Two of the comments on the Project 17o7 site stated that there were other people who were more deserving of help than my family.
I agree. My family has some problems, but compared to many others, we have just been greatly inconvenienced. We are comfortable, well fed, and working toward making our life better.
But we live in a world full of sorrow, fear and pain. Please, if you can, extend your concern and financial help toward others who are in great need:
Another family in our community was recently burned out of their home. Their home is a complete loss.
A young man was just killed in a car accident leaving behind his children and their mother.
Several families in our community are facing financial difficulty due to illness - in addition to the fears and pain of being sick, they must also deal with bills they cannot afford.
For local needs contact the minister of your church, or if you don't attend church,
any minister at any church. You can also contact MICA (Mid-Iowa Community Action)
The City of Des Moines demolished the self-constructed huts of homeless people in that city, and there are not enough shelters to house them during these bitter cold days of winter. To help, contact Hope Ministries.
Native Americans in South Dakota and other areas of our country live in abject poverty, do not have have adequate shelter, heating fuel or warm clothes for the winter.
You may object to a group at your church helping out people like us, but you don't have to wait for someone else to create a group, create a website, and organize a work crew. Be a leader and create a crew of your own, get involved, write a check, commit to daily prayers, work for goodness and mercy to help someone else.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
A Million$$ Jackpot Lottery Winner Story
A couple of anonymous posts on the Project 1707 site remarked that our family doesn't deserve help from the church because we are millionaire lottery winners who own two houses. Fair enough. People are free to support any deserving cause they wish to, and we didn't make the cut on these persons' lists. But I think it is important to clarify the issues brought up in these posts. Because much of this family history is painful for me - there were arguments and bitterness, disagreements and regrets - I will not go into the personal details concerning our decisions about this windfall. I understand that people are very curious about this event in our family, but it is still our family's personal business, and some things are simply off limits to others.
A day or so after the fire, Rev. Len offered us help in the form of work crews, we thanked him, but declined the offer. We were lucky, we said, and there are so many other people who are not so fortunate. We had a place to live, no one was hurt, and we felt we would be okay. Occasionally when I would see Rev. Len around town, he would tell me the offer was still open, if I ever needed help, just let him know. My friend Monique, also a member of the Methodist Church, mentioned several times that the church was willing to help.
And still we declined. We know we are fortunate.
Fast forward a year and a half: Pat has completely gutted the kitchen - removing tons of burned cabinets, appliances, plaster, chunks of debris. He has put up new walls, replaced windows and is working on making new cabinets out of recycled and cast off lumber. I've hauled trash, cleaned and painted walls. The house is starting to shape up. But we are tired. And our money is gone. We live paycheck to paycheck and put our heating bills (for two large old drafty houses) on credit cards just to get by. When the church stepped forward and offered to help again, we were relieved and grateful and we accepted the help. All we expected was some help scrubbing walls, and maybe removing walls in the rooms where the plaster was already falling off. But this work crew came up with a more ambitious plan - take down all the cruddy walls, replace the old inadequate insulation, update the wiring, and put new walls up. We said, oh, are you sure? And they said, yeah, they were sure, so we accepted, but we were really sort of embarrassed by this level of help - a psychologist could maybe explain why. When we were told they would ask the church congregation for donations to cover the costs of wall board and insulation I felt really embarrassed and shy about it, but hopeful that we could soon return to our house. We would put the other house up for sale and hope (in this market) we could sell it and be able to pay off our debts and give some money back to the Methodist Church so they could help someone else.
And then we saw the comments on the project blog. So.
Here's the scoop on our million $$ jackpot lottery win:
In 1995 my husband bought a lottery ticket that was a winner: we received an annuity for a million dollars to be paid out over a 20 year period. We would receive a weekly payment of about $660 after taxes were taken out. At this time we were earning just enough to make ends meet and I was pregnant with the youngest of our five children. This extra amount of money allowed our standard of living to rise to an upper middle class level. It also gave us a measure of freedom - to make choices about jobs and college and vacations. After about five years a decision (which caused disagreement) was made to cash in the annuity. Over the years, we have both made changes in our work situations which made our income fluctuate. Some years we had to buy our own health insurance because both of us were working part time and taking turns staying home with the baby. Thirteen years after my husband bought that ticket, what we have left from that win is whatever we can sell our second house for. And remember: we never had a million dollars cash in one lump sum to spend or save however we wanted.
Did we make mistakes? Yes.
Did we make some ignorant decisions? Yes.
Were we foolish? Sometimes.
Should we have invested more wisely? Yes.
Should we have saved more, planned better, been wiser, shrewder, more informed? Yes.
Were we extravagant? Perhaps, in some ways
Do all people make mistakes about some things in their lives? Yes.
Do many American families make mistakes when it comes to money? According to recent events,
even CEOs of huge banks make mistakes when it comes to money
Are we rich? No.
Were we ever rich? Not by American standards.
Would we do things differently if we had the chance? You betcha.
Where did the money go? Here is a list, in no particular order, of how we spent the lottery money over the past 13 years:
College tuition for our daughter.
A new car 1996 Dodge caravan (which we still own)
Paid off our credit car debt
2 road trips to East Texas (a place I would never visit if I didn't have family there) to visit my
mother
1 airplane trip to Jacksonville, Florida to visit my father after his wife died (1 air fare)
1 airplane trip to San Diego so my husband could visit his brother and show two of our kids
where their parents grew up (3 air fares)
1 road trip to Arizona to attend my brother's wedding
2 road trips to Mall of America: first with my son as a birthday gift for him, bought 2 board games, deluxe Scrabble and wooden framed Chinese checkers set; second trip was a fun excursion for me and my other children, we each bought a stuffed animal at FAO Schwartz and did the rides at Camp Snoopy.
Remodeled our kitchen - my husband did all the work, we bought mid-price cabinets from
Menard's, and cabinet tops from Penrose Lumber
Paved our driveway
Tore down the 100 year old collapsing barn/garage and built a new garage. My husband
bought a kit (from Penrose Lumber) and he and our neighbor Dave, built the garage
Bought trees for our backyard
Bought a guitar ($300) for my daughter
Bought 2 mattress sets
Bought a couch and a chair
Replaced ceiling in the living room
Bought a used truck ($2,000)
Bought a used compact car for my daughter ($1,000)
Bought new refrigerator
Paid hospital and doctor bills when youngest child was born
Gave cash gift to friend in financial distress
Gave cash gift and monthly financial help to my sister during financial distress
Bought gifts for elderly in nursing homes and gifts for needy children at Christmas
Sponsored several children overseas through Plan USA/Childreach
Gave to church special projects and needs and funds, plus regular pledge
Gave to other favorite charities and causes: NPR, wildlife organizations, etc.
Living expenses for family with growing children: food, clothes, shoes, winter wear, school
supplies, school registration, other assorted school related expenses, gas and electric bills,
water bills, phone bills, Christmases and birthdays, mortgage, insurance, repair and
maintenance on house and automobiles...etc.
In summertime - we bought one of those big backyard pools for all of us to play in
Church camp - for 2 kids and family camp for me and kids 2 or 3 summers in a row
Grinnell Summer Arts camp
Tax accountants - winning the lottery made yearly income tax statements a nightmare
Finally - we bought the second house. Built in 1910 and divided into three apartments, this was an investment, and would have supplied a modest addition to our income had we charged as much rent as we should have. But we felt bad about charging more rent that we could have afforded ourselves! Since we bought this house we have only lost money on it. Three apartments make it a commercial property with a hefty commercial property tax to go with it.
Currently we are paying property taxes on both our houses, gas and electric on both houses (we keep the heat on about 45 degrees at the 7th Ave. house so the water pipes don't burst and so we can work comfortably when we are there), water bills for both houses. So yeah, we own two houses, but we aren't exactly living like John and Cindy McCain. We can't live in the fire damaged house, the other house contains our cash assets, but we can't get those assets until we sell the house, and we can't sell the house until the other house is in livable condition...unless we take out a loan on the house, and at this point more debt is not in our best interest.
Maybe you would have been smarter if you had won the lottery. People like us - who don't agree on how to handle money and who handle it poorly, we don't deserve to win in the eyes of many people. Most people like to imagine how they would spend the money if they won the lottery - none of us imagines that he will simply blow it, or let it be frittered away on the stuff of life, or that he will have arguments with his spouse about how to use it, spend it, save it, invest it or waste it. We think all it will bring is happiness and joy and that it will simplify the difficult parts of our lives and and enrich the happy parts of our lives. We all have noble intentions and grand plans. I wish I'd spent it on a trip to Tahiti. I might not have come back.
We are profoundly grateful for all the help we have received so far. The people on the work crew have been extremely generous with their time, labor and moral support. Even if they never do another thing at our house, their cheerful presence has been a tremendous gift to us - it has lightened our loads and lifted our spirits and restored our hope. Money or no money, we appreciate all the Grinnell United Methodist Church has done for us and will always hold the congregation in high esteem.
Thank you very, very much.
A day or so after the fire, Rev. Len offered us help in the form of work crews, we thanked him, but declined the offer. We were lucky, we said, and there are so many other people who are not so fortunate. We had a place to live, no one was hurt, and we felt we would be okay. Occasionally when I would see Rev. Len around town, he would tell me the offer was still open, if I ever needed help, just let him know. My friend Monique, also a member of the Methodist Church, mentioned several times that the church was willing to help.
And still we declined. We know we are fortunate.
Fast forward a year and a half: Pat has completely gutted the kitchen - removing tons of burned cabinets, appliances, plaster, chunks of debris. He has put up new walls, replaced windows and is working on making new cabinets out of recycled and cast off lumber. I've hauled trash, cleaned and painted walls. The house is starting to shape up. But we are tired. And our money is gone. We live paycheck to paycheck and put our heating bills (for two large old drafty houses) on credit cards just to get by. When the church stepped forward and offered to help again, we were relieved and grateful and we accepted the help. All we expected was some help scrubbing walls, and maybe removing walls in the rooms where the plaster was already falling off. But this work crew came up with a more ambitious plan - take down all the cruddy walls, replace the old inadequate insulation, update the wiring, and put new walls up. We said, oh, are you sure? And they said, yeah, they were sure, so we accepted, but we were really sort of embarrassed by this level of help - a psychologist could maybe explain why. When we were told they would ask the church congregation for donations to cover the costs of wall board and insulation I felt really embarrassed and shy about it, but hopeful that we could soon return to our house. We would put the other house up for sale and hope (in this market) we could sell it and be able to pay off our debts and give some money back to the Methodist Church so they could help someone else.
And then we saw the comments on the project blog. So.
Here's the scoop on our million $$ jackpot lottery win:
In 1995 my husband bought a lottery ticket that was a winner: we received an annuity for a million dollars to be paid out over a 20 year period. We would receive a weekly payment of about $660 after taxes were taken out. At this time we were earning just enough to make ends meet and I was pregnant with the youngest of our five children. This extra amount of money allowed our standard of living to rise to an upper middle class level. It also gave us a measure of freedom - to make choices about jobs and college and vacations. After about five years a decision (which caused disagreement) was made to cash in the annuity. Over the years, we have both made changes in our work situations which made our income fluctuate. Some years we had to buy our own health insurance because both of us were working part time and taking turns staying home with the baby. Thirteen years after my husband bought that ticket, what we have left from that win is whatever we can sell our second house for. And remember: we never had a million dollars cash in one lump sum to spend or save however we wanted.
Did we make mistakes? Yes.
Did we make some ignorant decisions? Yes.
Were we foolish? Sometimes.
Should we have invested more wisely? Yes.
Should we have saved more, planned better, been wiser, shrewder, more informed? Yes.
Were we extravagant? Perhaps, in some ways
Do all people make mistakes about some things in their lives? Yes.
Do many American families make mistakes when it comes to money? According to recent events,
even CEOs of huge banks make mistakes when it comes to money
Are we rich? No.
Were we ever rich? Not by American standards.
Would we do things differently if we had the chance? You betcha.
Where did the money go? Here is a list, in no particular order, of how we spent the lottery money over the past 13 years:
College tuition for our daughter.
A new car 1996 Dodge caravan (which we still own)
Paid off our credit car debt
2 road trips to East Texas (a place I would never visit if I didn't have family there) to visit my
mother
1 airplane trip to Jacksonville, Florida to visit my father after his wife died (1 air fare)
1 airplane trip to San Diego so my husband could visit his brother and show two of our kids
where their parents grew up (3 air fares)
1 road trip to Arizona to attend my brother's wedding
2 road trips to Mall of America: first with my son as a birthday gift for him, bought 2 board games, deluxe Scrabble and wooden framed Chinese checkers set; second trip was a fun excursion for me and my other children, we each bought a stuffed animal at FAO Schwartz and did the rides at Camp Snoopy.
Remodeled our kitchen - my husband did all the work, we bought mid-price cabinets from
Menard's, and cabinet tops from Penrose Lumber
Paved our driveway
Tore down the 100 year old collapsing barn/garage and built a new garage. My husband
bought a kit (from Penrose Lumber) and he and our neighbor Dave, built the garage
Bought trees for our backyard
Bought a guitar ($300) for my daughter
Bought 2 mattress sets
Bought a couch and a chair
Replaced ceiling in the living room
Bought a used truck ($2,000)
Bought a used compact car for my daughter ($1,000)
Bought new refrigerator
Paid hospital and doctor bills when youngest child was born
Gave cash gift to friend in financial distress
Gave cash gift and monthly financial help to my sister during financial distress
Bought gifts for elderly in nursing homes and gifts for needy children at Christmas
Sponsored several children overseas through Plan USA/Childreach
Gave to church special projects and needs and funds, plus regular pledge
Gave to other favorite charities and causes: NPR, wildlife organizations, etc.
Living expenses for family with growing children: food, clothes, shoes, winter wear, school
supplies, school registration, other assorted school related expenses, gas and electric bills,
water bills, phone bills, Christmases and birthdays, mortgage, insurance, repair and
maintenance on house and automobiles...etc.
In summertime - we bought one of those big backyard pools for all of us to play in
Church camp - for 2 kids and family camp for me and kids 2 or 3 summers in a row
Grinnell Summer Arts camp
Tax accountants - winning the lottery made yearly income tax statements a nightmare
Finally - we bought the second house. Built in 1910 and divided into three apartments, this was an investment, and would have supplied a modest addition to our income had we charged as much rent as we should have. But we felt bad about charging more rent that we could have afforded ourselves! Since we bought this house we have only lost money on it. Three apartments make it a commercial property with a hefty commercial property tax to go with it.
Currently we are paying property taxes on both our houses, gas and electric on both houses (we keep the heat on about 45 degrees at the 7th Ave. house so the water pipes don't burst and so we can work comfortably when we are there), water bills for both houses. So yeah, we own two houses, but we aren't exactly living like John and Cindy McCain. We can't live in the fire damaged house, the other house contains our cash assets, but we can't get those assets until we sell the house, and we can't sell the house until the other house is in livable condition...unless we take out a loan on the house, and at this point more debt is not in our best interest.
Maybe you would have been smarter if you had won the lottery. People like us - who don't agree on how to handle money and who handle it poorly, we don't deserve to win in the eyes of many people. Most people like to imagine how they would spend the money if they won the lottery - none of us imagines that he will simply blow it, or let it be frittered away on the stuff of life, or that he will have arguments with his spouse about how to use it, spend it, save it, invest it or waste it. We think all it will bring is happiness and joy and that it will simplify the difficult parts of our lives and and enrich the happy parts of our lives. We all have noble intentions and grand plans. I wish I'd spent it on a trip to Tahiti. I might not have come back.
We are profoundly grateful for all the help we have received so far. The people on the work crew have been extremely generous with their time, labor and moral support. Even if they never do another thing at our house, their cheerful presence has been a tremendous gift to us - it has lightened our loads and lifted our spirits and restored our hope. Money or no money, we appreciate all the Grinnell United Methodist Church has done for us and will always hold the congregation in high esteem.
Thank you very, very much.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
O Christmas Tree!
We set up our Christmas tree today - it's a tiny decorative tree that my sister left behind when she moved away a couple of months ago. My daughters looped several glistening garlands and ribbons over it until the tree is no longer visible. It is a cone of shiny stuff and it is pretty cute. We were so delighted with it that we stood around it in a circle and clapped our hands.
This is my second Christmas tree of the year. My first tree was the library's entry in our town's Festival of Trees. It was a little "tree" constructed of books. Ginny Cameron, the children's librarian, and I built the tree in about 2 hours. Then we decorated it with paper letters decorated by children who visited the library. I placed a book about stars on the very top.
That tree gave me smiles for days.
(The link above will work for a short while till that web page picture is changed. In the meantime I will try to figure out how to put photos on the website....technology - not my strong suit.)
There have been other memorable Christmas trees in my life. Growing up, our trees were typical middle class trees of the 1950s and 60s. All the neighbors had similar trees with similar decorations. There is comfort in that. But in the late 60s my mother suddenly took control of The Christmas Tree. Maybe she had just been waiting for her clumsy little kids to become responsible big kids, waiting for a chance to have the tree she'd always wanted, Christmas trees like those in the women's magazines. I don't know, we never discussed it. But when I was twelve my mother's inner decorator emerged and from then on, I didn't participate in the decoration of the tree. We had small flocked trees with shiny blue glass ornaments, tall noble firs with shiny blue glass ornaments, 10 foot tall bushy trees with shiny gold glass ornaments, fat trees embellished with gold garlands criss crossed just so. My mother invested a lot of herself in her trees, which is why it is too bad I found them completely boring.
My first tree as an adult was a little scraggly thing my boyfriend and I bought for a few bucks. We made ornaments out of salt dough. We loved our tree.
Many years later when I moved to Iowa I was unprepared for the Iowa Christmas tree culture. In California we set up our (real) trees a week or so before Christmas, took them down by New Year's Day at the latest. In Iowa it is not surprising to see Christmas trees glowing through windows before Thanksgiving Day. A lot of Iowans use artificial trees. A lot of them. Before I moved to Iowa the only person I'd ever met who owned an artificial Christmas tree was my grandmother, who had an all aluminum tree in 1962. An all aluminum tree is the only artificial tree I'm interested in. I don't understand the point of having an artificial tree that looks like a real tree. If you're going to have a fake tree, go all the way fake is my way of looking at it, I mean, have fun with it, go glitzy. (Iowans also use plastic eggs at Easter, which I just can't get used to.) So my first Christmas in Iowa I behaved like a Californian and waited until a week before Christmas to purchase my real tree. But they were all sold. I couldn't believe it. No Christmas trees? A couple of days before Christmas a new supply of trees arrived, so we were spared a treeless Christmas.
The following year I was determined not to repeat my mistake. We bought a tree very early, but we didn't want it to dry out and get all brown and bare limbed naked before Christmas, so we stowed the tree outside, leaning against the garage, out in the cold where it would stay fresh and fragrant. And the day my husband went to retrieve the tree and bring it in for decoration, we discovered just how fragrant that tree was. Did I mention that our neighborhood was home to about three dozen feral cats? Later that day the city manager was startled when he drove by the city street shop where my husband worked, and saw my husband hosing down a Christmas tree with the power washer used to clean garbage trucks. It almost worked. The tree released a sort of piney scent, delicately layered with eau de Tom.
Then there was the year Pat thought he would trim the tree just a little bit. He took the tree into the basement and soon the buzz of his little power saw came zipping up the stairs, followed by silence, followed by "whoops." I peeked downstairs to see the basement floor completely carpeted by pieces of pine branches. My husband gazed up at me and blinked. "The trunk had a fork," he said. We had just a little tree that year - we stuck one of the branches in a coffee can and set it up on a cabinet. I wound the other branches around a wire and made a lopsided wreath.
My Christmas trees are never magazine trees, they are family trees, and they are always loved.
Have a joyful and peaceful Christmas.
This is my second Christmas tree of the year. My first tree was the library's entry in our town's Festival of Trees. It was a little "tree" constructed of books. Ginny Cameron, the children's librarian, and I built the tree in about 2 hours. Then we decorated it with paper letters decorated by children who visited the library. I placed a book about stars on the very top.
That tree gave me smiles for days.
(The link above will work for a short while till that web page picture is changed. In the meantime I will try to figure out how to put photos on the website....technology - not my strong suit.)
There have been other memorable Christmas trees in my life. Growing up, our trees were typical middle class trees of the 1950s and 60s. All the neighbors had similar trees with similar decorations. There is comfort in that. But in the late 60s my mother suddenly took control of The Christmas Tree. Maybe she had just been waiting for her clumsy little kids to become responsible big kids, waiting for a chance to have the tree she'd always wanted, Christmas trees like those in the women's magazines. I don't know, we never discussed it. But when I was twelve my mother's inner decorator emerged and from then on, I didn't participate in the decoration of the tree. We had small flocked trees with shiny blue glass ornaments, tall noble firs with shiny blue glass ornaments, 10 foot tall bushy trees with shiny gold glass ornaments, fat trees embellished with gold garlands criss crossed just so. My mother invested a lot of herself in her trees, which is why it is too bad I found them completely boring.
My first tree as an adult was a little scraggly thing my boyfriend and I bought for a few bucks. We made ornaments out of salt dough. We loved our tree.
Many years later when I moved to Iowa I was unprepared for the Iowa Christmas tree culture. In California we set up our (real) trees a week or so before Christmas, took them down by New Year's Day at the latest. In Iowa it is not surprising to see Christmas trees glowing through windows before Thanksgiving Day. A lot of Iowans use artificial trees. A lot of them. Before I moved to Iowa the only person I'd ever met who owned an artificial Christmas tree was my grandmother, who had an all aluminum tree in 1962. An all aluminum tree is the only artificial tree I'm interested in. I don't understand the point of having an artificial tree that looks like a real tree. If you're going to have a fake tree, go all the way fake is my way of looking at it, I mean, have fun with it, go glitzy. (Iowans also use plastic eggs at Easter, which I just can't get used to.) So my first Christmas in Iowa I behaved like a Californian and waited until a week before Christmas to purchase my real tree. But they were all sold. I couldn't believe it. No Christmas trees? A couple of days before Christmas a new supply of trees arrived, so we were spared a treeless Christmas.
The following year I was determined not to repeat my mistake. We bought a tree very early, but we didn't want it to dry out and get all brown and bare limbed naked before Christmas, so we stowed the tree outside, leaning against the garage, out in the cold where it would stay fresh and fragrant. And the day my husband went to retrieve the tree and bring it in for decoration, we discovered just how fragrant that tree was. Did I mention that our neighborhood was home to about three dozen feral cats? Later that day the city manager was startled when he drove by the city street shop where my husband worked, and saw my husband hosing down a Christmas tree with the power washer used to clean garbage trucks. It almost worked. The tree released a sort of piney scent, delicately layered with eau de Tom.
Then there was the year Pat thought he would trim the tree just a little bit. He took the tree into the basement and soon the buzz of his little power saw came zipping up the stairs, followed by silence, followed by "whoops." I peeked downstairs to see the basement floor completely carpeted by pieces of pine branches. My husband gazed up at me and blinked. "The trunk had a fork," he said. We had just a little tree that year - we stuck one of the branches in a coffee can and set it up on a cabinet. I wound the other branches around a wire and made a lopsided wreath.
My Christmas trees are never magazine trees, they are family trees, and they are always loved.
Have a joyful and peaceful Christmas.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Amazing Grace
www.project1707.blogspot.com
It's taken me years to comprehend the meaning of the concept of grace. It's a word much batted about by Christians - in hymns and sermons and devotionals, but I never fully understood what it means. For years I floundered about in search of the meaning of grace - it was just such a slippery word - I couldn't figure it out. It had no body, nothing tangible to hold onto, no image in my mind.
And there is the word hospitality. The writer and poet Kathleen Norris views hospitality as the central practice of Christian discipleship. This was a scary thought to me, a shy person. To me hospitality was a synonym for "dinner party", "entertaining" - being a hostess with the mostest. Pate de foie gras, soft music, candlelight, knowing about wine, crystal and china. Not me.
And then a few weeks ago my friend Monique approached me with an offer. A group at Grinnell United Methodist Church was looking for work to do and would like to help our family with our fire-damaged house. Okay, I said, thinking, well that will be nice to have help scrubbing smoke off the walls. The crew leader, Brian, contacted me and we set a date and time.
On the appointed day I arrived at my house and talked with another man named Brian. I showed him around, told him the work that needed to be done. He noticed the plaster falling off the walls in some of the rooms and asked if he could remove that. Well, sure, I said, if you really want to. "I'm a man of action," he declared, and I laughed. People began arriving - lots of people, equipped with sponges, rags, buckets, spray bottles. My broken house was filled with people willing to help fix it up. I felt funny - odd, sort of small and vulnerable. I was scheduled to work at the animal shelter, and so I couldn't stay to help them. I left my house in their capable hands and went to the shelter where I felt strong again, helping homeless puppies and dogs.
The next day, Sunday, my doorbell rang. Monique and her husband Craig were at my door with another offer: the work crew wanted to do more, much more - they were excited, on fire, with the desire to fix up our house - tear out the old walls, replace the old insulation, update the electricity and plumbing, whatever needed to be done, and they wanted to start right away! Was that okay with me? Well, you would have thought I would have been jumping up and down with joy - but I wasn't - in fact, I felt like I was deflating - like a toy inflatable doll losing air - I was floppy and helpless. But I was, and am, grateful, and I accepted the offer.
The next evening I met with Todd Reding, who would be in charge of the work crew. He was funny and relaxed, and I began to relax too, though I still felt unworthy. There are so many people who need help, I was uncomfortable being at the center of anyone's attention in this way.
Days later I began to understand my feelings. I needed the help, I certainly did - but I'm not used to being in the position of feeling that need for help - I felt exposed, all my tender parts, my mistakes, my stupidity, my neediness: exposed. It's primal to hide when you are wounded - animals do it - they hide their pain, or they hide their whole bodies when they are wounded, so other animals won't find them and kill them. And I guess I have felt wounded since this house fire - I felt small, someone to be pitied. And I had made mistakes - not keeping track of my insurance, so I felt stupid and unworthy of help. I just wanted to go hide under a bush and lick my wounds. But hiding myself away wasn't going to fix my house, and pretending I didn't need help was hurting me more than it was helping. I'm not an injured rabbit. I'm a human, part of a human community, and I needed help whether I think I deserve it not.
To be offered help when you feel unworthy, that is grace. To be loved in spite of yourself, that is grace.
To be treated with care and respect and dignity, that is hospitality. To be provided with the tools, help, comfort you need to live, that is hospitality.
My husband and I are awed, humbled, and extremely grateful by these people who put Christian love in action and who embody both grace and hospitality. Thank you.
It's taken me years to comprehend the meaning of the concept of grace. It's a word much batted about by Christians - in hymns and sermons and devotionals, but I never fully understood what it means. For years I floundered about in search of the meaning of grace - it was just such a slippery word - I couldn't figure it out. It had no body, nothing tangible to hold onto, no image in my mind.
And there is the word hospitality. The writer and poet Kathleen Norris views hospitality as the central practice of Christian discipleship. This was a scary thought to me, a shy person. To me hospitality was a synonym for "dinner party", "entertaining" - being a hostess with the mostest. Pate de foie gras, soft music, candlelight, knowing about wine, crystal and china. Not me.
And then a few weeks ago my friend Monique approached me with an offer. A group at Grinnell United Methodist Church was looking for work to do and would like to help our family with our fire-damaged house. Okay, I said, thinking, well that will be nice to have help scrubbing smoke off the walls. The crew leader, Brian, contacted me and we set a date and time.
On the appointed day I arrived at my house and talked with another man named Brian. I showed him around, told him the work that needed to be done. He noticed the plaster falling off the walls in some of the rooms and asked if he could remove that. Well, sure, I said, if you really want to. "I'm a man of action," he declared, and I laughed. People began arriving - lots of people, equipped with sponges, rags, buckets, spray bottles. My broken house was filled with people willing to help fix it up. I felt funny - odd, sort of small and vulnerable. I was scheduled to work at the animal shelter, and so I couldn't stay to help them. I left my house in their capable hands and went to the shelter where I felt strong again, helping homeless puppies and dogs.
The next day, Sunday, my doorbell rang. Monique and her husband Craig were at my door with another offer: the work crew wanted to do more, much more - they were excited, on fire, with the desire to fix up our house - tear out the old walls, replace the old insulation, update the electricity and plumbing, whatever needed to be done, and they wanted to start right away! Was that okay with me? Well, you would have thought I would have been jumping up and down with joy - but I wasn't - in fact, I felt like I was deflating - like a toy inflatable doll losing air - I was floppy and helpless. But I was, and am, grateful, and I accepted the offer.
The next evening I met with Todd Reding, who would be in charge of the work crew. He was funny and relaxed, and I began to relax too, though I still felt unworthy. There are so many people who need help, I was uncomfortable being at the center of anyone's attention in this way.
Days later I began to understand my feelings. I needed the help, I certainly did - but I'm not used to being in the position of feeling that need for help - I felt exposed, all my tender parts, my mistakes, my stupidity, my neediness: exposed. It's primal to hide when you are wounded - animals do it - they hide their pain, or they hide their whole bodies when they are wounded, so other animals won't find them and kill them. And I guess I have felt wounded since this house fire - I felt small, someone to be pitied. And I had made mistakes - not keeping track of my insurance, so I felt stupid and unworthy of help. I just wanted to go hide under a bush and lick my wounds. But hiding myself away wasn't going to fix my house, and pretending I didn't need help was hurting me more than it was helping. I'm not an injured rabbit. I'm a human, part of a human community, and I needed help whether I think I deserve it not.
To be offered help when you feel unworthy, that is grace. To be loved in spite of yourself, that is grace.
To be treated with care and respect and dignity, that is hospitality. To be provided with the tools, help, comfort you need to live, that is hospitality.
My husband and I are awed, humbled, and extremely grateful by these people who put Christian love in action and who embody both grace and hospitality. Thank you.
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