Alfred, Lord Tennyson said: “I am a part of all that I have met.”
Like Tennyson, I feel like I’m a part of all that I’ve met. These are a few of their stories. And a few of mine, too. Enjoy.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson said: “I am a part of all that I have met.”
Like Tennyson, I feel like I’m a part of all that I’ve met. These are a few of their stories. And a few of mine, too. Enjoy.
“That they might have joy” column by Jacki Wood, Nodaway News Leader
I’m standing in the middle of the road.
If you’ve ever been in the middle of a road, or seen someone who is, you know it’s probably not the safest place to be.
There’s a chance you might get hit. More likely, though, you’ll get yelled at or cursed at, honked at or shown some unfriendly hand gestures.
When I was a kid, we lived on a quiet street, so it was pretty common to see us in the middle of the road. We would play ball or skateboard or even go sledding with little concern. Now I live in the country and walking down the middle of a gravel road can be quite peaceful.
But the road I’m standing in the middle of is not a country road. It’s not a city street. Or even a busy highway. Although it’s plenty loud. And it can feel fairly threatening.
The road I’m standing on is a political one. And I don’t think I’m alone here either.
It’s sometimes hard to see each other there in the middle, or near the middle, because the far left and the far right are zooming by us so incredibly loudly.
We’re trying to navigate each day while surrounded by the divisiveness and partisan polarization that has grown in our country in recent years. And we’re doing it, right there amidst all that yelling and cursing and honking, still trying to stand on our principles without being tossed to and fro.
Before I go any further, let me be clear…I’m not promoting silence or complicity. When there are issues we feel strongly about, we should take a stand, write our elected leaders, hold meetings, walk in parades, knock on doors, advocate, share on social media. We can do it fervently and still respectfully.
In “Eisenhower Republicanism – Pursuing the Middle Way,” author Steven Wagner writes: “In American political culture, those who describe themselves as ‘middle of the road’ are often portrayed as unwilling to take a stand or lacking in political sophistication. This was not the case with Eisenhower, whose ‘middle way’ was a carefully considered political philosophy similar to Theodore Roosevelt’s cautious progressivism.”
Eisenhower said his ‘middle way’ was a “practical working basis between extremists.”
Sounds to me like we could use some of that practicality in our current political climate.
So what can we learn from Eisenhower today?
A couple of Bills may have the answer.
Bill Kristol, a conservative Republican of the George HW Bush White House and founder of The Weekly Standard, and Bill Galston, a Democrat veteran of the Bill Clinton White House and senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, created the New Center project and wrote Ideas to Re-Center America.
“We present some bold new ideas for re-centering America. We know that our politics have gotten off kilter. As the parties have become more polarized and our politics more partisan, the great American majority – which wants to see cooperation and compromise – has been left with no good choices.”
Their ideas center on four core values they believe can help move politics beyond polarization – opportunity, security, ingenuity and accountability.
“The ideas we advance represent a New Center for American politics, a politics that reflects both our enduring principles and the new circumstances we confront. In place of a politics stuck in the past, we offer an agenda re-centered in the future, not a tepid compromise between Left and Right, but a new way toward the stronger economy, more inclusive society and more effective politics that we all want for the country we love.”
You can read more at newcenter.org.
Albert Einstein said: “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” While we might be going through some difficult times, there might also be some great opportunities out there to discover.
So if you’re like me and standing in the middle of the road, or on the shoulder of one side or the other, let’s look for ways to come together and not be drowned out by all the yelling and cursing and honking.
I’d much rather help build bridges (than walls) to help unite and strengthen our nation.
“Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 167 AD
Karin Yarnell doesn’t have the energy to play with her kids. Or do house projects. Or be involved with her church or help others or spend time with friends.
All of which was a big part of her life just a few short years ago.
“I used to be extremely active,” the 40-year-old Maryville resident said. “I loved to play sports, work out, hike, swim, bike and run.”
Now, she does none of those things.
To look at her, though, nothing seems wrong.
But beneath the surface, she lives her life in pain.
“I rarely have pain-free days,” she said. “I have learned to fight through pain as much as possible to be able to do what I love. Some days, though, the pain wins, and I go to bed.
“I reserve my best for my family and my ministry. After that, there isn’t much left.”
She and her husband Jason, who is the Baptist Student Union minister, have three children, Meghan, Caleb and Allison. She is a homemaker and also serves as a BSU mentor.
Diagnosed illnesses
Yarnell lives with what have been called invisible illnesses – chronic conditions not visible on the outside.
She was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s in 2005 and Celiac disease in 2008.
With Hashimoto’s, her immune system attacks her thyroid and prevents it from making enough hormones.
Celiac disease is a digestive disorder that damages the small intestine and is triggered by eating foods containing gluten.
She was on thyroid medication for several years but her body started having hyperthyroid reaction to it and she was taken off it.
Then in 2012, she was also diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia.
CFS affects many body systems making it difficult to do normal activities. Fibromyalgia includes long-term pain spread throughout the body in the joints, muscles, tendons and other soft tissues and is often linked to fatigue, sleep problems, headaches, depression and anxiety.
“I have been under the care of several doctors and functional practitioners throughout the years who have all provided me with great knowledge and have helped in various ways,” she said. “My treatment right now consists of a very strict diet, rest, managing stress, low exercise and managing symptoms with medication as they arise.”
Daily life
“Fatigue is the single most life-changing symptom I have,” Yarnell said. “I can manage pain. I can manage not feeling well, but the fatigue is relentless. It’s not a fatigue that goes away with sleep. It doesn’t go away with a nap. It’s always with me. It affects me every day.”
In addition to fatigue, she is extremely sensitive to gluten and has severe reactions to even a small amount of cross-contamination. She makes her own meals, doesn’t eat out and takes food with her wherever she goes.
“I try to set people at ease, but I know some feel uncomfortable when I can’t eat what they have prepared,” she said. “I never expect anyone to cater to my needs, but I know they still feel badly about it.”
Another symptom is brain fog which has affected her ability to communicate with others.
“I used to be a confident public speaker, but now I have difficulty stringing together coherent thoughts.”
She also can’t drive for long periods of time as her eyes grow weary and her whole system wants to go to sleep.
Dedicated support
“My family is tremendously supportive,” she said. “My husband is phenomenal. He believes me and affirms me when I tell him how I feel even though I look fine on the outside. He prays for me. He encourages me to try new things that might help my symptoms. He adds extra work on himself so I don’t have to do it and he never complains.”
She said her children are incredibly supportive as well.
“They understand I can’t do the things I used to do. They make me laugh. They are understanding and sympathetic.”
Yarnell said her church recently started an encouragement group for women with chronic illness. It is open to the public and meets at 7:30 pm on the first Monday of the month at Laura Street Baptist Church.
“It is a blessing to be around others who understand how you feel,” she said. “I read a lot of blogs and talk to people online that share my symptoms. Sometimes it’s just nice to know you aren’t alone.”
Different view
One of the biggest lessons she’s learned is how to depend on God for everything.
“I need God every day,” she said. “He is my Friend, my Comfort, my Savior. I talk to Him a lot about the pain I am feeling. I know He knows and understands. He sees my struggle that is invisible to everyone else and He is there for me. He gives me joy, peace and contentment.”
She is also continuing to learn it’s okay to not do everything that is expected.
“The reality is that I can’t,” she said. “I have to choose to not feel guilty about it.”
Despite living with these illnesses, Yarnell offers encouragement and hope.
“It’s okay and important to grieve,” she said. “Cry over what is lost, but don’t quit.
“Be kind to yourself. You don’t have to do what everyone else does. You are fighting a battle others know nothing about. Don’t compare what you can do with what healthy people do.
“You can still be happy! It might take some extra work, and you might have to cut things out in order to give your best to what you find the most meaningful, but it’s worth it.”
Background information came from the National Institutes of Health at nih.gov.
Do you have regrets?
I always wanted to be the person who said no to that question. No regrets.
But do I? Probably.
I wish I would’ve done this. Or I probably shouldn’t have done that.
I’m not sure I really even like that question, though, or the idea of it.
Life is a journey, full of ups and downs, good choices and not so good ones.
And that is true when it comes to parenting, especially as our children have gotten into their older teen years.
I guess my husband, Larry, was pondering some of these same things last fall when he decided we were going to implement what he called “Family Time.”
Let me back up a bit and say that family has always been extremely important to us. Since our children were very young, we’ve tried to set aside one night a week for Family Home Evening, a program recommended by our church. We’ve also tried to read scriptures and pray together every day. And we’ve also tried to spend as much time together as possible, supporting them in their activities, getting together with extended family and enjoying family vacations together.
Some of these things have been more successful than others.
In the last couple of years, though, it’s been extremely difficult as our kids started high school and became more involved with things.
Larry was reminded of guidance we once received from the leaders of our church: “We call upon parents to devote their best efforts to the teaching and rearing of their children. We counsel parents and children to give highest priority to family prayer, gospel study and instruction and wholesome family activities.”
Have we been giving our children our “best efforts?” Not always. We needed to do better.
So what is family time? Ideally, it’s 30 minutes to an hour set aside for praying, reading scriptures, listening to each other without devices distracting us and finding some fun to throw in there like a quick game of charades, or if we have more time, a board game. Or we’ll watch a video on YouTube. Or just let them talk about what’s important to them.
I can’t say Family Time happens every single day. Some days it’s just impossible for all of us to be in one place at the same time and awake. Larry leaves in the morning before everyone is up and goes to sleep sometimes before everyone gets home.
Sometimes it’s only five or ten minutes, long enough to see how everyone’s day was, pray and read a few scriptures.
Sometimes we combine it with dinner. Or we read and eat at the same time.
Sometimes we do it over the phone or use FaceTime.
Sometimes we laugh so much we cry. And sometimes it’s rough, especially when people are moody or tired, and someone leaves the room in anger.
But looking back at the last six months, I feel more connected with my kids than I ever have before.
And more hopeful.
Because when I look around at the world and all the darkness that seems to be growing with each day, I want to make sure I’m doing what I can to help spread more light. And help them do the same.
If we want to see change in the world, we must be the change. And I believe that starts at home.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf said: “We build deep and loving family relationships by doing simple things together, like family dinner and by just having fun. We talk with, rather than about, each other. We learn from each other, and we appreciate our differences as well as our commonalities.”
So I’m encouraging you to start your own Family Time, whatever that means to you. It doesn’t have to be like ours. If you’re not religious, that’s okay. Make it your own. Five or ten minutes when they wake up or before they go to bed. Or a phone call or FaceTime every afternoon on your break at work. Whatever works for you and your situation.
But make it a priority. Show them how much you love them by giving of your time, even when you don’t think you have any to spare.
You won’t regret it.
That they might have joy column by Jacki Wood, printed in the Nodaway News Leader, February 8, 2018
“Have I, have you, been too silent? Is there an easy crime of silence?” – Carl Sandburg
In November, Dictionary.com announced its word of the year for 2017 was “complicit” and wrote it “has sprung up in conversations this year about those who speak out against powerful figures and institutions and about those who stay silent.”
Complicit is defined as “choosing to be involved in an illegal or questionable act, especially with others; having partnership or involvement in wrongdoing.”
They also wrote that complicity — or the refusal to be complicit — was pertinent to some of the biggest news topics of the year, from politics to anthem protests by NFL players to the #MeToo movement.
I’ve been pondering this word over the last couple of months, not for the reasons they chose it, but in regards to underage drinking.
Why are so many adults so complicit when it comes to this?
Responses I’ve heard include “they’re just being young and dumb” or “I did it when I was their age and turned out just fine.”
I served on a mental health taskforce in Nodaway County several years ago that also focused on underage drinking.
One of the things I learned was that teen brains are not fully formed until age 25 or even later. In recent years, more research has been done on this subject.
According to the University of Rochester Medical Center: “Adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part.”
The American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association and National Association of Social Workers, in a 2012 brief to the Supreme Court, wrote: “It is increasingly clear that adolescent brains are not yet fully mature in regions and systems related to higher order executive functions such as impulse control, planning ahead and risk avoidance.”
I’m not giving teens a pass when it comes to underage drinking because their brains aren’t fully developed. I believe we can expect more from them than “they’re just being young and dumb.”
But as Meredith Wadman, MD, wrote in the Washington Post, “Kids will be kids so parents must be parents.”
“I don’t buy the argument that advises adults to wink and nod at underage drinking because it’s going to happen regardless. It’s not true that the attitudes of adults, and their seriousness about laws and rules, have no influence on teenagers’ drinking habits.”
She cited the College Alcohol Study at the Harvard School of Public Health which spent eight years studying more than 50,000 students at 120 colleges.
They concluded that students drink more on campuses that have a strong drinking culture, few alcohol-control policies and weak enforcement. They also found that few students engage in binge drinking at some colleges while 80 percent of students reported binge drinking at others.
“Don’t tell me that college policies and cultures — in other words, the tone set by those in authority on campus — have nothing to do with these disparities,” she wrote.
Wadman also looked at the University of Florida which was once known as a top party school before administrators adopted measures that included mandating alcohol education for freshmen and banning alcohol advertising at concerts and sports events. The binge-drinking rate dropped from 57 to 38 percent in four years.
Administrators and students at the University of Virginia created a high-profile marketing campaign to combat underage drinking. In the 10-year period that followed, there was a 33 percent decrease in binge drinking, an 81 percent decline in drinking and driving and a 76 percent drop in alcohol-related injuries among students.
Wadman used the word “parents” in her article, but I believe all adults need to step up to help combat this issue. Sadly, not everyone has involved parents. And even then, none of us can be there at every moment in our child’s lives, especially, for example, single parents working two and three jobs to support their families or those with other circumstances and challenges.
“If you see something, say something” has been a campaign by the Department of Homeland Security in recent years to help combat terrorism. I think it’s great advice to combat underage drinking as well.
It can take a lot of courage to speak up sometimes. We can be afraid of the consequences that might come in doing so. But potentially saving lives should be more important than backlash.
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.”
This is a serious problem that needs all of our courageous voices speaking out.
So if you see something, please say something.
Note: this is a speech my daughter wrote for FFA Public Speaking Contest where she advanced to state and placed 6th.
The Salad Bowl of America: Are Immigrants Vital to American Agriculture?
Hannah Wood
Carrollton ACC FFA
6 March 2017
“Creo en el futuro de la agricultura, con una fe que no nace de las palabras sino de los hechos.” In English, that translates as,“I believe in the future of agriculture, with a faith born not of words but of deeds” (FFA Creed). I’m Hannah Wood, representing the Carrollton ACC FFA Chapter, and I have grown up in a home where I hear both Spanish and English. My dad is a Spanish teacher who has helped me better understand the lives and cultures of people with different ethnic backgrounds as well as how immigrants have shaped our country. I’m realizing how those immigrants are intertwined with American agriculture and that immigration will affect the future of agriculture.
The United States’ agricultural system is one of the leading producers and suppliers in the world. The United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service reports that, of the 1 million hired farm workers, 42 percent are foreign born, meaning nearly 500,000 immigrants are working on farms today (Successful Farming).
There is a fear that using immigrant labor takes away jobs and income from American-born workers. Stephen Devadoss and Jeff Luckstead, writing in the Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, found that in California, where 95 percent of farmworkers are immigrants, this fear is not valid. They found that wage reduction was inconsequential, and that it would take over 80 new immigrant farmworkers to displace one American-born farmworker. However, one immigrant farmworker increases vegetable production, for example, by over $23,000 and strengthens the productivity of skilled workers by nearly $12,000 (Devadoss).
The Wall Street Journal reported about 20 percent of agricultural products were not harvested nationwide in 2006, and the losses in 2007 were estimated to be even higher, because there were not enough farm workers to harvest the food (Devadoss). Last year, American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall cautioned a food crisis could occur due to labor shortages in at least 20 states where crops would rot in fields if something didn’t change. That is food wasted that could be feeding the hungry in this country and around the world (Barth).
By the year 2050, the United States will have an estimated 438 million people and the world will have an estimated 9 billion people. How will we feed those people if there are not enough laborers to harvest the food?
Juan Castro, a migrant farm laborer on a tomato farm in Alabama, only makes what he can pick. His day begins at 7 a.m. and goes until 6 p.m., earning $2 for each 25-pound basket he fills. That amounts to about $60 for the day, under the heat of the sun and the dirt of the field, with a chronic pinched nerve in his neck from bending over for hours, and little time for breaks. He said, “the only reason that we can stand it is for our children” (Dwoskin).
Milan Kordestani, CEO and Founder of Milan Farms, said: “As the demand for food products grows along with the population, farmers will increasingly struggle to keep up with demand, leading to the United States developing a reliance on foreign countries to produce our food” (Kordestani).
Solutions have been proposed to help with this problem including the Agricultural Worker Immigration Program. This bill has two components: a new Blue Card program offering a path to citizenship for current undocumented farm workers and the creation of two new Agricultural Visa programs to ensure an adequate, future agricultural workforce (Feinstein).
“Almost all the ideas lead back to one answer,” Kordestani said, “which is that we need to allow immigrants to come into this country to work the jobs American citizens don’t want” (Kordestani).
“I believe that American agriculture can and will hold true to the best traditions of our national life” (FFACreed). This country was founded by immigrants and have been a part of the best traditions in our history. As Kordestani said, “Instead of trying to find a way without immigrants, why don’t we find a way to keep them and continue to allow them to be a part of the American story of agriculture?”
I do believe in the future of agriculture, with a faith born not of words but of deeds — the work and accomplishments of both American born and immigrant farmworkers. Our future depends on it.
Bibliography
Barth, Brian. “The High Cost of Cheap Labor.” Modern Farmer. N.p., 23 Feb. 2017. Web. 07 Mar.
Devadoss, Stephen, and Jeff Luckstead. “Contributions of Immigrant Farmworkers to California
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Dwoskin, Elizabeth. “Why Americans Won’t Do Dirty Jobs.” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 09 Nov.
“Farm Workers & Immigration.” National Farm Worker Ministry. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb.
2017.
“Feinstein Statement on Immigration Reform.” United States Senator for California. N.p., n.d.
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“FFA Creed.” FFA Creed | National FFA Organization. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2017.
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The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 Dec. 2016. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.
Matthews, Dylan. “North Carolina needed 6,500 farm workers. Only 7 Americans stuck it out.”
The Washington Post. WP Company, 15 May 2013. Web. 07 Mar. 2017.