-arise, my soul; and sing (part two)

Water for Christmas well in Gbeivonwea, Liberia

Watching this just made me teary. A blessed Thanksgiving to you all.

And thank you to Tesi and Leslie and our local Water for Christmas team for raising another $10,000 for wells in Liberia at the recent Wine to Water event. And to my egg lady and friend, Cathe, aka Miss Effie, who generously donated 100% of the proceeds earned in one day at her Summer Kitchen for this amazing charity. Inspiring. 

-arise, my soul; and sing

At the outset, I must admit that I stumbled across this poem by Mr. Cummings from Matthew Gallatin. It has stuck with me and I thought I would share it here. A blessed and peaceful holiday to you all. Truly we have so much to be grateful for. And may our thankfulness spill over and be manifested in tangible demonstrations of love for our brothers and sisters near and far away.

Poetry Wednesday

now does our world descend

e.e. cummings

now does our world descend

the path to nothingness

(cruel now cancels kind;

friends turn to enemies)

therefore lament, my dream

and don a doer's doom

create is now contrive;

imagined, merely know

(freedom: what makes a slave)

therefore, my life, lie down

and more by most endure

all that you never were

hide, poor, dishonoured mind

who thought yourself so wise;

and much could understand

concerning no and yes:

if they've become the same

it's time you unbecame

where climbing was and bright

is darkness and to fall

(now wrong's the only right

since brave are cowards all)

therefore despair, my heart 

and die into the dirt

but from this endless end

of briefer each our bliss-

where seeing eyes go blind

(where lips forget to kiss)

where everything's nothing

-arise, my soul; and sing

Just Love

"Those who wish to see him must see him in the poor, the hungry, the hurt, the wordless creatures, the groaning and travailing beautiful world." from Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow

He Asked for Charity

St. Francis of Assisi

God came to my house and asked for charity.

And I fell on my knees and
cried,  “Beloved,

what may I
give?”

“Just love,” He said.

“Just love.”

  

Poetry Wednesday

I am going to take some liberties here and offer the section of Berry's work from which the above quote was taken. So it is a bit long but St. Francis' work is so short so dare to go the extra mile. I promise reading Berry is a million times better and more interesting than my own blather. Though the form is prose, the substance is, in my opinion, pure poetry. Watch out book club friends, this might be my next pick.

"For a while again I couldn't pray. I didn't dare to. In the most secret place of my soul I wanted to beg the Lord to reveal himself in power. I wanted to tell him that it was time for his coming. If there was anything at all to what he had promised, why didn't he come in glory with angels and lay his hands on the hurt children and awaken the dead solders and restore the burned villages and the blasted and poisoned land? Why didn't he cow our arrogance?...

But thinking such things was as dangerous as praying them. I knew who thought such thoughts before: 'Let Christ the king of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe.' Where in my own arrogance was I going to hide?

Where did I get my knack for being a fool? If I could advise God, why didn't I just advise him (like our great preachers and politicians) to be on our side and give us victory? I had to turn around and wade out of the mire myself.

Christ did not descend from the cross except into the grave. And why not otherwise? Wouldn't it have put fine comical expressions on the faces of the scribes and the chief priests and the soldiers if at that moment he had come down in power and glory? Why didn't he do it? Why hasn't he done it any one of a thousand good times between then and now?

I knew the answer. I knew it a long time before I could admit it, for all the suffering of the world is in it. He didn't, he hasn't, because from the moment he did, he would be the absolute tyrant of the world and we would be his slaves. Even those who hated him and hated one another and hated their own souls would have to believe in him then. From that moment the possibility that we might be bound to him and he to us, and to one another by love forever would be ended.

And so, I thought, he must forbear to reveal his power and glory by presenting himself as himself, and must be present only in the ordinary miracle of the existence of his creatures. Those who wish to see him must see him in the poor, the hungry, the hurt, the wordless creatures, the groaning and travailing beautiful world.

I would sometimes be horrified in every moment I was alone. I could see no escape. We are too tightly tangled together to be able to separate ourselves from one another either by good or by evil. We all are involved in all and any good, and in all and any evil. For any sin, we all suffer. That is why our suffering is endless. It is why God grieves and Christ's wounds still are bleeding."

The Man in Black

He had made his decision and could not be persuaded to even reconsider. "Batman?" I queried. "How about a pirate?" But my youngest son was steadfast. "Johnny Cash," he replied every time. So Jared searched the Salvation Army and returned home with a perfect outfit: black jeans, black t-shirt, and, if you can believe it, a tiny black leather jacket. And thanks to Doug and Kim, we ascertained one stuffed guitar. Perfect. People seemed confused when Elliot would respond to questions of what costume he would be wearing for Halloween. I mean, don't all three-year-olds listen to Johnny Cash (he does have a children's album)? Well, they should. And I swear to you, I had absolutely no sway in Elliot's decision. Never even mentioned Mr. Cash as a possibility. So to you Elliot Andrew Jin-seo, for one night, you were the most amazing Man in Black. And I am just thrilled to have this song on our post because sometimes, usually, it makes me cry. 

My radiant sister-in-law Sarah and my sweet niece Josephine Frances whom the boys and I met for the first time. 

So Thomas wanted to be Jack the Pumpkin King from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. Dear Jared did the face painting. And I was dressed up as June Carter. Just kidding. You know I have no other color in my closet.

And Russell. He demanded to be his pediatrician Dr. Omar. Doesn't he look like he has an amazing bedside manner? Such a winning smile.

The Man in Black.

And Thomas looking more like The Joker than Jack.

Sugar and Spice and Everything

So you remember the Wonder Twins' proclivity towards dumping? I absolutely am dumbstruck after another cinnamon incident–I had forgotten AGAIN to move the spice from the counter and to higher ground. Really this must be at least my eighth container of cinnamon. But for $1.09, I was assured an hours worth of entertainment, as well as a fragrant kitchen. So if you can't beat them, well, you know the rest. Yes. We are absolutely nuts. Shh. Don't tell.

The Festal Life

Because you know I love her. Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement while supporting the United Farm Workers in California, July 1973. Day was 75 at the time and was imprisoned for crossing a banned picket line.

"Our entire life is built on the patterns of the Easter chants: on one side- the tomb, death, descent into hell; on the other side- resurrection, life, joy. 'For Thou has descended into the tomb, O Thou who art immortal, yet Thou hast destroyed the power of hell.' Our lives task is to let the elements of heaven and resurrection triumph over the forces of hell and death." -The Diary of a Russian Priest, Aleksandr V. El'chaninov

Julia Esquivel

--From Threatened with Resurrection
Esquivel is a Guatemalan Catholic who has been living in exile since 1980 because of her protests against the government.

I am no longer afraid of death

I know well

Its dark and cold corridors

Leading to life. 

I am afraid rather of that life

Which does not come out of death,

Which cramps our hands

And slows our march. 

I am afraid of my fear

And even more of the fear of others,

Who do not know where they are going,

Who continue clinging

To what they think is life

Which we know to be death! 

I live each day to kill death;

I die each day to give birth to life,

And in this death of death,

I die a thousand times

And am reborn another thousand

Through that love

From my People

Which nourishes hope!

Poetry Wednesday

For Jared because he will always love Jurgen Moltmann. While this is somewhat lengthy, if you have a spare moment, this is pretty amazing stuff and if lived could, dare I say it?, change the world. 

"The Feast of Freedom"

from The Power of the Powerless

The Easter faith recognizes that the raising of the crucified Christ from the dead provides the great alternative to this world of death. This faith sees the raising of Christ as God's protest against death, and against the people who work for death; for the Easter faith recognizes God's passion for the life of the person who is threatened by death and with death. And faith participates in this process of love by getting up out of the apathy of misery and out of the cynicism of prosperity, and fighting against death's accomplices, here and now, in this life.

Weary Christians have often enough deleted this critical and liberating power from Easter. Their faith has then degenerated into the confidant belief in certain facts, and a poverty-stricken hope for the next world, as if death were nothing but a fate we meet with at the end of life. But death is an evil power now, in life's very midst. It is the economic death of the person we allow to starve; the political death of the people who are oppressed; the social death of the handicapped; the noisy death that strikes through napalm bombs and torture; and the soundless death of the apathetic soul.

The resurrection faith is not proved true by means of historical evidence, or only in the next world. It is proved here and now, through the courage for revolt, the protest against deadly powers, and the self-giving of men and women for the victory of life. It is impossible to talk convincingly about Christ's resurrection without participating in the movement of the Spirit "who descends on all flesh" to quicken it. This movement of the Spirit is the divine "liberation movement," for it is the process whereby the world is recreated.

So resurrection means rebirth out of impotence and indolence to the "living hope." And today "living hope" means a passion for life, and a lived protest against death.

Christ's resurrection is the beginning of God's rebellion. That rebellion is still going on in the Spirit of hope, and will be complete when, together with death, "every rule and every authority and power" is at last abolished (I Cor. 15:24).

The resurrection hope finds living expression in men and women when they protest against death and the slaves of death. But it lives from something different- from the superabundance of God's future. Its freedom lives in resistance against all outward and inward denials of life. But it does not live from this protest. It lives from joy in the coming victory of life. Protest and resistance are founded on this hope. Otherwise they degenerate into mere accusation and campaigns of revenge. But the greater hope has to take living from in this protest and resistance; otherwise it turns into religious seduction.

Easter is a feast, and it is as the feast of freedom that it is celebrated. For with Easter begins the laughter of the redeemed, the dance of the liberated and the creative play of fantasy. From time immemorial Easter hymns have celebrated the victory of life by laughing at death, mocking hell, and ridiculing the mighty ones who spread fear and terror around them.

Easter is the feast of freedom. It makes the life which it touches a festal life. "The risen Christ makes life a perpetual feast," said Athanasius. But can the whole of life really be a feast? Even life's dark side- death, guilt, senseless suffering? I think it can. Once we realize that the giver of this feast is the outcast, suffering, crucified Son of Man from Nazareth, then every "no" is absorbed into this profound "yes," and is swallowed up in its victory.

Easter is at one and the same time God's protest against death, and the feast of freedom from death. Anyone who fails to hold these two things together has failed to understand the resurrection of the Christ who was crucified. Resistance is the protest of those who hope, and hope is the feast of the people who resist.

The People I Love

Another school day has come to a close. Stravinsky's Firebird Suite which kept Thomas and I company while we worked on creating forms with beeswax block crayons continues to play. I am on the verge of cooking dinner and my parents are on the verge of joining us for Friday Family Fun night which will undoubtedly include Wallace and Gromit per the Wonder Twins' request. My dear husband is working late, like ten o'clock late but did manage to squeeze in a coffee run for me mid-afternoon. Thanks again hon. May you all have a lovely, peaceful, joyful weekend. Enjoy some shots from our week, as well as  Thomas' favorite song from our Sesame Street collection (oh how it warms my heart to hear him singing it without any self-consciousness). Truly we are so blessed.

This one keeps me always on my toes. So loving with kisses for mommy on her lips, her ears, her nose, her cheeks, her tummy, and even her toes. His strong will often brings me to my knees. His favorite new thing to say is, "Pretty sad. So bad." This afternoon while he was supposed to be napping, I found him sitting in the buff under his blanket posing as a ghost. Also today he said, "I like carrots. I sat by Molly in my red chair and ate them. I miss my Molly." Me too baby.

Mrs. McGoodles. Don't cross her when she's hungry; she morphs into quite a drama queen. Really. Flailing arms and head. You can't help but giggle.

"Mommy happy?" Russell my little helper. Though he might not be able to wear his pants correctly, he is a bundle of sunshine. "I love you mommy," he has recently begun to coo. He loves to build Lego towers with animals at the top and then point out that they are "so fragile." "Don't break them mommy." Unfortunately, he likes to destroy things like this bag that he is moments away from tearing. He also has established a new affection for listening to the Frances books on CD. His favorite part is when Frances' father relates to his daughter, who is not going to bed, that if she does not go to sleep, she will get a spanking. Not sure what this says about my son.

And the glue that holds us all together. My darling Thomas. My constant companion and co-parent. Yesterday he created his own behavior chart for the twins. Four strikes and you are out according to T's rules. He likened it to a king and his nobles when the nobles were not obeying. Hmm.
Russell donning one of Thomas' creations. 

I just can't resist silliness. Our princess is developing quite a personality. She is just beautiful and her eyes just sparkle with life. What a treasure.

And when your house is already just a big mess why not create some more chaos? Homemade play-dough that resulted in much flour throwing.
PS I found a fantastic salt play dough recipe after misplacing one my mother-in-law gave me.

Elliot making cookies. Don't miss the bit of flour on the end of his nose. 

Thomas making a pie. He decided that we should call our bakery, Cookie's Fortune. A sign may be in the making. And oh yes, Korean chopsticks have many uses. Also stay tuned. Thomas has been listening to the first Harry Potter book on CD and drew some very special pictures of the main characters. I absolutely cannot resist displaying them. 

Oh May I Join the Choir Invisible

Tucked away in that territory of chaos, otherwise known as my mind, was the plan to pay homage to this day, All Soul's Day, by neatly arranging pictures of departed family members and friends around the icon table in our dining room and remembering their lives with my children. Maybe next year.

Instead, we made cookies. But not just any cookie, Fave dei Morti, "Beans of the Dead," an Italian "soul" cookie traditional to this day. Easy and delicious. Some were even meant to look like bones and Thomas did attempt a skull. I think we have discovered yet another tradition to add to our repertoire.

"Oh May I Join the Choir Invisible"

George Eliot

(Mary Anne Evans)

Oh, may I join the choir invisible

Of those immortal dead who live again

In minds made better by their presence: live

In pulses stirred to generosity,

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn

For miserable aims that end with self,

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,

And with their mild persistence urge men's search

To vaster issues. So to live is heaven:

To make undying music in the world,

Breathing a beauteous order that controls

With growing sway the growing life of man.

So we inherit that sweet purity

For which we struggled, failed, and agonized

With widening retrospect that bred despair.

Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,

A vicious parent shaming still its child,

Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;

Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,

Die in the large and charitable air,

And all our rarer, better, truer self

That sobbed religiously in yearning song, 

That watched to ease the burden of the world,

Laboriously tracing what must be,

And what may yet be better, --saw within

A worthier image for the sanctuary,

And shaped it forth before the multitude,

Divinely human, raising worship so

To higher reverence more mixed with love, --

That better self shall live till human Time

Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky

Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb

Unread forever. This life to come, --

Which martyred men have made more glorious

For us who strive to follow. May I reach

That purest heaven, --be to other souls

The cup of strength in some great agony,

Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,

Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,

Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,

And in diffusion ever more intense!

So shall I join the choir invisible

Whose music is the gladness of the world.

Poetry Wednesday

And alas, this is what baking often looks like in our house. Yes, the wonder twins were quite enamored with flour. And if you look closely, you will notice that Russell (again) has his pants on backwards. 

And finally because I am shameless. 

We want to share with you my recent interview with SixSeeds.tv as part of National Adoption Month. If you have a moment, please read the article and leave a comment. For every comment, $2 will be donated to the James 1:27 Foundation, a non-profit group located in Melbourne, Iowa, who gave our family a grant of $2500 for Lucia's adoption. 

You can read the the article and post a comment here: Adoptive Family--Johnson

And please help spread the word. If you are willing, tweet it, facebook, or blog it to your friends.

The first two paragraphs of the interview are taken from a blog post that you can read in its entirety here.

And to those of you who have already commented and helped spread the word, thank you. Truly.

Help!

We want to share with you Beth's recent interview with SixSeeds.tv as part of National Adoption Month. We're particularly excited to share this with you because for every comment posted to the article, $2 will be donated to the James 1:27 Foundation, a group who helped us with Lucia's adoption.

Read the article and post a comment here: Adoptive Family -- Johnson

After you've read the article and posted your comment, be sure to tweet it, facebook, or blog it to your friends. We'd like to give as much back to the James 1:27 Foundation as we can - we know the money will go to find homes for children who need them. Thank you in advance for your help!

The first two paragraphs of the interview are an excerpt from a blog Beth posted some months back. You can read the entire post here.

You may also want to read the Osburn's, the Blumenthal's and the Groce's adoption stories also shared at SixSeeds.tv this month. They were a part of our travel group in Ethiopia and absolutely inspiring people.