My name is Jenn, and I am a romantic.

I know most of my weaknesses. Okay, many of them. (And this is not the invitation to point out what you always thought was wrong about me.) We all have weaknesses, it's just a matter of what we choose to do with them.

My penchant for the romantic, the 18th century "sublime/romanticism" type, not the Danielle Steele type, can sometimes be like blinders. Wholehearted sentimentality is a burden when you sincerely embrace it as part of who you are. I am guilty of founded and unfounded nostalgia alike. And I am a flea market bum. I know all these things, and have thus far not made moves to change them. They are weaknesses to be sure, but are deeply rooted in my values and not likely to change before August first.

Because I recognize this, I am taking active steps to try and neutralize any romantic ideas that have built up over time in me about Appalachia and the people there, primarily created, and now fought, through reading. I want to be fair and have as few expectations as I can. I know I am highly influenced by what I read (another weakness), and have tried to be careful in my reading selection. But last weekend I ran into a complication. I read a academic paper written by two professors, Ronald Lewis and Dwight D. Billings, called "Appalachian Culture and Economic Development". In their argument about cultural perception, they condemn just about every type of literary/poetic expression depicting Appalachia, save Frederick Law Olmsted's edition on the region entitled "A Journey in the Back Country", in which the only distinction he recognizes between the Deep South and Appalachian people is the mountains they live in. "They were just poor people" where ever they were.

Lewis and Billings say most popular portrayals are based on the "myth of Appalachia". The Myth is made of everything that goes into the general stereotype of Appalachian people. You know it, straight out of Deliverance: illiterate, no shoes, less teeth than shoes, drunk, prone to depression. The Myth goes all the way back to the "first" American folk song, "New England's Annoyances". The "Annoyances" is my favorite example used in the report; allow me expansion. Dated circa 1630 the "poem is a self-depreciation of New England's farmers poking fun at Englishmen who regarded the colonists as 'rustic hicks' who lived disheveled lives of grinding poverty". The anti-RedCoat song explains clothing for instance:
"And now do out Garments begin to grow thin.
An Wool is much wanted to card and to spin;
If we can get a Garment to cover without,
Our other In-Garments are Clout upon Clout;
Out Clothes we brought with us are apt to be torn,
They need to be clouted soon after their worn;
But clouting our Garments they hinder us nothing;
Clouts double are warmer than single whole Clothing."
Now for the life of me I cannot understand how that was written as a self-depreciation against someone else, but the point is taken that being known from wearing underclothes that are "Clout upon Clout" (a clout is a patch) is not the ideal way to start for characterization as a region. But if Lewis and Billings are right, then there is nearly nothing "creative" for me to read about the region that will give me an idea of what I am making my way toward.

What a bummer!

I don't even mean creative as in "a creative look at things", but as in, not academic, not scientific; I would settle for "approved" journal entries!

I am not so naive as to think a stroll through the Cumberland Gap is going to lead me to Jodie Foster pushing daises in the eyeballs holes of her dead mother's skull; I am pretty sure she is still alive anyway. I don't know I would have the guts to drink real moonshine if I came across it for fear of lead and adelhyde poisoning. I am right there on board with one pastor from the region when he shares, "A woman from Georgia working with Coeburn on mission projects informed us that some folks in her church would not participate in mission work in Coeburn because "they are a bunch of crackheads." Now we are barefoot, poor, uneductated crackheads who all handle snakes in church. What a picture!"

The stereotypes are outrageous and my whole self-reeducation is about breaking them down, but I do believe in regional distinctions. Anyone who has traveled outside of one area can recognize that the people in Seattle are very different from the people in Georgia. I was raised in the "melting-pot school system mentality" and, sure, we are all much more similar that we are different, but ignoring the differences does a separate sort of harm. More is lost than gained when we loose regional variances and assume homogeny. At the other extreme, yes, everyone is an individual, but very few cases of absolute separatism exist. If they did, we would never know anyway. In this case, both attitudes have their place. Individual people belong to collective groups, no matter how blurred lines get and overlap. I will give that not all, or even probably most portrayals of Appalachia are accurate, but I will not give up on a distinct regional character. Not in one particular person, but in the accurate characterization of a culture and its subcultures.

So, what's a girl to do? I am taking Lewis and Billings for the economic and historiographical analyses, but their literary critiques with a grain of salt and fighting one weakness (vulnerability in reading) in favor of another (preservation of romanticism). Not all weaknesses are bad. Not all vulnerabilities are bad. Sometimes growing we grow passed them. Sometimes they lead us to great adventures.

I'm not looking for "almost heaven" or life "older than the trees", but I would settle for a "mountain momma" or "miner's lady".

Me vs. Them does not equal We.

Last Sunday I attended one of the roof-top feast extravaganzas my friends over and Bushwick Department of Public Works throw. While there I met 0H10M1KE, or "OhioMike", an artist who spent some time doing social work with AmeriCorps in southeast Ohio. We started talking about this project and as I expressed my desire to avoid being seen as a voyeur or missionary, he cut me off and said "But thats exactly what you are! And the sooner you accept it, the better for you and them." Harsh words. But, I think they are probably true.

Many people who know the Appalachian culture (and some who don't, but know hollywood) have warned me that the people are insular and no one will trust me, and "Ha, good luck with that". I admit that, yes, the Appalachian people are wary of "outsiders". They are proud, independent, and determined for preservation. And, looking at the history of the region, the ongoing failure of governmental programs, and the exploitation by many big business (energy) corporations, who can really blame them? Even in that characterization are a million and one unfair assumptions. I know this makes the job of anyone coming from the outside harder, but those traits are precisely what I am attracted to and see also in myself. Determination, even stubbornness. (When I am complaining in 3-4 months, feel free to refer me back to my own profession here.)

Merriam-Webster defines a voyeur as "a prying observer who is usually seeking the sordid or the scandalous". I admit my project walks the line of that. It would be easy to roll into a town like Ansted and paint a picture of good vs. bad. Small town against big uncaring coal. But I believe stopping to say, "Wait, I just want to listen to you" instead of, "Here's what we can accomplish this week..." will lead to something different, unplannable and better. I am more interested in accurate characterization of who is fighting, than the resolution of the MTR conflict. I care, but more about the people and what they are feeling. Nothing is going to change anyway if everyone is just pissed off at each other.

The whole thing has gotten me thinking about the nature of this project, and "working for change". I want to accomplish something. But the more definition I give that something, the further I am from it. By leaving the goal open, whatever comes my way becomes acceptable and valuable, and the experiences I have are reason enough for a seven-day road trip. In a lot of ways it's really selfish, to be sure. But I am making my peace. If you know me even moderately well, you know what I do is DO. I have a project-based personality, and when I set myself to get something done, I get it done, and do it well. It's work ethic. Having a concrete goal for the trip is attractive to me. Then, at the end I can look at what I did and see that I succeed or failed. I have a set of recordings or I don't. But, sometimes I get so dug in, I don't leave room to listen if God is even there. Taking this week in Appalachia will be a different sort of challenge. Pursuing a general notion or gut feeling that I am supposed to travel and JUST listen, is very scary for me. But I am getting closer.

I am excited to just get out of the city. I want to see new terrain and experience new things. I love to drive. I love to drive pickup trucks. I want to DO a lot on this trip. Meet a few people, record stories, fight injustice, save the world. But, instead, for this one week, I am going to try and intentionally not do anything leading to anything bigger. I want to see stuff, smoke a cigar, ride a horse, forget Manhattan, swim. If nothing else, it's a refueling. At the end I can say, I am still exhausted, or I am not. And, you know, I think I am okay with that.

This is big for me because I am, by nature, a Martha. I'm going to try and be a Mary.

The story of Martha and Mary is one of those I never fail to walk away from convicted. Jesus and his buddies are going along and stop at this village where these two sisters live who say they will host the guys for dinner. Martha is the one who actually invites them and then gets to the cleaning, cooking, and everything else that goes into being a good hostess. While she's busting her butt, sweating for sure, her sister Mary is sitting on the ground listening to Jesus talk. Every time I hear this story imagine Mary with her head tilted to the side and her eyes really wide and shiny, a little like a puppy. I guess that betrays who I relate to.
So Martha takes Jesus aside and said, "Lord, I'm the one doing all the work and that bum is just sitting there! She'll listen to you; tell her to get up off her kiester and help!"
Instead, Jesus sees right through it and says, "Martha, chill out for a second. You are clearly upset and worried about a lot, but you really just need one thing. To sit down and be with me! Mary is right on this one, I'd rather hang out and eat hot dogs and cold baked beans than get the filet minion and not see you."

Mary had a mission. But it became HER mission. She was no longer motivated by serving the Lord, but serving her mission. Goals are not a bad thing by any means. But, though the guidance counselors out there hate to hear me say it, from a Christian perspective, I think short term goals can become distracting from the greater mission: to praise God and glorify his Holy Name. At least for me, I become so focused on getting something done and doing it with excellence, that I forget the entire reason that I am doing it for the first place. For example, I have been working all these late hours working on the website for the church I work at. Web design and html are not things I am inclined to, skilled at, or enjoy, but I have been so adamant about doing this efficiently and skillfully that I have been working myself into a stressed-out bomb, ready to be triggered by just about anything that bumps into me. It wasn't until yesterday when I hit a wall, and hard, that I came back to reality and remembered that the commandments don't say "thou shall meet thy deadline" and Jesus didn't say "Blessed are the efficient." It was more important for me to go out for $2 margarita happy hour at Brother Jimmy's BBQ and be with my brother and sister in Christ, than log three more hours on a behemoth of a project. Jesus says, "Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." Being with Jesus is more important than hospitality, websites, and even evangelism. It is out time with Jesus that prepares us and motivates for these things. Any other order inevitably just makes you a pissed-off-Martha.


OhioMike was right. I am an outsider. There is no way that will ever change. He told me of someone that moved to the small town he was working out of when he was 4 years old. That man had remarked that he was still treated like an outsider even after all the years, into midlife. It would be both pretentious and unrealistic to think that I am going to be accepted as an honorary member into the circle in one week, and as hard as I work, I probably never will be. The truth is, I will undoubtedly gain more than I will give. Despite how deeply anchored this trip is in my faith, my belief that we are charged with the care of the earth and each other, my desire to give something back, I have not been looking at this as a missions trip. If it was, I would obviously have a color-coordinated t-shirt, and more of a plan than an approximate driving itinerary putting me in a new town just about every night. I have serious reservations about the benefits of short term missions, but the strongest argument in favor is the selfish one. Sometimes the "missionary" becomes the one who is changed. A short term mission can open someone's eyes and mind, maybe even propelling them forward to greater action. The value of a mission can't be measured by what is accomplished in one week, but can only be revealed by a long view of the situation.

I have peace with this being a foundation for something more. I think that I am so relaxed about goals for this particular trip because in my mind and heart I am already committed to a long term experience. I don't know what my relationship to the environmental community will be in a year or ten, but I know I don't have to get everythinig done right now.

As hard as it was to initially hear, Mike did say, "the sooner you accept it, the better for you and them". Me and Them. Whoever "them" is, I do have the ability to be a human in relationships, not just an intrusive robotic force coming to take over the earth and, you know, do stuff. I am so ready to get-my-Mary-on.

All things start, Once Upon A Time...

"Once upon a time there was a girl. She lived in Brooklyn, and worked in Manhattan, but was not satisfied.

She was happiest sitting in her rocking chair on her apartment's stoop, pretending it was a front porch, her over-grown cherry tomato plants and untrimmed hedges, a deep wood. But it wasn't enough..."

That's the simplified version I suppose.
I am in the final stages of planning a trip to Appalachia with the soul purpose of meeting people and listening to them. Particularly about coal mining. For a lot of people in my life, this has seemed to come out of no where, and in some ways it has. It has only been a few months since I decided to take on this project, but as my mentor asked, "Jenn, how do you think God works?" As sudden and compulsive as this all seems (and feels), environmental issues and the role the arts can play has long been on my heart.

I was trained in undergrad as a visual artist and moved to Brooklyn in 2007 to avoid and trick myself out of going to grad school right away. I pursued art since, but over the past 6-8 months came to the realization that I am not interested in making sculpture a career. I entered into a period of exploring alternate ways of doing what I was trying to accomplish with my art, seeking a better fit.

Storytelling emerged from a hobby to a more serious pursuit. I have thrown myself into both telling and listening, assembling as much a piecemeal apprenticeship as I can. Part of my observations has been teaching others to tell their own stories. I have a passion for advocacy, and even more so for supporting self-advocacy. There is no stronger argument than your own story. The arguments of ethos (ethics) and logos (logic) are often very simply put, so as to be more concrete, but to argue pathos (emotion) is messy and complicated, and powerful.

I came to this realization, listening to a story about mountain turkeys. Elizabeth Ellis was the catalyst that brought together the disparate parts of the last 6 years of my life.

During my undergraduate studies in Chicago I became involved in environmental actions. At a conservative Christian campus, along with a writer, musician, and filmmaker (the science department noticeably disinterested), we founded the first environmental group in the college's history, the Creation Care Coalition, or C3. I particularly embraced an Evangelical Christian environmental group called Restoring Eden. The slogan "God's original plan was to live in a garden with naked vegetarians" and the director's assertion that "God made our middle finger longest for a reason" appealed to my senses smothered by the college.

At the time, we were focusing on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I joined them to lobby in DC during Spring of 2005. What our group brought the the table that others didn't was an amazing man called The Reverend Trimble Gilbert. He was a respected musician, Episcopal priest, elder of the Gwich'in people who live in the refuge, and one hell of a storyteller. He told about the centuries old dependence of his people on the caribou who future was in question. He taught us to know what it was like to wake up to the sound of a 400lb bull outside your window. Rev. Gilbert's stories taught me that the link between environmental and human injustice is one of the most powerful arguments against environmental destruction. Plus, he was just an amazing storyteller.

The issue of coal mining, mountain top removal specifically, has always moved me as one of the most complicated issues in our country's history. Mountain Top Removal, as opposed to traditional shaft-based mining, is also called surface mining. Explosives are used to blast away layers of earth and rock to small, rich coal deposits. 16 tons of "terrain displacement" yeilds an average of 1 ton of coal. Read more in this article by Smithsonian Magazine.

Certainly mining has shaped the Appalachian region's personality nearly as much as it threatens it. Wendell Berry says in his essay "Harry Caudill in the Cumberlands", "The region is, after all, part of a 'national sacrafice area,' and has been so considered and so treated by governments and corporations for well over half a century... [Caudill's stories] show the influence of cultural inheritance, topography, geography, poor farming, and the oppressions of coal." The best expression of a region's history is it's stories. It's where all the science, stats, pictures, and documents are digested into something human and tangible. A person sitting across from you, telling you what they know and how they feel.

It is hard to look someone in the eye and tell them that they don't, in fact, feel a professed something. You can tell them they don't have a right to feel it, or it comes from the wrong motivations, or they don't understand (not that you're necessarily right either way), but it is very difficult to, for example, look at a crying child and tell them, "You're not upset." A little boy might cry over a little spilled milk, but he doesn't recover by realizing he's not really upset, he does so by getting past it.


So what the heck am I doing?
My intention is to travel and absorb, mostly listening and recording other people's stories to try and gain a better understand of what Appalachia currently looks like. I have a few people along that way that I know will speak to me about coal mining specifically, from both sides of the conflict, but I am mostly just planning on stopping frequently and hoping God brings the people I should talk to into my life. I don't presume to understand the complexity of the fight, and know what I am doing looks a bit idealistic, but am grounded by the belief that people's stories are their truths and there is no amount of editing that can censor that.

I want to attempt this not as a voyeur, but as a partner. I am trying to not bring a bias. There is a significant amount of trust involved in recording someone's story, and I am very wary of being perceived as a tourist, missionary type of figure. One of the biggest difficulties lies in the fact that often the people with the most powerful stories don't want to tell them, and those who do jump to attention may have their own motivations. I think the only way to get past this is to be totally transparent.


If you know of people I can stop and talk with or stay with in the region, please let me know. I have been blessed to be lent a car by a family in my parish, and have a flexible itinerary.
Prayers for artistic guidance and financial means are much appreciated if you are the type.


So, once upon a time there was a girl. She liked to wear her hair in pigtail braids but needed someone else to braid them for her. And she started to stir. And she headed west for a bit.