John Prendergast is Co-founder of Enough, the anti-genocide project at the Center for American Progress. John is co-author with Don Cheadle of the forthcoming Random House book, The Enough Moment. He sat down with Reunion's Editor-at-Large, Peter Hermann, to discuss his lifelong commitment to helping those in need.

Peter Hermann: How did you come to be doing what you do?

John Prendergast: I was very focused in my teen years on domestic poverty issues, issues of fairness and access. I focused on youth employment and education, mostly among high school dropouts in urban America, working with youth gangs, mediation, Big Brother, Big Sister, coaching, mentoring, all of that. And then, one night, I happened to be holed up at my house with an injury after another basketball mishap, and suddenly this footage comes on the TV. This is 1983, and it was the first footage coming out of the great Ethiopian famine. It was like a rock had hit my heart. I just could not believe human misery could exist on this scale and scope. I decided as soon as I can walk I'm going.

I spent the next few years traveling in Africa, trying to learn and understand the cause of that extraordinary misery. In the course of that exploration, I realized that I had a voice. I dedicated myself to affecting my government's policy so that it would be more of a voice of fairness for the people there.

PH: Some teenagers sit at home and play Halo and others go out skateboarding. And then there's you. Why were you the teenager interested in Big Brother programs and mentoring kids?

JP: I identified with the underdog and viscerally reacted against unfairness very early on. Certainly the difficulties I experienced in my own household as a kid fueled my anger at unfairness. I believe that a lot of my early fuel-and frankly, still today-is anger at systemic unfairness. It manifested itself early in very simple things like knowing that there are kids going hungry, and knowing we can do something about that. I mean, any school child can figure out that if we collect cans or if we go to the soup kitchen, we could actually make a little dent in that very immediate manifestation of the problem.

PH: You said "a rock hit your heart" when you saw on TV what was happening in Africa. That's a very vivid image. You obviously have a heart that responds to suffering. What do you do to care for it?

JP: Not to be melodramatic, but for twenty-five years after that moment, my heart sank into an abyss. Depression and melancholy were constant companions, and it's only been in the last few years where I have practiced self-care and addressed some of the underlying roots of that melancholy, the unaddressed issues of my childhood. Whether it's verbal or physical abuse, ostracization of some kind, alienation, or whatever kind of challenges a young person faces, no one's pain can be diminished or swept under the rug without great consequences down the road. I started to care for my heart that had slowly, steadily been encased with defensive walls to protect it not only from the human suffering I had immersed myself in, but also my own past demons.

I think that process of going back and really examining the truth of what happened to me as a young person and then figuring out what to do with that is utterly essential. I realized I didn't have to have a terrible emptiness in my stomach every day, that I didn't have to be filled with a deep sadness every time I woke up in the morning. I realized that wasn't normal. Taking care of my heart also had enormous implications for my work. It has become much more sustainable because I feel a lightness now, an enthusiasm, a real positivity, whereas before it was all heaviness and difficulty.

I can't do it on my own, though. I've got friends who are great listeners, who are caregivers in their own way. I've certainly also had the highly paid professional friend who has been of great benefit in guiding and encouraging me.

PH: Was there a moment when you said I've absolutely got to take care of this, or was it more gradual?

JP: I had a fairly substantial turning point. A series of tragedies had befallen people very close to me, a series of deaths, this incredible coincidence of concentrated mortality right around me in this one very short period of time. Then there was a tragedy in my own life, and all of this came together to create this tipping point, this moment—literally a moment—where I saw that I could choose, where I suddenly had a flash of conscious choice between building another wall around my heart against the pain of further loss, or letting it all sort of collapse inward. Like in football, letting the pocket collapse, letting the quarterback get sacked and letting the next play unfold instead of trying to move forward with the broken one.

I decided let the thing come down. Then came the most remarkable period of my life—without even remote comparison—because for probably two or three months in the aftermath of that decision, I had to carry around Kleenex because my tear ducts began leaking. It wasn't weeping, it wasn't sobbing, it was just this little dripping that would occur and I would constantly have to wipe my eyes.

I was on a journey with a very hard introspective process, and I had no memory of a lot of things, so I had to go back and interview people from my past and rebuild a sort of emotional history. I had to find out who I was, in the real sense as opposed to the constructed sense. And all the while, the toxins inside me were leaking out as the internal walls collapsed.

At the end of it, it wasn't like I can remember on a Tuesday I woke up and it was all over. But at some point, I thought, "Where did the ball and chain go? Where did the pit in my stomach go?" It was quite a dramatic turn, and I've not had a day since then where there that darkness returned. I try to stay in this heart-care mode. I try to stay in my faith and in the spirit of giving and generosity. All of it was a miracle, and I was lucky to be a part of it.

PH: What does that heart-care mode look day to day?

JP: There are faith and secular pieces to it. I definitely pray more. In Paul's letters to the Philippians in the New Testament, he says something about prayer that really speaks to me: "Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving make your request known to God. Then the peace of God surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." The way he constructed it is so interesting: if I do, in fact, turn my cares over in some way to God, all in the context of thanksgiving-which is a strange juxtaposition, thanking God at the same time as you're asking him for support-then an understanding that the plan, whatever the plan, will come, will unfold, will work its way through. That creates peace and a heart guarded against anxiety. That's an amazing concept to me.

Another aspect would certainly be the occasional revisiting of the highly paid professional friend for counseling. And certainly still going back into the past about certain things, while also dealing with present day issues. Also, just to reiterate, having friends who understand you and what you stand for and, whom you admire and with whom you can share yourself, that solidarity is extremely important.

PH: What is your most significant accomplishment? What are you most proud of?

JP: There are two aspects of my work over the last thirty years. One is the insider peacemaker; another side is the outsider peace advocate and human rights advocate.

The insider moment was being part of a very small team that for two years negotiated a peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea in what at the time—998 to 2000—was the deadliest war in the world. Everyone said it was impossible, but we did it, a small U.S. government team when I was working for President Clinton. And the day that we got the signatures on the piece of paper, the guns fell silent and they haven't been fired since then.

And then as the outsider peace advocate, it's been the contribution I've made to the development of a constituency of people who are against genocide. We've watched this extraordinary term genocide unfold over the last half century—the holocaust itself, the Yugoslav slaughters in Bosnia, beginning in Kosovo, then Cambodia and so many other places—and in none of these places did we ever see a timely effort to stop it. We have finally begun to build a popular constituency of people, ordinary citizens, who are willing to stand up and say that even with all the problems in the world, even with all the budget issues and financial craziness, we still think the proper role of the United States would be to take a meaningful stand against genocide and horrific crimes against humanity.

I've also remained the Big Brother in the Big Brother program for all these years. In fact, my first little brother I met in a homeless shelter when he was six and living on a plastic bag. He and I are writing a joint memoir about our lives together over these last 25 years, which is going to come out next year.

PH: If you weren't in a healing profession, if you weren't working to help the way the world that you do, what would you be doing?

JP: I had dreams of being a three-point specialist in the NBA. That didn't quite work out and, but I do retain my utter devotion to a number of professional sports and I would have probably transferred that devotion to sports writing. I would have probably been a guy who traveled around with a team and dedicated my life to uncovering the truth of professional basketball, or professional football. The insider story, you know.

PH: When you see so much suffering, how do you answer the question "Why is this happening?" I'm not asking for your incredible knowledge of all the societal reasons, but in a broader sense, why is there suffering in the world?

JP: For many years, I had no answer and it made me even angrier. It's only been in the last few years, corresponding to this other transformative period, that I've come back to a particular faith. There's a lot of mystery in Christianity surrounding why things happen in this world and what, if anything, happens beyond it. But I believe that the suffering that occurs here in some way prepares us for better things, and that my faith gives me a real, living model for unselfish, committed, loving, sacrificial living.

That's on Mondays and Wednesdays. And then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I think it's basically chaos, and this world is driven by greed and all the worst things. It's utterly mystifying, and all I can really do is reset the control knob everyday and say that even though I don't really understand where suffering comes from and why it happens, I want to try to do all that I can with the gifts I've been given to ameliorate it, either in my immediate vicinity or across an ocean in Africa. Ultimately the most fulfilling thing I can do for myself is to give to others, to try to be that healer, in personal terms or vocational terms, to invest my life in a spirit of compassion and solidarity and generosity. I feel very strongly that my role-without knowing its limits or even rationale-is to address suffering in ways that make a difference.

I am also always hoping redemption and transformation somewhere around the corner. Like in Liberia, like in South Africa. If Haiti is where it is today, Liberia was there ten years ago. We all know people who have been haunted by the demons of depression, or have lived through cancer and then survived it and gone onto live extraordinary lives. You exist within a big puddle of mixed up good, bad and ugly and perhaps it is possible, instead of rebelling against it, to understand that it is part of this mystery of life and somehow soldier on. The model of the crucifixion and resurrection, that statement on suffering and redemption, is certainly as potent a one as we have in the history of the world.