Africa, Coffee and the morning news

I drove in early this morning (6 instead of 8:30) to the studio to help a friend by designing a poster for the australian shakuhachi festival (PDF). En route, I stopped into Starbucks. Then back in the ol' car for my 11 minute commute down to the riverwalk. NPR was talking to a Kansas senator (or rep.) who had visited the recent genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. The implication was clear: USAmericans have lost enough credibility playing in the global sandbox that we had better not send any unilateral forces in. I agree, but only assuming someone (NATO, UN, ad-hoc multi-national forces) goes in and speaks truth to this power. These Sudanese families living in refugee camps stood in contrast with my comfortable existence here in Texas (now thought of as the home to cowboy presidents). I continue to drive. In transit, the contents of my quad venti six-pump sugar-free vanilla heavy whipping cream latte were upended and splashed all over my car seat (actual empty cup featured, top left) . I managed not to get burned only because it spilled during a right-hand turn instead of a lefty. So there I was, a perfect caricature of American urban culture, me and my coffee-splattered black messenger bag in my coffee-splattered black car wearing my coffee-splattered specs and rifling through the coffee-splattered magazines and papers to see if anything was ruined. Meanwhile women in Darfur are being systematically raped by these armies. The disconnect there is real. I get into the studio and the whole server room is powered down, and I remember enough from last time that I cannot simply flip a breaker or hit a re-set button, I’ve gotta wait for our network guy to come in. And I realize how captive I feel to the net; I’m composing this on an empty Entourage page, which I’ll no doubt cut-and-paste later, after the servers get back on. Is there a real danger in the emerging church being completely hinged upon the availability of digital networks? Go ahead; Knock that straw man over.

Comments

[erik]

Hmmm...I can't quite figure out whether this post is about: i) angst that we have it good and other people have it bad and we're not doing enough about it; or ii) angst that our lives are now seemingly inextricably linked with a world that ceases to exist without a steady supply of electrons. Maybe both?

As far as i) goes, I share your angst but don't know what to do about it. I don't actually feel bad that we have a good life here in the States, because I think everyone should have a good life. I guess I do feel bad that we don't do enough to spread the wealth and the technology. But I have never been able to figure out what I should do to make that happen. The UN exists for this purpose, I thought, and I'm not a member of the UN. I elect people who are. So I may be indirectly responsible for their failure, but I don't feel a tremendous burden on my life to become an activist in this respect. I am glad there are people who do feel such a call. I feel called to raise my kids and do my job. I wonder if the Sudanese activists worry about the fact that 20 million people die each year from infectious disease, much of it viral? I don't think so, nor should they. Am I just practicing self-justifying intellectual gymnastics and turning a blind eye to the plight of the poor and the oppressed, and therefore guilty of the sins of the ancient Israelite religious leaders?

For ii), this predicament is not unique to you or I or the emerging church. It encompasses our entire society. Should we be concerned about it? I guess so. But again, what can we do? If it all stopped one day, we would adapt slowly and painfully to a simpler life, just as we have adapted slowly and painfully to a more complicated digital life. We would lose email and blogs and instantaneous porn access. We would regain time spent in family and community and long waits for things like news and commmunication. Zero sum game. No time or place or culture is any more or less capable of supporting, or repressing, a significant life, in my opinion. You can be fully human in 21st century america, or you can be fully depraved. Same goes for medieval Europe or modern sub-saharan Africa.