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One Sky, One Voice

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#1 · August 30, 2012, 1:44 pm

Posted by: virginiaknowles <virginiaknowles@...>

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The Hope Chest with Virginia Knowles

#15-6: One Sky, One Voice

September 2012

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Dear friends,


Welcome to the September (two days early!) issue of the Hope Chest.  This month, I have three articles, and by coincidence, all of them are related to the Aldi grocery store: the first two because the events in my stories happened there, and the third because most of the ingredients for the fruit pizza came from there. 🙂  Yes, this is another one of my "speak up" issues, and there will be more later.

After the articles, I also include a little family news and links for blog posts on what we are doing for school this year at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels.  I think you'll enjoy them, so read on.

Grace,
Virginia Knowles

One Sky

August 17, 2012


One sky


Bluest blue peaking through

Gray storm clouds hovering over


Blazing gold sunset 

One sky


One life


Bluest blue peaking through

Gray storm clouds hovering over 

 
Blazing gold sunset

One life

In my one life, we always need groceries.  In my one life, we are on a tight budget, so I buy most of said groceries at Aldi, where you put a quarter into a slot to release your cart and where you bag or box your own purchases.  The lightning flashed while I waited at the checkout, and in my anxiousness to get home, I forgot to put my food into the empty boxes I had collected from the warehouse style shelves as I shopped.  I realized it when I got to the car, and debated going back to fill them, but like I said, I was trying to beat the lightening that might soon be directly over me.  So I threw the loose groceries in the back seat, and then went to return the cart to the store.  That's when I grabbed the boxes and hurried back to my car. 

And that's when I looked up at the sky.

I don't think I'd ever seen it like that before: a band of dramatic dark gray storm clouds with a sunset down below at one edge, and bright patches of clear blue sky above.

One sky.  So many different "conditions" in my one sweeping view.  I wish I'd been able to back up further to catch more of it -- a bigger perspective -- or to turn around and try to snap the elusive lightning bolts.  But alas, my iPod battery died, and that's all I had.

So like my life.  Such a metaphor.  One sky.  One life.  So much variety.  So much change.  Joy and grief all at once.  And I'm trying to catch the grander significance of each moment, to try to fit it in to the jigsaw picture of what I know or thought I knew.  Fleeting moments.

But I also think of "one sky" in the sense that it is the same one here as it is over my family and friends in the metropolis of Beijing or a village in Malawi or farm in Missouri or in suburban Maryland or just down the road here in the Orlando area.  Our lives may be so completely different, but somewhere there is common ground, or in this metaphor, common sky.  People on this earth.  People whom One God created.  "And it is good."

Enjoy your moments with the people who love you and/or whom you love.  Even if you can't see them or talk to them as often as you'd like, they dwell in your thoughts and prayers.  And at night, they look up at the same sky.

Much love,
Virginia Knowles
http://www.VirginiaKnowles.blogspot.com

P.S. You like?  More cloud pictures here: 

(I hope you sense how much I care about all of you!)

Dear friends,


I am both a people watcher and a bargain hunter, so a trip to the neighborhood Aldi grocery store is quite an experience for me. It's a small store and it's almost like whoever walks in about the same time as you is your comrade for the next half hour that it takes to traverse the four aisles filling your cart.  I've had fascinating conversations at Aldi with strangers or with old friends I haven't seen in a while.  Sometimes the clerks have to remind us to move along because the store's about to close. 


But today.


They walked in just after me, a man who looked to be in his forties and an older woman.  Certainly the years had not been kind to her; whatever outer beauty she'd ever had was faded.  And whatever inner beauty she possessed was under constant assault by his glares, his gestures, his bellowing voice that resonated throughout the entire store, his incessant cutting words.  He treated her like she was a disobedient child and he the harried parent, even though no child should ever be subjected to that kind of belittling and humiliation. He acted like an unruly and whiny child himself, throwing his public tantrum.  Aisle 1, aisle 2, aisle 3, aisle 4, checkout, and even the bagging area, where he sat cross-legged with his entire body on the counter, barking into his phone that she'd better get out of that bathroom right quick.  She came.  The barrage continued.  I loaded my cart just 15 feet away, and when he glanced in my direction, I looked him right in the eyes.  My heart stood still, but my tongue did not.  I could not be silent any longer.  I took a deep breath, spoke firmly, directly: "No one deserves to be treated that way.  Ever.  You are being obnoxious."  My words were an  understatement, but he looked startled at my audacity.  Then he smirked and stuck his tongue out at me, hefted his grocery bag strap onto his shoulder and stomped out.  She followed.


Dear God in heaven.  What choice did she have?  


I stood and shook.  My daughter handed me a brownie to calm my nerves.  A clerk asked if I was OK.  A fellow customer came over and thanked me for what I said.  She confided: "She is his mother, you know."  Did this customer know them personally or did she just overhear that?  I wonder.  I wonder if the dear lady lives with her son and puts up with this humiliation every day.  And I wonder what he does to her when no one is looking, whether those age spots on her skin were really bruises instead.  I hope he doesn't vent against her any anger about what I said to him.  I hope he listened somewhere in his heart, though I'm not banking on it.  I hope he can find a healthy way to channel his frustration when he is overwhelmed about caring for his mother.  I hope sheheard, that she sensed in my words a glimmer of hope that she is worth something.  To somebody.  To God.  That she is not bad, but his behavior is.  She deserves better.


I'd like to open an on-going conversation starting with this incident.  It's not just about verbal abuse (and yes, it is REAL ABUSE) of the elderly, but about advocating for the safety and dignity of all the precious vulnerable people right here in our communities and beyond.


I want to talk about some dark issues.  Human trafficking.  Crisis pregnancies.  Domestic violence.  Teen bullying, rage, and suicide.  Mistreatment of migrant workers.  Mental illness.  Children who are missing one or both parents due to desertion, death or jail.  The homeless.  Anyone who is being exploited.  


I want to talk about what we can do.


But all that is for another day, for many other days.  My heart needs to mull on that some more.  I need to gather my wits, gather my resources, say my prayers.


Here is the first step until then:  BE AWARE.  Be mindful.  Educate yourself outside your comfort zone so when the time comes, you will know what to do to help the situation and not make it worse.


And here is a second step for some of you.  If you can share with me (really all of us) what you already know, whether it is an experience, a resource, an organization, please do.  This is a conversation, not a lecture.


Since we started this conversation with a story about elder abuse, here are two links with information on what it is and what can be done:

And, an article by my friend Karen Campbell at http://www.thatmom.com that gave me impetus to speak up in the grocery store: The Real Man.


Thanks for joining me.  Please leave a comment.  There are already some great comments on what more to do in this kind of situation, so please check them out too at Advocating for the Vulnerable, Part 1: A Story About Elder Abuse.


Virginia Knowles

http://www.WatchTheShepherd.blogspot.com


P.S. I have already written about some of these issues on my other blogs:


Fruit Pizza

My 11 year old daughter made this "fruit pizza" and M & M Milk Dud brownies for her Daddy's birthday about two weeks ago.  Here is how to make the fruit pizza:

  1. Make a batch of sugar cookie dough, enough to cover a pizza pan thickly.  You do not want a thin, brittle base for your fruit pizza!  Score the edges with a fork. Bake (according to package instructions) until lightly golden but still moist.  Do not overbake!  Cool the crust, but do not remove it from the pan.
  2. Blend 8 oz of cream cheese with a cup of powdered sugar until very smooth.  Add red food coloring if you wish.  Spread on baked cookie crust.
  3. Slice your fresh fruit (strawberries and cherries here) and arrange on top of the cream cheese mixture.
  4. Slice like a pizza and serve!

Virginia Knowles

http://www.VirginiaKnowles.blogspot.com


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In other news, this past month I ended up with a fractured metacarpal bone in my dominant hand.  While I was visiting a hand specialist for that, he told me that I also have arthritis, which I pretty much already knew because of the continual pain in both of my hands.  I've been learning of ways to let my one hand heal and reduce the inflammation in both of them.  I wrote about it here: Many Ways of Coping with a Fractured Hand and Arthritis. The injury actually occurred the day before my sweet cousin Jean came for a visit, which I wrote about here: Weekend Gratitude: In Every Situation

We started our new school year two weeks ago.   Four of our children (10th, 8th, 6th and 2nd grades) are in our home school co-op, where I now teach 5th-6th grade English.  My husband helps a lot with the upper level math and science as we home school. Our 4th grader has returned to public school.  Our 12th grader just started her dual enrollment at one community college, our 19 year old is in her final semester of her AA at another community college before transferring to the university, and 21 year old daughter is in her final year of nursing school at the university. (Our two oldest daughters, both married and one with kids, are beyond their college years.)  You can read more here:
  
Another somewhat controversial blog post this month is My Thoughts on the Sexualization of the Church (and Other Problems).  I was trying to address the problems of TMI (Too Much Information) in the pulpit, as well as how the church deals with modesty issues, with those who have been wounded by sexual issues or domestic violence, the dangers caused by pedophiles in the pew, and pastors who have been caught in scandal. (Big one at an IFB megachurch in Indiana recently.  Oh. My. Goodness.)

A recent inspirational favorite: Words of Promise, Comfort and Encouragement.

Food posts include: Just a Simple Meal: Soup, Salad, Strawberries, Weekend Gratitude: Sundae Sunday, and Red (cherry strawberry drink). 

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As I put this issue together and came up with the title "One Sky, One Voice", I thought of a book I read last year. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Sheryl WuDunn and her husband Nicholas Kristof  is a heart wrenching read about women around the world who suffer gender based injustice such as trafficking, children being forced to marry and bear children before they are physically mature, fistulas, female mutilation, bride burnings, honor killings, sexual exploitation, denial of basic health care, lack of education, and poverty.  More than that, it is a call for change, and a plea for help from the first world countries. If you live in the Orlando area, both of them will be speaking at Rollins College this fall. (See here for Sheryl.)  I had the privilege of hearing Sheryl speak at the Synergy conference, which you can read about here: Weekend Gratitude for Synergy and Little Bits Working Together.

You have one voice.  


I have one voice.  

The people who hear us can add their "one voices" too.

Together we can make a difference.
Virginia Knowles

P.S. I would like to thank my friends Karen Campbell, Meg Mosely, Georgia Ana Larson, and Margaret Kane (who is also my second cousin) for their assistance with this issue.  When I look up at the sky tonight, I'll think of you.

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