Day 69 ❦ Give and be part of something bigger than yourself

Day 69 ❦ Give and be part of something bigger than yourself

The Gift: A plank, or two...

We decided to go to the same church we attended last week because we really loved what they were doing, in our on-going search for churches, we are hooping that we can soon make a decision. You can imagine my delight when today, there was another guest speaker (I have since learned that this is not uncommon in the summertime.)

Today’s talk was about Habitat for Humanity, which apparently has been a mission out-reach for the First Congregational Church of Austin. Not only does the church support Habitat for Humanity financially, but there are also a number of people within the congregation who are Habitat for Humanity volunteers. This particular church has a lot of people who are active in the community, politics and internationally...I think I am getting closer to finding a church home!

As with any inspirational talk, the audience is jumping out of our seats asking, how can we help? What can we do? And the speakers were ready, outside in the parking lot they had had delivered a load of planks that would be used to build the next house and we were given the opportunity to purchase the wood for the building of the house. The volunteers had pencils ready and they asked us to write messages of hope, inspiration and well-wishes on the wood for the family that would be selected next week to be the beneficiaries fo the building project.

It was fun, creative and it really made me feel like I was part of something bigger...again!

❦ Give and be part of something bigger than yourself

Day 63 ❦ Give so others can give

Day 63 ❦ Give so others can give

The Gift: Cash for social justice work

I currently do not have an organized religious affiliation, but the time is coming when I will need to make a decision about joining a church since our youngest daughter is really longing to belong to that kid of an organization and while I think it would also be good for her, we have reached a point in our community that will make it important for all of us to attend as a family. Now this is a tough one, because church played a major role in both my husband’s and my own lives as children, but as many adults have, we drifted from organized religion - both of us, for very different reasons. But regardless of our own opinions, we both believe that it is really important for our children to be exposed to a wide variety of opinions, beliefs and experiences so as to better be able to cultivate independent thought and make an independent decision informed by experience and knowledge as opposed to fear and folly. This is often much harder said than done.

When our oldest daughter was growing up, she decided to attend a church that had very different beliefs than we did and while we supported her, we could not subject ourselves to the theology which in our opinion was hurtful to others. While we monitored her experiences closely, to ensure that we could provide alternative ideas when she had questions, we let her struggle with the extremes to which she was exposed - the views of her church community and her real life experiences as a compassionate human being. In the end she left that church and was clear in her mind about that decision. In retrospect, she has told us that she appreciated the experience and the chance to solidify some of her foundational beliefs through her own experiences.

The gift of hindsight while valuable now, didn’t make it easy when it was happening, and has not helped our current situation because our younger daughter has chosen to attend a church that continually tells her that she will not see her parents when she dies because we are going to hell because we don’t belong to their church. After coming home in tears after being told this three weeks in a row, we have decided that we just need to find a church and go as a family so we can all process together, and apparently, all go to hell together - since we will not be members of a church that uses those types of tactics to scare people into joining.

There are 57 churches in this small town of 23,000 people and so we just start by attending a different church each week, and today is our 8th church visit. Interestingly, when we were considering moving to Austin, my husbands parents and he and I attended this church on the Sunday of his interview fourteen years earlier. It is a Congregational Church and I am from New England and so it really feels like home to me. This Sunday there is a speaker who is talking about providing literacy for women in Nepal and supporting the graduates of his program by giving them a seminated goat. His name is Dr. Earl Thompson and I couldn’t get my checkbook out fast enough when the offering came around to support his work. I love sustainable development concepts and I am moved by literacy work. I am so thrilled that we happened to be at this church at this moment to feel like we could be part of something bigger than all of us put together. I can’t wait to learn more about this church that has as its sermon a conversation about how to help raise women out of poverty. This is home and a place where I can help make a difference. And so today, I do.

❦ Give so others can give