It is a beautiful winter day in Ifrane.  Although I can still see snow from the last two weeks in shady areas, the temperature is a very pleasant 42 degrees.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the snowy, wintery days just as much as this warm, sunny winter day, but it is good to enjoy the variety of beauty each day brings and Ifrane does provide variety.  We drove the Fes yesterday for shopping, a haircut and lunch at the Kai Tai, a Japanese restaurant in Fes - occasionally a little dietary variety is good.  Tofu, yuuuumm, good! I thought as we drove around Fes that is has lost it's exotic ambience and has become a familiar place to go for shopping, etc.  It is part of the extended environment that I now call home.  I always find the emotional and psychological shift that occurs once the strange and unusual becomes familiar interesting. It gives a deeper and richer experience of place, time, self and the others around me.  It is good to live in a difference country and culture rather than just pass through as a tourist.  It always allows for greater interaction and growth. Some answers to questions become clearer while other become more complicated and layered in aspects of culture, religion,  social change, external influence, generational and class differences, gender, law, customs and personal interaction.  Perception and conclusions are constantly shifting so that what seems insightful today may seem less so tomorrow. This is the same for my perceptions of others and for myself as well.  Are any of us ever really finished products of time, place and self? Doesn't greater understanding always lead to new questions about past perceptions and insights? As I get older, I find more answers in my relationship with family, friends, my students and interaction with the people I meet.  Life does not always fit neatly into a conceptual framework.  It is the interaction with people and nature rather than abstract thought that brings a sense of spiritual peace and a greater, and hopefully, more compassionate understanding of myself and the people who are most important in my life. Critical and creative thinking are important tools, but it is my relationship with family and friends that makes life meaningful to me.  What does it matter what we think or believe if our actions toward ourselves and others are not based on compassionate concern for their rights as human beings as well as our own. We should not allow our own beliefs or the beliefs of others, theological or ideological, to justify the denial of human rights to any other person or group of people because they do not share those beliefs. 

This is a photo of lunch with friends in Khenifra, Morocco at a small hole-in-the- wall café on the main street after a busy morning at the souk.  John, the man in the blue jacket, cut open a half of a loaf of bread and filled it with lentils from a bowl on the table and handed it to a young beggar who was hanging out near our table as he walked by. John spoke a few words of explanation why he had done it and we continued our lunch without additional comment.  I found this simple act of compassion a better model for human behavior than I a long intellectual discussion about human rights.  A simple action can more effectively define a person's character than the expression of any theological or ideological belief.  If we want to talk the talk, we should then walk the walk. If we don't are words are useless.  If we walk the walk, then our words may not be necessary.  I know the importance of words for bringing about a change in awareness which is also necessary for long term societal change but immediate action can make an immediate change in a person's life now. 

I lead a roundtable discussion for a community service program at AIU.  I discussed with the students what they had learned as volunteers.  They told me that they realized there were two Moroccos - one of affluence and privilege and one of poverty and need.  They had all seen aspects of this second Morocco in the streets and in the medina but it had never had any kind of emotional or psychological impact until they actual work with and got to know people from this second Morocco.  They did not see this second Morocco as a problem that they needed to address until they came to see the others who lived in this second Morocco as connected to them as fellow human beings.  Our perceptions change through our actions.  Our lives and the lives of others change through our actions.