9/11 Reflections

My wife and I were living in Ecuador on Sept. 11, 2001. We overheard our landlady talking on the phone that morning, just bits and pieces about bombs and the United States. Because of my perspective and where I was living at the time, I assumed the US embassy in Ecuador had been bombed. So we turned on the television and watched. . .



Helplessly we watched. . .



Two US citizens living in South America, totally out of touch with their families, and their country. We knew something was changing that day, but had no idea the scope of change.

We turned on the TV in our little apartment and watched footage from CNN (the local Ecuadorian stations were pirating CNN footage and then just speaking Spanish over the top of it, so if you listened carefully you could hear the English behind the Spanish.)

We sat there in shock and just watched. It is strange to feel like you are part of the US, but not be in the US when such a traumatic event is happening. I am sure other ex-pats living abroad at the time had similar feelings.

We called our families to make sure they were ok. Everyone on the other end of the line was in shock, disbelief. So were we, but we were stuck in Ecuador.

My mom asked us if we thought we should come home "to be safe." It was kind of funny, because we want to be close and turn inwards in a situation like that. But there weren't any terrorists flying airplanes into buildings in Ecuador. We were "safer" in Cuenca, Ecuador than we would have been in the United States on that day.

After a half day of watching gut-wrenching news footage with the TV muted, we left our apartment and wandered into the center of town to grab dinner. There weren't a ton of foreigners living in Cuenca, so we always stood out and people always knew us as "that really tall American couple." As we walked into town, complete stangers (at least strangers to us) walked up to us and asked us if we were ok, if our families were ok. We were treated almost like royalty for the days following Sept. 11.

We decided to eat at a restaurant called "New York Pizza." There was even a drawing of the New York skyline on their sign and their pizza boxes that included the twin towers. The owners were Ecuadorian but had lived in New York for years and then moved back to Ecuador to open the restaurant.

As we sat there, watching more news footage (this time in English because New York Pizza had satelite television) more people came up to us and asked us how we were doing. Those that didn't come right up to us stared at us, or looked at us with sympathy and even solidarity in their eyes.

We walked back to our apartment in a daze. I don't think we had any idea what kind of a long-term impact this would have on our country, our "homeland."

We spent weeks processing it. It would occasionaly slip from our conciousness because of where we were, but then it would be brought back by seeing a paper or watching the news.

I think the first time we really "mourned" was watching one of the telethons following the attacks. It was 10 days afterwards, the "America - A Tribute to Heros" broadcast. It was showing live on every channel in Ecuador. When Neil Young began to sing "Imagine" we just cried and held each other. I still get misty-eyed thinking about that moment.

I still think Jessica and I have a little bit of a disconnect from the events of that day. I am so grateful that we shared the experience together. It would have been even tougher to suffer through it alone.

I think this is the first time I have written down my reflections of that day, where we were, and what it did to us.

My inspiration for writing this blog post was from watching a video yesterday. The first "Daily Show with John Stewart" broadcast following Sept. 11. I listened to John Stewart's reflections and began thinking about my own experience with that day.

Below is a link to the video. The first 8 minutes are amazingly profound. I hope this means as much to you as it meant to me after watching it.

http://www.bangitout.com/videos/viewvideo.php?a=1463

Water use put into perspective

I saw this and thought it was pretty amazing. It is a graphic that shows how much water we use in a day, not just through showers and flushing toilets, but the amount of freshwater resources it takes to create some of the food we eat too.

Click on the link and then click on the graphic within the link to get it to a size you can read it:
http://www.good.is/post/transparency-how-much-water-do-you-use/

Another great water org with a very similar message

Yesterday I posted about not getting paralyzed by the scope of the problems we are facing in the world. Today I got an e-mail and a video from another water org that had a very similar message. I really like what they have to say, just at the end, kick over to Healing Waters website instead of the one that they suggest. :)

Enjoy!

"I've been reading a lot lately about the psychology of enormous problems. About how people will always rush to save one child but disconnect when faced with helping thousands of children. "One death is a tragedy, a million - a statistic," we're told.

Non-profits like ours that are addressing enormous problems (a billion people without clean water) are told to make sure we don't scare people off by communicating how big the whole problem is.

Author Seth Godin recently wrote that the problem with enormity in marketing is that it doesn't work. He said "Enormity should pull at our heartstrings, but it usually shuts us down. Show us too many sick kids, unfair imprisonments or burned bodies, and you won't get a bigger donation, you'll just get averted eyes."

While all this may be true, it just seems rather boring. Visionless. I believe people want to sign up for something bigger than just one. I did.

There's a proverb in the Bible that says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." People are certainly dying all around us, but could that be because we're terrified to tackle the enormous? Because we don't have the faith to see the entire problem solved?

I can't quite see to a billion people yet, but I'm getting closer.

So in the spirit of solving enormous problems, we want to step it up this September, and serve more people. Then keep going until every single person on the planet has clean and safe drinking water.

We shot a video that explains how we want to do that through the 2009 September campaign. Please watch it, share it and act."

Overwhelmed, paralyzed, what can I do?

The title of this post captures the sentiment that I have felt at times about issues of social justice, global poverty, starvation, the water crisis and other tough stuff that tugs at my heart strings.

There are so many issues out there, that we can be paralyzed into inaction because we are so overwhelmed by the amount of saddness and suffering around us.

But know that you can make a difference, even little you. In your tiny corner of the world, you can make a difference. I use the starfish parable a lot to describe this:

One morning an elderly man was walking on a beach. A high tide the night before had washed thousands of starfish up on the beach. Now that the tide was back out and the sun was coming up, the starfish were dying in the sun. He came upon a boy surrounded by thousands and thousands of starfish. As eagerly as he could, the youngster was picking them up one at a time and throwing them back into the ocean.

Puzzled, the older man looked at the young boy and asked, "Little boy, what are you doing?"

The youth responded without looking up, "I'm trying to save these starfish, sir."

The old man chuckled aloud, and queried, "Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?"

Holding a starfish in his hand, the boy turned to the man and, gently tossing the starfish into the water, said, "It will make a difference to that one!"

Find your starfish in your own little corner of the world. For me, it is safe drinking water in Latin America. For my wife, it is teaching in urban schools. For a friend of mine, it is working in soup kitchens and homeless shelters on her time off. Each one of us knows we can't fix all the world's problems, but we each work in our own corner of the world "making a difference to that one."

The video below has a cool spin on this too (and is also pretty critical of "reality TV" which is one of my pet peeves):

Principle-Centered Planning - by Dr. John C. Maxwell

Below is an e-mail that was sent to me by JJ Gomez, Healing Waters/Aguas de Unidad National Director in the Dominican Republic. I think it has a lot of value in both planning for an organization and planning personally in our live, so I decided to share it on my blog.

I have been asked to serve as the part-time interim Youth Director at my church, Wellshire Presbyterian In this role, I am running the youth programs until we can get a new Associate Pastor hired. This new responsibility, along with my full-time job at Healing Waters International, means I really need to stay on top of planning, in both of my jobs and in my life as Jessica and I prepare for our new baby. This message really resonated with me, I hope that it helps you too.

Enjoy!

Principle-Centered Planning
By Dr. John C. Maxwell

If you've ever gone whitewater rafting, then you know the importance of planning. Whenever the raft approaches rapids, the guide has to plan the best route to navigate safely through them. If the guide fails to plan, then the raft can easily smash into a rock or capsize.

Four Types of Planning
Passive planning happens when leadership allows the raft to travel downstream at the mercy of the current rather than steering, rowing, and turning. This kind of non-planning eventually leaves you unprepared to face whitewater rapids. Worse yet, in the absence of a plan, the current may take the raft over the edge of a dreaded waterfall.

Panic planning happens only after the raft is in trouble. At this point, all of the organization's resources are scrambled in a reactionary pattern in an attempt to solve the problem. With panic planning, you may or may not come out alive and well, but you are guaranteed some bumps and bruises.

Scientific planning is viable, but can be laborious, mechanical, and often ends up abandoned in the process. Imagine if a raft guide constantly tried to measure the depth of the water, the distance between rocks, the wind speed, and the water current. Although the information might be helpful, oftentimes the water would be moving too swiftly to take the measurements. In a like manner, leaders often have to respond to change in an instant. There's no time to collect scientific data on all of the variables before deciding which course of action is best.

Principle-centered planning is the key to effectiveness. It is the artistic or leadership approach. Principle-centered planning recognizes that life in general (and people in particular) can't be graphed on a chart, but sees that planning still remains essential.

Reasons Why People Don't Plan
You don't have to be in leadership very long to learn that planning pays off. Even so, many people don't plan. Here are four reasons why people neglect planning.

1) They don't possess planning skills or knowledge.
Some people don't have an innate ability to project themselves into the future. They've never been taught to prioritize their day or to prepare for tomorrow.

2) They're caught in the tyranny of the urgent, and they believe that they don't have time.
Some people allow themselves to be pulled into the vortex of minutiae. As a consequence, they end up buried under a sea of details, and they can't pull their heads above water long enough to plan.

3) They don't like the perceived hassle of planning.
Instead of planning one event at a time, they become overwhelmed by the mountain of things to plan.

4) Many people don't plan because the outcome varies greatly.
"After all," they say, "When I do make a plan, it normally doesn't end up happening, so why bother?"

Why Planning Is Essential
We all have desires and dreams, yet we'll never accomplish our dreams in life just by wanting them bad enough. Planning bridges the gap between our desires and dreams by calling us to action. As noted by William Danforth, ""No plan is worth the paper it is printed on unless it starts you doing something." A concrete plan supplies us with tangible steps to take in the direction of our dreams.

Qualities of Principle-Centered Planning
• Principle-centered planning allows us to be flexible without losing focus.
• Principle-centered planning allows us to be creative without losing concentration.
• Planning is the structure. Principle-centered planning is the flesh.
• Planning is the roadmap. Principle-centered planning is the movement.
• Planning is the idea. Principle-centered planning is the action.
• Planning is the paper. Principle-centered planning is the power.

Summary

It's been said, "By failing to plan, you plan to fail." I wholeheartedly agree. People who ignore planning handicap themselves and stifle their effectiveness.
The good news about planning is that it's a relatively simple discipline. Anyone can do it. No PHD is required to make a solid plan - only a window of uninterrupted time for focused thought.