Fighting Superwoman

This is my WHY

2014-05-12T20:30:00.000-04:00

This feisty little girl is my reason "WHY." Why, despite my degree in history, my master's in european history, and the "Fulbright Scholar" award on my resume, I'm choosing to leave my teaching career and build a business with Arbonne.

My 19 month old is hilarious, spunky, stubborn, and cuddly only when exhausted.

She loves Monkey's Friends, Noisy Orchestra, pushing her babies around in her stroller, and playing Noah's Ark Little People.

And every morning as I rush her out the door by 7:15, explain "Mommy can't read that right now,"and hurry her to the car rather than let her play outside, I grow weary.

As I watch the clock on my desk at school reach 4pm, 4:15pm, 4:30 pm and later, and I promise myself that "one day of working late won't matter to Collins," and that one day turns into most days, I grow heavy-hearted.

As I sneak out of the house several nights a week, and most Sunday nights, to grade papers, hearing Collins cry after me, I grow regretful and resentful.

I AM MISSING IT. My daughter is growing up in the blink of an eye, and I only spend two to three hours a day with her.

So THAT is my why.

I am choosing Arbonne, a company devoted to helping people find freedom in their life, flexibility in their careers, and joyful fulfillment in selling products that grow a business and hold the potential to transform lives.

Is the business difficult? Yes. Some people reject you, even people who are close to you and you swore would support your new business. Others judge you for "selling lipstick." But many people thank you for introducing them to unrivaled products that help restore health, promise safe ingredients in a scary, chemically-laden world, inspire beauty and confidence, and offer hope for a career with financial benefits and flexibility to prioritize family.

I was in Las Vegas this weekend at the Arbonne training conference, and I heard the company's leading women explain the story behind their "why" for joining Arbonne: of a woman growing up homeless and finally finding stability with Arbonne; of a mom who was constantly traveling for work, so her children played "work" by rolling the suitcase through the house; of women who were able to alleviate their husbands' financial pressure to provide in a world that is increasingly expensive when salaries are remaining stagnant. All of these women found Arbonne because someone was bold enough to tell them about the business.

Are we as consultants perfect when we want to share the business opportunity? Far from it. But when we see what Arbonne's potential is for our families, HECK YES we want to share that opportunity with a world of overworked, underpaid, financially stressed people.

If you had asked me two years ago if I would be an Arbonne consultant, I would have laughed at you. I probably would have told you it was a pyramid scheme. And honestly, the several months before I went to training in Vegas, I was searching for evidence that the company was a scam. I'm a skeptic by nature, and I just couldn't believe the company was solid. But after hearing the CEO, the product developers, the Chief of Sales, most of whom are female, I was impressed. Like "call my husband, my mom, and everyone I know immediately to explain how I'm sold on Arbonne" impressed.

So, as yesterday was Mother's Day, this little girl who made me a mother is my "why."

Happy Mother's Day, everyone. If you have a pretty great "why" like I do, I'd love to chat.

erika.mosteller@gmail.com

On Homosexuality

2012-05-24T06:59:00.000-04:00

That's right. I'm going there. Why? Because I'm tired of Christians looking like hateful bigots. I've had some of my non-Christian friends ask me lately why Christians "disagree" with homosexuality. Considering the gluttony of media attention Christians have received for the North Carolina amendment and stances against anti-bullying legislation, I can understand how non-Christians just can't seem to reconcile the idea of "loving your neighbor" with the seemingly hateful rhetoric of Christians against homosexuals. For more on how Christians might be doing more harm than good in this culture war, read this great article by Rachel Held Evans.

The big questions, from what I've gathered, are 1) Is homosexuality a sin and 2) Are homosexuals going to hell. I'm not going to broach gay marriage in this post, but I'm formulating thoughts for a later post on that topic. While I am certainly no theologian, I've been percolating and researching Christian views on homosexuality for a couple of years because I've never been comfortable with the anti-gay tone of the American church. So, here are my thoughts.

1) Is homosexuality a sin?

Many Christians believe homosexuality is a sin because the Bible clearly ordains sex to take place between a man and a woman within the confines of marriage. So, this means that any sexual relationships outside of marriage are sinful, including pre-marital sex and adultery. It's much easier for the American church to attack the homosexual minority rather than discussing the fact that many members of their congregation co-habitate before marriage, are addicted to pornography even though they are married, or have engaged in adultery.

The issue for many Christians, from my understanding, is about the translation of the passages in Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Leviticus (see more details on these passages here). Some liberal Christians argue that the New Testament passages criticized using male sex slaves rather than demeaning homosexuality in general. Other arguments claim that the term "homosexual" didn't even exist until the 19th century, so our arguments about homosexuality in the Bible are anachronistic since the term didn't exist in Biblical times. For me, whether or not these arguments are true, the main point is this: the Bible clearly states, in many places and with no ambiguity, that God designed sex to occur within marriage between a man and a woman. So, anything outside of this design is considered un-Biblical, including homosexuality.

Does this mean that someone dealing with homosexuality can just "turn it off" or "convert to heterosexuality?" I honestly and firmly believe the answer is no. I think many Christians wrestle with this very topic and unfortunately the church is not a safe space for discussing the torment of believing in Christ and the Bible while struggling with homosexuality. To read about a committed Christian's experience growing up homosexual, click here. I don't agree with many of his ideas on homosexuality in the Bible, but I think it's important for Christians to glimpse his struggle.

2) Are homosexuals going to hell?

Unfortunately, the American church's track record with homosexuality is embarrassing and hurtful. For some reason, ignorant Christians have decided that their task in life is to shout from the roof-tops that gays are going to hell.

ATTENTION AMERICAN CHRISTIANS: GAY PEOPLE KNOW WE DON'T APPROVE OF THEIR LIFESTYLE. So let's find a way to stand for truth while still loving our neighbor.

That said, I don't believe gay people are going to hell for being gay anymore than I believe heterosexual people are going to hell for having sex outside of marriage. Orthodox Christians believe that all men are sinful, meaning all men commit actions that separate them from God. This separation and sinfulness is what makes Christ's death on the cross necessary, to atone for the sinfulness of man and allow God's justice to prevail without punishing sinful man. So, the fact that we are sinful in many ways is what separates us from God and sends us to hell. Only when man admits he needs a savior in Christ does this separation end, whether you are gay or straight.

Here's the rub for me. Many Christians believe this theology, but they don't want to admit that their own actions are sinful. Instead, they focus on easy "target sins" like sloth, gluttony, or of course, the all-time favorite, homosexuality. These same Christians will, however, step out of their $600,000 homes to drive their brand new luxury car to their million dollar vacation homes and not think twice about their sins of materialism. The Bible has ove 2000 verses (!) telling Christians to be generous with their time, talents, and money. Jesus is very clear about the mandate to care for the "least of these" (Matthew 25); the prophet Isaiah warns of the false religiosity of people who refuse to care for the poor and vulnerable (Isaiah 58); James calls "pure religion" caring for "the orphans and widows in their distress." It's much simpler and less messy for the church to lambast homosexuality, however, instead of speaking to the actuals sins of church congregations.

So, those are my thoughts. I'll leave you with this video clip of Tim Keller at the Veritas Forum at Columbia University, which is where I got many of my ideas for this post.

I'm back

2012-03-05T11:50:00.001-05:00

So, I've taken a blogging hiatus since December, mostly because December was a crazy busy month, but also because I'm pregnant! And being pregnant means that I've been sick for the last 8-9 weeks and haven't felt like getting up off of the sofa, much less blogging or exercising any higher level thinking skills. Now that I'm pregnant, and especially in light of the recent debates over the Planned Parenthood-Susan G. Komen scandal, the Virginia bill over trans-vaginal ultrasounds before allowing abortion, and the whole contraceptives from Catholic institutions mess, the issue of women's rights and pregnancy seem to have been blasting from all media sources.

I've always been opposed to abortion because I feel that a child is a child from the moment of conception. With my own child growing inside of me, I have been reading more and more about fetal development in the first trimester of pregnancy: the baby can feel pain, has fingernails, has all major body organs, kicks and swims gracefully in the amniotic sac, has reflexes, and by week 12 can even suck it's thumb. To me, all of these milestones are markers of humanity. And as I've read about my baby's progress and seen my baby's ultrasound, I keep being reminded that thousands of babies are killed despite showing these markers of humanity. No, my child could not survive outside of the womb. But when people raise this issue, I'm reminded that no infant can survive outside the womb without someone caring for it.

I'm not opposed to contraceptives or sexual education. I experienced both and was especially grateful for contraceptives so that Tucker and I could somewhat plan when we started our family. But I get so frustrated with the liberal-conservative vitriol over the issue of abortion. Liberals claim that pro-lifers are misogynistic for wanting to limit a woman's rights to her body. Conservatives claim that pro-choicers are favoring convenience over a child's life. Both sides are guilty of hypocrisy. Liberals rail on conservatives for being pro-life while limiting access to basic human rights like healthcare. My question for liberals is how a child's right to life is not considered a basic human right? Further, how can some claim a woman's right to her body trumps a child's right to live? Many pro-choicers claim that a woman's rights have precedence because the fetus is not truly human yet. But as Ayelet Waldman's interview admits, as quoted below, with modern-day technology, it's hard to argue a fetus is just a "clump of cells."

I'm not saying that many women don't agonize over the issue of abortion. Ayelet Waldman gave a raw, emotional interview with NPR's Fresh Air describing her second-trimester abortion and the searing pain of knowing she had killed her baby after finding out that the baby could potentially have a chromosomal disorder. She admitted that it wasn't a matter of not being able to afford care for the child but that it was a matter of not wanting to care for a special needs child. After making her decision, she was depressed for over a year. She was racked with guilt. Yet, she still supports a woman's right to choose. While I don't understand her perspective, I respect her honesty in facing the fact that she did not abort "a clump of cells" but that she killed her baby. Here is an excerpt from her interview:

“For women of my mother’s generation, who struggled so hard to get the right to abortion, what they needed to do in order to achieve that right and to maintain it was to describe what they were doing in a certain way. So I - you know, when they were describing the process of having an abortion, language was really important to them.
“So they never called the baby a baby. It was a fetus. It was an embryo at best, you know. It was - and this is a quote - a clump of cells. But to women like me, who've grown up in the age of the ultrasound, we now have three-dimensional ultrasounds of our babies from the very beginning, you know, when we can actually see their features, recognizable features, and we can see them suck their thumbs. And for us, abortion - even though I think I am absolutely as committed to choice as my mother is - the idea of abortion and the fact of abortion has become something very different. And I think women of my mother’s generation are very uncomfortable with how we talk about abortion….
“Well, we had a D&E, which is a dilation and extraction, which is they, you know - and here’s another point where, you know, my mother and I differ completely on this. You know, my mother, when she describes a procedure, she doesn't describe the details. And for me, I needed to know exactly what was happening. And in this procedure, your cervix is dilated, and the baby is extracted, and the baby's extracted, essentially, in pieces from your uterus.
“It's horrible. It’s - the photographs that you see that the right-to-lifers show, you know, they're real photographs. I mean, that's really what it’s like. And I say this because I feel like I can’t support a woman’s right to choose unless I’m willing to look at the darkest side of it, and that was the darkest side of it.
“So one of the things I asked the incredibly generous, gentle doctor who did the abortion was, I asked him if he would make sure that the baby didn’t feel anything. That was – sorry (crying) That was really important to me, that he be dead, essentially, before that grim process took place. And the doctor promised me that he would give an injection that would make that happen.”

I think I would respect pro-choicers more if they at least admitted that it's not "all about a woman's right to her body" as if somehow there is no other person involved. There are other people involved, one person in particular: the child, who is being killed by no fault of its own.

But to me, Conservatives are just as hypocritical. Conservatives rail on liberals for being murderers, yet these same right-wingers will readily jump on board with the United States' imperialistic war aims, nuclear proliferation programs, and death penalty defenses. My question for conservatives is, if you're going to be pro-life, shouldn't you carefully consider war, nuclear issues, and the death penalty? How is an aborted child any different than a death-row inmate that's not truly guilty, or innocent civilians caught up in drone attacks? Shouldn't conservatives also be trailblazers for international aid programs and fair-trade support to protect children overseas from slavery and trafficking? Shouldn't conservatives be front-runners for foster care programs and adoption programs? If conservatives truly believe in anti-abortion, shouldn't they be just as concerned with caring for the children after they are born? Otherwise their rhetoric for cherishing and protecting life falls flat.

I read a New York Times Op-Ed today called "The Safe, Legal, Rare Illusion" that revealed the similarities among Republicans and Democrats regarding the abortion issue as well as the cracks in each sides' argument. The author claimed the pitfalls of the Conservatives' program against abortion was

"that it doesn’t map particularly well onto contemporary mores and life patterns. A successful chastity-centric culture seems to depend on a level of social cohesion, religious intensity and shared values that exists only in small pockets of the country."

About Liberals' program against abortion, the author explained,

"a lack of contraceptive access simply doesn’t seem to be a significant factor in unplanned pregnancy in the United States. When the Alan Guttmacher Institute surveyed more than 10,000 women who had procured abortions in 2000 and 2001, it found that only 12 percent cited problems obtaining birth control as a reason for their pregnancies. A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study of teenage mothers found similar results: Only 13 percent of the teens reported having had trouble getting contraception."

The author, clearly favoring a more right-to-life stance, concluded his article with the following:

"At the very least, American conservatives are hardly crazy to reject a model for sex, marriage and family that seems to depend heavily on higher-than-average abortion rates. They’ve seen that future in places like liberal, cosmopolitan New York, where two in five pregnancies end in abortion. And it isn’t a pretty sight."

I don't think that pro-choicers and pro-lifers will ever admittedly share common ground. But I sure would love to see us engage in respectful discourse that admits the areas of hypocrisy in each sides' arguments and stops using hyperbolic rhetoric that reveals at best half-truths. In other words, the media rants against Susan G. Komen and Rush Limbaugh's offensive comments need to stop. This type of mudslinging doesn't help anyone, least of all the unborn children many conservatives hope to speak for.

Resolution of Thanksgiving

2011-11-27T19:28:00.000-05:00

Earlier today, while spending time with Tucker's family, my father-in-law remarked that he had read a challenge this week from D.L. Moody to write a "Resolution of Thanksgiving." I didn't quite understand what he meant by this "resolution," but after Randy read his own resolution, the concept became clear. Moody, in his own words, decided

We often set apart seasons and have meetings for prayer; I think it would be well for us to have special seasons also for thanksgiving, to praise God for what he is doing in our midst. Let those who have been redeemed from the hand of the enemy speak not of themselves, but of what God has done for them.

Randy challenged his family to each write their own Resolution of Thanksgiving, so I decided to put pen to paper (so to speak) and ponder my own gratitude to God. How often to I truly thank God for my blessings? How often does my own attitude alter depending on my circumstances? What's the frequency of my "I wish" thoughts? So, while contemplating these things, I developed my resolution of thanksgiving.

"I, Erika Mosteller, make this resolution of thanksgiving to meditate on the blessings of God.

I recognize that my job or my husband's job may not always pay what I desire or think is fair, that it may not be the job I or my husband wish to have, that it may not allow me to do what I'm passionate about. The progression of my life may not move at the pace I desire, meaning I might not have children, a house, vacations, "nice" cars, or retirement when I plan to do so. I may not always have good health, nor may my family members. My future children may not make good decisions, nor might my husband and I. I may not be financially secure. I may lose friends. I may dislike my country's political climate and situation. I may have aches, pains, or injuries. I may gain weight. I may feel frustrated that I can't purchase what I want when I want to do so. I may dislike certain aspects of my church. I may never continue my education in an official capacity. I may no longer be able to travel widely. Ultimately, I may not live the life I expected or planned.

But I hereby resolve to be thankful. I'm thankful for two families that love and support me. I'm thankful for a husband who loves me more and better than I could have imagined. I'm thankful that regardless of our employment situation in the last 4 1/2 years of marriage, God has provided for us financially, even when we only had $8 in our bank account at one point. I'm thankful that I have access to food, vitamins, water, sanitation, health-care, education, transportation, employment, banks, physical security, freedom of worship, and low-censored press. I'm thankful that my children will also have access to many of these things. Most of all, I'm thankful that I'm saved by Grace, that God is sovereign and present in my daily life, that God provides means of grace to give me strength, and that God loves me abundantly. I'm thankful that regardless of life's circumstances, I can relish in the promises of God's faithfulness to me, even when I fail to in fact be thankful."

Halloween and Human Rights

2011-10-30T13:37:00.001-04:00

I read somewhere several years ago that much of the cocoa we eat in delicious chocolatey treats comes from forced labor. Of course, this information convicted me for the time it took me to read the article, and then I promptly forgot about it. Recently, however, I read a blog posting on Rage Against the Minivan that reminded me of the link between Hersheys, Nestle, Mars, American Cadbury and child slavery. In the post, Kristen Howerton linked a BBC documentary on the chocolate trade.

I suggest you watch all 5 segments, since they're only about 10 minutes each. I was so galled by this documentary that I did a little experiment with my Christian Thought class. I had already bought my Halloween candy for my students this year. After reading Howerton's blog posting and watching the documentary, I felt ridiculous for mentally whining about paying $12 for 3 bags of chocolate when in actuality, I paid LESS than I should have since the chocolate companies get free slave labor. Ouch. So I handed out the bags of M&Ms to my students, and after they bit into savoring the chocolatey goodness (at 8am...gross) I said, "Congratulations. You all just participated in the modern day slave trade." Their faces dropped in disbelief. We then watched the documentary, and they, like me, were disgusted by the corporate and human greed that leads to child slave labor.

There are more slaves today than at any other point in history. The current estimate for modern-day slaves stands somewhere between 12 million to 27 million. The most prominent forms of slave labor are forms of bonded labor, where someone pledges themselves against a loan that "miraculously" never gets paid off, and slaves trafficked for the sex trade. While slaves are today a lower percentage of the human population than during the 19th century, before Western countries abolished the slave trade and chattel slavery (picture cotton plantations in Georgia), modern slaves are ridiculously cheap, therefore fueling the illicit trade. You see, slavery is illegal in all countries, with Mauritania being the last to officially outlaw slavery in 1981. However, the high levels of government corruption in many poor countries allows the slave trade and the use of slave labor to persist and often thrive. To read more on the human sex slave trade, read Half the Sky, one of my favorite books.

Kevin Bales, President of Free the Slaves, states the following about how "market economics" continue the tide of forced labor:

"In the United States before the Civil War, the average slave cost the equivalent of about fifty thousand dollars. I'm not sure what the average price of a slave is today, but it can't be more than fifty or sixty dollars.
Such low prices influence how the slaves are treated. Slave owners used to maintain long relationships with their slaves, but slaveholders no longer have any reason to do so. If you pay just a hundred dollars for someone, that person is disposable, as far as you are concerned...
And while the price of slaves has gone down, the return on the slaveholder's investment has skyrocketed. In the antebellum South, slaves brought an average return of about 5 percent. Now bonded agricultural laborers in India generate more than a 50 percent profit per year for their slaveholders, and a return of 800 percent is not at all uncommon for holders of sex slaves."

So where do we as consumers fit into this? We have the power of the purse. If we curb our demand of Hersheys, or Mars, or Kraft chocolates, and demand these companies pursue cocoa sources from fair labor only, and that the US government regulate these companies to ensure they follow fair trade sourcing, we can impact the lives of children forced into slavery all the way in Ghana. Write your congressman, buy fair trade chocolate with the official seal (same goes for coffee, by the way), and do your part as a consumer. You can even join the #nohersheyshalloween movement and sign a petition to get Hersheys, the largest offender for child labor cocoa, to pay attention to its consumers or lose profit. To read about ethical candy options for trick or treating, click here.

In the meantime, look for this symbol and buy fair trade.
Is it more expensive? Yes. Personally, I'm OK paying a little bit more knowing that I'm not contributing to human rights violations around the world. Not to guilt you or anything...

I'm Racist

2011-10-16T20:23:00.003-04:00

True confession. I don't want to be. I try so hard not to be. But I'm bombarded with racism in our society, and I find it creeping from my subconscious when I least expect it. Many people I know, especially many white people, get annoyed with me when I claim that most people are racist. "I'm not racist," they say. "I don't see color," others assure. I'm here to tell you that if you were raised in a western culture, and you are white, more than likely you're racist, even if you try so hard not to be. It's because in our culture, especially in the South, we find ourselves "surprised" if we meet a highly educated black person, or a wealthy African American who doesn't play sports or work in entertainment. Can you imagine being negatively pegged your entire life based on your phenotype? To be expected to never finish high school, let along college? To be expected to end up in prison, or living in the projects with illegitimate kids? To be poor your entire life? I can't, because I'm white. I have always been expected to go to college, get married, have children only after being married, have steady income and savings, parent my children responsibly, be cultured and well-traveled. These expectations were set in place from the time I was socialized, and, I would argue, heavily impacted my motivations, goals, and methods of "fitting the norm." So what does that say for the flip side of this picture, those who are expected to fail? How does that impact entire generations?

I know these are sensitive issues, and I think many white people don't want to face them because they think "slavery ended after the civil war. It's been over a century. Get over it." But our culture still grants primacy to those with "white" skin. Maybe, as a white person, I'm not supposed to talk about this? But I read a blog posting by a black professor tonight, and it convicted me so deeply. I started thinking through how many times I hear people say with such surprise, "oh, you study slavery and the history of racism?" Or "your summer reading for your US history kids was on black men in Reconstruction? Your black students will really appreciate that." I literally want to ask, "And why wouldn't my non-black students appreciate it too?" I get nauseaus when I hear people say of slavery in the south , "But the slaves liked being taken care of. They didn't want freedom." Or when people claim that "affirmative action" is racist against whites. Skin color is SO powerful, but we think that racism is no longer a game-changer in our society. I ask you, then, have you read the new laws against immigration in Arizona? Alabama? Georgia? If those aren't about racism, I don't know what is. Hispanics aren't "white" and therefore aren't acceptable. Spew at me all you want about them "not paying taxes" and "being here illegally," but I will shoot right back that the answer is not racially profiling them and intimidating them into pulling their children out of school and fearing going to the grocery store for being arrested. The answer is finding a peaceable, respectable way to naturalize them.

Here's the excerpt from that blog, the words that got my whole rant started. Click here to read the whole posting. It's pretty powerful, for me at least.

"...I don’t want to talk about race because it gives weight to a fiction that was created to oppress. It has no basis in biology and is a social construction in this country that was engineered to maintain access to free labor. The fiction created by race distorts the reality in which we live.
Plus, as a black person, I am called on often to speak for my “race.” I can never give an opinion without it being assumed to be that of a multitude. So when a white person asks me my opinion about an issue that can be related to race, I suspect that there is going to be a moment later when that white person is going to say, “Well, I have a black friend, Steve, who says…” And that will be the black authority on the subject.
Black people can’t talk to white people about race anymore. There’s really nothing left to say. There are libraries full of books, interviews, essays, lectures, and symposia. If people want to learn about their own country and its history, it is not incumbent on black people to talk to them about it. It is not our responsibility to educate them about it. Plus whenever white people want to talk about race, they never want to talk about themselves. There needs to be discussion among people who think of themselves as white. They need to unpack that language, that history, that social position and see what it really offers them, and what it takes away from them. As James Baldwin said, “As long as you think that you are white, there is no hope for you.”
When you went to Africa, you said “you were the minority for the first time in your life.” That’s not true. You have been the only adult in a room full of children, the only man in a room full of women, the only non-incarcerated person in a jail. In America if you were a minority at a hip-hop concert in Compton, you would still have the privilege that accrues unbidden to persons designated as white, with all of the political, social, and economic access that comes with it."

Something to thing about. I know I will. To read more on racism in our society, read here a former post I wrote on racism.

Breathtaking

2011-09-21T18:52:00.001-04:00

Tucker surprised me last night and took me to the "So You Think You Can Dance" 2011 Fall Tour. He was one of 300 men there, total. All the other men I saw were with their pregnant wives, haha. I was so surprised and excited to watch the performance... and to watch the teenage and pre-teen girls go crazy when the boy dancers took their shirts off. Hilarious.

I hadn't watched the show this summer (ya know, writing a thesis and all), but I completely understand why Melanie won. This was her solo last night, and it was literally breathtaking. In Gwinnett Center, with thousands of people watching, you could hear a pin drop as Melanie performed. The entire audience was spellbound. As you watch her, you'll see why. It's reminiscent of Black Swan but way less creepy. When I watch performances like this one, it inevitably reminds me of the wonder of God's infinite creativity.

Youthful conviction

2011-09-15T17:40:00.000-04:00

If you read my blog, you probably realize that the idea of social justice is something I've been wrestling through. It's taken me years to even begin to reach the point of having my heart broken for the things that break God's heart. I used to be the one who wanted to help those less fortunate than me to make myself feel good, to "be a good Christian," and, probably on some level, to show my superiority. I honestly believed that I wasn't in "their" (meaning the poor) shoes because I worked hard. I had a job because I pursued it relentlessly. I wasn't in debt because I made good choices. I received an excellent college education because my studiousness allowed me to do so. Only recently have I realized that all of my opportunities came from my socioeconomic position. I am white, born to parents who taught me to value education, who sacrificed to allow me to thrive, who were able to move so that I could attend excellent public schools. While I wouldn't say that until recently I was apathetic to the poor and suffering, I will say that my heart was not broken for them as the Lord's is.

At Furman, as I learned more of the human consequences of sin, I recognized the complexity of poverty and oppression. When I began to teach high school in Macon, I showed my FPD students the documentary Invisible Children. As someone who prizes education and despises ignorance, I wanted to enlighten my students to the world outside of their bubble. But it was their hearts that moved to ACT after hearing about the plight of child soldiers in Uganda by raising money to help fund schools. Now, with the students in my Christian Thought class, we've been talking through James 1:22-27:

"²²But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. ²⁴For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. ²⁵But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

²⁶If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. ²⁷Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

This idea of "being doers of the word" has been plaguing me. My heart is broken for the orphans, for mothers who can't feed their children, for the victims of human trafficking, for women denied education, for mothers dying in childbirth, for babies who contract HIV, for aging grandparents trying to provide for their grandchildren after AIDS ravaged their family, for countries still reeling from ethnic genocides, for gender-based abortions, for communities who have no clean water, for honor killings, for the fistula crisis in Africa, for Haitian children who still can't find their parents, and on and on and on. Sin has very real, painful, dire consequences. But what can I do about it?

As I read through my students' recently assigned papers answering the question of God's vision of social justice and how American Christians respond, I was humbled and inspired. Their youthful conviction struck me. One student wrote, "We as Americans are sheltered, spoiled, and most of the time blissfully unaware of the tragedies of everyday life in other countries...But when we show justice and God's love to people, we are following after God's own heart, because he cares about them deeply." Another student beautifully summarized, "Human nature keeps track of social justice by hours and calls it community service, but God's vision of social justice is constantly measured in the heart and demonstrated through words and actions." This student then continued, "Americans are narcissistic. Sinful nature causes us to focus on ourselves and forget those suffering around us, but Jesus begs us to travel through the narrow gate and go beyond the simple desires of our flesh." (Can you tell I have a future writer on my hands!?) Another student wrote about God's association of himself as "defender of the poor" in Isaiah, determining that "God needs us to be earthly defenders, going out of our way to show people the love and mercy" that Christ showed us on the cross. She continued that "Christians have turned their faith into a habit, instead of creating a personal relationship with God. Since they have no relationship with the Lord, they cannot successfully make just relationships with society."

Most students decided that we as Christians fail to act on God's design for justice. Tim Keller argues for biblical justice based on the Hebrew term, mishpat, which means to treat people equitably and render what they are due, whether punishment, protection or care. However, Keller emphasizes that mishpat must work in tandem with chesedh, the Hebrew term for "mercy." My students beautifully expressed their belief that God's vision of justice necessitates "doing justice out of merciful love," a mandate perfectly enacted through Christ's death for us on the cross. Jesus died to take our punishment, but he did so out of merciful love to protect us from eternal separation from God. How then could our hearts not transform and extend this same mercy to others? One student aptly concluded her paper with Psalm 33:5:

^"5He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD."

I pray that I would help show God's steadfast love, righteousness and justice. And I'm thankful that my students' convictions helped remind me to act on these commands. As a teacher, I continually strive (obviously) to instruct my students; but in the meantime, my students end up teaching me so much along the way.

Where were you?

2011-09-09T14:30:00.002-04:00

Today in class, I asked my students if they remembered September 11, 2001. All of them were either in 1st or 2nd grade, and many of them remembered parents and teachers crying and being glued to the TV. One of my students said his mom told him the people jumping out of the towers were landing on trampolines, I guess in an attempt to shield his innocent heart from pain. I told them how I was a junior in high school, their own age now, and saw the plane sticking out of the tower on a TV in my school's library. It seemed like a bad movie. For the rest of the day, we watched the horror unfold, people leaping from the towers, the towers ultimately falling, hearing about the pentagon. My dad rushed out that afternoon to buy an American flag, embarrassed that we didn't own one to fly in remembrance.

As I spoke with my students today, it dawned on me that in the past ten years, I rarely, if ever, recall September 11. I don't pray for the families who lost so much, or who still suffer with sick family members who fell ill from inhaling the dust and debris during rescue attempts. I don't pray for mothers and fathers who lost all their children that day, or for wives and husbands who lost their spouses. I forget that many children are growing up one parent short because of that fateful day and the aftermath that followed. One of my students thanked me after class for letting them talk about their memories and honor those lost in the towers. Another of my students teared up and grabbed a friend's hand while listening to a little boy's oral history about losing his "Pop-pop" and wishing he could tell his grandad how much he loved him. On a Friday, a day the students are normally so antsy, chatty, and ready for the weekend, my students sat in silence and listened to these oral histories, these voices releasing their pain and asking others to remember their loved ones. The sorrow of this tragedy weighed on my students, as it did me.

The truth is, I wouldn't have thought to do anything if a parent hadn't emailed me a reminder to honor the memory of 9/11 victims. How soon we forget. I can only imagine the worst part of losing someone in a tragedy is that you feel like the world forgets about that person who was so dear to you and who was snatched away so abruptly.

NPR is gathering oral histories of victims' families and friends to help honor those lost in 9/11. Click here to listen to some of their stories and to remember and honor those who lost their lives.Scroll down to the bottom of that article to see many stories from those remembering 9/11. Click here to see NPR's special series reflecting on 9/11.

A Third-World Wallet

2011-08-28T18:07:00.000-04:00

Recently I posted on freedom and our American mind-set that being free in life means being financially stable enough to purchase whatever stuff, experience, etc that we want. Today I read a great post from a missionary in Peru about spending money. Her third-world wallet has allowed her to see the flaws in our American mindset, and I thought what she said was much more eloquent than my posting. So, here are some excerpts, but click here to read the whole thing.

"One last thing that becomes glaringly obvious when living in a developing country is how insulated from poverty we have built the US to be. Except for a few rare places, we have created a country where the haves and the have nots do not interact. We live in different communities, go to different schools, hang out at different places, and most disheartening to me, go to different churches. We, as the haves, have made sure that we do not cross paths with the have nots and have to face what living in poverty is like. And here's what I know to be truth because I have seen it happen again and again: when you enter the lives of people living in poverty, you are changed and therefore, how you spend your money is changed.

Watch this video about the famine in East Africa. If you are purposely avoiding news of the famine, I dare you to enter this world for just a few minutes and watch this video. Will it make you think twice about how much you need to spend on your own food tonight? I believe it will and I believe that is why we avoid the poor. It is easier to be ignorant, but if you were that parent walking miles and miles just for clean water and food for your child, would you hope for more from your fellow human beings? Can we keep turning our backs on those in desperate need because we feel entitled to certain things and it just feels too hard to give them up? When it is someone you care about starving, you will move heaven and earth to help them. So, we have made sure that we don't know those who are starving. We don't want it to be our problem and we don't want to be inconvenienced. I know that sounds harsh, but it is true."

I hope you'll watch the video. If you're looking for somewhere trustworthy to donate money to alleviate the Horn of Africa's famine, check out World Vision. Through government grants and their reputation for bringing highly organized, efficient help, World Vision is able to take our donations and multiply them greatly. In fact, World Vision is the largest US-based international humanitarian organization, according to a recent New York Times article.

Moral of the story? Don't feel guilty for being blessed. Take advantage of it to help others.

Teacher Brain

2011-08-28T09:42:00.000-04:00

You know how pregnant ladies say they get baby brain and can't think anymore? Well, I've never been in those shoes, but I will claim that I have "teacher brain" after these last 2 weeks. I forgot how grueling teaching is, and my body is definitely still adjusting. I wake up at 6am each morning, which isn't too bad, but I'm definitely in bed by 9:45-10:30 each night. And when I get home from work? I have a good 1-2 hours in me for making last minute preparations for the next day's lessons, but other than that I'm toast. Hence the "no blogging" spell the past 2 weeks. My brain hasn't been able to function well enough after school hours to actually create something worth reading haha.

I noticed yesterday that I was so tired in class I kept getting my words all tied up. Normally this is no big deal, but when you're trying to say "successfully implemented" and accidentally say "sexfully implemented" that's sort of a big deal to high schoolers. Oops. I blame it on teacher brain, which this past week was compounded by a field trip Monday that lasted from 6:30 am to 10:30pm. I'm pretty sure it was the longest day of my life, including the time we got stranded in the German airport parking garage, overnight, while it was snowing.

I'm enjoying it though, and it's GREAT to be back in the classroom. Especially when I get to show my students crazy history pop music and watch them smile and crack up in class, sometimes even forgetting they're "too cool for school" and singing along with the "Fleas on rats, fleas on rats" lyrics. That's right, it's a remake of Gwen Stefani's "Holla Back Girl" to sing instead about the Black Death. Click on the video to enjoy. I actually woke up at 2am the night after teaching this lesson, and I was jamming to "fleas on rats" in my head. Ridiculous. Feel free to watch and learn. You'll have the song stuck in your head the rest of the day, I can assure you. Just blame it on me sharing my "teacher brain."

Take advantage of our "democracy"

2011-08-16T19:58:00.001-04:00

OK, so I can't honestly say that we live in a democracy, but that's a debate for another day. We can still at least petition our congressmen and women in the hopes that they will listen. So let's take action!

There are over 27 million slaves worldwide, the most ever in world history. The International Justice Mission is sponsoring a letter campaign to pressure congress to pass the Trafficking Victims Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) that was initially passed in 2000 and has put some pressure on America and third world countries to enforce anti-traficking laws. So, tell Congress we want it passed again! Click here to write your email to your senator. It only takes 1 minute, and, according to an awesome book I'm reading called Half the Sky, US government diplomatic pressure has proven the MOST EFFECTIVE MEANS of curbing sexual exploitation in places like America, India, Cambodia, Thailand, and China, to name a few. Let's use our super-power status for good for a change. And do what your kindergarten teacher told you makes America great: Write your senator!

A letter

2011-08-13T11:25:00.000-04:00

I opened my email this morning and received this letter from World Vision about the severe drought in the Horn of Africa. I can't imagine the mental and physical pain of enduring these circumstances, of burying my child because I couldn't find any food for him. What can we do to help? Pray and give. Click here to give any amount that can help save even one of the 11 million starving to death.

Dear Sponsor,

It was the hole in the ground that got me. It was as deep as it was wide. It was carved, bit by bit, into brick red earth by men wielding shovels and farming tools. The hole didn't have to be too big — just 4' x 4'. It was for a child.

His name was Ibrahim, and he was 3 years old. Ibrahim had come from Somalia with his family seeking shelter, food, water, and medicine. They had arrived days before at Dadaab in eastern Kenya — the world's largest refugee camp. Ibrahim died at a clinic just as Dadaab was registering its 400,000th refugee — most from Somalia — 70 percent of the new arrivals due to drought.

We met Ibrahim's aunt on the windy plains of the camp and she told us about Ibrahim. "He couldn't survive the journey," she said.

I have covered drought and hunger in Kenya for five years now. In October 2008, I lived with a family in Turkana, Kenya, today one of the worst-hit areas in the Horn of Africa. But even then it was bad. The land was barren. Livestock, worth their weight in gold to pastoralist families, had died. I ate what the family ate for five days — relief supplies that amounted to about a cup of food per day. I wanted to see what hunger felt like.

Not having enough food sapped me of strength and curiosity. I could do little more than sit in the family's hut all day, shielding my skin from the scorching sun. With my energy sapped, I saw hunger in a new way — as a killer of the things inside a person, the will that enables one to persevere.

I am back in the Horn of Africa three years later to cover a drought that seems to have no end.

I returned to Turkana last week, where World Vision is feeding malnourished children nutritious Plumpy'nut™ and providing food and water for their families. The situation is worse than before. I tried to make eye contact with some of the 500 mothers waiting for food in scant shade. But the light had gone out of their eyes. They had no interest in interacting. The drought had finally taken its toll on their steely spirits.

The Turkana mothers' apathy was distressing, but it was the hole in the ground at Dadaab refugee camp that did me in.

Traveling from the camp to a room where I slept in a bed instead of under a tent made of sticks, I thought about that hole and the child, Ibrahim, who would be tenderly placed inside. The brick-red dirt would be replaced. His grave would be topped with thorn bushes to keep the wild animals from desecrating his body. Ibrahim's child-sized mound of earth would join the fresh graves of two other children buried that day in the makeshift cemetery.

Rumbling over the rutted roads, staring out the window at dry land littered with cattle carcasses, I thought about that hole.

And how its size so perfectly matched the empty space inside me.

In Him,

Kari Costanza

Are we really free?

2011-08-12T15:21:00.000-04:00

How many times do we consider ourselves free, here in America? How many times, in school, work, play, family, among friends, etc, do we thank God for our "freedoms?" Freedom to work, to worship, to vote, to eat, to access healthcare, to have education, to benefit from protection under the law. Do all Americans benefit from these freedoms? No, they don't. But even more, are we really free to make our own choices, or are we constantly trying to keep up in a materialistic, consumer-driven, debt-ridden society? To buy the latest fashions and bask in the compliments of friends, or even better, strangers. To find that job with the great salary so we can buy what we want, go where we want, live where we want, and be "comfortable." In America, we associate "freedom" with financial security. I constantly find myself telling Tucker, "When we have money, can we do this/buy this/go there/support this ministry/adopt..." and so on. And, he gently reminds me, "What if we don't 'have money' in the classic American sense, Erika."

So what if this mentality is flawed? What if in our race for consumption and more materialism, we're missing the point of true freedom, freedom to take blessings or hardships from the Lord's hand and devote them to his causes. I read something the other day about a family who has adopted 10 children. This couple is in their late 50s, and they should be close to retiring, to spending money on themselves after years of working hard. (Of course I can't remember where I read this posting) But the mother wrote something that challenged me so deeply. She said, "If you're spending more on massages, lattes, vacations, fashion, furniture" etc than you are on supporting those in need, you need to reassess your priorities. Apparently, John Piper says something similar in his book Don't Waste Your Life but I haven't read it. And the icing on the cake for this thought process was during my new teacher orientation the other day where all upper school teachers sat around and tried to articulate how we can teach our students at a Christ-centered preparatory school that God's version of success differs from that of the world. It's not that being wealthy is somehow sinful, or that striving in school and work is flawed, or even that taking a family vacation means you're being a poor steward of God's resources. Instead, it's deciding to follow God and his desires for how he's blessed you rather than running after yourself and the purposes you ordain vital. In Galations 5:13-14, Paul reminded us of Christian freedom: "13For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

What a challenge. This idea is the complete opposite goal of what society, and many Christians, live out. Imagine how we could change the world for God's kingdom if we strive to devote our resources and talents to his purposes instead of our own. The adoptive mom's blog (so sorry I can't link it in) reminded me that this doesn't just mean "tithing" faithfully or giving a little extra beyond tithe. She called tithing a "no brainer," yet unfortunately for many Christians, tithing is just too hard to wrap our brains and hearts around.

I have no answers on how to "simply" implement this radical financial and stewardship revolution, because it's fighting against every fiber of our self-absorbed being. But I will leave you with a blog posting that I have linked here about our perceived American freedom versus the captivity of young children in Uganda. When reading about children being imprisoned, neglected, isolated, and attempting suicide as young as 10 just to end their misery, I can't help but wonder, how am I using my freedom? To pursue my own ends, or to love my fellow humans, even all the way in Africa?

Why we should give

2011-07-31T12:49:00.000-04:00

Last night, Tucker and I went to a nice dinner at 5 and 10 Athens to celebrate my graduation and our time in this city. Honestly, it was way overrated. And then I felt guilty for spending that much money on a meal, that wasn't even that good, when the money could have gone to really help someone in need. Stories about children suffering around the world shouldn't make me feel guilty though. It should make me realize my blessings and my ability to HELP alleviate the suffering. So why should we give? Because we can, even when we feel like we are poor. For $30/month, what it cost me to eat last night, I can provide schooling, healthcare, and food for a child in Africa, Haiti, Bangladesh, Ukraine, India, or a host of other places. How exciting is that?! For that small amount of money, I can change someone's life. Can we help every suffering child? No, not by ourselves. But, like the old starfish proverb, we can make a difference to that one who we take from suffocating after being stranded on the beach to rejuvenation after being thrown back in the sea.

Read on for a story of how child sponsorship can save a life.

Kanini, 13, herds cattle in exchange for food. Every couple of days, he receives a small amount of porridge — barely enough for one person, yet he always carries some home to share with his ailing grandmother.

"[She] cannot do anything to fend for herself," he explains.

Struggling to survive in southern Zambia, Kanini and his grandmother have few options. Both of Kanini’s parents are dead. His grandmother is well into her eighties and is too weak to work. Each worries about the well-being of the other.

"Even if I go for many days without food," says Kanini's grandmother, "it is all right, as long as my grandchild tells me that he ate something."

Their neighbor, Rose, offers to share her food, but there's little to go around. Rose is a widow caring for 10 children of her own.

As rising food prices push basic commodities like rice and cooking oil beyond reach, the community is fracturing. People used to share their food freely — especially with the elderly. Now it's more difficult to do so.

"The hunger situation here is dividing us," says Rose. "Very few people will harvest enough this year."

Still, Kanini dreams about the future. He desperately wants to attend school and take care of his grandmother. But he won't be able to do it alone.

"I don’t go to school," he says, "because there is no one to sponsor me."

For about $1 a day, you can help provide a child like Kanini with access to life’s most basic necessities — things like nutritious food, education, clean water, health care, and economic opportunities for their caregivers.

Change a life. Sponsor a child today. Visit www.worldvision.org/helpachild.

Click to give hope

2011-07-29T13:14:00.001-04:00

Ever feel like the problems and pain of the world are just too much to bear, so you just rest in ignorance in an "out of sight out of mind" sort of way? Well, I have a way that you can be proactive without even having to leave your laptop. Woohoo! To help Heartline Ministries in Haiti win $40,000, $20,000, or $10,000 in grant money, click here to vote for them in the Giving of Life grant contest. To read more about the contest and Heartline's hopes for winning, and to in general go ahead and follow their blog to keep updated on their encouraging work in Haiti, click here. If you're still not quite convinced that Heartline's ministry is worth that one click (or several clicks, since you can vote once daily), read the below information about their important work with pregnant mothers in Haiti. This ministry is attempting to stop the perpetuation of the orphan crisis in Haiti by offering birth mother's prenatal care, a respectable place to give birth, nutritional training on how to raise babies, and a network of support and hope in a place that seems to have neither. Read on for more info on the Maternity Center Heartline plans to build with the grant money they would receive with this contest. Then go vote, by clicking here!!!

"Through the Maternity Center, it is our desire to impact orphan rates in Haiti by empowering women and giving them the tools to parent to the best of their ability. We are seeing plump, healthy babies born on a regular basis! We are seeing attentive mothers bonding with their newborns immediately after birth. We are seeing the women of our program passing along the tools taught by our midwives to their family members and friends who are outside of our program. We are seeing the birthing process being honored and women being spiritually and physically supported during their labor experience. We are seeing their lives being transformed from birth.

Below is an excerpt from a Heartline volunteer who was taken to a public maternity hospital not far from Heartline in Port-au-Prince.

“‘No…’ I thought to myself. ‘That can’t be the hospital.’ I was staring over a crumbling wall at the dingy building scrawled with the words Lospital Maternite-maternity hospital. Though I was sitting in the back of a pickup in 100+ degree heat, I suddenly felt cold. Looking at the faces of the others in the pickup bed, I knew they felt the same. Beth McHoul wanted to show us the public hospital, the place expectant mothers were taken when complications arose that the midwives at Heartline’s birthing center could not handle. Beth wanted to convince us that Heartline needed its own clinic. We went through a set of guarded gates and my eyes saw something which my brain failed to register for several seconds. The people I saw before me-lying in the dust, on concrete rubble, walking back and forth in the dark alley-they were pregnant women. On the verge of giving birth, these women were doing whatever they could to achieve some measure of comfort or distraction from the pain. Such horrific conditions…and we weren’t even inside yet. Inside the barred doors, my nose was assaulted by the scents of sweat, blood, urine, and bleach. Yellow lights cast an eerie glow on more women walking the halls or poised on benches. They clutched their backs, their bellies, their heads while screams echoed from beyond. Yet these weren’t the screams of healthy babies filling their lungs for the first time but the screams of anguished women with no comfort in reach. Beth led us slowly into the interior, looking for one of only two doctors in charge of the entire place. As she opened a glass door around the corner, I simultaneously noticed the man closest behind her blanch just as my shoulder was grabbed by the Haitian who had accompanied us. He shook his head and said, “No men.” In a dim reflection of the glass door I could tell that it was a hallway lined with beds. I saw pairs of black legs pulled up in the delivery position with what I later learned were 5-gallon buckets hanging beneath them to catch the babies. After a few moments the doctor appeared, beads of sweat covering his face. Beth presented him with a gift-a new blood pressure cuff-that caused a smile on his lips and tears in his eyes. I was later told he’d needed that for almost a year. The rest of the tour (pre- and post-natal, pediatrics, and urgent care) was just as nightmarish: squalid conditions, lethargic newborns, exhausted mothers, overworked caregivers, glazed eyes everywhere. Where was the privacy? The joy of new life? How many mothers would give birth on the floor tonight or in the alley outside?”

The Heartline Maternity Center is keeping babies out of 5-gallon buckets and giving mothers the chance to cherish their birthing experience.

Click here to vote for this ministry to receive the grant money necessary to build their maternity center!

Why history matters

2011-07-28T13:55:00.000-04:00

Americans don't know their history. Now, I'm not really one to talk because American history is not my favorite subject. I'm sure that will change this year as I submerse myself in it to teach my 12th graders. But history is more than just "learning a timeline" or "memorizing facts." History is a discipline that not only helps you appreciate the struggle of peoples past, but also the impact of people's actions on the present. And in history, you learn valuable skills, like reading comprehension, research, writing, creativity, analysis, and an appreciation for cultures and people different from yourself and your community.

Now, I love America. I'm glad to live here, and I think we do a lot of things well. But, we also do a lot of things poorly, and we need to step out of our ignorance. If, for instance, Americans knew more about the history of slavery and race in our country, I think we would be much less likely to point fingers at the African American community for the struggles they face today (see former post I've written on racism here.) If people knew history, they wouldn't boast about how America has tried to save the world through democracy, when many times our history of war and invasion is nastily imperialist and heartless. We wouldn't poke fun at the French, who actually saved our revolution and ultimately contributed to their own revolution in doing so. We wouldn't have political parties who hijack Christianity and claim that our country was founded on it, when in actuality it was Deist. We wouldn't wonder why inner city schools are so terrible, given that they weren't given adequate resources or funding until the 1950s and 60s. We wouldn't hate and attack our immigrant population, when every single one of us came from an immigrant family seeking change. We wouldn't wonder at our current economic crisis, given the number of wars fought and the development of our military-industrial complex in the 20th century. We wouldn't pretend that we're not racist, bigoted, or hateful, given our history of slavery, civil rights, women's rights, and immigrants' rights. We wouldn't have made enemies throughout the world by resting comfortably in our ignorance of world affairs and our reliance on the prevalence of English. We wouldn't hate the poor if we understood more about the development of social classes in America. We would think twice before purchasing that chocolate bar full of cocoa harvested by child slaves in Africa, or that $7 skirt at Target sewn by slaves' hands in India. We wouldn't try to fix things by throwing money at them, but would instead try to find the root of problems in our society and the flaws in how we treat one another.

Now, this probably all sounds like impractical utopian mumbo-jumbo, but I know that my study of the intellectual history of racism in France and the Americas has helped uncover my own racism, ideas lurking in the corners of my mind that I didn't even consciously realize were there. History is powerful. It's necessary. And it unquestionably should be taken seriously in schools. Will most students continue on to study history? No. But will most students need analysis skills, research skills, the ability to take various pieces of information and form a cohesive, well-founded argument? Yes. When students witness the conflicts in society today and shrug it off as commonplace and unimportant, studying history can help them grasp the tangible, living, breathing consequences of past conflicts, many of which remain unresolved. As a British historian has claimed, "People make history but not in circumstances of their own making." We respond to our circumstances, but our circumstances are a product of their context. How, then, can we adequately respond to the present, without even attempting to understand the past?

Does history matter? Emphatically, I say YES.

Running off course

2011-07-27T21:15:00.000-04:00

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1

I received an email Monday night with an offer from the Fulbright Commission to come and teach English in Poland. If any of you have read my past posts about Fulbright and the emotional roller coaster of the experience, you're probably not sure whether to curse or embrace this development. That's pretty much how Tucker and I felt. Like this...

I mean, what should we do? We had prayed for clear direction from God about either staying stateside and finding jobs or moving to Europe for the adventure of our lives (can you tell which way I was leaning...heavily?). Then, I got a job offer in May from a wonderful private school in Atlanta to teach European and US history in their upper school. Problem solved, we thought. It was fairly terrible and heart-wrenching to release my dream of living in Poland, but I had pretty much moved on, what with working right now, finishing a thesis, graduating in two Saturdays, moving that same day, then starting my great new job the following Monday. I have a lot on my plate. And then I got that bloody email.

Would it be running off course for Tucker and me to consider Poland? Would we be lacking faith if we left my job opportunity here for a unique, once in a lifetime chance there? Or would it be unfaithful to leave here when God worked out my job already? Why in the heck did God present us with this chance? If he wants us to stay here and start careers and a family, why even let the Fulbright people send me that stupid email? My brain was exhausted, my emotions spent, my convictions completely muddled, and my heart broken all over again. The dream I had literally wailed over losing was now reappearing, like magic, and I was powerless to grab it. It's like those dreams where you're being chased but you can't scream, except in reverse, where I was chasing Poland and wanting to badly to accept but all the sudden my vocal cords froze up. I was (still am?) angry, depressed, and deeply sad.

It turns out that we must stay. We have obligations, contracts to uphold. Everyone keeps telling me that it's OK to decline because it's still such an honor to have been awarded Fulbright status. I can even put it on my resume, they gush. Well, I could care less. What's the point if I don't get to actually experience it, live it out for nine months, see how God stretches and grows me and Tucker, how I could become a better teacher and a wiser person?

I guess this is the true, final goodbye to Poland. It will be so terribly difficult to run the race before me with perseverance and not look back over my shoulder at Poland, not wonder if that choice would really have been off track, not mourn for what could have been. Right now, I feel like I'm stumbling and crawling in the direction I think is right, but hopefully I'll hit my stride soon. Luckily I'm not alone in this endeavor, because surely my own strength will fail me in this, the path determined for me.

So complicated

2011-07-26T16:54:00.000-04:00

This is how my life feels right now.

And this is how my brain feels right now.

Know what I mean?!

on that thing about women

2011-07-22T09:44:00.000-04:00

I was reading another blog I love, Rachel Held Evans' Blog, and she, of course, summarized so much more eloquently what I was fumbling and bumbling around in my post "Word to Your Mother". Evans basically repeated how Christian women shouldn't feel guilty about having a career OR staying at home with your children. God leads us in different paths because, well, He's sovereign God, and well, we're not. In Evans' words, "As a defense mechanism, we tend to elevate our own lifestyles as God’s will for all women everywhere. If God’s presence is here, we reason, it must not be there." And she had what might just be one of my favorite new photos at the top of her blog. I stole it and put it at the bottom of this post, so please, friends, scroll on. You won't be sorry.

The highlight of Evans' post, for me:

"Seeking God’s presence means recognizing that while God might inhabit a certain sphere, He is not contained to it. Though he may be found in pots and pans and communion wafers and poetry, He also transcends them. What works for a housewife in North Georgia might not work for a widow in Sub-Saharan Africa. How God is glorified in a single Lutheran girl from New York City might look a little different than how God is glorified in sprawling Catholic family in Mexico.

When I categorically dismiss another woman’s lifestyle as irrelevant or unworthy in order to elevate my own, I am, in effect, placing limits on God. I am imitating Martha, who was so scandalized by Mary’s absence from the kitchen that she failed to see that her sister was reveling in the presence of a Savior.

Some of my favorite lines of poetry come from Elizabeth Barrett Browning and go like this:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
God’s presence is everywhere.

Faith isn’t about finding the right bush; it’s about taking off your shoes."

And now for the awesome picture. Please don't think I'm judging anyone with this one, I just found it pretty much HILARIOUS. I think I might start telling Tucker that I just can't make dinner tonight since my dreams and goals are distracting me :)

New shoes on tonight

2011-07-20T08:35:00.000-04:00

I wish I had these new shoes on tonight! I stumbled across them on a fellow blogger's site, and I'm now slightly obsessed with them. Before you judge me for falling into the fiery pit of mass consumerism, read on. (After you enjoy the cute pictures, of course.)

These shoes are crafted by a company called Sseko designs. Based in Uganda, Sseko provides fair labor for women in the customary Ugandan transitional period between secondary and college education where people earn money to cover their college tuition. Unfortunately for women, there are already few jobs in Uganda, and women are at the bottom of the hiring stack. Sseko hires these young women and allows them to earn their tuition money with a fair wage, in a safe environment, and with a community of support. From the Sseko website:

"Sseko Designs is a not-just-for-profit enterprise that recognizes the power of business and responsible consumerism to support sustainable economic development, which in turn affects a country's educational, justice, and health care systems. The goal of Sseko Designs is two-fold: provide university tuition for these promising young women through a sustainable monthly income, while also contributing to the overall economic development of Uganda."

Now that's what I call responsible consumerism. The soles of these awesome shoes are made from genuine leather and look pretty cushy, and the straps change into a bunch of different styles. The colored straps are also interchangeable. SO CUTE. I've asked for them for graduation. Fingers crossed that I can sport them come August and tell everyone to buy them and be smart consumers :)

These are my favorite styles. Now I'll just have to watch the user-friendly tutorial videos on youtube and figure out how to tie them!

To buy your sandals, click here. They do specials for wedding parties too. If only I had known this four years ago...

Word to your mother

2011-07-18T13:31:00.001-04:00

Recently, an article has been floating around peoples' Facebook statuses that discusses a Christian woman's cultural encounters as a mother of 5. She voiced a lot of things that I've been sorting through myself, so I decided to mention them here in case some other 20-somethings women are doing the same. To read the above mentioned article, click here

Ever since Tucker and I married in 2007, I've felt the weight of conflicting social normatives regarding motherhood and family planning. On one end of the spectrum, you should start a family in your mid-to-late 20s, or else you're being selfish. On the other end, you're losing your independence and forfeiting your goals if you start a family before the age of 35. So, during the last four years, I've seen both sides of the "motherhood" debate, and honestly, I've felt judgement from both sides over either delaying motherhood in favor of schooling, or ending schooling with just a masters degree in favor of acting on what's best for our (future) family. It turns out, each side of the spectrum judges the other, maybe out of fear, or self-righteousness, or just ignorance.

I'm not a mother, so all of these observations are just that, observations. I don't pretend to have any practical knowledge about being a mother or the challenges involved in motherhood. But I do know that my fellow 20-something female friends and I feel similar pressures, creating a sort of "pressure cooker" of family planning. Caveat: my summary below of positions on motherhood are the extreme ends of the spectrum.

My academic friends will readily stand and defend a woman's right to her reproductive rights, namely in reference to abortion. But, ironically, when I tell these same friends that Tucker and I are looking to start a family in the next several years, I'm met with incredulous disbelief. Worse than that, I feel judged that, in their eyes, I'm forfeiting my academic career to have kids? What in the world? My decision to terminate my studies with a masters is far more complicated that merely "having children" or "not having children," but I don't understand how some of these women judge me for something that doesn't even impact them.

But in some ways, maybe their response is merely defense against the other side of the spectrum that tells women they must forego higher education or pursuing a career because you can't be a good mother and work outside of the home. In some instances, yes, often children fall to the bottom of a woman's priority list, trailing behind career, love, exercise, travel, or social life. The motherhood article above covers this topic well. But in many cases, I know women who are excellent mothers and fantastic professionals. I also know mothers who stay-at-home with their children, and they are smart women, with higher education, strong convictions, and impressive talents. They are not wasting these attributes and accomplishments by staying home with their children, either.

So, why is it that in our society, we automatically judge those who make different decisions than we do? And why is it that we feel somehow vindicated in sharing our judgements regarding something as personal and complicated as family planning and career? But I totally find myself doing it too. When someone announces they are pregnant with a third or fourth child, I always say "WOW," which probably makes them feel that I'm thinking "do you know what birth control is?" What I'm really thinking is, "Wow, 4 kids. Do I want 4 kids? That sounds like a huge responsibility." Oftentimes my response to someone else's family decision is really a product of my own insecurity, fear, or anxiety over the fact that Tucker and I will have to make those decisions at some point too.

So the point is, right now, at this point in my life, I will face judgement when (and if) I announce that I'm pregnant. It's that simple. Some people will judge me for starting a family too early, without enough financial stability, without having done enough "fun" things before being tied down to children. Others will judge me for not having kids sooner, or for (maybe) continuing to work after starting a family. Don't get me wrong, I'll get plenty of excitement too. Too bad it can't be excitement all around, though.

It seems, from my humble observations, that regardless of if you're a stay-at-home mom or a work-outside-the-home mom, our society launches ridiculous expectations at you from all fronts. Maybe we should stop judging so much and instead grant the priority and respect motherhood should earn, whether you have a child at 22 or 42.

I heart Harry Potter

2011-07-14T17:30:00.000-04:00

Seriously. I love this epic story. I used to be a hater, and I resisted the mania for years. Literally. But then I actually watched all the movies in a row (thanks to a fellow grad student's HP collection!), and then I read the first 6 books. Over Christmas break. When I finally got my hands on Book 7, I read it in like a day. Who needs sleep when you have to find out what happens to Harry?! IT'S SO GOOD. My advisor in grad school, a quite serious scholar and mother, told me that she skipped going to the archives one day just to finish reading book 7. That's a serious concession from an historian. But trust me. The books are just that good.

Moral of this posting? Read the Harry Potter books. Here's why I love them:

I am boring and uninspired, but JK Rowling is magically and brilliantly creative in weaving the story of Harry Potter.
Family and friendship are really important to Harry.
JK Rowling makes up words. But the words are so perfect, you wonder why they were never in the English language before now. Like muggle.
The whole plot about "cleaning the bloodlines" reminds me of the Nazi party and their "Final Solution," which I think is sort of a cool way for kids (and adults) to attempt to grasp the Holocaust.
In the books, there's a whole side story about Hermione trying to abolish elf slavery, since the elves are similar to a hybrid of serf and slave. Her comments and her friends' responses are similar to what actually went down regarding abolition. Hermione wants to free the elves, and others say "but they wouldn't know what to do with freedom. They like having masters." I love that JK Rowling looked to human events to craft her story.
I love their accents.
I wish I was friends with Harry, Hermione, and Ron. And that I went to Hogwarts (aside from the giant spiders lurking in the forest). That's how good Rowling is.
Voldemort means "flight of death" in French. So clever.

So, I, a 26 (almost 27!!) year-old woman love Harry Potter. I openly admit it. AND THE MOVIE COMES OUT tonight. I've already taken my nap so that I can give Harry my undivided attention and focus. I might just even dress up...

I Love Blogging

2011-07-11T22:28:00.000-04:00

I do. Mock me if you want. I love feeling in community with people around the world who share similar questions and struggles with me and who ruminate on them with much more wisdom and eloquence than me! So, here are 2 things I found in the bloggie-world this week.

I found this beautiful analogy on Relevant Magazine's blog, and I thought it was so clearly and truthfully described. And, if you know me, I'm slightly obsessed with dancing... so, TADA. My favorite bloggie-world read of the week.

"I finished reading Through Painted Deserts on our honeymoon and I quickly remembered why I love Donald Miller’s writing so much. His style is the perfect blend of adventure and spiritual musings, written in such a down-to-earth, authentic voice. One quote in particular stood out to me as I read on the beach in Cancun: "Life is a dance toward God, I begin to think. And the dance is not so graceful as we might want. While we glide and swing our practiced sway, God crowds our feet, bumps our toes, and scuffs our shoes. So we learn to dance with the One who made us. And it is a difficult dance to learn, because its steps are foreign." Poetic and eloquently put, such a beautiful, accurate depiction of what happens when God interacts with us. It reminds me of another quote that relates our walk with God to dancing, from a book I read last summer, Son of Hamas by Mosab Hassan Yousef: “Pray for me, that I will grow in my faith and that I won’t step on too many toes as I learn to dance with the Bridegroom.” Earlier this year, my wife (fiance at the time) Ellie and I took a few dance lessons and I learned first hand that dancing is no easy task, especially when you do not know the steps. The dancing we do with God is the most difficult of all, because it is His dance and the steps are advanced and unfamiliar to us. We must not be discouraged by this fact however. Proverbs 20:24 says: “A man’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?” So then, life is a dance toward God, with the Bridegroom (Jesus) and we don’t even know the steps. Sounds hopeless, doesn’t it? Professional dancers will tell you, however, that as long as the man knows the steps and has a solid figure, the woman will be able to follow with ease. So what does that mean for our dance with God? It means that we no longer need to be discouraged and confused when life throws us a curve ball, nor do we need to fall prey to the worldly pressures that tell us we need to have everything figured out, because we have a perfect and loving God who knows every step of the dance and has a figure more solid than any substance we know."

2. I found this awesome video on another blog, but it's also on youtube. Some highschool kid wrote and filmed this. So clever. I especially love the part about "my fridge is too full" and how we get annoyed when we run out of fridge space. Seriously? I just realized how ridiculous that is that I grow frustrated from having TOO MUCH FOOD. Thanks random high school kid for showing me the light. (PS I'm so proud of myself for remembering how to embed a video. Seriously, I don't think you get the depths of my technology-challenged nature.)

The story of us

2011-07-07T08:48:00.001-04:00

The first time he saw me, it was my second day on Furman's campus, and I had lugged my giant, heavy desktop computer across campus to IT. I was sweaty and flustered, but he remembers me as cute and with painted toenails.

The first time I met him, I thought he was aloof and disinterested :). Only later did I find the spontaneous, fun, hilarious, thoughtful, and spiritual dimensions of this intriguing boy.

We became fast friends while preparing for a Winter Term foreign study, and by the time January rolled around for our departure date, my best friend Ashley called it. She told me, "I think Tucker likes you." "No way, " I said.

On foreign study, we both experienced Europe for the first time, the romantic cobbled streets, the street musicians cranking up "Amore" or "La Vie en Rose" when you walk by, the beautiful, intoxicating culture of places and people with such long, storied histories. By the time we reached Riga, Latvia, I realized I was falling for this boy. I always secretly hoped he would sit by me on our long bus trips throughout Eastern Europe, because our conversations inevitably led to discussions of God, theology, family, and the anticipated challenges of life after college. I had never met anyone like him.

In Bolshevik Square, St Petersburg, Russia

In Sweden one morning, I was eating my cereal when he plopped down across from me, asking "Can I join you?" "Sure, " I said, and then nearly choked when I looked up. I suddenly envisioned sharing all my breakfasts with this boy, and it was a novel revelation for me. I had never before met anyone who I could see myself marrying.

He was simple, to the point, and needed no nonsense, but I was anxious, invested, and fearful of how hard I was falling. So we talked. A LOT. And we finally had our first date in Florence, Italy. Later, in Paris, he slipped me a note at dinner that said "Will you have dinner with me in London: Check Yes or No." Cheesy? Yes. Effective? Oh yes. I still have the note.

In the Roman Coliseum

After foreign study, everyone said we were doomed since we had started our relationship in the most unrealistic, surreally romantic setting ever. And despite me trying to break up with him 3 times over the course of that year, he fought for me. He was patient with me. He prayed with me and for me. The February of 2006, before I left for foreign study in France, I wrote this in my journal, "Dear Lord, I know that I love Tucker. I want to spend the rest of my life with him." I even found some doodles from my class notes while in France where I had scribbled "Erika Mosteller" and then furtively scratched it out so no one saw.

We were engaged November 5, 2006, and we married July 7, 2007. I can honestly and legitimately say that there has never been a day of regret in my life. Hard days? Yes. Days with lots of prayers for patience and the ability to hold my sharp tongue? Yes. But mostly, the days are full of gracious thanks that the Lord sent me a husband beyond my wildest dreams.

Our engagement at Chimney Rock, November 5 2006

Our wedding day, July 7, 2007. We look so young!

Here's to four years of being married to my best friend, the man who makes me laugh harder than anyone else, who holds me when I cry, who encourages me in my faith, who is my helper in all things, and who clearly loves me so deeply. When we married, I thought there was no possible way I could love him anymore. My heart was so full. I was wrong. (Cue cheesy Brad Paisley song "I thought I loved her then.") Just when I think I can't love him more, my love deepens even further.

I hope we have at least 50 more years of remembering our story and celebrating God's gift of marriage. What a blessing and incredible journey it's been so far. I can't wait to see what happens next.