Jan’s Blog Posts

Pearls help a person look well dressed. Think of all of the photographed pearl-wearing First Ladies of the U.S. — and now our first woman Vice President, Kamala Harris, shares her lovely pearls everyday (see United by Pearls, 8-30-21). Go ahead and wear real or faux pearls. The First Ladies wore both kinds! You do not need any selfies to know you look good.

More importantly, let’s also exhibit the pearls of wisdom and generosity. Again, no photos are necessary. As First Lady Barbara Bush advised in her book, Pearls of Wisdom: “In all honesty you really only have two choices: You can like what you do OR you can dislike it. I choose to like it…We can always find people who are worse off, and we don’t have to look far! Help them….” 

It turns out that generous helpers do not just “look good,” but find life-enhancing benefits for themselves. And helping behaviors generally increase after middle-age. Research involving 103 participants (ages 18-99) — who saw a video about a young boy with cancer — experienced mood-enhancing satisfaction when they made donations to a charity. Following the video each person was given an option to donate to the cancer charity listed in the film. Researchers compared oxytocin hormone levels in participants’ blood before and after the poignant film with the optional generosity action. Those releasing the most oxytocin tended to be older and were those most likely to make a donation.

Paul Zak, one of the researchers and director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, was enthusiastic: “What was surprising…was the strength of the relationship between doing good acts and releasing more oxytocin. It is so strong in older people; it’s really one of the most ‘wow’ and bullet-proof (results) I’ve seen in 20 years of being in the lab.”  

While oxytocin is associated with reproduction, breast-feeding, and what social psychologist Shelley Taylor (University of California, Los Angeles) calls the tend-and-befriend stress response in women, oxytocin is also present in men and is associated with altruism, charity, generosity, and trust.

Zak discovered in other research that when a person is intentionally trusted, the brain produces oxytocin, even when a stranger is involved. Oxytocin has a positive effect upon relationships, as wariness is reduced, and others’ emotions seem more understandable.

When applied to the workplace, Zak finds that understanding your work team’s purpose and trusting your team members are the two key ingredients for success. The more trust one experiences with others, the more oxytocin is released in the brain. In a fascinating study, when synthetic oxytocin was safely infused into participants, they demonstrated self-sacrifice to help others — even people who were different from them.      

Could Congress participate in this research and receive some synthetic oxytocin?

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

139. What do you notice in your bodymind when you tend-and-befriend another person?

140. When might you extend your trust level with someone you do not know well?

Some words are worth repeating. Words from my first blog (7-21-21) are a daily reminder for me: “…explore how to string pearls of peace wherever you find yourself on your life’s odyssey.”

Some days it is difficult to find wisdom pearls, as in digesting brutal news of mass shootings last week.

Some Thanksgiving tables were missing family members.

Sometimes there are few words, but lots of emotion that simmers on the back burner. What is broken in America? While gun safety is not the whole solution to what ails our country, there are too many guns available that are not intended for the hunters among us. Do you know anyone who went hunting for their Thanksgiving turkey? Hunting your work team as they arrive for their shift and killing them is heartbreaking.

However, we have many shattering topics for self-correction. We might start with telling the “real” Thanksgiving story. Yes, the Pilgrims fled their homeland to settle in North America to escape religious persecution. The rest of the Thanks-taking story needs airing.   

Matika Wilbur (Swinomish and Tulalip tribes) and Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation) made a documentary to reveal the backstory of Wampanoag-Pilgrim encounters. The Wampanoag tribe was uneasy with the Pilgrims, as they had experienced white colonization with previous newcomers who stole their food and supplies. Another detail not covered in my children’s schooling about Thanks-giving, Tisquantum, (also called Squanto) who served as interpreter and go-between, was English-speaking due to being kidnapped by European settlers and held as a slave previously.

Professor of Colonial American and American Racial History at George Washington University, David Silverman uncovers other unbecoming facts in his book, This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving. Initially our beloved holiday was a Puritan practice of two holy days or fasting days of praying. The mythical “first” Thanksgiving of 1621 has been a sugar-coated origin story fed to school children. The actions of New Englander Thanksgiving involved church attendance, not marathon eating followed by marathon Christmas shopping.   

The Wampanoag people thought their relationship with the Pilgrims might prove helpful in dealing with their rival, the Narragansetts; instead, many lives were lost in the colonization of our country. Today the Wampanoag people consider the arrival of Pilgrim settlers as a day of mourning.

November is Native American Heritage Month (established by the U.S. Congress in 1990). We must find more visible ways of honoring indigenous people who loved this land first. Let’s begin by teaching true history to schoolchildren.

Also, let’s join with groups like Moms Demand Action (established in 2012) to protect people from gun violence. There is a local event on December 14^th (10-year anniversary of Sandy Hook tragedy). Consider the 600+ mass shootings since January, 2022. Atrocities against innocent people continue to shatter families.   

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

137. What did the Thanksgiving weekend mean to you this year?

138. How might people learn to settle differences using words, not weapons?  

Advice for stressed people: “Make a rule — if someone asks you to do something 2 months in the future, just ask yourself, ‘If it was today, could I make it happen?’ And if your answer is NO, then you should also say NO to the thing that is 2 months away.” Professor of Psychology and Public Policy at Princeton, Eldar Shafir, gave this advice, but when asked if he followed his own rule, he said, “I never follow it.”

How much of the time do we give advice to others when we do not follow our advice ourselves?

We all paddle from a seat in the stress boat at times. According to an American Psychological Association (APA) poll, many Americans struggle with multiple external stressors that are out of their personal control. The 2022 Stress in America survey found 27% of adults (ages 18+) reporting feeling so stressed that they cannot function most days.

Issues vying for top stressor cited:

• Inflation (83%)
• Violence & crime (75%)
• Current political climate (66%)  — with 38% reporting that the state of the nation may lead them to move to a different country 
• Personal rights under attack (64%)
• Current racial climate (62%)

Regarding the pandemic, 63% reported that their lives have been “forever changed.” Extensive loss issues (the death of loved ones and/or loss of one’s job or business) coupled with financial stress rocked a boatload of families. The harshest realities capsized those between ages 18-43, parents, and Latino and Black individuals. Over half of the participants reported experiencing strains on relationships or ending relationships. Differences of opinion over vaccines and mask-wearing became overboard issues.

APA’s executive officer, Arthur C. Evans, Jr. gives advice: “Focusing on accomplishing goals that are in our control can help prevent our minds from getting overwhelmed by the many uncertainties in life. From using our breathing to slow racing thoughts, to intentionally limiting our social media consumption, or exercising our right to vote, action can be extremely empowering.” 

Many Americans did vote in the recent mid-term elections (when the usual turnout for midterm voting is abysmally low). Whether voting made a difference in stress levels may depend upon whether your preferred candidates won. However, Evans’s advice is sound.

When we TAKE ACTIONS that are positive (and voting in a democracy is certainly a positive action), we are less stressed. But as the saying goes, Rome was not built in a day. Rarely, is taking ONE action sufficient to reduce one’s stress cargo. What about contacting your elected politicians regularly to let them know your views on climate change for the 8 billion of us tipping our planet’s boat?

Oops! I confess that I do contact my elected officials, but not on a regular basis. See how easy it is to give advice, but then not follow through yourself?

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

135. Were there losses in your personal life in the pandemic?

136. What are actions that you might take to reduce your personal stress?  

Growth has a variety of timetables. Growth through life’s Big-T and Small-T traumas is more difficult for some than others. All do not ripen at the same time or in similar circumstances.

Miriam Alarcón Avila, a visual, multimedia and storytelling artist, was born in Mexico City. She was 14-years-old when an 8.1-magnitude earthquake killed 10,000 people, including some of her friends. At 16 she ran away from home with a journalist ten years older with his promise of giving her a pawnshop camera and Fujifilm. Taking hundreds of pictures but never developing the black-and-white photos, Miriam dropped her love of photography to study science, marry a scientist, and emigrate with her family to Iowa.

Both her husband and children found dream educational possibilities. Miriam won a scholarship for a university course in black-and-white photography. By assisting her professor in his photography lab, she harvested her old photos and rediscovered parts of her legacy. Miriam’s dream was to work for National Geographic magazine; instead, her ripening took longer than she wanted.

Her husband completed doctoral studies in Iowa and planned a return to Mexico. Miriam and her two children did not want to let go of their own educational possibilities, so the family unit separated. Miriam and her children became “undocumented,” as her ex-husband’s visa as a foreign student no longer sheltered them. Years of stress-filled work allowed her to pay the bills, but it was a last-minute decision to attend a photography symposium one day that ripened her dream.

Miriam recalls crying at seeing the work of others. Warm encouragement was offered by a symposium speaker, Jonathan Woods, a photojournalist and producer at Time magazine. He told Miriam that she could pursue her dream when her children were in college in 4 years; he advised a 4-year plan. Miriam attributes this pearl of permission as a turning point: “In that moment, my brain just exploded.”

With a grant from the Iowa Arts Council in 2017 Miriam created her photo documentary project, Luchadores Immigrants in Iowa, with portraits of heroic Latino immigrants wearing masks (that she made herself) to protect identities. Miriam recalled a childhood hero, El Santo, a Mexican professional masked wrestler. A luchador is a person who fights or struggles to achieve goals. When her luchador subjects wear their custom-made masks, they feel empowered.

Harvesting hidden voices, Miriam interviews her photographic subjects and writes their history in poems. Her admirable goal is an effort to fight the false narratives of Latino immigrants to the U.S. She describes her work as fostering “…people from different cultures to see that in essence, we are all the same.” For other poignant immigrant stories, read Somewhere We Are Human, edited by Reyna Grande and Sonia Guiñansaca.

The time may be ripe for you to harvest some old dreams.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

133. When in your life did you drop a dream?

134. Is there a possibility to harvest some aspect of that dream today?

Queen Elizabeth I (reigning 1558-1603 in England) was fluent in 6 languages, studied the Classics and history for 2-3 hours daily, and wrote poetry. She was a skilled musician as well as dancer; for exercise every morning she practiced demanding dances, The Galliard or The Volta (which requires leaping ladies). The scholarly and athletic queen also loved being outside and taking long walks. She was a skilled huntress and enjoyed daily horseback rides. When her horses were not fast enough, her Master of Horse found fresh mounts from Ireland.

When Elizabeth was a tender 2 ½-year-old princess, her 35-year-old mother was beheaded at the Tower of London — Anne Boleyn’s grave error was in giving birth to a daughter instead of a son. Likewise, an 18-year-old step-mother, Catherine Howard, was executed at the Tower when Elizabeth was only 8-years-old. Before casting criticism, we might address why hammer-attacks to Paul Pelosi’s head occurred in 2022.  

Due to crass political scheming, Princess Elizabeth also became a prisoner of the dreaded Tower of London and narrowly escaped losing her 21-year-old head. She ascended to a 45-year throne as the Elizabethan Queen at age 25 when her half-sister, Queen Mary I, died.

It is no wonder that one of Queen Elizabeth I’s surviving poems (On Monsieur’s Departure) dwells on opposing states of mind: “…I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate. / I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned, / Since from myself another self I turned….”

Poets have understood throughout the ages that one’s mind is a concoction of cognitions and emotions that shift. Consider these lines from Stanley Kunitz’s The Layers: “I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, / and I am not who I was, / though some principle of being / abides, from which I struggle / not to stray….”

Stanley Kunitz became Poet Laureate of the U.S. in 1974 and was appointed a second time in 2000 at the age of 95 when he was still publishing and promoting poetry! The last line of The Layers sets his intention to keep growing: “…I am not done with my changes.” Kunitz died at age 100, but at 98-years-young he kept growing, even in his dreams! One remembered dream embraced change: “…there seems to be a transformation going on in which I have a sense of a new life that I’m possessing…I feel I have found myself, my strength.”

This finding of strength acknowledges an inner self, soul or spirit in each of us that can hold onto a peaceful centering regardless of life’s traumas and transformations. We might think of this grounded calmness as an opening to access a full heart and a “full head” capable of growth.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

131. How often do you stop to notice that your thoughts and emotions about a given topic shift in opposing directions?

132. What are some times when you experience a full heart and full head?  

“…Change / Says the fields to the grass, / Seed-time and harvest, / Chaff and grain….” These words come from British poet, critic and scholar, Kathleen Jessie Raine (1908-2003). Her Scottish Mom, Jessie, wrote Kathleen’s poems for her when she was too young to hold a pencil! Raine’s love of poetry kept on giving through the seasons of her 95 years. She often captured the awe of nature, while also detailing how change is our constant companion, wanted or not.

Raine met the Prince of Wales (now King Charles III) and reportedly said, “…that poor young man – anything I can do for him, I will do, because he is very lonely.” A connection was made between poet and Prince as he later gave her much needed support through his patronage of her Temenos Academy of Integral Studies which she founded in 1990 as a “school of wisdom.” Just 2 years later Raine harvested more royal recognition as Queen Elizabeth II blessed her with a gold medal for her poetry. Did Queen Elizabeth II want to write poetry like Queen Elizabeth I?

There are harvest burdens and blessings.

Today begins a Celtic harvest holiday called Samhain (beginning at nightfall and lasting until sunset on November 1^st). The ancient festival celebrated the ending of summer with a need to gather the harvest by Samhain to avoid having it damaged by mischievous spirits. The Celts handled their fears of ravished crops by believing Samhain was a liminal time when communication was possible with a spirit world. They dressed up in elaborate costumes with animal heads and skins to make-believe any spirits would perceive people as supernatural companions. Animal sacrifice was practiced in huge bonfires as token offerings to spirits.

Ancient customs change but persist. Candy tokens are offered to children who dress up as animals and more. Masked paraders prowl festive-decorated neighborhoods today. Romans prowled and conquered the Celts. In the 7^th century Pope Boniface IV declared a Christian substitute for Samhain, changing the name to All Saints Day. A later name change, All Hallows Eve, morphed into today’s Halloween.

Consider reasons for hanging onto this hallow-day. I am grateful for my harvest of Roma tomatoes, but Jeremy Adam Smith, editor of an online magazine (The Greater Good, University of CA, Berkeley) offers these treats:

• Rituals connect us to other people. Halloween visits may help us get to know some neighbors.
• “We need candy.” Smith’s 9-year-old son was credited with this notion, although I agree with Smith on eating a bit of dark chocolate every day!
• Pretending is helpful behavior. Research suggests that pretending helps children play through their fears.
• Ultimately, the playfulness of Halloween helps to prepare us “…for things that are genuinely scary, like climate change.”

Aren’t we the mischievous ones when it comes to climate change?     

Much impermanence is in the air.               

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

129. How do you view seasonal changes from autumn to winter?

130. When do you use pretending to cope with your fears?                     

At the heart of happiness lies peace. It is the last and the highest attainment of the soul, according to  Hugh Black (1868-1953), Scottish-American theologian and author of the classic book, Happiness. 

You may wonder what makes a book a classic. My answer: it is in the eye of the beholder — what is classic to one individual, is not even close to classic to another. But happiness is a classic mood. And peace is a classic, although often elusive, topic.

Here is a deeper dive into Black’s Happiness:

• “The 18^th century was inclined to make a gospel of what it called the rights of [woman and] man and assumed that nature endowed [women and] men with certain abstract rights…but it is more accurate to say that nature endows [woman and] man with desires and capacities. Rights are the creation of society, of law.”
• “In our deepest thinking we usually underestimate the place and value of joy in life.”

We need “our deepest thinking” to handle a plethora of issues in today’s world. We need to consider peoples’ rights in our laws. And we need to hold a space for happiness, joy and peace.

Here is one open-minded-happiness approach: “Happiness is not the absence of problems. It’s the ability to deal with them.” Steve Maraboli is the author of this twist on classic happiness definitions. He is a military veteran and philanthropist who has worked with 40 countries in empowerment programs. He elaborates on defining happiness as a choice; we simply cannot allow ourselves to be defined by our problems. We have happiness capacity!

Another happiness mentor is a British potter who believes that happiness is embedded within one’s awareness of an inner self identity. Observing that the source of lasting peace and happiness comes from within each person, spiritual teacher and philosopher Rupert Spira began reading the poetry of Rumi when he was a teenager. Later, Rupert opened his possibility passport by abandoning a scientific career after visiting a mind-changing pottery exhibition in London. Spira now creates pottery that holds poems incised in clay. Some embedded poetry is his, while other poems are by British poet, Kathleen Raine (find her next week).

Spira carves his pottery philosophy as messages of awareness. Some bowls can be “read,” while others cannot be deciphered. A white Deep Bowl has this incised awareness carved into clay; “…I know no lack and am thus happiness itself.” One in his black Open Bowl series contains these lines: “I am peaceful like the sky. I am open like the sea.”

We have serious divisions in our country as well as in the world. Countries banter and battle in dangerous military shows of force or in actual military maneuvers that kill people, along with children’s choices for happiness. When will peace be our perennial choice? Is war “classic” too?

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

127. What choices for happiness do you make?

128. When are you aware of having an open mind about some topic?  

 

Bright Endeavors’ grand opening celebration in the East Garfield Park neighborhood in Chicago this weekend left me feeling brighter about our interdependent future! Funding through Chicago’s Justice Advisory Council enabled this fledgling candle-making enterprise to find generous space for increased production and shipping of their soy-based candles with fragrances such as Rose & Vanilla, Sandalwood & Patchouli, and Holiday Citrus.

The brainchild of 2 female social entrepreneurs, in 2010 Bright Endeavors merged with New Moms, a non-profit located in the Austin community. New Moms (acquiring former Parenthesis Family Center of Oak Park in 2016) provides housing and family support to young women and their precious babes who cope with poverty and/or homelessness. Nearly 50 % of the moms are high school dropouts; 100% are trauma survivors.

The new spacious warehouse of Bright Endeavors includes loft offices to expand an Academic Coaching Program. Only 8% of single-mother students in Illinois finish an Associate degree within 6 years, compared to 60% of non-parenting students (according to Institute for Women’s Policy Research). Furthermore, 1 in 3 black women in college are single parents.

New Moms guides young women in finding economic mobility by teaching them basic job skills in the comprehensive program at Bright Endeavors. The 16-week paid program trains young mothers in positive work values while also helping them set personal and professional goals for sustainable employment. Each hand-poured candle comes with space for its candle-maker to sign her name under the words, “Created with pride.”

Maybe it was thinking of all the youngsters who will benefit from their moms’ ability to model both work and educational skillsets, but I recalled the children’s book, The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper. I read this book to my children over and over, probably needing the message myself as a working mom with two precious babes. Chug, chug, chug…I THINK I CAN, I THINK I CAN, I THINK I CAN. Aside from dolls depicted as “white” and the ageist reference to the “old, rusty engine” who is “too tired,” there is a timeless quality to Piper’s classic tale. Yes, I think I can __________. Each one of us needs goal setting, whether burned by trauma or not.

Each one of us is a pearl…what if we string our unique pearls together? What might we accomplish when we pull together?

Each child deserves possibilities to fulfill their ability potential. To realize this, kids need illuminating support from parents, teachers, and other co-regulators in their tender years. Kids (and parents) need others who believe in them, and model “I-know-you-can” attitudes.

100% of Bright Endeavors candle proceeds support the mission of empowerment for young families. These fragrant candles are sold at Whole Foods Market, but you might order some directly from www.brightendeavors.org. Help some moms receive “I-know-I-can” skills for job markets this holiday season!

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

125. What new goals are you setting for yourself?

126. How do you finish this sentence? Yes, I think I can ___________.   

Harvest time is a reminder that another growing season is winding down and winter is waiting in the winds. Autumn presents a wistful time for avid gardeners. As I savor the second crop of my ever-bearing red raspberry pearls and hunt zucchini hiding under giant leaves, I realize that these pickings are precious due to their limited timeframe.

My aging garden is a reminder of our human life cycle. John O’Donohue, Irish theologian and philosopher, acknowledged both the fears and gifts of aging. Few speak as passionately about the gifts of aging as O’Donohue. Ironically, he wrote about autumn as a favorite season; he died suddenly and unexpectedly at age 52 before reaching the winter of his life.

O’Donohue’s old-soul understanding of aging inspires many: “…when it is autumn in your life, the things that happened in the past…almost unknown to you, now yield their fruit…you are able to gather lost moments and experiences, bring them together, and hold them as one…[you] see aging not as the demise of your body but as the harvest of your soul…aging can be a time of great strength, poise, and confidence.”

Much of American culture dwells on the spring and summer of one’s life as our times of strength and confidence. Productivity and optimal progress are most esteemed in the U.S. more-is-better attitude. Losses are sidestepped and sometimes denied because of “move-on” thinking. However, writer Joyce Carol Oates maintains that our losses make us more human. Near the end of her memoir, she consoles herself in her widow-status with these thoughts: “I kept myself alive…being older is this kinship of losing people. I have gained a sense of proportion…many things do not matter to me anymore…almost everything is trivial. People complain about the weather.”

Yes, people constantly complain about trivial weather conditions, although the devastating hurricane in Florida, frightening wildfires in California, and massive flooding in Pakistan (affecting 33 million) link people to interdependent losses. We might ask ourselves if we are in the autumn season of our planet. According to NASA, climate change (especially drought) has been the culprit for the rise and fall of past civilizations. Current NASA research documents the rapid changes in Earth’s ice sheets, along with rising global sea levels since 1992. NASA is one of 13 federal government agencies that make up the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Climate change can no longer be denied.  

Solutions to climate change include every world citizen: making biofuels from organic waste, increasing wind and solar power, protecting forests and green spaces, switching to sustainable transportation, encouraging more vegetarian meals, recycling, reducing energy usage, and cutting back on consumption and waste (as in using less plastic).

As we are gardeners of our planet’s bounty, let’s harvest some confidence that we can pull together for the benefit of our interdependent global climate.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

123. What solutions can you think of for reducing climate change?

124. How can you harvest confidence for taking action steps toward a green recovery?

“I need____________.” How do you fill in the blank?

Deviating from Abraham Maslow’s famous ideas on needs, I developed a list of 5 basic needs from my many years as a family therapist. I worked with clients who were languishing in basic survival energy; they reported eating and sleeping problems along with feelings of depression.  Some lacked enough discipline to complete their career-work or homework. And many of my clients, both adolescents and adults, expressed a scarcity of creativity, belonging, and/or ability to meet the potential they wished for in their life.

Often my clients expressed an assumption that “someone” owed them something; their assumption was that IF that “someone” gave them what they desired, THEN their needs would be met. These perceived inadequacies (in oneself and others) relate to one’s lack of perceiving a core self, a calm present-moment consciousness, amidst clamoring desires for needs-in-waiting.

Consider 5 basic needs: Energy, Discipline, Creativity, Belonging, and Ability–EDCBA  (ABCDE’s backwards). Meeting basic needs takes daily attention. It also takes a strength-filled and peace-filled approach.

What does a pearl need to become lustrous and grow in stature? 

Pearls exude strength. Pearls may look peaceful, but it must be challenging to be peaceful amidst immigrant upbringing. A natural pearl is born in trauma, in a disturbance to the parent oyster, mussel, or clam shell. When a foreign irritant, perhaps a parasite, lodges itself into the lining of the mollusk shell, a sac covers the invader and a fluid called nacre coats the intruding irritant. It is the layering of this protective mother-of-pearl (or shell material called nacre) that forms pearls. Nacre is made from a mineral, aragonite; how marine invertebrates secrete aragonite is a mystery.

What does it take for immigrant children to become resilient and grow up with incredible strength?

Children exude strength. Immigrant children may appear peaceful in pictures we see on the evening news, but it challenges anyone in leaving homes and friends for an unknowable destination and outcome. Immigrant mothers and fathers face many irritants and are pearl-makers. They desire a lustrous life for their offspring where they have possibilities to meet basic needs. When we recognize this, perhaps we can address immigration policies in humane ways.

How many years has it been since your ancestors floated to the shorelines of America? Mine came in the 1600’s-1700’s. An English Quaker ancestor sailed in the ship Brittania in 1699 for reasons of religious freedom. While over 200 braved the trip, the crossing was referred to later as “the sick ship from Liverpool;” 75 passengers died enroute or shortly upon arrival in Philadelphia. Other immigrant ancestor reasons for crossings are unknown, but likely all wanted better lives for their offspring. I am grateful for their sacrifices to provide an accepting haven for me and my family to meet our basic needs.  

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

121. When and under what circumstances did your ancestors arrive in America?

122. How might you honor your immigrant ancestors?