Community

The story of Project C.U.R.E. is the story of community. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the U.S. president during the formative years of my life – ages twelve to twenty. In those years following World War II and the Korean conflict, he used to remind us, “This world of ours . . . must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.” I grew up believing in the virtue of community.

The word community is derived from the joining of two Latin ideas: com= with/together- and munus=gift . . . the gift of being together. Indeed, community is a gift! Elements affecting the identity of a particular community could include: beliefs, resources, intentions, needs, preferences, risk levels, and common emotional connections.

Wherever community exists, security and freedom will more than likely be found as well. Community has a way of taking on a life of its own, and that seems to allow people to become free enough to share and secure enough to get along. There is a sense of connectedness that often flows as a result of community, that has the power to dispel loneliness and to nurture the mutual respect and trust referred to by President Eisenhower.

To me, community is evidence enough that love, respect, and civility can exist in a world of disconnectedness and greed. Fighting each other or ignoring each other are not the only two options available to cohabiters of this earth: love, respect, goodness and civility are also viable options.

While traveling around the world for the past nearly forty years, I have fallen in love with the people of the old cultures and the old world communities. President Lyndon Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird, used to say, “While the spirit of neighborliness was important on the frontier because neighbors were so few, it is even more important now because our neighbors are so many.” In older European communities neighbors have been required to live in close proximity for a long time.

I loved to travel in the cities of Belgrade, or Kiev, or in the countries of Montenegro, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, or Armenia. At night people love to get out of their homes, put on clean clothes, and go to the downtown centers to walk, visit, and stop at the sidewalk cafes, to have coffee and maybe some ice cream. I have strolled with them and socialized with their neighbors until nearly midnight. There were some unusual and compelling factors of community displayed in those parts of the world that were wholesome and inviting. Most of the towns were eagerly at work trying to revitalize their cities and municipal regions. They were hardy, and at the same time willing to return attention, love, and appreciation.

I used to say to Anna Marie that if she ever looked and found me missing she could probably safely start looking for me in Brazil, because I had a real affinity for the country and people of Brazil. But now I don’t know. The beauty, the flowers, the inexpensive personal economy including food, transportation, and utilities, the fresh fruit and relatively mild winters, and the endearing people of community … it all just might have you looking for me in some classical, historic home on a small acreage near the Black Sea.

I am so glad, however, that I have lived long enough to experience the advent of the internet. It is adding a whole new and different dimension to community. No longer is the geographical neighborhood, or the leisurely stroll in the evening in Belgrade, the dominating factor regarding community. Now I can Skype or write computer messages to thousands of my friends every week. I can send those messages to homes, offices, and phones completely around the world and my friends can respond back to me as quickly as if we were sitting together over a cup of coffee. As we freely communicate with each other, we successfully form a virtual community that fulfills the same community functions of beliefs, resources, intentions, needs, preferences, risk levels, and common emotional connections utilized in traditional community.

There is one more exciting aspect of community that I would like to explore here. Sociologist, Ray Oldenburg wrote a book entitled The Great Good Place. It speaks to the recognized phenomenon that Western cultures seem to be losing the citizen involvement in traditional community. In another book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Putnam, 2000) underscores that position by writing that in the past 25 years attendance at club meetings has fallen 58% , family dinners are down 33 percent, and having friends visit has fallen 45 percent). It may be that we are in danger of losing the spirit of community that once existed in some of our institutions, including churches and community centers.

Oldenburg suggests that we really need three places: the home, the office, and third, a gathering place of community. Starbucks, for example, was founded to fulfill the need for the “third place.” The experiment has proven overwhelmingly successful. I believe that in a very unique way Project C.U.R.E. has become an example of a “third place” expressly for community. I believe that is one reason why we have 15,000 volunteers rather than 125 volunteers. True community exists and is experienced by the faithful volunteers of Project C.U.R.E.

I am excited to think that in the future Project C.U.R.E. could become a dynamic center for purposeful community all over the U.S. and around the world where people would gather to not only enjoy a steaming latte or a good cup of chai, but to meet with friends and associates to build community around a common goal of goodness specifically aimed at delivering health and hope to needy friends all around thecommunity of the world.

Easter on Easter Island, Part 2

The Rapa Nui Hospital on Easter Island desperately needed the help of Project C.U.R.E. The frustrated doctors explained that simple laboratory tests were taking a minimum of five weeks to be returned to the hospital, instead of fifteen minutes. The airlines flew only once a week from Easter Island to Santiago. They would then have to depend on getting their needed test results from an understaffed and overworked mainland hospital that also had inadequate lab equipment and continual shortages of supplies and reagents. Rapa Nui was put into a critical medical position. Within the past few weeks there had been a severe outbreak of dengue fever on the island. Tourists had brought in the fever, and the local mosquitoes had served to rapidly spread it throughout the island population before the blood tests could be cultured and returned. Several people had died because of the delays. 

After assessing their medical facilities, I felt that Project C.U.R.E. could greatly increase their efficiency by supplying to them, in addition to the needed lab equipment, essential emergency room equipment and supplies, OB-GYN diagnostic equipment, including an ultrasound machine, and a ventilator and respirator for their small intensive care ward. 

On Saturday, Governor Paoz and our other hosts continued to show us around Easter Island and share with us more impressive legends:

  • We think of two tides: ebb and flow. The islanders studied and followed sixteen different tide categories. They knew when and where to fish, plant, travel, procreate, etc. according to the tides.
  • Many rock pile structures were not Ahu formations, but rather, they were stone chicken coops. Early on, chickens were a sign of wealth. A guest was very honored if the host presented a white chicken to him. But the guest was most honored if the host cleaned the chicken, took out its intestines, washed them, and gave them to the guest to eat. A war was once started because the guests insulted the host by not eating the chicken entrails.
  • At different locations around the island were surviving evidences of schools where the students were taught how to cook, plant, judge the sun and seasons, and even how and where to catch tuna fish. The lessons were carved into the stones and we could presently observe the ancient object lessons.

Saturday evening Anna Marie and I left our hotel room, walked along the rocky coastline and turned right on the main street called Avenue Atawu Tekera. We were headed to the end of the avenue just to walk by the Catholic church. It was the only church on the island. We were hoping that the church would have posted some kind of time schedule for Easter Sunday services. As we turned the corner the church bells began pealing out across the cove. 

A little further on, we came upon a group of people spilling out into the dark street. The vacant lot abutting the street was being used by the Catholic priests and nuns to conduct an outside mass the night before Easter. The sky was very dark, and the church leaders had built a large bonfire of old wood to light the night. Many candles glowed from a small grotto as the group joined in singing, accompanied by some of the clergy playing accordions, drums, and guitars. 

Anna Marie and I found a spot along the curb and sat down to join the service. The crowd continued to grow as the outside service progressed. After about an hour the church bells from down at the end of the street began to ring out once more. The priest closed that part of the service by lighting a very large candle measuring about five feet in height. From that main candle the parishioners moved in and lit their individual candles they had brought along. 

The accordions, drums, and guitars started the music once again as all the people marched by candlelight up the hill the four or five blocks to the Catholic church at the end of the street. It was a wonderful experience, and the two of us joined right along with the marchers walking to the beat of the music. 

During the balance of Saturday night’s service and the Easter celebration service on Sunday morning, we witnessed a very emotional and memorable time of worship. The Rapa Nui islanders brought all kind of fruits, vegetables, and even freshly butchered meats, marched to the front of the chancel, and presented their sacrificial gifts to be shared. We heard remarks that were almost reminiscent of the old Puritan liturgy, “no pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.”

As I listened I marveled. These Easter Island inhabitants had come to this extremely isolated location and had created their own legacy, their own culture and civilization. They had spawned an ethic of resilience, hard work, and courage. Their determination to persevere had maximized their human potential, and they had overcome the obstacles that logically should have destroyed them. From the time they had landed in their little canoes, the emphasis had been on courage, persistence, and determination. 

As Anna Marie and I were leaving the church, I recalled one last story that our host, the governor, had shared with us as we toured the island:

    To encourage confidence in the leadership of the king’s governance of the island people, and to tacitly teach the virtues of courage, persistence, and determination, the king agreed that each year a prime minister would be selected from the tribal chiefs. But the tribal chief would not be the one determining his eligibility to become prime minister for that one year. An athlete would be chosen from each tribe to participate in a competition  

    There was a small island off the southern coast of Easter Island where a certain bird nested on its migration route each year. The tribal participants would be ferried out to the small island by boat and left there. They would wait in hiding until the first migratory bird built a nest and laid an egg.

    The first tribal competitor to successfully capture that egg into his possession would climb to the top of the small island and shout back to the king his name, his tribe, and verification that he possessed the egg.

    The other contestants would try to take away the egg from the possessor for themselves, but if the possessor could successfully jump into the sea, he then would have to swim all the way back to Easter Island. But the feat was still not finished, because once back at the island he would have to climb a vertical stone cliff from the water’s edge up to where the king was sitting at the very peak of the largest volcano’s edge.

    If the contestant was successful in fighting, swimming, and climbing without breaking the raw egg, he would then present the egg to his tribal chief, who would in turn present the egg to the king. Once the king received the egg from the tribal chief, he would declare that tribal chief the prime minister for the next year in a great celebration. The king would also bestow on the winning contestant the coveted title of . . . “Birdman.”

    The enduring virtues and legacies that were being taught to the people of the island would sustain them through the hard times and uncertainties of the future. They were all Easter Island Champions!

    Easter on Easter Island, Part 1

    The diverse geographical assets of the sliver-shaped country of Chile make for a place of outrageous and extravagant beauty. Warm sandy beaches, frozen tundra, rugged mountain passes, tropical plateaus, old volcanoes, generous fishing waters . . . Chile has it all!

    I had been in the cities of Conception and Santiago in January. The political officials had insisted that I return in April and visit the Chilean province of Easter Island to evaluate their health care system. Anna Marie joined me on the trip, and we arrived back in Santiago on the Wednesday before Easter.

    I remembered first hearing of Easter Island during my childhood as I listened to the reports of World War II on the radio. Then, Easter Island hit the news once more during the heady days of NASA’s space program. The U.S. had negotiated for the use of a sizable portion of the island in order to build a large landing strip in case any of the space machines got into trouble out in the vast, empty waters of the Pacific Ocean. The Easter Island tracking station became a household buzzword during those many space flights.

    Easter Island is the world's most isolated inhabited island. It is also one of the most mystifying and mysterious places on Earth. The original settlers were Polynesian islanders who somehow paddled their canoes for weeks, maybe months, through open waters of the Pacific Ocean and discovered the island in the middle of “nowhere.” They named the island Rapa Nui and were isolated for centuries from the outside world.

    The people of Rapa Nui developed their own distinctive culture, a culture perhaps best symbolized by the huge moai figures. There are hundreds of the large monolithic stone sculptures that were carved from volcanic rock and mysteriously situated along the coastline, facing the settlements with their backs toward the spirit world of the vast sea. 

    The first recorded European contact with the island was on April 5 (Easter Sunday), 1722, when a Dutch navigator visited the island for a week and estimated a population of 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants. But why on earth would the skinny country of Chili have any interest in owning little Easter Island today that sits 2,500 miles from its coast—that is farther than from New York to Los Angeles—out in the middle of nowhere? As an economist, let me suggest the answer . . . follow the money!

    A country’s territorial water rights extend out to three miles past its borders. By being able to claim that Easter Island is an integral part of its sovereign country, Chile’s international coastline was not three miles out from Santiago, but a convenient 2,500 plus three miles out to the west of Easter Island. That gave Chile an incredible puddle of ocean water to claim as their undisputed fishing territory. There is no doubt about it, skinny Chile needs Easter Island!

    The Chilean airline only flies once a week to Easter Island, and then on to Tahiti. As guests of honor, we were personally met at the Rapa Nui airport with beautiful floral leis and eager smiles. The governor of Easter Island, Pedro Pablo Edmunds Paoz and his wife would be our hosts. We were additionally hosted by Hernan Felipe Errazuriz, a prominent attorney in Santiago, who had served as Chili’s foreign minister and also the Chilean ambassador to the United States. The third dignitary to host us was Christian Labbe Galilea, the present mayor of the city of Santiago, and his wife.

    Since we were confined to the Island for at least a week, Friday and Saturday were designated as our days to explore Easter Island. Pedro Pablo Edmunds Paoz was the perfect person to be our island tour guide. He was the undisputed official of the Island. He was the keeper of the legends. He knew all the history, all the folklore, and certainly all the people. As we traveled to the legendary spots throughout the island, Pedro told us many stories and related lots of facts about the kings who first came to the island and their exploits and Polynesian culture:

    • The 820 hand carved Moai stone statues weighed from 90 to 150 tons each and all came from one rock-quarry located in the northern part of the island. Each statue represented a king, tribal leader, or very important man of island history. Legend has it that the stones were moved into place by mental and spiritual powers of levitation
    •  A Moai usually sat atop an Ahu that was a sacred formation of stacked stones close to the sea that housed the bones of the dead island ancestors.
    •  There were no bad words in the Rapa Nui language. If you wanted to say something bad to or about someone you had to borrow a Spanish, French, or English phrase.
    • Likewise, there were no words of gratitude like “thank you” in their language. If someone did something nice for you, you would simply accept it.
    • Neither was there any concept of forgiveness in the culture.
    • The only, and ultimate, sign of disapproval or displeasure when someone had crossed over the behavior line was to stick out your tongue at the offender. That meant “death to you.”
    • You didn’t just kill someone who had done wrong; you made him stop breathing, ate his flesh, and then pounded each bone into dust. Then, he could never be honored or return again.

    As we drove to every historic site on the island, the governor continued sharing with us the unusual history and culture of the Easter Island people. On Friday afternoon I received one of the greatest stories I had ever heard regarding the power of information brokering.

    It is not unusual for people to utilize exclusive information to manipulate other folks who do not have access to the same information. The Egyptians used to call it “the King’s secret” when he could control the information of the past to bend the outcome of a present situation. He alone possessed the information that was locked safe in the forbidding walls of his political position. He alone could rule in safety through the secret invention, destruction, or alteration of past documents or information.

    • One of the past kings of the island divided the island into territories, one territory for each tribe. The king kept complete control, and his position was safe from an uprising or from someone killing him because only the king could read the ancient language carved in wood, which told of the compete history of each tribe and individuals of the specific tribes. Each year he traveled to the different territories reciting the sacred history to the tribes. He counted on the fact that knowledge was powerful, and in holding information there was safety. The king knew that no one would even think of killing him, since to kill him would be to kill the history of the individuals and each tribe. If they killed him they would really kill themselves and their posterity. The king lived a long and happy life.

    I was reminded that knowledge is power, information is power. The secreting, hoarding, or manipulating of information may simply be an act of tyranny camouflaged as public service. I was becoming intrigued by the economics and culture of Rapa Nui and Easter Island.

                                           (Easter on Easter Island to be continued) 

    Jars or Cracked Pots?

    Ancient Demosthenes summed it up by saying, “As a vessel is known by the sound, whether it be cracked or not; so men are proved by their speeches whether they be wise or foolish.” Others have implied that the empty vessel makes the loudest sound. I have observed, however, that genius and mystery are sometimes discovered in the cracked pot. 

    I first heard of the Plain of Jars during the US-Vietnam conflict in the 1960s and 70s. The U.S. had showered Laos with more missiles than it had dumped on Germany and Japan combined during World War II. The Xieng Khouang province was one of the most heavily bombed targets in history with about four billion pounds of bombs dropped during the Pathet Lao offensive to try to cut off the Ho Chi Minh movement of the advancing North Vietnamese. Many of the bombs did not explode and still present a problem. Sightseeing on the Plain of Jars can be done only on cleared and marked pathways. 

    Never did I dream that one day I would actually get to visit the Plain of Jars, located on the high plateaus of the mountains of Laos. I had been asked to perform needs assessments for several Laotian hospitals in the area that had requested donated medical goods from Project C.U.R.E. Just outside the city of Xieng Khouang was located one of the ancient sites where the mysterious hand carved stone vessels still remained. The jars were huge, up to nine feet tall, the largest weighing fourteen tons. Most were carved of sandstone, others of granite. Some were round, others angular, and most were hand chiseled between 500 B.C. and 900 A.D., and then, somehow, they were transported from a distant rock quarry to the present sites. 

    It reminded me a lot of standing out in the countryside in England and trying to figure out why the massive rocks of Stonehenge were balanced as they were. How were these massive jars transported? Who carved them? How were they used? What civilization placed them here? What happened to some of the lids that used to cover them? Did they bury people in them? Did they store water in them? There were thousands of the megalithic vessels around the Xieng Khouang area. 

    Traditional Lao stories and legends explain that a race of giants ruled by a king called Khum Cheung fought long and valiantly and eventually beat their enemy. He supposedly then created the jars to brew and store huge amounts of rice wine in the vessels to celebrate his victory. Another local tradition states the jars were molded, using natural materials such as clay, sand, sugar, and animal products, in a type of stone mix. They believed that a nearby cave was actually a kiln, and that the huge jars were fired there and were not actually hewn of stone. 

    Some legends claim that the jars were used to collect rainwater for caravan travelers along their journey at times when water was not available. The rainwater would then be boiled for safe use. 

    Initial research of the Plain of Jars in the early 1930s claimed that the stone jars were associated with prehistoric burial practices. Excavation by Lao and Japanese archaeologists in the intervening years has supported this interpretation with the discovery of human remains, burial goods, and ceramics around the stone jars. 

    The nearby cave is a natural limestone cave with an opening on one side and two man-made holes at the top of the cave. The holes could have been used as chimneys of a crematorium. Some archaeologists excavated inside the cave in the early 1930 and found material to support a centralized crematorium theory. 

    The Plain of Jars could have been a burial site. Inside some of the jars have been found glass beads, burnt teeth and bone fragments, pottery fragments, iron and bronze objects. The stone jars initially may have been used to distil the dead bodies. In contemporary funerary practices connected to Thai, Cambodian, and Laotian royalty, the corpse of the deceased during the early stages of the funeral rites is placed into an urn, where the deceased undergoes gradual transformation from the earthly to the spiritual world. The ritual decomposition is followed by cremation and secondary burial. 

    While exploring the megalithic archaeological landscape in Laos, I kept wondering what I could learn about empty jars and cracked pots. One thing I did know was that there certainly was a lot of confusion about the mission and message of the ancient traditions and practices. It was muddled and hidden enough that no one could really be certain now, even though it was incredibly important to the folks involved back then. 

    I concluded that the genius to be discovered was that compassion is not a megalithic jar to be filled, but a fire to be ignited. When that fire is ignited, and its energy and warmth is focused on a needy place like Laos or Cambodia, the white-hot flame will be extended not just into the years ahead, but into eternity. Project C.U.R.E. volunteers who spend their energies passionately collecting, sorting, warehousing, and distributing health and hope around the world are indeed messengers. They are human vessels with a message that will not be forgotten. The collective vessel is filled with the pulsing heartbeat of over fifteen thousand individuals who compassionately love and care for others. 

    Hope can do exceeding good to the vessel in which it is stored, and multiply thereby the goodness onto which it is freely poured.

    Acceptance and Receiving

    The key to life is to be found not only in exercising and dispensing kindness, justice, and righteousness, but also in graciously accepting occasions of kindness, justice, and righteousness. Once people stop doing this, they cease to live. 

    George Orwell once wrote, “Happiness can exist only in acceptance.” You may dream of being happy, you may sincerely wish you were happy, but until you allow yourself to open up and embrace happiness, it won’t be yours to experience . . . or as Woody Guthrie used to say, “Take it easy, but take it,”

    I vividly recall an experience in the country of Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, where I was taught well that receiving the goodness coming my way depended upon my willingness to accept it.

    I had at one time or another visited all of the individual republics of the old Soviet Union. The history was rich and colorful and included such eccentrics as Genghis Kahn, Timor Tourmaline, and Alexander the Great. Ancient tales of adventures along the Old Silk Road were still retold around Uzbek and Afghanistan firesides.

    But over the years new sailing routes replaced the long camel caravans that plodded through the shifting sands of Central Asia, and upstart eccentrics like Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev exerted their dirty games of civil manipulation on the more recent political chessboard.

    Several official applications for medical assistance had been received at our Project C.U.R.E. headquarters from ministers of health, hospitals, and clinics located in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. My schedule would allow me to travel only to Central Asia at that time during the first two weeks in February. My travel itinerary had me flying from the U.S. to Germany, and eventually to Almaty, Kazakhstan, and then to Bishkek and Osh Kyrgyzstan. An epic winter storm, however, changed all my travel plans. I arrived, eventually, at Kara Kulja, Kyrgyzstan, by automobile. The storm was so severe that the entire region had run out of natural gas and electricity. The local hotels had nothing to offer, but I was invited to stay at a local Kyrgyz farm home. 

    Traditional homes were built on a compound format with several separate buildings joined together by a fifteen-foot-high wall and a large metal entry gate for protection. One building served as a bath house, another building housed the cooking facility, another was for sleeping, and yet another building for eating. We were served dinner on a frayed carpet, and we all sat on the floor and leaned against pillows as we ate. Because of the cold, we all wore our coats during the meal. The hot food, that had been brought in from the cooking building, plus our body heat, served to take some of the chill off the small eating building.

    After we finished dinner, the old patriarch of the family invited me to join them as they slept in the kitchen building around the open cooking fire. There was no other heat. I glanced around the small building where we were eating. It was tolerably warm, so I told them that I would be alright staying there if they had some blankets I could use to make a bed on the floor. I didn’t want to impose on them in the kitchen or intrude into their privacy. That was such a stupid choice, but they respected my decision and did not argue with me. They brought in a quilt and some leather horse hides to be used as covers.

    During the night the temperature dropped dramatically, and the blizzard moved in with full gale force. The snow began to blow through the chinking of the ancient log walls and covered the floor and my bed. I rummaged through the contents of my suitcase in the darkness of the old room. I was so cold that I had tried to put my head under the blankets. But that had not worked at all. The old horsehide blankets still smelled terribly like the barnyard, and I could count the time duration of my head being under the covers in nanoseconds.

    Finally, I pulled from my suitcase all my clothes to either put on or use as covers. I even took a couple of pre-worn undershirts and promptly wrapped my head with them, turban style, in order to stay warm. I actually worried about the possibility of freezing. I kept thinking about the open fire in the cookhouse. Why wasn’t I there?

    As the condensation from my breathing turned to ice around my face, the crazy thought from somewhere flitted through my brain: “If you can’t be content with what you have received, be thankful for what you have escaped.” I was going to be thankful for making it through the night.

    I could have experienced warmth and comfort only through the acceptance of the hospitality that had been offered. I might have dreamed of being warm. I might have sincerely wished for snuggly comfort, but because I had forfeited the offer to open up and embrace the warmth of the kitchen fire, comfort would not be my experience that wintry night. 

    In the future, I needed to do a better job of learning a necessary lesson. In order to receive a kind or helpful gesture, I would have to graciously consent to the offer, and then take into my possession that which had been offered. The offer to sleep by the fire did not become mine, because I did not take the offer . . . so, I nearly froze.

    Since that cold night in Kyrgyzstan on the plains of Central Asia, I have wondered just how many other occasions during my lifetime I have failed to benefit from some good thing or good experience because, for one reason or another, I did not engage and actually accept and receive what was intended to make my situation better off? 

    In these days, I am trying to be a lot more sensitive!

    Creative Thinking

    Harvey Firestone believed, “If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need, and there isn’t any limit to what you can do with your business and your life. Ideas are any man’s greatest asset.” All of my life I have been intrigued, and have studied diligently, about the phenomenon of creative thought. I have tried to explore imagination, curiosity, invention, innovation, idea generation, and even reasoning by metaphor and analogy.

    At my present age, I must confess that I am no closer to saying confidently that I understand how God engineered, designed, appropriated, and infused into the head and soul of mankind a function that would allow a person to rightly comprehend a need, and then hatch a creative thought to meet that need.

    I can get my head around the neurons, dendrites, electrical currents, and storage aspects, but from whence cometh the ethereal composition of creative, and unprecedented thoughts? From a practical standpoint, I have learned that the challenging needs of our lives must not become the overwhelming component. It is, rather, the utilizing and appropriating of that creative process of overcoming the challenges that becomes the important and enduring aspect. Never underestimate the need that is challenging you. And never underestimate the creative resources you have available to meet that challenge

    I love observing the creative mind functions of the people of India. Computer programming would certainly not be what it is in the world today were it not for the folks from India. In the southern part of India around the area of Salem, they were experiencing a huge problem with people being bitten by poisonous snakes and dying from the venom. The area was well known for the chicken farms and for egg production. The chickens and eggs attracted large numbers of vipers that also fed off the chicken and egg production. When the workers would reach their hands into the nests to gather the eggs, the vipers would strike.

    I was performing a needs assessment study at the large regional hospital that served a population of over twenty million people. I was walking down a corridor with the director of the hospital and one of the department heads. Most of the beds had wooden boards instead of mattresses. The emergency gurneys were made out of old bicycle parts with two bicycle wheels instead of the usual four small gurney wheels. The delivery beds for the birthing mothers were made out of 4’X 8’ sheets of corrugated metal with a hole cut in the middle and a bucket beneath to catch the afterbirth. It was all quite sad and pathetic.

    As we walked down the corridor, however, I passed a small ward where there was a machine sitting along one wall. I abruptly stopped and remarked to the director, “I didn’t realize that you had kidney dialysis capabilities at your hospital.” “We don’t,” he replied. “But,” I protested, “that machine is a kidney dialysis machine. We just finished donating to Ukraine a complete dialysis set-up including the reverse osmosis water purifying machine and all! The machine against the wall is a dialysis machine.”

    “Oh, that machine . . . no, we found that machine and it is busy almost all the time to take care of the many people who come here with poisonous snake bites. We run their blood through it and it filters out the venom and they don’t die.” “How very brilliant,” I remarked. They had encountered a need and had latched onto a creative and unorthodox idea to meet that need. But how in the world could the human mind ever even come up with a concept like dialysis?

    We usually don’t start cutting our wisdom teeth until we are faced with a bite bigger than we can chew. Necessity is often the mother of creative thinking. The necessity of a solution and the challenge of the pressing situations usually prod us into utilizing the creative advantages that we have available to us. And I personally think it is time to stand and cheer for the creative thinkers, the ones who face the challenges and set their hearts and minds to the business of creating solutions to our most complex needs. After all, what is this thing we call genius if it isn’t the opening up of one’s potential to God’s unfathomable wisdom?

    Generally speaking, our culture teaches us compliance and the seeking of positions of security and safety. But the very fact of being alive must include the courage to seek the creativity that is available to us. It has to go beyond forbearance of the problem to the area of creative solutions. While in Africa, I was introduced to an old coastal adage: “Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.” Adversity has the effect of eliciting and stirring our talents that otherwise, in calm times, would have lain hidden.

    When faced with adversity, Henry Ford used to say, “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” My attitude of life has always been that if I am pushed to the very brink by adversity, I can count on being shown the creative way to proceed on the ground, or else be taught how to fly.

    “The struggle of life is one of the greatest blessings,” insisted Helen Keller. “It makes us be patient, sensitive, and Godlike. It teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” I believe that overcoming is accomplished through the generous gift of wisdom and creative thought that is made available to us. If we will cultivate that gift and encourage those creative ideas, then our lives will be characterized by design, order, and accomplishment. Creative thinking is a powerful asset. 

    Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?

    Happy birthday, David Livingstone! Born 200 years ago, on March 19, 1813, in Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland, David Livingstone greatly influenced the Western world’s attitudes toward the continent and people of Africa. He died May 1, 1873, in an area of Africa we now know as Zambia. 

    It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who penned, “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.” David Livingstone took that concept to an even higher level. When he was trying to find men to trek across the continent of Africa with him, his instructions were, “If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.”

    By the time he was twenty years of age, he had resolved within himself to devote his entire life to the alleviation of human misery. He had been influenced by the writings of a medical missionary to China, and presumed he would spend his life there. China was embroiled in war at that time, however, and another notable Scottish missionary, Robert Moffat, persuaded Livingstone that Africa was the place he should serve. So, the Scottish missionary- surveyor- botanist- zoologist-explorer-medical doctor and anti-slavery campaigner, finished his medical, theological, and scientific courses, and sailed for Cape Town, arriving five days before his twenty-eighth birthday in 1841.

    By the summer of 1842, he had already gone farther north than any other European into the difficult Kalahari country, and had familiarized himself with the local languages and cultures. Livingstone’s missionary and medical endeavors were always combined with his love and talents for exploration and scientific research. Early on, he was the first European to view and record information about Lake Ngami. Between 1852 and 1856, he was the first European to view, survey, and document information regarding the “mile wide” Zambezi River as it plunged over one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world. He named the geographic wonderVictoria Falls in honor of his magnificent British Queen. 

    David Livingstone was the first to successfully make and document the transcontinental journey across Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. Aided by the Royal Geographic Society of London, he explored systematically the entire Zambezi River basin searching for an inland waterway across the continent of Africa. He was the first to reach the large Lake Malawi in1862. Some of the other “firsts” for discovery, surveying, and documentation were Lake Mweru, Lake Bangweulu, the Lualaba River, and even though others had viewed the expansive Lake Tanganyika from one spot or another, Livingstone was the first to explore, survey, and fill in the missing details regarding the huge body of water. He was eventually awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London for his incredible work.

    Livingstone was an unusually determined fellow. When sick, tired, hungry, or otherwise challenged he would say, “I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward.” But, at one point in his pursuits, he was completely out of contact with the outside world for about six years. He was dangerously ill with malaria, dysentery, pneumonia, and ulcerated feet. He sent letters out with native runners. Only one of his forty-four letter dispatchers made it to Zanzibar. 

    But until the end he would continue to write, “I determined never to stop until I had come to the end and achieved my purpose.” . . . “nothing earthly will make me give up my work in despair.” Livingstone had admittedly wanted to discover and document the true source of the Nile River. He died without having successfully accomplished that. However, he more than achieved the grander, overarching dream of his life to devote his entire energies to the alleviation of human misery. “I will place no value on anything I have or may possess except in relation to the kingdom of Christ.”

    My nearly thirty years of travel throughout Africa allowed me to criss-cross the established paths of Dr. David Livingstone many times. I was able to travel in every country that he worked as a missionary, doctor, and explorer. I traveled by boat, train, airplane, and Land Cruiser. David Livingstone walked. In 1986, I visited Victoria Falls for the first time. On a later occasion, I was in Harare, Zimbabwe, needing to get to the city of Livingstone, near Victoria Falls. All the commercial airlines in that part of Africa were on strike. 

    I was able to hitch a ride on a small, private plane from Harare to the city of Bulawayo. There, I was stuck. Fortunately, the next day there was a cancellation on the overnight train, and I was able to secure a ticket on the sleeper train for the twelve-hour ride to Livingstone. As the fiery sun began to rise over Mozambique and the Midlands of Zimbabwe, I lifted the blind on the sleeper car and peered out over the vast expanse of southern Africa, wondering how David Livingstone would respond to what had happened to his Africa over the past 200 years.

    Before getting into a taxi at the Livingstone train station and crossing over the Zambezi River at the border into Zambia, I took time, again, to visit the large statue of David Livingstone near the thunderous roar and spray of Victoria Falls. All over that part of Africa, as far north as Tanzania and Zaire, it was not unusual to run across memorials or signs pointing to where Livingstone had performed his missionary work or had held his medical clinics.

    While working in Africa, viewing the results of his influence, I was impressed that Livingstone must have faced some pretty serious alternatives before he was twenty years old, and had made some intuitive choices at that time that had set into motion far-reaching consequences. Those choices and consequences had influenced and guided his behavior throughout his life. He stayed committed and focused until he died. He seemed to judge the value of something by deciding how much of his own life he was willing to exchange for it. The price ended up being high, but the accomplishments were astounding.

    I have tried to allow Livingstone’s life to influence me. I have tried to make some of those same far-reaching choices that would help me consciously exchange people’s applause or approval for long-haul accomplishments. I would hope that I could stop chasing prosperity in order to pursue purity, and choose righteousness over riches. That’s not necessarily the popular thing to do these days, but it might just be good, long-lasting advice to “Not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.”

    Happy Birthday, Dr. David Livingstone!

    Look Alive, Son

    Zig Ziglar was my friend and I miss him. He died last year on November 28, at the age of 86. Over the years, I had vociferously devoured his books and was especially fond of his motivational book, See You at the Top. I didn’t really become personal friends with Zig until about 1989, but his inspiration will go on influencing my life forever. He had become a top sales person in several organizations, and then turned his energies and efforts to becoming one of the greatest motivational speakers and trainers this culture has known.

    Here I offer to you some of his best-known quotes. Each has the potential of changing your life: 
          · “If you can dream it, you can achieve it.”
          · “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”
          · “A goal properly set is halfway reached.” 
          · “If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re scarce. If you go out to be a            friend, you’ll find them everywhere.” 
          · “Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.” 
          · “People don’t buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons.” 
          · “There has never been a statue erected to honor a critic.” 
         · “People often say motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing-that’s why we recommend it daily.”    
          · “You will get all you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want.”   
          · “Remember that failure is an event, not a person.” 

    One of the last things Zig Ziglar told me when we were together in Arizona was, “I’m not walking old, and I’m not talking old, and I’m not practicing up being dead.” I liked that, and latched on to it as one of my own personal attitudes of life. His emphasis was always on being fully alert and positive, and allowing the enthusiasm of life to be evident in every move he made and every attitude portrayed. “Let the whole world know that you are alive and happy to be there!”

    Several months after that memorable meeting with Zig, I was in the African country of Cameroon, in a city called Mbingo. When I witnessed what was taking place in Mbingo, my mind went back to my last conversation with Zig. My humorous propensity toward life made me turn my head and chortle aloud, in spite of the solemnity of the setting.

    After working in Africa for nearly thirty years I have come to honor and respect the cultural and behavioral differences throughout Africa. Many differences surround the occasion of death and the funerary traditions. Because of the animist influence on the African culture, many funerals are protracted over a week or more. The bereaved will take days off work to travel and to mourn. The African families are typically large, and the individuals customarily live on about a dollar a day.

    The funerals and memorials often become extremely expensive for the involved family, because cattle, sheep, goats, and poultry may be purchased for the occasion and then consumed by the mourners. It takes a lot of time and money to prepare large amounts of food for the occasion. Usually, the endless stream of those paying their last respects pay for nothing else . . . they just pay their respects. But the mourners all expect to be fed and housed. That tends to make a bad financial situation even worse.

    For family members, there is typically a funeral celebration with singing and dancing to honor the life of the deceased. Afterward, they hold a somber funeral procession and burial with intense displays of sorrow.

    Almost no bodies are embalmed in West Africa. And, in contrast to India, rituals do not include the mandatory burning funeral pyres, known as the final samskar. In India, the five major elements of fire, water, earth, air, and space need to be satisfied by returning the body to the elements with minimal physical contact. So, after the cremation the ashes are poured into the sacred Ganges River.

    While I was assessing the main hospital in Mbingo, Cameroon, the people began telling me about how unsafe and inconvenient the burial process could become, especially where they had no way to keep the corpse embalmed, cooled, or refrigerated in their morgues. It was mandatory that they move the body to the family home just as quickly as possible. Since there were no such things as ambulances or hearses, taxis were the only means of transporting the corpse. But taxi drivers charged three times as much to haul a dead body as a live passenger. Usually, as soon as the doctor at the hospital pronounced that there was no hope for the patient to live, the patient’s family would gather up his belongings and rush him out to a taxi and get him home before he gasped his last breath, thus saving two thirds of the cost of the taxi ride.

    About the time my new friends were explaining all this to me, four men walked out the front entrance of the hospital. Two of the men had a third man between them with one arm draped over the shoulder and around the neck of each of the outside men. The fourth man was following behind carrying some personal belongings, and was trying to keep the hat from falling off the head of the middle man. Once outside, the fourth man darted ahead of the trio and hailed a taxi and was paying him to help get their “sick” friend home from the hospital. It was actually important to get their friend, who had already died, to his home without paying an amount three times higher than the fare charged for transporting a live passenger.

    I’m sorry, and I don’t know why, but inside my head I could hear the articulate, southern voice of my dear friend Zig, still giving instructions, “I’m not walking old, and I’m not talking old, and I’m not practicing up being dead. Look alive, son, be fully alert and portray enthusiasm. Your very appearance will pay you great dividends and save you and your friends a lot of money! ”

    I was able to stifle the laughter exploding inside me, but was unable to squelch the chortle. Zig Ziglar, we all knew you to be the greatest motivational speaker in our lifetime. But after my episode in Cameroon, Africa, I am ready to nominate you to the Cultural Economist’s Hall of Fame!

    Relational Trust

    In 2008, I experienced an unusual privilege and opportunity on the international scene. I was nominated by USNORTHCOM, NORAD, and HOMELAND SECURTIY, and selected by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to travel to the Koffi Anan International Peacekeeping and Training Center in Accra, Ghana. “Your selection is reflective of your dedication to global humanitarian programs and your specific expertise, as recognized by your peers internationally.” I was to represent the U.S., in conjunction with other international organizations, on a select five-member international panel commissioned to meet for two weeks in Ghana to begin establishing protocol and structures that would assist world nations and African partners in achieving a more stable environment through security cooperation, information sharing, and information management. 

    Our venue at the Peace Center was set up with two moderators at the front and the five panel members seated at individual desks forming a semi-circle facing themoderators. At desks behind the panel members were about twenty advisors who served as subject matter experts from around Africa and the world at large. Behind the advisors were many observers who had been invited to be part of the meetings.

    Our task was to develop a multi-stage, comprehensive model that encompassed pre crisis; event; crisis declaration; response; and immediate, mid-term, and long-term response. Incorporated into each of the stages were to be addressed the seven forms of capital: human, social, natural, built, political, cultural, and financial, and their influences on the crisis situation.

    Having worked with various groups before, I was fully expecting the normal process that takes place with every group as it comes together and works toward some kind of productivity:


              · Groping—“Why are we here . . . really?” 
              · Griping—“Where’s my coffee? The computer on my desk is not working.” 
              · Grasping—“I’m beginning to understand the expectations. This is going to be good” 
              · Grouping—“I’m sensing a melding, bonding, and solidifying.” 
              · Group action—“This is what we are going to do.” 
     

    But, this situation took me a little by surprise. Before we had much of a chance to move forward and accomplish anything, we hit a road bump . . . trust.

    It was established that the model would place significant importance on information sharing (IS) and information management (IM) regarding cultural conflicts as well as pandemic disease outbreaks, epidemics, and health crises. An expectation was suggested that it was more important to share information than it was to protect it. That’s when the gloves came off. A number of the advisors, and even the observersfrom the African nations, weighed in on the discussion citing example after example where they had been deprived of the power of information in the past. A few even went back to colonial history, where “The colonial institutions had no interest or desire in fostering trust in the native populations, and misinformation was a frequent weapon used to keep the population in check.”

    Another huge problem regarding trust dealt with the issue of corruption in certain areas throughout Africa. It was felt that the high levels of corruption reduced the types and amounts of information that could be shared (IS), and those conflicts often created crises themselves between the private and public sectors.

    The moderators did a fine job of recognizing and discussing the issue of trust and getting us back on track. But, throughout the two weeks, the idea of trust kept sneaking its way back into the panel’s assignment. In the months since the meetings I attended at the Koffi Anan Peacekeeping Center, I have mulled around in my mind the idea of trust.

    Steven Covey says that “Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” And even Abraham Lincoln said, “If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.”

    Trust seems to be the reliance on the integrity of something to be true and sure. It becomes a confidence and assurance in the credence of a person or a situation. There also seems to be an element of risk or vulnerability that goes with the act of trusting, because the result of your trusting is out of your control. It is possible that you could be wrong. In a sense, we are paying the highest tribute to a person when we trust him or her to do right. In that regard, it may be an even higher compliment to be trusted than loved. So, trusting is difficult enough, but knowing whom to trust seems even harder. The sad thing is that trust takes years to build and seconds to shatter. Ernest Hemingway tried to keep it pretty simple by concluding, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”

    I can’t imagine that love could even exist at all without the element of trust. I agree that you run the risk of being deceived if you decide to trust too much. But, I believe you will probably live in torment if you don’t trust enough. Rick Warren, in his bookThe Purpose Driven Life, holds out the hope that a break in trust can be repaired: “Forgiveness must be immediate, whether or not a person asks for it. Trust must be rebuilt over time. Trust requires a track record.” It sounds to me that trusting in the restoration and healing of a broken trust would take another occurrence of trust itself!

    Maybe it just works that way. 

    The panel, the advisers, and the observers finished the assignment given to us for the two weeks of meetings in Accra, Ghana, and the results were presented to the United Nations, the U.S. Pentagon, the World Health Organization, and other involved groups. I learned a lot about crisis management, possible pandemic outbreaks and epidemics, and global information management. But I also discovered a treasure trove of insights regarding the subject of trust. Perhaps, we should have just spent our time on the subject of Trust Management (TM).

    Postponed Debt

    As a cultural economist, I am very curious about the phenomenon of postponed debtthat I observe as I travel around the world. Cultural economics tries to deal with both sides of one coin: How do the people affect the economics of a culture? And: How do the economics of a culture affect the people? The issue of postponed debt has everything to do with economics and everything to do with culture . . . and also, it has everything to do with character.

    In many of the Lesser Developed Countries (LDC) where I travel, if more money is needed to meet the economic demands and pay the bills, a very simple method is used. The dictator simply prints more currency. That method has an immediate impact on the value of the existing currency. With the same amount of goods in the market, but additional money in the system that was printed and spent, the prices for those remaining goods in the system go up. No one has to vote or agree for the price to go up, they just do. For example, if there were ten cherry pies and there were ten dollars in the money system, each cherry pie would cost you one dollar. But, if another ten dollars were to be created and put into the system, you would have twenty dollars chasing the ten cherry pies, and you would end up paying $2 to purchase your desired pie. The pie wasn’t really worth more, but the value of the money was worth less. 

    In the U.S., our method is a bit different. When the Congress overspends, the Treasury is overdrawn. The Treasury creates and issues treasury bills and bonds and sells them at auction (IOUs), on the assumption that someone, some institution, or some foreign entity would rather have an interest-paying bond than a cherry pie. For the government to pay off the T-bills and bonds, it is necessary to either raise taxes on the citizens, sell off national assets, e.g. oil reserves, coal reserves, harbor and port rights, national forests, military armament, air space, etc., or allow the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank to start calling in the IOUs and paying them off. What Method would they use to pay off those T-bills and bonds? You guessed it . . . more newly created money!

    A bond dealer would receive the T-bills or bonds and make the appropriate payment to the holder. The Federal Reserve Bank would receive the T-bill or bond and issue a check to the bond dealer who, in turn, would deposit that check into his bank account. The check, when deposited, would be credited by the Federal Reserve Bank to that bank’s required fractional reserves and that bank would then be entitled to make loans against that new reserve, or exchange it for cash. Why did the Federal Reserve Bank have the right to issue the check? Because it was backed up by the U.S. Treasury IOU that it just purchased!

    In essence, what happens in the transaction is that the federal debt, a liability, is transformed into an asset by the U.S. Treasury signing a note, and the notebecoming an asset of the Federal Reserve Bank. In other words, the debt of the government has been miraculously turned into spendable money. That is calledmonetizing the federal deficit! It gives an illusion and a false assurance that the government has a never ending source of money and store of wealth.

    Those T-bills and bonds have an intended and expected postponement in being paid back. Some may be designed to not be paid back for up to thirty years. That postponed repayment defers the immediate impact on the monetary system. And when the debt instruments are paid back, they are nearly always paid back with money from more postponed debt, generated by the selling of more T-bills and bonds. The ultimate effect, however, is exactly the same as if the government did not issue the T-bills and bonds in the first place, but simply satisfied its debt with newly printed currency fresh from the presses.

    The combination of postponement of the debt, and inflation, is the ultimate, subtle taxation. No one escapes the effects of inflation. When employing the method of inflation to settle overspending, there is no cost to the government for collecting taxes, no votes have to be taken for approval, and the government is the sole beneficiary. Those decisions come from the people who affect the economics of our culture. The activity ends up being a form of the old Ponzi scheme, where the early investor is hopefully repaid by the investment of a later investor. But I have never heard of any country in history whose traditional economic system could tolerate the monetizing of $26 trillion dollars into its system. Historically, a more likely result would include bankruptcy and civil conflict.

    So, what is the psychological problem with the postponement of debt? How do the economics of a culture affect the individual people? William Shakespeare instructed us, "Defer no time; delays have dangerous ends." And, we might add that postponement is perhaps the deadliest form of denial, because the longer we wait, the more the sharp edge of urgency wears off. Our minds actually start telling us that the responsibility to keep the promise is not that important anyway. Something that can be done at any time will probably be done at no time. Postponement and the ignoring of accountability can become cultural suicide on the installment plan. Many of the leaders of foreign countries I visit really believe that the loans the U.S. has made to them should now just be forgiven and forgotten. They figured that they would repay “someday,” and then discovered that “someday” is not a day of the week.

    I am sensing that the people of our culture have carefully observed our attitudes of looseness toward the integrity and responsibility regarding debt. The assumption seems to be that it makes no difference if we purchase homes we can’t afford, or lease cars without concern of the residual balance at the end of the contract. When one credit card is maxed out, just go get two more, stack up student loans depending on the political leaders to simply forgive the ballooned amounts before the next election, and make personal commitments and relational promises we have no intention of keeping. I think we have some serious problems that have resulted from a breakdown of integrity and accountability.

    Albert Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” And a culture can’t rationalize away what it has behaved itself into. The heart has reasons that reason does not always understand. We can be assured that where there is an intellectual disconnect from personal integrity, the reasoning and intellect will try to synthesize a substitute connection for justification. I think when it comes to integrity, in order to change the culture there has to be a change of heart. The economic practices of a culture will definitely affect the people. And the morals and integrity of the people involved will ultimately affect the economics of a culture.