by Jen Hatmaker
That’s how The Hour of Illumination was today. A nice slap in the face to shock me out of an old-fashioned hissy fit. Good medicine. Think of all the damage I wouldn’t inflict if I prayed in the middle of all my episodes! Perhaps I’ll keep these alarms set past next week. And maybe I’ll delete this confrontational e-mail I drafted to my agent about a pending contract. Sorry, Lee. The devil made me do it.
Day 18
I marvel at the company I keep. My friends would be intimidating if they weren’t so fun and occasionally naughty. My comrades are adopting, serving, raising money, raising awareness, sacrificing, advocating, giving away, sharing, fostering, sponsoring, fighting, dreaming. This planet is brighter for their presence. They are good people. (Do not believe what you have heard about them. Unless you’ve seen pictorial evidence, which may or may not exist.)
I have friends, including Council Member Trina, seized for the plight of refugees in Austin. Refugees were forced from their homelands by war, civil conflict, political strife, and/or gross human rights abuses. These survivors were persecuted—often tortured and brutalized, their families murdered—and ultimately displaced because of their race, religion, nationality, tribe, or social group and are unable to return home. Approximately fourteen million refugees have sought sanctuary in other countries, and roughly three thousand settle in Austin each year.
While they’ve escaped violence and instability of their homelands, they face daunting obstacles in America. Refugees receive a small stipend for four months, less than unemployment. In this amount of time, on an income below poverty level, they are expected to become self-sustaining. It is clearly impossible, and the odds are stacked against them heavily. With fragmented English and no context for American culture (computer skills, banking, enrolling kids in school, employment, junk mail vs. real mail, shopping, bus routes, homework, this list goes on forever), refugees get stuck in minimum-wage jobs with no tools to escape, and the cycle of poverty continues.
Keep in mind these are incredibly smart and resourceful people who’ve overcome unfathomable evils and lived to tell. Their station has nothing to do with work ethic or capabilities and everything to do with language barriers and cultural displacement. They simply need advocates to mentor them toward a stable place in the American economy.
Which brings me back to my friends who dreamed up a social enterprise called Open Arms, a for-profit business employing refugee women in Austin at a living wage, a company with a conscience. Using donated T-shirts, Open Arms repurposes discarded items and turns them into beautiful scarves, pillows, purses, bags, rugs, and more—a metaphor for the women who craft them. Additionally, Open Arms provides on-site seminars (computer skills, language, banking, budgeting), plus child care and early intervention for their young kids, breaking another link in the poverty chain.
Their debut is this weekend at the illustrious Christmas Affair, a ginormous four-day market organized by the Junior League with more than two hundred merchants and attendance north of thirty thousand people. Granted a coveted booth, Open Arms needs five hundred pieces to sell, and everyone is working their little fingers to the bone to make it. My friend Leslie, the engine behind Open Arms, wouldn’t even let the team take a scarf in advance to start wearing, not even if they paid for it. She counted every day. That girl runs a tight ship.
Jenny, Shonna, our friend Larkin, and I volunteered all morning, three days before the Christmas Affair. We received our task: take T-shirt scraps of scraps (nothing wasted!), cut them into 11 x ¼ strips, tie them through each Open Arms tag, and pin tags on every item ready for sale. While the international women hummed at their sewing machines doing the skilled work, we chattered and giggled and pinned the ever-lovin’ business out of those tags.
At 10:00 a.m. sharp, my trusty bell rang, reminding me to pause for the Blessing Hour, including wonderful themes for our morning at Open Arms: an invitation to the Spirit, acknowledging his presence and recommitting the day to his glory, and a simple prayer to bless the work of our hands, all of our hands.
With my heart in my throat, we all paused together and prayed God’s Spirit displayed in every scarf, each bag, that He become famous for His redemptive work in the lives of the most vulnerable. I asked God to bless the work of the hands in the room: Sudanese hands, Burmese hands, Congolese hands, Ugandan hands, American hands. I asked God to remember these women who have seen so much violence yet still work cheerfully, humbly. I petitioned the future work of their hands: raising children, creating beauty, embracing healing. I prayed blessings over this beautiful business of reclaiming, reimagining, repurposing shirts and lives. I thanked the Spirit for planting this dream in Leslie’s heart then fanning to flames to others committed to living out his mission. (Tears? Maybe a few.)
Then back to work as our friend Lacey threw down the gauntlet earlier in her sweet, sweet voice: “We were hoping maybe everything could be tagged and boxed by 11:30 . . .” That sounded like a challenge packaged in sugar, and we took the bait. 11:30? Oh, we’ll see your 11:30 and raise you “boxes loaded in cars.”
Now reader, go to www.theopenarmsshop.com and buy something, or I will never speak to you again for the rest of my life.
My friend, Leslie, the engine behind Open Arms, showing me how to package the finished product. I wish this picture had audio, because you would hear the OA employees singing and humming back there.
This map is on the wall at Open Arms. These are the refugee women who work there and the cities they are all from.
Day 20
Leave it to the Hatmakers to dumb down something as sacred as Sabbath dinner. People, I just play the hand that is dealt me, okay? Brandon was out of town until midnight, so it was just the four of us, and we were leaving Sunday morning for eight glorious days off.
Gentle reader, if you are not a mother, here is the translation:
When transporting your family away from your quarters for longer than one solar period, you engage a marathon of preparations that make you question the decision to go anywhere the rest of your life. The list is exhaustive, and you will discover not one human on the planet who feels like being helpful. This is on you, Mom. You’ll answer for every omission while getting zero credit for performing the duties of a packing mule for your tribe. It goes something like this:
“Get down your suitcase. We’re packing for eight days, everyone. Remember, it’s cold in the mornings and warm in the afternoons. Did you get your suitcases down? Everyone come get their clean clothes and put them away! We are coming home to a clean house, do you hear me? Where are your boots? Where is your toothbrush? What do you mean, it’s been missing “for awhile”? What have you been brushing your teeth with?? Don’t answer that. Why are you playing Xbox right now? Pack socks! Pack underwear! Why is your suitcase not down? Bring books to read. Yes you will. Because I’ll make you. Where is Lady’s leash? Why is it connecting your bikes? What is “slingshot riding”? Pick out movies to bring! No, we are not bringing Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. Because it makes my brain shrink. So help me, are you still on the Xbox??? What do you mean you’re done packing? I see one pair of jeans and an air-soft gun in here. I’m coming up in five minutes, and I’m giving away everything that is still on your bedroom floor. Oh my stars, is your suitcase still not down??”
This tirade continues until the second you pull out of your driveway. It will take your husband ten miles before he is speaking to anyone again, and you declare a moratorium on all talking and sound until lifted by you, the keeper of the details and the packer of the things. Approximately one hour later, your teeth unclench. On the third day of your vacation, you decide that you might possibly, maybe, travel again with your family, but you’re not sure yet. It’s too soon to tell.
So packing cut into my meal preparations for Sabbath. However, we still wanted to inaugurate our day (week) of rest, the launch of our little sabbatical.
We still had candles.<
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We still had the readings; Gavin read the “man” parts in lieu of Brandon.
We still used the nice dishes.
We had, um, chicken strips and macaroni and cheese.
We shared Communion with the last heel of sliced cinnamon bread.
And water, since we drank all our juice before leaving town.
But we put the water in fancy cups.
We got super tickled about all this, and I snapped a picture to commemorate what the kids dubbed “the Mom Sabbath.” Amazingly, this jolted me out of drill sergeant mode and restored laughter to the house. We thanked God for the gift of time off, for the family ranch, for thousands of good days behind us and even better days ahead.
Shabbat shalom!
Day 23
On the last day of school in seventh grade, fifteen of my friends met at Shoney’s for breakfast, dominating the restaurant while our moms pretended not to know us. Please try to remember seventh grade, especially if you are a girl. Recall the cruel awkwardness, the certainty you were tipping the scales at 102 pounds, the fear no boy would ever get past your home perm and lack of booby buds, and the feeling you were destined for Dorkville. Population: only you. Remember how all your friends wore Esprit and Guess jeans, and your mom said she’d rather book a one-way ticket to commie Russia before shelling out $50 for jeans? (I was a tragic twelve-year-old stuck in lower middle class during the Cold War.)
That fine morning at Shoney’s, my friends and I were showing off and making enormous nuisances of ourselves, when a miracle happened. Ron Coyle, the finest junior in the history of the world, oldest son of my parents’ best friends, came behind me, wrapped his arms around me, and kissed me in front of everyone. My memory swears he got a centimeter of lip. Then he set me back down and walked away.
You could’ve heard a pin drop. Forks stopped in midair. Girls froze in mid-bite. A gorgeous high school boy just kissed a member of their prepubescent tribe in front of their faces. I tried to play it cool, but I didn’t really have that skill set. Everyone gaped at me, not believing my good fortune while simultaneously wishing I were dead.
It was pretty much the greatest day of my life.
Sometimes the stars align to wrap up a season perfectly; you didn’t plan it, but the universe throws you a bone, and everything congeals in perfect harmony. The bow is lovingly tied on top, and the circle of life is completed. You’d like to imagine you are responsible for this, but the truth is, it’s dumb luck and coincidence, and you just get to stand in the winner’s circle.
Thus begins the final week of 7.
At my parents’ ranch.
For eight days.
During Thanksgiving.
A literal sabbatical, including the first two Sundays off since we started ANC in 2008.
A planner would’ve engineered this finale on purpose, finishing a month of rest and prayer with family, sequestered on 350 beautiful acres, happily meal-planning for Thursday when we’ll break bread in total thankfulness for this month, this year, this blessed life. But this all just sort of happened to me.
Regardless, I’m happily typing on the porch of the barn as the breeze blows, watching Sydney and Lady leap across hay bales and listening to my boys gun the four-wheeler in the front pasture. My mom and dad are reading books in the afternoon sun, and Brandon is setting up mid- and long-range targets for a Hatmaker Shoot Off. We have no cell service. We have no Internet. There is no cable either, but we do have one spotty TV with a VHS player where we watch old movies every night, piled on the couches like puppies. We’ll feed cows this week and move hay bales. The guys will hit the deer blinds and attempt to fill our freezers for the winter. (An armadillo already lost its life last night, thanks to Caleb’s sharp shooting. It’s Texas, people.)
We’ll wear the same clothes over and over, and four days from now I’ll ask if anyone has taken a shower. The answer will be no. I didn’t even bring makeup. At least once we’ll head “into town” to eat at the Rockin’ J’s in Comanche, a converted gas station where 95 percent of the patrons will have on camouflage. We’ll order biscuits and gravy because we aren’t imbeciles. We’ve been here less than twenty-four hours, and I’ve already read a book and a half. The kids brought bones and other treasures from their explorations. By 8:30 a.m., I’d already washed a load of filthy clothes after Caleb and Lady decided to “walk through the creek instead of go aaaaaaaaallll the way around it” (fifty additional yards). We’ll enjoy coffee in the morning, sweet tea in the afternoon, and a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon on the porch at night, while the sun sets over the coastal fields.
This week will lovingly bookend 7, offering the best space to reflect, gear down, and express gratitude. I’m surrounded by my favorite people at my favorite place during my favorite week on earth. It’s the proverbial public kiss, the finest possible ending to this incredible experimental year. I’ll gratefully pray through the hours in the pasture, on the four-wheeler, and in the barn; while cooking breakfast for the hunters and dinner for the explorers; with my kids, my husband, and my parents; in the early morning on the porch and as we turn off the lights after movie night.
“Dear Artist of the Universe, Beloved Sculptor, Singer, and Author of my life, born of your image I have made a home in the open fields of your heart. The magnetic tug of your invitation to grow is slowly transforming me into a gift for the world. Mentor me into healthy ways of living. Help me remember to pause.”8
Day 26
The rhythm of the ranch is healing to the frantic pace of normal life. It’s also a tutor, teaching me the superior tempo of living well. At the ranch there is no hurry. There is no racing from one thing to the next unless you count trying to outpace Lady Bird on the four-wheeler. Thanks to its strategic geography, we aren’t distracted by the Internet, TV, or phones (if you stand on a chair in the southwest corner of the barn while holding your phone to the heavens, you get one bar).
Friend, you might be imagining a luxurious, sheek, rustic ranch with overstuffed leather furniture and antler chandeliers. Please let me set the record straight. This is a working cattle ranch, no house, just a barn that houses a four-hundred-square foot office/living room/kitchenette/bathroom. The utility sink, refrigerator, and washer and dryer are out in the barn, so during the winter we fight over who has to brave the frigid barn to fetch jelly from the fridge or—horror—hand wash the dishes while bundled like an Eskimo.
At night the two couches fold out into beds: voila, a bedroom. These beds are slightly less comfortable than sleeping on an inverted mat of ball bearings. Add a kid draped all over you, and we basically pray for each night to end. The TV only plays VHS tapes. “Why are the lines squiggly at the top of the screen?” the spoiled DVD children ask. They don’t know about tracking, a cross we children of the ’80s had to bear. The pipes freeze at the first sign of a cool breeze, so we keep milk jugs of water in the bathroom so we can fill the tank up and flush. It’s all very glamorous.
So believe me, the ranch life is a simple one, depleted of all the extravagances we’re addicted to.
And yet.
None of us could wait to get out here. We’ve been talking about this week for two months. We love, love, love the ranch and every rustic detail. We crave the outdoor air and dirty farm boots. The boys were on the four-wheeler before we put the car in park. The kids explore for hours. We would have no clue where they were if not for the hilarious walkie-talkie communiqué we eavesdrop on.
Brandon and the boys experience pure bliss from their hunting endeavors, and why not? We have twelve deer blinds on the ranch, all ironically named: the Spongebob, the Bishop, Crow’s Nest, Alaska Stand, North Creek, Penthouse, the Grove, and of course, the Bellagio, named for its opulence with its retractable windows, carpeted floor, and heater. (Caleb falls asleep in this deer blind every time.)
As the sun set and the hunters were returning, I started dinn
er and entered the Twilight Hour, that grateful transition from the activity of the day to the relaxation of the evening. I love gathering my chicks after days like today, when muscles and imaginations were stretched to their limits and flushed cheeks walk in the door competing for space to tell their tales. Hats pulled off and ponytails released, a mountain of ranch boots left by the door. The family assembled with fresh, new memories and an eager anticipation of the next day.
I read Psalm 145 and repeated a beautiful prayer from Seven Sacred Pauses:
O You whose face is a thousand colors . . . look upon us in this twilight hour, and color our faces with the radiance of your love. As the light of the sun fades away, light the lamps of our hearts that we may see one another more clearly. Let the incense of our gratitude rise as our hearts become full of music and song. May the work that we bring with us into this hour fall away from our minds as we enter into the mystical grace of the evening hour. Amen.9
Caleb, on the left, with his buddy Cade, exploring at the ranch. Yes, that is a decomposing vulture with no head. What?
Me and Dad at the ranch. Yes, that is a real John Deere tractor, not just a clever prop for this picture. Also? My dad has owned that shirt for at least and possibly longer than 25 years.
Nothing says "sabbatical" like a Family Shoot Off. Or maybe that is just really, really bizarre to those of you who don't live in Texas.
