Invisible Line – Visible Consequences
When I was down in Mexico for a mission trip, I
remember seeing large farms of aloe being cultivated by tractors and watered by
large irrigation systems. These farms, I was told were owned by American
companies who bought the land cheap from Mexican farmers courtesy of the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to turn into mega-farming projects.
The displaced farmers went to the cities hoping to have more opportunities than
simply living off of small dusty farms, but eventually they would come back to
work on these same farms for the North American companies for minuscule wages
because the cities were overwhelmed. Such are the cycles of economic
truths which drive many to seek their dreams as immigrants – documented or
not – in the United States.
These dynamics and others divide families, nations, tribes and cultures across
an invisible line with very real consequences.
Ken Ellingwood documents some of the stories of
truth and consequences on both sides of the border in his book, Hard Line:
Life and Death on the U.S. – Mexico Border. A compelling look at the
sometimes ugly realities caused by the desperation of farmers, cities, workers
and law enforcement, this book paints a picture of how outside forces have
driven many to acts of compassion and ruthlessness outside of the law.
More than anything else, Ellingwood works to reveal the people behind the
numbers – the Native American tribal members divided between two countries,
human-rights workers
seeking to stop deaths in the desert, ranchers seeking to protect their lands,
undocumented workers and the border patrol agents all trying to keep one step
ahead of each other in an effort to live with a border none of them created.
Interested in other books on immigration?
Try these books from the United Methodist Women’s reading list: "They
Take Our Jobs!" and 20 Other Myths About Immigration by Aviva
Chomsky; Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario; Sweatshop
Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take on the Global Factory by Miriam
Ching Yoon Louie; The Other Face of America: Chronicles of the
Immigrants Shaping Our Future by Jorge Ramos; or Journey of the
Sparrows by Fran Leeper Buss.
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Living with Courage, Daring to Dream
A few days ago I
was chatting online with a young college student in Macedonia. She was not
happy with her chosen field, but felt that she had no other options.
"Here, I have no more choices," she wrote. She saw her life laid
out in stone, tracked into a career and future no longer suited to her. I
couldn’t help contrasting this with my own struggle to find a career path. In
the end, I gave up a Ph.D. degree program in Chemistry because I could no longer
see myself spending all of my time in the laboratory. Only after returning
to school did I find a talent for computer programming which lead me in a very
different direction. I felt sad for my friend, that someone so young would
be given so few choices in her life. Choice, while not always easy, is a
valuable and powerful gift for anyone willing to dream a new future and the
courage to make it happen.
Katherine Martin’s book Women of Spirit: Stories
of Courage from the Women Who Lived Them explores the different types of
courageous acts women of all places and ages make in their lives. For
some, this has been life changing decisions about work or home, but for others
it has been surviving devastations of death and loss. Some of these women
are famous like Geraldine Ferraro or Judy Collins, but many of these women have
shown courage outside of the limelight and away from the headlines. These
women have done things that others said was impossible, foolish or
unbelievable. Their stories are the stories of the possibilities within
each of us to live life fully.
Interested in other stories about courageous women?
Try some other books from the United Methodist Women’s reading list: God’s
Golden Acre: A Biography of Heather Reynolds by Dale le Vack; Leap
of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor; Standing
Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam by Asra Q.
Naomi; The Blindfold’s Eyes: My Journey From Torture To Truth by
Sister Dianna Ortiz; or The Greatest Gift: The Courageous Life and
Martyrdom of Sister Dorthy Stang by Binka Le Breton.
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Faith and Fitness
When I was in high school, I was far from the
most athletically gifted student on the planet. Physical education was the
only class my school required every student to take all four years and it was
the bane of my G.P.A. My friend Chris, another athletically challenged
student, and I decided that we should hire ourselves out as entertainment in
between sets at Wimbledon – the tennis equivalent of rodeo clowns. Years
later, however, I was persuaded to join a fitness center in order to support a
friend from church named Sandy who wanted to lose weight. Sandy decided
that the only way that she would manage to keep exercising every morning was if
she knew someone else would be there waiting for her. Eventually she
persuaded her husband to join the gym and they started going together in the
evenings. Although after that I decided that I didn’t like exercising at
a club, it was this event which persuaded me to invest in aerobics tapes and
hand weights which I could use at home. Fitness is an often overlooked
aspect of our faith covenant, but it is also an empowering part of the Christian
life.
Tom Hafer explores the power of faith to drive
healthy lifestyle changes in his book Faith & Fitness: Diet and
Exercise for a Better World. From a faith perspective, a healthy
life is one driven by love, love of the body created for us, love of our
neighbor and love for the global community. In this way what we eat
becomes not a question of a "need-to-lose-weight", but a
"need-to-feed-others". This means not only looking at the
calories and types of food we eat, but where they come from and how we effect
our environment and community by the choices we make in what we consume.
Exercise also is a part of faithfully honoring God’s creation – the human
body. Fitness is also a part of loving the community since this gives us
the ability to serve others. Filled with practical advice on making
sustainable changes in the lives of individuals, this book is ultimately about
the impact that a truly faithful life can have in the world.
Interested in other books about living more
faithfully? Try these books from the United Methodist Women’s reading
list: Living Bountifully! The Blessing of Responsible Stewardship
by Linda Hollies; What Can One Person Do? Faith to Heal a Broken World
by Sabina Alkire; and Edmund Newell; Embracing the World: Praying for
Justice and Peace by Jane E. Vannard; and, Spiritual Perspectives
on Globalization: Making Sense of Economic and Cultural Upheaval by Ira
Rifkin.
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Lasting Gifts
Every birthday and Christmas, I looked forward to the
gifts my Aunt would send me. She had no daughters of her own (only two boys) and
loved buying me "girly" gifts. I remember one year she sent me a
lovely set of silk padded hangers and sachets filled with lavender. I
would only hang my best dresses on those hangers. They seemed sophisticated and
glamorous, not part of my everyday life. Those hangers and other gifts
from my Aunt seemed to be special messages reflecting the unique places we had
in each other‘s lives.
In The Red Rose Box by Brenda Woods,
Leah Hooper receives a special gift from her Aunt Olivia. The beautiful
traveling case contains silk bedclothes, expensive soaps and other exotic items
far removed from the cotton fields and Jim Crow laws of Sulphur,
Louisiana. This special gift provides a lifeline of understanding and
transformation for Leah and her sister Ruth. The girls travel to visit
their Aunt in California with their first view of a world without segregated
beaches, bathrooms and water fountains. A special trip to New York,
however, leaves the girls with a permanent break with their past when their
parents die in a Hurricane and they must move in with their Aunt. This
touching and evocative book portrays the true power of family connections and
the strength they have to withstand even the darkest times.
Interested in reading other novels for youths? Try
some other titles from the United Methodist Women‘s reading list: Mama‘s
Window by Lynn Rubright; No Place by August
Gold, Ice Drift by Theodore Taylor, Kira-Kira
by Cynthia Kadohata and Bird by Angela Johnson.
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Teaching to Make a
Difference
I have lots of memories of teachers I have had
over the years. More than rigorous testing, intellectual expertise or
fancy facilities, teachers who believe in their students and go the extra mile
for them, make a lasting difference. Many times it was a teacher‘s
suggestion or challenge which would lead me to opportunities and events I would
never have approached or attempted on my own. By seeing things in me which
I did not see for myself, teachers have encouraged me to do more than just the
basics and to believe in my abilities enough to dare to do something new.
To do this for a suburban Midwestern kid whose
parents valued education is one thing, to attempt to do the same for kids from
inner-city Philadelphia is a different challenge altogether, yet this is what
Salome Thomas-El has devoted his life to accomplishing. Through his work
building up a national championship chess team at Roberts Vaux Middle School
this teacher and later principle has never allowed anyone else‘s opinions to
get in the way of his dream of bringing education, opportunity and excellence to
every student with which he comes in contact. In I Choose to Stay: A Black
Teacher Refuses to Desert the Inner City, Thomas-El recounts the story of how he
changed the culture of a failing school and taught children how to think through
challenges and value learning even when losing. An inspiring and
encouraging look at the transforma-tion of children and adults which is possible
through the devotion and dedication of one teacher, this book gives hope and
transforms the assump-tions about how to reform education to meet the needs of
today‘s students.
Interested in other books about education?
Try some of these books from the United Methodist Women‘s reading list:
The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream by Drs.
Davis, Jenkins and Hunt; Will Standards Save Public Education? by Deborah Meier;
To Educate Is To Teach To Live: Women‘s Struggles Towards Higher
Education by Barbara Campbell; and, Taught By America: A Story of Struggle
and Hope in Compton by Sarah Sentilles.
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Susanna – The Mother
of Methodism
When I think of people who influenced my faith, I think of Connie Shelton
who was a divinity student at Duke University and the Christian Education
director at my church in Durham, North Carolina. Connie was beautiful
and dynamic as well as a completely authentic Christian. She sang
gorgeously, spoke graciously and had a way of listening to everyone in such
a way that she made the speaker feel very special and important. The
thing about Connie that I remember the most vividly was her prayer
life. Every time an ambulance siren passed or she received a prayer
request, she would drop everything and spend time earnestly praying out
loud. The prayers were not long, but you knew that Connie felt prayer
was important, immediate and valuable. It was an example I have always
admired and wished to emulate.
In her book, Susanna Wesley A Mother with a Difference: Yesterday’s
Values for Today’s Woman, Dorothy Kumar finds Susanna Wesley, mother to
John and Charles Wesley as well as seventeen other children, was an
important example for her children of what living a Christian life could
be. With no money to send the children to school, Susanna used her own
love of learning and intellectual curiosity to give her children an
education. The daughter of a non-conformist preacher and married to an
Anglican priest, Susanna was able to discuss advanced theological ideas with
her grown children as well as use biblical passages as reading tools for her
younger children. Openhearted even in a parish that never entirely
accepted the Wesleys, Susanna created an evening worship service in her
kitchen that became extremely popular. Later, Susanna would train and
encourage women within the fledgling Methodist movement. By her
leadership and encouragement, Susanna was an important Christian teacher
with a commitment and strength that is an excellent example for women today.
Interested in other books on Methodism?
Try some books from the United Methodist Women’s library: Praying in
the Wesleyan Spirit: 52 Prayers for Today by Paul Chilcote; Whither
Thou Goest? You’ve Got to Be Kidding! A Minister’s Wife Speaks Out by
Carolyn Gray Thornton; Minding God’s Business: The Stories of Women
in Mission in the United Methodist Church by Megan Simpson and Robert
Simpson; The Leading Women: Stories of the First Women Bishops of the
United Methodist Church by Judith Craig; and Traditional Beliefs of United
Methodists by J. Ann Craig.
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Jesus:
The Heart of Christianity
At
the heart of the Christian faith is the figure of Jesus of Nazareth.
The story of his life, death and resurrection has been labeled gospel,
“good news”. To me Jesus represents the ultimate example of what
is possible when a life is lived following the will of God. A life
that is focused upon love of God and shown in love of neighbor can
transform the world forever. Jesus is God’s love written in the human
context without restraint, without condition and without bounds. Our
only job is to find within this example our own path in joining in the
continuing revelation of the kingdom
of God.
Bishop
Minerva G. Carcaño, author of I Believe in Jesus, sees the
question of Jesus as central to the continuing faithfulness and survival
of the church in today’s world. She points to the witness of in
persona Christi, being in the image of Christ, as a way of breaking
down barriers around the world and uniting generations. Although
theological statements about Jesus have sometimes brought about great and
lasting divisions within the church, Bishop Carcaño points to the
theology of James Cone and Gustavo Gutiérrez who both hold that faith
praxis is more important than theological reflection because only through
living the faith can it be fully defined. Reflecting upon the rich
inheritance she has received from her own foremothers, Minerva Carcaño is
determined to pass to the next generations a faith that is vital, true and
authentic to the original example of Jesus.
Interested
in other books about defining faith? Try the
following books from the United Methodist Women’s reading list: Jesus’
Parables of the Lost and Found by James W. Moore; In the
Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed A
Nation, A Language and A Culture by Alister McGrath; Traditional
Beliefs of United Methodists by J. Ann Craig; Finding Faith:
Life-Changing Encounters with Christ by Sharon Gallagher; and, What
Christians Really Believe & Why by Stanley J. Grenz.
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Pilgrims
on Life’s Road
“When
in April the sweet shower fall…people long to go on pilgrimages.” –
Chaucer, Canterbury Tales
When
I think of modern pilgrimage I tend to think of the Muslim pilgrimage, the
Hajj, or those who speak of going to Graceland or some other cultural spot.
The idea of Christian pilgrimage seems to be stuck in the annals of
history or the irreverent imagination of Geoffrey Chaucer. I certainly
had never heard of the Camino pilgrimage in northern Spain which ends at the
cathedral of St. James in Santiago. During the Middle Ages up to a
million people may have walked the hundreds of hot, grueling miles of this
path and today up to 1,000 people a day attempt some part of this walk
during the busiest summer months.
Like many neglected traditions of the church – contemplative
meditation, labyrinth prayer or praying the liturgy of the hours, the
pilgrimage holds many lessons such as to travel lightly, to deal with
disappointment, or to embrace beauty that are just as vital and
necessary in today’s modern world as they were in the tenth century.
Joyce
Rupp undertook a 37-day pilgrimage along the Camino at age 60 accompanied by
her friend Tom Pfeffer. She records their extraordinary experiences in her
book Walking in a Relaxed Manner: Life Lessons From the Camino.
During this journey Joyce had time to appreciate the beauty of the
countryside, the intense friendships which were born from the many fellow
travelers they met from countries all around the world and the experience of
stripping life down to focusing only on essentials and leaving questions of
food or lodging in the hands of God. An exercise in extreme
simplicity, intense spiritual focus and triumph over difficulties, the
lessons Joyce learned and shares in this book are the ones we all could use
in order to find the keys to a life lived lightly and in harmony with
others.
Interested
in other books about spiritual practices? Try other books from the
United Methodist Women’s Library: Paths to Prayer: Finding Your
Own Way To the Presence of God by Patricia Brown, Addicted to Hurry:
Spiritual Strategies for Slowing Down by Kirk Jones, Diary of Daily
Prayer by J. Barrie Shepherd or Interludes: A Busy Woman’s
Invitation To Personal And Spiritual Rest by Linda Andersen.
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