Ordinary Visionary

Make it a Healthy Halloween This Year

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of the Trick Or Treat Me Blog by Tetra Pak. All opinions are 100% mine.

Recently I've had a bug for finding discounts on organic foods, challenging myself to save between 10 and 20 percent on groceries each time I go to the store. I don't always succeed, but with more organic brands branching out into social media marketing and online coupon sites, it really isn't hard to come by discounts on products that are better for you, and better for the earth. Vance recently brought home a huge stack of Organic Valley coupons after the environmental expo at Pinecastle a couple of weeks ago, which has already saved us about $10 off of our weekly groceries.

Virtuous as it may be for the two of us to live a healthy lifestyle, buy organic, and save money doing it, when it comes to Halloween it's almost impossible. Publix has acres of shelf space devoted to absolute junk (delicious, delicious junk) right now, and it's tempting to just pick up a couple pounds of the stuff and be done with it. I don't want to be that house — the one kids spread the word about, where the granola-eating liberals are handing out organic apples and bags of trail mix instead of the usual sugary jackpot.

Turns out I'm not alone in this. Tetra Pak has put together a blog and coupon site specifically for health-conscious Halloweeners and tree-huggers like me. The Trick Or Treat Me Blog has two coupons for chocolate milk and two ways to send micro-donations to the World Wildlife Fund without taking out your wallet. (Of course, I hope you pick the organic coupon, but I'm biased). Either way, the milk cartons are recyclable and made from renewable resources. And while you may be thinking, "milk is the lamest Halloween loot I've ever heard of," I know at least one trick-or-treeter that would trade a Snickers the size of his head for a carton of chocolate milk. (I'm looking at you, Luke.)

I used the site to send a 10¢ donation to the WWF and a custom e-card to Vance with some random photos I took from my Flickr stream. The site was a bit clunky to navigate but the result was amusing enough to warrant the effort.

If you're not interested in the coupons or the e-card, Tetra Pak will still make a 10¢ donation to World Wildlife Fund for every trick or treat you tweet out with Twitter (up to $30,000). Trick Or Treat Me on Twitter to send a little love their way.

Excuses come too easy for me on this side of the tracks.

Art by Nick Dewar.

We've been back in the real world now for a week. Portland ended quietly after days of walking through gardens and parks and campuses, eating well, drinking well and sharing a bit of our vacation with friends. The place feels a bit like The Grey Goose must have to Sheldon and Davy in A Severe Mercy: a thing that we hope for and dream about, a place we might one day live, a symbol, perhaps, of our commitment to life together.

There are more than twice as many Portlanders as Orlandoans, yet the city feels smaller somehow. We were able to take public transit everywhere, from Imago Dei to the Rose Gardens to the campus of Portland State University, 23Hoyt, Hawthorne, and the airport. The practicality of it was stunning; most trips through Orlando on Lynx take at least twice the normal driving time, while trips on the MAX or buses seemed to be hardly longer than what it would take to drive. There's a Zipcar network, three forms of public transit that can get you to your destination with less than a quarter mile of walking, and people know how to drive with bikes, buses, and trains in the road. The green movement there isn't something that's underground or visible only through the presence of reusable grocery bags. It's inescapable. Toilets in the PDX airport give flushers the option of whether to use just enough water for "#1" or "#2." Restaurants list the farms where their meat comes from. Rush hour looks like 2pm in Orlando. Community gardens are everywhere.

Portland provides a constant challenge to question my own excess. To think about things as small as reusing the cardboard sleeve on my latte to something as big as giving up my gas guzzling SUV (yes, I still drive one) and not owning a vehicle at all.

It's also a challenge to my role as a witness. In our week there, Vance and I interfaced with hundreds of broken people, on buses mostly, but also in parks and on sidewalks. People desperate for a friend, if only for the twenty minute ride from downtown to Hawthorne. People who love their city and desire to share it with strangers. People who live every day in the unhappiest city in the United States (according to Business Week).

In my LIFE community last night, we got into a discussion about how, as Christians, to deal with the fallout of a violent world. Some said that you do your best to avoid it, choosing places to live that are relatively safe and private schools that advertise values-based education. Others remained quiet or remarked that it's a sad world. Knowing my propensity for rhetorical flourishes and having spoken quite enough already, I remained eyes down and ran my knife over the crease in my napkin over and over.

What I wanted to say was that the most beautiful moments in my life have been the experience of redemption: the entrance into a place of darkness and brokenness with Christ, allowing his light to either shine on me or through me. I wanted to say that as Christians we are called to enter into darkness. Scandalously, Jesus calls us to love the very people we hate or fear:

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
— Matthew 5:43-48, emphasis mine

This would be one of the many portions of The Message where Peterson would stop and write, "Are you listening? Are you really listening?" And I don't, really, if I'm being honest. I live in a city where I'm as closed off from the world as I want to be; I live in my house with my husband, getting calls from true friends once a month or less. I drive my big car to my big office, say good morning to the sweet lady waiting at the bus stop, and commence another eight hours with team members I love and see five days a week. When I'm done I get back in my Explorer and drive home to start the cycle all over again.

In the words of Gustavo Gutierrez, "To be followers of Jesus requires that [we] walk with and be committed to the poor; when [we] do, [we] experience an encounter with the Lord who is simultaneously revealed and hidden in the faces of the poor."

When my brothers and sisters in the LIFE community described their Christian response to violence in the city of Orlando, they immediately referenced the poorest area, a place where I've spent weeks of my life in the living room of a dear friend's home. She is living a Christian response to violence. She doesn't run from it; she enters into it. Excuses come too easy for me on this side of the tracks.

Which brings me back to Portland. One of the scariest things about the city is also one of the most hopeful. Not that I feel presently equipped to bring much light to that place, but that I will see Jesus in the faces of my neighbors every day. That he might have opportunities every day to sculpt me more and more into his image. That I will interface with immense darkness and inescapable community on my commute, and teach my children the value of love, of life, of hope, and of creation.

Until the day we're called to move, which may be years into the future, we must seek the beauty, the quirky places, and the lonely, broken people here in Orlando. There are so many ways we can be used by Him, just on the other side of our protected spaces.

Exciting and mundane things

I'm sitting in Stumptown (Ace) after making a break for it across the Rose Parade route thinking over the last two days. What memories might be worth committing to pen a blog?

The man at the 10th and Jefferson streetcar stop telling us about the two $450 snowboarding jackets he'd won for wearing a tie-dyed shirt, how he was bringing his own chocolate soy milk to the streetcar with the best coffee in Portland across from the chic storefront coffeehouse with the worst coffee in Portland; two brown preteens in the back of an east side bus rapping freestyle to the beat pulsing from the boom box resting on their knees, jumping as their feet arched up with each would-be bass hit; the child holding an entire bag of Honey Nut Cheerios, peering quietly into the display case full of pastries he could not pronounce at Grand Central Bakery; the barista at Stumptown who poured perfect Rosettas without looking down; the three Navy sailors asking where the club scene was; the twenty-something responding that there really wasn't one.

These events are so everyday in this place, but are still somehow extraordinary from where we sit. We've descended upon Portland with our flipflops and preconceptions, expecting the thousands of cyclists, anticipating the fog, looking forward to the many unique and local shops and eateries and yet somehow are still surprised by how close our experience here lives up to Donald Miller's description.

Like New York, there are churches everywhere yet the culture remains hyper-secular. From this single vantage point I've watched people of all walks, people with brightly colored hair, grey hair, new blonde curls five months old, white people, black people, sweet dogs pulling at their leashes, a toddler with pearl earrings, women with worried glances, a girl in a green shirt dancing in the street. All of these people with one thing in common: the city they exist in every day. I wonder if we might be one of them one day, or if Anne Lamott is right when she says, "the fog lets you see what it wants you to see."

We went up into the west hills yesterday, where the houses are big and expensive and beautiful, with the Rose Test Gardens and Japanese gardens right up the road. Our bus driver echoed the sentiment of several locals, commenting on how rough the storm was yesterday, worried maybe we'd resent the city for the clouds. We assured him that where we come from the storm was minor; we rather enjoyed the sounds of the rain smacking against the window pane and the fact that water droplets make for the best rose pictures anyway.

It's only Satuday but we've already tasted the best coffee in Portland, the best dessert, the best views. This trip is a different type of adventure -- an adventure that is the everyday experience of the locals. Our exciting is their mundane. Or maybe life is always this colorful under the misty sky.

Grow your Soup! (For Free)

At the suggestion of my mother, I put forward an idea at our last Homeowner's Association meeting to create a community garden on some of the land the Association owns but doesn't use. My husband and I already maintain a small container garden on our back patio and alongside the walkway to our front door, but a townhouse doesn't afford much opportunity beyond that for growing food. (Of course, there are those who would argue otherwise but in general you need decent square footage to yield enough produce to put a dent in the grocery bill).

I read somewhere that a $50 investment in seeds and gardening supplies can yield a $1,250 return in the value of produce annually. And if you're afraid of the initial investment, Campbells is giving away tomato seeds as part of its commitment to the national FFA organization. They also provide tips for getting started. All you have to do to get the seeds is buy a can of Campbell's soup (or steal one from your mom) and enter the code on the bottom of the can into the website.

We still haven't gotten a final nod from our Association's lawyers for our right to repurpose the plot of land, but for those of you without lawyers standing in your way, this is a great way to dip your toe into the world of homegrown produce for an initial investment of a can of condensed soup. :)

Our Green Life

It's Earth Month again. April is a great time to rethink our habits and attitudes toward the planet, and to share ideas about what we're doing to make a difference with our friends and neighbors. Our green journey started a while ago, but this year we've made a bigger commitment than ever to live a life that respects Creation. Here are a few of the habits we're forming:

Cultivate a Garden

We live in a two-bedroom townhome with no usable yard space, so we knew we'd have to get creative if we wanted to be a part of the 1 million gardens springing up around the US. Before Spring had even arrived, we picked up a copy of the Bountiful Container.