Security

Life in Fire Country

August 15, 2026

 

We could see smoke from a recent nearby fire in our backyard. Note the teeny fire plane toward the top of the photo.

We live in fire country, and maybe it has always been this way, a little. But now “fire season” has officially entered my vocabulary as the fifth season of the year. It ushers itself in, sometimes as early as May, and can linger through November, maybe even into early December, if the rains take a long time to arrive

I grew up in this area and knew that fires were a possibility when I was young, but not like this. There was a string of fires near my home back in the 1970s, but they were minor and eventually authorities figured out that they were started by a local firefighter who needed work.

Also, my parents never seemed to worry about their homeowners insurance or how much it would go up every year, something that regularly concerns me. They never thought that their fire insurance might suddenly be canceled, which has happened to many homeowners in our area. This, perhaps, is my biggest homeowner fear of all. I see folks flocking to our local community Facebook pages to ask if anyone has information about insurance companies that might possibly write them new policies. Many of them end up on the California FAIR Plan, which “provides basic fire insurance coverage for high-risk properties when traditional insurance companies will not.” The FAIR Plan website itself admits that it is “an insurer of last resort.”

My homeowners insurance recently renewed for another year. I am eternally grateful that my insurance company, State Farm, has continued to insure my home, even though it is in a wildfire prone area. It was luck, basically, that my mom worked in a State Farm office before she married my dad and was loyal to the company throughout her life. This meant that my sister and I used State Farm as well, since we almost always did what my mom recommended when it came to adulting types of things—like car insurance and, eventually, homeowners insurance, too. What if she had worked at a different insurance company before marriage? Almost every other insurance company in our area started canceling all their homeowners policies years ago. Continue Reading…

Presence, Security

Not a Christian Nation

August 1, 2026

A marching band in Haiti: thanks to Bailey Torres on Unsplash for the photo. Seems like this photo was taken in happier times.

Sometimes, it’s all a little much.

I woke up this week to the reality that the Trump administration will start deporting Haitian immigrants back to Haiti, even though they possibly (probably?) will die when they return. It doesn’t matter that these folks have lived in the U.S. for years, have had children here who are U.S. citizens, and do good work in jobs that serve others. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem determined this week that Haitian nationals “no longer met the conditions for Temporary Protected Status (TPS).” For years, TPS prevented deportation and allowed people to live and work here because of unsafe conditions or humanitarian crises in their home countries.

In the case of Haitian refugees, it seems especially strange that we revoked their TPS status, because our very own government issued a Level Four “Do Not Travel” warning for U.S. citizens to Haiti only a few days earlier, “due to the risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, and limited health care.” If for some reason you have to go to Haiti, the State Department website encourages travelers to leave DNA samples behind, share dental records with a trusted contact, and draft a will before traveling.

Huh.

The president seems downright gleeful about this and does not seem to care that our government is likely sending people to their deaths. Do the folks who have supported him over the years, including the Republican members of Congress and a majority of our Supreme Court justices, feel the same way? How would it be to know that they have blood on their hands?

I guess some people still believe that the United States is a Christian nation. Actions like this, though, pretty much prove that we are not. This is not a “WWJD” (What Would Jesus Do) sort of thing. It’s cruel and nothing Jesus would have supported. A Christian nation would be about loving our neighbors as ourselves, that most basic commandment. Making it so refugees can’t work legally anymore, even though so many of their jobs were service jobs, helping the elderly and infirm? Not so loving. Sending them to their deaths? Not loving at all.

And then, a question I should always ask myself when I start feeling judgy about the president, the Supreme Court, Congress, and the evil that is going on around us: What is my part? What can I do?

I am grateful that I showed up for my online writing group the other morning. I shared that I woke up sad about the immigration decision, that ICE would start deporting people, potentially sending them to their deaths. One of my writing friends told me about a group that he tries to support, the Haitian Support Center, based in Springfield, Ohio. You can reach them at https://haitiansupportcenter.org/. It’s an organization that is doing its best to provide resources to Haitians who suddenly are unable to legally work and who are at risk of being deported.

That is a little something I can do—but I fear that I don’t do enough.

In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t.