Hannah's Gold

The 2010 Winter Olympics has been a smorgasbord of stunning performances, razor thin margins of victory, and unexpected upsets with the spice of controversy, rivalries, and at least one tragedy thrown in. And, as with every Olympics, an interesting assortment of back stories, as told by Bob Costas, has helped us choose individual personalities to root for-or against. Most of these back stories highlight, in some way, the athlete's unwavering, laser-like focus on becoming among the best in the world at their particular discipline. Apolo Ohno's four-a-day two hour workouts; bronze medal winning speed skater J.R. Celski's return from a potentially career ending leg gash in 2009 (with the help of Dr. Eric Heiden); both Hannah Kearney and Bode Miller's redemptive performances in Vancouver after disappointing strike outs in Turin in '06, and many, many more stories of amazing effort, commitment, and resilience.
My favorite of all the back stories is that of snowboarder Hannah Teter and her extensive charity efforts. Hannah is from Belmont, Vermont, the heart of Vermont's ski, snowboard, and maple syrup country. She created a foundation, Hannah's Gold, that sells “Grade A Medium Amber, Pure Vermont Maple Syrup” with the motto “Sweeten the World One Bottle at a Time”. Through a partnership with World Vision, she has “adopted” the town of Kirindon, Kenya. Hannah's Gold has raised over $178,000 for Kirindon. The focus, initially, was on providing clean drinking water and sanitation, but has also addressed AIDS victims, homelessness, farming equipment and methods, recreation for children, and other needs of the town. (visit hannahsgold.com for more info and/or to buy some syrup)
Now she has launched a new effort, “Sweet Cheeks. Panties with a Purpose”. (sweetcheekspanties.com) that donates its proceeds to Doctors Without Borders, her response to the devastation in Haiti. There is a Ben and Jerry's flavor, “Maple Blondie”, that helps fund Hannahs Gold.
In Vancouver, Hannah is sleeping under a quilt donated by Amp Energy Drinks, that is illustrated with images of Hannah snowboarding, and of Kirindon. Amp gave $20,100 to Hannahs Gold, and after the Olympics Hannah is going to auction the quilt. And Hannah gave ALL her prize money in 2009 to the charity.
There are, most definitely, a whole lot of athletes competing in Vancouver that are deserving of our awe. Not just the headliners, the medalists. Every athlete, even those who finish 18th, have reached a rarefied level most of us mortals can't even imagine. But this young lady, this 23 year old, spectacularly talented, hardworking snowboarder has reset the bar. Not, necessarily, for the medals she's won, but for the Gold she gives away.

The Cat Chow Solution

Ranking way up there on the list of the most alarming news of the modern era, along with wars, jihaadism, climate change, and global economic contraction, has been the uncontrolled proliferation of the carnivorous toad in Australia. Why Nancy Grace or Geraldo aren't on this story is beyond me, but it's at least as riveting as Tiger Woods tales. In case you've somehow missed this saga- Australia, in 1935, imported the poisonous, carnivorous Cane Toad from Hawaii to fight insect pests. Once there, though, the cane toads gobbled up smaller, docile native species and predators that fed on the cane toad died from their poison. The population of cane toads, since, has ballooned to 200 million. There have been numerous failed attempts to reduce their numbers, including gassing, running over them with cars, audio blasts intense enough, theoretically, to be fatal, and an annual Toad Out Day in Queensland, the epicenter of the toad crisis, on which locals are encouraged to hunt and destroy cane toads.
In 2009 anti-toad scientists at the University of Sydney stumbled upon a promising, and apparently effective strategy using-I promise this is not made up- cat food. It seems the cane toads do their multiplying in the ponds and “billabongs” of Queensland. Listen to this stat: one cane toad will produce 30,000 eggs in a single clutch!! Scientists discovered that dollops of cat food placed strategically around the ponds and billabongs attracted carnivorous meat ants . If timed to coordinate with the emergence of the millions of little toads, the ants feast on the all-you-can-eat toad buffet, and kill up to 80% of the hatchlings. Australia's Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, is withholding judgment on the catfoodicide method of toad control, concerned it may cause unnecessary “pain or distress”. Pretty safe to conclude I'd think, though I'm no expert in toad psychology, that ants eating 80% of your babies would, in fact, be distressing. But its unlikely there will be much sympathy for the carnivorous toads among Aussies. And some guy from-again, this is not made up-a group called Frogwatch doubts the kitty chow method's effectiveness. But many are encouraged they may finally have a solution to the toad problem. But I have a concern I have not seen mentioned. I'm concerned that encouraging the prosperity of carnivorous meat eating ants could lead to scary unintended consequences. If the ants successfully diminish the carnivorous toad population, Australia will have armies of hungry, meat eating ants, with a newly developed taste for a cat food appetizer followed by an unlimited buffet of....something. Maybe, then, they could bring in some ant eating Aardvarks from Africa.

the innkeeper

Almost unavoidable, over the last 30 days or so, has been encountering a reading or a summary of the events in and around Bethlehem at the time of Jesus' birth. We're familiar with a lot of the key characters in the narrative, and many of us have miniature displays that include them, probably still out on some table or mantle soon to be packed away for eleven months. Over this now concluding holiday season, one member of the ensemble cast, one not typically part of the miniatures, has been stuck in my mind, and become a meaningful metaphor. That's the innkeeper. There actually is no innkeeper mentioned in the Luke 2 account of Jesus' birth, he exists only by inference. He is more a part of tradition than history. We are told, of course, that “...there was no room for them in the inn”, leading to the familiar manger scenario. Tradition, not the Gospel of Luke, has imagined a conversation with an innkeeper who, despite the “No Vacancy” sign, allowed them to stay with the cattle and donkeys out back in the shed. Maybe none of that ever happened. Maybe the hotels were obviously sold out, labor pains began, and they just took advantage of the first box of hay they found. But it's in the traditional story of a sold-out, but sympathetic innkeeper that I see metaphor. He let them stay. He did not turn them away. But he did not put them in the Presidential suite, or even a nice room with a view. The accommodations he allowed them was some unused space in a dark corner of the property. And in that innkeeper, I find a parallel with, particularly in the busy, chaotic period approaching Christmas, where we allow Jesus to stay. The cliché says Jesus is the “reason for the season”, but the reality is the reason for the season is Santa Claus, decorated trees, gifts, shopping, traveling, visiting, eating, social functions, football games, bonuses, time off school, and maybe a couple days off work. But we will allow a small portion of our holiday time and attention to focus on the birth of the Savior, as long as it's mostly just an hour or two Sunday morning. And Christmas Eve, we will typically take another hour or two to catch our breath and light a candle following the crescendo of chaos at the malls. Despite the “No Vacancy sign” on our December calendar, we will allow a little space, where we can, for “the reason”. But not the Presidential suite.

Walking On The Beach

Longer ago than I care to admit, during the pre-children, early years of our marriage, Lori and I would go to Myrtle Beach during the winter months. Her parents would rent a condo for January, February, and part of March to escape central Pennsylvania winters, and we would visit as often as we could. Many times, when we were there, we would take ambitiously long walks on the beach. These days, just walking to the beach seems like an accomplishment, but back then we would walk miles. Sometimes we would pick out some distant highrise along the beach, and resolve to walk to that point, then turn around. There's a funny thing about assessing distance on the beach. The tall building we would choose as a goal was always, in reality, much farther away- a much longer walk-than it appeared to be. We would walk and walk and walk, and the building would seem to get no closer. There was little sign of forward progress. When we turned around to look where we had come from, though, we clearly had walked a long way. Our starting point had receded, and looked small and distant, but forward the building seemed as far off as when we started walking. There were usually numerous beach walkers strolling the Grand Strand. The weather in January, while comfortable, was typically not warm enough for laying in the sun, or diving into the waves, so most folks walked the beach, each at their own pace. There were some athletic types who ran, and they would pass us by in seconds. Others would pass us by in that Olympic style speed walk, that looked more like a waddle. Some ambled slowly, holding hands, looking at shells, in no hurry at all, and we would catch them, and pass them by. Often, we would see people ahead of us turn to leave the beach, and it was tempting to think we were more dedicated walkers than those folks. Actually, though, we didn't know at all where they began. People entered the beach at a wide variety of places. We sometimes walked beside the beach itself, on the boardwalk near the center of town, then moved onto the sand when we ran out of boardwalk. We would join others that had entered the beach farther north, and more people began their beach stroll from the streets we would pass by, or from the many hotel decks that lined the beach. But unless we walked side by side from start to finish, we had no way of judging the distance others had traveled.
Last evening, the circle of friends with whom I have met most recent Mondays had a discussion about our individual reactions to the word ''Church''. All of us have been seeking, growing, and refining our understanding of Christ and His Church over the last ten weeks, or so. Our reactions to the word ''Church'' today are probably all different, or more complex, than before this recent exploration began, but it was stunning how nearly universally the word ''hypocrisy'' is among the primary descriptors. We all nodded knowingly as examples of blatant hypocrisy among self proclaimed Christians were shared. I, too, find myself trying to discern authenticity in those who call themselves believers. But as we chatted, I felt a new perspective emerging on this problem of pervasive hypocrisy. It is too easy to assume that certain people we encounter, who behave in a particular way, are, despite their own claim, not authentic Christians. The reality that crept into my mind was that most of us, if others were to see some isolated fragment of our lives, could be judged as hypocrites. The reality of the Church is that its authentic participants are all walking along the same beach, aiming toward the highrise of Christlikeness. The reality is, we've all entered the beach at different distances from that goal. Some folks arrive on the beach with little darkness around them. They have led clean, honest, relatively pure lives, and the end goal is only a brief stroll. Others, probably most of us, begin their walk at places of brokenness, real darkness, and ugliness and gradually, incrementally, surrender fractions of our nature as we are made aware of those areas we still cling to. Still others come from starting points so dark, twisted, painful, and evil that even after long, earnest forward progress, surrender, and reconstruction there is much yet to travel. And, at times along the way, many of us walk the wrong direction, and slip back towards where we came from. Even Paul, who most of us would agree was an authentic believer, said in Romans ''I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.''We can, perhaps, infer that if we happened upon Paul, at just the right moment, a moment in which he was doing what he hates, we might conclude ''Aha. Another one of those hypocrite Christians.''
The very nature of Christianity, the reality that Christ takes us as we are, then begins a work of transformation of varying magnitude makes it also a reality that the outside observer will see us incomplete projects as hypocrites. We should be very cautious, as part of the Body, in applying that label, unless we have walked side by side along the beach with the accused.