#AdventUs NAME

Name

My mother was from the south.  She left Texas with her family during the great dust bowl migration and came to California in the early 30s.

She carried with her a deep hatred of everything about the south.  Wanted to wipe every part of it from her.  Including her name.  Mamie Jo.  It’s a very southern name.  

So she made up a new name, Joelle 

She actually legally changed her name to Joelle.

My father liked the name so I was named Joelle.

My husband and I like the name as well but naming my daughter Joelle seemed a bit much so we named her Sarah Joelle. 

Visiting Poverty

I know, I never post here anymore.  I keep it because of the old stuff I posted.  For those who are still following, this is from where I do most of my writing:  God's Work, Our Blog, our synod blog.

My sister & I

The past two weeks has been something of a roller coaster of emotions as I took personal time to first celebrate with joy and pride my son’s graduation from college and then flew to California for what is probably my last visit with my sister who is in the late stages of breast cancer.

My sister has worked hard her whole life in a variety of low paying jobs, mostly waitressing and factory work.  She always enjoyed her jobs and the people she met and made the most of life.  But now she lives only on her Social Security check, in Southern California where rent is so expensive she is left with $40 a month to live on.

She lives in a cockroach infested apartment on a busy street.  But she does have a place to live. There are many homeless who sleep in cars and under shopping carts on her street. She knows and speaks to many of them.

When you are poor you wait for hours in the clinic for care.  Even if you have cancer you can wait months to see a specialist.  She needs to give herself shots after her chemo treatments and one time the doctor forgot to include a prescription for the needles.  The doctor is only available on Wednesdays.  She needed to give herself the shots beginning on Thursday.  My sister is good at coming up with creative solutions to problems.  She walked down to the local homeless shelter which has a free needle exchange program for drug addicts and talked them into giving her some needles.

When you are poor you have to be clever to survive.  People who think the poor are lazy and dumb must not actually know any poor people.  One of my sister’s neighbors spent two days, 12 hours a day wearing a hot costume and dancing on the street to attract attention to a local business for a few hundred dollars.  Out of her $40, my sister gave him $10 to wash her floor for her.  

She gets food stamps.  A few times a week she has someone take her EBT card (they don’t use stamps anymore) to the Jack in the Box on the corner to buy her a hamburger.  A lot of people resent that the poor can use food stamps to buy fast food.   But remember she has 4th stage breast cancer and is undergoing chemo.  She doesn't always feel like cooking.

While I was visiting she bought us a couple of steaks with her food stamps.  People with money resent that too.  But she only gets a set amount of money for food each month.  If she spends $12 on steaks this week, it means she will eat rice and beans the rest of the month (which she likes).  But why should we begrudge her the ability to buy her sister a nice dinner?  Why should we insist she buy hamburger every week rather than steak one week and beans the next?

I went grocery shopping for her and she gave me her EBT card but I refused to use it.  Of course I had money and wanted to buy her groceries so her food stamps would last longer.  But there was a less noble and generous reason I refused to use the card.  I was ashamed and did not want to be seen using the card.  “Oh don’t worry about that,” she assured me “Everyone here uses that card.  You will fit right in”

The truth was, I did not want to fit in. I did not want to be seen as one of “those people”.  But as I spent the week with her and “those people” and saw how much they cared for and took care of my sister, how hard they worked for the little they had and how clever they were at surviving, and what positive attitudes they had, I realized I could do a lot worse than “fitting right in” with this crowd.

As Christians we know we are obligated to help the poor.  But I know we can be awfully judgmental about the poor and we don’t often actually get to know them.   Jesus was about more than just "helping" the poor.  He was about abolishing the barriers we put between “us” and “them”. This past week has challenged me to think about ways we can move beyond charity to expanding our notions of who our neighbor is.

Famly Advent Wreath

I bought this little advent candle holder many years ago when the kids were still small.  It's a ring of children from around the world holding banners that say Joy, Peace and Hope.  

The years have been hard on what was not exactly meant to be a family heirloom. 

I wonder if it was even meant to hold real burning candles as part of one girl's head has been burned off by hot wax.

A few years ago I thought it was time to throw it away.  "NO!" my high school aged kids protested.  

It held special memories for them as we would light a new candle every week in Advent during dinner.  

When my college senior daughter was home for thanksgiving she reminded me to be sure to bring it out for Advent.

Friday Five - Christmas Past

Pretty simple task from the RevGalBlogPals-  Tell us about five Christmas memories you have.

1,  My parents were divorced.  We didn't have a big family so we didn't have those big crazy get togethers.  One of my first memories that I have is telling my mother I wanted a certain doll and telling my father I wanted a different doll and I got both dolls.  Now they made a big thing of that like that was something sneaky I did to get two dolls.  But it never occurred to me they would get me the same present.  They didn't do anything else together why the hell should they get together to give me one present?  

2.  One more childhood Christmas story.  Because most of them were just not that memorable.  One year my mom decided instead of us staying home and feeling bad that we were alone on Christmas we should go to Disneyland.  On Christmas Day.  That was fun.

3.  Fast forward to my first Christmas in Wisconsin with my soon to be husband, Loren.  1985 I believe. I bought a little tree.  A real one.  I just bought some gold thread covered balls, gold lights and tied gold ribbons on it.  Loren gave me diamond earrings.  I don't remember what I gave him.    I did go to his family's house and had Ludefisk which I didn't think was so bad.  That night I threw up all night.  After midnight service we (well I) went ice skating on a pond in 17 below weather.   Loren watched from his truck.  He said it was the best Christmas he ever spent.

4.  Fast forward to several years later and Loren and I were married.  You had to hide presents from him because he would peak.  He would shake and guess.  I could never surprise him with a gift.  Then one year we were at a toy show and he saw a Ertl toy version of an Allis Chalmers tractor he actually had when he was younger.   We were dirt poor those days.  It was $30.  He could not justify paying $30 for a toy tractor.  

I took the guys card, called him the next day, had him mail me the tractor and told him it was a surprise.  When it came I put it in doll box and put that in another box and wrapped it.   THIS was the year I was going to surprise him for Christmas!

Well the box threw him but it just so happened he had called the guy later about the tractor and the guy who was usually very talkative said "It's sold" and hung up on him.  Based on that alone, Loren guess I bought for him.  But the box threw him off.  After that I gave up trying to surprise him.

5.  Our first Christmas after Loren died.  It was five months after he died.  I don't remember much about it other than it was not sad.  I think I spent a little too much on gifts and decorations trying to make up for it but mostly I decided I was going to be joyful about what I did have and I did.  I got the church youth group - mostly football players to get up on my roof and hang LOTS of lights around the house.  It was late in morning and my daughter Sarah remembers being scared to death looking outside her window and seeing a kid with a ski mask on her roof.  But what I remember is how much difference making up my mind to think about all the things I DID have and not what I'd lost made.  It was a lovely Christmas.