Keep the promise

Some days I read the news and I vaccilate between despair and hope.

Today I despair because representatives of this great nation are allegedly raping children and applying scalpels to genitals in places like Abu Ghraib and the "ghost prisons" of Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay.

At the same time, even in the midst of this kind of madness, I am also able to find some semblance of hope in things like the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

To know that there are still good people in the world today, who are committed to equality, the eradication of poverty and to peace, is enormously comforting to me.

Even so, just knowing is not enough. I also believe that we are each called to action. In whatever ways we are able, we must rise up and require the truth and integrity of all people, for all people.

For me, this is as simple as striving to be as honest, as accountable, and as authentic in my relationship with God, with the world around me, and with myself, as I am able to be. This is no easy task however; as I have found that living this life requires vigilance, effort, and perhaps most importantly, the ability to extend and to receive forgiveness.

I believe that true change has humble beginnings.

I also believe that world change is possible and that it begins with me.