Learning to be astonished

I know I have life only insofar as I have love.

I have no love except it come from Thee.

Help me, please, to carry this candle against the wind. 

-from Leavings, Wendell Berry

I awoke this morning to discover these beautiful flowers as the centerpiece of our kitchen table; a gift from my kind and generous friend of 37 years. There were pancakes that tasted like doughnuts (Jared could not find the whole wheat flour) awaiting my arrival and a table full of giddy children who could not wait to belt out "Happy Birthday" and hand me my presents. There was a promise by one of my sick children, Russell, (yes, the twins have been vomiting) to later draw me a card and there was the reception of the gifts: a lovely wooden basket from our local fair trade store stashed full with a package of Ethiopian coffee; icons of two of my favorite saints, St. Maria of Paris and St. Xenia of Petersburg; a copy of Wendell Berry's work Leavings, as well as a copy of his prose, The Unsettling of America, which I hold with holy fear, sensing that the fleshing out of his words in my life to be transformational; and the promise of one of my favorite movies, Babbette's Feast to be soon arriving. Soon I will leave for the cemetery to visit my father and later there will be a dinner of pizza and buttercream frosted birthday cake with my mother.  I have been terribly spoiled on this day with gifts and cards and phone calls and messages and singing from near and far. As my husband said, "You only turn 40 once." And on this first day of my fortieth year, I am thankful for the amazing gift of life with all its robustness and fragility, its beauty and ugliness, its peace and chaos, its hope and despair. I am deeply grateful for you all, for your constant love, your forgiveness, your friendship. Unquestionably, my life is richer, fuller, and more filled with the divine because of you. Peace and goodness and love, dear ones. 

Messenger

Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird-

equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me

keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here.

which is gratitude, to be give a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever. 

Rachel weeping

I was standing in a throng of people gathered at the Christkindlmarket in Chicago's Daley plaza on Friday afternoon when I looked up at a gargantuan TV screen on the side of a neighboring building and realized something horrific had happened. O my God.

Every Tuesday the children and I stand in our icon corner for our morning prayers and remember by name those family members, friends, and strangers who have departed this life before us. At the beginning of this month, we added the name of the infant James, our friend's son whose life ended in his mother's womb. Last Monday, we added the name of Michael, my dear friend's father whose life was cut short after a three-year battle with cancer. Yesterday afternoon with much fear I finally allowed myself to read one article about Friday's murders and I wrote the names of Newtown, Connecticut's holy innocents on a blank sheet of paper and wept and mourned anew. Tomorrow my children and I will stand with the saints. I will stare at the icon of Christ harrowing hell and do the only thing I know to do, pray. Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy.

Memory eternal

Charlotte

Daniel

Rachel

Olivia

Josephine

Ana

Dylan

Dawn

Madeline

Catherine

Chase

Jesse

James

Grace

Anne Marie

Emilie

Jack

Noah

Caroline

Jessica

Avielle

Lauren

Mary

Victoria

Benjamin

Allison

Nancy

O Christmas tree

Vision

Wendell Berry

If we will have the wisdom to survive, to stand like slow growing trees

on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it...

then a long time after we are dead

the lives our lives prepare will live

here, their houses strongly placed

upon the valley sides...

The river will run

clear, as we will never know it...

On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down

the old forest, an old forest will stand,

its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.

The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.

Families will be singing in the fields...

Memory,

native to this valley, will spread over it

like a grove, and memory will grow

into legend, legend into song, song

into sacrament. The abundance of this place,

the songs of its people and its birds,

will be health and wisdom and indwelling

light. This is no paradisal dream.

Its hardship is its reality.

The annual trip to Mumma's, except this year it was 70 degrees on December 4th.

The light is everything

The early darkness has caught me off-guard, leaving me bewildered that the sun is disappearing behind the neighbor's homes as I climb up the stairs to our second storey and dumbstruck by the fleeting  fragments of pink and orange piercing the sky. The darkness startles me with the lavishness of its blackness, its depth like a cavernous hole. A sense of disequilibrium threatens as what seems to be 8:30 in the evening is really only 5:00. Then I catch sight of them from our front windows, the dangling white lights so meticulously strung by my husband last weekend. Artificial lights, mass produced and purchased at Menards, yet they offer me solace, these beaming lights, their brightness permeating the darkness, helping in some inexplicable way to quiet the cacophony of inner voices that crowd out silence, that squashes out prayer.  I leave the warmth of our home, the smells of a pumpkin scented candle mingled with a curried lentil soup dissipating into the briskness of the late November air. Momentarily I stand in the silence of the night, the business of all creatures quelled by the shift in the seasons, and gaze at our home. It is ablaze with light shining out into the darkness, the pressed autumn leaves still taped to our windows are vibrant and beautiful, the scrawl of the Emily Dickinson poem written on the wax paper enveloping the leaves illegible but present. And then I am back inside, the children are squealing and racing in circles through the living room, the dining room, the kitchen. There are desperate pleas for their father to wrestle with them, to tickle them, especially under their arm pits, and peals of delight when he obliges. I am touched by their wonder, their voracious energy, their innocence, and offer up a plea that my own human limitations and sins will not spoil their sense of awe, their sense of the divine everywhere present. Already we have entered the season of preparation, a time of joyful solemnity, as we are asked again to embark upon a journey that will lead us to an encounter with the incarnate Christ. Along the way, there will be feasts rich with traditions - shoes to be left out for St. Nicholas with the expectation of gifts and chocolate gold coins (not that we are counting down the days, but there are five to be exact), a white and red dress hidden in my closet to be worn by our daughter on St. Lucia day, and the ingredients for Swedish ginger cookies served for this feast already stashed in our pantry. Tomorrow we will light the first candle of Advent and ask the question, "Who is like God?" finding the answer not among the noblest of warriors or the most devout of priests, reaching beyond St. Nicholas, St. Herman of Alaska, and St. Lucia, to the nativity of a helpless child, the God-Man, nourished at his Mother's breast, lying in a cattle stall.   

The Ponds

Mary Oliver

Every year

the lilies

are so perfect

I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding

the black,

mid-summer ponds.

Nobody could count all of them—

the muskrats swimming

among the pads and the grasses

can reach out

their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that

rife and wild.

But what in this world

is perfect?

I bend closer and see

how this one is clearly lopsided—

and that one wears an orange blight—

and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away—

and that one is a slumped purse

full of its own

unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life

is to be willing

to be dazzled—

to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even

to float a little

above this difficult world.

I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.

I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing -

that the light is everything - that it is more than the sum

of each flawed blossom rising and falling. And I do.

Postscript: Yes, my children insist upon dressing like it is summer and like to mix patterns. I applaud them for showing early signs of bucking the system. Incidentally that fuzzy thing Elliot is wearing is my hat: I have always wanted to be Russian. And yes, Russell is holding yarn and pretending it is a baby and did request I take his picture. Also, it was he that prematurely placed every shoe we own out for St. Nicholas, and it most certainly took much coaxing to convince him to put the shoes away. And yes, Thomas has requested that the box he promised to St. Nicholas in his note contain peanut butter blossom cookies. Hershey kisses were purchased today.

This little light of mine

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.” -from the Desert Fathers

Dear Lord, help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I go.

Flood my soul with Thy spirit and life.

Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly

that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine.

Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with 

may feel Thy presence in my soul.

Let them look up and see no longer me but only Thee O Lord!

Stay with me, and then I shall begin to shine

as Thou shinest; so to shine as to be a light to others.

The light O Lord will be all from Thee;

none of it will be mine;

It will be Thou, shining on others through me.

Let me praise Thee in the way Thou dost love best,

by shining on those around me.

Let me preach Thee without preaching,

not by words but by my example, 

by the catching force, 

the sympathetic influence of what I do,

the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to Thee.

John Henry Cardinal Newman

Peace and goodness to you. 

In the words of my five-year-old son,

"God is here. 

All around."

Avengers Assemble

For Thomas because he creates paper bouquets to make me smile and because he loves this song

Duty of Delight

Beauty will save the world. 

Fydor Dostoyevsky  

There is the promise of baking pumpkin bread this afternoon, though I have completely dismissed the notion of cooking the two pie pumpkins that have been decorating our floors over the last week and pureeing their flesh for the said bread. Maybe tomorrow. You see today, well today, we at the Johnson house are particularly slow, throwing schedules completely away and embracing a more casual approach. After all, it is Friday. And today, though it is nearly noon as I sit in my pajamas and glasses, I am bent on not beating myself up over yesterday's sins but instead thanking God for the grace to pick myself up off the floor and grasp onto a new day, a day, to quote Anne of Green Gables, "fresh with no mistakes." Today I vow to honor beauty by opening myself to it all around me. I will climb out of my stupor of complaints about chipped paint, ripped sofas, the broken window shades so precariously perched that they inevitably fall down whenever touched, and instead I will express gratitude for all the simple gifts waiting to be received: The sun vibrantly shining through the autumn leaves pressed onto our windows; the brilliant, crimson, tree "wearing a gayer scarf"outside our house (it is truly magnificent); the boy whose name rhymes with "Hustle Bustle" seeing rainbows in the colors of a sunset and who squeezes my face demanding that I smile; his twin brother who announces that mommy will be a coffee cup for Halloween and daddy, of course, will be the coffee; the girl who offers me a pretend cup of peppermint tea with cream and mint chocolate chip ice cream compliments of French Meal (Russell's imaginary restaurant that despite what the name might suggest, primarily serves hot dogs and mac and cheese); and the oldest son, my budding iconographer, who writes icons of the Virgin Mary "More spacious than the heavens" (portrayed with hands lifted in prayer as the Christ child is yet within her), burps his ABC's at breakfast, and requires us to listen to "All I Want Is You" by Barry Louis Polisar, popularized by the movie Juno, until we all have memorized the lyrics. Today I will pray for the strength and courage to fight against the defeating feelings of being overwhelmed by life's circumstances, which snuff out my ability to live in the present moment and squash my joy. Today I will acquiesce to my son's request to smile more, especially in the midst of annoyances and interruptions, because I am pretty sure that it is here that Christ is most fully present. And now, it is time to loudly sing "If I Had a Hammer" along with Pete Seeger, dance recklessly with my children, and bake some bread. Peace and goodness to you.

 

Dorothy Day loved to quote Ruskin, who urged us all to the 'Duty of Delight.' It was an admonition, really, to be watchful for the hilarious and the heartwarming, the silly and the sublime. This way will not pass again, and so there is a duty to be mindful of that which delights and keeps joy at the center, distilled from all that happens to us in a day.- from Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle

Encounters

Glory to Thee for the encounters Thou dost arrange for me...

from an Akathist of Thanksgiving

You have your birth-momma's fingers, I often tell my little Ethiopian princess. And tonight my daughter's delicate fingers dance gingerly across my face, stroking my cheeks, bouncing up and down my nose, as our heads lie side by side on the pillows of her big-girl bed. My fingers so used to easily sliding through her brothers' hair in moments of affection become quickly entangled in the fury of corkscrew curls springing forth from her head. She reaches for me and croons, "I love you mommy, and daddy too."

Her brothers are asleep and she discovers me downstairs at the computer. "I cannot sleep," she announces and curls her body up into my lap. Together we sit, her, fresh and clean in pink, fuzzy pajamas with brown horses prancing across the pants, me in my standard uniform of jeans worn at the knees and a black shirt grimy with the remnants of our day. Together we watch the homecoming video of her friend Esther Selam, staring at pictures of her native land, her first homes, her caretakers, her first moments with us. Reflected in the computer screen I see our faces, her brown face pressed against my own. "There's where you first lived, baby girl, before us. And there's your friends, Esther Selam, Naomi Kongit, Etagegn, and Reda," because while her story is unique, her journey was shared by many others.

Separately we all left our homes, boarded planes in our respective cities, all destined for one place, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where we had children waiting for us. I recognized Wade and Julie Osburn instantly while waiting for our flight in Washington, D.C.'s Dulles airport. For months, I had been following Julie's blog, following the Osburn's adoption story as it unfolded in Tennessee simultaneously with our own in Iowa. Together we received referrals for our daughters, Selam and Ethiopia, within days of one another; together we passed court on the same day and our girls became legally regarded as our daughters; together we received our call to travel; together we journeyed to Addis. And for ten intense days, we, and all those beautiful men and women in our group, shared in emotional, intimate moments as we watched one another meet our children for the very first time; as we sat in a concrete building in the southern city of Durame awaiting the meeting of our children's birthfamily members; as we silently and awkwardly gazed at the faces not so unlike our own, entwined fingers with mothers, and fathers, and grandmothers whose children were now also our children; as we wept because of the loss and pain and the tragedy of it all; as we watched our children's family members, armed with photo albums of their posterity's new families, disappear into the Ethiopian hills. Together we were forever changed. 

Our friendship with Julie and Wade is one created by the story of two little girls born within eleven days of each other in southern Ethiopia. The story of Esther Selam and Lucia Ethiopia Kebedech who ate together, slept together, cried together, lived together, before coming home to our families. The story of two little girls with corkscrew curls, luminous brown eyes, and smiles that will melt your heart.

 

Thank you Julie and Wade, Ellis, Ivy, Owen, Oliver, and Esther for welcoming us into your home, for your outpouring of generosity and love. It was truly a gift to be with you again. 

And while I have posted it before, you can watch the homecoming video Julie and Wade created. Always makes me cry.

Elliot and Owen

Our sassy daughters

Oliver and Russell

Never mind that he kept calling her Sintayehu, Elliot loved his friend Esther. Lots of good-bye kisses.

Thomas made Owen promise that he would write.

The littles with Russell's princess, Ivy

Beautiful girls

Permit a child to join

For Thomas, who endures memorizing Emily Dickinson and Mary Oliver poems

Indian Summer 

Emily Dickinson

These are the days when birds come back,

A very few, a bird or two,

To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put on

The old, old sophistries of June, -

A blue and gold mistake.

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,

Almost thy plausibility

Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,

And softly through the altered air

Hurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days,

Oh, last communion in the haze,

Permit a child to join,

Thy sacred emblems to partake,

Thy consecrated bread to break,

Taste thine immortal wine!

Peaceful weekend to you all. I am headed off to Henderson, TN, early tomorrow morning to spend the weekend with the Osburns, friends we traveled with to Ethiopia. Terribly excited to see them again and to meet the rest of their beautiful family.

These are from our trips to Shady Knoll Farm and Butterworth Park. Trying to grab onto every warm day left.