So what?
When I used to write essays in high
school, my mom (an English teacher) would often proofread them for
me. She would mark them up the way she marked up her students essays
and at the end of a sentence or paragraph, she would frequently write
“So what?” This marking indicated that I was not being clear in
the direction of my writing or that I had failed to extend the facts
I had written into application of the ideas.
So, I'm hoping this post will be the
“So what?” of my journey. Why have I decided to do the ride?
What's the point of taking 9 weeks off to cycle from LA to NYC? So
what?
I'm sure many of you are aware of the
terrible poverty statistics in our world: a child dies every x
seconds from poverty, blah blah blah million people live on less than
a dollar a day etc etc. If you've never heard a statistic like that,
then I encourage you do some of your own research of the state of the
world and the extent
of the economic or
material poverty that exists. These are important numbers, but a few
things have happened in the last few weeks that emphasize for me the
extent of evil in the world.
The first thing is the loss of a teenager who used to be my neighbour. A teenager. The injustice of this fills me in a way I can't describe. My heart extends to his friends and family.
The second thing is
the (false, I believe) imprisonment of a man who I met in Central
America who, up until the time of his arrest, had been working
tirelessly and with great risk to his own life to fight against the
sexual exploitation of children in his cities' active human
trafficking trade.
I'm on vacation
right now (more on the feelings of guilt associated with taking a
long vacation while trying to seek understanding about poverty in the
world later, I'm sure). We just left New Zealand, so Lord of the
Rings has been on my mind in these last few weeks. One passage that
has stood out to me is in The Two Towers, when Theodan, the king of
Rohan, faced with the loss of his city to the armies of Sarumon says
in despair, “What can man do against such reckless hate?” (or
evil, or injustice).
This is the
question in my heart. What can we do against such evil as children
dying every x seconds? What can we do against the blah blah blah
million people living on less than a dollar a day? What can we do
when a young person is killed? What can we do when someone working
for justice and freedom for children is faced with injustice and
imprisonment?
Aragorn's answer to
Theodan is simple, “Ride out to (meet it)”.
So, this bike tour
(and fundraising effort) is my tool to ride out and meet it. It is
my imperfect offering (thank you James Orbinksi for this phrase). I
know that it is inadequate, insufficient, probably reflects some deep
colonial attitude of superiority in me, and, as with all poverty
alleviating efforts, holds the potential for harm. But I MUST ride
out an meet it. I MUST act. I can no longer sit quietly and say
with my mouth and think with my head that this stuff bothers me but
remain inactive. And I believe that through grace, my imperfect,
inadequate, superiority-based, insufficient actions, will be made
perfect, humility-based, and sufficient through the power of a
perfect God.
Reading update:
I'm currently reading “When Helping Hurts: How to alleviate poverty
without hurting the poor and yourself” by Steve Corbett and Brian
Fikkert.
Biking update: I
did a lot of work on the bike before leaving for vacation, as I only
have sporadic access to bikes here (mostly rentals and mountain
bikes). My current total is 867km, and my goal is to complete 1000km
by early December.
Fundraising update:
I'm already at more than 10% of my goal for fundraising!!! Thank
you to everyone who has contributed so far! If you are interested in
contributing to this cause, or finding out more about it, you can go
to
http://www.seatosea.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=1039785&lis=1&kntae1039785=B1AFE215E7BF4DF4967C3CF5C427A7BA&supId=365932844
