The Shape of a Soul?

We are blind. I hate that about us. I really hate it. And we are getting more blind by the year. Our culture that is. North America. We are blind to the full measure of the width, the depth, the mystery, the awesome magnitude, and the creative drive for life that exists inside every other human being. That is we don't or can't really take in the fullnes of what another human being truly is, and is about, and has to offer. This is because we are a society of masters at type-casting. Cookie-cutting. Boxing. Minimizing. Stereotyping. Reducing. We do this to each other in Canada because we are part of the North American mental disease called forsaking our humanity. 'more for less', 'big box', 'bottom line is the only line', 'what can I get out of you?'. We are becoming more and more inhuman, and as a result, inhumane.

This is how it sounds at the beginning... "that guy is an electrician, or a cop, or a manager, or an idiot, or a bad driver, or a misfit, or a benchwarmer, an inmate, or an alcoholic." Or, "she is a liar, that lady is a banker, or a teacher, a crazy, a hottie, gay, she's just emotional..." and on and on it goes. We refer to people as simply one dimensional. They are only what they do for a living, or what they are the moment we happen to see them and depending on whether the moment is favorable or not towards them, that is how we assign to them what they are and that's it. Nothing more.

It's no surprise that our institutions have us all in their databases as just a number. That's all we are, a means to their end and viewed as useful or not. The banks categorize us in one of only two groups; good for their bottom line or not. The prison system is the same. Could be for murder or it could be for driving without insurance, doesn't matter. Both have a number and are viewed by us as just the same -lowgrade. Inmates do it too. A uniform means copper and all cops are the enemy. One dimensional and that's all. Blockbuster Video has each of us as well tracked as Revenue Canada! Yesterday I learned that I am in the "system" at Spic and Span dry Cleaners! Wow! All I want is the horse shit cleaned off my jacket... I don't need to be known as a name and profile number on the receipt!!! If you want to "know me" why not ask about what things add to my happiness and what things might cause depression in men since sometimes I might come in and "seem a little more off than my last visit"!

Our whole society has perfected the art of stamping everyone else out of one sort of cookie cutter or another. It can only result in a dehumanizing outcome, and I would argue that it has. Uganda demonstrated that for us on this trip. Our Luzira prison visit showed that even though it's a third world country, the relationship between human beings (which is most revealing about us when it is the relationship between keeper and kept) is a lot more human and a lot less one dimensional. Guards and inmates are brothers and sisters there and the guards are trained to take into account each prisoners situation and personality. Wow! There's a concept. Personality. In other words a human being is more than the coat or hat they happen to be wearing and they are more than the one thing they did to result in their imprisonment, and they are more than the classification we have given them. They are more than just a utility, and more than a means to an end.

The cost of our psychological malnourishment induced blindness is that we cannot see the true shape and measure of what another human being has to offer. Organizations that employ us then try and manipulate us into their own one dimemsional pigeon hole by flattening us into just the right shape so that we are "useful". If we do not become that cardboard cutout that has been assigned to us, we are frozen out and discarded. This is obvious in any organization and certainly true in Law Enforcement. Few other organizations are so hard pressed to flatten people's personality as is law enforcement's need to drive the creativity, shape, and personality out of someone before they can fit them into that uniform. Once in, the pressure to remain flat, and dull, and obedient, and shapeless is applied and remains as a constant. There is only one other type of organization that does this more aggresively, inhumanely, and brutally than Law Enforcement, and that is churches and religious organizations. But that's a story for another day, and it is truer than the next breath of air you take in!

All of these realities are a result of what our society has given birth to -shapelessness and formlessness. Imagine North America as a culture of 330 million cardboard cutouts all travelling at warp speed, in different directions, passing each other inconveiently, frustratingly late for the next task or meeting designed to ensure that everybody else remains exactly that way so that we can continue to make money and find ways to speed the whole thing up. And for God sake, don't stop or slow down too much or somebody might notice that we are all made out of cardboard and begin to question if there is more to life, more personality, more flair, more meaning and substance. They might want out of the "Matrix" as it were. And that might throw a wrench into our wonderfully well oiled, profitable, consumer driven, and dehumanizing society.

Well, what does all this have to do with Project Africa 2010 and our trip to build the clinic? Everything. Because 13 cardboard cutouts from Canada were, by virtue of being dropped into a culture that for all of it's brutal history and its current poverty, forced us to slow down enough to make relationships with people in our village and with each other. In rural Africa, time is everywhere. there's nothing else to do. Life is only about scraping together tonights meal and so life is spent in the yard or under the tree doing that together. And without reliance on your neighbors you won't survive. For them survival hinges on relationships and the time it takes to nourish them. For us survival hinges on having fewer and more superficial relationships because they take too much damn time!

That experience gave us a chance to meet them in a deeper way. It also gave us a chance to meet each other in a deeper way. I have thought about that alot during our trip and since. I was fortunate to lead a good team to Uganda. But I had to resist the temptation to view each of them as the cardboard cutout they are back home. Our success relied on giving opportunities to open doors that would let their true nature and true personality shine and find its place in order to let Africa do to them what it has the power to do to a human being. Help them come alive. Help them see. Help them feel the connection with human beings who are totally different than we are and who want to connect with us as Africans do. At the end of the day, or maybe I should say the beginning of the day, we are all Africans. According to the scientistst that's the place of our origins. And so they still have what we have lost -humanity. So I tried to re-think even how I introduced the team members. Back home it was Jon the Cop, Scott the Guard, Michelle the Psychologist, Gilbert the Native Elder, and so on. Impressive list actually. That is when you paste them all together as cutouts on a page. But what about the individual personalities? What about the true human beings each of us are? What is the shape of each soul and the measure of it's magnitude and creativity and it's drive to create and feel life in all the mystery that life is? Thankfully, those answers are far too big for my mind to fully take in. But I want to try.

So I want to profile all the team members on this Blog as well as the Africans who have become family to us (or always were). Jon Blackwood and Jordan Clavelle were fun to watch during the trip. First the culture shock, and then how each began to take Africa in but then reflect it in what they gave back to Africa. The measure of those two souls can be glimpsed in the creativity that their photography reflects. More than Cop and Jail Guard, they had eyes to see something that could reflect the artistry of the human spirit. Watching the Africans meet Jon was fun as well. This huge white guy with all those tattoos might at first be frightening, until they felt his gentleness and his thoughfulness, as well as how much they meant to him. Not just a workhorse at the job site, Jon added so much to the life of the mixed team by his presence that it would be hard to imagine the experience without him. I think Jon is the type of guy who can see. he doesn't just see things, he sees into them. He fights the urge to simply forfeit his humanity and become just a Lawman. He sees someone in a way that most don't and is able to reflect it in his art which is photography.

Jordan is one of those guys where you get more than you pay for. He's quiet, and drinks in the experience very reflectively. Makes sense too since he is a writer as well as photographer and tech wizard. Whenever something edgy was said by a group member, which with jail staff was pretty much always, we could count on Jordan's one word reflection; "wow". Jordan seemed to always operate out of an inner knowing and a sense of wisdom that is larger than he should have given his young age. He flourished there, and Africa seemed to fit him. he was also a huge comfort to us in that he too is a workhorse, and could easily come up with solutions about how to present our project in some kind of tech savy way. Always optimistic, I think he got frustrated only once and that was crowd control which demonstrated his sense of things and the spine he has when it is needed. Certainly he is more than 'jail guard' and gladly he is not cardboard!

Anyway, I'll let the images do the rest of the speaking. Jons' are on the left side throughout this blog entry and Jordans' are all on the right side. Hopefully you get a glimpse of what the Africans got and of what we as a team got as far as the shape of the souls of these two team members. Be ready to throw away your cardboard. In the next entry I will profile other team members and what happened to them in Africa.

Check out Jordan's blog through his
Facebook page, and Jonathan's pics
are accessible at his website listed at the top of my Blog.