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Beauty on the Backroads {or Why I Changed the Name of my Blog}

April 8, 2016

I’ve heard that life is like a highway. And it definitely seems like that sometimes. The pace of life swirls around me at dizzying speeds.

We’re all so busy. In such a hurry. Always somewhere to be, something else to do.

I’m a get-to-the-point, get-there-quick kind of girl. I don’t like to waste time on small talk or side trips. If I could figure out a way to do the 800-mile driving trip home without making a single stop, I would take it. At least, I think I would.

Before the day has even started, I’ve got a to-do list running through my head. Some days, my energy matches the list. Other days, like today, I can’t imagine accomplishing anything other than napping or reading or both.

The thought of even sitting down for a few minutes with my coffee and my Bible felt like too much effort. I wanted, instead, to just jump right in to all the things I think I have to do.

But I’m finding that at times like these, when I just want to rush through, check off my lists and get ‘er done, these are the times when I most need to stop. Pause. Sit. Listen.

It is often the harder work.

—

Maybe you noticed, or maybe you didn’t, but I changed the name of the blog this week. Thanks to my super-talented, highly creative friend Alison, the name/theme I’ve been mulling for a year or more finally sees the light of day.

Beauty on the Backroads.

Maybe it’s obvious what I mean by that, but I’m a writer so I’m going to explain it to you anyway.

In this fast-lane life, I’ve discovered beauty on the roads less traveled.

Anderson Aguirre via Unsplash

I mean this literally.

When we first moved to our current place of dwelling, we found we had numerous options for getting from one place to another. The fastest way is always the highway we can see from our house. And for a while, we took that route because we knew it and it was familiar. But with GPS on our phones, finding the back way, the country roads was a less daunting task than it could have been. I don’t like to be lost, and I am directionally challenged, so GPS is my safety net. (Although it has let me down before.)

These are the roads that offer views of the river. Old houses. Farms. Birds. Animals. Towering trees. Flowers. On the back roads, we’ve found one-lane bridges and covered bridges. We’ve seen farmhouses that make us feel we’ve traveled back in time. Because we live in Amish country, the horses and buggies are more prevalent on the back roads. We’ve discovered parks we didn’t know existed. Businesses we’ve never heard of. Roadside stands we never would have seen.

I won’t argue that you should never take the highway anywhere, but I would advocate for taking the back roads once in a while. You never know what you might see.

—

I mean this figuratively, too.

I used to think life was like a point A to point B kind of journey and the idea was to get from one to the other as quickly as possible. I don’t think I’m alone in this thinking.

Whether I’m driving or grocery shopping or just going about my business, I feel like everyone is hurrying past, getting on to the next thing.

In my 20s, all I wanted to do was get married. When we were married, all I wanted to do was have kids. When we had kids, all I wanted was for them to be out of diapers. And then to go to school. When my husband was in seminary, I just wanted it to be over. Now my kids are in school, my husband is working full-time and sometimes I just want to slow time.

I’ll be 40 in a couple of years, and I’m not in any hurry to get anywhere.

I used to want to have a successful writing career as soon as possible. I have tons of ideas that clog my brain but not enough time, or so I think. And I think I’m running out of time. Won’t the ship have sailed before I even had a chance to board?

But I don’t want to rush. I don’t want a hastily built life. That’s not what lasts in the long term.

So, I’m trying to pay more attention. To ignore the lure of the highway life that tells me I have to get to a certain point by a certain time or I will have failed to live correctly. To recognize that even if I’m not on the road I thought I would be on that there is beauty here.

I’m learning it’s less about where I’m going and when and more about how I’m going.

The back roads are slower. They meander. Sometimes the ups and downs, twists and turns make you sick to your stomach. But sometimes you catch a glimpse of something that makes your heart beat a little faster. Sometimes you get a little bit lost, but then you find your way through it and the next time it happens, it’s not so scary.

—

Beauty on the backroads. More than anything else it’s the theme of what I write these days. Things you read here on the blog, things I’ve yet to release to the world in book form.

I believe it’s okay to take the highway sometimes, and I believe it’s crucial to take the back roads at least once. I believe we’re all headed somewhere, but the way we get there isn’t always clear. Or straight. Or the same as anyone else.

I believe it’s important to tell each other about the beautiful things we see along the way, even if we find ourselves on a road we never meant to travel.

So, what have you seen on the back roads of life?

The kind of book that makes you squirm: Review of Evicted by Matthew Desmond

April 6, 2016

Some books need to come with a warning. Or a caution. Like, “Do not read this book if you want to be comfortable” or “Warning: Book may make you squirm.”

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond is not a beach read or an entertaining tale. In fact, just looking at the book is intimidating. A 400-page hardcover with 50 pages of end notes is nothing to take lightly. Then again, neither is housing insecurity. (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for my review.)

Desmond’s book shines a light on a housing problem that gets little to no attention: eviction. And though thoroughly researched and at times, academic, the book tells stories of real people living in substandard housing conditions in Milwaukee. Desmond frames their stories with facts and context, and the result is a book that is sometimes hard to read but one that tells a necessary story and offers a practical response.

Although the stories in Evicted take place in an urban setting, the causes and circumstances are not unique only to large cities, nor is it only a big-city problem.

What I appreciate most about the book is that it not only shows us the problem but calls us out to take action. I think some of my favorite words in the whole book are these:

Whatever our way out of this mess, one thing is certain. This degree of inequality, this withdrawal of opportunity, this cold denial of basic needs, this endorsement of pointless suffering–by no American value is this situation justified. No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become. (p. 313)

Desmond argues that providing secure housing for those who are most vulnerable to eviction is a key component to reducing the effect of other social issues.

… a good home can serve as the sturdiest of footholds. When people have a place to live, they become better parents, workers and citizens. (p. 295)

We have affirmed provision in old age, twelve years of education, and basic nutrition to be the right of every citizen because we have recognized that human dignity depends on the fulfillment of these fundamental human needs. And it is hard to argue that housing is not a fundamental human need. Decent, affordable housing should be a basic right for everybody in this country. The reason is simple: without stable shelter, everything else falls apart. (p. 300)

Some of the living conditions Desmond describes are heartbreaking and shocking. Apartments without working appliances, clogged toilets, no running water going unrepaired for a variety of reasons. And to be fair, Desmond’s research includes talking with and shadowing landlords. He acknowledges that they have rights, too.

There are two freedoms at odds with each other: the freedom to profit from rents and the freedom to live in a safe and affordable home. (p. 308)

I’ve never been a landlord, but we’ve been renters for years. We know some of the difficulties of finding affordable housing and dedicating a large percentage of our income to rent. This book probably won’t be popular with landlords, even good ones. I know people who own property who have been left with property damages and issues as a result of tenants’ actions. Evicted doesn’t offer excuses for situations like these, but it does illustrate how problems compound when housing becomes insecure. And it offers hope for change and evidence of a turnaround in one tenant’s life because of secure housing.

As a former journalist, I’m impressed by Desmond’s research and how he embedded himself in the culture of Milwaukee’s urban poor. Although he says in the end notes that he is not meant to be the star of this work. In the telling, he fades into the background. But what he sees, hears and experiences is valuable for us all.

You might read Evicted and hate it. I actually hope it disgusts you at least a little bit. Because it shows us some ugly things about the way we treat each other. But I also hope it opens your mind a little to how you can be part of the solution.

You can find out more about the author here. And to learn more about how you can help families avoid eviction and get back on their feet, visit www.justshelter.org.

Love lost and found: Review of Change of Heart by Courtney Walsh

March 30, 2016

You might remember that I took a break from reading fiction for Lent, and that whole time, this wonderful book by Courtney Walsh sat on my desk asking me “When? When will you read me?”

So, I broke my fiction fast with Change of Heart, and could not walk away from the story of Evelyn Brandt and Trevor Whitney, old friends who reconnect after Evelyn’s world falls apart. (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for my review.)

The wife of a Colorado state senator, Evelyn’s life is full of parties and commitments to the public, orchestrated by her husband and his plans for political stature. He controls how she dresses, how she spends her time, who she spends time with, all in the name of public perception. It has slowly eaten away at Evelyn’s sense of identity, something she doesn’t realize until FBI agents show up at her house and inform her that her husband has been embezzling money for years.

When her friends abandon her, Evelyn finds an unlikely ally in her old friend Trevor “Whit” Whitney, who runs a farm outside of town. Whit whisks her away to his guest house so she can assess her circumstances privately, but her presence on his farm is the last thing he wants. Their friendship ended years earlier when Evelyn married Christopher, but Trevor’s feelings for her are reignited, though he’s tried to douse them all this time.

It’s a story of first love and second chances and reclaiming the identities we so often lose to other people’s perceptions.

I could relate to Evelyn, who thought her circumstances unfair because she had done everything right, everything she was supposed to, and her world still came crashing down around her. And I was drawn to Trevor’s battle to maintain honor as he wrestled with his feelings for Evelyn and the losses he had suffered through the years. Both characters seek to recover something they’ve lost, and Walsh writes their journeys in page-turning fashion.

Change of Heart is set in the same romance-obsessed town of Loves Park as her previous novel, Paper Hearts, and while certain characters are the same, the story itself could be read on its own. (But you really should read Paper Hearts, too, because it’s a sigh-worthy romance!) There are scenes reminiscent of Steel Magnolias as a group of women rally around Evelyn in support, and though I’ve never seen an episode of The Good Wife, the political scandal angle of the book reminded of what we often see on TV drama.

It all comes to a satisfying conclusion, though you’ll momentarily curse the author for the twists and turns. One of my favorite things about Walsh’s writing is that she doesn’t create fluffy circumstances for her characters to walk through. She puts them through hard times and forces hard questions to be answered, and challenges readers to a better, fuller life in Christ.

Also, there’s a really cute book trailer for this novel. Check it out. And then read the book. And rediscover the power of unconditional love.

Endings and beginnings

March 18, 2016

They say it could snow this weekend, but today the sun shines and the trees tell a different story.

Spring is coming, they say. The buds cannot hide any longer, revealing the pinks and reds of a long-awaited season. Flowers cannot hold themselves back one more day. Their petals in yellows and purples announce, Here we are! as if they are travelers home from a long journey.

Biegun Wschodni via Unsplash

Winter is ending, even if snow threatens one more time. The season will soon be over and spring will take her rightful place in the order of the seasons.

Nature is no stranger to endings and beginnings. The world itself thrives on such change.

—

I used to think life was just like stories–with a clear beginning, middle and end. It was lived linearly, like the timelines students create in social studies classes to depict the major points in a person’s or country’s life. You’re born. You live. You die. The end.

What is more true, I’ve found, is that life is more cyclical. More like a circle or a spiral, perhaps.

And those cycles contain a series of beginnings, middles, and endings, some of them overlapping, and not all of them complete.

When I look at the stories I’m living, some of them, I don’t know how they end.

I’m tempted to wait to tell certain stories until I know how they finish, but my friend Shawn says we should tell our stories even when we’re smack dab in the middle of them.

So, we are at the end of one story and in the middle of another and if that sounds confusing, it is for us, too. But as the band Semisonic has reminded me for years, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

—

Some dreams are over before they even take off. Some crash and burn on the way. Others make a slow descent back to earth, without much fanfare, grounded after a season in the skies.

Some dreams will never fly again. Others just need some maintenance and love before taking off once more.

I think ours is this last kind of dream. We’ve been unexpectedly grounded, but we aren’t out of dreams, yet, and maybe it was time to retire this particular one and give another one a chance to fly.

Daria Sukhorukova via Unsplash

Still, beginnings are exciting. Endings feel more like losses. Even if we can see the good to come, even if we know there’s a beginning on the horizon, an ending brings grief. And questions. And doubts.

Maybe we aren’t good enough to fly. Maybe we’ll never fly again. Maybe we were never meant to fly in the first place. It’s safer on the ground. What will we do if we don’t fly? What if we try again and fail?

The questions crowd us, like members of the media flocking to news. They press in and repeat their questions until we’re forced to acknowledge them. Sometimes it’s easier to believe the words from the loudest voices, even if they aren’t saying what’s true.

—

This ending, it should be the kind of thing that plunges me into panic and despair. It’s still fresh, only a week old. And it was unexpected, in a way, so sometimes I wonder if I’m just in shock, in a little bit of denial. Part of me wants to panic. To think and believe the worst. To give in to the voices that say it is some unchangeable fault in our lives that caused this.

I want to cry without stopping and stress eat my way through a bag of chocolates and scramble to fix the situation any way I can.

I want to. But I can’t.

Instead of despair, I find myself buoyed by a hope I can’t explain. This is going to work out, I think.

Understand, if you don’t know already, that I am not a Pollyanna, carefree type. I do not always think that things are going to turn out for the best. I am a realist, at best, a pessimist at worst. Optimism is not one of my strong points. And yet I can’t make myself believe that we are doomed. I mean, I could, if I thought too far ahead, beyond what I can see and know to be true.

There is an inexplicable peace that surrounds me. I cannot fix this. It’s too big for me to shoulder alone. I am tempted by both–to fix and to shoulder–but God keeps reminding me of His faithfulness. He will not slumber or sleep, I read in the Psalms. He tells the father of a daughter in need of healing that he must only believe. “I do believe! Help my unbelief!” the father replies.

I do believe.

Help my unbelief.

This is my prayer these days.

Will you pray that with us? That we will believe God still has good things planned for us. And that He will help us through our unbelief.

So, here it is: A what-are-you-up-to-now-God kind of story. One without an ending we can see or predict.

We’re smack dab in the middle. Dancing in the ashes of a burned-out dream. Singing through tears.

Will you join us?

I can’t promise you a happy ending. All I know is the end will come. And a beginning will take its place.

What about Saturday? {A Night Driving syncroblog}

March 16, 2016

A few years ago, our family snagged a local deal for a visit to a cavern attraction. Walking amongst the limestone formations is itself a memorable experience, but the one thing I’ll never forget is the darkness.

The tour is guided by lights, added obviously, for safety reasons and ease of navigation. But at one point in the tour, the person guiding the tour flips a switch and the cavern plunges into darkness.

Now I have camped in the woods and on the top of a mountain. I have lived in rural areas and experienced a fair share of power outages. But I can safely say that nothing prepared me for that kind of darkness.

—

Rainer Taepper via Unsplash

Nor did my faith experience prepare me for the kind of darkness lingering in my own heart.

I can’t remember a time when darkness hasn’t lurked on the edges of my soul, always casting a shadow over even the best parts of my life. I have avoided darkness. Run past it. Held a flickering candle in shaking hands to keep it at bay. I have feared it. Denied it. Ignored it.

But it never went away completely.

So, I was surprised when God spoke a soul name over me that was quite the opposite of darkness. He lovingly whispered a name I couldn’t believe, and I know that sounds crazy, but if I could choose my own name, I wouldn’t have picked this.

The Bible is full of words about light overcoming darkness and people walking in darkness seeing light as if for the first time, of God providing leading at night, of promises that someday it will never be dark.

I don’t always know what to do with my darkness.

—

Maybe that’s why the events of Holy Week frustrate me sometimes. At least in the traditions in which I’ve practiced, major emphasis is placed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and maybe Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday.

But lately I’ve been wondering about Saturday. We kind of skip over it, and even the sorrow of Good Friday is always framed in the light of Easter Sunday. The whole it’s-Friday-but-Sunday’s-coming thing.

That’s easier to see now, in retrospect, but what about that first Easter weekend? Between the cross and the celebration, there’s a whole day of darkness and uncertainty.

Sometimes, I feel like this is where most of life is lived.

—

The darkness in the cavern was terrifying, even though I knew it wouldn’t last long. I was holding a child and I couldn’t see his face. The darkness was more real than anything else in the cavern. I was surrounded by people but all I could see was darkness. I used to think darkness was the absence of seeing anything, but I remember being able to “see” the darkness.

I no longer want to fix my own darkness or wish it away. Because not everything that happens in darkness is bad. Bulbs and seeds buried beneath the ground take root and sprout and eventually bloom. What would spring flowers be without a bulb buried in darkness? What would the sunrise be without the night preceding it? What would spring be without the cold, dark winter before it?

After watching an episode of Wallender recently, my husband and I learned that in some parts of Sweden in a particular season, the sun never sets. Twenty-four hours of sunlight. How wonderful! I thought. Then, he told me that the opposite is true in the contrary season: 24 hours of darkness. No, thank you.

I need them both, I think, the darkness and the light. Yes, I want to live in the light, but the darkness is where I have to be sometimes. Dreams, hopes, wishes, they die in the darkness, and that’s okay. Maybe they need to. Or maybe they just need to be buried for a while so something else will spring up in their place.

In a valley where the light is obscured, maybe it’s easier to see inside myself. The darkness forces me to focus on what I can feel and hear, instead of only on what I can see. Maybe learning to see in the dark is another way to live out our faith.

This post is part of a syncroblog to celebrate Addie Zierman’s new book Night Driving: A Story of Faith in the Dark. Click here to read more posts on this topic or to add your own.

What difference does it make?

March 12, 2016

My chance to vote for a candidate for president is still weeks away. (Wait, don’t go! I promise this isn’t a post just about politics.) I watch the news reports of the outcomes in states that seem to matter more than mine, and though I’m still not 100 percent certain about who I am voting for, I’ve started to wonder how I should vote.

Should I cast my vote for the person I think is best, even if it looks like they have no shot at winning the nomination? Or should I pick a person who has a better chance of beating the person I definitely don’t want as president?

Ultimately, I wonder, does my vote even matter? Will it be too late by the time I cast it?

—

This is, unfortunately, how I look at my life, too. I want my life to matter. I want my actions to make a difference. I want to know I changed something or someone because I lived. I don’t ask for much, do I?

Read the rest of this post at Putting on the New, where I post on the 12th of each month.

I want to be like my daughter when I grow up

March 11, 2016

I left work on a Monday afternoon, 35 weeks pregnant, answering the question from a co-worker about how long I was going to work with, “As close as possible to when the baby comes.” A day earlier I had confidently declared that we still had “plenty of time” to get ready.

Maybe you can sense where this is going.

Sometime in the next 12 hours, I would wake to a dampness in the bed. Actually, do you remember the movie Juno? It hadn’t been that long since we had seen it, and there’s a scene where her water breaks and her eyes pop open and she’s instantly on high alert. It was just like that. Something had happened, and I was both sure and not sure that it was my water breaking.

I did what they said to do, and when I couldn’t stand the anxiety anymore, I woke up my husband.

“Honey, I think my water just broke.”

I remember he was groggy, and not necessarily excited to be woken in the middle of the night. I called the doctor, still not sure if this was actually happening. Our apartment at the time was still undergoing some repairs. We had no baby supplies to speak of. Because we still had time. The doctor agreed we should head to the hospital to check things out. My husband drove the speed limit, and I remember telling him we could go a little faster.

A nurse confirmed that my water had indeed broken, and what happened next was a blur. I remember hearing them talking about whether or not I was going to be able to stay there. I thought that meant they were going to send me home, but Phil gently reminded me that, no, what they were deciding was whether I would need to be moved to a bigger hospital because the baby would be five weeks early. Our pediatrician made the call that I could stay. We called our families, and I called in to work. I think we may have even called our landlord to see if work on our apartment could maybe possibly be expedited.

My mom and grandma hightailed it the three hours between us, stopping off at a Target or Wal-Mart close to where my husband and I lived and began buying up baby supplies.

A whole day passed with me stuck in a hospital bed waiting for something to happen. Phil went back to our apartment to pack a bag of stuff for us. We were that unprepared for the birth of our first child. I don’t remember everything we did that day. He might have even went to class. As the day went on, I wondered how long it would be before we met our baby.

—

I feel like I’ve told this story before, but it doesn’t get old for me. I want to repeat it so many times that I never forget. I want my daughter to know the story of her birth, her coming into the world.

—

Around 11 p.m., just as the nurses were switching shifts, things started to change. I felt the beginnings of contractions and a check of my cervix showed evidence of dilation. Progress.

The rest is also a blur. I remember asking for a tiny dose of drugs, which just ended up making me feel drunk and not really helping with the pain. I remember the contractions increasing in strength. I remember how quickly everything happened. A few hard pushes and our daughter was born into the world with wisps of red hair. She was a surprise all around. I was sure we were having a boy. And I never expected to have a child with red hair.

She weighed more than 6 pounds and didn’t spend a day in any kind of NICU. She was early, but she was ready for life.

Our whole world changed that day, and it hasn’t stopped changing.

—

That baby girl turns 8 tomorrow, and I can hardly believe the years have passed so quickly. I know I’m supposed to hold on to the memories and enjoy the moments, and I am, mostly. I don’t want time to stop or go back, but I also don’t want to miss the moments. The important ones and the everyday ones.

She’s 8 tomorrow and she’s who I want to be when I grow up. How is it that our children teach us so much about ourselves?

This morning, she loaded up her treat bags for her class, along with ones for some of her special teacher and assistant friends. She grabbed an extra notebook to give to the bus driver. Giving gives her joy. She would share anything she had with anyone (except maybe her brother when she’s in a mood, but even then, she usually gives in and lets him have some of whatever it is).

She has a new classmate who doesn’t speak much English and she has checked out half a dozen Spanish-English books to try to learn some words she can use to communicate with her new friend.

Recently, she wrote a play she wanted to share with the class. She told her teacher all about it, and the insecure part of me thought, “Oh, honey, don’t bother the teacher with that.” Schools have enough to pack into a day, and this extra thing my daughter wanted to do seemed unnecessary. (My writing card should be revoked!) Her teacher graciously asked her to type it up and e-mail it to her, giving her an example of how it should be formatted. Our daughter pecked away at the computer over several days typing lines of dialogue she had written herself. When it was finished, I e-mailed it to the teacher with a note of thanks, remembering that my own pursuit of writing was because of the encouragement of teachers like her.

I’m not yet sure of the status of the play, but I’m so proud of my daughter for offering it to her class. I don’t want to crush the creativity in her. As if I could. It practically bursts from her. She dresses in mismatched patterns and socks with as many accessories as possible. She wears dresses most days, and one time when there were large snow mounds at school, she led a couple of boys in sliding down the mounds, even though they ended up covered in mud. She was so pleased with herself.

At a birthday party for a friend

She has a stubborn streak, and a lot of big feelings. (She comes by them honestly.) And we are going to have some tough days ahead, I know. But her confidence and stubbornness and, though I hate to use the word, her bossiness, will serve her well in a world that still wants to silence women. She is stronger already than I will ever be.

Her birthday is the biggest deal every year. She is the star for a day, and she soaks up the attention. She has so much love to give, and she seeks out friends wherever she goes.

No, she’s not perfect. Don’t let that be your takeaway from this. But she is ours, and she inspires me to be a better person. Because of her, I want to hold back my unkind words. Because of her, I want to try new things because she is adventurous and daring. Her life will make me a prayer warrior yet.

I didn’t know a thing about raising a daughter when we brought her home from the hospital. In fact, I was sure the nurses were making a mistake letting us go. We had the added fear of jaundice with her, and three days after her birth, we were in the hospital overnight while she chilled under a bilirubin light. It was the scariest moment of my life at the time. In three days, my heart had already left my body and was joined with hers, and even though eight years have passed, my heart still beats a little harder when I think about someday letting her go out into the big, wide world all by herself.

I imagine it will be one of the hardest things I ever do.

But she will never be satisfied with a small, quiet life. We are opposites in that way, and there are times I do not understand her at all. But motherhood is nothing if not a constant lesson in things we don’t know.

She is a gift to us, and we aim to treat her as such. She is on loan for a short time. We will do our best to prepare her. We will fail, sometimes.

I can’t wait to see what she will become.

And I don’t want to miss these days of her becoming.

Because of her, I am becoming, too.

Can you help welcome refugees?

March 10, 2016

I love making lists. Shopping lists. To-do lists. They’re regulars around here.

So is another kind of list: the one that gives all the reasons I can’t do things.

Call it an excuse list or a deficiencies list or an “I’m not good at that” list. Maybe they aren’t all the same thing, but what I’m trying to say is I’m much better at making a list of things I can’t do than one that lists all the things I can do.

Maybe you can relate.

—

Six months ago, I attended a training hosted by Church World Services-Lancaster about how to become a volunteer with their organization. They support the relocation of refugees in our community, and after all the media attention the crisis received last summer and our trip to Kenya, I was determined to do something besides read blogs and share posts on Facebook.

The training was overwhelming and informative and made me feel alive with purpose and expectation.

But it also revealed in me what I thought I lacked. I don’t live in the city or know the city as well as I could. I don’t speak a foreign language. I don’t have a lot of experience communicating with people from a different culture. I have limited material resources. My own transportation is unreliable and my schedule is unpredictable.

Could I really help refugees?

I left the question unanswered for months. Or maybe I thought my answer was “no.”

Since taking the training I haven’t actually done anything to help refugees in my community. Other than share stories that others have written and advocate for helping refugees at large.

But it’s just not enough.

And I don’t want to forget that this is a real need concerning real people in the same city in which I live.

I want the words I say about what I believe to be backed by action.

Jacob Chen via unsplash

—

Taking actual action is hard, though. At least it is for me. I get caught up in the everyday life stuff and forget about other stuff. I have limited emotional and creative energy each day, and sometimes I’m at the end of both before lunch time.

But maybe those are just excuses, too.

So, this week, I had coffee with a woman who works for CWS. I told her everything about why I want to help refugees and why I sometimes think I can’t and all the factors that led to me even caring in the first place. (Can we just pause to celebrate the fact that I met a stranger for coffee at a place I’d never been to? Big steps for this introvert.)

She was so encouraging, and because she knows what the needs are and how people can help, she was able to give me some options.

And when I started to list all the reasons I didn’t think I could help, she disagreed with my reasoning and handed me practical, tangible ways to be involved in welcoming refugees to Lancaster. (Side note: Recently our city welcomed 37 new refugees in one week, and for the current year, CWS is expecting almost 500 refugees into our community.)

I know there are a lot of strong feelings about helping refugees and bringing them into our country. I urge you to do the research and not just listen to rhetoric intended to elicit an emotional (and often fearful) response. Not everyone has to help welcome refugees, but if you want to and don’t know where to start, let me help you start somewhere. (Because I need to start somewhere, too.)

One of the best ways to help refugees is to help organizations like CWS that are already helping refugees. Another one is Carry the Future, which provides baby carriers to families with young children as they arrive in Greece. There are others you can look up on the Internet, too.

If you’re local to places where refugees are resettling, find out who’s helping and what they need.

Because of the number of recent refugees, the CWS-Lancaster supply of household goods has dwindled. Here’s what they need:

Hygiene items (new only):

Soap
Shampoo
Deodorant (male and female)
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Razors & shaving cream
Brush/comb
Sanitary pads
Band-aids/First Aid
Thermometer
Bath towel
Wash cloth

Cleaning items (new only):

Dish soap
Sponges/scrubbers
Dish rack
Trash bags
Kitchen trashcan
Bucket
Floor cleaner
Mop
Broom
Vacuum
Toilet paper
Toilet brush
Shower curtain and rings
Laundry detergent
All-purpose cleaning spray

Kitchen items (in good repair):

Glasses
Dinner plates
Cereal bowls
Serving bowls
Can opener
Rice cooker
Pots & pans SET
Cooking utensils
Knives
Cutting board
Baking dish
Tea kettle

Small appliances:

Microwave
Coffee pot
Blender

Furniture (in good repair):

Small dresser
Sofa (32 inches on shortest width dimension)
Upholstered living room chairs
Kitchen table
Kitchen chairs
Coffee table
Lamps
End table
Bookshelves (small only)

Seasonal/Misc. Items

Snow shovel
Fan
Lawn mower
Umbrella
Electric space heaters
Car seat (new only)
Pack & play or crib
Stroller
Diapers
Baby wipes
Baby gates
Toddler bed rails
Winter coats, jackets, snow pants
Winter hats, gloves

Donations are accepted by appointment only and CWS reserves the right to not accept certain things. If in doubt, call or inquire. The congregational resource developer can be contacted at 717-358-9278.

For some guidance on the quality of donations, especially gently used stuff, read this blog post by Kristen Welch: Dear World: Let’s Stop Giving Our Crap to the Poor.

CWS also needs welcome kits. For anywhere from $30-$50 you can put together a toiletry kit, cleaning kit, home necessity kit, or school kit, or donate the monetary value to provide one of these kits. Information about those can be obtained at the above phone number also. I have a flier listing those needs as well, so you can contact me, too, if you’re interested in that option.

To make a long story short, the answer to the question, “Can you help welcome refugees?” is “Yes.”

Refugees come from a variety of countries and backgrounds and situations with almost nothing of their own. Because their situation is not the same as the one where we, Americans, threaten to move to Canada because we don’t like the next president. It’s much more serious than that. It’s a matter of life and death, often an immediate action, not a planned move. And they’re resettling in countries with a language and culture different from their own. Having these items helps provide a fresh start and takes away one of the burdens of settling in to a new place.

Yes, you can help welcome refugees. And so can I.

Like coming home: A review of Roots & Sky by Christie Purifoy

March 9, 2016

This is quite possibly the most beautiful book I’ve ever read. I hope you know that I don’t say that lightly.

Roots & Sky by Christie Purifoy is a memoir about her family’s first year of living in a farmhouse in Pennsylvania. It’s organized by seasons and presents a picture of an imperfect acceptance of what it means to be home. (I received a free copy of the book in exchange for my review.) Christie’s journey home, both to a place and a presence, is so relatable I felt she could have been telling my story. Nearly every page contained words worth underlining. It was a privilege to read such a vulnerable story of the first year of life in a new home. I could sense the colors, sounds, tastes and feel of the seasons as each month passed.

Here’s a sample:

Wandering taught me to desire rootedness. In the wilderness, I began to long for a place where my heart and body could settle, free of striving, free of restlessness. A place where my feet could touch ground. A place where I could grow. Like a tree. … But whether we are homebodies or world travelers, we all long for the moment of arrival. We all dream of the rest and peace we imagine waits for us at the end of a long journey. (p. 19)

I can’t say enough good things about this book. Christie is a new favorite writer. She has a way of capturing deep emotions and helping the reader feel right along with them. But it’s a process of acknowledging things for the way they are and trusting that they can be better.

If you’ve ever longed for home, no matter where you live, this is a book you MUST read.

You can read more of her words on her blog, A Spacious Place.

What is true today

March 4, 2016

I tend to worry. About a lot of things. Especially the things I can’t control. Like, the future. My mind is a snowflake-turned-avalanche of worries.

I don’t know how to turn it off. I read things in the Bible about not worrying and praying through my anxious thoughts, and yes, that often helps, when I remember to do that. But I can’t just not worry or think about not worrying. It’s like being on a diet and telling yourself constantly, don’t think about eating a donut. It doesn’t work for me.

I’m finding I have to replace my worry with something else.

This does not come naturally to me. What does come naturally is to dwell on worry and add to it all the other worries, related or not. For some reason, it’s easier to follow this downward spiral than to stop it in its tracks. For me, prayer helps undo the spiral after it has already happened. But what about when the first worry hits?

Daria Nepriakhina via Unsplash

I chose my word for the year, present, because I wanted to be more engaged with the world around me. Less distracted. More intentional. I didn’t think about it in terms of “now.” Today.

Tomorrow is so unknown, yet I imagine all the worst case scenarios based on one set of circumstances. I mistakenly believe that the way things are today is how they will be tomorrow and the next day and the days to come forevermore.

Rarely has that been the case. Seasons are just that–seasons. Seasons change and circumstances with them, and while some things tend to repeat, hardly anything stays the same all the time in every season. Even the trees look different from spring to spring.

So, I’m practicing the art of reminding myself what is true today.

While meteorologists predict another snow on the horizon, I bask in the sunshine on a 50-degree-day and tell myself that today is a gorgeous day, and even if tomorrow brings a bitter wind and winter-like temperatures, I can enjoy today.

When the numbers in the checking account dwindle and I wonder how we’ll afford this or that, I remind myself that today, the bills are paid. We have food to eat. Clothes to wear. We may not be where we want to be, but we have enough for today.

I try not to think too much about how my kids are going to turn out, but when I start to worry about them leaving the nest, years from now, I say, “Today, they are here and they are loved and cherished and as safe as I can possibly make them.” Today, I have them in my life and can enjoy their giggles while we listen to my husband read The BFG.

Too I often I worry about the future, and I also let the past dictate today. I remember past hurts. Events that left me questioning all that is good about life. And I tell myself that those things happened then and while they have shaped who I am, they are no longer true of me today.

Living in the present, for today, does not have to be some sort of cavalier excuse to take risks because “carpe diem” and all that. It’s not about denying or avoiding the future or the past. It’s acknowledging that today is here now, and tomorrow will be a new day, and each day has merit, even if it is ordinary. And if it is not, the ordinary days will return.

Summed up over a lifetime, the balance of ordinary days and extraordinary ones evens out, I think. Maybe the scale even tips in favor of the ordinary ones.

I don’t want to worry about or live for tomorrow. I don’t want to stay stuck in the past.

I want today to matter, even if nothing epic happens. I want to see what’s true today. And acknowledge it.

If I am hurting today, I will say so.

If I am at peace today, I will declare it.

If I am overwhelmed today, I will tell myself that today is just one day.

If I am happy today, I will enjoy it.

It is so cliche to say that today is a gift, and maybe I’m just getting older, but I’m starting to believe it. I used to think my life would begin “someday.” After all this other stuff happened or passed. But it’s just not true. Life is what is happening to me today, and it might not be amazing or interesting or spectacular.

Or maybe just the fact that it is happening is the most amazing thing of all.

So, what’s true for you today?