Bono Sighting

Though it pains me to promote American Idol, according to the press releases (and the emails I've gotten from the ONE Campaign, Bono will be on American Idol tomorrow night. It's supposed to be a relief show for Africa, so he's there to talk to the contestants about the ONE campaign. Though it's sure to be cheesy, it is bringing attention to the issues in Africa. Tune in, but be prepared with the mute or fast forward button for when you hit your limit of cheese!

White Almost Pink

Whatever you think of Bono's methods, you can't help but be inspired by the last minute of his speech at the NAACP last month. Clearly he was born to preach.

His truth IS marching on.

The Project

If you're a regular reader you know I think a lot of Bono. I've always thought he was interesting, but in the summer of 2004 I read the book Bono In Conversation. I thought I was just going to learn more about the band, but I ended up with a lot more than I bargained for. Finishing the book I couldn't look at Africa the same way again and I couldn't get the AIDS crisis out of my head.

The burning question was, what could one person do about it?

Flash forward to the Perspectives class last year. Got a whole new perspective (no pun intended) on being a global Christian. Still didn't see how this worked in with the other issues I was concerned about. Meantime, I'm reading up on DATA and some other organizations. One of the key things I got out of the course (in regard to social justice issues) is that I'm called to be a mobilizer. Not that I shouldn't do things too, but I'm good at putting things together that will get people to examine what their call might be.

Flash forward to my trip to England and my time at the Northumbria Community. One night at dinner I was sitting with a man named Roy who's involved with End Poverty Now. So, I ask him "what can one person or a small band of people do to make a difference?" So glad I asked. Roy talked about the people in Birmingham who had prayed about how to impact global poverty issues. They received an answer that seemed small in human understanding, but they were faithful in executing it and it led to big impacts. He talked about doing things, that the impact of small things is often much bigger than we know.

So I prayed about it.

In late November I was preparing for Night Watch and my section on World AIDS Day. I was reading through statistics, the latest news and key issues we should be addressing. One of the sites I visited was World Vision. In the midst of lots of great information, cool projects and initiatives I found something small. It was the Caregiver Kits project. Nothing fancy. Won't cure AIDS or change the face of the world.

And I couldn't forget about it. For days. Then a week. Couldn't get to a month because I had to do something about it.

Continued next with The Plan....

Divine Simplicity

For my "Christmas" post I'm borrowing a quote from Bono that my brother posted last year. My personal theme for this year has been divine simplicity and it really was started by reading this quote last year:

I remember coming back from a very long tour. I hadn't been at home. Got home
for Christmas, very excited of being in Dublin. Dublin at Christmas is cold, but
it's lit up, it's like Carnival in the cold. On Christmas Eve, I went to St.
Patrick's Cathedral. I went to this place, sat. I was given a really bad seat,
behind one of the huge pillars. I couldn't see anything. I was sitting there,
having come back from Tokyo, or something like that. I went for the singing,
because I love choral singing. Community arts, a specialty! But I was falling
asleep, being up for a few days, traveling, because it was a bit boring, the
service, and I just started nodding off, I couldn't see a thing. Then I started
to try and keep myself awake studying what was on the page. It dawned on me for
the first time, really. It had dawned on me before, but it really sank in: the
Christmas story. The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the
universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough. That it would
seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child born in straw
poverty, in shit and straw ... a child ... I just thought "Wow!" Just the poetry
... Unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable.
There it was. I was sitting there, and it's not that it hadn't struck me before,
but tears came down my face, and I saw the genius of this, utter genius of
picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this: love needs to
find form, intimacy needs to be whispered. To me, it makes sense. It's pure
logic. Essence has to manifest itself. It's inevitable. Love has to become an
action or something concrete. It would have to happen. There must be an
incarnation. Love must be made flesh.

Join Red

When I first saw the announcement of RED I was a little skeptical. The message that just going shopping was enough to change the world seemed a little weak. I went through the website and wondered at how Armani, Converse, Gap, Apple and American Express were going to save the world with some t-shirts. I also wondered whether I should buy a pair of Converse just to be supportive of the project. And I thought, and I read more, and I thought some more.

Here's why I'm supportive of the RED project.

1. It's Bono. Don't laugh. Bono is really visionary and has an ability to think out of the box that I don't have. He's able to see a level of connection that I don't see and I trust that even if this doesn't look that substantial to me, there's something deeper going on that I'm not aware of yet. I've gone through the process before of being sceptical of his ideas (like ONE) when they first came out and later realized how brilliant they are.

2. This project is much bigger in England and has raised a high level of public awareness. I'm not a fan of tokenism or slacktivism, but if it helps people be drawn into the movement, then I'm willing to give it some leeway. Also, England tends to be ahead of the US on social justice issues, so watching what works there can be a good barometer of what can work here.

3. (and related to two) One of the kick off events in the US was a televised shopping trip by Bono and Oprah. Initially this turned me off the project until I realized how many people who had no previous exposure and would never look at ONE mentioned this event to me. They would never have listened to the more political message of ONE, but they were willing to listen to RED.

4. When I talked to a friend who has a strong background in social justice and social activism about it, he raised the point that this is providing a new model of corporate engagement in social activitivism. I wouldn't underestimate the importance of this point. If this is successful it will just be the start. Years ago people were laughing at the concept of "Fair Trade" goods.

I firmly believe that RED is just a small step in a bigger plan on this issue. If this step is successful, I think more companies will become involved and more layers of it will be revealed.

I don't think RED is the be all and end all. I think it's one small piece of a much larger puzzle of solving the problem of AIDS in Africa. It's not the most substantial piece and it's not the most aggressive piece, but I think it's the most populist piece. Solving the problem is going to take a multi-layered approach. I think this is just one of those layers. Seeing this roll out at the same time as Bono has been working with American churches on more faith-based initiatives to address the same issue tells me that Bono only sees this as one piece as well.

I totally respect the decision to support ONE and not RED, but I think it deserves more consideration than just as a shopping trip. Sometimes it takes a little while to understand and catch the vision. I'm willing to make the jump now.

Take a watch of the (RED) Manifesto below. I've got RED on my links so you can take a closer look.

(RED) Manifesto

World AIDS Day

Last year on World AIDS Day I took a few minutes to look around the DATA site (www.DATA.org) and saw some statistics that blew me out of the water.

In Botswana, 38.8% of the population is HIV infected or has AIDS (here's an interactive map at DATA that lets you look at the percentages in the various countries) . Think about that for a minute. What if 40% of the people around you had AIDS. If you were in an elevator with 2 other people, at least one of them has AIDS. In your family, chances are at least one person has AIDS. And these numbers aren't the result of the success of anti-viral drugs in keeping people alive. The death tolls are outrageous. In Zimbabwe many of the cities have declared their cemetaries full. Not surprising, since they have 3,500 HIV related deaths a week!

It's estimated that there are currently 39.5 million people living with HIV in the world (63% of them in Africa). That number sounded familiar, so I looked some stuff up. Sure enough - that's more than the number of people in Canada.

Obviously, it's a multilayered problem. There are the health issues of treating the patients and providing medication. There are the moral issues of prevention. There are the compassion issues of dealing with the dying. There are the social issues of whole generations of Africans dying.

I'm still struggling with what to do to help. World Vision has a great list of suggestions on their site. I particularly like their project for caregiver kits and am going to try to do something about that in the new year. The One campaign has lots of suggestions as well, including resources for getting churches involved. If you're more shopping minded, check out the RED campaign (and for an added bonus, there's a message from Bono up on their site today).

But the first thing I'm going to do is to pray. Tonight there is a regular prayer gathering in my area and part of the night is set aside for the AIDS crisis in Africa. I think it's where we need to start. To intercede for the people there and for the organizations trying to make a difference. More than that though, to ask God to break our hearts for what breaks His heart. I can't help but think that what's happening in Africa is one of those things.

p.s. Thanks to Bono for bringing this to my attention and to Roy for reminding me that small groups of people can make a difference, especially if what you do is grounded in prayer.