Christmas at the Nursing Home

 Christmas... how quickly it comes and goes.  We're pretty good at fitting "it" all in, though, aren't we?  We squeeze in each party and family dinner into our calendars; we dig out our favorite cookie recipes; we scour the web and the weekly fliers for the best sales; we put up the lights and tree, wrap presents, send cards and scratch off our to-do lists with frenzied diligence.

Something I think we are not very good at, however, is being present in the moment. We allow our days to whirl by in a flurry, qualifying them by what quantity of items we were able to check off.  Some never learn this art of slowing down.  Often it takes a terminal illness, a literal dying of the body, to place life into perspective, to re-evaluate our priorities, to slow down and savor moments.  

I was given this very opportunity to slow down the week before Christmas.  The children from our church had partnered with a local elementary school in Reading to make Christmas cards for nursing home residents  in West Reading.  My six-year-old Jaida and I joined some other children and parents in Christmas-caroling, handing out cards, and visiting many sick and dying people.  Nothing quite puts things in perspective than visiting with people who are bed-ridden, many of whom have almost completely lost their minds.  These tender souls are totally dependent upon another's care.  They have no ability to go shopping, bake cookies, or visit loved ones.  They can only hope that someone will remember and come to visit them.

I am still savoring a few of the moments that really touched my heart that day:

The handful of elderly women who burst into tears at the sight and sounds of little children.  

The man in the wheelchair with his broad smile and the twinkle in his eye who kept calling out to us, "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  And don't let the bed bugs bite!" 

The woman who looked to be asleep but who sang along the words to our carol.  

The mother in our group who willingly lifted up her toddling daughter to be kissed by a doting stranger.  

The other mother in our group who connected to a woman by the name of Mary, promising to visit her again the next week, because neither of them have connections to their families.

Then there was the elderly Haitian man who told Jaida and I this was his only Christmas card and who literally came alive when I began asking him about his country and what he used to do there.  He worked for UNICEF back in the day, educating his people about how malaria is contracted and teaching them how to spray their homes with insecticide and use mosquito nets.  Then he gave me a most precious gift.  He asked if he could sing a Haitian Christmas carol, Papa Noel, which tells the story of an orphan boy asking why Father Christmas takes toys to other children but not to him.  The sad French tune and sincere look in his eyes seeped into my heart, and I wished to free this bright mind from the chain of his broken body.  He talked on and on, willing us not to leave, and I was amazed how my daughter continued to stand on her tired legs as if she knew this was a sacred moment.

The visit to the nursing home was as much a blessing to my soul as I hope it was to the dear people who are still living there.  I left reminded not to take my health, my home, or my loved ones for granted.  And I was reminded that it is better to give than to receive.

What moments are you still savoring from the Christmas season?

Fair Trade Friday - Christmas!!!

I read this post by Rachel Held-Evans, and I was inspired to make a similar "Favorite Things" list, but I think I'll stick to a Top Seven.  Please check out Rachel's post, however, because she promotes a lot of great organizations and ideas!  

For starters, I really love giving gifts, but I really hate excess, waste, and exploitation.  (I get almost sick to my stomach when I think about our electronics industry helping to fuel the war in the Congo.)  So for me the solution to that problem is to find gifts that make a difference... you know something that is fair-traded or hand-made or comes from recycled material.  And there are oodles and oodles of great, meaningful gifts out there!  I'm going to share some of my favorite fair-trade products right here:

1. Punjammies!!!  These are bright, colorful, textured pajama pants for women made by women who are rebuilding their lives after being rescued from a life of forced prostitution.  The organization that empowers these brave women is called International Princess Project; isn't that a great name!  By the way, if you place an order by the end of the day, you will get 40% off your entire order (enter this code: friendsofIPP)!  And they are offering Free Shipping through the rest of December.  So what are you waiting for?  Go buy some Punjammies!

2. Hearts 4 Hearts Girls.  Think American Girl Doll goes Universal.  You have to see the beautiful faces of these dolls!  Each one comes from a different part of the world and has a story about her life and culture.  It's a great way for young girls to learn about other girls and issues around the world.  And best of all, a portion of the sale of each doll goes to supporting World Vision.

3. Ten Thousand Villages.  From fair-trade coffees, teas, and chocolates to handmade jewelry and scarves to home decor to CDs and instruments, every purchase at this store is well-worth your dollars.  The products are all made by artisans from around the world who earn a fair wage for their varying talents and expertise.  The stores are spreading across the country, so be sure to find a location near you!

4. Second Street Thrift Store.  If you live near Denver, PA, you ought to check out this shop, which is way more than a thrift store!  For starters, it looks more like a boutique as it is decorated so creatively with a real vintage feel.  The store sells donated (and some new!) clothing, furniture, and household goods.  100% of the profits from Second Street goes to supporting HOME International, a ministry that provides homes for abandoned girls in India.  

5. Bead for Life.  I've already blogged about this awesome organization, but I can't say enough good things about it!  Even if one does not have the means to spend a lot at Christmas, you can still offer to host a bead party, gather your friends and neighbors, and invite others to purchase this beautiful jewelry and Shea Butter soap and lip balm.  

6. World Vision Gift Catalogue.  This is one of our family's favorite places to find Christmas gifts.  You know those persons who really don't need another knick-knack, such as grandparents and great-grandparents?  Well, Jarred and I invite our children to look through the online catalog and choose a "gift" (i.e. a share of a well, packets of seeds, two babies chicks, life-saving medication, etc...) that they want to "give" to the grandparents in our lives.  World Vision then sends us cards, explaining how the gift given in honor of our loved one will benefit people in real need.  This is a great teachable moment for our children as they are reminded that some families are just hoping for enough food to eat, healthcare, and the ability to get an education.  

7. Fair-Trade Coffee.  This is one of those purchases that is easy to find and of course is delicious for any coffee drinker!  A lot grocery stores carry fair-traded options, and I believe Starbucks sells ethically-grown coffee as well.  You could also check out Grounds for Change or Equal Exchange.

There are many, many more wonderful gift ideas out there!  I'd love to hear some of yours!  

Thanksgiving Crumbs

"A desire to kneel down sometimes pulses through my body, or rather it is as if my body had been meant and made for the act of kneeling.  Sometimes in moments of deep gratitude, kneeling down becomes an overwhelming urge, head deeply bowed, hand before my face."  

~Etty Hillesum

Do you ever feel like that?  So overcome with gratitude and joy that you could drop to your knees?  The closest I feel to that sort of gratitude is when I am taking a quiet walk by myself, my eyes drinking in the beauty of trees, skies, flowers, sun and my ears absorbing bird songs and dancing breezes among the leaves.  Except rather than bowing low, my head, heart, and sometimes arms reach high up wanting to gather the beauty and goodness of God into my soul.  

And yet days and weeks can go by to the hum-drum of daily life or to the sad tune of heartache without my knees bending or my arms stretching wide in gratefulness.  I'm learning that these long stretches need not be.  I'm learning that the hum-drum days and even heartache days contain their beautiful, even glorious moments, if only I have eyes to see them.  Macrina Wiederkehr calls these moments "crumbs" for the soul, and I love that analogy. A warm, thick slice of bread is most delicious to the soul, such as the moments I am walking amid the beauty of an autumn day, but crumbs can be savored, too.  Indeed, when I take the time to savor them, rather than gulp them down without a thought, my soul is that much more satisfied.

"Crumbs are those small things that the world would toss aside, seeing little value in them.... Everything in life can be nourishing.  Everything can bless us, but we've got to be there for the blessing to occur." (A Tree Full of Angels, Introduction, xiii).

"Being there" or being grateful is a spiritual discipline, a practice that nourishes the soul.  Sometimes I practice this at the end of the day when I am lying in bed.  I think back upon my day and ask myself what "crumbs" I gathered.  Usually, they are the simplest of moments: a snuggle with my daughter in the morning, the sight of the red maple in our backyard, the conversation with a friend which left us each a little lighter, the smell of muffins baking in the oven, the laughter from my children and their father as they wrestled and tickled on the living room floor.  I think back on these crumbs, savoring them, rolling them around on my tongue.  My heart beats stronger with thankfulness, and I go to sleep at peace.  

Thanksgiving may be over, but there are crumbs on the table of daily life, if only we stop to look, to savor, to nourish our souls.  What crumbs have you gathered from today?  

An Everyday Hero

I'm a substitute teacher.  I fill in for kindergarten teachers all the way up to AP Calculus teachers.  I love the little ones, but I find it weird being around teenagers.  I used to think I loved teens and wanted to spend the rest of my life working with at-risk youth.  Maybe I'm too far attached from them now that I'm in my thirties, because my tolerance has certainly waned.  I now find most teenagers selfish, disrespectful, and annoying.  Forgive me, all you brilliant, self-assured, and kind teenagers, who actually look me in the eye, smile, and are friendly to others.  You are in the blessed minority.

The other week I met one of these minority teens who greeted me with a smile and "hello" in the early morning of a first period English class.  Beyond that, this young man actually came up to me at the end of the class to shake my hand (shake my hand?!), ask my name, and thank me for coming in.  And believe me when I tell you this gesture was in total sincerity.

I have since seen Mike (not his real name) three other times when I was back at his high school to sub.  I saw him again today.  The class I was subbing in had a guest speaker, and I watched Mike greet our guest with the same sincerity and friendliness he had also afforded me.  This maturity is just so rare!

I've got to be honest.  Mike is not the kind of kid I would expect to have such poise and confidence.  He has a hearing impairment that has caused his speech to be difficult to understand.  He isn't built like an athlete, and he has a noticeable scar on his body.  He's actually the kind of kid you would expect to be withdrawn, severely self-conscious, and made-fun-of.

We had a few minutes to talk at the end of art class. Truth be told, Mike has been made-fun-of.  I discovered that he is new to the district as of this year.  He moved in with his grandparents so he could transfer districts.  The district he attended for most of his life was no longer safe for him.  He said he had been bullied, and he had taken enough.  And then in an honest and humble voice, Mike said, "You see, I'm not like most boys.  I don't like girls; I like guys."

I'm not sure where Mike's inner-strength has come from, but today Mike made my hero's list.  A bullied gay young man with a physical disability and a strong lisp has learned to walk with his head held high, his smile broad, and his handshake warm.  Yeah, he's an everyday hero.

Where are the Red Tents?

So I came across this book at the library, New York Times Bestseller The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. Actually, it's a little embarrassing.  I came across the book around this time last year but somehow or other it got placed on a bookshelf in our guest room where I totally forgot about it.  When the library notices began coming, I really thought they had mistaken me with this lost book.  I finally had to pay the cost of the book (that's one way to support our local libraries), and here I find the library's copy on my book shelf a year later.  Anyway...

Books about ancient biblical characters don't usually catch my attention, but this one has totally sucked me in.  It's a novel based around the lives of the wives and daughter of Jacob.  This daughter Dinah is mentioned as a mere afterthought in the Old Testament narrative, yet the novel is written in her voice.  I am captivated by the lives of these ancient female characters.  Though there is much I could do without from ancient life (i.e. sharing my husband with other wives, exposure to all of the dangers of the wild, no anasthesia, and very few rights or privileges for women--to name just a few), I find myself drawn to the women's "red tent"- the place they go while menstruating and "hang out" with the other women in their camp.

To clarify, I do not wish for this in literal terms... how awkward and humiliating would that be!  It's what happens within the walls of the red tent that attracts me.  It's the way Dinah, her mother, her aunts, and the bondswomen share their lives together.  The red tent is where they weave together, cook together, braid one another's hair, birth one another's babies, nurse one another's babies, talk about their husbands and sex.  It's where they cry and laugh, sing and dance.  In a word, it's where the women come Alive.  And I believe our modern world would do well to learn the secrets of the "red tents."

What I mean is I believe that there is a comradry between women that is difficult to find even in a married relationship.  I have always believed that women need women.  We need our mothers, our sisters, our cousins, and of course our girl friends.  I am generalizing here, but women are the listeners, the supporters, the caretakers and nurturers of society.  They cook meals when a friend has a baby.  They call and send cards when a sister miscarries her child.  They cry with their mother when she is diagnosed with cancer.  But their tears are no sign of weakness.  No, women have the inner strength of oxen.  Often while carrying their own heartaches, they also help in juggling the burdens of their children, their spouses, their aging relatives, and their friends.

I have been blessed to be a part of many "red tents" in my lifetime.  My mother invited me into her "red tent" when I was still young.  She nurtured me through songs and kisses.  She taught me lessons about life and was my school teacher for six years!  She shared her heart with me--her struggles, her joys, her love.  She shared my aunts and her friends with me, and their examples helped usher me into maturity.  I've shared a "red tent" with a very special group of girls I've known since I was little.  We've shared secret crushes, laughed ourselves to tears, shared wardrobes, braided one another's hair, fluffed each other's wedding gowns, held each other's newborn babies, listened to one another's pain.  And I've had the privilege of joining other "red tents" throughout my lifetime, finding support and encouragement from women in every stage of my life.

But I fear that "red tents" are fading away.  Our culture does not have many structures in place for them.  Indeed our lives have become fragmented.  We now raise children without the help of other female relatives, and what a difficult task that can be! We have almost completely lost certain arts which used to bring us together--quilting, canning, baking.  Not that I am trying to imply that being female means being a domestic housewife, or that those arts only belong to women.  I am only trying to demonstrate how difficult it is to create "red tents" since we live on a fast-track, nuclear-family-focused, individualized society.

I have a friend who could really use a "red tent" right now.  Her husband has left her and her two children.  She is trying to pay the bills, help the kids with homework, do the grocery shopping, work night shift, explain to her children why Daddy doesn't want to live with them anymore... all while nursing a broken heart.  I wonder how many other women are trying to survive life alone, who have not been as fortunate as I to have been invited into "red tents."  If you are a woman, do you have a "red tent"?  If you have a "red tent," who might you open your door to?

I Love "Lucy," My Immigrant Friend

So just yesterday I learned about the mass exodus of many Hispanic families in Alabama last week.  Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn upheld all provisions of a state law which even the governor of Alabama is calling "the strongest immigration law in this country."  The law allows police officers to ask for immigration papers of drivers they pull over and requires schools to ask for legal documentation of registering students.  After the ruling, many undocumented immigrant families fled their homes and communities, obviously fearing the repercussions of this passed law.  It was reported that almost 2,000 Hispanic children were absent from school two days after the ruling which constitutes 5% of the entire Hispanic student population in Alabama. Now the ruling is being appealed by many civil rights groups and by the Justice Department. Some think the law is a no-brainer; others feel it is unconstitutional.

As a glo-burbanite living in Reading, PA, I of course am also aware of the recent Times article that announced the fact that Reading is now the "poorest" city in the country.  This city is where my "neighbors" live.  It's where I substitute taught last school year and where I taught English as a Second Language for two years before that. It's where many Hispanic people have learned to call "home." And of course I realize that some of these are undocumented immigrants.  In fact, the ESL student I became closest friends with while teaching is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico.

Aside from the debate of whether or not this Alabama law is unconstitutional or not, it is a fact that some laws are just down right unethical. I cannot help but notice the irony that Alabama (one of the most racist states in the US with some of the most extreme Jim Crow laws in the early 1900's) is now one of the harshest states regarding immigration.  I know that many would disagree with me that this law is unethical, arguing that crossing our national border without the proper papers (something that is extremely difficult and expensive to ascertain) is unlawful and downright criminal.  But I believe this argument is short-sighted.

See, I am sometimes just amazed that any American could say "Go home!" to another human being who has fled poverty or violence in their home country and has come here looking for work to provide for their family. Because isn't that how most of the United States has become populated? Did not most of our ancestry flee poverty or violence from their home countries, looking to this "great country" for new opportunities?  And I wonder how it is possible to still celebrate Columbus Day, remembering that Christopher Columbus (and other explorers like him) never asked any Native American for permission to inhabit their land, much less to steal their natural resources or rape their women or kill their leaders.  Why is he exonerated and made to be a hero while those stealing across the border for safety and survival are made to be criminals?

Another fact that we many of us are unaware of is that the United States is partly responsible for Mexico's economic condition.  Not fully, of course, but partly.  If you have not yet seen the documentary Food Inc., you certainly must.  The film reveals a little bit of the story of how US corn subsidies to American farmers have put many small corn farmers in Mexico out of business. This article explains more of that conversation.  The film goes on to show how major chicken processing plants advertise work for Mexicans, urging them to cross the border and work low-paying jobs in American chicken factories in order to keep the price of chicken at a low price for consumers.  And sometimes these very chicken industries rat out their undocumented workers, deflecting the blame onto their employees and away from their own greed. (That information alone was enough to turn my stomach away from Perdue and Tyson and instead on to nutritious, farm-raised, free-range chicken!)

Of course the more I learn about our immigration problems, the more I see how complex they are.  I certainly do not have the answers, but one thing I refuse to compromise on is that children of undocumented immigrants deserve to have the same rights as documented children.  And my heart will continually grieve when I hear stories of families being discriminated against because of where they come from or children being denied access to education or other benefits because of their lack of papers.  Getting to know my friend Lucy from Mexico (I have changed her name) has helped to solidify this belief for me.  And I will end with her story:

Lucy was born the oldest of six children to Mexican parents.  When she was still a girl, Lucy's father left the family to find work but never returned, abandoning them to worse poverty.  Lucy tells me that there are very few economic opportunities for single women in Mexico. Her mother was unable to provide for her children's needs. So at the age of twelve, Lucy and her mother made the difficult journey across the border into the US and settled in Reading, PA.  Her mother found work and sent for the rest of her children to join them.  My friend married another Mexican-American at the age of sixteen; they now have three children of their own.  They work hard, they save their money, they demand much from their children in school, and they live simply. They are anything but lazy, and I admire them.  Lucy's husband has obtained his papers, and their children are American citizens.  But my friend lives with the fear that her status could send her back to a country she barely knows anymore, a country that has become even more unstable due to the violence of drug-lords.  I only pray that she is granted the amnesty that I believe any human being is due.

I Watched the News Today…

I watched the news today

and wondered if God had gone to play

I saw the bully win

and asked God if he was out or in

I heard my neighbors scream

and wondered if God turned mean

I read about the starving child

and wondered why war waged wild

I saw a man die of AIDS

and asked God if he had gone away

Then on my knees I fell and wept

and God whispered into my depths…

I hear the hungry children weep

Go and feed them; be my feet

I know the bullied girls and boys

Go seek justice; be my voice

I see the sick across the land

Go and help them; be my hands

I listen to the poor one’s prayers

Go and answer; be my ears

Then to my feet I rose again,

rolled up my sleeves, dirtied my hands

~Annette L Garber, 2005