1000 Voices For Change

In a TED Talks lecture posted June, 2008, artist Chris Jordan positions a few cultural statistics that are shocking to most people - in both scale and impact - into a unique pictorial perspective. As he explains the statistics behind each design, Jordan also weaves in just enough commentary to acquaint us with his motivation for seeing and conveying those realities in the way that he has.

As he puts it:

"We can't make meaning out of these enormous statistics. And so that's what I'm trying to do with my work, is to take these numbers, these statistics from the raw language of data, and to translate them into a more universal visual language, that can be felt."

"Because my belief is, if we can feel these issues, if we can feel these things more deeply, then they'll matter to us more than they do now. And if we can find that, then we'll be able to find within each one of us what it is that we need to find to face the big question, which is: How do we change? That, to me, is the big question that we face as a people right now: How do we change? How do we change as a culture, and how do we each individually take responsibility for the one piece of the solution that we are in charge of, and that is our own behavior?"

And so rather than sermonizing about what steps should be taken, by when, etc., Jordan re-frames the questions around the statistics that he shares so that each person can own what it means - or doesn't mean - individually.

"My belief is that you don't have to make yourself bad to look at these issues. I'm not pointing the finger at America in a blaming way. I'm simply saying, this is who we are right now. And if there are things that we see that we don't like about our culture, then we have a choice."

"The degree of integrity that each of us can bring to the surface, to bring to this question, the depth of character that we can summon as we show up for the question of how do we change. It's already defining us as individuals and as a nation, and it will continue to do that on into the future. And it will profoundly affect the well-being, the quality of life, of the billions of people who are going to inherit the results of our decisions. I'm not speaking abstractly about this, I'm speaking -- this is who we are in this room. Right now in this moment."

A personal note this time ...

Among the things I remember my mother saying to my siblings and me when we were younger: "time will pass, and then reveal the fruit of what you've chosen today".

Even though there were times when I only lightly-regarded the power behind this truth, I did remember it. Especially the illustration she retold with this advice, taken from a commencement speaker's address to her high school graduating class. Here's the way I remember it:

"You're standing on the shore of the lake, watching helplessly as your friend struggles to return to the shore. You can clearly see that he is in danger of drowning. But you can't go in to rescue him. Because you do not know how to swim. The question: is your friend's current peril the real moment of crisis? Or was it long ago when you had the opportunity to learn to swim, and chose not to do so?"

When, indeed.

A month from now another page on the calendar will have turned. No matter what. Good time to remember: choices are in front of us today that can make a difference in our health, our well-being, our financial picture, our relationships. Don't go too fast to recognize the choices that will prove to be the big difference-makers. Watch for them before the passage of time reveals how important they were.

From small, visionary beginnings in his native Bangladesh, Muhummad Yunus has consistently devoted his labors and voice to a single, daunting goal: "the total eradication of poverty from the world."

Yunus received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2006 in connection with his success with the Grameen Bank and Foundation programs for microcredit and "social business model" development. His work is now viewed as ground-breaking, and a model that has been duplicated in many settings where long-standing poverty had been thought to be insurmountable. Both government policy and charitable program strategies have been impacted by Professor Yunus' work.

Through his Yunus Centre organization, a central source of research and case information is available to individuals and organizations who join the work to eradicate poverty. As Yunus puts it, "Grameen is a message of hope, a program for putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long".

From the Yunus Centre web site:

"Credit is the last hope left to those faced with absolute poverty. That is why Muhammad Yunus believes that the right to credit should be recognized as a fundamental human right."

"This work is a fundamental rethink on the economic relationship between the rich and the poor, their rights and their obligations. The World Bank recently acknowledged that 'this business approach to the alleviation of poverty has allowed millions of individuals to work their way out of poverty with dignity."

See YouTube clip library below for a recent presentation by Professor Yunus on the "social business model" concept. And the resources list for a link to Yunus' widely-read book, Creating A World Without Poverty.

A family member told me be about a report she had written that centered on the work of community art pioneer and social activist, Judy Baca. A founder of Los Angeles-based Social and Public Art Resource Center, Baca joined in the early 1970's a succession of muralists and public art pioneers in southern California who used the medium of concrete barriers, walls, and other structures to give voice to people and perspectives that usually had no voice.

Although the art itself may not always make a case for specific social change on a current issue, it is never created without a sense of social impact. From the SPARC web site, Baca says:

"I really don't want to produce artwork that does not have meaning beyond simple decorative values. I want to use public space to create a public voice, and a public consciousness about the presence of people who are, in fact, the majority of the population but who are not represented in any visual way. By telling their stories we are giving voice to the voiceless and visualizing the whole of the American story."

The organization that Baca helped launch is expanding its impact on social awareness and civic change beyond the immediate Los Angeles area, to facilitate similar projects in other US and international communities. SPARC is now approaching it's 4th decade of pursuing it's mission:

"SPARC espouses public art as an organizing tool for addressing contemporary issues, fostering cross-cultural understanding and promoting civic dialogue. Working within this philosophical framework, over the last twenty-eight years SPARC has created murals and other forms of public art in communities throughout Los Angeles and increasingly in national and international venues."

"Underlying all of our activities is the profound conviction that the voices of our disenfranchised communities need to be heard and that our preservation of the commons is critical to creation of a civil society. SPARC has concentrated on using the creative process associated with the production of works of monumental proportions to develop models for the transformation of both physical environments and social environments in public spaces."

Think about what social message might be positively conveyed in your community the next time you see an unpainted expanse of concrete!

This item is courtesy of 'guest suggestor' Aaron, as it apparently fell into one of those gaps in my popular music history I have for the decade of the 80's. (Maybe more on "how come that is" at another time!)

But I appreciated that Aaron appreciated it as we talked about the theme of change. And that this tune involved a long-lived group that I liked in their earlier period, and that spanned Aaron's time and mine.

Reading the lyrics and listening to the live performance clip here, I was freshly moved by the message: "Just a world that we all must share. It's not enough just to stand and stare. Is it only a dream that there'll be no more turning away?"

On the turning away from the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say which we won't understand
Don't accept that what's happening is just a case of others' suffering
Or you'll find that you're joining in the turning away

It's a sin that somehow light is changing to shadow
And casting it's shroud over all we have known
Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we're all alone
In the dream of the proud

On the wings of the night as the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite in a silent accord
Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerized as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change on the wings of the night

No more turning away from the weak and the weary
No more turning away from the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
It's not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be no more turning away?

A family member sent 'round a link to a YouTube clip (see the "Media of a 1000 voices" section near the bottom of this Lens) of a moving performance of this oft-recorded song produced by Playing For Change Foundation. PFCF's mission: "... connecting the world through music by providing resources for musicians and their communities around the world."

Always loved the song, but this endeavor gave an even more moving dimension to the lyric message and performance.

When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

And darlin', darlin', stand by me, oh now now stand by me
Stand by me, stand by me

If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
And the mountains should crumble to the sea
I won't cry, I won't cry, no I won't shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

And darlin', darlin', stand by me, oh stand by me
Stand by me, stand by me, stand by me-e, yeah

Whenever you're in trouble won't you stand by me, oh now now stand by me
Oh stand by me, stand by me, stand by me

Darlin', darlin', stand by me-e, stand by me
Oh stand by me, stand by me, stand by me

This tune enjoyed significant radio play following its release in 2003, as high as no. 7 on the radio charts. While the lyrics could be considered to raise a question more than making a case, the arrangement grows on you. As does the question if you listen: aren't we meant to live for so much more?

Fumbling his confidence
And wondering why the world has passed him by
Hoping that he's bent for more than arguments
And failed attempts to fly, fly

[Chorus]
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside, somewhere we live inside
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside

Dreaming about Providence
And whether mice or men have second tries
Maybe we've been living with eyes half open
Maybe we're bent and broken, broken

[Chorus]

We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than the wars of our fathers
And everything inside screams for second life, yeah

We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
(repeat)

We were meant to live, we were meant to live

"Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken."

Skipping the book report context for the usual comments on this passage from Frank Herbert's sci-fi classic, Dune, there is something that is striking in a stand-alone way about these two sentences. Something quite beyond who spoke them in the book itself, or even that it came from a work of science fiction.

There is no need to embrace a mystical spin on the quote to slip into contemplation about what it might mean personally. If I see areas where I'm on auto-pilot, numb to higher opportunity or growth because the status quo is a lower-effort path, I might need to look over my shoulder and wonder if a fork in the road was missed.

And then start watching for the next one. Making the most of my power of choice. The cost of wasting it is much too high.

Before there was a Barack Obama campaign slogan, there was this upbeat musical admonition of what is possible. And judging by the amount of radio play it has received over 35 years, it struck a chord with lots of us.

Setting the wayback machine to 1973, we have the top-40 toe-tapper recorded by The Pointer Sisters, "Yes We Can Can". Funk with a timeless message.

Let's hear it for the 70's.

Now's the time for all good men
to get together with one another.
We got to iron out our problems
and iron out our quarrels
and try to live as brothers.

And try to find a piece of land
without stepping on one another.
And do respect the women of the world.
Remember you all have mothers.

We got to make this land a better land
than the world in which we live.
And we got to help each man be a better man
with the kindness that we give.

I know we can make it.
I know darn well we can work it out.
Oh yes we can, I know we can can
Yes we can can, why can't we?
If we wanna get together we can work it out.

And we gotta take care of all the children,
the little children of the world.
'cause they're our strongest hope for the future,
the little bitty boys and girls.

We got to make this land a better land
than the world in which we live.
And we got to help each man be a better man
with the kindness that we give.

I know we can make it.
I know darn well we can work it out.
Oh yes we can, I know we can can
yes we can can, why can't we?
If we wanna, yes we can can.

I'm not offering a review of the author's book from which this excerpt is taken. But I've seen this anecdote referred to here and there several times, and quoted by John Assaraf in some of his material on neural conditioning and goal achievement.

In this context it works well with the oft-quoted truism (attributed to everyone from Ben Franklin, to Albert Einstein, to Rita Mae Brown):

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.

Stuck in any loops that you need to break out of?

I'm sitting in a quiet room at the Milcroft Inn, a peaceful little place hidden back among the pine trees about an hour out of Toronto. It's just past noon, late July, and I'm listening to the desperate sounds of a life-or-death struggle going on a few feet away.

There's a small fly burning out the last of its short life's energies in a futile attempt to fly through the glass of the windowpane. The whining wings tell the poignant story of the fly's strategy: Try harder. But it's not working.

The frenzied effort offers no hope for survival. Ironically, the struggle is part of the trap. It is impossible for the fly to try hard enough to succeed at breaking through the glass. Nevertheless, this little insect has staked its life on reaching its goal through raw effort and determination. This fly is doomed. It will die there on the windowsill.

Across the room, ten steps away, the door is open. Ten seconds of flying time and this small creature could reach the outside world it seeks. With only a fraction of the effort now being wasted, it could be free of this self-imposed trap. The breakthrough possibility is there. It would be so easy. Why doesn't the fly try another approach, something dramatically different? How did it get so locked in on the idea that this particular route and determined effort offer the most promise for success? What logic is there in continuing until death to seek a breakthrough with more of the same? No doubt this approach makes sense to the fly. Regrettably, it's an idea that will kill.

Trying harder isn't necessarily the solution to achieving more. It may not offer any real promise for getting what you want out of life. Sometimes, in fact, it's a big part of the problem. If you stake your hopes for a breakthrough on trying harder than ever, you may kill your chances for success.

I have no personal background on this author, Deb Pleasants, who describes herself as a St. Paul probation officer with an interest in writing. I just liked this poem when I came across it on a search for something else.

Deb's motto is from Ghandi:
"Be the change you want to see in the world."

I have a set of crayons
That I purchased for my son.
They're called People Color Crayons,
With more choices than just one.

And when I look at these crayons
I can't help but imagine how
Our country would be so much better
With more choices than we have now.

The term black, which is often used
Simply does not apply.
Instead I'd rather call myself fawn,
While I look you in the eye.

My husband who is told he's white
Can freely declare to you
That he's actually the color melon
Something not many people knew.

Our handsome and intelligent son
Could then stand up and boast
That he's proud his skin color looks
More like a slice of toast.

Now imagine our new way of thinking
Extended well beyond us three
To every man, woman and child
How liberating that would be.

Some might say they're peach or maize
Others sable, spice or taupe.
With so many colors we quickly learn
Our titles are too narrow in scope.

Now imagine our government leaders
Forced to finally hear our cry
Must publicly admit to everyone
That race was just a lie.

It was created by our fore-fathers
To justify their greed
And plagues our nation to this day
Oppressing those in need.

Our nationwide protest means
We no longer follow the norm
Of being lumped in obsolete categories
On a government census form.

No longer trapped in little boxes
We see each other as peers.
Instead of letting a thin layer of pigment
Dictate all of our fears.

Can a simple pack of crayons
Help create a better country?
I believe a change can happen
And I'll have it begin with me.

Diligence comes in many forms. And not always without a price - when it comes to a course that needs changing.

From personal choices, to family, to community, to country, we cannot relish for long the blessings we enjoy without exercising diligence in safeguarding them. Here are some thoughts about our responsibility to watch, and to act, where our civic institutions are concerned. They usually start from a noble purpose. But because of how humans are wired they tend not to stay there on their own.

The pages of comics and graphic novels have provided their share of pop wisdom in recent decades. But thanks to the popular 2002 film, "Spiderman", you don't even have to be a well-read comic fan to be familiar with Peter Parker's (alias Spiderman) uncle's famous line: "With great power comes great responsibility."

In that vein here is one of the most-quoted lines from "V For Vendetta", a comic series originally written in the mid-1980's by Alan Moore and David Lloyd in the UK. This line also served as a tag line for the 2006 film adaption with Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman.

"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V

If you're familiar with the series or film, you may not identify with the edgy, provocative elements in the story having to do with violent revolution against obvious tyranny. But I believe the diligence message sticks out, even if you downplay the rest as merely effective ingredients of successful action fiction.

One source describes V's line as a paraphrase of a similar statement made by James Madison in the early days of the United States. But this excerpt from Madison's 1788 speech at the Virginia convention considering the ratification of the federal Constitution is in the same spirit. More than 200 years later, our diligence in this area is still required!

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations." James Madison

The spirit of this admonition from the author of the book of Isaiah transcends the time and place in which it was first written.

It also reaches me beyond the Hebrew cultural setting which part of it refers to, such as wearing black and the routine practice of fasting rituals. And thus tugs me past the place I might otherwise settle - the place of mere religious pattern - saying you are the measure of what you do regarding the 'least of these' that are around you.

Isaiah 58:1-8, The Message

Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back - a trumpet-blast shout!

Tell my people what's wrong with their lives, face my family Jacob with their sins! They're busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me. To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people - law-abiding, God-honoring.

They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?' and love having me on their side. But they also complain, 'Why do we fast and you don't look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?'

Well, here's why:

The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit. You drive your employees much too hard. You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist. The kind of fasting you do won't get your prayers off the ground.

Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after: a day to show off humility? To put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black? Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, God, would like?

This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts.

What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.

Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage.

Then when you pray, God will answer. You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'

I'm not a fan of all things Michael Jackson, but this song was so arresting lyrically, along with the usual high-impact arrangements, that it's easy to see why it was a chart-topper at the time. I think of this tune more than some of his more prominent mega-hits when I'm reminiscing about his life and career.

And watching the clip of his performance of "Man In The Mirror" at the 1988 Grammy Awards, it's hard not to think of what might have been if he had pulled back from whatever personal cliff-edge he slipped over and forever changed the public perception of who he is.

Not all change brings what we'd like, eh?

"Man In The Mirror"

I'm Gonna Make A Change,
For Once In My Life
It's Gonna Feel Real Good,
Gonna Make A Difference
Gonna Make It Right . . .

As I Turn Up The Collar
On My Favorite Winter Coat
This Wind Is Blowin' My Mind
I See The Kids In The Street,
With Not Enough To Eat
Who Am I, To Be Blind?
Pretending Not To See Their Needs
A Summer's Disregard,
A Broken Bottle Top
And A One Man's Soul
They Follow Each Other
On The Wind Ya' Know
'Cause They Got Nowhere To Go
That's Why I Want You To Know

I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
Take A Look At Yourself,
And Then Make A Change

I've Been A Victim Of A Selfish Kind Of Love
It's Time That I Realize
That There Are Some With No Home,
Not A Nickel To Loan
Could It Be Really Me,
Pretending That They're Not Alone?

A Willow Deeply Scarred,
Somebody's Broken Heart
And A Washed-Out Dream
They Follow The Pattern Of The Wind, Ya' See
Cause They Got No Place To Be
That's Why I'm Starting With Me

From Collective Soul debut album, "Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid"

The walls came up as the thoughts went down
To the hush of disparity
Sure we know the problem lies
With some insecurities

But we'll never see eye to eye
As long as our tongues are tied
And we'll never be seen as one
Until we find love

In a moment it could happen
We could wake up and be laughing
In a moment it could happen
We could forgive and be happy

It's a shame our world responds to life
As a puzzle in disguise
I wish our course would lead us towards
The peace and loving kind
But we'll never walk hand in hand
Until we let old wounds mend
And we'll never sing songs as one
Until we find love

In a moment it could happen
We could wake up and be laughing
In a moment it could happen
We could forgive and be happy

In a moment some wisdom could be learned
In a moment new voices could be heard
In a moment we could make heads turn
In a moment we could change

Listening to the audio version of The Fourth Turning several years after its 1997 publication, it was shocking to see how much it accurately described things that had emerged in the mid-2000's, which would have been predictions or projections at the time of its writing.

A sobering look at the cyclical nature of history through the events in America since its founding. It also offers a unique and hopeful view of the immediate choices that are upon us right now.

These excerpts don't do the book justice. Dare you to read the whole thing.

Excerpt, "Winter Is Coming"

America feels like it's unraveling.

Though we live in an era of relative peace and comfort, we have settled into a mood of pessimism about the long-term future, fearful that our superpower nation is somehow rotting from within.

Neither an epic victory over Communism nor an extended upswing of the business cycle can buoy our public spirit. The Cold War and New Deal struggles are plainly over, but we are of no mind to bask in their successes.

The America of today feels worse, in its fundamentals, than the one many of us remember from youth, a society presided over by those of supposedly lesser consciousness. Wherever we look, from L.A. to D.C., from Oklahoma City to Sun City, we see paths to a foreboding future. We yearn for civic character but satisfy ourselves with symbolic gestures and celebrity circuses. We perceive no greatness in our leaders, a new meanness in ourselves. Small wonder that each new election brings a new jolt, its aftermath a new disappointment.

Excerpt, "The Eternal Return"

The Fourth Turning could spare modernity but mark the end of our nation. It could close the book on the political constitution, popular culture, and moral standing that the word America has come to signify. This nation has endured for three saecula; Rome lasted twelve, Etruria ten, the Soviet Union (perhaps) only one. Fourth Turnings are critical thresholds for national survival. Each of the last three American Crises produced moments of extreme danger: In the Revolution, the very birth of the republic hung by a thread in more than one battle. In the Civil War, the union barely survived a four-year slaughter that in its own time was regarded as the most horrible war in history. In World War II, the nation destroyed an enemy of democracy that for a time was winning; had the enemy won, America might have itself been destroyed. In all likelihood, the next Crisis will present the nation with a threat and a consequence on a similar scale.

Or the Fourth Turning could simply mark the end of the Millennial Saeculum. Mankind, modernity, and America would all persevere. Afterward, there would be a new mood, a new High, and a new saeculum. America would be reborn. But, reborn, it would not be the same.

The new saeculum could find America a worse place. As Paul Kennedy has warned, it might no longer be a "great power." Its global stature might be eclipsed by foreign rivals. Its geography might be smaller, its culture less dominant, its military less effective, its government less democratic, its Constitution less inspiring. Emerging from its millennial chrysalis, it might evoke nothing like the hope and respect of its "American Century" forbear. Abroad, people of goodwill and civilized taste might perceive this society as a newly dangerous place. Or they might see it as decayed, antiquated, an Old New World less central to human progress than we now are. All this is plausible, and possible, in the natural turning of saecular time.

Alternatively, the new saeculum could find America, and the world, a much better place. Like England in the Reformation Saeculum, the Superpower America of the Millennial Saeculum might merely be a prelude to a higher plane of civilization. Its new civic life might more nearly resemble that "shining city on a hill" to which its colonial ancestors aspired. Its ecology might be freshly repaired and newly sustainable, its economy rejuvenated, its politics functional and fair, its media elevated in tone, its culture creative and uplifting, its gender and race relations improved, its commonalities embraced and differences accepted, its institutions free of the corruptions that today seem entrenched beyond correction. People might enjoy new realms of personal, family, community, and national fulfillment. America's borders might be redrawn around an altered but more cogent geography of public community. Its influence on world peace could be more potent, on world culture more uplifting. All this is achievable as well.

I like a lot of Ben Harper's music, but I wasn't familiar with this 2006 song until it had a stint as a sort of theme song for Barack Obama's campaign.

"Better Way", Ben Harper

I'm a living sunset, lightning in my bones
Push me to the edge, but my will is stone

I believe in a better way, I believe in a better way

Fools will be fools, and wise will be wise
But I will look this world straight in the eyes

I believe in a better way, I believe in a better way

What good is a man who won't take a stand
What good is a cynic with no better plan

I believe in a better way, I believe in a better way

Reality is sharp it cuts at me like a knife
Everyone I know is in the fight of their life

I believe in a better way, I believe in a better way

Take your face out of your hands and clear your eyes
You have a right to your dreams and don't be denied

I believe in a better way, I believe in a better way