If I could save time in a bottle...

Every morning I take the bus from my home to my college campus. It's not a long ride-- about fifteen minutes or so, depending on traffic. However, no matter what the printed schedules or the NextBus app say, the buses frequently run late. Sometimes this may be due to traffic, but in some cases I think it's just because some of the drivers have a rather creative relationship with time. Needless to say, on the days when I just want to get to campus, or just want to get home, this can require more than a little patience.

In this regard, I think, I am a quintessential northeasterner. I schedule my life well and often, and I habitually leave early to arrive early. I plan nearly everything. I've been this way for about as long as I can remember, and in many regards these tendencies have served me well, especially given that I live in a place where time and schedules are valued (WMATA not withstanding).

Recently, though, I've had some cause to consider my relationship with the clock. I'm leaving tomorrow on a trip to the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina, and one of the things I learned from talking to people who have gone on the trip before is that the Cherokee view time in a much more lenient way. Things happen when they happen, so why worry? Why rush? Not at all the mindset I grew up around.

Yet I think there is something to be said for this style. I think it probably has to be adopted as a culture-wide phenomenon in order to be accepted-- if I adopted it for my life in DC, it would probably be viewed as sloppy-- but there are benefits to slowing down and being less Type-A about time. There's value in the idea of freeing yourself from the tyranny of the clock.

This obsession with time is something that seems to be built into the DNA of the people-- even the students-- that I spend my time with nearly every day. Part of it, I think, stems from our massive generational entitlement complex. Millennials are accustomed to the Internet age, in which we can get so many things instantaneously. This reality online translates into an expectation that everything should happen at the point we want it to appear-- which is generally NOW. We want the bus to arrive the second we pull up to the stop. We want the grades or papers to be announced practically as soon as we take the test (or at least within a week). We want our friends, family, or coworkers to respond to texts or calls or emails within minutes. We want, we want, we want...

The problem is that we forget that there are people, real people with their own concerns or flaws, behind what we want. Behind every bus is a driver, behind every grade is a professor... they are all individuals, often with similar desires or concerns. These tend to get in the way of our desires, but that's the way life goes. Technology will keep getting better and time will keep being something that we in the west value, but as long as there are people behind messages and vehicles and things like that, we will never achieve that level of instant reply that we wish for.

I suspect I will be reflecting more on these ideas over the week in Cherokee. I'm going to be disconnected from the Internet, probably almost totally, which will be quite a break for me, but I will get my reflections down on paper while I am there and write more on here when I get back (hopefully).

As Garrison Keillor says, be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

On Jesus

The question stares me down.

"What meaning does Jesus Christ have in your life?"

I do not know how to answer.

I used to know. When I lived my school life in evangelical Christian circles, the answer was nearly always supposed to be something about the state of your personal relationship with Christ. Usually it wound up sounding like he was going with you to the mall later today, or that he had just sent you the funniest text message. Ideas that did not ring true.

Oh, I don't intend to belittle that some people can and do feel a close relationship, an emotional relationship with their God. In some ways I envy that. I have never felt it; or if I have, it has been one that faded with the descent from the proverbial mountaintop. How can one talk about Jesus in that way? You can't call him on the phone, sit up at night having a conversation that ranges from the profound to the hilarious, or be pen pals, or talk to him on Facebook chat. Sure, you can try, but you'll find things a trifle one-sided. Or maybe you won't. But I always have.

Not to say, you understand, that I don't believe God is there. I believe, on the contrary, that he (or she) is here with me as I type; and moreover, I believe that he (or she) cares. The personal God is a bedrock of Christianity-- the God who cared enough to become incarnate in us.

There it is, maybe. The elusive answer I've been struggling for. I'm never sure what to tell a Methodist about the state of my relationship with God-- certain but questioning may be most accurate. As certain as a questioner can be at least. If the Jesus who is the Son of God, a Messiah for humanity, which I do believe as a Christian-- then even as I grapple with exactly how personal I feel that God to be, then it entails certain implications.

And even if, as I am beginning to consider, Jesus-- the historical Jesus, mind you-- may not have been from the divine in the way recorded in the Bible (see Bruce Chilton's Rabbi Jesus), there is still the chance that maybe either way, Jesus was OF the divine.

This too carries implications:

To live a life that honors God.

To love God and love people-- to love God BY loving people.

To serve the poor and work for justice.

To not be satisfied by the status quo.

To stare power in the face and not lose moral ground.

To turn the other cheek and go the extra mile.

To look toward the future, a better future, but one that takes place here on earth, the Kingdom of Heaven incarnate.

My doubts stand. My questions remain. I am comforted by that, and comfortable with it. Faith pleads for the engagement of reason, not necessarily even by people who start from a place of non-belief and try to reason their way into faith. No, I would argue that it is perhaps even more important for people who stand from a position of faith to try to reason themselves out of it, and find a place where they are uncomfortable with the Scripture or church theology or any of these things, and stand up and say, I am not comfortable with this verse, this interpretation, and that is okay. "Come, let us reason together," and let us act and fight for justice together.

#sojuca2

I've referenced the amazing Regina Holliday before on this blog. She's the widow of my former film professor and someone that I admire tremendously. So when she asked me to come speak at a Social Justice Camp event that she was organizing in DC, I couldn't say no. The event, which took place on January 21 at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, was a spectacular evening of inspiring Ignite speeches. I talked about one of my favorite topics, the AU United Methodist Student Association and met some amazing people whose work for social justice (especially in the health care arena) is enough to get anyone fired up. The (rough, not exact as delivered) text of my speech is below. Blogspot isn't cooperating in letting me post the pictures from my slideshow, so just use your imagination.

I'm sure at least some of you have seen the TV show "How I Met Your Mother." There's an episode in the first season where two characters, Ted and Marshall, are arguing about who gets the apartment when Marshall gets married, and the fight comes down to an old-fashioned duel. Yes, with swords.

During the duel, the episode flashes back to another time when Ted and Marshall sat down to discuss the apartment problem-- but they decided that it was a problem for Future Ted and Future Marshall. Watch the episode to find out the results-- suffice to say, someone got the point of it a little too well.

Even though students can be an energized bunch, sometimes we fall into the habit of thinking social justice problems are things for “Future Me” to deal with. It can be hard to make us believe that these are real concerns that will impact our lives.

I will say that I have been fortunate in my time at American University to come into contact with a lot of people who care about working for social justice, few more so than the United Methodist Student Association. We emphasize hospitality, community, and social justice-- three things we consider interconnected topics.

It's that unified view that, in my opinion, makes us unique. I think that that is a very important way to look at the nature of social justice. If we have that sense that we are all part of a community, whether it be a university, a city, or a country, then why wouldn't we want to be hospitable in the broadest sense of the term? Why wouldn't we work for justice for all?

In the UMSA, our social justice program is called The Other Six Days-- as in, we know what you're doing on Sunday, but what are you doing the other six days? We focus on education, though we often combine service as well. Because there are so many issues to be concerned about, we discuss a different topic each month of the school year. These have included the gender gap, LGBT rights, disaster relief, disability rights, and more.

We as students all find our own ways of getting involved in social justice work. One common way to do so is via unpaid internships, often at NGOs. For instance, I spent a semester working at a Catholic social justice advocacy group, whose slogan (meaningfully) was Challenging Structures, Changing Lives.

Other times, opportunities for students to engage drop into our laps and demand that we seize the moment-- most recently, when Westboro Baptist Church protested at American University. Campus groups organized a large counter-protest to express our commitment to tolerance and acceptance. I suspect the university administration may have preferred that we ignore WBC and avoid attention, but that was not going to happen-- we were way too fired up, and we pulled the administration on board.

There are great reasons for students to engage in advocacy work. For one, we're all so addicted to technology that we're shocked when there's something that we can't do online. For another, as Regina says, we're all patients in the end-- and a good many of us are patients throughout our lives too. Just as important, though, social justice problems shouldn't be left for "Future Me" to handle. We're here now too, after all.

On Hatred and Violence

It's been a long time since I last wrote here. I plead the usual excuses of a senior in college (academia and job applications), but I am truly sorry that it took a tragedy to drive me back here to comment on the latest in politics and life.

The tenor of the political debate in the United States has been the subject of much commentary over the last couple of years, but it's been a growing problem since much longer than that. Before the birthers and the Tea Party, there were anti-war protesters who compared Bush to Hitler. Disagreement can become dangerous territory when it turns into extremism. This is true of politics as well as of religion and many other important facets of life.

I do think, though, that no matter how long this has been going on (and I would argue that in the US, you can date it back to the days of the Articles of Confederation), the rhetoric has sharply deteriorated in the last several years. At the end of this article, ThinkProgress.org offers a (partial) list of articles analyzing recent instances of violent action and even more violent rhetoric. The Republican party has been especially guilty of this; the Tea Party elements even more so.

Rhetoric does not inherently lead to action; sometimes it's just talking. I follow the tweets of the (fictional) President Bartlet on Twitter, and yesterday he commented,

No motive released. Far as I can tell, it was an act of a mad man. Trying to explain it through normal terms is an exercise in futility.

Perhaps he is right. Time and evidence will ultimately tell-- and all we have right now are the shooter's MySpace page and YouTube videos. But I think that rhetoric does have power, and the level of debate and discussion in this country is appallingly low. Rep. Giffords was disliked in some measure by people on both sides of the aisle; according to a New York Times article, both the conservative SarahPAC and the liberal Daily Kos were compelled to scrub their websites after yesterday's tragic shooting. Indeed, the shooter listed both The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf among his favorite books. Blame is not always easy to assign.

Life is strange in how events run together sometimes. A couple of days ago I learned that the Westboro Baptist Church plans to protest my university on Friday. I hesitate even to link to the press release on their website; the flyer is so full of bile that it hardly merits reading (I also hate to drive up traffic to them; go read it if you wish). Though they are a small and insular religious group, they are tremendous agents of intolerance. I disagree with and indeed despise everything they stand for, and so I will join the members of my university community in their counter-protest. But I will do so in the spirit of what my university chaplain wrote a few days ago--

Often overlooked in our religious conversation is the fact that love is not an emotion. Love is a behavior. It is a way of living. That’s a good thing—meaning that it is not outside the realm of our choosing. We can, in spite of how we might feel, choose to love. Somewhere deep down in my animal nature, I am not happy about that. But my higher nature calls me to something else. That much tarnished image of God with which I was made still has enough luster now and then to remind me of what I am called to do.

The Westboro Baptist Church brand of hatred is the kind that leads them to protest a university. It is not clear yet what was in the mind of the man who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' and those who died in the gunfire (including a federal judge), but I suspect it was also motivated by hatred. What else could it be?

Responding to hatred with hatred is counterproductive. As Giffords campaign volunteer Ilene Thompson said, there are real consequences to hatred, and we saw them yesterday. Love must prevail. Love, as an action, means that on Friday I won't yell obscenities at the Westboro Baptist Church. It means I'll join the God Loves Poetry movement in trying to turn their discourse on its head. Words matter-- we can and should use them well.

Love, as an action, also means ending a political discourse that involves using the language of violence to talk about the other side of the aisle. Humans have historically been very good at turning people with whom we have differences into the "other"; when we think of another person as the "other" we have an easier time justifying violence against them. This must stop. Love, as Rev. Schaefer wrote, must win out. The tenor of debate must be raised. As President Bartlet of The West Wing would remind us, that starts with us, right now. An article in the New York Times speculated that this shooting could mean "the end of an era of intolerance, or just the beginning." What's next?

Why We Can't Give Up the Government

Stuart Symington, a presidential candidate in the legendary election of 1960, said this to Theodore H. White, who reported on the campaign in his classic work of political science The Making of the President 1960. I think it is still relevant today.

This Republican talk of pulling the federal government out of business is not only stupid...it's dangerous. Look, you get up in a plane, you want to make sure it lands safely-- we can't give up the FAA. You buy stock in a mine, you want to be sure that the mine is really there-- we can't give up the SEC. You buy a bottle of medicine in a store, you want to be sure that what the label says is really in that bottle-- we can't give up the Food and Drug Administration. You tune in your radio, you don't want to find five stations on the same channel-- we can't give up the FCC... This silly Republican prattle of pulling government out of business! This country's become strong because government is a partner of everybody, and we have to recognize that kind of strength is our only hope... a new road is strength, a new bridge is strength, a good school is strength, above all, a good teacher is strength, she's playing with the greatest national resource we have.

Summer Reading 2010: Books #1-10

It is perhaps indicative of my bibliophilic nature that I consider it a travesty that I have only finished reading ten books so far this summer. After all, last summer I completed 32 books! But this is a different year and I have been working a standard 9-to-5 job every day, plus a handful of other things, and instead of lying on my back recovering from knee surgery I have been out and about in the great city of Washington, DC. With that being said, I am now done with my internship/job and will have some more time to spend on my beloved books. By way of a literary update, here's what I've managed to read through so far this summer.

1. United Methodism in America (McEllenney)- The first book of many I will be perusing in the name of my senior history thesis, which will likely be about Methodism in the early United States. This was a well-done overview of the history of the United Methodist Church. Not particularly in-depth, but I got my feet wet and picked up a few ideas that I will be pursuing.
2. Notes from a Small Island (Bryson)- Bill Bryson is one of my favorite authors. This is the book he wrote about traveling around England, Scotland, and Wales. He has a very funny tone and style, and is clearly enamored with his subject. An all-around great read that made me want to buy a ticket on the next plane to London or Edinburgh.
3. The Unlikely Disciple (Roose)- An agnostic college student from Brown University decides, after realizing how little he knows about this particular subculture of American life, to go 'undercover' for a semester at Liberty University, founded by the late Jerry Falwell. I appreciated Kevin Roose's ability to critique his subject without unfairly bashing the people he encountered there. A funny yet profound book, along the lines of AJ Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically. Note that this is not a coincidence; as Roose spells out early on, his project grew out of his time spent as Jacobs' assistant while Jacobs was living his year.
   
4. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (Miller)- Donald Miller is another author of whom I am a huge fan. He first gained (some degree of) fame with Blue Like Jazz, and has gone on to write other wonderful spiritual (but not overly religious) books. This is his latest, a quest for understanding and finding one's personal Story-- and learning how to tell a good one. Brilliant-- my copy is well underlined.
5. The Guinea Pig Diaries (Jacobs)- AJ Jacobs, of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically, takes on a year of doing different 'experiments' every month. Each chapter of the book focuses on a different one. From living George Washington's Rules of Civility to trying to eradicate all his cognitive biases to becoming 'the perfect husband,' Jacobs' always laugh-out-loud (yet thoughtful) style makes him one of my consistent favorite authors.
6. Rediscovering Values (Wallis)- I really liked Jim Wallis' first book, God's Politics, and have also been interested by his subsequent books. This is the latest. From his (mainly) progressive Christian point of view, Wallis discusses the Great Recession and critiques the mindset that got us into it...but also offers hopeful ideas as to how we can change in the future.
7. American Lion (Meacham)- A well-written book about a deeply flawed man. This Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Andrew Jackson, authored by Jon Meacham (the editor of Newsweek) reexamines the presidency of the seventh man to hold the highest office in this country. Most fascinating to think of how relevant the events of Jackon's presidency are in this world today. He dealt with sex scandals, war, racial discord, banking issues, and economic challenges...and for better or worse, consolidated more power in the hands of the Chief Executive than had ever been presumed possible before.
8. Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace (Nerburn)- A thought-provoking little meditation on the Prayer of St. Francis. Very well written, and I am still mulling over some of the ideas in it (which I think is the sign of a good book).
   
9. Eat Pray Love (Gilbert)- A bestselling memoir of a woman who went through a nasty divorce before pursuing a year of traveling and finding herself. Perhaps only appeals to a certain demographic (I was told that I was too young to appreciate it) but I still enjoyed it.
   
10. Up in the Air (Kirn)- The recent movie with George Clooney was based on this book, but they are quite different. This one is darker and, admittedly, somewhat stranger. Jason Reitman, the writer/director of the movie, pulled a number of direct quotes from the book, but the plot is a VERY loose adaptation. Still, it is a well-written and interesting book, a portrait of the road warrior. My favorite part of the book was the narrative style-- the main character, Ryan Bingham, just talks to the reader, and you feel like you are really in a conversation and he's just telling you a story. (However, I have to admit that I actually prefer the movie in this particular case. Minus ten book-lovers' points, I know.)
    

Thoughtful Reads

I like thoughtful writing-- the kind where a true intellectual looks at current events through the lens of more than just politically or policy-motivated mumbo-jumbo. This is the main reason why David Brooks of the New York Times has become one of my favorite columnists, whether or not I agree with his opinions. His columns are reliably rational, moderate arguments-- despite the fact that his opinions do on occasion draw some fire for their unique brand of idealism. But really, what is a column for but to express the writer's opinion on the way they see the world and the way they think it ought to be?

Today Mr. Brooks had an especially thoughtful column about the real ramifications of the oil spill-- namely, how it reflects the way we think about technology. We put a great deal of trust in very risky devices, and create overly complex governance systems to manage them, he argues. Mr. Brooks also cited an excellent 1996 piece by bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell (of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers), written around the tenth anniversary of the Challenger explosion. Whether or not you agree, the pieces are well-written and bear some contemplation as we consider how to move forward with recovery from this massive environmental disaster.

Faith and the Democrats, 2010 Edition

The 2008 Democrats realized something that they hadn't seemed to grasp in previous election cycles: faith matters to a whole lot of people. It matters so much, in fact, that it often influences their voting patterns. One could argue quite effectively that then-candidate Obama's ability to define his political views in light of his religious beliefs played a major role in making him the most successful Democratic candidate in years in terms of winning the votes of the faith-based community. And for a while, when the Democrats came to power, they maintained their faith-based outreach programs-- President Obama even expanded former President Bush's faith-based initiative offices in the White House.

Since then, though, little other than disappointment has ensued from the progressive faith community. The Democrats have been woefully unresponsive to many religious concerns, and even the president's religious advisers feel that they are not being heard. Moral language is really nowhere to be found in speeches by most Democratic politicians, and the "Faith in Action" page on the DNC's website is almost painfully out of date and unused. All of these issues-- and more-- were addressed in an excellent article by Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post, asking, "Are Democrats pulling back on faith outreach?"

The answer, from my perspective, is a resounding "yes," and that upsets me more than I can say. I have long felt that the Democrats were woefully incompetent when it came to connecting to faith groups, and that the Republican lock on religion can only be unhealthy for the faith community. The problem is not the lack of opportunity for Democrats to phrase their ideas in a way that speaks to moral and faith-based perspectives, it is simply their lack of action. The problem is not that there is no value in framing political issues as a moral imperative (health care is a great example), it is that that value is seldom recognized and even more infrequently utilized to benefit the Democratic agenda.

The Democrats seemed to be getting back on the faith-based track a little more during the 2008 election. Obama spoke about his faith openly and framed his issues as a question of values, and many people-- including and especially people of faith-- responded to that. However, the recent backpedaling hasn't done them any favors, and if they fail to get back to that moral language, especially during the upcoming Congressional campaigns, the Democrats will once again risk losing control of the moral ground in the conversations to Republicans-- and that monopoly would be a huge loss to the country and to constructive dialogue.

Beck's Call: The Conversation About Social Justice Christianity

I am admittedly long overdue in writing about the controversy that Glenn Beck launched when he called on Christians to leave churches that preached social justice. It seems, however, that I am not as belated as I thought, because the conversation is still going on. More on that later.

A little context: In his show on March 3, 2010, conservative talk show host Glenn Beck made the following proclamation to his religiously inclined viewers:

"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them...are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

And it continued. Understandably, many churches were incensed and the progressive evangelical Christian magazine Sojourners launched a campaign telling their readers to "turn themselves in" to Beck, proclaiming, "I am a social justice Christian." They got several thousand signatures the first night...and the next day on his show, Beck went even further:

Where I go to church, there are members that preach social justice as members–my faith doesn’t–but the members preach social justice all the time. It is a perversion of the gospel. … You want to help out? You help out. It changes you. That’s what the gospel is all about: You.

"A perversion of the gospel." Right. That phrase, combined with Beck's equating social justice Christianity to communism, Marxism, Nazism, and totalitarian government sparked articles and conversations across the faith spectrum. Sojourners founder Jim Wallis invited Beck to a conversation about the relationship between social justice and Christian faith-- an invitation to which Beck has still not replied. After early April, the topic largely disappeared-- but now it is back with the FOX host's latest claim that the government was forcing churches to preach a "religion of environmental and social justice."

I don't pretend to understand Beck's motivation for launching on this particular tirade any more than I understand why people bother putting vegetables on pizza (I'm just saying, you lose a lot of health value when you load veggies up with grease. You want vegetables, eat a salad). For all I know, he could be sincere in this criticism or he could be just trying to stir things up. But as long as there are those who take people like Beck seriously, I take him seriously. Most of the time I can shrug it off when Beck goes off on a tirade, but this time he is criticizing something that forms the essence of what I believe.

Let me be very clear: I believe the passage in Ephesians that says salvation is by grace, through faith. However, I do not believe that this is an excuse to shrug off the problems of the world around us. My chaplain pointed out in a sermon a few weeks ago that God does not promise to raise us to a new creation in another dimension or something, but to "make all things new" in this world-- which means that we have to care about the world we live in now (side note: I highly recommend reading that sermon, not only for the spiritual and intellectual content but for the excellent references to Star Trek, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones). I believe in the profession made in the Epistle of James: "Faith without works is dead."

Perhaps this is where my own more liberal inclinations come into play. I suspect even someone like Beck might agree with me on the need to pair faith with good works. However, I believe that Christians are responsible to work on a larger scale to make a difference in the problems of poverty, environmental degradation, and more. It's not enough to change your lightbulbs to be more energy efficient, or put a $5 bill in a homeless man's cup. I believe that the government has the responsibility to "ensure domestic tranquility" and "promote the general welfare," as the Preamble to the constitution says. Poverty reduction, environmental justice, health care-- these are all concepts that directly relate to "the general welfare."

Jim Wallis articulated the problem with Beck's claim about social justice Christianity very well in an opinion piece for the Huffington Post.

Private charity, which Beck and I are both for, wasn't enough to end the slave trade in Great Britain, end legal racial segregation in America, or end apartheid in South Africa. That took vital movements of faith which understood the connection between personal compassion and social justice. Those are the movements that have inspired me and shaped my life -- not BIG GOVERNMENT. And my allies in faith-based social justice movements have wonderfully different views on the role of government -- some bigger than mine and some smaller than mine -- but we all believe social justice requires changing both personal choices and unjust structures. Apparently Beck thinks social justice ends with private charity, but very few churches in the nation would agree with him.

Now, I personally admittedly go a bit farther than Wallis in my views (if you read through his whole article, you'll see), but I agree with his notion that it is important to work from the bottom up-- changing yourself first and moving to a smaller local level, and then beyond. Personal first, policies later. But the unjust structures of government have to be changed if a real difference is going to be made in this country and especially around the world. I worked for a small Catholic social justice lobby last spring, and part of the appeal of their organization for me is that they took both a top-down and bottom-up approach to helping the global poor. They had missionaries in the field helping with day to day needs of the people, and also people like myself in Washington, advocating for change in the structures that contributed to that level of poverty. It was a remarkable experience because of the power of that context (I expect I will write more on my experiences with that organization soon).

For now, though, let me just say this: by what he said about social justice Christianity, Glenn Beck challenged me to defend why I believe that this kind of activism is an integral part of my faith, and for that I am of course grateful. But he is wrong in encouraging Christians to leave churches that preach social justice-- and if people listened, he would be forcing a mass exodus from a majority of mainline Protestant, evangelical Protestant, and Catholic churches around the United States. Social justice Christians have made a real difference in creating a better world. Don't believe me? Take a look at William Wilberforce and the abolition of the slave trade in England, or Martin Luther King in America's civil rights movement.

Read More:
-Glenn Beck Declares War on United Methodists
-Jim Wallis: What Glenn Beck Doesn't Understand About Biblical Social Justice
-Take Action: Tell Glenn Beck: I'm a Social Justice Christian
-Glenn Beck Responds: Social Justice is a 'Perversion of the Gospel'
-Glenn Beck Attacks Churches on Climate Change
-Mark Schaefer: Wiping Away Every Tear

My Relay for Life Experience

Note: This post was originally written on 18 April 2010 at 3:11am.

Bender Arena, American University, Washington, DC

It has been a long, long time since I have done anything remotely like this-- Midnight Madness with Youth-to-Youth in middle school and Word of Life in early high school are the closest equivalents that come to mind. Why? Put briefly, all-nighters do not agree with me. I surprised even myself when I seriously entertained the thought of coming to this event. However, it seemed appropriate to do something after losing three friends to cancer in the course of a year, so here I am. I relay in memory of Gail Parady, Fred Holliday, Jean Moore, and Paulette Hilchie, and I relay in honor of the ongoing fights against cancer by Jinny Scott [update: and Ann Kippley].

This is a truly unique event: part memorial, part fundraiser, part celebration. Each participant donated at least $10 as an entrance fee; many donated or fundraised more than that from family or friends. Most of us are walking with a friend or family member in mind-- a victim, a survivor, a caregiver. There are even survivors among our number here...they are some of the leaders of the event, and they walked the first lap as we all cheered them on.

The luminaria ceremony was probably the most touching part of Relay. People purchased these bags and dedicated them in memory of those who have died; we all walked around the track in silence for about 10 minutes after they were illuminated. One of my friends was a major organizer of Relay; he celebrated his birthday today and lost his dad to cancer about five years ago. It was heart-wrenching to watch him and the others during the luminaria ceremony-- it was a poignant reminder of why we are all really here.

Despite all this, the core theme of the event is "Celebrations." Accordingly, my team chose a "Happy Retirement" theme for ourselves and we dressed up as various ages and stages of retirees. We also made a sign for our "campsite" that says, "Our team is RE-TIRED of cancer."

It has been a mostly high-energy evening full of entertainment. As I write, there is a "Miss American" drag contest going on. Five guys got dressed up in fancy gowns and did a little catwalk. There has been a lot of music, ranging from an ongoing DJ dance party, to two a cappella groups, to to two rather bad bands, to a bagpiper. The music is keeping us all going at this late hour-- it is now 03:40. There has also been a lot of donated food and drink-- Chipotle, crepes, sodas, and more. The stuff that really keeps most people going is the Red Bull, I suppose, which makes a good deal of sense.

Other activities that have been going on include board games at different campsites, volleyball, frisbee, soccer, and the eternally popular bounce house.

I don't know that I am going to have the energy to make it all the way through the event. I have certainly done my best, and my knee has held up remarkably well, in spite of all the stress I've put it through. Regardless, this has already been a remarkable experience. We collectively raised over $40,000 for cancer research, heard some remarkable stories, and partied like it was 1995. I guess all I can say is-- Relay on!

____

Update: I made it through until about 5:30 in the morning before returning to my dorm and crashing. The final fundraising count was nearly $45k. I firmly believe that Relay for Life is an important way for a community to rally around cancer survivors and caretakers, and to remember those who died, while fighting back against the worst six-letter word in the dictionary. I plan to participate again next year, and urge others to do the same.