Peacemaking in D.C.

It’s been a few days since I got back from Washington D.C. but this is the first chance I’ve had to write an update.

The road trip started on Thursday as we headed to my cousin’s house in Virginia. She graciously agreed to allow her crazy relatives to spend a couple of nights with her (thanks, Melanie!) and even joined us for the march! It was a long day on the road with the biggest surprise being the forty dollars in tolls to take the Ohio and Pennsylvania Turnpikes. Apparently it’s been awhile since I’ve been on them because that was certainly not in my budget! What am I saying? The trip was completely unplanned so none of it was in my budget! 

After a leisurely breakfast on Friday, we drove to the Wiehle-Reston East Station to hop on the Metrorail and take the silver line into D.C. This wasn’t our first time on the train (the last time we each had a toddler and were pregnant, but that’s another story), but things have changed a bit since the mid nineteen-eighties. In other words, we had no idea what we were doing and had to get some human assistance.

Armed with a map and instructions from the self appointed greeters who met us at the Smithsonian rail stop, we headed to the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial so we’d know what to do the next day when it was time for the march. It was quite an experience – not sure I can really put it all in words.

After that, we headed to the American History Museum. The highlight for me was seeing the African American History and Culture Gallery where there was a display about the Poor People’s Campaign that took place in 1968. Fifty years ago, an estimated thirty-five million people in the United States lived in poverty. This year the estimate is forty-three million. Hmm, seems like we’re not making much progress . . .

Later in the day, specifically after rush hour started, we hopped aboard the Metrorail’s green line to head to the Festival Center for the evening’s presentation. We spent some leisurely time browsing the books and having a bite to eat at the Potter’s House.

The speakers at the event were Dr. Kit Evans-Ford, John Dear, Ken Butigan, George Paz Martin, and Veronica Pelicaric. While they were all inspirational, I was moved the most by the people who shared their stories of the actions and projects they’d done in their cities over the past few months before coming to Washington D.C. They came from all over the country, one guy even came from Hawaii! It gave me hope that so many people are doing things, though it was a little embarrassing that the contingent of two from Michigan had done pretty much nothing. So far. But we are about to.

It was really late when we got back and it was hard to fall asleep anticipating the march the next day. At barely after six am we were back on the road heading for the train station. This time we rocked it like veterans and got to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in record time. As we gathered, a huge helicopter kept buzzing by our location, no doubt keeping an eye on us protesters. Though we were warned that we could be asked to leave by the park rangers, nothing happened and the rally continued without any issues.

Though I was doing my best to be professional, I did have a fan girl moment when Shane Claiborne arrived. Shane is the author of several life ruining books like Jesus For President, The Irresistible Revolution, Red Letter Revolution and Executing Grace. He’s partly responsible for this current journey I’m on and I just had to introduce myself and shake his hand. Because it would be wrong to kick him when I’m trying to be a peacemaker.

Speakers at the rally were John Dear, Lisa Sharon Harper, George Martin, Shane Claiborne, Ken Butigan, and Reverend Lennox Yearwood. As I listened, I looked up at the statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. and it looked like tears were streaming down his cheeks.  Were they tears of sadness that in fifty years we’d made so little progress or were they tears of joy that there were still people – however few – peacefully marching for injustice?

We paired up and silently started marching toward the White House. We passed the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. As we passed fellow Americans and visitors from other countries, I wondered what they thought of our peaceful demonstration. 

We arrived at the White House and a group of people stepped up to the barricade. We stood directly across from them and it wasn’t long before the police arrived and asked them to leave. They stood their ground and the police called in a van and additional officers. After an hour we were all getting tired, hungry, thirsty (and it had been a really long time since any of us used the bathroom) so we gathered in a circle and each shared one word that was on our lips as we reflected on what we’d experienced so far.

You can see someone standing on top of the White House – not sure if it’s a telescope or a gun that’s pointed at us.

Ironic that an officer with an assault rifle is standing behind our peacemakers

The police explaining that not moving will result in an arrest

Though we would have liked to stay and see things through to the end, we had a long drive ahead of us so we left after the circle. The group ultimately waited about two hours but no arrests happened. What I’d like to believe is that the police continued to wait instead of arresting people so they wouldn’t have to arrest peaceful, respectful citizens who are trying to make a difference.

It will take some time to process everything I experienced, but I wonder – what would have happened if more people stood with us? What if we had two thousand people instead of a couple hundred? What if there were twenty-thousand people? Two-hundred thousand? Would it make a difference? Would the issues of war, poverty, racism and environmental destruction be addressed if more people stood up and said things are not okay? It’s frustrating that most people seem oblivious to the pressing issues of the day, but then until a couple of years ago, I wasn’t doing anything about these issues either. So here’s my plea to everyone that’s reading this post. Do something. You don’t have to march in protests (but you might want to!). Do some research, call or email the people in our legislature, recycle, be a responsible consumer, partner with organizations who stand against injustice, and exercise your right to vote after you’ve thoroughly vetted the candidates. Don’t wait – everyone can do something now.

My favorite shirt at the march

January Spending Fast

In January of 2015 I embarked on my first spending fast, based on the book 21 Days To Financial Freedom by Michelle Singletary.  It was my first experiment with deliberately not spending money on anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary.  It challenged me to be very creative in meal planning as well figure out what free entertainment was available in my area.  Errands were postponed to save on gas and I walked to the library for books and free movies. You can read more about that journey here.  In January 2016, I didn’t do a formal fast because I was working on some aggressive savings goals so that I could retire later that year.  Every month that year was a thirty day spending fast and I was able to reach my goal and retired in November.  

This year, like last year, despite being on my normal tight budget, I’m doing the fast again.  It never ceases to surprise me how many times I think of something I would like to buy and have to remind myself that it will have to wait until February.  The curious thing is that most of the time I completely forget about whatever it was that I wanted to buy in that moment. In fact, I distinctly remember telling myself that I could buy something in February, but I no longer recall what it was!

Online retailers have made buying things so easy that it takes very little effort to click a button and have something delivered straight to my door. This is why I keep all my disposable monthly income in the form of cash. It hurts to spend cash, especially when there is a finite amount of it. It makes the decision of whether to make a purchase very deliberate. If I’ve budgeted a hundred and fifty dollars for groceries, it’s the 25th of the month, and I’m down to my last five dollars, it’s very easy to decide that I don’t need that delicious bar of organic free trade chocolate or Lay’s Lightly Salted Potato Chips (you can read about my undying affection for these chips here) and should probably opt for some fresh veggies instead. 

If you’ve ever wanted to find out where your money goes, get your debt under control, or try to figure out how to save for something big, I recommend the following resources:

  • Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. Hands down the best book I’ve ever read for getting out of debt – so good, in fact, that I’ve used it twice to get my debt under control (some life lessons are much harder to learn than others)!  Dave designed a curriculum called Financial Peace, which I’ve not only gone through, but facilitated – it’s that good!  If you ever have the opportunity to see Dave live, I promise – you will be inspired to make changes.
  • How to Get Out Of Debt, Stay Out Of Debt, And Live Prosperously by Jerrold Mundis.  There are great tips in this book and I still use a modified version of the Spending Plan to track where my money goes every month.
  • 21 Days to Financial Freedom by Michelle Singletary.  Michelle’s book is a great resource for understanding your relationship with money and learning a better way to do things.
  • Living Well & Spending Less by Ruth Soukup.  Ruth also has an online course, Living Well Spending Zero, which walks you through a 31 Day spending fast.  It’s great for looking at what you already own and determining what to do with it, whether it’s finally eating the beets in the pantry because you’re not buying groceries until you use what you already have or decluttering to make more space in your life for the things that matter more.

Have you ever completed a spending fast?  Please tell about your journey using the comments button or by leaving a reply on Facebook. If money or debt is something that is causing you a lot of pain right now and you’d prefer that the world not know, but want to talk, please feel free to send me a private message.

Screen Free Bedroom

One of this years experiments is a screen free bedroom.  A year or so ago, I discovered one of my favorite podcasts, the Slow Home Podcast with Brooke and Ben McAlary. In 2016, they tried a new experiment every month, most of which were really inspiring.  Their success during and after the experiment made me want to try it for myself.

It’s my hope that this change will help me to be more mindful of how I spend my time (making sure my actions are in alignment with my desires and values) and that the quality and duration of my sleep will improve.  Though I rarely have trouble falling asleep, it’s difficult for me to sleep past 5:30 or 6:00 AM, making it impossible to get the recommended eight hours a day. 

What is a screen free bedroom?  No computer, no iPhone, no iPad, and I may even expand it to no electronic items at all (for example, a power strip or electric toothbrush charger).  What does this look like after only three days?  Well, I have no idea what time it is, what’s happening with the weather, if I’ve received any important emails, if there are new tweets on Twitter or pictures on Instagram, what my former colleagues are up to on LinkedIn, I’ve hardly played any Scrabble or Free Cell and I’ve got an ebook languishing in my Overdrive app. 

Can I really trust this old school thermometer?

Also missing are any texts I’ve received after 9:00 PM when I retired to my room to read for a couple of hours.  On the other hand, between the two hours I allocate for reading at night and the couple of hours I now read in the morning when I wake up, I’ve plowed through Dollars And Sense: How We Misthink Money And How To Spend Smarter by Dan Ariely and Jeff Kreisler and have nearly finished At Home In The World: Reflections On Belonging While Wandering The Globe by Tsh Oxenreider, both of which I’ve really enjoyed.

This is fitting in nicely with another thing I want to do this year, which is find more time to read.  It’s also in alignment with another experiment that I started on January first, to only get on the Internet from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM, with limited exceptions (online banking and a Facebook group I facilitate). 

Since I want to have lights out and start falling asleep at 11:00 pm, I have to get out of my toasty bed and see what time it is.  When I wake up, I have to get out of my toasty bed and see what time it is.  It’s a bit of an inconvenience.

Since it’s winter in Michigan, I have a general idea of the outside temperature (cold or really cold) but for some reason I want to know the wind chill, whether it’s going to snow and how much (seems likely and probably a lot!), whether there are any warnings (even though I rarely have to go anywhere), and what’s happening in the cities where all my family members live.  Mind you, knowing any weather related facts changes nothing – I’m still going to wear as many clothes as possible and will be cold when I do chores and snowshoe around the field.

This is what it looks like when you’re oblivious to the weather.

There’s been no noticeable difference in my sleep pattern yet, but I’ll give a full report at the end of the month.  Two nights is hardly enough time to know if the lack of screens will have an impact.

It would be a lie to say that this has been a breeze, that my mornings are more calm, peaceful, meaningful.  Breaking the Twitch is challenging and I’m likely missing out on some  exciting stuff, or at the very least, not knowing stuff when everyone else does.  There were times when I simply flitted from app to app in the morning, killing time until it was light enough to get up and start the day.  Another habit I’d gotten into was hopping on the Internet to research things late at night, whether it was just something that popped into my head or something I read in an ebook that I wanted to investigate further.  While it’s all quite entertaining, I’m not sure it’s really how I want to spend my time.

Why a screen free bedroom?  The dependence and attachment I have to my devices bothers me.  The things I rely on so heavily didn’t even exist for most of my life so why have I allowed them to take up so much of my time and attention?  Am I really better off?

Has anyone done a similar experiment?  If so, I’d love to hear about it.  In the meantime, I’m hoping to borrow a wind up clock from my Mom so I know what time it is without having to get out of bed!