Highway to Heaven

I've learned a great deal from the diverse and rich community in which we live - the multitude of faith traditions has been a lovely example of the opportunity to worship freely. There's so much anger and ugly being thrown around these days about different faith traditions and I was reminded of the day our kids and I spent visiting with and learning from people of other traditions as part of our continuing education during a teacher strike. I offer our experience here as information - simply because, at the most basic, we share a whole lot more in common than we differ. And while any rogue member can claim their expression of devotion to a religious system as motivation for evil acts, I really do believe in the prevailing goodness of people.

Excerpt from original post on September 23, 2014:
Number 5 Road in Richmond, BC, is also known as the "Highway to Heaven" because it is home to so many different faith communities.  We visited 5 of the 30+ options, and the day was full and rich.  Interestingly [and unintentionally], we were on this field trip on September 11, and being among people of various religious beliefs was, for me, a redemptive way to spend that date that is so charged with emotions and memories of destruction.  We were invited into each place of worship warmly, there was a mutual respect among people with widely different beliefs, the hospitality of a shared table was a common thread.  We had Communion in the most tangible way as we made our way down No. 5 Road and hope was alive.

We started at the Buddhist Temple (www.buddhisttemple.ca) where the scent of incense permeated the air and we learned that the goal is to cut the ties to sufferings and ego that bind us. Our delightful guide shared that Buddhists believe in relative truth - he gave the example of looking at a flower as a person, fish and bee - each being sees the same flower but their perspectives are different.  We see through human eyes, fish see through curved eyes and bees through compound eyes.  Each of us experience the same flower but in a different way, so we are all partly right. Interestingly, we also learned that anyone may become a Buddha - it may take several incarnations, and to reach full enlightenment you must cut even your tie to Buddhism at the last possible second before your death.  The temple was ornate - bright golden statues with red accents, parishioners bringing offerings of food and flowers - and fascinating.  Our tour guide was delightful. 

From there we moved to a Mennonite Brethren Church (www.richmondbethel.ca) and its familiarity was refreshing.  As a Christian denomination we found a sense of home - Lydia said this was her favorite place we visited because it was most like what she knew at Fort Hill (www.forthillchurch.org).  We saw the nursery, the worship space, the playground.  They were hosting a 'strike camp' for families who needed care for their children during the strike.  We talked about our loving God and grace and community.  It was lovely. 

We moved onto a Hindu Temple (www.ramkrishnamandir.com) where we removed our shoes at the door and entered in silence.  Our host was a lovely woman who invited us to sit on the floor of the worship space and talked to the children about yoga, meditating by concentrating on breathing and engaging our whole body in worship.  She encouraged them to roll on the floor (which they were more than ready to do by this time of day) and talked with them about reincarnation and the privilege of returning to earth as a bird or elephant.  She offered us food and many happily partook. 

Our next stop was a mosque (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Richmond-Jamia-Mosque/162309383806206).  Again, we removed our shoes and women covered their heads as a sign of respect for their worship space.  We entered into a large room carpeted with a linear design that helped guide people where to sit for prayers.  The niche in the room indicated the direction you would face for prayers and there were no pictures on the walls or decorations around the room.  You see, these decorative pieces could serve as distractions from Allah and could, potentially, become idols, so they are not used.  Our host taught us a great deal about Islam, emphasizing that Muhammad is not the founder of Islam - instead, he is the last and greatest prophet.  They offered us refreshments before we left.  The homemade samosas were some of the best I've ever tasted and the hospitality was lovely.

The final stop of the day was a Sikh Temple (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nanaksar-Gurdwara/167366943286558).  We all covered our heads here and removed our shoes again.  We learned that the key belief in the Sikh tradition is that we are all one and there is one God.  It was interesting to learn that there is someone in their worship space reading their holy book twenty-four hours a day.  There's even a curtained bed above where they sit so readers may take rest as needed.  Our host was a delightful man who made sure we knew we were invited to partake from their cafeteria which is also open 24 hours per day and the food is always free.

In these tender days I hope we can all embrace that we're in this life together and being in the thick of it is far better in community than flying solo. Breaking bread with friends from all sorts of backgrounds is holy ground, so is actively seeking to know people who different from us. In the process of learning about different traditions, my own Christian faith was enriched and broadened and my call to live a life inclusive of all of God's children was affirmed.

Dear Mr. Trump

Words have been pinging in my head in a veritable game of bumper cars since the US Presidential election. I've had to sit with my words and let them bang around - trying and separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, pondering if they were actually helpful. The truth that has coalesced is my resolve to help bring about healing. These days after Nov 8 have been days for me to listen - to listen with the intent really hearing the myriad of voices who feel scared, silenced, targeted and nervous. These days have been days to look at myself in the mirror too - name some assumptions I've made, name how my narrative has shaped me, name how it feels to understand in part what it feels like to be 'other'. I've mentioned in various conversations and on my facebook page repeatedly that these are tender times - for our home country, our family, our world. To make things more tenuous, we Americans find ourselves without a template by which this new paradigm will play out. While that's liberating to some, it's stifling to others - and our country couldn't be more divided right now. Instead of debating which side of the coin I believe to be 'better', my hope is to seek and choose small ways to begin to engage in conversation - even if it makes us uncomfortable - and start the hard, intentional work of healing. As part of my efforts, I promise to be vulnerable enough to ask questions when I don't understand, to admit when I wake up to new perspectives, to apologize when I screw it up. Because I will screw it up - it's a hazard when you're a verbal processor. I decided to write a letter to our President in an effort to exorcise the verbal pinball game going on in my brain and I'm choosing to risk sharing it publicly in the hope all who read it understand it's written by a human who's trying to do her very best to be faithful to herself and her values all the while recognizing and respecting that, at best, only around 50% of the people might hear some of their stories in my own. I hope you'll share your story too because I'm convinced that the first step to narrowing divides is understanding each other's stories.

Dear President Trump:

To be honest, there are traits I like about you - I like that you've not been groomed from birth to be in politics, I like that you've run businesses and have that experience, I like that your family stands by your side. But, Mr. Trump, we've gotta have a talk. I've pulled up a comfy chair and poured a glass of sweet tea for you - let's chat.

It's been an interesting season to watch reactions to your election. Our family is currently planted in Vancouver, British Columbia, and we're among a small group of folks moving away from Canada and into the United States in the coming months. It's a move that will bring us closer to extended family but it's one that has some in our squad wondering if we've lost our marbles. We've lived as immigrants to this land for 3+ years - brought here by gainful employment, absent the pressures of fleeing political strife or fear for our lives. We've experienced great beauty during our tenure here and I offer some of our family's greatest takeaways for your consideration.

Hospitality
Being from the South, we're known for hospitality and I firmly believe Southern Hospitality to be an actual thing. Our neighbors to the north have welcomed us with a similar warmth we've grown to expect as part of our lifelong marinade. Our children slipped into school as seamlessly as is possible. We parents made friends by virtue of their involvement in school - friends who most assuredly will be part of our lives forever. We've been embraced as part of the community despite being foreign to it and we've developed a 'chosen family' system to help ease the strain of being physically far away from our families of origin. Our children have learned to extend this same warmth and welcome to new students from new lands who may not even share a language and it's beautiful. We'll bring that back with us to the US - and I hope our nation will be known for its hospitality and graceful welcomes akin to what we've experienced.

New Understanding of the Power/Influence of Mainstream Media
Our family endeavoured to conduct our own experiment during this labouriously long election season. We watched all of the debates - primary and general election - and we recorded their coverage on two separate networks. Our goal as parents was to teach our children how media covers stories differently because they seek different segments of viewership/sponsorship/MONEY and want to resonate with those groups. We wanted our children to understand now, at the ages of 12 and 9, that media outlets bank on viewers behaving like lemmings - blindly following their carefully constructed trail of breadcrumbs - not asking questions until they've fallen off a cliff. We want our children to think critically, to ask the "whys" and "hows" and "who benefits" questions. We want them to understand the importance and power of fact checking and the responsibility they have for making informed decisions. We taught them to listen for phrases like, "This information has not been able to be independently confirmed by ____ but sources close to ____ report..." That's not news - it's opinion and ratings bait and it's rampant. Our experiment has become the norm in our house - an effort to hear different perspectives and wrestle with issues so the opinions we grow are our own. After all, how can you fully own basic values without wrestling with perspectives outside your own?

Social Media Pros & Cons
I've got to hand it to you in the use of social media throughout the campaign - while I sat aghast with my mouth wide open reading many of your tweets, you won the battle for press. And the immediacy and broad audiences that are now reachable by sound bytes has entirely shifted the conversation regarding guerilla campaign tactics. It's a new world and I've been reminded that sometimes the best response is one of quiet, taking pause and gathering facts. I wonder if we may see less immediate reactions of violence, of upset, of hurt if we simply waited on facts instead of taking to social media platforms with conjecture and assumptions.

Value of Crafting a World View based on Relationships
The most exciting outgrowth of our living in Vancouver has been the fact that our children have cultivated their world view based on relationships with children from numerous countries. When they hear stories out of Iran or China or Japan or Saudi Arabia, their first instinct is to draw upon the friendship(s) they've built with people from those places. I'm grateful they've had the privilege of personalized experiences with so many nations - nations with whom they will always be connected by virtue of our time here and because of the interactions between the US and the globe. The fact that my children know their story to be knitted together with people from different backgrounds makes our family's life richer and I'm grateful.

Experience in Living as a 'Guest'
It's no small thing to be welcomed into another land and establish a home. Part of how we chose to approach our time in Canada was to take our role as 'guest' seriously and to behave accordingly. For us, some of what that meant included learning the Canadian national anthem, learning the names and locations of Canadian provinces and making a concerted effort to leave a positive mark on this place that has graciously accepted us. We've intentionally endeavoured to do all these things and I really do believe that we've contributed in positive ways to our community here and I know the impact of our host country has left countless, indelible marks on all four of us. It is humbling to accept the welcome of people who do not share our background and it is an honour to acknowledge and appreciate the manner in which people who were strangers three years ago are now part of the very fabric of our family.

How it feels to be the 'other'
This election season has highlighted our 'other-ness' in ways - people know we're American and we're proud of our American heritage. I've got to admit, however, that the 2016 US Presidential election process led to some challenging and uncomfortable experiences. It called to the forefront of my thinking how seriously people from all over the world take the goings on in the US. I'd grown up assuming that the US, while a leader, had a kind of insular political process to which only those of us who lived in the US really paid attention. I learned this year I'd been horribly mistaken - people are watching. People are watching closely. And while they watch they bring a lot of feelings to the table - some are anxious, some are angry, some are depressed, some are excited, some are simply unsure. I suppose it's a reflection of all the feelings Americans bring to the table as well. My hope, however, is that all these folks with all their feelings are welcome to the table - that we're able to all sit down and have conversation and find places, however small, where we can begin to build relationship and common ground. My hope is those who feel anxious because they worship differently (than me), love differently (than me), look differently (than me) - my hope is we all feel known - important, critical parts of the American story. For I believe that's what sets the story of the US apart from other nations - the fact that when we arrive in America we celebrate and claim a common identity as Americans - all the while maintaining the identity from which we came. You said it yourself today, "When you open your heart to patriotism there is no room for prejudice".

President Trump - the world is watching. I pray for your success as our leader - our country's success depends on it. May the counsel you take be enlightened, may the relationships you pursue be inclusive, may the impact of your leadership be positive and may the legacy you leave be one of hope and unity. And may those of us who tread lightly in these days endeavour to be part of something bigger than ourselves that will make our children proud.

Peace and all that is good -
Meri Kate Marcum

The Ending Begins

Guilty Pleasure/Confession: Philip and I like the movie "Friends with Benefits" - while not a family flick (at all), we like Mila Kunes and Justin Timberlake. The film prominently features the Third Eye Blind Song, "Closing Time", and its lyrics have been on repeat in my head of late - particularly the line "...every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end..." The song first made itself my ear worm when we were in Whistler before Christmas. It's become an annual tradition to spend some days at the ski mecca and I found myself in a 100% foul mood on our third day there this year because I was really struggling with the fact we would not have the trip next December. I had to have a real "suck it up, buttercup" moment with myself as I realized I was being snippy with everyone in my family as my emotions were playing pinball in my head.

Here we are. At the ending of a beginning that started 3.5 years ago when we drove away from Clemson, SC toward Vancouver, British Columbia. In 8.5 weeks (insert hyperventilation sounds) we will drive away from this place toward Marietta, Georgia, closing this chapter and beginning a new one. It's a funny feeling, actually, as our life story coincidentally aligns with lots of talk about a new calendar year. As many on social media wished the last moments of 2016 away with its epic loss of many icons of our time, I held onto those fleeting days - white knuckling in preparation for 2017. While 2016 hosted many an unanswered question regarding our family's future, the present was known - comfortable even. And 2017's arrival meant clarity of future but a soon-to-be unknown present. To be honest, these first 12 days of 2017 have been an almost constant tension between metaphorical light and dark (an unmistakably orange light, I must say, emanating from our beloved Clemson, SC - home of the college football national championship Clemson Tigers).

To date, 2017 has brought us:
-A new home
-Time with family and friends
-Family wide stomach virus
-A to-do list for the ages
-Computer hack leading to three days of scrubbing/software reinstallation
-Obstacles in the moving process
-Lots of homework to be made up

If you know me, you've heard of Montreat. It's a touch point of mine - a place where I often reclaim who I am by being reminded by wise people of who we are in the world and what we are called to do. It's a place that's uniquely mine in our family of four - and it's got an identity to me founded on milestones and grace I've experienced there. Both times it dawned on me that we may be expecting a child I was in Montreat, countless of my own birthdays I spent in Montreat, friendships I've had nearly a lifetime were founded in Montreat, premarital counseling began in Montreat. It's a place that helps me coalesce my story to its most fundamental truths and it's a place to which I travelled on the first day of 2017 to help staff a conference for 1000+ college aged people where we dug deep and wrestled with what it looks like to embrace God's plan for radical diversity in the world. It was a time of challenge and grace and our second keynote speaker, Valarie Kaur (www.valariekaur.com), reframed for me these dark times of endings when she said something akin to, "What if we are not in the darkness of the tomb, but instead the darkness of the womb?" Lightbulbs erupted in my head - we are on the precipice of new life, rebirth! She reminded me that the hardest, most painful part of labor when delivering a child - the place where you feel engulfed by a "ring of fire" as she called it - is transition. Coincidence? I think not.

Valarie went on to say that in those moments that we feel surrounded by that ring of fire, if we listen closely, we'll hear those who've poured love into us throughout our story and even before our story began whispering into our ear - "You. Are. Brave." So becomes the word to which I will cling in the impending unsure present - brave. It's a word I claim for our children, for Philip and myself. And it's the word I'll repeat to myself as we push through, with all our might, our own transition. And I'll listen carefully for the whispers - voices like Alicia who reminded me to allow my tears to be baptismal waters of new life and abundant grace; voices like Kirsten who gifted me with a bracelet that reads "enjoy the journey"; voices like Sam and Zach who sang about how our story is still being written; voices like Paul who reminded me that much of our work is done by staying present in the conversation; voices like Valarie who reminded me that I am brave.

This ending has indeed begun - but it is already giving birth to new life - and I'm grateful to push through and enjoy the journey with the three I love most alongside me. Vancouver, you will be sorely missed, but you have taught us that we are brave and you have prepared us for the next chapter we have already begun to write in Georgia. Thank you.