Rachel Marie Stone
Today is one of those times. The sun is shining, it’s warm (yea, hot) and even though I know it’s cold in New York, I miss it. Read more
Today is one of those times. The sun is shining, it’s warm (yea, hot) and even though I know it’s cold in New York, I miss it. Read more
Small observation: I love how all these things that are markers of eco-conscious consumption and enlightened, attachment parenting in middle-class America–extended breastfeeding, babywearing, local produce, and free-range poultry and eggs–are, in Malawi, simply “how we do those things.” Hmn. Read more
It’s hard to know where to start in talking about what it is like here, but one has to start somewhere, I suppose. One of the strangest things is that we have hired help. And I’m not talking about having a Molly Maid come in to tidy up once a week or so. We have a full-time servant who lives in—get this—servant quarters, or ‘boy’s quarters,’ as they are rather unfortunately called here—behind our house. He will tend the yard—include... Read more
Hello from Malawi! We have been here nearly a week and are still backward and upside down in our sleeping and thinking. I look forward to getting back into a regular rhythm of writing and blogging, because there’s so much to think and write about, as you can imagine. It’s a little bit crazy to wake up on Election Day in a small town in New York and then to hear the news of Mr. Obama’s reelection in South Africa,... Read more
…that we fly to Malawi! (And, yes, it’s Election Day, too. I will be sitting up in the air, away from all sources of news, I think, trying and failing to be in-the-moment. Don’t forget to vote, registered voters!) Read more
This week we’ve been considering this question: Is it better simply not to know about the suffering that takes place due to poverty and hunger a world away? As we saw in the stories from history–the Russian famine of 1921, the epidemic of cholera in Naples in 1911–knowing has a certain power. Concealment, coverups–orchestrated ignorance–never helps. But while knowledge is a necessary first step, it is not a final step. Consider: Herbert Hoover read about the Russian famine and then... Read more
*I apologize in advance for the length of this post. ;)* “If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.” ~Abraham Lincoln In his book A Theology of Reading: The Hermeneutics of Love, Alan Jacobs points to Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing as a summary of his main contention: it is possible to interpret texts and events with a hermeneutic of love—or a hermeneutic of hate. In the play, an evil... Read more
{Part Two} So yesterday I asked whether it is better not to know about the suffering that is in this world that we might not know about or encounter in our day-to-day lives. After all, most of us have obligations and cares that rightfully consume most of our time and energy. Why read news stories, blogs, or books that tell us about terrible suffering? For me, history is often instructive and comforting. And I think that history proves the proverb... Read more
Have you wondered if maybe it’s better not to know about great suffering? After all, does knowing help? Maybe it’s happened to you: you read an eyewitness account of famine, perhaps visit a developing country and see firsthand what extreme poverty looks like, and, turning back to your own life, you’re not sure how to go on as you have been. You have a fridge. And it’s big. And full. And not only do you have shoes, but you have... Read more
a song of peace, especially appropriate as so many on the East Coast of the US are struggling in the wake of the mighty storm… During election season, there is often a lot of talk of American exceptionalism (“this is the greatest country on the face of the earth!”) that sounds a lot like arrogance to those from other places. I discovered this song in the wonderful Rise Up Singing songbook, and have sung it since with fellow mission co-workers,... Read more
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