Take care of yourself, take care of others, take care of our planet

By Nancy Jane Moore

This morning I had a massage. I lay on a warm table in a darkened room while a strong but gentle woman kneaded all the aches and tensions from my body.

A massage can be very good for you, but in many ways it is also the ultimate indulgence. You lie there, passively, while another person focuses all of her attention on you. Her purpose is solely to relieve your pain, your stress.

This massage was all the more special because a friend of mine paid for it as a Christmas gift. He is one of my fellow students at the Aikido dojo where I train, and he gave this same gift to several of us who teach there -- a perfect present for people whose bodies are wont to use pain to point out the errors we have made in our training.

As I was lying there, I thought about the first comment posted to Pamela's post, "This I Believe: We must do more than talk; we must act." An anonymous person said:

I don't need to act or talk about politics at all. I do not have television or newspapers in my life. I used to and they made me angry and unhappy all the time.

Perhaps this sounds ironic -- I was indulging myself in a great pleasure and yet contemplating whether one should act, or at least think, politically. But I am not engaging in irony.

In truth, both taking care of oneself -- including indulging in the occasional luxury -- and acting in the larger world are important. All too often people who are committed to "saving the world" drive themselves into the ground, never taking care of themselves, never allowing themselves the joys of life. (The same is often true of people with demanding careers that don't necessarily further the needs of the world.)

Others live in a world of total indulgence. I wonder if a massage would feel so special if you could afford one every week.

Anonymous, I'm sure, does not live in total indulgence. But I would suggest that by opting out of the political affairs of her community, her nation, her world, she tends toward the indulgent side. Just because you don't know what is being done to your neighbors, or to people you never heard of, or to your planet, doesn't mean that it isn't happening. And not paying attention does not absolve you of responsibility, especially when evil or careless things are done in your name.

There is no way any one individual can do everything that needs doing in the world. And political action is not the only thing that needs doing. But everyone needs to do something to help make the world a better place.

It's a balance -- we need to take care of ourselves and we need to take care of our world. Going too far in either direction puts things out of whack.

I would challenge those who think they must save the world to make sure and leave a little time for themselves. And I would ask those who have concluded that they will only be happy if they ignore what's going on out there to open their doors just a crack and see if there's not something they can do -- write a letter or tutor a child or vote in the school board election -- to help address the problems we all face.

Find the balance. Take care of yourself and take care of our world.

If everyone did that, I bet we'd have fewer problems crying out for solutions.

This I Believe: We must do more than talk; we must act

By Pamela K. Taylor

[An In This Moment blogger, Taylor shares her insight and a link to an essay]

Last year I wrote an essay for the NPR Program, This I Believe, about the challenges of acting on deeply held, but very controversial beliefs. In my case, it was giving the sermon and leading the prayers for a mixed-gender congregation in a mosque.

The essay describes some of my decision-making process, and my conviction that we must go beyond belief in our principles, beyond writing about our belief in them, and step into activism to implement those principles.I just found out the essay was published on the This I Believe website, and can be read here.

The most salient points:

After much thought, it became clear to me that I had I no choice. I had to accept this invitation [to officiate the prayers], even if it cost me venues in which to publish, even if it meant subjecting myself to public disdain by more conservative Muslims, even if I had to endure the pangs of performance anxiety. Especially because I had to endure the pangs performance anxiety. What was the point to all my passionate writing in defense of women's rights if I refused to exercise those rights when they were offered to me? Why bother asserting women's competence in all endeavors if I shrank from demonstrating that competence in the very field where I possessed more expertise than most people? How could I expect others to step forward to enact the principles I promote, if I, the advocate, would not?

Is Barack Obama a real changemaker, or is he just a slicker-than-usual politician?

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has taken the first step toward running for president, and I am left wondering if he is for real.

Is he truly a changemaker? Can he help us break out of politics as usual? On the surface, he certainly sounds like he a true seeker after change. He knows the right things to say. For example, in yesterday's announcement that he is forming a committee to explore running for president, Obama said:

"I've been struck by how hungry we all are for a different kind of politics."

That is most decidedly an understatement.

I am starving for politics that go beyond conservative or liberal, left or right. I am starving for politicians that care more about good government than power. I am desperate for leaders who have dealt with enough of their own hang-ups to act authentically and courageously.

Is Obama such a person? I think the jury is still out, but there are some positive signs. For example, PlanetOut news reports:

In 1996, he was elected to the Illinois state Senate, where he earned a reputation as a consensus-building Democrat who was strongly liberal on social and economic issues. He supported gay rights, abortion rights, gun control, universal health care and tax breaks for the poor, but set himself apart from others by working with opponents to resolve policy disagreements and refusing to become a rubber stamp for his allies.

Those are all good signs, at least to me. However, only time will tell if Obama really is who he claims to be, and if he has the wisdom and maturity to be the leader we need.

By the way, you can watch Obama's video statement at his campaign web site.

What is a changemaker's perspective?

In my first post, I talked about how one of the regular chores of this blog will be to look at the news from a changemaker's perspective.

The next thought that popped into my head, of course, was: So, what the heck IS a changemaker's perspective?

There are several answers to that question.

1. Honestly, I have no frigging idea. You do realize, don't you, that I'm making this up as I go along.

2. Different folks will probably have different, and equally valid, ideas about such a perspective. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the subject.

3. Given that I've assigned this task to myself, though, I really do have to make a first attempt to define the phrase. Thus, my first, best guess is that a changemaker would view the top stories of the day with a skeptical eye and would ask herself the following.

• Is the lead -- the angle or theme -- of the story what's really happening, or is the true story being missed?
• What questions should have been asked, but weren't?
• What is the frame of the story, and is that the only way to think about whatever events are being reported?
• Is this the most important news of the day, or is the real top story being missed?
• Based on the information in this story, should I take action? If so, what should or can I do?

Am I on target? Do I have rocks in my head? What do you think?

The problem with water, & why I started this blog

We are all fish.

Some of us are little fish, darting past the lumbering giants known as corporations, the government, the military. Sometimes we attach ourselves to one of those giants in the hope of nibbling enough off of them to survive. Sometimes we fend for ourselves, flitting here and there to glean what we can.

But some of us are the giants. We are the political leaders, the CEOs, the vice presidents, the generals, the executive editors and big-time journalists, the middle managers climbing the corporate ladder.

A tiny few of us are even the hated CEOs who lead our companies to failure, but take hundreds of millions of dollars with us when we leave. We are the people with the power – the presidents, both Republican and Democrat; the speakers of many houses of many state legislatures, not to mention the fact that some of us are the leaders of Congress.

All of us, though, no matter how powerful, are struggling. We may succeed, but never quite the way we want. Often, we don’t even get close to doing what we set out to do when we were idealistic youngsters. Even worse, we may well decide that idealism is suited only for children.

As practical adults, we give up the idea that we can live in a society where all can get a fair deal and all can live an authentic life. It’s simply the way it is, we think, that some are poor, some are desperate, some are second-class citizens and many (most?) of us are struggling to put meaning into lives that seem to be without purpose or connection.

We accept limits. We make our paychecks.

We live in such a way that we know we’re poisoning the world, yet we can’t figure out how to stop. We know about the genocides (Darfur today; where else tomorrow?). We know about war and death and dismemberment (Iraq today; where else the day after?). We know about terrorism ( New York and DC on 9/11, Madrid and London after that; where else next?) We know about torture. (Guantanamo Bay today; where else next month?) What can we do, though? We yearn to break free, but our lives are constrained by the water we swim in.

We believe the problem isn’t the water itself, but our closeness to it. As metaphorical fish, all we truly know is water. Day in, day out, we swim round and round in our culture, and even though we feel constrained and yearn for something different, we can’t fully imagine what that other thing could be. Because we are immersed in our culture, we can’t get enough perspective to see how to create the change we all need.

That’s why I created this blog. Call it the audacity of a lowly fish who wants to see what the ocean really looks like.

This blog is an attempt to leap straight out of the water of our culture and to look around. By doing so, I hope Becoming The Change will provide the perspective us dreamers so desperately need, along with giving us a safe haven where we can discuss ideas, tactics, frustrations and successes.

Becoming the Change will:

• Review the news from a changemaker’s perspective;
• Provide resources on political issues and links to organizations and individuals engaged in creating change;
• Provide a forum for discussion.

Among the topics this blog will tackle are:

• Changing Politics (How can our civic life be transformed so that it is fair and representative of all the people?)
• Changing the News Media (How can journalism morph itself so that citizens get a more complete and accurate view of our culture?)
• Changing Ourselves (How can we learn to step beyond our own fears and issues? How can we participate in civic culture in a constructive and effective way?)

Read. Comment. Email me your thoughts.

Right now, I will be the primary blogger at Becoming The Change. Writer and attorney Nancy Jane Moore, a woman of perspective and great humor, will post periodically.

I'm also looking for other bloggers to help with this project. If you want to get involved, please email me directly at hopeandpolitics@yahoo.com.

As many of you may know, I’ve been blogging for more than a year now at a little place called In This Moment. I intend to continue to keep In This Moment going. Now, though, that blog will include links to posts on Becoming The Change, as well as In This Moment originals.