What is the Untold Story?

4/21/2016

Many of us are committed to social-economic-cultural-political change that reduces violence and injustice and increases the health and well being of all creatures. After years of trying to understand where my efforts can be most strategically and meaningfully applied, I have come to rest on the project of promoting awareness and empathy. It's a path of healing and becoming.

Having identified the many ways that humanity can cause harm and misery, a long list I will not tax you with, it seems to me that the shortest line between injustice and justice, between poverty and grace, between taking and giving, is through the story which has not been imagined, the story of the victim whose well being has not been made a factor in the calculations of another actor, the story which draws on the emotions of the listener, which reminds the listener of their common humanity with the they who have been hurt.
For however rapacious American capitalism may seem, some other countries are far worse. 

As I study these other examples, It seems to me that what is missing is a commitment to health and dignity by the leaders and power actors. There are so many people who work with extreme ambition to become ever richer. But how does this wealth actually help these people? What I advocate is that we reward systems which promote adequate resources that allow people to take care of themselves, and we weaken system which strengthen the strong. Again, these actions are promoted by telling the stories of people who have fewer resources, and suffer not for being unkind and not for failing to plan, but only for being unlucky and impoverished.

My particular field of interest is the experience of being marginalized here in Chittenden County. I am showing up and networking with the homeless, and pretty soon, I expect, I will be going on a radio show to talk about the stories I am being told. The homeless have many untold stories. I intend to tell them.

Please call me Challenge.