John: Soon after that I joined Ann Medlock, who’d started the Giraffe Heroes Project, and I never looked back.
Ann had launched the Project by sending Giraffe stories to a syndication of small radio stations, and the work just grew from there. By 1988 there was whole page on the Project in Time. In 1989-91 we were invited by the Gorbachev Government to start Giraffes USSR, based in Moscow. The Moscow office told the stories of Soviet Giraffe Heroes over eleven time zones—at just the time when Soviet citizens were trying to figure out how to use the new freedoms that Gorbachev was offering. In August 1991, when those freedoms hung by a thread, Giraffes USSR broadcast a message over the whole country, urging citizens to stick their necks out to defend democracy.
We spent much of the 1990s designing and distributing programs teaching young people to build lives as courageous and compassionate citizens. We began developing books, speeches, articles and workshops on what it takes to succeed as a citizen activist, including how to find the courage to act. Now Ann and I are also both writing blogs on current hot topics.
In the last 3-4 years I’ve focused on international work—this time on the side of peace and justice. I’ve contributed to some behind-the-scenes work on the Israeli/Palestinian impasse. I helped bring two sides together in one of the wars in the Sudan, and settle a major strike in Canada. As a mentor to the Young Leaders Integrity Alliance, I’ve coached young activists all over the world to do a lot of good, including organizing students in Teheran, starting a new political party in Lebanon and launching a Giraffe leadership training program for youth in Kyrgyzstan.
I’ve also been active in trying to help bridge the divide between the Muslim world and the West. This work brought me in contact with the leaders of a Hamas-controlled refugee camp in South Beirut two years ago—another possible reason I’m on that Watch List.
I still love adventure and risk. But what I accept now—and didn’t accept as a young man—is that what’s key is knowing what to take risks for—understanding that the most significant risks may challenge not the body but the soul.
My story may be a little exotic, but I don’t think the lessons from it are that strange. I think there’s no greater yearning in any of us than to lead a meaningful life. I think that the surest, long-term source of meaning is service—helping solve public problems, making the world a better place. I think that that experience on the cruise ship happened to me because of the extraordinary efforts I was making to run away from what I knew would make my life meaningful.
So, your advice to others would be…?
John: I tell people—don’t make the mistake that I did. Don’t run away from what you know will add meaning to your life. Listen to that still small voice that says, or may someday say to you: “Hey, hear me through all the uproar and static and pressures of your life. This opportunity to be of service—this one right in front of you: it’s important—to others and to you.”
***
I can’t wait to read his new book*, due out in a week or two! For all who would like to know more about John and what he does:
Stick Your Neck Out, A Street-Smart Guide to Creating Change in Your Community and Beyond (2005 Barrett Koehler). Available from the Giraffe Heroes Project http://www.giraffe.org -- or Amazon.com
*Sit Down Young Stranger: One Man’s Search for Meaning (2007, Packard Books) out December 26. Available from http://www.sitdownyoungstranger.com
Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. We aim to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Electronic (computerized) voting systems are simply antithetical to democratic principles.
CER set up a lending library to achieve the widespread distribution of the DVD Invisible Ballots: A temptation for electronic vote fraud. Within eighteen months, the project had distributed over 3200 copies across the country and beyond. CER now concentrates on group showings, OpEd pieces, articles, reviews, interviews, discussion sessions, networking, conferences, anything that promotes awareness of this critical problem. Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005.
But today many more Hero's are needed. Everyone in the military is a hero and I am not talking about that type of bravery. I am talking about having the courage to stand in from of the US Governement Tanks as was done in Tiananmen Square in 1989. These tanks are the Executive Branch, the Judicial Branch and Congress.
Some hero's may even have to ally themselves with outsiders to even get the mainstream media in America to run any true stories about the courrpution in the American Government.
The next 6 months will show the true state of America, if the status quo remains, as I beleive it will, I would sell everything ou have and move to somewhere true exists. Is the space shuttle giving rides yet?
by
Michael Morris (18 articles, 0 quicklinks, 16 diaries, 302 comments)
on Sunday, December 16, 2007 at 9:54:48 AM
Perhaps it is my age, perhaps it is the frustrations of a lifetime spent in fighting injustice, corruption, greed and perfidy but I think that there are damn few like Mr. Graham and Ms. Medlock. The only voice that far too many of us are listening to these days is the one that encourages greed and the search for wealth and individual comfort.
The one single thing that carried me through the difficulties of engaging a bureaucracy and an unaware public was my unshakeable faith in the inherent goodness of the American people. "If they only knew the truth" I would mutter, "they would arise and set things to right". Well, now all but the most isolated, the most uncaring, know the lies that brought us to war, know the unspeakable acts our government commits against helpless prisoners, none of whom has been judged guilty of anything. Yet it all continues, and , aside from a relative few, here on these pages, and elsewhere on the web and in small community groups around the nation, there is no outcry, not even against the mounting evidence that shows at least one stolen election.
I have heard that voice for four decades now, I have always risen to the challenge it presented, Ive always been unable to resist its call. I have nothing but respect for those who continue to fight and continue to hope but I must increasingly wonder at the passivity, the ennui of the great majority of my fellow citizens. That they were once unaware of the evils committed in their name can no longer be used to justify the fact that many of them never even bother to vote and far too many of those who do vote do so by rote without a clear understanding of who or what they support when they cast their ballots. Too much has been made public to accept the lethargy and acceptance of our fellow citizens, at least for my taste.
Is this negativity a typical holiday depression? Is it a reflection upon how little things have changed , and most of the change has been for the worse, despite the struggles of many activists. I hope it is simply a question from an old man at the end of his rope. I hope someone can give me an answer that encourages.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Sunday, December 16, 2007 at 9:27:36 AM
i certainly can't disagree with your 'take' on the general apathy to be found in our fellow citizens. part of it is that people are working a lot longer and harder to stay in place. they're exhausted by the effort, with less free time for thinking, activism, etc. the press gets a major thumbs down as well.
that general feeling of hopelessness and powerlessness is exactly what the Giraffe Heroes Project sought/seeks to combat. yes it is true that we are in big trouble on many fronts. but unless you are prepared to go out and end your life right this minute, you have to find a way to go on without being totally immobilized.
there are many mini-measures that are helpful: a news fast (or even a semi-news fast), skipping movies and reading material that focuses on violence), seeking out fellow travelers of the 'i'm doing my small part to make my corner of the world better' ilk and gaining sustenance from that, connecting with friends, cooking, gardening, creating in any form...
i have kids and hope to have grandchildren one day. i simply can't give up. that's part of why i am so drawn to the work they do at the Giraffe Heroes Project.
but i very much appreciate your comments. i don't think of myself as a Pollyanna but focusing on the negative would simply make it impossible for me to do my work. and that would be a pity. not because i think i'm changing the world but because it allows me to try. which is better than not trying. i think you get the picture.
best wishes,
by
Joan Brunwasser (164 articles, 3538 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 634 comments)
on Sunday, December 16, 2007 at 9:52:14 AM
and kind response. I have four children, and fourteen grandchildren, thus I have a motive for seeking a better future. Facing reality is necesary to proceeding with a formulation to succeed, dont you think?
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 at 8:15:26 AM
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