Favorite Lyrics #2: Cry of a Tiny Babe

Mary grows a child without the help of a man
Joseph get upset because he doesn't understand
Angel comes to Joseph in a powerful dream
Says "God did this and you're part of his scheme"
Joseph comes to Mary with his hat in his hand
Says "forgive me I thought you'd been with some other man"
She says "what if I had been - but I wasn't anyway and guess what
I felt the baby kick today"

Like a stone on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe

The child is born in the fullness of time
Three wise astrologers take note of the signs
Come to pay their respects to the fragile little king
Get pretty close to wrecking everything
'Cause the governing body of the whole [Holy] land
Is that of Herod, a paranoid man
Who when he hears there's a baby born King of the Jews
Sends death squads to kill all male children under two
But that same bright angel warns the parents in a dream
And they head out for the border and get away clean

Like a stone on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe

There are others who know about this miracle birth
The humblest of people catch a glimpse of their worth
For it isn't to the palace that the Christ child comes
But to shepherds and street people, hookers and bums
And the message is clear if you've got [you have] ears to hear
That forgiveness is given for your guilt and your fear
It's a Christmas gift [that] you don't have to buy
There's a future shining in a baby's eyes

Like a stone on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe

- Bruce Cockburn

Favorite Lyrics #1: Ain't No Grave

There ain't no grave that can hold my body down.
There ain't no grave can hold my body down.

When I hear that trumpet sound I'm gonna rise right outta the ground
aint' no grave that can hold my body down.

Well look way down the river and what do you think I see?
I see a band of angels and they're coming after me.

There ain't no grave that can hold my body down.
There ain't no grave can hold my body down.

Well look down yonder Gabriel put your feet on the land and sea.
But Gabriel don't you blow your trumpet ‘til you hear from me.

There ain't no grave that can hold my body down
ain't no grave can hold my body down.

Well meet me Jesus meet me meet me in the middle of the air
and if these wings don’t fail me, I will meet you anywhere.

There ain't no grave that can hold my body down.
There ain't no grave can hold my body down.

Well meet me mother and father meet me down a river road
and mama you know that I’ll be there when I check in my load.

There ain't no grave that can hold my body down
There ain't no grave can hold my body down

There ain't no grave can hold my body down

- Johnny Cash

The Life You Can Save - Part 2

So it's been a really busy month and I finally got around to finishing The Life You Can Save just a couple of nights ago. As I said in my last post, this is definitely a challenging book that will make you think about how far you will go - how far you should go - to help someone living in poverty. In the end, author Peter Singer suggests a simple and easily achievable standard of giving that would raise above and beyond what experts say is required to end extreme poverty.

In a nutshell, Singer suggests that those living in developed countries who earn up to $100,000 should give 1% of their income. Those who earn greater than $100,000 should give 5% of their income. Not only is this doable, but it would hardly be noticeable in our day-to-day standard of living. If everyone did this, we would be able to tackle global poverty in a serious way. But therein lies the catch...everyone has to participate. Everyone has to find the will to give. Everyone has to be moved to the point where they will give up their hard-earned money, money that they "deserve", in order to help someone else who is struggling for their next meal. Do we really have a responsibility to help someone in need...someone we've never met in a country we've never visited or maybe even heard of? Watch this video, visit the website, then decide for yourself.

The Life You Can Save

I'm reading through The Life You Can Save, a book by Peter Singer, professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. With a pedigree like that you'd think this would be a difficult book to muddle through. In fact, the opposite is true. Singer makes fairly simple but airtight arguments for why each of us in rich countries like Canada, the U.S., etc. need to be giving to help those living in poverty in developing nations.

Singer does not pull any punches and causes me to question my own commitment to "the cause." Here's a few examples for you...

"Now think about your own situation. By donating a relatively small amount of money, you could save a child's life. Maybe it takes more than the amount needed to buy a pair of shoes-but we all spend money on things we don't really need, whether on drinks, meals out, clothing, movies, concerts, vacations, new cars, or house renovation. Is it possible that by choosing to spend your money on such things rather than contributing to an aid agency, you are leaving a child to die, a child you could have saved?" (Pg. 5)

"When we spend our surplus on concerts or fashionable shoes, on fine dining and good wines, or on holidays in faraway lands, we are doing something wrong." (Pg. 18)

Commenting on faith traditions that prioritize care of the poor...

"Thomas Aquinas...also cited the Decretum Gratiani, a twelfth-century compilation of canon law that contains the powerful statement, 'The bread which you withhold belongs to the hungry; the clothing you shut away, to the naked; and the money you bury in the earth is the redemption and freedom of the penniless.' Note that 'owed' and 'belongs.' For these Christians, sharing our surplus wealth with the poor is not a matter of charity, but of our duty and their rights." (Pg. 20)

Singer is no raving extremist calling us to mindlessly give everything away. He is very careful to note that our giving need not be to the extent that it hurts our own children and families, however, he is, to this point in the book at least, making a strong case for giving all that we would spend on our own extravagances (bottled water, excess clothing, vacations, etc.) to aid agencies with the expertise to put it to good use.

If you question whether we in wealthy countries have a responsibility to care for the poor around the world, I suggest you read The Life You Can Save. Singer will address your objections and at very least, cause you to question your own "goodness" in relation to what you are doing to help people in developing countries. I know he's making me ask some serious questions of my own life.

Ecuador: Life At It's Purest

The video below, produced by the Ecuadorian ministry of tourism, will give you a great overview of the beauty of Ecuador and its diverse cultural traditions. As much as I love seeing these images as a reminder of my time there, it ignores completely the struggles of the indigenous peoples who live in poverty in rural areas outside of the main cities. Of course, that's to be expected in a video intended to entice tourists to visit, but it was in those communities where I genuinely fell in love with the country and her people.

Just as we often do with homeless folks here in Canada, the poor get swept under the rug in an attempt to make things "prettier" when in fact, true beauty is found in the faces of the children who live in these communities. A zipline over the rainforest will take your breath away but a hug from an impoverished child will steal your heart.

Reflections on Ecuador

It's been a week since I arrived home from Ecuador, tired after a long day of travel but feeling totally exhilarated. Below are just a few thoughts that have occurred to me over the past week as I've had some time to reflect on my trip from both a personal and a professional basis. Some are lessons learned, others are just observations.

1. Canada can be an isolating place. We are much less likely to speak to a stranger (or even a neighbour.) I miss living life with people - the colleagues who became friends, the fellow travelers on journeys of their own, and all of the wonderful Ecuadorian people we met along the way.

2. Be bold. Put yourself out there. Try something new. Take chances. Live out loud. You won't regret it.

3. We make our lives way too complicated in Canada. Just enjoy and embrace simplicity.

4. The solutions to "stupid" poverty do not always have to be difficult or expensive.

5. The poor are not below us and they are not waiting for a handout. They are simply fellow human beings trying to get by, just like you and me.

6. Silence, and the silence of nature is an amazing thing. My life in Canada is way too loud.

7. Satan controls institutional religion and keeps people living in darkness and fear. More Jesus, less religions tradition.

8. "They" are poor in material things. "We" are poor in freedom and joy.

9. Spiritual forces are far closer to the surface outside of North America. We just don't pay attention here.

10. When you see what a difference a little help makes, how can you not give more?

I Have A Dream

Forty-seven years ago today, Martin Luther King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington D.C. It remains today one of the most significant speeches of all-time and continues to inspire me every time I hear it. The full text of the speech is copied below but I suggest you watch the video at the bottom to get the full power of MLK's words from the man himself.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."2

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Finally Home

After 24 hours of travel I arrived home Sunday morning close to 3:00 AM. I crawled into bed and slept until 10:45 which is the most sleep I've had in one night since leaving almost two weeks ago. The flights went mostly okay, except for two delays in Miami and my luggage getting stranded in Bogota. It's been found and should arrive at my door sometime later this week.

Thanks for coming along on this journey, both the incredible days with World Vision visiting communities in rural Equador as well as the adventures afterwards. Both weeks have changed me in so many ways that I'm finding it difficult to articulate right now. Come back again in a few days when I've had a chance to do some reflecting for an update on just what kind of an impact this journey has had. I hope it's impacted you as well and welcome your comments either on the blog or via email. I look forward to hearing from you and connecting again soon.

Have I got a story to tell you...

Chau Quito!

So, I'm up ridiculously early after less than three hours of sleep. Danny and I hung out in La Ronda one last time last night after having a McNifica at McDonald's just beside our hotel. I know, I know...but we just had to see what was different on the menu.

La Ronda was packed out tonight with everyone having a good time sipping their canazalo and listening to the live music pouring out of the little restaurants. We got a bit of the rock star treatment again (actually, Danny gets the rock star treatment; I get more of the rock star's manager treatment - think of him as Bono and me as Paul McGuiness) as a couple of blonde haired gringos in Ecuador and just generally soaked in the moment before leaving for the final time.

I'm off for the shuttle now for a flight from Quito to Bogota, another from Bogota to Fort Lauderdale, a bus to Miami, and finally a flight from Miami to Toronto. Assuming everything is on-time I should be home around 1:00 AM.

Catch ya' later!

For complete photos from the journey click here.

The Last Day...For Real This Time

I spent most of the day hanging out at the hotel today waiting to hear from Avianca about flight arrangements home. I'll be leaving tomorrow morning at 6:20 AM which means I have to be in the lobby at 4:00 AM for the shuttle to the airport. It's gonna be a loooooooong day.

I suppose most people would consider this a beautiful hotel but after what I've seen over the past couple of weeks I think my idea of beauty has been forever changed. I used to live for big, impressive hotels like this but right now I'd rather be in a little hostel in Mindo or playing with some kids in the dirty streets of a rural ADP community. That is real beauty. This is just a facade. I've been trying to live a simpler life over the past few years but after visiting here I'm longing for it in a deep, profound way. Perhaps I'll change my mind the next time an opportunity comes around, but as of right now, I can't imagine going on another resort/cruise vacation. Give me this simple life and let me live.

For complete photos from the journey click here.

NOT Heading Home Today

Well, well, well...some wishes do come true! Looks like I'm staying in Quito for another couple of days. The Avianca flight Michelle and I were on was cancelled tonight 30 minutes after we had already boarded the plane (mechanical issues of some kind.) Danny got bumped from his Delta flight as well, but Autumn managed to fly out.

The airline is putting us up in the Hilton Colon hotel all expenses paid until we can be rescheduled. As Danny would put it, I "put myself out there" and sat with a couple of Ecuadorian folks (who now live in Toronto) for supper once we arrived back at the Hilton. It was great to share with them why I was in Ecuador and how much I loved their country. I was really touched when a kind gentleman named Mike thanked me for helping the children of Ecuador. As if I didn't already know it, comments like that remind me that I have the best job in the world.

Off to bed now. Who knows what tomorrow will bring...

For complete photos from the journey click here.

Heading Home Today

Today was a bit mellow as I think it was starting to sink in that we were not only leaving Ecuador, but also heading our own separate ways once we arrive in Canada. It has been a great two weeks shared with some incredible people who have been part of a life changing experience. I'm leaving Ecuador full of love and full of life. Everyone I've been traveling with has played a part in making this trip better than I could have ever imagined. It will be hard to say goodbye tonight.

We went to the Quito market again to pick up a few last-minute souvenirs then over to La Ronda one last time to have lunch and hang out at the hostel where the other half of the group was staying. The rain started pouring down as Autumn, Danny, and I ducked into a little cafe for hot chocolate and coffee, matching the sadness that I (and I suspect everyone else) was feeling.

It's a little difficult to process these emotions right now. I know my family is back home in Canada, and I miss them terribly, but at the same time, I have a new bond with these friends and will miss seeing them every morning...miss the laughter, the discussions, the adventures, the loud moments and the quiet times we've shared. I'll even miss Danny saying, "Hey Brad, take a picture for me!"

Another two hours until it's time to head out. If I have a chance I'll update again. If not, Toronto here I come...

For complete photos from the journey click here.