Rachel Pieh Jones's Blog, page 5

10 (or 9) Dark Things about Valentine’s Day

In going through some old essays, I found this. I wrote it for Babble and now I know why I didn’t continue writing for Babble longer than just a few years. The site was about cute memes, celebrity news, and feel-good posts. Apparently, I tend toward dark.

These stats are few years old and though I’m not sure I would say things so darkly at this point in life, I’m going to repost this. It is interesting, at least.

I also can’t count because there are really only 9 things on this list.

 

I’m all for showing love and affection. I’m just all for doing it year round and doing it in a way that doesn’t promote weight gain, child slavery, or cheating spouses. Valentine’s Day, as ruthlessly shoved down our throats by advertising and societal expectations, carries some dark stories.

I’m not anti-Valentine’s Day but I want to love my husband and my children while making wise choices, remaining loyal, eating food that actually tastes good, and not harming others in the process. And I want to do it any day of the year without feeling ordered around by a calendar or a custom.

Here are 10 (or 9) dark things about our day of love.

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Cheating. Ashley Madison, a website that helps people find other with whom to cheat, reports that the day after Valentine’s Day, the day after being let down by their partner, the day after their expectations were raised and then crushed, is their biggest day of the year.

Origins. Some say Valentine’s Day traces its roots to an ancient pagan holiday called Lupercalia, in which men stripped naked, grabbed whips, and spanked young women in hopes of increasing their fertility.

Other Origins. Others say It began as a liturgical celebration of early Christian saints, including honoring the graphic martyrdom of some. It became associated with romance in the high middle ages.

Candy hearts are terrible. They taste like painted cardboard, leave a weird powder on your fingers, and have creepy messages.

Weight gain. Candy, chocolate, dinner out, wine. There are 1400 calories in a one-pound box of chocolates.

Break-ups. Supposedly the percentage of women who would end their relationship if they received nothing for Valentine’s Day is 53%. I must fall in the other 47%.

Money. Last year Americans spent $18.6 billion dollars for Valentine’s Day. $1.9 billion on flowers and $1.6 billion on candy. Maybe that isn’t a bad thing in your opinion, but compared to the Gross National Product of Djibouti (2011), that is a lot of money. The GNP? $1.24 billion

Waste. In the two week period leading up to Valentine’s Day, American sales of gold jewelry lead to 34 million metric tons of waste.

Chocolate and child labor. In West Africa, cocoa is a commodity crop grown primarily for export. As the chocolate industry has grown over the years, so has the demand for cheap cocoa. Today, cocoa farmers barely make a living selling the beans and often resort to the use of child labor in order to keep their prices competitive…

Flowers. In a push to meet the demands of Valentine’s Day, workers have been reported to log up to 20 hours a day, at 250-300 stems per hour. According to the Victoria International Development Education Association, two-thirds of Colombian and Ecuadorian flower workers suffer from work-related health problems, including headaches, nausea, impaired vision, conjunctivitis, rashes, asthma, stillbirths, miscarriages, congenital malformations, and respiratory and neurological problems.

Happy LOVE day!

 

 

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Stronger than Death: How Annalena Tonelli Defied Terror and Tuberculosis in the Horn of Africa

Finding Home, Djiboutilicious, and Welcome to Djibouti

When You Are Almost-There

Oh the agony of being almost but not quite there. Are we there yet? Not yet? Now? Not yet? Now…?

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Click here to read The International Traveler in the Domestic Terminal, at A Life Overseas.

 

 

No Longer Covered in Shame

Quick link: Today I have an essay Unclean but Called Clean, at (in)courage.

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When I was radioactive and in isolation, I spent a lot of time meditating on shame, fear, healing, and the power of touch, the power of hope, the power of being restored. Here’s what I concluded.

It is a strange and unsettling thing being a danger to society.

I went for a walk and swooped to avoid a woman walking her dog. I crossed the street when a man came toward me, pushing his toddler on a tricycle. The little girl waved and said, “Hi!” and I stepped even further away. I walked down the center of streets, to keep my body as far from animals as possible.

I felt like I should have shouted, “Unclean! Unclean!”

I had every right to go outside. I’d specifically asked my doctor if it’d be okay and she said yes, then backed away from me in the hospital room to demonstrate how far I would have to be from people and pets — a good eight feet.

Still.

What if I slipped and hit my head and people came to help? What if a dog chased me? What if a school bus dropped off a student, and I didn’t get away quickly enough? What if I saw someone I knew and had to ignore or rebuff them?

At home, I lurked in the basement. My mom delivered food but couldn’t stop and chat. I didn’t want her to stay long in the basement air or near my physical space.

I was unclean…

Read the rest of the essay at (in)courage

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Stronger than Death, Book Tour in Minnesota

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Come on out and hear a reading, ask all your questions, meet the author, get your book signed!

Who wants to be stuck inside on a frigid January or February Minnesota day? A warm, cozy book event sounds like a great reason to brave the chill.

I’d love to see you, from Alexandria to Minneapolis, St. Paul to Austin, here are some of the places I will be in January and February, 2020.

I’m coming to Minnesota because of the darn cancer that just won’t go away. I have several doctor’s appointments already booked and my goal is to have MORE book events than I have medical events.

I want the distraction and the joy, to not think about cancer and treatment. If you have a group that would be interested in hearing about Stronger than Death (or my other books: Finding Home: Third Culture Kids in the World, the Djiboutilicious Cookbook, and Welcome to Djibouti), or about writing, expatriate life, etc, get in touch and let’s plan something.

Here is where I’ll be, some times are TBD (and I will update as events get added)

Thursday, January 16 at Bethlehem Baptist Church, Sojourner’s group

Sunday, January 19 at The Irreverent Bookworm, 10:00-3:00. What a great name for a bookstore. Seriously. I love it.

Friday, January 24 at Eat My Words, 7:00 pm (these bookstore names, aren’t they just wonderful?)

Saturday January 25 at Sweet Reads in Austin, Minnesota, time TBD (Candy and books?! Does it get any better?)

Thursday January 30 at Subtext Books, 7:00 pm

Saturday, February 1 at Cherry Street Books in Alexandria, Minnesota, 1:00-2:30 pm.

 

Djibouti Jones in 2019

2019 was an awesome year and a hard year. I published my first traditionally published book! I got to go an incredible book tour! I signed a second book contract!

I also had cancer treatment and the cancer still came back. Are there upside down exclamation marks? I’d use one there. Here’s my cancer manifesto, which also, amazingly got published as a bookmark by my awesome sister who is a doctor.

Here is the book, the essays, and the podcast interviews I got to work on this year.

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The Book

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Stronger than Death: How Annalena Tonelli Defied Terror and Tuberculosis in the Horn of Africa.

Find it at Barnes and Noble, IndieBound, and Amazon

More info from Plough Publishing

From Booklist: “Why would anyone leave everything they ever knew behind to travel to a remote Muslim village in northern Kenya, to live among desert nomads dying of tuberculosis? Annalena Tonelli, a self-described ‘nobody,’ was a humanitarian from Italy, and a revolutionary in her own humble way.”

“A searing account of a person, place, deadly disease, unspeakable violence, and, ultimately, faith, love, and sacrifice.”

 

Articles

Making Order Out of Chaos, for the New York Times

Running While Foreign and Female, Christian Science Monitor

Split Me Open, to be included in The Other Journal’s print version

, chosen for inclusion in the Norton Reader Anthology (I’m listed in the authors right next to Thomas Jefferson, so that’s cool)

Are Missionary Kids Missionaries?, Christianity Today Special Edition

Learning to Love Modern Day Lepers, Christianity Today

What Happened When I Lost My Literary Agent. Twice. Jane Friedman

How (and why) to Tell the Stories of “Quiet” Influencers, Ethical Storytelling

The Most Unlikely Marathoners in the World (Somaliland Marathon), Deadspin

Witnesses of the Kingdom, Plough

A Love Stronger than Fear, Plough

The Wells of Wajir, for EthnoTraveler

12 essays for A Life Overseas

 

Podcasts

 

Another Mother Runner: Running in Djibouti

Between the Desert and the Sea, at Books and Travel with Joanna Penn

Fierce and Lovely, with Beth Bruno

On Outsiders and Idols, at Mom Struggling Well

Taking Route, on living longterm abroad

Taking the Middle Seat

Giving Up Normal, with Jen Howat: Living at the Crossroads of Faith and Culture

Part 1

Part 2

Forties Stories with Christy Maguire: Getting Kids to College and a Diagnosis

The Family Culture Project, about keeping in touch long distance

Expat Focus, about raising Third Culture Kids and creating an intentional family culture

 

Here’s to a healthy and productive 2020.

Rethinking the Nativity

I am tired of the Christmas story.

Clarification: I’m tired of the way I keep hearing it and seeing it and reading it. Let’s think about the Christmas story, as seen in thousands of movies, children’s pageants, poems, novels, kid’s books every year:

Joseph is kind of a chump. He gets pushed around by some angels and then makes the totally irresponsible decision to drag a pregnant woman in her late third trimester to a town miles and miles away, on foot or maybe on a donkey. He plans this trip so poorly that they barely make it to Bethlehem on time and while Mary is (silently and peacefully) enduring labor pains, he is knocking on the doors of the local Sheraton and Holiday Inns. Apparently though Joseph is from this town, he no longer has any connections or relationship with people there so not only is he irresponsible, he must have been quite the jerk.

The streets are empty, no one sees this pregnant woman and harried man, no one cares until the hapless innkeeper reluctantly allows the couple to use his filthy, though warm and well-supplied with soft, cuddly hay, stable out back.

Mary gives birth, alone, the umbilical cord is magically cut, the placenta just disappears, though Joseph would have had no idea what to do with it and Mary would have been in no state to direct him. The baby has this funny glowing circle over his head, doesn’t cry at all, is wrapped in a dirty, torn blanket, and perhaps licked by the barn animals.

Some shepherds come and see the baby and the parents living in the filth and stink of an animal barn and leave rejoicing.

This makes for beautiful paintings, poetry, songs, and children’s plays. But does it fit the cultural norms? More importantly, is it what the Bible teaches?

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How about this instead? (for more on this, read This Advent Season, A Look at the Real Setting)

Joseph, a man of courage and faith, realizes that his fiancee is in serious trouble. She could be stoned any day by the villagers because she is pregnant and not married. He is not required to bring Mary along to be counted in the census because she is a woman but he decides to tie his name to hers, tie his reputation to hers, and saves her life by taking her out of the village until the baby is born and emotions can simmer down. Who knows if they walked or rode donkeys but there is a distinct possibility that they rode in a cart. In any case, they arrived in Bethlehem before the day of Jesus’ birth. The Bible says: While they were there the time came for Mary to give birth. The Bible does not say: the moment they arrived they frantically pounded on doors.

He is wise, planned ahead, and is a hero. Not merely a background character, indistinguishable from shepherds in most nativity scenes.

It is hard to imagine that a working man of integrity and faith would have been rejected by relatives, no matter how extended. Not in this culture. In Djibouti people impose on extended relatives all the time, for long periods of time, cramped into small living spaces shared with livestock. No one would turn away a pregnant relative. No, he had family in Bethlehem and he went to the home of relatives where he and Mary rested from their journey and prepared for the birth of the baby.

The word ‘inn’ doesn’t refer to a Holiday Inn or Sheraton style building where a bed and meal can be purchased. It more likely refers to an upper room in a family home. Quite possibly Joseph’s relatives had other distant family in town for the census so the upper room was occupied. This meant the couple had to sleep downstairs in the open living space where animals were kept at night for safety and where they ate from troughs dug into the earth at one end of the room. They maybe slept on mats or piles of blankets, just as they would have upstairs. The room was warm and sheltered, probably filled with other traveling relatives.

Mary didn’t give birth alone. No place in the Bible is this written or implied. More likely she was surrounded by women. A midwife, Joseph’s relatives, neighbors. Shepherds came and found the child and his mother and left rejoicing because not only had they seen Grace and Mercy in the flesh, but they had seen a woman and child well-cared for and surrounded by caring women. Otherwise, they more likely would have praised God for that Grace and Mercy and then said: What are you doing here alone and cold?! Come with us, our women will care for you! No way would they have left a young mother and infant in that state and left rejoicing.

I don’t want to be too harsh, but maybe in the West, the first version, the version we are so used to, is acceptable because we can relate. A man unable to plan well for his pregnant fiancee. A woman in labor turned away, the needy ignored in the streets. Maybe we feel comfortable imagining that in ‘those’ places people only had dirty torn clothes to wrap around their babies, that in ‘those’ places mothers allow cows to lick their newborns. Maybe this, in some way, frees us from responsibility to act. If our Lord was born this way, it is not lowly or demeaning for other babies to be born alone, into a cold and unwelcoming world.

But in the East, in the culture and time in which Jesus was born, no way. Family, hospitality, food, community, these things are highly valued, no less in Jesus’ lifetime. A pregnant woman was not left in the street, especially when relatives were in town and even if she was pregnant out of wedlock. I could list off names and names of women I know in eastern cultures who have been pregnant outside of marriage and who have been neither stoned nor rejected from their families, but lovingly welcomed and cared for.

We want to make the birth of Jesus as hard as possible, as cold and lonely and desperate and painful as possible. Why? Is it because we can’t grasp the infinite coldness, loneliness, desperation, and pain of what the incarnation truly meant? We wrap it up in dirty clothes and stinking animals, in physical loneliness and fear. Is our feeble attempt at re-imagining the Christmas story our way of trying to understand, to put images and emotions to something so powerfully and deeply beyond our comprehension? To bring the miracle of God-made-flesh into our realm of understanding?

No matter what other pictures we paint to describe his birth nothing can make it harder than it was. Nothing can make it more loving than it was. Nothing can make it more miraculous than it was.

Jesus left heaven and was born a human baby, destined to die a human death.

Saying that Jesus was born into the hands of a skilled midwife or into a house filled with light and laughter and community takes nothing away from the glory of that night. It simply makes it more authentic.

*these thoughts stem from the incredible book: Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth Bailey and I highly recommend this book. Highly.

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The Street Life

Where hope meets potential.

Check out The Street Life.

The Street Life a social enterprise based in Nairobi, Kenya. The purpose of this organization is to provide support, services, and resources to at-risk children and youth, many of whom are depending and living on the streets for survival. We currently operate in Nairobi, Kenya and provide assistance to various local NGOs in Somalia and Somaliland. Since 2017, The Street Life has been a dependable source for linking the populations we serve to accessing basic necessities, healthcare, education, and employment. To learn more about what we do, please visit www.welcometothestreetlife.com.

The Legacy of Annalena Tonelli, Carrying It On

Find Stronger than Death at Amazon,  Barnes and Noble,  and IndieBound

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I love hearing how readers are moved and challenged and inspired by Stronger than Death. Some responses have even moved me to near tears.

I spoke at an English language school for adults in Djibouti. After my talk and an engaging Q/A time, students gathered in small groups to continue the discussion. One young man wrote his thoughts out and read them to the group. I asked if I could take a photo of his words and he gave me the paper. This is what he wrote:

“A good person is someone who displays love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, humility, patience, and she was faithful, and endures all things. Annalena was someone who displays self-control and considers others more important than herself. Annalena was a good listener and someone who displayed integrity and dignity and accountability toward others.”

This was so beautiful and it was incredibly meaningful that he picked up on these character traits. The conversation around the tables included things like how hard it can be serve, when other people tell you to not bother, or how disappointing it can be when service is rejected. We talked about how we can all take one little step, like picking up one piece of trash. Or how we can sit beside someone who is sick and be a loving, caring presence, even if we don’t have money to help treat their illness. And how we can hope to motivate others by our example.

It was lovely.

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Here is from another reader. People have asked how I think Annalena would react to having a book written about her and I hope Jodie is right:

“I finished it with the sense that Annalena would be proud – even as one who didn’t like all the attention – because you portrayed her in her humanness as well as her saintlikeness.” Jodie P.

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Someone else told me they finished the book with tears in their eyes and with ideas for how to be more aware of students in her classroom who might need a little extra affection or attention.

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Another person told me she would use this book to help explain some of her Somali history and culture to her American coworkers.

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Thanks to all for your feedback, for reading, and for sharing.

Don’t forget to leave a review and be sure to share the book with your friends and family! Maybe a great Christmas gift…!

 

Find Stronger than Death at Amazon,  Barnes and Noble,  and IndieBound

 

 

Stronger than Death Book Tour Comes to Djibouti

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I am so excited to share that the Stronger than Death book tour continues, and it has come to Djibouti.

An international book tour is every author’s dream and it certainly helps that I live abroad! This will be the third country I’ve visited to talk about the book. After a month in the United States, I spent four days in Kenya and spoke to about 8 high school classes about the book, about writing, and publishing, and more. And now, the book discussions are in my “home” country, Djibouti.

If you live here, come on out!

If you can’t make these dates, I’d still love to connect with you about the book. Maybe a local book club? A coffee date to talk writing? A student or school group interested in the writing and publishing process?

Get in touch!

Here’s where the book and I will be this week.

Thursday, November 14, 6:30 pm (1830h) at Ecole Emanuele, sharing with English language learners.

Saturday, November 16, 4:30 pm (1630h) at Villa Camille. Enjoy the beautiful atmosphere of this unique cafe and social space, order delicious food from their menu, and hear about the fascinating life and work of Annalena Tonelli. Book discussion, audience Q/A, and book signing. (There will be books available for purchase).

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The book is also available for purchase at the International School of Djibouti (and out of the trunk of our Jeep! There are also hard copies of Finding Home and Welcome to Djibouti available).

 

John MacArthur Wasn’t Just Demeaning to Women. Part 2

I wrote an essay called What Happened When Jesus Told a Woman to Go Home in my newsletter: Stories from the Horn, last week. If you want to read that essay, sign up here.

Following up on that, here is part 2 of my response to John MacArthur’s video comments from a few weeks ago.

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Many people couldn’t watch past the “narcissist” comments and the laughter. But had we continued to watch, we would have heard words that call into question the valid (and necessary and good and beautiful) contribution and basic humanity of Christians of color and marginalized communities.

In an article for the Religion News Service, Rozella Haydée White address this. She writes, “Later in the recording, MacArthur criticizes a suggestion that Latinos, African Americans and women should henceforth be necessary members of Southern Baptist Bible translation committees. He also objects to a resolution agreed to at the Southern Baptist Convention’s 2019 national meeting that deems intersectionality — the theory, developed by Black feminist scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, that describes how overlapping social identities create interconnected systems of oppression — as a useful tool for biblical interpretation.”

The problem with MacArthur’s words weren’t just his treatment of Beth Moore or Paula White, but his dismissive attitude toward people of color and other marginalized communities.

Later on in the video, he seems to claim that people (read marginalized people and minorities) who believe their voices matter and should be part of dialogue, are only after power. And that because they (in his opinion) are after power (apparently for power’s sake), on that basis alone, they should be excluded from the conversation.

I don’t see how wanting to be heard, especially wanting an underrepresented voice to be heard, necessarily means one wants power, or at least not a negative form of power. And anyway, if wanting to be heard is equated with wanting power, the men on that stage wanting to be heard wanted power and by MacArthur’s own logic, thereby should not have power. (watch the video here)

I am not a theologian. I’m not an expert on race theory or gender theory or intersectionality or anything, really. I’m a person in the world who reads or listens to stuff and thinks stuff.

I don’t understand how intersectionality doesn’t matter in the world. When I look at what I experience as a straight white Christian American woman, it seems that all these parts of me, and all the other parts of me, too, have an impact on my life and experiences, many of them overlapping impacts. When I look at how others view and engage in the world, it seems the same for them. When I read the Bible, it seems these intersecting realities of who humans are matters.

I see Hagar, an abused sex slave from Egypt, probably black, a woman. I can’t imagine how her gender and her status and her race don’t intersect. I see Esther, from a despised religious minority and possibly ethnic minority as well, a vulnerable young woman, trafficked into the king’s bedroom and I can’t imagine how her gender, religion, and ethnicity don’t intersect. I see laws about how to treat slaves or laws about how and when to sell off one’s daughters and about whom one is allowed to marry and they all have overlapping spheres of identity. It seems like gender, race, national origin, age, and more have a lot to do with power and life experience.

The problem here wasn’t just about how women are treated and spoken about but about how minorities and marginalized communities are treated and spoken about.

Please, people from these communities, don’t go home. I need your voice, we need your voice. How can we grow and change and sharpen ourselves if we are only surrounded by or hearing from people just like us?

After 17 years in the Horn of Africa, I am beyond grateful for how I’ve grown through being immersed in a community that forces me to be intentional and thoughtful about what I believe and how I behave.

It is not okay to shut out the voices and opinions of people who disagree with us or who challenge us or who are not like us. I’m not saying we need to agree, but we do need to be kind and humane and respectful. We need to exhibit the fruits of the spirit, both those in positions of power and those not in those positions. Cruelty and laughter and disparaging comments are not the way to accomplish this.

#notgoinghome