will be with you through the inevitable times of struggle and hardship and give you the strength to minister (literally: to serve) to others in their hardships. The Prophet Muhammad spoke of the 'great jihad' being the struggle within oneself toward moral purity, the betterment of society and the plight of others. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">In my Christian spiritual journey for the last ten years, I have come to understand this struggle in my own words. It is one in which we are to never let go of nor let lie slack the cable of hope as we labor day in and day out towards justice in everything we do. We are to constantly extend ourselves out over the ledge of self and trust that God will catch us as we fall in selflessness for others. It is our work to continually examine how we affect others and the Earth which sustains them and to adjust our actions to lower our negative impact on both. Yet in all this, we cannot worry. We cannot attach ourselves to the results of our efforts, for those results are impermanent and out of our control. Instead of using the fact of impermanence as an excuse for inaction, we use it to better understand ourselves and our position in the world.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">I will always be amazed by Martin Luther King Jr's gift of words and at how they often express my deepest feelings better than I can. He wrote in his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">"[There is a]... strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills... [but] We will have to repent ... not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. <b style="font-style: italic;">We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right." </b>(emphasis mine)</span></span></span></blockquote>
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Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-1931791462556722502011-09-09T01:09:00.001-06:002011-09-09T01:09:16.191-06:00What to write?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is interesting that I have a yearning to write, yet I have no firm idea about which to write. It is interesting on two levels. First, the fact that I want to write is still novel to me as well as still conjures feelings of insecurity which I must constantly push back. I see so much hurt produced in the world by people using their talents for writing and speaking thoughtlessly, or to espouse views of hate and single-mindedness which do nothing to help heal all the wounds which lay gaping open in our world today. I don't want to be yet another one of these voices. Yet I also read challenging books, witness heartening acts of kindness and love from other people, have friends who are using their voices and lives for openness and justice, and therefore feel I have the highest obligation to lend every part of me, including my voice and writing, to the cause. At worst, I'll be lost or drowned out in the madness. At best, perhaps one mind will take heart in my words and shift themselves towards love and away from the status quo of indifference.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The second level on which this yearning to write is perplexing is that I can't put my finger on what to write about (don't let all these words fool you, I'm not really writing). It seems as though I'm treading water in the sea of my passions, knowing and feeling there are concrete ideas and words beneath me, yet unable to grab hold of them (apparently I chose the scariest possible analogy I could for some reason). </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I recently finished reading <i>Turning the Mind Into an Ally</i>, by <a href="http://www.mipham.com/home.php">Sakyong Mipham</a>, the head of the Shambhala Buddhist lineage. The foundation of Shambhala teaching is meditation, or peaceful abiding, in which the aim is to "tame" and "train" our minds away from their constant state of discursiveness. This idea of discursiveness, that our minds are constantly in flux, fixating on one thought or sound or image and immediately and seemingly without warning jumping to another, perhaps entirely unrelated thought, couldn't be more accurate. Especially in this age of technology, we have constant stimulation for our minds, whether its through music, computers, TV, news, radio, driving, meetings, cell phones, traffic, restaurants, the internet, or all of them at the same time. Our minds never stop. At least not until we train them to. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The teaching is that, through practicing meditation, we can train our minds to not only notice when we are thinking and feeling, but to understand why we think and feel, and therefore not let those thoughts and feelings take control of how we act or where we focus our efforts. By training our minds, we then have more space and ability to contemplate and act on love for others, on why we are here and on what will allow us to effect the most positive change. Mipham says the work of a true warrior, what takes the most courage and perseverance in life, is to radiate love and compassion in all we say and do. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So the sea in which I'm treading water is discursiveness. Its the same sea in which we all tread water, searching for the next thing to make us happy, or the next quick fix to poverty or climate change, or the one product which will keep us younger for another year as we grow older. Its time we slow down and swim to shore. There we can get out, realize that we were in fact simply treading water, breathe, then decide to move ourselves toward love for others instead of just for ourselves. Toward healing our Earth and the nations which depend on it for life. Toward a slower, more purposeful way of life which might actually accomplish a lot more than treading water.</span><br />
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Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-11187633227200901922011-06-28T13:25:00.000-06:002011-06-28T13:25:51.547-06:00The Cave<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I started writing blogs out of a genuine yearning to challenge both my paradigm and the mainstream paradigms of our day. Well today is no different. I'm reading <i>Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered</i>, by E. F. Schumacher </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(thanks Eric!)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, a true visionary of his time whose message is even more pertinent today than when he wrote it almost 40 years ago, and it has sparked countless fires in my mind. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The light from the flames bounces off my preconceptions, the ways I've learned to view the world, and the shadows betray the alternatives which simmer beneath the surface. Catching the glint of other possibilities I realize we're all lost. We're all gobbling up what we're told without stopping to analyze why we're told it or what will happen if we continue to follow the leader unquestioningly.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Perhaps the most burning question in my mind presently is this: Is our economy serving us (humanity), or are we serving our economy? Which leads to another question: What is the purpose of the economy? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We hear every day about the Dow Jones Industrial Average, or the S&P 500, or the quarterly statements of massive corporations and the GDPs of nations as if we're all on the same page with what these numbers mean, how they were computed, or why they're even important in the first place. I would argue, along with Schumacher, that we need to collectively stop and size up our situation; namely that we're living in a society shaped by an economic platform which was developed with the best of intentions, but for a far different world than the one in which we currently live. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This platform admires largess, uniformity, quantitative analysis, and simplicity as it stretches skyward, having convinced all of us that it can reach the goal of unlimited and exponential growth (how to you reach that goal by the way?). Oh, and the wealth created as a by-product will eventually trickle down to those who can't fit onto the platform.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although this platform made sense as it was sculpted; in an uncrowded world filled with seemingly unlimited and nearly free resources with which to power growth, we can no longer say that any of it actually works. Despite growing GDPs, a new 'study' showing 1/3 of Africa is now in the 'middle class', and trillions of dollars floating around the world, are we (humanity) really better off for it? Has the wealth really trickled down and helped us lead healthier, fuller lives?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Or are we simply serving our economy and forgetting that it is actually supposed to be serving us? With more hungry people today than every before, more pollution in the air, ground and water than our planet can cope with, less topsoil with which to produce our food, and less of every other fuel to which we're addicted, I would say its time to rethink the platform we're standing on. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As Schumacher puts it: "If [our current] economic thinking cannot grasp this it is useless. If it cannot get beyond its vast abstractions, the national income, the rate of growth, capital/output ratio, input-output analysis, labour mobility, capital accumulation; if it cannot get beyond all this and make contact with the human realities of poverty, frustration, congestion, ugliness, and spiritual death, then let us scrap economics and start afresh. Are there not indeed enough 'signs of the times' to indicate that a new start is needed?"</span></div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-46074393621558547942011-06-01T09:30:00.000-06:002011-06-01T09:30:38.925-06:00Generosity: The New American Dream<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">Life is a crazy thing. Every day we (global citizens) wake up and are forced to confront, and yet expected to ignore, the paradoxes around us. Some of us ('Westerners', but especially those of us who call the US home) are told to pursue the dream of others. A dream whose exact definition is elusive, but which conjures images of a house/mortgage with an over-sized lawn, 2-3 cars, 2.5 children, and a 'career' which will lead us securely towards the "Golden Years". </span><br />
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</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">Yet most of us learn from an early age that pursuing what is right, what is good, what is just, are worthy pursuits. Yet, as a rule, the elusive American dream demands selfish pursuits - often times even to the detriment of others - and offers the idea of volunteering or service or generosity as an exception; only to be done in 'spare time,' if we have any.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"> Without more role models portraying lives of service toward a greater good, what chance do we have of living up to the things we were taught as children? </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">The citizens of the United States individually give a lot monetarily toward 'charity'. Somewhere in the vicinity of 3% of our incomes we give away. That is a great start. But it is just a start. When the working and middle class families give more of their income than the upper socio-economic classes, and when we have so many societal ills (outrageously expensive healthcare, vast homeless populations, a decrepit public education system, failing ecosystems, etc, etc) with global ills to match, my hope is that we will not give up on giving. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">In an age when the government is slashing budgets to truly amazing programs such as Peace Corps, Americorps, Community Block Grants, community health organizations, and the like, it is our money that is needed the most. Yet it truly isn't our money. Whether you believe that everything you have is a gift or not, it is vital we see the connection between how we try to control our money and the failing systems we live in. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">I was inspired yesterday by a friend who, though he and his wife are struggling to make ends meet, gave Ash and I an unsolicited financial contribution to 'help where you think its needed in Moldova'. This spirit, one of complete generosity and trust that money can go farther when let go instead of clutched tightly, is something I rarely see, even in myself.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;"><br />
</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana;">I truly believe that this kind of generosity, even if at first it is done more out of discipline than out of desire, is an important stepping stone toward reclaiming the values of our childhood. Values that lay claim to justice and other worthy pursuits.</span> </span></div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-8827155340727246292011-05-31T16:00:00.000-06:002011-05-31T16:00:53.830-06:00Imagination Takes Courage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I recently witnessed one of the most inspiring speeches I've ever heard. I consider the speaker a true visionary, a prophet, one who when he opens his mouth to speak, there is no doubt in the audience's mind that he needs to be heard.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The central theme I took away was how we have lost our imagination as a culture. We have become so entrenched in this either/or mentality that we have forgotten we were created to think of other possibilities. Capitalism or socialism. Democracy or dictatorship. Black or white. Heaven or hell. Pro-life or pro-choice. Liberal or conservative. For profit or not-for-profit. Rich or poor. Violence or pacifism.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What if these are all false choices? What if we have been conditioned to feel fear when we try to think outside the systems we see all around us? And why shouldn't we feel fear? When we look back through history, the people who have truly envisioned and fought for an alternative way of thinking have all been ridiculed or killed (think Jesus, Gandhi, William Wilberforce, Nelson Mandela, Dr. King, just to name a few). </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Speaking of economics, author Raj Patel, in his book <i>0: The Value of Nothing</i>, applies this concept to our love affair with capitalism: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"What needs to be plucked out of markets is the perpetual and overriding hunger for expansion and profit... what needs to be plucked out of <i>us</i> is the belief that markets are the only way to value our world." He is daring to say that instead of this false choice between capitalism and socialism, profit or no profit, there is actually another way, if we only have the courage to put aside our fear, and use our imaginations. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Countless pockets of this courage can be seen all over the world, many of which Patel writes about along with author Paul Hawken in <i>Blessed Unrest</i>. It is so vital that we understand things can in fact be different. And not just different <i>within</i> our current system, but different altogether. The speaker I heard spoke about how artists are so vital because they envision how things should be, not how they are now. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is time for 'the mainstream' to start painting. To start re-imagining the Earth and our society the way it could be, not the way it is. To start connecting the pockets that are already here. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Patel, in speaking about one of these pockets in Brazil, where people have taken democracy to a whole new level economically and are seeing amazing results, says it is amazing "...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">what happens when people stop being consumers in the market and become the authors of their lives, political subjects who both preside over resources and develop democratic ways of sharing them... </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In order to reclaim politics, <u>we too will need more imagination, creativity and courage</u>. We will need to remember that democracy's triumphs come not from the ballot box but from the circumstances that make democracy possible; equality, accountability, and the possibility of politics." (emphasis mine)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The speaker I mentioned is Michael Hidalgo, whose blog, A View From A Point, is linked <a href="http://michaelhidalgo.blogspot.com/">here</a>, and whose teachings can be found <a href="http://denverchurch.org/teaching">here</a>.</span></div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-50322822327727184862011-02-26T09:22:00.000-07:002011-02-26T09:22:29.305-07:00A Niger-shaped hole<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Distance and time are strange things. Seeming to exist more in one's mind than in stark reality. We have been receiving periodic emails from Peace Corps Niger staff, updating all the volunteers about what is happening in country, and allowing us to send in our updates to be sent out to others. Yet the news is strangely absent of stories about even the 'higher up' Nigerien staff, such as Tondi, our training manager, or Souleyman, Ash's supervisor. Even more absent are the updates from our host families in Hamdallaye, or of our villagers in the rural reaches of the Sahel. I suppose its too much to hope for to hear of them again, to hear tidbits of their lives which are so meaningful. Even if we did get some morsel of news, its superficiality would never slake our hunger to hear Tondi's laugh again, or to sip the over-sweetened tea that our host dad, Isoufou would give us, or to hear Maimousa say "dommi!!??". </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Instead we're left chewing on the memories we have of them, the prayers we can offer up toward them, and the distant hope of one-day returning to see them. I'm realizing now how much Niger has left its mark on me. A mark so deep and so pervasive that I can't place my finger on it, let alone articulate it. Somehow our short experience of that vast country has altered the course of our lives. At some point between leaving Philadelphia and now, sitting at my computer back in Denver, there was a slight curve in the road of our lives; the new course imperceptible at first is now obvious as we wind our way towards the horizon of clarity. But that horizon itself, clarity itself, is perhaps a misnomer. In order for clarity to come, there has to be understanding of what would have been. And yet in life there is never a clear picture of what would have been, only an admittedly fuzzy image of what is. And so clarity will remain forever a horizon. Forever around the next curve in life. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So here is to the people of Niger. To Zali with her beautiful laugh and the way she would say Ash's name; Mariama. I hope you are enjoying your very own chair. To Isoufou and his toothless smile and rough, calloused hands so strong and true. To Tondi, with the most life-giving laugh and the kindest heart, may you reach your goals and attain your dreams. To Isa in Fadama with his no-nonsense helping hand, hopefully Charlie isn't bothering you too much and I'm sorry we didn't come back. To Garba, thank you for always greeting us with a smile, for the ride on your ox-cart, and we're sorry we didn't recognize you after you shaved your head, hopefully we'll have a chance to recognize you again. To the women street vendors with their full-face smiles and light-hearted but helping conversations. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Allah kiyaye. Allah shi bada lahiya. </span><br />
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</span></div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-81080963583208277082011-02-03T09:37:00.000-07:002011-02-03T09:37:01.741-07:00A different perspective on the Peace Corps<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, my wife and I's ears perked up when we heard that ABC's 20/20 was running a story entitled "Scandal Inside the Peace Corps". Actually, the first we heard of it was in Morocco, after just having been evacuated from Niger (see below), from family members who had watched it and were now concerned for our safety. So, now that we are home safe and sound, I wanted to look into the story a little more, the ensuing sensationalism, and perhaps offer our perspective on the issue.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For those of you who haven't seen the 20/20 episode, it is indeed dramatic and tells some very sad stories while painting a very one-sided picture of Peace Corps (PC) and its commitment to volunteer safety around the world. As PC's Director Aaron Williams conveys in his response (<a href="http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.media.press.view&news_id=1700">linked here</a>), my issue is absolutely not with the validity of the stories told by the rape and sexual assault victims on 20/20. My issue - and the issue I hope strikes some chords of truth with you as well - is how the 'journalism' of 20/20 is indicative and in no way abnormal from, the tendency of mainstream media to tell one side of any given story while doing so with sensationalist, extreme, and polarizing rhetoric. This tendency is real, and many times results in equally sensationalist, extreme, polarizing, and often unneeded public responses based not on rational or evidence-based thinking, but instead on fear. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Using the 20/20 episode as a mini case-study, I hope this blog will help put not only the PC's safety record in perspective, but also lend another voice to the many calling for a return to meaningful, reasoned, journalism.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The episode opens with a preview of the stories to come, including the tragic murder of a PC Volunteer (PCV) in Benin in 2008, and the stories of six female PCVs who had been raped or sexually assaulted during their service. As if these events in themselves aren't alarming enough, the episode opens with the question of "was the PC involved in covering up" these incidents? Whether or not this question is warranted, it sets the tone for the entire episode as one of distrust in the PC. On and on the statistics roll, all centered on the PC with no context given to help the viewer come to his/her own conclusions about the severity or not of the PC's approach to safety and security. Statistics such as the Benin murder was the "23rd since PC's founding", and, "over 1,000 female PCVs have been raped or sexually assaulted in the last decade". The way in which these and other stats on the PC were presented made it sound as if 20/20 should receive an award for investigative journalism, when in all reality, the PC publishes an annual report on Volunteer Safety and Security (<a href="http://multimedia.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/policies/volsafety2008.pdf">2008</a> and <a href="http://multimedia.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/policies/volsafety2009.pdf">2009</a> linked here) for anyone who wishes to read it. Yet 20/20 doesn't mention this fact, nor do they provide answers to any other questions which might help the viewer make a reasoned, educated, assessment of PC's record and current efforts towards volunteer safety and security. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These questions hit me immediately, as I hope they would to any person who thinks critically about what is presented in the media: How many volunteers have served in the last decade? What therefore is the rate of rape or sexual assault victims? Is that rate higher or lower than the rate for the US? Or the rate for major US cities? The PC Deputy Director mentioned there are plenty of women who speak highly of how PC supported them as victims, why weren't any of them interviewed? Nowhere in the episode was there context given for what PC's mission is (<a href="http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=about.mission">linked here</a>), and how the fulfillment of that mission necessarily sends volunteers to unstable and developing countries.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Instead of a truly two-sided news story (one which, I do think would be worth telling) which does its best to present an un-biased set of facts to let the viewer draw his/her own conclusions, the episode was chalk full of cinematic effects and rhetoric designed to tell the viewer that 20/20's views are fact and truth and that the PC is out to intentionally hurt its volunteers. And sadly, it seems this approach worked, and not only with the average citizen, but also in our highest levels of elected officials. Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) decided, evidently solely based on the 20/20 episode, to call for a congressional investigation into the PC. In this daily address on the floor of the House, Poe, without apparently fact-checking or investigating on his own any further, cited the 20/20 episode as reason enough to mobilize a congressional investigation. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While I don't disagree that PC needs to be held accountable to volunteer safety and security, why can't we have a reasoned, fact-based, conversation or discussion about it, instead of using such polarizing and extreme rhetoric which only furthers distrust and strengthens the divides between people? Perhaps such a conversation on the House floor would have acknowledged that the Office of the Inspector General has as its full-time job keeping the PC accountable to claims of fraud, mismanagement, and internal negligence (their recent assessment of <a href="http://www.peacecorpswiki.org/FOIAdocs/VSSOIGAug08.pdf">PCV's Safety and Security is linked here</a>). Or perhaps Congress would invite PC Director in to show concretely, what PC has been doing over the past few years to improve its Safety and Security training and to explain why, in fact, the numbers of rape and sexual assault have actually be declining drastically in recent years.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Let me be clear, I absolutely believe our media should highlight stories of those who feel they have not been heard or who are being oppressed. I absolutely believe that PC should be held accountable for its past and present actions or inactions. However, I also absolutely believe that the divisive and one-sided rhetoric used in the majority of media today is leading us further from peace, further from unity, further from the truth, and further from true freedom of speech. As PCVs, my wife and I also absolutely believe in the approach PC is using to the safety and security of its volunteers and the steps it takes to minimize the risks volunteers face everyday (as do all of us living anywhere in the world).</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the spirit of getting the full story and helping each of us draw our own, educated, conclusions, here are some more resources which help frame this important issue.</span><br />
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"<a href="http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2003/12globalgovernance_rieffel.aspx">Reconsidering the Peace Corps</a>" - A Brookings Institute Brief which is a perfect example of quality journalism which provides a solid foundation of information. Its slightly old (2003), but every single point it brings up is just as relevant today as it was then.<br />
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<a href="http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr">US Uniform Crime Report</a> - a national compilation of crime statistics in the US.<br />
<a href="http://multimedia.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/policies/SARC_20100930.pdf">Inspector General report of PC</a> - a recent overall assessment of the PC by the Office of the Inspector General<br />
<a href="http://philanthropy.com/blogs/government-and-politics/obama-budget-seeks-10-increase-for-peace-corps/10994">News story about Obama seeking budget increase for PC</a><br />
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</div>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-872867116862548799.post-27278992710748602402011-01-20T00:22:00.000-07:002011-01-20T00:22:22.757-07:00A Giant Cheesegrater in the Moroccon Sky<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The clouds form a giant cheese grater over the Western half of the sky, slowly shaving away the brilliance of the sun, reducing it to a fiery orange ball as it passes through them on it's journey to brighten the other side of the world. The clouds have absorbed the sun's shed light, each layer turning different shades of yellow to orange to red before slowly melting darker into gray.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br />
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Instead of a sharp line, the city-scape disappears in stages into the hazy mist and fog before meeting with the clouds. Just as I can't place where the Earth gives way to sky, I can't place how I'm feeling, or how I've changed in the last three months. Yet that doesn't leave me any less sure the horizon exists, or that I have indeed changed. "[A person's] mind, once stretched by a new idea [or place or way of life or experience], never regains its original dimensions." (Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.). But how am I to understand these new dimensions when I was so unready to leave Niger, to leave the new life we had just started? How do I separate the feelings of being a fake from the feelings of new dimensions?<br />
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The sun reminds Morocco of its presence once more by splashing the clouds in purple for mere moments, signaling to the darkness that it could now advance unhindered to swallow the city of Rabat.<br />
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Niger has left its mark in me: it has widened my horizons and lightened my heart. Not least of all I have had the opportunity to learn a new language; to peek into how another people form their thoughts and command their bodies to move.<br />
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The first star bravely marks its place through the wisps of clouds from a sky the color of shallow water. Behind me a band of thin clouds display a brilliant halo like a neon sign, announcing the full moon, which in turn acts as the sun's watchful eye, ensuring the darkness doesn't last forever but instead will never have a complete grip over us. <br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">I choose to take that reminder a step further. I choose to believe that God will never abandon us, that He in fact has a grip on us, even in this tumultuous time. Even when the sun sets, leaving only the moon to give us our bearings, its then He is strongest. Though my faith faulters, though my doubts seem to overtake almost every sertainty I have, He is there, just beneath it all; too deep to dig out even if I wanted to, just up high enough to give me a solid rock to stand on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">All my passions are in sharp clarity, yet the path to acheive them is maddeningly obscure. The knowns are few, the unknown profound. Yet I do have something to stand on. I have my soulmate and wife, with whom I get to go forward. I have an amazing family, and close friends to whom words can not adequately attribute the love and support I feel for and from them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Tears have welled up suddenly many times in the last seven days. Starting with the evacuation phone call, moving through fumbling with words in Hausa to say goodbue to those we had just met. Coming back again and again as I ponder what and who we left behind, what's next, and where to go from here. The tears and tightness in my throat remind me this is reality, I'm actually in this, and that I'm not alone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Thank you God for giving us something to stand on. Thank you wifey for being here, in this, with me. Thank you mum, dad, and brother for your life-long support. Thank you Eric and Michael for constantly loving, challenging, and encouraging me. And thank you to the 20 or so other friends on my mind right now but whom I don't have the energy to name here. I could not be here without all of you and you are the reasons I can bear the thought of coming home at such a premature time as this.</span>Joseph Teipelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03874064545381485639noreply@blogger.com1