Chickens and Goats
In the November 30th episode of the Daily Show the host, Trevor Noah, commented on the CNN report by Nima Elbagir et al. on the slave trade in Libya saying, “. . . In 2017 you don’t expect the breaking news to be ‘Slave Auctions are Back.’”
Sadly, the slave auction in Libya is breaking news. But it shouldn’t be. Everyday women, men, girls and boys are sold for sex or agriculture. “Human trafficking” is just a fancy term for slavery.
December 3rd was the first Sunday of Advent. The Sunday of Hope.
Where is hope in the face of the Libyan slave market, the trafficked sex and farm workers? The barrage of disturbing headlines and decisions about the course of our country? I found a bit of hope in a recent article from NPR by Maanvi Singh titled “How Chickens and Goats are Helping to Stop Child Marriage.”
Annabel Erulkar of the Population Council helped launch a program called Berhane Hewan (Light of Eve) in Ethiopia that began holding regular community meetings to discuss the practice of child marriage, why it happens, and how to stop it. In short, Berhane Hewan gave families school supplies so their daughters could stay in school. If they kept their daughters in school for two years the family would receive a chicken – because women tend to the chickens and the girls can easily sell the eggs to pay their school fees.
In some villages the communities “where it was customary for neighbors to help each other harvest crops, local leaders agreed that families that arranged an underage marriage wouldn’t get any such help.”*
Thanks to this, more girls are remaining unmarried and staying in school. The practices are working in large part because they are grown out of communities bravely coming together to address the illegal, but often practiced, child marriage.
In the face of modern day slavery, this story gives me hope.
Historian Thomas Cahill wrote a series of books focused on the “light bearers” of history. These include How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Gift of the Jews, The Desire of the Everlasting Hills Sailing the Wine Dark Sea, and my favorite, Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe. The rich perspective he offers in the later reminds me that, no matter how dark the cultural times, there are always forces of light at work in the world.
Chickens and Goats.
While millions were being systematically slaughtered during the rise of the Third Reich and Stalinist Russia, AA and Al-Anon were forming and saving untold numbers of lives.
Chickens and Goats.
In the feudal system of Europe Benedict wrote an egalitarian rule for community and spiritual life in which no one’s needs are to be aggrandized or discounted. In which everyone, no matter their social background, is to be given the physical and spiritual support they need to journey with Christ.
Chickens and Goats.
I spiraled down the rabbit hole of my anxiety today, replaying all the tired, terrible stories I tell myself about who I am and what I have done, what I didn’t do, what I should have done, what I should do. I sank into despair over how powerless I feel in the face of all the evil and corruption in the world.
During the spiral I kept repeating, “Chickens and goats. Chickens and goats.”
God speaks in many ways. God acts in many ways. I continue to need concrete examples.
So just for today, in this season of Advent, when we need a little hope let us remember chickens and goats.
How Chickens and Goats are Helping to Stop Child Marriage by Maanvi Singh, NPR, December 3, 2017
Image courtesy of Rachel Hess, Unsplash.com
Surprise
In my outdoor storage closet sit six containers of Christmas decorations: a tall tree, a set of Alpine trees, a set of wreathes, a box of ornaments, a box of miscellaneous décor, and a box containing my Christmas village. For the most part, everything gets used. I’ve donated or gotten rid of the excess. The lids fit easily on each bin and I can lift them without help or strain.
Yet somehow it all feels wrong.
Every Advent I crave slowness. I long for a December that feels slow and sacred rather than rushed and material. I want my church experiences and home décor to reflect this attitude.
Cole and I are out of town with my parents for Advent One. St. Nicholas visits church on Advent Two to collect presents for five hundred plus families. Advent Three is the Christmas pageant which is an exercise is adorable chaos. Advent Four and Christmas Eve fall on the same Sunday. (Otherwise known as clergy get tired day.) And then we arrive at Christmas. In the midst of all this is work and teaching and mothering and appointments and decorating and cleaning and all the daily-ness of life.
Time moves faster than it did when I was child. And God moves slower.
There remain a few large, unanswered prayers in my life. A handful of major stressors waiting to be worked out. I know from past experience that all will unfold in God’s time – which while excruciatingly slow, is always perfect. I know in my bones that despite my habit of calendaring answers nothing will occur when or how I plan.
How is it that I crave slowness yet grumble and grow despondent about how long God seems to take to answer prayer?
When Cole was an infant people used to say to me, “Enjoy this. The days may be long, but the time is short.” This is so very true. He’s three and a half now and thriving. The world is his playground; his imagination the map. He has a running commentary on everything.
How is it that I yearn to savor our life together but am often counting through the time blocks of my day, desperate for the moments when Cole is at school or asleep and I can find a little peace and quiet?
According to a friend, there are four answers to prayer: yes, no, not yet, and boy are you going to be surprised. She also says, “God does not speak in code.” So much of the waiting time in prayer feels like an exercise in translation. I suppose this is where attention and discernment come in.
When I’m paying attention some answers to prayer feel obvious and clear. I know this because my body exhales and my interior looks like a beam of light. This is the same feeling I get when I surrender. Truly surrender my calendar, my plans, my assumptions, my expectations and just exist in the current of the moment, trusting the unfolding.
In a small but important way my prayer for a slow and sacred December was answered by our church holding meditative Eucharist and conversation on Wednesdays at noon and 7pm throughout Advent. As of today, I can attend two of the four and that alone brings a little breathing space.
I just talked to my mom and she said she has a few Christmas trimmings we can put up with Cole when we’re there later this week, which answers a prayer to feel connected to something meaningful in decoration. Perhaps this small act will help me feel more inspired by and grateful for the ways I can adorn my own home.
So that’s two prayers answered. Directly.
I continue to wait on the rest. The big ones. The ones I know God has promised to answer.
And this is what Advent is all about. Waiting. Living each day as it comes and trusting in the hope of an answered prayer. The answer found in a baby conceived out of wedlock, placed in a manger, in a dirty stable, surrounded by farm animals.
Boy were we surprised.
Fill Your Hands with Mud
I’m feeling ambivalent about the holidays this year. Until a few months ago I thought ambivalent meant not caring. But then, while watching the Daniel Tiger episode “Daniel’s Day of Many Feelings,” I learned that to be ambivalent is to have mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about someone or something.
In stressful years past, by mid-November my best friend and I are singing “We need a little Christmas” and eagerly awaiting the day when we bring out the décor. This year, not so much.
This year, the holidays feel like just another day to anticipate only to be mildly disappointed. For her this is because her mother died in May and she is mourning the absence of being nagged about the Thanksgiving menu.
It would be easy to say my ambivalence is because my family entered a new reality where we trade off holidays. Cole is with me for Thanksgiving and will be out of town with his dad for Christmas. Last year it was the other way around. But I’m not sure that’s the source of my mixed emotions.
Until a few years ago I relished Thanksgiving. Preferred it to Christmas really. But the sheen on both days has worn thin. I was certain that having a child would bring the sparkle back. It hasn’t.
In pondering my attitude I notice that any joy I feel about the holidays is rooted in preparation.
Missing the liturgical seasons of Advent and Lent, the seasons of preparation, was one of the things that drew me back to church. I yearned for the Sundays of my youth when we would gather at dinner, light a candle on the Advent wreath, and read a little scripture. And while my mother still sent small gifts for St. Nicholas day and a new ornament for my tree, without her presence, and without an Advent calendar to open and M&Ms to eat, it wasn’t the same.
To be honest, I love getting presents. I’m kind of ashamed to say I still get a little-girl-thrill upon seeing wrapped packages with my name on the tag. And yet even in all the material excitement, as a child and as today, the preparation means more than the event.
I’ve only hosted Thanksgiving dinner a handful of times and I’m not doing so this year. It’s a lot of work. I’m grateful that the bulk of the time and expense does not fall to me. But to in all honesty, I’d be happy to do it. Again, ambivalent.
This year, as in many years past, we will celebrate Thanksgiving at my uncle’s house here in town. The number in our party has dwindled again this year as friends who normally attend won’t be there. My aunt’s father passed away last week so he won’t be there either. But my grandmother will – the tough old broad who is having a remarkable recovery from a stroke– and for that I have profound gratitude.
Last year one of the friend’s in attendance did something different. She put some twigs in a pretty vase, passed out construction paper leaves, and asked us all to write down one thing we were thankful for. I like this and this year will bring the paper and the tree.
Since I’m gluten free and can’t eat traditional stuffing or pie, I’m going to make my own. Trader Joe’s has an intriguing cauliflower stuffing which could either be delicious or disgusting but since it’s cheap and frozen I’ll give it a whirl. I’ve also called my grandmother to see if she’ll bring along some photographs from a train ride in the Canadian Rockies she took a decade ago. Cole loves trains. I think he will enjoy the photos as much as Grandma will enjoy sharing them with her eldest great-grandchild.
In just those few, small acts – making a Thank You tree, cooking some food, planning something special for Cole – a little shimmer has returned to Thanksgiving. I can’t fully get past the tricky origins of this holiday nor do I want to. To quote Bryan Stevenson, “We are a post genocidal people, and we have not dealt with that.”
We aren’t obligated to celebrate Thanksgiving, or any holiday really. We do so by choice. I’m doing so by choice. This year I’m choosing to prepare myself and my son for a day of gratitude by preparing an offering of love. As he gets older we’ll discuss the backstory of the day with more candor and find our own ways of dealing with it. This year I’m choosing to prepare myself and my son to receive the offerings of love freely given by our family.
And that’s as it should be. In our America, Thanksgiving stands as a gateway to a season of giving and receiving. Giving our hearts to one another, receiving the hearts offered to us. Celebrating all that God gives to us and receiving it with open arms. Which is perhaps the most difficult thing to do. The part that requires preparation. Giving is easy. Receiving is hard.
But as the great Mary Oliver* writes:
I don’t want you to just sit down at the table.
I don’t want you to just eat and be content.
I want you to walk out into the fields
Where the water is shining and the rice has risen.
I want you to stand there far from this white tablecloth.
I want you to fill your hands with mud, like a blessing.
Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Vol 1. Beacon Press. Boston. 1992
If I could just post Mary Oliver poems each week and call it a day, I would!
Love Song
Today I offer a post from the Householder’s Archives. It’s a little fiction/poetry I wrote a couple of years ago and thought, in light of my recent musings on faith, vision, and traveling into the unknown, this would be an appropriate transition piece as we prepare for Thanksgiving and Advent. Enjoy.
It begins in the dark, as all things do. It begins in the breath before a whisper; the deep, cold space between the stars. The black bones of trees lay bare against a black sky growing grey with the first light. Winter. Below the stars Earth, frozen and dormant. There’s an intelligence there, forgotten in the hard packed crystals of ice. A waiting for something not yet remembered. A sharp intake of Breath; the groan of Earth recalling some deeper warmth.
I know you, She says.
It takes some convincing for Earth to thaw. He wavers around the idea of warmth as space slides between the ice. One day, without realizing it, Spring. A whisper turned into a laugh, a song. The remembrance of a bird, a flower, a tree.
I’m alive, He says.
They flirt, this Earth and Breath. They dance and tumble and birth new animals, new songs, new skies. Their love grows, warmed by Sun. But Sun betrays them. She shines too bright and too strong. Summer. His grasses get scorched; flowers wither and die. Breath pushes rain through Air only to choke.
You almost killed me, She says.
Earth, wondering what happened to his beloved Breath turns only to see that she has found a new love. Wind. Fall. Breath and Wind merge bringing a familiar song to Earth. The ancient chant of ruin and death.
This is what I was afraid of, He says.
Leaves fall. Everything they birthed in Spring unrecognizable now.
I have to go, She says.
The rage in Breath pushing away the last of Sun. Light and warmth fade. The hard-pack of ice returns as Earth goes dormant once again.
Why did you leave me? He asks.
Breath rides Wind over Earth, searching, searching for a way back in; getting caught on the bones in the sky. After Her exhale, the dark. The deep cold space between the stars. The breath before the whisper.
I know you, She says.
The HouseHolder's Path 