World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008 - (Page 35)

Are we also afraid we will look foolish and naive if we engage in something and fail? Is the issue beyond our comfort level? Fear often comes from the unknown: “I’m not really afraid of the dark, I’m just afraid of what’s in the dark.” The first step to overcoming fear can be simply discovering what we’re afraid of. Will my income drop if I help a family in Uganda? Could countless destitute people somehow come into and destabilize my world? We can all remember a time we overcame a fear to do something important, how it felt to step over the edge. It usually feels great to take a first step; we grow and feel like our life has more meaning. Ask a guide—a person or group with a like-minded desire to engage in your area of interest—to help you explore ways to get involved. I once joined a 30-hour guided tour of areas of homelessness in Atlanta. Participants were told not to shave or bathe for a couple of days before the experience, and we wore old clothes. Our guide, Ed Loring, who founded the Open Door Ministry, was well-known among many of the city’s homeless, so we had a sense of safety. We experienced the judgmental looks from strangers, were chased off a church parking lot by armed security guards and were kindly given ice water at a fast food restaurant. We went to the soup kitchens and the blood bank and spent the night sleeping on the sidewalk. The guide led us through a rich experience and helped us get to know homeless people in a new way. We can all remember a time we overcame a fear to do something important, how it felt to step over the edge. “You could never take on anything as massive and complex as global poverty. Get real! How could you possibly do anything that would help 1 or 2 billion people? Who are you? What do you know about any of this?” A cynic once said that the only way to keep hope in the world is to change its population frequently. To be sure, there is no shortage of reasons to be pessimistic. Cynicism can have two targets. A cynic may believe that people are motivated only for self-interest. No altruism exists. Or they may believe that something good can or will never happen, that only a quixotic fool would try to change the world. The cynic loves to quote this verse from Deuteronomy, “The poor you have with you always.” This is our reality; it will never change. But the cynic never finishes the passage: “Therefore I command you, you shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and the poor.” When President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he was in part showing courage and in part playing a role that events had thrust upon him, built on the shoulders of a century’s worth of unceasing work by abolitionists. But when, with the stroke of the pen millions of slaves were freed, many were surprised. Abolitionist Ralph Waldo Emerson called it something “most of us dared not hope to see.” There is a great gap between a cynic, who in Emerson’s words “can chill and dishearten with a single word,” and a believer who, like Emerson, does not dare to get his hopes too high, yet still toils year after year to accomplish the goal. Writers Frances Moore Lappé and Jeffrey Perkins say the old way of thinking is, “I’m just a drop in the bucket. My effort might make me feel better, but it can’t do much.” The new way to think is, “Every time we act, even with our fear, we make room for others to do the same. Courage is contagious.” Feeling overwhelmed by giant issues? Go to your local library, find the swath of yellow and turn to page 24 of the September 2006 issue of National Geographic. There you will see a chart showing the growth in adult literacy from 1970 to 2005. While only 51 percent of Asians could read in 1970, 78 percent can today. A larger jump took place in Africa: from 28 to 65 percent. Globally, we see a dramatic rise in the number of literate adults, from 63 to 82 percent. Increases in literacy rates usually translate into lower poverty, improved health and increased democracy. In 1970, our cynic would have looked at the low global literacy rates (and in 1830 at entrenched slavery) and said that trying to fi x this problem would be futile. Today, we say the same about global warming and www.heifer.org September/October 2008 | WORLD ARK 35 http://www.heifer.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008

World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008 Contents Letters For the Record The Good Life Asked and Answered Digging Up the Past Not a Drop to Drink Facing the Ogres of Progress Mixed Media Heifer Bulletin Heifer Spirit World Ark Market Calendar First Person

World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008

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