natalie's narrative

Drive them out?

The state of Oklahoma recently passed a strict anti-immigration bill, and some say that the consequences could be harmful to the state's economy: Strict immigration law rattles Okla. businesses.

Via ImmigrationProf Blog, I found a TV spot created by MATT.org (Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together) that highlights Riverside, NJ. This community eventually rescinded a harsh anti-immigrant law after the effects were devastating. The video can be found here: Drive Them Out. Maybe Oklahoma could learn from Riverside?

The least of these

Growing up, when I learned about slavery in the US and the later civil rights movement, I always wondered how I would react if I had lived during those times. I didn’t necessarily question the fact that I wouldn’t be compassionate in a face-to-face encounter with people who were being oppressed, but instead wondered how far I would really go to protest and to break the law. In college, learning about colonialism brought the same questions.

I also wondered what issue today would be equivalent to slavery, civil rights, and colonialism. What issue would be a challenge to step up for today? For what would I be willing to perform civil disobedience—in the face of my church and community’s supporting the status quo?

I strongly believe that immigration is one of those challenging issues. In Oklahoma, it is now a felony for U.S. citizens (knowingly) to provide shelter, transportation, or employment to undocumented immigrants. This is where following Scripture and obeying the laws of my country come head to head. Which one will the church choose? Will Christians continue to parrot the line that breaking the law is un-Christian while remaining uncritical of the fact that laws can be unjust? Literally enslaving another human being was once within the parameters of US law.

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For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?”

The King will reply, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:35-40

Small towns and suburbs

Nicole wrote a thoughtful post about her experience living in Chicagoland. She points out many lies that the suburban environment brings us: consumerism, the illusion of safety, and also the fact that many suburbanites will never experience suffering. We are also trying very hard to avoid those that are indeed suffering. Nicole does not feel that she is called to remain in the suburbs, and she and I are from the same type of hometown, so I can relate to how she feels.

I grew up in a wonderful small town, but many times it is looked down upon. Relatives who have moved to bigger and better things and friends from a church I attended in Oklahoma City enjoy poking fun at Tuttle. According to them, it is not sophisticated enough for their tastes. I always tried to pinpoint exactly what it was that they were ridiculing. I mean, they have the same level of education, still have an Oklahoma accent, live a mere 20 or so miles away, and don’t think in a radically different way than we do. In fact, I have a feeling that if someone from St. Louis (squarely in the Midwest, which is itself looked down on by both coasts at times) were to meet someone who grew up in OKC, they would probably giggle a little at a few differences. 

So what’s the deal with the 'tude toward Tuttle? I realized perhaps it’s because Tuttle doesn’t have a Barnes and Noble, Starbucks, or a mall. If you look at the high school, for example, perhaps clothing/hair styles wouldn’t necessarily reflect the latest trend. So it boils down to the fact that we, because of our geographic location, are unable to be consumers in the way that those who live in OKC are able to. Therefore, in some people’s eyes, we are missing out on something and are unsophisticated.

As I’ve come to value things like community, relationships, and living simply, I’ve realized that Tuttle enjoys something that may possibly be lacking in a “suburb” (OKC comes nowhere close to having suburbs like Chicagoland!). In school, in church, in whatever else I was involved in growing up, I knew nearly everyone! The superintendent, the mayor, the pastor, etc. were not merely names, but family friends who probably knew my parents and grandparents growing up. If I were to go out on a Saturday night, my parents knew what I did before I even got home. Heck, people may actually wave to you when you pass them driving down the road! If I forgot to lock my car door or shut down the garage door at night, everything would be intact the next day. That would never happen in the ‘burbs! My hometown a unique community that has a lot of close-knit relationships; some people may lament that fact, but I treasure it. Another plus, the layout of the town is such that my family’s home is not literally 5 feet away from the neighbor’s. We have fresher air, pretty views, and more space. The suburbs bring an endless line of strip malls, identical houses, and no views of the stars at night.

With Al Hsu’s The Suburban Christian, I’ve been learning that the suburbs in fact do have redeeming qualities, and that it’s possible to live christianly here. Therefore, I don’t want to be completely negative about the suburban way of life. Nor do I want to be like the haters and turn the unfounded criticism back on them. I’ve recently realized, though, that no matter where you live, relationships, getting to know your neighbors, and good stewardship of resources are pretty important. Living in an environment like Tuttle facilitates those things, which is why smirk a little (on the inside of course) when folks get a kick out of making fun of small towns!

Yes! Gary England rocks!

Gary England, Oklahoma's *scary* weatherman, made it onto the Daily Show!

I have no idea how to post videos, so here's the YouTube link:

Gary England on the Daily Show

Oklahoma All Kids Act

I heard about this at my work. There are 146,000 uninsured children in Oklahoma, and of those, 84% belong to families whose income falls below 300% of the federal poverty guidelines. Presently, Oklahoma's insurance program, SoonerCare, covers children at or below 185% of the federal poverty level.

Tomorrow (Wednesday, February 21), Oklahoma's Senate Appropriations committee will consider the Oklahoma All Kids Act - SB 424. This bill would extend coverage to children ages 18 and younger whose family income falls between 185% and 300%. It would also allow families to access private insurance or employer-sponsored insurance for dependent children through a subsidy program, along with helping families who have limited or costly insurance plans.

This may seem like a costly program, but doing nothing would be even costlier. Children who have health insurance are more likely to get immunizations, regular check-ups, and treatment for common health problems that affect children, such as asthma or ear infections. They are less likely to make trips to the emergency room, and they would have better school attendance, too. In order to cover the costs of treating the uninsured, family premiums could increase by more than $2,000 by the year 2010 if we don't address the issue now. For every dollar spent on this program, the federal government will pay 78 cents, and the state of Oklahoma will pay around 22 cents.

The Senate switch board number is 405.524.0126.

The members of the committee are:

Senator Johnnie Crutchfield - Co-Chair
Senator Mike Johnson - Co-Chair
Senator David Myers - Co-Vice Chair
Senator Tom Adelson - Co-Vice Chair
Senator Patrick Anderson
Senator Randy Bass
Senator Randy Brogdon
Senator Kenneth Corn
Senator Brian Crain
Senator Mary Easley
Senator Clark Jolley
Senator Charlie Laster
Senator Owen Laughlin
Senator Jonathan Nichols
Senator Susan Paddack
Senator Nancy Riley

Oklahoma and domestic violence

Through my job, I am trained on how to deal with couples who experience domestic violence. Yesterday I learned a few things, specifically about the state of Oklahoma, that were pretty surprising--and made me pretty mad, too!!

Oklahoma was one of the last 2 states to finally pass a law making it officially illegal to rape your wife. This occurred in 1991, only 15 years ago. During the process, one Oklahoma legislator banged his fist and said, "Well if you can't rape your wife, who can you rape?" That's how the good-ol-boy system, works, I guess. Many believe that marriage automatically means the wife is giving permanent consent...

In other states, if a veterinarian sees that a pet has been intentionally harmed, she or he is required by law to report this abuse to their state's equivalent of child protective services. Batterers will usually abuse pets before, or at the same time as, they abuse their human family members. They also use their spouse's or significant other's pets as collateral in order to further manipulate her/him, often times even killing the beloved pet. Pets can even be included on a Victim Protective Order (VPO), which works similar to (but better than) a restraining order and is tailored for domestic violence situations. Oklahoma doesn't have laws like these, because we're still working on including children on the VPOs that their mothers have filed.

Oklahoma is ranked number 7 in the nation in domestic violence, and area shelters in Oklahoma City are overflowing every night. They are putting women in chapels and on floors so as to not turn anyone away. According to the Oklahoma YWCA, one woman a week in our state dies at the hands of the man who promised to love her. Women nationwide go to the emergency room more often for domestic violence than for rape, muggings, and car wrecks combined.

The Oklahoma YWCA Domestic Violence Hotline is 917-YWCA and their Sexual Assault Hotline is 943-RAPE.

Attitude adjustment

It has been an interesting weekend in Oklahoma. Some semi-bizarre things have happened, but it’s been a learning experience. You see, I’ve been struggling with an unhealthy cynicism about Christianity. I know it’s good to be critical—rather than cynical—in a healthy way, but my attitude has gone too far.

The fun started on Friday, when I was talking with my mom about Rick Warren. I was pretty much making fun of Purpose Driven Life. Not even an hour later, a family member as sweet as can be gives me a copy of the book. She has just read it, is very excited about it, and wants me to read it as well. That night I went to a Good Friday service with my cousin. It wasn’t really a service—the church had set up different rooms to represent the Stations of the Cross. As soon as we walked in, a whole bookshelf full of Purpose Driven Life greeted us. We had a packet that the church had made to guide us along. Of course I was frustrated with most of it, because I have recently been learning some different meanings (or at least a fuller meaning) of the crucifixion and resurrection. At the end, we could take communion by ourselves. Isn’t that an oxymoron, though? I told my cousin I didn’t want to take it, so we left.

When we were discussing things in the car on the way home, my cousin had on K-Love, a contemporary Christian music radio station. I haven’t listened to CCM radio in a while, but evidently someone has redone Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me.” I don’t even know if that’s the name of the song, but it is originally a love song. On a CCM radio station, though, I guess it’s supposed to be a song about the personal relationship Christians are to have with God.

I won’t go into any of the details, but the rest of the weekend has included frustrating conversations about Genesis and evolution, reading the Bible with “common sense,” and why going into Iraq is perfectly fine and dandy. And every time I visit, I also always read whatever magazine (usually some sort of Lifeway something) that my Southern-Baptist-preacher grandpa has out on his coffee table. All of these things, packed into one weekend, have been a little much. But via Maggi Dawn's blog, I came across an article by Dave Rattigan that has been helpful to me in my frustration and bad attitude. It turns the story of the good Samaritan on its head, but in a way that is especially challenging to folks like me:

Now, I think if Jesus had been talking to the Southern Baptists, he might have had a gay Episcopalian be the one to stop on the road. It'd be the Bible College Professor and the Megachurch Pastor and the Chair of the Southern Baptist Convention who'd be the ones to walk by. That'd shock the hell out of the Baptist crowd. Heh. But I've also a suspicion that if Jesus were talking to a bunch of ex-fundamentalists, it might have been a parable about how a gay Episcopalian were the one who lay beaten and bleeding on the road, and the only person who'd stop to help him was -- wait for it -- an out-and-out fundy. The Liberal Bishop would walk by, followed by the Democrat, and then the Human Rights Activist, all pretending not to see, until along comes the least of all creatures, the Bible-Basher. And he's the one person to stop and, for all his stupid ideology, tend to the man's wounds, give him a bed for the night and show him the love and care everyone else walking past that night had denied him.

Reading that was a good reminder for me. I love my conservative friends and family, and besides, it’s not them as people that I am struggling with, but rather their beliefs. Dave Rattigan says it better:

It's easy to forget that the real problem is ideology. Ideology makes people do things and say things, and to that extent our problem is with people, yet still at the root of it is ideology. While the fundamentalist mindset and agenda may be black-and-white, I want to suggest that a person, a human being, is more than the sum of her ideology, and that goes for fundamentalists as much as the rest of us.

So, I’m trying to have a better attitude, one that isn’t so negative, critical, and arrogant. Yes, I especially need some humility. Nobody has it figured out. Even if I think that there’s something wrong with the way Rick Warren goes about things, I still need to remember that my favorite people to read don’t have it all figured out, either. That was my lesson for Resurrection Day, I s’pose. My dad has pointed out something positive about Warren, by the way.

Change from the Inside

One of Greg's recent thoughts was about staying in Oklahoma, and I have also been thinking a lot lately about staying somewhere that I may not necessarily like. What if we stuck with something that we didn't like in order to change it from the inside? If we always distance ourselves from the things we don't like and continue to criticize these things, how will real change ever come about?

Think of evangelicalism, for example. Many times I want to avoid anything related to it, because I'm embarrassed by the connotations it has and think some of its theology is...a little "off." Many people who grew up in this tradition choose to abandon it for liberal mainline Christianity, another religion altogether, or no religion at all. In fact, a professor in the Bible/Theology department at my school thinks that mainline Protestant denominations are one of the only hopes evangelicals have left here in the US; he thinks that disgruntled evangelicals should move en masse into the mainline churches. Why can't we redeem it from the inside, though? And those of us who grew up in free church/Baptist traditions don't have to hit the road for Rome or Canterbury. We can stay in our tradition and enrich/redeem it--as hard as it may be.

Another example could be Oklahoma. What is the phrase--brain drain?--that describes what is happening in OK. Many people who have a lot of problems with this state, such as those who consider it "backward," not educated enough, and too conservative, choose to leave. What if those people decided to stay (again, as hard as it may be) and change OK from the inside? This could also apply to me and my little hometown and school district, because I have problems with it. Among many, many other things, why do its residents pour money into athletics, many times leaving out all things academic? Why don't we have a public library? Think of what could happen if those who had problems with our little town decided to stay here, choosing to work to change it for the better.

One of my friends, Michelle, and I had a good discussion on the way to O'Hare the other day. Michelle lives in a town in New Hampshire that is an hour away from "civilization." We were comparing our little-town stories and what it is like for both of us to go "home." We decided that it wouldn't be all that bad to live in places like our hometowns. People who decided to stay could still read, keep up with current events, and work for justice in their communities. In fact, they could actually have a better sense of community in these little places than many other places, anyway. They wouldn't have to be so isolated and so red-state-ish. Although I have to say it would be difficult for me personally to stay and work change from the inside, it does sound like a good idea in theory...