Five Weeks In

We have been in America for about five weeks now.  It's been good.  It's been hard.  It's been sad.  It's been wonderful.  It's been all of those things and more.
We are living in a place of exceptional beauty.  We drive down a street and see Mt. Hood reaching towards the sky with its snow covered peak. We look North East and see Mt. St. Helen's-also snow covered but a different shape because of the explosion around 30 years ago.  We drive around and across the Columbia River and see clear water flowing. and boats sailing.  It's extraordinary.
People have been kind and generous.  We are staying in the home of a church member who has moved away.  They left some furniture and supplies and other people left some of theirs. Some other Portland friends gave us their sofa and love seat and coffee table and now we have a lovely living room.  We even have a car!  That has helped us to not have to make quick decisions about where to live and what kind of car to buy.  We are thankful.
Paul has started work here.  It's good to hear him preach and teach again.  We'll be headed up to the mountains in a few weeks for a church retreat to form vision and work on community. I can't wait.

Elisabeth has been doing a lot of this.

 

She misses the easy access to transportation that she had in China-bikes, subways, taxis. She also misses her friends. She has made some friends in our church.  Three of the people from her Third Culture Kid re-entry seminar at Multnomah live in the Vancouver area so she has had plenty of social interaction.  She went to the county fair and had her most American experience ever- monster trucks!

  She is heading down to California later this week to help a friend from her international school in Shenyang settle down at UC Berkeley.  Then she will come back and leave a week later on the BOLT bus for Canada to see some other new friends.  A few weeks later, we will take her to Seattle Pacific to start college.  

We got about 100 pictures of our little guy last week.  This one is from the airport right before we left.

The tears started flowing soon after this as we got on the plane.

We are thrilled to see him doing the same things as he did with us...books are big with him!  He is doing very well but I miss him every minute of every day.

As for me, I've been taking these words pretty seriously.  

The start of the journey also coincided with my decision to curtail my use of the internet, which can have an insidious, corrosive effect.  Too much internet usage fragments the brain, and dissipates concentration so that after a while, ones ability to spend long, focused hours immersed in a single subject becomes blunted.  Information comes pre-digested in small pieces, one grazes on endless ready-meals and snack of the mind, and the result is mental malnutrition. Susan Hill Howard's End is on the Landing. 

I have a new "devotional" book called At the Still Point by Sarah Arthur.  I start each day with this unique book- a compilation of Bible reading, poetry and literature.  It's been refreshing and feeds my soul in a unique way.  

One of my goals for this new stage of my life is "more books, more knitting."  It's a joy to have access to a library again and to used bookstores.  The Goodwills here are really good and have stacks of really good used books.  Our branch library also has used books for sale every day.  It's wonderful.

In knitting, I am working on a pair of socks for me and a shawl for Elisabeth.  The socks are a broken seed stitch pattern and the shawl is this.

Woodland Shawlette by Classic Elite Yarns.

I've started and ripped it out three times...I hope I've got it now!

I started to job process before we left China and had my first interview the Monday after we got here.  I had another interview last week.   Both interviews went well and I'll have to make a hard decision at some point if I am offered both jobs.  Both are the kind of ESL that I like to teach but one is much farther away...but potentially more hours.  The other is a great atmosphere but only four hours a week...but it's in the morning so I might be able to teach at the other place in the afternoon....if they have classes then...plus it's a lot of commuting because both jobs are in Portland!  So many decisions.

In the meantime, I have been hired to teach in a three week program at Portland State for a group of Japanese students.  It's one class on American Culture and one class on spoken English.

So...that's about it in a nutshell!

Psalms and a Song

Psalms

BY SAID  

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY MARK S. BURROWS

lord

pray

pray loudly against the noise of the human hand

which seeks to drown you out

and appear on quiet soles

so that we might understand your footsteps

exert yourself

in order to recognize our prayers

even when they appear in a different garment

because no prayer ever looses itself from the source of the one praying

                                                        •

lord

take up the speech

by which i pray to you

grant me the gestures

which have grown within me in your absence

so that i might remain true to my uneducable nature

and take your weakness upon me

                                                        •

lord

you should always wander and never let yourself

settle down

because there are no longer any dwelling places

only footsteps

be loud and penetrating

sympathize with me and my stirrings

lead me

all the way to your bread

so that my word might wake

                                                       •

lord

stay by me

even if i nourish myself from ashes and salt

be still and listen to that name

which i lend to you

because i want to distinguish you from the idols

grant me patience to endure those who are vain

with their empty words

and the converts

who are zealous to confirm their opposite

and grant

that my waiting be full of revolt

                                                       •

lord

when you arrive

we will be light

bread and water

the table is set and the door opened

come and take your place among us

free me of the belief

that you are only faithful from a distance

and speak with me

in the unharried language of animals

who from far off lie in wait for us

with their unadulterated hunger

Source: Poetry (March 2012).

The Book of Love by Peter Gabriel.  How have I never heard this song before?

Christina Rossetti

Portrait of Christina Rossetti by her brother, Dante Rossetti.

I've always loved the poetry of Christina Rosetti (In the Bleak Midwinter takes my breath away) and have used some of her poetry in both my kindergarten classroom and my ESL classroom.  One of my favorites is 

White sheep, white sheep,

On a blue hill,

When the wind stops,

You  all stand still.

When the wind blows,

You  walk  away slow.

White sheep, white sheep,

Where do you  go?

That is a fairly simple poem for kindergartners to memorize and for ESL learners, it's great to learn pronunciation (hill/still and blow/slow/).  Recently I have discovered some of her more complex and religious poetry.  A friend sent me this.

A Better Resurrection

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

I have no wit, no words, no tears;

         My heart within me like a stone

Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;

         Look right, look left, I dwell alone;

I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief

         No everlasting hills I see;

My life is in the falling leaf:

         O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,

         My harvest dwindled to a husk:

Truly my life is void and brief

         And tedious in the barren dusk;

My life is like a frozen thing,

         No bud nor greenness can I see:

Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;

         O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,

         A broken bowl that cannot hold

One drop of water for my soul

         Or cordial in the searching cold;

Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;

         Melt and remould it, till it be

A royal cup for Him, my King:

         O Jesus, drink of me.

In this current season of transition and grief, that poem really spoke to my heart. The imagery of the broken bowl and the numb heart are powerful.

I found another Christina Rossetti poem in At the Still Point:  A Literary Guide to Prayer in Ordinary Time.  It is Part V of  Later Life:  A Double Sonnet of Sonnets.

Lord, Thou Thyself art Love and only Thou;

Yet I who am not love would fain love Thee;

But Thou alone being Love canst furnish me

With that same love my heart is craving now.

Allow my plea! for if Thou disallow,

No second fountain can I find but Thee;

No second hope or help is left to me,

No second anything, but only Thou.

O Love accept, according my request;

O Love exhaust, fulfilling my desire:

Uphold me with the strength that cannot tire,

Nerve me to labor till Thou bid me rest,

Kindle my fire from Thine unkindled fire,

And charm the willing heart from out my breast.

God is love and we want to love him and yet can not without his help.

Makato Fujimura speaks of his art as a kind of visual language.  I think that poetry is a kind of heart language.  Poetry brings forth images and emotions in a way that is very unique." Poetry at its best calls forth our deep being. It dares us to break free from the safe strategies of the cautious mind; it calls to us, like the wild geese, as Mary Oliver would say, from an open sky. It is a magical art, and always has been -- a making of language spells designed to open our eyes, open our doors and welcome us into a bigger world, one of possibilities we may never have dared to dream of."   Roger Housden Huffington Post 6/26/11

Take a minute and look up your favorite poet- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/.  Take a minute and feed your soul today.

Grief

In the novel Anna Karenina, there is a scene that just about did me in.  Anna has left her husband and her beloved son to be with her lover Vronsky.  She has a baby with him but she continues to miss her son.  Vronsky and Anna go back to Moscow and she is determined to see her son.  She write a letter to a woman who is involved with his care and gets a letter back refusing to let her see him.  She finds a way to get into the house and finds him sleeping in his bed.
  "Serezha, my dear little boy," she uttered, catching her breath and embracing his plump little body.
  " Mama!" he muttered, wriggling about in her arms so as to touch them with different parts his body.
Sleepily smiling with closed eyes, he moved his plump hands from the back of his bed to her shoulders, leaning against her in that sweet scent of sleepiness and warmth which only children possess, and began rubbing himself against her neck and shoulder.
  "I knew!" he said, opening his eyes.  Today is my birthday.  I knew you would come!  I'll get up directly."


Serezha has been told that she is dead but never believed it.  After he wakes up, they have a sweet reunion where he reassures her that he didn't believe he was dead.  They spend time together until her husband comes and she has to leave quickly.

There is something in that scene that triggered my grief over leaving our foster son in China.  The scene of the sleepy boy in bed and calling "Mama" and cuddling just reminds me of early mornings with our little guy. The grief that I have is so, so deep.  It's an ache in my heart every minute of every day.  It's a hole that will never be completely filled.

I also recently read Let's Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell is a story of her deep friendship with the writer Caroline Knapp and Caroline's death by lung cancer.  The story didn't move me all that much and I read about her death fairly dry eyed.  But when she writes about having to put down her aging dog...that scene brought me to sobbing for quite a long time.

There are no real triggers for my grief.  I just miss our little boy.  It's something to work through and to work through well and deeply.  I am so thankful that we are not in a situation where we have had to put him back in  an unsafe situation.  He is in a wonderful situation waiting to go to his forever family.  But we miss him-his Mama, his Baba and his Jie Jie.  It's a painful road for us right now.

Beauty is saving my life

So Sarah Bessey is hosting a synchro-blog on the question "What is saving your life right now?"

Go to www.sarahbessey.com to read the rest of the entries.

I know the answer to "Who has saved your life?"  I know that I am saved.  But this question is different-what is saving your life right now?  What makes you want to go on?  What is helping you to survive?
So for me, in this time of painful transition, in this time of weaving a new life in a new place in our old country...in this time of sacred painful grief as we left our sweet foster son behind in China while he waits for his new family...in this time of great change....the thing that is saving my life is beauty.
It's the beauty of living in this new place where the skies are blue and the view of Mt. Hood is stunning.  If we are in the right place, we can see Mt. St. Helen's too...all flat from when it exploded many years ago.  It's  the beauty of driving up the coast and drinking in the beauty of wild ocean, green plants, fog and moss.  It is deep beauty that brings up deep emotion and that is helping us to heal.

It's the beauty of art and the spare, elegant prose of Makato Fujmura who says this:

I've heard many Christians say, "Why should we care about art and culture when we know that all will be burned up in the coming judgement?  Aren't our souls the only thing that is eternal?  Should we not be focused on saving souls?"  Yes, absolutely we should be concerned about our souls, but to what end our we saved?  The Bible from Genesis to Revelation, notes the Creator God infusing his goodness into creation and then using his children to fulfill creation's purposes.  Those who are called to be the children of God (Romans 80 are to exercise their creative gift to become vessels of God, to partake in the creation of the New Order.  While God does have the power to destroy all that is wicked and sinful, he often chooses to sanctify (as in gold) rather than burn away (as in dross), transforming our works.  As the Bible makes clear that God's desire is that the children of God be sanctified, surprisingly, God will also sanctify our works, so that our works may last beyond Christ's Judgement Day (1 Corinthians 3).  The Bible is filled with this promise of an enduring culture of God.  If we are saved for both the new heaven and the new earth, then we had better begin "storing up treasures" by bringing grace into our ordinary, earthly days. (Quote from Refractions page 145)

Soliloquies:  Inner Castle by Makoto Fujimora.

The beauty of silence is saving my life.   The silence of Revelation 8 when the world is silent in awe for half an hour.  The silence from the Psalter:  Psalm 62 "For God alone, my soul in silence waits, from Him comes my salvation.

The beauty of words is saving my life.  The books that we have gotten off my mother's bookshelves, from library sales, thrift stores and used book stores. I feel like a thirsty man in a desert as I look at all the books I have to read.  I've picked up fiction, poetry, Shakespeare and Henry Nouwen.  I picked up an old copy of the Book of Common Prayer and it's beautiful words for Communion, Weddings, Funerals and more.  It's so    restrained and elegant and true.

Elizabeth Barret Browning wrote.

Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God:

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.

My shoes are off.

On Books, knitting and Car Talk

Paul and I are still winding up the Coast of Oregon.  We love this kind of road trip. We go as far as we like, stop wherever we like to look at things and then stop for the night.  Paul drives and I look out the window.  I can not read or do anything in a car.  A few days ago I tried knitting my sock...which lead to an upset stomach and Altoids.  We share a love of the NPR program Car Talk.   We love Prairie Home Companion. I love classical and sacred music...Paul lets me listen to it....for a while.  We listen to contemporary Christian music....until we need a good dose of NPR talk shows.  It all works well for us.
Paul and I share a deep love of used book stores and since we have been back in the US, we have been to many. Our first full weekend in the US, we went to the library book sale at my old high school.  You have to get a number to get in-it's very popular. Books are about $1.00 - $3.00. You can only buy 12 books but the selection was fantastic!  They have side rooms where you can get other, less popular books.  I picked up a few Shakespeare plays and an old copy of the book of Common Prayer.
So here are a few of the books that I have read since we have been back.  Our week at re-entry in Fresno included no internet access in the apartments and lots of free time.  It was wonderful.

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht.  I picked this up at the airport in Korea.  It was 12 won and I had 12 won that I wanted to spend.  This is the story of a young woman's relationship with her grandfather.  It takes place in a post-war Baltic country (the author fled Yugoslavia)  and is a fantastic mix of reality and fantasy.  The young woman in the story is a doctor serving after the war.  Her grandfather goes on a short trip and dies.  She tries to find out what happened to him and in the process remembers the many stories that he told her.  I loved this book.

The Coffee Trader by David Bliss.  A Portuguese Jew tries to become rich by selling coffee in Holland during the 1600's.  This is a thriller of a different speed-who is good, who is bad, who will deceive, who will win in the end?  The history of the coffee trade is pretty interesting.  I really like this book.

Refraction by Matoko Fujimura.  This is a book about art and culture and faith.  Fujimura is head of the International Arts Movement and an artist himself.  His writing is beautiful and elegant and spare.  I don't want this book to end.

The Spirit helps us open our eyes to see the extraordinary in the ordinary

We are driving up to coast of California and Oregon.   It is so beautiful that I hardly know where to look and  how to process it all.  Deep greens and blues, wild ocean and tall mountains.  Two weeks ago I was riding my bike in a large industrialized city in China.  Now I am here.  I have these two parallel worlds...they exist at the same time on the same planet.  It feels surreal.

Makoto Fujimura in his exquisite book Refractions:  A journey of faith, art and culture  says this - Artists are often found at the margins of society, but they are, like the shepherds, often the first to notice the miracles taking place right in front of us.  Since sensationalism, power and wealth dominate our cultural imagination, we may not be willing to journey to the ephemeral, as the Japanese poets of old have, to see beauty in the disappearing lines or to see poetry in a drying puddle of water.  The world seems to demand of us artist-types that we be able to justify our actions, but often the power and mystery of art and life cannot be explained by normative words. 

Tree Grace by Makato Fujimura

My art reaches for the heavenly reality via earthly materials.  The intuitive core of my creativity, like the shepherds heart drawn to the birth of a Saviorm simply desires to pay homage to the mystery of the moment.  Lest we miss the birth of the Savior.  Lest we fail to glimpse the glory of heaven hidden beneath the earth.  The Spirit though, can help to open all of our eyes to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, whether the materials be extravagant minerals or a blackboard, whether we are watching and artist work or observing a special needs child. 

So this is my new blog...weaving a new life.  Finding beauty in the ordinary.  It has a different focus than my other blog which recorder our life in China.  On this blog, I'd like to write about beauty.  I'd like to write about books that I am reading, socks that I am knitting, music that I am listening to. I'd like to write about the pain of transitioning from one country to another and our attempts to make sense of all of that.  I'd like to write about the integration of faith and life and books and poetry.  I'd like to write about learning how to weave!  Not just anew life but literally learning how to weave.

Will you join me in looking for beauty in the extraordinary ordinary?