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Your Hometown…and Grace and Truth Link Up

July 10, 2020 by Lauren 22 Comments

You may have seen on this blog a time or two that I watched the mini series Little Fires Everywhere.  I remain fascinated by it.  Brene Brown, a sociologist whose research I also find fascinating, recorded two podcasts about the show and the novel it was based on.  I downloaded and listened to them right away.

 

In one episode, Brown interviewed the book’s author.  The second featured Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington, the lead actors in the Hulu series.  During both, the insightful host introduced an interesting concept – your hometown as a character in your story.  The author set the book in her own hometown, Shaker Heights, Ohio.  This picturesque hamlet is one of the first planned communities in the United States.  Designers thought themselves very progressive by voluntarily integrating before most of the rest of the country.  At that time, racial unrest and violence had already occured.  This dark past was pushed under a rug as financing became available for black residents to move into white neighborhoods and vice versa.  Buses carried white students to black schools and black students to white schools.

 

The self-satisfied occupants of Shaker Heights claimed to be color blind and ignored differences and previous history in favor of looking the part of an equality based utopia.  Because of this, the Shaker Heights community still struggles with the same issues of race and class we see in the rest of the nation.  It strives to maintain the picturesque facade with rules.   The lawns can be only 2 inches, and house paint color is regulated.  In the movie, Mia’s rent house displays the importance of appearance.   The duplex, from the outside, looks like a single family residence.  But physically and metaphorically, slapping a coat of paint on something without fixing the foundation makes for a problematic existence.

 

I realize that my family of origin, other people I surrounded myself with and many other factors helped mold my morals, beliefs and overall worldview.  But I decided to take a look at my own hometown and try to analyze how it might contribute.

 

I was born in Waco, Texas (which refers to itself as the Heart of Texas) in 1973.  Waco occupies space about halfway between Dallas and Austin.  I could get to either one in about 90 minutes by car.  So even though the population measured just a little over 100,000 in the town proper, big city attractions sat in easy reach.  Now, years later, Waco is it’s own attraction thanks to the rise of the Gaines family and Fixer Upper.

 

The name Waco comes from the Hueco Indians, an arm of the Wichita.   They occupied a village there until white settlers drove them out.  In 1912, a prominent citizen brought back a group of the Hueco to participate in an exhibition of the city’s annual Texas Cotton Palace Exposition and Fair.  (The Cotton Palace Pageant still exists today.)  Event planners fabricated a village of teepees for them to live in, taught them war dances to perform and dressed them in a strange conglomeration of modern and native clothing.  In 2014, over 100 years later, city leaders and historians invited tribal leaders back to work on restoring connections and developing better relationships.

 

With these racially nefarious underpinnings, I wanted to research Waco’s historical relationship with black Americans.  In 1916, a black teen confessed to murdering a white woman and was tortured, mutilated and burned to death.  In what is now called the “Waco Horror”, 15,000 spectators watched including police and the mayor.  Officials made strides toward repentance 100 years later by finally publicly condemning the lynching.

 

In spite of these things, people of different colors lived harmoniously all around me.  The north side of town (my neighborhood) was a former air force base.  The military originally established the school I attended for air force families and was, therefore, integrated many years before other schools in the area.  And until 1990, Waco was home to Paul Quinn College, the oldest Historically Black College west of the Mississippi.

 

Waco is also home to Baylor University – the oldest and largest Baptist school in the United States.  It’s nickname?  Jerusalem on the Brazos.  And churches of different denominations line the streets there.  It’s no surprise that my Christian doctrine leans toward the conservative.

 

I could explore much more here.  From the serious – this mostly middle class area did not prepare me for the challenges of living in a more affluent area with a more affluent mindset.  To the silly – Dr. Pepper was born there.  I worked at it’s museum and love the sweet beverage still.  It’s all more than you would care to read.  But my introspection begs me to ask if you’ve ever considered your hometown as a character in your story.

 

Can you think of one characteristic of your hometown that may have shaped who you are or something you believe?  I would love to hear about it in the comments.  Please.  I’m bored here in quarantine.  😉

 

And now for this week’s featured post!

 

I don’t know what it’s like to have Fibromyalgia, but I do know what crippling disappointment feels like.  Maybe you do to?  Especially right now?  Click over and read what Jennifer Ross of teawithjennifer.blog has to say in the post Layers of Disappointment.  Her experience + the encouragement of God’s word spoke to my tired, frustrated soul.  Thanks for ministering to me, Jennifer.

And thanks for sharing!  Here’s a button for your blog:

 

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1. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.) All links are randomly sorted.

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MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
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May Muster 2020…and Grace and Truth Link Up

May 29, 2020 by Lauren 18 Comments

Happy Mother’s May (not a typo), graduation, end of school, Memorial Day and all the other things!  Celebrating probably looked very different for you this year, but I hope you still did.

 

The social distancing routine continues at Sparks manor, with one improvement.  We now host yard parties for my daughter and her friends and ours as well.  With chairs set at least 6 feet apart and everyone bringing their own food and beverage, we feel safe and also more sane!  If you haven’t already, give this a try.  I LOVE this kind of hospitality.  I don’t have to cook or clean!  My husband and I did work hard initially cleaning up the yards, but they desperately needed a sprucing anyway.

 

Allie, my beautiful but broken-legged daughter graduated from a splint to a boot this month.  She still can’t put weight on it and struggled to hear that she will wear it for at least 9 more weeks.  But she can take the boot off, making baths easier.

 

On Mother’s Day our church held a drive in service at our local football stadium.  We stayed in our cars and tuned into a radio station to hear the praise music and sermon.  After lunch we drove the hour and a half to my parents’ home to see them and my grandfather for the first time since all this mess started.  We refrained from hugging and somehow kept Shelby, our special needs daughter from it (not an easy task – it’s her favorite.)

 

My husband Chuck got his first quarantine haircut – from my 15 year old.  I did not take offense that he trusted her more than me with this task.  There was a direct correlation to her confidence and my lack there of.  He did exhibit some rising anxiety during the process, but she did a great job!  He doesn’t need a hat or anything!

 

Shelby began Rec therapy again, which gives me a much needed couple of hours with a quiet house – even if I’m not alone in it.  It also allows me a break from exercising her for one day a week.  Yay!  A break in routine.  Anything different, please!  I taught my first class in weeks.  Online for the senior adults from the Rec of Grapevine.  It felt good to get back, even if only in a small way.  Check my Facebook page for links to the live Yoga Lite classes on Tuesdays at 1:00pm.

 

For family entertainment we turned to Star Wars Monopoly.  Not my choice.  But we laughed at my bad luck and it kept us busy.  I tried to cajole them into playing until I had lost ALL of my money and property, but we gave out a little shy of that.  We also introduced Allie to Dirty Dancing.  Don’t judge.  It was the stuff of my teen years and has an amazing soundtrack.  We also rewatched The Greatest Showman.  I think that was my fourth time.  I just love a good musical and Hollywood falls short of making many new ones.  And for more good movie songs, we belted along to both Disney Sing-Alongs.  Our Amazon Alexa entertained us with two more games – Song Quiz and Mr. Robot (the later not an actual game, but something Jimmy Fallon made up).

 

The hubs and I consumed quite a few more shows and movies than we could convince our teen to join in.  Green Book, On the Basis of Sex (about Ruth Bader Ginsberg), The Martian, and The Post (with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep) were all excellent.  I would rate Second Act (with Jennifer Lopez) and The Jane Austen Book Club as OK.  We sampled the new Hulu series The Great about Russia’s Catherine the Great and found it a little too distasteful for our palate, but we love National Geographic’s The 80’s:  The Decade that Made Us.  Talk about nostalgia!  We even got out our high school letter jackets after sitting through a couple.  And promptly put them back away.  Little Fires Everywhere left us slack-jawed and a little speechless.  In the words of my friend Terri, it’s coo-coo-catchoo!  I would still love to talk to someone else about it.

 

In more literary pursuits, I actually finished a couple of the books I mentioned last month and began My Dear Hamilton:  A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie.  It’s been on my to-read list for a couple of years and I finally quit letting other things get in the way.  These authors also wrote one of my very favorite books, America’s First Daughter:  A Novel.  If you like history even a little, I highly recommend them.  I also set off with some self-discovery and hopefully healing with Stephen Arterburn’s Lose it for Life.

 

What made your May a little better?  Drop a comment below with your movies, shows, books or activities.  I love hearing from you.  And as parts of the world start to slowly open up, I pray you remain safe and sane!  And to close; I love you, I thank you, and I hope June treats you well.

 

And now for this week’s featured post!

 

Body Image and Intimacy:  3 Effects it Has On Your Marriage sadly resonated with me because I struggle with negative thoughts about myself when I’m with my husband.  Angie from keepingthetiethatbinds.com both reminded me that I’m not alone and encouraged me not to simply accept this.  Click here to read the post and give her some comment love for linking up with us!

 

Now for this week’s link-up! Let’s bless and encourage one another in our walk with the Lord.

Grace & Truth : A Weekly Christian Link Up

Grace & Truth exists to point people to Jesus! We hope this link-up will be a source of encouragement every week. If you’re a blogger, we hope you’ll use this space as a way to meet new friends within the Christian blogging community. If you’re a reader, we hope that you’ll encounter new bloggers that love Jesus as much as you do! Most of all, we hope you’ll meet Jesus here.

Join us each Friday for the Grace and Truth Link-Up!

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1.)  Following your hosts via their blog and social media channels is not mandatory, but appreciated!

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About Me

I love Jesus, my husband and caffeine. The order of these can change depending on how tired I am. When my two daughters, stepson, and 4 grandchildren get to be too much, I practice yoga. God graciously allows me to share our adventures, victories and flub-ups from my laptop. May He be glorified here.
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