Monday morning,  August 23, 2009   12:00 A.M.

I’m having a hard time finding words to write tonight.  I had a good day.  I spent a big chunk of it painting the legs of my kitchen table bright sea green.  (Mostly so I can imagine I’m on the ocean when I’m doing my homework.)  Most of it was spent in silence.  I just really liked the quiet today.  I think it makes me smell everything stronger.  I thought about these things today: 

1.       When I have all my needs met, I become complacent.  I am selfish by nature and ignorant by choice.  But this has been an intense experience to sense how disposable I am.  The world spins just as fast when my body is slowing down as it does when I’m running with it.  I like that.  I don’t have the answers to why these things happen or the solutions to how to solve them.  I don’t have many answers to anything.  I’m frail and tired, but my heart keeps pumping.  I like that too.

2.       The amount of fighting that has been plaguing Darfur is astonishing.  The fighting has lead to one of the worst humanitarian disasters, according to the U.N.  The suffering is rampant and my mind again goes to the children of this area.  Every child that has touched this area in the past six years will have a story.  Maybe a terrifying story.  Maybe one of intense bravery.  But a story that I could not imagine, nonetheless.  The children of the south are gaining increasing protection and education and that’s something to be excited about.  But even those schools have the lowest enrollment rate in the world.  25%.  We should worry about this generation.  It’s a generation in a precarious situation.  According to CBSnews, it is estimated that 180,000 people have died in these conflicts and 2 million are displaced.   Wow.  2 million people pulled away from their homes, as I sit on my cushioned bed. 

3.       When I think about humanitarian disasters, most of my examples come from the history books.  I’ve dissected some in class and we’ve all asked the professor, “Why didn’t they just look?  Why didn’t they do something?  What else could have possibly been more important?”  It’s happening now.  When we see the grand picture one day, the reality of the suffering, will we wonder how we dared to turn our heads?  

4.         I think I’m anxious because I know in 45 minutes, I will be in a diner with a sandwich in front of me.  I will have friends that I love beside me and my feet will be sitting softly in my favorite shoes.  I am so blessed.  I know when my stomach will be full.  In fact, the human body can go without food for 3 days before becoming seriously stressed.  I have felt nothing compared to others, and yet I feel impacted.  Tomorrow I will pack my lunchbox and go to school.  I’ll drive my car to a university where I can sit in a room and soak up information at my leisure.  To be honest, I nearly feel guilty for this.  But that is not the prominent emotion.  More than guilt, more than hunger, I feel aware.  The sun is on the other side of the world by now and shining on people that are not seeing justice.  It’s shining on children who have never seen peace- only know war. I feel thankful.  I don’t want to forget how blessed we are, even for a moment. 

5.       "Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God; your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

                                                                                                                                                        Nelson Mandela

Thank you for your responses and your support.  We love you guys so much and hope you’re filled with excitement about whatever you find passion in.  I hope you are constantly creating.  Remember it’s never too late to join in.

 For more blogs by our incredible friends:

Carter Hulsey
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Kaitlin Curtice

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Love, Brooke

- brooke@artfeeds.net

I have become a restless sort of person.  Not in a way that sleep aids would have a flying chance at helping, but in a way that keeps me from being content flipping the radio station or sometimes staying out late with friends.  Occasionally the restlessness wakes me up at ungodly hours of the morning when all I can see is the world map tacked to my ceiling, lit only by that perfectly consistent sunrise.  Since I have gotten older, it has gotten worse.  I have recently discovered that I cannot stay in the same town for two weeks without an escape planned.  My restlessness has driven me wild.  I have believed that it was just my heart being overly sensitive to responsibilities that I let overpower me.  I have believed it was some genetic flaw that caused me to grow frustrated only at politicians, but rarely at the people I was told have wronged me- That same flaw was probably responsible for my disdain for cream cheese and the consistent brain traumas that come to me every time I attempt a sport involving a ball.  I want to share this because I know I am not the only restless one:

“ There is vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique… You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.  Keep the channel open… [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time.  There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”  Martha Graham to Agnes de Mille, Dance to the Piper

I drove to my hometown today.  It was a short drive and a cool morning.  I pulled up a driveway where I first learned to drive and walked into a kitchen where my mother has baked a pink cake for me on every birthday.  The walls are covered in red paint and big smiles in little frames.  It hit me like a roaring train: I have not seen need.   

I want to tell you why I am choosing to join in this effort.  It is not for attention to my personal cause, nor is it to fit in.  I feel that it is important when fasting to be doing it for the right reasons and when we do it in privacy, the rewards are so much greater.  It is my desire within this fast to gain some sort of understanding, some point of reference to help me comprehend what is going on across that ocean.  I read numbers and see pictures of unfamiliar landscapes and I need this to be humanized.  I need to know that they are starving, that they are hurting, and that they do not know when it will end.  That nobody knows when it will end.  If we don’t share what we have learned, how do we expect to be heard? 

So far, I have used hunger as my reminder of all that I have yet to understand.  It is my prayer that hunger will become my fuel, our fuel. 

I encourage you to learn.  I encourage you to quiet your heart.  I encourage you to find passion in heartbreaking issues and devote time to understanding and feeling.  The voices are out there.  We just have to listen.  Finally, I encourage you to allow yourself to be restless when you see the need around you.  Please don’t change the channel.

If we don’t understand the problem, who are we to demand a solution? 

With hope,

Brooke