Channeling Grandma

I rinsed out the just emptied spice container and got ready to toss it. (As a 5, it is not a recyclable plastic in our town.) My Grandma Skatzes stopped me.

Not literally, of course. Grandma has been dead 22 years this month. But like many people who make a deep impact on my heart, she is still with me.

As a child in a multi-generational household, I spent many hours listening to my Grandma's stories. Many of her stories were about the Great Depression and how she and her family and, indeed, the whole community, got through those years.  She made sure her family was fed and clothed, and she did everything she could, on the precious few pennies she had to work with, to make sure neighbors did not do without either.

I have carried her stories with me for six decades. As an American history major in college, my greatest disappointment was I was never at a campus where a class on the 1930s was offered. My thesis was on Isaac Ingalls Stevens, the first governor of Washington Territory, and the treaty talks he held with tribes in that area of the world. It was a good, solid thesis, but what I really would have loved to write about would have been something along the lines of "Living Through the Great Depression: The American Homefront."

Over a decade before World War II brought the slogan to every home, Grandma lived by "Use it up, Wear it Out, Make it do or do without." That is what stayed my hand with the spice container. The uncertainty of what is ahead as we as a community, state, nation, and world go through this pandemic causes me to reassess what I need, what I do not need, and, yes, hang onto a few things that normally would have hit the trash or the recycling.

Or the yard waste pile, for that matter. Two months or so ago, while lazily talking out loud about this year's garden, I announced to Warren that I was going to dig out the sage plant that continues to winter over and produce each year. We don't use a lot of sage in this house and it takes up a lot of space, even with being cut back each spring.

The sage after being its pardon 

So when I started out to work in the garden this Saturday past, I was resolved to dig it up and be done with it. Then I looked again and thought of Grandma. And...ended up cutting it back but keeping it.

As it turns out, you can make pesto with sage. Really? I will be planting a large basil patch again for traditional basil pesto, but the thought of adding another type of pesto to my repertoire (and the freezer) delights me.

Thinking of you, Grandma.

The Stub Ends of 2019

How did it get to be December 31 already?

In my late November post, I noted that the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving had been hard, making that unexpected Thanksgiving so much the more special. The pace and the issues did not slack off after that holiday, but steamed ahead into December.

The last two months of this year have been brutal, including grandson Orlando being hospitalized in PICU for RSV. But there are slivers of hope and light: Orlando got home and is healthy again. Dad will be coming home from the skilled nursing facility this Friday after a long stay. Another person in my life who has been homeless and recently gave birth to incredibly premature babies and lives with significant mental health issues (can we say "Enough" yet?) may be (we hope; I hope) approved for an apartment with the help of community agencies and others stepping forward to get and keep her housed. (I'm awaiting the approval call from the leasing office.)

Little bits of hope, of forward progress.

December is always a whirl for the musician in our household. Warren's last gig, a Christmas cantata at a Columbus-area church, was on December 22.  It is such a relief when the last one is done, beautiful though some of them are. I attended most (all?) of the performances, which included a stunning choral concert one weekend and our Symphony's holiday concerts (possibly the best ever) two weekends later. There were times when I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me.

Little notes hanging in the air.

Hanukkah just concluded. Warren kept me close company while I lit my menorahs. The second night, in large part because of the chaos and hardships going on, I sank to the carpet in front of them and lit them from that position, my voice cracking from stress and tears coming into my eyes. (I put my menorahs on a small outdoors table positioned by our front windows; the menorahs are at eye level if I sit on the floor, as I discovered that night; it turned out to be so gratifying that I lit the menorahs from that position the remaining nights.) Lighting the candles, saying the prayers, and reflecting on my beliefs (spiritual, personal) carved out some much needed space and silence. On the eighth and final night, I looked up at Warren (in a chair next to me) and asked "would you like to light one of the menorahs?" The thought had never occurred to me to ask him and it caught us both by surprise. Yes, he did, and yes, it meant so much to me.

Little bits of light.

So here I am, on the last day of the year, thinking of what the year held (including our new grandson) and what the year ahead may hold. I am looking to focus even more on the essentials and cut away the excess and the unnecessary, whatever that may mean. I am looking to try to truly hold each day in my heart.

Little bits of light, little bits of hope.

What Poverty Looks Like, 2019 Version

I recently saw a meme on Facebook so hostile and ugly (I know, I know, you're thinking "You only saw one that fits that category?") that it made me take a step back and comment to Warren that I was having a very hard time with the post because this is someone in our immediate family, not just someone I can delete from my life, who thought it appropriate.

Now, a couple of comments before you start jumping to conclusions. The person posting is not particularly political; the meme had no mention, pro or con, of the current administration, Congress, the upcoming 2020 Democratic primary candidates, or the Supreme Court.

The meme was not about race.

It was not about immigration.

It was not about the environment.

The meme was about entitlement and privilege, which is something I often talk about. The twist was that the meme was about the "privileged" poor and how they (the poor) have to get over their special sense of entitlement.

Really? Really? 

The meme was particularly timely because just this week at work we had a real life (no meme here),  graphic demonstration of the gulf between privilege and poverty. At work right now, we (all County employees, not just our Court) are having to verify to the overarching benefits provider that the family members we carry on our health insurance are indeed entitled to be there by virtue of marriage, birth, or whatever. This has caused a lot of grumbling ("If my five year old was my birth child three years ago when we last did this, chances are good he is still my child") and a lot of faxing.

In the midst of this, a coworker shared with me two birth certificates as a demonstration of what a hard life does even to the young.

The first birth certificate is that of her stepson's and it looks like that (she photographed the backs of them for me):

That is the birth certificate of a child who was raised in stable circumstances, with food on the table, clean clothes to wear, a roof over his head, and the other benefits of an economically sustainable household. When my coworker asked her stepson for his birth certificate so that she could fax it in, his initial response was uncertainty as to where it was. The paper the birth certificate is printed on is unblemished; it has been kept in a nice, thick plastic sleeve.

The second birth certificate is that of a young adult, also male, of whom she was awarded custody (out of a Juvenile Court proceeding in another county) when he was still a teenager. She gained custody, even though there is no biological connection, so that this youth would have a roof over his head and someone to help him navigate a harsh world. Because he had essentially been raising himself from his early teens on, he and not a parent was always responsible for knowing where essential papers were at any given time. When my coworker asked him last week if he had his birth certificate for the verification requirements, this young man knew immediately where it was and handed it over. It was in his wallet. It looks like this:

Those creases and wear marks are from it being carried in a wallet for several years. The certificate is paper thin from wear; you can hold it to the light and see through it. (Take my word for it, you cannot see through the first one.)

This is what poverty looks like. It is not about privilege and it is not about entitlement. It is about surviving. Yes, sometimes there is government help when and if it is available (and if varies wildly from state to state, incidentally). But that is not a given ever. Poverty is about figuring out how to eat maybe once a day (more if you're lucky), stay warm in the winter, and make it to work or school no matter how far that may be, whether you have any gasoline, or whether you have a car at all. It is about staying safe under circumstances that many of us never have to imagine, let alone experience.

Poverty is about a battered birth certificate that a 20-year-old carries in his wallet so he can prove who he is when he has to.

My coworker and I talked for several minutes about these two certificates and the different stories they told. I mentioned a book I read several years ago by a sociologist who spent months traveling Greyhound buses and talking to riders, examining the lives of those riders. The author made a striking observation about how most of us who do not live in poverty have a general idea of how much money (cash, not debit or credit cards) we have on us at any given time, but how when you are poor, you know down to the penny exactly how much money you have on you, because that is likely the only money you have and you have to spend it carefully. (Economists have made similar observations and many conclude that people who live in poverty are far more intelligent consumers because every dollar has real, immediate value to them.)

My coworker immediately agreed. The young man with the tattered birth certificate? He can always tell you how much money he has on him at any given time. A young woman I know who lives in deep poverty? The same.

In the end, the ugly meme reminded me of the Ghost of Christmas Present turning on Scrooge in anger for Scrooge's earlier callousness about the poor dying so as to decrease the surplus population. When Scrooge reacts emotionally to the Ghost's pronouncement that Tiny Tim will die if nothing else changes, the Ghost throws his words back at him, concluding: "It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child."

I know. It's just a meme. And I also know that Facebook is a cesspool of viciousness on many, many fronts. But I'll let the Ghost have the final word.

"Forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is."

July Money Review

Following the extravagance of May and the parsimony of June, our July grocery bills looked pretty darn normal. When I sat down yesterday to run the totals, I confirmed this: $184.20 for food, $4.00 for household items, total $188.20. Yes, we nudged over the $175.00 I am hoping for each month, but just barely. And our year-to-date monthly average came in at a cool $161.33.

Our eating out expenditures were $80.99, about half of which were meals out with out-of-town friends. (I only count our share of those meals, not the total bill.) That's a huge reduction (about 75%) from our June expenditures.

Clearly the anticipation of meeting us is just overwhelming. 

August is going to be a challenge to come in around $175.00. We will be heading west for time with family, including the long anticipated introduction to Orlando, who will be just past the six month mark when we finally meet.

Last year when we were out west, I counted the groceries I bought, even when buying for the whole family. I will do the same this year. Even shopping at my beloved Winco, which will keep the costs rock bottom low, adds up when buying for ten to twelve people.

The bigger challenge for the August grocery spending will be that, even though it is only August 4 while I write this, we have already spent $142.43 in food ($119.45) and household ($22.98).

No, we did not buy lobster. Or anything remotely resembling lobster. But we did spend money restocking some basics (toilet paper among those items). We also spent some serious bucks on meat: about $10.00 on chicken thighs and $50.00 on salmon (8.5 pounds, but who's counting?). The salmon was a whale of a sale for local salmon prices; I cut it up this morning and wrapped it to freeze in meal portions. In the quantities we eat, that's a whole lot of meals; the final count was 13. (The chicken thighs already met a similar fate.) That comes to $3.85 a salmon meal, incidentally. What with all of our purchases and the items already in the freezer, I said to Warren, "We really only have to buy perishables from now until we leave."

And that simplistic sentiment was not inaccurate until I realized we are buying zucchinis at a locally owned farm market because dad's zucchini plant might get something on it before the first frost. (Let's just say it was a bad season for dad and his garden.) Warren and I eat a lot of zucchini during the winter; we slice and freeze it in quart bags all through the summer and into the fall.

Oh, and the first sweet corn is hitting the local farm market too. We do not eat as much sweet corn (cut off the cob and frozen into quart portions) as we do zucchini, but still, there will be sweet corn purchases.

So who knows what August will look like when all is said and done?

In other financial arenas, July held some major expenditures, chief among them airline tickets (which I had been saving for). It held some unexpected medical costs when an unexplained fever sent me to Urgent Care, at which the doctor took less than five minutes to send me straight on to the ER. I have really good health insurance through my job with Delaware County, but it was still a pricy night. I have a modest amount of money in an account separate from my regular checking account, so I could cover the costs, but it made me acutely aware of the whole issue of financial sustainability.

Financial sustainability is something that is out of reach of about 43% of the US population. It is very roughly defined as having enough income to meet your monthly expenses, ranging from housing and food to transportation, without having to beg, borrow, or go without. While some of those Americans in that 43% are those who live below the poverty line, a large and growing portion of them are what sociologists, United Ways nationwide, and a lot of others of us now refer to as ALICE.

ALICE stands for Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed. ALICE is in every state. ALICE knows no geographic, age, ethnic, or racial boundaries.

ALICE is a topic near and dear to my heart for several reasons. One is that many of the clients who come to our monthly free legal clinic are in the ALICE group. Another is that this fall I will be presenting at a national conference on the topic of ALICE and the legal system: how do we make sure those without means have access to justice?

But the major reason I am so keen on ALICE is that I have been ALICE. If I were not married to Warren, I would be ALICE now. And but for the fact that Warren owns his house without a mortgage, we would likely be ALICE. I have close friends and family members who are ALICE. And they are ALICE not because they are lazy or profligate spenders, but because the reality of today's economy is that financial sustainability is increasingly impossible to attain.

So as I sat there in ER and the very nice staffer informed me that my ER cost would be $150.00 and how would I like to pay that, I was grateful I had the means to take care of it right then and there, without having to calculate wildly how many months I could stretch it out over (as I have had to do in my ALICE past). And it made me think of all those who come through those doors (or through the grocery line or to the landlord) who do not have that ability.

As I mentioned back in January, I knew 2019 would hold challenges. We are both starting to look at retirement "somewhere" in the future. I don't turn 65 until April 2021 and cannot retire until Medicare kicks in (assuming that such a thing even exists in 2021) but am starting to look at that date (assuming I don't die before then). Warren sailed past his 65th birthday, a huge relief for me knowing that if I did die while still employed by the County, he would have medical insurance. While we are just starting to kick around what-might-this-look-like? when we talk, we are aware that our financial situation will change significantly when we both step away from drawing a paycheck. Other friends in our age range are having the same discussions; we compare notes in letters and emails and conversations.

More to come.

But first comes our trip and these little ones:

Lyrick will be turning 3 next month. Ramona is on the cusp of turning 7 and starting 2nd grade. Her school got a whole new building built over the summer. I'm excited because we will be there to tour it at the open house and watch her head off on her first day of school, an experience we missed last year because of the strike.

Wonderful times await.

Rethinking Nashville

I may have to rethink Nashville.

We were there four years ago to pick up a timpani Warren had purchased. We stayed overnight an hour north, in Franklin, Kentucky, and truly just zoomed in and out. We visited the Tennessee state history museum, the Parthenon (yes), and walked around the grounds of the Statehouse.

I was not impressed. I was upset by the museum's presentation of slavery (there were some evils, but most slaves were treated well) and its hagiographic elevation of Andrew Jackson (with nary a word in the museum about the genocide he committed against the Cherokee and other Southern tribes with their forced removal). On the street were historical markers venerating the Confederate cause in the Civil War. On our way back north, we pulled off the Interstate to get gas and found ourselves on a road with another historical marker: the highway we were on was part of the Trail of Tears (the path the Native Americans were marched along under military guard). Its name? The Andrew Jackson highway.

Can you say "tone deaf?"

I wanted out of Nashville. I wanted out of Tennessee. I could decisively mark the state and city off with "don't go there again."

So when it was announced that the 2019 League of American Orchestras national conference would be held in Nashville, let's just say I was less than enthusiastic. But, married to the Symphony as I am, I sucked it up and went back down.

I came away with an entirely different view of Nashville.

For three days, we were in the heart of the downtown. We stayed on the other side of the Cumberland River, near the football stadium, but were only there at night. Days and evenings were spent in downtown Nashville. While the League activities were centered in the Omni Hotel, we were out and about on the streets at times, especially with League-related activities Monday and Tuesday evening.

And I did a fair amount of walking by myself the first morning,  having no session to attend. I ended up walking across the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, after skirting the Country Music Hall of Fame (which butts into the Omni) and going around the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. CMA Music Fest was only a few days away (it was getting underway as the orchestra conference was leaving) and there was a lot of activity downtown as the city prepared. There was music of all kinds on the streets, in the halls, in the air.

My view of Nashville started changing.

I looked at the people I passed. Many were no doubt tourists or event-goers, like myself, just in town for a few days. There were street performers on many corners (everyone is a potential performer in Nashville, including one of our Uber drivers). There were street people, just trying to survive, including the one who after trying to wash up in a fountain at the Schermerhorn and being chased away by a guard, came back to debate that the water was there for all to enjoy. The guard listened respectfully, then said, "That's true, but y'all can't take a bath in it." That seemed to satisfy both of them. There were orchestra people talking music, there were country music people talking music, there were just people going about their day.

I spent a surprising amount of time (for me) in Circa, the gift shop of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. I was looking for postcards (which I indeed found) but I found myself engrossed in the books, the clothing, the mugs, the stuff. I told Warren later that I have never come so close to buying just for the sake of buying. I stuck to buying just the postcards to send to family and friends and one ornament for our Christmas tree.

I loved one postcard so much that I went back the next day to buy one for myself:

It is now on our refrigerator. (I found it hilarious, okay? Well worth every penny of the $1.10 it cost.) For the record, I am fine with country music. Had I been feeling better that morning, I would have gone to both the Patsy Cline museum AND the Johnny Cash museum, but I can only burn my candle at both ends and up the middle for so long these days. 

Coming into Nashville on Sunday, we had bypassed the Interstate and traveled back roads to get a sense of the country. I liked what I saw. I want to see more. Some of my dad's family came out of Tennessee and for the first time ever, I found myself wanting to explore more of where they came from. When Dad stopped by the day after we got back, I pulled out a map and he pointed out the likely areas. I may delve deeper into that side of the family, even if I never go back to Nashville or any other part of Tennessee. 

The truth is, I was taken by Nashville and would go back to explore it more deeply. 

There is a wonderful line early on in Moon Over Manifest, the 2011 Newbery Award winner by Clare Vanderpool: "But as anyone worth his salt knows, it's best to get a look at a place before it gets a look at you." That sentence played in my mind as I walked across the bridge on that sunny morning and as I walked around in the downtown. I don't know if Nashville got a look at me, but I indeed got a look at Nashville. 

I liked what I saw. 

More Books Before I Hit The Road

We are off to Mayo tomorrow and I will be traveling with books, of course. OF COURSE! All the same, I wanted to post the most recent reads so my list is up to date.

The latest entries to "Books Read By April This Year" are:
181. All Over But The Shoutin' by Rick Braggs (Braggs came out of deep, deep generational poverty and ended up as a Pulitzer winning reporter for The New York Times; this is his memoir of his family and their—and his—trajectory over a half decade)
182. The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami (I wrote briefly about this book here; this is an engaging, quirky, and thoroughly modern Japanese look at love and life)
183. The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon (a YA novel about love and fate; the expected resolution in the current story did not happen, but the ending, set a decade later,  brought tears to my eyes)
184. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston (I have read some of Kingston's fiction before; this is her early (1976) and evocative memoir about the strong women of her family and her Chinese heritage)
185. What We Owe by Golnaz Hashemzadeh Bonde (love, death, revolution, exile, cancer; Bonde, an Iranian whose family fled to Sweden when she was a child, sets this gut-wrenching novel in Iran at the time of the Revolution and in current Sweden)
186. Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne Lamott (Lamott's latest work on, no surprise, holding hope close in these deeply troubled times; it is not her strongest writing, but it is solid)
187. Theodore Roosevelt: A Literary Life by Thomas Bailey & Katherine Joslin (I ran across this title when exploring the Vancouver (WA) library and took a photo to remember it; it is a flowing, fascinating celebration of Roosevelt as a man of letters, as a serious writer, as a journalist—oh yeah, he was President too but this biography places him in office in one (!) sentence and takes him out almost as fast)
188.The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (this YA novel about race, violence, prejudice, "passing" is a strong companion book to read alongside all american boys (#180) and Piecing Me Together (#153))
189. We Fed An Island: The True Story Of Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One Meal At A Time by José Andrés with Richard Wolffe (Andrés is a renown chef who went to Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria and stayed for four months, working with others to feed the people there after the devastation of Hurricane Maria; this is about abandoned Americans (you do know Puerto Ricans are Americans, right?) and is a searing indictment of FEMA and President Trump's disregard for our citizens)

I am taking with me to Mayo three books on Appalachia, one of which I am almost done with but will not finish tonight. Stay tuned.

Inch One Hundred Eight: Hard Times

I just finished rereading The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck's powerful Great American Novel. I have read it cover to cover four or five times since I was a teenager. This was my first complete reading in many years.

What hit me hardest this time around was how little has changed. Or, more accurately, how far backwards we have slid in this country.

The Grapes of Wrath is half the story of the Joad family, sharecroppers whose lives are upended and broken by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, and half Steinbeck's pointed commentary on the times in which he wrote. The novel came out in 1938. America had not yet climbed out of the Great Depression. Hunger, homelessness, poverty, lack of medical care, xenophobia, discrimination: Steinbeck saw and captured it all.

An evening into the book, I cried out to Warren, "Steinbeck could be writing this for our times!"

Just before beginning Grapes,  I read Eviction: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond. It is a searing look at the private housing industry operating in the poorest parts of a city (in this case, Milwaukee, Wisconsin), at the landlords who make money off of the poorest of the poor, at the tenants who scrounge by (or not) in that market. There are no heroes, there are not necessarily villains in the sense of Evil Grasping Landlord. But regardless of your political leanings and your personal views about poverty, it is a book that will leave you shaken.

Steinbeck and Desmond would have much to talk about.

In my community, I continue to see the effects of the Great Recession, which six years later is still doing damage. Our local food banks have grown, the free medical and legal clinics stay busy. The safety net that politicians and administrations on both sides of the aisle hacked to bits only contains the slimmest of strands. More and more juveniles coming through our courts and more and more families in our schools have been homeless at some time in the last twelve to eighteen months. Like Steinbeck, I defy anyone to blame it solely on the individuals without shelter. As he so clearly captured in Grapes, while individuals are responsible for the choices, good and bad, they make, there are factors beyond their control, the economy and the political climate, among them, in which individuals, especially the poor, the marginalized, and the disenfranchised, have no say and over which they have no control.

The Grapes of Wrath come out 78 years ago. John Steinbeck died in 1968.  Here it is 2016, and the book still rings true, still reads hard, and still burns the conscience.

Our country today would make Steinbeck weep. And then he would pick up his pen with even greater urgency and anger and write a new book.

The Jonah in Me

One day long ago, God's Word came to Jonah, Amittai's son: "Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They're in a bad way and I can't ignore it any longer." But Jonah got up and went the other direction to Tarshish, running away from God. He went down to the port of Joppa and found a ship headed for Tarshish.  

Jonah 1:1-3 (The Message)

Back in the beginning of the year, my friend Katrina sent me on a spiritual journey. At the time, I admitted that her expectations brought out the Jonah in me. Called to Nineveh, I wanted to go instead to Tarshish.

I'm in a Jonah kind of mood right now. (Or a Moses mood, who after offering up excuse after excuse to God as to why he, Moses, should not ask Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, finally blurted "Send somebody else!")

Ever since Katrina sent me off on my journey, I have come to view my beliefs and my spirituality in far more personal, real ways. So why am I kicking my heels right now? 

Blame it on Michelle Derusha.

Michelle is the blogger at Graceful, a deftly and beautifully written blog about her life, her faith, and her own journeys. One of the journeys Michelle is on presently is a "shop-not" year.

Shop-not years always intrigue me and I read Michelle's explanation of why she had made that decision. She pointed to a book, The Hole In Our Gospel, by Richard Stearns. What Michelle wrote about that book was intriguing, intriguing enough to track down the book and start reading it last night.

Start reading it? Start absorbing it. Start inhaling it. Start immersing myself in it. It is a powerful book. It is a book that reaches right into my heart and pulls hard.

This is how hard that book has hit me: When I find a quote that moves me, I usually flag it until I can come back to it and copy it into my commonplace book. I am not yet finished with The Hole in Our Gospel and there are so many notes sticking out of it that it looks as if someone shoved a ream of construction paper into the pages.

The Hole in Our Gospel is a book that even when I manage to put it down and turn to the tasks at hand, I am still thinking about the book.

And this is where Jonah comes in. Sundays are my swimming day many weeks, this week being one of them. As I swam earlier today, counting laps, I found myself thinking of the book, and the book's message, and what that message could, might, maybe mean for me. I found myself praying as I counted laps: 3-4, 3-5, What are You asking of me, Lord?, 3-6, 4-1, What am I supposed to do?, 4-2, 4-3, Not now, please, Lord, not now.

As I type these words, it is midafternoon Sunday. Sam and a friend are in the next room, gaming. Warren is in his shop (the garage) cutting steel. Me? I'm wondering whether to go to Nineveh or Tarshish, and I haven't even finished the book yet.

In the end, Jonah goes to Nineveh and preaches repentance (so successfully that God spared the city, to Jonah's great anger and disgust). As for me, I suspect in the end I will trudge into my own version of Nineveh, where I will find…

Myself, talking about but not taking action, wondering about but not questing after a more meaningful expression of my faith. My Nineveh is not populated by evildoers so wicked the town is about to be destroyed, but just by me, who I hope is a fairly decent person. But as Stearns make clear in his book, the issue is not whether one is fairly decent or well meaning or a "good Christian." The issue is far greater than that: it is about living with integrity and compassion and justice for the poorest of the poor, the sickest of the sick, the hungriest of the hungry. It is about the meaning of life itself.

Sooner or later, I hope to end up in Nineveh.

When You Live in Poverty: May 2011 Version

Growing up, I listened to my grandmother Skatzes talk about her Depression experiences as a wife and mother of a large family. She talked about how everyone was in the same boat and how they all worked together to make it through tough times. Folks did favors for one another: "I'll give you the shirt my boy outgrew if you give me the shoes that your little girl can't fit into anymore." The town doctors went on treating the sick and delivering babies, telling families to pay as they could. "I know you're good for it." Grandma never glorified the Great Depression as a time of universal goodwill nor did she minimize the deprivation. Her stories demonstrated though that most  went on with their daily lives, helping one another as best they could.

Those stories fascinated me. Several years ago, while having lunch with my friend Roger, we speculated about what historical era we would love to visit and experience firsthand. Roger picked the early years of the 1900s because of the new inventions: automobiles, airplanes, movies. He wanted to be in the midst of that exciting change. I picked the 1930s, the Great Depression, so I could witness those small episodes of daily life that Grandma had related.

A good moral to that casual lunch discussion is "be careful what you wish for." I don't have to go back in time to witness what my Grandma Skatzes lived through; I get to witness it in the here and now.

When you live in poverty, you bank heavily in relationships, because it is relationships that help you navigate the rocky shoals of your everyday life. As the Great Recession grinds on and more and more of us move downward on the economic scale, I see this played out daily.

Midway through April I was privileged to again attend a session of Grace Medical Clinic, again accompanying our Amy. This time I paid close attention to the workings of the waiting room while the Clinic volunteers performed their amazing ministry.

Amy got there early this time, to be higher on the waiting list. By the time I arrived from work, Amy had already met and talked with some of the other early arrivals. Cheryl, perhaps my age, had already taken Amy under her wing. As she scratched the poison ivy that had brought her to Grace, Cheryl talked to Amy about getting a practical nursing certificate through the local career center, about the portability of health care skills, and about how to get information about the programs and find out about financial aid. Amy listened intently.  A little later, when Cheryl learned that Amy's dad had a CDL, she proffered a contact for a possible trucking job. "Tell him to call Tom and make sure you tell him to mention my name," she said, writing down the phone number.

All around the room, others were also sharing job leads, tips on how to get by, information on other community resources. Amy only had $1.00 to get her to Friday's payday and groceries, so I gave her the loose dollars in my wallet. By the time we left Grace, her dad had called and offered to take her out to KFC. Amy would eat that evening.

Watching and listening to the exchange of support and advice hit me more than usual because earlier that same day I had shared tea and talk with a longtime friend who is struggling hard right now. This is someone who, along with her husband, had attained recognizable benchmarks of success—college educations, home ownership, secure jobs—and then watched everything get swept away by illness, job loss, long term unemployment, and foreclosure. A year ago, they moved back here, her hometown, to be closer to an aging parent and try to make a stand against the economic devastation that had roared through their lives. She has a fulltime minimum wage job, her husband has a part-time minimum wage job. These are the only jobs they have been able to find in over two years. She has been off work for several weeks due to injury, so their financial resources, already tight, have been stretched past breaking. As we talked, my friend revealed that they had applied for food stamps, and that they had no way to pay their rent in May.  She said, ruefully, "I never wanted to come back here with my tail tucked between my legs." We talked about and shared what social workers call "linkages." I gave her names to call, agencies and programs to check out, even a job lead. I shared with her some of our own struggles in recent months. The reality is, I told her, but for the fact that our home is mortgage free, we would have been at risk for homelessness this winter due to no fault of our own. Fortunately, because we don't have rent or a mortgage to pay, we not only kept our housing but also kept the lights on and put food on the table as well. No monthly housing expense is a blessing my friend and millions of others like her do not have.

When she left, we hugged long and hard.

This is what poverty in 2011 is about. It is about the high school friend in her 50s who lies awake at night wondering how long she and her husband will have a roof over their heads. It is about Amy eating only one or two meals a day because that's all she can afford some weeks. It is about the 15 patients at Grace that night, young and old, at least one of them very ill, waiting patiently because this was the only way they could get medical attention. It is about doing what you can, penny by penny, to try to meet your most basic needs.

And it's about relationships.

One of the many benefits of my new job is that I have office colleagues I see and interact with daily. We all have different backgrounds, different politics, different areas of expertise, different life stories. But the one thing we seem to have in common is a recognition of the vast reach of the Great Recession and how deeply it has hurt our community. None of us feels it is over yet. The poor are not nameless to us, because they are now not only our clients, but also our neighbors, our friends, our family, and,  sometimes, even ourselves.

Spent

Spent is not a reflection of  how I am feeling these days. Nor is it an analysis of my purchasing habits.

No, Spent is a computer exercise in poverty created by Urban Ministries of Durham. I first learned about it on Nola Akiwowo's blog at Feeding America. It is a thoughtful and provocative tool to raise awareness of what the Great Recession has done to the lives of so many Americans.

Its premise is that you have lost your job and your home. Your savings are gone and you are down to your last $1000.  Spent challenges you to making it through one month without running out of money.

If you choose to play, you are guided through a series of choices, starting with finding a low-income job as a waitress, a warehouse worker, or an office temp. (I flunked the speed test so could not get a temp job, taking instead the $9/hour warehouse job.) From there, the choices come thick and fast. Do you pay your car insurance this month or not? Do you allow your child to play sports when it will cost $50? Do you go to a free concert with friends if the babysitter is going to cost $30?

As you make each choice, your balance account fluctuates and you are given a fact about what your choice represents in the real world. (Opt not to go to the free concert to save money on babysitting? Be aware that "everyone needs a break but not everyone can afford" one and that may be a contributing factor to higher levels of stress among low-income families.)

I have taken the Spent challenge four times. Each time I have "won" in that I made it to the end of the month with money left over. But when you "succeed" by reaching month's end, the program reminds you that rent is now due.

I have yet to finish the exercise with enough money to pay the next month's rent.

Spent is not a fun or easy romp. I found myself getting a knot in my stomach as I agonized over which utility bill to pay. I chose to pay the electric, so my gas was shut off, which meant I could no longer fix economical meals at home. I lost my job in one round because I took a pamphlet from a union organizer in the company parking lot. In another, I chose not to renew my car registration, hoping I would not be stopped by law enforcement before I pulled together enough funds, including late reinstatement fees, to be legal again. I accepted a coat from a neighbor because mine was worn out. I refused to let my children opt out of the free lunch program, even though that meant they might not eat because of the stigma of getting free lunches.

After I finished (forget "won"), I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. I stood for a long time looking into the backyard, grateful for what Warren and I have. Finances are always tight around here, but we are blessed with so much relative to so many others. Spent reminded me of that.

My friend Sharon has been blogging about her No Spend February. Last week she had some unexpected expenses arise and speculated how to treat the hit to the dollars she had limited herself to spending this month. Sharon wrote:  

Even though I didn't expect some of these expenses, they are still misc. items that need to be counted.  I thought about this for quite a while.  If I counted them, it would make the rest of the month very hard, but isn't that the point of a challenge??  These types of expenses will crop up every month.  If I only had $750.00 a month to pay for food, gas etc. then I would have to make it work.  So, that is what I've decided to do.  Make it work.

I commented back: "We have all sat there, small scrap of paper at hand, noting expenses, prioritizing what we really need to get through to the next payday, the next whatever..."

Take the Spent challenge and see how you do.

Spent reminds us that millions of us are faced with economic choices that do not lead to better times, but are instead desperate attempts to keep the wolf from the door for just a day or two more. For far too many of us, the wolf is already inside the house and we are standing on chairs with a battered broom in hand, hoping to keep it from eating us alive.

Grace in Motion

Amy wasn't feeling well. She'd been sick off and on for weeks, the glands on one side of her neck were swollen, and she had almost daily severe headaches, not to mention that her inhaler (for asthma) was empty and she couldn't afford the appointment to see the doctor for a new prescription, let alone buy the inhaler afterwards.

Amy is our "almost daughter." Warren and I took her in for ten days three years ago when she fled her dad's house during an altercation, and then I tutored her several times a week for the remainder of the year - her senior year - to help her graduate on time (yes, she did). Amy, who will be 21 this spring, has been a part of our lives ever since and she will call me when life gets too overwhelming. So when she called me Monday night, half crying and worrying aloud about her medical problems, I told her she needed to get to Grace Medical Clinic at Andrews House on Wednesday evening.

A long silence ensued. "Are you going to be there?" Amy knows I work at the Andrews House Legal Clinic, so hoped I worked the medical clinic as well. When I told her no, she hemmed and hawed long enough that I said, gently, "come pick me up and I will go with you."

Grace Medical Clinic, which is held weekly, is in its third year of existence. It is entirely volunteer-driven and free to all. I have known about it since its inception, I have heard glowing descriptions of the work the volunteers do, but accompanying Amy was my first opportunity to see it in action.

What a gift.

Despite arriving some 20 minutes before the official check-in time, Amy and I walked into an already full waiting room. She was #13 on the sign-in list. The woman who held the number one slot had been waiting since 2:00.

Ages ranged from toddlers to seniors. Some were Latino; many were white. There was a family in chairs against one wall: father, mother, and three children, the oldest of whom might have been five. At another chair, a toddler played happily on the floor at his mother's feet, trying to stack nesting cups and making the bright loud sounds of a contented baby.

One patient, an older man, was explaining to another client that he was diabetic and experiencing neuropathy in his feet. "When it gets so far up the leg, they'll take my leg off," he added in a matter of fact tone. There was a couple, perhaps in their sixties, cuddled up on the couch. He had a heavily wrapped arm; she held her stomach.

The set-up crew arrived shortly after Amy and I found seats, and I watched the proceedings with fascination. It was what I always imagined watching a MASH unit set up would be. Within 20 minutes, the dining room was divided into a series of curtained examining rooms. Across the hall, others set up prayer rooms. (Grace Medical Clinic is sponsored by an area church, so offers prayer and counseling to any patients who may want it.) Although I could not see it, further down the hall, yet another team was creating an on-site pharmacy.

Amy was nervous. Amy was tense. Amy was anxious about how long it would take. Amy kept thanking me for being there with her. Amy kept talking.

The evening slowed down. Some volunteers brought in food for the patients, knowing that many of them came straight from work, or otherwise had not eaten. Apples, sloppy Joes, pretzels, bottled water - enough to take the edge off of someone's hunger. There was an announcement that the clinic was short one doctor and one nurse tonight, so they could would not see more than 15 patients that night. Little children - and there were lots of them - grew tired and cranky, then grew contented again. People talked in quiet voices. Children flowed from the waiting room to the makeshift play area (also staffed by volunteers) and then back again to their parents.

Amy got called for a weigh-in and triage. She came back with an indecipherable look on her face. When I asked about it, she replied, slowly, "She was really nice. I didn't know girls my age could treat another girl that nicely."

We waited longer. Patients were called into the examining rooms. Amy ate an apple; I ate some pretzels. We both giggled at the little girl who took a sloppy Joe, then returned it a few minutes later, all the edges nibbled off, and carefully placed it back on top of the pile of sandwiches.

Amy was finally called into the examining room. With the seat beside me empty, Peggy, one of the volunteers, sat down and we started chatting. Peggy has worked with the clinic since its inception. She lived in Columbus, and said she never thought of Delaware as needing a clinic, since the county appears to be so affluent, but how she had quickly changed her perception.

I nodded. "We hide our poverty well," I said, explaining about my involvement with our legal clinic. "And if you're from Columbus, the first thing you see coming this direction is south county, which is where most of the money and big houses are."

We compared notes on clinic operations. I admired the hot food and told Peggy how we did baked goods at our legal clinic. She said this was the first night they had hot sandwiches. Peggy talked about the setup and teardown crews and how they rotate volunteers. I talked about our bank of attorney volunteers.

The evening wore on and more patients left. Members of the teardown crew started trickling in; many of the setup and prayer volunteers, including Peggy and her husband, started leaving.

Close to 9:00, Amy finally appeared. She sat down and said, shyly, that she was going to the prayer counseling area and asked me to go with her. Once there, Amy started crying as she talked about the stress in her life, including the loss of her beloved dog. The prayers were Amy-specific: for strength as her father faces foreclosure and the roof over her head becomes uncertain, for guidance as she looks for work, for direction, for healing her grief. Amy continued to wipe away tears.

Our last stop was at the pharmacy, where she was handed a new inhaler, medication for her infection, and replacement prescriptions. Amy just glowed.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you."

Four hours after we walked in the door, we walked out. On the way to her car, Amy reflected on what she had experienced that night. "I thought they would be rude or make me feel bad for being poor. But they were all so wonderful and caring."

She was quiet for a moment. "I cried in the examining room too," she said. "I never cry. But the nurse who saw me first was so nice and saw me as a person."

For many, a trip to Grace Medical Clinic is a life saving experience. For Amy, it might be a life changing experience. When you grow up in what can at best be called "hard circumstances," and where you are now living life at an even lower level because of the Great Recession, you learn early and quickly that life is hard and people often look right through you because of your poverty. Amy is losing the roof over her head. Her future is so uncertain right now. So she came to Grace Medical Clinic with all her defenses and walls in place, expecting to be treated poorly at worst and brusquely at best. Amy walked out saying "they were so nice, they really cared." She was stunned that the Grace Clinic volunteers treated someone "like her" - someone in need of a helping hand - with dignity and kindness.

The Grace Medical Clinic is a gift in the midst of our community. The volunteers, medical and lay people alike, are passionate about this mission. Their faith shines through in their actions, their smiles, and their gentleness. They are the embodiment of Kahlil Gibran's saying that "work is love made visible."

Our communities are full of patients, clients, customers, and others who gather the courage to step through a door and ask for help. They are the Amys of the world, not sure what reception they will receive when they ask. I am always in awe of the volunteers who open those doors and serve - those who dispense prayers or medications, those who give legal advice, those who cook and serve meals, those who put their beliefs into action - and count myself blessed beyond words to have the chance to work alongside them. They are ordinary people who have stepped forward in extraordinary ways. They are ordinary people who have looked around, said "this (lack of medical care, lack of legal help, hunger, homelessness) is wrong," and then taken action.

Wednesday night I got to witness a miracle firsthand. I saw Grace in motion.

*Photo courtesy of Andrews House, Delaware, Ohio.