I'm currently reading Everett Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation and following a flurry of tweeting, blogging and Facebooking about the General Convention of the Episcopal Church currently happening in Anaheim.
The hot topic of the last couple of days has been Resolution B033 passed at the 2006 GC. Essentially, it calls for a period of waiting and moratoria on same-sex blessings/marriages and the confirmation of bishops who's "manner of life" presents a challenge to the wider communion. Note that no one knows how long the waiting period should be or what a challenging manner of life might include other than sexuality that some find disagreeable.
What is different about the 2009 GC is that House of Deputies hearings on the topic of over-turning B033 have generally been in favor of overturning it even though there is some dissent out of fear that we will further alienate ourselves from the Anglican Communion. I contend that the Anglican Communion has and will continue to include us and this issue is one on which we should be able to agree to disagree in order to focus on feeding poor people (see Millenium Development Goals).
Why does this relate to Diffusion of Innovation?
We have proposed something new. We have an innovation in the Anglican Communion - full acceptance of GLBT people into the orders of ministry and sacramens of the Church. Rogers describes five stages of innovation.
1. Knowledge - sharing the innovation
2. Persuasion - convincing people it's a good idea
3. Decision - deciding to adopt it
4. Implementation - implementing the adopt
5. Confirmation - innovation becomes a norm
There is currently a lot of conversation about the need for more theological discussion on the topic and concern about the lack of opposition to overturning B033. There are those who are frustrated with calls for more talk and more listening contending that we've done all of that for a long time. I tend to agree. We've been through Knowledge and Persuasion. Now we're at Decision. Or, actually, we're revisiting Decision because we tried Implementation and are now back-tracking a bit.
Decision makes people nervous. Very nervous. People (especially Episcopalians) like the Knowledge and Persuasion stages. We like to discuss things and learn things, but we are not always action-oriented. We don't want to upset anyone. Knowledge and Persuasion are comfortable states. Decision is a commitment because then we have to Implement (another source of unhappiness for some).
Implementation inevitably results in re-invention (e.g., people will take a liturgy - any liturgy - and modify it, that's just human nature). Some people like the re-invention and some people don't. But, it's not preventable.
Rogers points to diffusion scholar Ronald Burt - "As much as change is about adapting to the new, it is about detaching from the old."
We will have to detach from the old and accept the re-invention of who are are. It is notable here also that others have pointed to the vast differences in opinions about homosexuality by age demographic (see for instance this post about young adults and mission describing how we lose moral credibility with young people if we do not advocate for justice for GLBT people in our churches). Not to say that any age group has a uniform opinion about anything, but age does make a difference in this case.
My feeling is that if we cannot detach from the old, we wither on the vine.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Obama Inauguration Day
From the start, the event was a testimony to the kindness and generosity of strangers. A friend's, Helen's, friend had tickets from Senator Orrin Hatch's office that they weren't going to use. Helen offered them to me on Friday and Monday afternoon I was at the Hart Senate building picking them up.
I had, honestly, been waffling about whether to go down to the Mall but the offer tickets seemed to be a sign that I should quit waffling. And, as a colleague said, "how will you feel on Wednesday?".
For this kind of mission you need a good friend. A good, laid back, go with the flow, brave friend. Enter Dina.
Asking Dina to come with me to the inauguration felt as close to proposing as I may ever come. I called her about 11 pm Friday praying she'd be awake and then I said, "Dina, I have a question. Will you come to the Inauguration with me?" Then I volunteered our friend, Mary, to watch her kids overnight.
I picked up the tickets on Monday from Senator Hatch's office. He's a staunch Republican. I am a Democratic, feminist, progressive, Episcopalian who gave money and time to a political campaign for the first time in her life. This is life. My friend, Mark, called it a nice demonstration of bipartisanship. I call it - "I'd do anything for tickets to see Obama's inauguration".
Fast forward to this morning.
At about 6 am we got to the Vienna metro station courtesy of a ride from my friend, Rebecca. Thank God! It was packed. But, the Metro staff were awesome and kept people moving safely. It was the happiest, merriest, chattiest Metro ride I've ever taken. Usually on a work day morning, the Metro is quiet as people are reading the paper or sleeping. No one says anything. Today, everyone was getting to know their neighbors. We were glad we got on at Vienna because there were a lot of stops where the doors opened and we gave apologetic looks to the people outside the door. One woman said "can you all move an inch?" and I said "we did that 2 stops ago".
Sometime while we were on the Metro, someone brilliant at Metro decided that asking 1.5 million people to all use their cards to get on was bordering on insanity so they stopped taking cards. Lots of people had day passes anyway and the out-of-towners unfamiliar with Metro were having trouble with their cards.
In our car were some nice Arkansans, Linda and Lucius, who offered us the standing space in front of their seat so we wouldn't get squished. We wondered all day if they had made it into the purple section (a lot of people didn't as we learned from a congressional staffer later in the day). Linda had called in some favors from her days at Social Security to get her whole family to D.C. and get them tickets.
We got to the Mall about 9 am (yes - 3 hours from Vienna to the Mall - a trip that usually takes less than an hour).
The inaugural volunteers were pointing us to a line for ticketholders. We walked from 3rd to Virginia Ave to Maryland Ave and all the way around the Department of Transportion. There's some irony in the lack of movement around the Department of Transportation. Then, we ended up in an eddy of people all wondering where the endless line had gone and what to do next. It began to feel like Waiting for Godot - it never arrived. So, we abandoned the line search and followed other silver ticket holders to the security gate where we were patted down and walked up to a good spot by a Jumbotron and where we could hear.
We were squished together like sardines - getting closer and closer as the minutes passed. But, no one complained about the closeness. We just started introducing ourselves and chatting with everyone around us. The women from Montana in front of us were short so we blocked for them.
Unfortunately, behind us was a woman who was on her cell phone for 2 hours talking about some soap opera-esque drama...over and over and over..... the woman standing next to her (also a good friend after standing shoulder to shoulder for 3+ hours) said "you're not going to keep talking when Barack starts talking". Then we glared. And, not one of my finer moments, I said "We might kill you." and gave her the professor over the glasses glare. Then, she said to her boyfriend on the phone "I can't talk to you during the speeches or these people are going to get irritated and might jump me." Everyone (except cell phone woman) had gotten the memo not to bring anything with you. She had a giant purse we were tripping over for hours and it almost floated away since she wasn't holding onto it and the crowd was slowly pushing us over millimeter by millimeter.
Inauguration Ceremony Highlights
Rick Warren leading the Lord's Prayer and hearing all the people around me saying it together in their own way was by far one of the most exhilarating spiritual moments of my life. It was tingling. The hopeful people praying together for our new President.
The first moment Obama appeared on the screen and everyone cheered. Watching his beautiful daughters and the fabulous Michelle Obama come out.
The oath. The Mall was silent. 2 million people. Silence.
The speech. I'm looking forward to four years of this kind of oration and thoughtfulness, or 8 if we're that lucky. The times are changing. It is a new day.
I can't really put into words what it was like to be there with all those people feeling the hope and anticipation, everyone waiting and watching for the change that is coming. The happy joyful people reaching the end of the Bush era, watching the civil rights movements' hopes and dreams come to fruition.
We left the Silver Section after everything had ended and wandered around the Mall watching the ice skaters and just taking it all in. The people bundled in fur coats. The man getting signatures from everyone he met on an American flag.
1:30 pm
Eventually, we made our way to the Federal Center metro stop where there was a mass of people. After wandering a bit, we got in a line. Dina said "this is either going to the Starbuck's, the Potbelly Sandwiches, or the Metro stop - any of these is a good outcome". We ended up in Potbelly. That place deserves the store of the year award. Their service and organization was amazing. After huddling at the edge of a table with our chicken soup, we headed back out to assess the metro situation.
A mass of people waited outside the Metro station. A remarkably patient and calm mass, but still a mass. There were about 6 cops standing at the top of the escalators controlling how many people went down at a time. Kudos to the DC Police and Metro for keeping everyone safe and keeping things moving. Miraculously, we got on an orange line train headed in the right direction back to Vienna. AND, we even got seats. This was the first time we had sat down since 6 am when we got out of the car. This was probably about 2:30 or 3:00.
While we were waiting outside, Dina started chatting with an older African-American gentleman and his daughter. He was a retired professor who had gone to separate-but-equal schools in the south. He had tears in eyes as he told us. To watch this man with his cane walking the crowded streets of D.C. when he could have been snug and warm in his house just to see Obama be sworn in was to watch history come full circle.
On the Metro ride on the way home, we were sitting behind two women we came to learn were from Scottsdale, AZ. One of them is a HUGE fan of my friend, Rene Gutel's work on NPR. She was thrilled to hear that Rene is a close friend and even more thrilled when I put her on the phone with Rene because Rene was looking for Arizonans to interview. It capped the trip.
Dina and I called Mary to find out about the kids (Dina's two boys and Mary's two girls are like inseparable cousins). We went over the Mary and Bill's house and collapsed on their couch. I didn't realize how tired I was until Bill and Mary offered us food and I just couldn't get up. Bill offered mimosas which I happily accepted. Bill's mimosas aren't really conducive to movement off the couch either. Then he brought over food for us. It was nice to just sit and have someone bring food and drinks to the couch for you. Bill cooked dinner which was perfection - warm, spicy risotto with shrimp. I couldn't have ordered better.
To summarize - we talked to people from Arkansas, Montana, Arizona, Virginia, Nebraska, Maryland - almost everywhere. I heard people say they were from California, South Carolina. Our country came to this Inauguration. It was a day of miracles from the major miracle of Obama's swearing in to the minor miracles that enabled us to make it into and out of the city to witness this historic occasion.
I am very grateful to our friends who helped make the day happen - Helen - the ticket connection, Rebecca - the chauffer, Bill and Mary - couch and sustenance providers and babysitters. It wouldn't have been possible otherwise.
I had, honestly, been waffling about whether to go down to the Mall but the offer tickets seemed to be a sign that I should quit waffling. And, as a colleague said, "how will you feel on Wednesday?".
For this kind of mission you need a good friend. A good, laid back, go with the flow, brave friend. Enter Dina.
Asking Dina to come with me to the inauguration felt as close to proposing as I may ever come. I called her about 11 pm Friday praying she'd be awake and then I said, "Dina, I have a question. Will you come to the Inauguration with me?" Then I volunteered our friend, Mary, to watch her kids overnight.
I picked up the tickets on Monday from Senator Hatch's office. He's a staunch Republican. I am a Democratic, feminist, progressive, Episcopalian who gave money and time to a political campaign for the first time in her life. This is life. My friend, Mark, called it a nice demonstration of bipartisanship. I call it - "I'd do anything for tickets to see Obama's inauguration".
Fast forward to this morning.
At about 6 am we got to the Vienna metro station courtesy of a ride from my friend, Rebecca. Thank God! It was packed. But, the Metro staff were awesome and kept people moving safely. It was the happiest, merriest, chattiest Metro ride I've ever taken. Usually on a work day morning, the Metro is quiet as people are reading the paper or sleeping. No one says anything. Today, everyone was getting to know their neighbors. We were glad we got on at Vienna because there were a lot of stops where the doors opened and we gave apologetic looks to the people outside the door. One woman said "can you all move an inch?" and I said "we did that 2 stops ago".
Sometime while we were on the Metro, someone brilliant at Metro decided that asking 1.5 million people to all use their cards to get on was bordering on insanity so they stopped taking cards. Lots of people had day passes anyway and the out-of-towners unfamiliar with Metro were having trouble with their cards.
In our car were some nice Arkansans, Linda and Lucius, who offered us the standing space in front of their seat so we wouldn't get squished. We wondered all day if they had made it into the purple section (a lot of people didn't as we learned from a congressional staffer later in the day). Linda had called in some favors from her days at Social Security to get her whole family to D.C. and get them tickets.
We got to the Mall about 9 am (yes - 3 hours from Vienna to the Mall - a trip that usually takes less than an hour).
The inaugural volunteers were pointing us to a line for ticketholders. We walked from 3rd to Virginia Ave to Maryland Ave and all the way around the Department of Transportion. There's some irony in the lack of movement around the Department of Transportation. Then, we ended up in an eddy of people all wondering where the endless line had gone and what to do next. It began to feel like Waiting for Godot - it never arrived. So, we abandoned the line search and followed other silver ticket holders to the security gate where we were patted down and walked up to a good spot by a Jumbotron and where we could hear.
We were squished together like sardines - getting closer and closer as the minutes passed. But, no one complained about the closeness. We just started introducing ourselves and chatting with everyone around us. The women from Montana in front of us were short so we blocked for them.
Unfortunately, behind us was a woman who was on her cell phone for 2 hours talking about some soap opera-esque drama...over and over and over..... the woman standing next to her (also a good friend after standing shoulder to shoulder for 3+ hours) said "you're not going to keep talking when Barack starts talking". Then we glared. And, not one of my finer moments, I said "We might kill you." and gave her the professor over the glasses glare. Then, she said to her boyfriend on the phone "I can't talk to you during the speeches or these people are going to get irritated and might jump me." Everyone (except cell phone woman) had gotten the memo not to bring anything with you. She had a giant purse we were tripping over for hours and it almost floated away since she wasn't holding onto it and the crowd was slowly pushing us over millimeter by millimeter.
Inauguration Ceremony Highlights
Rick Warren leading the Lord's Prayer and hearing all the people around me saying it together in their own way was by far one of the most exhilarating spiritual moments of my life. It was tingling. The hopeful people praying together for our new President.
The first moment Obama appeared on the screen and everyone cheered. Watching his beautiful daughters and the fabulous Michelle Obama come out.
The oath. The Mall was silent. 2 million people. Silence.
The speech. I'm looking forward to four years of this kind of oration and thoughtfulness, or 8 if we're that lucky. The times are changing. It is a new day.
I can't really put into words what it was like to be there with all those people feeling the hope and anticipation, everyone waiting and watching for the change that is coming. The happy joyful people reaching the end of the Bush era, watching the civil rights movements' hopes and dreams come to fruition.
We left the Silver Section after everything had ended and wandered around the Mall watching the ice skaters and just taking it all in. The people bundled in fur coats. The man getting signatures from everyone he met on an American flag.
1:30 pm
Eventually, we made our way to the Federal Center metro stop where there was a mass of people. After wandering a bit, we got in a line. Dina said "this is either going to the Starbuck's, the Potbelly Sandwiches, or the Metro stop - any of these is a good outcome". We ended up in Potbelly. That place deserves the store of the year award. Their service and organization was amazing. After huddling at the edge of a table with our chicken soup, we headed back out to assess the metro situation.
A mass of people waited outside the Metro station. A remarkably patient and calm mass, but still a mass. There were about 6 cops standing at the top of the escalators controlling how many people went down at a time. Kudos to the DC Police and Metro for keeping everyone safe and keeping things moving. Miraculously, we got on an orange line train headed in the right direction back to Vienna. AND, we even got seats. This was the first time we had sat down since 6 am when we got out of the car. This was probably about 2:30 or 3:00.
While we were waiting outside, Dina started chatting with an older African-American gentleman and his daughter. He was a retired professor who had gone to separate-but-equal schools in the south. He had tears in eyes as he told us. To watch this man with his cane walking the crowded streets of D.C. when he could have been snug and warm in his house just to see Obama be sworn in was to watch history come full circle.
On the Metro ride on the way home, we were sitting behind two women we came to learn were from Scottsdale, AZ. One of them is a HUGE fan of my friend, Rene Gutel's work on NPR. She was thrilled to hear that Rene is a close friend and even more thrilled when I put her on the phone with Rene because Rene was looking for Arizonans to interview. It capped the trip.
Dina and I called Mary to find out about the kids (Dina's two boys and Mary's two girls are like inseparable cousins). We went over the Mary and Bill's house and collapsed on their couch. I didn't realize how tired I was until Bill and Mary offered us food and I just couldn't get up. Bill offered mimosas which I happily accepted. Bill's mimosas aren't really conducive to movement off the couch either. Then he brought over food for us. It was nice to just sit and have someone bring food and drinks to the couch for you. Bill cooked dinner which was perfection - warm, spicy risotto with shrimp. I couldn't have ordered better.
To summarize - we talked to people from Arkansas, Montana, Arizona, Virginia, Nebraska, Maryland - almost everywhere. I heard people say they were from California, South Carolina. Our country came to this Inauguration. It was a day of miracles from the major miracle of Obama's swearing in to the minor miracles that enabled us to make it into and out of the city to witness this historic occasion.
I am very grateful to our friends who helped make the day happen - Helen - the ticket connection, Rebecca - the chauffer, Bill and Mary - couch and sustenance providers and babysitters. It wouldn't have been possible otherwise.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Teaching....
Here's an interesting and compelling project that was organized by one of my colleagues. Kids in urban Cleveland schools (the nation's poorest city) took photographs and recorded the stories of their lives in school - what helps them, what can hold them back. It's a good window into the world of urban schooling which is one of the most challenging problems facing education and the communities we live in.
It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes about teaching:
"Teaching is instructing, advising, counseling, organizing, assessing, guiding, goading, showing, managing, modeling, coaching, disciplining, prodding, preaching, persuading, proselytizing, listening, interacting, nursing, and inspiring. Teachers must be experts and generalists, psychologists and cops, rabbis and priests, judges and gurus. And that's not all." - William Ayers, To Teach, p. 4
It applies whether you teach kindergarten or PhD students. It also helps explain why teaching is one of the most difficult jobs - mentally and physically. And, with great risk comes great reward. We all live for the moment when the student finally succeeds and watching them change over time.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Ditching Work for Obama
Last night, I went to the Obama rally in Manassas. It was, in short, inspiring to see all the people who had come to see him. I got there about 9 pm and parked about 3/4 of a mile away in a neighborhood near the fairgrounds. People were literally running along the side of the road to get in. The enduring image I have is the African-American man with his cane walking as fast as he could with friends/family to get in to see Obama. There were children and their parents - all waiting to see our next President. At the events I've been too, it always amazes me to see how many different people - a microcosm of the country really - come to see Obama.
I got home about 1:30 am after a long walk back to the car (miraculously I found it in the neighborhood outside the fairgrounds where I'd left it). The cars in the fairground couldn't get out because a throng of people was occupying all of Dumfries Road for most of the walk back.
I slept in this morning and went to vote about 11:00 am. Not much of a line.
After that, I was too antsy to go to work so I went to the campaign office to find out what there was to do. I was sent to a house to pick up a canvassing packet. I stood in line longer to pick up a canvassing packet than I did to vote. I spent a couple of hours knocking on doors of Obama supporters to make sure they were going to or already had voted.
Then, party time with my Democratic buddies!
I will admit to a certain unbridled joy at the prospect of an Obama presidency. I find him inspiring, intelligent, nuanced, and a collaborator. However, I will also admit that the sunset of the Bush era is almost more exciting. Bush has brought educational policies that have been destructive and divisive for education. The policies have been narrow-minded and short-sighted. I agree that No Child should be Left Behind. However, measuring supposed progress does not imply there has been progress nor does measurement cause progress. Testing should be the measure of what we value - the assessment of what we feel our children should learn. Rather, it has become the definition of what we value. Teachers are punished for conditions beyond their control. There is almost uniform agreement that teachers need time for training and professional development, especially at the beginning of their professions to quell the churning and burn-out new teachers experience. I am hopeful our new administration will see that need.
Hopefully, a new day is dawning for our children's education.
However, the day is tempered with the tragic reality that propositions in Florida and California that would limit the equal rights of some of our citizens to live as they please and marry who they choose have likely passed. My friend, Tim, has a better statement on the topic here. The question of same-sex marriage needs to be restated. It's not about same-sex marriage. It's about marriage and equal rights. Anytime a qualifier is added, we are saying that what is qualified is somehow less than or not within the norm. "Single mothers" is another. Mothers are mothers no matter their marital status. No one talks about "Married mothers" just like no one talks about "heterosexual marriage".
We need to leave the marriage vs. same-sex marriage discussion behind and move to a discussion about the nature of our community. A community where people can choose to marry or not and all have equal rights.
I got home about 1:30 am after a long walk back to the car (miraculously I found it in the neighborhood outside the fairgrounds where I'd left it). The cars in the fairground couldn't get out because a throng of people was occupying all of Dumfries Road for most of the walk back.
I slept in this morning and went to vote about 11:00 am. Not much of a line.
After that, I was too antsy to go to work so I went to the campaign office to find out what there was to do. I was sent to a house to pick up a canvassing packet. I stood in line longer to pick up a canvassing packet than I did to vote. I spent a couple of hours knocking on doors of Obama supporters to make sure they were going to or already had voted.
Then, party time with my Democratic buddies!
I will admit to a certain unbridled joy at the prospect of an Obama presidency. I find him inspiring, intelligent, nuanced, and a collaborator. However, I will also admit that the sunset of the Bush era is almost more exciting. Bush has brought educational policies that have been destructive and divisive for education. The policies have been narrow-minded and short-sighted. I agree that No Child should be Left Behind. However, measuring supposed progress does not imply there has been progress nor does measurement cause progress. Testing should be the measure of what we value - the assessment of what we feel our children should learn. Rather, it has become the definition of what we value. Teachers are punished for conditions beyond their control. There is almost uniform agreement that teachers need time for training and professional development, especially at the beginning of their professions to quell the churning and burn-out new teachers experience. I am hopeful our new administration will see that need.
Hopefully, a new day is dawning for our children's education.
However, the day is tempered with the tragic reality that propositions in Florida and California that would limit the equal rights of some of our citizens to live as they please and marry who they choose have likely passed. My friend, Tim, has a better statement on the topic here. The question of same-sex marriage needs to be restated. It's not about same-sex marriage. It's about marriage and equal rights. Anytime a qualifier is added, we are saying that what is qualified is somehow less than or not within the norm. "Single mothers" is another. Mothers are mothers no matter their marital status. No one talks about "Married mothers" just like no one talks about "heterosexual marriage".
We need to leave the marriage vs. same-sex marriage discussion behind and move to a discussion about the nature of our community. A community where people can choose to marry or not and all have equal rights.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Living in Community
Episcopal Cafe posted an intriguing yet disturbing essay about a mother who had to tell the neighbors that their display which included a bloodied head of Obama was disturbing to her son. The neighbors didn't see why the display was disturbing and couldn't imagine why she had taken offense at the display.
I'm all for free speech and the display of political opinion. My condo association told me to take down a political sign and so I put up an American flag in it's place. But, when did we become so un-neighborly that when a mother says a grotesque display is disturbing to her child we can't see her point? When did this become acceptable? Did it even occur to the neighbors that causing a child - any child - to lose sleep and feel uncomfortable was reason enough to take down a display?
Living in community is not an easy thing. We have to encounter each other whether we like it or not. And, the well-being of a child should trump the Halloween display whether we like it or not.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Correcting Misconceptions
A lot of people have been throwing around the words "Ivy League" and "Intellectual" as if those of us who went to Ivy League schools and have some higher education live somehow in a rarified atmosphere. As if having a PhD means you lose all common sense and ability to interact with "regular people".
I graduated from Mount Holyoke College, an Ivy League women's college. My friends are doing things like working as reporters for NPR, going to med school, working as lawyers, raising adopted children from Ethiopia. In general, living normal lives and attempting to make a contribution to the world. Yet, somehow, "Ivy League" is now being used as an insult. Yes, some of those corrupt, greedy Wall Street stock brokers went to the Ivy League. But, I bet just as many went to state schools to get their MBAs.
As for living in the Ivory Tower of academia, I take it a little personally when people assume I have no understanding of reality. At least in a College of Education, our job as professors is to balance working within what is and trying to find out how to make it better. I don't spend my days talking to kids, but that doesn't mean I don't understand schooling. We navigate between multiples levels of the educational enterprise - teachers, teacher leaders, principals, district administrators, state-level administrators, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, national organizations. All of these have their own realities and expectations for schools. There's also the assumption that teaching is 95% of what I do. Standing in front of a classroom is about 30% (or less) of what I do. Meeting with doctoral students, doing research, working with faculty and on and on is the other 70%. University faculty are busy, hard-working people charged with keeping a variety of people happy and helping the next generation make their own contribution. And, we're not doing it for the money. Many of them/us could be making a lot more doing something else.
In addition to living in reality, it's our job, our mandate, to find the next "big idea", to dream on the edges, and figure out what still needs to be learned.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
MDGs
Today has been set aside as a day for reflecting about the Millennium Development Goals. One critical aspect of the campaign is considering ONE Votes and thinking about how our candidates are planning to address the MDGs during their administration. The Episcopal Church has taken them on as a guiding objective through Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation.
I love graphs and data. One site has collected data about various indicators and compiled it for different countries so you can see where the gaps are. What's more interesting to me, however, are the interconnections between the goals. Providing clean water means girls can go to school because they might not have to walk hours to get water for their families. The connections between women's education and infant mortality. Cleaning up the environment and feeding people. Cleaning up the environment and reducing the spread of malaria. It emphasizes the point that not only are all of the goals connected, but that we are connected. Fiscal policy in the US is connected to health care in Africa. Education in the US is connected to quality of life abroad.
And, more importantly, some of these goals are achievable and before 2015.
I watched the Girl in the Cafe not long ago which is about the summit where world leaders decided to adopt the MDGs as an objective. The Girl latches on to the fact that every 3 seconds a child dies somewhere of poverty, illness, or hunger that is preventable. It's a compelling fact and a simple idea. Providing food so people will not die, so children will not die.
The question is how to do it on a grand scale. But, the central idea of the ONE campaign is an emergent one. That if many individuals each decide to accomplish even a small objective, then the collective impact will be on a grand scale. That we do not have to wait for our governments and institutions to do something. That we as individual people or small groups can do something. And, that is true. We vote as individuals. We contribute to charities. We go out in the world and talk to people. There must be a willingness to participate in the global effort and frankly, it isn't a large sacrifice. I can attest to the fact that people getting married who already have too much stuff enjoy it when I tell them I've purchased a pig or a flock of chickens through Episcopal Relief and Development.
So go be a participant in something and help change the world.
Vote!
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