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Joyce Hollyday, a writer and pastor who is on the Steering committee for Word and World, lives in Asheville in the mountains and agreed to have us over for a night of getting to know each other. Although Michelle has had a few interactions with Joyce, she hadn't ever really had any chances to have any meaningful conversation. The evening and morning that we spent with Joyce provided lots of chances for talking about our journeys together in community, in action, in faith, in struggles for justice and love. We were very glad that she was both available and willing to host us on such short notice. We had a great time. We met Mary Kay Briggs through our contact at simple way to the Holston Conference (United Methodist Youth). We stopped in because she told us to stop by when we were in the area. It was nice. While there, we attended some Holy Week services with the family, Michelle scrapbooked with Mary Kay and we had some good talks. Oh yeah, we also swapped music collections with Rob.
Kingsport, TN We got to Kingsport and spent a few days in a motel to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. We hiked around Warrior's Path Sate Park and felt the brakes going on the RV! We were able to get them fixed after we hooked up with Cathy Clasen and her dad, John. Cathy was a wonderful host for our Easter-week. She is currently the associate pastor at a Presbyterian church in Kingsport, and she is wonderful in the pulpit (we didn't hear a sermon, though). The Clasen family welcomed us into their lives, took us to eat, told us what to visit, etc. Cathy also introduced us to her next-door neighbor friend, Jeff, who is a great guy (he taught Michael how to play Cribbage). What we'll remember most about the time with Cathy was the late-night talks wrapped up in warm blankets. When we decided that Michelle should go back to Philly for court, Cathy lent us her car so we wouldn't have to rent one. Philly again? Well, yep. Our time with Cathy was cut short by the fact that Michelle had been unable to get a continuance for her court date that week. So the night before, we drove Cathy's car (she's an absolute darling to lend it to us) 8 hours back to Philly so Michelle could make her 10:30am court appearance the next day. Pause for explanation: Why court? Well, last year, the day after Shock and Awe began in Baghdad March 20, 107 people sat down in mournful action and blocked the entrances to the Philadelphia Federal Building. We were among that group. We were all arrested and charged with a summary offense: unnecessarily blocking an entrance, and fined $250. Those of us who refused to pay the fine have been sentenced in small groups to 7 days in the Federal Detention Center. So it was Michelle's turn to go and get her sentence along with 15 other people. She was going to attempt to convince the judge that she should do her time in June when we officially returned to Philly. If that didn't work, we had to accept that our sabbatical could very well come to an abrupt end, especially if she got any probation time in addition to the 7 days. (The last group got 30 days probation.) So we went with a whole group of people to the courtroom that Wednesday morning and almost everyone had an extensive statement to make concerning their actions and expressing their continuing grief and exasperation that this war is continuing and people are being killed daily. (Michelle made the briefest statement: Your Honor, I believe my actions spoke for themselves.) The judge listened (mostly) patiently, and then sentenced everyone to 7 days in the Special Housing Unit of the FDC and 90 days of probation that became void as soon as the defendants turned themselves in. Whew! So the sabbatical could continue with a brief break by Michelle. Michael had to return Cathy's car, and Michelle urged him to continue the journey through Lexington and Nashville and meet back up with her in Maryville, TN. (He couldn't have visited or called her in "the clink", so it made the most sense for him to continue on.) He left the day after court, and Michelle didn't know when she was going to get the opportunity to turn herself in because the judge had to sign an order that he seemed to be taking good ol' time to finish. So she sat around and created projects for herself to do around 3200 and prepared to spend some time in the clink.
Lexington, KY Amber and Shane were scheduled to teach a class in Lexington that weekend, and since the judge hadn't signed the court order, it seemed to make sense for Michelle to join them for the weekend, visit our friends at the Communality community there and meet back with Michael for a day or so. [Michael's perspective] After a fun time teaching the Perspectives class, it was good to settle down and have a couple days with the Communality folks. (Though it was hard to say goodbye to my sweetie!) Besides hanging out with Billy, Maria and John (JFK), I was able to meet many of the other people who make up the community. (2 live-in households, a few worshipping communities, other single-family residences and hospitality houses.) They even let me sit in on a leadership meeting. Geoff and Sherry were very gracious and invited me out to talk community, babies, God and relationships. Billy gave me a taste of my first sipping bourbon. I had plenty to do and I talked to Michelle every night until she went into the clink. [Michelle's perspective]
The judge finally signed our orders and we turned ourselves in
to the FDC / US Marshals on Thursday, April 22. We were processed
and put into the SHU (Special Housing Unit) because we weren't
in long enough to warrant putting us into General Population.
We had one cell mate and had to stay in our small cells for 23
out of 24 hours every day. For 2 days we got to go into our "recreation
cage" for an hour with the other women we were arrested with.
[Michael's perspective] I left Lexington kind-of sad. I missed Michelle's only phone call so I was pretty upset. I traveled into Nashville to visit with Kristen Arnold, a friend from school. In a bout of surprise, I learned that my friend Pauline would be there as well. When I arrived I met Kristen's folks (who were around for dinner), Pauline, her boyfriend Zollie and their friend KC. (All from the Philly area.) What a great trio these folks were! Pauline and I were able to talk because we hadn't seen each other since Meeshe and I left Philly. Zollie and KC were super cool. We all hung around Nashville, Kristen being our ultimate tour guide. Kristen also took me babysitting at her aunt Nan's house (she's famous) and I watched her play softball with her Uncle Tad (who took us out to Calypso food afterwards). Then, Kristen and I went and saw a genuine bluegrass show at a bar. The band was the Old Crow Medicine Show, and Steve Earle's son opened for them. It was a great time. Unfortunately, hovering over the entire event was the fact that Meeshe was not with me. So, I enjoyed everything for the both of us, and missed her most at night. [Michelle's Perspective] Still in the clink.... Unable to get in touch with Michael for my single phone call. Sad.
/ Maryville, TN [Michael's perspective] I drove into Maryville, with the hope that Michelle would soon join me there. As I was pulling into the town, our faithful (?) RV, which was acting funny the entire trip from Nashville, just plumb went out of gear and wouldn't go back in. So, I coasted to a stop and called Steve and Pat Lafon (Shane's folks) and asked if they couldn't come pick me up. Steve got me and I stayed the night there. The next day, there was a note that I should use the car and they had left the keys in the ignition. I went down to Verni's (Passionfish Tattoo - for those of you who don't know) and began work on a website for those folks there. That night, I went home with Verni and spent the next few days with Verni, the boys, and whoever else needed a place to crash (it's amazing how they build community!) [Michelle's perspective] My mom had offered to drive me to Knoxville/ Maryville to meet back up with Michael. I was shocked, but I accepted her offer. So we had a mother/ daughter roadtrip. It was fun, apart from the fact that my mom has some voice issues and couldn't really speak. I was excited about bringing her to meet Shane's parents and the Passionfish folks. She really really loved the Lafon's house, and took and entire roll of pictures around their property. (They live on a hill in the mountains over a lake and have cows. My mom loved all of it!) After Michelle's mom left, we needed to figure out what to do about our vehicle situation. We went to church with The Lafons on Sunday, Heritage Sunday. (This is a day when all the folks in the church dress "old-timey", like in overalls and bonnets, and the pastor rides to work on a horse!) During the service, Pastor Jerry Russell was talking about the service that the church should and will offer. In the midst of that, he added, "And we have 5 cars, anybody need a car?" Michael and I looked at each other. We, uh, needed a car. So after church we decided to call just to see if he was being serious. We got in touch with a wonderful man named Larry who invited us to his house to look at the cars the "Wheel Healers", a small group of guys at the church, were fixing up that had been donated. After dinner with his wife, Susan, and his kids, he signed over the title to an 1987 Nissan Sentra. And we didn't have to do anything! How crazy is that?? Michael finished that website he was working on for Verni and we both got amazing tattoos in return. Honestly, Passionfish is the best tattoo shop in the world. We loved our time in Maryville, but we hated saying goodbye to our little home. Our RV stuck with us almost until the end. And we trek onward. One of Michelle's favorite cousins, Tom, (Michael likes him too) got married to a lovely woman, Lucia, in Charlottesville, VA. Michelle's whole family was going to be at the wedding, so we got into our new little car and gave it its first challenge-- a 6 hour ride to the Harpers' hotel. We lost power and stalled out while on the highway at 11pm, which was a bummer. But thankfully, it just turned out that we had run out of gas (broken gauge) and thanks to some very kind and helpful college boys, we took care of that and were on our way soon. It was hands down the best mechanical problem we've had this whole trip! We made it to the hotel and shared a room with Michelle's brothers. We went to the wedding the next day which was just lovely, and later Michelle went to spend some extra time with extended family while Michael worked on a website design job he had to finish.
Durham, NC Walltown, the neighborhood you're never supposed to go into, four blocks from a typical suburb. Durham is an interesting place. Our friends at the Rutba House (Jonathan, Leah and Isaac) were gracious to host us on this leg of our journey. While Jonathan and Isaac just got finished with a semester at Duke Divinity School, Leah has been working for a ministry in Walltown (appropriately enough: Walltown Neighborhood Ministries) and the three of them are planning a move into the Walltown neighborhood early this summer. We went to one afternoon of after-school care, an evening bible study, got up for prayer one morning, and participated in the life of this new community. After having dinner with our friends, Scott and Roberta, they convinced us to come the next day and stay the night. Even though we have to be a little less spontaneous now that we don't have the camper, we were still able to take them up on their offer. Scott and Roberta walked us around their gentrifying neighborhood, giving us a mini-reality tour. We had good conversations around faith-based peace and justice work, the difficulty starting a community, and God's provision. Our friends at the Little Flower Catholic Worker had bought a new log cabin and land out in Louisa, so we decided to pop in and visit them for a few days. We were glad to see that Bill and Sue were both there, neither of them locked up, as well as all their kids, Isaac, Anna, and Gaby. We also met Cath and Brian. We spent our days picking off ticks and watching beavers, and going to birthday parties. It was a good time with them, sleeping in their guest tent and hearing about their own community issues, joys and struggles. We stopped for the last time on our trip to relax, sight-see and be just the two of us. We got a hotel near Shenandoah National Park, bought our food and stayed a few nights scrap-booking, updating the website, and reading.
Burke, VA Michelle had made friends with a women 9 years ago when she took a trip to Albania. She and Lora Lynn have kept in touch all these years and make infrequent visits to one another. It was time for our annual visit with her and her husband Andrew. They recently became delighted parents of twin boys (Ian and Sam) and were happy to have us there to be an extra set of arms! They also made us some wonderful meals and we sat outside conversing under the gentle hum of the cicadas in the trees. We enjoyed our weekend with them, as usual. Another Word and World friend, Elizabeth McMeekin, invited us to stay with her and her family for a few days. It was wonderful to get to know her family, her husband Phil, her children Gabriel, Jamila, and Raphael. They were fun and creative children and had much to share with us. While we were with them, we visited the Holocaust museum, which was really intense, and went to worship with Elizabeth one evening. We also visited with her at the Servant Leadership School where she works. There, also, we met Jenny, who was planning with her husband Mark, to go on a roadtrip around the country and eventually abroad. She was thrilled that we were taking a similar trip and decided to schedule a time to meet up with us to discuss our adventures and give them tips. So we met she and Mark at Ben's Chili Bowl in DC, where they served vegetarian chili! Yum! We hadn't seen our friend Lydia Antunes Black, a former Simple. in years. Not since her wedding three years ago. So we were so glad when she was able to host us overnight in her and Chris' tiny (but totally sufficient!) apartment. So much has happened over the past few years that we got to catch up on, and it was great to get all the updates. Lydia and Chris are so happy, and it was refreshing to spend a day with them as our trip came to a close. And for our almost-to-the-end stop, we're back where we started almost 9 months previously. This time, however, our car was working fine (knock on wood). We were in time to help the Brix family celebrate Elizabeth and Darren's almost baby, Caden. The baby shower was a success and we had a good time reconnecting with family. But we couldn't help but look towards the future, and home. For the last three dys of our trip, we went to Cranelieth Spiritual Center for a silent retreat. While there, Sister Marie led us in some great reflections and ways that we could fold our trip into our lives as we re-enter the community here. Our last moments of the trip included trying to go out to our favorite Philly restauraunt, but finding it closed. We are glad to be home and ask for prayers as we settle back into the swing of things here at the simple way. |
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