The shocking truth about Mother's Day: Say it proud.

High noon, executive suite, New York City, 1917.

Al:  So here’s the pitch - I’m seeing a Day to commemorate Mothers.  Classy.  World-wide kinda theme…  There’s no one in the space, right?  So we make it big, make it bold:  Mother’s Day.

Vic:  Nice…  Love it, love it.  Keep talking.

Al:  So we get the biggies on board, right?  Hallmark, Roadshow, Cadbury, Walmart, those guys that do roses....

Roger:  Interflora?

Al:  Right, right.  Package this thing so it really pops.  I’m seeing fluffy dressing gowns with matching ugg boots, hand-picked musical compilations for Mums, Jodi Piccoult going off, twin pack ‘Love Actually’ and ‘Bridget Jones Diary’ on blu ray…

Roger:  Objection.  They don’t exist yet.

Al:  Details, details…  You reckon we could get Ricky Martin to do a ‘Greatest Hits Souvenir Edition’?  How about Buble?  That guy must have something in the can…

Roger:  Objection.  They don’t exist yet either. 

Vic:  Roger, you’re bringing us down.  This thing’s gonna make millions.

Al:  Juice fountains?  Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals?

Vic:  Keep talkin’, keep talkin’….

Actually, that’s not the shocking truth about Mother’s Day, although it is kinda startling to consider that Australians spent about $1.36billion on Mothers Day gifts this week.  Not that I begrudge anyone their ugg boots. (Got a pair myself.) It’s just that this week the Australian Government is likely to slash money from our overseas aid budget (worth around $5.2 billion spent on saving actual lives).  And there are still 1.2 billion people on this planet living on less than $2 a day, not to mention elderly people struggling to afford a place in a nursing home and indigenous children who can’t read and… and…  Sometimes gift giving in this country gets a little out of hand. 

The truly shocking thing is that Mother’s Day has moved so far from its compassionate and activist origins.  Mother’s Day was the brainchild of Anna Jarvis back in 1910; the idea went a bit viral, with President Woodrow Wilson declaring it an official day of celebration in 1918.  Anna wanted to commemorate her mother, Ann Maria Jarvis, who set up Mothers Work Clubs in five cities to improve health and sanitation and clothe both Confederacy and Union soldiers.  She was a bit of a radical who saw the potential of women to care not only for their own, but for people everywhere.

But the idea of a day for mothers didn’t actually originate with Anna. 

The first official attempt to institute a Mothers Day was kicked around by Julia Howe Ward in 1872 and it wasn’t to commemorate mothers at all.   It was to mobilise mothers everywhere to unite for resolution of war.  It was a political, pacifist movement that issued a proclamation calling on women from around the world to join together for peace. It failed to catch on but Anna Jarvis, who eventually succeeded in popularising Mother's Day, was deeply influenced by these ideals.

Tragically, by the time Anna died in 1928 she had become deeply disillusioned by the Day she had inaugurated, believing that it had been totally taken over by commercial interest.  She dissociated herself from it completely.

Motherhood is so sacred and so intensely special that I hardly dare suggest that the day celebrating it could be modified in any way.  Totally honest?  I love receiving those hand-made cards and carefully chosen gifts from my daughters.  I love thinking about what to write on the card for my own Mum, who is awesome beyond measure.  But like many things, maybe it doesn’t have to be entirely about us as individuals, either. 

Maybe we could find room to think of mothers everywhere who are also nurturing children, only in refugee camps, in deserts, in suburban backyards struggling with disabilities and in countries where you can be paid less than a dollar a day to stitch clothing for eight hours.  Maybe we could lift our gaze a little higher to take in a bit more of the sisterhood and use whatever resources we have to help lighten the load.   Maybe we could heed that call to be women united around the world for peace.  Maybe we can teach our children likewise.  It’s not just about ending war.  It’s about creating all the right conditions for justice. 

To all my fellow mothers- I think you’re amazing.  And I know that you’re probably already doing more than your little bit to re-ignite the original Mother’s Day vision.  So let’s say it proud, hey? We are more than a soft target for pyjama marketing.  As women, we're a world-wide force for good.

Happy Mother’s Day.   

** Disclaimer:  I was complicit in the buying of a zebra-patterned one-sie pajama suit by my children as my Mother's Day Gift.  It was probably the funniest moment we had all day... but just so you know. I have a way to go with enforcing all my own ideas.

*Okay all you grammar Nazis out there:  the apostrophe is where it is because the original Mother's Day was to celebrate your own mother and it's how Anna wanted it!  But I acknowledge there are lots of other ways it's done now.

Ending religion along with poverty? Bring it on.

So religion will be extinct by 2035 and it’ll mostly be the fault of do-gooder organisations like the ones I work for who are trying to end poverty.  Bloody charities!  (Christian ones, I might add…) Why couldn’t they just leave well enough alone?

This is the view of a new paper published by Psychology Today which tracks the rise and fall of religious belief and pretty much concludes that as poverty falls, so too does the need for God.  Afterall, if you’ve got an iphone, why would you need a deity?  You can ask Siri for just about anything and she’s more than happy to oblige.  God, on the other hand…

Atheism, anthropologist James Fraser argues, is pretty much the domain of those who believe they can provide for themselves. People who live in economically developed countries are more able to predict and control forces of nature – thus, science supplants religion as a major belief, the paper concludes.  Likewise, countries with more stable governments able to care for them and with longer life expectancies see less need to rely either on the hand of God or the idea of an afterlife. 

Fair call.  Makes perfect sense.  And it’s hard to argue with the stats.  Heaps of the growth in religions does take place in the developing world.  But the growth is significant, at 25 000 000 new converts each year to Christianity alone, still the fastest growing faith.  The sheer weight of numbers alone in a country like China, where Christianity is undergoing a massive boom, is enough to make clergy who are desperate for growth here in Australia drool into their dog collars. 

It’s a little depressing, however, to conclude that people primarily reach out for God when life has dealt them such a poor deal they have no one else to hang onto.  Perplexing to imagine that as soon as we have the means we dump the deity along with the analogue TV.  That our minds evolve away from the possibility of God-ness.

I'm pretty sure it's not accurate to equate all faith in developing countries - or anywhere else - with the simple notion of supply and demand suggested by the authors of the study.  There's a richness and diversity to faith that goes far beyond the stereotype presented here.  But let's suppose, just for a minute,  that there's something in it.  Exactly what kind of God, in that case, would it be who's being ditched? 

If the religion that’s being rejected is the religion of the old white guy in the sky who holds our fate in the palm of his hand and doles out either blessing or suffering according to his ‘divine will’ then I can’t say I’m either too surprised or bothered by his passing.  This is the God who is the product of what I’d describe as a pretty flat reading of the Scriptures and a distorted PR campaign by the Church - a God whose main function is to keep us honest lest we fall foul of his judgement, provide us with comfort in the knowledge that somewhere out there He’s on our side even when it doesn’t feel like it and ultimately pluck us safely away to Heaven where we can spend eternity stroking a harp and singing His praises. 

The death of that God?  No great loss.

I had a conversation with Jem a few weeks back, both of us tucked up in her bed, which began with my suggesting, straight faced, that actually the mainly great thing about Easter is the chocolate. 

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”  Jem says in mock horror.  “You’re supposed to be telling me that your life revolves around JESUS and nothing in the world is more important than JESUS!”

“Are you not getting that impression, then?”  I say.

“Well…” says Jem thoughtfully, beginning to wave her hands around in a vaguely circular motion.  “I kind of get the impression that Jesus is… you know…”

“A window cleaner?”  I ask, pointing at her hand gestures because I’m in one of those moods to just be a pain in the rear.

Jem laughs and then hauls up short.

“Well actually, yes.” she says, suddenly thoughtful.   “That’s quite a good metaphor for what Jesus seems like in your life to me.  It’s like Jesus makes things clearer.  So you can see more easily.   So yes.  He’s a window cleaner.”

Bam!  We go on to unpack together what all that might mean and how my faith has evolved blah blah blah, but actually I’m just incredibly chuffed that my 11 year old thinks Jesus is the window cleaner in my life.

Please forgive me if this sounds heretical, arrogant or misguided.  But I don’t look to God as the source of either my blessing or my suffering.  I don’t beg God for protection and for me, the game isn’t about eternal life.  I am agnostic about a million things that classic religion probably regards as essential.  My scientific knowledge sits happily alongside my wordless wonder and joyful thanks.  But God seems to me the ultimate expression of Love - Love that’s with me regardless of the circumstances of my life, Love that calls me to be with others regardless of the circumstances of theirs. Love that is stronger than death.  And yes - seeing life through the lens of the person of Jesus makes things clearer for me.  For this, I am truly grateful even as I realise I no doubt understand actually very little. 

I would fight to keep that relationship alive in the face of this so-called onslaught of atheism born of prosperity.  I would.  But something tells me I won’t have to.

Alain De Botton might be one of atheism’s finest spokespeople, but his book on Religion for Atheists only convinced me more deeply of religion’s merits.  Wisdom, community, kindness, education, tenderness, perspective, art - these are the gifts that Botton recognises religion brings in abundance.  I’ve been a glad recipient all my life.  

If 'ending poverty' ends belief in a God of a particular kind, so be it.  But if in its place grows relationship with the God who is Love and calls us to fearlessly embody that love for people and planet, then bring it on.  

Get the F*K out of my pool- and other personal development concepts

Hipsters.  I thought they were just a variety of undies until fairly recently.  Nuh.  Apparently they’re effortlessly cool urban bohemians who’re into indie music, independent thinking and progressive politics.  Actually, not that independent as it turns out.

This week I came across a clip that’s been doing the rounds from the Coachella Festival, held in the Inland Empire’s Coachella Valley, California.  Home in the past to big name acts like the Black Keys, Kanye, Florence and the Machine and the Lumineers,  as well as a whole lot of up-and-comers, it’s also a magnet for Hipsters.  And Hipsters like to know what’s going down, right? 

So when interviewers made up a whole lot of bogus band names and asked people what they were looking forward to about the acts, no one batted an eyelid.  No one cocked an eyebrow at whether 'The Obesity Epidemic' might not be the best name ever or threw out a polite “WTF?” 

Nope.  They waxed lyrical about how much they enjoyed the genre, how much energy they and had and like, you know?  How cool it was all going to be.    Check it out (here on mobile devices).  I'm pretty sure you'll laugh.

Funny.  And also highly relatable.  Because I just have this sneaking suspicion that lots of us, facing a similar scenario, might have done exactly the same thing. (Like, you know, using like... slightly more sophisticated language?)

Let's say you’re in a situation because you’re supposed to be a bit of an expert- a conference for example.  Everyone else is talking up the speaker or the topic.  Are you really going to stick your hand up and say:  “Hello?  Actually… no idea.  I’m all at sea here.”  Asked directly about something we're expected to know, wouldn't quite a lot of us make something up rather than confessing our ignorance?  

We all want to fit in.  We all want to look smart.  Maybe even to the point where we’ll openly lie to cover ourselves...

It’s funny because I imagine if I asked Brydie (who’s seven) a question about a band she’d never heard of, particularly if it had a ridiculous name, she’d nail me with one of her famous ‘are you out of your mind’ double takes and say “What the?”

That’s because at seven, children are generally fearless.  They’re the centre of the universe.  They don’t much care if they don’t fit in.  They haven’t yet learnt to fear non-conformity.    The truth is out there and it’s meant to be spoken.  Which is why a couple of years back the checkout chicks in our local supermarket knew that my undies had the word HOT on them and we tend not to ask for Brydie’s input during Children’s Talks in church. 

So when does that fearlessness get lost?  When do we replace it with a desperate desire not to stand out or risk looking dumb?  Do we ever come out the other side, able to stand on our own two feet again?

It got me thinking about a whole range of people from Fowler to Erikson, Kohlberg and M Scott Peck who’ve done a lot of work looking at the different shifts that people undergo as they move through life from being totally preoccupied with self to finding some kind of harmony with the bigger picture.  Basically development thinkers seem to follow these kind of patterns. 

1. Ego:  Occupied with self, concrete views of the world, others serve our needs.

2. Conformity/Authority: Need to conform, desire to please others, serious about authority (including faith - seeking absolutes and certainty)

3. Skeptic/Individual: Question reality and beliefs, perhaps become disillusioned about faith, internalise right and wrong & potentially become committed to causes

4. Mystic/harmony:  Find and accept a path that emphasises what we have in common, not what divides us, at peace about mystery, emphasis upon community. 

That's a really pretty sketchy summary, so if you're interested, google it!  All the thinkers suggest we float back and forth between the various stages and might be at one stage in one area of our lives and a different stage in another.  But most suggest that it’s some kind of ‘crisis’ that tends to move us from one stage to another, not just age.  Looking at the descriptions, you can no doubt think of older people who fit stage one or two and younger people who might just as easily be stage four.    And you?  Got a number beside your name yet?  (Self analysis.  Great for a quiet moment during the washing up.)

The Hipsters' desperate desire to please, in spite of wherever else they may fit on the charts, is a pretty natural part of any journey, it seems to me.  No doubt there were a few who politely told the interviewer:  “Actually I haven’t heard of “Get the F*K Out Of My Pool”, but boy, with a name like that they’re bound to get some good airplay!” 

Doesn’t make for such great vid though, does it?  But maybe it sheds a bit of light on our own personal development path.  Where are we at?  Where are we headed?  How do we get there?

(So let me guess- you put yourself between 2 and 3 and your cat at 1, right?)

Away

I’m pretty sure my favourite part is when they’re all stumbling toward one another in the glowing dark with pointy sticks at eye level, enthusiastically offering up the charred remains of their marshmallows for inspection.

“Mmmmm, perfect!” everyone’s saying with too much enthusiasm.  Clumps of soggy charcoal are landing in laps and on bare feet and there's a lot of squealing with waving of firebrands.  “This one is exactly right!”

I hate marshmallows, actually.  And every time we go camping I tentatively suggest there might be a rule about children/sticks/fire in combination with wild and/or vague arm waving.  Every time we go camping I get quietly ignored.  Which is fine, because so far no one has been disfigured for life. 

Our girls go feral when we camp.  They wade in streams and swim naked in waterholes, carry sticks, eat out of cans, head bush for a wee rather than risk “Poo Hill” with its (actually pretty decent) pit toilet. They get enthusiastic about climbing the steep side of hills, play cricket and soccer with a wild and desperate look, sing loudly and unashamedly tell embarrassing stories in the flickering light of the fire.  They smell of woodsmoke and their hair is tangled.   

They are never more beautiful.  They’re away.

At night when I fall into my sleeping bag my brain is roasted from hours spent staring into the mesmerising flames of a fire, my veins silky with alcohol, my jaw either sore from grinning or slack from simply sitting wordless.  The monkey that usually comes alive in the tree of my head about this time of night lies prone across a branch, too sun-warmed and lazy to lift a finger. And for minutes I lie curled listening to the whisper of water over rocks, birds nickering quietly in trees, the gentle sigh of a tarp.  Air is cold on my face; moonlight reaches one solitary finger into a corner.  Sleep sidles in.

I’m away.

We Aussies are big on holidays.  These days, a record number of us take them overseas- about 9 million OS hols this year alone. Aussie dollar being what it is, why wouldn’t you be winging it off into the wild blue yonder?  And resorts.  Resorts feature large on the Australian wish list for a decent getaway.  Cocktail by the pool- children in the Kid’s Club.  What’s not to like? 

It's maybe too easy to make ‘getting away’ a grand affair, that's all.  It costs money.  You have to plan well in advance- take a decent amount of time off.  Where to go?  What to see?  In the meantime, the spontaneous getaway goes begging.  Not that I’m suggesting throwing everything in the trailer and heading bush is easy either- or everyone’s cup of tea.  Sixteen loads of washing later, have we recovered from the camping trip?

But a commitment to the idea of the getaway seems like a good one.  The getaway on the back deck or the local park on a Friday night with a picnic. The one-night house swap with a friend between the city and the coast.  The unexpectedly long lunch-break by the water.  The Mindfulness App that chimes twice a day and asks you if you want to meditate… (Well no, actually, I’m in the middle of wrangling the three year old and we’re in a supermarket queue but yes… I could take three minutes to breathe a bit more deeply.)   The DWA with the Man in a B&B on the Mountain.  The one night solitary retreat (yes, solitary, as in 'on your own'.  Totally recommend.  Google a place- actually not expensive at all).

Sitting in the bed of the creek on sun-warmed stones, some discussion arose over buying the property we were camping on: to own this patch of secluded, rugged, mountain land with river frontage, full of memories to make and share out with others.

Nope.  Not for me.  Part of the appeal of ‘away’ is that it’s there, but it’s not mine to keep.  Like the ocean, it calls, but I don’t own it.   It sends me home warmed and loose in the back and seeing the world differently.  I don’t want it to become normality.

I long after it.  It’s slightly out of reach and all the more beautiful because of it.  That's away.

Away.  Where are you going next?

Time, Love and Talking about Sandy Hook

Jem and Brydie have chosen kittens and puppies wearing Santa hats for the Christmas cards they’re giving to all their friends at school.

“Yappy Holidays!”  barks one.

“Have yourself a furry little Christmas,” mews another.

“Please can we ditch the Santa hat, it’s demeaning...” says a third, deadpan.  

Well.  It doesn’t, but it wants to.

Brydie is despatching greetings with military precision. 

“Can you do some Mum? My arm’s getting a bit sore,” she says, flicking me another envelope to write a name on.

“I think it’s kinda nice if it’s got your writing on it,” I tell her.

“But it’s getting boring,” Brydie says frankly.  Fair enough.  She’s done about 16 already.

“Maybe if you think hard about the person you’re sending it to and pack some good wishes for a very happy Christmas into the card, that’ll help?”

“Not everyone’s going to have a Happy Christmas though, are they?” says Brydie matter-of-factly, still showering flamboyant ticks across her list.

Jem looks up from her card-writing thoughtfully.  “That’s very true, Bry.  Not everyone has a happy Christmas.”

“Hmmm,” says Brydie.  “What sort of things are going to make them sad, d’you think?”

We name a few things.  Not being with the people you love.  Not having enough money for presents.  Having to be photographed for next year’s Christmas cards wearing a red Santa hat that cuts off the circulation to your ears.  And conversation turns to Sandy Hook Elementary School. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and grandparents who will have a sad Christmas for all eternity, remembering the day a little person didn’t come home from school.

We haven’t spoken about it much over the last few days.  But now sitting at the table, each of us with a pile of cards, it all comes out.  We talk about what could possibly make a person so sad and angry they’d kill their own mum and a whole lot of six year olds they don’t even know.  We talk about guns and why it’s so easy to get them in America and why gun control is different in Australia.  We talk about the death penalty and whether it’s merciful to have your life ended if you face guilt, bitterness, life in prison- or whether a person’s life is always worth saving.   We talk about how hard it is to know what’s going on in another person’s life when they’re quiet at school or mucking up and where their sadness and anger could lead.   We wonder what it might feel like to be the quiet, withdrawn kid who nobody really knows and how it feels now to be his father and his brother.  And we give Adam Lanza his name along with the name of Victoria Soto, the teacher who protected her class and was killed.   Because names are important.

Now it’s midnight and I’ve just snuck out of their bedrooms where the pair of them lie in the half-light, curled in the familiar positions I know and love.  I’ve knelt by their beds to watch them, kiss them, stay longer than I need to re-arrange a bear with an adventurous spirit.  They are six and eleven and they are here with me, turning days to memories in the blink of an eye, but with me.  Just every now and then the gift of the two of them leaves me with a tight chest; a choking fear that it's all going too fast and at any moment this could all end.  And I wonder if I’ll have loved it enough? 

Brydie tells us she’s going to live with us forever.  I remember Jem saying the same thing when she was six- she’s recently graduated to living nearby with quite a few cats and possibly a handsome character from a Jane Austen novel.  There are days you want to just freeze time, before forever becomes now.

Time isn’t the enemy.  But the only way to make it a friend is to remember, I guess, that nothing lasts forever- not great happiness, not great sorrow.  All I can think right now is that love is stronger than death and that we have love to give: to the ones we hold in the quiet dark, to the ones who are stretching their wings, growing and changing, and especially to the quiet ones we barely know and the ones we may never meet.

Time.

Love.  

Give.      

The Bonkathon we have to have: in praise of thinking ahead

365 consecutive days of sex:  “The Bonkathon”.

It was the most commented-on article last weekend in the Sydney Morning Herald and explored the effects of a decision made by a US couple to do it every day, rain, hail or shine. 

So how does that strike you as a way to spend a year?  Sex, I was told quite a long time ago, is like oxygen: really no big deal unless you’re not getting any (?)  Possibly the reverse is also true.  Rain, hail or shine?  Absolutely every day for a year?  The SMH article detailed two couples, actually- one that went after it for 101 days, the other the full year.  Both talked about the benefits:  increased intimacy, less pressure to perform, confidence that they were taking the time they needed for one another.  No muscle strains or complaints from neighbours were mentioned.   I reckon the interviewer was too polite to ask.

Aside from those of you who are blissful newly-weds or happily-putting-it-out-there-singles (stop smirking, you know who you are) at some point in every developed relationship the issue of sex rears its ugly head (gosh… no pun intended there.)   And at various points of the life journey- small people arriving, career taking off, mother-in-law in the bedroom next door- sex is one of those things, like vacuuming your cornices, that sometimes just doesn’t get done.   Lack of interest?  Lack of love?  Lack of physical prowess?  Maybe…

It wouldn’t be out of the realms of possibility to suggest that around the same time as the sex thing comes up you might also hear complaints about a lack of spontaneity in other areas: no time to go out for dinner together, you never tell me I look hot in that dress, not enough flowers coming home along with the empty lunchbox...

Thoughtfulness is under attack.

Call me unromantic, but is it possible there’s a case to be made for planned ‘thoughtfulness’?  In a busy world, if it’s not planned, it tends not to get done.  Maybe there are a few geniuses out there who can juggle life and have enough left over to genuinely, on the spur of the moment, think of a card of appreciation for a stressed spouse; a little gift for a child who’s done well; the right ingredients for a surprise romantic Tuesday night dinner after the children are in bed… Well hats off to us!  OUR FAMILIES AND FRIENDS ARE THE LUCKIEST IN THE WORLD!

For the rest of you, there’s iCalendar! 

(Yeah all right... most of the time I’m not in the category above, I’m in this one and I’m not very good at that either.)  Why do people assume that planning things in advance makes them somehow less valuable?  Is there anything less genuine about asking yourself at the start of the month: where are the opportunities to spend time with my children, my significant other, my friends or people who might need a bit of a cheering-up moment?  Is there really anything less genuine about planning four times a year, at random moments, to ‘spontaneously’ bring your spouse home a bottle of wine or a bunch of flowers and sticking a reminder in your iphone so you don’t forget? 

And is it possible to plan your intimate moments as well?  Maybe not going so far as marking SEX in red texta on your fridge calendar next to the kids soccer game, or even sticking it into your (possibly shared with work mates via The Cloud) iCalendar, but at least monitoring and planning the situation a bit more rigorously?  Does the fact that it’s ‘less spontaneous’ make it less genuine and therefore less worthy?

Well, not according to our once a day Bonk-Meisters.  “Routine” actually made the whole process more intimate and pleasurable, according to the sexperts.  Kind of makes sense, if you think about it. 

a)    Planning for something makes sure it gets done, and call me crazy, but in a relationship it seems like there are lots of good reasons to ‘get sex done’ on a fairly regular basis.  Leave it up to chance, leave it up to feelings and good will, leave it up to all the stars being aligned… little risky long term, don’t you think? 

b)   Our habits are what form our characters.  Assuming that both people actually do enjoy a sexual relationship in the first place, it’s reasonable to imagine they’d want the character of that sexual relationship to grow and mature and develop with time.  In fact, the reverse often seems to happen.  Sure, it sounds boring to say that sex is ‘a habit’. But like making a habit of only speaking well of people- something that soon becomes part of your character- making a habit of prioritising and planning for intimacy probably also becomes a natural part of the character of a relationship too. 

c)    Feelings often follow actions.  How many times have you forced yourself to go for a run and felt better afterwards?  Been nice to a random stranger in spite of not feeling particularly cheerful and felt yourself uplifted by the experience?  It’s probably not that helpful only to act when we feel emotions compelling us to do so.  Emotions can be a bit unreliable.  Starting down the path often opens up the view to us halfway.   (Of course there are provisos on all that along the lines of 'don’t be deceptive', but hopefully we’re all big enough to figure that stuff out as well.)

Nothing new here really- stressed out couples with small children gallantly isolate “Date Night” every couple of months and round up the babysitter, for example.  It doesn’t have to be as grand as a whole night out though and it probably doesn’t even have to be mutually agreed upon.  A little bit of “Secret Planned Spontaneous Thoughtfulness” of any kind is hopefully always going to be appreciated, even if it doesn’t always end quite the way you’ve imagined…  It’s the journey, not the destination that matters, right?  Even just putting it on the radar is probably going to be useful!  Our habits become our characters and to habitually plan for thoughtfulness in every area of our relationships?  Can’t go wrong, I reckon.

Right, well, that’s my thought for the weekend.  And because this is such a dodgy topic to blog on, and now you’re all wondering about my sex life, My Significant Other would like you to know that this is a scholarly article, based entirely on professional focus groups and not only does he ALWAYS bring great gifts, he’s also… okay, I think we’ll leave it there.  And if you find his iphone can you return it immediately. 

 

The glam nails I'm hanging onto

I had my nails painted for only the second time in my life while I was in India.

The first time was for our wedding- clear varnish, short nails.  This time, in a concrete school room by the night-time glow of a TV surrounded by children of all ages, I was offered a choice of violent pea green or pearl pink.  Hmmm….

“Nice hands, Miss!” the girls enthused as they expertly applied two pink coats and then a follow-up layer of glitter.  

Beautiful liars.  My nails are comprehensively nibbled, three fingers broken playing sport.  I showed them a couple of scars- a dog food can, a pen knife and a wine glass.  They could hardly get enough of the stories.

We sat together for an hour and watched “Indian Idol- India vs Pakistan.”  Now there’s a competition… We segued into the girls’ favourite soap opera in Hindi and they pointed out the hot ‘hero boy’.  I’d already spotted him, actually.  They giggled a lot.  I could’ve been anywhere.

 The following morning, Jem and Brydie were gobsmacked by my transformation.

“But you NEVER let us paint your nails!”

Sheepish, I put my hands back into my pockets and suggested they have theirs done that afternoon.

These are the moments that sit in my memory alongside kilometre after kilometre of absolutely bewildering human need.  Forehead pressed to the window of our bus, a world of deprivation slides by:  children and skeletal dogs, men rocking on their haunches by the side of the road, pitiful dwellings held together with string and bags and mud and branches. Everywhere, the discarded bits and pieces of peoples lives left behind after every last item has been picked over for something that can be re-used or sold for scrap.  In many places the streets bleed garbage and we breathe thick smog.

The sheer scope and scale of need in this country is mind numbing.  The reality here is that millions of men, women and children will be born into poverty and die the same way.  They will expect nothing more.  And they will get it.

When I think about our paltry efforts to assist- a school here, a medical clinic there, emergency relief somewhere else- the enormity of the need beside the tininess of our giving seems laughable.    The magnitude of this need appears to dwarf every giving program, every Government intervention and every NGO on the planet.  I am sick with the despair of it.

And yet to come away dwarfed and defeated by the need is to come away with the memory of my unexpectedly transformed nails relegated to  memory’s garbage along with so much else in India.  Because the children in Durgapur who so carefully painted those nails will have a different future from their parents.   Once considered ‘Untouchable’, unable to access even the most basic of schooling or employment, these children are attending school alongside their higher caste neighbours.  The girls are likely to marry later in life and will be healthier and less likely to die early from pregnancy-related complications- the leading cause of death among girls aged 15-24 in the developing world.  Some will go on to university.  Many will find basic jobs and work their way into homes with electricity, water, an indoor toilet.  Some will go far further. 

On the huge tide of human need, these little life rafts are well worth celebrating.

Every piece of research we have on giving indicates that people will give to things they believe they can change.  “Overcoming poverty in India”, whole-scale, is not one of those things.  But connecting with one life- one community- and providing education or health care that can make the difference between grinding poverty and actually getting by- well, that’s a different story.

It’s one of the main reasons people sponsor children. Child Sponsorship provides people with a tangible sense that they have broken the overwhelming problem of poverty down to a manageable size.  On the one hand it’s an illusion- on the other, how else can we respond other than to concentrate on the personal?  Every ocean is made up of a million drops.  Every person matters. 

But there’s a major problem with traditional Child Sponsorship programs. When only individual children are singled out to receive funding, others in the community are left behind.  We met children in the Hostel in Durgapur- not part of the UnitingWorld programs we were visiting- who are the recipients of Child Sponsorship from Churches in the US; they receive extra tuition, uniforms and all the benefits of on-site living.  Their friends and relatives remain stuck in slum communities just down the road.  There’s no widespread benefit from the Sponsorship and as a result, life only changes for the randomly privileged few. 

I didn’t ask directly how the children felt about this.  But when we arrived they had just returned from a brief holiday with their families and it was clear that leaving their homes- and for some, leaving close friends- to return to the Hostel was a bittersweet experience. 

Not all Sponsorship programs work this way.  Child Centered Community Development, funded by Child Sponsorship, is a different kettle of fish altogether.  This model retains the value of personalised relationships between the donor and the children because Child Ambassadors are chosen from each community and matched with donors, who keep photographs and profiles of the child and community to which they belong.  But all Sponsorship money is used to further child centered development in the entire community, for all children.  The child ambassadors maintain relationships with donors, writing letters to update them on progress being made for children in the whole community.  It’s a much fairer way to do Child Sponsorship and it’s probably the best of both worlds because it keeps the personal connection while maintaining good development principles in the communities themselves. 

My nail glam was all but gone within 48 hours- scraped and scratched off by the rigours of travel.  But even now, almost two weeks later, whenever I bite my nails I can taste the bitter chemical tang of the polish.  And that’s not all.  Whenever my mind begins to flash through the vast landscape of need we wandered in our short stay in India, as it’s prone to do whenever my heart sinks and my mind darkens, I gently pull myself back to those moments:  the concentration of my beauty therapists, Jem and Brydie dancing with the children, Doug playing cricket, Arjun patiently teaching me his name and throwing his arm around Raoul for yet another photo, Lata quietly beckoning me to follow her through the crowded lane to the very end of the slum where she showed me, proudly, her one room home. 

Individual moments.  Individual people.

Life changes because of moments like these.  I can’t change the world.  But I’m sure as hell not going to turn away from it because the need is so great that I simply can’t face it.   Driving through Agra I listened to my favourite Jimmy Little album “Resonate” and once again these words lodge in my chest:

“We cannot do great things, only small things with great love.”

Here’s some small things to consider:

1.     If you’re part of a family of 4 earning a total family income of $80,000 after tax, you’re in the top 4.8% of income earners in the world, earning 18 times more than the average person.  If you gave away 10% of that income, you’d still be earning 16 times more than the average person.  Is there any chance you can give regularly, or increase your giving, to a program that will change the living conditions of someone else?  Check out http://www.givingwhatwecan.org/why-give/how-rich-you-are for more stats on giving.

2.     To find out about the program we just visited and to consider giving to it, check it out here. http://www.unitingworld.org.au/programs/relief-and-development/right-to-learn/

3.     If you sponsor a child, PLEASE make sure it’s through an Agency that does Child Centered Community Development and benefits whole communities not just individual children.  I can recommend this  https://www.baptistworldaid.org.au/what-we-do/child-sponsorship/