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This is an excerpt from a short story, “Chicken,”  written by my friend and author Rob Stennett. It takes place in a chicken restaurant, but it’s not really about a chicken restaurant – it’s about the people who go there or don’t go there. It’s about the employees who are caught in the middle. And mostly it’s about a young cashier at the restaurant who happens to be gay. Here’s the excerpt from the short story:

I was trying to take things just one customer at a time. After I gave the teary eyed woman her chicken sandwich, she said, “It’s so nice to be served by someone who has the same values as I do.”

I nodded as she walked away. Just keep smiling. You can do this. My next customer was a man in a camouflage jacket with a thick
tangled orange beard. Unlike the others, he didn’t meet my eyes. He fished for change in his pocket and said, “I’ll have one of those chicken biscuits and a coffee.” I rang up his order. As he handed me his change, he told me, “I’m not normally much for crowds, but if buying chicken is a way to tell the gays what we really think, it seems like the right thing to do.”

These are just words, I told myself. They don’t mean anything. If it upsets you, don’t listen. Pretend he said something else.

“We need to let those fags and dykes know they’re not going to run our country,” he said.

Sticks and stones, break our bones, but words go places sticks and stones can’t reach. They seep into our thoughts and strangle our souls. At that moment, I felt like I couldn’t just say please and thank you. I couldn’t pretend he didn’t say anything.

You can get an e-version of the entire story for .99 at Amazon HERE. No matter which side you found yourself during the recent chicken restaurant hubbub, you should check this out because Rob uses his excellent story-telling skills to raise all kinds of important questions. I hope you’ll take the short time it takes to read this and let Rob or I know what you think.

Today’s guest post, brought to you by author Karen Henry Clark, is their story of adopting a little girl, finding out that she had been abandoned on the steps of a leather factory, and then recreating that child’s lost first year. Enjoy.

When the nanny handed our daughter to us on a summer day in China, I remained calm.  The journey was finally finished.  Little did I know.

I smiled brightly until my husband gave me the orphanage report: “Baby found forsaken on steps of leather factory.”  I realized this tiny girl would always live with a mystery.  She would carry unreachable memories locked forever in her mind, her bones, her heart.  I began to imagine a history for her—something beyond the confines of that basket balanced on a step.  She needed a way to think about the first year of her life.

She was eleven months old and spoke Chinese baby talk, refusing to repeat the words we recited to her once we returned to America.  Then one night in our yard a cloud drifted away from a full moon hung in a navy blue sky.  Leaning out of my arms, she pointed up and said, “Moon!” with a sense of certainty and joy that made me believe they had been dear friends from the very first day of her life.

What else in China could have made such an impression on her?  What could she have seen there that still lingered in her memory?  I looked around her room.  She loved books about a turtle named Franklin.  She was fascinated with a peacock feather.  She played faithfully with a sock monkey.  Each night she slept with a stuffed panda in her arms.  And like an Asian Huckleberry Finn, she happily carried a miniature pole over her shoulder with a plastic fish affixed.

Who’s to say a turtle, a peacock, a monkey, a panda, and fish weren’t somehow part of her early life?  That rice basket on a step in China, just like the one in our living room, could carry a baby down a river from claw to paw to wing.

These became the snippets of tales I told her, trying to fill those first days of her life.  Then I wrote it down.  Once upon a time, I had imagined myself as a published author, but decades of rejection had eroded my resolve.  I had given up.  Until now.  I had to show her the importance of trying one more time to collect the pieces of a shattered dream.

This one was the charm.  My first picture book, Sweet Moon Baby: An Adoption Tale, was published by Alfred A. Knopf.  What began as an answer for her ended up being an answer for me.

After I read the book at a school, an adopted Chinese kindergarten girl announced: “I’m the real Sweet Moon Baby.”  I understood it was an answer for her, too.  In the past few years, other families have written to me to say the story offers a powerful metaphor for their adopted children.

And to think it all started with one baby found on the steps in China.

Karen Henry Clark wanted to be a published author for as long as she can remember.  But her life took many turns.  She has been a teacher, college administrator, bookstore shelver, costume shop clerk, advertising copywriter, and newspaper and radio book reviewer.  No matter how she earned her way, she was always thinking about possible story lines and jotting down character names.  She dreamed of having her own ISBN number.  SWEET MOON BABY: AN ADOPTION TALE, about adopting her daughter from China, is her first published picture book with ISBN 978-0-375-95709-3. You can also find Sweet Moon Baby on Facebook.

If you’d like to submit a post telling the story of a poignant moment that occurred during adoption or foster care, please email your 500-word submission to shawnsmucker@yahoo.com. Thanks!

Prior adoption and foster care posts include:

Do You Tell Them There Are Millions of Orphans in China? – Adoption Stories with Kelly Raudenbush
Open Adoption and Who Gets to be the Mom on Mother’s Day – Adoption Stories with birthmom Ashley Glick
The Problem With Permanent Marker – A Foster Care Story With Jeffrey Lane
Fear and an Open Adoption – Adoption Stories With Rebecca Wenrich
I Saw Our New Son and the Voice Said, “Run Away” – Adoption Stories With Kim Van Brunt
Checking ‘Yes’ to Everything: Adoption Stories With Sonya Judkins
Because Someone Has To: Adoption Stories With Shar Halvorsen
Momma For a Moment: A Foster Care Story, With Tamara Out Loud

It basically comes down to this: I cannot explain my life.

I’m beginning to realize, in hindsight, that this is why I blog: these posts are an attempt to find meaning. To rationalize my fight against the weight of our culture’s materialistic expectations. To maintain the courage to live an unexplainable life. To live simply. To live with purpose. To take risks.

Blogging helps to remind me why I keep trying to do all these things.

Yet as my own life continues, I find myself often afraid of that very calling. Or at least confused by it. Or full of doubt, wondering if I’m too conceited or self-obsessed – maybe I need to conform, to sit down, to stop speaking. What if, after encouraging people to live an adventurous life, my own journey comes to an untimely end? The last thing I want to be is yet another example of how taking risks is just another form of irresponsible living.

Or even worse: what if I reach the point where I’m no longer willing to live the life I am endorsing?

* * * * *

In June we returned from our trip, weary and uncertain, financially poor and full of doubts. We were aglow from the burn of new adventures. During that time, and after much consideration, we decided that moving to the city was the right thing to do. Since we homeschool our children and do not get the easy interaction that comes with having children in public school, we believed that living in close proximity to people would better allow us to contribute to a community.

It was with much excitement that we began looking to purchase a house in the city of Lancaster. I still didn’t have work lined up, so we started slowly, patiently, unwilling to commit to purchasing a house until a new project came through. During that time, we lost out on multiple houses we would have loved, simply because we felt a still, small voice whispering, “Wait.”

Then, a new project, and we felt the reins loosen a bit. We got more serious about buying. Still, each place we looked at, and liked, fell through for one reason or another. The ones we liked the most sold to other buyers almost immediately. We shifted our search to a small town south of the city. We found a place. We put in an offer. They countered.

Maile and I prayed. We prayed hard. Is this where you want us, God? Is this what we’re supposed to do? Is this where you want our family? Maile even told me later that on the morning we needed to submit our signed offer, she prayed, God, if you have something else for us, you’d better make it happen quickly.

Before signing the counter-offer, I happened to talk to a friend.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before,” he said. “And you’re free to move forward with the house if you’d like. But I’ve got a cabin on 40 acres in southern Lancaster County. You’re welcome to stay there for one year if you’d like. It’s up to you.”

The picture at the top of the post is of my dad helping me clear the yard where we’ll be living for the next year.

* * * * *

There is a peace that comes when I do not hold tightly on to my own desires. When I allow the Spirit to move me and nudge me. When my prayerful wife and I submit to one another, knowing that we are both seeking with all of our hearts. It is with great peace that we accepted his offer, and it is with great excitement that we look forward to November, when we will move, once again, into the middle of nowhere.

And this is where my not understanding comes into play. This is when I cannot explain things. Because, logically, I agree with Christians who say we should live in cities. We should live among people, where we can help the poor and the sick and be good neighbors. I understand that. I agree with it. What I don’t understand is why God continually leads us, as a family, in a different direction, into remote places of peace.

Could it be that God believes I am a more productive writer in that environment? Could it be the best place for our family at this point? Could it be that life is full of seasons, and that some day we will be the outwardly missional family I envision, but that right now, for some reason unbeknownst to us, we are supposed to live in a 40-acre wood at the end of a half-mile lane?

I don’t know. I don’t always understand. I cannot always explain my life. But I know this: as Maile and I struggled to remain patient, God was there for us. When we don’t understand, he is there for us. When bad things happen, he is there for us. When we ran out of money this summer, he was there for us. And, when unexpected grace after grace falls from the sky, he is there with us.

This is why I blog.

* * * * *

When’s the last time you were confused by God?

“do we subconsciously feed our girls less, for fear of them being fat, or do we trust them to know when they’re hungry and full? do we teach shame, or pride? the good kind of pride, the kind that says i’m a daughter of a heavenly father, and i have no reason to be afraid of what man can do to me. because i’m loved.”

* * * * *

“In theory, this responsibility scares me.  Before I was a parent, the task of raising up a human seemed enormous.  But in reality, no one else can speak to my kids like I can.  No one else knows when to count ominously, “1…2…don’t make me get to 3” or when to kneel down with open arms.  Someone else might guess.  They would probably even guess correctly.  Parenting isn’t rocket science.  Still, they wouldn’t be in tune with my child in the same way I am, feeling about them the way I do.  They’re as much a part of me as my feet or my fingers.”

* * * * *

“All of this brought such a feeling of failure, not even really about me, but about my family, my kids. It was killing me that I was bringing possible struggle onto my kids. I can handle my choices hurting me in painful ways but I cannot handle hurting my wife and kids. That felt unbearable and that is what I was carrying with me back and forth between work like a ton of bricks. It’s the only thing that forced me to face my fear, to feel it, to stay lost until I figured something out. Otherwise, I would have just ran.”

* * * * *

“I’m over roommates, friends. Thirty-two is looming on the horizon and I’m over roommates. I’m over “doing life” with people and splitting rent. I’m over it. All I knew two years ago when thirty was looming on the horizon was that I wanted family and nothing else would do.”

* * * * *

“I’ve been busy, but I’ve also been bogged down. I’m currently going through the toughest stretch of my life. I’ve never been under so much pressure. I’m married, I have a mortgage payment and a one-month old baby boy…and I haven’t made significant money from my business in almost a month.”

* * * * *

“So, there is no conspiracy to silence or ignore the Gnostic writings. They are seen — and even embraced — as an important aspect of the early church.”

“Now here’s where your question contains the answer to your question. You ask why Christianity can so conveniently dispose of alternate narratives of the Christian story. As a student of church history, I can attest that there has been nothing convenient about the church’s journey of orthodoxy and canonicity.”

* * * * *

“Sand trails traipse from bed to beach and back
around. Sun warm paths to wide-eyed wonder,
heavy lidded slumber capping days lived hot.”

* * * * *

“As the story goes, it used to take me two days to write a single article. The process was so painful, that I’d write the next article after a month. And as you’d expect, two days of that month and all the months to follow, were miserable as well.”

* * * * *

“I contemplate nothingness, the nothingness I felt when I went to church, the nothingness I felt when the butcher greeted me by name, and I wonder if this is not the sign of something, if this feeling of nothingness is a warning.”

“Until I realize, this is a feeling of peace.”

In an effort to emulate the successful 2008 Obama campaign, Romney’s team has begun circulating rumors eerily similar to those Obama waded through for the last four years.

“While we do not explicitly deny or admit starting these rumors,” one high-ranking Republican official claimed, “We have noted the way the Democrats came together in fighting the ridiculous claims against Obama, and we want in on that solidarity action.”

The rumors began appearing in online chat forums and random blogs Monday night, and Romney’s team has maintained an eery silence, adding further fuel to the fire. Here is the “misinformation” that has been leaked to the public so far:

1 – Romney is actually a Buddhist. In a direct counter to the “Obama is actually a Muslim,” the Romney campaign tried to ratchet things up a notch by releasing the rumor that Romney is a Buddhist. Unfortunately this backfired – apparently no one cares if you come from a religion known mostly for meditation and self-realization. They have quickly retreated to their original stance that he is a Mormon, believing that could still garner enough controversy on the religion front.

2 – Romney was not born in the US – he was born in the Soviet Union. President Obama was born in Kenya? The Romney camp can do better than that. They’re now claiming a Soviet heritage. Images suspected to be photoshopped by Romney’s team now show the hint of a scar protruding from his hairline, leading to rumor #3 that:

3 – Romney is the secret son of Mikhail Gorbachev. This would appear in some way to be their counter to the “Obama is the son of Malcolm X” rumor. With nuclear weapons and a long dead Cold War rivalry thrown in for good measure.

4 – Romney is actually a woman. Rumors that President Obama might be gay circulated as early as 2010. The Romney team seemed disappointed that they had been beaten to the punch on that one, and have fallen back to the claim that Romney is actually transgender. Apparently he went by Mittsy. And was a lesbian. In other news, they can’t find his birth certificate to support or deny these claims.

5 – Romney is a Nazi. “Conservatives were quick to label Obama as a socialist,” one Romney insider noted. “We think that in some strange way that gave him some kind of political clout. We’re going the Nazi route. But Mitt’s unwillingness to thump the podium, let madness trickle into his eyes, or grow a small mustache is impeding the spread of the rumor.”

Polls have yet to reveal if the rumors have had any affect on voter confidence.