a thanksgiving of firsts

i got hit by a wave of sadness yesterday, out of nowhere, alone at the park with the toddler.

and i realized: this is the first thanksgiving i have ever been away from my family.

for some reason, in all my travels, i always made it back for this holiday (but i did miss a christmas or two). and my family has always done thanksgiving up big, my childhood filled with memories at my grandparents house in the woods, so many cousins to play with. in recent years the hub has been portland, any and all travelers, wanderers, or the family-less welcome to a seat at my parent’s table. my sister, the famous food blogger, has in recent years upped the ante of our meals, and they are now culinary masterpieces. we play games, watch tv, lounge and laugh at the babies. and we talk, all day long, about what we are thankful for; but the strangest part is that we don’t even have to use words. the day after thanksgiving i always did a second meal for all my refugee neighbors (sometimes it was disastrous, sometimes it was peaceful–but it was always fun).

so this year is the first time i ever went to a store and bought all the fixin’s for a meal, myself.

this is the first year i am not rushing around trying to plan anything. this is the first year of cooking food by faith, of not-knowing who will come and eat.

this is the first year with a mobile child (my blue velvet cake has prodigious finger poke holes in it, there are chocolate fingerprints on the couch).

this is the first year of feeling, deep down in our bones, that our choices will not always be easy. and this makes us grateful for the grace to obey.

in the midst of the tears (yes, there will be tears), i am very thankful. to even be in a position like this is crazy-cakes. i feel as confused and expectant as a pre-pentecost disciple, wondering what in the blazes is going on, just along for this crazy ride. with jesus, you never know what is going to happen. and, of course, there is a solidarity in lonely meals, in being far from loved ones, of having to forge your own customs in a strange place. i am grateful for the privilege of experiencing life here, of getting a small glimpse into the other side of holidays, the dark and lonely places.

so for us, like many, today is full of both sadness and thanksgiving. maybe it is for you too.

may you be present in all of it, wherever christ may send you.

mutuality

mutuality is a big buzzword in our new circles out here, and it’s a word i thought i knew, which seemed as familiar to me as an older relative, harmless, well-intentioned, sitting in the corner eating a piece of pie.

but we are learning that this word has power beyond what we know, how this one concept can change everything in relationships, in a life of service, in crossing barriers of culture and socio-economic status.

most christian programs are based on the opposite of mutuality; one person is in need, the other person helps. this is the way it is. i am the volunteer, the mentor, the homework club founder, tutor, basketball camp organizer, art class referee; i am the teacher, the helper, the servant. and others–they were always served.

these connotations are negative in any light, if we would so choose to look at them carefully. but compound that with any hopes for expanding the kingdom of god, and we find ourselves in a race for converts, with my own spirituality on the line. it can get sticky, very fast.

so we are learning here about mutuality. how it is the slowest of slow-cooked meals (starting with planting seeds and all). it drives me batty, to be honest. i would love to march down these graffiti streets like a 60-year old nun, head held high, doing the work of the Lord. heavens, i would like to use the degree i paid thousands of dollars for, to teach people how to read and write and help make life more bearable here. i would love to see a need and pounce on it, fix it, serve somebody. because this has always been who i am. please, please don’t ask me to give it up.

but i have been asked, and my fingers have been uncurling slowly. just being a neighbor is one of the hardest, most boring things in the world. nothing to rely on but . . . where we live. um, toddlers. the weather. being away from family. the cold. is it going to snow. no, i don’t have any plans for thanksgiving. um, i don’t think that is actually a computer, that just looks like a monitor from the 80s. oh, more candy for the toddlers? thanks so much. the guy with the truck full of free food is here again? score! yup, yup, just going on a walk to the library. again. oh, don’t mind her screaming–she’s just two.

and yesterday we hung out with some newly made friends from bhutan, and they cooked us food and invited over all their neighbors “so we could have more friends.” the baby girl ran around with the cutest little boy, throwing stuffed animals, guzzling juice, eating her spicy snacks with glee. we all laughed and talked about everything, and some people said they might come over for thanksgiving (but they made it clear they don’t like american food). as we left both the husband and i looked at each other, stuffed on food and companionship, and realized that this wasn’t a mutual relationship.

we are the ones being served, here.

this is a good and hard week for us. missing family, friends, nostalgic for old times. but our doors have been blown wide open, our days a great blank canvas and we aren’t busy painting anything. we are just watching the colors as they appear, beautiful and mysterious. and for the first time, i am starting to grasp how little i have to do with all of it.

 

 

ps. i have had this post in my head for awhile, but i was inspired to write after reading this today. that girl can preach!

time for the sentimental last post.

I spent several hours this afternoon sitting in sweaty apartments, the walls covered in assortments of pictures of tigers, bucolic mountain scenes, gurus, homework assignments. The air smelled like spices and oil, seeping into my clothes. I sweat, I am forced to eat food, forced to watch my toddler shove multiple cookies in her mouth as women coo and laugh and pinch her cheeks. The sweat trickles down my legs and I laugh and joke and eventually say goodbye to my neighbors, the people I was supposed to be ministering to, the people who ended up being dear heart friends. I tried to tally up the number of such hours I have spent in similar apartments, stuffy no matter what time of the year, the hours I have spent in comfortable silence, where I discovered worlds hidden away from the glossy America we all like to believe exists. And I can’t believe it has been 8 years since I found these places hidden away, where I found my place in these worlds within worlds.

//

I had one last slumber party with the Somali girls I have known the longest, we watched terrible shows on netflix (Dinotopia) we ate pizza and chips and grapes and oranges and topped it off with birthday-cake flavored oreo ice cream. We put cheap, glittery fake nails on and lived it up for a night. We woke up grumpy, sleepy, not ready for goodbyes. As we were preparing to drive them home, my mom asked if she could pray for the girls. They said, ok, sure, mumbled it with downcast eyes. She prayed to God, prayed to Allah, bridging the gap like we are always wanting. She prayed for the next year in school, for Manoi starting high school, for Abey in her last year in the middle one. I watched the girls, watched them shift uncomfortable, watched them be prayed over. In the car, taking them home, the hubs asked what they thought of the prayer.

Manoi thought long and careful. Oh, it was ok, she said. It was nice. But my life right now . . . it just isn’t very good.

I wanted to cry, want to hug and protect and hate that I have to say goodbye. But instead of losing it completely, I felt at peace. I have known them for the majority of their lives, and I will see them again. We are family now, we are in this together despite distance, language, religion. They have changed me, completely. In a way, I am moving because of them. I am moving for them.

//

I wanted to write an ode to Portland, but how could I do that? The city that got into my skin, crawling with people both consumed with the present and with those who cannot let go of the past. I will miss the food carts, the fountains, the co-ops and farmers markets, the coffee (o! the coffee), the riot of colors in the fall. But the things I miss the most will be here for me to come back to: my beautiful, chaotic church, my fearfully talented and kind friends, my family who is my life and who has made me who I am.

As I was leaving the apartment complex where we have spent these past four years, I wanted to stop and take it all in. Let the memories and the smells and the comfort and the failure wash over me, take me down the path of my life. But there isn’t time for that now, and it doesn’t even feel very necessary. They were just the apartments that changed everything about me, and I am continuing on in that journey.

And as much as I wanted to, I realized I just can’t say goodbye yet. I’ll just say see you soon, and leave it at that.

links to words in other spaces

Busy internet writing week. Yesterday I wrote a little piece on the Mennonite cookbook that changed my life for Deeper Story (read it here). It is great to be reminded of all the people who have been living well for many, many years before us. The organization we just joined was dissatisfied with how burnout has become an acceptable part of ministry to the broken, and looked to history to find people who had been doing this well and sustainably for their entire lives: enter the friars (this is also the appeal to new monasticism, I believe).

And today I rip a page out of David Foster Wallace’s book (badly, it should hardly be noted) for a guest post at Preston Yancey’s blog (read it here). Hi is a renaissance man (and fellow writer at DS) who I have no doubt will be quite famous in a few. He is just one of those people. Preston started a cool series in which people engage their past selves, talk about whatever they want to (but usually it has a lot to do with God, with grace). I have a tin ear for dialogue, so I had a conversation with myself via footnotes. Check it out?

And BTW–what would you say to your past self?

On one last note, there is this:

now we are legit missionaries. there are letters with our faces on them.

Packing and moving today and tomorrow. I need prayers and coffee and chicken and waffles. In that order, I do believe. 

Realia.

I won a gift card to Powells at an ESL literacy conference I was presenting at a while ago. So I thought it fitting to finally buy a book I have been dreaming about for a long time: Where Children Sleep by James Mollison.

The book is  devastating in the best possible way: engaging, enlightening (without judgement), inspiring, heartbreaking. Mollison was asked to use his photography to raise awareness about children’s right around the globe, and he definitely rose to the occasion.

Mollison took portraits of children around the world and also took pictures of where they slept. The images are great for sparking discussions on inequality (and what constitutes happiness). I use these images in various ESL settings, but I think the book would be wonderful for older children as well (all the bio’s of the subjects are written with 9-13 year olds in mind, without shying away from the harsher realities of living situations). You can go to Mollison’s website to see more pictures yourself. Here are some of my favorites (if I can even use that word in this context).

jazzy, age 4. america.

 

 

 

alex, 9, brazil. addicted to sniffing glue, alex sleeps on a couch outside.

 

 

 

alyssa, 8, america.

 

 

 

no name, 4, italy. this boy and his family are illegal immigrants from romania. no one in his family have ever been to school.

 

 

 

The discussions these pictures have sparked between the hubs and me, and the students in my classes, are so valuable. The connection to the plight of children around the world is something I never want to be far from my mind. It helps us not get so comfortable here, makes me realize the true worth of our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

Another book I bought was What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio. This is another collection of photos from around the world, this time detailing the amount (and variety and cost) of food that families eat in one week. It is staggering in the inequality, the visual equivelent of a record scratch. When I have shown this to students there are looks of sorrow and disbelief, of nodding heads in solidarity, in remember when they were hungry and only had one bag of rice to share with their extended family. The pictures from the refugee camps hit the hardest–but so too do the pictures of overweight low-income families struggling with diabetes and addicted to McDonalds.

The whole crazy picture of sin as it relates to food is laid out in this book.

To view pictures, TIME magazine posted two series of photos from the book. You can view them here and here.

Here are two of my favorites:

australia.

 

 

 

refugee camp in chad.

 

 

 

I am all for using realia in teaching, and you can’t get more real than this stuff. All of us would do well to keep these images at the fore fronts of our consciousness; many thanks to photographers for bringing the world in all its hurt and glory to our eyes.

Resurrection Cake

photo by the hubs. so good at capturing the essence of babies, cats, and cakes.

Hey guys. Did I tell you about Easter? It was really great. Probably the most relaxing family holiday we have had in a while. While it was sad that we weren’t hosting entire bands (like the Sherwood Easter) or the entire staff of YWAM Salem, it was amazing to just sit around in the sunshine, eat some food, and watch the babies be cute.

When it comes to cooking, people never even ask me what I want to make anymore. There are too many good cooks in the kitchen (especially when the older sis is a renowned food blogger who makes things like nettle spanakopita for funsies). I am the girl who is good with butter, flour, and sugar. I am the baker.

So, with my one job to do, I went all out. I wanted to take all of Pinterest and convert it into a cake. To celebrate spring, being with family, the end of Lent–it feels too far out to say I really wanted to make this cake for Jesus, but you know what I mean.

So, I made a 5 layer purple ombre coconut cake.

For those interested in the deets, it was pretty uncomplicated. I used the martha stewart recipe for coconut cake (found here), but that recipe calls for 6-inch cake pans, and I only had 8-inchers. Plus, that recipe is not set up for the ombre-effect (it calls for baking 3 cakes and slicing them in half to create 6 layers), so I multiplied the recipe by 1.5 to fit my needs.

For the ombre effect, after I had mixed up the batter I divided the batter equally into 5 bowls using a measuring cup (tedious, but worth it). I added red and blue gel food coloring (sorry people, it has to be the gels in order to make the virbant colors), starting with a sleight hand and working up to a richer, more vibrant purple. One bowl I left free of color entirely, for the first layer. [Side note: this would have been much easier if I had just bought PURPLE food coloring. The mixing and matching took forever, and I was working frantically to get these in the oven by the time the baby woke up].

The layers were thin and only needed to bake for 15-18 minutes. Once they were cooled, I started stacking them, layering them with sprinkles of coconut and vanilla pudding instead of frosting (which I think made for a tastier cake).

Once they were all stacked, I finished it off with a very simple buttercream frosting, but you could do whatever you want.

Overall, the visual impact was great. The taste? Honestly, not my favorite cake. However, my husband and brother-in-law (who are both not cake people) said it was their most favorite cake ever. So there you have it.

photo by rosemarried.

Goodbye, Purple Ombre Coconut Cake. You were good to us.

The Great Lent Experiment Wrap Up

the Great Lent Experiment was inspired by 7: And Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker. Read it!

So the Mutiny Against Excess is over . . . or is it?

Me and Haley came up with this idea for Lent, and it got a little bigger than I had thought. I have talked to lots of people who let the ideas of doing without and downward mobility influence their lent. It was exciting to even be talking about these issues with so many people.

It really didn’t feel like 40 days, did it? Now that the Easter celebrations are over I can start to process what this Lent Experiment meant to me.

The Easy Parts:

Limiting shopping for food and eating from my pantry/freezer was pretty easy, mostly because we only did this a week at a time. I did get . . . creative at some points. Hamburger helper (sans hamburger) with frozen vegetables and yogurt? Well, a certain little toddler ate it, and so did my husband. I really enjoyed the push to get out and walk to the farmers market every Wednesday at the local co-op. I do feel the roots of the importance of food and how we think about it taking shape in my life. And I’m glad.

Not buying new clothes also got a little easier  . . . It has now been several months since I stopped thrift storing for funsies. I did go to Goodwill one time for my birthday and got a killer dress and a killer pair of shorts. So. There you have it.

Not spending ANY money besides gas/groceries was actually pretty fun too. At first I was terrified, because spring weather in Portland is so so so bad and my baby can barely walk. So, when in doubt we go to a coffee shop and hang out. Since this was not a possibility for 2 of the weeks of Lent, we found other avenues:

1. New Seasons: they have amazing samples and free water! Plus everybody smiles at you and their hand sanitizer smells like lavender. We went here several times.

2. Petco. Or, as I like to call it “the free, tiny zoo”. The baby loved it.

3. The library. Which we already frequented, but during Lent we went there on average 3-4 times a week. I even got the courage to do my first mommy/baby story time activity, and we didn’t die! The baby is fixated on reading books about being “black and unique”, which makes me feel super weird as I read them out loud to her. Ah well.

The Difficult parts:

The no-media week was hard, because I seem to have few de-stressors that don’t involve 20 minutes of TV. Also, you know that feeling when you read TOO many good books and you feel like you might explode? Yeah, that happened. I am still assessing my dependence on media, and I know this is an issue I still need work on.

The Exciting parts:

The no-stress week was difficult (I am unused to the rhythms of contemplative life), but ultimately it turned out to be amazing, and I have continued to use Common Prayer every morning. To really engage in the Scriptures and the prayers for others does take a lot of work, but it feels like such important work. Even though I am easing into it slowly, creating a life where prayer is my first thought and not my last is high on my list of priorities. On good Friday my church opened their doors for a 24 hour prayer session and I actually went! You guys, I want to pray all the time now! And I am not just making this up to sound spiritual. It feels like a real, pressing need. I don’t know where this is coming from, but I am so grateful.

In summary, I am so glad I embarked on this journey. I want my life to flow by these rhythms: prayer, creative free time, doing without, purging possessions, finding joy in the simple.

Did you learn anything from Lent this year? Were you inspired to create new patterns?

If so, I want to know!

Food: A mutiny against processed.

image from Sugarboo designs

Go here if you need a refresher on the Great Lent Experiment (AKA our own mutiny against excess).

 

Let me just say this now: I love food.

Before, I never used to think much about it, except that I loved it and needed it constantly. Then came a baby, a health scare (the hubs blood pressure was SKY high), and the overall need to make some lifestyle changes. We did a week long detox diet in January of 2011 (we basically ate whole foods, and no caffeine, sugar, corn, soy, gluten, or dairy) which kickstarted out desire to eat food that was actually food. We watched all sorts of scary documentaries and made decisions about where our money should go. We started off by changing the way we bought eggs, dairy, and most meat. Then, my neighbor told me about a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program that she wanted us to participate in.

 

I had never heard of a CSA before, but it is basically a share you buy in a local farm. You pay the money upfront, and then you get your share of fruits and veggies once a week for as long as the season is. What sold me on this particular CSA is that my neighbors (refugees from Bhutan) were the growers. Mercy Corps had started a program where they set up refugees with plots of land all throughout the city where they could grow food and then sell it through the CSA program. It is wonderful, because many of the refugees grew up farming in traditional ways–no pesticides or chemicals for them. So it was a perfect fit for a city that was starting to get really into the organic and local way of eating.

We forked over our money and then began a great culinary adventure. I am not going to lie: there were a lot of beets and radishes and many other things I still am not quite sure what they were. But we ate it, man, and I learned how to cook it. We were forced to eat seasonably, to incorporate vegetables into every meal, to learn how to cook and use and be creative in order to not let things spoil. We ate like the pioneers, and it felt great.

And we learned that what you eat and how you spend your money on food really is a matter of social justice. We are in a win-win-win situation now, since buying delicious, fresh, organic produce directly benefits our neighbors. We are healthier (we both dropped a substantial amount of weight), we are supporting our community, and we now know how to cook parsnips (sorta).

my neighbors!

No matter where you live, this option is available to you. You just might have to search it out. As this week has shown me, if you do without in one area (say, eating chicken McNuggets–just a hypothetical, that is totally not my most favorite food in the world) you will have enough money to buy food from local farmers. The impact of these small purchases might seem silly, but they add up to a more just way of eating.  As Jen Hatmaker writes in 7, we vote with our dollars every day. And that actually counts for a lot more than our votes for a president.

If you live in the Portland area, I would encourage you to check out the Grow Portland CSA program. You will directly be benefiting my neighbors, as well as yourself. I will even come over and show you how to make radish-leaf pesto.

 

As for this week?

The hubs and I are poor, so one of the only ways we “get out” is to go walk and get a cup of coffee. This week? We just  . . . walked.  Imagine that! I did miss my Americanos, I will admit.

I did make a killer clean-out-your-pantry-and-freezer minestrone soup.

We did manage to save some money.

We did not go to the grocery store!

True Confessions: I did buy a cup of coffee for someone (they lived at the Simple Way, OK?) and I also bought my younger sister dinner. I was at the Justice Conference. This is my only excuse.

 

But not going out to coffee does seem to leave some extra cash around, and the hubs and I both want to be more generous people. So instead of going out to a coffee shop to do my writing, I will just hole up in my room for awhile. When its nice, we will just walk and look at the trees. When we are bored, we will go to New Seasons and eat the free samples, and not buy anything. Because we are classy like that. I think we can keep this up for the entire period of Lent.

We will be donating our money saved from this week (and the rest of Lent) here. Please pray about joining us.

 

So how has Week 1 been for you?

I want to know! If you are blogging about it, please tell me in a comment so we can all share!

 

And . . . tomorrow I will post the guidelines for Week 2. 

The Great Lent Experiment (AKA “the mutiny against excess”) Week one: Food

art by nikki mcclure

Wow, I never thought I would say “Yay! Lent!”

But here we are.

There are some strange winds blowing, and so many of us are feeling more trapped by our excess than gratified. More of us want to know our Jesus and our neighbors and our poor better, and to live simpler lives in order to be more generous. How exciting is that?

So today is Ash Wednesday, which I know people celebrate in a variety of ways. For me, I am eating breakfast with lots of family and having friends over for coffee. It seems like the perfect way to start off–not by focusing on what I am giving up, but rather focusing on true community.

 

So today starts Week 1: Food. (For a recap on the reasonings behind this project, as well as a look at everything we will be attempting, go here). ( PS: This Experiment is based on and inspired by 7: an Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker. All props to her). (PPS: You can buy the book for $7 for the next several days! Details here).

 

As a reminder, here is what we will be looking at this week:

Week one: Food
For this week, focus on how much you normally spend on eating: going out to restaurants, getting coffee, and even grocery shopping. Much of the world is living on $2 a day, but we spend much more than that on a single latte. Commit to limiting your food choices and your spending, and at the end of the week you should have cleared our some space in your pantry and freezer, and also be left with a nice sum of money (which we would then encourage you to donate to people in need).

Practical fast:
No eating out/drinking coffee out
Eat from your pantry/freezer
Limit grocery shopping as much as possible. If this means several dinners of beans and rice, then so be it. Enjoy the feeling of solidarity with the majority world!

Eat with your friends/neighbors! Maybe have a last-dregs-of-the-pantry-party next Wednesday?

Prayer focus:
Pray for those with limited access to food and clean drinking water.

 

 

I’m excited to start with food because in the past year I have changed so so so much in the ways that I think about buying, preparing, and eating food. I was always terrified to submit this area of my life because it seemed so difficult and overwhelming: factory farms, famines in Somalia, gluttony, processed foods–you know, all that happy stuff.

But looking back over the past year, it never felt too overwhelming. Small changes were made, one at a time, and now I see the trajectory we are on. One that values all the good things that the good Lord created.

By not eating out (even coffee!) and by not going grocery shopping this week, I am estimating a savings of $50 (this is conservative, I know, but we aren’t really in an eating-out-phase of life). At the end of the week, we are going to donate that money here. Jen Hatmaker (author of the book this experiment is based on) set up this specific donation sight to build an anti-trafficking home in Haiti. Let’s get this place fully funded by next week! If you have your heart set to donate to other places, by all means do that. But it is so encouraging to come together and be in this for a cause much bigger than budgets or “simplifying” our lives.

 

Resources that have helped me think some thoughts about food:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

Anything (seriously, any book) by Michael Pollen.

The More-With-Less Cookbook: Suggestions By Mennonites on How to Eat Better and Consume Less of the World’s Limited Food Resources (so awesome!!!!!)

Food, Inc. (a documentary).

Also, you can read about our theology of the kingdom of God and how that is shaping this whole Lent Experiment here.

 

I will probably write at some point in the week about our story with food (it involves high blood pressure, Bhutanese refugees, and CSA boxes), and I look forward to hearing you stories of doing without! Please leave a comment with details about your fast/link to your blog. We can all be encouraged by one another.

Food and Faith

cool cool kitty

Wow, I got an awesome response back from people who want to get in on this Lent Experiment (you can read more about it here). How exciting! It is so much better to do this type of stuff together.

Lent starts on Wednesday, and in order to prep for a week of no eating out (including coffee!) I would suggest going to the grocery store today or tomorrow. Or, you could be really hardcore and just commit to eat from your pantry/freezer! If you are going to do the fasts, think about writing it down and sharing here in the comments, so we can all be encouraged (this would be a great time to set up a blog, hint hint).

I will be posting more on Wednesday about the first week and what I plan to do and share a little how much my relationship with buying food has changed in the past year. Also: who wants to come over for coffee in the next week? I am serious.

 

On a completely different topic . . .

The baby has her 18 month appointment tomorrow and is still not walking. She has taken some steps but as a general rule she Does.Not.Want.To.Walk. A doctor friend of mine commented on her lack of calf muscles (but boy does that girl have some thigh muscles) and it looks like we are going to have to step it up in the leg exercise department. In the past week we have done everything we can to “trick” her into standing–making her stand while eating, reading books, watching Sesame Street–and we have seen a little improvement. It’s hard to be in a place where I am not sure if I should be worried and what exactly I should be worried about. We should know more tomorrow, but I am nervous about the appointment. Prayers would be appreciated.