“Stories need time (and so do we).” 

“Stories cannot happen in an instant.  They need room–temporal, psychological, metaphysical–to unfold.  Stories relate action “over time.”  Because stories happen over time, there is the chance for change, on the part both of characters and of readers.  This links stories to hope.  Things can be different than they presently are or seem doomed to become.  And we, if we enter into the story and allow it to make its appeal, can be changed too.  And sometimes we wil be changed by the story of a character who refused to change.”

“The power of an imagined end, and it literally can only be imagined, lies in its ability to influence present choices.  Most characters, in life and in fiction, have some notion, however hazy or unarticulated, of what would constitute a successful life for them.  They have an idea of how they would like to “end up.”  That idea, that imagined end, can be as powerful as anything in the given of beginnings in determining the direction of our lives.”

-Daniel Taylor, professor of Literature and Writing at Bethel College, “In Praise of Stories”

Witnessing the recent protests, riots, economic troubles, and tremendous political divisions juxtaposed with a deep remembrance and sense of solidarity over the 1956 revolution, I’ve really been impacted by the basic human cries for freedom and justice.  With friends on both sides of the fence here, I’m certainly glad to be an outsider, to claim some level of ignorance, to be allowed a neutral standpoint on these tough issues.  Yet, living in Budapest as “outsiders” we have felt our hearts connecting in progressively deeper ways to the present and historical experiences of our Hungarian friends. 

The truth is that most Hungarians are suffering economically, living paycheck to paycheck, unemployment is rising fast and will continue to rise over the next couple years, and homelessness will become even more prevalent.  In light of all of this, our hearts are aching.  We have a mixture of feelings.  We live in a comfortable flat in northern Budapest where the air is a little cleaner than it is 5 miles to the south.  For this we can occassionally feel guilty.  Guilty because yesterday, while riding the train into the city-center, a homeless man in his 40’s sat down beside me, unshaven, smelling of alcohol and body odor, whereas I was wearing clean clothes, carrying my cool black bag, traveling to my next English lesson.  Is this just?

I’ve been deeply impacted by the remembrance of the 1956 revolution here in Budapest.  It was fifty years ago, yet most Hungarians, young and old, have a tremendous awareness and sense of identity with those freedom fighters who fought and died trying to reclaim their country.  The few weeks of fighting in 1956 were brutal for both Hungarians and Russians, and it is clear that this sort of experience changes a person, a people, and a culture.  Human history is indeed full of atrocity, but from where I stand, the human heart is not made for atrocity or these kinds of injustice.  Within the human heart there remains a hint, or an echo of something good, something that grates against suffering and social injustice, something that cries out for the well-being of others. 

If a 50 year old crushed revolution can have such a deep and lasting impression in the Hungarian soul, what are the effects of the many other injustices occuring around the world today?  Darfur for example (Thanks Tom for the link and helping me think about this).

I’m encouraged though, that one small action can have a meaningful impact, and possibly a ripple effect through a family, a community, or even a culture.  Some of you know of “Nexus” the non-governmental organization we have been developing over the last few months.  You’ll definitely hear more about this as time goes by.  Through Nexus, and with the brain and heart power of a few Hungarian friends, we are beginning to tackle injustice in a couple tangible ways.  I’m looking forward to writing about some hopeful and developing programs at a local orphanage where there are 62 kids, 65% Gypsie, many of whom will not find work and will become homeless when they graduate and leave. 

In spite of the current sharp ideological and political divisions here in Budapest, I sense a common drive for compassion, for social justice and for the common good.  It’s nothing new of course.  I think these are basic human thirsts which call out for a present and continual “revolution” of the heart.

“The abilities associated with the humanities and the arts are also vital, both to the health of individual nations and to the creation of a decent world culture. These include the ability to think critically, to transcend local loyalties and to approach international problems as a “citizen of the world.” And, perhaps most important, the ability to imagine sympathetically the predicament of another person.  This essential ability can be called the narrative imagination: it leads us to be intelligent readers of other people’s stories and to understand their emotions and wishes.”

read this article by Martha Nussbaum in Newsweek

If you’re able, take a moment to watch this slideshow from stoneth.  It’s an amazing glimpse into the faces of poverty.  Click here.

“Wherever you are, be all there.”  -Jim Elliot

What you give away freely you can’t control.

What makes mass society so difficult to bear is not the number of people involved…but the fact that the world between them has lost its power to gather them together, to relate and to separate them. — Hannah Arendt, 1958

Check out the previous article for a wikipedia definition of conscientization.

I’d like to say that conscientization is like growing new eyes. It is growing into new ways of seeing, new ways of perceiving myself, others, the world around me. Freire’s thought is that with new eyes we can begin to see contradictions (of thought, action, morals, ideology), and the truth about those who oppress. But for many of us the oppressors are not people, but rather unhealthy (or even contradicting) ideologies or patterns of relating (to myself, others, society).

“Conscientization” gives experience a unique role in education and personal/societal transformation. As wonderful as the classroom is, it rarely gives a person new eyes or impacts them to the depths of their soul. But we all can describe an experience in our lifetime that deeply affected us, that gave us a new way of seeing and perceiving.

Sometimes these experiences sharpen our vision, and other times they might blur our vision. So there are other factors to be considered. Nevertheless, experience affects our ways of perceiving. It enables us to see with the eyes of our heart; and we live and act according to how our hearts see the ourselves, others, community, society, the world.

Wikepedia states the following about “conscientization.”

The term Conscientization comes from the Portuguese term Conscientizacão. Paulo Freire used the term Conscientizacão in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, written in 1970.

Conscientization refers to a type of learning which is focused on perceiving and exposing social and political contradictions. Conscientization also includes taking action against oppressive elements in your life as part of that learning. Conscientisation proceeds through the identification of “generative themes”, iconic representations that have powerful emotional impact in the daily lives of learners. In this way it helps end the “culture of silence” in which the socially dispossessed internalise the negative images of themselves held by the oppressor in situations of extreme poverty. Liberating learners from this mimicry of the powerful, and is resulting fratricidal violence, was a major goal of Conscientisation. This is a major part of Paulo Freire’s problem posing education or Popular Education (In Brazil it is called pt:Educação popular)

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientization”

I’m so glad to be back in Budapest. After landing, it was wonderful to hear Hungarian again! There was a feeling of home. I had a great time with a few friends working throughout Central and Western Europe. We wrestled with some good topics related to community development (sharing stories, connecting lives, discovering meaning).

The highlight of the trip, though, was walking in our door to get some big hugs from my family!

The following is a recent newspaper article about homelessness in Budapest that my friend Kristof translated. I highly recommend reading it, as it will shine some light on societal challenges in general. Thanks Kristof!

Article:
“For the simple and natural question that “Out of two problems which one is bigger?” two simple and natural answer exist. 1. The bigger is bigger. 2. Mine is bigger. The former one is the answer of evident (or implicit) solidarity, the latter one is the answer of evident selfishness. Both of them are life-like and realistic, but one of them leads to a different quality of life.

Let’s take a simple example. It is obvious that tolerating the presence of homeless people if easier than tolerating homelessness itself. There is nobody who likes to walk in – neither clean nor fragrant – underpasses, but it is also impossible to find someone who would rather sleep among homeless than pass by homeless. Nobody will be gladsome by seeing lowlife or depraved, dissipated-looking wrecks but there is definitely nobody who would accept such advice as be depraved, be dissipated-looking; once you get depraved you won’t see the difference and the scenery won’t be embarrassing.

So every non-homeless knows that his problem is not the bigger one, but still vast majority of them believes that his demand with a higher priority goes without saying. His demand against the organs of the government, state institutions, officials and authority is to give way of his misery and make the homeless and their appurtenances disappear or go somewhere. Go to shelter, frost or hell – minor importance.

Everybody has a good reason to call for fellow-feeling when he vindicates public sanitation, because the clean, tidy and civilian circumstance that he produced, got used to and would like to use becomes estranged. Becomes estranged because it is inundated with filth and squalor.

But something is wrong with those who call for this fellow-feeling. Those who call for a solidarity of this kind refuse help and solidarity itself with total insensitivity from those who would really need it. From those who are chained to misery from all those self-sacrificing activists, social workers or publicist accepting unpopularity. These people who call for this evil fellow-feeling sometimes turn against the benevolent, to whom the tragic state of the mass is more important than the discomfort of some consolidated bourgeois.

The government whose orders to make public benches insuitable for lying on them shares this opinion and identifies public welfare with the followings: Those have the right to the bench of common who have a bench at home. Who has no bed to bow his head on it, should not lower there as well.

We published this last week: from the HEV station at Margaret Bridge the police upon request of the citizens turned all the homeless people adrift. They took away their blankets and their sleeping bags that those miserable people previously received from the Baptist Charity Organization. As a result a woman, who otherwise would have a couple more days left on the ice-cold ground, had frozen to death. There were several other attempts from the police to deport homeless under the sky, but these attempts in winter-time it were almost as hopeless as inhuman.

It is not the question whether the comfort-feeling of the aforementioned bourgeois should be a view-point and a subject of consideration or not. The question is whether it should be primary or secondary to the view-point of those who live in much more dramatic circumstances. As per the people who say it is secondary they notice that the awkward personal underground-experience will undergo some change only if the surrounding situation changes, to that extent as the surrounding situation changes which means there will be a change only if the main issue, the homelessness changes; These people form the better group out of two bad. These people at least ask and care about what could be done, what could they do, what could the elected officeholders and support-seeking civil organizations do to prevent, cure or aid homeless life. For instance to make homeless shelters a bit more attractive / comfortable / bearable at least for those who are not yet ingrained immovably into the forest- or streetlife.

On the contrary the other bad group of the consolidated plebians – who would choose evident selfishness rather than evident solidarity – can only tone in their self-interest with their self-esteem if they look at the homeless society as something inferior. Because what else could justify that not the bigger problem shall be the bigger? Undeniably the mosquito’s problem is bigger if I slam it than mine if it bites me, however I can certainly kill a mosquito, because I consider myself an out and away valuable creature. For a person like a piece of homeless something is equal to a mosquito. A person like this refuses to accept knowledge of reality that people living on the streets enjoyed life with equal security and welfare and was as sure as rates that he can at no time get in such a miserably situation.

And the story goes on. People who expect to restore universal peace and order in the topic of homelessness by denying and concealing it, the same expectations and manners will apply in all other topics concerning a country or the globe. In the eye of these people not only homeless will be mosquitoes but every poor, starving and diseased, too.

Kristof and I have had a couple good conversations lately about the homeless here in Budapest. Coincidentally, there was an insightful article in the newspaper yesterday on the topic, and Kristof offered to translate it. When he is finished, I’ll post the article here. I think it will catch your attention.

The Hungarian word for “Homeless Person” is hajléktalan. Literally, it means “without a lid.”

OOOOPS!! Correction: I got my terms mixed up. The word for “Homeless” is hajléktalan but it means “without refuge.” Many homeless people try to sell a small magazine on the streets in order to make some money. The name of this magazine is Fedél nélkül, “without a lid.” Thanks Kristof!

Nyugati Train Station

“There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge; That is curiosity. There are those who seek knowledge to be known by others; That is vanity. There are those who seek knowledge in order to serve; That is love.” -Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)

Today was a good day. We got to hang out with our friend Chris Martin from Virginia. It was cool to see how the boys gravitated towards Chris. I think they enjoyed having another English speaker around. We had some great conversation about marriage, parenting, culture, and cross-cultural living.