What We Value

Thursday, August 7, 2014

I have strong feelings about the ongoing border ‘crisis’ that has been in the news here in the United States in recent weeks.  Why?  I see something of myself in those too numerous children who simply want a life that doesn’t feature persistent exposure to deprivation and violence.  I know all too well the feeling of wondering if you will survive to see the next day, week or month…let alone the next year.  Children deserve better futures than becoming the throwaways of their nations.

As I bear witness to this unfortunate unfolding debacle from a relative distance of several states I cannot help but think some of the following: ‘What sort of lives could these children have if given the help they need?  Who could they become if given the love and nurture they need?’  They could become doctors, lawyers, artists, musicians, dancers, leaders and so on.  Instead they may end up as street urchins and paupers or even dead in the streets of nations other than the ones they were born in.  ‘What ethical and moral obligation does the United States have to address this issue?’  In my opinion we have an important role to play whether we want to or not.  If the United States truly intends to be a beacon and bastion of freedom and opportunity to all who come to it then I believe we need a more compassionate and creative policy response than the one being advocated by the GOP.

My empathy for the lives of these children is perhaps heightened by the fact that I grew up in Texas myself.  I am all too familiar with the hysteria, conservatism and backwards thinking of many, many people.  How people can self-identify as believing in and following the teachings of Jesus while simultaneously depriving the most marginalized and vulnerable members of a society from receiving attention for their most fundamental needs appalls me.  Such behavior is not Christian behavior. Such behavior is antithetical to what I understand Jesus taught and exemplified in his own life.  To read more of my own sentiments consider reading this submission from this past weekend.

My interest in what we human beings value and how we come to consensus regarding what we value and how we will conserve, nurture and sustain what we value motivated me to pursue an internship with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration two years ago in Washington, D.C.  I find the process (at least in theory) of achieving some measure of consensus regarding the values that inform our policies and thus undergird our institutions and very nations to be very interesting.  Unfortunately the theory of said process and the reality are often two different things.  Sometimes public policy resembles that of the society rendered in Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle.  Sometimes policy outcomes resemble a five course meal.  Other times they look something like the scene of a parent rushing through the drive through of McDonald’s to sate a child’s tantrum for something tasty and filling.  Haste indeed can often make waste.

I see my own personal struggle of the last year as being a struggle about my own values.  It’s been a very sobering time for me.  I have seen both the most inspiring and most depressing of human behavior.  I have walked away from relationships that offer little to my own life.  And I have found myself questioning what I ultimately want to achieve with the remaining time that I will live.  In this sense I have very much entered what Richard Rohr would call the second half of my life.

Time has become very precious to me.  I want to use it well.  If you had a terminal illness and were told by your doctors you had only months to live how would you make use of the remaining time?  What would you value?  How would you live?  What great and wondrous things would you do with that most precious gift of time?

My thoughts about the precious gift of time prompted me to think outside the box about other possible venues for me to utilize my skills.  The Make A Wish Foundation is an organization whose mission I personally find to be very inspiring.  Perhaps I should explore opportunities that may exist within palliative and end of life care.  It’s another possibility worth exploring.