Marinating

As some of you know, I haven't gone to church on Sundays since I came back to Houston from El Paso.  As more of you also know, I'm starting school again on Monday, Feburary 4, 2008, at the Ben Taub Neuropsychiatric Center in the Medical Center.  This means I have had more than eight months not going to school and not working, which everyone is envious of .  Last night my dad asked what I had been doing all day long.  I responded that I just did a bunch of random things: emails, birthday greetings, plannings, and articles (print and online) after we ate cake as a family (my brother left right after around 2pm).  This is one of the reasons I feel I want to leave the house all the time; I'm always plotting ways to a free wi-fi spot but rarely carry it out.  My parents are awesome, but somehow I've gotten this voice in my head that "you're wasting your time" and anyway I get interrupted a lot and thus lose my train of thought.  True, I am probably not using my time productively, but then again, it seems our society and me are driven by "productiveness" instead of "being".  I don't know how those dedicated single parents running around with four kids in the ghetto even have time to breathe; bless them. 

Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  --Mark 2:27

Part of my time was spent trying to understand this Sunday grudge that I have--ever since middle school I've hated Sundays starting from here in Missourity City to Austin to El Paso and back.  For it to be a time for Sabbath I sure most often felt agitated, resentful, and sour when I return home instead of feeling refreshment, playfulness, and a brush with holiness.  I am not at rock bottom right now, but I do feel very "lost."  I am okay with that because everyone around me is taking very good care of me (I hope I'm not a heavy burden).  However, I do want at least _____ to go on in the process of being "un-lost" but I don't.  I wish I could say this period has been a retreat, but it hasn't.  I've let the rotation hang over my head, as well as ruminating on my diagnoses too much, plus finances (I hate thankyou points and acs, inc.), and all these menial OCD tasks that I've placed upon myself.  I know for sure one of the major reasons I flunked out of the pediatric department was due to me needing to incubate and my supervisors (and myself) not perceiving that--I was told to take every nook and cranny of time to read a sentence, or make copies, or laminate papers, or scan cabinets, even infringing into my sacred lunch hour with presentations and meetings.  I have no idea what sort of solution could have been worked out, but what a relief when they asked me to quit.  In Chinese the word for "busyness" (忙) is made up of the pictographs of "heart" on the left and "killing" on the right.  Busyness kills our hearts.  How keenly I feel this.  Thus I don't know myself, my kin, my kith, my God.

"Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy...Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. --Deuteronomy 5:12-15

It's distressing that God has to tell us to rest and rejoice at least once a week (having the attitude all week long I can sadly understand).  You'd think we want to take it easy, but instead according to statistics we're a nation with the least vacation days, and even of those we don't use all.  Moses declares on behalf of God that not even the least among us should be working.  Then he reminds the Israelites that when they were slaves they were "driven" and beaten but God saved us from all that.  Why subject ourselves again?

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."  --Psalm 46:10

Apparently the Hebrew term "raphah" for "be still" is often used as a negative connotation for dropping (and thus start working) and being disheartened (and thus take courage) but here it's commanded.  Here, it's telling those people who "lift their hands" and "take courage" in themselves to "go limp" in order to see their divine dependence.

Considering I always feel exhausted after Sunday services (let alone not helping out at church at all), I'm still skipping church.  This is definitely an area that I'm going to have to focus on in May.

Happy MLK, Jr. Day

Soon after President Kennedy's assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. was pressing Lyndon Johnson on civil rights. Hulton Archive: Getty Images

Jan. 19, 2008, 11:14AM
King, LBJ worked together to change the nation
There was no going it alone in pushing civil rights and the social revolution that remade America
By JOSEPH A. CALIFANO JR.
Washington Post

The greatest fairy tale of the 2008 campaign so far is the accusation that there is some tint of racism or putdown of Martin Luther King Jr. in Hillary Clinton's comment that "it took a president," Lyndon Johnson, to realize the civil rights leader's dreams.

The visionary preacher and the tough-talking master politician would be the first to say that they needed each other. I know how they came to work together, in a complex partnership, to produce a social revolution that has saved this nation.

Just days after President Kennedy's assassination, King was pressing LBJ on civil rights. In conversations with Johnson, King made clear his willingness to seek out dramatic confrontations in the Deep South and to risk his safety if necessary to get government action. He knew it would take presidential leadership, he said, and he shrewdly held out the potential of supporting Johnson in the 1964 campaign.

LBJ appreciated King's powers of persuasion and ability to attract media attention. He decided to "shove my stack of chips into the pot" to push for passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination in education, employment and public accommodations. To break a filibuster, Johnson had California Democrat Clair Engle, who was dying of a brain tumor, wheeled onto the Senate floor. Engle couldn't speak, so LBJ had him signal his aye vote by pointing to his eye.

The day after passage, Johnson told his aide Bill Moyers, "I think we delivered the South to the Republican Party for your lifetime and mine." Indeed, he was defeated in five Southern states in 1964, four of them states Democrats had not lost in more than 80 years. The losses didn't faze him, and he turned his energies to voting rights for black Americans.

Johnson met with King on Feb. 9, 1965, about his campaign to register voters in Alabama. As a politician preparing to press a voting rights bill, LBJ loved King's choice of Selma. Dallas County Alabama's population was 60 percent black; most of its voting-age population was black, but only 335 out of 10,000 registered voters were black.

Voters could register only two days a month and had to complete a form with more than 50 blanks, write passages from the Constitution and answer complex questions about the U.S. government.

King urged Johnson to propose voting rights legislation, and LBJ said that he would soon and that he thought the pressure of a march would help.

Johnson was appalled when state troopers used clubs and whips to halt the march from Selma to Montgomery, even killing some protesters, and he blamed Alabama Gov. George Wallace, whom he called "a runty little bastard, just about the most dangerous person around."

Sensing the awakening public sentiment, Johnson gave one of his most powerful speeches on March 15. He proposed his voting rights act to a joint session of Congress and, in closing, slowly intoned the battle hymn of the civil rights movement, "And we shall overcome." For a moment the chamber was frozen. Then almost everyone rose in thunderous applause.

King knew that the march was essential to keep the heat on. He began again on March 22, this time with federal protection. Thanks to the Army presence, there was no serious violence.

Later, on his way to sign the act, Johnson spoke to staffers of "a new day in America, if, if, if," he said, "the Negro leaders get their people to register and vote." He signed the bill in the Capitol room where, 104 years earlier, Abraham Lincoln had signed a bill freeing slaves who had been pressed into Confederate military service. Johnson gave the first pens to key legislators and then gave one to King. He urged King and other rights leaders to shift their energies "from protest to politics."

In 1966, Johnson's attention turned to the Fair Housing Act, which prompted the most vicious mail LBJ received on any subject. When King went north to push for fair housing, he said he had "never seen such hate — not in Mississippi or Alabama — as I see here in Chicago." Sadly, this turned out to be their last joint achievement.

By March 1968 there was still no hope of passage in the House. The morning after King was assassinated, President Johnson called me into his office and said, "At least we're going to get our fair housing bill. I'm asking the speaker (John McCormack) and minority leader (Gerald Ford) to pass the Senate bill today." He worked the phones, citing this as a last tribute to King. Days later, the House passed the bill.

Enacting these laws took both the civil rights leader and the "Washington politician" whom John Edwards has derided in attacking Hillary Clinton. And both of them knew it. With the 1964 and 1965 civil rights acts, King told Johnson, "You have created a second emancipation." The president replied, "The real hero is the American Negro." That's an example the presidential candidates and civil rights leaders of 2008 would be wise to follow.

Califano was President Lyndon Johnson's special assistant for domestic affairs from 1965 to 1969. He is president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

Micro-Loans

This article reminded me of my week in Guatemala:

Nigerian Margaret Osakwe received an $875 loan to buy provisions for her grocery store. Part of the money came from University of St. Thomas students. CHRISTIAN RURAL AID NETWORK

Bindu Jose, left, vice president of the University of St. Thomas' Micro-Credit Program, shares a laugh with Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus, who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in extending micro-loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. MAYRA BELTRÁN: CHRONICLE

Jan. 18, 2008, 3:37PM
Every little cent makes a difference to someone
St. Thomas students follow Nobel winner's lead by instituting a micro-loan program

By BARBARA KARKABI
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

A Muslim banker watched as students from a Roman Catholic university awarded their first micro-credit loan Monday to a small-business owner in Nigeria.

A few minutes later, a smiling photo of Ifeoma Eze, 35, owner of a tiny restaurant in Benin City, appeared on the computer. The $25 loan completed Eze's request for $875 to buy additional food and supplies for her restaurant.

Almost immediately, another small loan was sent to Margaret Osakwe, 55, owner of a small grocery store in the same city.

To Muhammad Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, it was another affirmation of his life's work. Yunus is considered the pioneer of micro-lending, the idea of giving small loans to the poorest of the poor to help start cottage industries and small businesses.

Cheryl Castillo and Amanda Duhon, both seniors at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, felt relieved and excited Monday as they made their first loan after months of planning. Both are officers in the university's Center for International Studies Micro-Credit Program.

"We were all so nervous about talking to him," said Castillo, who spent the past year researching Yunus' work. "But he was so easy to talk with."

Involvement in the micro-credit program has been a way for Castillo, a recent convert to Catholicism, to take what she has learned about social-justice issues and relate it to her major in international studies and daily life.

"As Catholics, we are called to be active," said Castillo. The lending program "really integrates faith and work and acts of charity; you can't have one without the other."

It also fits in with several encyclicals written by the late Pope John Paul II, in which he discussed assisting the poor and helping them out of poverty.

"We take ourselves to be investing in people first and foremost," explained Randall Smith, professor of theology at St. Thomas. "We believe that by connecting to people's hopes and dreams, we can make a profound difference in their lives."

The students plan to hand out $5,000 in small loans of $25 to $50 in the coming year. They hope to stay in touch with the people who receive the loans and track their success. Loans are generally paid back within a year.

As Yunus reminded them during a short meeting before a Houston speech, every dollar given is recycled and can be used many times.

"I just met a student in Austin who said, 'My mother received one of your loans,' " he told the students. "That's a whole new generation of people."

The origins of micro-lending began in 1974 when Bangladesh was in the middle of a famine.

"I found it extremely difficult to teach elegant economic theories while people were starving," said Yunus, then head of the economics department at Chittagong University in Bangladesh.

He decided to visit the poorest families in the nearby village of Jobra to see what help he could give.

In Banker to the Poor (PublicAffairs, $15), Yunus writes that he met a young Muslim woman making bamboo stools. She earned 2 cents a day after borrowing 22 cents from a moneylender to buy her material. The moneylender charged 10 percent a week, keeping her and other villagers in a cycle of poverty they could not escape.

Yunus soon discovered that 42 villagers owed $27 to the moneylenders. He handed out the money and told the villagers to pay him back whenever they could.

" 'That will be the last you see of that money,' local bankers told me," Yunus recalled. "But they were wrong."

Several years later he founded Grameen Bank, which has lent money to an estimated 2.4 million families in Bangladesh.

Though charging interest is generally frowned upon in Islam, Yunus received approval from Islamic scholars because "the borrowers own the bank, and whatever they give to the bank comes back to them. So in Islamic eyes, it's not discriminatory."

The idea for St. Thomas' micro-credit program began in a class on international politics taught last spring by Rogelio Garcia-Contreras, assistant professor in the Center for International Studies.

"We were discussing the millennium goals and the whole idea of eradicating poverty," Garcia-Contreras recalled. "One student shared the frustration of discussing things in class and not being able to do anything about it."

Later that evening, Garcia-Contreras remembered the program started by Yunus. When he returned with the idea the following week, the students instantly responded.

"From there it took a life of its own," he said. "I tell my colleagues that students often miss class here and there, but for our micro-credit meetings I have 100 percent attendance."

The multifaith executive board, consisting of nine students, meets weekly. A number of professors, including Garcia-Contreras, and several alumni serve on the group's advisory board. Their first fundraiser in October raised $10,000 — double the group's original goal.

Loans are being made through Kiva, a nonprofit group based in San Francisco that matches donors with small businesses around the world.

In the future the students hope to start a study-abroad program connected to areas where the program has made loans. They also are considering an internship in Bangladesh, suggested by Yunus. They dream of one day having their own database of small businesses and eventually making micro-loans in Houston.

"Someone from the university told me that it was interesting to see how a Muslim would develop and talk about something so close to the Catholic spirit," Garcia-Contreras said. "But we are making a great effort to build bridges between the faiths. Dr. Yunus' talk is a good example of how those bridges can be built."

barbara.karkabi@chron.com

S'MORE

Yesterday I climbed out of bed (now I understand how someone thought up "climb" out of bed) around 7:45 and before you know it was out the door driving with my Dad (he volunteered himself to come in order for me to take the HOV lane so that I can circumvent traffic and thus sleep in more - he took the METRO back home and my Mom picked him up at Fry's).  Nathan Wang informed me of The Coalition for the Homeless of Houston's Annual "Point-in-Time" Count, which Phoebe participated in last year through SEARCH (and Linton did as well I think).  Last year they did it at night after work weekly for a month, but apparently this year it's the full Thursday (9am-6pm) weekly for about a month.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone to come along (I mean, who doesn't have to go to work and/or school? just me heh) so I went by myself (sometimes I have these inexplicable urges to do things - usually harmless but it hasn't always been good to me).  I know I don't have that compassion in me for the people on the streets.  I think I just wanted to understand what Phoebe did last year.

It took a while for me to figure out where the U.S. VETS at Midtown Terrace was (4640 Main Street 77002/ 832-203-1626).  The building used to be a Days Inn and is now painted red and yellow, and the sign that caught my eye was deep blue with white lettering.  Apparently it was hard to find because the Coalition wasn't there yet (orientation was scheduled for 8:30am)!  By the time I reparked my car in their parking lot (US-59 N, exit Main, turn left, then right at the light under the highway at Blodgett Street turn left), they had arrived, as did another volunteer.  We waited a good while for people to show up, so I struck up a conversation with the volunteer.  Chrissy Wellcress just came from New York to work at Star of Hope around the beginning of September, so she's actually getting paid to do this.  I'm not trying to be offensive or anything, but to me it seemed like she had a mix of ebonics (she's African-American) and valley-girl-ness in her chatting mannerisms; quite interesting.  They say people from there are rude, but she seems extremely nice.  She was also super prepared with mutliple heavy coats, two hats, a backpack of water and stationary, furry boots--she's ready to go camping!

Mostly men entered, and the yellow-shirt people made comments like "There's the champion counter" and "Are you bilingual?" meaning if he's fluent in Spanish.  One guy had long thick dreadlocks - wow haven't seen those in a while.  Finally enough people showed up for us to form a "team".  Chrissy and Patti Hayes knows each other as coworkers from Star of Hope (although neither knew the other was going to be at this count), then there was me, and then Scot More (cell: 713-205-7371) recruited a woman who happened to walk in.  This was all our first times.  He asked if we knew the Pasadena area, which all of us responded in the negative.  I think he was about to go get another folder since we can't survey an area if we're going to get lost, but then Chrissy said she had a Magellan GPS, so we did end up being Team #11 to Pasadena.  

He took about fifteen minutes to "orient" our team.  He said that last week and this week is actually pre-surveys, meaning it doesn't really count but it's more for training and getting a feel of how things work.  He hopes we can all be there next week, but I think only Kristy was leaning toward coming again.  One of us would be the driver, one would be the navigator, and then two will be the looker-counters from each side of the car.  The enumeration (including location, sex, age range, and race) was priority, but if we had extra time we could administer a client survey to 20% of the population we counted who'd like to participate.  Scot More (who used to be homeless as well) says that Kristy Lalonde (who has recently been off the streets for 127 days - 52 in jail and 75 out of jail) would assist us in identifying who's homeless and who's not.  He gave us some tips, such as not invading people's homes (e.g. under the bridge).  Since we were an all-female team, he emphasized safety first (if we didn't feel comfortable getting out of the car, don't).  He says if you simply see sleeping bags and other abandoned items you can count them, as well as if a cashier at a gas station says there's usually someone wandering around the area.  We picked up a few blankets from SEARCH and finally took off around 9:30 and entered the Pasadena area through Southmore street (we have boundaries on all four sides, e.g. do not cross Beltway 8).

We drove around for half an hour and then I couldn't stand being hungry any longer so I requested to stop for breakfast.  We went to McDonald's and got to know each other a bit better.  Patti Hayes is from Oregon and she also started at Star of Hope recently in September (news to Chrissy).  She has had previous jobs as an aide (e.g. showering and wiping the elderly), at Salvation Army, etc.  Kristy stays at Angela House (425 Shane #18 /77037), where they actually pick you up directly from jail and offer you help.  She has a lot of cigarettes, and she knows it's her vice, but she's as considerate as possible (e.g. making sure it's okay that smoke will get on Chrissy's coat before consenting to take it).  I asked her if she had felt scared and what she did at night, and she said that she always carried a switchknife and wasn't afraid to use it (she pointed to a scar above her left eye), and she was so high on drugs most of the time that she didn't sleep much.  I asked her how she "knows" someone is homeless (since she's supposed to be the expert since she's been there), and she says you can tell by how "you carry yourself" and if there's lack of evidence of self care (i.e. you have no where to take showers).  Lo and behold, someone enters to use the restroom.  I couldn't tell at first, but she was a woman.  Kristy asked if she was homeless, and she said no.  Kristy told us, "I don't care what she says, she's homeless, I can tell, I've been there."  We finally leave and yes, she's pushing a shopping cart with her belongings, and she's actually conversing with a man.  We drive by and ask if they'd like a blanket, and they finally smile and say that it wasn't necessary.

We see someone on a bicycle, turn around, and instead see a group of three men sitting behind a Chevron.  So we got out, and apparently the guy on the bicycle is on his way to recycle cans.  We chat a bit with the three who's still there.  Two looked Hispanic and one looked white.  The white guy has been alcoholic for seven years and he seemed really cold (he couldn't roll his cigarettes his hands were trembling so much) so I gave him my blue gloves.  One Hispanic guy was a total flirt, kept saying we were four beautiful women, and wanted a hug from all of us (which we complied).  Kristy asked him questions from the survey (e.g. "Where did you sleep last night?" "On the curb").  The other Hispanic guy was more of a "normal" guy.  Julio says he used to make good money as a pressure washer but then after 9/11 the cutbacks took a turn for the worse.  He says he tries to get jobs but the metro doesn't go deep enough into Pasadena.  Sometimes he's able to hitch a ride at the back of a truck (says nowadays it's not right to have people hitch a ride at the front of a truck) in order to reach the bus stop, but not always.  He has a daughter Rosemary who's married to a lovely husband Daniel, and they have three children: David, Jr., Katalina, and another girl with a name starting with the letter K.  He's a matter-of-fact sort of guy, explaining that they're usually all of them are labeled as "illegal immigrants" and "Mexicans" when there are really other illegal immigrants from other races around and a lot of the Hispanics are Hondurians, Guatemalans, etc. 

We head off trying to find some more people as directed by Julio ("behind the liquor store") but failed.  We came  upon two nuns passing out rice with cinnamon (as described by Kristy) to a group of Hispanic men--we think they were laborers trying to find a job for the day.  Then we figured we'd ask where the can recycling place is.  We go there and don't know if he's a friend of the other three but he IS on a bike.  He's obviously drunk and trying to hide a bottle of beer in a brown paper bag in his hand, but he says he doesn't have a problem with drinking.  He's nice, answers our questions, tells us he's going steady with his girlfriend but her daughter's giving him a hard time so he's staying away for awhile.  He spent the night next to a store near their room but they still got completely soaked through so he's fighting off a cold (he was definitely full of phlegm).  He definitely needed the dry blanket we gave him.  He says he usually isn't part of this side of town since he tries to stay away from his family, but he has lived in Pasadena all his life.  He was here behind the thrift store because they throw away a lot of things away that they can use (e.g. blankets).

We saw a Hispanic woman pushing a shopping cart full of aluminum cans, but we couldn't communicate with her since we didn't speak enough Spanish.  By early lunchtime we couldn't find anyone else, even checking in their Salvation Army and behind other shops.  We stopped by a church to see if they knew anything.  The women with the nametag didn't.  Patti said that some churches just don't do outreach, they only do inreach.  That's sad, eh?  I hope our churches don't have that impression from nonchurch goers.  I think Scot More knew he gave us a hard area since he said there was a real need for a group to go to Pasadena, plus Pasadena prides themselves in not having a homeless population so they really try to hide them and push them to the corners.  As Kristy says, "Pasadena don't take kindly on street people."  We spent the rest of the day shopping at Academy (Patti bought a chair to watch the MLK Parade, and Chrissy bought some clothes) and Wal-Mart (Kristy got her glasses adjusted for free and Chrissy bought groceries: meat, wine, and cereal) and ate dinner at Denny's.  We must've been a sight to see, two African-American ladies, one white lady, and me the Chinese-American.  We all agreed that we were glad to participate in this (although all day may be too long).  Kristy said it "reminds me of where I've been" and so for us it's to show us how blessed we are.  Chrissy paid for Kristy all day long, at McDonald's, at Denny's, and she even bought nuts for the whole team for us to munch on as she drove her car all over Pasadena (she was not reimbursed for her gas).  Actually, none of us received the promised $25 gift card to Target (or Walgreens) as we turned in our clipboard to the receptionist.

Well, spread the word to your friends who are experiencing homelessness:
Free Barbecue
Saturday, Jaunary 19, 2008 @ 2pm
Harmony House
602 Girard Street 77007
713-223-8104 / 1-800-376-9880
Harmony House Clinic
11:30am - 3pm
walk-ins welcome
"free flue shoots"
health fair

And if you want to participate, next Thursday (01/24) and the Thursday after (02/07) are the real counts, still from 9am-6pm, leaving from U.S. Vets Midtown.  Yes, you will have to wear an XL bright-yellow T-shirt that you can keep.  And supposed receive a $25 gift card.