Thoughts about the world. . .

There was a guest lecturer on campus today, Dr. Hector Castaneda from Guatemala (beautiful land!), and he spoke in my first class, and then I followed him to chapel, and then I went to the lunch forum where he spoke. He spoke about sociology and theology in my class, and then perspective of the poor in chapel, and then Catholicism and Protestantism and indigenous spirituality in Guatemala. I suppose I thought that I actually knew something about these issues, but after listening to him, I realized that I don't know ANYTHING, especially in comparison to this man who has spent his life in that country, and knows its history and social and cultural life so well.
As we are made aware of these things, perhaps we ought to step down our "high horse" of American, middle-class idealism, and share in the realism that someone like Dr. Castaneda espouses. People, in each forum, kept asking him naively hopeful questions, and he would respond with a realistic answer, but by no means a pessimistic answer. After living through the injustices that he has seen in Guatemala, I can't imagine him being anything else except blazingly realistic. Naive hope only gets us so far before the shit of life cuts us off at the knees. I realize that, although I feel I have been given a holistic worldview by my liberal arts education, I still have SO much to learn. I don't think that I will "arrive" at the decision point of belief anytime soon, about things like economy, politics and society, and of course, about faith too; because I feel like I am going to be learning new things all the time throughout life, so why should I decide my position now- because then that closes the door for future possibilities for dialogue and open-mindedness and understanding.
I used to think that I was a raving liberal, and now I'm not so sure. Perhaps that is simply a reaction/response to the right-wing, conservative ideology that I was raised with, and not really a solution. I used to passively tow the party line of conservative ideology for most of my life, and then in my new found liberal thinking in college, I am finding the same tendency- to almost tow the party line of liberal ideology, but not finding a real solution. If every single person in this country became a conservative today, would that truly create unity and solve social problems? No. If everyone in this country suddenly became a liberal today, would there truly be peace and real change? Nope, probably not. I'd like to think that there's still such a thing as revolutionary politics, and it involves not necessarily espousing to one side or another, but being a challenge to both. Of course, a hero of mine is Jim Wallis, who seeks to reconcile both sides, and propose the possibility of prophetic politics, that actually seeks to create solutions for societal injustices, rather than just blowing hot air of promises. We've had promises for decades, but where are the true revolutionaries?
"Don't you know? Talkin' about a revolution. . . . .finally the tables are starting to turn, talkin' about a revolution." -Tracy Chapman (aka my heart, as of late)