Getting Beans Back

At this point in my life, I have three grand-dogs. One is a French Bulldog named Beans and the other two are Corgis named Hanzo and Fern, who are siblings.

Aside from the obvious difference between these dogs, an important thing to know about them is if Hanzo or Fern squirt past you at the front door, they will wag their adorable corgi butts a short ways and come right back when called. Beans, on the other hand, will dart faster than you could ever think his stout frame could possible move and never look back, not even for cheese. Your only chance of getting him back is the fact that he can barely breath when at complete rest, so he’s no endurance athlete. He just loves to be chased. You also have the fact that his constant struggle for oxygen must keep his brain deprived of what it needs to be clever enough to outwit anyone who has two digits to their age. Because he is dearly-loved and cost the equivalent of a European vacation (when you include the not one, but two surgeries he’s needed to make it so he can eat without vomiting and breath to the extent that he can), his parents and all who are charged with being responsible for him take the greatest care to never let him escape. But, he finds a way on occasion, and when he does, oh the terror his parents feel, the panic that ensues, the strategies to re-capture his devious little self, the enlisting of help from any and all on hand, and the scorn-filled relief they feel when he is corned and caught. I’ve seen his mamma dive and catch him by just one back foot and hold tight while his dad rushes in to scoop him up, panting and gasping for all he’s worth (Beans, not his dad).

You might think with his lack of endurance and less than stellar intelligence, it might not be that difficult to catch him. You’d be wrong. He makes up for his clear deficits with blind enthusiasm for the chase. His huge brown eyes somehow double in size as he assumes his best downward dog, baiting you to reach for him. He’s a master of the lean left, juke right, and then go left. Or, maybe he’ll just go left without the juke. One never knows. How do I know this, you may be wondering? I dog sit for Beans quite frequently when his parents go out of town. And they dog sit for my dog, Chewie frequently when we go out of town. It works great, until we want to go out of town together as a whole family. On one such occasion, I asked one of my co-workers and his wife, Peter and Christy, who are good friends, to come to our home for a long weekend and watch both dogs. They graciously agreed to Rover for us. Because they’ve been to our house plenty, they’re very familiar with Chewie, who never tries to escape, ever. Nothing to worry about there. She’s an old, sweet, very low maintenance dog. I warned them to not be fooled by the vacant look on Beans’ face and the slow way he meanders up to the open front door. He cannot get out, or God help you in getting him back. And they were so vigilant. They never once let their guard down at the front door. I also warned them about the gate on the side of the house because there is access from the backyard, so it has to be kept latched. So, every time they came home, they double checked it was latched before they came in to let the dogs out into the backyard. The trouble is, this is a shared gate with my unsuspecting neighbor, Mary and her well-behaved dog, Lexie.

Friday is garbage day. The cans were empty and sitting outside the gate. Normally, I bring both our cans and Mary’s cans in for both of us on Friday afternoon, but my friends didn’t know to do that, so Mary’s cans were still out on the street Saturday mid-morning. When Peter and Christy returned from getting coffee, they diligently checked the gate to make sure it was latched. Then, they carefully came in the front door, making sure to keep Beans well inside. Of course, they then let both dogs out the back door to go to the bathroom. Chewie went straight out to the grass, peed and came right back. Beans carefully inspected where Chewie peed to make sure he peed in the exact same spot and then disappeared around the corner to check out Mary’s glass door in case the cat was sunning herself and then went to the top of the stairs by the gate to take up his gargoyle post. Something in Peter’s gut told him to walk around the corner and just check the gate again, even though he had just checked in right before they came in the front door. When he rounded the corner, his eyes took in two terrifying facts: the gate was not just unlatched, it was open and Beans was making his way up the stairs. As he ran to get him, Beans picked up his pace and scurried past Mary who had opened the gate to put her garbage cans in and then walked a few steps away to talk with a friend who was out for a walk. She saw Beans scamper by, Peter frantically burst through the gate and rush to the front door where he slammed it open and yelled to Christy, “I need you, fast!” before he took off in pursuit of Beans who was running down the walking/ running/ biking trail that is just beyond the road in front of our house.

                  Distracted by the smells of so many dogs who had been along that trail that day and all the days prior, Beans was torn. Do I run, do I smell, do I pee in all these spots. First he ran. Then he peed until Peter was close. But Peter was a rookie Beans hunter and he thought he had him. He didn’t know about the downward dog, lean left, juke right, could go either direction move Beans had perfected. So Beans evaded him, time and again. With Mary and her friend coming up behind Beans, Peter could run ahead to block his other escape route. Christy was just about in position to prevent him from getting around him on the road, but he saw his window closing and tucked his butt in his most agile and quickest move of all and got past her to take off in Mary’s direction for another twenty yard sprint. But he was breathing in snorts and gasps and needed a break, if only for a few seconds, which allowed Peter to make his way down the trail and get behind him. Now Mary and her friend were in front of him, Christy had the road blocked and Peter had his flank. With the circle intact, they slowly closed as he crouched, snorting and rasping like a dying machine. It did take a final dive to capture him and lug his dense body home. All five were exhausted, Beans from the physical exertion, Mary, her friend, Peter, and Christy from the adrenaline rush of almost losing Beans.

                  Each day we were gone, I sent Peter a text asking how the dogs were and he replied, just fine, all’s well. I passed the good news on to Beans’ parents and we all enjoyed a wonderful weekend away. When I returned to work on Tuesday, Peter and I were enjoying lunch with a group of friends and I asked him if the dogs gave them any trouble and he then told be the story of chasing Beans. I laughed but understood. It’s one thing to let your own dog out and feel the fear of “what if I lost him?” It’s another thing all together when it’s someone else’s dog.

                  Later that week, my son stopped by and we were chatting. I asked him how Beans was doing after his weekend with strangers. “He’s perfectly fine,” he said. “You know Beans, he loves everyone. Why, did Peter say something? Did he give them trouble?”

                  “No, he was his normal friendly self,” I said smiling. “But, he did get out.” The sheer terror on my son’s face for a split second even though the ordeal was over. Beans was home on his own couch with his own blanket as we spoke, and he was still a bit unnerved. I told him the story and he felt bad for Peter and Christy having to go through that.

He also said, “I’m so grateful they got him back. I mean I feel bad Beans did that and obviously it was a complete accident. No one could have seen that coming. But this is why if freaks us out so much to leave him. Unless it’s your dog, you just don’t really know what they’ll do and how to get them back. And, honestly, Peter and Christy did a great job, but no one will work as hard as you will for your own dog. I’m just so glad they could catch him. Beans loose on the trail. God knows how far he could go.”

As he left to go home and probably hug and scold Beans at the same time, neither of which Beans would understand, I thought of the first Bible story I ever heard in my very first Sunday School class. It was 1972, so the teacher had a felt story board and put up a felt fence, felt sheep, one felt sheep way outside the fence, a felt man with a bathrobe (or so I thought), and explained how the felt man who I learned was Jesus would leave all the sheep safe in the fence to go find the one who was lost. Everything my son said rang true. When they’re yours, you know what they’ll do and you know how to get them back. And no one will care as much as you do or work as hard as you will because they’re yours. If you look at the cross, you know that’s true.

Hide and Seek with Mt. Rainier

I’m quite certain part of the point of Wordle is to solve it as quickly as possible. Normally, I don’t play that way. I like to come up with as many words as possible with the green letters I have. Except one day, I was mid-game while waiting for a flight to take off and it was getting to be crunch time and I was struggling to come up with what the word was. I had a G and U in gold, no green letters, absolutely no idea what direction to go, and the flight attendants were starting the safety briefing. Obviously I needed to crowd source so I turned to the young man beside me and asked, “do you play Wordle?” He smiled and said,

                  “I love Wordle, let me see what you have.” As I handed him my phone, he went on to say with a warm smile, “I grew up in Nairobi and all I did all summer long was play soccer until I was exhausted and take a break to play scrabble, so you asked the right person for help.” I suggested GUANT, turning the G and U to green while asking him if Seattle was his home now or if he was just visiting. He said, “I moved to Washington D. C. for college and because I studied computer science, I came to Seattle each summer to do internships at different tech companies each year. I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest and moved here to work for Microsoft in October, 2019,” and his face told me he felt betrayed by the Pacific Northwest.

                  “Aw, that’s tough. If you had only ever been here in the summer, you probably thought it was always blue skies and mountains every day, huh?”

                  “Exactly,” he lamented as we finished my Wordle with GUARD in all green just as the flight attendants shut the door and it was time to put my phone in airplane mode.

                  He continued, “not only did the beautiful mountains hide for months and months and it rain and rain and rain, but then the pandemic kept me from my scrabble group.”

                  “Where did you find a scrabble group?” I asked.

                  “Just Meet Ups. I looked for a scrabble group on Meet Ups and showed up to a group of sweet 70 year old women who handed me my ass with a smile on their face, offered me a cookie and then handed me it again. It was very humbling. As if I needed another reason to be depressed.”

The Blue Angels with a Mt. Rainier backdrop - a Seafair specialty.

I went on to ask him all kinds of questions about Nairobi, moving to D.C., and moving to Seattle. He kept coming back to the  mountains here and how much he loves seeing them and how much he misses them during the winter months, especially Mt. Rainier. I have had this same conversation with so many people who move to Seattle from places without mountains or with mountains that they miss. The thing about the mountains in Seattle, if you’ve never been on a clear day, is that they surround us: the Olympic range is to the west, the Cascade mountains are to the east, Mt. Rainier is a pillar of stunning beauty standing on her own in the south, and Mt. Baker reflects her in the north. And Seattle is hilly, so on a clear day from the top of  most any crest, they steal your breath in every direction like a cold plunge.

                  One day a friend of mine was worrying for me that my oldest daughter, who likes to move to continents far, far away from me, might never come back. It happened to be a pristine summer day and we were on a boat in the middle of Lake Washington with my daughter getting ready to surf in full view of Mt. Rainier, and I said with a wry but confident smile, “I know she’ll always come back home because she loves this lake and that mountain.” She winked and agreed.

Almost six years ago, we moved to a house where, from the very tip of the corner of the back yard, on a clear day, you can see Mt. Rainier. Conversely, on a cloudy day, I can stand there and see where Mt. Rainier is, even when I can’t see her. Even though I can see the clouds from my kitchen window, I still go outside and to the corner of the yard to look because maybe, just maybe, I might still get a glimpse of her. Moving to this house also created a new route to work that includes driving across the longest floating bridge in the U.S. that spans Lake Washington to get from Seattle to the east side. From the middle of this bridge, for just a minute at 60 miles an hour, there is a clear view of Mt.Rainier, on the days she’s out. Other days, there is a clear view of where she stands behind the clouds. Sometimes only her top is poking out. There are rare days when a thin ring wraps her middle. On my way home each night, I have to look back over my left shoulder to glimpse her, which could be dangerous, but the traffic that time of day is quite slow, so it’s usually ok, and I can see how she looks in the evening light – on lucky days. The sun sets over behind the Olympics, casting a soft pink glow on her ever white top, a trait we share. As you are beginning to see, I spend a lot of time looking for and at this beautiful mountain. Imagine how taken I was with the picture my daughter, Carly, sent me of her view from near the top of Mt. Rainier – above the clouds at sunrise - on her climb last summer.

Mt. Rainier at sunrise - close to the summit.

One day, as I rode my bike across the bridge to work, much slower than 60 miles per hour, the sun was just rising up to the east of her, casting a soft orange glow on her south east side, I thanked God for her beauty and a thought came to my mind that I could never have come to on my own. “This mountain’s presence is much like my love and plans for you. Sometimes it is clear and hangs prominently in front of you, reflecting the light from every direction. Other times, it is shrouded, sometimes for weeks at a time. But it is still there just the same, even when you cannot see it.” It is this that compels me to look each day for Mt. Rainier, whether it be a pristine blue skied day, or  an ominous dark clouded storm for the 23rd day in a row. It doesn’t change the reality of what is there. This is what I shared with my Wordle friend on the plane who was accustomed to the blue skies of Nairobi and his ever-present view of Mt. Kenya.

The view of where Mt. Rainier is behind the clouds.

after the bad thing happens

I have always loved getting my hands in the dirt outside. But since moving to the house we live in now five years ago, I’ve had pretty good luck with house plants too. It started with a house warming gift, then my daughter and I discovered a fabulous nursery in north Seattle, Swansons; they have the most gorgeous house plants. I brought two home. Then we went back and I brought one more home. Now I have eleven. We live close to water, so I think the moisture in the air is helping them thrive. Every few weeks I take the large ZZ plants outside to water so I can really drench them and let them drain for a few hours before I bring them back in. They have become huge (by my standards and ability to grow house plants), sprawling, and absolutely fantastic. I love them. My grand dog Beans (he’s a French Bulldog) loves to hide behind them.

On one of these trips through the front door, which is a bit of a Cheeze Whiz experience for the plant, one of the stems broke off. Rather than toss the broken stem into the compost, I put it in a vase of water and kept it on my kitchen counter where it gets indirect bright morning light. I kept the water clean and gave it some time. After a few months, I noticed tiny white nubs of root growing from the breakage point. It wasn’t quite ready for soil and a pot yet. A bad thing happened to it and it needed to rest, some tender specialized care, and a chance to get its bearings about it. But once those little roots started, they grew quickly. While it took two months for the little guy to start the nubs of new life, once they started, they took off like a puppy growing into its paws. Each time I checked on them, they added clear growth. Before I knew it, they had three inches of roots coming out of the breakage point and were ready to be planted in rich soil in their own beautiful new pot. So, I gave it to a friend at work and now he has a new plant instead of just a bad thing happening to my plant.

One afternoon I was at a reception for a well-respected colleague who was leaving his position when a co-worker, who used to be a student of mine, came up to introduce me to a person new to our staff. In the introduction, he told her how much I helped him when he was my student and went through a difficult time. He was a very bright student who had a full ride college scholarship for his academic promise. But he struggled mightily and faltered several times. We spent many hours in my office as he tried to get his bearings. He took some time off from school to take care of himself for a while, came back as an online student for a bit because it was easier for him to manage, and finally returned to complete his degree. Instantly, the broken plant came to my  mind. I told him about this plant that had a bad thing happen to it. And when that bad thing happened to it what it needed was a little time to rest, some care and a chance to heal, and now new roots are growing and it’s ready to thrive again. Emotion clouded his eyes and he thanked me. I told him I think God’s creation is very consistent and we are a part of it. A bad thing can happen to a plant or a person and with time and loving care, both can find a way to thrive again. Like the new plant, this former student who struggled through his pain and regained a new place from which to thrive is now a graduate enrollment counselor who helps people find their path.

Education - getting your money’s worth

Are you someone who hates wasting? I am. We eat leftovers. I’m constantly turning off lights, adding water to the bottom of the soap, milk to the last of the salad dressing, you get the idea. I love a good deal and really have to restrain myself when there’s a good BOGO because I can be tempted even when I don’t need it – just because it’s a good deal – which makes it not a good deal. I always want to get my money’s worth. 

One of the most ironic things about my life is I grew up to be a teacher and go to school my whole life, specifically, an English teacher. The first thing that makes this ironic is I used to quit school all the time. Growing up, my family lived across the street from the elementary school I attended and so whenever school wasn’t going particularly well for me on any given day, I quit and went home. For years, if another student commented on my mis-matched clothes (I liked to get creative and mix it up, and swap out what my mom laid out for me after she left for work), my extremely hairy legs, or I just didn’t really feel like going back to class after recess, I’d just hide in the huge drainage pipe on the playground when everyone else went inside and then sneak across the street to hang out with my dog and read books in my room. Never one time did anyone mention the fact that I wasn’t there for the afternoon. Of course, I had to pay attention to which shift my stepdad was working because I could only do this when he was working days. He was home when he was working swing-shift and sleeping on the graveyard shift. Then, when I was in seventh grade, my sixth-grade teacher had recommended me for the language arts challenge program in junior high. The challenge teacher didn’t agree that I belonged and made my mom take time off work to come to a conference where she told both of us, “she is not gifted or talented and doesn’t belong in this challenge program. She’s an over-achiever and knows how to work hard but doesn’t belong here. I can’t kick her out, but I recommend she move down.” It didn’t fill me with academic confidence and the junior high was too far from home to quit, so I decided to stay to prove her wrong.  Finally, the last ironic thing about me going to school every day for my life is the fact that I chose to be an English teacher. My English teacher for my sophomore year was perhaps one of my least favorite teachers of all time, even worse than the seventh grade challenge lady. She was prissy, way over dressed for the occasion of teaching high school and mailed it in with the lesson plan of having us write thought slips for her to read aloud every Friday. But, after 15 years teaching high school and college English, I now work as an academic advisor at a small liberal arts university, and I love it. Partly because despite the ironies of quitting school several times a week for the first several years, being told I don’t belong, and not having English teachers I connected with, I love school, learning, and everything that goes with it. As a student and even more so as a teacher, I am dumbfounded when students don’t go to class, don’t do the reading, don’t do the work, and otherwise take a pass on the opportunity to learn.

My colleagues and I discuss this phenomenon all the time. We read the educational research that tries to understand how and why some students thrive and others don’t, what students need to be ready to learn, what fills or is missing from their invisible backpacks that enables or makes it difficult for them to navigate the complicated educational systems – particularly at the higher-ed level, what kinds of social and systemic issues are impacting their ability to succeed, what familial supports they need, what kinds of emotional and mental health concerns are preventing them from being fully present and able to engage in learning – the list is very long. Of course, not every potential support or detriment is present for every student. In one of these conversations, one of my colleagues said she was talking with her husband about a student who was not showing up and he said, “education is one of the few things where we don’t try to get our money’s worth.”

And yet with all of the considerations listed above that make engaging in learning difficult, his statement really struck a chord in me, I think because I am always trying to get my money’s worth, and I so love learning. I work at a private college where tuition is rather steep. Students and their parents are paying close to $36,000 a year for a college education. Many are taking out considerable loans. What made his statement ring so true is I frequently hear students tell me the reason they are falling behind in their classes is because they don’t go, they don’t do the reading, they don’t do the work, or they didn’t study because they were distracted by friends, phones, games, or they just aren’t motivated to do the work. This one really gets me. They talk about wanting to find their motivation like it’s on a shelf at Bartell’s down the street. When I hear a student tell me they chose to take a nap rather than go to class, my mind quickly figures out the cost of that nap in tuition wasted. But more than the tuition wasted, I am always struck by the missed opportunity to learn, to become better at thinking, better at solving problems, better able to understand themselves, others, and the world they are moving into.

To make this point, at the last orientation for new students I conducted, I had one of my colleagues sit in the front of the auditorium while I was presenting. He had a full meal from Chick-Fil-A. I asked him to make a production of laying it all out. The fries smelled delicious. He opened the chicken sandwich and carefully spread the special sauce all over the bun. He opened another package of sauce and dipped his first waffle fry and ate it. Then he thumped the straw on the table to push the paper down enough to be able to pull it from the wrapper before putting it in the dark, sugary drink. He slurped some up and set it back down before taking his first bite of the warm, tender chicken. He ate three bites of the sandwich, two more fries, and then carefully wrapped it all back up and threw it away. Of course, the students were paying absolutely no attention to what I was saying. I mean, they were trying, but they were so distracted by his eating. That is until he threw most of it away. Then they weren’t even trying to pay attention to me at all. One of them interrupted to ask, “why did he just throw that away?”

“Ah, I’m so glad you asked!” I answered. I turned to him and asked, “Robert, why on earth would you go to all the trouble of driving to Chick-fil-A, paying good money for a meal, carefully preparing to eat it, take only a few bites, and then throw it away?”

To which he said, “I dunno.”

That really got them. I asked, “does anyone know what I was talking about when Robert threw his food away?”

One student had the gist, “something about going to class.”

“Yes, exactly. The importance of going to class. As you may have guessed, Robert is not just eating and throwing away Chick-fil-A in front of you while I’m talking for no reason. What are your thoughts about what you just saw?”

The students were catching on. They were horrified by the waste of something so valuable to them as a Chick-fil-A meal. Then I made sure to make clear that college is not for everyone and not required for a meaningful life, but if you’re going to enroll in college and pay for what you, your parents, or the loans you’re taking and will have to pay back whether you get a degree or not hope will lead to meaningful work that will support your life, then taking a nap instead of going to class, not doing the reading, not doing the work, trading Netflix or TikTok or your video game of choice or fear of failure rather than asking for help is like throwing away that meal you just paid for. If you are going to pay for it, please, for God’s sake, get your money’s worth. I understand the challenges and barriers that make learning and showing up very difficult, and we have all kinds of resources to help with those: nearly free counseling, academic life coaching, free tutoring, free research assistants, etc.  I want them to show up to learn not just the specific content of each class, but learn how to think, how to communicate, how to solve problems. These are the skills that transcend subject matter and will nourish their lives; they have mine.

Pruning

February is a tough month for folks who live in Seattle. I’m sure it’s worse for people who live in far colder and far darker places such as Anchorage or Minneapolis or Bangor. But, for Seattleites, it’s been gray and wet for months on end and blue sky that contrasts the stunning Cascade and Olympic Mountain ranges anchored by Mount Rainier and Mount Baker is a distant memory. But what really makes it tough is that we know it is likely to be the end of May before we get a reprieve from the rain and spring really arrives, or in a bad year, maybe even deep into June. For me, however, there is a bright spot when February rolls around. It’s time to bundle up and get outside to start cleaning up the last of the leaves from fall and prune my roses and trees. I have always loved getting my hands in the dirt, mostly because through his creation is the clearest way I understand God. All throughout the spring, summer, and fall, I am constantly outside on my knees, hands in the dirt, regularly thinking about some aspect of God’s character, ways, love, or truths. Winter makes this hard and so when pruning in February comes around, it’s oxygen after holding my breath underwater for too long.

Never do I prune my roses, in February and all throughout the growing season, that I don’t remind myself of John 15 and think of all the ways it seems like pruning the rose bush is harsh and brutal but when done right, promotes health and growth and the opportunity for beauty and continual new blossoms, not just the first buds on last year’s tired branches and that’s it for the season. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”

 For as much as I’ve tried to learn about roses: classes I’ve taken, articles I’ve read, YouTube videos I’ve watched (every season before I start), people I ask, I still feel a little bit terrified inside when I cut so much off. So many beautiful buds. With very sharp clippers.

While I love my roses and think I have a good bunch of bushes in my yard with my 11, it seems every time I bring it up, the person to whom I’m talking has 30 or 40 bushes and knows far more than I. So, I’ve learned to ask questions. Pruning for the season’s bloom starts at the end of the last season. Just as fall makes up its mind to get serious and start frosting the grass white and the leaves deepen red and amber, it’s time to strip the branches. Take off all the leaves so the wind has less to catch throughout the winter and snow has less to build up on and weigh down and damage the plant. Then, it’s good to prune in February, just as they’re starting to bud for the new season. This will allow you to see where the plant is sending shoots in crazy directions and set it on a healthy path. Cut all the shoots crossing into the middle of the tree or rose bush so they are growing in the direction of the bud.

You want to make sure you have sharp clippers to make a clean cut. First, remove all blooms and leaves from last season that may still remain or that managed to bloom after the fall trimming to prevent disease.  Next, cut off all the dead woody branches left from last year. This will allow for new growth. What supported big, beautiful blooms last year will hold the plant back from the same this year.

And, then I fertilize them. Around the base I sprinkle the nutrients they need to grow strong robust blossoms and develop the defenses they need to fend off aphids, and mildew and black spot that threaten their vitality and beauty. This is a constant vigilance I maintain. At least once a week, I am watching, trimming, checking – to make sure the faded and the dead blooms are removed to make way for the new and the whole plant is fed and protected. From February all the way through to the last days of fall. And I’m just an amateur gardener. Imagine the care the master takes.

Scars

Two of the many things I love are dogs and running. One February morning, early enough to bite at my cheeks and nose, but late enough that the sky was just beginning to blush, I was out for my morning run. It was a Saturday, so traffic was quiet, and the morning mist was hovering over lawns wet from the night’s dew.

When I’m running, I can get really lost in my thoughts and lose all awareness of my surroundings, so I didn’t notice the three dogs come out from the open gate until they were in the air, jaws open, just inches from my face. I managed to get my arm up in time to protect my face, but two of them sunk their teeth deep into the flesh of my arm, one just above my elbow and one just below. The third couldn’t get around the first two to reach me. They were pit bulls, I came to realize as they shook my arm and the third tried again to leap over the two that had me in their jaws. My only thought was, “I can’t kick them or they could knock me down.” To be honest, I’m not sure how long they shook my arm before I looked back and they were all three running, ears back and tails down, back to the open gate they came from. It didn’t take long for me to think, if you’re running away, so am I, and I ran about 10 yards before I started to feel dizzy and nocuous and noticed the blood seeping through my shirt and running out of my sleeve. I stopped and sat down with my head between my knees so I wouldn’t pass out. A car stopped beside me and a woman who was passing by in the opposite direction who saw the attack, called 911, and came back to help me had her arm around my shaking shoulders. After she got me in the warm passenger seat of her car, she asked me, “how did you get them to let go and leave you alone? They had you.”

I looked up and said, “I don’t know. I think an angel must have showed up.”

She got a very concerned look on her face, patted my shoulder, and said, “I think you’re just upset.” She waited several feet away from me until the police and aid car arrived.

For days, I couldn’t run outside. For weeks, I had nightmares of dogs coming at me and I’d wake up terrified. So, I started memorizing the book of Colossians as I went to sleep and filled my mind with something other than the memory of that terrifying experience. My husband ran with me when I first ventured to run outside again. And, slowly, my fear healed and faded to match the faint scars of their teeth marks on my arm that my kids assure me are cool. Now, years later, frequently when I wear short sleeves, someone will ask me, “what bit you?”

There was a 9.2 earthquake off the coast of Alaska in 1964. The damage to Anchorage and the surrounding cities was devastating. The tsunami that followed is the largest ever recorded reaching 1,720 feet (taller than the Empire State Building) when it struck the tall banks of Lituya Bay. While the cities are fully rebuilt, 80 years later, you can see the scars left on the landscape from the tsunami.

My grandparents grew up during the depression. They always, always, always cleaned their plates. And when you were at their house, so did you. Food was precious to them. My grandpa made logs for the fire out of newspapers wrapped in wire and fished the wire out of the fire and re-used them until they were so brittle, they broke. My grandma canned hundreds of jars of beans, peaches, pears, apple jelly, jam, pickles, beets, onions, carrots, and everything else that grew in their garden every year. She could tell you with pin-point accuracy how many jars of each she had at any given time and from what year they came. You couldn’t see those scars, but they never left them. My sister, brother and I used to spend weeks at a time at their house each summer helping pick the fruits and vegetables and can them. We loved the rows and rows of jars filled with green beans and apple pie filling on shelves in our garage all year long. We understood why we always had to clean our plates at Grandma and Grandpa Rhodes’ house. We didn’t necessarily see them as scars, but they were cool to us. Maybe not the homemade clothes, but the rest, that was cool.

My brother’s ears are ridiculous. He has been wrestling since he was 10 years old. I’m not even sure what the medical term is, but wrestlers call it cauliflower ear. After years of grinding your ear against the mat, day after day, they become so disfigured, they don’t even look like ears. He cannot use headphones unless they’re the huge over the whole ear kind, and even those don’t really fit quite right. Forget about a Q-tip. It’s caused by fluid filling the entire ear, every fold and canal after the insult of being ground against the mat. The headgear doesn’t help prevent this. Over time, this fluid hardens to feel just like cartilage, kind of like the bridge of your nose. In fact, his are so notorious, they earned him a spot in a pre-Olympics Nike commercial once upon a time that featured many Olympians and their scars, battle wounds, earned from years in their respective sports. Now that he’s retired from both wrestling and ultimate fighting, he could have them repaired and restored to look like ears again, but he wouldn’t dream of it. He loves them for he’s earned them, and they are his battle wounds, hard earned and hard fought.

There was a time when a young boy from Ethiopia lived with our family for a few months. He came to the US for medical treatment. He’d lost both of his arms in an act of unspeakable violence. One arm was too damaged for a prosthetic limb, the other barely long enough. But oh, how he loved to swim. While it was not me walking from the locker room to the crowded pool deck with bare stubs for arms while children and parents alike stared after him, I felt his discomfort. There was no language barrier for this pain.  My family and I helped him eat, brush his teeth, dress, bathe, scratch the back of his head, and buckle his seat belt, to name a few things he needed help with. These are independences toddlers fight for and demand from their parents. He was 14. It was a terrific battle between helping him and helping him learn to do these things for himself, especially after he got his “arm.” It was a triumph to watch him ride his custom-made bike. It was a triumph and a heartbreak to see him go back home to Ethiopia with one prosthetic arm and as many supplies to support its use as possible. Can these scars ever be cool? Perhaps language is failing here. Cool. Emblems of resilience. Signposts of pain. Heralds of healing. Storytellers. Historians.   

As the COVID-19 pandemic transitions to an endemic, the speculation of what the scars will be are emerging and taking shape. On the young children whose first social interactions with the public have been distanced and through masks, on school-aged children whose first school experiences have been disrupted and online, on middle-aged children who didn’t develop social skills with their peers, on middle and high school aged children who didn’t go through the process of connecting more with adults outside their families and with their peers than with their parents and siblings – if they were fortunate enough to have them, on adults who were confined to their homes and small or non-existent social circles for such an extended period of time, on society as a whole after witnessing so much death and protracted uncertainty, on the nurses and doctors who cared for the dying day by day and month by month as not only medical providers but surrogate family members for last breaths, on the local and global economy, on international relationships, the list could go on and  on. What will the scars look like and how will the wounds heal to be scars? How will today’s children describe their grandparents who grew up during the pandemic like I’ve described my grandparents who grew up during the depression?

Will these scars be cool? A scar can be a sign of pain and trauma or an emblem of resilience and healing. Too often all we see are the scars or end result, and don’t understand what happened between the injury and the resulting scar. Dr. Brene Brown in Rising Strong calls this gold-plated grit where we gloss over the messy second act and skip right to the end where the moral, gem, lesson lies. No one wants to talk about the nights after the dog attack I bolted up out of sleep terrified from a nightmare of dogs coming at me. No one wants to hear about the mornings I stood paralyzed by my front door with my running shoes on unable to step outside. No one wants to talk about the time my husband got a little too far ahead of me on those first mornings running back outside and I panicked and stopped, unable to even take a step. Or about the time, months later when I was walking with my daughters and a huge dog inside a car barked and lunged at the windows at us. Before I knew what was happening, I was flat on my face on the ground shaking. It took both of them to get me back up and away from the barking dog. Mine was a terrifying, but quick experience. My scars are visible but coverable and manageable. I don’t mean to minimize what a life-threatening or excruciatingly painful experience may have been like, one that may have left life altering scars – visible or not. Scars can be cool, if they heal to an emblem of resilience. But don’t gold plate that process. It’s not easy. And not all scars are easy to bear. But what I’ve learned from those with scars from trauma far worse than any of mine, they can heal.

Compost

The first year of the pandemic gave people lots of time at home. Some took up baking bread, or at least they squirreled away all the flour and yeast in the known world to do so. And the learning curve must have been tough on their digestive systems because they also needed all the toilet paper available to humanity as well. No judgement - I understand what can happen when a recipe goes south. I was among the “I think I’ll grow my own vegetables, how hard can it be,” crowd. Turns out, like everything, there’s a lot to it, starting with the dirt. Excuse me, soil. Rookie mistake.

April 2020, I headed into my backyard and put some lettuce seeds in the raised planter boxes the previous owners of our home built. The two 6’ by 2’ rectangle boxes had been staring blankly at me like the hollowed-out eyes of a jack-o-lantern in early November for the whole of the previous summer. I eagerly bought seed packets for green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, and romaine, but no kale. Those seeds were as valuable as toilet paper, apparently. And four zucchini plants. It only took about twenty minutes to make the straight-ish rows about 1/8” deep, sprinkle the pin sized seeds, cover them over, toss the packets into the recycling, diligently water, and wait. It was a pretty nice spring in Seattle back in 2020, weather wise at least, so my little lettuce plants started to peek through the soil pretty quick. You’d think I was in The Martian and these were the potatoes that were going to save my life. While everyone else was watching The Tiger King, I was watching my lettuce. My neighbor, who knows how to grow vegetables and had been doing so for years, came over to stand 6 feet away and offer her expert observations. “What kind of lettuce is this row?” she asked.

            “Oh, I can’t recall. I have 3 different kinds in here but I don’t remember which is which.” It then occurred to me I should have saved those little packets. An instant memory of my grandparents’ garden with little stakes with the seed packets standing sentry at the end of every row warmed my heart. “Genius,” I thought.

            “When did you plant each row?” she asked again.

            “I planted them around the middle of April,” I said proudly.

            “All of them?” she gently asked with a sense of either puzzlement or pity, I couldn’t tell which.

            “Yep, all of them,” I said, still proud. Again, it dawned on me. “Oh, that wasn’t such a good idea, was it?”

            “Well,” she started compassionately. “If you stagger them, you won’t have all of your lettuce to eat all at once.” We stood in silence for a moment. I could tell she was beginning to wonder if she should ask anymore questions. Finally, she ventured again, tentatively. “What complimentary crops did you plant?”

            At that, I just laughed. “Oh, I didn’t plant any complimentary crops. Just lettuce and these 4 zucchinis.”

            Now she was laughing with me. “Do you know how big zucchini plants get?”

            “Nope.”

            “Huge. And each one will give you tons of zucchini.”

            “Great! I’m the only one who likes zucchini.” We were laughing so hard we both bent over. I managed to choke out, “I’ll bring you some.”

            She finally caught her breath and said, “what about your soil? How did you prepare the soil and what are you doing about bugs?”

            “Absolutely nothing,” I laughed.

            “Well, it’s not too late for some good organic bug deterrents, but next year, you’re going to have to work on your soil before winter.”

            And so it began. I started learning how to prepare soil, stagger my planting such that the harvest isn’t all ready at once, and I have learned about the three sisters: corn, squash, and beans. And while I’m still a rookie vegetable gardener, I’m not new to gardening. I love having my hands in the dirt, working in my yard, keeping my beds weeded, grass trimmed and mowed, roses blooming, bushes neat, and pots brimming with color. But I’ve never given much thought to the soil before, at least not beyond what color I would prefer my hydrangeas to be. But as I’m learning how to cultivate rich soil, a whole new world is beckoning. It feels like the first time I suctioned a mask to my face and peered at the complex world under the ocean waves – that kind of mask, not a KN95, but fair assumption. We are talking about spring 2020 after all.

            On the one hand, building nutritious soils is fairly straightforward. You need good minerals that come from a natural composting process with some greens and some browns so plants can grow and thrive. But, as much as it might seem like this is about gardening, composting, and soils - it’s not. To be honest, I don’t know near enough about that to say any more than I have. Just after attending the Seattle Flower and Garden Show with my daughters last February and listening to a gentleman present on native plants and what they need, my pastor was talking about The Parable of the Sower, and I was struck by the similarities between what he had said and she had to say. While he was talking about plants that are native to the Pacific Northwest and the different kinds of soils they need to thrive, she was talking about the different “soils” or condition of a heart necessary to receive from God. My mind wandered to think about what the composting process of one’s life is in order to maintain a heart where God is welcome, and life thrives.

            In the parable, some seeds fell on the hard-packed soil of the walking path. No chance of growth there. Good soil needs to be tilled, turned, loosened all the time. This is such an important process because the normal course of seasons hardens soil, much like our hearts. The cumulative effect of daily fears, failures, offenses, injustices, even successes have to be tilled in a composting process and then rototilled into the soil of our hearts. Compost has to be churned with love and infused with the oxygen of examination and the warmth of truth in order to break down the natural elements of a life and feed the soil of a heart in order to foster growth. If you shove down and trample your fears and triumphs, your failures and friendships, your offenses and offenders, those you’ve angered and who’ve angered you every day - your heart will be as hard and as uneven as a well-trodden path. You may think you’ve tamed it, whichever of the pieces of your life you’re tamping down but, in fact, they will have tethered you. For me, a great example of this is withdrawing out of fear from my husband in conflict. Having lost all contact with my dad when I was five with no explanation until I was nineteen and then growing up with two abusive, alcoholic step-dads, I hide at the first sign of conflict in fear of abandonment. I am the most ardent of rule followers, so when the rules said, everyone wear a mask, a mask I wore. He is less of a rule follower and far more independent minded than I. Many people took issue with the masks for many reasons; for him, he was more than willing to wear a mask for his own safety and for others’ safety. But he bristles at being told what to do, so there was a tension there and he drew some lines about wearing his mask in his office all day, every day. But he shares his office with others he decided to make a part of “his bubble.” However, that made them a part of my bubble, and I wasn’t comfortable with that. As you can imagine, for both of us, this conflict had little to do with the masks and more to do with my fear of rejection and abandonment that I try to abate by making sure I’m doing everything right all the time, which is impossible and exhausting. And when I sense rejection is near, fear mounts inside my gut like I’m a little kid being chased, and I withdraw. For him, it was about his vow of independence he made to himself when he was very young and his parents divorced. When anything infringes on his ability to control himself and his environment to prevent that kind of pain again, he shuts down. It’s a perfect storm. Thirty-five years of marriage have unfurled this scenario between us like flag billowing in a breeze. Understanding helps, but man, softening the soil on those hard-packed responses is back-breaking work.

            You also need plenty of soil. If it’s shallow, seeds may grow at first, but they will not thrive. Without deep soil, the plant cannot develop roots that will sustain life. The soil holds the water and the minerals, but it also provides stability. A heart that is unavailable, hidden behind the rocks of past accomplishments, hurts, or anger over hardships is shallow soil. Relationships and opportunities to grow and live into your gifts in effective ways will be scorched by seasons of drought where the flow of new water and nutrients lags and your roots don’t have deep soil from which to draw. Shallow roots can also leave you vulnerable to topple when abundance comes because you will not be grounded well enough to handle the money, notoriety, attention, or responsibility it brings. Both the absolute bounty and the beautiful as well as the abominations of life have to be tossed into the compost pile of the heart and churned together. Be grateful for your blessings, forgive yourself and others their mistakes, learn and grow from failure, be generous with your bounty, be humble regarding your gifts, and take full responsibility for your shortcomings.

            Even plants that initially thrive in deep, rich soil face threats. A heart that is open to love, examination, and truth is also prey to worry and distraction. These can choke and crowd the best of plants. Regular weeding is important, particularly in good soil because everything grows in rich soil. Make sure you have honest relationships with courageous people who will keep you growing in self-awareness for there are fewer gifts of greater worth.

            So what makes for good soil? Compost replenishes the nutrients that time and the planting process drains from the soil. Compost is made up of the healthy stuff in your life that you no longer need or can use, or that was once good and beautiful but is now rotten or beyond its useful life. Not everything makes for good compost, just like not everything is good for a human life or body. Animal fats and greasy foods promote fungus growth in your literal vascular system and in your compost pile, and as it turns out, metaphorically in the soil of your heart too. Harboring resentments and malice for another person, no matter how guilty they are, will only bring rot to your very soul. Shackling yourself with shame has the same effect. Dr. Brene Brown writes in Rising Strong about ways to rise strong from what she calls “face-down moments” in life when you’ve failed. Process the story you’re telling yourself and reconcile it with the truth. Take stock of what you’re feeling in your emotions and in your body. Own your part, learn, grow, and move forward.  

For good compost, you need some green and some brown. Good green compost adds nitrogen and comes from things such as the parts of fruits and vegetables you don’t eat or that have gone bad, coffee grounds, eggshells, or stale bread. Brown compost is rich in carbon and comes from things that were also once beautiful or useful but are no longer such as fallen leaves, faded blossoms, black and white newspaper, wine corks, used paper napkins or paper towels as long as they’re not greasy, or shredded clean cardboard. Any or all of these could be added to your compost pile and - when turned regularly to be kept warm and exposed to oxygen - will break down and become a rich, nutritious sustenance to keep out weeds and promote growth. Or, you could take what was once useful and beautiful or is beyond its life and now rotting and shove it in a big black plastic bag, seal it tight and send it to a landfill where it will produce toxic methane gas. Same raw material, vastly different outcomes. The same is true of the elements of your life and for your heart.   

Of course, this sounds over-simplified for the soil in your garden boxes waiting for this year’s crop or your heart wanting for God or a sense of living from a place of abundance; it’s not easy to nurture balance and health. The lists are easy. The process is clear. The practice will require more courage and determination than you think you have, but it’s just that, a practice. Begin each day and don’t ever stop no matter what happens. The process must be continual, and you must believe it’s well worth the effort. Because “how hard can it be,” is always a dangerous question - whether you’re growing vegetables, baking bread, or cultivating a heart that is open to God and ready to sustain a thriving life.

what makes it into your backpack?

Admittedly, I’ve never been on a true backpacking trip. You know the kind where you carry everything you need to sustain your life for days at a time in the wilderness – shelter, food, water, clothes, everything – on your back. You don’t bring books, pains me to say. You don’t bring anything that isn’t crucial for sustaining life. Your pack can’t be too heavy. Neither have I embarked on a pilgrimage over days and hundreds of kilometers. I say kilometers because the coolest of these trails are in Europe. Well, except for the Pacific Coast Trail. A native of the Seattle area, that one is practically in my backyard and hundreds of people walk from Canada to Mexico or the other way around every year. To be honest, Cheryl Strange’s journey along the PCT as chronicled in Wild irritated me. But in recent years, I’ve heard of so many people embarking on the Camino de Santiago in Spain and most recently have read Pilgrimage to Eternity by Tim Egan about his 1900 kilometer along the Via Francigena journey from Cambridge, England to Rome, Italy. The walkers in Spain seem to be so numerous, it is starting to become cliché. But the Via Francigena is, to me, little known and far more intriguing. Its path happens to trace so much carnage of the world wars of the 20th century and is littered with small abbeys and massive monuments built and dedicated to saints over the centuries. And as New York Times columnist David Brooks has recently noted, we have replaced saints with influencers as role models, and regardless of your faith practice, this is not positive for a person or society. The Via Francigena is the road priests and friars used to walk to get to Rome, for centuries past. Egan embarked on his own journey along this particular road after his mother’s passing to make peace with his long-vacated Catholic faith of his family and youth to reconcile the vastly different states of his and his siblings’ experiences and current faiths. Not everyone walks these roads to make peace with God or their faith practice, but it does seem they walk to make peace with something, and it is always, if not at the beginning, for sure by the end, very personal.

In my work as an academic advisor at Northwest University in Kirkland, WA, I work with a lot of students as they transition from home to college and from being a child under their parents’ authority to being an emerging adult. While it’s not a classic pilgrimage, it’s a journey for all of them. For some, it’s a little rough and their backpacks are heavy – not with laptops and books, but with stressors and pain they don’t even know are weighing them down. Just this semester, and we’re six weeks in at this writing, I’ve done what I can to help a student who discovered she’s pregnant after arriving to school, helped her find a way to tell her parents, (they were not helpful in their response), helped her navigate four trips to the hospital by ambulance caused by bleeding due to extreme panic attacks from the stress of this situation on top of starting and trying to keep up with school, helped her make the decision to petition for a medical withdrawal and transition to online school.  Another student arrived without the resources for a tablet or computer, so my colleague and I found her one. Just as she was getting set up to do her work, two weeks into the semester, she went to the hospital, twice in four days, after passing out. She’s still working with her medical providers to learn what’s wrong with her heart to make her blood pressure drop such that she loses consciousness, and her limbs go numb. She is not making it to class. She also needs a medical withdrawal so she can re-coup her tuition. But, she’s estranged from her parents (has been for the past 18 months) and if she withdraws, she’ll be homeless. A social worker, I am not. These are just two students among many. Most of what I do is help plan schedules and make sure students are taking the right classes, so they graduate on time. Some of what I do is help them navigate this monumental transition and change in their life and understand the stress of it and how it reveals so much of the past stress they’ve experienced and are still carrying in their backpacks. This work has driven me to read books such as What Happened to you by Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey, The Deepest Well by Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris, and The Angel and The Assassins by Donna Jackson Nakazawa to understand the lasting impact of trauma and adverse childhood experiences and the ways a person can heal from them. Because these students are not carrying life giving supplies in their backpacks. They are carrying very heavy burdens of systemic racism, trauma and shame that are making it very difficult or almost impossible to keep walking.

I have also been learning so much about my story, my journey, and what I’m carrying in my backpack as I learn. Most recently, I read Atlas of the Heart by Dr. Brene Brown. It maps the lived experience of 87 very common emotions and helps distinguish what is actually true and being communicated when a person is experiencing something such as envy rather than jealousy or what underpins resentment or what sinister messages can be lurking behind nostalgia. Like Dr. Brown’s almost incredulous surprise at learning resentment has it’s foundational footings in anger, I was also taken aback. It made me think about the recounting in Pilgrimage to Eternity where Egan tells of his friend, Ron Simms, who is a familiar name to me having lived my whole life in the Seattle area. Simms was the first black King Count Executive, and has gone on from there to hold high ranking positions in the Obama administration. Egan tells of Simms journey along the El Camino Road, letting each experience of racial injustice and personal experiences of racism directed at him his entire life fall from his fingertips as he walked. He felt lighter and lighter with each step. I had to look hard at how quickly and easily I can recount the times my mother-in-law has mis-treated me. She’s so mean. The time she refused to eat anything except salad at the first Thanksgiving meal I cooked. The time she cooked my husband a birthday dinner, the menu and dessert everything his former girlfriend made for him whom she preferred and wished he married. She made sure I knew this is what Nancy used to make for him for his birthday. The time she looked at my then 18-month-old son with hemophilia wearing his dinosaur covered bike helmet at the Easter egg hunt so if he fell, we wouldn’t have to go to the hospital for a CT scan to make sure he wasn’t bleeding into his brain and said, “isn’t it bad enough you gave him this disease now you’re making him wear a helmet too?” (genetically, hemophilia came from me). My stomach is in a knot just recounting these. My backpack is heavy with them. Hers is not. It is I who need to lay them down. Again.

What I am learning, and why I want to walk this Via Francigena, is faith requires living with questions and the understanding that pain inflicted by others has to be set down or my pack will simply be too heavy. It’s not just my mother-in-law. My own story and journey with my parents is complicated. They chose to put another man’s name on my birth certificate and let me grow up not knowing who my dad was until I was an adult. This secret and betrayal of keeping it from me runs deep within me. I must practice the forgiveness I have cherished in my faith most of my life. There is also pain that comes not from people, but just life. Sickness, accidents, disasters. Systemic injustices can feel too large to even find a source, but they inflict pain, nonetheless. But that doesn’t change the fact that I can really only afford to carry that which is life giving: water enough to get me to the next town, a rain jacket, a layer for warmth, some nutritious snacks. Pain inflicted by those who were supposed to protect, like parents or pastors, is the hardest to lay down, but that also means it’s likely the heaviest. And we each have to carry our own pack and are ultimately responsible for what is left inside it. That’s a hard truth. But only then, with a pack properly supplied, can I travel on my journey unburdened and able to live into the gifts and work I am meant to. God help and sustain me.

it’s not heavy if you don’t pick it up

As soon as my kids were old enough to reach the sink, they took turns at the dishes. Because they’re all so close in age, three in three years, and in size, the youngest is the tallest, the kids-doing-the-dishes started at the same time for all of them, along with riding in the front seat. I grew so tired of the “it’s not fair, we had leftovers when it was her turn,” and always trying to remember whose turn it was to sit in the front seat, I devised a month long rotation. For an entire month, it was one child’s turn to sit in the front seat and it was the same child’s turn to do the dishes after dinner. It always worked out that you never had dishes for the month of your birthday. For the ten years of this rotation, at least once a week, someone would try to sweet-talk/ manipulate me into helping them with the dishes because they had “too much homework.” Every time, my husband, Vince, would say, “it only takes five minutes,” and never let them off the hook.

Until the oldest left for college. The other two were not interested at all in picking up her vacated months and the carrot of sitting in the front seat had long lost its appeal. They were always in the front seat of their own cars by then, driving themselves to school, work, and practice. Because all of us worked and I did all the meal planning, shopping, and cooking, I decided Vince could pick up Emilie's vacated dish duty because that would keep the chore duties more in balance and after all, it only takes five minutes. Vince and I felt the whiplash of them all leaving for college in the span of three years in many ways, and it was a huge adjustment to go from a fast-paced household of five with three active high school aged kids to just the two of us with three away at college. But, one clear representation of their absence each night was the now on average forty-five minute job for Vince of doing the dishes for our family of two. Vince is a capable, intelligent man who runs his own successful business. But he cannot do the dishes in under 30 minutes, and that’s if the dishwasher is empty. Let the dishwasher be full of clean dishes, and he’ll be there for an hour. And now when our kids with their spouses are home for dinner so there are seven of us, he can be there all night with consistent reminders from each of them that it only takes five minutes. 

            You might be thinking, “he may be slow, but I bet he’s thorough.” That would be kind and very generous of you, but you’d be categorically wrong. He’s terrible at it, even with twelve years practice. There is always a little stack of different dishes left on the counter each time he unloads the dishwasher because he has no idea where those could possibly go. And those he does put away are never in the same spot, let alone the correct spot. He consistently puts plastic on the bottom of the dishwasher and can fit no more than four bowls, three plates and a single pan before it’s full. And it is full with the way he arranges them. For a good six months - realistically more like six years - I tried to partner with him on the dishes, showing him how to load the dishwasher, explaining why the plastic needs to go on the top and how the racks change configurations so you can fit more in, save water, save the earth. I tried every justification for doing a better job. For applying the intellect and diligence I know he has and applies to every other area of his life. With the calm he’s characterized by, he said, “my suggestion box is full.” It was getting hard on our marriage. Now, or I should say, finally, after dinner, I clear my plate to the sink, and read something, play wordle or spelling bee, or go outside with the dog. Because this isn’t heavy if I don’t pick it up. But for me, it may as well be the damn car when I do pick it up. And truly, this isn’t something I must pick up, so I’ve come to learn, in part by watching him graciously - for a quarter and a dime’s worth of years - walk by the burdens I lay in his path that he almost always gingerly steps over each day.

            Our oldest daughter, Emilie has just recently moved to Baltimore. It’s the first place of three since college she’s lived we can actually visit (the rest have been conflict zones or otherwise unavailable for hosting guests.) She spent a year volunteering in Malawi to help with setting up a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in a hospital. She worked for Doctors without Borders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in an active conflict zone providing medical care to refugees and soldiers alike. She enrolled in graduate school for a Master’s in Public Health in London during the pandemic. In between, she’s worked in Seattle as a NICU or Pediatric Intensive Care nurse. She volunteers for the International Refugee Committee, for Young Women Empowered, she’s put on a soccer camp for refugee kiddos ages 5-10, she spent a year driving 40 minutes each way to tutor a young re-settled refugee boy whose family was no longer safe after helping US Soldiers in their home country. She sees and feels the needs of those around her in her heart and soul and then takes action with all of her gifts and resources. She now works on a research team at Johns Hopkins University striving to improve maternal and child health and survival rates in conflict zones in three sub-Saharan African countries, thus our trip to Baltimore. To talk to her is to hear her learning, in real time, what to pick up and what to leave for others to carry. To talk with her is to hear her deepest desire for all of us, and by us she means every member of humanity, to work together to create a world where women are equal to men, each race is equal to every other race, the inevitable indignities of life are carried by all of us such that every person can thrive.

            On our recent visit to her new home in Baltimore, we visited the American Visionary Museum and the Abundance exhibit. It displayed the wealth of the human spirit amidst depravity. There was a whole room dedicated to the cross-stitch of Esther Nisenthal Krinitz, a Polish Jew, who took one of her sisters and left their farm before being rounded up and sent to a concentration camp. They hid in plain sight for three years while none of her family members survived. She stitched her family’s story before, during, and after the horror. It’s infused with hope and resilience.

            There is a display honoring Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds whose men were captured and held in Stalag IXA POW camp after the Battle of the Bulge and under threat of being shot if he didn’t identify the Jewish soldiers in his battalion said, “you’ll just have to shoot us all” and in so doing, saved 200 Jewish American soldiers from the Nazi’s murderous hate.

            There is the metal work of a young African American man who was severely injured in a mill accident and left unable to walk. After years of not being able to do anything, he started bending and welding scraps into magnificent art.

            There is a display of calls to take up burdens that are heavy – still too heavy and must be carried by all of us until they are but feathers carried away on a warm summer breeze. For these, our suggestion box cannot be full. We must all work together to honor the humanity and image of God reflected in each and every beautiful soul.

“This country will not be a good place for any of us to live unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.” Theodore Roosevelt 

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Elie Wiesel 

“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty of bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

“When you see something that is not right. Not Fair. Not Just. You have to speak up. You have to say something. You have to do something.” John Lewis 

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, because love comes more naturally to the human than its opposite.” Nelson Mandella 

 “Be the reason someone smiles. Be the reason someone feels loved and believes in the goodness of people.” Roy T. Bennett 

“Evil begins when you treat people as things.” Terry Pratchett 

On the surface, each of these displays is a personal story of depravity of one kind of another. Yet, the irony is the entire collection is titled, “Abundance.” It seems that when much is stripped away, that which is most important becomes clear and within the human heart there is an abundant capacity to love and overcome and sacrifice, if we will only lay down and leave down that which should never have been picked up to begin with and take up that which is most crucial in a shared burden. Because some things are so heavy that we must lift with our legs and carry them together. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13

intricacies of care

When the trees in the Cascade Mountain range in Washington state are lacking, trees as far away as British Columbia, Canada send help. Through the intricate systems of moss, mushrooms, ferns, and roots that connect them, nutrients flow from one forest to the other. When pests attack, messengers are sent along the same routes: beware, thicken up your bark, take care. When the trees in British Columbia, Canada are under duress, the favor is returned. The border means nothing to them. They don’t hoard their resources for themselves. They don’t worry about having enough for the next season. They are generous. 

            Recently, my daughter, Emilie, moved to Baltimore. She knew absolutely not a soul there. Emilie has made some bold moves in her ten years since graduating from college: Malawi to volunteer for a year, a 12-month assignment in the Democratic Republic of Congo with Doctors without Borders, and London during the pandemic for graduate school. But she either knew someone or had a built in team she was joining when she made each of these moves. There’s nothing like spending the holidays in the safe room with your Doctor’s Without Borders colleagues, satellite phone at the ready, because kidnapping is more common during the holiday season, to fast track a bond. Not to detract from moving to a new continent, culture, and language, but she had a base or a team of some kind to help her settle into a community. Not so with Baltimore. Nobody.

            But like the network of trees, through the intricate system of relationships she’s built over the continents and years, life-giving help was on its way. A friend from her work in Malawi from 2016 and her husband whom Emilie had never met, came from 45 minutes away. They brought her to their home for a weekend. Since then, they make a regular habit of going to the Sunday farmer’s market together. Another friend from her graduate school in London knows someone in Washington D.C. who has a friend in Baltimore. She came and took her out to dinner with a group of friends. Em has a friend from high school in Brooklyn, New York who was house sitting on the upper east side of NYC for a weekend, so she took the train to “help” with the tough task. When I was visiting, she and I were walking into a coffee shop and saw someone she knew from high school sitting outside. She’d also just moved there to start residency at Johns Hopkins, where Emilie is also working. Another connection. Like is the case with everywhere she’s moved, including in the Congo, Emilie has found multiple soccer teams to play on. In Baltimore, she’s added Galic Football to the list. She’s building on and relying on her root systems, and they are sending aid.

            Recently, I read a book about keystone species; wolves and salmon really stood out to me. It always astounds me when I find deeper and deeper consistencies in God’s creation, from the trees, to the animals, to the humans; we’re meant to care for each other. Salmon are born in mountain rivers and streams and they return to the same place to spawn and die. The farther away from the ocean they are born, the bigger, stronger, and meatier they grow to be. Delicate pink salmon are born very close to the ocean because they do not need the size, strength, and vigor of a steel head or king to make the arduous journey back deep into the mountains in order to spawn. Along these mountain rivers and streams, the salmon need tall trees to keep the water shaded and cool enough for them to survive. De-forestation is a real threat to their ability to make it back. The salmon carry with them nutrients from the ocean plant life they fed on while deep in the Pacific that the mountain trees need. When the bears eat the fish and go poop in the woods, it feeds the trees. When the fish make it all the way home, if the river is clean enough, cold enough, and not blocked up too much by a dam, the very trees that shade its path are nourished. And then they can lay their eggs and die for their carcasses to decompose and further deposit needed nutrients from the depths of the ocean. This is the trouble with fisheries. If a salmon is hatched from a fishery, to the fishery it will return and the forest will not benefit from what it brings back from the ocean. When the salmon don’t make it, the domino effect is sobering. Not just for the forest by the stream, but for the forests across the mountains with nutrient-poor bear poop and across the border that may be in need when there will be nothing to send through the root systems.

            My mind is racing with the applications of this. Having spent so many years working in education, this is usually the first stream I think of. The pandemic revealed so much of what we already knew about the effects disparities in resources can have on a child’s ability to engage in learning. Not having an adult speak words to a child, or breakfast before school, or a safe place to sleep each night will thwart a child’s ability to learn. When everyone went home to learn online, what if you couldn’t get online, what if you got stuck and there was no one there to help because those kiddos’ grown-ups were trying to keep the food on the table and the lights on instead of helping with school? These are just a few of the needs. With my kids working in health care, mental health, and global health, these are also important streams I’m keenly aware of. When mental health funding was federalized by the Kennedy administration in the 1960s, it was never fully funded. Then the Reagan administration sent it back to the states, who weren’t equipped to properly fund the care. Hospitals and facilities started closing. Access to mental health care is tough, particularly for lower income families. The implications for the unhoused are significant. Since this shift, the number of unhoused people across the nation has quadrupled. Of course, this is far more complex, but the correlations are clear. More shade is needed for this stream, particularly for veterans who have sacrificed so much to defend democracy, regardless of their personal stance on any one of the conflicts they found themselves fighting.

            Caring for each other is a part of what it means to be a part of God’s creation. It doesn’t matter if the person looks or believes like you do. Honoring what is good and beautiful and true in each and every part of God’s creation is necessary for all of it to thrive. When Emilie was investing in her relationship with Molly while volunteering in Malawi in 2016, she never imagined she’d find herself needing a friend in Baltimore in 2022. When she lived in a cement walled compound topped with barbed-wire in the middle of a conflict zone in the DRC with a team of medical providers treating not only the hundreds of thousands in the refugee camp nearby but also the twelve waring gangs perpetuating the violence, she never imagined one of those colleagues would know someone in D.C. who would take her out for dinner with their friends three years later. She lives her life to be a tree shading others’ streams, no matter who they are, to the best of her ability and she sends whatever nutrients she has to anyone she knows is in need. And it is coming back to her. And it’s beautiful.