I spent last week in San Angelo, Texas.  My brother, Troy, his wife Connie, and my young nephews Kyler, Shane and Junior had lost their son and brother, Chris, suddenly and unexpectedly at just 19 years old.  The grief they held was too much for any family. I'd seen it before when we'd lost my brother Josh.  I hoped never to see it again. I know it's said we never encounter more than we can handle, but, in my experience, it's patently untrue.  In the face of far too much sadness and loss, we learn to make due with what we have left.  With a bit of luck, the passing of time, and the grace only healing can bring, what we have left becomes more than we could have ever imagined in the valley of our despair. While I was away, Sanjay got this note from Mama Lucy:

I've just come back from Patandi Hospital about 2 hours ago. Around 3pm, I was informed by the matron of the children's home that one of our students had broken his arm. As you know our hospitals, the incharge of x-ray was not there, so we waited for almost 2 hours before the electricity gone. So we end up with just painkiller injection and they stretch the arm, tighten it to make it stiff so that we can wait three days until Monday.  The doctor did that in a dark room. I was really mad. I wish I had a way to take away all leaders of this country who are just using our money and resources for nothing. We're fed up with this kind of living. There were other people there at the hospital with more serious cases - out and in patients. Everyone knows the importance of having full-time person at X-ray room. In some cases, other services cannot move before this. Why not have someone there at the x-ray room to attend us in such a big hospital?  Even the former US President  Bush visited this hospital. Though I had transport to go to the regional hospital at Mount Meru, the doctor told me that the x-ray machine at Mount Meru Hospital is not working. Also, why have power rationing in sensitive places like hospitals?! Imagine, there was a man there whose fingers had big cut with machine, who needed to get stitches. There was a young girl too whose arm was cut by a sharp thing. She was really bleeding. The doctor and nurse decided to save that girl's life by doing that work outside the room after attending us as inside was getting more dark. I wonder why these Tanesco (Tanzanian power company) people don't think. Why to include hospitals to the power allocation? Doctors and nurses of our country are doing tough job at a very risky situation. I wish our leaders could think more on how to solve such big problems, to save people's lives. Many are dying for no good reason. Let these young people get a good education to enable them to take over the country one day - and do what leaders are supposed to do.

There is so much pain in our lives - so much over which we have so little control.   Broken arms and bleeding hands in dark hospital rooms.  Power rationing and mismanagement of limited resources in emerging economies.  The painful, unexpected deaths of our brothers and sons. But it ours to choose what will come of these moments - and what we'll do in the space between them.   Will we build schools and move mountains, or lay down to drown in the delusion that our momentary powerlessness will never end? As I sat watching tears fall down so many faces at Chris' funeral, I wondered what radical transformation this suffering would make possible in the hearts of his friends and family.  May the understanding that unfolds from this grief honor Chris' life and legacy, and may our pain, as Mama Lucy's, become the fire in our bellies that lights the path ahead. On Pain by Kahlil Gibran Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief. Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity: For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

Posted: February 21st, 2011 under The Foundry.
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I did't really watch the Super Bowl. (Though I am excited that the league's only nonprofit, community-owned team, the GreenBay Packers, won.) While Sanjay watched, I mucked around on the interwebs, where I saw my twitter stream lit up like a Christmas tree, not so much about the game, but about this Groupon ad: It was called "classless," "appalling," "tasteless," "immature." Friends have unsubscribed from their service in the aftermath. I was shocked too. Saddened. Most people don't know this, but Groupon started out as thepoint, a now largely inactive site primarily for activists and philanthropists who wanted to encourage like-minded people to invest and support their causes. Until the site's founder, Andrew Mason, landed a million dollar investment to launch thepoint from a former employer, he was getting his graduate degree in public policy at the University of Chicago. I imagine this is a young man who once envisioned himself doing radical good in the world. He probably still does. Andrew's work on thepoint was interesting and well-respected, but it did not bring him fame, fortune, widespread interest or influence - until he relaunched what was essentially the same technology as Groupon, a site that saves people money. Late last year, Google attempted to acquire Groupon (again, the very same technology as thepoint) for a reported six billion dollars. Yes, billion. With a "B." Groupon did not accept the bid. When I watched the commercial above, I imagined it as a direct reflection of Andrew Mason's experience in the world. He'd attempted, with marginal success, to invest his considerable imagination and talents in service of humanity, but found a much larger audience, and greater respect, when he invested himself in saving people money, and making plenty of his own, with his more recent venture, Groupon. Imagine the bitter irony he sits with daily - the bitter irony of knowing he is more valued, more respected and more influential now that he's chosen to invest his potential in lesser ends - by saving people a few bucks rather than saving the world. (Note: I hate that phrase "saving the world", but my fierce addiction to parallel structure won't allow me to avoid it here.) Human capital, like Andrew's, may be today's most profligate example of the tragedy of the commons. We use and deplete it in our own self-interest rather than contributing our share to sustain it for the common good. We value it more for the greatest good it can do for "me" than for the greatest good it can do for "us". I think many read Groupon's commercials as a company attempting to make profit (and a joke) at the expense of the common good. But maybe the joke's on us. How many of us would invest the price of a Groupon in the future of Tibet? Or even sign up for daily email updates about causes like this one? How many of us would have committed to a cause on thepoint, or signed up for daily emails from the site? Now consider how quickly the Groupon for that Himalayan restaurant likely sold out...and how many millions of people have signed up for Groupon's daily emails to catch the latest deal. These tragic commercials may be no more than a very uncomfortable mirror. My hope is that Mason's conscience is deeply intact and he's secretly creating the largest email database ever for causes that matter. Oh, how quickly the masses would unsubscribe. Far more quickly, I'd guess, than they did after these ads. We don't like to be reminded of how little we care. How dare they?

Posted: February 7th, 2011 under The Foundry.
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