Like Big Brother, Like Little Brother

"I'm gonna do such a good job of coloring this picture!"
"OK...now how did Josiah do it?...I know he holds this pencil and does something with it...let me see if I can do it, too!...hmm, maybe I should just eat the pencil."

Life in Community

One of the things we appreciate about living here in our town is the sense of rootedness that we have and are building. After living for the first 9 years of our married life with only shallow roots (as related to the communities in which we were living--NOT our relationships with God, each other, or friends), it's a joy now to see much deeper roots already in place and continuing to stretch and grow. Case in point--today Jeff was able to slip away from the barber shop for a little while to go with me and the boys to Walmart to grab a bite to eat at the Subway there and do a little shopping. (As an aside, that last sentence would be extremely tough for a non-native English speaker to understand. It has too many expressions. "Slip away; what does that mean; did he fall?" "Grab a bite; are you really grabbing a bite; who are you grabbing it from?") As soon as we entered Subway, Jeff saw someone he knew; and before he was even done ordering our food, another man he knew entered the shop. It's an odd reversal that here in this community in which I grew up, my husband is the one who knows so many people now! It used to be that as a child, I couldn't go anywhere with my dad without somebody that he knew stopping him to talk--and now it's that way when I go out with Jeff. But instead of growing tired of it like I did growing up, I now find a lot of satisfaction in it. It reminds me of how God created us to grow and develop and live life in community. I hope that in our lives, through our home and our friendships, we can help others to find that sense of community that leads to healthy growth and shared joys.

On a related note, I remember something our friend Gabe Santos from Charlottesville said one time about how connected we are to so many other people. He encouraged us to think about a jar of peanut butter, then think about how many other people were involved in the process of making that jar of peanut butter and getting it to us. I don't know exactly how many people that would be! But it's obvious that our lives are intricately connected with hundreds and thousands of people that we don't know and won't ever meet, but they still affect us. I think it should bring a sense of humility to us as we realize that none of us are an island--none of us really pull ourselves up by our bootstraps without a lot of hands tugging along with us. It sobers me to think how grateful I need to be for the contributions of countless people to me, as well as how conscious I need to be of my impact on countless others.

A Falling Star

One thing I forgot to write about our museum trip yesterday was that on the way home, I saw a falling star!!! Now I think maybe I've kind of seen a falling star before, sort of, perhaps...I'm usually the one looking east when everyone else sees one falling in the west; and by the time I get my head spun around to where everyone else is looking, the star is gone. But I really saw one yesterday, and Jeff saw it, too--right out in front of us as we were driving on 64 West to come home.

Good to the Last Drop

The snow from our big storm is almost all gone, and has been for quite some time. And although we were hoping for more today, the weatherman's predictions didn't come true, and not a single flake was seen falling at our house. But that didn't stop Josiah and David from having some snow fun today! This big pile of snow is very slowly melting; but because it's shaded by a row of pine trees, it's taking a while; and the boys discovered that it was really fun to kick it, stand on it, slide down it, and roll a ball down it. They were doing this while I was beginning the massive project of cleaning out the garage. Ugh! I got one little corner of it done today, and managed to throw out a few things while nobody was looking. :)

Josiah on Museum Day

"I'm so excited Daddy has the day off!"
"This is supposed to teach me how computers play music. Let's see what happens when I put all the pegs in a straight line!"

David on the Way to the Museum

"I'm so hungry I could eat a book!"
"I'm so exhausted I can't even hold my head up!"
"Ah! That's better! Let me know when we hit Richmond!"

Science Museum of Virginia

Wednesday is typically Jeff's day off, and we always look forward to Wednesdays and the chance to spend more time together as a family. This morning--out of the blue--Jeff said, "I wish we could go somewhere today," so we hatched the plan to drive to Richmond and visit the Science Museum of Virginia. I have been wanting to go there again and especially take Josiah; I have good memories of going there as a girl, and it's something that I wanted to share with my family. So off we drove to have an adventure!

On the way Jeff asked me what I remembered about my time at the museum as a child, and I told him about a certain room there that was very small but was lined with mirrors in such a way that it stretched to infinity (it seemed!). I remember going into that room with some of my friends and all of us in our girlhood way, wishing that our bedrooms at home were like that! It was great to find that room again today, and I loved being in it...except for the fact that, inside it, there was some boring-to-me presentation about atoms and molecules and crystals, etc. I suppose that's par for the course in a science museum, but I would rather have had some relaxing music or silence in which to enjoy the ambience. :)

Josiah's favorite part was a rocket display in which an empty soda bottle whooshed way up in the air when he pushed a button. David loved running in a carpeted area while we were waiting for a planetarium demonstration in the IMAX theater and running in a tilted room where the dimensions of everything were "off." I'm not sure about Jeff's favorite...I'll have to ask him. The best part for me was simply being together as a family--well, that and the mirror room!

Isn't that a great picture of Jeff's head? :)

Mennonites

I'm waiting for Jeff to get home from a meeting tonight, so during all this "free time," I'm having fun blogging. I thought I'd include one more poem from the book Sleeping Preacher before I sign off for tonight. This poem has so much truth in it; from my experience with my Church of the Brethren (close cousins to Mennonites) grandparents, my Mennonite high school, and my Mennonite neighbors, I feel like this is a very accurate representation; and it makes me so grateful for my heritage!

Mennonites

We keep our quilts in closets and do not dance.
We hoe thistles along fence rows for fear
we may not be perfect as our Heavenly Father.
We clean up his disasters. No one has to
call; we just show up in the wake of tornadoes
with hammers, after floods with buckets.
Like Jesus, the servant, we wash each other's feet
twice a year and eat the Lord's Supper,
afraid of sins hidden so deep in our organs
they could damn us unawares,
swallowing this bread, his body, this juice.
Growing up, we love the engravings in Martyrs Mirror:
men drowned like cats in burlap sacks,
the Catholic inquisitors,
the woman who handed a pear to her son,
her tongue screwed to the roof of her mouth
to keep her from singing hymns while she burned.
We love Catherine the Great and the rich tracts
she gave us in the Ukraine, bright green winter wheat,
the Cossacks who torched it, and Stalin,
who starved our cousins while wheat rotted
in granaries. We must love our enemies.
We must forgive as our sins are forgiven,
our great-uncle tells us, showing the chain
and ball in a cage whittled from one block of wood
while he was in prison for refusing to shoulder
a gun. He shows the clipping from 1916:
Mennonites are German milksops, too yellow to fight.
We love those Nazi soldiers who, like Moses,
led the last cattle cars rocking out of the Ukraine,
crammed with our parents--children then--
learning the names of Kansas, Saskatchewan, Paraguay.
This is why we cannot leave the beliefs
or what else would we be? why we eat
'til we're drunk on shoofly and moon pies and borscht.
We do not drink; we sing. Unaccompanied on Sundays,
those hymns in four parts, our voices lift with such force
that we lift, as chaff lifts toward God.

Time for Reading

Someone asked me recently, "How do you find time to read so much?"

There are several factors involved in this:
1. I LOVE to read. It is my absolute, all-time, favorite leisure activity.
2. We don't have a TV--so the all-American time-waster is not a factor for me.
3. I read quickly. I guess all the hundreds of books my mother read to me as a wee little girl paid off, because I learned to read easily and began to devour books as soon as I could. Now I can read so quickly that it doesn't take much time at all to read a book, especially when I'm reading for fun, as opposed to serious study.
4. As far as when I actually read, I often sit down with my lunch and a book after I get the boys in bed for their nap. (Reading and eating go together so naturally for me that sometimes I have to remind myself that it's actually OK to read without munching on something! For the sake of my waistline, sometimes I just make a hot drink and settle down in the rocking chair with a book and a drink.) Or after they're asleep at night, I steal some time to relax and read.

One category of books that I'm really enjoying this year is biographies. My parents left many of their books in this house when they moved down the hill, and they have a wonderful collection of biographies of which I am just beginning to skim the surface. In the past few years, I haven't read many biographies; but I'm finding myself enjoying real people's stories so much this year.

Sleeping Preacher

Sleeping Preacher is the title of the latest book I've read, my 5th so far this year. It is a slim volume of poetry, written by Julia Kasdorf, and heavily influenced by her Amish/Mennonite heritage juxtaposed against her choice to leave that community and live in New York City. When I was a student at Messiah College, she came there and did a poetry reading; I must have bought her book at the time. In any case, I have read it several times through the years and thoroughly enjoy it each time. I think many of us, even if we don't come from quite as conservative a background as hers or live in quite as modern a setting as hers, can relate to the tension of appreciating many elements of our past while not choosing (or not being able) to replicate it.

I was thinking to include one of her poems here, just for fun; but I'm having such a hard time picking one! I guess I'll choose the first one of the book.

Green Market, New York
The first day of false spring, I hit the street,
buoyant, my coat open. I could keep walking
and leave that job without cleaning my desk.
At Union Square the country people slouch
by crates of last fall's potatoes.
An Amish lady tends her table of pies.
I ask where her farm is. "Upstate," she says,
"but we moved from P.A. where the land is better,
and the growing season's longer by a month."
I ask where in P.A. "Towns you wouldn't know,
around Mifflinburg, around Belleville."
And I tell her I was born there.
"Now who would your grandparents be?"
"Thomas and Vesta Peachey."
"Well, I was a Peachey," she says,
and she grins like she sees the whole farm
on my face. "What a place your folks had,
down Locust Grove. Do you know my father,
the harness shop on the Front Mountain Road?"
I do. And then we can't think what to say,
that Valley so far from the traffic on Broadway.
I choose a pie while she eyes my short hair
then looks square on my face. She knows
I know better than to pay six dollars for this.
"Do you live in the city?" she asks. "Do you like it?"
I say no. And that was no lie, Emma Peachey.
I don't like New York, but sometimes these streets
hold me as hard as we're held by rich earth.
I have not forgotten that Bible verse:
Whoever puts his hand to the plow and looks back
is not fit for the kingdom of God.

Don't Let the Goats Eat the Loquat Trees

First of all, I didn't make up that title; for that, we have Thomas Hale to thank! Thomas Hale is an American surgeon who, with his wife and two sons, has lived in Nepal for a number of years, serving as a missionary doctor in a small hospital in a very rural area. He wrote a book about his experiences which I finished reading a few days ago.

It was really interesting to read his story so soon after reading Kanchi Doctor (about a British woman doctor's experiences serving as a missionary doctor, also in Nepal). There were many similarities in the experiences of these two missionaries, and some differences as well. Both of them inspired me to greater levels of sacrifice for God, and both of them shamed me as I thought about my personal level of comfort and how often I indulge myself while so much of the world struggles to even have enough food to eat. In fact, one day while reading the Don't Let the Goats... book, I put on my slipper, only to find the insole crumpled and out of place. As I straightened it for what seemed like the hundredth time, I automatically thought, "I just need to get a new pair of slippers. I'll go downstairs and put that on my shopping list now." Then I stopped to consider--do I really need a new pair of slippers, just because I have to put the insole back in place? And I concluded that I don't need them.

I'm sure that if I asked myself this question--"Do I really need whatever I'm about to buy?"--I could talk myself out of almost any purchase! And so I find it difficult to reach a balance in this area. In reality, I could get rid of so much stuff that I have and be fine. But at the same time, I am trying to create a home that is warm, welcoming, beautiful, with food that is abundant and nourishing. How do I know when I've given enough?

Interestingly, the author of the book struggles with exactly the same question. In his situation, if he had a full plate of rice to eat, there would be someone on his doorstep with nothing to eat--what should he do then?

Anybody out there have any thoughts about this???

Full House

Whew, what a weekend! Friday night brought us a packed house for our fellowship potluck and Bible study...Saturday morning, my friend Tracy came for a visit...Saturday afternoon, Lauren and her wonderful mother came by...Saturday evening, Jeff and I went out (yahoo!) with a couple for whom Jeff will perform their wedding ceremony in March...Sunday morning brought us a crowd for our worship service and potluck...and tonight we hosted some dear friends for dinner and a game of Taboo (which the Fisher team, made up of Jeff and myself, along with Tracy and Tony, won, by the way...not that anyone is keeping track...or maybe they are, Phat). So I think it's fair to say life has been busy! But what a blessing to have so many friends to spend time with, and what a blessing to have such a big house in which to welcome guests. In the past, we've always lived in small apartments/townhouses; and we've always crammed numerous guests into these small spaces. The record for us has to be Christmas 2004 which we spent in Tel Aviv hosting 60+ guests in our 736 square foot apartment. That was fun! But now--wow, what luxury as we have so much space to use here. Even still, we joke that the table isn't big enough and we're going to have to enlarge the kitchen!

Hebrews 13:1-2 is a good reminder for me tonight: Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. I'm sure we've entertained some angels along the way; in fact, I think they're usually the ones who end up in the kitchen loading my dishwasher for me. :) I send my sincere thanks to our guests who bring such a blessing on this house by giving us these opportunities to serve. (This is a Jewish concept by the way--the blessing gets reversed--the one who gives reaps the greater blessing than the one who gets--we see this come out in the New Testament in Acts 20:35.)

The pictures at the beginning of this post were taken tonight. I love the picture of Ryan and David on the couch looking at a Wiggles book. They sure are buddies!