Tikkun Olan

When Jared asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I couldn’t really articulate. When I asked Jared what he wanted to do with his life, he replied “Tikkun Olan”, which translates as “healing the world”. This led us into a typically insightful conversation over how such a life goal can be manifested.

I think that many of us who enter into the field of development in any way have an underlying vision of doing something great for the world – something that heals it. We are visionaries who dream big and work hard pushing towards some indefinable outcome with the ultimate desire of healing the wounds that the world leaves open and abandoned. I see a lot of my own thoughts in Jared’s ambitions. I also see a lot of my own questions regarding how such a purpose can be manifested in our lives.

When I went to Kenya, even as a student, I placed an enormous amount expectation on myself. That expectation was that in the 4 1/2 months I was there, I would have such an incredible impact that the country, and therefore, the world would never be the same. I was going to start a promising NGO, the model of which would be replicated world wide and bring millions out of poverty within months, change government policies, and eventually win a Nobel Peace Prize for my selfless efforts (obviously). Where could such an expectation have possibly come from? How did the characterization of making a difference in the world gain such grand requirements? Is it the definition of what is or is not a success that society has created? Do we all have to be exactly like Mother Teresa or Ghandi to truly heal the world?

Personally, experience with failure, failure to achieve the impossible equipped only with my good intentions, has forced me to shift my perspective on what makes a difference and what amount of doing is good enough. I like to think of a quote that gives the image of a pond filled with stones. Each stone that is dropped into the pond makes the water level rise. Depending on the size of the stone, the amount the water rises varies, but even the smallest stone changes the level. Eventually, even that small stone might be the contribution that results in the pond overflowing and creating a river. That river then moves out into the world, giving water to the desert, giving life where there had been none before, supporting life that already existed etc. Every stone that went into that pond played an essential role and without that stone the result would not have been the same. The ripple effect that one contribution can make cannot be underestimated.

Maybe I can’t rescue every child from a life of poverty, maybe I can’t stop the war in the north, maybe I can’t create the structure that solves problems xy and z. But I like to think that I have many stones in my pocket and that each one heals and contributes to a much greater energetic process of healing.

When Jared and I went up to Gulu this past week on our own individual ventures, we had the common interest of spending time with the children at Charity for Peace, the night commuters center I wrote about earlier, and doing something that would lighten up at least one of the dark nights that they sleep in those desolate, concrete buildings. We also had a common interest in painting. We brought a big piece of plywood to the center one afternoon and painted it white. When all of the kids showed up that night and saw the paint and paint brushes their excitement was instantly gratifying.

They lined up, pushing against one another in anticipation, as we painted one of each child’s hands. After soaked in color, they each went up to the board and left their handprint. Of course we had intended to make the painting’s boarder all handprints, leaving the middle for an image or a collection of images. The children had another idea, and soon the entire board was filled with a rainbow of tiny hands. It was no grand masterpiece, but it was perfect, it was enough. Their smiles and laughter filled the dark room with light that night.

The following day one of the children painted the words “200 hands for peace” in English and in Luo, the local language. 200 hands for peace. The painting, the collage of innocent hands, tells 200 stories, holds within it 200 smiles, 200 wishes for a night when they can feel safe staying at home, and carries a message that enters into the universe even if it remains physically within the walls of the night commuters center.

My last night in Gulu I looked into the eyes of the little girl that I had slept next to two weeks before, who had reminded me that I am human, and I saw happiness despite adversity. I saw satisfaction in the moment, the moment that was good enough just as it was. She held my hand and in those moments I felt healing pass both ways between our fingers.

As Jared and I walked towards the gate to go home he looked up at the clear night sky and said something along the lines of “when I look at those children and I look at this sky, I wonder how there can possibly be any bad in this world”. The twinkle in those children’s eyes is a constant reminder of everything that is pure and good in this world. It is also a reminder that every gesture, no matter how small, makes a difference. 200 hands came together to create something bigger than themselves and those children will always have that memory and they will always have that painting to remind them of their common vision for peace and that they are not alone. Two lone travelers will always have the memory of those hands, those smiles, those eyes, to encourage us to live within our vision of healing every day.

Helping those kids create a painting may have only been a small stone of healing in a big pond of wounds, but the water level did rise and it did bring the world one step closer to having another river to nourish it. That, to me, is Tikkun Olan, one stone at a time.