Thought for the day

"Instead of death and sorrow, let us bring peace and joy to the world. To do this we must beg God for His gift of peace and learn to accept each other as brothers and sisters, children of God. We know the best place for children to learn how to love and to pray is in the family, by seeing the love and prayer of their mother and father. When families are strongly united, children can see God's special love in the love of their father and mother and can grow to make their country a loving, prayerful place." - Mother Teresa

A blessed, peaceful, and joyous New Year. 

Thank you all for being such a gift to me.

Merry Christmas

A Christmas greeting from Thomas...

Christ is Born!

Glorify Him!

A peaceful and joyous Christmas to you all. And a blessed New Year.

What Jared and I discovered after Thomas finished typing. Who could ask for anything more?

Painting Johnson style

'Twas the eve before the eve of Christmas when all through the house little children were busy baking and painting ornaments. It was Friday and the majority of my Christmas baking was done so why not? I did, however, make a mental note to delay painting with Russell and Elliot until they are a bit older. Please note in the second photo that Russell is chewing, CHEWING, on the paintbrush. Never a dull moment in the Johnson house.

Thought for the day

"At Christmas, we see Jesus as a little babe-helpless and poor. And He came to love and be loved. How can we love Jesus in the world today? By loving Him in my husband, my wife, my children, my brothers and sisters, my parents, my neighbours, and the poor. Let us gather around the poor crib in Bethlehem and make a strong resolution that we will love Jesus in all those we meet every day."

-Mother Teresa

Grandma's first six-pack

When you are a seven-year-old boy and it is your Grandma Swanson's birthday, you bemoan the fact that your mother is not the crafty sort, that she does not have Popsicle sticks carefully tucked away in a cabinet, that she is ruining your dream of building a frame from the said sticks and dressing it with a photo of a handsome boy: yourself. In an effort to rectify the brewing birthday fiasco, you wander into the belly of the beast, otherwise known as your father's workroom, and emerge triumphant, carrying an empty six-pack beer container whose contents your parents heartily consumed the prior weekend. You will locate a very handsome photo of yourself posing next to one humongous Clifford the Red Dog and his companion Emily Elizabeth and will be content to merely tape the photo onto the Fat Tire container. You will demand that your grandmother shut tight her eyes as you stealthily slip her gift that is "helpful for holding things" into her lap. When she opens her eyes, she will be delighted with your gift. Your grandmother will adamantly declare that your gift, your clever creation, is the best birthday present she has ever received. Your mother will laugh knowing that in the 82 years her mother has been alive on this earth, she has certainly never received any kind of beer container, empty or full, for a gift. And you will be one pleasantly gratified seven-year-old boy.

Purified through suffering

For my father

and for the newly

 departed servant of God, Crystal

"We went to the ward. Father was in bed...And when I saw him, I knew at once there was no hope of his living much longer...He looked at me and put forth his hand... and I realized that he could no longer even speak. But at the same time, you could see he knew us, and knew what was going on, and that his mind was clear, and that he understood everything...Of all of us, Father was the only one who really had any kind of a faith. And I do not doubt that he had very much of it, and that behind the walls of his isolation, his intelligence and his will, unimpaired, and not hampered in any essential way by the partial obstruction of some of his senses, were turned to God, and communed with God Who was with him and in him, and Who gave him, as I believe, light to understand and to make use of his suffering for his own good, and to perfect his soul. It was a great soul, large, full of natural charity. He was a man of exceptional intellectual honesty and sincerity and purity of understanding. And this affliction, this terrible and frightening illness which was relentlessly pressing him down even into the jaws of the tomb, was not destroying him after all.

Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity. And my father was in a fight with this tumor, and none of us understood the battle. We thought he was done for, but it was making him great...and his struggle was authentic, and not wasted or lost or thrown away." -from Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain

Russophile in training

Oh yes Thomas did play the word "tsar" in our scrabble-like game. Perhaps less Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Shostakovich in our school curriculum? Hmm. Probably not.

Hey, bright eyes

Night now goes great and mute

Silence rules all things

What is that murmuring

As of angel's wings

There on our threshold 

White robed and shining

Comes she with bread to spare

Our need divining

-from "Santa Lucia" 

Rinsing off the bowls crusty with the remains of minestrone soup, a dinner which had been shared with our lovely friends from across the street, I reflected upon the near perfection of the day and experienced a deep sense of the goodness in ordinary living. This December 13th had been a day full of the delights of Swedish pepperkaker, crunchy and gingery in four tiny mouths; a day full of song as the five of us sang, quite out of tune, the traditional Santa Lucia song to our long-time, cherished friends the Obergs; a day full of rejoicing in the lives of those present with us and those absent from us, those both living and dead (oh, how my father and my Uncle Russ would have loved some coffee and gingerbread cookies - after all, we are Swedes); a day which was made more wonderful, more complete with an early evening phone call from our brother-in-law, Dan, announcing the arrival of his son, our nephew, Magnus Robert.

Our beautiful, Lucia Bride

 

PS - In the icon, Saint Lucia is holding out a dish containing her own eyes, gouged out during her martyrdom. What is it about that little detail that makes me love her even more?

Thought for the day

"If you have a sick or lonely

person at home, be there. Maybe 

just to hold a hand, maybe just to

give a smile, that is the greatest,

the most beautiful work."

-Mother Teresa

A blessed, joyous St. Lucia Day.

And may God grant our own little Light many, many years.

St. Nicholas Day 2011

"Your works of justice showed you to your congregation a canon of faith, the likeness of humility, a teacher of abstinence, O Father, Bishop Nicholas. Wherefore, by humility you achieved exaltation, and by meekness, richness."

According to my eldest son Thomas, Jack Frost is a little sprite who wears a white jacket, white pants, white boots, and a white hat. In his left hand he carries a briefcase full of paints (all white of course) and paint brushes; in his right he holds a pipe. And while in my mind I can only imagine Jack Frost with a long, white beard like Gandalf's or Dumbledoor's, for Thomas Mr. Frost has a black moustache. We were pleasantly surprised to see that Mr. Frost was making an appearance on St. Nicholas Day and that a light snow was casually dusting the ground. The novelty of the snow for the kids, however, became usurped by the gold chocolate coins scattered all around the presents lying beneath their shoes. While, as the picture will testify, I personally did not receive a gift (Jared tried to find a lump of coal to put in his shoe), my gift came later in the form of lingering at the kitchen table with my husband who had taken the day off of work, drinking my second cup of coffee still hot, and listening to the kids nicely playing together in the living room. After all, it is the little things. Peace and goodness to you.

This picture was actually taken on the 5th, but we could not resist including it - mostly because of Elliot. I believe Russell is trying to make "goo-goo goggles," but one never really knows. 

Also on the 5th, Thomas is rolling out the gingerbread cookie dough that will become the neighbors St. Nicholas Day treats.

Our battery went dead soon after this picture was taken, so no pictures of Russell (or Jared) with chocolate smeared all over his face. I know you are disappointed.

Mumma's Tree Farm: The children kept saying, "Thank you, Mr. Mummy."

Thomas thinks he's found acceptable tree.

The boys give the tree a closer examination.

Just a note that Thomas is wearing my Uncle Russ' Iowa Hawkeye scarf.

"Put on some spy music, please." Yes, these undercover agents are deft in their trade and keen masters of disguise. Their weapon of choice: Pant hangers. They also wore boots that you cannot see but truly completed the outfit.

For the record, I have already swept up one shattered ornament while the three "littles" sat on the couch pointing fingers and each denying any part in the glass all over the floor. I have also noticed that the ornaments seem to mysteriously move throughout the day despite my appeals (so nicely stated, of course) to "NOT TOUCH THE TREE!!!!"

And, yes, I am that crazy mom who buys reused wool bird ornaments at the farmer's market for presents. And actually the kids love them (see, not so crazy), though Thomas wishes Lucia's owl was his own.

Our ingenious Elliot

When you are the kind of boy that will "borrow" a zip lock bag at the party you are attending and then proceed to cram it full of Cheetoes so that it becomes a "to go" bag for home, you may very well express your desire to be a "choo choo train conductor" when you grow up. Your mother will not even bat an eye at your chosen profession but will rather praise you for your decision until you later relate to her that you aspire to be the "choo choo conductor at the zoo." (Isn't that a volunteer position?) And when you are the kind of boy that screws up your face like the above for every photo taken and calls it your best smile and wears a jacket nicer than anything either of your parents own (his was a gift and his mother's from the Goodwill), you will most certainly locate the letter "D" in the book you are reading and announce to your mother, without even batting your eye that, "D is for Darth Vader." But of course.