I never did get around to posting this yesterday, which was Day 11 if my calculations are correct. Yesterday was a crazy day and today will be no less so!
My 11 year old told me about Toms. She heard it from her older, college student sister, who apparent bought some shoes from Toms. Toms is a shoe company. For every shoe you buy from them, they will donate a pair to someone who needs a pair of shoes.
I am also thinking of getting my oldest three kids (all drivers) sunglasses from Toms for their Christmas stockings. With every purchase of a pair of sunglasses, Toms gives money for eye care in poor regions around the world.
The whole ethos of Toms seems so good. I hope I don't start hearing about how it is a big scam or anything. That's the cynic in me. But it does seem like a really cool company, trying hard to be ethical, environmentally and globally.
Plus my Toms shoes are really comfortable! I love them!
Monday, November 26, 2012
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Call the Midwife - Book 51
Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth is subtitled "A Memoir of Birth, Joy and Hard Times." In it the author recounts her years spent as a midwife in the EastEnd of London during the 1950s. That area of London is by the docks and most of the people who live there are very poor dockworkers who speak the cockney dialect. They live in old, very inadequate tenements but have grown up in this world within the great city of London, so that they seldom go out of it but have developed their own culture and way of life.
I found this book on the rack at my local drugstore. It has been reissued because the BBC has come out with a very popular TV series based on the book. The series must be very different though, because in reading about the show. I discovered the most popular story line seems to be about the love interest between Chummy, one of the other midwives and a police officer she bumps into when trying to learn to ride a bike. This love interest is never ever mentioned in the book. The bike accident did happen however. The way the midwives get around to visit their patients is by bike. Chummy, who has come to study midwifery, never learned to ride a bike as a youth, so she has to learn as an adult. It is a very funny episode and very sweet too.
Most of the stories recounted have to do with the author's various patients and births of their children. The book is pretty graphic about childbirth but all the different situations and characters make for engrossing reading. I couldn't put the book down! Some of the stories are happy, some funny, but some of them are terribly tragic. Poverty is a terribly dehumanizing thing. Throughout the book, though, there is a sweetness in Worth's recollection. She really loved the Cockney Eastenders, her job, and most of all the nuns she lived with.
In this whole book I never figured out who Worth actually worked for. Who paid her for her work? I must have missed this. But anyway, at the time there was an order of Anglican nuns who devoted themselves to being midwives to the poor. There was a very great need for this in the 19th century and well into the 20th century. There were many, many poor women who had terrible health crises and many maternal and infant deaths because of poor health care and no trained help when it came to delivering the babies. Thus this order of nuns started up to fill this need. They became expert midwives. So the practice was established that those who wanted to become midwives (often, like the author, women who were already nurses) would apprentice with the nuns and learn their craft on the job. The midwives lived in the convent with the nuns.
It was fascinating to learn about the state of medicine in the bombed out, post-war London of the 1950s. Worth is very good at explaining the details to the reader. The women she cares for, the babies, the husbands, the extended families, are all well drawn. Worth seems very honest in her portrayal of what went on. She doesn't seem to draw strong judgements but just states the facts honestly but with great compassion and respect.
Worth grew to love the nuns she lived with. She entered the midwife profession as an agnostic who really felt nothing but coldness towards religion. But living with these wonderful, dedicated, selfless nuns who so obviously were intelligent, admirable women with a deep relationship with God, influenced her deeply. The memoir ends with the author beginning to study the Gospels, having discovered a sense of God's love via her work and her friendship with the nuns.
Very highly recommended! For more book reviews, visit 52 Books.
I found this book on the rack at my local drugstore. It has been reissued because the BBC has come out with a very popular TV series based on the book. The series must be very different though, because in reading about the show. I discovered the most popular story line seems to be about the love interest between Chummy, one of the other midwives and a police officer she bumps into when trying to learn to ride a bike. This love interest is never ever mentioned in the book. The bike accident did happen however. The way the midwives get around to visit their patients is by bike. Chummy, who has come to study midwifery, never learned to ride a bike as a youth, so she has to learn as an adult. It is a very funny episode and very sweet too.
Most of the stories recounted have to do with the author's various patients and births of their children. The book is pretty graphic about childbirth but all the different situations and characters make for engrossing reading. I couldn't put the book down! Some of the stories are happy, some funny, but some of them are terribly tragic. Poverty is a terribly dehumanizing thing. Throughout the book, though, there is a sweetness in Worth's recollection. She really loved the Cockney Eastenders, her job, and most of all the nuns she lived with.
In this whole book I never figured out who Worth actually worked for. Who paid her for her work? I must have missed this. But anyway, at the time there was an order of Anglican nuns who devoted themselves to being midwives to the poor. There was a very great need for this in the 19th century and well into the 20th century. There were many, many poor women who had terrible health crises and many maternal and infant deaths because of poor health care and no trained help when it came to delivering the babies. Thus this order of nuns started up to fill this need. They became expert midwives. So the practice was established that those who wanted to become midwives (often, like the author, women who were already nurses) would apprentice with the nuns and learn their craft on the job. The midwives lived in the convent with the nuns.
It was fascinating to learn about the state of medicine in the bombed out, post-war London of the 1950s. Worth is very good at explaining the details to the reader. The women she cares for, the babies, the husbands, the extended families, are all well drawn. Worth seems very honest in her portrayal of what went on. She doesn't seem to draw strong judgements but just states the facts honestly but with great compassion and respect.
Worth grew to love the nuns she lived with. She entered the midwife profession as an agnostic who really felt nothing but coldness towards religion. But living with these wonderful, dedicated, selfless nuns who so obviously were intelligent, admirable women with a deep relationship with God, influenced her deeply. The memoir ends with the author beginning to study the Gospels, having discovered a sense of God's love via her work and her friendship with the nuns.
Very highly recommended! For more book reviews, visit 52 Books.
My Sisters, the Saints - Book 50
My Sisters, The Saints by Colleen Carroll Campbell is a lovely book that I found both intelligent and inspirational. Campbell was familiar to me because of her show on EWTN which I've seen maybe a total of 5 times but it impressed me mightily each time. It is called Faith and Culture and she interviews someone, usually in academia or from a think tank, on pressing ethical issues of the day, all from a Catholic perspective. I was always impressed by her poise and knowledge. She is a cut above your usual news interviewer! Her interviews are archived at her website here.
This book is a memoir of Campbell's life from college where she was losing her religion (as that pop song puts it) to the birth of her twins. She faces many issues that contemporary women face, dealing with the secular culture and the sexual revolution, dealing with feminism and ambition for a fulfilling career versus marriage and children, dealing with infertility and trying to accept the crosses we must bear, dealing with the problems of watching and caring for beloved parents who face health crisis after crisis.
Along this way, she finds solace and inspiration from certain saints, namely, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Faustina, Edith Stein (St. Teresa Benedicta), Blessed Mother Teresa and finally, Mary, the Blessed Virgin.
This is a very feminine book. It reminded me of Father James Martin's My Life with the Saints, only told from a very female point of view. I thought it was a lovely, lovely read. I read this book on my kindle.
For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books.
This book is a memoir of Campbell's life from college where she was losing her religion (as that pop song puts it) to the birth of her twins. She faces many issues that contemporary women face, dealing with the secular culture and the sexual revolution, dealing with feminism and ambition for a fulfilling career versus marriage and children, dealing with infertility and trying to accept the crosses we must bear, dealing with the problems of watching and caring for beloved parents who face health crisis after crisis.
Along this way, she finds solace and inspiration from certain saints, namely, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Faustina, Edith Stein (St. Teresa Benedicta), Blessed Mother Teresa and finally, Mary, the Blessed Virgin.
This is a very feminine book. It reminded me of Father James Martin's My Life with the Saints, only told from a very female point of view. I thought it was a lovely, lovely read. I read this book on my kindle.
For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
40 Days for the Poor - Day 10 - Thanksgiving Clothing Drive
I am finding it ironic that here I am writing about ways to help the less fortunate and yet due to the flu two things we were planning to do, Becky's canned food drive and now Sean's helping with our parish's annual Thanksgiving Clothing Drive, didn't happen. He was supposed to help out this weekend as part of his Confirmation spirit team. However, he suddenly started running a fever again. Right now he's seems fine though (well except for the sore throat and stuffy head cold bit.)
I wanted to have a nice shot of Sean helping sort through the mounds of clothes that get collected for our Thanksgiving Clothing Drive. It is the brainchild of one of our parishioners who has been doing it for 20 years or so. He organizes the whole thing and it has become an annual event not only in our parish but in the community as well.
People can't deliver the clothing until Friday morning. Volunteers at the church set up tables all up and down the huge activity center. The tables in the center are the sorting tables; the long row of tables to the left and right are all labeled with types and sizes of clothing. One table will be infant - 3 clothing; another Mens winter clothing; another Women's summer clothing, etc. The job of the volunteers is to receive the clothing dropped off, dump the bags on to the sorting tables and then work through the clothes placing them on the proper tables. When the table is full to overflowing the sorted garments get put into big green industrial strength/size plastic bags which are labeled with the content. This goes on all Friday and Saturday and Sunday morning until 12:00 p.m. At 12:00 on the dot the doors close and no more donations will be accepted. The guy who runs things is very strict about this bit because in the past people would show up late or even the next day with donations and expect him to handle it. But he's already delivered the donations via the trucks he rents. He spends the rest of the day making sure the donations get to the right places and that's quite a bit of driving to do all over the metropolitan area on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. So if you are late, you have to take it to Good Will yourself. He rents a couple of those big Penske trucks and they get all filled up too.
In other years when we've volunteered, sometimes people will wander in. I don't know how because the church is located in the middle of suburbia and there isn't even a bus that runs close to it. But the word must spread and someone must give these folks a lift. Anyway, occasionally you'll see a shy Hispanic family or maybe some other people come in and they are in need of clothing. So sometimes the middle man, meaning the particular homeless shelter or community clothes closet, is bypassed and we can give the things needed directly to those in need.
Usually, this is when I do a huge closet purge of outgrown clothing, clothing that nobody really wears and that sort of thing. This year though I didn't do a very good job at it. We only had three smallish bags of things to contribute. I am sure I could have come up with more but frankly I'm recovering from the flu too and don't have too much energy. Also, the other things had pretty much already been collected before we got sick. I don't really want to breathe on the clothing and then hand it over to others to contaminate!
I wanted to have a nice shot of Sean helping sort through the mounds of clothes that get collected for our Thanksgiving Clothing Drive. It is the brainchild of one of our parishioners who has been doing it for 20 years or so. He organizes the whole thing and it has become an annual event not only in our parish but in the community as well.
People can't deliver the clothing until Friday morning. Volunteers at the church set up tables all up and down the huge activity center. The tables in the center are the sorting tables; the long row of tables to the left and right are all labeled with types and sizes of clothing. One table will be infant - 3 clothing; another Mens winter clothing; another Women's summer clothing, etc. The job of the volunteers is to receive the clothing dropped off, dump the bags on to the sorting tables and then work through the clothes placing them on the proper tables. When the table is full to overflowing the sorted garments get put into big green industrial strength/size plastic bags which are labeled with the content. This goes on all Friday and Saturday and Sunday morning until 12:00 p.m. At 12:00 on the dot the doors close and no more donations will be accepted. The guy who runs things is very strict about this bit because in the past people would show up late or even the next day with donations and expect him to handle it. But he's already delivered the donations via the trucks he rents. He spends the rest of the day making sure the donations get to the right places and that's quite a bit of driving to do all over the metropolitan area on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. So if you are late, you have to take it to Good Will yourself. He rents a couple of those big Penske trucks and they get all filled up too.
In other years when we've volunteered, sometimes people will wander in. I don't know how because the church is located in the middle of suburbia and there isn't even a bus that runs close to it. But the word must spread and someone must give these folks a lift. Anyway, occasionally you'll see a shy Hispanic family or maybe some other people come in and they are in need of clothing. So sometimes the middle man, meaning the particular homeless shelter or community clothes closet, is bypassed and we can give the things needed directly to those in need.
Usually, this is when I do a huge closet purge of outgrown clothing, clothing that nobody really wears and that sort of thing. This year though I didn't do a very good job at it. We only had three smallish bags of things to contribute. I am sure I could have come up with more but frankly I'm recovering from the flu too and don't have too much energy. Also, the other things had pretty much already been collected before we got sick. I don't really want to breathe on the clothing and then hand it over to others to contaminate!
Friday, November 23, 2012
40 Days for the Poor - Day 9 - Disaster Relief (Fail)
We didn't do anything to help out the victims of Hurricane Sandy. I am not sure why. We were not hit nearly as hard as those in New Jersey and New York. We did lose power for about 16 hours and that was it. The lights went out around dinner time. We spent the evening listening to the terrific winds wuthering loudly around the corners of the house. The morning was chilly and dark, but then around 11:00 a.m. the lights suddenly came back on. So it was basically one slightly uncomfortable night. I kept reading about how terrible things were in Hoboken and Staten Island and other places, but for some reason I never gave anything. We did pray for the victims a few nights right after the crisis. There were a couple of local efforts to gather clothing and furniture to drive up to the effected areas, but both of these were a bit of a distance away and at the time, for some reason which I can't even remember, it just seemed impossible to participate. Why didn't we at least donate a couple of bucks to the American Red Cross or something? I think for me praying a little bit when I thought of it and watching the news seemed to automatically transmit psychologically into feeling like I had done something, when really I or my husband had not.
So I am not proud of myself at all. At the time I was too self-absorbed and it seemed like others were doing enough. No need for me to step in and make the slightest effort or sacrifice.
FAIL!
Other people pitched and helped out, thank God! You can read about it here.
So I am not proud of myself at all. At the time I was too self-absorbed and it seemed like others were doing enough. No need for me to step in and make the slightest effort or sacrifice.
FAIL!
Other people pitched and helped out, thank God! You can read about it here.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
40 Days for the Poor - Day 8 -Thanksgiving, Scripture and the News
Happy Thanksgiving!
Poor Will came home from Boston already sick with the same thing we all have: fever, sore throat, cough. So we are going to have a low key Thanksgiving this year. My husband is going to roast a turkey on the outdoor BBQ (if he feels up for it). I might try to cook up some potatoes and cranberry sauce.
Here is a beautiful Thanksgiving prayer I found on this blog:
Lately I've been pondering this from 1 John 17-18:
And finally, the Washington Post ran a story/photo essay about how food pantries are seeing a rise in need because of soaring food prices. Here's a link.
This little Pentecostal church is doing its best to live the gospel. Hallelujah!
Poor Will came home from Boston already sick with the same thing we all have: fever, sore throat, cough. So we are going to have a low key Thanksgiving this year. My husband is going to roast a turkey on the outdoor BBQ (if he feels up for it). I might try to cook up some potatoes and cranberry sauce.
Here is a beautiful Thanksgiving prayer I found on this blog:
“O God, when I have food,
help me to remember the hungry;
When I have work,
help me to remember the jobless;
When I have a home,
help me to remember those who have no home at all;
When I am without pain,
help me to remember those who suffer,
And remembering,
help me to destroy my complacency;
bestir my compassion,
and be concerned enough to help;
By word and deed,
those who cry out for what we take for granted.
Amen.”
Lately I've been pondering this from 1 John 17-18:
If someone who has worldly means sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion, how can the love of God remain in him? Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.
And finally, the Washington Post ran a story/photo essay about how food pantries are seeing a rise in need because of soaring food prices. Here's a link.
This little Pentecostal church is doing its best to live the gospel. Hallelujah!
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
40 Days for the Poor - Day 7 - Cooking for the Homeless
When I was a teen-ager/college student, my friend who lived next door to my parents' home had begun this Thanksgiving tradition. You see she and my group of friends from high school were enamored of the nightlife in Georgetown, a very old and posh section of Washington D.C. where there are many nightclubs and restaurants. The group liked to hang out there, and I being a follower rather than a leader, would sometimes do that too. I didn't do it as often because my parents were old fashioned and had strict curfews, whereas their parents were much more lenient.
Anyway, hanging out in Georgetown, we got to know the homeless who lived there. They sheltered under the bridge at night and during the day and evenings begged for money and food from the crowds of partiers that flooded the area on weekends. So my friend started doing this thing where the day after Thanksgiving, she'd take all the extra turkey from her family's Thanksgiving bird and make lots of turkey sandwiches. Her father died when she was young, so it was just she, her brother and her mother usually. Their relatives lived in Ireland and Pakistan. They visited them over Christmas and during the summer but Thanksgiving was a quiet affair for them. They always roasted a great big turkey though. So she'd buy a loaf of sandwich bread, gets lots of meat off of the bones, spread a little leftover cranberry sauce on to moisten the meat up a bit, and then she'd go down to Georgetown and hand out turkey sandwiches to all the homeless she knew there. I thought that was pretty neat.
Fast forward about ten years when Rick and I were newly married. I read somewhere that you could make Thanksgiving dinners for the homeless shelter named S.O.M.E. (So Others May Eat). There was this really cool priest named Father John who ran things and was well known the in local area as someone who really cared about the poor. So I started a tradition, that really only lasted about four or five years, where on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I'd cook up a whole Thanksgiving meal and Rick and I would take it down to the shelter on Thanksgiving morning. The tradition didn't last too long because I found it hard to do once I had more than one baby! So that fizzled out.
However, after a few years, I got involved in a little ministry my old parish did. It was run by this lovely lady whose son actually is now a priest in our diocese. (She passed away a couple years ago and I went to her funeral and it was so crowded! This lady had touched so many lives.) Anyway, once a month our parish was responsible for providing breakfast to this same homeless shelter. They divided up the breakfast though and you could sign up for certain items. I got hardboiled eggs. Six dozen of them. I became really good at making huge quantities of hard boiled eggs because once a month for about eight years that's what I did! I had to make them a day or two before they were due because I couldn't put hot or still warm eggs in the coolers. You see one parishioner let us use his driveway as a drop off place. He'd put out tons of coolers and people would come by and drop their food off. Orange juice, milk, fruit, donuts, eggs, coffee, and I'm not sure what else. When the lady passed away, they stopped calling me, so I guess the ministry petered out. I didn't follow up because by that time we had actually switched to another parish. I don't know why that made a difference, but maybe my name got taken off the list or something?
Anyway, for a couple years again, we didn't do cooking for the homeless but eventually I signed up again for something. My current parish works with few other churches (not Catholic, so it is an ecumenical effort) to provide what they call a hypothermia shelter. Somehow the word is out there that if the homeless can get to the last metro stop on the line that ends in our town, at 5:00 p.m. during the winter months, a big van will be waiting there for them. Someone from one of the churches volunteers to pick them up and take them back to the Unitarian Universalist Church. This is the church that actually lets them sleep in their heated building for the night. They also will get a hot dinner! The UU church doesn't provide the meals though, that's the job of the other churches including my own. Tons and tons of people take turns cooking dinner so that during the long winter months I usually am only called on to help with one meal. I have made huge vats of chili; some enormous meatloaves and sometimes I'm just asked to buy 6 buckets of KFC Chicken. The fact that I only do something once a year now when I used to do something once a month makes me feel very lazy. And somehow that one dinner always seems to come at an inopportune time and actually feels more disruptive than when I was cooking eggs all the time.
I keep wanting to do more. And I know that my church also makes sandwiches once a month for another homeless shelter, but I never seem to be able to attend. I know a lot of people do this with their kids and they've made it a family tradition, but alas, I have never gotten into the groove. Maybe I should try harder. I really should.
I am so glad, though, I am involved with parish life as it does make it so much easier to reach out and help, in varying degrees, those who are less fortunate. I think if I didn't have constant reminders in front of me, I would go into my shell and never really think about getting involved. When my friend way back in my teenage years started making those turkey sandwiches I realized with some guilt that that sort of thing would never have occurred to me. She had a naturally generous spirit whereas I have to cultivate the same in myself.
Anyway, hanging out in Georgetown, we got to know the homeless who lived there. They sheltered under the bridge at night and during the day and evenings begged for money and food from the crowds of partiers that flooded the area on weekends. So my friend started doing this thing where the day after Thanksgiving, she'd take all the extra turkey from her family's Thanksgiving bird and make lots of turkey sandwiches. Her father died when she was young, so it was just she, her brother and her mother usually. Their relatives lived in Ireland and Pakistan. They visited them over Christmas and during the summer but Thanksgiving was a quiet affair for them. They always roasted a great big turkey though. So she'd buy a loaf of sandwich bread, gets lots of meat off of the bones, spread a little leftover cranberry sauce on to moisten the meat up a bit, and then she'd go down to Georgetown and hand out turkey sandwiches to all the homeless she knew there. I thought that was pretty neat.
Fast forward about ten years when Rick and I were newly married. I read somewhere that you could make Thanksgiving dinners for the homeless shelter named S.O.M.E. (So Others May Eat). There was this really cool priest named Father John who ran things and was well known the in local area as someone who really cared about the poor. So I started a tradition, that really only lasted about four or five years, where on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I'd cook up a whole Thanksgiving meal and Rick and I would take it down to the shelter on Thanksgiving morning. The tradition didn't last too long because I found it hard to do once I had more than one baby! So that fizzled out.
However, after a few years, I got involved in a little ministry my old parish did. It was run by this lovely lady whose son actually is now a priest in our diocese. (She passed away a couple years ago and I went to her funeral and it was so crowded! This lady had touched so many lives.) Anyway, once a month our parish was responsible for providing breakfast to this same homeless shelter. They divided up the breakfast though and you could sign up for certain items. I got hardboiled eggs. Six dozen of them. I became really good at making huge quantities of hard boiled eggs because once a month for about eight years that's what I did! I had to make them a day or two before they were due because I couldn't put hot or still warm eggs in the coolers. You see one parishioner let us use his driveway as a drop off place. He'd put out tons of coolers and people would come by and drop their food off. Orange juice, milk, fruit, donuts, eggs, coffee, and I'm not sure what else. When the lady passed away, they stopped calling me, so I guess the ministry petered out. I didn't follow up because by that time we had actually switched to another parish. I don't know why that made a difference, but maybe my name got taken off the list or something?
Anyway, for a couple years again, we didn't do cooking for the homeless but eventually I signed up again for something. My current parish works with few other churches (not Catholic, so it is an ecumenical effort) to provide what they call a hypothermia shelter. Somehow the word is out there that if the homeless can get to the last metro stop on the line that ends in our town, at 5:00 p.m. during the winter months, a big van will be waiting there for them. Someone from one of the churches volunteers to pick them up and take them back to the Unitarian Universalist Church. This is the church that actually lets them sleep in their heated building for the night. They also will get a hot dinner! The UU church doesn't provide the meals though, that's the job of the other churches including my own. Tons and tons of people take turns cooking dinner so that during the long winter months I usually am only called on to help with one meal. I have made huge vats of chili; some enormous meatloaves and sometimes I'm just asked to buy 6 buckets of KFC Chicken. The fact that I only do something once a year now when I used to do something once a month makes me feel very lazy. And somehow that one dinner always seems to come at an inopportune time and actually feels more disruptive than when I was cooking eggs all the time.
I keep wanting to do more. And I know that my church also makes sandwiches once a month for another homeless shelter, but I never seem to be able to attend. I know a lot of people do this with their kids and they've made it a family tradition, but alas, I have never gotten into the groove. Maybe I should try harder. I really should.
I am so glad, though, I am involved with parish life as it does make it so much easier to reach out and help, in varying degrees, those who are less fortunate. I think if I didn't have constant reminders in front of me, I would go into my shell and never really think about getting involved. When my friend way back in my teenage years started making those turkey sandwiches I realized with some guilt that that sort of thing would never have occurred to me. She had a naturally generous spirit whereas I have to cultivate the same in myself.
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