March 5: People wait to board an evacuation train at Kyiv central train station. (Source: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP)
Like so many of you, I’ve been able to think of little else these past few weeks than the nightmare currently unfolding in Ukraine. Barclay and I feel like we’ve been holding our breath each time news alerts pop up on our phone, afraid to look yet anxiously hoping for some miraculous turn of events that bring an end to the war. But as you well know, the headlines just continue to get more devastating, the death tolls and numbers of perfectly innocent people fleeing for their lives continues to mount, the political tensions rapidly continue to deepen and complicate, beloved family homes continue getting destroyed, and there still seems to be no end in sight.
In this season of life, especially, I can’t help but see our Teo in the faces of all the sweet little ones from Ukraine whose images we scroll past — the children in train stations bundled up in their warmest winter coats clutching tiny backpacks, the children crammed in subway bunkers singing songs and trying to sleep amidst the raids, the children hooked up to IV poles in makeshift basement hospitals while terrified parents remain by their sides. It feels incomprehensible that we somehow get to feed our baby a warm meal and tuck him safely into a warm bed at home tonight when millions of parents suddenly, shockingly do not. The more we come to learn about the reality of what they — plus the millions more around the world affected by other humanitarian crises — are carrying right now, the more impossible it all feels to imagine.
But of course, the work of empathy for all of us right now is to try and imagine. To keep paying attention and bear witness to people’s stories, even when the news absolutely breaks your heart. To put ourselves in the shoes of our neighbors and genuinely ask what it means to love them as ourselves. To recognize what an undeserved privilege it is to have food, shelter and safety, especially in moments such as this. And to recognize the accompanying responsibility to do all that we can to help. ♡
I know that you all care deeply about this world and have likely already jumped in to help in countless ways over the past few weeks. But for anyone today who might be feeling “stuck” or helpless or unsure what else you can do next that might genuinely make a difference, I wanted to pop in today to offer some ideas for ways to:
- learn more: articles and videos to better understand what led up to this conflict and the impact the war is having in lower-income countries around the world, especially related to issues of food security
- act: a few do-able action steps (including some related to baking/cooking!) that can make a genuine difference
- donate: while countless organizations are doing amazing work right now, I wanted to highlight three trustworthy orgs who are specifically working to feed people right now
A mentor of mine once said that one of the keys to endurance with social justice work is to regularly rotate between all three of these areas — learning, acting, donating. So if you’ve donated to an organization and now find yourself asking, “what’s next?”, take 5 minutes to call your local representative to advocate for refugee resettlement. If you spent the week organizing a bake sale at your kids’ school, take a quiet evening at home to study why wheat is such a critical topic right now. If you’ve been glued to the news cycle 24/7, take a pause to ask which article impacted you the most this week and donate the cost of your next meal (or much more) to a related charity.
On that topic, I wanted to let you know that Gimme Some Oven donated $5,000 to World Central Kitchen when the war began — an organization on the frontlines feeding people (while also still continuing other emergency and development initiatives around the world) whose work we have followed and respected for many years. And locally, here in Barcelona, Barclay and I are donating and working with various organizations and grassroots groups helping to support the hundreds refugees who have started arriving in the city this week. The crisis is basically all that anyone is talking about right now here, especially as thousands of Ukrainians are expected to settle in Spain this month, and it has been deeply moving to see how instantly and generously people all over the city have jumped in to help. I hope that continues on for many, many months to come.
Anyway. ♡ I am of course no expert on any of this, but if you’re also looking for new ways to stay involved, hopefully some of these resources might be helpful. As Glennon Doyle always says, “we belong to each other.” So here’s to doing all we can right now to take good care of each other. (more…)
source https://www.gimmesomeoven.com/life/support-ukraine/
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