Ruminations

As I’ve mentioned, I am a reader. Some years ago, I read Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project. (Who doesn’t need more happiness?) Rubin is also a bibliophile, salt and peppering her work with literary allusion when not extrapolating from literature outright, so I enjoy her work. Her system for achieving more happiness was far too systematic for me, though. Guessing that may’ve been feedback she received; her next book, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, is all about doing more of the things that make us happy and less of the things that don’t. Turns out habit formation is no more forumlaic than happiness and largely depends on who you are. Rubin identifies “Four Tendencies” influencing habit formation—Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, Rebels.

All this preamble to say I am a Questioner. Among their characteristics, Questioners are “often willing to do exhaustive research” (20). Yep.

I’ve also mentioned I love the podcast On Being. Last week’s episode, “The Opposite of Good Is Indifference,” featured a conversation between Krista Tippett and Arnold Eisen about 20th century mystic, religious intellectual, and social change agent, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. A quote attributed to him has resonated with me all week:

                Words create worlds.

A Questioner, I spend my evenings researching food insecurity (hunger?), poverty. Every source agrees, words matter. How we talk about ________ matters. 

In nursing school, we were taught conflation of the individual with his or her diagnosis de-humanizes. That patients are “clients.” So in the anti-poverty, anti-hunger field. In 2006 Mark Nord with the USDA led efforts to replace the word “hunger” with “very low food security.” Despite immediate backlash, the new terminology stuck. “Food insecurity” is considered more accurate in the American context if less emotive. “The hungry” or “homeless” is thought reductive. Emergency food organizations serve clients, not “poor people.”

I’m still pretty new to this. It’s taken some time for me to learn the jargon, and a Questioner, it really matters to me that my words be well-informed. What kind of world does “food insecurity” create? I ask that question having just read the Medium article, “Saying ‘People Experiencing Homelessness’ Will Not Influence Change.”

I’ll have to keep researching, ruminating on this. What I know, though, is many doing this work, myself included, probably don’t spend enough time talking with the food insecure/hungry. And our questions might sometimes be the wrong ones, generating answers that create a world where people are still hungry and homeless. 

Signifiers

My youngest daughter, Charly, is in 8th grade. This week her junior high celebrated its Spirit Week. Monday was “Dress Like a Book or Movie Character” day; Tuesday, "Tie Dye" day; and so on. Because Charly, like lots of kids, gives me ten minutes’ notice before these types of things, we didn’t have time to tie dye. She wore her older sister's rainbow-striped t-shirt.

Most evenings Charly and I walk our dog, Baron. Charly really talks to me during our walks, and we both protect this time together. Tuesday evening, she told me a kid she was passing in the hall leaned in to her face and said, "Faggot." She had on the rainbow-striped t-shirt. It didn’t hurt her feelings; she said this kid often bullies. It did make her mad. At first because he came into her personal space. She yelled after him, “That’s not very nice!” By the time of our walk, though, she wanted to “take him down” on behalf of those he bullies.

My mom’s been teaching 35 years. Her response to the incident is as follows:

There have always been and will always be kids who parrot the cruel misconceptions they hear at home. It often gives them a feeling of power to label others and see them as “the other.” Their words say much more about them than about the individual they have labeled, judged, and slammed. What to do? Parents and students need to tell teachers. They have an obligation to address such behaviors. As far as what kids do at the time? There is no point in engaging. In fact that is what those who bully thrive on. They want to argue. Perhaps the best thing is to give them the evil eye and walk off. Don’t give those who bully the satisfaction of knowing he/she got to you.

It definitely happened to me. I turned into my mother. I said almost the same thing to Charly as we talked about what she should do if she is a target for or witnesses this behavior again. 

You may be wondering how this relates to the LFP Project. The project provides no end of opportunities for labeling, judgment, and slamming of others. (If you haven’t seen it, find media coverage and check out comments.) Pantry stewards are project teachers. That means when we are informed about this kind of behavior in our communities, part of our work might be to educate and re-direct. For those not in our communities (in the comments), the evil eye is probably better.

Complicating matters, ALL OF US judge. Like junior high, the LFP Project presents an additional opportunity to actively choose trust, grace, and compassion instead. That’s so much harder It's also the project's covert, grand work.  

• Please talk to kids about standing up to those who bully, even if you already have. I recommend my mom’s advice. She’s wise.

Little Free Pet Pantries

The Humane Society of Columbiana County and volunteers recently launched a "blessing box" dedicated to provision of items for animals. The project is called "St. Francis Blessing Box."

A bit about St. Francis...Saint Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of animals and the environment. He even preached to animals, believing all creation to be brothers and sisters.

Appropriate that this group would name its project in his honor.

Until four years ago, I thought folks were kind of silly about their animals. We had a cat. Cookie. He is alright. It wasn't until Baron, a 100-pound German Shepherd, came into our home that I "got it." For so many people, living with a companion animal dramatically improves quality of life. I think about this when I drive past the rail-thin gentleman who panhandles at the intersection nearest my office. He pushes a shopping cart of belongings, among them, two small, brown tabby cats. According to Pets of the Homeless, 5-10% of homeless people have cats or dogs, that percentage rising to 24% in some places. I think about the comfort Baron brings me from the comfort of a home and plenty. I imagine for many poor and homeless folks, that comfort is even more valuable. 

Helping pets of poor and homeless folks helps the folks themselves. Sometimes maybe more than food, and I am grateful to those, like the Humane Society of Columbiana County in Salem, Ohio, who "get it."

In addition to his care for creatures, St. Francis took a vow of poverty, living among and ministering to the poor and sick. He famously said, "Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words." Maybe he should be the patron saint of pantries, too. 

Read more about St. Francis Blessing Box here:

http://www.salemnews.net/news/local-news/2017/09/humane-society-adds-blessing-box/