Miscellaneous

For today’s gift, I give you: Games! First, a Smithsonian article about Christmas games from around the world. My favorite? Oaxaca’s “Night of the Radishes.”

The next article is also from the Smithsonian, a collection of online versions of board games that you can play with your family or friends from anywhere during this upcoming winter of more social distancing. There are a couple that I want to try! Anyone game? (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

For today’s around-the-world prayer, please join me in praying for safety of civilians in Afghanistan, especially the Hazara people who are being targeted by IS there. Thank you.

Happy 5th Day of Christmas! For today’s gift, I give you the gift of daydreaming about journeys around the world. Pilgrimages and epic treks fascinate me. I recently wrote a short story with a main character that lived along the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James). When I lived in Central Asia, I was in one of the countries the Silk Road went through. Currently, I live less than two hours from the Pacific Crest Trail. I’ve gone a few miles of it, on short backpacking trips, but that’s it! Someday I’d love to do a long trek. That takes time, money, planning, and training. But you never know!

So today’s link to something fun was tipped off to me by my writer friend Professor Popinjay (you can find his column in Springfield, Oregon’s Free For All newspaper and on his Facebook group page). This is the longest walkable road network in the world. Check it out in this article by Popular Mechanics (link below). It looks amazing! I don’t think I know anyone who would ever actually accomplish it (for a variety of reasons), but it does look like good inspiration for my writer friends. I could see a fun adventure novel based on this in the vein of Around the World in 80 Days. Happy daydreaming! How many of you would take this trek if you could?

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30285283/longest-walkable-distance-earth/#:~:text=The%20suspected%20longest%20walking%20route,Trail%20are%20short%20by%20comparison.

For today’s prayer, let’s pray for the whole world! Why not, since we’re dreaming about trekking halfway around it? But specifically, let’s pray for the world to heal from the devastating effects of Covid-19, including our own countries/regions/cities. Thank you for joining me in this!

Happy 4th Day of Christmas! I hope you are enjoying this holiday season with loved ones, as safely as possible.

For today’s gift, I want to tell you about an inspiring woman. At age 51, after being widowed and divorced, Méxican-American plant lover Ynéx Mexía discovered her life’s calling while studying botany at the University of California. According to her card in my Women Explorers Knowledge Cards deck, she discovered over 500 new species while traveling all over the Americas, many times by herself, in Alaska, Mexico, and all over South America. You can read more about her in the National Park Service’s webpage at https://www.nps.gov/people/ynes-mexia.htm

Since it’s Christmastime and we’ve mentioned Mexico, I’d love to share with you the beautiful legend of how poinsettias became associated with Christmas! The alternate name for them is “Flores de noche buena” or “flower of the holy night.” A little girl wanted a gift to bring to the Christ child on Christmas Eve, but she had no money. Find out what happend at https://www.farmersalmanac.com/the-legend-of-the-pointsettia-2815

And completely random but just for fun, since our hero today traveled to South America too, check out this adorable fresh news piece from the BBC, about a dog on the soccer field in Bolivia. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-latin-america-55458599

For today’s region to pray for, please join me in praying for Venezuela. They have been struggling economically and politically since long before the pandemic, which has exacerbated the situation. Thank you.

Reference for Women Explorer Cards Deck: by Sharon M. Hannon, published by Pomegranate Communications, Inc.

Happy 3rd Day of Christmas! Today’s gift to you is a newsletter that my friend Jas wrote for her employer and their customers. It has some great ideas for ways to make the holiday season merry, despite the pandemic. I want to try the Watch Party idea!

http://pages.azblue.com/Dec-2020-Newsletter_Creative-Holiday.html

Today I would like to ask you to join me in praying for the nation of Ethiopia, and the conflict there. Please pray for peace and for protection of civilians. Thank you!

Happy Boxing Day and beginning of Kwanzaa! If you haven’t read yesterday’s post, please read it first so you’ll understand this series of posts. Also, I plan to add a feature in this series: besides leaving you with something fun/encouraging/inspiring, I would like to invite you to join me in praying for a different situation/region/people group around the world each day.

Today’s gift is introducing you to a family I’ve never met. The Holderness family has a Youtube channel where they, well,, channel their creativity into a variety of fun videos. Some are music parodies that would make Weird Al proud. Some are parodies of Hallmark movies (they confess that they love watching them, so they’re not too mean, but spot on!). Others are just funny discussions that they have. One of my favorites is the “Sanitized” song parodies, in honor of the pandemic (which is one of those things that you kind of have to laugh at sometimes or else you’ll cry). All of them are fun, and they try to stay positive despite the strange times we’re in. To introduce you to them, I’ll give you this one, which is kind of their musical Christmas card to everyone. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFuNFVBTjMo

Today the country of Nigeria is on my heart. Please pray for the safety of schoolchildren and other civilians there, with extremist terrorist groups causing traumatic devastation. Pray for wisdom on the part of the government in dealing with this. Thank you!

Happy Christmas Day, in the Gregorian calendar at least! According to some branches of Christianity, today is the First day of Christmas, with the 12th and final day of Christmas being Epiphany (celebrating when the Magi/3 Kings went to see Jesus), on January 5 or 6. And if I forget to say it then, Merry Christmas on January 7 to anyone in the Eastern Orthodox churches!

This year, I’d like to give my friends and readers a gift on each of the 12 Days of Christmas. Don’t worry, I don’t have a partridge in a pear tree for you. Or even two turtledoves. And definitely not five golden rings. But I want to give what I can.

I read a short essay recently about Christmas and how for us humans it’s about receiving, not giving. Jesus is the ultimate gift to us, and we can’t give Him anything that would be enough to reciprocate this amazing and precious gift of life and grace. All we can do is reach out and receive it. But in honor of that gift, and with the example given by the Magi of what they felt compelled to bring to Him, we do give gifts. We give Him the gift of our love and devotion in return. We do the same for others in different ways (including tangible gifts, words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, and physical touch) to show our love. And sometimes, we need to be humble and willing to open our arms to receive gifts. This Christmas has been teaching me this lesson in some humbling but sweet ways.

I don’t have much I can give all of you, my readers. But I will share with you something fun, inspiring, or encouraging each day. A little bit of light during these dark days (interpret that literally or figuratively, but here in Oregon it’s definitely dark this time of year!).

Today’s gift: music from the Benedictine monks at Mt. Angel Abbey here in Oregon. Click the link below for three songs that they perform. The top one is fun jazzy music from the Charlie Brown Christmas special. The middle one is carols sung by the monks. The bottom one is organ and violin music. Enjoy! (Photo is by me, taken nearly 2 years ago on a visit to the Abbey with my stepsister and her kids).

Seasonal

Here’s the newsletter that I sent out with Christmas cards. By New Year’s Eve, I’ll do a post with photos of some of the cool things I got to do this year. Merry Christmas!

Even though it’s been a tough year in many ways, there have been many silver linings and blessings.

I got to do a lot of new things with family and friends, including pressing apples into cider, mushroom hunting, peach picking, jewelry making, and making a potted plant herb garden. And lots of exploring, from finding new waterfalls to hiking to Jefferson Park (I’m so thankful I got to see it before it was burned by wildfire this summer!). I even got to drive Mom to the top of a shield volcano. And of course, I learned how to teach online! I’m grateful to see my students.

This year held lots of joys that I had done before, too, like seeing friends that I taught with overseas, camping at Waldo Lake, going on short local hikes, and other outdoor activities with friends and family. I’m very grateful to you all for reaching out to keep me connected!

Some other silver linings/things that have helped me stay sane this year: Getting to see friends and family from far away thanks to Zoom (and also get-togethers, meetings, and cool seminars from church, writing groups, and other organizations), living walking distance from a park with hiking trails, books from all the Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood, DVDs from the library, and of course, my cat.

What new things did you try this year? What helped you stay positive? I’d love to hear about them in a card, letter, email, or even a postcard. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  Love, Jessie (and Arwen, aka Santa Kitty)

What a year this has been. I wrote my last post in May, back when we had the summer and outdoor socially distanced functions to look forward to. Since then, things have changed, and yet, they haven’t really.

Part of me would like to take this opportunity to lay out in detail what I believe about some of the things we’ve been dealing with: the pandemic, unrest, deepening political divides, disasters, and so much more. Part of me feels like it would be pointless.

I’ve been wrestling a lot this year. With my beliefs, especially politically, and how politics interacts with my faith. With what to do about racism in my country. With loneliness and isolation because of the pandemic. With how to help my students from the other side of a computer video chat, and how to help people affected by disasters like wildfires and hurricanes and war. There is so much. But I have done what could when I discovered a way to help in these areas.

I’ve also been trying to find the silver linings, the opportunities afforded by my current circumstances, or at least allowed by them. Almost every day, I’ve gotten a nice walk through a wooded park nearby. I finished writing a short story, had help from writer friends to revise it, and submitted it to a publisher. I’ve been working slowly through online guitar lessons. Over the spring and summer, I went to some beautiful outdoor places with friends and family. I’ve reconnected with some family and friends with Zoom game nights. And I have worked hard to make lessons for my students to get an education despite not being in a school building. I’m determined that this year will not have been wasted.

But it’s still been hard. I know my brain is stressed because I’m making the same dumb mistakes at work over and over again. I can’t seem to keep some things straight in my brain. And now I have grief to add to that; my “bonus grandma” (close friend’s grandma that I adopted long before my last grandparent passed away 10 years ago) recently died. I knew it was to be expected eventually. But it’s still sad, because she was the nicest grandma I ever had, and I’m sad for my friend and her family who are all going through a lot. And my friend and former coworker Meranda died of cancer this summer. Praying for her family and friends as well during this holiday season.

A friend wrote in her most recent blog post that despite the enormity of everything, she feels that there is light at the end of the tunnel. I am hanging onto that. Hanging onto hope. Despite the despair around me, I believe that God still loves us and is still guiding us.

This journey of life is hard sometimes. I feel like I’m wandering in the wilderness, and I don’t mean a scenic National Park wilderness with a sturdy trail. I mean wandering through tough terrain with only a compass. But I will press on, seeking God’s guidance constantly. Thank you for joining me in this journey.

Hello out there in Blog-land! Welcome back to the Compass Rose Queen, where we celebrate the journeys of women (sometimes historical, others fictional, and sometimes my own journeys). Sorry it’s been so long! It’s not that I haven’t had ideas of things to write about. I’ve been finding lots of stories of amazing journeys of women that I would love to share with you. But a couple things have kept me from writing. Only one of them is a good excuse, but I’ll discuss them both here. Keep reading to get to the good stuff (actual writing about the journeys of women, including links to things I’ve written lately, and an announcement about my day job/career if you haven’t already seen it on Facebook!).

My first excuse category is about the writing process. I have too many ideas and don’t know where to start. Whose story is most compelling or timely? And then, how do I go about not just sounding like a Wikipedia page and insulting your intelligence because you could look her up yourself? If I have a book about her, how do I find the time to read it? Yeah, yeah, I told you they’re terrible excuses! But that’s what’s been going through my easily distracted and discouraged brain.

My second (and much more fun) excuse is that I have been writing for other forums. I’m on the blog team for my church, so about once every couple months I write an article for it. Also, I’ve had two written pieces published in the new online literary magazine Illumine: Collective Light. The last things I wrote for each of these forums were both focused on the journeys of women (one is about a friend of mine, and the other is my own personal journey of discovery), so I’ll post links to those here.

The first piece I’ll include is my blog post for church about a young friend of mine that I met while visiting my old church camp five years ago. She is an inspiration to me! The theme we were all writing about was adventures with God, and I thought of her because her camp name was Adventure when I met her! So yeah, not to be punny, but I wrote about Adventure in more ways than one.  http://www.citysalt.org/blog/2019/7/19adventuringwithgod-jj

The second piece is my latest work for Illumine: Collective Light, and is an unusual format for me. I normally write prose, either fiction or nonfiction. I haven’t written anything resembling poetry since I wrote a prayer/song years ago, and I certainly haven’t had any training in it. So please don’t judge it for any literary merit. Also, I have mixed feelings about sharing it, because I’m afraid it can come off like I’m bragging about the places I’ve been. That was not my intention when writing it. The theme was “Wonder” and when I sat down to write about the concept of wonder in my life, this is what came out. It’s about my journey of discovering that it’s not the amazing places but the people in our lives that are the best wonder of the world. It’s dedicated to a former student who was killed in a terrorist attack in Kabul last year, just one of the wonderful people I’ve met in my life’s journey. https://illumine.collectivelight.org/volume-3-wonder/what-a-wonderful-world/

That’s probably enough for one post for now. You’ll have to wait for the next post to find out about at least one of the awesome famous/historical women I’ve discovered. But I’ll post below  links to some of my other articles and blog posts in case you want to read more (and proof that I have been writing something!). Oh, and I promised you a job update! Most of you know that I’ve been teaching for the last several years at a military-style charter school. Well, I will miss it, but it was time for me to move on, so I’m happy to announce that I was recently hired to teach at a private school for students with special needs. I’m excited for this next step in my career! Many thanks to those who supported me through this, by being a reference, giving me advice, praying for me, and other ways.

Happy journeying!

My other submission to Illumine: Collective Light:  https://illumine.collectivelight.org/volume-2-stillness/stillness-that-elusive-gift/

Other blog posts I’ve written for my church:

http://www.citysalt.org/blog/2019/5/24perpetualcreativity-jj

http://www.citysalt.org/blog/2019/3/22beautyfromsuffering-jj

http://www.citysalt.org/blog/2019/2/1ahamoment-jj

http://www.citysalt.org/blog/2018/10/19tension-jj

http://www.citysalt.org/blog/2018/6/15interruptible-jj

I have a lot on my mind right now. For the last several years, I’ve mostly used this blog to share some of my journeys with you all. And even that has been very few and far-between. But I’ve been wanting to return to the original purpose of my blog, which is to highlight the journeys of women (other than myself!).

For the most part, the posts I’ve done with that theme have been mainly educational and encouraging. Maybe even inspirational. But today I want to do more. And this time, instead of a single woman’s journey, I want to share the horrific journey of an entire people group. Not because it will be fun. Because it is needed.

I was very moved and challenged tonight by my pastor’s message. I won’t try to explain it, because he dealt with some sensitive issues and was afraid of being misunderstood himself. But what I got out of it is being moved to action about something that has been on my heart for a while, but I didn’t know what to do about it. Plus, in my comfortable, privileged, middle class life, it’s too easy to ignore it and move on.

Unfortunately, those who are suffering can’t do that. But in my religion, we are given another privilege: that of suffering and sacrificing for our Lord’s sake. And by that I don’t mean a masochistic or meaningless suffering. Jesus said that what we do for those who are in need, we do for Him.

Let’s be realistic: no matter what I do, I can’t possibly be suffering in the same way as the people I want to help are. But I can still do something to help them; sacrifice a little. My time, my money, my comfort. Something. I’m tired of sitting by the sidelines feeling helpless.

The people I want to help right now are the Rohingya people. Most of them are refugees in Bangladesh now, because their home country of Myanmar has forced them out violently. They don’t even get counted as citizens there even though that’s where they’re from. Women were raped, and now are giving birth in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Now, supposedly safer in Bangladesh, teenage girls are being trafficked into the sex trade. These are not the heroic journeys of women that I like to write about. It breaks my heart. For more information, read an article written today on the United Nations Refugee Agency here:     http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/stories/2018/7/5b34ffb64/monsoon-rains-highlight-needs-rohingya-refugees.html      In light of the upcoming Independence Day holiday here, where we celebrate freedom, the last line of the article was especially poignant to me, where a Rohingya man said, “We want to go back to Myanmar as soon as possible, but only if we’re given full rights as citizens. We want to be free.”

My brain has been working this out ever since my pastor’s message tonight, so I am still fleshing this out. But I wanted to write this while my heart is still heavy. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m self-centered enough that tomorrow I could forget about it and go back to my comfortable life. But I’m determined to start something. Maybe it will grow to be something big. Maybe not. But at least it’s action, finally.

Here’s my plan. I’m going to find a good organization to donate money to, that will go directly to helping the refugees. So far I’ve found a way to donate through the UNHCR’s webpage. I also found a link that focuses on the children, through UNICEF (also a United Nations org.). And I know I’ve seen other organizations on Facebook. If you want to join me in this, find one that you feel comfortable donating to. No pressure from me.

Next, I’m going to do something that’s very hard for me to do, because I’m a wimp. I’ll let you figure out all the physical and cultural reasons I’m a wimp in this way. But here it is: I’m going to fast and pray this Wednesday. For the Rohingya refugees. And of course for Afghanistan, because things are very difficult there too, and that country will always be on my heart. But on Wednesday, I will not eat breakfast or lunch. I know it’s not much compared to the suffering of the refugees who do not have enough food or medical attention. But it will help me remember to pray for them. I will be praying that their current needs will be met, and that the Myanmar government figures out a way to ensure their citizenship and safety so they can go home.

Yes, I know that Wednesday is a holiday here in the USA. And that usually involves food (and fireworks, but that’s besides the point). But while the Rohingyas aren’t free in their own country, I can give up a little food on the day I celebrate freedom in my country. And if any of you want to join me on this, please feel welcome. In fact, anyone who lives in my current city (and with whom I feel safe and comfortable having over) is welcome to come over and pray with me sometime during the day (text me first so I know to expect you).

In case you’re wondering, yes, I know there are many suffering people here in the USA, as well. I will be praying for them as well, including the children being separated from their parents at the border. I’m not trying to be political here. I think we can all agree that the children are innocent and suffering in this situation.

Thank you all for listening. I hope that you will consider joining me in helping the Rohingyas in some way, whether donating, fasting, praying, or any other way you can think of. Please feel free to add your suggestions of ways to help them in the comments below, because I’d love to know them.