Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Archives for September 2013

When life gets busy, there's still work to be done

It’s been a while, too long, since I posted anything about the modern-day slave trade aka human trafficking. Life was busy in a lot of ways this summer so my blog posts became infrequent.

But all that time, slavery was still happening.

Consider this:

slave-traders

Shocking.

And it’s happening on our watch. Or while we’re not looking.

I learned this week that people are buying sex in my neighborhood, along a touristy stretch near where we live and work. It’s not just over there somewhere. It’s right. here.

But what can we do? What can we really do about it?

First, we need to get our heads out of the sand and realize it’s happening. I’m amazed at how much coverage about human trafficking I’m reading about in the news these days. If you want some credible sources for information, check out The Exodus Road, Love146 and International Justice Mission, for starters. They’re working and advocating and rescuing.

Second, start talking about it.

Alex-quote-2

Words are still powerful. The more we bring trafficking into the light, the more the darkness flees. <click to tweet> Share quotes, stats and pictures on Facebook and Twitter. Get the word out.

Third, refuse to look away. The more you know, the more likely you’ll be to take action. Click here for a good resource to help you learn the signs of trafficking and what to do if you suspect someone is being enslaved.

And if you’re able, give. The Exodus Road is currently raising monthly support to fund investigative teams. Click here for more information. This is real-life hero stuff.

These are small steps that may seem insignificant but they add up to so much more when put together.

The one thing you don't need to do to call yourself a writer {and 3 things you do!}

I’m honored to be a guest at Ritty’s Adventures in Writing today.

“When do you put ‘writer’ on your business card?”

I was about to teach a workshop at a writers conference when a woman in the front row asked me this question. I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly, so I asked her to repeat it.

It seemed an easy question to answer, and I gave her an easy response. But the question is more complicated than I made it. My own writing journey testifies to this. I’ve had business cards that say “writer, editor and speaker” on them for years, but that doesn’t mean I always believe I’m any of those things.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

In college, I was a mass communication major. We liked to joke that we were getting a B.S. in B.S. (For the record, I have a B.A.) I didn’t put a lot of thought into my major. I just knew that I liked to write. I took my first creative writing classes in college (and received my first soul-crushing critiques). But college is also where I began to see myself as a writer. And try as I might, I couldn’t deny it.

College is also where I heard a statement about writing that has stuck with me for more than a decade. Jane Friedman, a colleague at my college newspaper who has gone on to be an influential voice in the publishing and writing world offering countless words of wisdom to writers, spoke to a group about her self-discovery as a writer.

She said, “I don’t want to be a writer. I am a writer.”

Powerful stuff.

Read the rest here.