This House Has Soul

In completing Marilynne Robinson's recent novel Home, I encountered a sentence that took me back to my childhood. It basically said, "This house has soul that loves everyone, no matter what." The context was that the mother of the eight children at home always went to her kitchen to cook comfort food when problems in the household became too great for her. Essentially, it was a sign that all would return to normal at a later time. She especially liked to cook chicken and dumplings.

Today I find myself in the midst of a major family problem, religious questioning regarding the church to which I belong, and the threat of what economists are calling a "major meltdown" of the American financial markets. I go to the refrigerator and pull out several Granny Smith and Gala apples from the crisper. It is a good day to make an apple pie, I tell myself, as I begin to roll out a pie crust.

My grandmother and my sister, I believe, also were (and are) believers that houses have souls, and those souls can be expressed through cooking great comfort food. My grandmother cooked a lot of soul food, being raised in the Mississippi hills and delta. There was always fried okra, fried corn, cornbread, ham, fried chicken, and turnip greens with hot sauce simmering in her kitchen. My sister, who has spent the past thirty years in Texas, makes chicken enchiladas to die for, as we say in the South.

We, of course, have always known that comfort food will not solve the problems we are dealing with in our families and in our world, but I believe it goes a long way in soothing our feelings in difficult times.

Deranged by Hope

One of my favorite American authors, Marilynne Robinson, has just published a new novel entitled Home. It features two of the same characters from her Pulitzer-prize winning novel from a few years back, Gilead. Jack is Glory's brother who has returned to his small town home place in Iowa after an inexplicable twenty-year absence. Their aging pastor-father is dying. As the story unfolds, the reader discovers that Jack is searching for forgiveness, grace, redemption, and restoration. Unfortunately, he is unable to surrender to God his two besetting sins: alcohol and lack of true belief. On his search Jack, at one point in the novel, says to Glory that he is "deranged by hope." Robinson as author offers no solutions to Jack's problems but lets him freely explore the world of Gilead for answers.

I think Jack in many ways represents every man and every woman. We have all left the comfort and protection of home to explore a wider world; we have made mistakes; we have returned--sometimes after years of wandering--to home. Robinson acknowledges this search-- that God lets us wander--so that we will know what it feels like to return home. Upon return to home as a prodigal, God lets us do what we can to repair human relationships and to clear the weeds in our lives and replant beautiful, productive flowers. Though we can never regain the Garden of Eden, we can seek to partially bring it back. We too should keep on being "deranged by hope."

Palin as Possible President

My life has been hectic for the past week with family affairs, yet I feel compelled to write about the selection of Governor Sarah Palin as the Vice Presidential choice of Senator John McCain. From one who has been a member of Southern Baptist churches all over the South for over fifty years, I am delighted with his choice.

For years, I have listened to sermons about the subordinate position of women within the church and the family. We were to concentrate on being good mothers and wives and not cause economic problems by having a career. We were to ignore the changing roles of women within the larger society--after all, these women were considered feminazis--and we were to be "in the world but not of the world."

In regard to a woman being named a Vice President candidate, I would agree with Barack Obama's often quoted line, "We are the ones we have been waiting for." I believe I speak for thousands, perhaps millions, of women throughout the country who see Governor Palin as a break-out candidate for conservatives. She is just as qualified to be President, should John McCain die in office, as Barack Obama--perhaps more so--since she has juggled family and career interests for years now already. She can obviously become a quick learner on international issues when surrounded by a strong cabinet and congress.

Settling Our Differences

I have always been a supporter of non-violent techniques as a way to solve crises. This philosophy applies not only to national situations but to personal situations as well. Due to a family situation within the past week, I find myself asking the question, "Is non-violence always the choice when a loved one is being threatened?"

Supporters of Second Amendment rights continually draw the argument that individuals must be able to protect their families when danger comes. As we know, this amendment guarantees American citizens the right to carry and possess firearms in case of confrontation.

This political issue is one that has been close to my heart for years since my father was a victim of gun violence in the mid-1970's. As a result, for years I have felt a moral obligation to believe crises cannot be solved with further violence. I have now changed my mind.

Within the past few days, I have instructed my husband to load a small pistol that I bought years ago as a single woman living downtown in a major American city, and yes, the gun was registered and legally bought. I hope never to have to use it, but I have to say that, knowing I have it, provides some comfort during stressful events. Perhaps it is the maternal instinct always for a mother to protect her loved ones at whatever personal cost to herself. Ultimately, I believe we can still settle the vast majority of our differences without violence. We need continually to remind ourselves that violence as a way to solve problems is still unacceptable--against wives, against children, against each other: period.

Getting to Know You

My husband and I watched a film yesterday that made us think about our global communication. The film is The Band's Visit and basically centers on an Egyptian police band that gets stranded, because of a miscommunication, in a small town in Israel. The band had been invited to play in another city at the Arab Cultural Center. Because, they have few choices, they end up spending the night with the locals. In order to communicate, they use the universal language of English. By the time the band gets on a bus the next day to the correct city, they have bonded with the locals through their music, shared food, and loves both found and lost. I often wonder how we can bridge these types of differences more in America as well.

One of my friends here in Little Rock has suggested that we can bond with other cultures, religions, and races through a similar experience of the police band. His idea includes sharing a meal once a month with people who are unlike us. We tend to choose our friends mostly because they already share our values; they are simply comfortable to be with for the most part. In most cities like Little Rock, it is easy to put together a diverse group, however, with an abundance of ways to meet others: ethnic festivals in the city, church attendance to churches where the majority of members are not of our own race, and social events outside of work with our colleagues and their families. I truly believe that being able to discuss our lives, our loves, our hopes, our dreams together will bind us together as human beings. I hope to get to know others better in this way within the next few months.