Nothing to do with food

No Food. Just a story, an organization I happened upon in early morning surfing. (I am telling you -- Yahoo! Headlines are the greatest...)

I hope I am not violating any copyright by putting this here. But really, it is an amazing way to think about dealing with this. The organization is called To Write Love on her Arms, and the website is www.twloha.com. It may just be worth the vote for the $1M from Chase.

So Here it is:


To Write Love On Her Arms
Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."

I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.

Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.

She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.

The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.

She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.

I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes

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Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.

She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies.

On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.

Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.

After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.

She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.

As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."

I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.

We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.

We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.

I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.

Conversation with a 10 Year Old

So I had the unique opportunity to spend some time with my charming 10 year old on Sunday, without any static from other siblings. The time was driven by his pressing need for new shoes, (which was successeful, after several stores... I am glad to say that he now has shoes that are "cooler than Evan's!", and since I was able to use a $50 gift card I have been carrying around for 4 months, we were both happy.)

Anyway, we also went to a grocery store. I went to meijer, since a friend told me meijer is good about getting Michigan food all year long. I wasn't actually successful in finding a variety of Michigan foods, but since we had already been out for 4 hours, I didn't exactly search either. My son and I did, however, converse about why I was looking for Michigan foods and he had fun looking at all of the stickers giving the origin of the fruits and vegetables. "Wow, Mexico must be busy, Mom!" Yeah, no kidding... But we talked about knowing the farmers, or at least knowing they were close by, and how that helped us to cut environmental costs from all of the extra travel, and to know what was used on the food... I told him how Martha Stewart said that pesticides can soak into certain foods, all the way into the pit (peaches), so there is no way you could wash it off!

He was hugely receptive to the idea. He didn't care what he ate, and figured it might as well come from Michigan. We did carve out an exception, though, for the fun fruits they had -- we spent the longest examining the kumkwats, prickly pears, and our favorite, the pearosaurus (no, I am not inventing that name!) In the end, though, we only bought a starfruit... while not grown in Michigan, it was still the only one from the USA.

Food... the universal, ageless topic of interest.

I love Martha

It is true. I love Martha Stewart. I always have... And I can't really explain why. Perhaps it is because she is so earnest in her endeavor to spend countless hours on items I would just as soon buy at Target. Or maybe, just maybe, it is because she loves to learn. Her show is always a sort of grown up version of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, which, in my early elementary childhood, was my favorite show on TV. (I remember the first, and maybe even only, time I tried to pretend I was sick so I didn't have to go to school - the ruse was entirely concocted because I wanted to see the continuation of the story in the Land of Make Believe!) Anyway, I appreciate how Martha always seeks to learn about the things that interest her -- she liked a cranberry tart she made (from scratch -- no store bought pie crust there!), and so she decided to take her show to Maine to see the life cycle of a cranberry, complete with diving (well, wading) into the cranberry farms. No, this does not affect me at all - I only like cranberries mixed with oranges and a pound of sugar - but those cranberry bogs are fascinating!

On another blog I will share how she actually helped me to retain my sanity. No, that is not an exaggeration. I think I may owe my life to the woman. But I am quickly realizing that in this text and twitter age where every communication must be 160 characters or less, blogs should be something less than a dissertation. So onward to my point:

http://www.wholeliving.com/article/fresh-thinking-how-to-shop-for-fruits-and-vegetables?page=1

http://foodnews.org/EWG-shoppers-guide-download-final.pdf

Martha has a great article, available on her website, on "food values" (for the lack of a better term). She even cites Barbara's book in it, and calls her a "Locavore", which I have now committed to my vocabulary. (She goes on to admit, though, that the upper Midwest may not be the greatest area to start such a project...)

But also very informative is her list (the 2nd link) of "The Dirty Dozen" and "The Clean 15" -- fruits and vegetable the most, and least, susceptible to pesticides. Sadly, it seems as if all of Michigan's fruits are in the dirty dozen, but again, I will revisit that after Barbara convinces me I should know each farmer that grows my food...

So until later... :)

Some initial thoughts...

OK. Aside from the challenge that I did not declare but am accepting and furthering, I had a small amount of time today, squashed between making truffles (yes, chocolate! I certainly hope chocolate is never villified...) with three of the kids and hearing screaming lyrics from "Jesus Christ, Superstar" (C's new music obsession) in which I had the opportunity to read a few pages.

I have noticed similarities between myself and Barbara:

• I tend to think globally. I see Las Vegas and I can't help but think what a waste in the extravagance. She drinks water and can't help but think she has no birthright to be further robbing the land of its water with her transplanted family. I like that.
• I like the idea of living simply, rurally - I have often dreamed of living at our cottage for the summer, washing clothes in a tub (the kids wear bathing suits the whole time anyway)...
• I want to grow vegetables -- remember I asked for the garden for mother's day, envisioning tomatoes, cucumbers, onions... (apparently, had it come to fruition, I would have had a plethora of salsa)

Key differences:

• I NEVER HAVE. Every year since the beginning of her marriage she returned to the Appalacian property (granted, more as a compromise for her husband). She somehow managed to truncate her daughters' lives so that they had no activities that spilled over into the summer. Is that easier with girls? My boys have baseball through July then football starts first week of August. How to avoid that? Not have them do it, I suppose. Hmmm. Don't think they or their father would go along with that.
• Which leads to the second key difference: BOTH partners, wife and husband, seem in each's own way dedicated to an organic way of living individually, so working out the details together does not seem so mind-blowing. Although picking up and moving permanently across the country is always big. I am not underestimating that. But it seems the last step in a series of joint realizations for which they were searching together. I would not say Don and I are dedicated to organic living, although I would like to think that we are environmentally responsible.
• I am sensing that we may vote differently. Enough said. (But I do not hold it against her).

I did really like the husband's note -- just one dinner a week could drastically change the petroleum cost of food. One dinner a week, by local (organic?) producers. That goes along with my goal of $30 /week Michigan products (although I have a sense that my "Michigan products" is slightly more generous than local organic food. Same general principle, though.

There you go -- I will hopefully read and write more tomorrow. Talk to you then :)

December 28, 2009

So my sister had an epiphany which changed her life sometime during the past year. Enough that it became her theme for all Christmas gifts. And I still don't understand the true depth, because, although some of the results were evident, she gave us all books to explain the meaning. At some point here I should mention the toppic of the epiphany, but perhaps it is obvious by the title of the blog: food. More specifically, something about how the food we eat affects ourselves on both a molecular and a global level. I can only get that far since I haven't read the books yet. But I can say that it has inspired her to cook more than I think she has in her entire life, being the middle child who then ventured to Manhattan.... and that in itself is a good thing.

So the book I received is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year in Food Life by Barbara Kingslover. In her note, my sister Joc noted that not only did this very book change the way she thought about food, but it changed the way she acted. A book like that is bound to make me think. So in response, here is this blog.

Anyway, I am writing this for you, Joc. Because we don't talk as much as we could. And this way you can get my reactions as I read and learn.

But if this is any sort of omen, the first page I flipped open was talking about the evils of bananas. Can bananas really be evil? I wonder. Bananas saved my life once. Ok, that might be a tad melodramatic, but I have heard Dad tell the story of when, as a toddler, I was imprisoned in the hospital with TUBERCULOSIS and refused to eat anything but mashed bananas. What does that say? And even though you told me the author has a whole section on making concessions, the very first page of the book - the very first paragraph, an excerpt from the book review in the Washington Post, says "you may never be able to eat a (fossil fuel-chomping) banana again." ?!?!?!

Do I dare go forward with this venture???