Rays of Hope

Rays of Hope

The sadness I experience for our country is perhaps best characterized by Elon Musk’s belief that  “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”

Oh, Empathy, don’t leave us. I know we can’t hold onto you through violent reaction. I know that peaceful protests are a sign of distress, but these will bring resistance rather than restore you. Surely the best way to save Empathy is through people of hope and through acts of compassion: small, simple, gracious, generous, unexpected acts of love.

I look for those who embody compassion and hope, and I find them. I’d like to  introduce you to one of these, my dear, long-time friend, Karl.

I met Karl while he attended our church when he first-year medical student at UCSF, and I knew immediately that he was a man of deep soul. As a child, Karl had been raised throughout the world as a child of a doctor who was a medical missionary and then with the foreign service. His family lived with and served the people to whom they were sent, sometimes the poorest of the poor. His stories and experiences of growing up are beyond anything I could have imagined, though they were what life was to him. These childhood experiences opened him up to becoming a citizen of the world, unafraid, responsive, and adventurous.

In the many years since I first knew him, Karl has become an epidemiologist and worked with the CDC and currently with the FDA, protecting our food supply, protecting us from epidemics.

And in addition to this amazing contribution to the world, Karl has another passion. As a child, he discovered the miracle of the sun’s energy when he watched in amazement as a solar powered toy boat navigated a river. Solar energy has become Karl’s life-long passion, in addition to public health. Here is how it has played out in his life.

Karl, personally and with his own finances, installs solar power to small organizations in remote and poor parts of the world (Bangladesh, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Mexico). These installations are in hospitals, maternity clinics, a seminary, college, school, and even a turtle sanctuary. He works with the people of the area, often children, installing and teaching them to maintain the systems.

Of course, he has made life-long friends in each place he has gone, and he rejoices, when after returning home, he is sent photos of light in the darkness of these remote villages. This means light where doctors can operate, birthing mothers are not killed by candle wax dripping into their wombs, and students who can study at night.

I asked Karl recently whether he still has a job at FDA, and at that moment, he did. But he told me that he has a plan beyond FDA. He will work through the Presbyterian Church to teach people in Liberia how to install and maintain solar power. Karl will always find his unique way to keep Empathy alive.

Beyond all that he offers to the world, Karl as a man of hope through the depth of his soul, which brings together the scientific and the spiritual.

He tells that after being part of a failed resuscitation effort on a patient while he was in training, all the doctors left. Shortly afterward, he came back to pick up a notebook and remembers now that, “the scene morphed from one of utter chaos to peace as sunlight streamed through a window and stillness settled upon the room. Moved by the transition, I remained with the deceased as death called, saying, ‘There’s something here to witness, to learn and grow from.’ With the door closed, I remained in utter peace.”

He goes on to say, “Thereafter, I made a point to be the last person to leave unsuccessful resuscitations. I did that because mysteriously, being there allowed me to commune with what I believed was a realm beyond the material world, a transient, ephemeral, yet elusive feeling of visiting another level of existence. Suspecting others would be discomforted by my perceptions, I said nothing about my doings.”

Karl is a medial man.

The way Karl has chosen to live his life is the antidote to the crass, harsh, cruel, power-current we are experiencing right now. He constantly releases a different  power-current in the form of solar energy, but also in the form of hope, compassion, friendship, trust, progress, integrity, and yes, Empathy.

As I seek hope in these days, I turn to Karl as mentor, model, and friend. While he is unique, there are others who offer whatever their passion is and are also transforming the world, quietly, slowly and surely. Love is stronger than hate. God is stronger than the principalities and powers we live with. Empathy will not be eliminated. Such are the rays of hope I seek.

 

If you are interested in learning more about my friend, Karl Klontz, he has written multiple novels about justice for people, animals, and the earth. And his latest book is called, The Sun’s Arrows: Memoir and Account of Installing Solar Power in Remote Regions of the World. It is “a medley of hope, adventure, and indefatigable belief in the goodness of humanity and the call upon all to help one another.”

(Thanks to: Yanghong Yu on Unsplash for detail of this image of sun’s rays)