Sower’s Seed Lecture: Amy Costello
September 2007
Amy Costello ’92I am honored and humbled to be here before you tonight, at my beloved alma mater. Congratulations to my fellow Red Class of 2008 as you begin your cap and gown weekend. I hope you enjoy your celebrations thoroughly.
Thank you for inviting me here today to help kick-off the weekend. I plan to share with you this evening some of the ways that my Trinity education has informed my ideas about social justice and to share with you the ways in which my commitment to social justice has impacted the stories I have covered as a journalist.
Trinity was for me the social and academic bedrock from which I sprang determined and compelled to bring attention to issues that matter to me, in this beautiful, fractured world of ours. A world that is increasingly polarized between the haves and the have-nots. A world stratified between those with weapons and the vast majority who are unarmed and at the mercy of people with guns. We are all temporary visitors on this glorious planet, Earth, which most agree is in a state of peril with global warming and habitat destruction occurring at an unprecedented scale.
This is the world you will inherit and to which you will have to contribute in some way when you leave the doors of Trinity behind you for the last time on graduation day. What will you do with your passions? How will you address the injustice you see around you? What will you do about the injustice you may have already experienced yourself? How will you decide, in this world of information overflow, where the truth lies?
In my work as a correspondent, I’ve tried to seek truth. By that I mean I’ve tried to be completely open and receptive to others. I’ve done my best to approach people I interview with an open heart and an open mind; to tell their stories honestly and in the most compelling way possible so that my audience may care about the plight of those I report on.
I’ve spent time with children in Sierra Leone who have been abducted and forced to take part in war as child soldiers. I have traveled across dangerous roads in Darfur, Sudan to meet with victims of an ongoing genocide that the world still refuses to stop. I have been at the bedside of a South African man in the late stages of AIDS, living in a tiny, musty house without one person to care for him and only aspirin to ease his unimaginable pain. I wish you could’ve seen the smile that broke out across his face the moment I walked in the door with a home health care worker.
I have sat with a trembling woman in a remote village in Congo who had a fresh bullet wound in her arm. She described to me, her voice quivering, about the rebels who had, just two days earlier, killed her four children as she held them in her arms. Surrounding her were bandaged, wounded toddlers who’d somehow survived the massacre that claimed the lives of more than 57 people that day, most of them women and children. And there have been worse things, I won’t share here with you tonight.
I have risked my life many times traveling on dangerous roads, in unsafe vehicles and helicopters, so that I could reach the side of, and hear the stories of, people who live in the shadows. I have told the stories of people who too often and increasingly measure their days not by the hour but by the time that passes between one violent act and the next.
And for me, this has been a sad and harrowing and incredibly rewarding road to travel. It’s been a road that’s left me filled with awe for the incredible obstacles I have seen people overcome. I am inspired by the resilience of the human spirit, the way people desire to keep going despite the horrors they’ve endured. I’ve been humbled over and over again by the humanity I’ve witnessed first hand. And I’ve been struck by the humanity people continue to show to one another despite everything, or perhaps because of everything, they’ve endured.
People across Africa freely shared their stories of hardship and victory with me, a white woman from a privileged background. What an honor that was. And what an obligation. I carried their stories home with me as though I had been entrusted with crown jewels. Each tale and account in my possession, was given to me with such trust, and demanded nothing less than my very best in return.
My sole objective in each story I tell is to make people care about those I have met. To transform large, sometimes overwhelming issues, into compelling, dramatic stories about human beings with names and faces and voices. After all, if people turn the dial when they hear a story of mine on the radio, if they’re bored or tune out, then what’s the point of my work? If I don’t make people care about subjects I cover then I have not only failed in my job as a reporter, I have let all those people down who took the time to speak with me and trusted me with their stories.
Fortunately, I’ve seen that the work I do has made a difference; that listeners care. I’ve received letters from people who said they had done something concrete as a result of hearing my stories. I know of a blind musician in Sierra Leone, John Sese, who was struggling away, learning to play trumpet on a rusty, broken instrument. Today, John has a brand new trumpet, donated by an American listener who heard my story. What will that new trumpet do for John? In what ways will it inspire him? How might our acts of generosity change the lives of others in small ways and in profound ways? I am convinced that any good deed ripples far beyond the one person to whom we give.
I know of a child from Africa who was adopted by an American family after they heard my story about an orphanage in Ethiopia. When I last heard from them they were trying to adopt a second child, this one was HIV positive. What contributions might those children make to America? How might they change Ethiopia in the years to come? Will the friends of this family be inspired to adopt, too?
I have a feeling that there has been other concrete results of the work I’ve done and the stories I’ve told. I will never know. And none of you will likely ever know the manifold ways that your acts of generosity, your sacrifices, your bravery or your service to others will impact your community, your country, or quite possibly, your world.
But I’d urge you to consider to not look outwards for reassurance that your work has impacted others. Instead, measure your success by your own barometer. If you know you are doing the very best you can, if you feel good about the work you’re doing — tangible, positive, significant results are bound to follow. Your work will make a difference in the lives of others, in big ways and in small. If, on the other hand, you are not proud of the work you’re doing, if you feel your talents are not being used in the best way possible, get out. Life is too short and this world is just in too much need of your great talents.
In my own career, I have been motivated and guided by three impulses. And I began to really listen to these impulses of mine when I was a student here at Trinity.
The three things that have driven me in my career, which had their genesis here at Trinity, are a desire to put my beliefs, and my commitment to social justice, into action. Secondly, I’ve tried in my life and in my career to listen, compassionately, much more than I speak. And the third thing that has driven my career as a correspondent and as a human being, is a desire to get up close to, and to be right beside, those who are suffering.
I’d like to talk to you a little more tonight about these three desires, these principles if you like, that have motivated me: Action, Empathy, and what I’ll call ‘Nearness’. I’ll talk about the way that my Trinity education informed and shaped these three principles of mine. And I hope to show you how rewarding it has been to try to live out, or live up to, those principles in my every day life.
The first principle I’ll talk about is Action.
One of the things I recognized almost immediately when I started at Trinity was the way so many people around me were putting their beliefs into action, from professors to students, from the administration to staff. People weren’t just talking about things, they were doing things. I found Trinity a positive, inspiring place to live and learn. With the supportive environment of a women’s college, I came to believe, profoundly, that I could really do anything I set my mind to. And I also came to understand, not because anyone told me this explicitly, but simply by way of their own example, that I should use my talents in the aid of good causes.
Then I found myself thrust, unexpectedly, into a position where I was compelled to put my beliefs into action, almost against my will.
I, like you, was a student at Trinity during a time when our country went to war. The summer before my junior year, Sadaam Hussein’s forces had invaded Kuwait. By Thanksgiving, the United Nations had authorized the use of any force necessary to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
At the time, my brother was stationed with the US Army in Germany. I knew he would be part of the war if the United States decided to intervene. I was personally opposed to a military solution and wanted our Congress and the United Nations to explore a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Some of us students thought that Trinity should be more actively involved in opposing the war. I was Junior Class President at the time, and I approached Pat Mc Guire, who I think was in her second year as Trinity’s president.
I told her that students were thinking of starting a group on campus to oppose the war. I figured that our relatively new President would discourage an organized student protest on our usually quiet campus. I braced myself for her opposition to our idea. Instead, she looked me in the straight in the eye and said, “I was waiting for SOMEBODY to do something!”
With that go-ahead our congressional letter writing and petition campaign began. We called and wrote to members of Congress, imploring them to support a peaceful resolution to the conflict. We signed petitions. I found that doing something constructive, rather than worrying silently about my brother, was the best thing I could do.
I also found it incredibly empowering to bring people together for a cause greater than ourselves. I found it consoling, too. Knowing that many people on campus, who didn’t have a loved one in the war, were also outraged, were also scared. I no longer felt so alone.
Unfortunately, our little campaign for peace came to a screeching halt one night. I was standing in the dining hall, getting ready for dinner. My friend burst through the front door, eyes wide, and said, “We just bombed Baghdad!” Petrified, I ran to Social Hall where a TV had been set up in anticipation of a war we knew was imminent.
I watched those first images, which we are now all too familiar with: the night sky over Baghdad, and those eerie, silent flashes of light, bursting in slow motion over the city. As I watched the explosions, I feared for the civilian population who lived near the targets we were bombing. And I feared desperately for the life of my brother whom I knew at that moment was on the frontlines of the invasion.
It was too much for me to bear. I ran, alone, down the marble corridor, past the well of Main, and past President McGuire’s office. I don’t remember how or where but President McGuire herself intercepted me in mid run as tears streamed down my face. She took me into her office. I don’t remember much of what she said. But I do know that she helped to calm me down, that she listened, and above all, I knew she was sad to see me in pain. I’m sure that whatever she said to try and console me was much less important than the fact that she was there, physically present, and that I did not have to be alone. That someone was listening, intently, to my sad story.
When I was in my greatest time of need: so many people on this campus spurred me into action, encouraging me to channel my passions and my heartache into something constructive. And at those times when it became too much for me to take, I found that various members of the Trinity community, from professors to friends, knew how to console me.
Since then, I’ve tried to channel my own passions, for things like women’s equality and children’s rights, to direct my outrage about the violence I see around the world, and to do something constructive — to speak out about the atrocities and injustice that I’ve witnessed with my own eyes.
And, when appropriate, I’ve used that other guiding principle I mentioned earlier, that of Empathy, to listen to those who are in pain…to never tire of hearing people’s stories. To console and listen, the same way I was consoled and heard when I was a student here.
There is a proverb that encapsulates my definition of Empathy, the second guiding principle in my life…
I couldn’t find the origin of the saying. But it goes something like this, “You have two ears and one mouth. Use them in that proportion.”
I have tried to live out that proverb in my work as a journalist. My audience on public radio and television hears me speak, of course. But every sentence I write in those stories comes from hours and hours of listening intently to the stories of others. My voice is heard only after I have spent days on dirt roads, in broken down vehicles, in rusty helicopters. In 120 degree heat. In unrelenting sandstorms. I write my stories, I speak to my audience, only after listening with every ounce of my being, as strangers unfurl their stories into my microphone.
To this day, in my life and in my work, I try to speak less and to listen more. In doing so, it has been my hope that when I do speak, my words have meaning. My words speak truth. My stories reflect as accurately as possible the world not from my perspective, but from the perspective of those who live it, and who often merely survive it, day in and day out.
But empathy has a cost. Empathy can take its toll. It’s taken its toll on me. I cannot forget all the suffering I’ve seen up close. It’s a road I’ve decided to take, of my own free will. As a reporter, and as a human being, I really wouldn’t want it any other way. And in my effort to be a compassionate person, I have laid myself bare and seen the worst that human beings can do to one another. Because I care, sometimes too deeply, about the people I’ve met, I carry the cumulative weight of their crises with me to this day. Sometimes I fear, in fact, that I have seen too much — that in my effort to shed light on the horrors that go on in corners of the world where few outsiders have been, I have extinguished some of my own inner light.
Sometimes it’s hard to enjoy the small things in life without feeling pangs of guilt. Sometimes I become aware that I’m not continuing to do enough for people and causes that need much more attention than they’re getting. But I also hope that I am a better human being because of all I’ve seen.
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