Dear Senator Portman

Dear Senator Portman:

You lost my vote today.

Over the summer, I watched with horror as millions of Syrians and Iranians washed ashore in Europe.  These people were living with such unspeakable tragedy that they risked their lives and the lives of the people they love (children, elderly, the disabled) to escape it.

Now, I've studied Europe's geography and political systems.  I knew that they didn't have the space or the resources to handle so many refugees.  But I looked around, at this beautiful state I live in, and I saw green fields and open spaces.  I saw apartments and homes for sale and for rent.  I saw empty commercial buildings, and I thought, we have room here.  We live in this amazing land of freedom and democracy, where people can be at peace and raise their families and start new businesses.

What we are missing is the accompanying attitude of welcome.

We need a massive shift in our thinking, to stop hoarding our resources and our freedoms.  We need to welcome these refugees to our communities, to live out the foundational principle of America.  We need leaders in Washington who will show us the way.  I hoped that I would see our Congress researching the issues and making informed decisions, but what I found were cowards reacting out of fear, making erroneous assumptions and knee-jerk policies.

You were one of those cowards.

I, and several of my friends and family, sent you a petition, explaining that we wanted Syrian refugees to come to Ohio.  That we were willing to help them settle, to learn from them as they learned from us.  I would love to see a Syrian restaurant pop up in my area, for my children to see different shades of skin and dress and beliefs when they walk in their public schools.  We actually believe in the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, that timeless entreaty to "Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."

Your response disappointed me, because you didn't even acknowledge that I was disagreeing with you.  You clung to your cowardly decision, ignoring that your constituents were saying that they wanted something different.

"To that end, I call on the Administration to immediately halt the resettlement of Syrian refugees into the United States until there has been a thorough review of DHS and State Department vetting procedures to ensure that no terrorists or individuals with links to Islamist extremist groups make it into the United States, as they have in France."

It wasn't a Syrian refugee that committed that horrible attack in France, it was the very terrorists these refugees are trying to escape that did it.  But the facts weren't really part of your decision-making process, were they?

I shook my head in disgust.  Yet only a few weeks later, you appeared on my computer screen again.  This time, Jon Stewart was visiting your office in DC, along with 911 First Responders.  They were in Washington, trying to get Congress to pass the Zadroga Act, legislation to provide healthcare coverage for the brave men and women who rushed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.  This should have been a no-brainer.  Our entire country was riveted on that day, watching the tragedy unfold.  It created a time of unprecedented unity.  If there is anyone that our politicians should be taking care of and protecting, it is those amazing first responders.

But Jon Stewart confronted you in a hallway to question why in the world you hadn't yet voted in favor of this continuing coverage.  And it became apparent to me that you are not representing the wishes of our state.  If it takes an unemployed comedian and a TV camera to shame you into doing the right thing, then you don't deserve your seat in Congress.

I voted for your opponent today.  I hope a new face, a new voice, will listen to the people of Ohio instead of toeing the party line.  Especially when the party is wrong.

May freedom win out over fear, and may America usher in the wretched refuse of Europe's teeming shore.

Sincerely,
Rachel Lipford

Know What You're About (Day 1)

There is an old Sunday School song I grew up with, one that I can still recall, complete with church-appropriate hand motions (because dancing is wrong but motioning that something is gushing out of you is holy).  It goes like this:

I've got a river of life flowing out of me,

Makes the lame to walk and the blind to see!

Opens prison doors sets the captives free

(youth groups love to squeeze in a little

shout of "I'm free!" here)

Oh, I've got a river of life flowing out of me!

I always liked songs that were upbeat and especially gave me the chance to stand up and move around a little.  (I'm in the Lord's Army was another gem.)  But as I get older, as time and experience, and yes, even Jesus, transform me, I find that the message in this simple song rings true.

When I was young and singing this song heartily with other kids, I was one of those captives.  I was held in by shame and fear, so painfully shy and uncomfortable with myself.  I went into my head, into my imagination, and I pretended I was whole and free.  Having no idea what the real thing felt like, I convinced myself that what I was able to dream up was enough.

I made up stories and began to write them down.  I imagined that someday I might even make a living as a writer, like the still, smiling photographs on the backs of my novels.  They were calm and happy, and most importantly, grown up.  If I could be like them, then I maybe I wouldn't be me anymore.

But everyone said it was impractical to try to write fiction, and even if I could block out the pragmatist in my head who stomped on those childhood dreams, what would I even write about?  What did I know?  What could I give?  What could I write that would make a difference?

Marriage and motherhood cracked my heart wide open, and I began to see little streams of ideas.  I started writing again, writing what was in my imagination but also in my heart.  One day, I conjured a woman, a character.  She was full of shame and hiding in her life.  (Hey, write what you know.)  She needed love to transform her, to set her free from her invisible shackles.

And so I wrote the first part of a novel.  I set it aside to welcome my third child, and over the course of his first year of life, I experienced the transformation that she and I were both desperate for.  I finally had the courage and the support to voice my shame, to let go of my fears, and to finally start to find peace with myself.  When I sat down again to work on the story, I couldn't believe how parallel our lives were, me and this imaginary woman.

Soon, the ideas began bursting like popcorn in my mind.  With three children to take care of, it is slow work to put pen to paper (yes, I write my first drafts longhand).  But I finally know what I'm about.  I am about redemption.

This is what I know, because this is what I've lived.  A life that is not pretending, but really being lived free.  It is the gift I want to give my characters.  More importantly, it is the gift I want to give my readers.  I want you to know that you don't have to hide.  I want you to know that your past doesn't define you.  I want you to know that you are not alone.

Someone tossed me the keys to open my prison doors and beckoned me to walk out, to live free.  I want to write words that do the same for others.  I want to shine light in the dark places and show you how to experience a river of life pouring out of you.  Spring up, Oh well.  (Goosh Goosh Goosh Goosh) 

Outside In

Every other Saturday night, our house fills with delicious smells.  My husband and I take turns making yummy breakfast foods, because every other Sunday morning, we teach the middle school students at our church.  A wise friend once told me something that has proved to be true: you have to love people from the outside in.

When we show up with food, our students will sit with us and allow us to nourish their minds because we are first nourishing their bodies.  Over time, after being consistent with food and honest answers and showing that we care, they will finally allow us into the depths, where their spirits reside.  If we want to reach their souls, we have to start by feeding their endlessly hungry bodies.

It makes sense if you think about it, because we all know how poorly people learn when they are starving, or afraid, or worried about their personal safety.  I learned Maslow's hierarchy years ago in a college sociology class, and yet I can be so intent on what is below the surface of the people I love that I completely ignore their more pressing physical needs.

It shouldn't be complicated, and yet it is.  Sometimes it is tunnel vision, sometimes it is our own ignorance.  I was thinking about my son who is adopted, and the little girl that we fostered a few years ago, about how needy they were when they came to us.  And we wanted to soothe their bodies and fill their bellies and reassure them that they were precious and loved and safe, but we were ignoring the first layer.

Do you know what is most important to a child?  More than food, more than physical safety, more than warm blankets on a clean bed?  His mom.  Psychologist Harry Harlow performed experiments on rhesus monkeys in the 1950s that demonstrated how crucial a mother is to her baby, and the conversations I have with my non-biological children confirms it.  Which means that while we mend the physical and emotional wounds of children who have been neglected and abused, we must also demonstrate love for the adults who allowed it in the first place.  No easy task.

I had a moment of panic the other day when my son reached for a bag of cookies and said, "I've never tried this before.  Let me have some!"  Because I can easily imagine his birth parents saying or thinking something similar when they were introduced to the addictive drugs that derailed their lives. How much are we, as adoptive parents, able to re-write biology?  Is there something ticking inside him that will go off in adolescence and take him down their same path?  Or was it childhood hyperbole that I was reading way too much into?

I don't want my son to repeat his mom's mistakes, and the best way I can think to help him is to let him know her, to be honest about why he lives with us and what unique challenges he'll face as he grows up.  The worst thing I could possibly do is talk about her with disrespect, calling her names or criticizing her choices.  If I can step back and allow him to see her as she is, without casting my own thoughts or feelings onto their relationship, then I trust that he'll understand what is true better.  He won't grow up with some idealized version of her (or me, for that matter), because he will know where he came from.