Alexander's Outward Bound Raffle!

Click Here to donate and enter the Raffle! Details below

Outward Bound is a wilderness education program that has been around for 75 years. Its main goal is to “prepare students of all ages and circumstances with the strength of character and determination they need to thrive.” They do this by taking students into the wilderness to challenge them mentally and physically. 

Change of plans! For programmatic reasons, Alex had to chose a different trip. He is now participating in the Outward Bound Blueridge Mountains trip in North Carolina. This will include 22 days of rock climbing, whitewater canoeing and backpacking over the summer. He will be challenged to work as a team with a diverse group of teenagers and leaders to survive in the back country. They will have no cell phones or contact with the outside world. They will be pushed to the max, physically and mentally. Alex will get to spend 24 - 72 hours on “solo,” a chance to go off on his own to reflect and center himself with nature. 

We have been saving up to give Alex this life-changing experience for a while now, but we decided a fund-raiser would help us reach the final goal. In addition to the cost of the course, there are travel expenses to get there and back. He will also need to purchase a high-quality clothing and gear.

Rather than simply ask for donations, we decided to get creative with a Charlot Family Raffle!

Every $10 you donate will put your name in the drawing once. ($50 will put your name in 5 times, etc.) Our goal is to raise $2,500, which is less than half of what the trip and gear will cost.

We will draw 3 names for 3 prizes:

-- 2-3 hours of service from Alex (yard work, cleaning, help with basic tech issues, etc.)

-- Genealogy from Stephanie. Basic family tree, including some research and a file you can print for display. This will be customized depending on what you need/want!
-- A Wholistic Tech Support Services package from Firmin.  1 Hour of expert consultation on tech security, configuration, or whatever other tech needs you may have, plus a 3 month subscription to Wholistic Tech Support. ($110 value) See www.wholistictech.com  for more information on this service.


We will hold the drawing on March 31, 2020 and contact the winners as soon as we possibly can after that.
Here is the link again to donate via Paypal. Be sure to include identifying information so we can put you in the drawing! If you do not want to participate in the raffle, just let us know. Of course you can donate in person or by mail if you prefer. 😊

We fully expect this experience to be one that helps shape Alexander's development as a man. Firmin was blessed to participate in an Outward Bound adventure off the coast of Maine as a teenager. He credits it as one of the most formative times of his life. Your support for helping Alexander have a similar experience will mean so much to him and to us. He will go knowing he has his community behind him all the way!



Thank you so much for considering helping Alex out! He's so excited to make it happen.

With Gratitude,

The Charlot Family

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas

I saw Mr. and Mrs. Thomas today. They didn't see me. I was in my car, and they were at their van, loading and unloading Mr. Thomas's scooter and wheelchair, then getting in and driving away. I knew it was her because I had crossed paths with her a few years ago at the YMCA pool and we spoke briefly. Mrs. Thomas was my 10th grade math teacher. Mr. Thomas had been the school sports team photographer who remembered the name of everyone he'd ever met even once, including mine. As I watched them from a distance, they were all smiles and ease with eachother, just like I remembered them from high school.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas were the first black/white interracial couple I knew. I met them individually before realizing that they were married. (The photo of their teenage son on Mrs. Thomas's desk led to the ah-ha moment.) I knew nothing of the state of their marriage, of course, but they seemed happy when I saw them at school, and once when I ran into them at the mall when I was still in high school. In college, I thought of them when I started to date Firmin, and then later when a fellow student informed me (with that smug tone that girls half in love with their professors adopt) that Professor So-and-So didn't believe interracial marriages could work in the United States. Of course Professor So-and-So was a black man divorced from a white woman who apparently found it easier to be a psudo-victim than simply a failure at marriage. But I was only 20 then, and his pronouncement gave me pause. The memory of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas gave me hope.

When I met Mrs. Thomas at the pool a couple years ago, I wondered about her husband. It had been so many years -- enough for even a once-happy marriage to have bottomed out or for death to change everything. For fear of causing pain or embarrassment, I didn't ask. So today, when I saw her with the man on the scooter, I leaned forward and squinted. He was in shadow that made his skin color hard to discern and I didn't have a good view of his face. Plus, I saw Mr. Thomas less frequently than his wife when I was a teenager. She stood in front of me daily for a year, while he took my cheer leading photos a few times and said "Hi, Stephanie!" like he was really, truly glad to see me on the rare occasions we crossed paths. I couldn't swear in a courtroom that the man I saw today was Mr. Thomas, but when the spring sunlight caught his brown skin, his salt and pepper hair, and his warm smile, I was as sure as I needed to be. Most of all, the two of them together just looked like Mr. and Mrs. Thomas. They exuded the same easy camaraderie and affection, the same friendliness and sense of stability. I was so happy to see them. They still give me hope.

The Cream Rises to the Top

Oh how I love skimming fresh cream off the top of the jar of milk! Unless we're on our last jar, cream is always ready to hand when we need it. Most of it goes into the cream whipper to top our mochas and hot cocoas. Sometimes a little goes into mashed potatoes, or a desert recipe. Occasionally I make sour cream or butter with it.

Did our parents' and grandparents' generation really give up this little luxury just to avoid having to shake the jug a couple of times before pouring the milk? Surely not. Probably homogenization* was was an industry convenience. Whatever the reason, it's a loss. A small one, sure, but a loss none the less.



*Homogenization is the process of pulverizing the milk fat so that it stays suspended in the more watery portion of the milk, rather than rising to the top as it does naturally. It is not related to pasteurization, which is the process of heating the milk to kill any potentially harmful pathogens. Most milk at the grocery store is both pasteurized and homogenized.

Looking to the Future

Getting one child alone with you in the car can result in some rare and wonderful conversations that just don't otherwise happen in the middle of bustling family life. Eight-year-old Alexander and I had one of those conversations the other day as we made the short drive to MSU. The topic was global warming and the future of humanity. We covered a lot of ground in 15 minutes! It should have been 10 minutes, but I got so engrossed in our dialog that I turned the wrong way a couple of times out of habit, thus lengthening our journey a little. :o)

Alexander started things off by casually observing that all our efforts to reduce pollution only seem to result in more pollution. We explored that a bit. He had a couple of mis-conceptions, but over all, his feeling that not enough change is happening is certainly valid. He very candidly said that he doesn't think we are going to stop global warming. He doesn't think we are doing enough, and he doesn't see people and businesses willing to do more. With all the happy talk directed at kids about "going green" and "saving the planet", this surprised me a little. It also impressed me as an astute observation for an 8 year old.

"So what do you think will happen?" I asked. He didn't know. We talked about pessimistic predictions, optimistic predictions, best- and worst-case scenarios, winners and losers, and points in between. I told him a little about peak oil theory and confessed my reluctant suspicion that maybe we should be listening more to the folks warning us to get ready for a very different way of life. He worried about being hot, but thought that the weather changes could be a boon to farmers in places that are colder now. While he expressed pessimism about our ability to curb global warming at this time, he is somewhat optimistic that humankind will adapt to the major changes that are coming, both through our behavior and with new technology. He is not very worried.

The situation may, perhaps, warrant more worry, but his outlook warms my heart. We need our young people to retain their optimism, even as they try to grasp the enormity of the problems. Whatever adaptations and technology come to our aid, it will be my son's generation (and those that follow) that will implement them and most benefit from them. They will begin -- whether out of intelligent foresight or desperate necessity -- to deal with the problems that their great-great grandparents started, and that their grandparents and parents refused to do much about.

Pictures of my People!

A really fun part of genealogy research is finding photos and portraits of ancestors that you've learned something about. After my post the other day, I realized that I had pictures of several of the individuals I mentioned. I thought it might be fun to share some of them, plus one or two more that are just interesting or fun. If you haven't read the previous post, you might want to do that now, as I will refer to some of the stories I told there.

Remember the illegitimate son of an English nobleman who indentured himself to a Quaker family to come to America? Well here he is, Philip Packer Jr.:
Presumably, this portrait was painted before he came to the wilderness of Pennsylvania, probably when he was still living off his father's money. His father had holdings and business interests in Ireland, and he seems to have kept his little family there quite comfortable. When his first wife died, he married his mistress, Sara Isgar and brought her to his English home. However, since all of his children by her were born prior to their marriage, the children had to make their own way after Daddy's death. His children by his first wife got the estate. Here are Philip Packer, Esq., and the lovely Sarah Isgar, my 10th great grandparents:



Those of you with exceptional memories may have noticed that Eli and Ann Packer were the names of my last Quaker ancestors who died in Gratiot County Michigan in the 1800's. Eli was a direct descendant of these peolple. Philip Jr. became Quaker in Pennsylvania while serving his Quaker master. Perhaps the master had something to do with it, but I suspect the young woman he wanted to marry there had even more influence on his conversion!

Below is Groombridge place, the family home that Philip Packer Sr. re-built outside London in the 1660's. Packer was apparently an architect, a contemporary and friend of Sir Christopher Wren. The grounds are open to the public today, and the 2005 movie, Pride and Prejudice, was filmed there.




The picture below is an illustration of the adventurer with the Persian family meeting with the Indian Mogul in Agra, India circa 1604. His name was John Mildenhall (the family name later became Mendenhall), and his story is so fantastic that I have trouble believing it. It includes passing himself off to the Indian court as the ambassador of Queen Elizabeth I (he was not) and securing trading rights which he later sold to the recently formed British East India Company. Crazy! But apparently true! He is even buried in the oldest English grave in India. You can visit his tombstone there.



On to more normal (and recent) people:

Here is my Great-Grandfather, my maternal grandmother's father, a cute little boy who grew up to have a rather sad and hard life:

Alexander Franklin Fraser

Below are his parents, Bertha Harpham and Clarence Joseph Fraser (of Scottish descent). Clarence was a good deal older than Bertha, and she was widowed young, with no money and several young children. She also had physical and perhaps mental health problems. Her life story -- what I've been able to piece together of it -- is quite painful. Unfortunately, her children suffered right along with her -- a pain that was passed down for a couple of generations until my grandma and her siblings eventually seemed to pull things back together in their own adult lives.


Bertha's mother died when she was only 4 years old, and her father seems to have disappeared from her life at that point. Her mother's mother had died years before in childbirth. So Bertha was was raised by her mother's father, Franklin Squire and his 3rd wife. This 3rd wife had charge of several of Franklin's children and grandchildren by his previous marriages in addition to her own babies as they came along. Plus, for a time, her aging father *and* Franklin's aging father, both in their 80's, were living with the family. Even if her step-grandmother was a saint (and how many of us would be, under those conditions?), I don't imagine poor little Bertha got as much love and attention as every child needs. Her vivid unhappiness in later life, which living family members still recall as their strongest memory of her, is sadly suggestive.

Franklin Squire himself was a busy man outside the home. Not only did he have a rather large farm to tend, he was the early leader of the Michigan Seventh Day Adventist Church that I mentioned the other day. This is a portrait of him:

And last, but not least, I just had to include this picture of my maternal Grandfather's Grandmother. (My g-g grandmother.)
Don't you LOVE the hat? This is Mamie Gooderham Salisbury Harvey Cutler. (Well not Cutler yet in this picture -- he came later.) Based on clues, I believe this may have been her wedding photo when she married her 2nd husband, Samuel Harvey, in 1910 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was divorced from my g-g grandfather at that time. I believe my he may have been a scoundrel! If I am right on the date of the picture, she is about 39 -- very close to my age right now. :o) My mother remembers visiting Mamie a few times as a child. In her later years, Mamie and her 3rd husband lived very near Tiger Stadium in Detroit. That whole side of my grandpa's family were big Tiger fans! They would meet at Mamie's house and walk down to the games.

Patterns of My People

So I haven't blogged all summer! In large part, it's because I've been spending most of my discretionary computer time (as well as some time I should have been doing other things) researching my family history. A couple of readers have expressed interest in reading about what I found. I've found a lot, and believe me, you don't want to hear it all! Even to my own family the details can be overwhelming, so I won't go there much, in spite of the fascination some of those details hold for me.

Instead, I want pull the focus back and show you the entire tapestry, because, rather wondrously, I've discovered that there are clear patterns and trends, even across disparate family branches and several centuries. Detailed information about individuals has been amazing to discover, but these patterns feel more significant to my sense of self. I don't feel like a different person or anything, but I do have a stronger sense of belonging to a larger story. I could go on about that, but I won't for now -- maybe another day. Perhaps also another day, I'll share how I got started on this journey, if people are interested. I've only been doing it for a few months now and I'm still a little in awe of how much I've learned about my heritage in that short span of time.

For now however, here's a bird's eye view of the landscape and the people who gave me birth:

1) America's story is my story. Before I began this project, I thought that my family in America would trace back no further than the early - mid 1800's. Most of the immigration stories I knew about came from this period. Indeed, most of the branches of my family did immigrate during the 19th century. However, one of the earliest discoveries I made was that I had many ancestors who came to Pennsylvania on ships commissioned by William Penn to bring Quaker settlers to his new charter colony in the 1680's.* One even came as an indentured servant, which no doubt seems more romantic and adventurous to me than it did to him! He was the bastard son of an English nobleman who couldn't inherit a dime, poor guy. That was on my father's side. Later, I discovered that some of my mother's ancestors were in colonial New England as early as the1630's! Can't get much more "founding father" than that unless your people came on the Mayflower. So I'm all in, right from the start -- the good, the bad and the ugly of our country's history is my history as well. That's something I didn't know until just a few months ago.

* I did not have even the faintest inkling of my Quaker ancestors when I became a Quaker a few years ago. The last practicing Quakers in the family, Eli and Ann Packer, died in Gratiot County, Michigan 1867 and 1871. The faith did not survive in the second generation in central Michigan, probably because there were no Friends Meetings there at that time. Although Eli and Ann both had Quaker ancestry reaching all the way back to the time of George Fox, the memory of our Quaker roots was lost in my father's family until I uncovered it this spring. I got to share this information at the family reunion this summer, so now it is remembered again. :o)

2) I come from rural and village people. My ancestors were farmers (many, many farmers), blacksmiths, millers, small-town day laborers, wool packers, weavers, etc. These were the professions of the men, of course, but my female ancestors were of the same stock -- they were the daughters, and then wives of the men who plied these trades. The women's lives are, if anything, even easier to imagine, as they likely varied less according to the trade of their men. They were gardeners, food preparers, livestock tenders, dress-makers, healers, neighbors, friends, pioneers, and perhaps most predominantly, mothers. They were the mothers of 5, 8, 10, 14 children. Most of them, until more recent generations, buried at least one child and sometimes several. A number of them gave their own lives for posterity, dying in childbirth or from complications thereof. These women married later than I'd been led to believe by popular history. Certainly, there were a few 17 and 18 year old brides, but not all that many. 19 was a more common age, with many entering their first marriage in their early 20's, and marrying men who were, on average, just a few years older. (There were some exceptions of course, especially where a man who was a widower wed a never-before-married young woman.)

My nearly complete lack of urban roots did surprise me a bit, given the broad scope of time and places and people involved. Yet even those who disembarked on American shores in New York City seemed to have set out for the country nearly immediately. My few wealthy and well-connected ancestors (remember the bastard son?) were landed gentry -- rich country folk, but still country. With nearly 500 individuals in my family tree so far (not all of those are direct descendants -- some are siblings, etc.) I can think of only one branch of the family that seemed to stay in a city for several generations, and that was colonial Springfield, Massachusetts. I'm not sure if Springfield counted as a "big city" back then or not! It was certainly not rural much beyond the founding years, however.

3) I don't have a single ancestor who came through Ellis Island. So many people ask about this! It's one of the first questions I got at family reunions this summer: "Do we have any family who came through Ellis Island?" Nope. Many people don't realize that Ellis Island didn't open as an immigration point until 1892. (I didn't know this either, until I looked it up.) All the branches of my family were in the New World by that time, save one: my Norwegian great-great grandfather was a stow away on a cargo ship in 1898. I believe he simply slipped off the boat and into the crowds on the dock. An undocumented immigrant...

4) I am a Northerner. So far, I've found not a single direct connection to the American South or West. Michigan, Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Ontario account for probably 90% of my North-American born family members. The remaining 10% would be from a few other New England states, Quebec, and Indiana. I think that about covers it. Certainly some of my ancestors' descendants or siblings migrated south and west, but no one that led to me, as far as I know. I may have a Native American g-g-g grandmother, but I have only the say-so of my great-grandmother and her sister regarding this, and they are no longer around to interrogate. I know how often this kind of family lore is untrue, so I'd very much like to prove it or disprove it somehow. But even if it's true, she was said to be Ojibway, so still a Northerner!

5) My European ancestors were northerners as well, from England, Scotland, the pre-German states, Ireland, Eastern France, Norway, Finland. No Spaniards, no Italians, no Austrians, no eastern Europeans. One long-ago ancestor, who was quite the adventurer, had a Persian wife and children to whom he left his entire estate when he died. Nice for them, but I'm sure it didn't go down well with his English wife and family, from whom I am descended! So no Persians either, darn it! ;o)

6) No Catholics. I have not been able to confirm a single Catholic ancestor thus far. I do have some Irish potato-famine immigrants (on my father's side) whose religion I don't know, but my earlier Irish immigrant ancestors were protestants. I do know that by the second generation in American, my potato-famine Irish folks were not practicing Catholics, so I don't feel I can assume that Irish = Catholic in their case. Of course going back before the Reformation (which I have not done) most of my European ancestors would have been Catholic, but clearly we've been Protestant (or non-religious in some cases) for a very long time.

7) And the Protestants were often outliers! With Quakers and Restorationists on my father's side, and Puritans and Seventh Day Adventists on my mothers side, I seem to come by my contrary religious tendencies naturally!* One Puritan ancestor converted to Baptist very early on in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was involved in Baptist "church planting" north of Boston. Baptists might seem pretty mainstream today, but his erstwhile fellow Puritans didn't think so in the 16oo's! One of this Baptist's descendants became a prominent leader in the early Seventh Day Adventist Church in Michigan. Another (the sister of the Adventist) became a follower of Joseph Smith and married an early Mormon elder. (It's thanks to her descendants that this branch of the family is so well researched!)

8) I don't know as much as I would like to know. A sad, but predictable truth: Most of my ancestors remain anonymous to me. I might know when and where they were born or died, how many children they had and perhaps what they did for a living, but that is all. Some left tantalizing clues, such as the obituary of a 4th great grandmother which contains this phrase: "Though surrounded my many depressing conditions, she won and held the respect of all..." I long to know what the "depressing conditions" were, but I probably never will.

9) I know more about some ancestors than I ever dreamed possible. I literally put my face in my hands and gave a little sob when I read this about my 10th great grandmother: "Marjorie was moderately active in the Women's Meeting at Middletown (PA). She served on five marriage clearness committees and one committee to labor with a friend who had failed to uphold Friends' principles." Reading about her serving on clearness committees for marriage over 300 years ago -- something I might do today in the very same tradition -- made her suddenly seem very real and dear to me. Here are some other things I know about Marjorie: Her first husband (my 10th great grandfather) died very shortly after their arrival in Pennsylvania, leaving 30-something Marjorie with 6 children, ages 16, 15, 14, 9, 6, and 3. She remarried (quickly!) in 1684 to a man whose wife had died on the voyage to Pennsylvania. Theirs was the first marriage under the care of Middletown Friends Meeting, which still exists today. Later in life she and her husband became involved in a painful schism among Friends, but Marjorie was later reconciled and was buried in Middletown Friends Cemetery. Her husband never came back into unity with Friends, but his step-son -- the one who had been 6 when his biological father died -- requested that he be buried next to Marjorie. The request was granted. Perhaps only other Friends will appreciate how easy and satisfying it is for me to imagine this request being brought before the Men's Meeting by a loving son, the ensuing Spirit-led deliberation among those in attendance, and the gracious outcome. I think about Marjorie sometimes as I'm going about my daily life and wonder what she would think of me and my world.

10) The tapestry grows exponentially. I'm struck by this: My mother's ancestry -- all of it -- is only half of mine. Same for my father, of course. My grandparents each share only a quarter. My two sisters and I are the only people on Earth who share this specific history as our full heritage, yet we share many of our more recent ancestors with hundreds of others, and each of our distant ancestors with thousands or even millions of people alive today. Our children share our lineage as well, but they have double the number of ancestors we do! My own children's ancestry stitches on the Caribbean Islands and the continent of Africa, making their lineage stretch across nearly half the globe. My youngest sister's new baby will someday trace his father's roots through Mexico and on to wherever else that leads him -- probably Spain, other places in southern Europe, and Indigenous Mezo-America.

The richness of all of this astounds me. I may have traced only a couple of family branches back to the 16th century, but of course they all go back that far, and farther: to the beginning of civilization, to the beginning of humanity itself. We are also growing forward. Someday, about 300 years from now, my 10th great granddaughters will walk this earth, perhaps here in Michigan, perhaps in a far-off land. Probably both, as I'm likely to have quite a few 10th great grandchildren! I will be a tiny part of their tapestries, woven in with all those who came before me, and all those yet to come, gathered and joined to another whole cloth with every generation in an ever-growing family.

They Were Good... and Flawed

This is the book I'm reading now. I'm enjoying it on an intellectual level -- it's written in a scholarly, yet accessible way. On a personal level, it's by turns inspiring and disheartening. The author, John Moretta, is writing as a historian, rather than a Quaker. (He is not a Quaker, as far as I know.) Thus, in addition to relating the bravery, sacrifices and accomplishments of Penn and early Friends, he has no qualms about pointing out the ways in which they failed to live up to their ideals in the New World. The "Holy Experiment" was not exactly a smashing success. Moretta is not censorious about this; he reminds readers of the conditions -- social, geographic, demographic, historical -- that make their difficulties easier to understand.

Nevertheless, I can't help but feel bad for Penn and the early settlers. They were so sincere in their desire to do things right -- to be an example of what Love and Light can do and to model tolerance and harmony among diverse groups of Christians. Guess what they did instead? They behaved like human beings. Penn played the class card much too heavily and got huffy when the farmers and artisans who mostly populated his colony resented him for it. For their part, the colonists almost immediately challenged Penn's authority over the colony and flaunted laws in such a way that the king threatened to rescind Penn's charter. This could have meant the end of the religious toleration they so cherished, among other things. (In their almost allergic reaction to authority and their refusal to be "managed", I reflected that modern Quakers must come by this trait naturally!) Once the colonial Assembly in Pennsylvania managed to wrest control almost completely from Penn, the leaders in the Assembly set about consolidating their power: changing voting requirements so as to disenfranchise many non-Quakers in Philadelphia and lower the bar for rural residents, who were largely Quaker.

Sigh.

Plus some of them owned African slaves at this time, and few were speaking out against it. but that's old news to me. I was prepared for *that*. What I wasn't prepared for was all the mundane ways in which they were..., well, kinda like Quakers today. They were righteous in all the good and bad senses of that word. They loved God. They disagreed about what "God" was, but they loved It/Him. They took their values seriously and tried to live up to them. They failed at that sometimes. They got jealous and nursed grudges, then realized how painful and wrong that was and made up. (Or not.) They got involved in religious schisms. They griped about Penn behind his back, then happily threw him a big party and parade when he finally showed up after too many years in England. Penn griped about the colonists to his friends, but he clearly loved them and was distressed and genuinely surprised when they exhibited un-Friendly behaviors. They judged and forgave. Families could be harmonious or troubled or both, depending on the day/month/year.

Someone in my Meeting gave spoken ministry this week about how "the universe doesn't keep score", and how that was liberating for him. I immediately thought of this book and about how we humans LOVE to keep score. We can't seem to help it. Even by being inspired by and disappointed in my Quaker forebears, I'm engaging in a kind of score-keeping: Went to prison for beliefs -- 10 pts.; treated Native Americans like fellow humans -- 10 pts.; lobbied for religious toleration (even for Catholics!) -- 5 pts.; didn't decry slavery soon enough -- minus 15 pts.; bickered too much -- minus 3 pts.; Penn a bit of an elitist/colonists bitchy about it -- minus 5 pts.; etc.

The fact is, people (and groups of people) with high ideals get held to a higher standard -- maybe not by the universe, but by other people, and usually themselves as well. That's how it should be. Yet what should be our response when they/we fall or fail? Should we proclaim "hypocracy" and make snide comments? Should we forgive all? Perhaps we should simply Love, and tell the truth. Great -- that's one more ideal to live up to!

I'm looking forward to any comments on this one. There is more to be said about what good can be accomplished simply by trying, not dependent on succeeding, among other things. I may add my own comments as I think more about it, but it's past midnight as I write this and I can feel my brain shutting down... Good night!

Privilege vs. Freedom

I've been mulling over the meaning of the word “privilege” lately. I've been seeing this word tossed around rather carelessly, often with good intentions, but sometimes as a kind of verbal weapon, and sometimes in a confusing way. I've been thinking that it would be helpful (for me, and perhaps for others) to be more clear about what privilege is and what it is not.

What is Privilege?

Privilege, to me, connotes a special treatment or ability that is not available to everyone, and could not be available to everyone, due to resource, time or space limitations, or issues of practicality or good social order.

Some privileges are granted, based on merit, wealth, social status, charm, or just luck. Getting to sit next to the CEO at the company dinner, being let "off the hook" for a rule violation because you are cute and flirty, getting a second interview because someone recommended you for the job, and boarding a plane first because you have children with you, or because you bought a first-class ticket are all examples of privileges that are granted to some people. These may be seen as reasonable or unreasonable, fair or unfair, but they are all situations where only some people can get special treatment. Decisions must be made regarding who will get the special treatment, if anyone.

Other privileges are simply claimed or taken by force by people who have the power or wealth to do so. Insisting on special treatment at a retail store (and getting it), eating only the choicest cuts of meat at the finest restaurants, using more than one's fair share of fossil fuels, and owning the latest technology gadget are all privileges that are claimed or forced. Some of these are relatively harmless, and may even have some societal benefit – someone has to eat at the finest restaurants regularly if they are to be there for the middle and working classes to sample only once or twice on very special occasions. Many, however, involve an over-use of resources or space or time which results in a deficit for others. (Some granted privileges are problematic in this way as well.) Using more than my fair share of fossil fuels, as I am doing right this minute, means either that someone else does not have access to as much power as they would like, and/or that environmentally harmful fossil fuel extraction becomes more necessary and profitable.

These “real” privileges should be closely examined by those who strive for a peaceful world. In what ways do our privileges – granted or claimed – deprive others of health, well-being, resources, or control over life choices? Can we mitigate those deprivations in some way? Where and when should we decline to be privileged? When is it OK to accept a privilege as a gift or as an earned reward? Are there times when we should insist on being privileged, or on others being privileged above ourselves?

What Privilege is Not

I believe that if a form of treatment or access is, or could be, available to all, then that availability is properly understood as something other than privilege. (By “all”, I might mean all people in the world, or simply all the people in a geographical environment, depending on the context.) I don’t think there is a word that fits every example in this category, but I’m going to call them “freedoms”. Some are actually “rights”, while others might be closer to “courtesies”, but “freedoms” will do as a catch-all word for now. Some examples of freedoms that are not privileges (by my definition) would be: Being treated with friendliness and respect in a retail store; having decision-making power over one's own physical appearance; access to healthy, fresh food and water; the ability to move safely from one place to another; and being allowed to prove oneself worthy or unworthy of friendship, employment, etc. based on personality or performance rather than appearance or stereotype. Many people are routinely denied these freedoms and others, but not because of scarcity of resources. The only reason to deny these freedoms to people is human vice -- hatred, fear, greed, racism, abuse of power. (Even famine and drought are often caused or exacerbated by human vice.)

At this point, I want to bring in an example that first led me to consider a distinction between what I am calling privilege and freedom. The African American author Thandeka, in her book Learning to be White*, uses the following metaphor to describe in part the racial problem in the United States, but her example is also applicable to class, gender, and other inequalities. I will paraphrase, since I do not have the book in hand, and I want to be clear that I don't know if Thandeka would agree with my distinction between "privilege" and "freedom". This illustration makes me think she might, but I have not read all of her book -- yet! I am only using her illustration for my own purposes here; I don't want to be seen to put words in her mouth.

Thandeka imagines a society in which certain people have had their left hands maliciously cut off. As a result there is an inequality of ability between those who have lost a hand and those who still have both hands. This inequality is real and has real consequences in the society, perhaps including stigma associated with being among the group of people who had their hands cut off. Yet it's important to recognize that the norm, the ideal, is to have both hands. The situation is not that the two handed people have been unfairly advantaged, but rather that the one-handed people have been unfairly disadvantaged. The best remedy is for the society to seek ways for its one-handed citizens to function as normally and fully as possible and to work to eradicate any stigma associated with one-handedness, rather than to insist that its two-handed citizens tie one hand behind their back for the sake of "fairness".

I think this example provides an important insight into how we define privilege, as well as how we react to the denial of freedom. Often – though not always – what is termed racial or gender or class “privilege” is actually only the absence of oppression. Surely the cure for oppression is not more oppression! Yet when others are denied freedoms that we enjoy, or when we are denied freedoms that others enjoy, the inequality is bitterly felt and resentment is an understandable by-product. What are we to do? Can we enjoy freedoms that are not denied to us, while maintaining awareness that others are not free in the same way? In what ways can we use our access to freedoms to open those freedoms to more people? If we are denied a freedom, how can we work for or insist on change in a positive direction? When is it appropriate to temporarily decline a freedom for ourselves in order to bring awareness and change to an oppressive system or circumstance? When we do decline a freedom in protest, are we clear that we are working in a positive direction toward more freedom, rather than a negative direction of less freedom for all? How can those with broad freedom partner with those who are oppressed in some way?

A Word About Gray Areas

I am aware that there are many gray areas in this topic. One that jumps immediately to mind is the conundrum of access to quality, fresh food. Is my access to high quality, even organic food a privilege based on wealth, or a freedom that all should have? Probably a little of both. It’s a travesty that many communities with high poverty rates (and relatively low car ownership) have no easily accessible grocery store. Food deserts deny people the freedom to choose good quality food -- especially produce -- but the idea that someone should choose lower quality produce than they can afford simply because some people are unable to access it is silly. It’s also a good way to drive producers of high quality food out of business! That said, access to organic breakfast cereal is probably properly understood as a luxury. It gets trickier than that though: Does buying tropical fruit contribute to my taking of natural resources above and beyond my fair share, or am I participating in an important part of the global economy that provides important opportunities to developing countries? You can see how the thought process can go on and on. Just because all of the answers aren’t neat and tidy, however, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t think about the questions.

So What?

I believe this issue of privilege vs. freedom is more than an issue of semantics. I think the confusion of these terms makes public discussion of difficult topics like race and class more difficult. I notice that people who struggle with lack of power in their lives are likely to be hostile to the suggestion that their freedoms are in fact privileges. This is not surprising and not even objectionable when you employ the distinction I’m advocating. Many people in fact experience very little true privilege, and they are unwilling to give up their freedoms simply because someone else is denied them. Advocates of social change are more likely to win people to their side if the effort is seen as an expansion of freedom for *all* and a push-back against abused true privilege, rather than a re-shuffling of comforts in a zero-sum game. I’m hopeful that more careful use of the term “privilege” will result in more clear communication and understanding when we talk about equality and peace and human dignity.


*RCF Friends, we have this book in our Meeting library

Sorry for such a long silence

I apologize for such a long time between posts right now. This blog has been on my mind, and a few ideas for posts have been percolating, but for some reason they don't want to come out on the page/screen right now. Please stay tuned and I'll keep trying. In the mean time, happy Spring! Tomorrow is equinox and I couldn't be happier about that. Day. Light.

Cooking with my Science Girl

Most people who cook as much as I do probably already know about Cooks Illustrated -- one of the coolest magazines on the planet -- but I just discovered it this month. The only explanation I can come up with for not finding it sooner is that the cover (art and wording) is pretty much the only part of the magazine that doesn't wow me. The recipes border on too gourmet for my style of cooking, though there seem to be one or two in each issue which are do-able for a family with kids on a budget. The recipes, however, are beside the point. It's the science portions of the articles that are so amazing and fun. Which brings me to the reason I'm blogging about it...

As much as I would have enjoyed finding Cooks Illustrated earlier, I'm especially pleased to be discovering it with Brianna rather than simply introducing her to it. It's fun to be excited about this gem of a find together! She's always been my little scientist -- observant, analytical, and curious -- and chemistry is currently her favorite branch of science. She has recently become interested in doing more cooking as well, frequently making lunch for herself and Alexander and even taking on dinner for the family once a week or so. Cooks Illustrated is all about the chemistry of cooking, with short articles written in lay-language that are perfect for her. We even read an article from it as a bed-time story the other night!

For the time being, we are enjoying back-issues from the library. We have also requested a free copy of Cook's Country, a sister publication which looks from the website like it might contain more recipes that we would actually use. (I don't know if it has the science component though -- we'll see.) It's funny; fifteen years ago, I would have said that I disliked both chemistry and cooking (though I've always enjoyed baking.) Turns out, I just didn't know how fascinating they could be. Lucky me to have a science-loving girl to share it all with!

Dogsleds, Stereotypes and Stories

Yesterday, I pulled into the parking lot of a 7-11 to buy a newspaper. I parked next to a police cruiser and a mid-size SUV with what I'm pretty sure was a dog sled lashed to the roof. (I don't think I'd ever before seen a dogsled except in photographs. They're big -- especially lashed to the roof of a vehicle!) These were the only vehicles in the parking lot besides my van.

The cop was easy to spot. He was hanging out by the counter. He didn't seem to be buying anything, which made me wonder if something was up, but whatever it was, it apparently wasn't an emergency. He was leaning on the counter, thumbing through a magazine. I went looking for my paper.

Since Ethan was with me, I didn't bolt right out of the store after paying for the paper, as I normally would have done. He decided to take a meandering walk around the store before leaving. That was when I noticed that there was no one in the store who might own the dog sled. Hmm. Maybe they left the SUV here temporarily, I thought. Odd place to leave it, as there isn't much else within a convenient walk, but who knows?

As we exited the store, we passed the police officer again, who was now chatting with a middle aged black woman whom I hadn't noticed earlier. She looked like someone's young-ish grandma: hair salon-set with highlights, stylish but not new black swing coat, leopard print scarf, black leather boots suitable for Michigan winters, but with a dash of flair. Middle class, middle age, average black woman. Period. When I went outside and saw no new vehicles in the lot, I idly wondered where her car was.

Ethan was still being pokey, so I had just finished buckling him into his car seat and was heading around to my door when the woman exited the store. By now, you've surely guessed that she got into the dog sled SUV, right? Right. I was so taken aback that when the thought entered my head to ask her about the dog sled, I shushed it. I think I even stared a little. Huh.

Don't worry, this isn't a post about "white guilt" over the fact that it didn't even remotely cross my mind that she might be Dog Sled Woman. Frankly, I suspect even black folks would have been surprised, and for the same (or substantially similar) reasons I was. Rather, I fascinating to notice how a mix of factors played together to thoroughly exclude from my mind the possibility that this middle-aged Black-woman-next-door might drive an SUV with a dog sled on top. So thoroughly was the possibility excluded, that I speculated on unlikely reasons why there was an owner-less SUV in the parking lot *and* a woman apparently without a vehicle! Why did I not at least entertain the more obvious conclusion that they belonged together? Curious.

It wasn't just her race, though that was a factor. When I think "musher", white people and people native to the Arctic come most readily to mind. That said, if she had been still black, but 25 and dressed in Patagonia pants and an anorak, I'm pretty sure I would have put her with the SUV right away. I would have been mildly surprised, given my pre-conceptions regarding the races of dog sled mushers, but not shocked, and certainly not oblivious to the possibilities.

Gender was another factor in so far as it inter-played with her manner of dress and her age. A man in his 50's, no matter how he was dressed, would have seemed a more likely candidate for dog sledding, I have to admit. A white woman in her 50's would probably have to be dressed in Patagonia pants and an anorak for me to catch on. You see how the permutations of race/age/dress/class could go on.

I took away a greater awareness of how we weave together subtle information to create meaning, context and story, even about people we are hardly noticing. (My friend Su writes eloquently about this subject as it relates to perceptions of her mixed-race family.) Sometimes this can be pernicious -- we have all slighted, marginalized, misunderstood, or discriminated against someone based on a set of characteristics we probably didn't even notice we were noticing. The tendency to create story and meaning from the barest threads is so ingrained in us, how could we not? Often, however, no harm is done. And every once in a while, we get a glimpse of the real story beyond our assumptions. If we are lucky, we find it is much more interesting than we could have imagined.

The Fruit Bowl

Do people still have fruit bowls? Thanks to my husband, we do! A few weeks ago, he pulled most of the fruit from the fridge, stuck it in my big stainless steel mixing bowl and set the bowl on the dining table. Then he proceeded to leave little notes for us some mornings when he observed specimens going soft: "Time to eat the mango!" or "Time to eat the pears!" Lo and behold, we are eating more fruit! Above is our bowl after yesterday's trip to Horrocks. There are several varieties of apples, pears, avocados, mangos and kiwi fruit. Bananas are elsewhere so that they don't get bruised, and grapes stay in the fridge so Ethan doesn't help himself to a choking hazzard. Here he is hefting a blurry mango. :o)

The only downside? Having to dump all the fruit on the table when I need the mixing bowl for, ya know, mixing stuff. Otherwise, I highly recommend reviving the fruit bowl, at least for the winter months.

Best Bible Analogy Ever

I found this gem in the current issue of Friends Journal:

"I have heard [it said] that the Bible is a crutch. A crutch provides support to a broken individual, and since the Bible does so admirably, there is no problem with the assertion. However, it is appalling to remove a crutch from someone who is using it, and it is alarming to beat someone over the head with our own crutch. ...[P]lease avoid violence to or with this venerable text."

(From "Addressing the Differences Among Friends" by Howie Baker, Friends Journal, Dec. 2009)

Well said, Friend Howie.

Too Much Pressure

"Mommy," Alexander approached me with the plaintive voice that means something is bothering him. "I need to decide what I want to be when I grow up." The enormity of this task was clearly weighing on him.
If you had asked Alexander at age 4 what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would
have rattled off a list of about 5 things, mostly consisting of the
usual little-boy fantasy careers: dump truck driver, fire fighter, rock
star. But now that he's seven, he knows that his options are wide open
and he has plenty of time in the future to explore what jobs he might be right for him. If you ask him now, his answer is a very age-appropriate "I don't know."

I knew right away where this was coming from. This weekend, Alexander broke his pinky finger. The break was close enough to his knuckle that the urgent care doctor wanted him to see a hand specialist to make sure it didn't require any extraordinary measures. (It didn't.) Firmin took him to the hand doctor on Monday. When they came back, Firmin told me about how the doctor seemed to have a bit of a fixation on Alexander's future career choice. Asking a kid what he wants to be when he grows up is standard doctor small-talk, but this guy seemed to have a hard time taking "I don't know" for an answer. "He kept coming back to it", Firmin observed. We found this strange and mildly annoying, but didn't give it much more thought.

Alexander, on the other hand, apparently took it much more seriously. He told me the doctor said he had "two weeks to think about it" and he's going to ask again when we go back for the 2 week check. (why???) Xan is all stressed about this. Sigh. All my good mom advice about ignoring such rude behavior from the doctor, and how much time he has, blah, blah blah, is falling on deaf ears. He wants to have an answer, but he doesn't want to just make something up. "I don't want to tell him a lie!" Ah, my sweet, sweet, child! How can I argue with that? So we did a little brainstorming this evening. He was surprised to realize that there are real jobs with the Lego company. He found that intriguing. (We even looked up some vacancies -- many in Denmark!) "Video game designer" was another possibility. He laughed at my suggestion of saying he was going to be a bum and never leave home, but he won't really say that, of course. I secretly wish he would. I'd love to see the look on the doctor's face when I backed that statement up with a proud, beaming smile.

The larger issue here is why do some adults think it's cute to put kids on the spot like this? A *7* year old must have a specific career ambition? Does he really think that or is he simply unable to see when he's making his patients uncomfortable with his clueless banter? Does he badger his adult patients about stuff they'd rather not talk about? (I doubt it, though I've met one or two doctors who are socially inept enough to come close.) Why do adults do this? This doctor is not the only example we've experienced of otherwise nice grown-ups treating children like this. They repeatedly ask questions the child is clearly uncomfortable answering, or they insist that the child try or do something they clearly don't care to try or do. I'm not talking about things that the child should or must do for a good reason, such as saying "ah" so that the doctor can look at an infected throat. I'm talking about nagging a shy child to show off for a group, or quizzing a child (not their own) on something they are studying in school, even after it becomes clear they don't enjoy the quiz. I'm talking about insisting that a 7 year old decide on a future career in only 2 weeks and expecting him to realize it's a joke, except it's not really a joke because he knows you won't lay off until he gives a convincing answer.

Beautiful Living

Tonya at Plain and Joyful Living has a post up today entitled Vision.  She relates how her family's decision to live simply in rural Vermont has meant coming to terms with the fact that not everything on the homestead is beautiful.  Money to landscape nicely, haul away rubble from building projects, or repair the barn is not usually available, so they live with visions of future beauty among the not-so-beautiful parts, relying on the work of their hands and Providence.  This passage exemplifies her can-do spirit, I think:

I didn't want to look at those big ugly concrete blocks, however, so I am in the process of building a branch fence to put right in front of them. I will plant sweet peas in front of the fence and I can envision the beautiful flowers and green vines climbing over the fence this summer. I piled up rocks around the well head as a worked in the garden. There was trash to remove. I found some flat rocks to add to our entryway walkway. (The chickens enjoyed finding insects and worms while we were cleaning up!)

After reading (and admiring) her post, I found my thoughts taking a tangent on the role of consumerism in our conception of beauty and ugliness.  Beauty -- that is, the orderly, manufactured beauty that requires purchasing things -- is lifted up in our culture as a key to a happy, meaningful life.  This is a marketing ploy, of course, but it's wielded not only by mainstream corporate interests (which I am fairly successful at ignoring), but also by interests which are much more alluring to me. I'm invited to furnish my home with beautiful organic products, to purchase aesthetically-pleasing, artisan-made toys, tools and clothing that support local, independent manufacturers and merchants. (I almost feel guilty NOT buying them.)  I could landscape my yard with native vegetation and pave my ugly mud driveway with permeable concrete -- as beautiful as it is environmentally friendly!  My home really should have bamboo or cork floors (gorgeous!) instead of the dirty, undoubtedly toxic carpet we live with, shouldn't it?  Even at my co-operatively owned grocery, special products for beautiful sustainable living abound, strangly tempting even when I don't really need them. Hand-thrown pottery with eco-friendly glaze, or my grandmother's hand-me-down 1970's Corelle? Hmmm... (Actually, that one's a no-brainer with kids, and we could never afford the pottery anyway, but you get the idea.)

Frankly, waging this constant internal battle to resist these messages can be exhausting.  Marketers -- even ones who pay their office cleaning crew a living wage -- are clever, clever, clever.  They can make me forget what is truly beautiful in my life, and that's a shame on me, as much as them. 

On my best days, I feel good about how we are resisting consumerism in favor of other, more meaningful life experiences.  I can catch Tonya's vision and see that we are working toward a different kind of beauty in our lives, a kind of unkempt, wild beauty of gardens and fruit trees, of family togetherness and honey bees.  On my worst days, I feel like I'm not even doing a good job with the meaningful life experiences part, and I really just want some matching furniture.

October 2009

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. I've been wanting to put up something of substance, but honestly, my brain hasn't been ruminating on much that is original lately. I've been getting into the homeschooling routine for this year, finishing up the garden (still don't have the garlic planted yet), running to sports practices and games. I guess all of that external activity is not good for introspection and reflection. I still think about things, but mostly they are things that are brought to my mind externally -- from reading or hearing a news item or someone else's thoughts about a subject. I'm not reflecting long enough to form many  new or interesting ideas of my own. This doesn't feel bad or wrong; it's just where I am right now. As we head into November and the natural world goes dead and dark, perhaps I will be able to turn inward and find something worth writing about. In the mean time, here are some scenes from our house in October. Missing are pictures of Alexander's flag football. I really wish I had some, because 7 year old football players are super cute. :o) I think all of the recent pictures of Alexander are on Firmin's iPhone and I don't know how to download them. My own hit-or-miss shots with the real camera will have to do:

This is a typical mid-afternoon scene in the living room. The older kids are off playing elsewhere -- perhaps outside or on the computer -- having finished their school work for the day. I'm in the kitchen. Ethan has finished his nap, had a little Mommy time, and will play contentedly by himself for quite a while. What you can't get from the picture is the background sound track: The Wiggles, most definitely!


Firmin has always loved spending special one-on-one time at the table with the kids while they are little. I think Ethan looks especially like Firmin in this photo. He always has, but this picture captures a more mature face than Ethan usually exhibits, so the similarity stands out all the more. Ethan usually looks much more toddler-ish -- more like this:

Friend Ann washing some of the 200 chairs stored in our garage for eventual use in the new Meetinghouse. Between the grime from their previous life and the dust from being in our garage for a year, the cleaning crew had their jobs cut out for them!

Even hard work is fun if you get to use a power washer!

Brianna's bookshelf. (Found this on the camera -- she must have taken it.) The top shelf is her "stack" -- the books she is planning to read, aranged in the order she plans to read them. Most of the stack is composed of library books. The bottom shelf is a selection of books that she owns. This stack is average to small. Since this picture was taken, we've been back to the library. Her current stack is larger than usual and fills the top shelf completely!

Not Back to School Day 2009

Keeping the Sabbath

I don't know when the idea of Observing the Sabbath first came to me as something I might consider doing myself. It started as such a gentle nudge that it really seemed to just flit through my head by chance. One of those ideas that, if you notice it at all, you simply smile and shake your head at such an absurdity. But Spirit knows how I operate; I have to build up tolerance to an idea before I can adopt it. Over time, the idea of Sabbath came to me more frequently, first as a novelty, then as a more serious curiosity. When I found myself feeling a lack of "right order" in my life earlier this year, my heart was groomed to hear God's advice to me -- Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

My head was another story. I often feel pressed for time as it is. It would require compromises and re-arranging some of our routines. Firmin would *never* go for it -- he would think I'd gone 'round the bend -- and I couldn't really do it alone. The thought of even seriously discussing it with him seemed awkward. I'm already a weirder wife than he bargained for, why push the envelope this far? (I must state here that Firmin has been great about walking with me down many "alternative" paths, often enthusiastically. I don't know why I continue to think he's going to balk, but I once again, I did.) Spirit continued to nudge me with increasing force, but I resisted and rationalized and looked for some more reasonable, modern method of ordering my life. Some wonderful idea out of a magazine or someone's blog, maybe.

Then one day Firmin said (not for the first time) that he felt like we had "too much going on". He didn't put it in so many words, but after some discussion it was clear that what he was feeling was the same lack of "right order" that I felt. I tossed off the idea of Sabbath keeping as some silly idea that kept coming into my head lately: "Maybe we need to do something like that, I don't know..." He didn't respond right away and I figured that was the end of that idea. But later in the evening, he came to me and said it was exactly what we needed to do.

So we did it. This past First Day was our first observed Sabbath. We aren't following any particular set of rules, Jewish, Christian, or otherwise. We created our own definition of "work", based on what feels like work to us -- no cooking, yard work, household projects, or shopping. The only housework allowed is picking up after ourselves (and Ethan) as we go along through the day, so as not to create a stressful mess for Monday morning. Dishes were an item of concern for me. I suggested perhaps using paper plates and cups, even though that would not be the most environmentally responsible choice. I was unwilling to face a sink full of dirty dishes first thing on a Monday morning! Firmin had a better solution -- each person would be responsible for their own dishes, either washing them out after using them or putting them in the dishwasher. This worked beautifully and didn't feel like work to anyone. At the end of the day, the only soiled items were one or two serving dishes. We have also decided to forgo commercial activity, either for consumption or entertainment. I am abstaining from the computer, though I have not imposed that discipline on the kids -- not yet, anyway.

Our guide-words are Faith, Family, Friends and Community. We attend Quaker Meeting this day, and in addition, I am spending part of the day in devotional reading and/or prayer. Our time spent not working is to be spent with each other or friends and extended family in peaceful and relaxed companionship rather than hurried "doing". We do allow ourselves to drive, as this facilitates our ability to worship with Friends and to spend time with loved ones outside our immediate family. I'm sure questions will come up of "should we or shouldn't we". The guide-words are designed to help us keep the Spirit of our Sabbath as we formulate the rules and exceptions.

I loved our first Sabbath. Here are some insights, observations and surprises:

- I was surprised how the prospect of keeping Sabbath on First Day made Saturday so much more intentional. I had to prepare to do no work the next day, which meant I wanted the house reasonably clean and a meal ready to eat. With this goal in mind, the process of readying our house for Sabbath was quick and pleasant. I was cleaning for the purpose of taking a day off, not because it was simply drudgery that needed to be done. I hope this effect does not wear off over time!

-- Importantly, (important enough to give this it's own bullet point), preparation for the Sabbath was a shared purpose for me and Firmin, so even as we worked independently on tasks that needed to be done, we were working together toward our goal. The children pitched in, their attitude helped by the knowledge that had a completely chore-free day ahead. This made Saturday a family day in a different but still powerful way.

- I found that refraining from work felt sooo self-indulgent! I almost feel like it can't count as a spiritual discipline because it was so luxurious! But Jesus did say that Sabbath was made for humans, not humans for the Sabbath, so I guess it's O.K. for it to be enjoyable!

- I realized how often I say "I should..." to myself. Many times throughout the day, it occurred to me that if I weren't keeping Sabbath, I would feel like I should be doing something productive. But since I couldn't, I was able to turn back to my book or crossword or game with Ethan without guilt and enjoy it that much more.

- In addition to Saturday being more intentional, my movements about the house on First Day were more intentional as well. I did far more picking up as I went along than on a typical day. I was aware of not creating a situation that would require a concentrated period of "work", which would then have to be put off until Monday. Of course I had no where to run off to and no other pressing task to take priority, but I'm hoping the habit of seeing small needs and meeting them in the moment is one that takes hold in the rest of my week.

- I jumped up from my seat far less often.

- My mind felt more calm than usual.

- We were all very nice to each other. Not that we are usually mean, but we were exceptionally nice on First Day.

- I now feel compelled to call Sunday "First Day" as a symbolic way to make my Sabbath practice tie in with my Quaker practice.*

- BIG surprise and too perfect to be coincidence: On Saturday, I had lunch with an old friend from high school, whom I have only recently reconnected with. I mentioned that we were going to begin observing the Sabbath that weekend. She looked at me with wide eyes and said that she and her husband had recently decided to do so as well. Prior to this, I knew *no one* personally who keeps the Sabbath, so this just seemed like Divine validation. Perhaps it seemed so for her too.

We are early in this journey, needless to say. I fully expect to learn many new things as we go along, and I expect there will be situations that challenge our commitment. Perhaps, after a season, we will be led to let the practice go. In any case, I am grateful that I listened (eventually) to this leading and give the thanks to Spirit. After all, it was God's idea, not mine!



*Early Quakers rejected Sabbath-keeping as practiced by the church in England. They felt that everyday life could be lived as sacred if one attended to The Light Within on a daily basis. Sounds good in theory, but personally, I think Sabbath keeping may have been a precious, but abused little baby that got thrown out with the bath water.

Here is a talk given at Pacific Yearly Meeting in 2006 that I found insightful. Here is an article I found just this evening that addresses some of the practical concerns about keeping the Sabbath in our modern world.

First Batch of Tomatoes

I intended to can peaches today, but the half bushel I bought last night was not ripe enough. Since I had the kitchen all prepared for canning, I decided to do tomatoes. Turned out to be a good choice! I was able to completely fill this basket with ripe tomatoes from the garden, some of which really needed to be dealt with ASAP. The peaches will wait for a couple of days.

This picture didn't quite capture the beautiful colors of the heirloom tomatoes the way I hoped it would. They were so bright and juicy that I found my self smiling throughout the process of chopping them up. What one would think might be a mundane task was really quite enjoyable.

Filling the jars and loading them into the (new!) pressure canner.

Ready to process!

The canner to survive the Apocalypse! (Let's see what kind of Google hits *that* phrase gets me, lol!) It was a little tricky getting the lid screwed on evenly, but after that, it was so easy to use. Good old American-made quality!

The finished product: 7 quarts of heirloom tomatoes canned in their own juice. Should make some yummy chili and spaghetti sauce this winter!

For the curious canners among you, this was a simple raw pack, which is partly why the fruit is floating as much as it is. Not as pretty on the shelf, but oh so easy and probably more nutritious.

Pencil Peril

Quaker blogger and writer Eileen Flanigan has a blog post up that is mostly about finding time to write amid the back-to-school hustle and bustle. But tucked in there is a thought or two about using up old school supplies rather than buying all new ones each and every year. As homeschoolers, there is less pressure on us to get all new things in the fall (and we don't need many folders, etc. as there is no daily transport from one place to another required for most of their paperwork.) Pencils, on the other hand, have become an issue. Ethan (almost 2) has for some time now been fond of biting the erasers off pencils. He doesn't eat them, just bites them off, sucks on them for a few minutes, then spits them onto the carpet. Pink block erasers are strewn about the house but never seem to be handy when we need them, and end-cap erasers are a choking hazard for Ethan, so I've bought more new pencils in the last 9 months than in the previous 9 years! Environmentally unfriendly as it may be, it's actually kind of amusing when we step back and observe ourselves:

"Mommy!! Ethan's got a pencil with an eraser!"

"Quick, trade him for a bitten one!"

"He doesn't want it! I can't get it away from him!"

"Be careful yanking it away; if he lets go, you'll stab yourself in the face."

"But he won't let go! Arrgh! He bit it! Now I can't do my math!"

"Nice try. Just get a new pencil. I sharpened a bunch of them the other day."

Someday when Ethan gets older, he's going to wonder why we have 100 pencils in the house but NONE with an eraser. We can't wait to tell him...