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Dear Corrie

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Dear Miss Ten Boom –

I read The Hiding Place for the first time when I was much too young to understand its full implications. When I began teaching sociology, I used it to introduce the Holocaust to sheltered students in a religious institution.

And now I find myself picking it up to read again, alongside Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory, and the Old Testament books First and Second Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. They all deal with regime change, and the struggles between good and evil.

These days, we have Wicked taking Hollywood by storm, but for the most part, there are good guys and bad guys in good versus evil plots, and they are easy to tell apart.

Your book, your life story, there in Holland being a nice spinster watchmaker in your fifties with your family business, suddenly hiding people the Nazis were trying to kill, it had good and evil. But rereading it, I find places where it got tricky to tell them apart.

I remember a story from your book: someone from the resistance came to your watch shop to ask for significant names. They wanted to kill those people. They wanted you to help them set it up. And you said no. And agonized over it.

It is getting tricky, and likely will get trickier, to figure out good and evil in the United States right now. White is black and black is white, right is wrong and wrong is right. The liberal elites want to build a super-government everyone has to obey, but the right wingers are doing it, using threats of violence. It’s all getting a bit tricky, Ms. Ten Boom.

When I read The Hiding Place again recently, I saw something else in it: your loneliness, and your singlemindedness. You missed your sister. You didn’t know what to say about what was happening to you. You tried to be nice to some Somalian women in the rescue hospital who didn’t know anything about what was going on and they clearly viewed you as a threat and you didn’t know what to do with that. How hard was it to know what to do, Corrie? Your book resonates with getting to keep your Bible in the prison, reading, praying, holding out hope against hate. What did it feel like, every day, making decisions to not hate the people who were showing you hate, knowing you had the moral high ground, but were considered the criminal? How simple can we make these decision?

What did you worry about when you told the resistance people you wouldn’t help them kill Nazis? Did you fear for the little collection of Jewish people hiding in your house? Did you know all your neighbors knew, but still wave to them each morning? Did they wave back?

Tell us where to put our feet, Ms. Ten Boom, when our allegiance is not to America, but to God, and we don’t think those two names are synonymous. How do we live?

Thanks for listening. I may come back to you in the coming months. It’s kinda hard to sort through everything right now, and surely that is intentional. Big power displays to cow and intimidate, followed by the real meanness. What did you pray for, Ms. Ten Boom? How did you keep your head when those around you were losing theirs, or offering up their neighbors’ for a fee?

Sincerely,

A Christian in America

A Month off Facebook

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After a month off Facebook, here’s what I’ve missed and not missed.

I miss:

People I barely knew being involved in my life. Because I’m an author, a lot of people I had never met but who read my books friended me. We kept up casually, oh so casually. There would be an occasional comment on a cat picture, a like for something I’d crocheted or canned, a laugh at the picture of me falling in mud. I miss the casual camaraderie of people I only knew because they read my books and decided they liked me.

Getting advice. I know a thousand people who are smart and savvy experts at something, often something obscure. I miss hopping online to ask “Is it okay to do the stitches backwards when you’re edging the blanket” or “what columns should a household budget have” or even “does this look like poison ivy to you?”  While there is a website response to every query put into a search engine, I miss the voices of people familiar to me, ones I trust not to steer me astray. That little blue star appearing in query responses now gives me the heebeejeebies. Its advice is just flat WRONG half the time, and in some cases that could result in blowing one’s house up (clearing a gas line; how long to pressure can meat). Ain’t listening to the little blue star; I miss those thousand or so smart, sensible friends.

Ironically, I also miss GIVING advice. I’m good at some specific things, but here in Wytheville where we know hardly anyone, people don’t ask me about radio reporting/storytelling/writing/canning/crocheting/swimming/foraging/homesteading/cats.

Where’s Wendy? I thought this was a dumb game I played because travel took me so many places where there were pretty pictures to be taken. Turns out, it grounded me back to my home base. When I traveled, it made me feel like people cared where I was; plus it was silly clean fun. A lot of weight for a small game, but there it is. I miss that.

I do not miss:

What I’m eating pictures. Most of my friends are foodies. Sometimes I got good ideas from them. Mostly I just had greens envy.

Feet pictures. For some reason, every time someone gets hurt, they post these pics online. It stands to reason we injure our feet more than other parts of us, given their suboptimal working conditions and general lack of care in our society. But yeesh. I don’t want to see your naked feet unless I’m teaching you to swim, kay, thanks. Now you know.

People talking politics in punchlines. I love a good political debate with a well-informed friend who challenges my thinking. I have a fair few friends who fall into this category, and I look forward to seeing them in person more now, because my ears are not full of the white noise from online memes and punditry. Savoring a good conversation has become an art form, but it’s almost weird to ask friends to Zoom with you just to see each other because, hey, you know, we have social media for that. We don’t have to be intentional. Do we?

People I barely know getting involved in my life. Yes, I know. While I miss the casual, friendly reader who decided they liked me, I don’t miss the friends of friends who showed up to yell that I am part of the Great Evil because a) I don’t attend an evangelical church (we are Quakers) b) I don’t agree with all the parts of all the scripts of the political party I align with (“BUT HOW CAN YOU DENY THE RIGHTS OF…”) I do not miss the virtue signalers convinced that dismantling unjust systems means only those who deserve to will get hurt. Ha.

Reels. You suck, Zuck. Great timewasters of unsafe viewing; some of those “animal rescue” videos are pure evil.

Doomscrolling. I’m astonished, absolutely astonished, at having enough time to learn a new pattern, write the notes for the last chapter, try a new recipe, learn why carrots and cauliflower should be planted near each other, research writing grants at the end of the day. I always told myself I was too tired, too emotionally and intellectually drained to start something new after dinner. Ha. New life, new fun, new ideas, new ways to pursue old interests. The time I’ve gotten back is indescribable, and I don’t want to sound like someone who is encouraging others. We all make our own decisions. Just, don’t let anyone tell you the time is not real, when you get it back. It’s amazing. And fun.

More things to talk about later, but here it is a month in: no regrets. Not even the advice. :]