If nothing else, all of the work that i have done over the past three years has indeed made me a more conscious person. I have been challenged to consider all aspects of my life without exception, plumbing the depths to find what it takes to do this kind of thing responsibly. I feel that it is irresponsible to attempt this kind of thing if you cannot manage to have your heart in it. I have had to become more conscious in every aspect of my life from my appearance and character to my table manners. Living in a house full of women i have learned without fail to put the toilet seat down after use. For someone aspiring to become more conscious this job provides an atmosphere most conducive.
However, one drawback of becoming more conscious means becoming more responsible. If you wish to be in touch with the world you live in and the realities contained therein, then you must take on those realities in yourself. If you wish to be aware then you are faced with the choice to accept and consider what you learn or to ignore it. If you choose to accept and consider it, you must take responsibility for it and do what you can to make it better. Its easy to say that you want a peaceful, loving world but if you truly want those who have very little in our society to have enough we have to be personally willing to sacrifice something. What would you give up to give the less fortunate a better life? It often happens that i fall into a certain rhythm with the children, a certain routine with which i am very comfortable and it is shortly thereafter announced in a meeting that the routine must change into a more labor-intensive routine to fit the changing needs of the child. I am frustrated because i liked the ease and comfort of the old way but the truth is that the child has needs and we need to go from playing in the yard to structured cleaning tasks and writing lessons. The world is the same way. We can be comfortable with the rhythm of our lives. We can choose not to learn about how even by our consumer-choices we are supporting inhumane business practices. Or we can choose to accept that the food in our refrigerator was bought at a good price because it was grown and harvested by humans just like us with families and children who dream like all children do, the difference being that these are being exploited in fields in Florida to pick tomatoes for Taco Bell while they can barely afford to keep their babies alive but you can still get a damn good burrito for 99 cents. I know about the exploitation and the heartbreak and the struggles because i work with the children. I know through their parents, many of whom are my age.
Because of this, i am slowly learning that i have to change the way i live. Consider that by getting good deals at Wal-Mart, you are also supporting the suffering of good people. Know that you don't have to participate in this new evolution of slavery if you make an effort to know the origin of the food you eat and the products you buy. Is it ok to put American children in hot factories to make them sew jeans for people in Malaysia? Then why is the reverse ok? If you buy coffee, look for 'fair trade' coffee and drink happily knowing that you are paying for farmers to have enough to feed their families.

All i ask is that you do not just read these blogs and think that there is anything extraordinary about me or my work. The task of building a better world falls on the shoulders of every single person and their willingness to take responsibility for the world we live in. I would beg that if you are reading this blog, that you resolve to make at least one change in your life that benefits those who need it. It doesn't matter who. You could be more conscious of your water usage or buy espresso drinks at Dunkin' Donuts because they serve only 'fair-trade' espresso. You could smile at that homeless guy you always see or give a flower to someone who has upset you.
There are things that every person can do to make a better world, i can tell you that us volunteers aren't going to be able to manage it alone.


So good night, and good luck.

Every day after Oscar, my 9-year-old boy, finishes his homework he puts on a rubber glove and goes outside with me who, carrying a little plastic baggie walks behind him as he picks up all of the trash that has collected in a day along the side of the house facing the street. The end of the house is about one house down from a corner store. This corner store, (which seems to be like most i have seen in the area/country) is run by a middle-eastern family and largely frequented by gentlemen who sell drugs and gentlemen who drink alcohol frequently. Often times, individuals will bear both of the descriptions listed above simultaneously.

In between our house and the store is a group of men that varies in number from day to day, but is comprised of certain core members who, 'run the block'. Often times to get to the house one must walk through the large crowd who will generally ignore if not politely step out of the way for you, (and by 'you', i mean me, because who i am is entirely connected to what i do and their awareness of it and if one of you were to walk through the same crowd right now i could not guarantee you the same results.)

Anyway, in the midst of all this is Oscar with his glove and i with my bag, gingerly removing the remnants of last night on the block. What we find scattered in the front gardens can provide some insight into what the neighborhood is made up of, like a social biopsy revealing secrets about the life it came from. In an average day our bag will surely have at least one flask or can whose leftover contents slosh around in the plastic grocery bag with cigarette butts, miniature zip lock bags used to dispense crack-cocaine, fast-food wrappers, church fliers, candy and candy wrappers from the school children and occasionally the odd item such as a cereal box or canister of raisins, half-eaten. On the days that, for whatever reason, Oscar cannot be there, i end up with the privilege of wearing the glove as well and have found a few treasures including a bullet shell that appeared to belong to some kind of small handgun and some intact bags of coke or heroin or something that must have been abandoned in a moment of panic or disorientation. I found something poetic about the bullet cast into the garden, a bullet being like a seed of death that can stop a family tree from growing. I saw the drugs as seeds of struggle in a society so desperate that they will peddle poisons to their own community in an attempt to rise out of it. I thought of the music that blares on every corner, glorifying both of these evils, cultivating death and struggle in youths who should be given a chance to grow and live. Ghetto is an image now, an image that i believe is meant to give power to the people it addresses. But what i see is that the ghetto is crying and terrified. The ghetto is full of mothers who want better for their children and fathers who hate themselves because they can't provide it. Its full of little girls who look for love in the wrong places and end up pregnant with babies that they can't love because they have never known love. Its full of those babies, all-grown up and devoid of Love, wondering why life seems like such a struggle. And so in conclusion to this, i ask if 'ghetto' has become fashionable, in whose image is it fashioned?

With such realities as global warming and nuclear threat, talk of the end times is on the rise. People mutter about the apocalypse and speak of the return of Christ. What did Christ bring to the world? Love. That would be a revolution. We live in an age where we watch our own human family, just across the bridge from us, starving and struggling while we casually pass them by in comfortable indifference. By our own fears we deny a better world. Its the world of a child, where everyone is a potential friend and disputes can be overcome with laughter and forgiveness. Far surpassing the Levite in the story of the good Samaritan, we pass by our own countrymen and women on the road each day and insist we have 'something more important to do'. I believe that Jesus is a' comin' back. I also believe that he comes back a little more each time you dare to Love instead of fear people.