Monday, August 30, 2010

Happiness Is

It is easy to let them slip away, those little things, those mundane things, those precious things that comprise our days. How myopic we are, so distracted with our busyness—the laundry spilling all over the basement, the dirty floors, the dusty furniture, the yard ravaged with weeds, the phone calls and emails—that we forget what is truly beautiful and our our joy becomes squashed into a minuscule corner of our hearts. Like Martha, we too are guilty of being so caught up in our work that we stand on the brink of missing the one thing essential. So for today, for this hour, for this minute, let us stop, let us listen, let us look, and embrace the beauty that is all around us.

Happiness is…


An early Valentine from your eldest child. 


A Lego creation complete with kickstands. 


Fresh tomatoes from the garden.


Little boys who have discovered play.


The demure princess with a feisty spirit. We have given her the nickname of Mrs. McGoodles and I have no idea why. She loves to swing and she loves her brothers, especially when they make raspberries and crawl after her.


The first-born prince who was so proud that he didn't need any assistance getting this swing started.


Russell, who last week handed me a glass filled with yellow liquid. Captive in the kitchen by our newly installed four feet high baby gates, his potty in the other room, he had to improvise. Better than the floor was all I could say.


And Elliot who, like his twin, has a new favorite response, "because I have to work tomorrow." For example, "Elliot, why did you poop on the floor?" "Because I have to work tomorrow." But of course. 

Peace and blessings.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Still Heart




Le Champ de Mars
Marc Chagall

Still Heart
Rabindranath Tagore

When I give up the helm
I know that the time has come for thee to take it.
What there is to do will be instantly done.
Vain is this struggle.

Then take away your hands
and silently put up with your defeat, my heart,
and think it your good fortune to sit perfectly still
where you are placed.

These my lamps are blown out at every little puff of wind,
and trying to light them I forget all else again and again.

But I shall be wise this time and wait in the dark,
spreading my mat on the floor;
and whenever it is thy pleasure, my lord,
come silently and take thy seat here.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Putting on Christ

When Jared and I traveled to South Korea to bring home our boys, we basically flew solo. If there were other couples also in Seoul with the same purpose as us, we turned a blind eye to that knowledge, determined to flit around that cosmopolitan city unfettered by anything but our own whims, desires, and Thomas' nap schedule. But adopting from Ethiopia is not the same as adopting from South Korea. Besides many other nuances to our journey, there was the fact that we would be members of a travel group. Frankly, the notion of a travel group was as foreign to us as our daughter's country of birth, but by our third time around, our youthful "go-it-alone" spirit had become more tempered and we were more willingly to embrace, and even anticipated, a collective adoption experience. Our first awakening to the members of our group came via a conference call days before travel. It makes me giggle a bit as I recollect the voices of and the questions raised by these then faceless individuals who have now become an intricate part of our daughter's adoption story and thus our lives. There were seventeen of us making a pilgrimage to the unfamiliar land of our children. We came from all over the States with diverse religious backgrounds, political affiliations, and familial stories. We ate countless meals together, slept in the same hotel together, shared long van rides, and most poignantly, we met our precious children together. In nine days, we became intimate with those who weeks earlier had been strangers. Each man and woman was a unique, gifted, lovely individual. I miss them dearly.

To say the least, it had been a physically trying and emotionally exhausting day. We had left the Union Hotel in Addis around 6:30 AM, driving some six plus hours to the southern part of Ethiopia where we had briefly met members of our childrens' birth families, as well as toured the facility in which each of our sons and daughters had lived for a time before being moved to Holt's facility in the capital. By 8 PM, most of our group had retired for the evening, having had their fill of pizza, rice, or Ethiopian cuisine, OFF spray and mosquito nets readily available. Meanwhile, a few of us lingered, empty St. George beer bottles littering the dinner table and fresh ones in hand. We met David and Nancy and their two children while waiting for our flight from D.C. to Addis. David is a constitutional lawyer from Tennessee; Nancy is a writer with an accent so thick and a sense of humor so like my friend Jennifer (another southerner I adore), I could not help but immediately love her. Throughout the hours spent together, some of their story unraveled. Together the two co-authored a book about their experiences when David, after receiving special permission because of his age, joined the army and served a tour of duty in Iraq. At that table with those beers, David, a new convert to Reformed Christianity, shared with us some of his stories; stories of jeeps passing safely on a roads where other jeeps blow up; stories of collecting the personal articles for family members following deaths; stories of funerals. As he spoke about the funerals he had attended (Lord have mercy), David related that with the exception of one, the American flag had been draped across every casket. With tears and a faltering voice, he explained that while the American flag had initially also dressed this Catholic soldier's remains, before entering the church for the funeral, the flag was lifted off being replaced with a white shroud. This particular story made me cry; it still does for through this simple, symbolic act, a weighty testimony was communicated: While this man was an American citizen, a solider who had served and sacrificed his life for his country, he was ultimately a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven and belonged to the God to whom he now returned.

Sunday morning I dressed Lucia in an Ethiopian garment. It is a lovely piece of clothing, linen and lightly colored with splashes of vibrant gold, red, blue, and green. Held by her godmother, I was proud to see my daughter adorned in cloth from her place of origin and thankful for the beauty of the Ethiopian culture which has now been brought into our family. As we moved from the nave into the sanctuary of the church and prepared for Lucia's descent into the baptismal font representative of her burial and resurrection with Christ, her dress was removed. Naked she was held by our priest and then immersed three times into the waters sanctified by the sign of the cross, holy oil, and prayers, while Father invoked the name of the Trinity. Earlier a white gown and jacket had been blessed by our priest; a dress which 48 years earlier my sister, Rebecca, had donned on her own baptismal day; a dress which now became my daughter's baptismal gown. Like the deceased soldier, Lucia was draped in white to proclaim her membership in the family of God. Later as incense filled that sacred space, the serving priests, Lucia and her godparents, and the remainder of our family processed around the baptismal font and table holding the Gospel book singing three times the hymn familiar to all Orthodox Christian: "As many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. Alleluia."

As a mother of four children, I have many hopes and dreams for my sons and daughter. As a mother of four children adopted internationally, I pray that Jared and I will actively seek to create a home which will foster and nurture a love and respect for my children's birth countries. As they leave childhood and transform into young adults, I hope Thomas, Russell, Elliot, and Lucia all will love bee bim bop, bulgogi, doro wat, injera and other foods from their homelands. I would be proud if they learned how to play Korean drums, master the art of Tae kwon do, or perform traditional African dances. I pray that their hearts will long for Korea and Ethiopia as mine does. But in the end, my most sincere desire is that my children will continue to live in the mystery which transpired on their baptismal days. I pray that for them, as well as for me and my husband, our identity will stem  from Christ and His Church, a kingdom where there is neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female, Korean nor Ethiopian nor American, because within Her we are all one in Christ Jesus.


















Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Ripening

 
 
Inseparable from my childhood memories are a group of individuals with whom my parents, quite early in their marriage, established a tightly knit friendship. For the most part these couples shared a common faith and even attended the same church. Others were employed at the same business. All were deeply committed to partaking in the sacrament banned by more fundamental Protestants: Card playing. After all, these men and women were a bit more unorthodox. With the exception of the Belgian Catholic DeClerks, they were mostly Swedes and thus Lutherans. Oh how I loved card club night, watching my mother set up the card tables and chairs in our living room, noting the addition of extra beer stocked in the basement fridge and even receiving a sip or two of that forbidden beverage, and yearning for the ubiquitous chocolate covered raisins and peanuts which no respectable card club night would be without. There were Barb and Pete Peterson, Bob and Nancy Wiklund, Harold and Barb Johnson, John and Jo Welander, and Jo and Gene DeClerk. Together they would enter our home, their coats and purses flung onto my parents' bed in mass disarray, their laughter abundant and permeating that space I called home, their lives becoming inexplicably entwined with my own. Collectively these friends have journeyed throughout life, rejoicing at the birth of children, accepting roles of godparents, attending high school graduations, celebrating at children's weddings, fawning over pictures of grandchildren, mourning the loss of parents, reaching milestone birthdays and anniversaries, bearing each others sufferings through illness and disease, and now, within the last couple years, grieving spouses. Ripening together.

Sunday morning my husband and I stood in the nave of our church to witness the baptism of our daughter and celebrate her entrance into the Orthodox Church. Our dear friend Tawyna held her goddaughter in her arms, her husband Nick standing by her side. Surrounding and supporting us were members of our church community, our own parents, and many of those friends who held our other children in their arms on their baptism day. Earlier that morning I had considered the magnitude of the approaching event and wept. I reflected on the passage of time and the years that have so quickly passed. Our lives have been complete with joy–the finding of love and the engagements, the weddings, the births–but not untouched by tremendous, faith shattering sorrows which could have resulted in resentment or bitterness but instead produced a deeper faith. We are no longer passionate youths in our early twenties or even our early thirties. Our hair has begun to thin and turn gray, the lines have begun to increase around our mouths and eyes. It is undeniable we are marching into middle age, ripening together. As the words of that ancient creed declared each week during the divine liturgy formed on our lips and as I heard my own voice and the voices of those so dear to me proclaim, "I believe..." the pregnancy of the moment was unmistakable. I was fully present, love immense and sweet, and Christ was truly in our midst. May God grant us many, many years.

Ripening
Wendell Berry

The longer we are together
the larger death grows around us.
How many we know by now
who are dead! We, who were young, 
now count the cost of having been.
And yet as we know the dead 
we grow familiar with the world.
We, who were young and loved each other
ignorantly, now come to know
each other in love, married
by what we have done, as much
as by what we intend. Our hair
turns white with our ripening
as though to fly away in some 
coming wind, bearing the seed 
of what we know. It was bitter to learn
that we come to death as we come
to love, bitter to face
the just and solving welcome
that death prepared. But this is bitter 
only to the ignorant, who pray
it will not happen. Having come
the bitter way to better prayer, we have
the sweetness of ripening. How sweet
to know you by the signs of this world!

Monday, August 16, 2010

Miraculous Gathering

One of the more memorable miracles associated with the dormition of the virgin Mary is the miraculous gathering of the apostles to Jerusalem in time for her funeral. Looking around the sanctuary yesterday as we gathered to baptize our daughter Lucia on the day we commemorate this momentous occasion, I could not help but associate this miracle with the vision before my own eyes. Here, gathered literally from all corners of the world, was a miraculous gathering of friends and family come to support us on this wonderful day.

Among the gathered were those who had stood with us at our own baptisms; at our marriage thirteen years earlier; at our chrismation; children we had held at their baptisms and those that had held our other children at their baptisms. If anything good has ever come from our home, please know that it could not have been born without your love.

Thank you, Father Ignatius and Father Elias for serving on this important day.

Thank you Bill and Todd for coming early to set everything up.

Thank you Lori and the choir for all your preparation. You sounded glorious.

And most of all, thank you Nick and Tawnya for accepting the responsibility of being godparents to our precious Lucia.


Oh, and thank you Molly for taking such wonderful pictures. We'll post more when we get a chance to go through them, but if you can't wait she posted some on her own blog.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

i carry your heart with me


To my husband. Thirteen years ago on August 15, 1997, we were married. You were but a child but how beautiful you were and how beautiful you continue to be.

i carry your heart with me
e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

Poetry Wednesday

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

A Soul Has Gone To Heaven

For the servant of God Robert, beloved friend, departed this life August 4, 2010.
May the Comforter surround his dear wife Nancy, his family, and his friends as they mourn. And may the Lord God remember Bob in His Kingdom now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Emily Dickinson

If tolling bell I ask the cause.
"A soul has gone to God,"
I'm answered in a lonesome tone;
Is heaven then so sad?

That bells should joyful ring to tell
A soul has gone to heaven,
Would seem to me the proper way
A good news should be given.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Teach Me To Pray

When it has been a week in which your kitchen transformed into a crime scene by two bottles of blackstrap molasses recklessly dumped, oozing with all its thick, gooey, murkiness upon your already less than clean floor and cabinets; your rugs, hardwood floors, and furniture in nearly every room morphed into toilets for use by your tiny twins, the pungent smell of vinegar lingering in the humidity charged air in an effort to redeem the transgressions; your three-year-old sons bore the marks of numerous scratches and bites on various locations of their bodies which each had mercilessly inflicted upon the other: You will consider yourself a failure as a mother. You will feel the seeds of despair begin to take root in your heart and you will cry out as you begin to question your vocation. You will be tempted to yield to your apparent incompetence and wish to pack your things, slam the door, and run away. You will mentally scream, "I Quit." You will pray for more patience, wisdom, and love; "Lord have mercy" will become your mantra. You will emotionally distance yourself from your sons' trying behaviors and attempt to curb your anger, knowing that your sins most definitely can be passed down to your children. You will continually stop and reflect upon your choices and work to fix what is broken. You will purchase locks for the doors, cabinets, and refrigerator. You will investigate and plan to buy taller baby gates. You will neglect the treadmill and instead swaddle your youngest son to pacify his flailing arms and troubled spirit. You will rock him to sleep and lie by his side. You will drink more wine, eat more ice cream, and consider frozen pizza as a valid dinner option. You will flee to the Goodwill for an hour of tranquility and purchase yet another black dress and a table lamp for $2.38. You will check your email less and cancel play dates, opting to spend more time alone with your tinies, marveling in their LEGO towers and trains and ability to count to 25. In the end, you will know that you are losing more of your self and tearfully acknowledge that your self is only there to lose and that Grace will offer you the courage and strength to fulfill your God-ordained calling despite the chaos.

And when it has been a day of relative calm, a day in which only one cup of coffee was dumped onto the floor, one glass pushed and smashed, and all bodily fluids managed to fine their proper receptacle, you will breathe a sigh of relief and offer up a prayer of thanksgiving. You will eat popcorn heavily salted at mid-afternoon in order to celebrate; it will taste like ambrosia. You will glory in your hour of silence and consider it a triumph that your children are sleeping. You will experience a deep peace as you scrub down your kitchen cabinets and floor, your hands sudsy with Ivory Soap. You will drink yet another cup of coffee but this time it will be hot and you will not measure your cream. You will conjure up plans for a dinner alone with your husband for the following evening. You will be ever grateful for a supportive spouse and faithful friends and family who come alongside you and enable you to emerge victorious. You will truly appreciate the unique individuality of your children and delight in their smiles, relish in their kisses, and hold them a little longer, knowing that they are precious, precious gifts from God and of their kind is made the Kingdom of Heaven.  

Prayer for Peace
Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow

O Lord, grant me to greet the coming day in peace.
Help me in all things to rely upon thy holy will.
In every hour of the day, reveal thy will to me.
Bless my dealings with all who surround me.
Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day 
with peace of soul and firm conviction that thy will governs all.
In all my deeds and words, guide my thoughts and feelings.
In unforeseen events, let me not forget that all are sent by thee.
Teach me to act firmly and wisely without embittering or embarrassing others.
Give me strength to bear the fatigue of the coming day
with all that it shall bring. Teach me to pray.
 Pray thou thyself in me. Amen.