As most of you know by now, LightGirl has been playing hockey since she was 12. To say she loves it is an understatement. If more than 7 days go by in a row in which she is not on the ice, she starts to get a little wiggy.
This year she is playing for a competitive travel team (Tier 1). The coach gave a version of the following to the team parents in a meeting back in June:
“We are a competitive team for this area. But there are a lot stronger teams out there. Put it this way … there are approximately 200 D1 (NCAA top level) scholarships for women hockey players. Of those 200, all but 11 of them usually go to Canadian women. The remaining 11 are spread out amongst all US women hockey players. We are going to play hard and practice hard, but if you really think your daughter is a serious candidate for one of those 11 scholarships, you are in the wrong program. “
My husband told me about this the other day as I wasn’t at the meeting. And I thought about it for a while. He’s right about this program … it’s a good one, but there are many others that are out there and girls who are going to go to a top-rated hockey college will be playing for those other programs … not here in Northern Virginia. He will push this team to do their best, but ultimately, any success these girls accomplish will not be here, but will be because of the lessons they’ve learned here … on the ice. And that’s a good thing.
I thought about this for a while and let it percolate as I thought about the church and the damaging, hurtful ideas I see out there being promoted by people who claim the name of Christ.
I thought to myself that it’s extremely unfortunate that the church does not have anyone from the outside that will be heard to say, “If you think you’re special enough to speak judgement into this or that situation, you’re in the wrong program.” You’re in the wrong place to be making statements about God and what S/He wants or will do or … anything. You … We don’t have the knowledge necessary to make those judgements. We don’t have anyone who can intrude on all the righteousness and self-righteousness to say, “Wait a minute. Stop and think about who you are and what needs to happen here.” What are the real measures of success? And are we chasing the wrong rabbit?
I need to say something about this Chik-fil-a kerfuffle. I’ve been trying to stay quiet on the subject. I’ve read some pros and cons and seen how this whole discussion is painful to many on both sides of the equation.
Here’s the thing …
Chik-fil-a owner, Dan Cathy, acknowledged that it is (or has) given millions in corporate profits to an organization that was formally given the status of “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (which knows about such things).
This has actually been going on for quite some time and we in the Light Family have limited our consumption of Chik-fil-a to just about nothing for well over a year because of it. This, despite the fact there are many menu items that I love.
I recognize that as a privately held company, Mr. Cathy has the right to do whatever he wants with the profits. That’s his free speech right.
I (as an aware shopper) have the right to spend my money in establishments which are at least somewhat values neutral (as much as we can find, in any case). That’s my right to free speech.
And that is where the controversy should begin and end.
To Christians who support Mr. Cathy and Chik-fil-a … my decision about whether or not to have lunch in that establishment is decidedly NOT an infringement of Mr. Cathy’s rights in any way, shape or form. I am exercising my own rights. The same rights that Mr. Cathy exercised when he made his statement.
I think it is intellectually dishonest to stomp and scream about boycotters being bullies and trying to infringe on the rights of others. Especially when, as a community, the Christian sub-culture perfected the fine art of boycotting organizations with which they did not agree. Many times that disagreement was even based on false information (see Johnson & Johnson boycott). That false information was circulated for years, decades, and many Christians are still boycotting Johnson & Johnson … for MORAL reasons. The boycott of CFA has been undertaken for MORAL reasons. The rest of the world continues about their business. If people don’t want to purchase certain items (whether its baby shampoo or a chicken sandwich) because it goes against their standards, those people have that right. They also have the right to publicize their thoughts on the matter. Neither action makes a person a bully or a bigot.
Know this … purchasing chicken sandwiches and those incredibly yummy waffle fries is not going to establish your bona fides as a social conservative OR a Christian.
Not purchasing chicken sandwiches and those incredibly yummy waffle fries is not going to establish your bona fides as a social liberal OR a Christian.
All it says is that you got caught up in a media whirlwind over fried chicken. The question you might want to ask yourself is why does the media keep doing this? What master does it serve to have people arguing over chicken?? Or whatever else is the trivia of the day?
This post is part of the April Synchroblog – What If The Resurrection Was A Hoax? Examining faith in light of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Do you ever think about life (or some part of it) without basic assumptions in place? What would life be like if …. ? I do that with some regularity. It’s a long held habit. I remember my mother saying to me, “I’m not playing the ‘What if’ game with you anymore,” in sheer frustration over the questions I was peppering her with. So this month’s synchroblog seemed a natural for me … what if the Resurrection was a hoax?
When I was young in the faith, I heard a number of men in various formats and venues arguing the reality of the Resurrection. They made arguments such a Chuck Colson’s; a man will not die for a lie and 12 men will not die for that lie. He based his argument on the response of the co-conspirators in Nixon’s Watergate crisis. It’s a valid argument and has some basis in human nature. But I always wondered why these impassioned arguments mattered. They were fun to listen to because I love a good, well-reasoned argument, but from my very limited perspective it always seemed that the Resurrection of Jesus was a matter of faith – “1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.” (Hebrews 11:1-2)
Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance of what we do not see.
I’ve held on to that definition for a long time. And when I read another recent article about faith some things clicked into place.
Thomas Jefferson is held as an icon of American spirit. He had a firm hand in writing many of our founding documents. He was an early ambassador and third president. He is at the front of many lists about our nation’s founding. Among his things was eventually found a Bible with the New Testament heavily edited with a razor. He cut out all of the stuff that did not come straight from Jesus. A modern wordsmith, using a razor in place of our cut and paste system, he wanted to know if the teachings of Jesus could stand on their own without the miracles and other “distractions.” His conclusion was that it could. That Jesus’ teachings were in and of themselves a divine miracle. And that following them would take divine inspiration for giving up the trappings of this world (power, wealth, fame) in hopes of the next.
Andrew Sullivan, writing for The Daily Beast, describes it:
Jefferson feared that the alternative to a Christianity founded on “internal persuasion” was a revival of the brutal, bloody wars of religion that America was founded to escape. And what he grasped in his sacrilegious mutilation of a sacred text was the core simplicity of Jesus’ message of renunciation. He believed that stripped of the doctrines of the Incarnation, Resurrection, and the various miracles, the message of Jesus was the deepest miracle. And that it was radically simple. It was explained in stories, parables, and metaphors—not theological doctrines of immense complexity. It was proven by his willingness to submit himself to an unjustified execution. The cross itself was not the point; nor was the intense physical suffering he endured. The point was how he conducted himself through it all—calm, loving, accepting, radically surrendering even the basic control of his own body and telling us that this was what it means to truly transcend our world and be with God. Jesus, like Francis, was a homeless person, as were his closest followers. He possessed nothing—and thereby everything.
So when I come down to the bottom of everything, I come to this. Jesus embodied love to the point of death. His Resurrection (and Incarnation) are necessary to the holistic theology of Jesus. But these miracles do not inform how we should live. They are celebrated as part and parcel of our theology, but how we live our daily lives in a reflection of the Love Divine becomes the path through which we realize God’s Kingdom come and His will be done … here on earth (as it is in heaven).
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This is a Synchroblog post … the following people also made outstanding contributions to thinking about Christian life without the Resurrection.
OxFam International Women's Day
International Women’s Day is every March 8. It falls within the month of March, a month designated as Women’s History Month. It’s a day celebrating women and their contributions to our world … and yet. And yet, I feel like a stranger in a strange land. I am not comfortable with this feeling and I am angry about its sources.
I am angry because I have a daughter who sits at the edge of adulthood and everything that I know about how to keep her healthy and living up to her potential as a human being is under assault here in my own country.
It is well known world wide, that the primary stumbling block to women’s voices coming to the table is lack of adequate family planning. The inability to have even modest control over the number of children/pregnancies is an insurmountable hurdle to education, to all but the most menial jobs, and access to government.
How on earth should I celebrate when here in my own country access to family planning and women’s health care are under assault from nearly every corner. Poor women with 3, 4 and 5 children in Texas are finding their options driven further and further afield (as of this writing, funding has been cut for 90% of Texas’ women’s health care programming) These women often do not have the ability to drive from one city to another in search of preventative medicine that is affordable. Because of federal cut backs their oral contraceptives are being priced out of their reach. These are married women, struggling to feed, clothe and house the children they already have. The jobs they and their spouses have are inadequate to pay for them to have a car, or reliable transportation between cities. This is under the guise of refusing to subsidize abortions.
Federal money does not now and it never has subsidized abortion. There is no insurance policy which covers it.
This fact while true, does not in fact, make providing an abortion illegal. Nor does it give any governmental agency the right to put women’s health or their health care decisions at risk. While the number of abortions that Planned Parenthood “provides” in any given year is high, it still only accounts for a little more than a quarter of all abortions performed nation wide (~27% of the approximately 1.2 million abortions were performed by PP in 2007). It’s not an insignificant statistic, but it does show that (if you’re opposed to allowing women to make their own decisions) PP is not “the root of all evil.” What it does show is that even in the absence of PP, women are going to avail themselves of a legal, medical procedure.
Every reliable study ever done shows a strong correlation between access to health care & education and women being able to care for themselves (and their families) in an economically viable fashion. Removing access to health care for poor women is one more brick in the wall enclosing them in their poverty. Doing it under the guise of loving children is hypocrisy. The best way to love children is to stop demonizing their mothers, and give them healthy mothers who can provide for them.
This post is part of the March Syncroblog – All About Eve. Check out some of the other fabulous writing at the links below:
Michelle Morr Krabill – Why I Love Being a Woman Marta Layton – The War on Terror and the War on Women Ellen Haroutounian – March Synchroblog – All About Eve Jeremy Myers – Women Must Lead the Church Carol Kuniholm – Rethinking Hupotasso Wendy McCaig – Fear Letting Junia Fly Tammy Carter – Pat Summit: Changing the Game & Changing the World Jeanette Altes – On Being Female kathy escobar – replacing the f-word with the d-word (no not those ones) Melody Hanson – Call Me Crazy, But I Talk To Jesus Too Glenn Hager – Walked Into A Bar Steve Hayes – St. Christina of Persi Leah Sophia – March Syncroblog-All About Eve Liz Dyer – The Problem Is Not That I See Sexism Everywhere… Sonja Andrews – International Women’s Day Sonnie Swenston-Forbes – The WomenChristine Sine – It All Begins With Love K.W. Leslie – Undoing the Subordination of Women Carie Good – The Math of Mr. Cardinal Dan Brennan – Ten Women I Want To Honor
So one night a couple months ago a friend asked me this question: “You have have been pregnant and had kids. At what point during your pregnancies were the children you carried your children? I mean, when did you consider them life? (not trying to start an argument, just trying to understand is all)”
She asked me in a chat window and made reference to something I posted on FaceBook concerning the beginning of life. I am ashamed to say that I did not answer her right away and I went off-line. It was not the kind of question I felt I could answer in a chat window. I wanted to take my time working through a lot of angry thoughts I was having about the state of affairs in our country concerning women, pregnancy and the beginning of life right now. I did not want to dump those on to my friend. I needed to let the question percolate and I wanted to write about my thoughts more fully here.
My friend is correct, as all of you know, I have two children (the LightChildren). But I’ve had four pregnancies. Two pregnancies ended as live births and two ended as abortions. One abortion was caused by medical professionals, one was caused by nature’s capriciousness. Both of those pregnancies ended at about the same point – between 9 and 10 weeks. You see, a miscarriage is medically classified as an “abortion.” I didn’t know that until I read my chart in the emergency room. I grieved after both pregnancies ended. I was sad. I was much sadder after the second (a planned pregnancy) than after the first (unplanned). After the second I also felt a crushing sense of guilt because the thought occurred to me that the justice of a God who required an eye for an eye might have taken the second pregnancy in payment for the first. I now recognize that this is not true.
So I began to think (after my friend posed her question) what was it that I was grieving? Why was I sad at the end of those pregnancies? When did I feel that my children’s lives began?
My best answer to that is … I don’t know when I actually considered my children to be alive and embodied with who they are (their soul, for lack of a better term). It might have been when I first felt them move. I know that when those two pregnancies ended I was not grieving actual people. I was grieving dreams, potentials, wishes and hopes. Far more were shattered when the second one ended capriciously than when the first ended as a planned event. But even though I and LightHusband knew that first pregnancy had to end (for reasons far too complex to write about here), it was not something we did lightly or without sober thought. Given the circumstances surrounding that pregnancy and the context we were in, I believe I would do it again. My sense of loss and failure were the tightly woven warp amongst the weft of self-preservation, ability, and meeting expectations.
I know that for every reason given by every mother who makes that Hobbesian choice, there is a person out there who can counter with a Tebow like story of transcendent victory over obstacles with God’s grace or the assistance of some other natural intervention. Yet there are an equal number of stories of children born into oblivion. Mothers who have multiple children in their teens, but only one (if any) is given up for adoption. The cycle of poverty, ignorance and misery is visited upon another generation. For them the American dream is a nightmare of squalor, dependence, and terrible options.
We sit at a crossroads in our country right now. No one is comfortable here and a lot of vitriol is being thrown around in attempts to regain comfort levels and upper hands. People who support the right of a woman to be in control of her body and pregnancies are called by various factions, “Pro-choice” and “Pro-abortion.” People who support the right of the fetus to exist to the limits of it’s potential are called variously, “Pro-life” and “Pro-fetus” or “Anti-Choice”. The problem is that none of those labels are adequate. People who support the right of a woman to be in control of her body are not running around promoting abortion (despite what anyone says). I have yet to meet a single person who thinks it’s even a mediocre idea; it’s not a choice that anyone wants. Believe me. So saying that one is in favor of a choice you never want to make is like saying you love blood ice cream. Gross. What women are really saying is that they want freedom (and I’m going to get back to that in a minute). On the flip side of the coin, those who support the existence of the fetus are not truly pro-life. There are a few in that set of people who take on what might be called a consistent ethic of life positions (that is, they also reject war, death penalty, etc.) and thus are truly PRO-life. However, most of the speaking on behalf of the fetus/baby has been just that … simply get the child born. Once born (since the pro-life movement is primarily conservative) there is not very much support for it’s life after that should s/he be born into an impoverished family.
Boiled down, we have an impasse between mother and fetus. What a terrible crossroads to be at … pitting mother against pre-child? One set of people proposes that the mother’s rights are paramount. The other side proposes that the fetuses rights are paramount. Yet both sets of rights must inhabit the same body. Both sets of rights (if we are going to grant rights to a fetus, and I am not certain that we should) may not be compatible with one another.
How have we gotten to this impasse? Well, it’s been a twisty, windy road. But I’ve lived through some of it. So I’ll describe some of the view from my perspective. Just as we’ve reached an impasse between mother and pre-child, we are also coming to an impasse between reason/science and faith.
Reason and science teach us many things about the pre-child. But they cannot teach us when a child is given its soul; that breath of being that brings a sparkle to each of our eyes. We know that a fetal monitor can find a heart beat at 8 weeks. That at 12 weeks s/he is growing fingernails. At 24 weeks a pre-child is considered “viable.” Viable means that doctors and medical personnel can keep it alive outside the womb with costly medical equipment. Whether or not the child will suffer permanent loss of different abilities (both physical and mental) as a result of these heroics seems to be capricious. And when I looked up fetal development here is what I found for 25 weeks –
Based on this, a baby born at 24 weeks would not have a spinal structure, nor blood vessels in the lungs and no swallowing reflexes!! Getting a baby to survive under those circumstances is a miracle! Some of them thrive. But does a tiny baby born at 24 weeks have a soul? Or is it a fetus outside the womb? How would we know?
I have seen in the papers (read that on-line media) that politicians in various places want to introduce legislation that prohibit abortion … even in the case of incest and rape and even when the abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the mother. I read those articles with a sense of awe and bewilderment. Awe that someone could be so wed to their principle that they don’t see the human face on it. Bewildered at the lack of understanding and the lack of nuance. Somehow it doesn’t make sense to sacrifice the mother for the baby. No, what doesn’t make sense is that the sacrifice would be codified into law. There are some families who might choose that sacrifice, but it should never be forced on anyone. Nor should the bearing of a child as the result of a rape or (worse) incest be forced on a woman or young girl. Should she decide to make that sacrifice, wonderful! Let’s embrace that and applaud it. But don’t make it a law, molesting women a second time.
We, as a culture, are in a place where science has outstripped our ability to make decisions. 50 years ago, women very often didn’t know they were pregnant until enough time had passed that abortion was not even an option. Now we have the ability to know within hours of conception. The language we use surrounding pregnancy has become dystopian in many ways. I believe this is an attempt to relieve some of the pressure that has built up around pregnancies and our choices concerning them. What are the ethics of competing rights inhabiting one body? How do we choose which rights are paramount? Some would say faith points the way, others say science. I think that both carry inherent flaws and strengths that need to be explored. But that is for another post. Hopefully later this week.
I may or may not have mentioned it here before but I regularly take some medication that requires the oversight of a psychiatrist. Mostly this is because I also take some meds for my seizure disorder and it’s good to have someone in charge of all brain medication who knows what they do. This is the theory anyway.
In any case, I was meeting with my psychiatrist the other day in order to check on all my meds and how I’m doing and I told her that I’m feeling very unfocused. It’s something I have been struggling with for several years now, but lately it’s been almost overwhelming. She asked me a couple of pointed questions about current events in my life and pointed out what some side effects were for some of the seizure meds I take and said, “I don’t think you’re unfocused. I think you’re distracted by what’s going on with you.”
Um. Really. So what’s the difference? It made sense when she said it, now I’m wondering.
Diversion – 1. the act of diverting from a specified course 2. ( Brit ) an official detour used by traffic when a main route is closed 3. something that distracts from business, etc; amusement 4. (military) a feint attack designed to draw an enemy away from the main attack
Distraction – 1. the act or an instance of distracting or the state of being distracted 2. something that serves as a diversion or entertainment 3. an interruption; an obstacle to concentration 4. mental turmoil or madness
Sooo … it looks to me as though being unfocused (or diverted) is makes me the subject of my own sentence. But being distracted makes me the object. Or is it vice versa? I’m not sure … but I think that’s the difference between the two. I don’t think knowing which is which really matters either. I just needed to know what was what.
There was an ad campaign for something (I can’t remember what) not too long ago that went, “Life is messy. Clean it up.” For the record, all the ads for cleaning products bug me. More than that, they piss me off. Who can live in those pristine houses? Life IS messy. It’s gross and kind of disgusting down here in the trenches of our own stuff. I’m not so sure we should clean it up. I wonder about that sometimes.
Do you wonder about that? Is just cleaning it up a distraction? Or a diversion? What if what we are supposed to do is get rid of that stuff? What if we are supposed to make it new again? Redeem it or reconcile it and by swiping it with some magic eraser, we’re diverting our attention to something else? Have we got “stuff” in our lives that is like that old family room carpet. It’s old and grungy because it’s in the most used room in the home. People are always in and out and yes, they eat in there. Yes, they eat dinner in front of the television on more occasions than any of us would like to admit. And popcorn during movies and sporting events. And snacks at other odd times. So there are probably bits of food ground in there somewhere. Years worth of pets and children going in and out the back door have ground in bits of mud and grass and heaven-knows-what. This carpet has seen better days. We keep vacuuming it and occasionally cleaning it because we know that replacing it is going to be time consuming and expensive. Eventually we won’t be able to avoid that time and expense, but for now we get by.
We all have stuff in our lives that is deeply ground in, musty and yucky that needs to be replaced with good new and clean stuff. We want to get at it. We know we’ll be better off for it, healthier, more well-rounded, and we might even like ourselves better. But … there it is. It’s going to be time consuming and expensive. I don’t mean money. I mean it’s going to be hard. It might hurt. It might cost us some friends. It might cost us some intangible things that we don’t even imagine when we set out on that journey. We know that … somewhere in the remote places of our hearts. So we divert and distract by vacuuming and dusting and saying it’s okay for now. It’s really okay. I’ll get to that later.
Life is messy. I don’t want to clean it up. I want to embrace the mess and understand it. I want to own it and then. I want to redeem it. But I don’t want to just clean it up with a whitewash of pretty paint. Because that’s just a mask and I’m done with that now.
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This post is part of October’s Synchroblog – Down We Go. You can read other, insightful, posts at these links:
If I say it’s been rollercoaster summer here in the LightHouse will any of you out there in teh webz accuse me of sounding like a broken record?
I thought you might. Sigh. It has though. We’ve had some awesome highs … and some bummer lows. Most recently that has included watching our beloved home state of Vermont wash away in a flood of epic proportions. Our families are safe, but some members are struggling through. It’s hard to see places you grew up with washed away and know how terribly that will affect the people who live there.
So I’ve been seeking balance as the new school year approaches. I’m not a huge fan of rollercoasters. I can be persuaded to take my life in my hands and get on an old woodie once every ten years or so. But I don’t particularly care for those huge highs and gut-busting lows. I like balance. I understand that it’s elusive, but I also know that in seeking it, I will find other interesting, appealing and engrossing things with which to engage my mind and time.
One of the ways I do this is by following creative blogs. Some are devoted to art. Others are devoted to quilting. Still others are devoted to sewing. And others are a mix of everything. One of those blogs threw out a challenge the other day and it got me rolling in a way I haven’t for a long time. The Coletterie issued a Fall Palette Challenge … create a color palette at ColourLovers and use that palette to sew one or more items of clothing for one’s fall wardrobe.
Sooo … I began by creating a palette –
I want to restrict my sewing (and any purchases I might make) to these colors. Inspiration for this palette came from a tea towel that BlazingEwe gave me one day. That beautiful magenta-y/plum is in the towel and I built this palette around that.
Then I discovered the engrossing wonders of building patterns at ColourLovers.
I spent hours. H O U R S playing with patterns and color at ColourLovers one day. I made my own pattern template. I played with templates of other people. What fun that is. It’s coloring for grown-ups. When you’ve made something you really like and you love fabric (like … ahem … me), you can transfer your design to Spoonflower and have your design printed on fabric and really make something that you truly designed yourself. I am utterly fascinated by this.
Here are a couple of patterns I’m thinking of having made into fabric –
All of which brings me to this … my mood board for the challenge. I’m going to commit to making one of the three items on this board, not sure which one yet. I might go so far as to make all three. But I’m gonna make one for sure. I think I’m even going to post my progress and photos here. Don’t worry. I’m still going to post my rantings and ravings about politics, church, human nature and all that other good stuff I like to write about. But I want this blog to be more reflective of who I am. And I am a mix of a lot of things … and mostly, I’m not a guy, so I find it really hard to keep all my stuff separate on separate blogs. So … here’s my mood board:
I think I’ll likely be starting with the blouse, since I purchased some very yummy purple poplin last night. The patterns are on sale this weekend, and I’ll have the chance to get them and begin the process then. In the meantime, I have quilts that are humming along and school to teach with my kiddos. Balance is somewhere nearby … but in the meantime, we are engaged, thoughtful and happy. Life is good!
My first real job when I graduated from college was working as a secretary in the new construction division of a construction company. Suffice it to say that I was a huge pain in the ass. Huge.
I could type. 60 words per minute. On a really, really good day. I could answer the phone, but when those construction foremen got mouthy with me, I got mouthy back. It did not end well. I could do dictation tapes, if you gave me a really, really long time. The first one I did I had to slow down so much that I thought I was typing for an old man. Imagine my surprise when I handed my work to a handsome young man about 3 years older than I. I believe I blushed to the roots of my hair and he walked away shaking his head at the new bumbling idiot he had to work with. We eventually became very good co-workers, but those first weeks were very bumpy. One of my tasks was to clean the office kitchen each day. The first afternoon, I ran the dishwasher. I had never before in my life encountered a dishwasher, although I knew about them. I just never ran one on my own before and so at the ripe old age of 22 did not know that there was a key difference between dishwasher detergent and dishwashing liquid. I thought they were interchangeable. Not knowing or caring about the difference, I put dishwashing liquid in the dispenser, turned the machine on and walked out.
That was when I learned to know and care about the difference.
Shortly after I was hired a decision was made streamline the contracting process. This meant that the office was going to get …
(insert drum roll here)
… a desktop computer!
All of our data had to be input. This was a mysterious process involving … you know? I can’t remember what it involved. I just remember that it was a lengthy, cumbersome process that involved a nightly back up of the enormous processor with floppy disks the size of elephant ears. I am
Not.
Kidding.
It took two hands for me to hold those suckers and put them into the machine every night. Every. Single. Night. Plus there was some sort of extended back up process that had to be done on a weekly basis. It drove me nuts. That was my first foray into the jungle of computers. It was cutting edge, I tell you.
The larger problem was inputting all of the data. That took an enormous amount of dedicated time. Because while technically the computer was a desktop computer, it was not actually “at” anyone’s desk. And each of the secretarys (I think there were 3 or 4 of us) had ongoing work to do each day that superseded the data input. In short order, a decision was made that some office temporaries would be hired to enter the data into the computer. So it was. That is when the problems began. This was not difficult work, but it did require a little bit of training and then some oversight to ensure that it was being done correctly. Not a lot … just a little. So we needed one or two people who would commit to doing this for maybe one or two weeks. I think we saw new people every other day. It was sooo not worth it. We (I) spent more time training new people than I might have if I’d just been allowed to do the input myself. They would show up late or not at all. They would disappear during their lunch break and not return til the next day, if ever. We’d show them what to do and work with them on how to do it and the work would be sloppy, incomplete and unacceptable unless someone was standing over them. Very often the young women were not dressed appropriately for working in an office. Their fashion choices would be more appropriate for an evening at a club. It was very frustrating for everyone concerned. We were frustrated because our work was not getting done. But the women coming in and attempting to work with/for us were also clearly frustrated. Everyone was perplexed and confused by the apparent miscommunication of expectations.
Fast forward a few years and I decided to pursue a masters degree in education. While I was doing that, it seemed like a good idea to work as a temporary office worker so that I would be able to concentrate on my school work when I needed to. It wasn’t a big deal at all. I applied to a temp firm and started getting assignments. Within a few weeks, I was a superstar. It was the strangest position I’d ever been in. All it took to be a superstar was showing up every day and being kind. I got to pick my assignments each week and always got the best places. The ironic thing was that my skill set was mediocre at best, although I did have a good handle on software. And in the midst of my classwork and working each day I began to wonder about this incongruous state of affairs.
I’ve spent a lot time in the intervening years wondering about that. Studying demographic trends and trying to figure out why it was that I became successful with mediocre skills and many others couldn’t make it with stellar skills. What did I have that they did not? I don’t know that I have any answers yet, but I do have some clues. Some of them can be found in the world around us and some of them date back to the days that formed our country.
It’s very popular and somewhat easy to condemn those who receive public assistance as lazy, stupid, irresponsible, and self-indulgent on the public’s dime. I’ve lived in less desirable neighborhoods, been on public assistance myself for a short period and spent my time volunteering among those in need with Project Angel Tree. My experiences are not vast by any stretch of the imagination, but they are enough for me to say that I haven’t met any one who was lazy or stupid or irresponsible or self-indulgent. I met a lot of people along the way who were struggling along with enormous burdens on their backs. Being poor is hard work. Stretching a dollar to cover $5 or $10 is just as hard as being a CEO and requires a great deal of creativity. When you’re struggling along with a huge boulder on your back, it’s a lot easier to stumble and fall. It’s a lot easier to make mistakes and lose your way because you can’t see the horizon anymore, all you can see is the next place to put your foot down. And often times you end up going in endless circles, perhaps even circling the toilet. It’s very discouraging. What makes this scenario even more discouraging? All of the shiny happy people on continuous cable television telling you that the path to happiness lies in the acquisition of stuff. Adults may be able to withstand this, but children do not understand their lack in a land of plenty.
Current scientific research suggests that our brains are wired to tolerate a certain amount of decision-making in a day. When we push beyond that threshold, we experience fatigue and either make poor decisions or no decisions. Further research suggests that this phenomenon effects those with less wealth to a greater extent than those with more wealth:
Spears and other researchers argue that this sort of decision fatigue is a major — and hitherto ignored — factor in trapping people in poverty. Because their financial situation forces them to make so many trade-offs, they have less willpower to devote to school, work and other activities that might get them into the middle class. It’s hard to know exactly how important this factor is, but there’s no doubt that willpower is a special problem for poor people. Study after study has shown that low self-control correlates with low income as well as with a host of other problems, including poor achievement in school, divorce, crime, alcoholism and poor health. Lapses in self-control have led to the notion of the “undeserving poor” — epitomized by the image of the welfare mom using food stamps to buy junk food — but Spears urges sympathy for someone who makes decisions all day on a tight budget.
There’s a lot more to this idea than I have space for, so I encourage you to read this fascinating article. However, it may be that our current notion of public assistance recipients as lazy and lacking in self-control could be putting the cart before the horse! This is not to suggest that they require more money, but that they require additional support and help from those in their community. By which I mean … us.
There are issues and values that we hold both in the dominant culture and in the minority culture that are in conflict with one another. Those need to be openly and honestly discussed, wrestled with and negotiated. Electing a black president will not resolve our problems. Putting more money into public assistance programs will not resolve our problems. As I reflected on the differences between me and the women who just couldn’t seem to make things work for them I came to understand what some of our differences were. I knew how to show up on time, every day. I knew how to go to lunch and come back. I knew how to work independently and get my work done without talking on the phone or succumbing to other distractions. At first this was sort of strange to me. After all, who doesn’t understand those things? Why wouldn’t you know how to go to work every day? But what if you lived in a home where no one went to work? What if you lived in a home where there was no father? No grandfather? What if you lived in a home where there were few rules about time and showing up? If you grew up like that, would you know how to show up for a job every day? You might think you do and you might say you do, but it would be very difficult to learn that.
Now take this idea back … way back. Back to the early days of our country. We brought the ancestors of many of these people over in chains. We brought them here with an utter disregard for the long, complex and well developed culture they came from. The expectation was that their culture was to be erased with the flick of a whip and they would assimilate into ours. I know next to nothing about African history or culture; I am sadly uninformed. What I can tell you is that it was very, very different from Western European culture. The values and mores that Africans held were utterly different from ours. Brought over here to work, the motivation was fear of pain, death and familial separation.
Fear is an excellent motivator, if your goal is efficiency. However, fear can never change the human heart. It can change what a person does on the outside and to a certain extent it can change who they become, but it cannot change who they were meant to be. That indomitable part in each of us remains, passed on to our children in each generation. In large part, fear is the motivating factor for people who live in poverty … not having enough to eat, a place to live, that the home they have is safe, etc. We continue to anticipate that through fear we will dominate and assimilate these people brought to our shores through various means 300 years ago. I wonder what would happen if we decided that the modern day cultural expressions of their heritage have as much to contribute to our national conversation as the western European expression does? What if we took the blinders of our dominant culture off and truly began to explore our racist heritage? I think that part of the long-term pay-off to that would be to reduce the numbers of people who require public assistance. And what an all around victory that would be!
Part 1
Part 2
Way back in the dark ages before electricity, indoor plumbing, and television. Back when I was a young adult in the mid-1980’s … at least that’s how the LightChildren think of my early adulthood and childhood … snort. Anyway. Back in the day, my first apartment was a tiny studio in an old brownstone in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, DC. That’s a couple streets up behind the National Zoo off of Rock Creek Parkway for those of you who don’t know the DC neighborhoods. These days, Mt. Pleasant has been somewhat re-gentrified and somewhat claimed by the Hispanic wave of immigration. It’s still one of the more interesting neighborhoods in the District and fairly integrated.
The building I lived in was originally a brownstone rowhouse built sometime in the early 1900’s or late 1800’s and meant to be used as a single family domicile. It was part of a wave of development that hit the city during that time period after the Civil War and before WWI when times were good and people could afford fancy homes. In particular, they built those homes up the northwest side of the city starting with Embassy Row and heading towards what is now Chevy Chase Circle. When hard times came as they did in the 30’s and again in the 60’s with the riots, homes closer to the center of the city lost more value and were left for those who had less money. This was a common occurrence in cities across the country. During the 80’s and 90’s as wealth grew, it became common again to re-gentrify or rebuild these old neighborhoods. In other words, the white people brought their money back.
By the time I came along in early 1984 the building I would live in had been carved up into 6 apartments from its original single family rowhouse. There were 2 apartments on the top (or 3rd) floor, 2 on the middle (or 2nd) floor, 1 on the first floor and 1 in the basement. My apartment was on the second floor and looked out on the street. I had a bathroom, two enormous closets, a living area and a kitchen in which if I stretched out my arms I could touch the opposing walls on all sides. I had a tiny, antique refrigerator with an even tinier freezer than hung down into the refrigeration area and I had to defrost it once a month with my hair dryer. In order to create a counter top, I covered a 1 x 10 with some contact paper and put it on top of the radiator. It was a tiny kitchen, but just right for me. I was enormously proud of achieving that first apartment. I slept on two 3″ thick foam cot mattresses; sometimes I stacked them, other times I laid them side by side … on the floor. I had a table, two chairs, a rocking chair (which is still in my basement), a dresser (which LightGirl now has) and a desk. Everything was a hand-me-down. I purchased sheets to make curtains and a Garfield poster for the bathroom. I had a bicycle to ride to work each day. I took the bus to buy my groceries and to do my laundry.
There were 5 other apartments in our building and the people in them were as different as night and day. On the top floor was an apartment which seemed to have a revolving door and I never quite knew who was in it. The other apartment was inhabited by a slightly older man (in his 30’s) who rode an English motorcycle. He took me for a ride once and I was never sure if I was flirting with him or the idea of having a relationship with an older slightly dangerous man. The flirtation was fun, but it never went anywhere anyway. The basement had the largest apartment and it was occupied by a large Hispanic family who I worried about having enough space to sleep. There seemed to be many more people than there was enough space for beds, but they were always pleasant, kind, quiet and clean. The first floor had a slightly larger apartment than mine and it was occupied by a middle aged African-American couple who always seemed to have their eye on me … in a very good and inconspicuous way. I knew that if I was in trouble, they had my back. If I remember correctly, he was also the building superintendent and he did a good job of keeping things running smoothly.
I’d like to focus, though, on the family unit with which I shared the second floor. I didn’t know who they were for a long time. When I finally got to know them, it was quite a shock. But then I began to spend time with them on a regular basis … well … as regular as a young woman of 23 can manage. Living next door to me was a middle-aged (in her 50’s) African-American woman and her 7 year old son. I was particularly bothered by the fact that the lights were never on in that apartment. Never. The only light that ever escaped from under the door or that I could see when she opened the door, came from the cathode ray tube and it was on permanently. 24-7. An occasional ray of sunshine might sneak through the curtains which staunchly guarded the windows, but that and the television were the only available light.
As I got to know them, I began to spend time with the little boy. He was an absolute darling and I really enjoyed having him come to my place to hang out with me. He was fascinated by the fact that I did not have a television. I read books to him and we talked. Or he talked fairly non-stop and I listened. I’m not sure if I could ever have told you one word he said to me, but he had a lot of seven-year-old words to say. He was also fascinated by my coke-bottle-bottom glasses. Back in those days, I wore my contact lenses every waking moment, so he thought it great fun to prance around the house with my glasses on and be amazed by how funny the world looked to him. I know he went to school with some regularity and I remember seeing grocery bags filled with food that made me cringe. It made me cringe because the mom had very few teeth in her mouth and the food she chose was not helpful to her remaining teeth. I never quite knew what to do about that or if I should do anything. I was perplexed by the idea that a woman who was my mother’s age looked and acted older than both of my grandmothers and seemed to be less equipped to handle the world than I was.
As time went on, I discovered that the little boy had some older siblings. I can’t remember how many … maybe three? They were all around my age or a little younger; in their early 20’s. They lived in Maryland; Howard and PG County for the most part. All of them were independent and had jobs. I think at least one was engaged or married. There were girls and boys in some combination (2 of one and 1 of the other). Hey … it’s been almost 30 years and I did not know the siblings very well. As I got to know them, I became aware that it was a family fact that the little boy had been conceived out of necessity for the mom to remain on welfare. This information was not viewed in either a negative or a positive light, but merely as a fact of how their mom was getting through life. The older siblings seemed to have come to an understanding that they did not have any desire to receive public assistance or continue in that form of lifestyle. They were insistent that they would make it on their own. But they were not particularly embarrassed by their mom either. She did her thing and they did theirs.
Then one day I came home from work to find that the apartment next to mine had been emptied and the mom and little boy were gone.
The mom had died very suddenly in the night. To this day, I find that shocking and appalling. How does a 50-ish woman just die like that?? She had a 7 year old son to take care of. Not that she was doing a particularly good job of it, but he did love his mom and now she was gone. I know he went to live with one of his siblings. I always hoped that things worked out for all of them. That in her younger days, the mom had been able to give them enough starch to see that through. The little boy would be in his early 30’s by now. I’ve always hoped that those young people went on to have productive normal lives with problems which are dull and manageable (as a friend likes to say). That they managed to remain self-sufficient and healthy and to raise their little brother into that paradigm as well. I know the odds against them were long, but that’s what I hoped.
Part 3
Put me in charge . . .. Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job. Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I’d do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we’ll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get tats and piercings, then get a job. Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your “home” will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place. In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a “government” job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common good.” Before you write that I’ve violated someone’s rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules. Before you say that this would be “demeaning” and ruin their “self esteem,” consider that it wasn’t that long ago that taking someone else’s money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem. If we are expected to pay for other people’s mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices. AND While you are on Gov’t subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Gov’t welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job. Now, if you have the guts – PASS IT ON…
Put me in charge . . .. Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.
Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I’d do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we’ll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get tats and piercings, then get a job.
Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your “home” will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.
In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a “government” job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common good.”
Before you write that I’ve violated someone’s rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules. Before you say that this would be “demeaning” and ruin their “self esteem,” consider that it wasn’t that long ago that taking someone else’s money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.
If we are expected to pay for other people’s mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.
AND While you are on Gov’t subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Gov’t welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.
Now, if you have the guts – PASS IT ON…
According to an e-mail LightHusband received the above was a letter to the editor in the Waco Herald Tribune in November 2010. It’s rather blunt point is something I bet we’ve all heard and perhaps felt at one time or another in reference to what many see as the profligate waste associated with aid programs for the impoverished in our country. We all think those programs would be really easy to run. So for kicks and giggles I thought I’d respond to this letter myself. Just for fun. Here’s what I would say to this person … paragraph by paragraph. And for arguments sake, I’m going to assume that the author was a man, the writing seems very masculine to me. So I’m going to respond to a man.
Food Stamps – You’re correct, sir. Food assistance should not be allowed to purchase Ding Dongs or Ho Hos or other known unhealthy foods (such as Captain Crunch or other sugary cereal). But I also happen to think that it would be wise to include some healthy fruits and vegetables in your list of approved items for people to purchase. I have never understood why it was acceptable for the WIC (Women with Infants and Children) to have a limited number of items for purchase with their funds, but Food Stamps was a free for all. WIC money is too limited, but Food Stamps are too open. There needs to be a healthy and wise middle ground in which people learn about a healthy diet … and I’m sorry but rice, beans, cheese and milk ain’t it. Steak and frozen pizza probably isn’t it either.
There are a lot of ways to feed a family a healthy diet on a tight budget. This is going to mean educating moms and dads because they did not learn this from their parents. Education costs money, so in the short run this would make the food stamp program more expensive. In the long run (over a period of years) it would become less expensive. But we would have to be prepared to invest our time, effort and money in it to eventually wean people off of it.
Medicaid – Forced birth control, tubal ligations, drug testing etc. I think I understand the reasoning and emotion behind this. However, when the large majority of people receiving Medicaid are people with dark skin it smacks of racism and there is no getting around that. If you are poor, you cannot have children. If you are poor, your options are limited. We have an amendment in the Constitution which addresses this issue – Amendment 14; Article 1 states “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. While individual (private) companies can require drug testing for the right to employment and the federal government can require it for security purposes and has done so through the due process of law, there is no reason to require drug testing as a prerequisite for the receipt of public funds. I know that two states are currently attempting to make this law and they are on shaky Constitutional ground. In addition … there are huge costs involved with drug testing. How is this going to be paid for?
Government Housing – I completely understand the desire to tell folks who live in public housing to clean up their act. It is disgraceful the way our country has treated those housing projects. We’ve left them to rot. But have you ever gone to Home Depot and noted the cost of purchasing a basic home repair kit? When you have nothing, it’s pretty expensive. Then you have to learn how to use it. Now I do love LightHusband, but I am here to tell you that of his many talents, home repair is not one of them. He has 10 thumbs. We hire that out or we do things with friends. But what do you do when you live in an apartment building and you rent? It is common knowledge that a renter relies on the owner or the superintendent of the facility to keep the place in good repair. It is the owner’s responsibility to keep a place looking ship shape and tidy, not the renter’s. Your plan puts the onus in the wrong place. If we want our government housing projects to look like someone cares for them, then perhaps “we, the people” as owners of those public housing projects ought to start caring for them. Perhaps we need to get down off our high horse and take care of our neighbors. Maybe we could teach them some skills and give them some of our excess tools in the process.
As for the plasma televisions and gaming devices, first of all there is no way to inspect for those. Secondly, what do you do if someone receives those sorts of luxury items as a gift? Take it away? That is ludicrous to begin to monitor gifts and decide which are worthy and which are not. We will become a police state if we do that.
Job Corps – Here is something I can give marginal support to. With one large question. How sir, do you propose to care for the minor children that moms may have in their care? I can see a number of solutions to this problem, but you do not seem to have accounted for children or their wellbeing in your scheme. I wonder how you will do that? My other large problem is that what you have outlined looks more like a chain gang than a public works program. While I agree with the notion that having people work in some manner for the public assistance they receive, I also believe that the work they do should train them in some way for eventually getting off public assistance. It should be a road that leads them in a positive direction, rather than a dead end alley of endless work for endless public assistance. This just feeds the cycle that we desire to break.
Voting – Once again, I would like to refer you to the Constitution and Amendment 24 in which it states “1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.” This means that no one can ask or require that voting rights or privileges be restricted for any reason, whether “voluntary” or otherwise.
Last, I’m going to call you out, sir. You are being disingenuous when you make the claim that when you are in charge all of your changes are “voluntary.” That people have the choice to knuckle under to your demands or they can reject public assistance. In other words, it’s your way or the highway (in popular vernacular). When the alternative is starvation, homelessness and perhaps death, especially for one’s children, there’s not really much of a choice, now, is there? And I’d like to ask you, if you were that person, or those people, just how free would you think this country is?
