Probably, in some way, your life has changed drastically over the last several months. Something is different from what you are used to.

I was “supposed” to be walking this week in one of my favorite places with a group of incredible women. So I am sharing a Camino love letter I wrote to the group of women who were going to be with me this week in Spain, because friends, one day we will travel again. We will hug and kiss each other and we will walk in the sun side by side. 

To my beautiful Camino dreamers!

Today is the day we were meant to meet on the streets of Sarria to begin our Camino adventure together. And though we are not there, I thought it might be fun to dream it into existence, to close your eyes and pretend. 

Come away with me for a moment to the Camino…

You have just arrived in Spain and are feeling weary from the long plane ride. Maybe your body aches a bit from being crammed in a small seat for so long, but the drive through the Spanish countryside replaces the aches with feelings of excitement. The van pulls up at an Albergue, a small hotel run by a couple who loves pilgrims. They welcome you with open arms and show you to your room. Dinner is at 6, just over an hour from now, but don’t close your eyes or you might sleep right through it. Instead, we will all meet up in the street out front in 15 minutes to go for a walk around the town together. You drop your things, splash a little water on your face, and head back out. 

You are flooded with all kinds of feelings as we walk together up the streets of town towards the cathedral on the hill. We fill up water bottles at the fountain where the water is clean and cold. You see other pilgrims, folks with dusty boots and large packs who have been at this for weeks now. 

If you feel tired, you might start to get nervous about what is to come in the days ahead. If it’s hard to take a short walk through town, how are you going to walk 15 kilometers tomorrow? But then we remind you that it’s 11pm back at home and it is going to take a minute for your body to catch up to time in Spain, to be fully present here. 

Oh yes, that’s right. Jet lag. 

But then you see the cathedral, the old arches around the courtyard and the ornate towers. It’s exquisite. 

We wander inside the ancient place of worship and everyone gets a pilgrim’s passport, a little booklet full of squares that will mark the steps of our journey to Santiago. At a small table in the back of the cathedral, everyone receives a passport stamp, your first official sign that you have begun your Camino. 

We snake back down the hill and arrive just in time for dinner. You didn’t realize how hungry you were until you smelled the food. Plates of salad arrive as we are passing carafes of wine and baskets of bread. More food arrives. You chose the chicken dish, but it’s different from the plain grilled chicken breasts from back home. This chicken has been slowly baked with all its bones until it’s falling apart in the sauce. The person next to you ordered fish, which arrived whole, even with its head and eye staring up from the plate. You trade bites with each other, laughing that even eating is going to be different here, as you both work to find all the bites on your plates.

Soon the plates are cleared and dessert arrives (custard flans), we go around the table and share a little about what we’ve each left behind to be here. Some folks say their kids. Others their jobs or partners. Pets and plants that need to be watered and fed. But also a sick family member, a lingering lawsuit, a child who is in the midst of a crisis, grandchildren who will miss their afternoons at Grandmother’s house, or disappointed clients. 

You listen to each of these beautiful women and you think about what you will share when it’s your turn.

There are tears and laughter in equal measure. And also a big exhale. Just being present here is a relief, even if you aren’t sure why.

After dinner we stretch and breathe together for about fifteen minutes to get ready for bed. Kandace and I anoint each of you with sweet smelling oil. When I get around to you, I take your face in my hands, look into your eyes and say:

You are exactly where you are supposed to be in this moment. 

I wish you grace (as I place oil on your forehead)

And peace (oil on your temples)

And abundant love this week (oil on your neck).

Sweet friends, as I dream about our taking this journey together, which I continue to plan for us to do at this time next year, I hope you can hear me say these same words to you for now…

You are exactly where you are supposed to be in this moment. 

I wish you grace 

And peace 

And abundant love

XO

Alison

PS. If you would like to be a part of one of these journeys some day, you can sign up for our Humility Walk newsletter to hear about future walking trips. 

PPS. Here’s a (slightly clumsy) video of the cathedral church bells ringing the first time I was in Sarria, Spain, walking the Camino in 2015.

The post A Camino Love Letter appeared first on Alison Chino.

A Beloved Arkansas Campground

Dear Longpool,

Just the other day I was going through a box of old photos (a winter project suitable for a string of days of sub-zero temperatures).

I came across this sweet photo of our three oldest kiddos on our first camping trip to your perfectly situated riverside campsites.

It was a gorgeous Arkansas autumn weekend in 2005, the kind you dream about when you plan a fall camping trip but that you hardly ever get. (Many fall weekends end up being colder than usual or more rainy than sunny.)

The temps that weekend were cool enough for jeans and fires at night, but so warm and sunny during the day that the kids dared each another to swim.

The leaves were dazzling shades of yellow all around. We hiked campground trails, skipped rocks into the river, climbed giant boulders, and sat in the sunshine enjoying the views.

At night, we read one of the Chronicles of Narnia out loud around the campfire. Long days of playing hard outside meant the kids fell asleep quick in their sleeping bags at night. Then the adults sat up late visiting around the fire, staying until it was just embers and coals and we longed for the warmth of our own sleeping bags.

Longpool, you gave us such a perfect weekend on that first visit that we came back again and again. Soaking up our old memories and making new ones.

We returned with more families and friends to try to catch the leaves turning the perfect shades of yellow again.

We came back after our youngest was born, and my husband and I took turns carrying him around in a baby backpack. It was colder that year and I remember digging out every scrap of extra clothing I brought to keep our daughter’s friends warm.

She had brought several girlfriends and they spent their days making a clubhouse on an outcropping that they tended to all weekend. Their sweet giggles made me smile.

The boys dared each other back into the river, even though it was cold.

I loved nothing more than watching my kids play outside when we were camping. Far away from TV and video games, before any of them had a phone, they had only trees and rocks and dirt. And sticks. Sticks for beating the ground and using as swords. And then sticks for the fire and for roasting marshmallows.

Our son, Ben, called marshmallows “marshalotes” when he was little, and he would always ask for “one last marshalote.”

(He always had too many.)

My husband would make pancakes for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and various stews for dinner. Then he lead everyone on hikes and across the river to climb the rocks.

We came back in the winter the year after we bought our pop-up camper. We moved to a different loop of the campground to take advantage of the electrical hook-ups. The temperatures were below freezing, but we had a little space heater so we could thaw out at night after hiking in the cold all day. We had to stay moving to keep warm that winter weekend.

Now it’s been many years since I’ve set up camp in one of your loops or kept warm near one of your metal fire circles.

My three oldest have grown up and left home. It’s been a long time since I saw one of them ride a bike around a campground loop.

I can’t remember the last time one of them brought me something they found in nature, a rock or a stick. A frog or a bug.

Longpool, I’m grateful you have so many of our Chino Family memories stored in the earth there. I’m glad that the trees, rocks and river have collected the laughs of my children.

I think any one of them could return to spend some time in your woods and recall fondly the hours they played there.

Thank you for providing a place for their simple, pure, unadulterated joy.

Hold onto it for them, Longpool. I think they will need it some day.

In awe and gratitude,

Alison

The post A Love Letter to Longpool appeared first on Alison Chino.

Do you know what happens in February?

First and foremost, it’s Black History Month, so it’s a good month to read a book by a Black American. (Need a suggestion? I got you.) 

But also, February is sometimes all dressed up in PINK, 

Because of St. Valentine’s Day. 

Which I know has been co-opted into a commercial day, 

Otherwise known as 

The Day Of Inevitable Disappointment. 

Seriously, for a lot of my life, Valentine’s Day was definitely a no-win situation. It was one of those moments of the year that I expected something AMAZING to happen and then it (or he) didn’t deliver. 

But at some point, I shifted my thinking around Valentine’s Day and began to think of it as an opportunity to express my love. And not just romantic love, although that’s cool too. But as a way to spread all kinds of love. Because I have a lot of love to give. 

And so I bought all the favorite things I loved for so long, like construction paper hearts and pink tissue paper and doilies, and used them to make valentines to give away. 

Feel my love in the form of chocolate and lace.

I haven’t made valentines in a while. My kids got older and we moved eighty times and somehow the craft supplies didn’t make the cut. 

But I still LOVE a good Valentine. 

And what I really love…

Is A LOVE LETTER.

Of course, I love the “bleeding heart confession of undying love” kind of love letter. 

But I also love the “friend, your presence in the world is what makes life bearable for me” kind of love letter.

And the “Mom, you are the BEST!” love letters. 

And the “Hello gorgeous co-worker! I just want you to feel SEEN today!” love letters.

So in order to spread MORE LOVE this month,

I am doing a fun little email course I am calling:

Love Letters

For one week, I will pop in your inbox with an idea for a letter you can write.

Seven days.

Seven letters.

SO MUCH LOVE.

So grab your pen and join me in spreading the kind of LOVE that makes someone’s heart skip a beat.

Construction paper hearts optional.

UPDATE:

This course has finished but you can now access it as an ebook right here. Happy writing!!

The post Love Letters appeared first on Alison Chino.

A Letter to Immigrants

Dear friends who are far from home,

My friends for whom English is not your “heart” language,

I am so thankful for the many ways you have taught me to think differently about life, and I am writing this letter to share a few of the places where you have widened my heart.

Thank you for being willing to keep learning new ways to say things. New languages. New idioms. Thank you for not allowing language to be a barrier in communicating. You find a way to say what you want to say, even if it’s with your hands, and I love you for it.

Thank you for immediately replying when I text you or invite you somewhere. You are not playing it cool, acting like you have better things to do or weighing your options. If you can come, you say so and if you can’t, you say that. Thank you for reminding me that I spend way too much energy trying to do the “cool” or “appropriate” thing when I should just go with my heart.

Thank you for sharing your table with me. Without you, I wouldn’t have tasted many foods that are now my favorites. Thank you for writing down recipes for me, for entrusting me with your grandmother’s cake, with your mother’s pudding.

Thank you for sharing your secrets with me, for telling me where to go to find the biggest jar of tahini I’ve ever seen, the cheapest coriander, freshly made tortillas, an insider fish market, and sushi rice in bulk.

Thank you for being willing to be a lifelong learner. You are willing to learn things that I learned as a child because I had access to infrastructures and programs that you did not. In this way you are teaching me that it is ok to be like a child in adulthood.

Thank you for showing me the dances you learned as a child in your country, for teaching me to move my hips and my feet in a new way. Thank you playing your music for me and translating the love story of the song.

Thank you for opening up your home country to me, for showing me a part of the globe I would not have seen without you.

Thank you for giving me the world.

To the group of international moms I gathered with in Aberdeen, to my language partner in Germany, to the immigrant families of our kids’ school friends in Scotland, to the international church congregations with whom I have worshiped, to my sweet friend in Seattle who first taught me to make sushi,  to the students who sat alongside us in German language classes and shared meals with us afterwards, to the many folks in the world who are working to carve out a life in a new country.

I am amazed at all the lessons I have learned from you.

You are unwriting the rules I have unconsciously lived by for many years.

You make my life richer and more beautiful.

When you arrive in a new place to work, to dream, to make a life,

you truly make it great.

We need you in my country.

I am praying that there are kinder, gentler days ahead of us in America, days in which we will be welcoming immigrants instead of imprisoning and criminalizing them.

I pray that we might show even a fraction of the hospitality and grace that you have shown to me.

With love and gratitude,

Alison

I am posting this letter today as my small act of protest, a little whisper in the wilderness saying that I want to live in a world where immigrants and refugees are welcome. It is also my attempt to be in solidarity with my brothers and sisters who are in El Paso today to demand an end to placing children in detention camps.

The post A Letter to Immigrants To Thank You For Teaching Me The Best Things appeared first on Alison Chino.

After the election, I was reading the news, lamenting on Twitter, and trying to listen to the voices that I felt were most marginalized by the comments our newly elected president had made on his campaign trail.

Listen and lament.

Listen and lament.

But after about a week, I was drowning in a sea of despair. I was starting to think I was going to have to shut the internet down, but I also felt like it would be an unacceptable exercising of privilege to close my ears and eyes to the emboldened racism and rampant hate-related instances unfolding all around the country.

So at some point, I was moved (probably by the Holy Sprit) to type into my Google search bar something to the effect of: Black Christian Perspective On Election Results.

Somehow my search led me to an article you wrote about feeling betrayed by white evangelicals in the wake of the election. You explained that for your white brothers and sisters to ignore the racist rhetoric was to dangerously underestimate the power of words and the impact they have on the groups which the rhetoric is intended to marginalize.

And then you ended with these words.

Because of Christ, I am willing to be part of a body that constantly underestimates the ongoing impact of racism. Because of Jesus, I am willing to associate with believers who outright deny systemic and institutional forms of inequality based on race. Because of our unity in the Spirit, I am willing to fellowship with believers who rebuke me for my honesty, and accuse me of sowing division because I speak of difficult subjects. I am still here. Bear with me if I sometimes long to worship with people who share not only my theology, but my pain as well.

As a member of a church that is trying to bridge racial divides, I do not take lightly the willingness of anyone from the minority culture to worship with me.

I have grown to understand how much people of color have given up in order to participate in racial reconciliation, in order to walk back into to churches from which their parents and grandparents were actively excluded.

So I was humbled by your willingness to remain part of a body that “constantly underestimates the ongoing impact of racism.” And it reminded me again that the black people in my church have to face the same struggle, worshipping alongside a group of believers who have (in some numbers) voted for and continue to support a president who is stripping away any small steps of progress towards equality.

As a result of landing on that one article and reading several others, I began to faithfully listen to the podcast Pass the Mic, where I began to hear you and Tyler Burns discuss issues and culture from a distinctly black Christian perspective.

Which is a perspective this white girl needs to hear.

The longer I listen, the more voices I hear. And the more I learn.

Through your podcast, I also grew to know and love the Truth’s Table podcast.

You also introduced me to the writings at the blog (Black Perspectives) of the African American Intellectual History Society, where I have read countless stories and been introduced to new books that have grown my world exponentially.

I could go on and on, but mainly I just wanted to write and say thank you.

Thank you for your willingness to keep engaging with a community that consistently   underestimates the ongoing impact of racism.

Thank you for creating spaces where I can learn. I know that those spaces are not for me, but I am grateful to be invited along to listen and open my heart.

I hope you will keep writing, speaking, reading, tweeting and holding truth for us all to see.

With gratitude and grace,

Alison

A note to my readers:

If you want to check out the podcast, Pass The Mic, here are a couple of my favorite episodes:

This interview with Andy Crouch is a particularly great listen for white folks. Note: the podcast’s target audience is black listeners, so if you’re white, you might be asking yourself why you would join a conversation that is not for you? One good answer is that when I am in a place where my own experience excludes me from understanding what the speakers’ have encountered, I am being let in on something special. I get to listen and learn.

Bryan Stevenson (interviewed here) is a national treasure. Seriously, I think in 100 years we’ll be talking about this guy like we do Ghandi.

And if you are involved in any kind of racial reconciliation in churches, the 4-part series that Truth’s Table did on this topic is required listening. This one with Laura Pritchard is my favorite.

The post An Open Letter to Jemar Tisby appeared first on Alison Chino.

Dear Sweet Ones,

I want to tell you something about creativity.

To create is to reflect the image of God, the Creator.

To create anything is to participate in the divine purpose for which we were made.

I hope you will let those words sink deep into your soul.

Whenever we spend time in creation, I am in awe of all God’s great gifts in nature.

I wonder at all that God has made.

The trees, the hills, the flowers, the mountains, the rivers and streams. The great expanse of the sea. I love spending time seeing what God has created, and I have tried to teach you to love it too.

I want you to love it a little bit more every day by making time for walking outside.

But maybe I have missed teaching you to participate in creation by also being a maker.

I think it’s hard to be a maker in our family because we like everything to be already perfectly made. And we tend towards criticism. When things are still in process, we interrupt creators with discouragement.

I grieve that I have perhaps taught you to point out imperfection rather than to participate in creating.

So I am trying to make more imperfect things.

I am exercising the muscle of creativity in places that are unfamiliar and awkward and maybe even pointless.

One of the ways I am making time for creativity lately is by drawing and painting.

I have a little tiny set of watercolors I have been carrying around with me for a couple of years now, and I am filling up some of the pages of my journal with perfectly imperfect creations.

I am trying to look more closely at the places we walk by the act of drawing them.

I find it hard. And very slow. (Not unlike learning German)

But when I make time for this act of pointless creativity, for wasting time doing something at which I am not very good, I am surprised by the calm I experience and the small joys it brings.

I’m surprised by what I notice.

Here’s what Brené Brown says about creativity in her brilliant book, The Gifts of Imperfection:

1. “I’m not very creative” doesn’t work. There’s no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don’t. Unused creativity doesn’t just disappear. It lives within us until it’s expressed, neglected to death, or suffocated by resentment and fear.

2. The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born of our creativity.

3. If we want to make meaning, we need to make art. Cook, write, draw, doodle, paint, scrapbook, take pictures, collage, knit, rebuild an engine, sculpt, dance, decorate, act, sing—it doesn’t matter. As long as we’re creating, we’re cultivating meaning.

So I hope you will take some time to make things for the sake of making. I hope you will not hear my critical voice in your head telling you that you should be busy with more practical endeavors.

Find ways to express the creativity that is within you.

Join in with the wonder that is creation.

I love each of you and all the ways you make life more beautiful,

Mama

The post A Letter to My Kids About Making Time For Creativity appeared first on Alison Chino.

Happy Ten Year Blog Anniversary to Me!

Ten years ago I started writing on the internet, and to celebrate that little milestone, I am releasing a little 60-page book of letters I wrote right here:

It’s called Letters from Alison.

I hope you enjoy it!

Blogging has been the most wonderful gift to me as a writer, an opportunity to take many of my ramblings out of my journal and onto permanent web pages, where I can edit them and add pictures and create pieces of work that I love.

My blog holds lots of little fragments of my heart and has been a way to freely share my art with others. I’m super grateful for the place it has had in my life over the last ten years and for every person who has spent any time reading what I’ve written.

Friends, thank you so much for popping over to my corner of the internet and reading my stories.

I appreciate it so much!

XO

Alison

The post A Book of Letters appeared first on Alison Chino.

A Letter to My Ten Year Old Son Upon The Election of Donald Trump To The Office of President

I wrote this letter back in November and held onto it because I felt like it sounded a bit alarmist. I opened it again just a couple of weeks ago and I was surprised to discover that I’m not sure it’s alarmist enough. I’m sharing it now because I want all my children to understand my heart about the rhetoric of our current president. I want them to join me in grieving the state of our nation. We are having a lot of conversations at our house about racism and hateful words as people around us ask what on earth is happening in America, so this letter reflects this dialogue that has been happening in our house for a while now. 

November 2016

Dear Simon,

This week you said to me:

Donald Trump won? What does that mean?

Does it mean we can’t go back to America?

And as I was pondering how to answer, I was also wondering what was going on inside your ten-year old brain.

And before I could form my reply, you said something about a wall.

People keep talking about walls being built.

Oh, yes. There has been a lot of talk about walls.

About divides. There are a lot of divides in our country.

There is a big deep chasm right down the middle that seems impossible to cross.

So I said to you.

Do you think a wall will go up that will keep us out of America? That will not happen. We are citizens and holders of American passports, so yes, we can go back to America whenever we want.

But I guess the question is,

When there are walls going up, when so many people are divided by hostility, do we want to go back?

Of course you said,

Oh yes, I want to go back.

I knew your answer before you said it. There is no president that can come between you and your love for America.

I understand how you feel. I, too, love America. In fact, being an expat makes me love our country more. In big ways like I miss a hecka lotta people who are crazy important to me and in small ways like how I think American central heat and air is the eighth wonder of the world.

But this election means I have to ask.

Do I want to use my privilege to return to a country that is projecting the message that we, as Americans, do not value all of God’s people?

Simon, do you remember a few weeks ago when we made you watch that movie about how white people in America have treated (and continue to treat) black people? It was called 13th, because it was about the 13th amendment.

Remember how you covered your eyes and cried and begged us to turn it off because seeing that much hate for our black brothers and sisters was just too much.

It was too painful.

But the most painful thing is that the hate that we saw in that documentary, that horrible hate still lives in the hearts of many white people in the United States.

In fact, because our country was founded by white men who believed that they were fundamentally better than black people, they have handed all of us a legacy of hate. Even if we think we are not haters, we cannot help but have inherited some of the ideas that have spread this hateful idea that white people somehow deserve to have more than black and brown people.

You know what I mean by black and brown people, right? I’m talking about the folks that were in that documentary we watched. I’m talking about people who are from Mexico or from other Latin American countries. I’m talking about Muslim people like the ones in your international class who came here to escape wars in their own countries.

Well, I don’t know if you know this, but Donald Trump said a lot of horrible things about black and brown people while he was running for president.

There are a lot of people who don’t want black and brown people to feel welcome in America who supported Donald Trump for president. Elections are complicated and there are people who voted for Donald Trump for other reasons, but still, the reality is that too many Americans agree with the meanest of his statements.

So imagine that this morning when you woke up and found out that Donald Trump was president, if you were a black person or a brown person, how would it make you feel to discover that your country elected a president who encourages that kind of hate towards someone who looks like you?

Terrified.

Really scared.

Super sad.

Mad.

You would be wondering which people hate you.

If you were an immigrant from another country you might be afraid that you will have to leave the United States.

And even if you don’t have to leave, you might not feel welcome. You might feel like people don’t want you around.

I know you know how that feels. Because we are expats, we have been living in other countries where we don’t belong. We are outsiders. We do not feel at home.

Do you remember when we lived in Scotland what it took for us to finally feel at home? It was not until we made friends who were Scottish, people who welcomed us into their homes and let us know that they were glad we lived in their country.

Can you imagine how we would have felt if people never did welcome us? If we had lived in Scotland for three years without making any Scottish friends?

What if when we went to the store in Scotland, people said things to us like, “Go home!” or “Get out of our country!” or “We don’t want people like you here!”

Do you think we would have felt at home in Scotland if that had happened?

I know what you are thinking. You would tell me that if we were not welcome, we could just go back home. We could go back to Arkansas, where we are always welcome.

And yes. That is true. We will always be welcome in Arkansas.

(That’s called privilege by the way.)

But what if there was a war in Arkansas? What if our home had been bombed and we could not go back without risking our lives?

Or what if there was a famine back home and there was nothing to eat? What if going home meant we were in danger of starving?

Or what if a group of people back home decided that they wanted to kill us because of the church we belong to, or because we are mixed race family or because we love Jesus?

What if we could not just “go home?”

What if, like many of the people in your class at school, we were wandering the earth, broken-hearted because we could not go home, but also trying to make a life for our family in a new country…only to wake up and discover that the new country does not want us?

That the new country actually hates us?

What would that feel like?

We would cry and moan and ask God WHY?

We would wonder why the world feels this way towards us?

Why is the divide so great between us and others?

Simon, your father has been telling you something about politics since before you were old enough to understand words – he has been saying that it does not matter who is president. It doesn’t matter because both parties are controlled by big business.

Again, if you remember watching 13th, you will recall that they explained how this is true. Every president helped to pass laws that were written by a company that was being paid by corporations who would benefit financially from those laws.

All the presidents for all of time have bowed down to the idols of capitalism.

So, yes, in one sense your father is right. It doesn’t matter who is president.

But in another sense he is wrong, because the face of the president of the United States is representative of our county – not just to the world – though that is important too – but also to the people who live in America.

This is the reason I broke with our family habit of voting third party candidates to cast my ballot for Barack Obama (twice). It was not because I thought Obama could “save America.” Lord, help me the day I am fooled into thinking that the representative of a large machine (Democrat or Republican) will turn on that machine and suddenly become the champion of the poor, the oppressed and the prisoner. No, I voted for Obama because I wanted the black kids at your school to turn on the television and see that the highest office in our country could be held by someone who looked like them. I wanted Americans (you included!) to look into the face of our president and be encouraged and proud of the fact that we elected an African-American president. I wanted us all to see the black man on the news who was president. I still believe that the greatest gift Barack and Michelle have given our country is their gracious presence as a black family in the White House. There is no policy that can outweigh the uplifting effect of Obama’s being the face of our country over the last eight years for all of us, but especially for minority children.

If you were older, maybe you would ask me if I believe that Hillary’s face would have been a great encouragement in that same way for young women? To that I would have to say, no. The hope of her presence in the White House did not compel me to break from voting a third party candidate this year.

But even so, I would not have chosen over Hillary the face of someone who is willing to say out loud that he does not value all people. 

But that someone is now the president-elect. Donald Trump will be the face that we see on the news for the next four years representing our country.

And so, Simon, what are we supposed to do when so many people that we know and love are having to wonder if they are welcome in America?

When someone who looks like you and me is telling our brothers and sisters that they are not welcome, we cannot stay quiet.

We have to figure out ways to say again and again that we need our African American friends in the United States. We need people from all over the world. We need immigrants and refugees.

Simon, I want you to grow up in a country where everyone is welcome.

I want you to grow up in a country where policemen protect people of color.

I want you to be a part of a country where the refugees find refuge. Where the prisoner is set free.

I want you to grow up in a country where the walls are coming down, not going up.

In this world of great divides, I want you to be a builder of bridges.

Right now you are living a life as an outsider. We talk funny and we don’t understand the systems and we puzzle our way through most days. It is exhausting and discouraging and sometimes it feels pointless.

But Simon, I’m asking you to pay very close attention.

You are learning how to stand in the shoes of the alien.

One day you may find yourself on the inside in America again, but if you have been watching, you will have learned how walls get taken down between the insiders and the outsiders.

And, oh my son, you are going to need those skills.

America will need you use them.

Because there will be many walls to tear down.

Here’s a verse to remember when you need encouragement in this good work of tearing down walls:

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility     

– Ephesians 2:14

Love you so much,

Mama

The post A Letter to My 10 Year Old Son Upon The Election of Donald Trump To The Office of President appeared first on Alison Chino.

Dear White People (including myself),

As Black History Month wraps up, I want to make a plea that we all choose not be done with Black History for the year.

Current events are daily revealing how necessary it is that all Americans learn Black History all year long.

For how long?

For as long as it takes for us to unwrite the rules we wrote when our brothers and sisters were enslaved and we did not count them as people.

For as long as it takes to unmake a system that has its roots planted deeply in white supremacy.

For as long as it takes for us to consider Black History as an integral part of American History, embedded in our lives and national stories, just like The Mayflower, The Pilgrims and Independence Day.

Extensive reading is my preferred (and maybe too easy) method of becoming awake to how the decks are stacked against our black and brown brothers and sisters in this country. But I am committing this year not to just reading about racism, but also to talking about it, to writing about it regularly and to calling it out in myself.

Let me say that again.

I am committed to calling out racism in myself.

Lamenting it.

Confessing it.

Repenting of it.

I like to say that I am about 67% woke. (That’s probably generous.)

Woke refers to a state of being aware of racial injustice in the world.

So if I am 67% woke, that still leaves like 33% of me that is asleep, that is ruled by racism.

I was raised in a country that was founded on white supremacy, so I am going to have a natural bent towards participating in racism that is both underlying and overt.

I am repenting of being complicit in a system that has sold itself out in a grab for power. I am so sad that I am a part of tradition that was meant to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the world and instead seems to be the second coming of the Pharisees. I cannot make it right by saying I am not a part of the group, or I am not one of those kind of Christians. Somehow I stood by while we were seduced by the empire and so I participated.

For years and years, I was content to sit in a church on Sunday morning filled with people who looked like me, to fill the seats at my table with people who looked like me. I was content to read only books about people who looked like me, and I studied history that was missing the pieces that explain why life is so different for people who did not look like me.

I am lamenting that I did not notice how wrong this was. I am lamenting that my unwillingness to cross racial lines has contributed to walls that exist today, and to the rhetoric that is adding more bricks every day to those very walls, causing them to be thicker and harder to break down.

I confess that I have contributed to an atmosphere where we need to say out loud that Black Lives Matter, because the blood on the streets shows that these words are not a given. We must say that Black Lives Matter so that maybe one day we will live in a country where that is true to everyone. In fact, I believe that if we had made it true that Black Lives Matter then we would also have solved the problem of welcoming refugees, because if we raise up and value the lives of those who are different from us, then we will continue to do it with refugees, with Muslims, and with anyone we have designated as “other.”

And so I repent that I personally have not always shown with my actions in the world that Black Lives Matter.

I repent that I have acted as though I am owed the privilege that I was born with. I pass through borders and drive by police cars without fear. I walk into stores and restaurants and never doubt that I will be treated with respect. I expect to have the very best possible schools for my children, without regard for the effect my school choices have on the districts and towns in which we have lived.

If I live to be 100 I cannot undo what I have done to uphold the standard of white supremacy in the US, and this fact overwhelms me. It overwhelms me so much that I considered not writing this letter. But even if I cannot undo all the things or do all that must be done, I can try.

I can do the little that I know how to do today. And tomorrow I can try to learn about another thing. I can work towards another half percent of being woke.

And I would be so honored if you would join me.

That’s why I am making this page into a Resource List, a page that I can add to whenever I come across something that contributes to my awareness of racial injustice. You can come back to it and read again and again because this journey towards racial reconciliation is long.

But I think the long journeys are the ones worth taking.

And I think that God is with us on the long journeys.

And when I think about Martin Luther King Jr, and I listen to his speeches, I remember how bravely he stood in the face of a long uphill climb that he knew would probably end in death.

And so how dare I grow tired?

If I ever say I am tired of hearing about racism, I will call myself out and repent.

Because, friends, think of how weary our black and brown brothers and sisters are of this battle.

So very weary. I hear it in their words. Laments for hard won changes that are given only to be revoked again or never enforced.

Let us not grow weary in doing good. Let us each find the part we have to do and do it. Let us lament. Let us confess. Let us repent.

Then maybe we can rise together.

In solidarity,

Alison

Reading Resource List

This is just a start on this list. I will continue to add to it. If you know of something I should add, feel free to send me an email (alison AT alisonchino DOT com) or tell me on Twitter.

Children’s Books 

Black History Children’s Books

Sit In by Andrea Davis Pinkney

Let Freedom Sing by Vanessa Newton

The Youngest Marcher by Cynthia Levinson

The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles

The Great Migration with paintings by Jacob Lawrence

God Bless The Child by Billie Holiday, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney

March by John Lewis 

Children’s Books for Talking About Race

All the Colors We Are: The Story of How We Get Our Skin Color by Katie Kissinger

The Skin I’m In by Pat Thomas

Shades of People by Sheila M. Kelly

Children’s Books with Black or Brown Protagonists

Chocolate Me by Taye Diggs

Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman

Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold

The Snowy Day  by Ezra Jack Keats

The Barber’s Cutting Edge by Gwendolyn Battle-Lavert

Dancing in the Wings by Debbie Allen

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

Concrete Rose (forthcoming) by Angie Thomas

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi

Another great resource for children’s books is the website We Need Diverse Books.

Books (nonfiction)

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Patillo Beales

The Long Shadow of Little Rock by Daisy Bates

Walking With The Wind: A Memoir of the Movement by John Lewis

The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone

Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by  Ibram X. Kendi

How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

Just Mercy Brian Stevenson

The New Jim Crow by Michelle WIlliams

Slavery By Another Name by Douglas Blackman

America’s Original Sin Jim Wallis

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson

White Awake by Daniel Hill

Race and Place: How Urban Geography Shapes the Journey to Reconciliation by David P. Leong

Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice that Restores by Dominique DuBois Gilliard

My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

How to be Less Stupid About Race by Dr. Crystal M. Fleming

The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby

The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist

Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique Morris

They Were Her Property: White Women As Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E Jones-Rogers

So You Wanna Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

Never Caught: The Washingtons Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in A World Made For Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

Rediscipling the White Church: From Cheap Diversity to True Solidarity by David E Swanson

May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem by Imani Perry

Books (Fiction)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (anything by Toni Morrison)

Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin (anything by James Baldwin)

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

A Raisin in the Sun Lorraine Hansberry

Song Yet Sung by James McBride

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

Glory Over Everything by Kathleen Grissom

The Water Dancer Ta-Nehisi Coates

Memoirs by Black Authors

Thick by Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom

Heavy by Dr. Kiese Laymon

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Becoming Ms Burton by Susan Burton

Rabbit by Patricia Williams

When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Cullors

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

The Color of Water by James McBride

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

Breathe: A Letter to My Sons by Imani Perry

No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America by Darnell L. Moore

Movies

Malcolm X

Selma

13th

Twelve Years A Slave

Ruby Bridges

Mississippi Burning

The Color Purple

The Hate U Give

Marshall

If Beale Street Could Talk

Just Mercy

When They See Us (series)

Articles 

Anything on the website Black Perspectives

The Racism of Good Intentions by Carlos Lozada

This is the best explanation I’ve ever seen of White Privilege by Lori Lakin Hutcherson

White Debt by Eula Bliss (first line: “The Word for debt in German also means guilt.”)

White People: I Don’t Want You To Understand Me Better, I Want You To Understand Yourselves. by Ijeoma Oluo

This is what an antiracist America would look like. How do we get there?
Ibram X Kendi

Southern Baptist Seminary Documents History of Racial Injustice

The Cost of the Confederacy by Brian Palmer and Seth Freed Wessler

1619 Series in the NY Times

Punishment by Pandemic

Racism is Terrible. Blackness is not. by Imani Perry

Literary Quilt: A Covering for George Floyd: 15 Black authors give voice to the current unrest and movement for Black lives

Podcasts

On Being consistently has great content regarding race. Here are a few of my favorite episodes:

Love in Action with John Lewis

Let’s Talk about Whiteness with Eula Bliss

The Heart is the Last Frontier with Isabel Wilkerson

Where Does It Hurt? with Ruby Sales

Who We Want To Become: Beyond The New Jim Crow with Michelle Alexander

W.E.B. Du Bois & the American Soul with Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Alexander and Arnold Rampersad

Notice the Rage; Notice the Silence with Resmaa Menakem

Pass The Mic is another podcast I appreciate for discussions concerning a diverse church. It is the podcast of the website The Witness (a Black Christian Collective), a great resource for Christians who want to explore more diverse perspectives. They also have a great episode on the use of term “woke.” One of my favorite episodes is their interview with Bryan Stevenson.

Truth’s Table. 

How Not To Accidentally Raise A Racist (The Longest Shortest Time)

Shots Fired Part 1 and Part 2 (Radiolab)

Object Anyway (More Perfect)

Poverty Myth Busters (On The Media)

Seeing White (series by Scene on Radio)

Monumental Lies (Reveal)

The Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done (On The Media)

1619 Podcast

White Lies

Ear Hustle

Brene Brown with Austin Channing Brown

Brene Brown with Ibram X Kendi

 Videos

This video of Adam Thomason explaining racial preference.

A short documentary about this reign of terror by lynching in the US put out by the Equal Justice Initiative.

MTV’s Documentary White People

Ruby Sales on “How we can start to heal the pain of racial division”

Clint Hill Smith on Raising a Black Son in America

The post A Letter to White People (including Myself) + Reading and Resource List appeared first on Alison Chino.

A Letter to My 15 Year Old Son Who Traveled With Me To Lake Constance

Dear Ben,

I am sorry that I give you such a hard time for cracking eggs all over the counter in the kitchen.

And for throwing your clothes on the floor. And your backpack. And your shoes.

I am sorry for the way I respond when you’ve been on the computer for one hundred and sixteen hours and you eyes are bloodshot from staring at little dots moving around the screen.

I am sorry for the way I focus on the clothes and the computer and the eggs when I should be saying how grateful I am for you.

Because you, my son, are the most wonderful company.

I am so thankful for how you embrace the adventures we have together.

I am so thankful that nine times out of ten, when someone says, “Who wants to go with me to do X?” that your answer is, “I will!”

Who wants to go with me to the store to help carry groceries?

I will.

Who wants to go for a walk with me in the woods?

I will.

Who wants to try this strange new gingerbread?

I do.

Who wants to walk down to the chocolate market and try all the samples again?

I do.

So when I asked you if you wanted to go with me for a few days to Lake Constance, for a little mother-son adventure by ourselves, I was not surprised that you were game.

And I just love that about you.

That you are game.

I think we’re going to take a bus.

Game.

I think we’re going to stay in hostels.

Game.

What do you think about going to this classical musical concert in the big cathedral in Constance?

Game.

Coffee?

Game.

Donor Kebab?

Game.

Pretty much any food?

Game.

You are a wonderful travel partner. You make everything more fun by being enthusiastic.

It’s unusual for you to complain. You’re super flexible. You can walk for ages and carry the heavy stuff, and if we happen to find ourselves in the woods after the sun sets or in a dark part of town, I kind of appreciate that all of a sudden you are becoming a young man, a fact I usually lament.

Thank you for going with me to this new place. For walking all over Constance and Meersburg and Lindau.

For sitting in the sun and reading together.

For long talks about language and living in Germany.

For longer walks along the lake and through the woods.

For sitting through a concert that was not so interesting to you.

For riding the ferry and looking for coffee shops.

For being willing to eat in restaurants and hostel kitchens and on park benches.

For all the ways you make life fun and point out the beauty of the world.

I love seeing it through your eyes.

And I’m grateful for many more days ahead of sharing new experiences with you.

I’m grateful that you are still with us. And that we are getting days together that are different from ones we have had before, because it is so often just the two of us, carrying apples and milk, stomping through the woods or exploring yet another Christmas market.

Thank you for being willing to say “Yes,” and for how you are teaching me to say it too.

Yes, you can build a gingerbread house.

Yes, you can play that game.

Yes, you can put that candle out with your fingers.

Yes, you can put that punch in the grocery basket.

Yes, you can order the pastry that is as big as your head.

Yes, we can stop and sit for a while.

Love you so much.

Mama

A few details in case you want to go to Lake Constance. We stayed in Constance/Konstanz at the most darling little hostel called Glückseeligkeit which translates to “bliss.” They only have five rooms but one is a family room and there is a fully stocked kitchen and living room/lounge for meals and such. Ben and I stayed in the attic room that had its own balcony and view of Konstanz. This hostel did not sponsor our trip in any way, but we loved it so I thought I would mention it. (In fact, we stayed in another hostel in Lindau that we did not like at all so we wished we’d spent one more night in ‘bliss.’) We spent three nights in the area and wandered around the towns of Konstanz, Meersburg and Lindau. At the end of October when we made this trip, it felt like much of the activity around the lake was closed up for the season. I think it would be fun to go when it is a bit warmer and bike at least part of the cycle path that goes all the way around Lake Constance (and covers three countries!) MacsAdventure has this tour available as one of their Germany adventures if you’re looking for a biking adventure in Germany. If you happen to go to Konstanz, a little coffee shop called elf (“eleven” in German) serves up the best coffee I’ve had so far in Germany, but unfortunately they don’t open until 11. 

The post A Letter to My 15 Year Old Son Who Traveled With Me To Take These Snapshots of Lake Constance appeared first on Alison Chino.