Nicholas Kristof, a highly-regarded, agnostic columnist for the New York Times wrote this yesterday, highlighting one little girl who has undergone horrors that I think would probably kill me. She was raped an average of 20 times a night from the time she was 6 until she escaped at age 9.

Read it. And pray.

• diminishing availability of land as the population grows
• lack of incentive for farm households to work off-farm (resulting in a sluggish economy and stagnant rural development)
• disempowerment of women
• cash-poor farmers without resources to invest in technology, seeds, fertilizers, etc.

There’s been quite a bit of research around if Ethiopian land tenure policies result in poor agricultural productivity, and there doesn’t seem to be much evidence to support that.  However, something I’ve been exploring lately has been if these policies play a role in the eight famines that have ravaged Ethiopia in the last 26 years (my lifetime).  Food insecurity is a major concern in this nation, where 82 percent of the population live on less than a dollar a day.

My advisor is hesitant to let me pursue this, because he doesn’t think I’ll be able to quantify “food security” with empirical data.  So I’m looking into that.  I’m hoping that I can extract some data from an extremely in-depth Ethiopian household survey the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has conducted over a period of years.  I’d like to see how farmers are feeding they’re families.  My suspicion is that they are barely getting by.

And I’ve been wondering: how do you quantify food security?  The U.N. has several different definitions of food security, such as access to enough dietary sources of energy, a high percentage of normal-weight children, and availability of and access to enough food to lead healthy, productive lives.  Is that all?  I’m not sure.  I’m hoping the path will become more clear as I walk.

To be spontaneous, you have to let go…of sensibility, of the voice in your head that says, The risk is too great, the cost is not worth it.

So this morning, listening to Morning Edition on the way to work, I was struck by a report on a new project at Northwestern University, an 8-week study conducted as a continuing education class on improv.  The students?  Recently diagnosed Alzheimer’s patients.

Learning improv helps them live in the moment, reducing anxiety or sadness about not being able to remember.  The sound bytes I heard included a lot of laughter, obvious enjoyment of a reality that existed outside of the need to be right.

One man had been a professor of Hebrew studies, but was unable to tell the reporter at which university he had taught.  He couldn’t remember.  However, he was able to participate in a group chorus, where the group began humming all on one pitch, then, after a time, began one by one to introduce other pitches or sounds.  There was a harmonious cacophony of trilling, droning, chirping and then the sound of a man’s musical “Woof-woof-woof-woof!”

Another man, playing a game called “Yes, It Is,” declared that the object in front of him was a huge, red mackerel and his classmates joyfully shouted back, “Yes, it is!”

The leader of the group says the most important concept the group perpetuates is the concept of yes.  ”Fundamental to all our work,” she said, “is that whatever answer someone comes up with, the rest of us are going to be able to work with it.”

It got me thinking.  We hear no so much.  Primarily from ourselves.  What has happened to yes?

For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding,
“Yes!”
{II Corinthians 1:20}

Are you surrounding yourself with people who tell you that Jesus says yes?  He looks at the real you–the free, childlike you–and He says yes.  That’s His answer to you.  All He asks is that you leave behind your fear-based, knee-jerk, shame-faced excuses and let Him love you so completely in the present moment that you find yourself saying yes, too.

If I knew, blogging would be so much easier, because then I would have an actual theme for my blog.  I should narrow it down–have a blog focused on my musings in prayer or my running training or highlights from the latest podcast or Fresh Air segment I’ve heard.  I’m not far enough into grad school and I don’t know enough about farming, really, to focus a blog entirely on either of those things.  So instead, I’ll glom all of them together into one, possibly taking a day a week (best case scenario, in which i am disciplined enough to blog that often) to focus on one of these things.  Today, an amuse bouche–a taste of what is to come:

• Ephesians 3:14-21 is intense.  This morning, I was especially struck that God says He’s able to do far more than all we ask or think in direct proportion to the power at work inside of us.  It makes me want to ask for more power inside, or for the ability to make more room for that power.
• I missed quite a few of my favorite programs this week on NPR because I was moving, restarting work, trying to find my car keys, etc.  But I did listen to July 29 The Splendid Table podcast this morning–one of my favorites–and loved the segment on brewing your own beer.  Lynn Rossetto Kasper’s guest, William Bostwick, coauthor of Beer Craft: A Simple Guide to Making Great Beer, made it sound so doable.  It’s something I’ve been wanting to try for awhile and my cousin, Kate Powell, in Houston, has started experimenting with microbrewery and I believe may even be selling some on top at a local venue!
• Almost two weeks ago, I ran my first marathon and finished in 3:24:41 (the number is engrained into the heads of everyone who knows me, I think).  I had a blast and can’t wait to do it again.  I’ve been taking it easy with running, wanting to focus on other things right now, but am looking forward to running in cooler weather.  If it ever comes.

People pin desires on each other in an effort to bring their own unrealized longings to pass.  I think there’s some of that in my goal-setting.  There’s also a wishfulness to go “back to bountiful,” I think, in my desire to farm or promote back-to-the-land.  Am I truly passionate about soil?  I want my children–who don’t yet exist–to experience the abundance of life, closeness to nature, and access to color and beauty that I had growing up.  That’s the origin of my interest in sustainability.  From there, it stems out to wanting other “children” and the world in general to experience this as well and it angers me to see so many of these people making choices that destroy the possibility of abundant life.

But how to proceed?  How to make the biggest impact to help people wake up out of the gray into the sunrise?  Should I…have a family?  Go to grad school and work for a nonprofit?  Get a job in Maine as a farm tour guide for schoolchildren?  Stay where I am as an English teacher at a private Christian school?

Hoping the path will present itself.

I live life as a MINI Cooper-driving English teacher who dabbles at long-distance running.  I am a committed follower of Jesus, want to represent Him in His authentic beauty to a world that is quickly being overtaken by concrete, and daily struggle to put people before tasks.  Sometimes I go to bed at night with my heart pounding and wake up in the same state because I’m afraid I haven’t gotten it all done and won’t get it all done the next day.  I like pretty clothes, modern art, and whitewashed houses.  If you saw me at Starbucks–getting my usual, a bold coffee with an inch of steamed soy–you would never think that I would prefer to be getting dirt under my fingernails, snipping jalapenos from plants and discussing the Farm Bill over the rows.

I know so little about it all, really, when compared to those people out there who have been fighting for sustainable agriculture for 20+ years and have advanced degrees in all kinds of scientific disciplines.  I’d like to go to grad school to become one of them, but even that feels almost undoable, since I chose the liberal arts route in college.  Professional Writing–I thought I could do anything with it, have the skills to become an expert on anything.  Instead, I became a teacher, and I pour my energy each day into trying to excite young minds about diagramming indirect objects and analyzing Julius Caesar.

In a way, it’s because it’s a trend that I haven’t pursued farming further.  But last night I had a small epiphany as I talked to the guy I’m currently dating.  He has a book inside of him, but he hasn’t written it yet because he wants it to be unique and fully formed as something that is not already available on the shelves.  I told him that I had been thinking about that lately, too, and realizing that if I commit to a creative expression, it will be unique because it comes from me.  And I’m an original.  Also, I preached, I had recently realized that my desire for perfection kept me from doing anything at all, because what if it was flawed?

So I’ve decided to write.  Even if I don’t know what I’m talking about.  Even if it never comes to full fruition.  Even if someone else has already written it and gotten famous.  I need to write about farming.  I need to express the truth inside of me about local food, sustainable agriculture, and public health.  If I don’t, it will just spoil inside of me.

Dallas Willard says that if we could do one thing to improve our lives, it would be to ruthlessly eliminate hurry.

think about that.  today, i woke up in a hurry to go see the sunrise, something that gives me a lot of pleasure because you can’t hurry it up.  then i hurried to spend time with Jesus, get dressed, get out the door, and try to grade essays for class, which i didn’t get done.  i hurried through my work out and my dinner and phone calls with frantic mothers and young life people.  and i felt the entire time like there was something more i should be doing–more papers to grade, emails to reply to, and cleaning to be done. it was the first day i’ve had in a while where it was a struggle to be happy.

i am definitely happiest when i have time and energy that is unplanned and unscheduled.  i need margins!  i don’t do well when there is tons of imposed structure.  i need fun, flexibility, creativity, and plenty of rest.  i visited my grandmother at her assisted living place this weekend and looking around at all of the precious people who were once vibrant members of their families and communities and now, by all appearances, are mere wheelchair-fillers, i felt a little desperate to do what it takes now to stay healthy.  the truth is, though, that it’s beyond my control.  everything is.  and when i try most to control life, i am least satisfied.

steps toward going out of control:

• make sure i’m not saying ‘yes’ to things just to make other people happy.
• get enough sleep at night.
• quit trying to be/appear perfect.
• pray a lot.

do y’all have any other ideas?

And when I get in my car to go home, I look forward to stopping at the grocery store and seeing all the people I know that work there, talking to them about the random groceries I’m buying: dried mango, eggs, herbal tea, frozen peas.  I get back to my little three-room duplex, pull into my carport, and unload groceries into my own little cabinet.  I sit down at my table, with my dying succulent plant next to my laptop, and open my folder full of papers to grade. I pull out my red pen–power!–and begin marking.

And I wonder, How did I get here?  Thank You, thank You, thank You, Jesus.