Barbara Edema's Blog, page 2

We fed people today... 4/16/20

We fed people today.
Yesterday we wanted to feed people and couldn’t.
Today we wanted to feed people and did.
Three of the large houses where folks are doing the good, hard work of beating addiction, came and got food today. Our shelves were depleted.
We restocked the shelves from our storage room.
Eleven families made appointments to come and get food today. We packed boxes. We found out if they needed diapers, feminine hygiene products, and what kind of meat they preferred.  Our refrigerator and freezers were emptied.
We refilled our cold storage with produce and meat.
A woman in the parking lot asked for someone to pray with her. I went outside. I was wearing my mask and my gloves. We didn’t stand close together.
“What would you like me to pray for?”
“My family. Protection from this virus. A way to get by without being able to work.” She wanted to hold my hands, but I told her we couldn’t do that quite yet.
So, we stood at a distance and I prayed louder than normal, while her two children looked on from the back seat and my amazing workmates brought out her food. (Thank you, Dave and Brian!)  

A parking lot prayer.
Because sometimes we need spiritual food, soul-soothing food.
Five different people walked to our doors without appointments.
“How many in your family, sir?”
“Five. Two adults, three kids.”
“We’ll be right out with your food. What kind of meat do your like? Do you need….?Our shelves were depleted. Our refrigerator and freezers were emptied.
So, we restocked.
I came home with a glorious backache.
Because today, we fed people.
Their smiles and words of blessing fed us right back.
Because sometimes we all need spiritual food, soul-soothing food.
May God continue to soothe all troubled souls, and surprise us with joy as we care for one another.

We fed people today (after we couldn't feed people yesterday)

We fed people today.
Yesterday we wanted to feed people and couldn’t.
Today we wanted to feed people and did.
Three of the large houses where folks are doing the good, hard work of beating addiction, came and got food today. Our shelves were depleted.
We restocked the shelves from our storage room.
Eleven families made appointments to come and get food today. We packed boxes. We found out if they needed diapers, feminine hygiene products, and what kind of meat they preferred.  Our refrigerator and freezers were emptied.
We refilled our cold storage with produce and meat.
A woman in the parking lot asked for someone to pray with her. I went outside. I was wearing my mask and my gloves. We didn’t stand close together.
“What would you like me to pray for?”
“My family. Protection from this virus. A way to get by without being able to work.” She wanted to hold my hands, but I told her we couldn’t do that quite yet.
So, we stood at a distance and I prayed louder than usual, while her two children looked on from the back seat and my amazing workmates (Thank you, Dave and Brian!) filled her car with food.
Sometimes we need spiritual food, soul-soothing food.
Five different people walked to our doors without appointments.
“How many in your family, sir?”
“Five. Two adults, three kids.”
“We’ll be right out with your food. What kind of meat do your like? Do you need….?Our shelves were depleted. Our refrigerator and freezers were emptied.
So, we restocked.
I came home with a glorious backache.
Because today, we fed people.
Their smiles and words of blessing fed us right back.
Because sometimes we all need spiritual food, soul-soothing food.
May God continue to soothe all troubled souls, and surprise us with joy as we care for one another.

We wanted to feed people today... 4/15/20

We wanted to feed people today.
Families called and made appointments to pick up food.
Children are part of those families.
Houses with people working hard to overcome addiction called in their food orders.
We packed boxes. We filled bags.
Because we wanted to feed people today.
Downtown Lansing, Michigan. Our food pantry is open. We are ready.
With food packed, we waited for our clients.
But instead of clients, we saw and heard something else.
Cars, trucks, signs, horns, hate, scorn…
We wanted to feed people today.
But a nonstop parade of people, screaming and yelling from open car windows, blocked our streets and clogged our neighborhoods.
Some got out of their cars and talked and laughed about their big protest. Social distanced from one another? No. Wearing masks? No.
We wanted to feed people today.
They spilled onto Michigan Avenue and created a traffic jam outside of Sparrow Hospital. Doctors and nurses are caring for Covid-19 patients in that hospital.
People are struggling to survive a deadly disease. And beneath their windows, semi-truck horns blared. Car horns were non-stop. People screamed and yelled.
While people tried to breathe.
We wanted to feed people today.
All appointments for food pick-up were cancelled, because our clients couldn’t get to our parking lot.
We locked our doors and waited while helicopters flew overhead. We couldn’t get out of our parking lot.
We saw and heard the cars, trucks, signs, horns, hate, scorn…
Doctors and nurses have a hard job. Their job was made harder today.
Tonight, families will not have the food they thought they would have.
People struggling with life’s difficulties will not have dinner. Or breakfast.
Children.
Because the followers of the most ignorant and dangerous President in our history acted ignorantly and dangerously today.
They were cruel, ugly, mocking, and scornful today.
A day when we just wanted to feed people.

We wanted to feed people today...

We wanted to feed people today.
Families called and made appointments to pick up food.
Children are part of those families.
Houses with people working hard to overcome addiction called in their food orders.
We packed boxes. We filled bags.
Because we wanted to feed people today.
Downtown Lansing, Michigan. Our food pantry is open. We are ready.
With food packed, we waited for our clients.
But instead of clients, we saw and heard something else.
Cars, trucks, signs, horns, hate, scorn…
We wanted to feed people today.
But a nonstop parade of people, screaming and yelling from open car windows, blocked our streets and clogged our neighborhoods.
Some got out of their cars and talked and laughed about their big protest. Social distanced from one another? No. Wearing masks? No.
We wanted to feed people today.
They spilled onto Michigan Avenue and created a traffic jam outside of Sparrow Hospital. Doctors and nurses are caring for Covid-19 patients in that hospital.
People are struggling to survive a deadly disease. And beneath their windows, semi-truck horns blared. Car horns were non-stop. People screamed and yelled.
While people tried to breathe.
We wanted to feed people today.
All appointments for food pick-up were cancelled, because our clients couldn’t get to our parking lot.
We locked our doors and waited while helicopters flew overhead. We couldn’t get out of our parking lot.
We saw and heard the cars, trucks, signs, horns, hate, scorn…
Doctors and nurses have a hard job. Their job was made harder today.
Tonight, families will not have the food they thought they would have.
People struggling with life’s difficulties will not have dinner. Or breakfast.
Children.
Because the followers of the most ignorant and dangerous President in our history acted ignorantly and dangerously today.
They were cruel, ugly, mocking, and scornful today.
A day when we just wanted to feed people.

Maundy Thursday in August

It was a hot, sticky day. August can be that way.
He had returned home from the hospital and was resting in his favorite chair, staring at the water outside.
Water was a soothing passion of his. Sailing, swimming, skiing, skipping stones.
He and his brother built their own boat as kids. It floated. I knew this story. He liked to tell stories.
But now, he rested. A misdiagnosis of prostate cancer was finally diagnosed. Too late.
I went for a visit. To have a chat. To stare at the water with him.
I looked around the room and saw his hospital “gift basket.” All the things that had been in his sterile, unimaginative, utilitarian room.  
A small kidney-shaped dish that held a generic toothbrush and toothpaste.
A clear, plastic urinal.
A cup with a sippy straw.
Socks with skid-proof soles.
A plastic, lidless box which had held his keys and wallet in the small cupboard next to his bed.
A stuffed toy meant to give comfort.
And a large, blue, plastic bin which held all these treasures.
I emptied out the bin, and on a whim (my unfortunate default), I quietly filled the blue bin with warm water and a squirt of liquid soap. Bubbles. I dropped a bar of soap into the water.
I tried not to spill as I walked to his chair. I spilled a little.
Then I sat down at his feet, and he opened his eyes.
"I thought you might like a pedicure," I smiled. Blue eyes looked into blue eyes.
“Well, that's nice. I’ve never had one,” he said quietly.
I removed his slippers and gently put each foot into the tub.
He smiled.
He stared out at the water as I soaped up my hands and took his right foot. I held his heel in the palm of my hand and washed the sole of his foot, the top of his foot, in between each toe.
I held his left foot and repeated the process.
It was sweetly intimate.
I took out some nail clippers and did a job I knew he couldn’t do anymore.
I let his pedicured feet rest in the bubbly water as his eyes closed. Naptime.
The next day it was time for me to leave. I had a plane to catch. A flight from Florida back to Michigan. The days had gone quickly.
Even though he was weak and unable to stand by himself, he insisted on riding along to the airport. His brother helped him get into the car. We drove in silence.
When we got to the airport.  I leaned forward and kissed his gray head from the backseat. “I’ll see you soon, I promise.”
I got out of the car and saw him struggle to open his door.
“No, you don’t need to get out, I’m going in right there.” I pointed to the large sliding glass doors leading to the terminal.
He used all the energy he could muster (a great default of his) and finally stood against the car. His arms (they used to be so strong) wrapped themselves around me and he leaned in.
“Thank you for washing my feet,” he whispered.
Watery blue eyes looked into watery blue eyes.
“You’re welcome, Dad.”
And that was Maundy Thursday in August 2001.

Boxes

Boxes
More than twenty boxes wait to be filled. Twenty families will come for food. Families of one and two. Families of three. Families of four. Families of five, six, and seven. The larger the family, the more boxes they receive. We start with beans. Then more canned goods, pasta, rice, peanut butter and jelly. Bread, baking mix, mac and cheese, ramen, oil, nuts, cereal, snacks. Milk, produce, meat.  
Twenty families. But we have only eight rolls of toilet paper. We have only twelve bars of soap.
Who gets a roll of toilet paper? Who gets a bar of soap? They can’t come back for a month. How do we choose?
Which families get what they need today? Which families don’t?
Hospital beds were waiting empty. Now they are full. The patients in the beds need help to breathe. They need medicine. They need doctors and nurses to care for them, even though they are dangerously sick and highly contagious.
Covid-19 is an equal opportunity killer.The killer is afoot. The killer is on the prowl.
Thousands of patients. But not enough ventilators. Not enough PPE. Not enough of many other needed supplies.
Who gets a ventilator? Which health care workers get the proper PPE? There are not enough beds. There are not enough ventilators. There are not enough masks, gowns, face shields…. There is not enough medicine to induce a coma for the ventilators to be inserted.
Which patients get what they need? Which patients don’t?
We will look back one day and know what went wrong for a country that used to be strong. A country that used to be prepared. A country that was great just a few years ago. We will see each and every word and action, or lack thereof, that allowed an equal opportunity killer to blow through our cities, towns, and country-sides.
The truth will be known.
Until then, I start with beans. I fill boxes. I randomly add toilet paper or soap.I pray for the people I watch through glass doors as they pick up their food. We can’t help them put food in their cars these days. They come to us dressed in all their God-ness. We wave. They wave. They are gone.
Doctors and nurses treat their patients. Patients dressed in all their God-ness. They just can’t breathe anymore. Medical personnel do everything they possibly can without enough of what they need to be the healers they are trained to be. Then they watch through the glass windows as patient after patient dies alone in their bed. They are gone.
Doctors and nurses and first responders are gone, too.  
There are more boxes. The boxes outside the hospitals are filled. There is plenty of death to fill them, there is no shortage. There is not one single empty box. The boxes are stuffed with death.
So, I pray…
God be with the hungry, the poor, the young, the old, the rich, the lost, the least, the elite, the proud, the confused, the dying.
Fill us like empty boxes. Fill us with you. Fill us with your goodness and your God-ness. May we be some kind of light in a very dark darkness. We are in a scary and unfamiliar place. Fill us with you. Please show yourself to us and through us in acts of kindness and mercy. Fill us with you. We will empty ourselves of your love to those around us and wait for you to fill us again. Amen.

Breath

Breath
Running through the sunny park. Climbing up the ladder to the metal slidewe glide down, one towhead behind the other. Then off we go, my brother and I,from slide to swings to merry-go-round. Finally, we have to stop.We laugh and try to catch our breath.
Riding bicycles with my eight-year-old best friend. Snaking through sidewalks of the university in our town. It’s a race. She wins. We laugh and try to catch our breath.
In the pool. Practice, practice. I must swim the entire length under water.(My self-imposed challenge) It’s a long pool. Finally, I make it. Unbelievable! I hang on to the rough edge with both hands.I smile with pride and try to catch my breath.
Is he going to say it? Will tonight be the night the words are spoken?His eyes look so deeply into mine. I wait.“I love you,” he says.I’m surprised to realize I’m holding my breath.  
“Breathe! Pant! Pant!” The nurse doesn’t mean to yell.But I’m not paying attention. It hurts too much to breathe.“Breathe!”I try but can’t. I wait until the contraction is over.Then I cry and try to catch my breath.
Finally, a tiny voice cries out. A very first breath of a brand, new life.
I dance. I dance in the seminary chapel. I dance in the sanctuary.I teach girls to dance. Eight of them.They dance to hymns and psalms and spiritual songs.I name them Ruach. Breath of God.Wordlessly they lift their arms to heaven. Silently they twirl and link arms and bow down in honor.When the dance is finished, the sanctuary feels a fresh holiness.The dancers quietly catch their breath. So does the congregation.
Grandpa can’t breathe. He has congestive heart failure.He sleeps sitting up in a chair.He doesn’t talk much, but still smiles.One day, he doesn’t talk at all. He doesn’t smile.He breathes his last, labored breath.He’s been healed into eternal life. We all try to catch our breath, but tears chase breath away.
Over the years, I walk into hospital rooms.I walk into nursing homes.People I love and pastor have oxygen tubes in nostrils.They have oxygen masks covering half their face.If they have the energy, they smile with their eyes.Or cry. They try so hard to catch their fleeting breath.
I walk into ICU rooms. Eyes are closed. Hands and feet are still. Machines hum. Fluorescent green numbers on a small screen flash up, then down, then up again.A ventilator pumps in a precise and unchanging rhythm. In…out…in…out…Forced breath. Fake breath. Life-saving breath.
In March 2020, our country waits. We hold our breath.Something invisible and unmanageable seeks to take our breath away.It wishes to creep and seep through nostrils, eyes, mouth.It is the Breath Thief.It’s enough to take our breath away even before it seizes our communities.
In the midst of confusion and misinformation I choose to do this:With each breath I will be thankful for the mercies I see around me.With each breath I will pray for loved ones. I will pray for strangers.With each breath I will hold onto the God who loves me. The God who loves you.With each breath I will seek to be a woman of action, not a woman of fear.With each breath I will take in the reality and prepare for the outcome.With each breath I will think beyond myself and remember others.With each breath I will have courage and strive to be kind.I might even dance, so I can remember how to catch my breath again.Because I know this certain thing: Each breath is a gift from God. Ruach.
May God’s breath fill your soul with peace and lighten your spirit. Amen.

Ashes to Ashes: A Eulogy for the Republican Party

“Ashes to Ashes”A Eulogy for the Republican Party
“Ring-a-round the rosie,A pocket full of posies,Ashes! Ashes!We all fall down.
A simple song the children sang,The Plague, black death, on breath did hang.Posies in pockets could not protect,From small red rings announcing death.From ashes they came, to ashes they fell,Not fooled by posies, death cast its’ spell.
We watch the trial of a foolish man,His followers sing while holding hands.“He'll give us riches, and White shall reign!”Bigotry seals their decisive shame.Simple fools hitch to his lies,Stare at the ground, instead of the skies.  
Democracy, where freedom rings,Is threatened by fake offerings.Trump’s betrayal of liberty,Has wrenched apart what once was “we.”Now it is hatred between “us” and “them,”The fire fueled by Republicans.
"Cage brown children! Attack human rights!Trod down the poor! Keep this nation White!"
Beware, oh leaders of the land,Democracy will surely stand!
This cruel circle you refuse to break,And reject to honor the oath you take.Not a bit impartial, and gravely unfair,Ignore all evidence, slumber in chairs.Your false king daily spreads his plague,Your arrogance is badly played.
Republicans take hands and sing,A foolish song of rosie ring.Your party’s demise is your sure fate,No pocket posies at your waist.And even if there might have been,Ashes to Ashes, your song’s end.  
Ashes, Ashes, you all fall down.No fake king, no fake crown.Lady Liberty with hand held high,Will shed her light on this darkest sky.
Then all the children will rise and sing,With joy at the final reckoning.Children welcomed from every land,To be cherished and held by gentle hands.No more cruelty, harm, or hate,New songs of life for them await.
This sad eulogy should not be,But Republicans, this seems your plea.Unless you step from dark to light,“We all fall down!” Your certain plight.

"Intentions" For the Women #HarveyWeinstein

#HarveyWeinstein
Intentions
When she says, “Me too.” When she says, “You know me.”My intention is to sit, listen, acknowledge, and support her.
When she says nothing, but her tears tell the story,My intention is to let the story be told, then validate her truth so she can catch her breath.
When she says, “He did these things.” My intention is to believe her and share her pain.
When she says, “He tried to silence my voice, steal my identity, erase my name, and destroy my soul…”My intention is to remind her of her humanity. My intention is to remind her of her powerful voice. My intention is to remind her of her strength.
When he (whoever he may be) thinks he can trample her being and steal her voice,My intention is to join with all the voices who condemn him for his brazen cruelty.
When he (whoever he may be) attacks, beats, and abuses women for decades and somehow evades justice,My intention is to encourage the women who finally have their say.
When he (whoever he may be) says, “It was her fault. She wanted it.”My intention is to be enraged, and then work to highlight her brave honesty.
Whether he is a movie mogul, a president, a man of power, or the guy down the street,My intention is to condemn his lies, his ruthlessness, and his brutality.
When he goes to prison,My intention is to lift my eyes with hers and feel the streams of justice flow down.
And tomorrow, when he (whoever he may be) is made known for his brand of cruelty,My intention is to continue the fight with her.      

Intentions #HarveyWeinstein

#HarveyWeinstein
Intentions
When she says, “Me too.” When she says, “You know me.”My intention is to sit, listen, acknowledge, and support her.
When she says nothing, but her tears tell the story,My intention is to let the story be told, then validate her truth so she can catch her breath.
When she says, “He did these things.” My intention is to believe her and share her pain.
When she says, “He tried to silence my voice, steal my identity, erase my name, and destroy my soul…”My intention is to remind her of her humanity. My intention is to remind her of her powerful voice. My intention is to remind her of her strength.
When he (whoever he may be) thinks he can trample her being and steal her voice,My intention is to join with all the voices who condemn him for his brazen cruelty.
When he (whoever he may be) attacks, beats, and abuses women for decades and somehow evades justice,My intention is to encourage the women who finally have their say.
When he (whoever he may be) says, “It was her fault. She wanted it.”My intention is to be enraged, and then work to highlight her brave honesty.
Whether he is a movie mogul, a president, a man of power, or the guy down the street,My intention is to condemn his lies, his ruthlessness, and his brutality.
When he goes to prison,My intention is to lift my eyes with hers and feel the streams of justice flow down.
And tomorrow, when he (whoever he may be) is made known for his brand of cruelty,My intention is to continue the fight with her.