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Wait a Minute

9/23/2015

Pope Francis will address Congress tomorrow. What he will say is anybody’s guess. The current Bishop of Rome is known for off the cuff comments and, if not rewriting Catholic doctrine, at least shifting the Church’s tone in a way that is unpredictable, challenging and, Lord forgive the sacrilege, entertaining.

Yet Rep. Paul Gosar, a Republican congressman from Arizona who is also a Catholic, announced he will boycott Pope Francis’ remarks because “media reports indicate His Holiness…intends to focus the brunt of his speech on climate change.”

Plenty of people have commented on Rep. Gosar’s willful ignorance of the scientific consensus regarding the planet’s warming, as well as his abandonment of the critical thinking he purports to have learned at a Jesuit university.

Less covered but no less obvious, however, is the peculiarity of someone essentially reviewing a speech that has yet to be made.

Perhaps this is the least unusual element of Rep. Gosar’s protest. In reality, this kind of pre-emptive critique is symptomatic of the ever-increasing immediacy that characterizes so much of our news and our lives.

We have become so swift at observing, disseminating, judging and moving on to the next incident that we have taken to getting started before the initial event even occurs. We have expedited the process of how we talk about the world around us at the expense of truly knowing what we are talking about.

A relatively superficial example is a guest blogger’s column in the Los Angeles Times shortly after CBS announced Stephen Colbert would replace David Letterman as host of the Late Show. The author claimed the blowhard alter ego Colbert played on The Colbert Report would be a more suitable choice than the real Stephen Colbert.

“See? He’s already softening,” he lamented after quoting Colbert’s heartfelt expression of gratitude to CBS and Letterman.

The problem, of course, was that this analysis was offered well over a year before Colbert would take over. I wonder how the writer felt waiting nearly 18 months to determine if he disliked the show as much as he publicly predicted he would.

I understand a myriad of mundane and bizarre qualities make the modern world go round. One of these is a 24-hour news/information cycle that relies on people talking quite literally all the time, sometimes with incomplete or inaccurate details. The result is that we end up not only discussing topics while the jury is still out; we also render judgments before they return to the courtroom.

There is little reason to believe any of this will change, but I think we would all do well to resist the urge to speak without listening, react without reflecting and proceed without deliberating. As President Barack Obama said in response to a question about his delayed statement on an issue early in his presidency, “It took us a couple of days, because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.”

I hope Rep. Gosar reconsiders his decision, if only because so many would love to have the opportunity to see and hear Pope Francis. I hope he attends and is, per the pope’s apparent modus operandi, surprised.

After all, what fun would politics, punditry, the papacy and life in general be if we always knew what was coming next?

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Tunisia. Egypt. Libya. Syria.

1/16/2014

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The latest country facing internal conflict and violence is also the world’s newest: South Sudan. According to Al Jazeera, a month of fighting in the country has left more than 1,000 people dead and, according to the United Nations, another 400,000 displaced.

The clash, which cannot be adequately summarized here, manifests itself as ethnic in nature, but there are clear political and leadership failures that initiated and often drive the day-to-day actions across the country. The Dinka, which include President Salva Kiir, and the Nuer, which include Riek Machar, the former vice president that Kiir has accused of treason, have experienced many years of tension and mistrust. As Washington Post blogger Max Fisher brilliantly and succinctly lays out in “9 questions about South Sudan you were too embarrassed to ask,” many cultural, religious and historic factors have contributed to the tragedy, which began when Dinka members of the presidential guard attempted to disarm Nuer members last month. The after effects of colonialism and many years of fighting with the Republic of Sudan, the country from which it seceded in 2011, have certainly played a part.

i-ACT’s work is about Darfur, a region in the Republic of Sudan and thus an area not directly affected by South Sudan’s current predicament.

As Fisher points out, however, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, a militant group that fought for South Sudan’s independence and now makes up its national army, “also fought in Darfur, on behalf of people there who wanted autonomy from the Khartoum (capital of the Republic of Sudan) government. More significantly, both South Sudan and Darfur were huge political and popular causes in Western countries, and especially in the United States. Outrage over Darfur made it easier to pressure Khartoum to allow South Sudan’s independence referendum; it also focused popular and political support within the United States, which proved crucial.”

i-ACT’s work is not political; it is personal. The Darfuri refugees we have been visiting in Eastern Chad since 2005 are people the we know by name. The students we work with in Little Ripples are young girls and boys who want little more than to go to school, play with their friends and live in peace.

We are deeply grateful to the countless people who support our work despite never having met our Darfuri friends. Their generosity reminds us that we, too, must support the thousands of suffering South Sudanese we will never know. In an oft-quoted line from Martin Luther King, Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This, as much as the historic and cultural strings tying the Darfur and South Sudan conflicts together, causes us to remember South Sudan and to hope and do all we can for their peace.

Written By: Brian Harper
Journalist and i-ACT Volunteer

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Today's Vocation

12/6/2013

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The following article originally appeared in the December 6-19, 2013 print edition of National Catholic Reporter. My thanks to Caitlin Hendel and Dennis Coday for their work in publishing the piece.

It is virtually impossible to receive a Jesuit education without hearing about vocation. What you study, the job you will hold, the direction your future will take—Jesuits have a knack for presenting life’s most important questions as part of a grand vocation we all must discover.

Having studied under the Jesuits at Marquette University, I, too, have generally thought about my vocation in terms of life’s larger themes. Should my passion for writing dictate a practical major like journalism or would an English degree be truer to the person I am? Would I be happier pursuing a career in public policy or music?

A year and a half ago, my short-term vocation took me to the Peruvian Andes as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC). My primary work was teaching English, religion, computer and literature classes at a local high school. It was an incredibly rewarding opportunity. I learned innumerable lessons from my students, colleagues and friends, and I like to think I experienced some solid growth along the way.

Though my stint in JVC was an ample stretch of time, volunteering was obviously never going to be a definitive answer to the question of my life’s vocation. Many people asked me what I intended to do when I got back to the United States before I even moved to Peru. Neither this question nor my anxiety whenever it is asked have subsided now that my return has come to pass. Because for all my ideas of what I would like to do or feasibly could do, I am unsure what I will do.

Recently, I have had cause to think of vocation in a new light. A few months ago, I was diagnosed with pericarditis, an inflammation of the fibrous sac around the heart. My recovery involved two hospital stays, during which I had little more to do than read and watch reruns of Two and a Half Men.

Amongst the reading I found in my possession was Robert Ellsberg’s All Saints. The book is a wonderful collection of biographies of important spiritual figures throughout human history. The Catholic Church has officially canonized some, like Rose of Lima and Francis of Assisi. Others, like Albert Camus and Mahatma Gandhi, were not practicing Christians. Each in their own unique way, however, seemed to illuminate a divine spark in their very human lives. All pursued whatever their vocation was with singular courage and conviction.

As a member of an organization named after St. Ignatius of Loyola, the irony was not lost on me that, as the founder of the Jesuits did after suffering a cannonball shot to the legs, I was lying in a hospital, reading the lives of the saints and meditating on my own vocation.

Ignatius’s reflections led him to form a new religious order, venturing into the world to spread the Gospel and accomplish grandiose, heroic deeds for the greater glory of God.

My musings were a little more modest.

What struck me more than anything while reading All Saints were the countless small, slow and seemingly insignificant ways so many people’s vocations developed over time. The shapes of the saints’ lives often fell into place haphazardly and with plenty of fits and false starts. In many cases, a person’s vocation seemed less the major decision I always thought it to be and more of an arrival, a gradual accepting of God’s grace in her or his life.

Moreover, I started to see vocation less as an ultimate choice for what to do with my life than as part of the dynamic, ongoing process of discovering who I am in the world. Vocation need not only apply to vast subjects like what career I will hold or who I will marry. It also involves common, day-to-day details. As one of Ellsberg’s saints, William Stringfellow, said, “Vocation means being a human being; every decision is a vocational event.”

In his book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, James Martin, S.J. movingly makes a similar point as he relates the story of Walter Ciszek, an American-born Jesuit priest who spent 15 years doing hard labor as a suspected spy in Russia’s Lubyanka prison. Quoting from Ciszek’s memoir He Leadeth Me, Martin explains how the priest came to discover his vocation, or “God’s will” for him, during his incarceration:

“[God's] will for us was the 24 hours of each day: the people, the places, the circumstances he set before us in that time. Those were the things God knew were important to him and to us at that moment, and those were the things upon which he wanted us to act, not out of any abstract principle or out of any subjective desire to ‘do the will of God.’ No, these things, the 24 hours of this day, were his will; we had to learn to recognize his will in the reality of the situation.

The plain and simple truth is that his will is what he actually wills to send us each day, in the way of circumstances, places, people and problems. The trick is to learn to see that -- not just in theory, or not just occasionally in a flash of insight granted by God's grace, but every day. Each of us has no need to wonder about what God's will must be for us; his will for us is clearly revealed in every situation of every day, if only we could learn to view all things as he sees them and sends them to us.”

It is important to intentionally consider where God might be calling each of us in a broad sense. But it is also essential to avoid the temptation of only seeing life’s crucial questions as part of one’s vocation. Though I knew I would not be a volunteer for the rest of my life, that was my vocation while in Peru. As I now consider next steps and long-term goals, I also must remember that each day, my vocation need not involve much more than trying to gracefully face whatever comes my way. As the lives of the saints make clear, the bigger issues will often sort themselves out anyway, fits, false starts and all for the greater glory.

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Hermana Rosario: Una heroína para sus alumnos / Hermana Rosario: A Hero For Her Students

11/25/2013

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Cada escuela necesita una heroína. Entre los que están trabajando en Fe y Alegría 44 en Andahuaylillas, Perú está Hermana Rosario Valeavellano. Una nativa de Lima que ha vivido y trabajado en los Andes para 40 años, Hermana Rosario, 71, es una monja en la Sociedad del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, una socia en el equipo administrativo del colegio y, de toda su vida, una protector de los pobres y marginados a quienes Fe y Alegría ayuda.

Fe y Alegría es un movimiento educativo popular fundado en Venezuela en 1955. En Perú hay 79 instituciones que sirve más como 80.000 niños. Sin embargo Fe y Alegría es más como un grupo de escuelas. Profesores no sólo trabajan a educar a jóvenes sino también a influir la manera en que jóvenes ven y viven en el mundo.

“Es una opción muy claro para los pobres,” dice Hermana Rosario. “Los valores son a formar cristianos que contribuyen en transformar a la sociedad de menos humano a más humano, según los valores del Reino o el evangelio.”

Andahuaylillas (pronunciado On-da-wai-li-us) tiene niveles iniciales, primarias y secundarias de Fe y Alegría y ha estado el hogar al movimiento para 19 años. Trabajando con los administradores, coordinadores académicos y profesores, Hermana Rosario es una abogada incansable para los 880 estudiantes de Fe y Alegría en Andahuaylillas. Ella viaja a Lima con frecuencia a reunir con otras administradoras y a otras partes del mundo a recaudar dinero para la escuela. Aunque ella no enseña en el salón, ella utiliza la hora cívica cada lunes para hablar con los estudiantes como grupo. También utiliza horas libres para hablar con los alumnos como individuos. Ella hace todo voluntariamente, sin ganar pago para sus esfuerzos a cambiar a la sociedad y vidas.

Every school needs a hero. Amongst those working at Fe y Alegría 44 in Andahuaylillas, Peru is Hermana Rosario Valdeavellano. A Lima native who has lived and worked in the Andes for 40 years, Hermana Rosario, 71, is a nun in the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a member of the school’s management team and a lifelong defender of the poor and marginalized Fe y Alegría seeks to support.

Fe y Alegría is a popular education movement established in Venezuela in 1955. In Peru alone, there are 79 institutions that serve more than 80,000 children. But Fe y Alegría is more than a simple collection of schools. Teachers work not only to educate young people but also to impact the way they see and live in the world.

“It is a very clear option for the poor,” says Hermana Rosario. “The values are to form Christians who contribute in transforming society from less human to more human, according to the values of the Kingdom or the Gospel.”

Andahuaylillas (pronounced On-duh-why-lee-us) has initial, primary and secondary-level Fe y Alegría institutions and has been home to the movement for 19 years. Working alongside principals, academic coordinators and teachers, Hermana Rosario is a tireless advocate for the roughly 880 students Fe y Alegría educates in the small Andean town. She often travels to Lima to meet with other administrators and to other parts of the world to fundraise on the school’s behalf. Though she does not teach students in the classroom, she takes advantage of Monday morning assemblies to address them as a group and free periods to get to know them as individuals. She also does all of this voluntarily, receiving no salary for her countless efforts to change society and lives.

Hermana Rosario con alumnas de Fe y Alegría y voluntaria jesuita Theresa Cutter. Hermana Rosario with Fe y Alegría students and Jesuit Volunteer Theresa Cutter.

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Friends and Amigos

10/31/2013

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Original Article can be found at Marquette.edu

By Brian Harper, Comm ’11

A few years ago, I learned that Marquette polls incoming students to find out why they choose Marquette. Many cite the university’s commitment to community service as a major incentive, as well as its top-tier basketball program. I like to think a few Chris Farley fans enrolled after seeing Tommy Boy.

The question led me to reflect on my motivation for choosing Marquette. Scholarship opportunities were a factor, as was my interest in the school’s journalism program. More than anything, though, I came for the community.

My parents spent part of their undergraduate years at Marquette, and my dad graduated from the School of Dentistry. Some of my earliest memories and closest relationships were born out of the friendships my parents made then. For as long as I can remember, going to Marquette basketball games with my dad meant meeting his old college friends at halftime. Annual Christmas gifts were Ardmore Bar T-shirts. During summer gatherings at the cabin belonging to the man who introduced my parents, we children watched while the adults briefly revisited their 22-year-old selves.

The takeaway was clear — Marquette not only provided an invaluable education and four years of fun, but also a formative experience and lifelong community. I wanted that.

I got my wish in spades.

I met friends in the residence halls, classes, study abroad programs in South Africa and Italy, jobs with The Marquette Tribune and the Office of Student Development, and extracurricular service experiences. During my senior year, I lived in a house with seven guys I met while living in McCormick and Schroeder halls. We made our mark by inviting then-president Rev. Robert Wild, S.J., to a dinner party. Inexplicably, but much to his credit, he joined us for supper, video games and conversation about all things Marquette.

As difficult as it was to graduate, I left campus content. Though I felt some concern that time, distance and the inevitable life shifts might not always bring change for the better, I was confident that the lessons and friends I made at Marquette would always be with me.

Interestingly, I threw the biggest wrench into the possibility of me and my friends staying close after Commencement. Though one friend took a job in San Francisco and another found a position in Florida, I decided to move to a little village in the Peruvian Andes to teach at a secondary school with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

My attraction to volunteerism can no doubt be traced to my Jesuit education, not to mention Marquette’s service opportunities that consistently emphasize the importance of being a woman or man for others.

Equal to these factors was my interest in building community. JVC has four pillars — justice, faith, simplicity and community — that unite to form the foundational theme of a volunteer’s experience. The idea is to seek justice for the people we serve; be witnesses to our faith; lead simple lives; and participate in community with fellow volunteers and friends, colleagues, students and neighbors from our host countries. I saw JVC as an opportunity to be a member of another vibrant and authentic community — much like Marquette.

In November 2011, I moved to Andahuaylillas (pronounced On-duh-why-lee-us), a small town of approximately 5,000 people located roughly 30 miles from Cusco. In Peru, I came to feel a deep and genuine sense of fellowship with the students in my English, computer, religion and verbal reasoning classes, as well as with the other teachers and staff at the local school and parish. I grew to be invested in the lives of my Peruvian neighbors, and I lived with volunteers from the United States, Spain, Great Britain and France. I feel incredibly blessed to have learned from and shared in community with all of these people.

Coming from an accomplishment-based, North American mentality, it was refreshing to enter a culture where people are valued not for what they do but for who they are. I often found that as necessary as were the activities I completed while working in the school or parish, it was the time I spent chatting with women who sold their crafts in the plaza or hanging out with children and playing kiwi, a kick-the-can-like game, that was the most important part of my service.

It is a foregone conclusion that almost everyone who goes to another country for service work will eventually return home. Many questions plagued me well before departing my host country, not least of which was how to carry what I experienced in a way that honors both those I was serving and the loved ones to whom I was returning. Fear of culture shock left me worrying that I might not ever be able to function normally in North American society again.

My concerns were eased when the United States came to visit me in Peru last January in the form of five of my Marquette friends. Many people said they would visit when they heard my plans to move out of the country, but I did not expect anyone to actually make the trip. I had a fantastic week with Matt Hixson, Jeff Jasurda, Tom Molosky, Mike Muratore and Gabe Sanchez. We went to Machu Picchu, checked out Cusco, visited churches built hundreds of years ago and delved into local cuisine. It was wonderful to see those familiar faces and hear what they had been up to since graduation.

Some of my favorite moments of the week we spent together, though, involved seeing my two communities meld. I loved watching when my Marquette friends bought souvenirs from my Peruvian friends. An impromptu soccer game that sprang up between my visitors, some of my students and me was another highlight of the week.

Pretty soon, the week was over and, like at graduation, it was hard to say goodbye to my American friends. I had grown accustomed to them being with me in Peru. I knew it would be a long time before I would see them again. But any doubt I harbored about maintaining college friendships after college is resolved. The same sort of lasting community of friends that my parents formed as students in the 1970s, which I hoped to duplicate, is mine.

College is such a brief snapshot of life — four, maybe five years. People come to Marquette seeking fulfillment in countless ways, and they leave to pursue many different endeavors. What I learned from the alumni I met through my parents and now from my own circle of friends is that what keeps us coming back and coming together long after we graduate is a shared sense of community.

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What to Expect When Nothing is Expected

10/25/2013

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Throughout my time in Peru, I wrote occasional columns for The Fond du Lac Reporter, my hometown newspaper. The following piece originally appeared in the October 25, 2013 issue of the Reporter and can be found at http://brianharperu.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/what-to-expect-when-nothing-is-expected/ or http://www.fdlreporter.com/article/20131025/FON06/310250122/Guest-commentary-What-expect-when-nothing-expected

My thanks to Gary Clausius and Mike Mentzer for editing these articles and helping with this project.

The best suggestion I could offer someone moving to Peru is never forgo a bathroom. The runner-up is to abandon all expectations.

This is because life in Peru rarely goes according to plan. For someone coming from a culture that prizes order and concreteness as much as we do in the United States, the conspicuous absence of these qualities can be jarring.

When I joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, I signed on to work at a parish. I ended up teaching at a high school. When I began at the school, I expected to instruct English and religion classes. While I covered these, I also taught verbal reasoning and computer courses.

Prior arrangements were flouted in commonplace ways. This took shape in everything from last minute meetings to hastily prepared birthday celebrations.

The haphazard, go-with-the-flow style with which my Peruvian friends moved sometimes appeared feckless. On the other hand, it seemed to leave them more open to life’s ebbs and flows.

One of JVC’s tenets is living simply. The idea is that volunteers can strive for solidarity with people they serve by operating closer to the more basic circumstances of their host communities.

The goal is not to glorify poverty or reject fundamental human needs. It is to recognize that in living within or even well below their means, people from our host communities are often freer from the false sense of safety that comes with stringent planning or extravagant materialism. Because their lives so frequently fail to follow their desires, they are more likely to get by relying on and therefore appreciating intangible elements like collective effort and help from loved ones.

Over time, I learned to see how important such an outlook is.

In April, I was diagnosed with pericarditis, an inflammation of the fibrous membrane around the heart. After controlling the swelling through treatment in a number of Peruvian clinics, I went back to my routine.

Unfortunately, the ailment reappeared shortly thereafter and made it necessary to return to the United States for additional care. Stateside appointments have made it clear that recuperation will be much slower than originally anticipated. In layman’s terms, my time volunteering in Peru is over.

This news has been painful for many reasons, the most glaring being that I have been separated from a life that gave me great joy and purpose. Just as it was hard being away from family and friends in the United States, it is now difficult to be so far from people I care about in Peru.

Strangely, though, the unforeseen nature of my departure has allowed me to feel a new closeness with Peruvian friends. As I said, many of them live in humble conditions that require a willingness to accept uncertainty.

“How will we pay for our sick child’s medicine? What will happen to our cornfields if the rain does not stop?” I know people who must ask themselves these questions and press forward without answers.

While the concerns I face are not nearly as serious, seeing my volunteer experience come to such an abrupt finish and being unsure of where my current situation will lead have shown me what it means to welcome indefinite moments. Moreover, they have taught me that despite the security many of us seek through money or excessive preparation, we have little say over life’s good or bad surprises. All we control is the way we respond.

I did not know what would happen when I moved to South America; I learned that none of us ever really know what to expect. My Peruvian friends, however, demonstrated that patience, grace, humility, humor and community make it possible to live with ambiguity and embrace the unknown.

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Remembering Father Naus

9/23/2013

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How many times must one hear the same message before its point hits home?

John the Evangelist supposedly spent the last years of his life leading an early Christian community in Ephesus, where he was known for sticking to a seemingly simple sermon: “Love one another.” When an irritated disciple asked when John was going to preach on a new topic, he replied, “When you’ve followed this one.”

For the better part of my time as a Marquette University undergraduate, I played guitar at the 10 p.m. Tuesday night Mass at St. Joan of Arc Chapel. Each week, another John essentially offered the same homily his namesake had. Father John Naus, S.J., who served at Marquette in various capacities for nearly 50 years and died Sunday, presented this theme by way of phrases, quips and quotes that are familiar to all who knew him:

“To see the world through God’s eyes, imagine the words ‘Make me feel important’ written across the forehead of everyone you meet.”

“The best cure for a bad day is a good friend.”

“To make a difference in one person’s life is immensely more precious than the value of the whole world.”

“To see the smile on their face, to hear the laughter of a little child...of a very old person...of someone who is ill...and to realize that you put it there, makes the holiest day holier still.”

Father Naus’s life highlights are oft-told and well-known in the Marquette and Milwaukee communities. He was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1955 and spent most of his teaching and ministerial career at Marquette. He lived in the university’s Schroeder Hall for 28 years and was a popular ethics, Eastern philosophy and philosophy of humor professor. Father Naus was most famous, however, for entertaining students and hospital patients as Tumbleweed the Clown, sending 4,000 Christmas cards each summer, interrupting university tours to teach prospective students the Wisconsin handshake and presiding over Tuesday night Masses.

The thread that connected all of Father Naus’s activities and actions was, of course, his love. I have never encountered someone more unquestioningly open to people than Father Naus. This applied to everyone he met. We used to frequently get lunch and even continued exchanging letters when I moved to Peru. He often made a point of telling me I was one of his best friends. While I have no doubt he meant it, I am also sure he said this about most people who had the good fortune of knowing him.

In the beautiful remembrances shared about Father Naus on Marquette’s Web site, much has been made of his wonderful, childlike persona and just how extraordinary his commitment to others was. As I reflect on these qualities, I realize that his love for others was, at least in part, fueled by his willingness to embrace his own lovable-ness. For while Father Naus thrived on making people happy and, as he often wrote in his cards, doing whatever he could to help someone, he was completely comfortable in letting others be kind to him, too.

He effusively lauded the Walgreens employees who sold him his Hallmark cards, graciously thanked anyone who held a door for him and responded to praise with a chorus of “Oh, but it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way...” I imagine this was especially true after a stroke in 2004 confined him to a wheelchair, but just as Father Naus was the most unhesitatingly caring person I have ever known, he was also one of the least self-conscious. He accepted and loved others because he accepted and loved himself.

So how many times must one hear the same message before its point hits home?

I probably attended somewhere in the ballpark of 80 Masses Father Naus celebrated, and every day, I struggle and often fail to practice that seemingly simple sermon he offered each week.

Who knows when Father Naus first heard John the Evangelist's recurring homily. Who knows how many times it took to sink in. But at some point, probably very early on, it stuck. And every morning from then on, Father Naus rose, said his beloved “Jesus Prayer” and dedicated himself to trying to live up to it.

The Jesus Prayer
Live, Jesus, live
So live in me
That all I do
Be done by thee
And grant that all
I think and say
May be thy thought
And word today
Amen

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The Doctors Are In

9/18/2013

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When I was diagnosed with pericarditis—an inflammation of the fibrous sac around the heart—while volunteering in Peru, the reaction of a number of people surprised me. Until that point, most of my Peruvian friends had demonstrated no medical proclivity whatsoever. Suddenly, I had no shortage of people anxious to share any tidbit of therapeutic information they could.

“You’re lonely,” said some. “You need a girlfriend. Or more male friends.” While I appreciated their concern that I was living with four female roommates, this theory seemed to fall short in explaining how my heart’s membrane had swelled to unhealthy proportions.

“You are so skinny,” offered the cooks at the parish cafeteria where I ate. “You aren’t eating enough.” Again, while I was grateful for the guidance and extra helpings of lunch, this did not really match anything my doctors had told me.

“Why aren’t you wearing a jacket?” exclaimed the women selling crafts in the plaza of the Andean town where I lived. “You’re going to get sick again!”

I filed each piece of advice away with all the rest, regularly noting that I should probably confirm with real physicians whether there were any connections between the state of one’s pericardium and the things my friends were saying. I did not, however, think it necessary to bother my cardiologist with every hypothesis. This was particularly true of the suggestion that I had been infected by some kind of leech while swimming in South Africa four years ago.

I thought this penchant for over-participating in other peoples’ health lives was an annoying quality of my Peruvian friends. When I returned to the United States for additional care, however, the practice did not cease.

Despite never having visited or read much about the Andes, a number of acquaintances seemed to think Peru was simply swimming with bacteria and infectious diseases. If these people were right, I was incredibly lucky not to have caught something sooner.

“Maybe it was the altitude,” some proposed.

‘Did you develop that theory at the medical school you never went to?’ I wanted to ask.

Listening to people offer strange and usually incorrect ideas about how I contracted pericarditis has been a frustrating part of recuperating. That my doctors have not been able to determine a specific cause of the ailment (SPOILER ALERT: Pericarditis usually results from an unidentifiable virus) evidently bothers people to such an extent that they either offer glib reassurances (i.e. “It’s all going to work out fine”) or uninformed speculations as to why I am sick.

My preference would be for everyone to call it like it is: “No one knows why this is happening, so too bad for you.”

I have learned, however, that such a reaction is contrary to human nature.

History’s greatest thinkers have spent thousands of years arguing whether humans are inherently good or evil. I doubt I have much to add to the conversation, but my recent medical adventures cause me to tip my hat to innate goodness. For saying I have had no limit to the number of people who want to comment on my health is really to acknowledge that I have had no limit to the number of people who want to help.

The past five months have been a royal pain. I spent two convalescences in a Cuscanian hospital, left work, returned to work and left work again, took a fruitless trip to Lima to ascertain the cause of my disease and finally left my service placement six months early for treatment in the United States. I am currently taking an obnoxious assortment of medications and trying to navigate a culture shock that leaves me wondering what would happen if everyone’s smart phones stopped functioning for 20 seconds.

It has been a tough time, but through it all, I have experienced unending generosity from friends in both Peru and the United States. People have reached out with hospital visits, phone calls, cards and gifts. Even when they know there is little they can do to make life easier, they still try.

So whenever someone tries to hearten, heal or diagnose me, I try to smile past my irritation and remember how fortunate I am to have so many doctors, trained or not, looking out for me.

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Consumer Choice

9/3/2013

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One of the quickest, easiest and laziest ways to demonstrate intelligence bona fides is to title drop.

Mentioning the books one enjoys reading or television shows one likes watching and, perhaps more importantly, the books one hates reading or shows one cannot stand watching is a sure way to display consumption virtue.

Never mind that disparaging comments about the Kardashians, Glenn Beck or the “Twilight” books betray the fact that someone has spent enough time with these people or products to know what they entail; well-placed remarks like, “I would have so much more respect for CNN if they reported more on the Syrian conflict and less on the royal baby” a) allow people to consume trivial information under the guise of lamenting its coverage and b) let others know just how painful one finds it to live in such a superficial world.

Though I have certainly been guilty of making these kinds of sanctimonious observations, I have no doubt that we truly are often presented with media that is shallow and inconsequential.

What I find myself thinking about more and more is why this is the case.

Some might argue it has simply always been this way. In a 1958 address to the Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow said television in his time showed considerable “evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live.”

Others would point to the advent of the 24-hour cable news cycle. As Jon Stewart has acknowledged, it is not hard to fill time in the wake of global catastrophes and truly breaking news events like the earthquake in Haiti or the September 11 terrorist attacks. But in the absence of such incidents, news providers are compelled to talk about whatever will keep viewers watching.

What keeps viewers watching has, of course, been documented by everyone from Stewart to Marshall McLuhan: sex, violence, stories about celebrities getting divorced and basically anything that piques interest but causes little exertion to comprehend.

Fox News, MSNBC and the other major, hype-driven cable news networks are common scapegoats for this kind of reporting. But the fact of the matter is these networks do what they do because it works. The old adage “If it bleeds, it leads” applies. If viewers gravitated toward programs that attempt to comb through public policy or explain politicians’ views in more than 30-second sound bites, news organizations would probably produce more stories like this.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where Chelsea Manning has become more famous for her desire to undergo hormone therapy than for leaking classified documents.

Networks, by the way, are not just shooting in the dark when they assume consumers prefer the sensational to the significant. In a fake editorial that rings devastatingly true, the mock newspaper The Onion explained from CNN’s managing editor’s perspective why Miley Cyrus’s performance at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) was the network’s top story the following day:

“[A]s managing editor of CNN.com, I want our readers to know this: All of you are to us, and all you will ever be to us, are eyeballs. The more eyeballs on our content, the more cash we can ask for. Period. And if we’re able to get more eyeballs, that means I’ve done my job, which gets me congratulations from my bosses, which encourages me to put up even more stupid bullshit on the homepage.

“I don’t hesitate to call it stupid bullshit because we all know it’s stupid bullshit. We know it and you know it. We also know that you are probably dumb enough, or bored enough, or both, to click on the stupid bullshit anyway, and that you will continue to do so as long as we keep putting it in front of your big, idiot faces. You want to know how many more page views the Miley Cyrus thing got than our article on the wildfires ravaging Yosemite? Like 6 gazillion more.

“That’s on you, not us.”

Those of us who ravenously followed the VMA aftermath ought to ask ourselves a few questions. Did we read articles about the show’s alleged racism and sexism because we genuinely care about those issues or because pundits and journalists cleverly raised those topics in stories with Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke mentioned in the titles? Did we even know there were wildfires in Yosemite National Park? Who is Bashar al-Assad?

A recent report conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism indicates industry cutbacks are leading “to a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into its hands. And findings…reveal that the public is taking notice. Nearly one-third of the respondents (31%) have deserted a news outlet because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to.” A 2012 survey conducted by Farleigh Dickinson University actually found that in some cases, people who do not watch any news can correctly respond to more questions about international events than people who watch cable news.

As I said before, I, too, am accountable for bemoaning the very media I continue to consume. I am also sympathetic to the argument that this media’s biggest problems are incredibly hard for a viewer to escape. The Pew Research Center and Farleigh Dickinson studies make this quite evident.

But I reject the notion that all this is completely inevitable. There are plenty of alternatives doing truly admirable work in both the print and broadcast realms. The Economist, “PBS NewsHour” and “Democracy Now!” are but a few examples. Does it take more time, legwork and concentration to pursue these other options than to turn on “Good Morning America”? Of course it does. But when has being well informed ever been a passive activity?

In the aforementioned speech to the RTNDA, Edward Murrow said, “To those who say people wouldn’t look; they wouldn’t be interested; they’re too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter’s opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. This instrument [television] can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends.”

I hope Murrow was right to trust our better instincts. And I hope we are as determined as he expected us to be to use media to those ends—to learn, to be illuminated and even inspired.

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