World Beginnings

  Gandi’s glasses recently sold for $340,000 USD at a British auction; more than ten times the pre-auction estimate. The singer Edith Piaf sang about living life looking through rose-colored glasses, " La vie en rose ”,   and John Lennon made round-colored lenses his trademark while proposing a perfect world in his song “ Imagine ”. We “see” the world out of the lens of our complicated lives and history. Some only see next season’s couture show or exotic vacation. Some see the world colored by past loss or perceived wrongs; impacting every relationship and decision today. As a young man, Gandhi had many choices but he chose a simple path. While his countrymen were embracing Western clothing and values, he tossed those aside, wearing a plain cotton loincloth. eschewing all but the simplest of food. World leaders, philosophers and thinkers came to seek his wisdom;  his message of change through nonviolence still rings today. Just think how wonderful the world would be now i...

  One of my favorite activities in the school year was Week Without Walls, WWW. This was a time for students to learn and experience beyond the classroom. Teachers were in charge of planning the trip and there was a learning focus, to most of them. One that will stay with me forever, not my trip, was building bathrooms in Bali. We tend to think of Bali as an exotic vacation but there is extreme poverty off of the glitzy tourist paths and the students came back changed forever. It is important to point out that these students are extremely privileged, living in a rarified world of drivers, maids, cooks and gardeners. They’ve never cleaned anything in their lives.  Unsurprising, to those who know me, I always focussed on local animal shelters. My last year in Beirut our project was to build cat shelters for a woman who was feeding and caring for about thirty cats in a vacant lot across from her house. Students raised money through bake sales to buy all of the supplies, Then alon...

This is one of my favorite pictures from my time in Beirut. This well-dressed man, starched white shirt, silver cufflinks and polished Gucci loafers wanders down from the corniche after a long day in an air-conditioned office. He borrows a pole from a random fisherman. As he casts his line into the teaming Mediterranean, yesterday, today and tomorrow float away in the tide. Occasional low, deep murmuring voices, the smells of the sea, fish and men take him back long ago with his father and his father’s father. Soon he has left the screaming problems of today and he is on a Phoenician ship sailing to the Greek Isles with a precious cargo of olive oil in earthen jars. Too soon, his reverie is broken by a tug on the line. He carefully pulls his catch in, placing it in a bucket, leaving it for the others whose needs are greater. He trudges up the stairs to the crowded corniche and makes his way home to his luxurious flat, with walls of glass overlooking the sea. The sea air still clings to...