Ending One Year, Starting Another

Well that last post was pretty serious. I know it's the season of joy but I was living in this sober state for at least part of the time leading up to Christmas. I did enjoy the few days around Christmas very much! I had friends around and made a traditional Christmas breakfast for my brother and his wife. That was a very last minute thing. I don't want to end this year without some joy and gratitude expressed for God's rich goodness to me. I wish I saw it more and more. I am very blessed to have a cozy roof over my head and a little bit of community here in my home and neighborhood. Despite being a little financially strapped at this point in life, I am so thankful for God's provision.

On Christmas Day I went to see Les Miserables. The new film adaptation of this classic Victor Hugo story was outstanding. It was filmed in a way that allowed you to feel the emotion of the moment with the characters in each scene. The picture of one life transformed by God's grace shown through another up against the grace that was rejected even in the face of “the law” not working for him is such a stark picture. I love that grace. I want to live in 2013 in that grace.

Struck with the Sadness

(I actually wrote this on Dec 18th but am just getting around to posting it today. Maybe it's best I saved it until after Christmas.)

The intensity of this season is starting to get to me. I love being in my own home with the all the homeyness this arrangement offers. I have some decorations up, including my skinny tree with all African ornaments – mostly sisal angels, mini baskets, and little gourds. It snowed properly out there a couple weeks ago so it looks like Christmastime to me.

But. An old friend passed away last week. It was unexpected. She was sick but no one thought it very serious. She had been diagnosed with cancer in the fall but was undergoing chemo and was doing well – or so it was thought. Turns out that about a week before she passed away the doctors discovered that she had a bunch of tumors. Her two daughters are in their early 20s, one still in college. I can't help thinking about G. She was the kind of friend you could pick up with again after a long time of not being in touch. I feel fortunate that I saw her about 14 months ago when I was touring with Afrizo. I stayed with her for a couple nights in their home in Queens. Now I can't stop thinking of her family and the great loss.

The news of the elementary school shootings in Connecticut was shocking. Today I saw another post on FB about ten small Middle Eastern girls who had gone to collect firewood and were blown up in a landmine explosion. I clicked on the article to see a photo of draped caskets all lined up. It hit me hard. Why is there so much death? I know this Christmas, like all since then, is a challenge for my sister-in-law who lost her mother on Christmas day eight years ago.

At the same time, I know many friends expecting babies or who have just giving birth, let me count: four just born in the last two weeks, two more on the way in the next two or three weeks. These are happy thoughts but what a world they come into.

For a moment I think of my own loss and loneliness. I am torn between the deep sadness I feel. I think of my mom while crafting for Christmas, my dad when I'm cooking a big holiday meal, my sister too with a the stories we told each other and laughed at our family history. I think too of how G is free from all the cares of this world. In some ways, I wish I were in her place. I would have been a better one to take, the losses to others would have been less and I am jealous for her freedom now. I have no daughter to get through college, no loving husband to miss me. I'm sure I would be missed but not like G is missed by so many close to her.

In some ways all of this is a distraction from Christ's appearing. He came to give life. We grieve death, but forget the eternal life that is the reality. G lives in the presence of Jesus rejoicing with no thought of the fuss on earth. I wish I could worship like that for even moments of the day. But hers is constant now. May I focus more on Him in this season and always.

Happy Reformation Day

This morning I fully intended to study. I have a paper due tonight and reading left before I can fully finish it. However, I did my quick round on the blogosphere and ended up watching a video that brought me to tears. I'm still trying to work out why it was so emotional.

Yesterday I was thinking about the fact that I don't have children and therefore my descendants will not know a very different world than I know. This thought comes from several recent other exposures:

• I watched Atlas Shrugged, Part I last weekend.
• I'm reading about worldview for my class.
• I'm recently noticed that many families in my church have mixed race families now through adoption. (Which I love but will really be different from experience when they are adults.)
• I've been thinking about my pastor's retirement and what an influence he's had on his congregation and will continue to have on those who listen to him during his retirement.

All that is to say, the world is changing – rapidly – and I have mixed feelings about missing it. In some ways I am very thankful that I don't have to navigate guiding children through the potential craziness of the future; in other ways, I would have liked to have been a guiding force of influence to some portion of the future generations.

I wish I were young in a time growing awareness of reformed theology of African Americans. There, I put my finger on it. This video brought me to tears because I love this dialogue. And best of all, I'm not really missing it. Happy Reformation Day!

Here's the video:

Sad and Glad

It’s finally hitting me, the family that I’ve known for over 5 years and that I’ve lived with two different times is about to move away -- far, far away. I have the gift of helps and sometimes I let it go a little far. However, I find there are times that call for supernatural giving beyond what you are really able to do naturally. Getting these guys ready to go has been a privilege and an honor. It’s necessary for sending them well. In many ways, it’s the least I can do because they and a whole team of others took care of my affairs while I was overseas.

I’m sad because the five little ones are so much fun to be around. The old “kids say the darnest things” quote is fleshed out in these precious little ones. Iain’s seriously worried about language acquisition which comes out something like this, “Only 3 days left? I’m not ready to go?” When asked what he needs to do he replied, “I don’t have any [of my new country’s] words yet! We need to learn our words so we can talk to the people.”

Of course, I have been building other memories with them too. A recent trip to the Renaissance Festival, one last trump through the MIA with Mags and Laena-lu, just to name a couple. Auntie Jan is going to miss them ever so much.

But Matt has been working towards this day for at least 16 years or more. He is more than ready to have a life dream come true. I’m sure he’s sad to leave his church and so many dear friends -- but he can’t wait to get there.

This is his calling. So who wouldn’t be overjoyed to be finally getting to the point you spent a third of your life preparing for, something so right that all your fiber is waiting for the fulfillment of. Not to mention the need it fulfills and the call of all believers to preach the gospel. Who wouldn’t be overjoyed to see this happen for a dear friend. There is something about this moment that says -- there is something right in the universe today, something good and perfect happening. I wouldn’t dare stand in the way.

I’m so glad they are going. I’m so sad they are leaving.

Sunday's Child

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good, and gay.

It first appeared in 1838 in a book about the Traditions of Devonshire, by A. E. Bray.

My mom taught me this poem when I was a child. I liked that I was born on the day that had the most attributes, it made me feel special. I guess that your birthday falls on the same day of the week when it's fifty years later.

Stop on over and celebrate with me between 3-7 p.m. Bonfire in the backyard.

The Great Shuffle: An Unnecessarily Long Description of One Aspect of Resettling

I packed up my house all into my attic in the fall of 2007. But I was around for a few months before I left for Kenya so I was in and out of my attic a few times. Then I was home starting in the fall of 2008 for another 8 months and I was up there again often enough to know exactly where certain things I wanted to get at were. Just before I left in 2009 I had a small influx of items from my sister’s house in Washington because she had passed away and we had shipped several boxes of photos to her when Mom had passed away in 2005. Plus my attic gained some of her artwork and eventually some pottery. I was here again briefly in the fall of 2010 and grabbed a couple of items from the attic. For the most part, my carefully packed attic was only lightly touched and mostly memorized until this point.

But when I finally landed in the Twin Cities at the start of last winter -- I was in my attic often enough to start shuffling items around. I needed some things for living. I was moving in with some dear friends who provided a bed and dresser, but I needed a winter coat and some wall decor -- you get the picture. This is when the shuffle really started.

At the beginning of June I moved back into my own home! I was elated and didn’t waste a moment of unpacking all my furniture from the attic. I nearly filled up the house. How had I managed to contain all that is my little attic? I then arranged one corner of the attic with a bed and night stand. It’s very cosy there. But I left the attic for sleeping only and set about on a million little details around the house. The details are so minute I can’t even think now -- but they managed to drain my time over the last two months. I wanted to get everything just so for sharing the house with strangers.

All this is to say I have neglected my attic until now. As I was unpacking in June I noticed that I kept some things that were very odd -- telephones and cassette tapes -- I dubbed my attic a time capsule. Finally I have to deal with the time capsule because I need a place that doesn’t take up the dining table to work. I have school to do. I looked around the other day and I couldn’t see a single surface in the attic. I have two small work tables, a large wooden desk and a laptop table but nowhere I could safely set my little Mac.

This won't be easy. I call it the great shuffle because I will likely spend the entire winter shuffling piles around trying to figure out what to keep, what to chuck, where to store things and so on. There’s a whole wall of footlockers and boxes; more in the closet and crawl space that all need to be dealt with. There are 2 boxes under the desk and several works of art under one of the tables. Maybe in the spring I can have a big sale. Eventually I will have a room back, but in the meantime, I’ll just shuffle.

Back in School

Being back in the school is a good and right thing to be doing at this point. But at the same time feels funny. I have or I should say, had the potential to be one of those English nerds -- someone who went around correcting people’s grammar. If, at a young age, I had been at all pushed in that direction I would have been into reading and writing. It all comes fairly second nature to me. With my tendency towards perfectionism, I would have been a natural. Of course, I don’t have the personality of a librarian, so I’m sure it has all turned out for the best.

Regardless, I am thankful for a natural ability to “hear” the correct way to write a sentence under usual circumstances. I do a have bit of trouble in a few area but I’m learning tricks for remember grammatical rules.

So far, songs have been my best help. When I was studying for the grammar entrance exam for Northwestern I wrote out a little card with a chart for “lay” and “lie” and at the bottom I wrote, “Bob Dylan was wrong.” I had one of the real grammar nerds in the school’s learning center ask me what that meant. I explained,

“When Bob Dylan sings, ‘Lay, lady, lay. Lay upon a smoky brass bed.’ he was wrong, it should have been ‘lie’. In this way, I can remember what people do and the difference in  what we do to objects.”

The other day I was struggling in the school library over “I was” and “I were”. (I was working on the grammar rules for a class.) I asked a librarian for help. In her effort to explain it to me she went to the Grammar Girl website (which I highly recommend) to help explain the time when you use were. As she showed me the page I realized I’d read and maybe even listened to this topic from Grammar Girl before. That was disconcerting since I just discovered Grammar Girl within the last 6 months -- why can’t a remember this rule! But then someone said, “Think of Tevye.” I immediately thought of the line, “If I were a rich man...” The trick for “were” is if it’s a wish or impossibility. I feel confident I will remember now.

If I run into any more issues I have trouble remembering I will look for a song that illustrates it. Unfortunately, it’s a little late in the game for me to become a proper grammar police officer. However, with a bit of effort I hope to get to the point where I can catch myself and avoid being lazy in the area of writing. It turns out that Business Communications class is almost all about grammar, so here’s my chance to practice.