30 Best Papers, pt. 1

1.      Conversation

The content of the conversation is not of consequence--they were words I loved, I believed. I spoke of how the world should be, how life should work, and how I was determined to live.

Releasing slowly, I had power. My soul was alive, my eyes sparkled, my face glowed. I was pink. I had something beautiful and it made me beautiful. He looked at me with eyes of wonder.
He wanted those words. He wanted to leave the world that was and join the world that could be. If I looked deep enough: he wanted me. My bright eyes and golden plethoras. But the moment was lost in distraction. When his eyes returned to mine it was gone. And we both knew it. My words could not survive the trip into reality.
I wanted to take him with me, traveling down these words and ideals. I wanted someone else to see them and validate their existence. Someone who believed in them, even more than in me. “You are not enough,” lay unspoken between us. “Live long enough, and you will see your ideals for the fairytales they are.“
I cried, right there in front of him. Embarrassed, he didn't know what to do. He was stirred, but said nothing. I couldn’t see him anymore. I saw a road and I was standing on it. The path was made up of all the words I had tried to speak. They were alive, they were real, and I wanted nothing less. So firm, so sure, so true. It was the way of truth. But I was alone.

 

2.      Run Away

I ran away. It does me good every once in a while. I fear one day, I won’t be able to run anymore and that day, I will die. Most days I don’t have to run away, I just have to think that I can. Having the idea is enough because I like my life. I have a good life. I have never been able to explain or understand why I should have it so good.

But I ran away today. Today is Monday, but I didn’t want to do all that is “Monday.” I ran away because I need to ask the question “Why.” Why is “Monday” the way Monday is? Are there better ways of doing what I am doing? I ran away because if I don’t, I will forget how. How to use my brain, to enjoy the part of me that nags and says, “Why are you doing this?” To awaken something inside me that says I am special, unique, and have something to offer those around me—something that isn’t already there.

I didn’t run away from responsibility, I ran to it. To the responsibility of knowing myself. Being responsible for my actions, and the one life I have to live. To back away from the clutter of the familiar, and seek the face of Jesus and ask Him if He likes how things are. To turn around the situations in my life and look at them from  different perspectives. And tomorrow will be “Tuesday.”

 

“You must stay inside the gates.”
“Why?”
“Inside the gates you are safe.”
“Safe but not alive.”
“Why can't you have your runs for freedom during respectable hours?”
“That would ruin the whole idea.”
“What is the whole idea anyway?”
“Something  I can only find outside the gates.”

 

3.      Saudades

Learning another language opens doors. One of which is my fascination with words that I didn’t grow up with. Being bi-lingual, sometimes when talking in one language, to complete my thought—exactly how I thought it—is impossible without switching into another language.

Every language has a personality; like people. Language is fluid, being changed and molded by the culture around it: it is not stagnant. You can put the words in a book and call it a dictionary, but you will constantly be writing new editions, and they won’t keep up with the word on the street.

In Portuguese, the main word that continually comes up in my vocabulary that doesn’t work in English is Saudades. I normally go into a paragraph-long rant about a “desire, longing, missing, yearning feeling” and by that time, whoever I was talking to is confused enough to miss the point. The point was I was feeling Saudades.

An official definition of Saudades is “A Portuguese word that describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return. It's related to the feelings of longing, yearning…The love that remains after someone is gone, the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again. An emptiness, like someone or something should be there in a particular moment is missing. a bittersweet, existential yearning and hopefulness towards something over which one has no control.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade)

“Some specialists say the word may have originated during the Great Portuguese Discoveries, giving meaning to the sadness felt about those who departed on journeys to unknown seas and disappeared in shipwrecks, died in battle, or simply never returned. Those who stayed behind—mostly women and children—suffered deeply in their absence…The state of mind has subsequently become a "Portuguese way of life": a constant feeling of absence, the sadness of something that's missing, wishful longing for completeness or wholeness and the yearning for the return of that now gone.”

My fascination with Saudades grew after I read an article about 20 untranslateable words (http://matadornetwork.com/abroad/20-awesomely-untranslatable-words-from-around-the-world/) and four of them (one listed in the comments)—five if you include Saudades (which made the list) are basically about the same thing, but in different languages:

 

·         Hiraeth. A Welsh word that “Attempts to translate it is  homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed. It is a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, and the earnest desire for the Wales of the past.”

·         Toska. A Russian word that “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”

·         Litost. A Czech word that “As for the meaning of this word, I have looked in vain in other languages for an equivalent, though I find it difficult to imagine how anyone can understand the human soul without it.” The closest definition is a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.”

·         Depaysement. A French word of “that feeling that comes from not being in one’s home country.”Wikipedia added many more words that relate to Saudades in other languages:  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade )

·         Sevda. A Turkish word that is also translated "black bile." “In Bosnian language, the term sevdah represents pain and longing for a loved one. Sevdah is also a genre of traditional music originating from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sevdah songs are very elaborate, emotionally charged and are traditionally sung with passion and fervor.”

·         Extranar. A Spanish word that “one feels a missing part of oneself, which can never be completely filled by the thing you cannot have or get back.”

·         Mall. An Albanian word that “encompasses feelings of passionate longing, sadness, and at the same time an undefined laughter from the same source.”

·         Wehmut. A German word that is “a fuzzy form of nostalgia. Or Weltschmerz, which is the general pain caused by an imperfect state of being or state of the world.” (Another place I read about “Sehnsucht” which is a “quasi mystical word that melds ardent inner longing/yearning with obsession/addition and deep, driven, inconsolable longing for something of monumental importance.” –Mary A. Kassian)

·         Dor. A Romanian word “for love or "desire" having a derivation in the noun dorinţă and the verb dori, both of them being translated usually by wish and to wish. However, although the word dor has a complex meaning, it still does not encompass the full meaning of saudade. Dor is derived from the Latin dolus ("pain"), the same root as the Portuguese word dor, also meaning pain.”

·         Koprnenje. A Slovenian word that “embraces the fatalistic undertones of saudade.”

·         Kaiho. A Finnish word that “means a state of involuntary solitude in which the subject feels incompleteness and yearns for something unattainable or extremely difficult and tedious to attain.”

·         Keurium. A Korean word (그리움), that “reflects a yearning for anything that has left a deep impression in the heart—a memory, a place, a person, etc.”

·         Natsukashii. A Japanese word that “is used to express a longing for the past. It connotes both happiness for the fondness of that memory and goodness of that time, as well as sadness that it is no longer. It can also mean "sentimental," and is a wistful emotion. The character used to write natsukashii can also be read as futokoro 懐 [ふところ] and means "bosom," referring to the depth and intensity of this emotion that can even be experienced as a physical feeling or pang in one's chest—a broken heart, or a heart feeling moved.”

·         Wajd. An Arabic word (وجد) that “means a state of transparent sadness caused by the memory of a loved one who is not near, it's widely used in ancient Arabic poetry to describe the state of the lover's heart as he or she remembers the long gone love. It's a mixed emotion of sadness for the loss, and happiness for having loved that person.”

·         Ergah. A Hebrew word (ערגה) that “means yearning/longing/desire coupled with deep sadness.”

·         Epipotheó. A Greek word meaning "to yearn affectionately, to long for, strain after, desire greatly. To intensely crave possession (lawfully or wrongfully), and (earnestly) desire (greatly), (greatly) long (after), lust.” (http://concordances.org/greek/1971.htm) I 2 Corinthians 5:2, 9:14 “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven.” “…(We) long for you because of the exceeding grace of God in you.”

It is nice to know I am not alone in this feeling. My life is in two pieces, where I will always have Saudades for one (Brazil and everyone there, or the USA and everyone there) while I am in the other. It is a wonderful life, with two families, two communities, two sets of problems, two sets of joys and successes. Then there is the place where I am alone in the middle, trying to connect myself or the two or simply the irreconcilable things of this world.

Those times I can’t feel anything. It is all gone. I know what is right, and I know every old decision like the back of my hand. I live off of them until I find myself again. I alternate between thoughts of how can I return and how could I have left. Neither one sticks. They flake off and float down on the floor.

People ask how I fit. Transition. Acclimate. It is easy: one foot and then the other, a plane, a train, and there you are. You arrive, keep your eyes open, give lots of hugs, and listen to stories. You wait for them to ask the questions, and then you answer. Your body does everything automatically. You fall into habit. Into social order. Into the path of least resistance. And it is good. But every once in awhile I peek out of somewhere and wonder where I am, how I got here, and what happens next.

Most of this probably doesn't even have to do with Brazil/USA/Rachel drama. It is a holy longing. There is a buried me that hasn't adjusted and probably never will. I was made for heaven, and part of me somewhere still remembers that. But most of the time it stays buried. I have learned to hide it.

 

4.      Hair

My mother’s hair shined in long, deep brown waves. It stuck to her forehead in thick chunks when she spent 30 hours delivering me. When I was little, I wrapped it around my finger, stroking it like a teddy bear, and claimed it as my security blanket. She cut her hair when I learned to walk, after I grew accustomed to latching onto her hair, pulling myself up like the prince trying to reach Rapunzel.

As I grew, so did my mother’s muscle problems. Her hair was one part of her I could touch without causing her pain. I added barrettes, covering her with multicolored plastic animals facing every direction. I saw her curly hair surrounding her like thick thunderclouds, as she lay in bed, too sick to finish our home schooling classes. I closed the door, took my books to the next room, and watched my own straight hair fall forward as I leaned over to finish my lesson as she slept. 

I peeking over the crib, my short six-year old legs on tiptoe could just see her. My little sister was an angel, with golden ringlets framing her chubby face. I gave her a lollypop while she sat on my mother’s lap, to make her stop crying. It was always a fight to get a comb through her hair. I held her hand tight, as strangers in the supermarket stopped to tell me how cute she was. I know it, I said as I thrust out my chin.

At 11, I was still short enough to have to stand on my tiptoes to see into the mirror at my grandparent’s butterfly brown bathroom. With one long, cold snip, the hairs slipped to the carpeted floor and I stooped to pick them up before anyone saw them. But they noticed well enough when I rolled back the door—my bangs were only a half inch long. It would grow back, along with the tingling hope that one time I would cut it and my reflection would look just like one of those girls in the magazine.

I tentatively reached out to touch one perfect white curl, but couldn’t do it. I returned to my seat next to the rest of my grieving family as they closed the casket. I would never again see my laughing grandmother’s eyes, or feel her soft hair as she leaned in to give me a hug. Hair grows even after you’re dead, or at least it looks like it does.

He sat on the couch with scissors next to him. His lower lip protruding in defiance and his face hard. “I want my hair this way.” He said, as I stared at him and the random patches of hair were missing. At six, he knew what he wanted. I wish I did. When my brother was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said a daddy, because they take care of things. I told him that was a very admirable goal, and then I buzzed the rest of his hair off.

It didn’t help that I was pasty white, with skin that rejected melanin. That I liked boy’s flip-flops instead of high heels, and my basketball shorts and t-shirts yelled “I am American.” Short hair seemed sensible for a summer in the tropics. I woke up drowsy from layovers to find many eyes staring at me in a new country. Eyes that belonged to girls with bronze skin, revealing tank tops, and stunning shoes. Girls that tossed their long hair and walked away before I could see their condemnation. My hair was not long enough to hide behind.

I heard him before I saw him. All grown up, I hadn’t been home in months, but my father’s voice still made me laugh and come running. Stopping in mid-step, I controlled my expression, asking, “What happened to your face?” Months of scraggly whiskers moved to reply, “I was waiting for you to come home and trim my beard.” I had become the family hair-cutter, after a weekend of training years ago. I quickly stepped back into my responsibilities.

 

5.      Basketball

I lost 7 teeth due to playing ball. The first one was actually a kickball—we were playing pass at church and the ball missed my hands and landed on my face. I didn’t realize the tooth fell out until the blood was everywhere. It took a while to find the tooth, but I had to figure out the whole tooth fairy thing, so it was important.

The other 6 teeth were due to basketball. I was my father’s first son. From our kitchen window, you can see two houses over to where the Jones’ basketball court is. If you look hard enough, you can see when someone is playing ball. As soon as I saw signs of activity, I would run down the alley to their house. The Jones’ had five children: heaven when you are an only child (which I was until I was six years old, and even then she was just a baby, so didn’t count).

There was always someone to play with: Cathy, the oldest—just enough older than me to be VERY cool, Josh and David, like older brothers to me, except for the phase where David would chase me around the swing set, threatening to kiss me (he never caught me. I was fast), Becky, who was (and still is) one of my bestest friends, and Rachel, who we called “Little Rachel” to differentiate from me (who was “Big Rachel,” even though I was small for my age).

 

Josh and David were typical Hoosier boys, who grow up playing basketball. I joined them. Sometimes I could convince Cathy or Becky to join me, but most often I was on my own, hence the 6 teeth I lost. I still remember finally being big enough to shoot correctly, instead of doing the “granny shot” (heaving the ball up underhand and hoping it would get somewhere near the hoop).

When we were lucky, Mr. Jones and my dad would come and join us, and we’d get a real game going. I still remember the resentment growing in me during the games they wanted to get “serious” and play two on two (with Josh and David). I would sit on the sidelines, grumpily thinking it wasn’t fair to be a girl, and a miniature one at that.

During the long summer days, we would walk to the park—a big group of us, making our way down the alley and through the little trail that led to the “Red Barn” park (the red barn was torn down years ago, but name stuck for a long time). There, most of the time only the boys got to play and the girls were told to go swing on the swings. But every once in awhile they would be one short—and I would gladly jump in.

After a couple of “fun” games, the younger boys would get kicked out, and we would all sit on the ground, watching the big boys play. I watched my father dislocate every one of his fingers over the summers we spent at the park. He would come home and my mom would breathe in sharply and say, “Again??”

When I was 12, I decided that enough was enough, and rounded up all the girls in the neighborhood. We created a girl’s basketball team called the “Pacer-ettes.” It didn’t last too long, and mostly just consisted of making matching shirts and hair ribbons. After that, the other’s lost interest, and we didn’t have anyone to play against anyways. The boys just laughed at the hair ribbons.

At 14, all the playing with boys paid off, and I practiced with a school team where Mr. Jones was coaching. My daily outfit was a tee-shirt, basketball shorts, white socks up to my knees, and slide sandals. I was never far from my backpack with my Nike’s. While I never got to play in an official game because I was homeschooled, I practiced every day, and did stats for all of the team’s games.

After that life happened, and basketball moved to a back burner. Dad and I would go out and “shoot some hoops,” but it became less and less frequent. My skills were put to good use at the youth center, where I could do a nice lay-up in a skirt, but I was mostly needed off court. Somewhere in my 20s I realized that it wasn’t basketball that I liked as much as the memories and the time I had with my father. Basketball was a bond between us. It was summer memories of simple times where I lost another tooth and held it up proudly. It was walking home, hand in hand, from the park with my dad.

In Brazil, futebol (soccer) reigns in the place of basketball. Not many hoops are available, and girls do not wear basketball shorts. Ever. But every once in awhile…I still get a chance. Every once in awhile when I am back in Indiana, I get a game going with some of the kids from the youth center. And they laugh that a white girl can jump.

 

6.      Youth Center

Does Christianity work in the ghetto? God works in the ghetto, that is all. Give all you want, they say they deserve it. Teach all you want, they say you are crazy. The only thing that that works is God in their heart. Seeing God through you. Seeing Christianity alive. Go ask if turning the other cheek works: get smacked in both of yours, and they will respond according to the answer you give them. They want Christianity to work, begging without words for you to show them that there is hope in all this talk. They know talk is just a cover up, and that is all they think Christianity is until they see God.

A bus picked up 75 kids from the streets of Indianapolis and took them to a two week camp. No one had a clue what we were in for. I remember bed wetting, airing out sleeping bags, death threats, cold pool water with weave floating in it, and duckweed. That was how it began for me in 2002 at Good News Ministries Youth Center.

After camp, Carrie, the female staff, pulled me aside and said, “If you are just looking for a short term job, then this isn’t for you. These kids are used to everyone coming and going in their lives, and if you are just going to be one more, then don’t even try.”

It took a year before I finally formed a friendship—a relationship that would last. A year is a long time of investing before you see any results. Especially with the older girls. Younger kids will sell you their soul for a game of tag, and guys will joke around in a game of basketball, but those girls? They scared the heck out of me.

I broke up my first fight. I got hit in the jaw for it. Time passed quickly as the “Girls director,” and I was happy to roll around the hood in my station wagon, affectionately known as the “pimp-mobile.” I had to earn the right to hear their stories, to ask “So how are you and God?”

The friendships grew, but I watched some of my closest girls walk away: choosing drugs or bad relationships over the center—over me. My first experiences counseling pregnant girls and boys who would be daddies. The first time I received a death threat—and many apologies afterwards. Visiting my boys in boy’s school. Going to family funerals.

Something changed in 2005. I call it the three year mark. After three years, something was different. Not that I was “one of the gang,” but…I was welcome. When I dropped kids off, they said, “Lock the doors, be safe Mz. Rachel!” They asked if I wanted to come in. Their parents knew me, and called me Mz. Rachel as well, to my surprise. They came to me with problems, instead of me prying it out of them. They even replied back with, “Well, how are you and God doing?” I put in the time, and was reaping the rewards.

Brazil happened. The kids and I got used to Brazil being a part of my life, asking, “How long this time?” each time I came or went. I kept coming and going. I’d visit the center a couple days after I got into the country, volunteering when I could. In 2009, it was a huge blow on everyone when Daniel, 15, was shot and killed. I watched the faces of my kids as they walked past his casket and realized it had happened—they were not kids anymore.

Last year gave me a new chance with new kids, but I always held on to my original kids—and their kids. I held babies and went to baby showers. I found out some of our 12-year-old kids were drug runners. I busted my knee trying to break up five guys as they jumped a kid—inside the youth center. I filed a police report for a black eye and strangulation. Complete with pictures.

I earned the title “Educational director,” running the tutorial program. I was called a thug and a beast. I was told I must be mixed, because I talk too black to be white. I was loved and hated, by the same kids, on the same days.

While Brazil has officially taken over my focus, the youth center and the friendships I have made will last forever. For nine years I have seen kids come, get saved, really try, laugh and play hard turn into girls who get knocked up, boys who get drugged up, and many who fall out of the dreams/goals that they had for themselves. I have watched most of them become their parents.

Did the youth center make a difference? Was it worth the hours, days, years I invested? Yes. Even if the only result I see is me. I am a better person for my time at the center. They taught me tough love. How to say something and stand on it, though hell tries to blow me over. I have learned that there is always more to the story than I know, and that love wins more than rules. I have some of the best memories and friends to take with me through the rest of my life because of it.

The point was that we were there. Those kids, and those who are now adults, know we are there, and that we care. Sometimes I still get a phone call. Or someone walking through those purple doors. They know what the center represents. And when they walk through those doors, it means they are open and looking: even if they are not aware of it themselves.  It is a picture of something bigger. Of Christ’s pierced hands always open, always reaching, always there. No matter what.

No, I haven’t seen all the successful lives and changes that I would have liked to have seen. There are some bright stars that inspire me over and over again, but I have seen so many fall and fall again. I have seen things so ugly that I wanted to heave. I have heard words so hateful that I have crawled inside myself and not come out for a long time. Statistics are bleak.

I asked my friend how he was going to change the world for Christ. He said he wasn’t. He was going to live life with God in his own little world—the one God had placed him in with people, places, situations—and when the time was right, when something happened and someone found that how they were doing things didn’t work, he would step inside that small doorway of opportunity and share the answer he had found: God. That is what it is to work at the youth center.

I am going to miss this psycho version of what is called the ghetto. I’ll probably have weird dreams about driving a van "butt fulla kids,” someone getting shot, or getting a new nickname. I got called "Steve Nash with a hair cut" the other day. Maybe I'll dream about life and love and tears and sharing and "How are you and God?" Maybe I’ll hear about people leaving and coming and changing and growing and running away.

Sometimes I won't miss the ghetto. The "I deserve this and more," the "Give me something free,” the "No, that isn't good enough," instead of a thank you. I won’t miss the stuck-ness: "I want to do the right thing, but I just can't” or the meanness—just plain lack of kindness. Being nice or kind is weak. Those whispers of "Everyone hates you Ms. Rachel, why don't you go home" replay a thousand times over. They dig my soul. They take away something soft and innocent that I value.

I won’t miss the chip on their shoulder. They know what is right and wrong, but don't you dare say it—it is always someone else's fault: "yeah, I just picked up that girl and slammed her—but you play favorites and never did nothing when she..." and then the unspoken: "yeah, I will feel bad about this tomorrow, but I don't know how to apologize so I never will...and for now, I will disrespect you and make you feel like the most insignificant person on the planet.”

And then there are the hugs and the "Ms. Rachel, watch me!" As if when I am watching I give them superpowers—they can fly only if they are noticed. There are the "How was your day?" and genuine "You look like you are going to cry--I got your back--tell me a name and I will beat them up for you." Older kids stop by every once in awhile to show us they are alive and remember that at least one thing in their childhood was real and it is still true. It is the best of life: laughing and playing hard and not hiding, and the worst of it: pain and ugliness and protecting yourself by destroying another. I love it. I hate it.

 

7.      Food

I don’t like chocolate. To the women in my family, this is cause to question my being switched at birth.  I blame my father. As the story goes, mom was off shopping, and when she got home, my dad was feeding me chocolate cake and braunschweiger. I was six months old. I haven’t liked either since.

My Dad likes unusual food. Like Limburger cheese. You cannot go near it before realizing it is not supposed to be ingested: the smell is horrible. I don’t remember how it got started, but it ended with a bunch of kids hiding in the bathroom, because dad was chasing us with Limburger cheese. Somewhere in the middle was a chase around the neighborhood. From the graphic memories that I have, I think the Limburger cheese won.

My dad grew up on a farm. He decided that Anna and I should have the farm experience, even if we lived in the suburbs. He brought home cute little fluffy chicks. Anna and I took care of them: feeding them, corralling them, catching them when they got lose, and even though we were warned not to—naming them. Six weeks later, dad set up “the block.” It was a thick piece of wood that had two nails in it, with just enough space between them to slide the neck of a chicken.

Mom was chosen to hold the chicken while dad positioned the neck and sliced. Anna and I ran inside and cried, so I didn’t get to see what happened next. Mom wasn’t much of a country girl herself, screaming and apologizing to the chicken after it went running around headless. As the story goes, when my dad went to reach into the chicken to clean it out,  the air suction created a noise and my mom swore it was talking.

Every summer my dad sees to it that we have an amazing garden. I used to slip out of my diaper and run striking out the back door to the raspberry patch. Makes sense to me. Raspberries are still my favorite fruit. Anyone who has grown tomatoes knows it is impossible to keep up with them. After awhile, some just get wasted. Well, not our tomato patch. The next door neighbor boy and I had the most fantastic rotten tomato fight. Epic. I think that should be a part of everyone’s childhood.

My mom always makes my dad’s lunch for him to take to work. I remember “helping” her, standing on a chair to help spread the mustard on the sandwich. But the special part was always the napkin. I would get to help write a secret message on it: a secret like I love you. Even now when I return home, I hear mom moving around the kitchen, making dad’s lunch. It is just a part of how things work.

We didn’t have a lot of money when I was little. It was the best thing ever, except for the instant milk and pulpy orange juice. At the time, it was cheaper, so that is what we got. When I turned eight, for my birthday I asked my mom for REAL milk, please. Every day, Mom would put a glass of instant milk and pulpy orange juice on the table and tell me to drink it before lunch.

I was sneaky, and mom suffered from health problems, so it wasn’t hard to find ways around digesting the horrible liquids. I tried pouring the milk and juice down the kitchen drain, but I was too short. I tried pouring it down the toilet, but it looked suspicious carrying a glass of milk into the bathroom. But then I found it. The heating and cooling duct. Right there in the kitchen floor—a hole where things magically disappeared.

Fast forward 10 years, sitting around the table telling old stories and laughing. Someone brought up instant milk. I brought up how I hated it and found ways around actually drinking it. It was then that two and two were put together: the mysterious sticky duct leak, and Rachel not complaining about drinking her milk and juice anymore. Mystery solved.

Cod liver oil was even worse than Limburger cheese because we weren’t allowed to run away from it—we had to drink it. It was an old bottle of green slime and come cold season, my whole family lined up and got a spoonful. No sugar. My father thinks it is educational to try new foods. Liver, tongue, and sauerkraut were my worse memories, trying to chew without breathing and thinking, “Why can’t I just be in a normal family?”

*

Apple pie is on my shoulder. Why is there apple pie on my shoulder? I look at my sister next to me. Apple pie is on her window. The plate and fork are in her hands, but the apple pie is everywhere. She gasps for air, the seat belt burnt into her skin.

Panic. But not yet. Maybe no one will notice if I drive off. But the car won’t start. With a sigh of resignation, I check the damage. Distractedly jumping out of the car, I slam my finger in the door. Visions of the police showing up to arrest me with my finger stuck haunt me enough to yank it out.

No, the car isn’t going anywhere. Neither is the little blue Geo Metro, fatally parked in the spot my car now possessed. Luck is not on my side, even if apple pie is. Lights go on in houses. People come running. My forehead’s bleeding—sit down on the curb, they motion. Word is sent two blocks down, where our little white church sits full of people eating their apple pie.

My sister is still breathing hard. “No,” she says indignantly, “I did not throw up apple pie.” Emergency room or jail, I am not sure where they will take me. I am the one stupid enough to look down while driving, turning the steering wheel in the process. Do they take you to jail for that?

Bright lights and an ambulance. No, I am not getting in there: I am going home. But Sister Parran will have her way, as she drives me to the hospital. Sister Parran always gets her way—that is how the world works, I think sullenly. But she does make good apple pie.

*

Sitting in a Chinese buffet restaurant. That is when it happened. Between sauce covered broccoli and fortune cookies I stepped back from the table talk around me and realized it. I had the family I had always wanted.

When you grow up, you have this idea in your head—the idea of the perfect family. I thought I’d met them when I was eight, but then I spent the night at their house and we had to go to bed at 7:00pm. That was NOT the perfect family. In fact, the more I got to know other families, the more I realized mine wasn’t as bad as I thought.

And then I became an adult. I grew up and left home. Fortunately, it wasn’t permanent and I keep coming back, so a Chinese buffet it was. We have issues. We have problems—I actually wrote a letter to my first boyfriend telling him to run away, very, very fast. But we are a family and we love each other.

And sitting there together, not caring about if we laugh too loud or eat too many noodles, I knew those people would always be there for me, and I for them. And if I could choose anyone, it would be them. Bonus points for being fun, too.

 

8.      Poverty Experiment

Poverty Experiment: one month, $2.50 a day, and me.

Fact #1: One billion people live off of the buying power of $1.25 a day

Fact #2: Three billion people (roughly half the population) live off of the buying power of $2.50 a day

These are statistics on paper. I shouldn't call it the poverty experiment, I should call it the reality experiment, because half the world lives like this. If the 27,000 children who die every day because of poverty--preventable causes--are important, then I need to do something about it.

The experiment became real when I was riding my bike with a backpack load of food and a box of oats balanced on the handlebars. Bike--no car--how could I afford a car on $2.50 a day?  I made a list and carefully calculated, and it still was $19.21--so that food needs to last for 8 days. Eggs and cheese, rice and beans, some vegetables, oats and tortillas, and peanuts. That's what I got. And only that.

It takes 30 minutes to ride my bike to work, but then 15 minutes to change into the right clothes, and 15 more to stop sweating. Suddenly, the weather is really important. it makes the difference of a happy Rachel, or a wet, soppy Rachel who has mud splatters up her back and has to wash her legs in the sink of the employee bathroom. Everything takes longer without the money we pay for convenience. I have to know what I need to do for the day, and plan backwards to make sure I have time to do it.

Things I take for granted and make this experiment unrealistic (but not invalid): Free lodging and accessories: all that $2.50 goes to food. Ideal situations: I picked a month of (hopefully) good weather, where biking is possible. Opportunities: I am already established and  have a great education and training for life. Community: I have a family, and great friends who support me, and would never let me starve. Choice: I have the choice to do this...and when to stop—choices that those living on $2.50 a day do not have.

Many people I know in Brazil live off of minimum wage, which is $300 a month; $10 a day. If a guy works and has a wife and two kids at home, they are living like this...$2.50 a day. They are the statistic. In the United States I make in one hour what they make in a day. It was $14.74 for groceries my second week. Besides having some leftover food from last week, I was able to get applesauce, sour cream, and noodles.

"In order to contribute, I would have to know myself better and be clearer about my goals. I would have to be ready to take (Africa) on its own terms, not mine, and learn my limits and present myself not as a do-gooder with a big heart, but as someone with something to give and gain by being there. Compassion wasn't enough." --"The Blue Sweater"

Top 10 reasons why NOT to listen when Jesus says "Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor." ( By Ash Barker in  “Make Poverty Personal”)

·         But then who would support the missionaries?

·         God has called me to minister to the rich.

·         It is on my to do list...I just have to finish (fill in the blank)...

·         Jesus only asked him because he had a problem with possessions.

·         Jesus only asked him because he didn't have a family.

·         Actually, you can get the camel through the gate--if he gets on his knees.

·         But Jesus wants me to have the best.

·         I would do it, if Jesus made it clear He WANTED me to.

·         I give 10%...He wants MORE?

·         Giving money to the poor is bad stewardship--they would use it for booze.

$16.69 for week three groceries. In addition to what I needed, I was able to get apples and kiwi. I slept outside last night, trying to imagine what it would be like to do that every night. I was able to make lunch for my family. I was so happy to have enough extra this week to be able to share. Sharing made me feel...empowered. I could give something after all.

The novelty wears off. The extra pushes of the pedal on my bike makes my legs ache. I get home after work and see all this beautiful food on the table and I want to eat it. I don't WANT rice and beans anymore. And I don't feel like cooking anything else. It grates against you. "Why can't you just be normal?" and "What's the point of giving up all these things?" and "It is not like you will ever really feel what it's like to be impoverished." Because I won't. My family will never let me starve. This little doing without things is like gnats. They don't hurt, they just irritate you.

Bitter. Seeing everyone else HAVE while I HAVE NOT. Why? Is this fair? I put myself in their shoes: I work as hard for my $2 a day as they are working for their $20 an hour. In fact, HARDER than most of them. All of this--just because of where I was born? Because of who my parents are? What does that have to do with me?

"Money won't solve the problem.” My friend said, when I read that it would take 13 billion dollars a year to end hunger for the world’s poorest: and over 18 billion a year is spent in pet food. But if money won’t, what will? Tell me what will solve it. Each person doing their part? What is their part? I believe God wrote a calling/way of helping on the heart of each person. One thing that gets them--it grabs their heart and won't let go. It is the job of each person to find this thing and then go after it.

12 Steps to solving poverty (By Paul Polack "Out of Poverty")

·         Go where the action is (stop pitying poor people)

·         Talk to the people who have the problem and listen to what they say

·         Learn everything you can about the problem's specific content (learn about the poor around you, as well as global poverty and what can be done)

·         Think big and act big

·         Think like a child

·         See and do the obvious (when you know the people, you know the problem, and sometimes a solution)

·         If somebody already invented it, you don't need to do it again (help whatever is already going on)

·         Make sure it has positive measurable impact that can be brought to scale, reaching a million people and make their lives measurably better.

·         Design to specific cost and price targets

·         Follow practical three year plans

·         Continue to learn from your customers

·         Stay positive: don't be distracted by what others think

30 days = $60.39. I found out that sometimes you just want SOMETHING ELSE, ANYTHING ELSE to eat. Drinking another glass of water doesn't cut it. I found a lot of books of a lot of great people doing a lot of great things in the world. I received a lot of encouragement from a lot of good people and had conversations with strangers and friends and family that would have never come up otherwise. I found that I take more time to do the little things, and the little things bring me more happiness than whatever else I used to be doing. I found time to enjoy sunsets. I found that my choices were more limited, but my ideas became unlimited.

I found that I felt strangled when I had nothing to give or share with others. When you are able to give, you feel empowered. I found that I will never really know the hopelessness and helplessness that those in true poverty feel. That this is just a little baby step toward something I am not sure of yet.

"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." --Mother Teresa

 

9.      Ramadan

Ramadan, the great Wikipedia says, "is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, and indulging in anything that is in excess or ill-natured; from dawn until sunset.” They have five pillars of faith, and this is one of them. I wonder how many Christians have given up things for God like that. I wonder if I can. I need this, and I have a fresh new journal to fill with a new project.

No more eating (and other things) from 5:05am on. until 5:53pm. It comes down to the minute. The sun goes down and food, glorious food. At 5:30pm Alyssa asked me to help with the cookies. Cookie dough on my fingers, with the warm, gooey smell taking over the kitchen. But 5:53pm it was.

Part of this is, and always will be, a set up: figuring out how to get around things. Waking up at 4:30am to eat breakfast. But it isn't about food; it is about using that time in prayer. About remembering why your stomach is growling and connecting it to the thought of  “oh yeah, it isn't about me.”  Muslims stop five times a day to physically bow down and pray. That is harder than it seems.

It is difficult sitting at the table while they eat and I drink water. Even if I wasn't hungry, would still feel left out by not eating with them. The other choice is isolation: ignore the food altogether—but then you ignore the people as well.

I choose life, and it fills me. Life is doing the dishes. It is sitting on the cool white tile floor at 10:42pm eating fried cheese and molasses with best friends, laughing as it drips down your chin. Life is sitting in the middle of 40 children who have one set of clothes but are playing like they owned the world.

I stood at the door of the church and hugged my kids goodbye. We had to send them into the streets to find some food to fill empty bellies. No food arrived for the program this week. I chose to be hungry—they did not. It feels like food is everything, as if life has no pleasure without it. I find myself back with Maslow, on the bottom level of the hierarchy of needs. Food. Food. Food. It pulses in my brain and clouds out everything else. No wonder hungry kids find it hard to concentrate.
Amazing how your body can adjust to a schedule, even one like Ramadan. If feels almost normal to not be eating. My stomach is shrinking. When I finally eat, I try to stuff in as much as I can until I fill up, then sit around, waiting to get unfull, so I can eat some more.

Ramadan reveals hoarders. I dream all day of what I will eat, but it often disappears during the day from those who are allowed to eat during the daylight hours. Water and I have become close. Really close. Because all day, every day, it is all I get. What do I do when I am done with Ramadan? Options rush me, but all I want to do is walk in the sunshine with a popsicle. Coconut popsicle. Life is better with popsicle dripping down your hand.