Some friends came over at the beginning of the year and each person wrote goals on our “dream wall.”
1. Go pescatarian/flexitarian. Time to ditch the meat, save the chickens, eat more veggies, and ensure environmental sustainability. But if you invite me over for dinner, and you’ve already made a dish containing meat, I won’t turn it down. 🙂
2. Submit one piece of writing per month for publication.
3. Begin backyard chicken farming.
4. Get back into composting regularly.
5. Learn how to do three more bike skills (like replacing parts, etc.) A big thanks to Bearings Bike Project for helping me learn how to replace cantilever brakes last fall!
6. Do another Ironman 70.3 (come on Eagleman waiting list…)
7. Ditch make up… for good.
Last year I came close- 360/365- and now it’s time to amp up. Make up is a choice and there is no right or wrong, just a personal decision about what’s best for you. I decided not to because I’d rather spend my time and money on things that mean more to me, and I believe it can perpetuate the notion that women need to look beautiful in ways other than what’s inside.
8. Do mindfulness meditation for 2 minutes at least 4x/week
9. Visit my 93-year-old Grammie and interview her about her life.
Originally posted on The Button Chronicles…: It would be safe to say that my sister, Stacey, is my Hero… ——————————————————————————– Dear Whitney, Â I wanted to send you an email to wish you Happy Birthday. Your D told me that I…
“I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower, Makes you talk a little lower. I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell my myself to hold on to these moments as they pass…” -Counting Crows
   Â
Baltimore is a place I hold tight to my heart anytime of year, and this winter is no different. Popularized as “Charm City,” it lives up to this famed moniker if you stick around long enough. Long enough to understand what the “Smalltimore effect” is. Long enough to know the names of each neighborhood (or, that is, most of them; Baltimore has over 225!) and what makes each one unique. Long enough to know what all the cool people do the last Friday night of the month.
I haven’t had a winter with this much happiness in a long time, mostly because I’m usually SAD. (To all my relatives in Florida, it’s not made up; I swear.) I caught a quick reprieve in 2012, (The Winter It Didn’t (Really) Snow) but sure enough, it came back with a vengeance in 2013, though a bit more bearable than I could ever remember before. And fastforward to this year, I’m on my 5th snow day off from work, and perhaps counting. But there’s a neighborly aura this winter that’s intoxicating.
So when I walked in the door to my house Wednesday evening, lighthearted in anticipation of another snow day, I declared to my roommate, “I’m treating tonight like it’s Friday.”
“Me too!” She called out, as we whooped and hollered jovially over the snowy forecast. Weather.com was a hoot this week, claiming everything from “BEWARE: CRIPPLING ICE STORM LIKELY THIS WEEK” —– an alarming adjective that wasn’t even PC twenty years ago—– to “Winter Storm Quintus to Undergo ‘Bombogenesis.'” [Bombogenesis: a mid-latitude cyclone that drops in surface barometric pressure by 24 or more millibars in a 24-hour period. Source: Nerdy meteorological websites]
Eagerly awaiting the snow, I leisurely biked to the gym, greeted by small pecks of icy snow falling from the sky. I stretched out in yoga class undistracted, child’s pose-ing and downward dog-ing to my heart’s content. Then I lifted weights wondering how many of my friends were in walking distance to Wyman Park to be able to go sledding tomorrow night. And finally, when I’d had enough exercise, I sank into the hot tub inside of the women’s locker room with no intent on hurrying home to make my lunch or lay out work clothes. As I biked home, I knew that even if we didn’t have a snow day tomorrow, there was one thing the snow already taught me: to be happy and present, no matter what day of the week it is. Because even if I had to slave away at my desk for a long work day tomorrow, my night was better because of my lack of fixation over it.
And sure enough, before I hit the sack Wednesday night, I celebrated the text message I received stating that work would be closed tomorrow. The 12+ inches that ensued afforded many beautiful moments that wouldn’t have otherwise been possible.
I was able to spend a leisurely hour and a half up the street at Baltimore Free Farm feeding and snuggling with chickens.
I packed inside of friends’ living rooms watching the Olympics, then, re-created them at a local park where friends and I sledded, saucer-ed and snowtubed down a staircase-turned-snow ramp. The antics continued as we set out for steeper and steeper slopes, until a few of our crew decided to brave the steepest hill of them all. We chanted friends’ names as they braved a steep incline, a very bumpy bump halfway down the hill, and then finally, a three foot high wall before hitting the snow below with a loud “thud.” And sure enough, a couple not only were courageous enough to go down, but managed to stay affixed to their sled, and we fans gave them an enthusiastic perfect “10”.
I listened to the ambiance of light falling snow from inside an abandoned igloo our group stumbled upon, able to understand why Inuit populations would be satisfied with calling this a home.
I watched people come together when two MTA buses got stuck going uphill. Armed with shovels in hand, the spirited citizens took a pause from their rescue effort long enough to fill in my boyfriend and me, who were passers-by, on the scope. “You see the first bus over there?” one of the women pointed. “It’s inches away from that parked car to the right. But we called a tow truck; I’m hopeful they’ll be able to make it out here.” Snow. Bringing together bus drivers and neighbors, one fishtail collision at a time.
Time away from my usual 9-5 routine gave me time to listen to a podcast in which a friend was interviewed on a local radio station discussing social activism and racism after a flurry of Baltimore blog posts depicting frustrations about the city’s crime were published. The clip was invigorating, reminding me that we are a city of activists, and there’s beautiful people all around who are eagerly moving in their spheres of influence to spread love and kindness all over this diverse city.
The snowstorm allowed me to meet neighbors I wouldn’t have otherwise met, since I never seem to be home anymore. Two of them offered to help push Brian’s car up the hill when his tires were spinning over ice and snow. They cheered along with us when he finally got out of his parking spot. The other neighbor I just met this morning, as she was shoveling out her car. After some brief cordials, I found out she moved here from Illinois.
“So when did you move here to the block?” I asked.
“Oh just a few weeks ago,” she shared.
“You’ll love it,” I shared, remembering my move-in day a year and a half ago.
I’ve had a year and a half of beautiful Baltimore memories, and an additional year prior of not-so-good B-more memories, mostly consisting of moving and growing pains before I found friends and freedom, two components, I’d soon learn, that are entirely quintessential to the journey. We learn from the past as pain recycles itself into unspeakable beauty, sewing together memories like powerlines and clothing lines, connecting neighbor to neighbor, neighborhood to neighborhood.
To let you in on a little secret, (since I feel like I’m cheating on my Baltimore love for doing this), I recently applied for a dream job in DC that includes free housing. If I were to get it, I’ll be moving to DC in July. And much like Counting Crows, I’m finding myself in awe of the myriad of treasured memories that I, too, long fervently to hold on to as they pass…
And if I’m lucky, this winter just might churn out one more snowstorm, and I’ll see you at the park, together laughing all the way into the night…
Recently, I’ve been catching myself reflecting on my actions, attitudes, and behavior with disappointment and disgust. I’m the one who, at 18 years old, vowed never to live my life out of step with my values, who vowed to always live with passion and bring life into the world. Because I knew what it was like to almost lose it after falling asleep at the wheel, totaling my car one July evening shortly after graduating high school. I glanced heavenward in prayer that dark night, my soul in chaotic communion with God, claiming with ardor that I would live it right. Not take a breath for granted. I took my heart by the hand in firm grip. “You’re going to be passionate. Keep your complaints to a minimum. And above all, you’re going to take this life, and love it, and love others,” I declared, releasing my flexed, pointed finger and gritted teeth. I then proceed to cry, turning my fuming fingers into open palms, and slowly rested my tear-drenched face into them, learning a lesson on self-compassion and how absolutely compulsory it is.
So when I have days like today, days where I’m so aware of my slights, my transgressions, missed opportunities for sincerely listening to and loving those around me… when I’m acutely attuned to the cloudy mind I’m allowing myself to get sucked into, instead of opening it to the beautiful mess and joy around me, I celebrate one of the greatest strengths that life has to offer: its elasticity. The supple forgiveness it offers to simply begin again. And again. And again and again until the time clock of our individual lifespan wears thin. That whole “it’s never too late to be the person you wish to become” thing. Yes. I celebrate that people forgive. And I also celebrate that in order to truly drink in the forgiveness of others, I must also forgive myself. I must learn— though it’s ok to forget and re-learn over and over again— to return the next day with eyes opened wide, glance looking forward or upward, not down in crestfallen shame. And sure as winter, I will repeat this cycle countless times, but the observing, learning, and practicing piece of forgiveness makes it possible to begin again.
It’s moments like these when I’m reminded of a closing prayer we once read when I visited a Unitarian Universalist Church:
For remaining silent when a single voice would have made a difference, we forgive ourselves and each other;Â we begin again in love.
For each time that our fears have made us rigid and inaccessible, we forgive ourselves and each other;Â we begin again in love.
For each time that we have struck out in anger without just cause, we forgive ourselves and each other;Â we begin again in love.
For each time that our greed has blinded us to the needs of others, we forgive ourselves and each other;Â we begin again in love.
For the selfishness which sets us apart and alone, we forgive ourselves and each other;Â we begin again in love.
For falling short of the admonitions of the spirit, we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.
For losing sight of our unity, we forgive ourselves and each other;Â we begin again in love.
For those and for so many acts both evident and subtle which have fueled the illusion of separateness, we forgive ourselves and each other;
we begin again in love.
-Robert Eller-Isaacs
I look out the window at the moon singing to the night sky and snowy hills and valleys below. Tomorrow, every color known to humankind will show up again, somewhere. People who cried yesterday will laugh today. A lonely wander will find solace in the smile of another stranger. And I, too, will rise anew to begin again in love.
Inspired by Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, I recently set out on a project of my own.
Only it doesn’t feel like a project.
It feels like love. And life. And delight.
A week ago, I began “joy activities.” These are five minute tasks I give myself for the sole purpose of experiencing joy. The week before, I wrote about having a “smash-my-head-into-the-keyboard” kind of week. I had a stressful day, but what got me through it was the fact that I started the day by spending a few minutes in nature. I intentionally stopped what I was doing to initiate the experience of peace and joy. I realized that unless we intentionally plant joy into our lives each day, happiness and joy may not come. We can’t sit back and hope someone says something funny to make us laugh. We can’t sit back and hope something good will come our way. We can’t breathe easy when schedules are jam-packed with meetings and activities. Or when our work is overflowing.
Perhaps if we don’t have joy in our lives, it’s simply because we are not creating it.
So five minutes. It’s not too much time to detract from the things I really need to do each day. But it is enough to set a tone of positivity and gratitude for the rest of my day. It’s enabled me to experience beautiful memories that I now treasure like a worn photo album from yesteryear.
Through my “joy activities,” I’ve experienced the joy of watching backyard chickens cock their head to the side, inquisitively, and lean their head back, then forward to smash their beak into the corn cob I’m holding in my hand. They’re hilarious, with just the right precision to pick one kernel off the cob at a time. After all, food is meant to be enjoyed, one little smackerel at a time, the chickens remind me.
Because of “scheduling joy”, I’ve hopped off my bike, parked it against a railing on the side of the road, and walked down to river’s edge to gaze at weirs, cascades of cold, flowing rivulets greeting the surprisingly emerald green waters below them. I am fortune enough to pass by such beauty on my morning commute each day, but rarely have I stopped to take it in, to immerse my being with the halcyon sound of bird chatter and waterfall, before biking downtown, where the ambiance of cars and sirens await me.
But even my five minute joy activity turns sirens into symphonies, yes. Today’s joy task was to sing on my bike. Being that I work at a hospital, it’s not uncommon for me to have to pull over for sirens zooming eastward to the ER. But since I was singing, I took a moment to sing “every siren in a symphony.” Suddenly, it made the noise and chaos not just bearable, but beautiful.
I’m reading books that I’ve been trying to get through for months by candlelight- my favorite lavender Yankee candles, lighting all three of them, not just one, aromas tickling my chemoreceptors with pure delight. I flip my fingers through manila pages, not once feeling guilty for pleasure reading instead of getting through my assigned readings for class. And not feeling even a twinge of guilt is a victory for this recovering people-pleaser perfectionist.
Yes. Tomorrow, I’ll experience five joy-filled minutes of yoga.
And the next day, broomball.
And the day after that, a five minute soak in the whirlpool at the gym.
Come springtime, I will lay down in the backyard grass (that’s probably too long from not mowing) and do nothing but survey the contours of clouds in the sky for five minutes.
Because this life is exquisite.
There are chocolates in thin, crinkly foil wrappers waiting to be opened and savored in your mouth for minutes on end.
There are bubbles waiting to be blown into the air, sun meeting frothy blobs, transcending shades of purple and pink off bubble’s edge.
And yes, there’s even a few pairs of fancy underwear I haven’t worn in months waiting for me to stop thinking I need a reason to wear them.
Today is one of those “smash face into keyboard to continue” days. Smartphoneless, I discovered I missed several important emails, including a few deadlines. I began a grad class this week. Work, often feast-or-famine with the patient population I work with, who experience several barriers to medical care, was definitely a feast this week. A large one. Thanksgiving with all your extended relatives, kind of feast. Add triathlon training, a conviction to be a better friend/family member, and a few other commitments, I noticed the all-too-familiar trap of spreading myself thin in a flurry of perfectionism.
But before I could drag myself into work for one final day this week, I marveled at an urban creek that I pass on my commute to work each day. Sun kissing ice blocks in emerald green water, a gem amongst graffiti and the click-clack of trains off in the distance. “Lord of Lords,” an old hymn, comes to my mind, and I suddenly find my soul in a pining connection to the lyrics, “Keep my eyes fixed upon Jesus’ face. Let not the things of this world ever sway me.” As much as I refuse to go back to my former version of Christianity, there is so much that I want to make sure I don’t let go of. And one of those things is to keep steady resolve on Jesus’ ways, because that way of living feels more fulfilling, more rich. A teacher who catches us in the midst of snowballing worry, and looks us in the eye to say, “Hey! Snap out of it. Can worry add a single minute to your life?” (aka what I hear from Matthew 6:7).
Copyright: MO Baltimore, MD
This winter, I’ve been blown away by the beauty of the Falls. Each morning, I give myself permission to temporarily fix my gaze from the road to this scene of peace. Usually frantically running late to work, I often glance only long enough to smile at it. But today I decided to stop long enough to hop off my bike, take a picture, and remember the words of Anna Quindlen: “And realize that life is glorious, and you have no business taking it for granted…” (From “Life’s Little Instruction Book.”)
Biking along the Falls, I feel as though I’m being taken away to Canada. One to share my voice only to the shower vapors, I softly sing aloud, “on the lakes of Canada…” Instead of aimlessly passing up the opportunity to be transported, I intentionally decide to stop whooshing by it and stop for just 60 seconds to soak it all in. 60 seconds to let my eyes dilate, absorb light and movement, to not think about anything in particular, to just be. 60 seconds to create experiences of beauty.
It was the best 60 seconds I’ve spent today. I’m so tired of rushing through life, not pausing to create moments of peace, order, beauty, serenity.Because unless we stop, unless we do something to forge scenes of beauty, unless we sew them together with beautiful seams of peaceful patchwork, we can easily forget. At least, I do. We forget the peace that can be found in this world. Forget how beautiful it is, because in the celerity, in the achievement-oriented rat race, it can seem like peace, beauty and order have left the building.
It’s no coincidence to me that as I hop back on my bike, the next piece of graffiti I find is the wall that over the summer read in big letters,
Go placidly amongst the noise and haste… Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â and know the peace there is in the silence.
I’m going to stop more. Because it’s up to us to create scenes of beauty in our lives. It’s up to us; it’s our responsibility because if we can’t find peace and order and beauty, then maybe we aren’t stopping long enough to actually exhale and find it.
Yes, I will take ownership for having peaceful moments in my life. And be gracious to myself when I forget to stop—When I’m at my desk, smashing my head into the keyboard for one more day, kicking myself for not stopping.
Tomorrow, I’ll begin again. The Falls will be there. Birds on Trees will be there.
“Flowers in the garden.
Laughter in the hall.
Children in the park.
I will not take these things for granted…
…Anymore.”
I can’t stop thinking about them; their cuddly little bodies and jovial clucks. While the weekdays can often slip away, one of my favorite ways to mark a no-work weekday snow day is to take a stroll up the street to an urban farm in my neighborhood and play with them. The minutes pass by leisurely, a slow drift from morning snow to calm evening walks under falling flakes, shining like miniature sugar cookies against the street lights. Somewhere in between those morning and evening hours, I take pictures of them like these:
They’re chickens. But not just chickens. They’re Barred Rock, Leghorns, Orpingtons, and Black Chochins. They’re not just breeds, but have names, nicknames. Belle. Scratch. Buddy.
I’ve always wanted to go vegetarian and have done so in small bits and spurts. But after reading an article in Christianity Today this past October about Lamppost Farm, which provides chicken killing demonstrations in order to teach people about the sacrifice of Jesus’ death, my decision to go vegetarian was re-affirmed.
“One by one, the birds are hung by their feet on a backboard of metal sheeting with wood bracers, where their throats are cut and bled out. Next, the limp birds are scalded in 150-degree water before visiting the de-featherer, then the stainless-steel cleaning table. There, the feet, head, organs, lungs, and trachea are removed, in that order. The next bird does not die as gracefully. I make the cut more quickly, drawing the knife deeply through the throat in a single back-and-forth, like a violin bow. But when I release her, she flaps wildly for a moment in spasms that don’t seem involuntary. So violent is the reaction that the chicken actually kicks loose one of her legs from the holding prongs, and I must refasten her. Then, she’s still.  ‘It’s disturbing,’ [a participant says]. “It’s supposed to be,” [the farmer says]. “We’re not supposed to take a life and then say, Well, whatever. That’s not how we’re made.”
The fact that this group kills living creatures—creatures God created, mind you— in an attempt to show people that God loves us crushes my heart as I scratch my head, wondering, once again, “Have we missed the point of faith?” That people can disregard life and kill it in the name of God is beyond me. All of this left me feeling that I am no longer detached from the killing process that goes into eating meat. I now know, graphically, what a murderous process it is.
So since reading that article, I’ve been spending some with these chicken lovelies and my life has not been the same. Cuddled in the nook of my arm, this beautiful hen, softly cooing, pulls my heart, ears, and eyes in closer. The chickens taught me that we can choose to keep things close or far away. But if you are brave enough, and willing enough, to get really close instead of passively, comfortably at a distance from the unknown, things will change, will become real. Become visceral. You will be changed and you won’t be able to look at things the same way.
Because you chose to get close.
The closer I am to these creatures, the more I want to love them, hold them, see their inherent worth and dignity as a living creature, and do everything in my power to protect their life and well-being.
And isn’t that the way it goes with everything? The closer we get towards what we don’t understand, the more compassion we feel for others.
The closer we get towards poverty, the more we understand why not everyone can simply “pull themselves up by the bootstraps.”
The closer we get towards people from sexual orientations other than heterosexual, the more we realize how unjust it is that these fellow sisters and brothers are denied 1,138 rights that heterosexual couples are freely granted.
The more we choose to center our lives around loving our neighbors and living sustainably, the more we reject capitalism and living solely for ourselves.
The more we leave our houses and two car garages, the more we interact with the world around us. As Jack Kerouac once said,
“The closer you get to real matter, rock, air, fire, and wood, boy, the more spiritual the world is.”
The more spiritual the world is, the more we are willing to sacrifice a car ride for a bicycle ride, and light switches for natural light. We become close enough to crave the sanctuary that the trees and humming rivers provide and see God far beyond steeples and pews, into everything the daylight and moonlight touches.
The more we get to know the names, life experiences, faces, joys, struggles, and dreams of someone from a religion other than our own, the more we come to recognize that we come from the same God, and we now see no divisions, just a flowing river of love pouring from my heart to your heart and everyone else’s heart in between.
Yes, outside, everyday, are people, places, and animals that invite us into holy, intimate connection. Into what many South Africans, including Nelson Mandela, call “ubuntu-” the concept that we teach each other how to be human. That I cannot become human without your humanness, for we learn how to become moving, walking, talking people from each other. “You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality — Ubuntu — you are known for your generosity,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu explains. “
We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.”
The birds of the air, the waters of the sea, and even these adorable warbles of chickens with thick feathers and skinny legs have something to teach us. The invitation is waiting. The world opens up wide as you expand your heart in the spirit of closeness, togetherness, ubuntu, attachment, and learning.
A little girl lies down to sleep. The house lay quiet.
Everybody else has already fallen asleep, but as she lies there,
she looks out the window and talks to God.
“Mommy, what happens when we close our eyes to sleep at night?” she asks, rubbing her tired eyes sleepily.
“Well, I’ll tell you…” God whispers back,
tucking the soft fleece blanket around her square shoulders.
“Curtains close.
Blinds shut.
I hear prayers oceans and lakes and deserts wide, and I respond to each of them, including yours.
In a village far away, a girl in a hut falls asleep to lullabies.
The lullabies swirl out the little girl’s window.
The stars begin to dance.
The stars generate enough light for crickets
in the fields to see their legs.
They rub their legs melodiously to fiddle chirping sonnets.
The crickets errupt into such a joyful song,
that the owls relaxing in the deep pine forests chime in.
Sensing the owls chiming in, the bats sing along too.
The grass can’t take all this merriment,
and it laughs so hard, it cries morning dew.
The morning dew soaks springs of grass so wet,
they beckon the sun to come out and play.
The sun stretches and leaps out from its bed,
shining red and orange  into every tree,
every birds’ nest, every rabbits’ den.
Into the eyes of kids in the village
long before they wake up to feed the clucking chickens.
Into the eyes of kids in the city,
long before the school bus comes.
Into the eyes of mommies and daddies in each town,
long before their alarm clock zings.
The sun rises and rises,
until it’s outstreached arms rest over the horizon,
just waiting to give you a morning hug
whispering a soft, loving, ‘namaste,’ to you darling,
and that is how you wake up.”
The eyes of a young girl’s in a town not so far away
flip halfway open and shut, open a little wider than before,
and shut just a pinch, and finally stay open.
“Namaste,” she calls out to God, and leaps into motion,
a brand new day to unfold.
I had a professor in college who taught us about the “principle of leaving and entering,” i.e. one cannot move forward to the next [life stage, opportunity, job, city, destination, you fill in the blank] without making peace with what you’re leaving behind [be it college, your hometown, you get the idea]. At the time, I was dreaming about volunteering abroad after college, and ready to leave behind the America I knew. But what I didn’t realize at 22 is that the next stage of life would be just as much about putting things behind as it would be about pursuing new things. A couple years after college, I burnt out. I. simply. Couldn’t. keep. Up. I lost myself and become bitter and cynical towards much of what I saw around me. It wasn’t until 2011 that I realized just how many voices of the past were still lingering in my head, like flies in desperate need of a fly swatter. Voices of a spiritual community that said women were to be submissive, to “let their husbands lead.” Churches that said males were to be “pastor, provider, and protector” of his wife. Voices that said being a female pastor was a sin. Voices that made sure everybody knew what Christianity stood against, but left the world puzzled as to what we actually stood for.Voices that tried to rescue souls from hell, while ignoring the literal hells and Gehennas in the world going on right now. Sexual slavery. HIV/AIDS. Extreme poverty. Orphans without homes. Should I keep going?
In 2012, I began a journey towards freedom- freedom of religion, of dogma, of other people’s demands, of paved paradises- into a personal journey of development and enrichment. It’s looked like lots of open spaces, lots of gathering ’round the table over wine and sweets and savories, lots of finding and losing myself on bicycles. In this freedom, it’s as though God took me by the hand to lovingly, but firmly, (because the lesson was too important to miss out on) teach me that the thing about the past is just that. It’s in the past. It cannot hurt you again. It cannot continue to hurt you or frustrate you unless you let those voices zap your energy from the present moment. For far too long, this woman’s listened to voices of the past that were squelching life, joy, zest for the moment. Alas, I looked myself in the mirror, a good ol’ stare yourself down, straight-up-talk, with a little bit o’ lovin’, and a lot of bit of firmness. I looked in the mirror, and noticed a cynic. Ugh. I hate that word. To me, it’s synonymous with a passive, complaining, do-nothing-to-change-anything kind of persona. So I asked God to silence those voices, the ones that were slowly, painfully, hauntingly taking away my joy, my peace, my resolve, and silence them one and for all, to free me from the people and places and noises that were no longer helping me become the person I want to become. I asked God to change me from cynicism into activism. Hurt into compassion. Bitter to better.
Somewhere in the process, I learned that I don’t need to fight anymore.. not against those voices, at least. A little whisper breathed into my heart, “You’ve been freed. Let your load feel lighter, your burdens from heavy rocks to little pieces of shiny yellow sand. Put the boxing gloves down. Breathe. You no longer have to defend, nor strive, nor try to make yourself understood.”
I thought it would feel easier. But then I realized that that’s not quite the way it works. The moment you stand for something, there is something you are implicitly standing against. The more and more you become the person you want to be, the voice that isn’t God’s will try to steer you off course. When you become YOU, not someone else’s version of you, you will disappoint people. But let me tell you something, you will become the person you were made to be. The more you will realize that the very people still standing beside you are there because they really do love you, they really do care, and they really do desire God’s peace and love and blessings upon you, not out of pity, nor spite, but out of a selfless kind of love that has found its way through the broken chains of redemption, giving voice and beauty to the very fact that you and I are both humans, composed of flesh and blood, and you and I have both been created in the womb. I am freed now from what’s been zapping precious energy, and I can’t wait to learn, and love, and do, and grow, and experience with this new found freedom what God can finally place in my life in the thoughts and corners and crevices of my heart that were once holding onto hurt, bitterness, and a seemingly endless desire to be understood. I am free. I can only imagine what will go in those pockets of my heart now. I can love without mountains of expectations or fears of being hurt. I can express bona fide joy—my smiles will no longer be a veil, hiding a voice that’s afraid of being mistaken as impolite, too afraid to speak up. I can operate out of a place that points to the horizon and feel alive in my soul, and my bones, and my eyes; to live the story, full and raw, not dependent upon things be one way or another, but ever confident that this risk of living a better story is so much better than living in the choking weight of others’ voices that try to drown out the one true voice of who you want to become. Go point to your horizon. MOVE. You don’t have time to respond to your critics. You simply don’t have time. Be you, the REAL you, ALL of you… that’s what the world needs. Go seek. Go ask. Because what I hope that the girls of new generations come  to realize is this: that if ever there was a time for women to rise up and unite, the time is now. Oh yes, I’m thankful for my sisters who gave me the ability to vote. For women who went to college and challenged typical professions. But there is so much work we still must do.
Advocate. Preach. Lobby. Dream. Louder.
May you listen to that one constant in your heart. May you give voice and flow to all that longs to leap inside of you. May your songs be peace, may your dance be love, and may your love bring freedom.
Because you have a voice that’s no one else’s. We’re ready to hear it.
“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy and wise,” I read from my morning brushing-my-teeth book: “The Daily Book of Positive Quotations.” What about women? I think to myself.
It’s remarkable how accustomed we are to hearing “men” used generically to mean both “men and women” that we forget how exclusionary is to not include women in our word choices.
I bike to work and see a man in a white coat portraying a doctor on a billboard for a healthcare company. I turn the other corner, and there is a car parked outside of a gentlemen’s club advertising the club with several half clad women in bikinis. I cringe, frustrated that often when one stops to scrutinize advertising, you’ll encounter gender mores that give us hints as to how we grow up to believe or assume certain qualities of genders.
It’s amazing how customary it is to see, at times, distinct, dichotomous portrays of male and female “roles” or activities.
My Ironman backpack I use each day for my commute- and yes, I did use permanent marker to say “IronWoman.” Photo: MO 2013
Ironman. Savageman. Eagleman. Quarry Man. Hammer Man. Chesapeake Man. These are just six of the many “man” triathlon races in my state. With a name that includes “man” in it, we are subtly suggesting that men are more so the targeted audience for these multisport races than women. We can be hopeful, though, for more gender equity in the sport, as women continue to be a key growth component in the sport – 55% of newcomers identified in this study are female.
When we use the word “man” and correlate it to a typically male-dominated activity (sports), we propel the stereotype of men being encouraged to play sports, while women can simply tag along if they feel like it.
I hope that these critiques can point out the need for gender-fair language.
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has an excellent resource which provides great food for thought on how to make language word choices more gender equitable in our everyday conversations. I pass this along not to chide anyone for not being “feminist enough,” rather, to offer a platform for discussion about gender fair language. After first reading this, I became acutely aware of examples every single day in which we hear “gender-fied” words which subconsciously divide the two sexes. When we use gender fair language, we affirm the inherit dignity, worth, and value of every person, female, and male. We inspire children to realize that they can be a nurse, doctor, law enforcement officer, teacher, irrespective of one’s biological sex. No one gets left out. Everyone is included. And we realize there is room at the table for all of us- men, women, transgender, rich, poor, black, white, tan, or in between, all loved, all valued, all respected.
Comment below with your questions, comments, or thoughts.
When is the last time you heard someone use “man” or “men” to mean both “men and women?”
When is the last time you heard someone challenge stereotypical norms, such as citing an example of a nurse as male, or an example of a police officer as a female?
Do you think that if the media portrayed men and women in occupations or roles that aren’t “traditional,” we would inspire young girls or boys to pursue their interests (and not what they think they should pursue as a male or female)?
Melissa Otterbein 