P.S.

I just read this today on a wonderful site and blog I stumbled upon ( http://christopherushomeschool.typepad.com/ - Waldorf-inspired publications and resources for home-schooling!) and it seemed a perfect postscript to my recent posting (May 23) on the heavy themes of Easter, themes children don't yet have to deal with and therefore, maybe, should even be shielded from.  

"To finish, I want to share one last anecdote, this from a book by Corrie Ten Boom whose family worked hard during WW2 to save the lives of many Jews and were eventually destroyed themselves by the Nazis. Corrie tells a story of a train trip she took with her father. She was about 13 and asked her father a question about sex. He paused for a while and they sat in silence (that alone is something worth taking from this story as so often parents seem to think they must immediately always respond to the questions of their children without any time for distance or reflection). Then he said "When we get off the train, will you carry our bags?" Corrie said no, she couldn't possibly, they were too heavy for her. Then he solemnly said that the same was true for her question, that for now, its answer was too heavy for her to carry and that he would carry it for her until she was ready to carry it herself."

The Quote Above the Kitchen Sink

It is easy to be heavy;
hard to be light.
G.K. Chesterton

More Thoughts on Why Teaching Easter is so much Harder than Christmas

And there are other reasons why I think communicating Easter to children is so much harder than Christmas. 

For example, this was really, really hard to read to our children.
But Jesus stayed [on the cross].  
You see, they [the bystanders to the Crucifixion] didn't understand.  It wasn't the nails that kept Jesus there.  It was love.
"Papa?" Jesus cried, frantically searching the sky.  "Papa?  Where are you?  Don't leave me!"
And for the first time - and the last - when he spoke, nothing happened.  Just a horrible, endless silence. God didn't answer.  He turned away from his Boy. 
(the Jesus Storybook Bible [for children], by Sally Lloyd-Jones)

Why was that so hard for me to read to my kids?  Because how do I answer their questions, "Mommy, why did God turn His back on His Son, whom He loves?  Will you turn your back on me when I'm in pain or need?  Will God turn His back on me when I'm most in need or pain?"  And how do I comfort their sadness and tears over a hurting, dying child crying out for his father and his father turning his back on him?  

I don't have answers.  I just have some thoughts.

In George MacDonald's Maiden's Bequest, a quiet orphan girl is terrified by a hell-fire preacher. She visits Pastor Cowie and is reduced to tears. With deep concern he asks:
Pastor: "What's the matter dear?"
Stumbling for words she told the story, though interrupted with much weeping.
Annie: "I went last night to the church to hear Mr. Brown. And he preached a grand sermon. But I haven't been able to be with myself since then. I am one of the wicked that God hates, and I'll never get to heaven, for I can't help forgetting him sometimes. And the wicked will be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God. And I can't stand it."
In the good heart of Pastor Cowie arose a gentle indignation against the overly pious who had terrified and bewildered that precious, small child. He thought a moment and said:
Pastor: "You haven't forgotten your father, have you Annie?"
Annie: "I think about him most every day."
Pastor: "But there comes a day now and then when you don't think much about him, doesn't there?"
Annie: "Yes, sir."
Pastor: "Do you think he would be angry with his child because she was taken up with her books and play? Do you think he would be angry that you didn't think about him that day, especially when you can't see him?"
Annie: "Indeed, no sir…he wouldn't be so sore upon me as that."
Pastor: "What do you think he would say?"
Annie: "If Mr. Bruce were to get after me for it, my father would say 'Let the lassie alone. She'll think about me another day…there's time enough.'"
Pastor: "Well, don't you think your father in heaven would say the same?"
Annie: "Maybe he might, sir. But, you see, my father was my own father, and he would make the best of me."
Pastor: "And is not God kinder than your father?"

"And is not God kinder than your father?"  Yes, God is kinder than even my father.  God is kinder than even your father.  Kinder than even the kindest father.   Oh yes, God is oh so kind.

Another lovely George MacDonald quote on the Father of fatherhood: 

In my own childhood and boyhood my father was the refuge
from all the ills of life, even sharp pain itself.
Therefore I say to son or daughter
who has no pleasure in the name Father,
“You must interpret the word by all that you have missed in life.
All that human tenderness can give
or desire in the nearness and readiness of love,
all and infinitely more must be true of the perfect Father—
of the maker of fatherhood.”
 

So then how to explain to my children God the Father's behavior in the moment His Son needed Him most?  

Dana reminds me of a passage I've read several times in my life from Elie Wiesel's Night:  Of course I don't share this with our children, but it helps me, helps me find ways to help them understand, as my own understanding is increased.

“Where is God? Where is He?” someone behind me asked. ..
For more than half an hour [the child in the noose] stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
“Where is God now?”
And I heard a voice within me answer him:
“Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows. . . .” 

Maybe because God was there, there on the Cross with His Son, also God, One with Him in suffering.  God was there crying out too.


Other's have understood it this way:  That Christ was so very unified in our sufferings and sins that He experienced the separation from God, the utter isolation, that sin begets, in the same way that we experience and feel cut-off from God when we walk outside of His Love.  Has God turned away from us, or have we turned away from Him? 


Again, I don't have any answers.  I'm just so grateful that there's no Christmas without Easter, and no Easter without Christmas.

Why is Teaching Easter so much harder than Christmas?

For a few seasons now, I have been somewhat challenged by just how much harder it is to explain Easter to a child than it is to communicate Christmas.  I savor every moment of Advent, have trouble sleeping nights leading up to it, waking early late November mornings to make secret preparations, all fashioned to help open my children's eyes to the mysterious wonder of Christmas, Love come down.  But Lent gets me every time.  How do I walk my children through 40 days in preparation for Christ's Passion?   It's so easy and light to prepare ourselves for His Coming.  Lent feels so heavy, too heavy for these little ones of mine.

Frederica Mathewes-Green helped shed some light on my dilemma:  "[The themes of Easter] are not things children have to think about.  Easter tells us of something children can't understand, because it addresses things they don't yet have to know:  the weariness of life, the pain, the profound loneliness and hovering fear of meaninglessness."  ("Merry Easter?", Bread and Wine:  Readings for Lent and Easter, p. 269, italics mine) 

I love that.  It gives me a little space to pace myself.  I don't have to explain all of Easter to them yet.  There will be time enough for them to be acquainted with all the sadness and darkness of that Story, and how great the Light and Life is that comes after.  For now it's okay to let alone some "things they don't yet have to know". 

Our professional

Last night Kadie asked Briana how she came to choose "planting trees" as the theme for her 7th birthday party coming up at the end of this month (a bit of a diversion from last year's swashbuckling pirate party) .  She just shrugged and answered, "Cuz I'm a professional at my own life."  Dearest daughter of mine, may you always feel that way, in some underlying sense. I love you. 

The Challenge of Naming a Child Cross-Culturally

We don't know if the little one that will be born in November is a boy or a girl, but so far we've had more fun throwing around female names. We were pretty pleased with ourselves when all 3 of us seemed to like Sabina Gaia. Sabina is easy to pronounce in Romanian and I liked the nickname "Sabi" (what Briana calls the hot green paste, "wasabi", Daddy likes to mix with soy sauce) and Dana's read lovely theological books on the concept of "gaia", the greek earth goddess, but more recently an intellectual paradigm for the gorgeous unity of the cosmos. Well all that was shot through when we ran the names by our closest Romanian friend. Apparently "Sabina" is a peasant's name (in other words, it's hick), negatively associated with uneducated, insular village life. (Perhaps akin to Bubba or Thelma Lou in the States.) And "Gaia" is part of a popular expression which means, "I'm going to kick your a_ _!"
So it's back to the drawing board.
Granted it's just one person's humble opinion (we'd be glad for other Romanians' thoughts), but for now we've scratched "I'm going to kick your hick butt!" from the list.

Experiments in Social Entrepreneurship

Not to compare our daughter with our dog, but both Briana and Augustina (our husky that was with us from 2001-2005) have been able to do much more for us socially than the fact that we have offered the free Viata Program to over 1000's of young people in this town over the past 10 years. The Viata Program rarely gets us acknowledged in this small community, but both Augi and Briana have brought numerous pleasant social encounters: conversations on the street, well-wishes, unsolicited smiles and chit-chat, shared snacks in the park and free fruit at the vegetable market. We used to talk about driving Augi around on the top of our car, just to melt the social ice that can still chill between us foreigners and the locals, and we're certain it would've been successful. Briana's lemonade stand this weekend was successful in just the same way.

Though there's probably a kid-run lemonade stand on about every corner in North America , I am certain no one has ever seen one here. Or anything remotely like it. So it was with great interest that we helped Briana proudly hang her sign on our fence (Homemade Lemonade for Sale - 5cents a cup) on Saturday and arrange her table, cash register, and cups in the front of our yard. When the first passerby approached, one of our neighbors, I coaxed Briana into approaching him and asking him if he'd like a glass of lemonade. At first he said no, I'm sure he was confused, and then he saw the sign and her little table and cash register and he somehow understood. He didn't have a penny on him so he promised to bring the money tomorrow, and appreciatively emptied his glass. I won't say the rest of the afternoon was bustling, but I think only one passerby declined, and the rest of our neighbors were great sports. We had at-length conversations with 2 neighbors we've only ever saluted, and one neighbor who had hurried by earlier in the day made it a point to come back later, after the stand had closed, insisting on buying a glass. And Briana made a killing when our 9 international volunteers showed up for a 4th of July BBQ (we weren't going to set our daughter up for complete failure...we knew she'd at least sell 9 cups that day).

It was great fun, a great learning exercise for Briana (she made the shopping list, watched videos on how to make lemonade, squeezed lemons, poured, learned how to give back change, eventually, and practiced customer-service, sort of) but most of all it was a great experience of social warmth and openness between us and our neighbors, something we don't take for granted.

Dana was trying to teach Briana the age-old adage: "If life gives you lemons..." "Make a lemonade stand," she replied. I'll drink to that.

Summer So Far

It is the eve of my 39th birthday and I just feel so grateful to be alive, to be immersed in love, to have all that I could want. Dana. Briana. And now this little bud that opens inside of me. So much more that I could say.

I wept hearing this song when I first learned I was with child. And now, it calls to me, tonight as the page turns into a new year, filling me with love and gratitude and calm.

"Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini, Hosanna in excelsis"

"Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the Highest"

Benedictus. From Karl Jenkin's "The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace."

Deja Vou

Winter is here. Again. After vacationing all of January, she decided to return. And we're glad.

The "dead" of winter -

Or so they say.

But winter lives

In her own way.

She leaves her tracks,

She shows us signs.

Not brilliant blooms,

But webs of lines.

Not sprout or splash,

But silver gray.

Winter lives

In her own way.

Icicles are winter's fingers
That form where freezing water lingers.
Icicles are winter's arrows
Pointing out the crows and sparrows.
Icicles are dragon's teeth.
They don't grow up.
They drip beneath.

Snow man.

Snow woman.

They are not real.

They are not human.

They cannot walk,

They cannot creep.

Except when humans

Are asleep.

Winter Eyes: poems and paintings by Douglas Florian.

Grace Comes and We Go

In December Briana and I said goodbye to our best friends in Lupeni, Monica and Bubu. In January we grieved, and sometimes I felt as if we should be wearing black, for we were in mourning. And then we were surviving. Sad, certainly, but making the best of our days and of the company of each other and those nearby. And then they came back.

Grace comes.

And we go.

We had already bought our tickets to be away for March and April. When we return we will have 10 days with them before they go again, perhaps this time for good.

Mourning will come again.

Our daughter's soul's home away from home is with Monica and Bubu. She would move in with them if we let her. I hope next time grace visits we won't have made other plans.

Love Is...

My Valentine's reading came from the Dorothy Day of the Orthodox Church, Mother Maria Skobtsova. Here she qoutes Ephrem the Syrian [ca. 306-373] as found in the Philokalia:

This is what "Thy will be done on earth at is in heaven" means: when we are united with each other in unenviousness, simplicity, love, peace, and joy, considering the furtherance of our neighbor as our own gain, and regarding his ailments, or failures, or sorrows as our own deficiency, as it is said: "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others" (Phil 2:4).

Let us take care to acquire the eternal blessings promised us. Let us be zealous about it, before it turns dark, before the market closes. Let us make friends of the poor and destitute for our life there. Let us buy oil from them and send them there ahead of us. For it is here that the widows, the orphans, the sick, the lame, the halt, the blind and all the beggars sitting by the church door sell oil for our lamps there.

Mother Maria Skobtsova, Essential Writings, Orbis, 2003, pp. 51 -52

Cabin Fever 2 (for moms and kids in a similar predicament)

Our favorite musician, Bruce Cockburn, has a song "How I Spent My Fall Vacation." What follows is our rendition: "How We Survived Our Winter Vacation." My guess is that parents weren't part of the decision to grant kindergartners a week off just one month after Christmas' month off and smack in the middle of winter's slump. But here Briana and I were home alone, the weather turned our adversary and our friends turned elsewhere. We did the best we could, going some days without seeing another face but Dana's (thankfully he has a pretty face), and at the end of the week I was surprised that we'd not only survived, but actually had a really nice time. We were kind of sorry for the song to end.

"Dr. Ramona" giving a very pregnant Dana an ultrasound she created from our cat's scratching post. A lot of babies were born here last week.

Dana went for a 2 hour hike so he wouldn't have to smell any lotions or polish while Briana and I closed the door on the gray, lit some candles, drank warm milk with honey and ate fruit salad tub-side, and called it our "Su-sauna time."

Traveled to foreign lands: ate "chinese" food in our "japanese" kimonos. (Thank you Ma Ging & Janelle.)

Played indoor sports that eventually morphed into yet another concert. Briana loves making up new verses to this one: "I'll buy me a foldy-roldy,tildy-toldy, seek-a-double, use-a-cozza roll to find me. Roll, Jenny Jenkins, roll."

Unfortunately this is her favorite version,

while I prefer this one.

And that's how we survived our winter vacation.

"I Have Been Terrified Every Day Of My Life" (Subtitle: How a Friend Came to Shoot Battery Acid Into Her Eye With a Syringe)

Romanian Stray Dogs Portrayed in the Media

Romanian Stray Dogs Portrayed in My Brain

Briana and I tried to enjoy a nonchalant walk along our river today and up a hill into a meadow to look at the clouds and grass and jump in some puddles, but I couldn't relax and kept looking around, my bristles up, for what I would grab to fend off a dog attack. Stray dogs terrify me and have every day that I've lived in Romania. They are everywhere and because I tend towards fear (that might be an understatement) and don't understand animal psychology, and because a couple of friends have been bitten, I've suffered too much of the past 10 years from a dog-induced agoraphobia. So for me to go for even the bittiest walk alone with Briana, I feel triumphant and lucky to return home alive.

Not everyone is as afraid of the dogs. Actually I know only one other person whose fear matches my own, and like me she's never been bitten. Most everyone else has a much more balanced view.

The most recent dog story I've heard has such a tragic and surprising ending that one doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. An acquaintance of ours was recently with a group of friends and venting about her hatred of an aggressive street dog that camps outside her apartment building. One of her friends suggested that she poison the dog with battery acid: "A little bit of acid on a piece of chicken, and wala, no more dog problem." This sparked a lively conversation about how one would actually go about doing this. "But if you put the acid on the chicken it will eat through the chicken before you can get it to the dog..." In the end this dialogue eventuated in this friend scurrying down her staircase with a syringe full of battery acid in one hand and a piece of chicken in the other when she tripped and somehow syringed the battery acid straight into her eye. She's fine but she had to go the hospital and wear sunglasses for a few days. Dogs, 1 - humans, 0. (This is a true story.)

Lots of people say killing the dogs isn't the answer. I don't know. It seems to me like it might be a plausible solution. (That's my extreme fear talking.) The popular strategy is to "Trap Neuter and Release" (TNR) - I don't see why Trap Neuter and Retain wouldn't work just as well. I recently ran across two organizations that come to Romania, much like the short-term service teams that come work with us, on neutering trips. It would be interesting to try to bring a group here to Lupeni and to organize a community-wide neutering-outreach project. Anyone interested? I'M SERIOUS!

Some of our local IMPACT kids believe that stray dogs (they are called "câini comunitari " - community dogs - in Romania) are trucked from other cities all over Romania and dumped in the community of Lupeni. (I guess that would be called a Trap 'N Relocate program.) One of our IMPACT members says she saw a truckload of strays being released here. That's encouraging.

Georgia O'Keefe said, "I have been terrified every day of my life." But then she had to say, "But that has never stopped me from doing everything I wanted to do." I want to go outside with Briana and look at the tree limbs and dew drops. (I also want to go jogging and biking by myself but that's OUT of the question.) So I will do my best to gird myself with Georgia's courage, and a thick stick and iron boots, and venture outside. But I'm sure I'd be more relaxed if I knew that the dogs all around me, whose ceaseless barking drowns out the birdsong and whose proximity disrupts my peace, would ne're parent a pup. I already have a name for a future neutering service project: "Mâini comunitari" (community's tomorrow).

Cabin Fever 1 (for moms and kids in a similar predicament)

We love winter. But we're having a hard time with these endless January days of April showers and March mud when we're supposed to be sledding and bundling up. So Briana received her first umbrella and we've gotten pretty creative with indoor fun, thanks to a lot of space and a pretty good Internet connection. This little medley is for any other moms and children out there in the no-one's land of not-winter, not-spring. Hang in there! This CAN'T last.

Lovely song by The Nields, "Who Are You Not to Shine"

Pollywog in a Bog, Barenaked Ladies, album Snacktime!

Feist counting to the number 4, Sesame Street's 39th season

The Globe that Made it Around the Globe

Best viewed from Scene I to Scene IV...sorry it's not in sequence.

Scene IV: So much for hoping she might not notice, eh Jen Hols?

Scene III: Briana gives the globe its first run.

Scene I: Here comes the final Santa.

Scene II: The end of a journey.

On December 7 a box boarded an airplane and embarked on its journey across the Atlantic, carrying in its cargo hold a box full of love for a little girl in Lupeni from aunties, unclies and grandparents in far-off America. But that wasn't the beginning of its journey, and it certainly wasn't its end. I feel like a small documentary could be done on the miles this box covered (actual distance, emotional energies, and latitudes of love) to get from point A to point B, and prizes should be given to all the Santas along the way who helped move it across the globe, starting with Santa Jen Holly in Iowa and ending with Santa Bart here in Lupeni. (With honorable mention to Santa Diana who had to involve Santa Bookeeper in Bucharest in the preperation of 5 official documents before she could retrieve the package and taxi it across town to meet Santa Bart at the bus station.) By the time this globe reached Lupeni, certainly its retail value had triple- quadrupled twice. But hopefully, as the one commercial goes, everyone would breathe in the end (and not least us, Briana's parents, who are so grateful for our family, and many others along the way, going the extra-extra mile to help Briana feel their love close at Christmas): "Priceless!" Thank you to everyone, and Merry Merry Christmas!

Lessons and Carols

Briana with her new friend, princess Adela

Briana's teacher, sweet Doamna Mariana, our answer to prayer

Princesses Alexandra and Gabriela

Caroling to Santa and a room full of camera-carrying parents (Adonis, our collegue Ilie's son, far right)

Today Briana experienced what most Romanians can still recall, even 20 and 30 years on - her kindergarten's Christmas program. My dearest Romanian friend, now 29, advised me over the phone - "provide a gift for Santa Claus to give Briana", "teach her a Christmas poem to recite to Santa", etc., etc.- as it's still being done today as it was a couple of decades ago. So for once we were mostly prepared except that I didn't realize that "dressing up" for the little ladies meant coming in full fairy wear. Briana cried briefly in the beginning that her wand and wings were laying idle at home while she was adorned in black and crimson velvet, but once the program got underway she seemed to forget about her listless duds. It was a sweet hour, meeting the parents of Briana's classmates and watching Briana enjoy herself, one among many excited, fidgety, singing, swaying kindergartners. And she recited the four lines of her Christmas poem (in Romanian) beautifully. We only felt culturally ill-at-ease twice. Once while waiting to take Briana's picture on Santa's lap, a couple of her classmates' mothers kept pushing the children aside to nuzzle on his lap and have their photo taken with him. (That was a little odd.) The other was when we first arrived and were accosted by a drunken-seeming man who demanded that I give him a cupcake. We ran into the school shouting, "They're for the children!" only to turn and find him enter the classroom: one of Briana's classmate's father. He was disruptive most of the program and had to be shushed by everyone including Santa Claus, but was allowed to stay (in many cultures, including our American, he would've been escorted out, at best) and in the end did receive a cupcake (actually two), handshakes and well wishes for the holidays from the other parents. "Peace on earth, goodwill to men, women, kindegartners and drunken parents of kindergartners of all shapes and sizes!" This was the lesson of today's carols.

Mary's Magnificat

Icon of the Annunciation

Most mornings this Advent season I have tried to rise early ahead of the family for some time alone. After pushing play on the coffee maker my next impulse is to light this candle that sits below a print of an icon of the Annunciation. Though the Orthodox honor the Annunication on March 25, precisely 9 months before a December 25th delivery (I can hear the age-old chuckle, as if anything about Christ's birth went like clockwork), I felt mysteriously led to ponder this event this Advent season, just 2 months following my second miscarriage. I don't know exactly what it's trying to tell me, but I know that it's a message of hope, of comfort, and of future promise. And I feel like I've relinquished my ultimatum with God, that I must bear our daughter a sibling. This poem has been a blessing to me and a summons to feel myself likewise weighted down and up by all this glory:

I thank thee, Lord, that if I die in this,

it will be too much, not too little living,

that I have sunk beneath too heavy fruit,

not withered in a desert far from thee.

Glory to thee, Lord, that thou dost give

harvest so lavish our arms cannot hold

nor heart contain the treasure of thy power.

And in the end forgive if I am proud

to go down blest by more than I can bear,

inadequate to carry out thy will,

inadequate and weak, but chosen still.

Magnificat by Jane Tyson Clement

A Carpenter's Christmas by Peter K. Rosegger

Before that sad day when suddenly the Bruderhof's "Daily Dig" was off the air, I had the good fortune of downloading several of their wonderful Advent readings, many of them reprinted from Home for Christmas: Stories for Young and Old. I relish in reading them year after year.

This morning I read this story on true prayer and was convicted as I was this time last year.

At last it was over, this vigorous sweeping and scrubbing and chasing of dirt, this week-long turmoil during which nothing, not a piece of furniture, not a single wall decoration, remained in place, until every piece of wood had been cleaned, every stone whitewashed, every bit of metal polished. Now the house shone in purest cleanliness.

I won't post the story in its entirety here, but if you'd like it, please e-mail me and I'll be happy to send it along: brandi.briana@gmail.com .

Winter Harvest

Briana helping harvest 26 pounds of trout

A stinky winter harvest gift

Watching our neighbor Tanti Dorina grind the corn she grew,

the kernels she dried, through the river-powered mill next to our home.

Today was a harvesting sort of day. This morning Briana and I braved the cold to harvest (or hunt as Briana put it, I guess it depends on how you look at it) incandescent berries from a lone tree in a meadow covered in crackling snow. On our way home we stopped by the tiny one room mill next to our home to watch our neighbor Tanti Dorina coaxing the river into grinding cornmeal from the corn she grew all summer. Then we turned our berries into a present for our good friends Janelle and Daniel and were sorry to discover that they smelled like dog crap, which Janelle & Daniel forgave. Our day ended with rinsing, bagging, and freezing 26 pounds of fresh river trout grown next door by our neighbors Claudiu and Mihaela. One doesn't typically think of harvesting on a chilly December day, but I guess that's one thing Advent is about. Working for what yet remains unseen.