Is inequality making us sick?

This is the question asked at a website one of my brilliant sisters :) introduced me to. Check it out and see what you think.

to be rich in life

What an inspiring interview I just listened to while doing the dishes for the second time today, after having made homemade hamburger buns (and burgers), onion rings and french fries and served them along with fresh pineapple and fancy organic peas...at eight p.m. How I identify with many of the things these women are saying. Makes me think of this quotation, which I think my friend Vanessa introduced me to.

“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common - this is my symphony."

William Henry Channing's Symphony: some background, and its appearance in an Arthur Brisbane editorial - from the 1906 collection, "Editorials From The Hearst Newspapers"

Yes!

for the love of play

Sowsee and Dragon, both hamsters, spent time in my living room today.

This is their cage. The doorway is in the middle.

On Wednesday I checked out a book that Henry saw on the library shelf, Toys through the Ages, published in 1963 and printed in Czechoslovakia (amusing to me since I've been thinking of the Czech movie Alice). The book's introduction talks about possible reasons children play with toys: to learn adult skills in the same way that playing with yarn gives kittens practice in mousing; to release pent-up energy; to awaken distant human memories. Hmm...I don't get it, but it sounds intriguing.

This old leather coin purse came from Grandma Pearl's leather pocketbook. It smells awful, but Henry likes to play with it. The scratched-up end table is from my parents' home and the matryoshka dolls are a baby gift (thank you Debbie!) that Henry is now loving. I treasure this kind of play--the kind that integrates old smelly objects with shiny pretty ones and employs cheap plaster-of-paris Shrek banks (above), rocks, plastic bb's, glass doorknobs and who-knows-what-else. This is the kind of play I grew up with. Maybe it's just universal. My mother says she made me a map (when I was a toddler) of where my toys should go. Then, she says, she laughed at the idea that she had thought a map would work. I remember I giant wooden red cross (she says she bought me a wooden rosary because it was pretty), a Self-Help puzzle with African animals, the Fischer-Price school house and other toys, my Barbie Dream House--I mean Town House (the cheaper version), the Sunshine Family craft gallery, wooden blocks, fabric bits and odds and ends that were used to create worlds. Oh, play. It is such a good thing.

De gustibus non est disputandum.

Conrad Stawski was a humanities teacher I took a wonderful summer class from when I was fifteen. Wow, that was an amazing class. Called "Picasso, Andy Warhol, How did we get here?" or something like that, it shaped me in a deep, deep way. So rewarding to be able to give that kind of attention to something so "grownup" when I was that age. I hope for those same experiences for Henry. There's something about the humanities that just gets my synapses firing. Better than any drug I think I could try! So, the quote above is one of the things Mr. Stawski started the class out with. Wikipedia translates it two ways. "In matters of taste there is no dispute." Or, more commonly rendered, "There's no accounting for taste."

That said, here's a movie I really like. Interesting that YouTube classifies it as horror, as I didn't really think I liked that genre. It picks up on some of the things I really love: remnants of the past, dusty things, china teacups, children playing with real life things (but not if they draw more than a tiny amount of blood), magical surrealism. If you haven't already seen Jan Svankmajer's Alice, I hope this clip provides an exciting introduction. We're borrowing the movie longterm from one of our friends (I think we've had it for five years now), so you're welcome to borrow it from us...I think!

Easter

Happy Easter! Here's a little Easter assemblage. It's hard to see the beauty of the things gathered here, which include beautiful daffodils from neighbors and my sister's first Araucana pullet egg, laid Holy Saturday, given to me as a sweet, sweet gift, a cross wrapped in soft blue-green yarn...
The poem is more assertive than the assemblage. And I love it.

I Praise You for this Resurrection Madness

Lord of such amazing surprises as put a catch in my breath and wings on my heart,
I praise you for this joy, too great for words,
but not for tears and songs and sharing;
for this mercy that blots out my betrayals and bids me begin again,
to limp on, to hop-skip-and-jump on,
to mend what is broken in and around me,
and to forgive the breakers;
for the YES to life and laughter,
to loves and lovers, and to my unwinding self;
for this kingdom unleashed in me and I in it forever,
and no dead ends to growing,
to choices, to chances, to calls to be just;
no dead ends to living, to making peace,
to dreaming dreams, to being glad of heart;
for this resurrection madness which is wiser than I
and in which I see how great you are, how full of grace.
Alleluia!

Ted Loder, Guerillas of Grace, 1984

Good Friday, 2008, looking southward

GOOD-FRIDAY, 1613, RIDING WESTWARD.
by John Donne

LET man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey;
Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirled by it.
Hence is't, that I am carried towards the West,
This day, when my soul's form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget:
But that Christ on this cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees God's face, that is self-life, must die;
What a death were it then to see God die?
It made his own lieutenant, Nature, shrink;
It made his footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands which span the poles,
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes ?
Could I behold that endless height which is
Zenith to us, and t'our antipodes,
Humbled below us? Or that blood which is
The seat of all our soul's, if not of his,
Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for His apparel, ragg'd and torn ?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,
Who was God's partner here, and furnish'd thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom'd us?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They're present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and Thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger; punish me;
Burn off my rust, and my deformity;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I'll turn my face.

---

Norton Anthology of English Lit., 5th ed., Vol. 1, 1986

I remember studying this poem in English Lit, and then thinking of it again as I drove westward on Good Friday, 1994, to get engaged to marry Joel. There are so many, many things I would rather do than "see that spectacle of too much weight for me." Turning my face towards God's, that is too much knowledge. I would rather face the warm south windows, the crocuses, the red wheelbarrow and my boy in the dirt

We have a Good Friday communion breakfast every year at the Villa and it always ends up being a more meaningful time than I could have anticipated. When I leave I can say I am glad to have been there. And yet I feel great relief when it is over. Whew! I dealt with the topics of death, sin and brokenness today. Now I can escape to more pleasant things.

It felt like a wonderful escape, fourteen years ago, to drive westward to get engaged. Four years later, Good Friday of 1998, we drove south for Joel to have a biopsy and then wait until Easter Monday to learn it was Hodgkins Disease.

Now, ten years, a clean bill of health and one dirt-loving boy after that, I'm thankful to have a husband who wants to photograph the back of my neck on Good Friday. I'm thankful for the food I've been able to eat at the table these forty days (and all the food I've eaten elsewhere!). But I've felt this unsettled feeling today, probably due to not enough sleep.

Good Friday is a teary, touchstone day for me. A reminder of past joys and pains. I guess I get so many reminders of human finiteness and fallibility (my own and others') on other days that I just can't bear to face eastward for very long. And the whole turning-the-back-for-punishment business at the end of the poem... I don't want to tamper with seventeenth-century literature, but the idea offends my twenty-first century sensibilities. The way to my heart seems to be through gentleness and humor. But I want to remain open to new interpretations.

What perspectives do you have on Good Friday? I definitely prefer to see it as part of the Triduum, those three holy days that allow us to say, "Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again." The mystery of our faith.

A quietly joyful Holy Saturday to you.

death and resurrection

This illustration of an overjoyed Persephone being reunited with her mother Demeter is just one of many beautiful pictures from a book I used to read at my piano teacher's house.
Mary shared her extensive library with us during the 1 - 1.5 hours the four and then three of us sisters spent having our lessons and waiting for the others to finish. That was a great gift my parents gave me, and I'm not sure whether I'm talking about the piano lesson itself, or the introduction to spiritual direction and retreating that the lesson with listening Mary and the subsequent waiting period provided. What an enriched and beautiful environment it was. Dark library with fireplace and books all the way to the ceiling, sun room with pink wallpaper, one of the Bronte sisters hanging in an oval frame, red geraniums in copper pots under the windows. At least that is how I remember it.

Joel read the story of Persephone (from another book) to Henry the other night and I was reminded that it is also in the d'Aulaires' book. Quite the collaborative couple they were. We were talking about how the Resurrection of Jesus echoes the earlier story of Persephone and how universal and necessary that experience of rising from the depths is. How many deaths and resurrections life holds.

And now we are entering Holy Week. Happy springtime! And, for all to whom it is meaningful--myself included--a blessed week of walking toward the cross with Jesus.

some random scenes

Henry volunteered to repair the trash can, which no longer opens with the tap of a foot. I see what the problem is, Mama. It's all gummed up.

Stillness at the end of a long, good day that included a heart-rending funeral, a surprise computer repair at a loving place with a yellow door, NuWay rootbeers for the whole family, play with a cousin and a neighbor, stories and, at the end of the day, cooperative laundry folding while watching Six Feet Under.

The words that stick with me today are those Ms. Fran said to us as we left the place of the yellow door: Keep walking. What does that mean, Henry asked. Well, we said, keep living. Life is sweet, even if it is sad sometimes. Don't stop living it until it's over. And then we went to get root beers.

every drop, every petal

All know that the drop merges into the ocean
but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.
--Kabir

My mother-in-law gave me a 2008 calendar that I am enjoying every day. (I can't resist noting that the calendar distributor has this squared circle as its logo). Since the calendar hangs right at eye level in the bathroom, I have a chance to study it every night while flossing and brushing my teeth. The above line from the Indian poet Kabir is printed on the March pages.

I think this idea that the whole exists for the one as well as the other way around is so very important but, still, I tend to doubt it. And then I see this (and the photo above), photographed by Libby.


I'm reminded of this quotation from a Dostoyevsky novel I've always intended to read.

Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

- Father Zosima of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov

Thank you, Libby, for sharing what your eyes and your soul see--the whole and every petal of it.

Saturday lunch

Compliments of Farmers Terence and Tamara. Thanks, Peaceful Prairie Farm.

when exercising in fake fur,

jeans and old, white adidas tennies, be careful not to act too exuberant. Out of concern for women who, arms swinging, run cattywhumpus across the street, well-meaning police officers may stop you to ask if you are okay. If they do, just tell them you're having a particularly happy morning and all will be well.

end of an era

Last night marked the end of a personal era--the vanilla homemaker era. Over a year ago, my friend Jean from work gave me a large bottle of Mexican vanilla (which I've heard may not be so good for you??) as a farewell gift when I quit my job as chaplain. When I went back to work seven weeks later as a two-day-a-week job-sharing-chaplain, this mostly-full bottle was a great source of consolation for me. I knew that even when times were slim due to my "quitting" my job, my family would have vanilla for cookies, pudding and whatnot. And so I have thanked Jean with each teaspoon and have flavored liberally, often throwing in two teaspoons for the recommended one. But good things come to an end so that new things can be born. And now I am in the market for a new bottle of vanilla. This one will also symbolize my new life as a homemaker. But it will be a more confident bottle. One I can look at and say, "I had vanilla last year. I have vanilla this year. In the life I am choosing, I will have vanilla or, if I don't, I will have all I need."

I close with a photo from Sleeping with Bread, one of my favorite books. It has helped me so much as the last two years have unfolded.

Teku or Metal Maniac?

I say this not to brag, but to make myself feel better about what I will say after I ask this question. How many of you can say you recited from memory the story of Jesus' transfiguration at the breakfast table this morning? Well, I did. And it makes me feel less disturbed by the fact that, right now, Henry's primary life narrative seems to spring up not from Sunday school Bible stories, but from a movie series called AcceleRacers (I still rue the day I said we could check it out from the library). You can learn more (than you ever wanted to know) about AcceleRacers here. So, anyway, a frequent topic of conversation in our house is whether a certain Hot Wheels car Henry is "driving" is a Teku or a Metal Maniac car. To give you a sense of the differences between the Teku and Metal Maniac aesthetics (and this is just my uneducated opinion), the Tekus dress in sleek, spotless jumpsuits and drive what may be Japanese- inspired concept cars, while the Metal Maniacs wear Harley-type gear and eat greasy meat with their bare hands. I googled Metal Maniacs and someone on Facebook (I think it was) said the Ford Mustang is undeniably a Metal Maniac, which is to say rugged and muscular, car.

This morning Henry asked me if I think he is a Teku or a Metal Maniac. I didn't know how to answer, but I could recall loving to ask this same type of question as I was growing up. I went on to talk about attributes of his that seem more Teku or more Metal Maniac. Truth is, as off-putting as I find the Metal Maniacs, I still find them more endearing than the Tekus, who are just a little too snooty and trendy for my taste. Further reflection on this subject helped me to see that Joel and I spend a lot of our time encouraging Henry to adopt metal maniac ways--to make the most of existing resources and not to throw things away until they are used up. We give him the whole spiel about how television and tv commercials try to convince us we need things that we don't really need. But here our family is in a consumer culture, enjoying the things we get to buy and visiting The Et Cetera Shop frequently so we can consume things other consumers have discarded. And this whole excursus isn't even addressing the question I was really getting at: is it okay for me to tell Henry "who he is" instead of encouraging him to discover that for himself? And in saying this, I'm not asking, "should I be explicit about the values I wish for him to adopt?" No, I'm wondering...how do we become who we are? Is it by starting with simple dualisms like Teku or Metal Maniac and then working our way into the more ambiguous scenarios of life (hopefully well after we're five years old)? That must be one of the ways... But I would like the heart of the matter to be healthy relationships, not Hot Wheels stories that rely so heavily on the good old narrative of redemptive violence.

I guess what I want for Henry is one of the things I want for myself. I hope he will know himself to be in relationship with One who loves him and yet is mystery. I do think of Peter on the mountaintop with Jesus. "Lord, can we build three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah?" "Er, no, Peter," responds Jesus. "We've got to go back down the mountain. But thank you for asking. I like you, too, and I'm glad to have spent time with you up here on the mountaintop. I bet you'll be chewing on the meaning of this for a long time to come. I hope so."

And so, with gratitude for getting to consider the merits of Tekus and Metal Maniacs, I continue to chew.

scientific what?

Have you ever been to this place or heard of it? With a name like "scientific panty" in the shop's subtitle...or whatever, I just had to find out what it was. Barbara was telling me about it this evening. Quite fascinating.

an afternoon at the cabin site

Joel, smiling: at me, at the success he's experienced using the metal detector to remove still more wire and concrete chunks from the lane leading to the cabin, at the fact that he got the metal detector to work after it was broken.
Henry, smiling as he shows us the house he's built in the lane. First he leveled out and laid a smooth mud foundation using water from the thermos. Then he looked for flat rocks, and taller, bigger ones to complete his house. It's hard to see the house from the photo, but he had so much fun making it while Joel hunted for metal. I smile at the thought that we whiled away nearly four hours under a beautiful March 1 sky with nary a complaint about boredom. Why be bored when you have rocks, dirt and sky...and dad and mom?
A view of the cabin and a view from out the bathroom window. And a view of one of the builder's two golden labs. Henry was scared of them at first, then loved them. They reminded us of our dear neighbor dog Shanti.All in all, a beautiful afternoon and a pleasant consolation to look back on now that, 24hrs later, Henry is still sick with stomach flu and fever...sleeping fitfully. It will be another long/short night, I'm afraid. He threw up this morning at midnight and two more times after that. Sleep well, little builder.