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Sabbath Devotional :: Lessons Learned
As this week marked the one-year anniversary of the explosion of the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself reflecting on the experiences of the past year. It has been a strange year, surreal at times. It has been a difficult year. For many of us it has been an intensely painful year. But I have been reminded that intense pain often brings intense growth. I have been learning many lessons. I attempt to share just a few of them below. Accepting Uncertainty One thing that came up often for me over the last year was uncertainty. Uncertainty about the future: for myself, for my family, for my country. Uncertainty about what…
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Are You Aware? How Farmers Survive
This is part II in our “Rural America” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. Do you know how farmers survive? They have relied for decades on USDA loans. Every year many farmers apply for loans to buy or rent farmland, to buy seed or stock or equipment or fertilizers, and even to cover living expenses. Many farmers could not operate without loans. It’s an annual cycle of borrowing at the beginning of the crop year to purchase the needed items, and then paying up at harvest and not having enough cash reserves to start the next growing season — and then beginning the cycle again. Timing…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Magnify
I was called to a primary presidency while in the throes of morning sickness with a rainbow baby following my second miscarriage. I was downright crabby and to make matters worse I was assigned to be the counselor over Cub Scouts. Hats off to the super scouters out there! I grew up in a part member family and my knowledge of and passion for scouting was non-existent. I did feel reassured that the calling was where the Lord wanted me, so I proceeded, but again, with crabbiness. The new primary president had been the counselor over scouting before her call as president but she was no help whatsoever. I couldn’t…
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Are You Aware? A Pandemic in the Country
This is part I in our “Rural America” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. When my family goes on road trips, we often measure our progress relative to population centers — sometimes pulling off the highway, briefly, to stop at a convenience store or a fast food joint along the way. Yet, sometimes, I find myself thinking about what life is like in the space between. My mother was born and raised in the mountains on the border of Washington and Idaho. We laugh at stories of her and her three sisters waking each other to venture out to the outhouse in the middle of the night,…
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Sabbath Devotional :: The Choice Between Outside or Clean
A few weeks ago I started feeling some familiar feelings of regret. It is probably because we are approaching the anniversary of a global pandemic and since this time was so remarkable, I feel that I should have done something remarkable with it. Those feelings are familiar to me. Regret is a powerful, universal emotion that burns its way into our thoughts. We sometimes talk about regret in the context of sin, because regret can propel us positively to repent and change. The emotion can also protect us from making and repeating mistakes, so it certainly isn’t all bad. But the kind of regret that makes me feel ashamed that…
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Are You Aware? Made in Detroit
This is part IV in our Awareness Wednesday series for Black History Month 2021. Read the other posts in the series here. In the 1920s, Detroit was the fourth-largest city in the United States, and there was considerable tension in the city. The city — which in 1910 had a population of 456,000, with fewer than 6,000 Black people — had a population of 990,000 in 1920 with nearly 41,000 Black people. The tension created by this phenomenon gave rise to a relatively large Ku Klux Klan presence by the mid-1910s. This was fueled by southern whites and European immigrants competing with Blacks for housing and jobs. The automotive industry, although in…
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Are You Aware? Black Entrepreneurship and Obtaining an Economic Foothold
This is part III in our Awareness Wednesday series for Black History Month 2021. Read the other posts in the series here. Booker T. Washington said Blacks should obtain an economic foothold before trying to tear down social and political barriers. There have been, throughout our history, Black people who have prospered as free people — who made a living that allowed them to buy their own freedom or those of other Black family members. But for most, there have been enormous barriers of prejudice and scant means to overcome in their pursuit of success. This post is about those who have worked to secure an economic foothold. The result…
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Sabbath Devotional :: The Divine Complexity of Our Current Circumstances
The temperature here in Omaha has been hovering around 0 degrees for over a week now, often dipping into negative territory, with more frigid weather to come. And we keep getting new layers of snow laid on top of what came the day before, with barely enough time to chip away at them. It kind of feels like we will never be able to go outside again. Even when I am inside, I can feel the never-ending chill of the ice that seems like it is trying to break its way into my home. I have cold toes, cold fingers, and, if I am being honest, a cold heart at…
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Are You Aware? The Destruction of a Dream and the Race Massacre of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street
This is part II in our Awareness Wednesday series for Black History Month 2021. Read the other posts in the series here. After the Civil War, Blacks availed themselves of the opportunity to buy land. During the 1889 Land Rush, the “Unassigned Lands” (ceded Native territory) were the only lands approved to be sold to Blacks. In 1868, John and Rosanna Gurley lived in Huntsville, Alabama. That year they welcomed their firstborn son — Ottowa. Eight years later, John and Rosanna relocated their family, including Ottowa and his three younger siblings, to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. During this post-Civil War era, Black families were quick to take advantage of their newly…
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Sabbath Devotional :: The Power of Personal Narrative in Creating Identity and Vision
As a junior in high school, I usually enjoyed my popular Thomas Hardy/Charles Dickens English class with Mr. Thompson. He had a quick wit and engaging teaching style that usually led to interesting discussions among my classmates about all kinds of social topics. On one particular morning, as I sat ready to participate in our literature discussion, Mr. Thompson began with the following statement: “As we all know, religious people are just looking for a crutch to explain their suffering.” As a devoted religious teenage girl living in a largely secular community in Northern California, I sat there shocked, but silent. I was not prepared to say anything to contradict…
