Believe it or not, being engaged and in the Peace Corps is not the easiest thing in the world. When I started dating Riley, I was finishing my application to the Peace Corps. I remember questioning rather to even include the fact that I was in a relationship since it was so new and seemingly tenuous. Little did I know a year and a half later he would be flying to Ukraine to propose.  Life is full of surprises

The last six months since he popped the question have been exciting, depressing, humorous, confusing, and wonderful all at the same time. The fact that I can plan a wedding from 6,000 miles away is cool. The fact that I only see my fiancé on a computer screen is not. The pain of missing him is compounded by two factors: firstly, everyone is always telling me how sorry they feel for me. This makes me feel sorry for me, too. I mean, really, who goes and gets engaged and then lives in another country for two years? This is illogical, I hear all the time. And then I start to believe it. I see my friends get engaged, shop for dishes and curtains, and get married. In less than a year. Spending nearly everyday together. I get more cynical. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, I tell myself. This is cruel. Which brings me to my second point.

The Peace Corps is not the Marine Corps. I can leave at anytime. It’s my choice to be here. I’m not a masochist. So why don’t I just go home? Live in the same time zone as Riley, pick out china patterns, and be married by Christmas. Well, there’s this tiny little detail. I actually don’t think that I just chose to be here. I feel useful, needed, and challenged in Ukraine. I believe God wants me here. It should make it easier that Riley thinks that, too. But it doesn’t always. I routinely forget this vital fact. And when it smacks me in the face, I rebel against it. The other night, I was talking to Riley and admitted that I just really wanted to come home. I said I wished that instead of doing web development work, he had a steady job with health benefits so he could support us while I looked for work in the states. I said I didn’t know how much longer I could be away from him.

I was coming from a pretty selfish standpoint. I missed him. I missed laughing together and eating ice-cream and watching Cowboys games. But, he came from a different place. He said half-jokingly, “Maybe God knows if I had that kind of job right now you’d come home, and I really think you’re supposed to be in Ukraine right now.” Joking or not, it struck a chord, and I knew God was trying to tell me something.  And I hated it. I literally writhed and whined, lamenting my plight in the world. My friend Molly was over, and I complained to her, “I don’t want to be mature about this.” She replied with a chuckle in her ten-year-older-than-me-knowledge, “Don’t worry, you’re not.” 

God is really teaching Riley and me some pretty important lessons in all this. Like the fact that we are not God. We cannot even begin to do this on our own. Of all the lessons we have to learn as a couple, this is probably the best foundational one. The other day, I was listening to music and feeling melancholy when a song I had never heard came on. The lyrics went like this, “Those who trust in the Lord are as strong as mountains. They will not be moved.” I really needed to hear that. I needed to be reminded that my God is a constant source of strength. And I am human. Trusting in myself and in Riley is not going to cut it. 

As fate would have it, after weeks of trying to track down a protestant church in Ukraine (no small feat!), I finally found a phone number for a Baptist Church about an hour away from me. I called a very enthusiastic and slightly confused man named Vladamir, the local pastor. The trip to Burshtyn was filled with obstacles, like hailing a bus in the middle of the street and getting off at the wrong stop. But we made it. And Vladamir was there to greet us. As soon as we got to church, we felt like family. I know that sounds cliché, but as foreigners in the former Soviet Union, this is not a common feeling. It takes a while for people to trust you and welcome you into their homes. While Ukrainian hospitality is no myth, this was the first time I felt it instantly. Never mind the fact that I didn’t understand half the things being said. They were smiling, gave us hot tea, and kissed us on the cheek. Before the service started, Vladamir gathered Molly and me to pray with a couple of other people. We listened as intently as we could to their heartfelt, Ukrainian language prayers. I didn’t get most of it. As a government employee and secondary school teacher, my vocabulary is limited to social and professional contexts. When it came to my turn to pray, I was afraid. I literally had no words. Then Vladamir said, “In English.” I had forgotten I knew a language effortlessly.  

To open the service, we sang a Christian hymn “How Great Thou Art.” Molly and I couldn’t stop smiling. It was in Ukrainian, of course, but we knew the melody and could translate most of it. One of the funny differences between Ukrainian and English is that we have a lot of little words that mean big things and they have a lot of long words that mean small things. So in translation, the Ukrainian version of “How Great Thou Art” is simply, “Big You.” I mean, really, that gets the point across. So Molly and I sang “Big you, Big you” and thought, truly, How Great Thou Art. God is as strong as a mountain and quite big enough to see Riley and me through this and much more. After spontaneously being asked up front to give our testimonies (in Ukrainian, of course) as the 35mm cameras clicked and flashed, we were ready to sit down. In the back. But Vladamir had another request. “Now you will sing a song?” He half asked, half told. I assumed he meant the whole church would sing a song while we were positioned up front. I was mistaken. He actually wanted Molly and me to belt something out a cappella in English. The congregation waited expectantly. I, true to form, burst out laughing. I have zero musical talent. Molly shook her head and said “We can’t, we can’t,” in Ukrainian. They encouraged us more. I started to translate “Big You” in spoken word, but Molly decided to give them a little taste and sang the chorus. They were looking for more, but we just took a bow and sat down. The sermon drew on Matthew 7, where Jesus asks “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him.” I know that God wants to give me only the best kind of gifts. I know this on my best days. But when I’m at my worst, I think I know better. The next verse I recognized quoted was Psalm 144. I looked it up in my Message translation of the Bible and it began, “Blessed be God, my mountain.” My attention was officially grabbed. 

The day came to a ceremonious end as we ate lunch together and were implored once again to sing English worship songs. We were jolly but at a loss. Then Natalia said she knew only one song with English words, and God reminded me once more that with Him, there’s no turning back, no turning back.

In stream-of-consciouness-order, the Top 10 Things I didn’t know about the world until I moved halfway across it : 

10. Grapes have seeds. And they’re not the only ones. Those tiny oranges, aka tangerines have ‘em too. Throw in cherries, blueberries, and just about every fruit save the banana and you’ll get the picture. Granted I probably knew this at one point in my life, like before we started genetically modifying our fruits and veggies. But it’s hard to remember what things were like back in the day, which brings me to my next point…

9. You can adjust to almost anything. I went from living in Texas, a hotbed of conservatism, evangelism, Spanglish, country music, and well, heat and humidity, to living in the frozen tundra of Greek Orthodox Ukraine. Pumping water from a well, using an outhouse, hiking 20 minutes in the snow to work, and frequently working without heat and electricity became my norm in just a matter of months. I actually think I prefer a turkish toilet now. Weird. 

8. English is really hard to learn. We have like a million words that mean all basically mean “good.” As a native speaker and lover of language, this is grand–a virtual playground of prose. But for the aspiring English student, it can be quite frustrating. I once tried to comfort a colleague by saying that I keep a dictionary at the ready to look up words while reading. She was not encouraged. Besides sheer volume, there are all the irregular conjugations and a whopping 18 tenses. Plus, we have a bunch of silent letters, foreign words that we steal, and the ever-confusing use of prepositions. Oh yeah, and we employ more figures of speech in colloquial language than you can shake a stick at. So thank your lucky stars you were born with an English spoon in your mouth. 

7. There are four distinct seasons. In Texas, we have two: Summer and Christmas. Summers in the lone star state are greedy, enviously eying the months from September onward. Rarely, a day or two will escape the sweaty clutches of August and her smoldering sisters to bring forth a cool breeze and perhaps even warrant a hot chocolate or two in December. Rarely. But in Ukraine, I arrived in October to hues of red, orange and yellow. Then, I watched with bated breath as the first snow drifted out and changed the landscape until, well, this week. Spring is here, and I couldn’t be more energized. Every room in my apartment has a window propped open right now, the sunlight beaming in as the birds chirp from still barren, but hopeful, tree branches. The flowers on my window sill are a touch ahead of the game, and are blooming with abandon. Neighbors are out tilling the soil in their kitchen gardens, and the sun doesn’t set until 8 p.m. A full four hours later than in Winter. If the degree of change from Winter to Summer is any indication, I think I’ll be able to wear shorts one day. Sweet. 

6. Change, like nickels and dimes, is a luxury. It’s a common occurrence at the store here to be met with a blank stare when you don’t have exact change. And the amount of change on your bill makes no difference. “You don’t have 87 cents?” They ask incredulously. Because they don’t have the 13 either. So, in lieu of the money properly owed to you, a small handful of candy is given in its place. Sometimes just a piece, if  the amount is 10 cents or below. Today I was given the equivalence of 65 cents (6 pieces of candy). But it was ice-cream flavored and quite delightful so I didn’t really mind. 

5. Hot, running water is the greatest thing in the world. Say what you will about the cotton gin, the printing press, or even the internet. But I’m siding with steaming showers and the round-the-clock capability to wash your hands without wincing in pain. I didn’t know cold could hurt until I turned on the tap in January in Ukraine. I feel so confident in my opinion not only because I live at a high latitude, but because my friend and fellow PCV in Nicaragua recently said  the same thing. She lives basically on the equator and her biggest complaint was a lack of hot water. And back sweat. But still. 

4. American culture is the most pervasive thing on the planet. Sadly, this doesn’t mean democracy, free enterprise, and individualism reign globally. It just means I hear Britney Spears on the radio, see Nike and Adidas logos everywhere, eat Nestle Chocolate, and hear people use words like “Super” and “OK” even though they don’t speak English. Inexplicably, I also witness at least one person wearing something that says  “Miami Dolphins,” “Arizona State University,” or something else as seemingly random daily. I’ve even seen a “Golden State Warriors” starter jacket. There are really no words. 

3. Simplicity goes a long way. Most people have heard the joke about how NASA spent millions of dollars formulating a pen that could write in space without the aid of gravity to allow the ink to flow. And the Russians? They used a pencil. I’ve been using a lot of pencils lately. Like instead of making powerpoint slides or showing video-clips in classes that are less than friendly toward technology, we play charades, hangman, and vocabulary tic-tac-toe. As opposed to dryers or dishwashers, I hang my clothes in the bathroom or on my balcony and I rinse plates and use a drying rack. “Why would you pay for air?” I’ve often heard when I explain that we have machines that blow hot air on our shirts and cups, thus rendering clothes lines and dish racks virtually obsolete. 

2. People are people. I gotta give a shout-out to PCV Kristi Goldade on this one, for she was the one who coined this phrase, in my lexicon at least. As “other” as everyone seems at first glance in Ukraine, and many times, on the second and fifty-second glance, there are good and bad people everywhere you go. So maybe the old women here wear bonnets and fur boots, rising temperatures be dammed, and they don’t smile at strangers but feel free to stare. When you sit down with them, have a cup of tea, and talk about life, there are too many intrinsic commonalities to get caught up in the differences of language, dress, culture, and social mores. As Obama is fond of saying about people, “The burdens of global citizenship continue to bind is together…those aspirations are bigger than anything that drives us apart.” That’s applicable to people from California to Louisiana to Maine and for humanity as a whole. Decent people in America can get along with decent people in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea or anywhere else. There are angry, rude, evil people in every country in the world, but the trick is not to characterize a nation by their worst representatives, even when they are sometimes the loudest, or the most accessible examples. 

1. Flexibility. I feel like this list has plateaued. And while a “Top 9 List” isn’t exactly conventional, I think I’m going to go with. Sometimes, I walk into class and expect to teach 10th grade and end up with 6th. Sometimes, I end up with no class at all. But, I find a way to make it work, and I’m learning not to let it ruffle my feathers too much. Maybe I’ll go to the gym or the playground and strike up conversations, or plan lessons for tomorrow that are adaptable to a variety of ages and skill levels. Or I’ll just have an early lunch. It always works out, as cliche as it sounds, and the world doesn’t come to an end just because my schedule isn’t set in stone. I’m on a cliche roll. I better stop while I’m ahead. Looks like I’ve got a Top 10 list after all.

I live in a village of about 5,000 in North Eastern Ukraine. I am really settling in and loving it. I must admit the first few weeks were rough. Adjusting to the cultural differences, a new climate, and the language all at once was a challenge. It’s already funny now looking back at it. I am continually learning so much about Ukraine and the Peace Corps it can be overwhelming, but I am so happy to be here.

I taught my first English class last week with a fellow PCT (Peace Corps Trainee) and enjoyed it immensely. It was awesome. Students are accustomed to a heavy emphasis on grammar translation and were quite thrilled to play hangman and matching games with new vocabulary. It was great to see the look of excitement on their faces as we introduced ourselves and gave our first lesson. Students here are very disciplined and work well with strict instructions. Not exactly the typical American classroom! I am certainly thankful for the controlled atomosphere Ukrainian teachers have established. Next week, I am teaching a 9th grade class on the topic of Great Britain. The topics are assigned by the national curriculmn but we have some latitude on how to cover them. I am going to use the Beatles as main part of the lesson and plan on playing a song for them as a listening activity. I am really looking forward to it!

Besides official training activities, I live with a host family that serves as a continuing classroom. I was able to have a genuine conversation with them this week. After receiving a letter from home and translating it for them with the help of a Ukrainian/English dictionary, they posed a great question: Why did you leave your family and friends and move halfway around the world to teach English in Ukraine? I was only too happy to share that my desire to teach English is just a small part of my motivation for joing the Peace Corps. Truly, it’s about promoting world peace through real relationships and cultural exchange. It’s about understanding people thousands of miles away from home, and helping them understand you, too. I’m not sure how much of that i got across in Ukrainian, but it was the start of a beautiful conversation.

Note: For the next year, I will have a monthly column in the Wacoan. Check out the first one in the November edition!

Yet the so-called “public defenders” spend next to no time chasing down the top execs at Fannie Mae or AIG. The government bailouts are costing taxpayers billions of dollars, while the guilty parties sneak off with hefty paychecks and bonuses. Companies like the Lehman brothers and Merrill Lynch aren’t so lucky. They took bad advice, disguised it as good investments, and hoped for a greater return due to their risk. The companies don’t get to ride the government’s coat tails because their effects weren’t calculated to be as large as Fannie or Freddie. Oh well, at least the CEO of Merrill Lynch stands to make about $252 million from the Bank of America buy-out. That makes me feel better.

I understand the AIG bailout is perhaps the lesser of two evils, considering the effect of huge corporations going under on our already fragile economy, but that’s not good enough. The stock market is holding, while our national debt climbs the charts at an alarming rate. Somewhere, our capitalism credo has run amuck, and predatory lenders are looking out for no one but themselves as they hand out mortgages to the masses and set off a chain-reaction of problems.

Sure, in an ideal world, the public would be highly educated, fiscally responsible, and wouldn’t even apply for a loan they didn’t qualify for. But back in reality, people want nicer homes than they can afford. It’s the professional responsibility of lenders and credit agencies to tell people their limits. That’s why you have to get “approved” for a loan. The idea isn’t to pick the weakest candidate and exploit them. This isn’t the African Sahara.

These checks were in place to determine suitability for large financial responsibility, but now they are being used to take advantage of people. This is the crime of the century. It’s affecting the entire country, and except for saying “Shame on you,” playing the blame game, and writing a check with our money, the government isn’t doing much about it.

So what do I want? A full-scale attack.

We must go after the predatory lenders with vigor. We have to make an example out of them. Right now it’s the perfect crime. We’re telling business men and women, go ahead, screw over the public, write yourself a nice, fat check, and we’ll bail you out. Literally. I want investigators on the case. I want undercover raids. I want to turn the small-time peddler of bad loans into a snitch to reel in the big fish. I want the corporate version of the SWAT team assembled.

This isn’t going to be cheap. But I’d give a rough estimate that falls somewhere below $85 billion.

It’s a good thing I didn’t write the Bible.

OK, that’s the understatement of the century. But in all seriousness, I just can’t imagine how Jesus came up with such a great answer to “Who is my neighbor?” I probably would have just said “everyone.”

But that wouldn’t get the point across like the parable of the Good Samaritan does. In Luke 10, Jesus’ answer tells us not only are the clean, nice-looking people our neighbors, but so is the naked bloody guy with no money on the side of the street.

We should treat him with pity, and, judging from the parable, extravagance. So who is our neighbor today? As surely as it is the nuclear family next door, it is the illegal immigrant.

The New York Times put it aptly in a June 3 editorial: “A nation of immigrants is holding another nation of immigrants in bondage, exploiting its labor while ignoring its suffering, condemning its lawlessness while sealing off a path to living lawfully.” Although how to handle illegal immigration is undoubtedly a Christian moral issue, it is also an issue that strikes the core of American life.

We were founded to be a refuge from tyranny, oppression, and injustice. Whatever happened to “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free”? I fear we have replaced it with, “give me your paperwork, wait two to five years, learn a new language, or we will imprison you indefinitely.”

I realize the issue is complex and challenging. We cannot allow immigration to go unchecked. We must protect our citizens and our country first and foremost or we won’t be much of a sanctuary to anyone. However, protecting the immigrant is an important, and recently missing, piece of the American character.

So where should we, as Christians, start?

I won’t rehash the parable for a second time, but I think you know where I’m going with this.

We must love illegal immigrants, our neighbors, as ourselves.

This won’t be easy. I daily have trouble loving people who look, talk, and think like me with as much grace and understanding as I afford my fallen self.

To remind myself to do things, I like to use lists. Little things I can check off, keep up with, and hang on my mirror. But “love illegal immigrants” doesn’t really belong on a post-it note next to my grocery list.

In fact, it sounds downright ridiculous.

It has to be written on our hearts and seen in our actions or else it won’t matter. It won’t be the real, life-changing love that God gives us everyday. It will be hard. It will be awkward. It might even cause you to loose a few friends or social standing. Sound like anyone you’ve heard of before? Jesus didn’t ride into town on a white horse. He saddled up a donkey. Jesus didn’t hang out with the rich and powerful. He chilled with the poor and rejected.

While there are a number of passages in the Bible about following the law and respecting your government, there are more still about loving others unashamedly and unequivocally. Contrary to welfare legislation, there is no such thing as the “undeserving poor.” As human beings, we all deserve compassion. And as Christians, we are all commanded to dish it out with utter abandon. Not delineating between the “good” poor and the “bad” poor, but loving each and every one of God’s creatures as ourselves.

Looking for a practical application?

A good place to start might be volunteering to teach English as a second language. My church in college, Calvary Baptist, had a Wednesday night ESL class open to the community. From that class, a Spanish-speaking Sunday school class was born. Hey, sometimes you just need to use your mother tongue. 

And from that class, a new ministry to immigrants in Waco evolved. It was amazing to see. And it made a difference. Another area immigrants typically lack understanding is personal finance. One member of our church helped organize a “Bank Fair/Carnival” so that parents could learn about checking accounts and other services while their children jumped on bouncy-castles and ate snow cones.

Some people might think providing these classes without knowing if those receiving the services are legal citizens is a crime in itself. I’m not one of them. I think a greater crime, one against God, is committed when we turn our back on the poor. As Jesus said, “Whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me.” I’m not telling you to start housing people of unknown descent in your guest room. But loving others is always a risk.

Another practical way Christians can respond to the plight of the illegal immigrant is with our votes. I’m pretty big on the separation of church and state and honestly even invoking political language next to passages of the Bible makes me nervous.
But I’m not telling you who to vote for, just to look at your local and federal elections with a keen eye. Find out where the candidates stand on illegal immigration. Call your congressman or woman. Let them know this issue is important to you.

I believe a key component to the illegal immigration problem is in the hands of lawmakers. As long as companies are hiring illegal workers, they will come illegally. There need to be harsher penalties for companies who employ illegal workers. In many cases, they are exploiting people to work for below-minimum wage, with no benefits, for far too many hours a week. I sincerely think those who hire and abuse immigrants are as guilty, if not more, than the workers are.

For most of us, however, our role is not to pass legislation. In the words of Micah, “What does God require of you? To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Amen.

They all systematically kill citizens who break the law.

Of course they aren’t alone. Sudan, Uganda, Pakistan and Swaziland are our fellow compatriots in this ghastly fraternity of 70 countries.

The goal of institutional punishment is part correction, part restitution, and part community protection. Violators of the law are subject to sanctions in an attempt to dispense justice, that is to correct the wrong committed in a meaningful way, prevent it from happening again, and in the process remove harmful individuals from society.

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the death penalty is not an appropriate punishment for the rape of a child. This ruling reflects largely what the judicial process of our nation has already decided. As the article in the Times states,  “Not since 1964 has anyone been executed in the United States for a crime other than murder.”

While I happen to oppose the death penalty unilaterally, the idea of killing child rapists sounds appealing at first glimpse. The despicable nature of the crime and the irreparable harm done to children causes something in my normally peace-loving nature to cry out with vengeance with the mob.  But this knee-jerk reaction is short-sided. What I really want is assurance that this won’t happen ever again, or, at the very least, it will occur with far less frequency.

Systematically killing the perpetrators one by one sounds like the literal way to eliminate the problem and “protect” our children. But if preventing child rape is really what this debate is about, then the death penalty shouldn’t even be a consideration. New Orleans and Houston rank as the second and fifteenth leading cities for murder. Louisiana and Texas also rank among the highest in number of executions per state.

Since 1976, Texas has executed four times more inmates than the next leading state, Virginia, and four hundred times that of Wyoming. It’s painfully clear that the death penalty fails to deter crime. While several cities in Texas have less crime (Austin, Plano), that likely has more to do with the socioeconomic status of residents than the deterring factor of the death penalty. As the Death Penalty Information Center reports, “The murder rate in non-death penalty states has remained consistently lower than the rate in states with the death penalty, and the gap has grown since 1990.”

I oppose the death penalty not only on moral grounds, but because it fails to prevent crime. Instead of thinking of harsher punishments, we need to ask ourselves is why are grown men raping children? Where has our society failed? How can we address the root of this problem instead of reacting to the end result? These questions may be harder to answer, but they are the ones that will actually save lives.

I believe the true impetus behind capital punishment is far less noble than the call of justice or the desire to protect children. We want revenge. We want to inflict pain on others to make them feel as badly as their victims did. This isn’t exactly a foreign concept. It’s human nature at its worst, and, if left unchecked, it will result in breeding hatred and, ironically, crime. We already lock up more than 2 million of our own citizens—the most in the world. Our great love affair with punishment may look prettier than the public hangings of our forefathers, but it’s no less uncivilized.

Amnesty International reports that 135 countries have abolished the death penalty—countries like Norway, Sweden, Italy, France, and Australia. If you ask me, they make far better bedfellows than our current company.

Teenage pregnancies can be curtailed through birth control, and, I would argue, through more comprehensive sex education. My mantra is echoed by those left of center, but I am still amused that the so-called “family values” proponents find it to be heresy. How would preventing the birth of children into families ill-equipped to care for them be immoral? The shortcomings of abstinence only education are well documented—so much so that this post feels a bit like a broken record. But as long as teens are rebellious and promiscuous, which is unlikely to change anytime soon, it will remain true.

I really don’t care if the Massachusetts teens made a pact or not. In nine months it won’t matter how or why they conceived. You can blame the media or Hollywood or their parents, but I’m going to blame conservatives. Their fear of sex education and contraceptives is the perfect combination for teenage pregnancy. And when these kids have kids, the same conservative policies that led to their births will begrudge them welfare and discriminate against them in the workforce. And thus the cycle of poverty continues. A lack of education, a lack of resources, and an abundance of hormones later, the next generation in this tragedy faces a bleak, but not unfamiliar fate.

As scary as it may be, we have to start trusting our children. We have to tell them the truth about sex. We can’t just tell them what’s behind door number one and expect them never to go knocking on any others. And, if they make choices we don’t agree with, we shouldn’t respond by withholding information or contraceptives. Openly and passionately disagree with them, but don’t take a poor choice and make a baby out of it.

Bush’s proposal is like putting band-aide on a broken leg. Our time and money should go toward researching ways to produce clean energy–cars that run on hydrogen or are electric, or perhaps function on something else entirely. I have complete confidence in our research capabilities to find a more efficient way to fuel our country. I wouldn’t be opposed to expanding domestic oil exploration if it were packaged with an agreement to increase funding for alternative fuels and came with regulations that would protect certain areas such as wildlife preserves. Even as Bush and others call out for more oil exploration, I doubt they would like an oil refinery in their town. If I were in congress, I’d call for the next refinery to be in Crawford. It’s one thing to say we need more exploration to bring the cost down, and quite another to take care of all the fine print that such a decision entails.

For the first time in a long time, Americans are all angry about the same thing. Many times during our nations short history, different segments of society have grown hostile over one thing or another. Race, religion, war, and politics have all engendered passionate responses from some, but gas prices have made oil a four-letter word.

I say this confidently because I’ve been conducting a little experiment for the past couple of months. When filling up, instead of looking at the ground or watching the digital numbers rise in unfair proportions, I look around. I observe the other customers. Every single one is disgusted, many audibly. The response is the same no matter the age, race or gender of the driver.

On top of this far-from-scientific evidence, there’s the story of my sister and her husband, a happy couple whose financial livelihood depends on the oil and gas industry. In 2007, they bought an SUV, and in 2008, they are researching hybrid cars and looking to make a trade-in. All ironies aside, they too are adjusting to the changing market. While I resent the growing proportion of my paycheck that goes to flammable liquids, I have to say at least two of the side effects are positive.

For one, we’re a united people. The pain of high gas prices reaches across every economic, social, and geographic sector of our varied land. Maybe this universal angst can be channeled for good. Maybe not. But at least we as a people of a greatly diverse nation have one thing in common besides our citizenship.

Secondly, people actually care about how much they drive. Although it’s not necessarily because they care about the earth, it’s not a bad by-product. Driving less helps the planet, period. Car companies are also going green in an attempt to meet the demands of fuel efficiency. When gas hovered around $2 a gallon, Hummers and SUVs ruled the road. In a shocking role reversal, Kias and Hondas are now king. 

No matter how selfish the reasons may be, the result is less pollution, more responsible engineering, and perhaps even more exercise for some. This whole catastrophe could even spur lawmakers on to expand public transportation systems. I’m purposefully leaving out all the crappy things about high gas prices. What can I say, I’m trying to see the silver lining.