Hospitality with Carrin
Barbara: Hi everyone. Welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God. Today's guest is Carrin Mahmood and our topic is hospitality. Carrin is from St. Paul, went to college in Nebraska, taught in Michigan and attended LCMS Lutheran schools from childhood through college.
She found that the ELCA Lutheran beliefs were a better fit for her. Carrin was a Lutheran high school teacher in Michigan for several years, moved back home to Minnesota, married into a restaurant owning family, and owned, managed and worked in restaurants for many years, then became the director of women's ministry at a Lutheran church in the twin cities.
She's now running a homeless shelter as part of that church and cooks a free community meal once a week. Carrin wants to continue to write and do more liturgical painting, launch a restaurant operated by our marginal siblings, such as homeless, recovering, ex-con, et cetera. Welcome, Carrin. How are things for you today in Minnesota?
Carrin: It is a little cloudy but shaping up to be a beautiful day here.
Barbara: Our Bible passage today is from Hebrews chapter 13. So if you're following along in your Bible, it's towards the back of the Bible in the new Testament, and I'm going to be reading Hebrews chapter 13, verse two.
“Remember to entertain strangers for in doing so some have entertained angels unaware.” Has the concept of hospitality evolved for you since you were a kid?
Carrin: I grew up in a home where it was always a place at the table for anyone who showed up, and show up
they did. I lived with my grandma and grandpa, and it was nothing unusual for a family or 10 people to just pop over right around dinner time. And as an adult, I am amazed that there was never a blinked eye. We just set more places, and there's always enough food. Hot dishes stretched.
And so that's what we had a lot of. And so hospitality to me always meant just welcoming it, always centered around food. And I think As an adult, it has stretched greater than that, for me, as I looked into the Bible and as I began to live out, what does this mean? And I left the In air quotes, hospitality industry, which usually means hotel or food and went to church.
I thought, wouldn't it be sad if we were leaving hospitality behind as we entered the church doors? Sure. So one of the reasons I love St Andrew's where I work is we operate under a system of radical hospitality. So not only is the coffee always on for whoever walks through the door, if it's the ups guy or a parishioner or the president of the congregation, they all get treated the same.
But beyond that, we wanted to make sure that anyone who's marginalized has a place to be. And that's why we've opened our community resource center and the shelters.
Barbara: I love that expression, radical hospitality. And we'll be talking about that more today. I know that sometimes people think of hospitality more as, okay.
I'm going to invite these certain people over to dinner to my house. On a certain day at a certain time. And then wouldn't it be nice if they invited us back, they might not. And actually in the Bible it says, don't expect that kind of reciprocity just do it out of generosity from your heart, and don't expect to be invited back, but it seems to me like people are doing that less these days.
And I don't know if it's geographic, maybe in other parts of the United States that happens more often, but I grew up with it kind of being really structured and I have never had people just walk into my house growing up or even now. So that's really something that I'd love to look towards. Have you noticed, has hospitality shifted culturally over the years?
Carrin: it's become oddly less and more formal. I mean, there was a time when you would never show up to someone's house without a hostess gift you know, a bottle of wine or something. And so while some people still do that That is really on the formal end of things. Right. And I think depending on people's level of interest whether they're an introvert or an extrovert makes a big difference.
So my oldest daughter, kids were constantly at our house. Sometimes she wasn't there, but they would just stop over and hang out with us. The other kids, not so much, or it was just a difference, you know, in their particular friend group or the friend groups needs maybe family needs or whatever too. So hospitality, I think, yeah.
I don't see that. Kind of formal dinner party, maybe it's our socioeconomic group. We know what to do that I don't know, but we have recently, and I think it's been COVID we've recently, now that things have opened up since we're going to start inviting people over and be purposeful about it, because I don't think people would casually stop by.
Barbara: And so maybe that's something to consider just in our lives. And we'll be talking about offering hospitality also to strangers like this Bible verse instructs us to. I did have one question, Carrin, I think I know what you mean, but I'd love to hear more detail. What is liturgical art and how can you show hospitality through art?
Carrin: I've titled it that because religious arts seems like it should depict something from the Bible. Right. So I use liturgical because I feel like it can enhance a setting at church. It can enhance a setting in the home or somewhere else that brings you to a place of worship.
So when I went to Wartburg, I did my J term looking at art in churches. And there were churches all over the board. Some had absolutely nothing. Some here in the twin cities are part of the Walker art Institute. Some their main ministry is their art. So especially when I think of It church over in Minneapolis, their mission is when someone walks through our door, they will find something that looks like them.
So they have a Vietnamese Madonna, and they have African art and they have south American all different indigenous kind of art pieces up. And to me, that was such a nice piece of hospitality. The idea that Then when you walk in the church, it's not just a Swedish Lutheran church. But that, there's something that's that brings you into the presence.
And that seems very hospitable to me.
Barbara: I agree with you. That's really wonderful because if I walked in somewhere and didn't see anything that was of a connection to me, then I would kind of be more striving to understand where is the connection. So visually to feel that right away.
Carrin: then it becomes more of a museum, right? You're going someplace and looking to see what they're about. And it might be very interesting to learn about a lot of Russian art, or it might be interesting to learn about a German Lutheran service, but it wouldn't necessarily be personal. So my art, I try to keep abstract as much as possible because it's in that abstract art that people bring their own emotions and their own feelings in. And I think that's where the hospitality lies.
Barbara: Do you ever have times when people create art together in a faith-based setting?
Carrin: We do I have to tell you one really funny story. I had some young women over from my congregation. I said, well, let's come together and paint and dream because we were talking about how worship is going to look different now.
And so at the end of the night, they were so excited. They said, we thought we were just going to watch you paint. And I'm like, well, that'd be the worst invitation in the workbook. And you still came because. That was just funny to me that anyone would just come and watch me paint. But so I think there's a place for that creative spirit when we invite people in.
My favorite part of the creation story is God said, let there be light. There was light. And God said, let there'll be animals and the separation. And then at the end, God said, let us create humans. And so I feel like right from the beginning if there was a change and we were invited into that creative process, because there was an us involved
Barbara: I get the feeling that you welcome all different kinds of creativity. So it doesn't have to be here's this painting from this famous person. Now you copy it and make it look just as close as you can to have this famous person envisioned it.
No, I hear you saying anyone can be creative. It doesn't matter how old you are or if you've ever had any art lessons or anything like that.
Carrin: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think it's the process. For me putting a blank canvas is so exciting to be able to put color on that canvas. And some people really want a love of instruction when they do that.
Everyone wants to be happy with their final product, so you need to work on that in a way that makes you happy. And for some it's give me paint by numbers so I can really make it look like what it's supposed to and other people want their freedom.
Barbara: I know that that's not technically sort of pure hospitality as we've often thought of it, but what if hospitality can include welcoming different gifts that people have that they might not think that they had. So I know we have different aspects of hospitality to talk about too, and it sounds like you have a special cooking ministry.
Carrin: Six, maybe seven years ago. Now everything's a year longer than I think it is because of COVID nothing happened today a year that wasn't yeah, we had a cook that left St. Andrews and I said, I'll step in in the short-term until we can find someone.
And we did Soup lunches during lent and a few other things. And then they asked if I would stay on. And I said, yes, but I have a big requirement. And that's that it becomes a ministry. Otherwise I could go work in a restaurant again. So the kitchen needs to be open to other people and it needs to be a ministry.
So our Thursday night dinner, we feed about 120 people. Pre COVID times were just opening again and slowly. Ramping that up, starting with 30, 40 people. But on the day before there's teams of people that come in six to eight to 12, much like my grandmother's home, I plan for six people each week and sometimes there's 12 and then you adjust the menus
so that there's enough to do for everyone who shows up to work. But if that kitchen magic happens and hospitality and those people who come on a rotating basis really have formed a small group in the ministry with each other. They take care of each other. They send cards when someone's sick, they bring food to each of those homes, if someone needs it.
A lot of conversation. We pray, we hear about each other's lives and there's just something about having a knife in your hand, chopping or stirring some soup. That's again, around the table. And I think to me, it's communion. It is a way of sharing as a table, whether you're the one preparing or knowing them that it's going to be handed off to a group of people who really need the food, but more importantly, they need the community.
And that's like our community meal is a little different. We do ask parishioners to show up and people in the community not just who need a meal, because then you always have a group of people who are in the same circumstances sitting together.
Barbara: Yeah. It changes the power dynamic. If it's like, oh, we're helping these people. That's not what we're saying.
Carrin: If you're sitting next to someone who owns a car dealership and you need the car. And then there's, again, more of that hospitality, because people are there helping each other out. And sometimes you are being blessed and sometimes you are needed needing the blessing.
Barbara: It's not always the same people who are the ones giving and the ones receiving. I love that you talk about both the spiritual aspect of this ministry, as well as the practical aspect, because I imagine feeding 120 people in one day. You have experience in restaurant work, so that's a huge amount of prep work.
I can't even imagine. So that's wonderful that the helpers who come the day before and do a lot of the prep work have formed this small group ministry, even though it's different people, like you said, on a rotating basis.
Carrin: there's A core group of about five or six that come every week. Wow. Because they sign up for the whole year as fast as they can, because that's just what they do on Wednesdays.
They want to be there. And then others rotate in and I'm always so happy because that core group has gotten so tight. How Generous they are with their time and their laughter and how inclusive they are with the people who rotate in. And aren't necessarily a part of that smaller group, because sometimes that can be a little intimidating for people walking into a space that's occupied by people who've known each other for a long time.
Barbara: you don't want to click where the people all will know each other and talk about stuff that you have no idea what it is. And one of the practical questions that I just thought of, if you don't mind, is how is something like a meal for 120 people paid for?
Carrin: We have second harvest here in town. They are a food bank for food shelves and for programs like ours. So that's one of our main resources and then gifts of the congregation. We can't, because we use second harvest ask for any money at the meal.
And we had decided anyway, not even a freewill offering because even then if one person is putting in the next one feels bad. Right. So we want that meal to be totally just the gift from us and from the congregation. And it's just worked out so far, so wonderful.
Barbara: Yeah.
Carrin: Thank you. It's a little like working on chopped because I never know what's going to be available.
Barbara: You open the basket and you're like, oh look,
Carrin: 40 pounds of pork.
Barbara: what's for dinner, except for the vegetarians or anyone for a faith reason that doesn't want the park, keep it separate.
Carrin: we always have a big green salad. We have homemade bread and homemade salad dressing. We have linens on the table when they come in.
So it feels hospitable. It would be what you do when you invite guests into your home.
Barbara: And I also appreciate the invitation to challenge ourselves to maybe stretch beyond what's comfortable. And I'm wondering if you have some, either best practices to share in terms of this ministry or other thoughts about how to not do hospitality even without realizing that it might not be the greatest idea?
Is there any intrinsic bias that might come into play without us even realizing?
Carrin: Yeah, I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is that you're not doing this for someone you're doing it with people. That we are opening our doors to include you into our family or to invite you in, even if it's just for a short amount of time.
I'm not doing this for those poor people, you know? I think it's the attitude and one I'm so happy to see every week. People approach this with such joy and to be the hands and feet of Christ. When you do a project can be tempting to be above the people that you're helping. Yeah. So that's interesting to keep it kind of at a level where you're inclusive. The meal you're serving today, you might need tomorrow.
You know, I can kind of always keep that in my heart that we're a paycheck or two away from being a family that needs to eat a nice free meal somewhere. And the same with the shelter here. When people are invited to volunteer their shelter, it's sometimes kind of a hard sell. I think when they hear homeless shelter, they think of a brick building with a guy sitting with a needle in his arm out back or something.
It's interesting to me to see the fear in their eyes and then they come here and we educate. That's part of our mission, to educate people on homelessness and it's just family. It's families who for one reason or another don't have a home right now and they need a little bit of help and they can stay here and work towards getting that.
And there's things you have to set aside, but A lot of ideas that pop up about what you think it is.
Barbara: And first of all, we're equally at risk, even though we may have had different types of benefit, we may feel like, well, I've got money in the bank or something like that, but it's not just those people and not everyone who is homeless uses drugs and not everyone who's homeless is violent or has mental health issues.
So I just am so grateful that you provide some training. And when you introduce people to each other, we can see that we're all God's children and yes, maybe there's a way that your particular faith congregation can provide programmatic support to help people get back on their feet. But that it's also showing God's love and not being judgmental.
Carrin: And this is a program, when people come in, we say you're at point a. To be housed, you need to get to point B. And then we support that through job searches, housing searches, resume building interview techniques. We have a free clothing store, which is really funny. I always want to tell people, stop donating your suits to free clothing stores because very few people
at all in the world, but especially very few people who are going to a free clothing store are going to have the kind of job where they need to wear a suit. Business casual is way more likely or solid work clothes.
Barbara: Absolutely, practical tips are welcome. I just read an article in the newspaper yesterday, unfortunately from one of the clothing donation ministries here in town.
And they said actually the opposite of what you said, but they said if it's really worn down and tattered, if it's basically fit to be a rag to clean something in your house, then please don't donate it. The article said they got a bag full of mismatched shoes and they're like, well, wait, who are we going to give these to in that case, please just take them to the dump.
Don't give them to us. Cause we have to pay to have all of this trash removed.
Carrin: Yeah. Either end. We've learned nobody wants business suits and nobody wants China anymore. Interesting. Nope, nowhere we get rid of your China.
Barbara: I'm curious about the Bible verse. What does it mean to you about that we may be entertaining angels when we're instructed to provide hospitality?
Carrin: The first time I heard this verse, I was very shocked it wasn't from the old Testament because I assumed it was centered around Abraham entertaining the three men in the desert, but then turned out to be angels that's right. Even though it might be referencing back to that It's in the Natchez, always intrigued by the literalness of it. Oh, we can invite someone in and it could be an angel.
And while I think that is still a possibility, you wouldn't want to be the person who turned the angel out to the street. I think as my ministry has grown and as I have become more involved, To me, it is seeing the angelic in all those who serve in angelic and all those who invite in or should be inviting him.
And why would we want to turn anyone away that we could possibly help because they're God's children. And so if not literal angels after we feed people, I never see wings pop out, but There's still just that rush of satisfaction that somewhere you're hearing well done, good and faithful servant that you've entertained.
Barbara: Yes. So on the one hand, seeing everyone as an angel. And then on the other hand, current, I also know from my years of being a social worker, that there might be times when limits do need to be set for safety reasons. So I just wanted to check in with you that absolutely see everyone as an angel, but I'm guessing that you probably have to have some situations where you say in order to keep the most number of people safe.
We do have to have a few practices in place, right? Even if it might be kind of awkward or difficult to set that limit.
Carrin: Yeah, of course. And I'm thinking specifically at the shelter we are run mostly by volunteers. We have 13 churches that have people either staying overnight or serving our evening meal.
Most of those volunteers are retired folks and so when we decide who comes into the shelter, we're a family shelter because that's where the gap was in our county. We are the only family shelters in our county, so it has to involve children. And we do background checks. There can't be a violent history.
There can't be a felony with any sort of violence. And we've also said We aren't taking moms from a domestic violence situation. Yeah. Because there are some really good DV shelters around for them that are safe and we don't have that level of security. We don't have that level of privacy with their teacher.
Just everyone knows where we are. So it wouldn't be safe for the guests or the volunteers. It's the world we live in that we do have to make some choices that aren't always easy. Luckily Minnesota is a state with great resources. So usually we can offer them some ideas and some resources for them to go to.
Barbara: I like to ask if there's an elephant in the room around this topic of hospitality or serving our siblings when it comes to meals or homelessness, is there something that's kind of awkward to talk about that we can maybe discuss and dig into a little, but around this theme?
Carrin: Yeah, I think two elephants. One is the color elephant. I think people assume that most people are people of color.
So let's just jump on that for a little bit. So a lot of our guests are indigenous Or people of color. But we also have a handful of Caucasian people too. So it's kind of the grapes and raisins thing. You know, it's not all people of color are homeless. You can dance around it to the point where you don't even want to mention it.
And yet, then you're also not being very hospitable. So what kind of foods are you serving? What things that are not as someone who grew up in a very Swedish white family little things like volume volume of our family was very low. We were all very soft-spoken.
It's what you did. For our homeless people, it's very different. It's just up here instead of down here with volume and that can put people off until you realize yeah, they need to yell. They need to be heard. And volume is one of the ways that happens. So you dig into that a little bit.
Well, they always sound so sassy and I'm like, yup. And if you were fighting for your kids and you were hungry all the time, you would be sassy too. She needs to do that too.
Barbara: So sort of cultural expectations. It's not fair to say, I'm most comfortable with people who are just like me. Okay. But who's that helping?
Carrin: Exactly. And so I grew up with this beautifully hospitable family. Nice white lady who wants to help everybody. We did a survey with our church and I got it back.
And it's that I had this huge amount of prejudice. Although I didn't think I had any and the poor guy who was administrator, like burst into tears and I'm like, why are they going to horrible person? And he's like, no, no, no, it's just that you have biases. I'm like, I'm not biased. I'm not racist. You know, I was just distraught.
And then to be honest, George Floyd happened here. Yes. And when I sat and watched that murder, I thought. Oh, I get it. I get what you've been trying and trying and trying to say that I could not see at all. And it made me really sad obviously for the moment at hand, but also we have been yelling and saying that things are different for us and you, you did not hear.
And I sure didn't. And to be intrinsically biased makes you feel like you've purposely done something wrong, but the intrinsic part I just realized, of course I'm biased. It's what I saw or allowed myself to see. And when you know better, you do better- the old Oprah saying from 20 years ago.
So Yeah. It was time to ask some questions and to look outside of what I knew and to at least be able to say, yeah, that's a whole different experience than I have. And the way they react is different than I would, because they grew up differently than I did. They have a different set of tools than I have.
And maybe my son tools. Isn't right. Let's look at that too. So our community resource center team, there's six of us on staff. And so it's been an interesting journey and we've been spending some time learning, which is always fun.
Barbara: I really appreciate that car because I wouldn't have thought of you
as a racist person, neither myself, but what is this bias that we might be carrying around first without even realizing it. And then second of all, being open to learning and just one practical example, I want to follow up with you. Can you say a little bit more about particular kinds of food maybe showing welcome or understanding?
Carrin: one just super simple example is having a bottle of hot sauce out. So for our family, having ketchup out is about a spicy as
Barbara: we can. I didn't have garlic until I went to college. I didn't even know what it was and now I put it in everything,
Carrin: you know, so having No, the rooster sauce, the Serratia out. So many of our families like things way hotter than the Scandinavian Germanic menu would have. So I did our family favorite child, main hot dish. And I saw someone putting hot sauce on it. They like. What are you doing? And then I'm like, I would put salt on something, you know?
So it's just those little things that you don't think about. And then saying, what do you like? So it's as simple as that, I don't have to think of everything. I don't have to be the expert on everything because the experts are in front of me and I just have to be open to suggestions.
Barbara: I can't tolerate hot sauce. It's just embarrassing to admit, but I do know people that have it on literally everything and that's all right.
Carrin: Yeah, they use hot sauce and ranch are always sitting out because evidently ranches good on everything. Even cereal, salt. I who knew?
Barbara: Thank you. You had mentioned two elephants, but I think so far we've only talked about one.
Carrin: one is color and the other is intelligence- people think intelligence is equated with Lack of income.
Barbara: or success.
Carrin: or being stuck in a situation. And that's so far from the truth. Anything can happen to anyone at any time. And Starting there I think is really a good spot when you're working with people who need some help. Start with the idea that they know some stuff. That's not that you're going to come down and also they need some help. Navigating systems is really hard unless you do it.
I've been in a DMV in a new state where things were different than where I got my license in the old state. And you feel dumb and that's just getting a driver's license. So navigating governmental things especially can be really hard. And being an advocate for people is so important.
Barbara: And there are also different kinds of intelligences and different types of situations that might set someone quote behind.
So for example, for me, reading came easily. I can devour books, and I know for some folks reading is just planning out difficult, which is going to make school that much more difficult in terms of advancing through the grades and doing lots of reading and taking written exams have mild dyslexia. So math was always a challenge for me.
So I can't even imagine. For someone with more severe dyslexia or other types of neurological processing type issues, even reading with glasses. Scan you see the chalkboard? Well, I don't know if anybody uses checklists anymore, but I guess that can speak to my age. But I got glasses in elementary school and so
how is your vision, how is your hearing? So medical access, health insurance, there's huge systemic situations that I could go on a soapbox for a really long time about that. So starting off at the very youngest ages, are you sitting in your classroom on an empty stomach? Were you able to get sleep at night?
How's the home situation? And that has nothing to do with intelligence. In terms of how are you getting through your school day at the very youngest and then needing to work and having physical intelligence that I really don't have very much in terms of sports. So people used to in the olden days, I don't know if they do anymore.
Some people looked down on say a vocational training. But does everybody have to go to college? Sometimes people are making more money after they complete a vocational training than someone who has a bachelor's degree, graduates will tons of debt and then needs to go on for even more education.
Carrin: The other prejudice that people have or bias is that there's a laziness and I have found the opposite to be true. Our families work. They work really hard. We have a lot of moms who are CNAs and it just doesn't make a livable wage. They can't afford childcare if they're doing that or rent here is really high.
So a one bedroom is about 1200 a month. Oh gosh. In the twin cities, it's very, very high. And for some
Barbara: people that's a mortgage, but then that comes from a different place. Again, do you have that bank account in that income that you'll even get a mortgage and minimum wage is not enough. People have to work two, three jobs on minimum wage, and then, like you said, childcare, or even transportation, are you taking a bus back and forth?
Is your transportation time that much longer to get from job to job?
Carrin: Yeah, so laziness typically isn't an issue There are some mental health issues. The other, not confined to low-income. I mean, there's the same mental health issues throughout the spectrum, but when you have some funds and a good health insurance policy, you can deal with some of those things more easily.
Barbara: Yeah. And access to both a counselor as well as not only the health insurance, like you mentioned, but medication. And that made me think when you're really prioritizing $1,200 a month in rent for a one bedroom and food. And do you need to buy a bus pass or your car, and then what's left in terms of clothing.
It's cold where you are. So people need winter gear and then you're taking a look at, okay, what's my copay. Do I have a deductible? Things like that. So how do you prioritize your expenses when it comes to what you need and what the family
Carrin: needs? There's a really fun game we play with volunteers with Jenga and on each block we write a different got sick $500 or, you know, and then you put, oh, need electricity.
And so as you pull those things out of the tower, how easily it can fall with just a few things coming out of your monthly stack.
Barbara: I love that you're showing some of the practical things because when I have pain in a certain body part, and my doctor says, well, you need to go get the scan or something.
I say, okay, fine. I'll get the scan. I'm worried. What is this pain that I'm having? And then you get the bill after the scan. And you're like, gosh, I thought I had a good insurance, but I have this deductible. I have this copay and I have a savings account. So I don't need these people calling me, chasing me down for this money.
And then eventually charging interest . So thank you for sharing some of those realities to train the volunteers. It can be really overwhelming. Yeah. Well then you just don't get the scan.
Carrin: Yeah. And you just use the emergency room is your doctor because emergency rooms have to take you in.
Barbara: is there any other voice that's missing in this conversation about radical hospitality? And you have an example of faith-based groups helping a certain subset of the population, but who can we be listening to? Who can we make an effort to really hear more?
Carrin: I think just the act of listening is key. I think we form ideas. We watch the news. We've already picked sides. Who's right. And who's wrong. One exercise that we've all been doing is set that aside and listen to something you wouldn't know normally here.
So okay. Then person's really irritating. They're really loud. I'm losing their message because I don't like the presentation. Make an effort to drop that and hear what they're saying. We've had the same conversation a million times. I know what my cousin is going to put on Facebook.
Try to get down to what they're saying. What is their fear? What is their reason for doing that? I think we just need to listen to someone we wouldn't listen to normally. And try to hear what they're saying. We need to see it with fresh eyes, and then we don't always have to have an answer or a comeback, which is the hard part for me, the waiting, and then saying, what did you think of it this way? How about, I just think about it for awhile?
Barbara: I always have to be right. Do I always have to be educating somebody else?
Carrin: Yeah, exactly. And then I've been trying to answer people that I disagree with with this line: I am so happy that we disagree because the place where everyone agrees is wrong by the Taliban.
Is run by the Nazis is run by Stalin, a place where everyone has the exact same idea is really dangerous. So I don't agree with you, but I'm happy we don't because we need these ideas and it makes both of us think. And even if I'm not convinced, it makes other people think at least maybe you can embarrass them into it or at least encourage them to, okay, I'm going to think about this.
Would you too? But there has to start to be soliciting and not just listening, but really hearing and digging.
Barbara: I agree. And I might not be right. Imagine that I might have something to learn in this or to see it from a new perspective or to imagine I haven't had this problem and someone's dealing with it in a really creative way as best that they can.
So even if I might think this one way is better. It might not be, it might not be applicable.
Carrin: that's fabulous. I know we get the Nike argument because people will often say, well, their family, all their kids have Nike's and I can't afford Nike's for my kids. So how poor could they be?
And we just laughed because yup. They had an extra $200. It's not enough for rent. It's not enough for insurance. It's not enough for a car payment, but they can give their child something that other kids have and some enjoyment for something really cool. It was there one extravagance. So letting go
Barbara: of judgment to say, well, they have something fancy. And my family was very frugal. And in the end I can see the benefit of those lessons. But I was sad when I was a kid. Cause we had clothes from Bradley's and Kmart .
And there's nothing wrong with those clothes, but they weren't fashionable. So I was out. But how sad is it that kids and even grownups to a certain extent, judge each other on, is your stuff fashionable or not? It doesn't matter.
Carrin: Yeah. Are you covered?
Barbara: Exactly. Are you safe and warm, whether it's fashionable or not?
Yeah. Do you have any other resources that you can think of current that you'd like to share that folks can take a look at on their own and we'll also have them on the 40 minutes of faith.com website?
Carrin: Yeah, there is- it's 13 it's all the three hour documentary.
Okay. But it's really, really good on just seeing how we went from being a country that had slave ownership as a legal possibility to where we are today and how that journey went just legally. But it's really, really fascinating and there's other books and list of things.
Barbara: That's great. I can attach them all. Thank you for your time today.
Carrin: He was good to talk to you and to all your listeners out there that we don't see, but we know or listening.
Resources:
Hebrews 13:2
ELCA tool idi https://spas-elca.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/IDI-Toolkit_web.pdf
Books:
The Warmth of Other Suns , Isabel Wilkerson (This is fascinating and in novel form!!)
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
In the Castle of My Skin, George Lamming
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
13th (In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists, and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom.)
