Waiting for Advent

i’m the christmas unicorn-felt ornament.

December is creeping along. The midwest does not have as much snow as I would have thought; I wish it did, for snow seems magical and new.

We are several months into our move, several months in to this new way of life. We have learned so much. My brain might explode. Someday, it would be lovely to talk about some of it with you all. But I am still young and tend to sound angry when I rant, so I will let these things keep percolating. Also, I have been realizing lately more than ever, that we are playing the long game here.

This is the first year I feel like the word “Advent” is starting to make sense. For the past several years I have been wandering around December, adoring every kitschy light display there is, and then complaining about how I just want to get back to the true meaning of Christmas. This year, many of our safety nets have been stripped. Without family and friends (and our annual Christmas parties–last year was themed “A Tender Tennessee Christmas Party” and we encouraged everyone to dress up like their favorite CCM star from the 90s) it feels sort of like . . . a winter month. Another week, another head cold, another blustery day. I find small comfort in the fact that for the majority of people in our neighborhood, they feel the same way. It is not all hot cocoa and marshmallows, gift-guides, warm fuzzies over here. It’s another season of getting by.

But I feel the wait, this year. I have the space the feel the bleak midwinter, and I am grateful. It has given me the clarity about Christmas I have long wished for. I long to see Jesus and his kingdom come. As tempting as it is for me to think about Jesus coming to save the rest of the world from their brokenness, I have been both shamed and thrilled to realize he came for my own darkness. As I am spending this time waiting, I am encouraged: may the light of Christ rise up in my soul, may he cause me to see his light in others.

I would love to end this post on that dramatic, soulful note (I kid, I kid), but later on in this week I will be sharing some of my favorite Christmas movies and music with ya’ll. I am still very much not into gifts-you-can-buy-at-a-regular-ol-store, but there are elements of celebrating Christmas here in America that I am hell-bent on redeeming. Horribly ugly and thoughtful crafts, treats baked with butter love, engaging all of our senses in this period of hope and expectation . . . now THAT I can get into. I’ll also highlight some friends of mine who are churning out thoughtful (and thought-provoking) pieces about this season.

So hit me up: what are you doing as you wait for Advent?

Ps. That awesome ornament was found here on Etsy. But, poor you, it’s sold out. So make your own! And give it to me.

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what i’m into: december downwardly mobile

hullo.

time to write a hodge-podge post about things i have been into. it has been a good couple of weeks, my brain feeling fired up and ready to go. but the truth is, i don’t have loads of people in my real flesh-and-blood life to discuss these things with. but i’ll be hanged if i haven’t met some lovely people on the internets and learned a lot from them, and what they have been reading/listening/watching. so i will post my own in hopes that it will be helpful, and might even spark a conversation or two.

one thing i wanted to address with this-here list is the commitment to simplicity my family recently took. we are moving backwards in the american dream, ya’ll. some things are easier than others (clothes, for instance, or eating out fancy), some things are not nearly as bad as i thought they would be (i had a horror of washing dishes by hand by now i find it oddly soothing–as long as they don’t stack up and completely overwhelm our miniscule kitchen). and other things that i thought would be fine tend to be a little trying on the soul (not being able to read every book that i would like to, for instance).

so here’s my list of things things that i am into this month, and they are almost all completely free/accessible to all (although many of them require a computer. but libraries have that too!). so here we go:

listening

i have been really into sufjan’s latest christmas album, silver and gold, which i find so beautiful (the hymns) and so sad (the other songs). this album is quite a bit darker, if you look under the superficial christmas cheer. this is a song about longing for a time when everything was perfect, even though you know it never was. this is an album for advent, when we live into the reality that we need a savior, and he is nothing like we expect.

(you can listen to the album for free on spotify).

watching

oh, pbs. i have recently rekindled my love for you. in the past month we decided to quit our huluplus account because i had a sudden and intense hatred for all our situational comedies that i used to love (modern family, new girl). they just seemed so . . . stupid. and privileged. and i do believe that zooey deschanel might be the anti-feminist right now (but that is another rant).

enter pbs.

good ol’ dowdy, serious, public television. except, the quality of the programs are quite a bit higher than the masterpiece theater’s of yore. i got hooked on a bbc show airing on pbs entitled “call the midwife“, set in east london in the early 1960s. although the show should come with a trigger warning for anyone with past traumatic birth experiences, i found their take on poverty very refreshing–showing the need, but also showing vibrant culture, and a variety of stories. i loved it. unfortunately, i think the free run on pbs might almost be over. but look for it on dvd soon.

i have also started watching a series of videos on poverty from pbs, called Why Poverty? I have only seen 2 of the 8 documentaries available, and they have kept the husband and i up for hours, talking and discussing (and that is saying something, as the child has started waking up several times a night and we are tired!). the first one we watched was on wealth inequality in America, and why we should care about it. I’m not going to lie–this one raised a LOT of questions for me, and I would love to discuss it with some other folks if you get around to watching it. The other one we just finished was an animated history of poverty–a really unique (and not western-centric) take on the various phases and histories of poverty around the world. I feel like my brain is growing two sizes and my heart is struggling to catch up. Both of these films brought out the fact that I am slow to catch onto: we really do live in an age where there are an unprecedented amount of riches existing side-by-side with untold sufferings as a result of poverty.

lord, may your kingdom come.

all of these videos are available for free on pbs.com until the year 2019. so go get on it!

reading

the library card might be my most valuable piece of plastic right now (more on that another day). although, i have been a little grumpy by how slow the system here in the midwest works (maybe they just have way more readers than the system in portland?) whatever the case, there are about 10 new books that i have been wanting to read SO BADLY but i am way down the line of library holds for them. at this point, i will read most of them late next year.

so i have been looking past the big-name newbies and discovered a new favorite fiction author in Anne Tyler. Her novel St. Maybe is a funny and more than a little sad look at family, with a surprising amount of forgiveness and atonement sprinkled in. I love it. I  read it and wished somebody had told me about her long ago. So here I am, telling you: go to your library and get it.

I am also reading my apocalyptic subsistence economy books and still loving (and hating) it.

Also, i have been rereading the earliest books in the Harry Potter series. Because escapism.

On the blog front, there are too many good things going on so I will just tell you about my favorite writer that you have never heard of: Becca of Exile Fertility is nuanced, funny, wise and passionate. I just love every single thing she writes, and decided not to be selfish and share her today. Go check it out.

There is probably more I could share right now, but Sesame Street only lasts so long (starting the child early on her PBS!).

I am linking up with a bunch of others talking about what they are into, and I would love to hear yours.

one day

yesterday we moved into our new apartments, the place we have set our eyes on since we visited in June.

it was a day. due to circumstances it was basically just us moving, me packing and scrubbing, the husband carrying and loading and driving and unloading, time and time again. the baby either cried or unpacked or sat happily with her sesame friends, and i felt proud and exhausted and disheartened all at the same time. moving alone does this to a body.

we have long said we are on a journey of downward mobility and now our mettle is being tested. paper-thin walls, smoky hallways, bent-up burners that make it hard to cook, doors with holes in them, no dishwashers or fancy things here. we are on the ground floor, our windows just above the earth outside, which enchants the 2-year old as squirrels run by.  but the building is old, heated by water and radiators, no controls to be found in the apartment. there was a cold snap, and as a result, the apartment was sweltering. i thought of the book i so often read the baby, and i realized we could easily have a green house up in here. but i unlocked the windows and let the biting air in, the sounds of the city coming along with it. i wonder why everyone else has bars in their windows but ours don’t. i shut and lock them as we leave.

we went out to get a bite, because we realized we didn’t own things like ice-cube trays or trash cans, and we were tired. people thronged in the corners, shouting and laughing, we walked by quickly, hurriedly. i felt afraid, truth be told.

back in the apartment, i can hear the neighbors. hear them talking about the new people moving in, wondering why we are here. they are not happy, they don’t understand. a couple of weeks ago another little family moved in upstairs, people who look and act like us. a bunch of freaks, the neighbors said, and i crouched like a rabbit, frozen, caught where i was not supposed to be. the thoughts i never wanted spoken aloud, right outside my door.

and i get it, why would i expect people to be happy just because i have shown up?

in the dark, i had many thoughts about the people and places we left, the support systems we had in place back in Portland, the way we had been invited into the lives of others. what hubris is this, to try and insert ourselves into a place that feels to me as foreign as Timbuktu, everybody else speaking the same language of survival, me trying to speak the language of the soul. but it’s survival time for us, right now, and we could stand to learn a lot.

we shut our windows, sweated the night through and through. the bed we bought broke. the baby woke up at 3, and then at 5 (this time for good). the husband left for a job interview, because we need money. the baby and i took a brisk walk through the leaves, some of the first people to wander in the morning. and it felt so different, and a tiny part of it started to feel good.

we have been here one day.

Hill Country Hill Tribers Giveaway!

UPDATE! The winner of this giveaway (chosen by random.org) is comment #18–Suzanne @ the Smitten Word! Congrats Suzanne, and thanks to all for participating.

Today I am doing something new here: a guest post (by the amazing Jessica Goudeau, a real-life hero of mine) and a giveaway. The work that Jessica is doing in Texas through Hill Country Hill Tribers is nothing short of miraculous–everyone  involved is being changed by it. All this week some of my favorite people have been writing about this amazing organization (Read more–and enter the giveaways!–at Rachel Held Evans or Sarah Bessey’s site). Today, read about a few of the amazing artisans, and get jazzed by the imaginations these women have. It is inspiring, beautiful, and encouraging. Enjoy. 

Edit: this giveaway is now closed!

In the neighborhood where I live in Austin, no one sits outside on their porch at night. Neighbors don’t pull up a chair while we’re sitting on our steps snapping beans. We don’t chat across the courtyard with each other or look out the window to see if we’ve gotten home to bring over a bowl of rice or just catch up on the day.

It’s one of the things I love best about visiting the refugee artisans of Hill Country Hill Tribers. There are pockets of them, family clans or strangers brought together by the fact that they’re the only people in thousands of miles who speak their particular dialect. Our jewelry-makers are a little group like this: almost completely Kachin hill tribers, they live in the same courtyard of the same apartment building. They watch each other’s children. They finish each other’s sentences.They cook large meals for everyone to share.

They work together to create a necklace that is a testimony to their teamwork and their community.

Last year, we asked as many women as we could to show us what they do. We had been working exclusively with weavers, then found out many of the women could sew. Convinced there were more artistic gifts among these talented women, we brought a bunch of supplies and passed them around and asked the women to be creative.

Within a few weeks, we had some amazing results. Huang, who quickly became our lead jewelry designer, knew how to tat (crochet on a smaller scale, like jewelry). And Nang, one of her good friends, had an impeccable eye for jewelry. We already knew Nang was one of our best seamstresses, but after a couple of weeks of coaching by her friend Huang, she brought back an amazing assortment of wrapped hoops that had hung together as earrings, necklaces and bracelets.

With a little editing and a little inspiration, we settled together on this lovely long necklace as one of our main fall designs.

But here’s the best part: in order to speed up their processing time, each one wraps rubber hoops in just two colors. Nang’s been working on dark coral and gold thread. Huang wraps mint green and champagne. Christine makes jade and light coral. A couple of other women make the last neutral colors. And then at night, after dinner while the kids are splashing in the apartment pool or writing with chalk on the sidewalk, Nang and her friends trade colors. Each one ends up with the right amount of hoops to make several necklaces. It’s an amazing system of teamwork and efficiency that shows how beautifully these women work together.

Nang made this necklace while she was at home with her five daughters. The high-school-aged girls look after the little ones while she works. They also help her with designs; like any teenaged daughters, they have serious opinions about what looks cool. (We’re happy to report, this necklace was given the thumbs up by the girls.)

Earlier this summer, the Burmese group in this apartment complex invited some American friends over to eat together. They set up tables under the trees by the pool. It was hot, the kind of sticky heat that makes sweat run down the back of your legs. My two little girls played hide-and-seek and tag with their Burmese friends; they ran in flapping flip-flops until it was too dark to see. We stuffed ourselves on fried rice in banana leaves, chicken kabobs, fresh fruit, chicken feet and Doritos. I wore the first prototype of the first necklace our team made together proudly. We were excited to show it to their other American friends, teachers and tutors and nurses and co-workers. It felt like the perfect metaphor for this group of women: colorful, collaborative, creative.

To win this necklace made by Nang with the help of her friends, here are the options (pick one, or two, or do them all! Each one is a chance to win):

• Follow Hill Country Hill Tribers (@hilltribers) on Twitter
• Like Hill Country Hill Tribers on Facebook
• Join our Facebook Flashmob and change your profile picture for one day on August 28
• Tweet/share/email/call your sister about this giveaway (make sure to mention @d_l_mayfield who is so graciously sharing her corner of the internet with us)
• Leave a comment on this blog post for each thing you do to be entered to win multiple times.

The giveaway ends Monday, August 27 at [5:00 pm EST]. If you don’t win, watch our website: August 28 at 8:00 am CST, the new products will go live and you’ll be able to buy the scarves and jewelry made by Nang and her friends.

So, enter away! And be sure and check out the Hill Tribers site. Tomorrow, the giveaways continue at Amy Lepine Peterson’s site. Go get it!

fruit trees.

I read this quote the other day in a magazine, something about how the number one thing you can do to support local, organic eating habits is to plant your own fruit trees. How this enables you to feed generations–children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren–by simply planting a few trees. I read that quote, and it made me want to cry.

I am not the type to plant trees.

Growing up, we moved every three years. As an adult, this has hardly changed. We are preparing to move away, far away from friends and family, into smaller (and more low income-y) apartments, no deck, no grass, no yard. No place for roots to grow underground. I love aspects of being urban, how different it is from how I grew up. I am like a kid in the candy store when I think about the diversity of my new neighborhood, of my neighbors, at the prospect of living each day and not feeling like another isolated American.

But.

There is a part of me that wants to plant fruit trees. This is the same part of me that just up and decided that maybe I need more babies in my arms and that I could really use some built-in bookcases so I could amass a lending library of my own, a part of me that wants to contribute and give and be rooted and planted and think for the future, the long future, a future where my great grand-children eat peaches and cherries and apples that I lovingly watered. But I know that life isn’t for me. I have been called to something else.

But I know a lot of planters, and am meeting more every day. The people who are supporting us, showering us with love, giving us down coats, target gift cards, tutu dresses for the baby. People that are planted, stable, long-term dreamers that can see the fruit of generations. I love these people, and their presence in the upside down kingdom cannot be overstated.

And I’m curious to know: what are you? Are you a planter, or have you been called to go?

This is all getting so crazy over here, us having to ask all our friends for help, being needy and vulnerable, full of excitement and urgency in the work we are off to do. And these people that are coming to us, these planters-of-fruit-trees, have what it is I am looking for in this world. They have imagination, they have the voice of the prophets in their ears, they live in the sticky ground of American capitalism and they give and they give and they give.

And I could just cry, it is all too good.

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!

Lent, Week 4: Spending

Wow, is it already the 4th week of Lent????? And so our experimental mutiny against excess continues (inspired, as ever, by Jen Hatmaker and her book 7).

 

This week? We tackle spending. In the book, Jen and her family picked 7 places to spend money at for a whole month. Since this is only a week, I decided to make it really challenging for us. This week, we are only allowed to spend money at 2 places:

1. The gas station

2. A local food co-op

 

We happen to live really close to a pretty schnazzy food co-op. I was going to pick some uber-cheap grocery store, but I thought I would stretch myself and make this more about being wise (and local, and sustainable) with my money. The co-op has always seemed prohibitively expensive to me, but it won’t be if I am not buying coffee out or a new shirt at Goodwill. So today me and the baby and a friend ambled over there (in the rain!) and shopped at the farmers market they have on Wednesdays. This is going to be a week of tofu, kale, and onions, and honey. It could be worse!

 

Here are the guidelines, if you are playing along:

Week four: Spending
This week we will look at all our little justifications for spending money squarely in the eye. By curbing our own spending, we can better identify with our brothers and sisters throughout the world who have little or no money to spare. Limit all spending this week: food, drink, restaurants, entertainment, possessions: put a hold on all  them.

Practical Fasts:
Pick one grocery store (preferably local), one gas station, one all-purpose store (obviously if you have bills to pay, you should do that). Don’t spend money anywhere else.
Invite people over for coffee, and watch old movies that you already own. Be creative!

Prayer:
This week will be another chance to repent of the idols in our life and to refocus our priorities on the kingdom of God. The Bible is full of passages on social and economic justice that we can look to for encouragement and support as we learn to do without.

 

If you need a refresher on what this is all about, go here.

 

And, as always, I want to hear any thoughts you have if you are doing this in any part!