A Place Called Home

So here we are in Charleston and my last blog entry was to announce our move. A LOT has happened since then and while I will be continuing my food blog NoPoliticsJustFood very soon I thought I would also write about the stages of moving for our family. Things did move pretty fast when we put our home in Amherst, MA of 14 years up for sale and I thought I had more time to see and do last minute things we’ve always wanted to do the reality was the whole moving and buying process was tedious and emotional, more than I thought. When I moved to Amherst 14 years ago I honestly don’t remember feeling as much disconnection but once I moved here I remembered that I was a Mom with young babes so that kept me busy and distracted. The things that got me through that time of my life was the fact I knew my neighbors before moving to the street, and I also benefited from the Amherst Family Center.

We struggled in Amherst to find a church home for a long time and and yet as we left our church family like we did when we left New York City with the biggest of hugs and tears.

Saying goodbye was hard. To my colleagues and work, to my close neighbors, to long time Mom friends and to friends that are and will always be like family to me. I knew it would be hard, but I’ve been on the planet long enough now to know that when you do something big like move farthest from where you grew up you just simply wouldn’t do it if all the negatives came to light right away. I’ve never lived in the south so it’s a completely a different culture here and one night I said to Steven it feels like we’ve moved to another country. He’s done that moving from Australia to NYC and he agrees and although moving from Australia to New York City seemed like a snap all those years ago I still am mystified that he left such a beautiful country to pursue a relationship with me and a career in photography. Steven came with a bag of CDs, some cameras and a suitcase of clothes. Needless to say this move was a LOT different!

We actually had a nightmare of an actual move. Many of my FB friends know about what went down but I can assure you I only highlighted some of the details. This actually took a lot of emotional real estate up for me because it was so stressful. I can’t thank enough my church family for supporting us by watching our kids when we were dealing with movers at 4:30am. I think Wendy Roszazza is a saint. I keep thinking of things to give her, but there’s simply nothing large enough other than to pray for her blind and deaf dog to never go missing ever again in his life. Watching my kids say goodbye to their friends was utterly heartbreaking but when I started driving away the morning of our departure sobbing in Ludlow Massachusetts because it was all too real my son rubbed my back and said, “You can do this Mom…I’ll do it with you.” That’s when I knew my stepping out in faith was worn on my sleeve because I don’t know if my kids realized how much we had decided to allow God to uproot in our lives. If anyone does gardening you’ll know there are different kinds of plants and some take to the soil quicker than others. There’s a palm tree in my yard and I haven’t a clue how to take care of it…I guess that’s what google’s for!

During the drive down to Charleston we weren’t expecting to be on the road on the fourth of July but we took a drive down the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park. We stayed in probably the worst roach infested motel which my kids thought we had lost our marbles and we explained many families actually LIVE in motels like this so shush up and enjoy the free bacon at breakfast. I anointed the bed free of bed bugs and once I was in bed I only wore flip flops to the bathroom…I encouraged everyone to do the same. The entire experience was forgotten about once we started the journey up the mountains and meandered through the most spectacular views of the Shenandoah Valley from the national park. I knew it would be while before I’d see mountains again. That also tugged at my heart because as much as I love the ocean, I also love the mountains. We live in an amazing country with diverse topography and what better way of spending the fourth of July than driving through a national park? I did get to see two huge black bears that Steven had to stop his car to let cross the road…we also stopped at the peak elevation and went to the museum exhibit about the making of national park. Many families were displaced, evicted from their land to build the park which I found particularly tragic with the means and propaganda in how they did it. That’s a whole other blog post someday. The fourth of July being a weird one I was all worried my kids were not having a good time and we would miss fireworks etc. But when I returned to our hotel with take out burgers a couple of rowdy southerners sitting on the hotel patio asked if my kids wanted to light off some roman candles as they pointed to huge pile of fireworks that they were planning on setting off…the look on my kid’s faces says it all. 

We arrived in Charleston and closed on our home, and of course waited a couple days for our moving truck to deliver our stuff. It’s weird sitting in an empty new house. Regardless of how nice a home is, the niceness or newness doesn’t make it home. Making any place home take investment, relationship building and personalizing. We sat on the floor one afternoon during a rainstorm and joked that we liked not having Wifi because our kids talked to us. Upon our truck delivery many of our boxes were crushed, and as I said to my Mom one box is like Christmas and another is like devastation. Sometimes I open a box and think…why did I bring that? And some things I thought…eh I don’t know but last minute it got tossed on the truck. Like the wicker love seat I sit on every morning listening to Mr. Greenjeans. We’ve unpacked the essentials and it’s taken a while but we are functional but not organized or nor decorative. My theory was if we can get the kitchen functional at least I can make a meal etc. It’s amazing to see what we actually “need” in life and it’s no surprise it’s a LOT less than we seem to carry around all our life. Upon coming down here we learned that our next door neighbor’s home caught fire and luckily she and her 90 year old mother are safe, their house is severely damaged as well as their belongings. She will be displaced for months maybe over a year. I am sure losing her favorite next door neighbors and her home must be hard. I keep thinking about those families that had to be uprooted to build a national park for all of “us” to enjoy. Devastation, disconnection and displacement comes in different ways but I’m sure the emotions are very similar. 

We are enjoying exploring our new town or city- the people are friendly. I feel like I’m wide eyed and a deer caught in headlights…so of course I say, “I’m new here…” and at Trader Joe’s I got a free South Carolina bag! The familiar products is comforting for us all. It’s true Charleston is hot and humid. My new favorite place in this house is my screened in porch. Early in the morning, having coffee and just listening to the tree frogs is just soul healing. There’s one that hangs out behind our speakers and so I named him Mr. Greenjeans. That tells you what generation I’m from if you know who Mr. Greenjeans actually IS.  I’m actually acclimating to the 90% humidity, constant thunder rumblings of early mornings and weathering through the hot beating sun with a wide brimmed hat and sunglasses. It’s probably going to be my trademark “look”. I’ve seen people wear jeans though in 98 degree humid days…I think are they insane or just aliens from another planet? The Moms here dress very feminine and I ponder how and why do women wear high heels to drop off their kids to camp? Will I conform to Lilly Pulitzer preppy dresses and large fern printed caftans? Probably not. That’s the great thing about living in a place that you swim in the opposite direction for fourteen years…you get used to sticking out like dog’s bollocks and you don’t give a rip. In Amherst people love the au natural look and honestly I appreciate that as there’s no pressure to look like a botox babe making a dive for a case of peach bellini at Trader Joe’s.

We’ve made some connections at our new church Seacoast but it’s very large and overwhelming. The second week we went we lost the boys because apparently there’s a lot of Pokemon stops at Seacoast. The boys were given the opportunity to go to teen summer camp which was an absolute blessing because they came home with instant friends. I’ve soldiered through registering the boys for school and announcing that there is a strict dress code as well as summer reading they need to do. Jonah thought I was bluffing and I had to show him the sheet of paper to prove that YES he will need to use his brain this summer. It seems like things are falling into place somewhat, however we know it’s not going to feel like home overnight. For years we’ve lived in a place that valued community and intimacy and there’s glimmers of that here, but it definitely is different. Those of my friends know that we are gifted in hospitality- so it only took a week of me being here to invite another Mom and her three boys who moved here last month over for ice cream. When you move to town with kids you need emergency contact numbers. Moving over summer vacation for kids is hard regardless of the kid. God is good, and he has shown us many things in this process and provided for our needs in every capacity including a connection here and there just when one of us has needed it most. We do miss our friends dearly and our neighbors (maybe not the college drunk neighbors) and of course the funniest thing about moving to this neighborhood is most of our neighbors have some tie to New England and are die hard Patriots and Sox fans so I guess that’s a good start in feeling at home here.

So my lucyingrace blog will soon become a little more active as I take to writing more so I hope more of my friends will subscribe to that and I’m excited about getting back to my NoPoliticsJustFood blog with some southern twists and I look forward to cooking from my new southern cookbook Smoke&Pickles my Uncle Chef Tim and Marcie sent me. So be sure to subscribe and share!

Goodbye for now ya’ll-

lucyingrace

 

The Great Migration South. The Vote Family is Moving to Charleston, SC.

For the past three years we’ve pondered making a huge change for our family and this year we have decided to take the plunge and a huge step of faith and relocate to Charleston, SC.

How hard it is for me to write this, but it’s also exciting and a new adventure. Several people have asked us “Why? Why Charleston? WHY South Carolina?” After all it’s as red of a state as Massachusetts is Blue.

Firstly I want to say that Amherst and Massachusetts have been good to us. We moved here 14 years ago when the twins were 20 months old and I was 8 months pregnant with my youngest. I quit my full time job in New York City working in fashion to stay home with the boys and Steven was jet setting all over doing photography. We used to come up to Amherst to visit friends and get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. When I found out I was pregnant again after twins I needed my life to work with littles and a dog and cat while my husband traveled a lot for work. With the emergency diagnosis of my son’s heart defect, neighbors and the Amherst community raked our yard, provided childcare and strangers dropped off meals. This place will always always have a tender spot in my heart. I spent many years here going to playgroups, meeting other Moms and digging into the community and over the years these are still my dearest friends and raising my kids along side theirs reminded me of my own childhood. My neighborhood block party, the Taste of Amherst, the fair on the Common and touring the local farms have been some of the treasured things that make living here awesome. It’s really a great place to raise kids. I am rich in friends and my church family at Grace United will be the hardest people to say goodbye too. It seems crazy to move your kids at this stage of their life, high school and middle school. So I thought I’d explain a little bit as to why we are making such a big move.

Over the years I’ve had to figure out how my son would navigate secondary school here and as time went on and programs in the high school were cut, the curriculum became more and more inaccessible. It became clear to me that the local high school has become not an option that I have any confidence in to actually graduate my son with a diploma and transition him into his next step of life with a career that he will be able to support himself. My kids have gotten the BEST early education in preschool and elementary, and middle school (which I dreaded this stage) actually was a positive experience for all my kids. I love how Amherst values all kids and treats them with dignity. Again, Amherst has been good to us in this respect.

However, there are many ways that I could see that our high school would not serve the needs of my kids in other ways. So rather than pursue homeschooling and private (something we couldn’t afford) or sending my special needs son to a boarding school miles away we looked for public schools that had the programs he needed. We also want to be in a place where they would someday be able to be gainfully employed. We found an excellent high school that has a plethora of academics and vocational choices that actually feeds into the local economy. Nothing is ever perfect but we were happy with what we saw when we toured researched the schools. The vocational training is on the same premises as the regular high school and so, my son will have access to a full curriculum of academics with special needs services and vocational skills that will hopefully transition him into adult life with more potential to support himself and be independant. Bonus is the older kids were excited at the opportunities they would have and honestly once they saw the school we didn’t need to pull hairs to convince them of this move despite having the best group of friends back here in Amherst. 

Lower taxes is a huge component. 

As the years have passed our land taxes have increased yearly by 1- 2% so, after 14 years of living here our taxes have nearly doubled. The value of our homes have gone up which is great but that also has a double edged effect on the cost of housing. It just is unsustainable to contemplate this for very long and so, as we want to have some saving for our kids before they go to college this is one way we will be saving by moving south. Again, there’s a premium cost involved for living in Amherst and as the schools have found out in their investigation as to why their enrollment is dropping I really think this is one of the biggest factors. Why pay high taxes when you can live in cheaper towns and choice your kids into the schools?  

The weather outside is frightful!

Let’s admit it. April 19th is ridiculous a date to snow. I never thought I’d say my bones get cold but I’m over winter and seasonal affect disorder is real. For years Steven has struggled with winter here and it’s taken some tolls on overall health. We want a healthier lifestyle and spend more time outdoors without our eyelashes freezing off. I actually love snow, but I like maybe one month of it with Christmas in the middle but this year I thought I actually might go insane with the cold and snow. Steven being an Aussie has had his fill of New England winters. We’ll come and visit the snow and be happier for it. Meanwhile I won’t miss snow days and shoveling. I will miss skiing and sledding and drinking hot cocoa with neighbors. I will miss white Christmases. We do gain the ocean and the beach. This is something that my husband and I both love and so we are happy to live out our dream of living closer to the ocean and having a healthier outdoor lifestyle year round WITH SUNSCREEN. When we lived in NYC we spent most weekends at the beach at least on a Sat or Sunday. We might even take up fishing!

The college town.

Like I said, I love Amherst but I have grown weary of the politics of a small town. It feels like the center of even national politics is played out here and I honestly want to go about my life and not have political canvassers come to my door every month asking to put signs in my yard or asking for campaign donations. The GREAT thing about this town is that people are SO passionate about their opinions they spend a lot of time and energy discussing these opinions. The BAD thing about this town is that people are SO passionate about their opinions they spend a lot of time and energy discussing these opinions.  I’ve served on Town Meeting, I’ve learned a lot about governing a small town and I also am looking forward to moving to a larger city type atmosphere being the New Yorker at heart. I also am happy not to live in a college town where the Universities set the tone and economy of many things. I’ve enjoyed MANY things about the Universities such as the Umass dining halls, the programs for the community and the plethora of babysitters in our early years with young children. I’ve enjoyed the local Jones Library, The Amherst Family Center and the local pools and parks and there are MANY great reasons for living here. 

#1 Tourist destination two years in a row

We are excited to be a part of a growing and thriving economic community that includes the art community of Charleston. Steven has always had a fascination for the deep South, loves BBQ and really I think moving to a new part of the country will inspire us both to do new things. I plan on writing more on my blogs both about faith and food and Steven plans on doing more art photography just because we are at heart creative people. I plan on finding work down there and Steven has always worked remote and works from home. There are pluses and minuses of working from home. Charleston is a city and we are excited to be a part of the #1 tourist destination in the world for two years in a row. When our friends come and visit us they will know why we made the big move.

We will miss New England tremendously. My neighbor who is a retired geologist and traditionally makes ice cream for our neighborhood block party stopped at my house, jumped out of his car in a panic and asked me…WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! When I told him, he replied with a big smile…”Who will keep the neighbors in line?”. My next door neighbor and I chatted over the fence and with tears in her eyes she said, “Can I come with you?” She’s a child psychologist that probably came up with new therapy methods based on her observations of the Votes over the last 14 years. My dearest friends that I live close to and my church family- it’s really it’s like cutting off and arm or a leg. This is HARD stuff and my heart is hurting but also I’m excited for new beginnings. I know that we are called to a new place, a new phase in our life and a new community. So forgive me if I am a reclusive crying cow for a bit. With our dear dog dying of Lyme in March we took that as sort of a divine sign to get our house on the market on time for April break. Our home is under contract and we managed to find a home we think is the spot for our new abode while we were in Charleston over break. It is quite an undertaking to have a home on the market with three teenagers, and then again it’s quite an undertaking to find a place to live 922.5 miles away in under a week with teenagers. 

We now are in the process of figuring out all the details. I honestly don’t know where to start.

This has been a three year process that required my faith to dig in deep, and now I need to dig deeper still. Steven and I were listening to Tim Keller preach about Abram’s faith and even though the sermon was preached many years ago it felt like it was meant for us right now. When Abram obeyed God, he didn’t have a clue if it would work out the way he expected. He trusted and took that step of faith into the unknown. We will be in the area until the last week of June and hope to be at our new place the first week of July.

 

 

 

Beer Brisket (with Broiled Potatoes)

via Beer Brisket (with Broiled Potatoes)

Silence isn’t Indifference

It’s been a long time since I have actively posted on my blog. For a host of reasons I’ve had to put much of my life on hiatus when it comes to writing. There’s always the case of how much to post on a blog regarding personal things especially with your kids. I don’t want to overshare and overstep those boundaries of confidentiality, trust and relationship with my teens so while I have continued to write sporadically for my own therapeutic means I haven’t been great about maintaining the blog.

I think we can all say that this past year has been….well….interesting when it comes to blogs, opinions and current events including the election last year. I thought I would write a little bit about back to school and the changes as my kids entered their freshman year of high school and my youngest started middle school. Gulp! When I saw this picture of my son it really made me remember this awesome trip we took down the coast of California. My kids were and still are full of beans.

photograph by Steven Vote

 I can remember my first day of middle school in Pennsylvania and maybe that’s a good thing or maybe not. This world is a completely different place to navigate as a parent of teens. My high schoolers didn’t seem as anxious as I was to start high school and I actually am slightly jealous of their ability to just go with it and have a sense of humor about the first day of school rather than my 14 year old self spending time in the bathroom dealing with an upset stomach. 

There’s been some anxiety with my middle schooler for very justifiable reasons, but I am actually impressed once again that he overcame and by the end of the day he was just FINE. 

I try my hardest to not have my kids pick up on my own anxiety but there are moments when my son’s wise words impress me to acknowledge that he understands more than what I give him credit. Why Mom is having a “freak out”….and “it’s going to be okay Mom” in a text as he waits for the bus.  Whose parenting who here? 

This parenting thing isn’t for the faint of heart. We are anxious! We are freaking out even more on the inside than on the outside! The world is a crazy place. We are the first generation that allows Facebook,Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest to give us advice and dinner recipes as well as compare our parenting with each other on a massive scale. Seeing that other parts of the country has been in school for almost a month makes the anticipation of the first day of school so much worse for me. I love seeing the many Facebook friends dropping their kids off to college. I know the next four years will fly by. But I also know people don’t have a tendency to post on Facebook or Instagram their their kid is struggling with anxiety and has cut his toenails down to the nubs or that their teenager is struggling with substance abuse desperate to have them stay in school. At surface level, everyone’s life is Facebook fabulous but as a parent I know that real struggle happens behind closed doors and there’s blood, sweat, tears and sometimes poop literally hitting the fan.

There’s statistics that state the as a result of teens being connected ALL THE TIME that they actually are more likely to be anxious and depressed. So if the kids are stressed, the parents probably are as well especially if they are as connected as we are. Now many people know my love for social media- it’s actually enabled me to keep in touch with friends and family all over the world. But I also acknowledge the societal issues that come with this technology age as well. It is nearly impossible to manage it all and not feel overwhelmed or when someone spouts their opinion on Facebook the whole world gets up in arms or the shame and finger pointing that will come to you if you have a differing opinion. I’m learning that myself. If people really want to know my opinion on something, get to know me first. There are reasons why I hold the views that I have and don’t ever assume that the greater rhetoric out there on any given subject is something I subscribe to.

Is it kind, is it necessary and is it the Truth?

As my kids have entered the higher grades and teen scene I have had to tell them…you know you don’t have to answer, talk or give a retort ALL THE TIME. You do have the right to remain silent, opt out or resist non violently. People forget that silence isn’t the same thing as indifference. In this growing age of knee jerk reactive times I feel more and more the need to teach this skill to my teenagers. You do have the right to remain silent, for what you say will and can be held against you….so make sure what comes out of your mouth counts. And at times, it is more powerful to be silent. Saying, “no” is okay.

I am happiest and most engaged when I can have a conversation with a dear friend, especially those that I differ on a host of subjects and issues maybe very differently when I can share a meal, a cup of coffee or a laugh about something. I benefit from those kind of friends and grow as a human being. Fortunately or unfortunately my closest friends in the world are actually NOT of Facebook or Instagram. Those friends of mine are so worthy of spending time I actually have to see them face to face or call them on the old school telephone. They are the ones saying I’m a good Mom, everythings going to be FINE and I can hear their laughter when I tell them some of my craziest thoughts. So this back to school season it’s back to reality but it’s also back to writing and less time on Facebook.

Who knows maybe I’ll post a blog or two in the process.

 

FEAR: A Lenten Observance

I’m not a big “doer” of Lent but this year I’d like to be different so over the next 40 days I am going to have the practice of writing out some things that have been on my heart and mind lately each week with a bit of a theme. This week’s theme will be around the idea of FEAR.

Last night I had another episode of insomnia because a teenager got up and started walking around. I have caught him sleep walking a couple of times but as a mother you really do have to wonder if that sleepwalker would just up and walk out of the house one night and the Dominoes Pizza delivery dude that speeds down the street would hit the kid serving up 2am party pizzas to the frat houses at the local university. FEAR does crazy stuff like that to your mind.

I normally don’t worry too much and for many years I’ve had a bit of a light hearted and naive attitude about things. Like many people I’ve grown with worry as I get older, especially when it comes to my kids growing up in this crazy world at the moment. It’s harder to trust the world is getting better when reports of hate crimes and stupid people beating a hippo in a zoo to death are some of the highlights of the feed at the bottom of the screen. This season of lent, I want to worry less, FEAR LESS and trust more, let go more and let God so to speak. I also want to get back into just writing my blog as I’ve intended to be. A journal and a relational story of how faith (or often lack of faith)  impacts my daily walk.

When I was a little girl I had an active imagination. So much so, I had an imaginary friend that was an elephant. Don’t laugh!! He was very real to me and I used to make my mother hold open the door for him when we went to the mall. I’m sure it would have been more concerning for my Mom if I never outgrew that stage. I also used to be scared of my basement and my closet thinking the clothes were grabby beings. Be we all know how shadows and illusions often play tricks with our mind especially as a child. It takes some kids longer to get over fears and some never truly overcome fears they just get really great at hiding them. Sometimes FEAR has been painted in a positive light, in fact it’s a defense mechanism for many animals and so we shouldn’t shrug off all FEAR’S usefulness. We can and should learn from it. Relating to little ones about their fears make us better parents but also having the ability to discern what is an illusion vs. reality is important. Often times as parents when we are scared, or even making decisions based on FEAR our kids pick up that fear and it creates insecurities that aren’t justified.

FEAR does hold us back more often than not however when it comes to making necessary changes in our lives. Last night as I listened to a sermon as I frequently do when I have insomnia the sermon was about the Exodus. The speaker talked about fear and trust. Many times trying to control things around us or our situations is based in that FEAR thinking we are God and can and have control over much of our lives. We get to decide many things in our modern American lifestyles, however when things don’t go our way we realize that we don’t have as much choice or control as we once thought we did.

When FEAR takes a grip on our lives we often can’t or don’t make moves that perhaps God is calling us to make. I’m a movie lover and so are my kids. We often snuggle into a movie on rare days that we can agree on the movie to watch. This has gotten harder the older my kids get but scanning the past we sometimes find classics like Apollo 13.  In this sermon the speaker talked about how his favorite quote spoke to him about FEAR.

From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon.

And it’s not a miracle, we just decided to go. -Jim Lovell: Apollo 13

Sometimes my imagination is my own worst enemy, like when I was a kid thinking the monsters  would grab my feet from under the bed or that Freddy Kruger would get me walking from my friends house next door or even thinking my teenager is sleepwalking down the street when in reality he just went to the bathroom. We should allow our imagination to build and propel us to adventure, not allow that FEAR to hold us back.

..we should just decide to go.

 

The Book I Should Have Written (A Review of Michelle DeRusha’s 50 Women Every Christian Should Know)

This summer I finally finished 50 Women Every Christian Should Know by Michelle DeRusha (Screenshot Cover 10) from Amazon. A book that I have been reading on and off for an embarrassingly long time. I can’t specifically say why I put it down but it wasn’t because of the book and more my own lack of accountability or perhaps attention. Sometimes that just happens and I thought I was the only one that had this embarrassing habit at times until I joined a book group a number of years back and was pleased to hear I was not the only one on the planet that did. When I picked this book back up I often wondered why I had put it aside. A recent poll was published that stated most Americans admit to only reading ONE book a year. So I guess it’s only fitting that I finished this ONE.

I think one reason I set this book aside for a while was that I was psychologically jealous. This is the book that I should have written. Do you ever have ideas or inventions and then perhaps a year down the road you see just that? Well, this is one of those ideas for me. I can’t say that I would write this book the same way however, this is just a sampling of women that I’ve researched for a similar project. I’m happy to say there are women not mentioned in this book that should be but again the number is limited to 50 so there’s still hope for a future project.

In finishing 50 Women Every Christian Should Know by Michelle DeRusha I was left with a broader picture of the Church than I have had before. I knew there were women like this in history, but rarely do we hear about their stories in such a context. We sort of “know” that there were influential women in the Church and their vital roles in Church history but rarely do we delve into the particulars of their conversion, faith, their often questionable doctrines at times, their struggles and or the traumas that they endured. While I know there are many many more women that are not represented in this book, I related to many of them and learned things about the women that I knew from movies but history books do not disclose. I personally love the author’s emphasis that many of these women had a shaky faith, at times simply as small as a mustard seed. Some encountered racism, persecution, abuse, even restrictions to practice their God given gifts and calling simply because they were women. Some honestly in today’s context put their ministries before family and children.

We should be reminded that women were very active leaders in the mission fields in places like China, Burma that the Church is still yielding fruit from their undying faith to give up country, marriage potential, security, status in the growing western world to minister to people that not only did not have the gospel but they didn’t have a clue about western democratic society. Reading about women in history remind us also that during the Civil Rights movement and the Jim Crow laws that it was downright dangerous to be a black woman even in our own country. They don’t exactly highlight in the history books the infringing on women’s rights went far more beyond the vote. Women who were admitted into hospitals for a minor health issue were forcibly sterilized without their consent to keep the black population of this country down.

And yet, people like Harriet Tubman and Fannie Lou Hamer lived out grace and love every day often forgiving, serving their oppressors.

One of my personal favorites were Anne Hutchinson who challenged the puritan understanding of divine election only to be excommunicated by the founding Puritan community in our country. I frequently think of Anne when I drive on “the Hutch” or the Hutchinson parkway as she settled in New York after her ex-communication. She ministered to women as a midwife, as frequently women are within their own circles and free of men’s oversight during a birth. Some of the other women in the book such as Ann Hasseltine Judson, Harriet Tubman, Florence Nightingale, Lottie Moon,Ruth Bell Graham, Madeline Angle, Corrie Ten Boom, Mother Theresa to name only a few were women that I’ve always known but were reminded once again why they should be honored for following first their call and by doing so, they forged a way for many other women.

Nearly all of these women at some point encountered a crisis of faith, doubt, obstruction and sometimes gross injustices by the church at large. We shouldn’t be surprised, but it is through the study of often women featured in books like this that enlightens women like myself to not lose hope or ambition to continue to walk our walks. Some of these women often felt derailed in their ministry at one point or another through tragedy or illness. Ann Judson’s story stick out to me in particular as the first missionary in accompanying her husband to Burma. I have on my list of books to read this year On the Golden Shore which is the story of Judson’s ministry. At one point, Judson after having been jailed for being a missionary gave birth in prison and was so malnourished couldn’t produce breast milk to feed her baby. I can’t imagine where a woman’s mind goes when she has given up the comforts of even back then colonial America to minister alongside her husband and come to that place. She couldn’t even rely on the faith of her then husband as he was in the midst of his own crisis of faith and yet Burma today has some of the largest numbers within the Burmese Baptist church because of this missionary couple. Ministries don’t always end in vast revival and the fruit of many of these women have often not been acknowledged in their lifetimes.

We often herald the men in church history such as Martin Luther or Calvin but this book allows us to see what some of their wives contributed in their own standing. When persecution or separation comes because of death or travels these women didn’t just keep the homefires burning. They often were the educators of men like Martin Luther and Calvin or they were the midwives who brought babies into the world or were the only medical means that a community had to cope with war, plague and pandemic. We can’t let stories such as Florence Nightingale be forgotten as she served in the Crimean War and much of our current practices in medicine are directly tied to her service. Each of these women contributed to social justice by just living their lives in humble service to Christ sometimes just where they were in their life’s season. Motherhood, single, married, widowed, rich, poor, slave, freewoman, alien, patriot, citizen, teacher, student, child or adult. Their position in society really in the end…didn’t matter.

I hope more men and pastors read books like 50 Women. These are the women often overlooked not just in the history books but in the perspective of the Church past and present. Their stories deserve to be told over and over again to our daughters, sisters, wives if only to inspire but hopefully to encourage them that in this life we all will have troubles…but keep pushing, dreaming, serving, loving and most importantly that their gifts and call that God imparts to them are never in vain, never wasted even if their lives don’t look like the typical path women take. More than that we can see how their lives often ended in tragedy or persecution, illness and injustice. This never stopped a women from accepting the call of God when seen how a privilege it is to not only hear the call but be obedient to it regardless of the world’s definition of success often looking like failure.

 

A Deep Breath and the Fresh Air Fund

So if you haven’t noticed the news is rife with turmoil and controversy regarding the BlackLivesMatter movement, the tragic situations that ended in people’s lives being lost. I haven’t had a chance to really get sucked into the vortex because it’s summer and I tend to lose all sense of time, date and day chasing after my boys. As a result, this is probably going to be one of the only posts I successfully write this summer. I have read a lot of articles and responses and watched some of the news, currently watching the DNC after the RNC. I sometimes feel I just throw more fuel to a fire if I spit out comments without really holding back and discerning much of the big picture. This entry of my blog is really to serve a bigger purpose than politics, which is to challenge anyone who truly cares about our communities but wonders how they can help beyond the voting booth.

I’ve lived in a predominately black neighborhood in New York City at a time when New York was for the most part being “gentrified” which was a slow but beneficial economic process for most but not all. We forget that not all people benefit from directly from economic gentrification. I think that is what some in our country is basically saying. When a neighborhood improves, people want to live there. Artists and middle class chasing after lower rents and housing prices you have to be willing to live on the fringe a bit. This will always include issues of security, mixed with complicated social issues and keeping people, especially kids safe is a real challenge. One thing that I noticed living in Harlem and NYC during the early 90s however, was my own fear at times walking through the projects to access either a grocery store or park. Why was I afraid? Was it because I was a young girl not from the projects or was it because the potential for being a target of a crime, being misconstrued as someone with money simply because I was white? I had to deal with my own fears first and honestly, I met some real people who lived in real poverty and had real problems. When I became a Mom in the city, it became a great equalizer for me as I often met other Moms at the park or even I went to the projects playgrounds because they were simply a great place to play. Some of the families lived for generations in the same apartments, subsidized by the government because not everyone can rent a 2 bedroom apartment in Trump tower for 14,000 a month. Affordable housing is essential to a community’s stability especially as neighborhoods like Harlem and the Lower East Side were quickly becoming a viable option for artists and young professionals that couldn’t afford a million dollar mansion in the sky.

I moved out of the city 12 years ago but also a part of my heart remained in Harlem. This is why I also chose six years ago to be a host for the Fresh Air Fund. I personally know the plight of many of the kids that grow up in city, even if I don’t share their life I can honestly say I’ve witnessed much of the pain and dysfunction that broken communities find themselves struggling to rise above and make a clean exit. The year I decided to host a Fresh Air kid I remember sitting in a heat wave in Red Hook, visiting a friend who lives close to some projects and my kids love playing in the park with anyone. My kids make easy friends in NYC because I still take them fearlessly to the playgrounds in the park. It’s always hard to tell their new friends we don’t live in the city, that we are just visiting. I used to make a point of taking our Razor Scooters to the park and letting whoever wanted to use them share in the fun. One woman wouldn’t let her son ride our scooter because she didn’t want me to think her son was going to steal it. I profusely said told her it was okay, that’s why we bring them to the park for all the kids to use. Finally she allowed her child to give the scooter a try. That same visit, I watched as kids filled garbage cans with water and dumped them with water to refresh themselves from the massive heat wave that frequently oppresses the city. NYC is like an oven in the summer and rarely do you really get a break. Nighttime is always a bit cooler but if you live in the projects, you rarely can afford air conditioning and rarely do you even get a breeze or a break from the oven like temperatures. It was the first year I had moved to Massachusetts and realized I was “privileged” to live in a place that has creeks, ponds and lakes that are free. Many of the kids in the city do not have money for camp, their parents work low paying hourly jobs and they are going to summer school to access the subsidized food programs. Some of these kids are left to their own devices at a young age simply because they have no other alternative available to them.

Now over the last couple of weeks, I admit I have had a couple of rants to myself when I see quite honestly very privileged middle class people passionate about the BLM movement and spouting more politics than actually getting their hands dirty to help solve the societal issues. I equally get that burning itch under my skin when I see God fearing evangelicals with two jobs, a mortgage, going on vacation and sending their kids to expensive camps spout off about the same inequalities yet still never reaching out beyond their white picket fences. These are the same types of people who were scared to death to walk the streets of NYC, and lock their doors for fear of someone stealing their precious TVs, computers and cars. You see, here in the Pioneer Valley we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in the numbers of host families participate in the Fresh Air Fund program. We used to have BUS LOADS of kids, and hundreds of families sponsored a child. What has changed? The needs certainly haven’t. The change has happened on OUR privileged end. We no longer feel like making sacrifices for the good of society because we feel we would have to give up something. Time. Vacation. Food. Space. And most of all, money. The Fresh Air Fund is free but trust me, when that Fresh Air kid adds to the meal portions or the activity cost your pocketbook feels it.

The Fresh Air Fund is America’s OLDEST nonprofit. It started during a time in our country when we didn’t have labor laws that kept 10 year olds out of hard labor and dangerous manufacturing in our industrial revolution. Kids were having severe medical issues with asthma from the city’s poor air quality. Kids couldn’t just be kids. A minister from Pennsylvania appealed to his congregants.

“If we all took just ONE child” the founder of the Fresh Air had a vision

And so, the people heard and they acted upon that call in obedience to caring for the plight of the poor, the widowed and downtrodden and the Fresh Air Fund was born.

Now I can tell you firsthand. I benefit from having our Fresh Air kid in our home. My children learn to share everything including their valued space, toys, and even pets. Some of my friends know the details of our Fresh Air Fund’s circumstances that brought him into the Fresh Air to begin with. I will say this. His Mom took the first step to find something better for him, to expand his horizons and show him another way in life. His life continues to be fraught with complications that I won’t share on my blog but I will say this. His Mom has said his time with us has dramatically impacted his life, and therefore hers as well. From one Mom to another we chuckle on the phone when I tell her what we did for the week and she’s also told me he comes home talking about his time here for weeks after. I wish I could do more. I wish I had more resources, more time, more space, more of the opportunities that Fresh Air has afforded me to love on this kid. The Fresh Air can’t solve every social or cultural problem of urban youth, but neither can the government nor the policies that both the left and the right think will. When we realise that we have the capacity to change ONE life by hosting a Fresh Air kid or sponsoring mentorship programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters I believe we will overcome the rift currently ajar in our society. Don’t just post political memes and articles. GET INVOLVED.

So in this post I would like to challenge people…. instead of posting Memes about race and politics this summer, I challenge everyone who is from Maine to Virginia to consider hosting a Fresh Air kid or get involved with Big Brothers/Big Sisters in your city/towns. If you have older kids, host two younger kids. If you are a grandmother, host a child and teach them to bake cookies or treat them like one of your own grandchildren that you spoil and shower with affection. I hear the same excuses year after year that I used to make and I get it.  Two jobs, limited vacation, limited resources. But here’s the thing, many of these kids don’t have two parents that work, they have never left the city and they certainly don’t have the resources nor do their parents. Some are homeless and live in shelters, some are foster kids, some have disabled parents, single parents with special needs kids or  even parents that are in jail. Some of these Fresh Air kids have never put their foot in a body of water other than the bathtub. If we are to bring healing to this country in the face of these deep seated relational and societal fractures why can’t it start with ourselves? I am here to say it is so so so worth it.

This year marks our Fresh Air kid’s 5th year coming to stay with us. We actually were placed with him sort of by accident as the little guy we had the year before didn’t continue the program and our kid was a last minute placement. I don’t believe in coincidences but I do believe that God divinely placed him with us to fulfill some of his “wishes” in life, like to learn how to swim. The first year he came to us, he didn’t have a bathing suit. We took him to Target, bought a suit and introduced him to our local town beach on that 98 degree day. He was petrified of drowning and insisted on wearing a lifejacket but he made it into the lake with our encouragement. He spent much of that first year bobbing up and down with that life jacket on. Fast forward to this year. I’ll just post this video to show you what five years and some consistency that he can do this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2pOdvBfOKQ

As our visit with our Fresh Air kid came to a close, we actually opted to drive him to his home in the Bronx. I wanted MY kids to see where he lives. When kids get to be 13 they seem to loose all perspective of gratefulness. When we see him off I can’t see straight and our car is silent with sadness letting him go back to his everyday life. I hold his head in my hands and tell him that we love him, and that God cares for him even more than we could express. I cry because I know the life he lives even though I don’t experience the same life. It rips a part of my own heart to know what he faces everyday and the battles he has to fight even within his own surroundings and culture to overcome. Once, someone close to me challenged the difference my relationship with my Fresh Air Fund child actually would really make. Do you know the number one issue that keeps people in the status quo of poverty and dependance? Despair. Do you know the number one combatant to that is HOPE. Mentoring a child is hope in a concrete relational means to have access to HOPE.

Here’s the thing about mentoring. Hearts get involved. Love gets involved. Showing these kids that someone out there is willing to sacrifice SOMETHING to show them another way, another life, dreams and goals that we “privileged” people are willing to help them achieve. In the Old Testament, God blessed Abraham so that he could be a blessing to others. God also blessed the nation of Israel for the sole purpose of blessing others as well. It wasn’t to bless the already rich, the morally corrupt but the weak, the vulnerable the ones that couldn’t speak up for themselves and the ones trapped in a system that provides no incentive to break out of a destructive dysfunctional cycle of despair. WE can do this, YOU can do this. If you have a spare bedroom, or a spare place to sit at the table…consider hosting a Fresh Air kid for two weeks out of your life. I personally would love to see the Fresh Air buses filled to the gills again with nervous expectant kids going to host families that were unafraid of the emotional effects that come when your heart gets tangled with a Fresh Air kid’s.

The Mighty Maple

Anytime I spend time in my small New England garden at the end of the day I feel like I’ve had incredible “head space” and time to talk to God. No media, no music, no interruptions. After seven day…

Source: The Mighty Maple

The Mighty Maple

Anytime I spend time in my small New England garden at the end of the day I feel like I’ve had incredible “head space” and time to talk to God. No media, no music, no interruptions. After seven days of rain, drizzle and overcast skies the time for weeding was urgent and so, I got my garden tools out, pulled on those garden gloves and got to the task at hand which in my case was pulling out weeds that had grown into small trees. I have a lot of weeds that are working on their second year because last year’s poison ivy fiasco meant I had lost all desire to garden. Honestly I was a bit nervous to get going and feared getting another summer case of the stuff but it’s a little too early for poison ivy which hopefully will never show it’s ugly potent leaves in my yard again. There is one redeeming factor we can attribute to Round Up which is it kills poison ivy among everything else in it’s path.

Today I am sore and feel the long day of weed/tree pulling and yet I’ve only accomplished about half of what I wanted to. Digging out a couple of ugly shrubs that weren’t doing much for me and shoveling out extensive fern roots, stubborn maple shoots required every muscle I had in my body to uproot. At one point I was struggling with probably the 5th maple tree that had grown into a small tree right in the middle of another shrub root system when I thought the only way to really get rid of the maple tree weed problem would be to cut the big maple tree in my front yard. When do I justify that end? Should we cut a gorgeous hundred year old maple tree down when it provides shade, turns brilliant orange in the fall and measures your children’s growth with every first day of school? 

When I first moved to Massachusetts from New York City my first few days in my garden it was clear I was not a master gardener. I had managed to grow some basil on the fire escape and kept a potted tree alive in my apartment but now that we lived in a house with dirt I was intimidated by my surrounding garden aficionados on the street.

I asked a neighbor, “How can you tell what is a weed vs. what is a plant?”

My 90 year old neighbor replied in her wisdom, “a weed is a plant that is growing in a place you don’t want it to.”.

Obviously the previous inhabitants of my home loved ferns because my garden is prolific with them. Maple seedlings or “helicopters” at some point start dropping and I will say maple trees really can grow anywhere as we know in New England. The maple is part of New England’s great beauty and sustainable industry in the production of maple syrup. We need maple trees. We love maple trees. However, if you don’t pull the weedy little things out of your garden they eventually will take over and you will have a tree on it’s way to being near impossible to remove. All the maple seedlings come from the ever loved large maple tree in my front yard which is the only maple in the near vicinity. It’s not the healthiest tree sadly and after bi annually pruning it I know there will be a day that it probably will have to be cut down. The tree is also one reason we disqualify for solar panels on our home…we’ve been asked if we would consider cutting it down. Imagine that…chop down an oxygen producing maple tree down to put ugly solar panels on our cute little cape. I don’t think so!

Once a neighbor was having a tree cut down and my husband asked the tree service if they would cut the maple tree down at a discounted price. I ran out of the house and just as the guy said he was going to cut it down and I put a stop to it. I’m glad I was home at the time. While we don’t have a lot of sun for a veggie garden or fruit trees I often enjoy the shade of this maple tree and see that squirrels and birds also enjoy it too. I know that someday we’ll have to cut the mighty maple down, maybe we won’t be here when it happens. Despite the seedlings that it produces the maple goes unappreciated perhaps because it’s always been here or maybe because it’s easy to take for granted all the years it took to grow to it’s mighty height. I live on a street that has a maple canopy and they each maple tree is slowly dying off because they were planted too close to the road, salt from the harsh winters and the root systems are stressed because they actually strangle themselves when they meet the pavement of the street. This maple is tucked far enough away from the road that it’s remained healthier than others and it also is that main feature of our front yard.

While digging out yet another maple tree, God brought to my attention that when you cut a tree down you might not have issues with the weeds however look what you loose when the ancient tree is lost. It’s natural beauty and benefits far outweigh the day’s work of weeding.The cool shade that it’s shadow casts over our roof provide relief from hot humid days and a place for the critters to live. Until the maple is not longer healthy enough to sustain itself it will stay exactly planted in the same spot in which it was planted probably 50 plus years ago. Some maple trees have been around when Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson wrote their poetry. They are witnesses to the past. 

While taking a break from my labor as I sat under the shade of that Mighty Maple, God pressed upon me that the Church must be like a maple tree. Strong and able to grow just about anywhere, but not turning back on it’s own when it doesn’t work out the way we often wish it to. Sometimes it needs to be uprooted in areas where there is pride and corruption. Sometimes it needs to be challenged where there is complacency. When being uprooted assuming  no fault or error is not a healthy, but it should move us to deep inner searching, prayer and repentance, to be open to reproof, rebuke and sometimes even removal and replanting where maple trees don’t exist. In the end, the Master tree still stands. The Church needs to recognize the Master tree that it comes from. In a world that seems to be flying off it’s rocker with an intensity towards insanity, I pray we can recognize where we are to get our nutrients to be healthy from. God’s Word and His Word alone. Not from the pundits or newspapers, nor the podcasts or the paid pied pipers. I myself sometimes find my natural inclination is to take queues from these outputs but it only takes a day in my garden to correct my orientation to gaze once again, the Master Gardner’s ways. If I ever find myself to be uprooted, I trust by His own hands he will replant me in fertile soil. 

The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree, He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.– Pslam 92:12

History, Politics & John Adams

After the big Downton Abbey finale aired I will admit, I have been forclempt to find anything good on TV. I’ve been following politics on and off…but I yearn for some British or historical piece that will hold my attention. I confessed to my husband that I was addict of soap operas as a teen and between Downton ending and the current political atmosphere we were at a loss to find that “thing” we could watch together. Because my husband is Australian, he doesn’t particularly like American TV especially sitcoms and frankly who could blame the poor bloke….

My 5th grader invited us to a special presentation that his class had been working on for the week about the American Revolution. He was so excited to have a line in the Enchanted Theater’s performance, especially because he got to use the word “damn” and use it without getting in trouble. He also rocked the cardboard musket like nobodies business. His class reenactment of some key events in the American Revolution including the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Boston Massacre. During their theater performance, it got me thinking about how I learned history as a child, which mainly came from having to read boring textbooks and doodle through lecture style classes even at the elementary grade level. I don’t ever remember doing an integrational arts program with theater, music and visual arts. Education has come a long way even if we have a tendency to be it’s worst skeptical critics. The result is that one thing is for certain is that these 5th grade kids probably understand much of history at their age than I ever did. They knew who King George was because my little friend Vivi played the BEST King George.

We were so impressed with how these kids took in and displayed these historical events we decided to rewatch for a second time the HBO miniseries John Adams based on John McCullough’s book. They had shown the 5th graders several clips of the series and ignited once again my son’s enthusiastic desire to learn about history. We decided to venture again to the miniseries because of the volatile political climate we have found ourselves experiencing. Over the last several weeks we’ve observed the events of the American Revolution and it is uncanny what you can learn viewing something for a second time around and I would venture to say which in my humble opinion, that the role of John Adams is the creme de la creme that John Giamatti has ever done. Some observations that I took away with me personally from this series I feel are relevant to today’s political circus, and I would recommend anyone and everyone to partake in the incredible story of John Adams who was a patriot and a founding father to our modern nation.

The vote for Independence was not unanimous.

The vote for Independance weighed heavily on every representative in the Continental Congress so much so, there was one patriot that refused to sign on the dotted line. A vote for independence was also a vote for war against Britain and the King, yet their mere conspiring independance from the crown would be counted as high treason punishable by death. The moderates debated whether war with Britain outweighed the real benefits colonists enjoyed as subjects of the king. John Dickinson, Quaker and representative of Pennsylvania was such patriot that he refused to sign the Declaration of Independance.

Up against a rock and a hard place.

The birth of our country was fraught with war, and rumors of wars. The American Revolution was a real war, people died including children in this war and the war of 1812, also known as the “second” war of Independance. The the French Revolution (a period of history that I love) was co occuring as the American Revolution and should understand that France had a lot to do with our success of throwing off the shackles of Britain. We should note: no nation wins independence on their own. At one point the American government considered tossing out FRENCH “nationals” for fear of their lack of loyalty to the new nation when the French tried to drag us into another war with Britain. Such murky times but we share a lot of history with France and Britain.

The difference of opinion and ideologies.

The political ideologies and philosophy of government of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and other patriots held a wide spectrum of doctrines and some of them were more inspired by the Age of Reason and Enlightenment than actual Judeo/Christian doctrines, yet they were still heavily influenced by Biblical truths and ideas. Deism to which Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin subscribed to is a far cry from Christian principles that we know today, yet if the context of history is not explored we run the risk of ever knowing the founding father’s intentions when they wrote the Constitution. We do err on the wrong side of history not to do our “work” of understanding what historical context actually is and how it affects our worldview. Most of the founding fathers of our nation agreed to disagree and united to succeed in the writing of our Constitution. Quakers, Catholics, Anabaptists, Congregationalists, Reformed Protestants, Deists…they all have intrinsic differences of spiritual doctrines however they managed to unify the nation. We should learn from this and not tar and feather the other side for simply disagreeing nor subscribing to a fringe spiritual doctrine.

They didn’t know for certain what they were doing.

The Congress really sort of “felt” things out as they felt George Washington held too much power and was also influenced by military leaders. They debated the role and powers of the President. We have glamorized and moralized our founding fathers when in reality they were all pretty much vying for power and top dog. The values of the different states…were inherently just that….different. We should understand this more and not allow our state histories to divide our country, we in turn should accept even the demons of our fractured history and not gloss over them for the sake of “progress”. We must come to terms with things like the Trail of Tears (thank you Andrew Jackson) and slavery in our country that was the major means of labor in this new land was also the means to which the British colonized this land. Many abolitionists wanted slaves to be given their freedom, but they also wanted to ship them back to Africa. John Adams did not hold any slaves, but Thomas Jefferson did as did many of our founding fathers.

“Half fed slaves building our Capital, what good can come of this?”- said Abigail Adams.

When was America ever “Great”?

Politics were always dirty and filled with personal attacks. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, though compatriots were also embittered against each other in a nasty run for the Presidency. We also did not have political parties, super PACs and I really wonder what John Adams and Thomas Jefferson would make of today’s political process. When we spend hours discussing a Trump tweet sent out in the middle of the night maybe ponder this.

If Thomas Jefferson had Twitter it might look like this:

“John Adams is a hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”@Southernvalues1776

And if Adams likewise would respond:

“Vice President Jefferson is a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” @purebredWhiteYankee

Not exactly following the anti bullying and micro aggression rules now are they?

Money and Trade have always influenced our nation’s politics.

Risky speculation on Wall Street. Not a new thing. John Adams son dabbled in it and lost. Just a thought… you can’t tax people’s bad decisions can you? The price of a free country is also free trade and a capitalist society. The whole idea is with the idea that you get to “capitalize” on the natural resources and products that it’s people produce and our country can and should be allowed to import and export openly. If you don’t produce much…you don’t really have much to trade. Everyone should familiarize themselves with the Stamp Act and the regulations Britain imposed on its colonies and understand a history of how trade, war debt from the French/Indian War and regulation of trade imposed on the colonies the like had a tremendous influential aspect to the political climate leading up to the American Revolution. Trade and economics might not seem like a big issue, but they are foundational to understanding how the world works and our place in western civilization.

Nothing blooms without blood, toil and tears.

John Adams spent a whole hell of a lot of time away from home and his beloved country to which he fought for and advocated for in Europe. He hated the French courts and the same country he fought against he spent much of his time as an Ambassador to Britain.There were consequences relationally and physically with his family which was hinted at the direction of the fact that the Adams left their children quite young to be Ambassadors to Britain. I wonder if he thought it worth the while with what our country has become today.

“Oh posterity, you will never know how much it cost us to preserve your freedom. I hope that you will make a good use of it, for if you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.”- John Adams

Since I live in Massachusetts it’s easy to forget that history is all around me. It’s also easy for us as a nation to not do due diligence in teaching the next generation the core principles, ideas and historical context of history as it’s story is told and retold. Believe it or not, I even have great hope and faith that regardless of who is the next President that the American people have great resolve if they will acknowledge the messy parts of our nation’s beginning and not just try to “rewrite” history in our own words.