Lives Changing

I decided a long time ago that what lights me up – what makes my life worth living – is engaging with others for lives to change.  

This came profoundly into my awareness today as I listened to a CBC report on babies being abandoned at birth in some far-away country because these were ‘incest babies’ (babies conceived as a result of rape by a family member) and are believed to bring ‘bad luck’ to the families if they are kept.  As a result, these newborns are being left in the mud in fields, in latrines in men’s bathrooms and in other remote places, to die alone.

What struck me about the reporting of this story is that with all the attention placed on the babies and who was finding them and what people were doing with them; on the horrific plight of these young women – many of them barely out of the category of ‘child’ – I heard not a single reference… not a word!… about the cause of the problem:  the men who rape.  That seemed a little strange to me!

Funny, that…. that the source of the problem is completely avoided.  How does one solve a problem when we are unwilling to address its cause?

I sought out a conversation with someone whose world view I respect and opinion I value and said those same things:  how come?  How can it be so?  The ideas we then explored were about what people are willing to hear; what sells books and newspapers; and what people can tolerate before they feel overwhelmed by their own powerlessness and terror.

As I listened, I realized how my life has never been about selling books or programs or CD’s.  My life has always been about changing lives – my own and that of the person I am engaging with.  Maybe that’s what makes me such a gigantic pain in the ass to so many people!  I just will not quit as long as one of us is still breathing!

I’m not interested in dancing around the edges of someone’s miserable life and finding ways to ‘manage’ it!  I’m not interested in wandering around and telling stories and mapping out how or what someone else ‘should’ do or ‘could’ do; and how its everyone else’s fault but our own.  What I’m interested in is:  what do YOU want?  What are YOU going to do?  How do YOU want to live?… and then get on with it!  It’s not always easy, it’s not always fun and sometimes, it gets downright ugly.   But the outcome is that if we want it; if we’re willing to stop lying to ourselves and ducking the truth of what we know deep in our bodies, our lives change.  Why?  Because we say so and not for any other reason!

And this brings me full circle, back to my first point:  how come we don’t say so on behalf of these screaming, dying babies?  Where are the voices of outrage from the men who are reading and listening to the same reporting as I am?   Where does the line get drawn in the sand when the truth is, men have been standing by, silent, for generations and watching other men wreak havoc in the lives of so many – and done nothing about it.  The problem is not that men are bad or evil – the problem is that they are silent in their own truth of knowing that what grows and feeds on innocence can also devour them – and they too, are afraid.  

I can change the world by changing my own world – one moment to the next.  I can change the world by being willing to engage my world, from one conversation to the next; one person to the next; one truth to the next.  I can change the world by being willing to take a stand in my world, and trust that the ripples will go out and touch the world around me.  And I can change the world by getting honest with myself and determining:  do I want to change my world… or just talk about it?  

Breathing is good….