Ok…here we go…

I made this box in college, it held my portfolio. Its made out of cardboard and aluminum its 14x18x6 inches. It has all thread that goes through the lid and box to hold it closed, so its not very practical, but would be cool as a gift box, prop, or something like that.

Old software:

About 200 empty CD cases. Really I have no idea why anybody would want this…perhaps conceptual art about the death of the cd or something:

Finally, a bunch of prints of some of my photography. I thought I would try to sell these, but never really put the effort into it that it takes. They are various sizes, and some of them are unfortunately glued to cardboard. Let me know which ones you want…you dont have to take them all of course. Just ignore the prices…they are free…unless you want to pay for them, I wont turn you down.

This year of course there are two parades. The Christmas Parade and the Holiday Parade. The new Christmas Parade was started this year because people wanted a parade with the word Christmas in the name. I have to say that from the beginning I honestly thought the Christmas Parade was not a positive thing. There are several reason. Mostly because it is divisive. Ignore the religious aspects for a second. Tulsa, it seems to me, is a divided city any way. Its a small city, but people do not experience much of it (me included), we are very isolated in our small areas. A parade downtown should be an opportunity for people to gather in a part of the city that should belong to everybody, a place that should be common ground. Instead we have two parade, one in the south, one in the north (and the one in the south is at the mall, which is of course all important in a successful Christmas season).

Then there is the whole “Christ back in Christmas” thing. I have never been much of a fan of how we(I) as Christians form our own subculture rather then engaging and redeeming the culture around us. It seems that all this does is create a void in the culture around us, a void of redemption, a void that tells people around us we are scared of, too good for, or better then, them.

We went to the Holiday Parade. It was clearly void of references to Christ (except for all those people on the floats wishing us Marry Christmas). I don’t remember any manger scene or even an angel (but there was a really awesome snowman robot). But, here is the thing: this was by the choice of Christ’s people. All the Jesus stuff was down in south Tulsa at the mall. Instead of being willing to be a part of culture and proclaim Christ along side Cain’s charity for the homeless, a non-religious (or perhaps Muslim, I’m not sure) proclamation of peace on earth, the Salvation Arm’s drive to help the needy, and of course the robot snowman, Christ’s people preached to the choir. We should be joining with these organizations as they work to help those around them, just as we are to be helping those around us. Are we scared that God can’t stand up to the marketplace of ideas?

I honestly am hesitant to post this. Not because I’m worried you wont agree with me, but because it just adds a small voice to something that is already overblown, Everybody should have a parade if they want one I suppose. But, in the end I wish I would engage people around me instead of running away. The Holiday Parade tonight was a stark reminder of that to me.

I actually sat and watched this for a while and its really interesting to see that patterns that develop. So, the left lane is an exit only lane onto a surface street, the exit is perhaps 2/3 of a mile from where the two streams of traffic merge. The next two lanes go through and marge with the intrance ramp to the right. The most interesting pattern is up in the top left of the frame Most interesting is the top left of the video where the two streams of traffic merge.  It is sort of hard to see, but as soon as the two lanes come together people pull out of the exit only lane and into the through lanes, or into the exit lane from the through lanes. People seem to feel the need to pull in right away within the first 100 feet. I actually saw several people stop for 10 or 15 seconds to get into the other lane even though they had over a half a mile of empty lane in front of them to use to merge. I really think traffic would flow faster if people would just spread there merging out over the entire length of the exit only lane. I wonder why they don’t? A couple possibilities:

• my observation might be wrong. There could be something im not seeing. Most of the people driving in this video drive this every day. They may know something I don’t.
• Bad drivers, It could just be that all these people are bad drivers. They are on their cell phones and not paying attention. I don’t really think this is it. None of these drivers are dong anything wrong. They are just trying to get into the lane they need to be in.
• Bad design. I think this is part of it. There might be something that could be done to help people not feel like they need to switch lanes immediately. Something to indicate that there is plenty of room to merge.
• But, I think it has more to do with something people are really good at: getting tunnel vision and not seeing the big pictures. Or another way to think of it is that we focus so much on the detail right in front of us (i need to get into the other lane) that we never step back to see what is really going on (i have plenty for room, I don’t need to stop here until i can get over).

I do this kind of stuff all the time. I focus so much on the project I’m doing right now that I don’t make progress on the big picture of what I want to do and make progress on the big picture. And you can see this everywhere, politics, business, churches, non-profits, environmental debates, water wells, aid, development, money, economics, everywhere. I hope we can learn to think about the big picture, to think more then one step ahead.

. 

In his book  Do the Work Pressfield Steven says:

When you and I set out to create anything, art, commerce, science, love – or to advance in the direction of a higher, nobler version of ourselves, we uncork from the universe, ineluctably, an equal and opposite reaction.

That reaction is Resistance. Resistance is an active, intelligent, protean, malign force – tireless, relentless, and inextinguishable – whose sole object is to stop us from becoming our best selves and from achieving our higher goals.

The universe is not indifferent. It is actively hostile.

Stevens says that Resistance comes from within and from other people, which I think is true. It’s also just part of a broken, fallen world.

Seeing the creativity of the Ugandan people has made me think about the forms Resistance takes in my life. Lack of discipline is a big one for me, lack of focus as well. I take on way to many things. Fear, desire for acceptance…all of those are part of it. Im learning fight some of these, but it is constant work.

It seems like I should be in an ideal place to create, I live a comfortable life, I don’t want for food or water, I have access to amazing resources. Yet I often struggle. Somebody in Uganda on the other hand has it seems huge obstacles to overcome. Lack of infrastructure, resources, basics of life.

I wonder though if these are not the true sources of Resistance for them. Sometimes, oftentimes, limits bring creativity, great need causes us to find great solutions. There are of course boundaries on this. Being comfortable inhibits my creativity in some specific way, just like being sick or hungry will inhibit your creativity in another way. I don’t by any means want to suggest that if we all poison our water and destroy our crops we would suddenly find the cure for cancer. What I do want to suggest is that figuring out where Resistance comes from is probably not as simple as it seems. The creativity of people in Africa prove that its not just about resources. It’s never fair to say “if I just had more X I could come up with a great idea.”

In the end it seems like resources are more about execution. That is were I have a massive advantage. Any one of the amazing ideas on AfriGadget might be a game changer for the person who invented it and for the communities around them, but the Resistance of dirty water, bad economic systems, malaria, etc stand in the way of letting those ideas grow into impact.

Uhh…this post got sort of rambly and not really making sense. Sorry for the randomness. I guess what it comes down to is this: I want to understand what allows me to be creative and to impact people with ideas and the things I do. And, I want to understand what stands in the way of that. Likewise, I want to understand those things for somebody who lives in Uganda.

I’ll leave you with one more picture about creativity:

Facebook is of course changing, more sharing, more info, the news ticker…you know all about it. I have been thinking and reading about this some. Partly its of course a personal question. I’m on Facebook, at what level do I want to buy into these changes? I don’t do a lot on Facebook really, its a communication tool for me, so the answer is…not much at all. You probably wont be seeing a stream of music im listening to from me on Facebook. I think its more interesting though to consider the big picture. The noise level is about to go way up. If we choose to pay attention we are going to be flooded with people telling us what they are consuming, and thus in some way recommending those things to us.

This is going to cause me to tune a lot of people out, and seek out the people who are willing to regulate their own noise and only talk about truly interesting things. It seems like the ability to gain the trust of people by being discerning is going to be more valuable then ever.

This is the Nile River. Remember how I posted about how many people are in Uganda? In some ways this picture is a perfect example. It looks very remote and untouched. But there are probably 150 people standing behind me.

This is near Mt. Elgon, which is near the border of Kenya. Mt. Elgon is where a lot of Ugandas coffee comes from.

That was not our trip…its just a randome video i found on youtube We did get to be part of an experience sort of like that (without the big truck). It was really cool to see water come up out of the ground for the first time in a village. Clean accessible water represents a lot of possibilities. It’s tangible and exciting.

But watch this:

That’s us, sitting in a village meeting about how to fix a broken water well. It’s not very exciting. It’s interesting, but meetings are meetings.

A bit of context might be good. There is a well very far away form the village, because of its distance people have to spend hours everyday just gathering water.

Kibo Group has been working in this village for a while. They had been doing several important things, like teaching about sanitation, establishing water and sanitation committees, helping maintain a rain collection system, and being a part of the community. The village had a rainwater collection system (its the big tank the kids are sitting on in the video). It is a good source of some water, but because it depends on rain it is unreliable, and does not provide enough water for the village.
At some point some other orginization came to the village dug a well, and left.. Everyone was happy, now they had water.

But something happened to the well and it stopped working. Nobody in the village knows how to fix it, and they paid some money to somebody to try and fix it but they never got it working either. So, now they are stuck. This is a classic problem on the African continent.

This is complex, and I don’t understand all of the culture/economic/human nature/whatever else behind why well projects fail. But, a really simple explanation would be that there are not good systems in place to ensure the continued maintenance, funding, and use of the well. Fixing the well is actually sort of easy. It would take hard work, time, and money. But not that much money, around $1000. The people who work for Kibo have the skill and desire to put in the hard work. But instead of fixing the well  they had a meeting.

A proposal was made. Kibo would provide half the money and the labor if the village would provide the other half and would ensure that there was a group of people from the village that would be a Water Use Committee and a Sanitation Committee to ensure the future of the well (remember, these are things that they had been in the village working on for a long time already). In the end the village decided they should have another meeting to talk this over.

This is not the stuff of gripping video and glossy brochures.It;s not the tuff of statistics and “we have to DO something” either. But it is the stuff of relationships, hard work, lots of time, deep understanding, more time, community, cooperation, and even more time.

There are lots of take aways from this for me. I think most people are aware of some of the issues around water, that its not just about drilling a well. But to actually see some of those issues played out in a very small way makes it real…and it makes it seem even more complex in some ways. There are all sorts of things going on that are not obvious (even when you are there at the meeting). So, I want to learn more, i guess that is one of my big take aways, from this small experience in the village, as well as overall: There is a lot to learn, and it takes a lot of time and dedication and listening to learn. But until you do it’s impossible to serve people (in Uganda or here or anywhere) well until you take the time to understand.

I don’t really think that there is one single thing and one exact defined path that God has planned for us. I do think that he created us uniquely, that he gave us each gifts that equip us for something special, and that one of the best things that can happen to anybody is for them to be living within the way that God created them. I am certain that Cass was created for music. I don’t know what that looks like for him. Perhaps he is supposed to write songs, or teach, or lead worship, or be the next big thing. Whatever it is I am glad he is working use the gifts God have him, and learning how to use those gifts to bring a bit of God’s creative caracter to the world.

I also know that a big part of Cass’ journey to using his talents fully is to record an album, which takes a lot of time, energy, and money (funny how this stuff always needs money). Cass has a Kickstarter project going to raise money to record an album. He is trying to raise a lot of money, because it takes a lot of money to record an album. Here is the thing though, he’s not asking you to just give him money, really he is asking you to pre-buy the album, or concert tickets, or dinner or even a spot in the liner notes. You get something back for your faith in him.

So, yes, I’m asking you to give my friend money. A lot of people pitched in to make our trip to Uganda possible, and that trip is going to be a big part of Beth and I learning how to live our lives as God created us, I don’t really see much difference in Cass’ project.

But, the people who gave us money believed in what we are doing…that is a really big important part of this. So, here is what I am asking:

1. check out Cass’ music. You can find a lot of it to listen to for free on his web site www.cassharrismusic.com
2. If you want to find him on facebook and twitter ask him some questions or something.
3. If you like his music and want to support his art go the his Kickstarter project and give him some money.
4. The really important thing is to tell a lot of other people about the project. A whole bunch of people giving a little bit of money will get him to his goal, but that will only happen if you spread the word, so tell your friends.

Ok, thats it, thanks for reading.

As we were preparing for this trip I tried really hard not to have ideas in my head about what Uganda was going to be like, I wanted to go as a learner with no assumptions. This is of course impossible in the end.

It’s kind of funny thought the things that I found surprising or that I was not prepared for. One of these was just the number of people. Well, not so much the number of people, but the density of people. Here at home if we drive say from Tulsa to Siloam Springs you never see anyone walking on the side of the road. Well, unless they ran out of gas or something like that. In Uganda you see hundreds of people walking or riding bikes just going about their daily lives. There would be small markets and houses almost the whole way.

So, just for comparison because it seems interesting (all these stats are from various Internet sources and are probably rounded off, but you get the idea):

Population:

• United States: 309 million
• Oklahoma: 3,500,000
• Tulsa: 400,000
• Uganda: 33.8 Million
• Kampala: 1,600,00

Density:

• United States: 87/mile2
• Oklahoma: 54/mile2
• Tulsa 2100/mile2
• Uganda: 438/mile2
• Kampala: 24,500/mile2

I think partly this density of population struck me because I value solitude, some of my favorite things to do involve getting far away from people and cities…so i would not be a good Ugandan! There are of course consequences (good and bad) to high population density, and I hope as I learn more about Uganda and Africa in general I will come to understand those better. But, while I was there driving around I think the amazing thing was to wonder and try to in some way imagine the stories of the people that we saw. Their lives are obviously very different from ours, but in the end I’m not so sure that the basic concerns of life…the basics of our story as broken people trying to live in a broken world are so different. Our friend Sara Swenson has a great song worth quoting (I left out a few verses..find the full lyrics here, better yet just buy the album):

Passing Cars, Passing Time

Written by Sara Swenson ©2010 S. Swenson Songs/ASCAP

I…I don’t know you
But we seem to be rolling the same way today
And you …you may ask who
Drives beside you on this long highway

…

Tires moving round and round
Destination next town
Thinking hard and moving on
Making plans for life beyond

And I…I don’t know you
But we seem to be rolling the same way today
And you …you may ask who
Drives beside you on this long highway

A billion thoughts, a million miles
A thousand stories on this road
A billion thoughts, a million miles

I…I don’t know you
But we seem to be rolling the same way today
You …you may ask who
Drives beside you on this long highway
Drives beside you on this long highway

There are all these stores of people, in the car next to you, or in a country all the way around the world. Its impossible to know them all (for the record world: population: 6.79 billion, density: 118/mile2), but I am more convinced then ever that it is worth doing your best to hear a few of them.