We aren't meant to do this alone

Photo by Rebecca Siegel

January 2018, on a trip back to Maryland:

I’m sitting in friends’ living rooms, and we’re talking about Big Ideas: community and faithful living and hospitality and parenting.

Only, we aren’t just talking about ideas, because their fridge is full of homemade hazelnut milk and granola, their backyard has chickens and a garden, their guest room is occupied by an Ethiopian asylee, they are on the ground entering their kids’ world through some delicate balance of play and instruction, structure and freedom. These friends are imperfect yet living embodiments of the ideas; they are an invitation into an alternative way of being.

And as I drive back to my parents’ house that evening I’m thinking how something in me—some part of me that longs for this deep, hard work of faithful living—is awake.

It is, of course, not the first time that they have invited me in. These are the same people who were once roommates. Who taught me to bike to work by literally showing me the way, who taught me to garden by handing me a shovel and a fresh tomato, who taught me hospitality by letting in the Jehovah’s witnesses for a glass of water, who brought rhythms of community prayer and laughter to my life at a time I needed it.

I have been shaped by them and others like them.

*

It’s a point that sticks with me, especially this month, this year. Here we are: February now, the time when just about everyone has given up on those New Year’s diets and gym habits. And is it honestly any surprise? Trying to muscle change through on the strength of our individual will is, except in the rarest of cases, a futile effort.

A pointed example—we recently marked the one-year anniversary of Trump’s inauguration. And I think of all the chatter, the determination a year ago:

The morning after the election when my husband told me, “we might have to hide people in our home,” meaning immigrants in danger of deportation.

The pro-refugee rally we attended with a friend, and spent the whole drive back brainstorming an alert program that could notify people of an ICE raid, so that allies could flock to a home or business and put their bodies in the way, to block violence and dissolution of families.

The millions of desperate calls and letters I wrote—my senators on speed dial, calling once a week at first—determined to do something even though this didn’t feel quite like the something that could make any difference to anyone.

Now, it’s a year later and there is no one hiding in our home. There have been no recent rallies, and far fewer calls to legislators. Maybe I need to muscle up and push through. But if I’m honest, it’s not a different law I’m longing for, not a different governement that will bring the changes I seek, because it’s about spirit and community. It’s about something that has to be lived.

And by the sheer force of my own efforts, I just haven’t been able to keep up the energy.

*

When I talk about the need for community, this is not just a hippie commune idea. It’s the same reason monks live in monasteries, because who could pray the psalms all day long on their own strength? It’s the same reason we have AA or study groups or meetings for prayer or parenting. Because we are better in community.

Growing doesn’t come naturally. Most of the best changes in my life have been painful, like pruning. Which is why we need each other to become the people we want to be. God knows I do.

A Tanzanian host family taught me to give up my private “me-time” in exchange for the treasure of belonging over kerosene-lit dinners of ugali and greens—and my sense of family expanded. That first group house in Maryland inculcated in me the hard work and discipline it takes to bring about a garden and a daily practice of prayer—and I grew more open-hearted. My chaplaincy group this year has given me a devastatingly honest glimpse of myself and in the process taught me how to love better.

I’m grateful for all that. And now I’m longing for a new level of engagement. I felt something real and important last month as I saw the effect of one afternoon in Maryland, soaking in shared wisdom. I’m not sure exactly what this new engagement will look like, or who it will help me be. I don’t know if it means deepened engagement in a current community, or embarking on something new. And I don’t know if it will make climate change stop or save a single person still under threat of deportation or make me better at prayer or teach me to speak more gently when I’m tired.

One thing I do know is that there are a few characteristics all of these great communities in my life have in common:

-Some version--often explicit but sometimes implicit--of a covenant, a commitment to one another. For my group house, or the folks at a summer camp, it was written out. In chaplaincy, we negotiated our norms and expectations with one another.

-A shared vision or purpose. Neighborly life together. Deepened spiritual practices. Reducing our impact on the environment.

-Grace. For ourselves, and for each other, because it’s messy and we couldn’t get far without grace.

Commitment—vision—grace. All of this sounds an awful lot like church. What church could be, should be. Deeper than showing up on Sundays and abstract reflections on Bible passages. The vision that beckoned me to be a pastor.

I’m currently seeking a position as a pastor in a church. So it all comes together, somehow, and the hope and prayer is this: that I may be so lucky as to find myself in such a place of authenticity and growth. That I may have the discernment and courage to commit when the time and place is right. That I may play some part in helping to shape and be shaped by deep community.

Best of 2015

Well, 2015 whizzed by. I'm now halfway done with seminary, pushing thirty, and getting settled in Durham NC. It’s the time to celebrate some of my favorite things of the year.

Books: (Only three; I didn’t read enough non-school books this year)

3. Wearing God by Lauren Winner: Fantastic exploration of different images for God in the Bible. You know, Christians like to call God creator and king, but God is also described as clothing, fire, pregnant woman, friend, bread, wine, aroma. These chapters expanded my spiritual imagination and invited me to celebrate a God who is beyond my limited conception.

2. Lila by Marilynne Robinson: This deals with the same characters, and some of the same events, as her two earlier novels Gilead and Home, but from a much different (fascinating) perspective. Robinson doesn’t write page-turners, and her books don’t follow a typical plot, but the writing and characters are impeccable, and the themes are rich with human questions. What is it that defines our souls, our capacity for good or ill, our relationships and our loneliness? Lila asks questions especially about the feral and gentle within us, about how early experiences shape us, about how spirituality is relevant to those for whom the main question is survival.

1. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson: I’ve been recommending this one to everybody. Stevenson’s book reads as part memoir, part documentary, part true crime. You’ll be flipping pages to find out what happens to Walter, a man on death row who swears he’s innocent, and meanwhile you’ll be confronting our justice system, the depths of brokenness within all of us, and the persistence of hope and redemption.

Media and Arts:

3. Most of my TV and movies you've all already seen. Probably my two favorite movies were Boyhood and The Theory of Everything (and yes, I also enjoyed Star Wars.) 

2. Much better than staring at a screen is experiencing art in reality. I saw Swan Lake by the Carolina Ballet in Raleigh last spring and it was lovely.

1. While visiting the Getty Museum in LA last March, I was drawn to a painting in a way I’ve never before been drawn to art: “Mary Magdalene at the Sepulchre” by Girolomo Savoldo. I see myself in it, I suppose. And I see the most perfect, realistic-but-hopeful balance of darkness and light. It's not the same on a screen, but:

            

Best things:

4. Preaching: Sometimes a class becomes a community; sometimes an education becomes real life. My preaching class this fall was perfect. We were creative together, we helped each other grow, we laughed, we learned what it is to occupy this space of being called to share the gospel of God. I’m thankful for reminders that this path I’m walking into is one that fits.

3. Trips:  California (lovely former roomie plus meeting the life goal of peeing in all 3 oceans that aren’t at Arctic Temperatures plus riding a bus with some silly college choir kids plus biking across the Golden Gate); Minnesota (spirit home plus two of my dear college friends marrying each other!); Western Massachusetts (friends’ wedding plus camping and napping under trees).

2. Presbyterians: I’m working at a Presbyterian Church right now, loving especially the honor of listening to people’s stories and grateful to be mentored by a wonderful pastor. And since September, I’ve been officially on the list as an “inquirer” to become a pastor in the Presbyterian Church. This basically means I’ve passed the first of three steps in discerning and becoming certified as a pastor. It’s getting real, y’all.

1. Reunion: If you read any of my pieces this summer, you know that I had a beautiful and possibly life-changing experience with Church of the Saviour this summer, especially the time I spent learning from the people at Reunion, seeing both the heartbreaking reality of the prison pipeline and the redemptive possibilities of community. I’m so grateful for the servant leaders of that community, for the men and women coming home from prison, for the encouragement to be authentic across lines of race and class, for a place which nurtured my spirit so.

What’s ahead:
3. Durham, NC: In one of the harder decisions we’ve had to make since our marriage, John and I decided to turn down a job offer he had received in DC, since it would have started this summer and necessitated us spending a year apart (it also wasn’t his dream job). I love DC so it was sad to say, “not now.” But John graduates in May and we’re looking forward to staying here in NC like for a few more years. I won’t say I don’t have second thoughts when I visit home and reunite with all the wonderful people there, but it’s nice to be putting down roots and slowly building community here in Durham.

2. Being able to walk! After lots of biking and running this summer, I started noticing minor foot pain. It took four months of no running or biking, five weeks on crutches, two X-rays and one MRI to finally figure out what it was—irritation and inflammation of the sesamoid bones, which are on the bottom of the foot near the big toe. I’m now mostly recovered and in physical therapy, looking forward to being active again, not depending on people for rides, hiking the Grand Canyon in May and maybe running a half marathon later this year.

1. Writing again: It’s been a draining semester, and I didn’t write a blog post from July until now. I’m not sure what the future holds, but I do know I’ve signed up for a non-credit journaling group this semester. I’m hoping that will get the creative juices, the truth-telling juices, flowing again.

Kiddos, aching souls, and the school-to-prison pipeline

Photo by Mike Mozart

I don’t make the connection until eight weeks into the summer.

“I really love what I’m doing with Reunion and Church of Christ, Right Now,” I keep telling friends, family, anyone on the street who will listen to me gush about my new love.

I feel moved when I go to jail. I feel deep meaning in the conversations and relationships and support groups with the ones coming home from jail, the ones long ago in jail and now leaders in the movement, the ones who’ve never been to jail and desperately don’t want their grandkids to go there. Jesus is in jail. The Spirit is in the vulnerability and open heartedness. The leaders of this movement are prophets and saints and I want to sit at their feet and soak up all their wisdom and commitment and love.

“On the other hand,” I shrug, “the after-school program stuff is fine—I just plan field trips and help out with a summer camp for kids. But I’ve been there before. I’ve taught reading before; I’ve worked in a summer daycare; I’ve written curriculum. I’m ready for something new. I’m ready to put my theology to use.”

Taking kindergarteners to the American Indian museum to build an igloo, after all, is not really theology. Right?

*

It is time to go on a trip with the middle school kids.

I squish into the van with them as we drive the twenty minutes to get downtown.

The three boys sitting on the seat next to me are bragging about how bad they are. “I’ve been expelled from three schools,” one says. “I’ve been expelled from one, but I have a feeling I’ll get kicked out of my new one,” another responds, trying to keep up. “My cousin got suspended,” says the goody-goody, bless his heart.

I want to roll my eyes. I am sure these kids are exaggerating. I keep listening.

“My dad has been in jail most of my life,” is where the conversation migrates. “Almost all my relatives have been in jail,” says another kid. “My brother had to go to juvy for stealing an iPhone from the store,” says another. “My teacher keeps telling me I’m gonna end up in juvy,” says the kid with the dad in jail. “You only get three strikes before you get locked up for good,” someone warns. “My cousin has four strikes though,” one protests.

And like that, the synapses meet, and my heart is weeping and praying for each of them by name.

These kids I work with in the mornings will become the incarcerated folks I work with in the afternoons.

It was only last night that our support group had a heart-wrenching conversation about belonging and love. So many aching souls in that room, confessing that they'd longed for more love from their mothers and fathers. They'd run away from home because of it. They'd ended up in juvy because of it. They'd sought love in all the wrong places, formed all the wrong kinds of relationships. Only to find now, at 28 or 37 or 59, that they are tired of the search. They are tired and they want to rest here in this community, in this place, where if they are brave enough to be themselves, there is love to be found.

And now, when these twelve- and thirteen-year-olds give their macho stories about their dads absent in jail, I know I am hearing the same story in a different tone of voice. In just a few short years, these boys are so likely to become the men in jail, wanting another way but not knowing how to repair relationships, how to break out of poverty without a little quick money on the side to get them started. They are so likely to become those tired men sitting around the table at support group. Because if it’s all they’ve ever seen from every man in their family, who can tell them there’s another way? I grew up without ever questioning if I’d go to college. Everyone in my family went to college. It was a given. What is the given for these kids?

For some of them—the troublemakers, the ones with a rebellious streak—the connection is not hard to visualize. But the little guy in the front row with the sideways baseball cap? The beautiful girl with a scowl who brightens as she comes up with the most thoughtful answer to every question? Surely not them, too?

And then my heart skips a beat, as I think of the sweet little kindergarteners I took to the museum yesterday. The tiny little girls and boys who hold hands and walk through the exhibits with their matching visors and garner the admiration of every stranger. The adorable little voices who chorus, “Thank you, Miss Katie,” and giggle so freely. The open hearts who stare in wide-eyed wonder at the whale hanging from the ceiling and exclaim, “Whoa!” every time I open the box to show them a new type of rock.

It is one thing for the moody, exasperating middle-schoolers to grow up to be incarcerated. But who will these kindergarterners grow up to be?

Lord, have mercy. May it not be so.

*

For the last two weeks, I want to soak up all the love and open-heartedness I can from the re-entry program, from the beautiful spirits of the men and women coming home from prison.

And then I want to take and fling it with all my strength into the hearts of the kids in the summer program, whether by presence or by conversation or, simply and desperately, by prayer.

Because my work is not divided this summer into two unrelated ministries. It is one. The love we share in the support group is the same love needed by the kids. If they can receive love now, perhaps they won’t smoke and drink to escape it all. If they can be wrapped in the grace and protection of the spirit now, perhaps they will find a different way than their fathers.

And for me--if this daily breaking of my heart can be captured and bathed in the Spirit, perhaps something beautiful becomes of me, too.

When we need everyone at the table

Imagine you are part of a movement to dismantle mass incarceration, in part through changing the prison-industrial system by which profits are made when more people are in jail. Imagine that representatives of this very prison-industrial system seek to join your cause. Will you let them stay?

Imagine you are part a community which wants to build supportive relationships across divisions of race and class. You want everybody to have a place in your community, a place to share their experiences and feelings. Imagine someone comes into your space spouting divisions of race and class. Will you let them stay?

*

About 10 folks in my organization, as a creative protest measure, bought one share each in the largest for-profit prison company in the US. Being shareholders, they attend the shareholder meeting every year to advocate for better ways, different profit incentives, various reforms. There may not be any visible results yet, but they are witnessing to a different way.

Meanwhile, some of the board members of the prison company have taken an interest in the efforts of my organization, the way they seek to support folks coming home from prison. They have taken an interest in our support groups, and our house for guys who've been recently incarcerated, and the jobs and education programs to which we are connected. They have given donations. They have come to visit. One may speak at our fundraiser.

The director of our organization acknowledged the dissonance. "Yes, it's goofy," she said. "It's an uncomfortable reality. When they first started giving us money, we weren't sure what to do. But then we thought if we didn't want to accept dirty money, whose money could we accept?

"Besides," she added, "we believe we need everyone at the table."

Yes. We can only break down systems of injustice if everyone is on board. Everyone. And that means that we have to be willing to engage with folks who disagree with us, who threaten our cause, with whom our relationship is complicated or goofy.

Because it's relationships and transformed hearts that we're after--not just new laws that leave old walls and divisions in place.

*

Photo by Jim Champion

In my internship, we have meetings called "Freedom Circles," which are dangerous things. Like an AA meeting or a summer camp sharing circle, the meetings start off with this week's leader reading or reflecting on a particular topic, and then there are 45 minutes before us in which anyone may speak. Which is the beauty, and the danger.

Because everyone is welcome at the table, and everyone has a voice.

Last week "everyone" included someone who was frustrated, someone who was angry, someone who was lonely, someone who felt wronged by the group. There we were, all of us broken together in the room, and the time was open before us, free for the seizing.

Several people shared, some speaking with candor and honesty, some with anger and walls, some with repetitive phrases that made me wonder whether this meeting had a point. There are days where the sharing is deep and succinct and profound, where someone gives us a window into her past, where someone acknowledges the pain he has caused others, where someone makes a new connection about her feelings of abandonment that have led to addiction, where someone admits he doesn't know how to fix his relationship.

This was not that day. A few folks shared. They mostly talked too long. They mostly exuded frustration and anger. After each person, we chorused "Thanks for sharing," even though saying it felt a bit disingenuous. After one angry outburst, I noticed sidelong glances and folks uncomfortably shifting in their seats.

The leader took it all in stride. Later, he would tell me, "that meeting went exactly how it was supposed to go." He proceeded with the meeting, explaining that we were all about to share the ritual of communion. He broke half of a hamburger bun and held up a punch cup half full of grape juice, then began passing them around the room, even as some of the other members of the circle continued looking around, unsettled, uncertain. I noticed a certain tension in my chest.

After a hesitating start, a woman offered the cup to her neighbor, saying, "This cup was given so that you may know that even though you are broken, you are not beyond God's love." Just as the reality of those words began to flood into all of us, the leader had begun singing. "Bind us together, Lord, bind us together with cords that cannot be broken...bind us together in love." A few of us joined in, and as we sang and shared and ate, something happened.

My breathing slowed and I turned just in time to see a man who had earlier been shaking his head at his neighbor in disgust and frustration, offering to him the bread and the cup. This was, for both of them, their first time sharing communion in our group. "The body of Christ and the blood of Christ, given for you," the man said as his neighbor took a piece. The neighbor then turned to me. I knew he was angry at me for an earlier miscommunication. But he pushed the cup to me and said simply, "The body and blood of Christ."

"Amen."

I thought how neither of us deserved this moment. None of us deserved to be at this table.

The leader closed in prayer, and people began filing out. I stood to talk to my neighbor, apologizing for hurting him. He accepted my apology. By this time the rest of the folks had left, and I wondered if some of them had been put off by the halting meeting.

I hope not.

Because to dismantle mass incarceration, we need everyone at the table. To build true community, we need to welcome everyone to the table, broken people included. And as Jesus reminded me that night, communion is holy because it reminds us that we are all sitting at a table only by mercy--you, and me, and the one with the angry outburst, and the one with only frustration in her heart, and whoever else walks in the door tomorrow.

Open-hearted

To be open-hearted: this is my touchstone for the summer.

You may guess that is because I see in myself over the last couple years, a tendency towards walls, towards clenching, towards closed-heartedness. I am not sure why I stopped playing the piano and writing tears into my journal and keeping my soul open to the kind and unkind things that people said. I only know now, that it is easier to watch TV than to write in a journal. It is easier to tolerate people than to love them. It is easier to be busy than to be still.

To be open-hearted­ comes with such risk.

*

I was the epitome of an open heart, then. I was aching and frightened but so tender, so ready for healing, ready to meet God, however terrifying God might be.

So I sat, broken heart and all, fears and failures and all, on a roof under the stars in Tanzania and I said to two people whom I had met less than a week before, I am going to need community.

But who tells two people you have just met that you are aching from a rough year and desperately need their friendship? Deep needs should be reserved for a friendship of six months, at least.

The hazy, humid air was silent except with the buzzing of mosquitos, and I wished I hadn’t said it, but the words were unswallowable.

Wondering if you’ve said too much is a byproduct, I think, of life open-hearted. I was just naïve enough to hope these people might actually care. (I was lucky. It turned out that they did.)

*

This summer, I am trying to be naïve enough to imagine that people care.

To imagine that I might have something to offer to the woman sitting next to me who is just out of prison, motivated for her recovery from addictions, and desperate for a job. To imagine that she might have something to offer to me. It may be a long shot, but I have to be prepared for the moment when it comes.

To intentionally drain the demanding, sarcastic tone from my voice before I speak to my husband. Instead, to tell him how soft and vulnerable I feel, how unlike myself. Perhaps, in that one moment he misinterprets my tone, senses me accusing again, and snaps back, I will hurt. But I keep my heart exposed anyway, because the oxygen and the yearning will bring it healing.

To let theology be simple sometimes. “I don’t question God,” the man sitting next to me says at support group. “I just ask for help for myself and others for today.”

To return with trepidation to my long-abandoned journal, unafraid of what I might learn about myself, about God. Even if the truth hurts, it will set me free.

*

Church of the Saviour is a good place to be, for all of this. It is rather a way of life, here, to ask and be asked, “what is your deep need?” It is hard to get far here without sharing from an open heart.

In one of the groups, I am asked to share my “money autobiography”—all the thoughts, feelings, and experiences I’ve had around money throughout my life.

When I was in perhaps middle school, I asked my mother about how mortgage worked. This led into a conversation about her income, worth of the house, debt, and various other personal financial details. At the end of the conversation, she told me that I should probably not discuss any of the information with others. They are not the types of details that we share publicly.

They are not. And yet, in this community, sharing them is part of the practice of being open-hearted and together. So I try to share honestly about money—not dollar amounts, but the experiences of giving and receiving, of shame and conflict and generosity and hurt and acceptance and power that have surrounded my life as a person in an economic world.

I enter the room anxious, but when I leave, I know that we all have struggles with money, and no matter what the details—rich or poor, envy or shame—we are in it together. We need each other.

*

Three days later, on Sunday, there is a period in the church service where people can share aloud their gratitude, or their prayer requests.

In most churches in my experience, church prayer requests follow an unspoken rule of being restricted to aunts with cancer, travel safety, and grief for a lost relative. But here today, a woman’s voice is cracking as she speaks about her friend whose father is returning from ten years in prison, and another woman is crying with joy about her sister’s return to this country after two years abroad, and a man in the back shares that his work has, and a grandmother says she is just so grateful for her daughter-in-law who has been a pillar of strength as her son is going through a hard time.

You sit there listening, and if there is something on your heart, you feel that maybe next week you might be brave enough to share it. You feel like people really want to know what’s going on with you, like people are really willing to tell you what’s going on with them. You feel there is a sense of deep caring and deep trust. It gives you inspiration, and you think you feel the walls crumbling a little bit in your own heart.

Africa slipping away

I was twenty, swimming in questions and doubts and grieving broken friendships and a lost relationship, when I arrived in Tanzania the first time. I woke up early to climb up to the roof, to gaze at palm trees and women wearing colorful clothes and carrying bright red and yellow buckets of water on their heads, to take in this new brightness in the world and in myself. Late at night, I sat on a stool in the tiny, smoky kitchen with my friend Monika, the cook, learning Swahili and empathy through her stories of ambition and heartbreak. In between university classes I read big words in the Bible, words like “there is now no condemnation in Christ” and “there is no fear in love,” and I began to discover the openness of my heart, the vastness of God.

It was two months in before I realized I hadn’t cried in this country, which was remarkable considering that I’d cried nearly every day the year before. Here in Africa, I didn’t have to answer the questions or muddle guiltily through messy relationships or be good. I had only to see, to partake, to love.

I partook, one day, after enduring constant teasing from my friends for the fact that I’d never in my life skipped a class. We left Swahili behind, hopped on a minibus early one Thursday morning, bottled water and inaccurate map in hand, and set out to find a fishing village noted in the guidebook. Smushed into a crowded minibus, the three of us miraculously found our way and two hours later, we were walking out on a reedy beach south of the city, following a young boy to the nearest fries-and-eggs stand for the cheap, greasy local food we were craving. I stretched out my arms as wide as I could and felt the wind on my face and the last drop of tension draining from my bones and I wanted to sing for joy.

A few days before it was time to return to the US, I lay on a red couch with a lump in my throat, because in returning, I would be leaving this place of vast open spaces. I knew that in the US, I would revert back to the self that had to work and fight and say and do the right things, in order to be good enough.

I preemptively mourned the loss of this expansive self.

*

I was a little homesick my second time in Tanzania. But in the evenings, when my English students and I gathered in the cafeteria, their thirteen-year-old hearts and my twenty-two-year-old hearts melded together and we poured out our loneliness until it disappeared. They taught me their songs (“God created us skinny, God created us fat”) and I taught them mine, and we crooned together against the darkness, “We all need someone to be there and someone to be there for.”

Together we were dancing, together we were celebrating the wideness and love of God and community, together we were making it through the nights away from home. When Zawadi couldn’t get through class without crying for homesickness, I longed to make her smile. When Nambayo got healthy enough to concentrate better, I put smiley faces on her quizzes with pride. When Napoki got pregnant and had to leave, I wanted to cry. I loved those girls with as deep an affection as I have known. They were, for a while, home.

When I returned to the US this time (for good?) I wore four beaded bracelets—their gifts to me—until they fell off one by one over the next year. I grieved the loss of a love and a song across cultures, borne out of loneliness and a need to belong, bringing the kind of deep gladness that is usually a long time in coming.

*

The year I got married was 2012, the year I had promised I would go back to Tanzania to see my students graduate. The wedding conflicted. I didn’t go. I haven’t been now, for six years.

When I think of Tanzania now, I confess I don’t think of the colors or the openness of my heart or the songs. I don’t think of the plates of food I shared with friends like Communion, or of brushing my teeth under the stars, or of the gift of acceptance the people gave to me, or of the adventurous, open person I became in that place.

Instead, I think of the obligations. The need to measure up and be good enough. I think of the phone calls to friends I don’t want to make, because they will tell me my Swahili is slipping, and though it is silly banter to them, it is a reminder to me of a part of myself that is slipping. They will mean well when they ask “When are you coming back?” but I will feel guilty in my inability to answer, my shifted priorities, my complicated living out of some American (un)dream that no longer gives me the freedom to visit them.

And they won’t be objectifying or using me when they most certainly ask for money for the latest education plan for themselves and their children, because to share money means to be a part of a family; yet even though they treated me with nothing but acceptance and an open hand when I lived among them, I will feel now objectified and used for my connections and my relative wealth. My heart will sink as I realize that even were I to offend or insult them, they would stay in touch with me if only for the hope of money, and I will feel angry and resentful maybe most of all at myself for no longer loving them as people.

So I don’t call back, and the relationship rift grows, and the open-hearted Tanzanian inside me drifts further away. I grieve the loss.

Ode to New Leaf Church

Last week, New Leaf Church met for the final time in College Park. This lovely little church community made the courageous decision that it was time to die.

I wasn’t there; I haven’t been there for a while. The community had changed a lot since I left in 2012. It had no longer been the focal point of my returning when I visit DC. It had become a diaspora of young people moving and visions shifting and needs changing. In emails and conversations from those still there, I sense gratitude and acceptance around the ending of this place. I also know there has been some rupture, some hurt.

So I’m not sure how to receive this news.

*

I am twenty something and I arrive back home, after five years gone to college and Africa, and I am not the same; home is not the same; maybe God is not the same. I have lifelong friendships here, and these lovely people buoy me up as I adjust, but there is something missing: a community, a place that is big enough for the new me, a place to belong.

When I find it in this funny group of people called New Leaf Church, I catch myself laughing harder than I’ve laughed in a year. I catch myself feeling, sometimes, that I’ve never been more at home, never more fully understood, than in this place, with these people.

It is not true in the strictest sense, because I have been at home before: on a sleepover with girls who have known me through pimples and braces; on a starry night with blankets by a lake in Pennsylvania; in a sunlit cafeteria with bowls of rice noodles and baby corn and love through growing pains; even for a moment in a ten-thousand miles-away concrete classroom in Africa, singing with other homesick girls. I'm grateful for all. At New Leaf, though, there is something new: I am known, for the first time, as an adult. My ideas and gifts and talents are accepted and prized in new ways.

This is a kind of joy I needed. I am playing silly games in a brightly-lit living room, and I am praying fervent prayers by a candle lit at twilight on a winter Sunday, and I am creating new recipes or learning how to bike to work, taught by new roommates in a new neighborhood.

*

We are moving chairs and putting away instruments and microphones after church on Sunday evening, and they tell me that they want to start a writing group: a Friday night potluck where we can share our words. This group of nerds and me, we gather around vegetarian pizza and herbal tea and we read poems and stories and confessions, reluctantly at first but deeper as we grow. I learn to share of myself in a different way than I’ve been allowed to before—a way that fits me. Something amazing is at work. Writing group seems to invite all kinds of disparate people together into friendship, seems to welcome people who aren’t so sure about church, seems to be an authentic way to be open about our fears and our craziest creative ideas and our Jesus.

Without writing group, I don’t know if I’d have ever started my own blog once I moved away. I don’t know if I’d have ever come to believe that by being honest with a blank page, my story could matter to someone else.

At one point, the group started a blog called Resurrections. I guess it is fitting now. I can’t help but believe that New Leaf’s disbanding will not be the end of its impact.

*

In 2010, I catch my first conscious inkling that I might want to go to seminary. I have coffee with a New Leaf friend who is in seminary, and after a two-week panic of "if-I'm-going-to-do-this-I-must-do-it-NOW!" I let the thought drift away for a while.

It keeps coming back, through hospital waiting rooms and unexpected job interviews and the patient persistence of the Holy Spirit. I work in another lovely church for a while, and keep attending New Leaf in the evenings. I start thinking maybe I will really follow this inkling in my heart.

Three weeks before my wedding, four weeks before my move to a new state (which I am not looking forward to), I am signed up to preach the sermon at New Leaf, and I wrestle over it late into Saturday night and even into Sunday afternoon, never quite getting it right, revising in my head as I drive around the beltway to church. The topic is Jesus' words, “Do not worry,” so how could I really get it right, when worrying is all I do lately? I feel so inadequate, so presumptuous, to pretend to speak words from God.

I arrive a few minutes late (traffic) and I am invited to sit on a stool with a small group of people I love sitting around. The message comes to life as I speak. I am not funny but they are laughing at my jokes. I don’t have it figured out but in the discussion afterwards some insights come to light. We meditate in silence, and Jesus is here.

Afterwards, a few different people put a hand on my shoulder and tell me they see in me the gifts to be a pastor. They know I am thinking about seminary still, and they tell me to leap ahead, to go for it. On a hike a couple weeks ago, another woman in the community also affirmed me in this way. Today, here, I look around at the faces and I realize I am going to go for it. I am really going to take this leap of faith, apply to seminary, be a pastor.

This community, the one that has been my home, gives me the courage to live fully into my gifts. They echo the quiet whispers in my heart, confirming what I already hope and fear and know about my future. I am full of gratitude and love for this community, and I see how ministry can be enlivened by deep relationships; I see how I could be a pastor of a place like this.

*

What does it mean that a church where I felt home, where I felt called to ministry, where I felt affirmed in my gifts—no longer exists?

I don’t know.

What I know is I’m grateful. For the people who struck off on a risky venture and started a church in a new place, with a new idea of authentic community and spiritual depth and commitment to the poor. For the people who taught and sang and baked bread and folded chairs and made power point presentations and prayed and sent emails and offered bread and wine. For the people who kept going even when it hurt, and for the people who knew it was time to say goodbye. For the people who let me sing, the people who let me write, the people who believed in me enough to give me a wooden stool and a microphone to speak the gospel, the people who held my tears when Grandma died and danced like fools at my wedding.

New Leaf is no longer a worshiping community. But it is not a failure. It has been, and still is, a deep blessing in my life. I would not have become who I am without New Leaf.

And I know I am not the only one.

Five things I've learned from blogging

This week, I begin my seminary education at Duke. While I hope to keep writing, I don’t anticipate being able to update as frequently or to put as much time and thought into the blog as I've been doing. If you want to be alerted when I do post, you can enter your email in the "subscribe" box in the upper right hand corner of the blog to receive new posts via email (nothing else to clog your inbox, I promise). Also, feel free to explore old pieces in the "Favorite posts" tab above.

As I mark this new phase in my career and writing life, I wanted to share a few things I've learned over the past year. Last October, I started trying to share my life story and my deeper, more vulnerable reflections on the blog. I made an effort to write regularly and to share more widely. There have been ups and downs, but overall, I'm exceedingly grateful for the journey.

5. I am a better person when I write. My husband can vouch for this one. I believe this blog was one of several things that has made our second year of marriage so lovely, much smoother than the first. We learned that once or twice a week, he was going to need his extrovert night (games/friends/sports) and I was going to need my introvert night (writing stories on my laptop). Writing gave some structure and purpose to a year that sometimes felt like a holding pattern. By writing I was able to process the world, express myself, and be filled, so that I had more to give.

4. You never know who is reading your blog. This makes for some lovely surprises when you re-establish old connections with friends and neighbors. It makes for a tiny bit of concern when you go to a place where you’re not sure your expressed viewpoints will be seen favorably. It makes for awkward moments when your neighbor mentions that someone around town told her that you had a dream about having a baby, and does this mean you are pregnant?

3. You gotta remember your people. In writing, as in life, it’s so much easier to focus on what you don’t have rather than what you have. There have been moments where, after a popular post, I started dreaming of becoming "successful," getting more shares and followers, working towards publishing. I tried to redesign the blog to look more professional. I opened a Twitter account to connect with readers and writers. I networked with other bloggers through guest posts and linkups and comments in order to increase traffic. But honestly,  my stats didn’t change much.

So I stepped back. The real reasons I started this blog were much smaller. I wanted to discipline myself to write, and to share stories I hoped would matter to even just a few people. Both of those goals have been met completely. The people I started writing for—my family and friends and even Facebook acquaintances—have been so affirming and supportive. You have made me believe my gift is worthwhile. You have shown me that even when we are different, our stories can resonate. I am so thankful for you, and I write for you, the people who read, not, as illogically as it seems, for the people who don’t.

2. Vulnerability breeds vulnerability; trust breeds trust. Sharing deep thoughts and experiences is not easy, but when we open up and tell our real stories, we often find that we’re not the only one. Half the time, after I push the “publish” button, I have a couple hours of anxiety. I feel exposed and wonder if I've said too much or said the wrong thing.

But nail-biting is worth it for the chance that someone will read and taste in my words their own story and know they're not alone.

At least in part due to the blog, some folks have been willing, in return, to share their stories with me. The conversations and dialogues that have popped up in response have been a beautiful thing.

1. The things that connect us are stronger than the things that divide us. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me when I get a comment or note from someone who says, in effect, I don’t share your religion/life path/worldview, but I really relate to what you wrote about. It’s happened several times and it affirms for me the belief that if we who are different (culturally, religiously, politically) get to know each other deep down, we may find much that we share. We who are divided may become friends.

I love you all, and I am so glad we are on this journey together.

Stay.

The two-hundred-fifty-day sleepover. That was what my roommate and I decided we’d call our memoir of the first year of college. We were giddy with the way our January term—a snowy four weeks of philosophy class and hot chocolate—had become a revolving slumber party of good friends in our room.

College seemed to stretch out before us, an endless stream of inside jokes and birthday surprises and silly hi-lighter wars and snowy cuddle-fests and long conversations late into the night.

The RA had even come once to talk to us about a complaint of being too noisy late at night. We were delighted. We—who had never quite hit our stride in high school—now being singled out as too friendly, too popular, too happy! We had finally found a group of people who wanted to sit around laughing to tears and examining the meaning of life, heaven and earth, and how to love the poor.

What I didn’t consider then was that this kind of intimacy will always lead to pain. When we come to know and trust each other, we are bound to hurt each other, and to hurt for each other.

It was just around the corner.

*

There were times, a couple years later, where friends at home or on study abroad would hear about what we’d been through together—convoluted romances, co-dependency, deep-cutting blows, more gulping tears than I ever thought possible—and would wonder why we were all still friends.

I confess there were times I wondered too.

I lost sleep; I withdrew; I did some of the most insensitive and selfish things I’ve ever done; I learned how cruel words could be. But I never really considered walking away from those people. They never walked away from me.

Because that’s not what friends do. Friends stay.

*

I have written about the lonely first year of my marriage. The hopeful second year. And it strikes me that though I don’t know at all what is coming around the corner, that is okay.

I know what it is to stay; I know what it is to have someone stay for me.

Marriage is just that, with a little more kissing and maybe some extra diapers.

 *

The two-hundred-fifty-day sleepover wasn’t the first time, and won’t be the last, that friendship hurts.

My wounds taught me how to hold back and isolate, but then slowly they taught me how to love again. How to forgive and be forgiven, how to have grace for myself. How sharing too much is a better mistake than not sharing at all. How you are forever connected once you’ve wrecked a ship together.

And if we hadn’t all somehow stuck it out (which was a grace) I would not get the privilege of flying across the country a couple times a year to attend a wedding or a party or just to sit in someone’s basement at 2 am Central time, bleary-eyed with sleep but not caring, because I only want to sit there, to keep listening, keep sharing, keep staying.

My sister

i.

The loneliness was beginning to press in hard. I was twenty-two; I’d been in Tanzania a few months teaching English, and local friends were hard to come by.

Esther was nineteen, and living with her brother. The second time we met, I spent the weekend at her house. We hauled well-water and cooked on charcoal and cleaned the floor and slept under the same mosquito net. On Saturday afternoon when the chores were done, she connected the cassette player to an old car battery—the only electricity in the tiny concrete house—and cranked up the volume on the Tanzanian gospel music. Neighboring children heard the call and came running onto the newly mopped floor. We shoved the chairs and table aside and turned the living room/dining room/kitchen/guest room into a dance studio. I watched her and moved my hips, my arms, my head.

In the middle of the third song, I stepped back to take a breath and wipe away the sweat. I was laughing harder than I had in months. As I sipped my water bottle and watched, what I saw was a friend; what I saw an invitation to belong.

ii.

A week later, I haltingly told her, “I need a new place to stay next month. Can I live with you?”

I was lucky for the code Tanzanian hospitality, which I think consists of one rule: never say no.

In exchange, I said I would pay for her to go back to school, which was her dream.

What was hard was that she (along with her brother, sister-in-law, sister, niece, and nephew) shared with me everything she had, and I couldn’t give back in proportion. I could buy flour at the market, bring home a treat of fruit every day, even help with school fees and business capital when it seemed appropriate. But even then I was always holding something back: something of myself and the stories that had shaped me, which she couldn’t understand, something of my resources and education and social capital, which were infinitely greater than she could imagine.

What was lovely were the trips to the market together, the pilgrimage to her village home, the way she took care of me when I got malaria, the sisterhood. We told stories by kerosene lantern at night, brushed our teeth under the stars, woke at six a.m. for the womanly duty of making the morning chai.

I lived there four months, and I loved her.

iii.

The first time I felt cheated was not her fault. In my American naiveté, I had paid the whole years’ worth tuition for Esther’s school, and we soon discovered they had no teachers, just someone who came in the morning to write some notes on the board for the students to copy. It was a money-making scheme and the headmaster refused to refund my money. “We are getting more teachers,” he assured me. Months later when the school year ended and I was gone, it turned out that since Esther had already failed the ninth-grade national exam twice, she couldn’t sit for it again.

The second time I felt cheated was near the end of my stay. I can hardly remember the details, filtered as the story was through the animated Swahili of Esther’s sister and sister-in-law, who sat me down one afternoon and told me that Esther had been two-timing all of us. In addition to her fiancé John, she was dating another man who had been giving her money and jewelry and nice things, paying for lunches I thought I had been paying for.

I confronted Esther and she assured me it was not as they said. She had an explanation for all of it, which I didn’t fully understand or believe. But she was like a sister to me. I forgave her.

iv.

The last few days, before I was to leave for America, Esther and I took nostalgic walks. We walked to the store, to the well, to the market, if only for a place to stand in the late-afternoon sun and look at each other and realize there was no way to put into words our sentiments.

I had mixed feelings, of course. I was ready for sandwiches and close friends and my own space, ready to be free of the constant trapped feeling, ready for some distance from a sister I loved so much but couldn’t fully trust.

On those walks, she gave me the kindest farewell I have ever received. She wished me the best in every dream I had ever told her. She gave me specific greetings and messages for every friend and family member I had ever mentioned. She shared what she loved about me and said that we should pray for each other always.

v.

I left Tanzania five years ago now. My Swahili got rustier, and my phone calls with Esther sparser. I promised to help her get licensed as a nursery school teacher, and for a while our calls were mostly at the beginning of the school year, regarding Western Union transfers.

She married John, and according to the Tanzanian tradition I sent money to help with the cost of the wedding, only to hear from her brother later that there was no wedding. Maybe they got married but hosted no fancy wedding. It is never clear. They are certainly married now.

vi.

A few months ago, John lost his job. The calls for help started coming more frequently then. I found out Esther is pregnant. She is due this week, and lately the texts say they are three months behind on their rent and about to be evicted. The dollar amount she claims she needs to cover the rent is almost certainly a lie.

I could give her the exaggerated figure, which is less than $200. But I can’t keep paying her rent forever. I don’t want to be her social safety net, though in Tanzania that is maybe not so different than to be her sister.

I sent her a message saying that I can’t help, mainly because I didn't think a few months’ rent is going to solve her problems, and I want her and John to find their own way out. Regardless of her past manipulations, could it be right to deny rent to a nine-months-pregnant Tanzanian woman whose husband is out of work? So a few days later, we reverse course and send more than they asked for, hopefully for a down payment to build a house, or start a business.

vii.

This is what it means to me to say Esther. To say Tanzania. The love and freedom so deep and the greatest sense of welcome I've ever known. The hazy confusion of stories filtered through a half-known language and culture. The desperate sense that I am never quite doing the right thing, or maybe that there is no right thing.

I would not trade my Tanzanian experience, my Tanzanian family, for a million nights of guiltless sleep. It is right that I should wrestle with the inequality and sorrow of the world. It is right that this wrestling should be with real, broken people whom I dearly love and forgive. It is right that because of them, I can never be complacent. It is right that I can’t find a way to end this story, because it is not simple, and it is not resolved, and love is never tidy in this wild world.

Mix CDs and mustard seeds

Photo by Linda Tanner

It was six a.m., and I was driving to Duke Divinity School for orientation.

I was thinking of a recent faith conversation with my brother. I did not articulate my point of view clearly, and I was wondering—if I can’t speak definitive answers about theology, do I have any gifts at all for ministry? Has my vision has become too vague?

Naturally, these thoughts led me to the recurring whisper in the back of my head, that little voice which says, do you really believe any of this at all? If you are so scattered, so vulnerable sometimes, so unwilling to prove anything concrete—can you truly be a shepherd for other believers?

I am not ready to become a pastor, I was thinking. I have squandered this wilderness time in Cherokee. I have not prayed enough. I have become more cynical, sometimes snarky. Seven years after the “doubt crisis,” I am still an intermittent doubter—sometimes of God and sometimes of myself.

Besides, I thought, I know that I am good at teaching. Why change careers now? Teaching GED classes matters. It is meaningful. For the most part, it is safe.

My mix CD changed to an old Nickel Creek tune.

Can I be used to help others find truth if I’m scared I’ll find proof that it’s a lie?

Can I be led down a trail dropping breadcrumbs that prove I’m not ready to die?

Please give me time to decipher the signs

Please forgive me for time that I’ve wasted

I’m a doubting Thomas

I’ll take your promise

Though I know nothing’s safe

Oh me of little faith

When the song was finished, and my tears, I pressed repeat. I pressed repeat about eighty times, singing along as a plea, as a prayer, until I arrived at Duke.

*

Imagine, for a moment: this is how it has been for you and doubts.

You have a question and you climb down a rabbit hole to follow it to its depths, because if you don’t you will always wonder, you will always worry. And when you follow it down, you find the hole does not go on forever; there is something solid below, something to stand on. You stand on it.

But you don’t live into these questions every day; you can’t spend all your days chasing shadows and digging holes. So most of the time when the shadows cross, you watch them go. They are mostly shadows you’ve already followed all the way down.

You are going on your memory, and like all memories it is hard to retain the certainty of that feeling. You did find solid ground that day when you reached the bottom, you are certain…right?

The thought of starting seminary this fall terrifies you, because you know you will be diving down into some of the holes again, and it is possible they are deeper than you have yet known.

*

I arrived at campus, still a little weepy, humble.

But as soon as it had begun I could sense that they were going to remind me why I was here.

They said remember that you are loved deeply and gifted uniquely by God.

They said remember that the church does not exist for its own sake; it needs to serve and love the world; it is the body of Christ on earth and it must sometimes learn to die so that it may come to life again.

They said remember that the kingdom of God is about all of us—poor and rich, privileged and unprivileged, powers and marginalized, believers and doubters, black and white—seeing each other as children of God, seeing each other as both gifted and broken. It is about all of us, giving and receiving and sharing together.

I remembered. I remembered that this is good news, particularly for the poor and broken. I remembered that the kingdom of God has grabbed me and continues to grab me, that this is why I believe in spite of my doubts, that I can be healed from my loneliness and my numbness and my fears, that I am not in this for a stable job but for a vision and a sacrifice and a resurrection. I remembered that joy is a fruit of the spirit.

I drove back thirty-six hours after arriving, my heart hurting from the good news and the good people and the good God. I felt crushed, wrecked for my status quo, and certain that this place will continue to draw me forth and form me. It was not the first time I have departed that place in tears of longing and belonging.

When I played the Nickel Creek one last time as I drove over the last mountain back home, I heard it differently.

Oh me of little faith. Perhaps a little is enough. Jesus said that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. He said, a mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it is planted in the ground, it grows and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and all the birds of the air nest in it.

I am embarking on a good and beautiful journey. I am ready to plant my small, sometimes-wavering, vulnerable seed of faith in the soil. I am ready for the Spirit, and the risen Christ, and my new community, to make it grow into a tree where birds will sing. 

Leaving Cherokee

I never wanted to live here. I say this with much love and gratitude and apology to the people who have accepted, guided, and known me while I have been in Cherokee this beautiful year and a half. You have sustained and cared for me this whole time, and you have made it worthwhile. But it wasn’t in my plan to move here, and Cherokee was the first place I’ve ever moved without looking forward to it.

When John first mentioned his job interview for a position here, I thought it was a terrible idea. I thought it would put pressure on our first year of marriage. It did, but it also gave us a space in which to really focus on our relationship. I thought it was the wrong job for him and not worth moving for. It was the wrong job, but while we were here he found another which led him to the perfect career. I thought I would be incredibly lonely moving somewhere I knew no one and did not understand the rural, native culture. I was, and I have misunderstood and hurt some people because of it, and I am sorry for that. But I also drained away my city-life stress and ambition, and learned to listen to the birds and to write, so maybe the loneliness has had its fruit.

When John was given the official offer, I kicked and screamed and begged and asked for more time and complained to several trusted friends and mentors and appealed to my mother-in-law, pastor, anyone who might be able to talk some sense into John. I prayed and journaled profusely. Please God. Don’t make me move. Not now, not just when things are seeming to come together here in DC, not just when I feel so surrounded by love, not just when I am sensing the stirrings of a career—a calling, not just when I am going to be starting a marriage.

Despite all my begging and pleading, though, I think I knew from the moment John said he wanted to go, that we were going to go. I just needed time to accept it, to realize that I couldn’t allow myself to stand in the way of a chance for him to explore his calling.

So we moved, and at first I worked at Subway, and I felt very lonely. Then I found a job I absolutely loved (even if only part time), and slowly I began to find beauty and grace in the days as they passed, while still looking with hopeful anticipation to moving on quickly, which had been my goal from the start, because after all I knew I wanted to go to seminary at Duke.

The time is finally here. While I am itching to start my classes, and get a chance to be in ministry, and take concrete steps toward my calling, and connect with new community at Duke Divinity School, and eat Thai and Indian food, and buy organic produce—I am also surprised to find my reticence to leave.

You see, I want so badly to see my GED students through this journey, to see them pass all the tests and then give them a giant pat on the back and help them apply to college. I want to keep the habit of long runs by the creek on Saturday mornings, and then eating brunch afterwards with my running friends. I love the comfortable rhythm of socializing and introspecting, teaching and writing, that allows me to have energy to give to John and others. I have come to appreciate that my small band of friends here includes people at such different ages and life experiences, who have so generously offered me themselves. I feel something like joy in these spring blooms and the blue skies of the Smokies, and I wish I had spent more time hiking and camping and taking it all in.

I am sad to leave these things behind. I am also full of uncertainty at what is ahead.

I’m scared of re-learning and adjusting all over again with John, of new rhythms and new communities and new pressures affecting our marriage. I’m scared of the inevitable return to a busy, stressful, overexerted lifestyle, of starting all over again, of examining my faith under the microscope again, of making big decisions about our future.

And maybe I am reluctant to move forward without ever having really loved my life here—a life there were so many reasons to love—without ever really felt it was home, without having understood why I had to come here and what I was supposed to learn and whether I learned anything at all. Maybe I worry that the sometimes-aimlessness and confusion of this stint is the new standard for my life, that I have become someone who doesn’t know how to live fully and gratefully into the places and experiences in which I find myself.

I hold in my heart all of these things as I sort and pack boxes. There are days it overwhelms me.

But I believe I should act out of my love rather than my fear, which I guess means finishing well for my students, saying thank-yous and goodbyes as best I can, and trusting that the grace that has sustained me here goes on before me.

One Small Change: Encountering New Neighbors [with Addie Zierman]

I am beyond honored today to be sharing a story over at Addie Zierman's blog as a part of her series, "One Small Change." Addie is an beautiful and compassionate writer, and if you haven't been on her blog or read her critically-acclaimed 2013 book, When We Were on Fire, you are missing out!

Today I'm taking a break from the women's history month project, writing about the getting to know people who are different from me, and how it has opened up new worlds. Here's how it starts:

Photo by Paul Sableman

“We’re gonna search their bags for weapons, drugs, and secular music,” my co-counselor Tanya told me as she selected one of her Christian hip hop CDs as a welcome soundtrack. “I’ve been doing it all summer so I’ll be in the cabin unpacking their bags; you’ll be outside greeting them.”

I nodded, trying to look as unalarmed as possible. I’d elected to stay this last week of summer camp because it seemed like it would be a good experience after a summer of suburban white girls. I was nineteen, and I knew I was too quiet, introverted, and sheltered to have any idea how to relate to these urban youth who were about to pull up. I would do whatever Tanya said. She’d just arrived from an inner city kids camp, plus she was urban herself, which maybe this week was a euphemism for black.

A few minutes later, the first van pulled in. I threw on a polka-dot dress and a purple wig and started jumping up and down, plastering a smile onto my face and opening my arms to these children from Richmond and DC and Pittsburgh, these children who’d seen more violence and discrimination and poverty in their lives than I’d ever seen on TV...

Read the rest over at Addie's blog.

Honoring women's stories

Photo by Erik Soderstrom

In high school I used to long for summer, which was the time when I would get my fill of deep conversation to last me the year. At camp, late at night we would lie in a starry field or huddle onto a couple bunk beds or poke at the embers of a campfire, and girls would share their stories.

I have never stopped cherishing the vulnerable, real-life, honest, messy-beautiful stories of women and their journeys.

March is women’s history month, and it is a good time to tell stories. I have begun to write about a few women whose lives have been compelling, whose stories have stayed with me.

My intentions and hopes for this project are twofold:

First, I just want to honor the stories and the lives of these women—their strength, resilience, inner beauty. Some have faced great challenges. Some have been pillars for their families or communities. All of their stories are important, worth telling.

Second, in some of the stories, I want to draw attention to different issues that women face all over the world. I said in January that I wanted to write more about others, and that I wanted to take this year to revisit the global justice issues that I once actively cared so much about.

But here’s the exciting part: I would love your help. Maybe you know someone who deserves to have her story told. Maybe you can help us share in the wisdom that comes from hearing people’s stories. Maybe you are a woman with your own story to tell. It is more than just catastrophe and dramatic recovery that make our stories matter, so feel free to think outside the box. What story has captured your heart?

If you have something you’d like to share as a part of the project, please send me an email at katiemurchisonross at gmail dot com. I’d like to have your written story by Wed, March 12, but if you think you might want to contribute, send me a message as soon as possible, letting me know you are working on something.