Dear Grown-ups, Press, and Social Media.....

I sat on the Monday after the Texas shootings with 60 mostly-millennial college students.  My experience with these particular students had revealed them to be engaged, interested, and frankly quite brilliant.  Because I found them inspiring, I opened time for them to process and brainstorm the alarming events from the day before.  I said the university should be a space where we not only synthesize the events of the past and equip minds for the future, but we must be able to stop and incubate the present moment without stunning clarity or precise action steps.  We paused to do the work together while it was still messy.  Honestly, I needed to hear from them.

They commenced with 45 minutes of anger, pain, ideas, reflections, but mostly frustration and hopelessness.  They whispered suggestions of gun control or increased security while quickly despairing that those wouldn't really matter.  Kindness and empathy for each other - especially for those who frustrate us - jiggled some tremors of hopefulness.

If given a room of 500 IU students engaged with the issue of recent mass shootings and ready to give their time to change, what - I asked - would they do when asked to lead them?  These standout millennials - known to be activists, minimalists, and critics of the status quo - dropped their heads and said they didn't know.  They said the media is so strong, our attention so controlled by it, and government seems so big, they felt powerless against them.  Their discouragement resounded in the thick silence.

Quick interpretations that they're lazy or too distracted by their phones or entitled or sheltered didn't satisfy me as valid explanations for their inaction.  I thought on their access to information and perspective.  I chewed on positive psychology's influence on our outlook, well-being, and engagement.  I thought on work I've seen with narrative therapy, and the influence of a powerful story on my own children.  I realized the problem wasn't with these students - our future leaders.  It's with the story they're hearing.  The problem can't be limited to eliminating shooters.  We have to change the story we're telling.....because they are listening.

So grown-ups, press, and social media, let our positive stories ring out.  Tell the stories of tragedy, pain, broken places, but please - only 49%.  Let 51% of our stories celebrate the kindness of a neighbor, the awareness of a friend, the return of lost things, the healing of broken places, the slow, quiet, and undramatic epic stories of our true progress forward in simple humanity.  Tell the small stories we live every day.  This is not to suggest canned goods as a Polyannish solution for eradicating mass shootings.  But if we have trained our brains to hope, then when we stand before 500 people and are asked to lead them we will at least believe that something can be done.  Let us model another narrative for these promising millennials.  They are starving for vision; let's feed them.

With stubborn hope,

Sara

A Celebration

Kicking, hitting, crying, thrashing. 
A celebration of joyful energy spent kicking balls, hitting high-fives, crying out pop songs, and thrashing in the pool. 
Arguing, growling, hurling insults. 
A celebration of intimacy, trust, honesty with siblings, love for Mom. 
Noisy, shouting, singing, shrieking. 
A celebration of unbridled childhood emotions no longer contained. 
Legos, paper scraps, silly putty, dog hair. 
A celebration of creativity. 
Dishes, laundry, pick-up, cook, dishes, laundry, pick-up, cook, dishes, laundry, . . . 
A celebration of the home's rhythms and rituals. 
Messy, imperfect, together, growing. 
A celebration of family.

MILK: how would you like yours cooked?

Well, the dwindling of summer stalled my posts.  But as we quickly fall into fall, may I present you with our newest challenge.....milk.  Straight from the cows.  It is completely delicious!  But let me give you a bit of the back story.

Selling and consuming raw milk is hotly contested on both sides.  And honestly I agree with both sides.  www.realmilk.com explains the value of raw milk, outlining one side of the debate.  The FDA's website explains some of the concerns; you can read more at http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/consumers/ucm079516.htm.  In addition to the controversy over raw milk's safety, it also illegal to sell raw milk in many states.  Is it legal in your state?  Find out at http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/raw_milk_map.htm.

In Indiana it is illegal to directly sell raw milk.  You can, however, own a share of a cow herd.  As partial owner of the herd, you receive an allotment of milk.  You take on the risk and responsibility of consuming the milk.

Our continued efforts to eat as locally as possible pushed us toward getting our dairy locally.  So we signed up for the herd share.  We are part owners of five lovely jersey cows.  And their milk is just delicious!

The monthly owners' fee is more than we normally spent on milk.  But we also receive more milk than we would buy.  So we've been making up the difference by making some of our own diary products. Butter is the easiest, gone are the days of sitting over the churn!  Skim off the cream, drop it into the food processor, turn it on, and six minutes later - rich creamy butter!

The dangers of raw milk present concerns for me, especially since we have small children.  So i pasteurize the milk once we get it home, 161degrees for 15 seconds.  This is a much cooler temperature than conventional pasteurization, but still hot enough to kill the stuff we don't want.  Yet cool enough to maintain the good stuff.

Here are some yummy recipes you can try at home, with milk straight from the cows or the grocery store:

- 30 minute mozzarella (i leave the curds for longer than this recipe suggests)
http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/recipes-summer-30-minute-mozzarella.htm- farmer cheese
- http://allrecipes.com/recipe/home-made-farmers-cheese/

Truly Living

I love all things folk, rustic, handmade.  I breathe the natural world and seek its approval.  I long to live the pre-industrial life, where my hands are the machines that simultaneously build my soul as well as the world around me.  Where my work creates, matters, calms, and sustains me.  It is spiritual.  It is whole.  It connects me to my family, my community, my earth, my god.  The liminal lines between the sacred and mundane glow on the hearth of my home.  Simply, lovely, wholly.