Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Vacationing "up North!"

In the last several weeks, I have discovered some of Minnesota's best kept secrets.  They may not even be secrets, but having traveled all over the country with my family while growing up, somehow we missed the beautiful country in Northern Minnesota! The upper Midwest has some gorgeous country in the North Woods, especially along the North Shore of Lake Superior and in the Boundary Waters between Minnesota and Canada.  Having made connections with all the right people, we have been able to experience and enjoy some of this beautiful country over the past month!

I got to know a couple, Carol and Dave, from our church Holy Trinity, and they invited my housemates and I to join them for a weekend at their cabin in the Boundary Waters.  We packed snacks and a good music playlist for the road, and drove 5 hours up the North Shore and down the Gunflint Trail to find their place. We enjoyed playing around Duluth for a few minutes on the way up.
Their cabin was a beautiful piece of art, as it was covered in rosemaling--a Norwegian art.  These patterns covered the ceiling, every piece of furniture, the clocks, toasters, trash cans, you name it.  It was a nice tribute to Norway.
We spent the weekend canoeing and portaging through many of the lakes, hiking scenic vistas, and taking in all the beauty: with no humidity and no bugs. I realize what a special treat that was!

 We even caught 10 rainbow trout for lunch and dinner. First time fishing for me, which was great!
 The rest and relaxation was much needed.  It was such a treat to spend the weekend with people who love the Boundary Waters so much, and loved playing tour guide. They drove us all around, so we got a good sense of this place that I have only heard about.  On our drive home, we took our time driving down Lake Superior, stopping at Split Rock Lighthouse, Gooseberry Falls and Duluth again.  I was lucky enough to drive along the North Shore with fall colors in October with the Ward Family and with snow in November with my landlords, but it was fun to see it in the spring! It is almost like being at the ocean, so for being a landlocked state, they have some gorgeous coastline!

 2 weekends later, I went camping with a few friends in Taylor's Falls, MN right on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin on the St. Croix River.  I recently read a book about the Swedish Emigrants that came through this very part of Minnesota (thanks Mom for the recommendation!), so I really enjoyed touring a place I had read all about! While this weekend was slightly less relaxing (lots of rain, heat, bugs, and a few other camping mishaps) we shared many laughs.
Next weekend, I am heading up to another friends' cabin in north central Minnesota with a group of friends from LVC.  I feel very lucky to have a) so many free weekends, b) so many adventurous friends willing to go all over to explore with me and c) the connections to all these great places. I am so happy that warm summer weather is here and that I continually have the excuse to get out of the city a bit to enjoy more of this great state!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Christy - Carl - and Caroline!

Thank goodness my sister works for the Norwegian American Weekly, thank goodness the world celebrates Syttende Mai, and thank goodness I live in the most Norwegian city in the US...all of these factors meant that Christy was able to fly out here on a business trip and Carl got to come too! We had 4 days of exploring together, lots of sunshine, and plenty to catch up on, so naturally we had the best time!  Christy and Carl were the last of my family to come out for a visit, so I was happy to finish off the Olsen set with them this May.
 I often try to color coordinate pictures with people, but we just happened to be wearing matching clothes when they flew in.  Good taste in 2012 colors I might say!
 Christy and Carl got to dress up and celebrate Syttende Mai with lots of people who love Norway. 
 I had a list of restaurants and bars that was a little too long for their 3 day stay, so we went bar-hopping Friday night--enjoying 4 of my favorites in Uptown/Downtown Minneapolis!  The Cafeteria, Chino Latino, The Local and Brit's Pub.  80 degrees until 10pm, so we had a great way to experience the roof top bar culture Uptown!

 Saturday we got to do a lot of exploring.  We drove to all of my favorite lakes and river parkways around Minneapolis and St Paul. I think they will both agree that it is such a beautiful city.
 That afternoon, we found a soda shop that was just opened by our second cousin twice removed, or some relation like that.  We enjoyed Swedish fish and old fashioned root beer floats...yum!
 On Sunday morning, we went to a Norwegian church service that was packed with Norwegian families.  And so many adorable children dressed in bunads-the traditional Norwegian dress.  At the end of the service, we joined the 300 person parade around the neighbor hood, waving flags and marching along with the band.  It was a little silly, but a blast.  We finished the celebration with great Mexican food.  No room in the church basement for us to enjoy the potluck, so we went for the famous corn pancakes across the street!
It was a fabulous weekend--lots of awesome food, many laughs, and great sibling bonding time. I love showing my new home to everyone, so I was thrilled that they would be able to experience it too.  While I will be sad to leave Minneapolis in a few months, I am excited to be close to these two next year in Seattle!

Have I mentioned that I have the best job?

All year, I have been convinced that I have the best LVC placement around... or at least my perfect placement.  The end of each week is so rewarding.  It is truly amazing to work in a place that cooks and delivers nearly 10,000 meals every week to people who are sick in the Twin Cities area.  That is a lot of food! And a lot of love poured into those meals.  I feel like I get to incorporate my skills and interests into my job on a daily basis. I am in charge of a lot of details, I get to organize groups of people to pack meals each morning, I am in charge of celebrating client birthdays (you all know how much I love birthdays!), I interact with the most wonderful volunteers and staff all day long, and am learning an incredible amount about cooking, food, nutrition and how those things come together to help us lead healthier, more sustainable lifestyles. What a great thing to take with me when I leave Open Arms!

Beyond the day to day work that I find so rich, we have amazing opportunities for outreach and fundraising...which takes the form of the Moveable Feast each May!  Moveable Feast is an event where we have 400 guests join us for a night of drinks, silent auctions, games, limo rides, and 5 course meals at restaurants across the Twin Cities.  We made nearly $250,000 at this fundraiser, which translates to tens of thousands of meals that we can deliver.  The theme this year was 1920's...here are a few favorite photos from the night:
 friends Jeff, Jeanne and Ellen
 Some of my crazy staff!
 My favorite co-worker ladies
 Ellen and I are both in year-long volunteer programs at Open Arms--it's great to have someone who knows just what I'm doing...and someone to have so much fun with!
All in all, it was a fabulous night and a great representation of the teamwork, joy, silliness and pride that comes in the work that we do.  So happy to work for Open Arms!

Sunday, April 29, 2012

We can do more together.

What does being a part of a community mean to you?  I have been a part of a number of communities over the years: PLU, my FLBC camp family and my LVC fellow volunteers are among the richest community experiences of my recent years. When we are united by something bigger than ourselves, we are woven together with a common thread that provides a very unique human connection. 
 
This Sunday at Holy Trinity, we talked a lot about community in the context of the Good Shepherd story from John's gospel.  The word that kept reappearing in the sermon was to gather.  Thinking in terms of gathering in a community of faith makes it feel less institutionalized. The Good Shepherd gathers his sheep together, he doesn't organize them.  When we gather, we are pulled together with a voice that tells us that we are enough, and we are called to an abundant life.  Our lives are made up of a series of choices of how we will spend our time, our money, and what we prioritize.  These choices become competing planes for our identity.  Too often, we focus on what we are lacking to complete our life checklist.  It seems like no matter what we do will never be sufficient; as individuals we can't do it all.  And that is the beauty of community!  When we are strung together in the communities that God calls us to, we are enough, we can live more abundantly.  When we gather in community, we can do more together and we can be more creative together. 

When I think about the most significant identity development that I have experienced in my life, it always seems to occur within a community setting.  This year has been a time of incredible internal growth.  My Twin Cities LVC network consists of 18 volunteers who are incredibly passionate people.  It seems like every conversation leads me to new questions and helps me seek out my own identity of who I want to be in this world.  Working with these volunteers reminds me that while the work can be exhausting and the impact might feel small, we all have something really powerful to contribute. As our pieces come together, the work of the whole community is what makes a difference, here in Minneapolis, in Minnesota, in America, and across the globe.  One of my last blogs touched on the big questions of service work that keep me awake at night sometimes, but I feel energized by the communities that I work in, and find hope as I watch small pieces come together to make one beautiful whole.

I really believe that gathering makes us who we are, whether we are with people who are like us or those who are different from us.  Being in community with others helps us to discover who we are and illuminates the change we can make in the world.

April: the most wonderful month of the year

 Spring is hands down my favorite time of the year. Maybe it's because I am an April birthday girl, but there is something really special about the return of warm weather, the transition from brown to green, flowers popping up out of the ground...I love it all.  This April meant the coming of several visitors, lots of great happy hours and potlucks with friends, many bike rides and the start of my 23rd year of life! Here are the highlights:

Laura Pahlmeyer, one of my dear PLU friends came to spend part of her spring break with me!  We did some adventuring around the city and went to Hunger Games, but it was really wonderful to just catch up on recent happenings in our lives and share our thoughts on the direction we hope to see our lives go.  She is the best, it was great to have her here for a few days!

A couple days later, Dad and Courtney came for Courtney's spring break.  I was so happy to have them both!  After their visit, I was given the title of a drill sergeant host.  I tend to pack in as many things each day as I possibly can, so I wiped them both out at the end of their week...sorry guys! But if they never come back to the Twin Cities, they have seen my top 20 spots, so I would say their visit was a thorough one.  They came to volunteer at Open Arms for a couple of days, so now they both know what my day to day life is like.  We also went to Northfield,  St. Peter and Decorah, Iowa so Courtney could complete her Lutheran college tour of Augsburg, St. Olaf, Luther and Gustavus.  I have friends that went to each of those colleges, so I enjoyed getting to visit them too.
We also enjoyed a visit with the Miller family in St Peter.  It has been years since we both lived in Richland, so it was fun to catch up.
 
 Shopping at the Mall of America, walking around Lake Calhoun, lots of great restaurants, and good family time made the week a great one.  I miss them already!


 Easter was a special one this year.  Snow Grandma's cousin, Marie invited me to spend the day with her family. I went to church with them at the Episcopal cathedral downtown for a beautiful service, and got to meet about 25 members of extended family on the Gjerde side.  Very special to connect with the Minnesota side of the family!
 Easter evening was spent with Laura and her parents.  We made enchiladas, ate key lime pie and played a few board games.  No Easter egg hunt this year, but I had a great time.
 One of my favorite things about spring is the return of daylight late into the evening!  I love that it doesn't get dark until 8:30 now!  To enjoy it, we have had a number of barbeques, potlucks and cookouts, while eating on the porch.  Tuesday night porch parties with friends Pieter, Geoff and Laura are becoming a regular weekly occurance.

I turned 23 on April 20th, and had a great celebration as my first birthday out of college. It fell on a Friday this year.  My work had a staff happy hour at 2, and a staff and board of directors meet and greet party at 4, so I had several hours to celebrate with my wonderful staff. One of our bakers made me an incredible chocolate-peanut butter cheesecake, which tasted like heaven.  In the evening, my roommates threw a Titanic themed birthday party (as this was the 100th year anniversary this year).  We all just went to see the movie in 3D last week, so we were feeling ambitious to dress-up and enjoy the music.  I dressed up as the Heart of the Ocean and almost everyone else dressed up as someone on the ship!  We had a blast.  I have such fun friends here!
 The end of this month has meant a lot of time experimenting in the garden as well. My roommates and I put in several hours in the last 2 weekends pulling all the weeds and transforming our backyard space into a workable gardening space.  Spending some time at Open Farms (the organic farm that is a part of Open Arms) in the last week has given me some new insights into making our garden work. I am hoping we have some luck growing vegetables this year!  We spent all of Earth Day biking and gardening to celebrate. 
I love spring! Looking forward to more warm weather in the coming months.  Hope this spring finds you well!


Saturday, March 24, 2012

A Reflection on Service


I am optimistic about the future.  That being said, I often feel helpless or paralyzed as I think of the broken systems that exist in our world.  When I find myself stuck, I catch a glimpse of hope in the people and the good work going on around me, restoring my faith in humanity.  This blog post is prompted by several conversations that I have had with people this week: through a spontaneous conversation at midnight with my housemates while sipping tea on the floor of our kitchen… at my LVC mid-year review, reflecting on my experience as a year-long volunteer…and with a special volunteer, Anna, from Open Arms.

When I think about my decision to join the Lutheran Volunteer Corps last spring, I heard many different responses from people.  Some thought it was great that I was “giving back” to my community, or even that I had a lot to share with the people I would be serving.  Others joked that volunteer organizations like LVC or Americorps are something that people do when they can’t get a job or as a way to postpone entering the “real world.” A few friends were very excited to know that I would be more actively engaged in anti-oppression work, critically analyzing the systems that classify individuals into boxes, ultimately creating systems of oppression.  Even my own definition and understanding of what it means to be a ‘volunteer’ has changed quite a bit in the past couple of years, but especially over the course of my time in here in Minneapolis.  If anything, I have learned that service work is incredibly complex.

Many of us grew up very privileged and were socialized to understand volunteering as a good thing to do, because we were given so much, while others had nothing.  In many ways this is true, however it has the potential to create a power dynamic within service work that is not healthy for our communities. We start to do things for others that they can do for themselves, a concept called paternalism.  This comes in many forms—in knowledge, spirituality, resources, labor, etc.  We may begin to feel superior to others and start to ‘help’ in ways that we think is best.  Especially when it comes to poverty alleviation, we need to avoid paternalism at all costs.  The goal should really be to walk with people so they become better stewards of their own lives, communities and material needs. My friend John mailed me a book this year called “When Helping Hurts” after I visited the Kyle family this summer. This book addresses poverty alleviation work within our own communities here in the US, as well as in the form of mission work in developing countries overseas.  I recommend reading it.  It is now interesting to look back on the service projects and mission trips I participated in while I was growing up, but I now see that I really did not understand the complexity of the work that I was a part of.  Hours of conversation shared with different friends throughout my college years helped me to grow and understand what social justice really means for our world.  Social justice work is about making sure that all people regardless of race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and ability are treated with dignity and respect, and granted equal access to basic human rights. In fact, as I heard this quote by Lila Watson for the first time, I realized that this thinking is the way to strive towards justice in our world: “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” I cannot live freely when others cannot live freely.  Part of my year with LVC includes trainings on racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, etc.  Each of these “isms” create a hierarchy of privilege that continue to divide humankind.  White versus black. Rich versus poor.  Straight versus gay.  When these barriers of power and prejudice exist, it is impossible for our world to live in true unity.  In fact at the core, I think that when one group is oppressed, it dehumanizes us all, whether we realize it or not.  Recognizing that our liberation is bound up with others helps to provide a framework for breaking down these barriers.

I know that many view faith and social justice work as separate, but I have grown to see them as one in the same.  I now make sense of how I want to live out my faith through a social justice lens, particularly in how I interact with members of my community that are different from me.  Having grown up in the Christian tradition, I can only speak from my own faith and experiences.  As a Lutheran, I believe that God’s grace is so expansive, that I can live in that promise and step outside my comfort zone to live a little more boldly—to participate in creating heaven on earth, a kingdom where all people live together in unity for God.  This heaven on earth is only possible when we live in equality.  Going back to the book, “When Helping Hurts,” the author argues that humans are designed to engage in four types of foundational relationships: our relationship with God, self, others, and the rest of creation.  When each of these relationships are in balance with each other, we are able to experience the fullness of life that God created us for, fulfilling our calling in life. Oppression exists when these relationships are out of balance or non-existent.  It goes back to my point that when people are oppressed, we as God’s children cannot fully experience the life that God intended for us to live, making it more and more impossible to create His heaven on earth.

So how do we do good for others to create this kingdom? Altruism is a concept that I first remember learning about in AP Biology, a behavior expressed in certain species in the animal kingdom, particularly in mammals.  Altruism at the core is the concern for the welfare of others, doing something to benefit another.  We see it in animals as messengers bring back food to other members of the community or when some individuals will fight off predators who are attacking one of their kind.  Many studies in neurobiology have shown that altruistic behaviors in humans (charitable giving, sacrificing time, etc) activate the same neural circuit that is found in social attachment or bonding among individuals.  It’s part of our basic biology to look out for other humans--it unifies us into community.  Altruism manifests itself in many religious traditions including Christianity, as it is central to the teachings of Jesus that we read in the New Testament: ‘To love your neighbor as yourself,’ or if I might push it further, ‘love your neighbor more than yourself.’  Love is God’s greatest command and it takes many forms.  This year I have spent a lot of my time thinking about this love and how it is lived out in communities in need.

So, I decided to spend a year as a member of the Lutheran Volunteer Corps—what will this mean for me in the long run?  As I look back on my experience so far this year, my understanding of service becomes more and more complex.  On the most basic level, my motivation stems from a desire to live out Jesus’ command to love your neighbor as yourself.  Beyond my placement at Open Arms, I find that this command manifests itself in all areas of my life, especially in the day-to-day interactions I have with people in my community.  The definition of “love your neighbor” has also become more complex in my mind this year.  I continue to struggle with knowing when to help and when that help is actually helpful.  I am finding that I have to take a step back to just listen and learn from people. In that space, we can learn to work together to create a world that is better for us all.  Now I am by no means an expert on this topic, but it has been on my mind all year.  In fact, I think I myself am just barely beginning to understand what this means for me.  I read this quote yesterday: “I do not understand the mysteries of grace—only that it meets us where we are, but does not leave us where it found us.”  I believe that God’s grace is so large that we are free to do the hard work of striving to create heaven on earth.  I don’t know where this will lead me, but I know this grace will free me to live a life more rich and meaningful than one I ever imagined.  I am inspired every day by the people around me who are pouring so much into each relationship and activity of which they are a part. It is this love and devotion that restores my hope in the future of humanity in our world.  That makes me optimistic for the future.  

Monday, March 19, 2012

A Sunny March

February came and went with some work stress and cold weather, but brought a wonderful March!  The first weekend in March, we had our 5-day LVC spring retreat.  A group of 20 Twin Cities volunteers met up with the Omaha group in Webster City, Iowa--were we stayed at a little retreat center a tiny farm town.  We left a snowy morning in Minneapolis and 3 hours later, found ourselves in the sun on a 60 degree day! Over the retreat, we had several LVC workshops--on community, sustainability, anti-racism and heterosexism--full of lots of great learning and discussion. We also had a lot of free time--a highlight was our lip sync competition between houses.  We picked our song just 3 days before, and with a lot of practice, we were able to pull together a well-choreographed dance to "Joyful Joyful" from Sister Act 2.  90's clothes, gospel music, it was a winner. Stay tuned for the video on facebook!

 The next weekend was Mom's birthday!  Dad was flying through Minneapolis home from a business trip, so we were both sad to miss her day.  But I was so excited to show Dad around Minneapolis. 7 months ago, he moved me into my house and helped me get settled, but this time we had lots of time to explore, and I finally have lots of places to show off to him! 
 




 The best part of the weekend was the fact that we set record temperatures for March--it was sunny and 75 degrees the whole weekend! (I have a sunburn to prove it!)
 I made an itinerary for our weekend, and had lots of fun coffee shops, restaurants and walks on our list.  We walked 18 miles worth of Minneapolis and St. Paul trails around the lakes, the river and downtown.  I can definitely feel it at the end of the weekend! 

 Dad took my housemates out for dinner on St. Patrick's Day for pizza and beer.  It was fun to introduce Dad to my Minneapolis friends, and we all had a great time!
 We had such a fun time catching up and exploring, and I think we are both exhausted from such a full weekend! I feel really blessed to have such a support from back home as I am living away this year. I have been learning so much and love sharing that with everyone back home.  Thanks for the visit, Dad!