Madame Butterfly

Even someone that doesn't know how to sew on a button can create a felt flower out of recycled wool sweaters. Thanks again to Ann Brown at The Adventure Orange for the free studio class. Lucia was quite smitten with her new hair pretty and made sure each of her brothers told her how beautiful she was. I am feeling the beginning of a new obsession.

Feed the soul

"If, of thy mortal goods, thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves
alone to thee are left,
Sell one & from the dole,
Buy Hyacinths to feed the soul."

~Muslihuddin Sadi,
13th Century Persian Poet

At 11:45 pm, the house is heavy with the scent of pumpkin bread. On the stove top, two loaves patiently await for the allotted time of ten minutes to pass so they can be flipped out to cool; I patiently await so that I can then put my weary self to bed. Mind you, I am no Julia Child, whipping up something as complex as beef bourguignon or other scrumptious, fancy dishes. After all, I am from Swedish/English descent and my roots are in the Midwest, a place where jello is somehow equated with salad, a vegetable tray consists of celery and carrots, tuna casserole with broken potato chips on the top, congealed by Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, is esteemed an entree,  hummus (what's hummus?) and lentil soup are considered exotic. And couscous? Who even knows what it is. No, my tastes are much simpler than Mrs. Child's and thus, my three top meals to serve guests are usually restricted to the three following items: meat lasagna, pot roast, or the old standby, potato soup. All three are good meals, I would even dare to assert great tasting, but as my father would say, "nothing to write home about." And while I enjoy cooking, I possess a deeper love for baking; a love which stems not only because selfishly, I like my father, have a sweet tooth and thus anticipate savoring the sweetness of my labor, but also because there is something truly fulfilling for me at this stage in my life to initiate and complete a task and then look at it and say, "It is good." In the chaos of my days with dirty floors, finger smudged windows, chipped paint, mismatched socks (is there anything more annoying?), and Legos constantly jabbing me in the foot, baking yummy treats kindles a light within me which invades and hopefully drives out some of the darker, uglier stuff often corroding my heart. For me, the act of baking, the partaking of the food, and the sharing of the gift with others, is sacramental, and an art which truly nourishes my soul. So be reckless, get out your Betty Crocker or antiquated church cook books and bake a sweet treat. Share it with a friend, a neighbor, a stranger. And make sure you save some for yourself too! Peace and goodness to you.

Albany trail has nuts. Mounds don't.

When you have four kids, your house is full of broken electronics. I type this blog using a replacement keyboard and a replacement mouse and on a computer that has been in for repair already once this year. Russell has been known to show up places with my old camera around his neck looking like Jimmy Olsen - the camera being one his twin brother previously tossed into the sink full of water. So it is with that in mind that I send out a big "thank you" to Molly for giving me one of her old cameras, broken by one of her four kids, that just happened to be the same model as our broken camera. The formula went something like two broken cameras + $100 = one functioning camera. (In all fairness to our kids, I broke our camera this time.)

The photos that follow are from a Saturday morning sojourn to the Albany Mounds. When we discussed possible destinations over breakfast, Russell said he wanted to go hiking. Thomas liked the idea of visiting a site related to the American Indians. And I just finished reading The First Americans by James Adovasio and have been dying to visit one of the many ancient mounds that apparently surround us here in the Midwest. Archeologist have artifacts in the Albany area suggesting it has been continuously occupied for nearly 10,000 years. The mounds we visited were built 2000 years ago, when Jesus walked the earth I explained to the kids.

This is how all of our hikes start. Trust me, after we hiked for a half-hour out to the mounds, I had to carry them all back.

Here are the intrepid explorers in front of one of the mounds. Thousands of years old, it is completely overgrown and difficult to see in this picture. Other than the fact that the mounds rose too abruptly and too frequently to be natural formations, you could easily have walked right past them. Thomas was disappointed when we got there and realized we weren't able to go in. (I've clearly not read him the chapter about the barrow-wights in The Fellowship of the Rings. Burial mounds are not something you want to end up in, unless of course Tom Bombadil is nearby.)

Thanks again, Molly!

The severe gift

Perhaps it is because I stood peering last Friday afternoon from an outside window into the darkened front room of the food pantry in which he volunteered for nearly the last twenty-five years of his life and was unexpectedly a bit overcome by a flash of memory which transported me back to a time when he was not sick, was not dead, but well and alive, standing by my side helping me arrange canned foods onto meticulously ordered shelves; perhaps it is because my black Doc Marten shoes purchased for $2.99 at the Salvation Army located on Central and Diversey are almost an embarrassment to wear (but really I have no shame) because they are in desperate need of polishing and that was yet another act of selfless giving that he did for me; or perhaps is is because this evening my mother pulled out of her back seat four of his jackets which are now deposited onto the backs of my dining room chairs and in my solitary state while children slept and a husband read, I buried my nose deep within the folds of blue nylon and though rationalizing that my mother surely laundered the coat prior to its journey into my home, I swore, I swear, that I can smell his scent six months later, but my heart feels so raw these last few days, my eyes so filled with tears.

-an excerpt from "Rising"

Wendell Berry, The Wheel

5.

Any man's death could end the story:

his mourners, having accompanied him

to the grave through all he knew,

turn back, leaving him complete.

But this is not the story of a life.

It is the story of lives, knit together,

overlapping in succession, rising

again from grave after grave.

For those who depart from it, bearing it

in their minds, the grave is a beginning.

It has weighted the earth with sudden

new gravity, the enrichment of pain.

There is a grave, too, in each 

survivor. By it, the dead one lives.

He enters us, a broken blade,

sharp, clear as a lens or a mirror.

And he comes into us helpless, tender

as the newborn enter the world. Great

is the burden of our care. We must be true

to ourselves. How else will he know us?

Like a wound, grief receives him.

Like graves, we heal over, and yet keep

as part of ourselves the severe gift.

By grief, more inward than darkness,

the dead become the intelligence of life.

Where the tree falls the forest rises.

There is nowhere to stand but in absence,

no life but in the fateful light.

6.

Ended, a story is history;

it is in time, with time

lost. But if a man's life

continue in another man,

then the flesh will rhyme

its part in immortal song.

By absence, he comes again,

There is a kinship of the fields

that gives to the living the breath

of the dead. The earth

opened in the spring, opens

in all springs. Nameless,

ancient, many-lived, we reach

through ages with the seed.

You'd better sit down...

Four years ago today, a voice on the other end of our phone spoke the word that would irrevocably change our lives: "Twins." How innocent and benign that one word seemed at the time. Four years later, well, nothing in my life thus far has so challenged me, so exasperated and wrecked me, so drawn ugly qualities that I did not even believe possible out from within me (Patience? It's been permanently blotted out in my list of virtues.), so left me clinging for dear life to the words of prayer, "Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy" and screaming for respite, than being a mother of twins. Oh yes, there have been intense, I mean INTENSE, moments of desperation. Times when, in a near frenzy, I could do nothing else but swig down large quantities of holy water and then reach for the red wine just to make it through one more hour. After all you do remember the Sons of Thunder's proclivity for flinging apple sauce across the room, dumping the cinnamon, and the coffee, and the potty? (Just to mention a few.) Quite often Jared and I marvel that we have made it this far in one piece.

And now four years later, yes there are currently sundry items on the roof outside Russell's and Elliot's bedroom window - underwear, Star Wars guys, Legos - and yes, the shades in their room have been shredded almost beyond recognition, and their beds bear numerous scars of rough play, as well as additional appendages holding them together because of four tiny feet that could not help jumping on them, and really, my husband just yesterday recovered toys (for the second time in a year) thrust down the toilet by nimble hands (Thankfully this time we didn't have to call Ty from Budget Drain. Yes, we are on a first name basis with the plumber. If that doesn't sum up these four years, nothing does.), and absolutely, we recently with much chagrin wrote a check for over $100 to have five CD's which were jammed into our computer removed: These little boys possess the most beautiful spirits, they love and they love and they love.

And in their giving of themselves, they show no respect of persons. Recently at their four year check-up a nurse practitioner very sternly asked the boys if they should ever talk to strangers. Inwardly I cringed knowing the answer they would give and the look of reproval I would receive. "Yes!" they replied with excitement and pride in their voices. "Yes!" It was like they thought they finally found something they did well. And its hard to want to dissuade them when I see how happy they make all those strangers to whom they talk. "What your name is?" "What your middle name is?" "What your back name?"

And their sense of humor? Have you seen them morphe into characters like the "Little Old Man," "Mr. Mysterious," the infamous "Pirate," or Marlon Brando yelling, "Stella!" And no one can quite reenact their fearless protector, "godfather" Troy, as he repetitively beat the life out of a threatening wasp with a magazine like these two. Who else, mind you, would not, could not, be cajoled into dressing up as cool super heroes like Spiderman and Bat Man but adamantly insisted upon being Johnny Cash and our pediatrician Dr. Omar for Halloween?

And their hearts? Admittedly they have a tendency to poke their sister in the eyes and they still bite, scratch, and pinch each other on occasion (okay, frequent occasion), but they are also in turn generous and gentle and their hearts are pure. And while we as their parents attempt with grace to teach and emulate Christ to these little boys, it is them, it is you, our Wonder Twins, who actually teach Him to us. What an honor to be your parents. "Are you happy Mommy?" Oh yes, my beloveds. Terribly, wonderfully happy. And so incredibly blessed.

Requiem

Requiem

Wendell Berry

In memory of our dear friend Roger, departed this life nearly one year ago. 

And as always, for you, my beloved dad.

I.

We will see no more 

the mown grass fallen behind him

on the still ridges before night,

or hear him laughing in the crop rows,

or know the order of his delight.

Though the green fields are my delight,

elegy is my fate. I have come to be 

survivor of many and of much

that I love, that I won't live to see

come again into this world.

Things that mattered to me once

won't matter any more,

for I have left the safe shore

where magnificence of art

could suffice my heart.

2.

In the day of his work

when the grace of the world

was upon him, he made his way,

not turning back or looking aside,

light in his stride.

Now may the grace of death

be upon him, his spirit blessed

in deep song of the world

and stars turning, the seasons 

returning, long rest.

What I Learned from My Mother

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; 
but in deed and in truth.

I John 3:18

For my parents, who preach the gospel not by preaching words
but rather by their example.

What I Learned from My Mother

Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole 

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

 and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewing even if I didn't know 

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look into their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease 

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another's suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

Thank you Leslie for introducing me to this poem.

To be simple

"Blessed are they who have nothing to lock up." 

-Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

This woman and the Catholic Worker movement she helped found with Peter Maurin continues to challenge me in what it means to flesh out the Gospel on a daily basis. I have a sneaking suspicion that the call to pick up your cross and follow Christ may be amazingly and terribly radical, like "if you want to save your life, you must lose it." Please pray for me.

I am near giddy to have the opportunity to go and listen to Shane Claiborne, founder of a Christian community, The Simple Way, located in Philadelphia, this Thursday at Augustana College. If you would like to join me, let me know. I would love to have you come. Peace and goodness.

PS Tomorrow is the day St. Francis of Assisi is commemorated. Please don't forget this radical Christian!  

First star to the right and straight on 'til morning...

What does it say about my son that his Neverland is not populated by boys who refuse to grow up, but instead by an ancient monastic living in solitude? This is how one gets to Dagobah from our house, in case you were wondering. 

PS I recently overheard my 81-year-old mother tell Russell that Yoda was her favorite character. Hmm.