Category: My Story

A Sacred Contract [a poem]

Tonya (8), Melody (10), Holly (3) and Paula (12) with Dan Harrison in southern California, 1976.

SISTERS: A Sacred Contract

A sacred contract between sisters;
My secrets are yours,
yours are mine,
And theirs

are ours together.

Four sisters.
Bound to one another
by secrets.
‘You don’t owe each other,’
my husband said.

Oh, but we do.
For we are survivors of secrets,
together.

by Melody Harrison Hanson, 2005

I’ll never forget how terrified I was when I wrote this.  When I sent it on to my sisters to read I feared their rejection because you see we never talked about dad much, not negatively.  Not until he died because  of his anger.  It just wasn’t worth it.

[Now some of you who knew the gentle, charming character of Dan Harrison will be rising your eyebrows and questioning me now.  Some day, perhaps I will have the energy to remember and write what our childhood was like.  Because we remained until the day he died strangled by his anger.]

You see, when you experience psychological trickery and  mental torment or suffering it creates a level of fear that is insurmountable.  We all suffered physically from this over the years.  I had stomach aches, Holly and my mom had headaches, the others in their own way.  The worry, the knowledge that at any time he might lash into a rage, get stirred up over the smallest thing, I never understood his trigger.  It caused us mental and emotional anguish.  But the very hardest for me was the secret of it.

That’s where this poem comes from.

Haiti – a learning curve indeed.

I’m running a fever and have body aches.  I’m fairly grumpy at this point because I just don’t do sick.  When I was working full-time my modus operandi was pop some pills and get on with it.  But that’s changed over the years.  Being at-home I can’t ignore how I feel, there is not enough to distract me.  So, I feel my pain.  And especially since I’m trying to listen to my body (after this experience).

Anyway, one of the things I do when I am healthy or sick, is read – blogs, articles, anything and everything.  I got to thinking how much amazing stuff I find online and I could let others know about it.

ON HAITI, hopefully soon NGOs are going to get food to the folk in Haiti.

First, one blog I read, from an NGO worker who is not in Haiti said this today:

In the next day or two, non-governmental organizations expect to begin mass food distributions to earthquake survivors in Haiti. They’re planning to do this in conjunction with military support- specifically, the US Marines and the United Nations Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

It’s taken more than two weeks to organize. I’ve explained some of these reasons elsewhere. In short, the logistics of trying to organize food distributions to hundreds of thousands of people simultaneously is an immense undertaking. As well as importing and moving that amount of food (food is heavy stuff), there’s the matter of locating and organizing distribution sites, coordinating dozens of agencies, working through broken infrastructure, communicating the details to the residents of Port-au-Prince, and trying to define the relationship between the military and aid agencies.

I thought his explanation for why things are so damned complicated in Haiti and what the NGOs and the government are doing, are not doing and why was brilliant.  So many in the media are asking questions and criticizing.  This person explained.  It may not be what we want to hear but I feel it was forthright and honest.  And since he’s not on the ground there he doesn’t need to feel defensive.

Secondly, I have found MFAN, Modernizing Modern Assistance Network.

MFAN is a reform coalition composed of international development and foreign policy practitioners, policy advocates and experts, concerned citizens and private sector organizations.  MFAN’s goal is to help build a safer, more prosperous world by strengthening the United States’ ability to alleviate extreme poverty, create opportunities for growth, and secure human dignity in developing countries.

Fantastic!  I’m  totally with them and when they provided a list of articles I realized that many of them I had already read in the last week.  These give you a sense of the discussions going on in and around Haiti about the aid that is and isn’t getting there, how things are organized (or not) and folks criticisms and affirmations.

From MFAN’s website:

Since almost the moment that a devastating earthquake struck Haiti nearly three weeks ago, high-level world leaders, development experts (including MFAN Principals), and others have published pieces with opinions on what went wrong with development in Haiti and what we can do to make things right.

One common feature of the commentary, with the exception of a few pieces (Atwood and Birdsall come to mind), is the fact that they call for a new development approach in Haiti without mentioning that a transformative debate is happening at all levels of government about how to make overall U.S. development and foreign assistance efforts more effective and accountable.  In spite of this omission, the pieces touch on important themes of foreign assistance reform that MFAN has been aggressively advocating for more than a year, and which are now being discussed as part of the White House’s Presidential Study Directive on Development Policy, the State Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, and Congress’ anticipated efforts to revise the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

I hope you will read some of them.  I hope they are as interesting and informative to you as I found them.  I hope you will start talking about the reform that has already been in the works.  Here’s the list of articles again.

Sorry for a less than passionate post.  I am — very much so  — deeply interested.

Just under the weather.

Stay healthy yourself!

Hope for Haiti

I thoroughly enjoyed watching a Hope For Haiti Now fundraiser the other night.  This collaboration between Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Bono jumped out at me.  I loved it because it was innovative, interesting and original.  Am I being redundant?  I loved it.

Taylor Swift was also incredible.

Just don’t want to forget Haiti.  I heard a report on NPR today that some people STILL have only received water as “aid.”  I do not want to criticize people on the ground doing good work.

Rwanda. Haiti. A photographer’s work.

Of the many things that one could do with their photography, this would be my dream. Telling stories that need telling. This photographer is incredibly talented, and tells his stories so well. I discovered him checking who the photographers were on the doctors without borders website report from Haiti. (I think.)

Jonothan Torgovnik is in Haiti right now. Be well, sir, be well. Tell the story that needs to be told.

Intended Consequences by Jonathan Torgovnik

An estimated 20,000 children were born from rapes committed during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Intended Consequences chronicles the lives of these women. Their narratives are embodied in portrait photographs, interviews and oral reflections about the daily challenges they face today. See the project at http://mediastorm.org/0024.htm

. I found the photographer’s reflections to be incredibly powerful.

Anger cannot fully describe my emotions.

Folly is what occurred.  (But no dentists were hurt I promise.)

After preparing myself and Jacob all day for the extraction of three of his teeth ….

… took 1/2 day off school.
… talked about it dozens of times, about bravery and necessity and consequences.
… bought bribe toy, comfort stuffed animal, and bribe milkshake.
… spent almost an hour numbing his mouth with the dentist poking him up to 20 times with his long needle of Novocaine, ten of which he actually felt.

… finally,  a small amount of kicking (more like writhing),  screaming (at times blood curdling I will admit) and lots of tears, holding his mouth saying “Don’t pull my teeth!” …

the damned dentist says:

“We don’t have to pull them today.”

“YES WE DO!” I say! It just burst out of me.

“Are you f***ing kidding me?” did not come out until I was in the car later.

But once this was out, my already traumatized eight year old son was very willing to put off for another day what he did not want to do anyway.

I reaffirmed that he would still have to have the teeth pulled, that he would have to repeat everything that happened in the last hour, and he would NOT get the toy in the trunk of my car.

But once the option was on the table, no matter my protest, there was no cajoling, no amount of pushing, (mild) threatening, frustration, anger, disappointment, or fury was going to change his little freaked out mind.

“I can recommend an Oral Surgeon, who has the capability to make him more comfortable ( a dentist’s euphemism for “knock him out cold”) so that these teeth can be pulled.”

Fine. Give me the referral. We start anew on Monday morning at 8:00am where we will have a Consult for pulling the teeth.  Then schedule a teeth pulling, where they likely give him a shot that knocks him out and he won’t remember anything.

I have no more words. But for those of you who have followed this saga here, and here, if I was not convinced before I am now we will be changing dentists.

Here’s what I think he should have done.  Pulled Mom out in the hall to discuss the options.  Let mom decide or at least have a say in whether the child is offered a reprieve.  Am I wrong?

What’s another word for angry? irritated, miffed, annoyed?

I’m in a bad mood.  It could be because I’ve had a headache for 36+ hours but actually this mood has been building for a while.

I feel stuck. I’m looking back over my life.  Being a missionary kid, born overseas, multi-cultural upbringing, being a Christ-follower a long time, tons of biblical study, college degree, worked for a mission agency, worked for Urbana student missions convention, summers overseas, the gift of mercy that breaks my heart over and over combined with an iron will, good people skills, a gift for writing, being articulate and passionate, with cross-cultural skills and training, ten years of management experience, being innovative, creative, willing not to mention a decent if not good , truly willing to live anywhere in the world… and I am

an unemployed homemaker.  And that isn’t what makes me mad, per say.  Because these ten years that I have spent caring for my family and getting well have been absolutely necessary.  God took me by the lapels and said some fairly harsh things. What I needed.  I guess I had such a sheltered childhood and adolescent years that I needed to make some mistakes and pretty much fall bald-facedly forward – splat – in my humanity and stink.  And that makes me grateful not mad.

What makes me mad is reading about people who get to serve, now in Haiti.  In Afghanistan.  In Iraq. Russia.  Kiev.  Turkey.  Anywhere.

I then I read this a few minutes ago, on one of the blogs I follow.  She’s going to Haiti and she’s “not quite sure about it.”

There will be dead bodies, and she’s really busy already, never slept anywhere but her bed and a hotel,“and my sense of smell is really overactive so there’s no way I could possibly handle what Haiti must smell like” You have to take those malaria pills that make your stomach hurt and what if there’s another earthquake while you’re there? What if you get shot at? You won’t have your choice of firm or soft pillows and it very well will smell like the rotting stench of death. You might be sleeping in a tent on the ground.” We all get to be a part of that story – whether it’s by donating money or supplies or by taking a couple of Valium and getting on a plane.

Excuse me?  That’s not even cute and definitely not funny.  I think she meant well, but I resent her attitude.  I can’t help but think why her?  It’s so damned unfair. She’s clearly not even prepared.

And then I begin to be angry at myself.  I resent all my mistakes and weaknesses that made my being here in Madison the story of my life.  Two times I started to answer that voice in my head that said go.

I was training as a Red Cross volunteer when Katrina happened, but I was too soon out of the hospital with depression and suffering from chronic bronchitis.  They encouraged me to not go because the place was full of mold.  Subsequently I learned a lot of things about the Red Cross that concerned me with them as an organization.   I did not continue my training.

I want to be trained in Emergency Relief, just not with the Red Cross.  Am I too picky?  Would I be there in Haiti right now if I had continued on with that organization.  They make it easy for the average person to pursue relief work.

October of last year (2008) I applied and was accepted for a Master’s Photography Class set in Cambodia.  For the first time in years I felt a quickening in my heart and anticipation for the future!  Long story short, it cost too much money which we didn’t have going into a recession.  Door slam.  Dream over.  I know now, beyond looking forward to learning about photojournalism I was looking forward to the smells, the people, the food, the danger, the excitement (I hope that’s okay to admit) of being in another culture.

I am angry at myself.  I am angry at this woman.  I am angry about my past, my mistakes and weaknesses and fear. I’m a messy person but I know that those lessons have made me the person that I am today.  And tho the journey of walking with God is more learning that truly being “ready” in my heart I’m ready Lord – for anywhere – sleeping in a tent – serving – helping – whatever is next. And I know that the whole journey of who I am, where my life started in the jungles of Papua New Guinea to being (potentially) a third generation missionary, to being an artist and writer and photographer — it is all full of purpose and a journey of consequence.  My life story was no accident.

All I can do right now — today —  is relent for now, keep learning and studying,  and do what is in front of me; serve locally and hope against all hope that some day God will send me.

Be well, even when you’re angry.

Melody

I feel dread, but I am strong

Right?  I’m strong! I’ve been a mother for almost twenty years.

I have dreaded this day for about three months – as long as I have known that the dentists want to extract three teeth from my youngest — My baby.  He’s terrified and so I am calm and reassuring.

“You will feel nothing” I keep saying.  And Tom repeats as well.  Which I am not certain is true because the last time I had teeth pulled I was in high school.   I remember drooling blood as I walked out of the doctor’s office.  That’s about it.

Why do I feel so afraid?  So unprepared?  Because parenting 101 says with everything in your arsenal, you protect your children.  That’s the gut impulse.  That’s what intuition says to do.  And from the beginning, when Emma was born I felt inside me this Mama Lion; powerful enough to hurt someone else if they hurt my child — from first day jitters in kindergarten, to all the testing we’ve done for his learning challenges, hours of extra tutoring,  advocating at school — day after day protecting my baby from the world and getting him what he needs.

I just read that the Mother Lion Defense has actually been used in court where it seeks to justify mother ‘s violent reactions taken to protect her children. Often admitted and successful.  (Good to know.)

I don’t know why I’m thinking in such extremes today, but Jacob has been through so much.  He’s had eight cavities fixed this year. No one prepares you for days like this.

I will bring my weeping, struggling child into the dentist as he begs me to not let them do it.  Worst case scenario I have to carry him in and hold him down.  The pit in my stomach will remain. At that point I have no idea if this is the right thing to do.

I am trusting the experts (first and second opinions given) that he ‘needs’ this.

Jacob is trusting me that I would never let anyone hurt him.

And I feel like crying.

Somewhere in my heart, it’s the end of the world & Satan takes a pass. (Haiti)

I spent last evening from 9pm to 12am watching AC 360 and reading blogs about Haiti. Anderson Cooper, because he is there on site.  And I think he’s an excellent journalist (“Not to mention he’s a hunk and have you seen his muscles?” my 72-year-old Mother said to me recently. Yes, that’s funny.  You can laugh.)

And then, as it does all day long my mind goes back to Haiti.  I just can’t stop dwelling there. I’m vacuuming or making dinner and my mind is with the Haitians who are still being pulled from the rubble four days later.  Alive. Surviving on nothing while I am pulling boiled chicken off the bones for soup.  The fat is clinging to my fingers.

We are so abundantly blessed. If you haven’t yet, I would ask you to give money for Haiti. This blog I follow Blood & Milk: Examining International Development gave practical advice on giving.

“My own suggestion is this – the single most important thing you can do when choosing where to donate is to pick an organization with a history in Haiti. That will make all the different in the speed and quality of their work.”

Photographs (a must see).

Some disturbing and horrifying images from Haiti, six days later in the Boston Globe. Personally I think they are a must see.  For they are seared in my aortas and as I pray I cannot help but remember them.

History I never learned.

Many of us are coming up to speed quickly on this tiny nation.  To be honest I have given no energy or time toward this country.  It has never been on my grid.

This article Requiem for Port-au-Prince is insightful and interesting.  Haitian writers and visitors to the island nation talk about Port-au-Prince before the earthquake.  Also another interesting article with a time line of  the Unluckiest Country. Both articles are from Foreign Policy magazine.

A Personal Story

And then, late last night I read this by Régine Chassagne who is Haitian talking about her week since she heard about the earthquake.  It’s a first hand account and is very touching as the Haitian singer demands that her homeland isn’t once again abandoned by the west.  Heart breaking.

I let out a cry, as if I’d heard everybody I loved had died.

Somewhere in my heart, it’s the end of the world.  These days, nothing is funny. I am mourning people I know. People I don’t know. People who are still trapped under rubble and won’t be rescued in time. I can’t help it.  Everybody I talk to says the same thing: time has stopped.

Simultaneously, time is at work. Sneakily passing through the cracks, taking the lives of survivors away, one by one.

Diaspora overloads the satellites. Calling families, friends of families, family friends. Did you know about George et Mireille? Have you heard about Alix, Michaelle etc, etc? But I know that my personal anguish is small compared to the overwhelming reality of what is going on down there.

When it happened I was at home in Montreal, safe and cosy, surfing the internet, half randomly, like millions of westerners. Breaking news: 7.0 earthquake hits Haiti near Port-au-Prince.

Such emotion came over me. My breath stopped. My heart sank and went straight into panic mode. I knew right away that the whole city is in no way built to resist this kind of assault and that this meant that thousands were under rubble. I saw it straight away.

I ran downstairs and turned on the television. It was true. Tears came rushing right to my eyes and I let out a cry, as if I had just heard that everybody I love had died. The reality, unfortunately, is much worse. Although everything around me is peaceful, I have been in an internal state of emergency for days. My house is quiet, but I forget to eat (food is tasteless). I forget to sleep. I’m on the phone, on email, non-stop. I’m nearly not moving, but my pulse is still fast. I forget who I talked to and who I told what. I leave the house without my bag, my keys. I cannot rest.

I grew up with parents who escaped during the brutal years of the Papa Doc regime. My grandfather was taken by the Tonton Macoutes and it was 10 years before my father finally learnt he had been killed. My mother and her sister returned home from the market to find their cousins and friends murdered. She found herself on her knees in front of the Dominican embassy begging for her life in broken Spanish. Growing up, I absorbed those stories, heard a new version every year; adults around the dinner table speaking in creole about poor Haiti.

When I was growing up, we never had the money to return. Even if we had, my mother never could go back. Until she died, she would have nightmares about people coming to “take her away”. My mum passed away before she could meet my future husband, or see our band perform and start to have success, and though I have dreamed of her dancing to my music, I know she would have been very worried to hear that I was travelling to Haiti for the first time last year.

It is strange that I was introduced to my country by a white doctor from Florida called Paul Farmer who speaks perfect Creole and knows how to pronounce my name right. He is the co-founder of an organisation titled Partners in Health (Zanmi Lasante in Creole). There are several charity organisations that are doing good work in Haiti – Fonkoze is a great micro-lending organisation – but in terms of thorough medical care, follow-up and combining of parallel necessary services (education, sanitation, training, water, agriculture), there is none that I could ­recommend more than Partners in Health. It takes its work for the Haitian people very seriously and, indeed, most of the staff on the ground are Haitian. PIH has been serving the poorest of the poor for more than 20 years with a ­curriculum that really astounded me, given the limited resources available in the area.

Visiting its facilities, I was overwhelmed by, and impressed with, the high-level, top-quality services provided in areas where people own next to nothing and were never given the opportunity to learn how to sign their own name. I was delightfully shocked to see the radically positive impact it has had in the communities it serves. Of course, during my visit, I saw some clinics and hospitals that were at different stages than others, but through it all, I could clearly see that PIH staff are very resourceful and set the bar extremely high for themselves. I know that, right now, they are using their full ­capacities to save as many lives as possible.

So in these critical times where death comes every minute, I urge you to donate to Partners in Health (www.pih.org) and be as generous as you can. I know from having talked to some staff that they are on the ground right now, setting up and managing field hospitals as well as receiving the injured at their clinics in the surrounding areas.

I realize that by the time you read this it will be Sunday. The cries will have died out and few miracles will remain possible. But the suffering survivors should not be abandoned and should be treated with the best care countries like ours can offer.

Many Haitians expect to be let down. History shows they are right to feel that way. Haitians know that they have been wronged many, many times. What we are seeing on the news right now is more than a natural disaster. This earthquake has torn away the veil and revealed the crushing poverty that has been allowed by the west’s centuries of disregard. That we must respond with a substantial emergency effort is beyond argument, but in the aftermath, Haiti must be rebuilt.

Ultimately, we need to treat Haiti with compassion and respect and make sure that the country gets back on its feet once and for all. Haiti’s independence from France more than two centuries ago should be thought of as one of the most remarkable tales of ­freedom; instead, she was brought to her knees by the French and forced to pay a debt for the value of the lost colony (including the value of the slaves: the equivalent of $21bn by current calculations). We cannot ­overestimate the strength and resilience of the brave people living in this country whose ancestors had to buy their own bodies back.

The west has funded truly corrupt governments in the past.  Right now, in Haiti, there is a democratically elected government.  Impossibly weak, but standing. This is the moment where we need to show our best support and solidarity.

Since Haiti shook and crumbled, I feel as if something has collapsed over my head, too. Miles away, somehow, I’m trapped in this nightmare. My heart is crushed. I’ve been thinking about nothing else.  Time has stopped – but time is of the essence.

So I’ve been sitting here at my computer, food in the fridge, hot water in the tap, a nice comfy bed waiting for me at some point… but…  Somewhere in my heart, it’s the end of the world.

Régine Chassagne is a member of the rock band Arcade Fire.

Obviously a student of CS Lewis, a woman wrote a Letter to the editor in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune:

Dear Pat Robertson,
I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll. You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

Questions, cause I’ve been thinking

I have a lot of questions right now because I’ve been  thinking.  And when I start thinking I find I end up with more questions.

diversity @ church.

One of my favorite writers, Philip Yancey, recently scoured his hometown churches to see what he might find.   His comment about diversity in a church stood out to me.

As I read accounts of the New Testament church, no characteristic stands out more sharply than this one. Beginning with Pentecost, the Christian church dismantled the barriers of gender, race, and social class that had marked Jewish congregations. Paul, who as a rabbi had given thanks daily that he was not born a woman, slave, or Gentile, marveled over the radical change: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Huh, diversity is Biblical.  ‘Nuf said.

MLK day was it ignored or forgotten? does it matter which.

Can I just say I love my church.  I have never grown in my spiritual life the way I have at this church.  It is amazing.

That said, yesterday I realized a stunning thing.   I attend one of those “mainly white mega-churches that don’t mention commemorating Martin Luther King Day.”   That made me sad.  They likely bumped it because of praying for Haiti and there are many challenges managing program time.  Still, I think it is important for a church to communicate from the platform that remembering and celebrating with our friends of color is significant to us all and valuable.   It’s a national holiday?  How are people going to spend it? Just made me wonder.

I’ve been writing on multi-ethnicity.

A friend asked me to reflect on Ecclesiastes 4:1-3, after reading these thoughts I wrote about my experience of going to a white church and my question of whether I should consider attending a multi-ethnic or even Black church.

Again, I observed all the oppression that takes place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, with no one to comfort them. ‘The oppressors have great power, and their victims are helpless.  So I concluded that the dead are better off than the living.  But most fortunate of all are those who are not yet born. For they have not seen all the evil that is done under the sun.  (New Living Translation)

From my post:

To live our lives based on that simple truth means our lives are built on self-sacrifice.  Every time we respond in love to someone else, we are laying down our lives for them.  “This is my commandment,that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another.” Strange how Jesus did not say to us, “these are my commandments.”  He said is as if it were one commandment.

To believe and love is one idea.

Believing in Christ means that we love one another.  Looking at it that way, there is a lot that I can do as a person with my affluence & power &  a voice for the cause of reconciliation in my city.  Things that have nothing to do with where I worship on Sunday.

What my friend Jimmy was gently saying (I think) is that people are living with oppression in our nation my city, in my kid’s schools.  And no one white people don’t seem to genuinely offer care and comfort.

I will do further study on the word: COMFORT.  And that will sooth my intellect.  But can I DO something.  What can I do?

That takes me back to my Advent Lament and prayer. Oh God, Tell me what you want me to do.

And from someone I am coming to read often, a cautionary quote to white people.

I can only speak anecdotally on this, but there seems to be a growing movement of white people—including Christians—who feel so victimized by political correctness (and how it’s robbing them of their rights) that they’ve hardened their hearts to any suggestion that racial injustice is a factor in our society today. And they’ve become cold to how their privileged words and actions might affect others. That defensive mindset and callousness could be the biggest obstacles to true reconciliation in our churches and nation. Ed Gilbreath, emphasis mine.

I believe God speaks and it is not random.

I believe that God challenges and moves people from within by breaking our hearts over injustice around us.  He is not random about this.  He leads us toward things.  And away from things.  Problematically I have been told  and I can affirm that I have the gift of mercy.   I pop open my laptop and the needs and issues all over the world, and in my community, flood toward me and it all hurts.   If I open myself up to it it’s crushing.  It makes me sad, and mad, and sometimes depressed.  Hopeless and sometimes despondent.  And I slam my laptop shut, but that’s just an excuse for doing nothing.

I challenge  myself to pray every day asking God to tell me how to respond to the OPPRESSED in my life and community.  Who are they?  How can I comfort?  Help me to know what it means to comfort the oppressed?

This means that I cannot be free until all men are free. And if in some distant future I am no longer oppressed because of blackness, then I must take upon myself whatever form of human oppression exists in the society, affirming my identity with the victims. The identity must be made with the victims not because of sympathy, but because my own humanity is involved in my brother’s degradation.  The Christian Century (15 September 1971)

what should I do with myself?

I continue to pray that I would know what God wants me to do with my time, work, contribution, opinions (*smirk*), and talents.

I’m still mulling on a conversation I had with one of my girlfriends (Someone I would trust with my life.)  We discussed what I am doing now.  I found myself saying this,

“I need a job.  I’m feeling like a kept woman.”

Why she asked? Laughing at me, if can you believe it.

“I need to make a contribution. I feel guilty that I don’t have a ‘job.’ The feminist in me is screaming that I should be carrying my weight… I was never going to be a stay-at-home mom..  And look at me, my kids are in elementary school.”

After leaving full-time work in 2001, I had no idea as it was happening that was beginning a long journey of “recovery” from being totally addicted to work — the rush, the sense of purpose, the affirmation (Oh, how I miss the affirmation!)  I came out of that detox a better person.  A stronger person.  Much better understanding that I am not what I do.  And I’m glad (mostly) that I have been able to be at home with my children for the last eight or is it nine years.  I feel okay about it, some days even good.  I can see every day why I am home when it comes to my kids.  Jacob’s need for an advocate for his learning disabilities is just one example.  On one level, I think I started Imagine Photography to dispel that feeling of being ‘a kept woman.’  Bring in a little income myself, but still have the at-home life.  But I haven’t taken off with that even though with my marketing background I know how to promote myself.  Something has held me back.

But I digress.

What Carol did was confront those ideas head on (yes, the voices in my head) that say I should be ‘making money.’  It freed me to consider any job or volunteer situation because  I was thinking about it only in terms of money not in terms of values and interests and calling and heart’s desires.

I just feel freed.  It was inconceivable to me at first that someone who manages to work and be a mom (my friend who I really respect and need) would not look down on me for not working.  She actually said, you do work.  Every day.  Well, we don’t need to have a debate about what I do all day and whether it’s work.  Her blessing (not that she represents all women) and her opinion is one of the more important to me.

But now,  I can pray and wait.  Listen.  Try things.  Explore.  I can give of myself without thinking about “earnings.”

Haiti

When it comes to Haiti I have more questions than answers.  This poem is a part of that conundrum.  Also, a post.

This week’s message @ church

I wanted to respond to the message this Sunday at my church.  But I don’t have the time or energy today.  But something new I am going to add to this blog, is a personal reflection on the talk.  I think it will force me to take it to the next level of integration into my life.

Be well.

my God is not random (a poem)

My God is not random.  He loves me.  He loves you.

He created Adam and Eve.

He put them in a perfect place.  He had

communion with them. He gave them

e v e r y t h i n g.

My God is not random. He longs for that with you and me.

I am Eve, you are Adam but we live in a broken place.

We are wreckage.  We are turmoil and pain.

But he never stops loving us red, yellow, black and white.  All named Precious!  Precious brown and beige and ivory.  Precious bronze, chestnut and chocolate. Precious cinnamon and cocoa, ecru and ginger.  Tan and tawny.  Even terra-cotta.  Precious chestnut, alabaster, and milky white. Precious ebony and obsidian. Precious slate.  Cream and sand. He made us and calls each one Precious.

My God is not random.  My God loves all.

Big & tall.  Short and fat.  Skinny or petite.  Hideous.  Beautiful.  Proud.  Angry.   Perfectionists and slackers.  Healers.  Takers.  Know-it-alls and those that don’t.  Intellectuals.  Mystics.  Liberals.  Moderates. Conservatives.  indifferent. All. Those that clean and serve.  Those that won’t.  Prosperous or poor.  Passionate or indifferent. Foolish or wise.  Filthy or Clean.  Hungry or full.  Broken and hurting.  Devastated and afraid. Crushed.  Alone. Dieing.  Texting ten and those that don’t.  Those that go and those that stay.  Loved and precious.  ALL.

I am Adam.  You are Eve.

Don’t ya get it? Don’t you see?

We messed up this place.

Think you’re important?  He seriously does not care, unless you choose to help.

It is no matter to him who you are or what you have done .  That you have Hated.  Ignored.  Hurt.  Judged.

He loves you, Me, Adam, Eve.

All of us, He loves and calls us precious.

Then he let us choose.

We walked away. We ignored.

My God isn’t random. He says:

Come Eve.  Come Adam.  Come into the garden.  Dwell.  Be with me.

See the world  Do something. Feel the pain of others and respond.

I am the world.  I am hungry.  I am thirsty.  Feed me.  I am a stranger.  Invite me to your meals. I am cold and in need of clothes.  Cover me. I am sick, imprisoned won’t you look after me?

I gave you everything. What will you choose?

If you say “That can not be you Lord!  When are you ever hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison?”

Look! If we turn toward him, he will

break our heart. He will give us

Eyes. Ears. Hands. Feet.

He is not random. He let’s us choose.

He loves the hungry.  He loves the thirsty.  He loves the naked, the sick, the incarcerated.   He loves me and you.  No mater what we do.  No matter what we’ve done.

He wants your tomorrows.  He wants communion with you.  He named you Precious.

Won’t you listen, come.

Written in response to the crisis in Haiti.  To those who cry out in a moment like this and say “if there is a god he is terrible.  How could he?”  In my perhaps inelegant way I am trying to say he loves each of us and if we were to respond to him the world would be such a better place.  The poverty and tragedy in Haiti has been there for hundreds of years.  The world ignored, but for a few.  And still, he loves.

this poem is far from done.   a torrent of thoughts.  still unruly and a mess.

A Prayer of Resolve

God.  Help me. My life is about discovering how I am lost and helpless without you.  I am a sinner.  Always — daily — though forgiven.  Give me what I need to do only what you want. Give me the grace I need to unabashedly adore you; to bring you everything I own, everything I believe, everything I do.  Happiness I wouldn’t say no to and money makes life easier but life and love is all I really need.  Won’t you help me please?

Help me to care about how I live day-to-day.  Help me to show your goodness to others.  Help me to spend my time wisely and give me tomorrow to live and breathe.

Help me not to enjoy others’ mistakes, but cry to for them.  I am no better and I can never forget that. I have problems, life seems unbearable at times. But I will never forget the wretchedness you saved me from.  My addictions.  My need.  My pride.  My shame.

Day and night, give me places to go and people to help. Give me purpose, love and generosity. Give me love, more love.  Help me not to hate. Don’t let me think poorly of others or get angry all the time. And mostly help me to choose my words carefully.

I resolve to be a peacemaker, who brings people together. Help me know others’ pain and to walk the path of pain with them.

Help me to know your will by studying faithfully — daily — and to devote time to being with you in the garden.  May my prayers take me back to the garden.  Teach me to listen.  Teach me to hear.

What you give us, our hope, help me to live as if that is my reason for being, every day that you give me, until I take my last breath.

(Inspired by the first two dozen of  the Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards 1722-1223)




Devastation & Hope

Fear friends and lurkers,

As the world knows by now a major earthquake struck southern Haiti on Tuesday, inflicting a catastrophe on the Caribbean nation.  Up to 4,000 dead.  It is difficult to know how to respond to a tragedy like this.  It doesn’t take a lot to ignore it.  I hadn’t checked the news yesterday, so I didn’t hear about it until my husband told me this morning.

Since ignoring it is a terrible option then what?  I tend to feel anguish and sorrow.  But if I start reading all the stories about the suffering it is too much.  Believe it or not it was Facebook that brought it down to earth for me.  I have a FB contact whose father lives in Haiti.  Another whose niece is there on a service trip for two weeks.  Another a brother. All of a sudden something that was intellectually tragic hits me in the stomach.

What if that was my father, or niece, or friend?

I can pray, but I need to do more.  So a small gift or larger if I can spare it toward a worthwhile organization seems the compassionate response.

I hope you will consider the same.

Be well,

Melody

P.S.  I do not make it a practice to “fund raise” here on my blog.  In fact I never have.  And I won’t very often. Thanks.

This organization, ONE DAY’S WAGES, is a grassroots movement of people motivated by their compassion and desire for justice.

Their goal — to fight Extreme Global Poverty. ODW is the emissary, in a sense, but gives away 100% of what it raises.

All of the money goes to the purpose of sustainable relief and they partner with smaller organizations in developing regions.  Their vision is to inspire people around the world to simply donate one day’s wages and to renew that pledge annually.

Here is the story of the couple that started One Day’s Wages. You can also find out how to give if you decide that is something you want to do.  There is a nifty calculator to help you figure out one day of your wages.

“They started a Facebook group, Fight Global Poverty, and pledged to donate $1 for each member who joined, up to a total of $100,000. The group now has more than 1 million members, and Mr. Cho and his wife will contribute about $68,000 this year — representing a year’s wages — and the rest next year. One Day’s Wages received tax-exempt status in May and started its Web site last month at www.onedayswages.org. “It’s easy to be drawn to the multimillion-dollar donations, but we’re doing ourselves a disservice by not elevating the stories of the working mothers and fathers who also contribute what are significant amounts to them,” Mr. Cho said.”  [New York Times]

The people of Haiti are clearly in need.   There are many worthy agencies that could use our help.  I urge you to consider helping in some way and this one I recommend.  But don’t take my word for it.