I had this question posed to me today—what will you do when you become senile?
I will talk to myself—oh wait, I already do that. People think I’m senile already!! I assure them I’m talking to my dog, but I don’t think they believe it when they hear me say “I can’t believe what she said to me—why in the world would h want …” Oh well.
I will wear purple—wait—I already wear a lot of purple.
I will jettison all my inhibitions—If I have any—and say whatever comes to my mind. I remember my grandmother doing that—it must have been amazingly liberating—extremely annoying and hurtful to the younger crowd though.
I will require my children to wait on me hand and foot. Well, maybe not—I don’t think I raised them right for that.
So look out, everybody, when I become senile—if I haven’t already.
#6 visited tonight. It was good to cook a meal for someone else and to sit around and just talk about everything under the sun, or moon by the time we were finished. I think I should have a child over to dinner every Thursday night!W
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Sunday, May 27, 2007
35th Anniversary
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Thirty-five years ago today, Ex and I were married. Twenty-two years later, we were divorced. Five years later, on this date, I received our annulment papers.
Ex is getting married this summer to a woman who loves him. I am very happy for them both. I wish them comfort, unanimity, and pleasure in each other’s company.
Our marriage shaped my life more than anything else besides my birth family. I have six marvelous and loving children—his children, and six marvelous grandchildren—his grandchildren. I owe him the world for that. It is enough to bless this day as the anniversary of a family’s beginning.
Thirty-five years ago today, Ex and I were married. Twenty-two years later, we were divorced. Five years later, on this date, I received our annulment papers.
Ex is getting married this summer to a woman who loves him. I am very happy for them both. I wish them comfort, unanimity, and pleasure in each other’s company.
Our marriage shaped my life more than anything else besides my birth family. I have six marvelous and loving children—his children, and six marvelous grandchildren—his grandchildren. I owe him the world for that. It is enough to bless this day as the anniversary of a family’s beginning.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Forgiveness
Book Review
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst The Rwandan Holocaust
By Steve Irwin and Immaculee Ilibagiza
This is a story which will stay with you. Autobiographical, the narrator tells of her childhood as a Tutsi in Rwanda and her narrow escape from the government-sponsored genocide intended to eradicate all Tutsis in Rwanda. Her family was murdered, and she survived because of the sometimes grudging charity of a Hutu Protestant pastor who hid her and six, later eight, other Tutsi women in a tiny bathroom where they crowded together for three months while the Hutu rampage went on, sometimes outside their window, and sometimes inside the house.
The most remarkable aspect of her story is her spiritual journey during those months in the bathroom. Born and raised Catholic, she spent the time, as she puts it, in a corner of her mind communing with God, praying constantly, begging Him for help, and receiving at strategic moments direct help from God. She struggled with the demons of despair and unbelief, and forced her way each time back to God through prayer and meditation. She was able to view her Hutu hunters with compassion and forgiveness. These Hutu who hunted her relentlessly, knowing they had not yet accounted for her death, were her neighbors, her childhood playmates, her teachers and her parents’ friends.
How could she bring herself to forgive those who betrayed and murdered her father, who tortured and dismembered her favorite brother, who clubbed her mother to death? How could she forgive a government who sanctioned, encouraged, inflamed this genocide?
And yet do we not pray daily to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”? Are we not enjoined to love our enemies? Are we not given models of this love and forgiveness—Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”; Maria Goretti, a modern saint who forgave her rapist/murderer before she died and appeared to him later with forgiveness, prompting his conversion?
How often I have struggled with forgiveness. Just saying I forgive you doesn’t really do the job. I think true forgiveness requires letting go of the anger, the pain, the resentment that an offense causes. But it’s even more than that. It is a positive act of love, replacing that anger and pain with love—the kind of love Paul talks about—patient, kind, accepting, … It’s easy to say I forgive you, but its really hard to do. The resentment lurks in hidden corners of the soul and leaps out unexpectedly as a sarcastic comment, a surge of resentment, a moment of renewed anger, or a poor-me-focused story shared for sympathy or attention.
I believe that forgiveness is a unilateral act, as modeled by Christ and by Maria Goretti. It does not require contrition or reform on the part of the forgiven. Repentance is also a unilateral act. When you bring forgiveness and repentance together, you can effect reconciliation. But forgiveness can be accomplished independent of repentance or reconciliation.
I have heard the term forgiveness referred to as psychobabble. I think the genesis of that approach is the reality that true forgiveness, deep-rooted, erasure of the emotions of injury, anger, resentment and pain is so easy to say and so hard to accomplish.
It is not mine, but God’s, to judge the depth of Imaculee’s forgiveness, but I accept it and wonder if I could come to that myself.
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst The Rwandan Holocaust
By Steve Irwin and Immaculee Ilibagiza
This is a story which will stay with you. Autobiographical, the narrator tells of her childhood as a Tutsi in Rwanda and her narrow escape from the government-sponsored genocide intended to eradicate all Tutsis in Rwanda. Her family was murdered, and she survived because of the sometimes grudging charity of a Hutu Protestant pastor who hid her and six, later eight, other Tutsi women in a tiny bathroom where they crowded together for three months while the Hutu rampage went on, sometimes outside their window, and sometimes inside the house.
The most remarkable aspect of her story is her spiritual journey during those months in the bathroom. Born and raised Catholic, she spent the time, as she puts it, in a corner of her mind communing with God, praying constantly, begging Him for help, and receiving at strategic moments direct help from God. She struggled with the demons of despair and unbelief, and forced her way each time back to God through prayer and meditation. She was able to view her Hutu hunters with compassion and forgiveness. These Hutu who hunted her relentlessly, knowing they had not yet accounted for her death, were her neighbors, her childhood playmates, her teachers and her parents’ friends.
How could she bring herself to forgive those who betrayed and murdered her father, who tortured and dismembered her favorite brother, who clubbed her mother to death? How could she forgive a government who sanctioned, encouraged, inflamed this genocide?
And yet do we not pray daily to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”? Are we not enjoined to love our enemies? Are we not given models of this love and forgiveness—Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”; Maria Goretti, a modern saint who forgave her rapist/murderer before she died and appeared to him later with forgiveness, prompting his conversion?
How often I have struggled with forgiveness. Just saying I forgive you doesn’t really do the job. I think true forgiveness requires letting go of the anger, the pain, the resentment that an offense causes. But it’s even more than that. It is a positive act of love, replacing that anger and pain with love—the kind of love Paul talks about—patient, kind, accepting, … It’s easy to say I forgive you, but its really hard to do. The resentment lurks in hidden corners of the soul and leaps out unexpectedly as a sarcastic comment, a surge of resentment, a moment of renewed anger, or a poor-me-focused story shared for sympathy or attention.
I believe that forgiveness is a unilateral act, as modeled by Christ and by Maria Goretti. It does not require contrition or reform on the part of the forgiven. Repentance is also a unilateral act. When you bring forgiveness and repentance together, you can effect reconciliation. But forgiveness can be accomplished independent of repentance or reconciliation.
I have heard the term forgiveness referred to as psychobabble. I think the genesis of that approach is the reality that true forgiveness, deep-rooted, erasure of the emotions of injury, anger, resentment and pain is so easy to say and so hard to accomplish.
It is not mine, but God’s, to judge the depth of Imaculee’s forgiveness, but I accept it and wonder if I could come to that myself.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Book review--The Girls by Lori Lansens
The Girls by Lori Lansens
Premise—Siamese twins joined at the head tell their story. I read it because I thought it was on a list I needed to read for a project—then I found out it was not. It starts out well, and deals directly with the disability and people’s reactions to it. The voices are generally authentic and distinct. It bogged down before it got to the end—I found myself wishing they’d hurry up and die and get it over with. But I’m not usually into books about people dying. Interesting in spots, but not high on my recommendation list.
Premise—Siamese twins joined at the head tell their story. I read it because I thought it was on a list I needed to read for a project—then I found out it was not. It starts out well, and deals directly with the disability and people’s reactions to it. The voices are generally authentic and distinct. It bogged down before it got to the end—I found myself wishing they’d hurry up and die and get it over with. But I’m not usually into books about people dying. Interesting in spots, but not high on my recommendation list.
May Wind
May Wind
She plays
Each tree
Each branch
Each blade of grass
Each seedhead
Each flower stem, each bud
Higher, lower
Faster, slower
Impetuous bowman
Careless oboe
Each tree
Each branch
Each leaf
Each little flower, each blade of grass
raises its singular voice.
A sough, a sigh
A rustle, a whoosh
A creak, a groan, a crackle,
A whisper, a whish,
a crash, a whistle, a cry
Soloists
Together
They call
“A storm is coming.”
She plays
Each tree
Each branch
Each blade of grass
Each seedhead
Each flower stem, each bud
Higher, lower
Faster, slower
Impetuous bowman
Careless oboe
Each tree
Each branch
Each leaf
Each little flower, each blade of grass
raises its singular voice.
A sough, a sigh
A rustle, a whoosh
A creak, a groan, a crackle,
A whisper, a whish,
a crash, a whistle, a cry
Soloists
Together
They call
“A storm is coming.”
Friday, May 11, 2007
Mother
Mother
The bridge
Over rivers
Chasms
Floods
Other roads, other ways
Strong, solid, safe
The rainbow
Linking red to violet
Little feet
To the stars
An arc
Daughter/mother-daughter/mother-daughter/mother
Passing the family
Hand to hand
Womb to womb
across time
The bridge
Over rivers
Chasms
Floods
Other roads, other ways
Strong, solid, safe
The rainbow
Linking red to violet
Little feet
To the stars
An arc
Daughter/mother-daughter/mother-daughter/mother
Passing the family
Hand to hand
Womb to womb
across time
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Rainy Sunday Blues
Sometimes my life seems so small, so routine, so unimportant. I have dogs and cats for company. How does that add to the economy of the universe? I flit from one thing to another with barely a breath in between. I don’t stop to get good at anything—really good and accomplished. Just passable, or not. I want to do this, and that, to learn this, and that, to understand, to share, but the sum total is minimal. Okay, it’s a rainy Sunday and I’m reflecting the weather in my mood. Here’s a list of ten things I like just for contrast.
Things I like:
1. Children. My arms are often hungry for the little shapes, the little hands, the little breath.
2. Books. I have an insatiable hunger for books, requiring not only reading, but maintaining the potential to read—piles of books ready and waiting at any time. I read constantly, it appears.
3. Music. I love classical music. I don’t know it, don’t understand it, don’t discuss or interpret it. I just listen to it and it soothes me. It provides a background of beautiful sound in my world.
4. Biking. I love getting out in the world, traveling quietly through it open to the sounds, the smells, the joy of the downhill coast, the effort of the uphill struggle. I love the thermal layers of air in the evening, the blackbirds and frogs, the smell of pigs and horses.
5. Dogs. I find freedom, comfort and companionship in the dogs that surround me. Also hair, messes, and overwhelming ebullience sometimes. I like their willingness to please, their faithful forgiveness, their ready joy for work, and their acceptance of their dogs’ lives.
6. Cats. I like my cat when she likes me, and even when she doesn’t. She is the first cat I have known who considered me her own, and I like that. I like her soft thick long fur although it flies everywhere and people are allergic to her. I like her company at my desk when I’m writing.
7. Trees. I like the trees that surround my house, the walnuts, the maples, even the elms. I admire their strength, their steadfast shelter, and their willingness to harbor the wildlife I enjoy. I welcome their summer shade and the coolness it gives my house and my eyes. The windbreak that keeps the northwest wind at bay all winter long.
8. My house. I like my house—the fun and excitement of building it, and the daily pleasure of living in a space designed to meet my own particular preferences.
9. Ideas. I like the challenge of new projects, new ideas, new ways of looking at things. I like to start projects at home and at work, and I like to hand them off to someone more detail-oriented than I to finish them.
10. Travel. I like to see new places, learn about them, visit them, smell, taste, touch and hear them. And I like to come home again.
Things I like:
1. Children. My arms are often hungry for the little shapes, the little hands, the little breath.
2. Books. I have an insatiable hunger for books, requiring not only reading, but maintaining the potential to read—piles of books ready and waiting at any time. I read constantly, it appears.
3. Music. I love classical music. I don’t know it, don’t understand it, don’t discuss or interpret it. I just listen to it and it soothes me. It provides a background of beautiful sound in my world.
4. Biking. I love getting out in the world, traveling quietly through it open to the sounds, the smells, the joy of the downhill coast, the effort of the uphill struggle. I love the thermal layers of air in the evening, the blackbirds and frogs, the smell of pigs and horses.
5. Dogs. I find freedom, comfort and companionship in the dogs that surround me. Also hair, messes, and overwhelming ebullience sometimes. I like their willingness to please, their faithful forgiveness, their ready joy for work, and their acceptance of their dogs’ lives.
6. Cats. I like my cat when she likes me, and even when she doesn’t. She is the first cat I have known who considered me her own, and I like that. I like her soft thick long fur although it flies everywhere and people are allergic to her. I like her company at my desk when I’m writing.
7. Trees. I like the trees that surround my house, the walnuts, the maples, even the elms. I admire their strength, their steadfast shelter, and their willingness to harbor the wildlife I enjoy. I welcome their summer shade and the coolness it gives my house and my eyes. The windbreak that keeps the northwest wind at bay all winter long.
8. My house. I like my house—the fun and excitement of building it, and the daily pleasure of living in a space designed to meet my own particular preferences.
9. Ideas. I like the challenge of new projects, new ideas, new ways of looking at things. I like to start projects at home and at work, and I like to hand them off to someone more detail-oriented than I to finish them.
10. Travel. I like to see new places, learn about them, visit them, smell, taste, touch and hear them. And I like to come home again.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Book Review--Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Infidel
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Islam, says the author, is not a religion of peace. It is a religion of submission, of oppression, of violence sanctioned by its holy book. It is a religion frozen in time, a time of desert tribes, of violence. The people who embrace fundamental Islam, she says, are not the poor, down-trodden looking for a better way of life. They are fanatics, educated in the Madrasas of Germany and the United States, filled with holy hatred, the hatred of all that is not them, the infidel, the American. She warns that this resurgence of fundamentalist Islam is a major threat to the west, and that pretending that it is harmless, or that we should tolerate it, excuse it, leave it to flourish in religious schools, is suicidal.
She speaks from her own experience, growing up within Islam in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, and eventually Germany and Holland. She tells her own story, what she experienced, how she lived, how her people lived. She tells of her grandmother, fresh from the desert nomads of Somalia, trying to teach her the ways of the desert, trust noone, be suspicious, attack first, learn your ancestry, recite it-the clan will protect you. Djins, desert spirits, desert ways. Her mother, enthralled by the Saudi way of life; her father fighting for freedom, independence and democracy and still totally within the clan structure. Her escape from an arranged marriage and eventually from the clutches of Islam. A fascinating and revealing story of a world that is hard to imagine and yet must be considered, must be believed and, to the extent that a Christian American can, understood. Her warnings are dire, and real.
It reads like a novel, but depicts scenes hard to imagine from my safe Midwestern country home.
I strongly recommend it to anyone who has any interest in unraveling the complexity of our “modern” world. Will it help me understand Iraq? Will it help me develop a position on terrorism, war, and what we as Americans ought to do? It seems to me that it complicates the issue, focuses it, makes it more frightening In a way. If women’s rights are the focus, it tells a terrifying story of immigrant women, beaten, subjugated, excised (female circumcision), depressed. And the women for the most part complicit—they don’t know any better. They have been taught by their own mothers and grandmothers from infancy that Allah wills that they be beaten, degraded, killed, repressed, treated like property, chattels, livestock. Allah wills it according to the Koran.
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Islam, says the author, is not a religion of peace. It is a religion of submission, of oppression, of violence sanctioned by its holy book. It is a religion frozen in time, a time of desert tribes, of violence. The people who embrace fundamental Islam, she says, are not the poor, down-trodden looking for a better way of life. They are fanatics, educated in the Madrasas of Germany and the United States, filled with holy hatred, the hatred of all that is not them, the infidel, the American. She warns that this resurgence of fundamentalist Islam is a major threat to the west, and that pretending that it is harmless, or that we should tolerate it, excuse it, leave it to flourish in religious schools, is suicidal.
She speaks from her own experience, growing up within Islam in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, and eventually Germany and Holland. She tells her own story, what she experienced, how she lived, how her people lived. She tells of her grandmother, fresh from the desert nomads of Somalia, trying to teach her the ways of the desert, trust noone, be suspicious, attack first, learn your ancestry, recite it-the clan will protect you. Djins, desert spirits, desert ways. Her mother, enthralled by the Saudi way of life; her father fighting for freedom, independence and democracy and still totally within the clan structure. Her escape from an arranged marriage and eventually from the clutches of Islam. A fascinating and revealing story of a world that is hard to imagine and yet must be considered, must be believed and, to the extent that a Christian American can, understood. Her warnings are dire, and real.
It reads like a novel, but depicts scenes hard to imagine from my safe Midwestern country home.
I strongly recommend it to anyone who has any interest in unraveling the complexity of our “modern” world. Will it help me understand Iraq? Will it help me develop a position on terrorism, war, and what we as Americans ought to do? It seems to me that it complicates the issue, focuses it, makes it more frightening In a way. If women’s rights are the focus, it tells a terrifying story of immigrant women, beaten, subjugated, excised (female circumcision), depressed. And the women for the most part complicit—they don’t know any better. They have been taught by their own mothers and grandmothers from infancy that Allah wills that they be beaten, degraded, killed, repressed, treated like property, chattels, livestock. Allah wills it according to the Koran.
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