Dee's Blog
www.takecourage.org
Wed 10/08/2008
Security Comes in Many Different Flavors
Topic: spirituality

"As long as there are garage sales, free libraries, and ad matches," I recently told a gracious checker at my nearby super market, "I'm going to do just fine."  Being able to enjoy the simple things of life is one of the greatest securities I know.  And it DOUBLES!

Not talking about doubling coupons here either.  It doubles because that philosophy is what feeds me both economically and spiritually.  It's something the Quakers seem to have learned long ago.  Long before people thought much about the stock market or how to "bail it out."


Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CDT
Tue 10/07/2008
Difficulty in Protecting Children in Nebraska
Topic: Making Decisions

Even with the best of intentions, lawmakers and social service agencies can find it difficult to protect vulnerable children.  Those of us who live near the Omaha-Lincoln, Nebraska metro have gotten a stark reminder in the last couple of weeks.

Not long ago NE lawmakers passed a law to protect infants who might be abandoned by their birth mothers.  At least, that was the intent.  Apparently, some had fears that the law would be misused by distraught parents of older children.  The wording technically allowed children up the age of 19 to be dropped off at any hospital with parents not being held responsible for abandoning their children.  There would be no questions asked, according to the plan.

In the past two weeks, almost 20 children have been dropped off--9 in one family, when their overwhelmed father decided he was unable to cope with the children after their mother died a year or two ago.  Then, heaven forbid, the courts and the Dept. of Human Services couldn't agree on where the kids should live.  Sleeping two to a bed, even in a loving relative's home, the courts said, wasn't good for the kids--even if it was a temporary arrangement and even if the home had been approved by DHS.  So the kids, already in grief from losing a mother, were footballs.  All because we haven't learned how to be a "village" who cares for our children emotionally. 

It will take time, but people are working on the problem.  Somehow trying to keep children (and, in this case, a father) from being left out, unaware that there are safe places they can go when life throws them a curve they cannot manage.


Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 8:08 AM CDT
Sun 10/05/2008
This Song Says It All
Topic: music

Edward A. McDowell, Jr. wrote the words back in 1954.  The song is "Ordained of God," and I believe pertains to anyone who has an important message.  This certainly includes those of us who are working to address the problems of sexual and domestic abuse.  For it is a work of prophecy, and we must never forget this.

I'm offering stanza 1 of the song, since they especially pertain to this work:

"Ordained of God, true Prophets rise.  They seek not gain nor earthly prize.  They heed the challenge of Christ's call.  They ask to give and spend their all."

May we claim our ordination, knowing that this is the only source we need in order to do this work effectively.

 

 


Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CDT
Fri 10/03/2008
New Article to be a Podcast

You can read the article now http://www.takecourage.org/AWArticles/WishfulThinking.htm

I've just been asked to do read it, in it's entirety, on a Podcast through www.advocateweb.org

Will let you know when it's available.


Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CDT
Thu 10/02/2008
Ordained
Topic: Power

Twenty-four years ago, I stood in the pulpit where my father was pastor and spoke from my heart about what I believe.  I was talking then about the belief that we Americans need to all be concerned about the crying needs of the world, looking out beyond our shores where we have a limited understanding of what constitutes "need."

At that time, the dispute over women's ordination in the Southern Baptist Convention was just getting started.  It had so many folks in a panic.  As I told the congregation that evening, I did not have to be ordained in order to bring a prophetic message.  Nor did I have to be ordained to do ministry.  I "preached" from my heart, though my father and his congregation would not have called it "preaching."

I was visiting my parents in Texas, on paid leave of absence from Malawi, where I was serving in social ministries--wrestling with the problems of extreme drought, refugees, illiteracy, and malnutrition.  My parents had many needs at that moment, as well.  They were my priority, and that's how it should have been.  For my father was dying, even though he was still functioning relatively well and would for 2-3 more weeks.  He was leaving behind two granddaughters that my parents were helping to raise.  As a nurse and as a daughter, I had a special role to fulfill, and I did so even while being concerned about the work I'd left behind and my husband and two children back in Africa, managing without me.

In the back of my mind, was another concern.  Yet it was not going to take center stage of my life for two more years.  That was the fact that my report of a sexual predator in our midst, back in Africa, had been brushed over lightly by our American co-workers. 

This past Sunday was kind of a milestone day for me.  I again filled the pulpit, as I have a number of times since that day in 1984.  This time, it wasn't as a missionary, and I wasn't serving to stop the panic in the church my husband pastored because (as happened one Sunday) the "supply preacher" didn't show up!  This time I was the "supply preacher" because my husband asked if I was interested in doing so, since he could not be in two places at once.  I must say that it was a rewarding experience to find myself in that role.  What was surprising--my message contained some elements of what I had to say in 1984!  It was about being pro-active and persistent, being a voice of advocacy for the oppressed in our world.

How do we manage to attend to the variety of "cooking pots" we find in our lives--when there are multiple priorities, each needing attention.  It's certainly not easy.  Yet we can do the most effective job by learning to focus an appropriate amount of time and attention to the particular "pot" that appears to be priority for that moment in time.  We attend to our own health, first and foremost.  The health of those around us and our careers.  Yet we must never forget that we are extremely blessed and have a responsibility to take a look far beyond ourselves for a significant portion of our time and energy, as well. 

As I see it, we are all ordained to do that.  As I understand it, that is what Jesus came to teach us!

 


Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 11:56 AM CDT
Wed 10/01/2008
Revisiting a Place or Time
Topic: coping

As we learn to re-shape our stories, by going back over them many times, they certainly do take on new meaning.

Gelder suggests that it is good to either go back to the place where something meaningful happened or to try to re-create that place in our minds.  Either way can help us to see and feel the story in a different way.  Each time we go back, we are able to do this.  As we mature and get older and wiser, the feelings eventually can change, as well.  Partly because we may be able to increasingly separate from that moment and its feelings.  Or from a place and the feelings it evokes.

Several years ago, I took my husband back to see the house where my family and I lived when I was in high school.  It was a joyous time in many ways.  For I loved school there and had some wonderful teachers.  A few good friends that helped me understand myself and begin to blossom, too.  It was in the church there that I began to recognize and develop some of my unique strengths and abilities. 

It was also a very sad time in some ways--like so many things in life, there were strong contrasts.  My mother was quite ill when I was in high school.  The lot of being the "mother" to my much younger siblings fell to me.  It was a role I really did not mind or resent back then, but I have since come to realize how much my mother's illness robbed me of much of my adolescence while it taught me coping skills and self-esteem that have continued to come in very handy throughout my life.  Only as an adult, looking back on the story, have I gotten in touch with my fears and sadness that often clouded the brightness of those days.  The canvas on which life was painted had many colors in those years, and the picture was certainly unique--one of those stories that is very hard to capture in words.

As an adult, I've always seen that house where we lived as a large and luxurious home.  Truth is it was, compared to all the other places we had lived.  The others had been older and more on the humble side, though my mother and I were quick to make them colorful and homey as soon as we could after moving in to each place.

Somehow this place in Ardmore, Oklahoma was far from the sprawling place I remembered, however.  Time had re-shaped my ideas and opinions about what constitutes luxury.  It was quite small, in fact.  The beautiful brick was no longer so pretty.  The one-car garage didn't look up-to-date at all.  Certainly no longer a place of luxury.  It even needed a paint job. 

Going back allowed me to revisit the house, but more importantly the sounds and feelings of some of the stories that have helped make me into the person I am today.

What places do you possibly need to revisit?


Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CDT
Updated: Thu 10/02/2008 11:35 AM CDT
Tue 09/30/2008
Words are Inadequate
Topic: Stained Glass

When we have had the stained glass of idealism shattered--whether in families or institutions or simply by facing the realities of life and the suffering that it brings--we always have stories for which there are no words adequate to accurately convey the story.  That's what Leslie Van Gelder says in Weaving a Way Home

I think she's right.  Such has been my experience with quite a few of my own personal journeys or mini-journeys.  

Seems to me that those who fail to understand this phenomenon end up believing that they are the only individuals in the world who cannot adequately convey to others what they have experienced or suffered.  Truth is, if Gelder is right (and I really believe that she is), we may do well to stop struggling with the idea that we are "the only ones in such pain and isolation."  It helps when I remember that, for I can look at others with a different set of eyes and with arms more open to the world, even if I cannot comprehend the myriad of unique stories that I'm half afraid to hear from others at times. Or simply cannot fully relate to because I've not been in their unique situation. 

At times when I am more able to bridge the gap between myself and another person, I find that I am asking questions that invite sharing while having a heightened sensitivity to what other can teach me.

I become so interested in learning and rejoice in the ways the world is opening up to me, as never before.


Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 9:30 PM CDT
Mon 09/29/2008

"This is the greatest transfer of wealth out of minority pockets into big corporations that has ever happened in the history of America!"  That's what one economist said on NPR earlier today, commenting about the housing crisis that was "designed" to bring big business benefits to those in power.  I hadn't stopped to think of it that way.  Just another form of oppression--with people in power in a panic because they couldn't figure out how to squeeze any more out of the middle or out of other corporations where there just wasn't the opportunity in the desperate economy.  "Desperation" leads to greed leads to exploitation and suffering.  And the beat goes on!

Yet the verse I learned as a kid came ringing into my head immediately:  "Be sure your sins will find you out!"  Seems they have, no matter who has to help pay the price.


Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 2:24 PM CDT
Sun 09/28/2008
The Death of the Story
Topic: Making Changes
Considering that we need stories to connect ourselves with our universe and with our history, it's a tragedy that story-telling has almost died out.  That's what Patrician Monghan points out at http://www.ksharpe.com/road_scholars/03interviewsmonaghan.htm

It started dying with the advent of TV.   That box that tells stories very quickly, stories that we only see and hear once so they don't slowly sink into the crevices of our hearts and brains, especially due to the noise.  TV makes us think that life happens at a break-neck speed.  And it seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy since it now does. 

My guess is that it TV was just the start.  Maybe cars were the forerunner, for they quickly took us off of the slow roads that our ancestors had to take, filling their otherwise boring lives with slow-cooked stories that spoke from the heart, without visuals, and required so much creativity.  That's the kind my grandparents told, the kind my mother still tells as eyes glaze over and we rush to find ways to rescue ourselves from that slow way of life that is so much a part of the pre-technology age that they treasured.

As much as I prefer change as a whole, today I find myself agreeing with my mother.  Maybe some things shouldn't change so fast.   We need to hold on to the stories that have shaped our lives.  For it is in the stories that the eternal or spiritual threads are woven. 


Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CDT
Fri 09/26/2008
How Stories Grow into Legend
Topic: spirituality

Society wants to shape how our stories are told and sometimes limit how often we tell the same story.   It's like a tug of war.  Society gets bored easily.  OK, I'll admit I certainly do, especially when hearing the same story told by older people in my family.  To me, they seem to tell the same story over and over.

Not so, says Patricia Monoghan.  Each time a story is told, new truths have opportunity to emerge.  We are able to tell and see the story in a new way.  While the facts may remain the same, even those can change without us being dishonest.  Facts do get lost over time, but facts aren't nearly as important as the legend--unless you are in a court of law, where people are so often more interested in proving and disproving the facts than of examining the principles at stake.

Legend is what needs to survive as we make sense out of the story.  Legend is what shapes our cultures and effects changes--in the culture, as well as in ourselves.

Monoghan even suggests that there is no real story until it is reiterated.  For it is with the re-telling, that the real story emerges.   I guess that is true, even if nobody is listening.  For story is powerful even in our own individual hearts, especially the broken ones.


Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CDT

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