Acts 5

Regular readers know that for the last couple of years, I have been facilitating a Lectio Divina group at my church on Sundays before the service.

I tell you, it has been an incredible gift. Every week we get together and read the gospel lesson for the day, and then prayerfully invite God to speak to us through it. And every week something extraordinary happens. The Holy Spirit shows up and we all more or less sit in awe and thanksgiving at the miracle of God's love.

I am finding that Lectio has impacted me in other ways... specifically in my ability to grapple with difficult passages in the bible.

Today, for example, at bible study, we were reading Acts 5. This is a brutal chapter about Ananias and his wife Sapphira dropping dead when it is discovered that they withheld on their donation to the Christian community. (I joked that this should be our Stewardship scripture passage this year... but my priest said no, darn it.)

It is a challenging passage, to be sure. But after a couple of years of regular Lectio, I have learned to resist the temptation to judge a scripture, and instead, let it speak to me. Engage with it. Grapple with it, yes, but in an open minded way. When I do this, crazy stuff can happen.

I always approach bible stories from the perspective that God is Love. That means that in stories where God appears to behave badly, I assume that I am not getting the whole picture. In the case of Ananias, though, it doesn't ever say that God struck him down. Nor does it say that Peter cursed him and he died. It simply states that when Ananias was confronted with the fact that he was holding back from God, he died.

I can put myself in his place. I know that there have been moments in my life when I was confronted with the contrast between Jesus' sacrifice and my own shittiness. Last year on Good Friday I spent the whole three hour service in such a state of distress that by the time I got to the confession with my parish priest, I was beside myself.

Let's imagine that Ananias and his wife were actually around when Jesus got executed. Let's imagine that they truly loved God... that they understood the power of Jesus' death and resurrection. But somehow, in the midst of their lives, they lost their connection to God just long enough to let petty fear get into their hearts. Fear of economic loss. Fear of the instability that happens when you give up everything. And that fear caused them to hold back on their donation, just as it does for me, sometimes.

When Peter confronts Ananias, in the blazing moment of realization, I can imagine being so grief stricken as to simply

die.

The Jews believed that when you encountered God, the energy was so great you couldn't survive it. You were annihilated on the spot. Is it possible that Ananias and Sapphira saw God in that moment? That, perhaps, it was not only the moment of their deaths, but also the moment of their redemption? I pray for his and Sapphira's souls that that was true.

In Lectio Divina, we invite God to speak to us through the scriptures. We open ourselves to how the scripture relates to our own lives. Today, I began to think about ways that I have been letting fear creep in and distract me from God.

Maybe this story speaks something totally different for you. That is the beauty of this living word, this gift from God.

Act 5:1	Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property.
Act 5:2	With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet.
Act 5:3	Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?
Act 5:4	Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.”
Act 5:5	When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.
Act 5:6	Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.
Act 5:7	About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.
Act 5:8	Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?” “Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”
Act 5:9	Peter said to her, “How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”
Act 5:10	At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

Shifty

Things are changing. My folks left. My kids will be out of school next week. I am planning to put the beach bag together with spf 8000 and an umbrella to go with my sand chair.

I have been feeling a little like I am standing on shifting sand. Nothing seems very stable, even though everything really IS pretty stable.

Do you ever find yourself having a hard time getting things done?

And you know what? My eyesight is getting worse and I think it gave me a stomach ache while I was trying to do some paperwork today. Is that possible?

Cold and gray and shifty.

Today I am missing Vietnam

My parents are heading back to Canada on Sunday and I am sad that they are leaving. Our trip to Vietnam in February really changed the dynamic of our relationship, I think. We are much closer after having experienced that together.

One of my favorite blogs is Vietnamese God. Always there are stunning photos of the country I miss so much.

Sigh.

Way closing

I have been reading a book on discernment by Parker Palmer, a Quaker, called Let Your Life Speak.

I am doing this because a friend has asked me to be on her 'discernment team' and it is required reading by the diocese of RI.

I have gotten to a chapter that I am getting something out of. When Way Closes.

There is, evidently, a Quaker expression, 'way opens' when God means for you to go in a certain direction and the way opens before you. I have certainly had this happen in the past. It happened when I stumbled on Bell Street Chapel, my UU church. And again with Grace Church, my current, Episcopalian, church.

But the author says that there is another variation on this... when a door closes firmly behind you before the next door has opened.

This, too, is something I have experienced. I left Bell Street when I knew it was time to close that door, even though my next step was far from clear. I had no clue what denomination I was going to be. No clue what church I was going to join. No sense of direction at all.... except that the Unitarian Universalists were NOT it.

Lately I have felt way closing behind me and am totally unsure of the the way forward. I have basically stopped doing my kitchen tools business. I am thinking that sales is NOT my way. So far I haven't completely abandoned it... keeping my toe in the water just in case the inspiration hits me and I want to resume my business. But the truth is, I feel the door closing and it is a little scary because I don't have the next thing lined up. I have absolutely no idea, in fact, what the next thing might be.

Here's where I stand:

I love my church.
I love to play my drum.
I love teaching.
I love learning.
I need to make some money. (not too much...)

Lord, I am asking you to nudge me, ever so slightly, in the direction you wish for me to go.

Sometimes my feelings get hurt

I am still a sensitive high school kid under this pulled together exterior. Sometimes the cool kids don't invite me to the party and I want to go in the girl's room and cry about it.

But damn it.

As a Christian, I think I am supposed to grow out of that. I am supposed to worry about what I can do for God. What I can do for others. Not what others may or may not think of me.

Sigh.

It is hard to break a lifetime of habits.

Jimmy Santiago Baca

My friend Emily fell in love with Jimmy Santiago Baca's poetry, and as is her custom when such things happen, she wrote him to tell him about it.

He wrote back.

Thus began a long and fruitful correspondence. He had started a foundation to bring literacy programs to prisons. She helped edit an anthology of prisoner's writing. She even invited me to write a crit of one of the pieces. My mother, a poet herself, wrote one too.

In all the time Emily has talked about Baca, I never read any of his work. I read the interviews she emailed me. I visited his site. I checked out his bio. But somehow I never read a poem or story.

So when Emily arranged for Baca to come to RI for a series of readings and workshops, I decided to go check him out myself.

I arrived at the reading at AS220 late. I was coming from a meeting and slipped in the back of the room and sat on the floor.

Jimmy read 3 poems and told stories between them. He is a great story teller. His poems are stories, too, drawing you deeply into the emotional core of what he is talking about. He read one, El Gato, about a man who saw hope and love and need in his infant daughter and at that moment turned from a life of violence and despair. I was breathless hearing this poem. The hope of the world is contained in this poem.

Afterwards, Emily invited me to join them for a late supper and I almost didn't go, but at the last minute, said yes.

I sat next to Jimmy and spent the next hour or so listening to him telling stories about his life. Emily laughed afterwards about the look on my face as I listened. I don't know what I looked like, but I know how I felt. I hung on every word. All I kept thinking was, this guy is a miracle. This guy's life is a miracle. God has pulled him from the abyss and I am sitting here, in a restaurant in Providence, witnessing a miracle of God's love.

What is the miracle? If you read Jimmy's bio, you learn that his life was shit. Prison, drugs, a completely dysfunctional family. It was bad. Like, so bad you can't imagine how anyone can drag themselves out of it, bad. Hearing him talk about his past was bizarre. The stories made my hair stand on end... and yet, there he was, this beautiful spirit. This big LOVE. This man who wants to help people who are desperate. This crazy-talented writer.

I think only God can pull off a transformation like that. I felt like I was sitting next to a miracle and it made me want to fall to my knees in gratitude.

I cried in the car on the way home. I thanked God in my prayers. I spent the next day in a fog.

At dinner, I told Jimmy that I think there are sometimes defining moments of transformation in our lives. That if we live a life open to them, these moments can change us forever.

There have been a few of these for me.

In every case, I suspected that something big was happening, but I didn't know exactly what. I suspected these moments had meaning far beyond what I could discern. That they were signs of some huge shift.

Now I add one more:

The night I had dinner with Jimmy Santiago Baca.

The spirit of Pentecost

Oh, boy, do the Episcopalians know how to put on a show! What a great scene at Grace church today.

First, it was packed. I'd say easily 250 to 300 folks in the pews. We had 6 baptisms, 3 dove kites flying around, 20 people reading the gospel in all different languages, and, yes, African drumming. Sidy, Lisa, Lucia and I played after the collect and after the gospel reading. Later, we played out on the sidewalk during the party at coffee hour.

For me, Pentecost is a personal favorite. My kids were baptized two years ago on Pentecost. I had the second part of my own baptism on that day. And I am just a sucker for the whole Holy Spirit descending to earth thing.

Perhaps the best part of the day, for me though, was at 5:30. I was early for my drumming class, having brought Noah to youth group. So I laid down in the very last pew and just stared up at the ceiling. I said a quiet prayer of thanks for the fact that my step mother took communion today. And for the wonderful experience of playing with my teacher in my church. After today, I think he understands more about me, because church is such a big part of who I am.

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of the Spirit in the church. I pray that we are worthy to receive you. I pray that we shine the light of your love into the darkness of this world.

Amen.

I will miss

the Wednesday evening Eucharist at Grace church.

It is winding down for the season in a couple of weeks. We don't know whether it will resume in the fall, but I pray that it does. It has become an important part of our week. And as much as some days I would love to sit in the chancel alone with my thoughts and meditations, I am mostly thrilled that my children and husband come with me each week to worship and celebrate.

It is a beautiful service. The whole thing takes place in candlelight. We sit in the choir boxes, facing each other. There is a lot of singing. The prayers of the people, even, are sung by the congregation. It is often deeply moving.

I am going to miss it over the summer. I hope it will continue in September.

Silly

I am not sure why, but for the last couple of days I have been finding myself completely hilarious.

Yesterday at lunch, I told my brother that we are having our house connected to the town sewers. So, after 81 years, the cesspool is closed for business.

"Just think, Jake, next time you have to throw up in our toilet, it will go down in one flush..."

Except that I was laughing so hard at my own joke he couldn't understand what I was trying to say. And I had a mouthful of roast beef sandwich and nearly choked to death. I was referencing, of course, a past incident that involved my brother and an apparently too strong marguerita.

My brother didn't find my little joke nearly as funny as I did, even when I was able to stop laughing long enough to tell him.

Today, another incident.

I was walking through Walmart (that in itself is embarrassing, but not that funny...) when suddenly I thought about a conversation I had with a friend and had an idea to make him a funny tee-shirt in response. I found my idea so utterly hysterical I started laughing out loud in the store. Like, almost pee my pants kind of laughing. Like they might have to call the guys in white coats kind of laughing.

I finally managed to pull myself together, but would periodically think about it again and just lose it. In the paper towel aisle, men's tee shirts, arts and crafts.

Everywhere I went, I left a trail of housewives, old women and stock clerks who must have thought I had forgotten to take my medication.

I have heard that sometimes people laugh during Pentecostal services at church. Holy laughter, they call it. I don't think the Holy Spirit has anything to do with my current silliness. But dang, I sure am keeping myself amused.

Critical mass

There were 7 of us in Lectio Divina this morning. The biggest crowd yet. And another woman asked me about it at coffee hour, so it looks like we might even grow out of our space.

We have been hovering at 3 or 4 for months. For the whole first year, we were lucky if two of us showed up. But God has plans for our little group, I think. So we are growing.

Thank you, Lord, for your presence when we gather in your name. It is such a gift that you join us every week.

Coming out of the closet

as a pro-lifer.

I have decided to participate in the annual 'Walk for Life' this year. The proceeds benefit CareNet, RI... which is an organization that supports pregnant women who are thinking about whether to keep their babies. CareNet also offers after abortion counciling, as well as parenting classes and support for women. My role with CareNet is to provide childbirth classes, which I have been doing for the last couple of years.

So, I am going to ask my friends and family to sponsor my walk.

If you would like to sponsor me, please email me. Click on my profile and there is an option to email me under the photo. You can donate any amount you want. The walk takes place on May 15th.

Thanks!

Hafiz

Back in my UU days, I was introduced to the 14th century Persian poet Hafiz by my friend Ray. He would come up to me at church and start quoting these wild and wonderful love poems about God.

Hafiz had a close friendship with God. He called him by various, affectionate, nicknames. He wrote love poetry to God. He chronicled his relationship over the years in lyrical poems that draw the reader, too, into a deeper intimacy.

Once, Ray and I did a lay led service that was centered around Hafiz poems. I still have the bulletin from that day! We stood together in the chancel and read poems of love. They were funny, sexy, deeply moving.

If you haven't yet encountered Hafiz, I urge you to check him out. He was so madly in love with God you can't help but be moved.

Here is an example from the book The Gift translated by Daniel Ladinski:


The Sun Never Says


Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
"You owe Me."

Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.

Another of my favorite new highs

Ok, in order of importance, the things that get me high:

a. God
b. Playing my djembe
c. Working out at the gym?!?!?!

The first two make sense, right? I mean, of course I get euphoric when God whacks me upside the head. Of course I feel like I am on a happy pill when I am playing drums with my peeps.

But working out? I can't imagine why it is so wonderful. There I am, slogging away on the eliptical trainer, listening to Salif Keita on my Ipod and I just can't stop grinning. While I am working out, I am usually thinking about a. and b. it's true. But sometimes I just want to close my eyes and sing along with the music. (Dangerous and irritating, I think...)

Yeah Planet Fitness.

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!

I am not sure what the problem is, but I seem to be crying an awful lot lately. Tears of sorrow. Tears of joy. Tears of awe. Tears of grief. Tears of gratitude. I need to keep a big bunch of tissues handy at all times because I swear I never know when I am going to start snuffling. And this isn't just a couple of moist eyes. This isn't the discreet glassy look that happens to some folks. This is great big salty tears rolling down my cheeks and ending up splattered all over the continental shelf that is my chest.

Today in Lectio Divina, it happened yet again. I joked as it started, telling my fellow contemplatives that I am going to start bringing Puffs Plus with Aloe because the chinzy toilet paper I was using to sop up the waterworks is making my nose raw.

Is it Holy week? The death of my sister in law? The trip to Vietnam? God whacking me upside the head with the Holy two by four of Christ? I don't know. I just know I am very raw and right at the surface and when I start to get a sense of God's presence I just can't hold 'em back.

Lectio Divina was incredible today. We had a new friend join us. The gospel was Jesus showing up and letting Thomas feel his wounds. This gospel says TWICE that Jesus showed up even though the door was closed and locked for fear. What a miracle that is. Even when we slam the door shut, he is there. He did that for me. He has done it for others in the Lectio group. I wonder if he has done that with you, too? As I sat and thought about the fact that for decades, I was in the desert of my own life, with the door to Jesus firmly closed, and yet he was still there, I just could not hold back the tears.

Thank you, God. Thank you. What wondrous love is this? Oh my soul.

And thank you, too, Lord,for my fellow travelers. When we gather, you are there.

My Hero

Here's what I am talking about. Check this guy out, my friends.

Not quite centering prayer

While driving home from the vigil of the Altar of Repose the other night, it occurred to me that I don't spend enough time just loving Jesus.

So lately I have been spending at least a bit of my prayer time sitting in silence at his feet, so to speak.

A few years ago I had a Centering Prayer practice. I would sit a couple of times a day, in silent worship. I used a kitchen timer to keep me on track.

This feels different. I have no expectation at all, including a time frame. I just sit (or kneel, or lie down) and, well, think of how much I love him.

Friday Five Millionaire edition

Singing Owl at Revgalblogpals asks what I'd do with a million bucks.

Here's my answer:

1. Tithe, baby. And on the gross, not the piddling net that I'd get after Uncle Sam gets their share. So, Grace Church would be a hundred grand richer.

2. Set up some kind of foundation to help kids in Vietnam go to school. In Vietnam, kids have to pay, even for public school... so the poorest don't get to go. The fee is $20 per year, so I could send a LOT of children to school. I'd buy a little shack in Dalat, too, so my husband and kids could fish in the pond all summer.

3. Pay off the mortgages. Mine, my brother's, my in-law's. All of them.

4. Put some cash away for the kid's education.

5. Buy an African strap for my drum and spend a couple of months in Mali to study drumming. Every year. In fact, maybe I'd set up a drumming school for my teacher and give scholarships to kids who can't afford lessons.

The Great Vigil

Saturday:

The church was pitch black, even as the last of the daylight was fading outside. Because there had been a near miss with the new fire at some point in the past, Steve, our sexton, was outside on the church steps kindling an inferno in a flower pot. He had big barbeque gloves on and smoke billowed into the narthex, even through the closed glass doors. The whole scene was so funny I chuckled out loud and got 'shushed' by a woman I didn't know. Maybe her Easter hadn't come yet.

I love the Great Vigil. It is another long service. On Saturday it was almost two hours. There is a lot going on, between the Old Testament readings, the candles, the first Eucharist and the Hallelujah Chorus. But the part I love best of all is the Baptisms.

This year, we had one. It was someone I knew. An adult who has been coming to Grace for quite some time. He has been coordinating the soup kitchen on Saturdays and is a sweet and gentle young man. At first I didn't realize it was he who was getting the dunk. I thought perhaps it was a member of his family. But when no baby appeared in the front pew, I began to put it together.

In our church, we sing the litany of the saints during the procession to and from the Baptismal font. The choir sings the names of the saints and the congregation sings back "stand by us now".

Saint John the Baptist.... stand by us now.
Saint Mary Magdalen.....stand by us now.

D.was walking with his sponsors back towards the font.

I love adult baptisms best of all, because I know what it is like to get socked by the Holy Spirit as an adult. I relive my own baptism and feel great joy at theirs. And I feel privileged to be a witness to the beginning of their transformation.

The next morning, at the Easter service, I approached D.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" I asked.

"No," he laughed.

"The Holy Spirit is going to kick your butt..."

We laughed and hugged.

Because we both knew it was true.

Struck dumb

Good Friday:

Three hour service at Grace. I sit in a pew, alone for most of it, clutching my rosary beads. I can't bear the idea of sitting through those three hours without the Mother with me. Every now and then I pray a decade. I have no idea what mysteries I am praying, except that they are sorrowful.

No,

Joyful.

I am beaming.

I can't stop thinking about the night before. The Vigil at the Altar of Repose. The first time I felt a sense of absolute adoration of our Lord in the consecrated host.

Adoration.

I have a confession scheduled after the service, but I can't think of what I am going to say.

Last year, I was flooded with things to confess during the Good Friday service. I kept looking at my priest, while he was kneeling during the prayers, and thinking of all the things I was going to say to him. By the time the actual confession came, I was beside myself with grief.

But not this time.

This time, I feel light and free and joyful. I have a few things to say, sure. Grave things, even. But I can't help feeling that during the night, while sitting at the feet of my Lord, they were all forgiven.

"It is finished."

The preacher on Good Friday is Bishop Steven Charleston. He's amazing. He walks down the aisle and looks you in the eye. And holds your gaze while what he is saying sinks in. He is talking about the conversion of life. About leaving your pain at the base of the cross. About inviting Jesus, TODAY, to heal you. If there had been an altar call, I swear you'd have seen a church full of Episcopalians step forward.

I praise God during the meditations. But they don't resonate for me. My Easter has already come. It came last night.

The service comes to a close. I kneel as the bells are tolled. It goes on for a long time. People are weeping around me. I weep too, but realize that I am full of

Joy.

I wait for my priest outside the sacristy. He comes out of the robing room and tells me that the Bishop will hear my confession.

I go into the robing room. There are no confessionals at Grace. The Bishop stands to greet me. There is a chair for me. I sit.

"I feel unprepared, Bishop" I say.

"How so?" he asks.

"I feel like my sins were all forgiven last night. I am not sure I can make a thorough and accurate confession today." I explain about the Altar of Repose.

"Do you wish to continue?" He asks."You don't have to."

I tell him, yes, I want to. I am not sure why.

So we begin. I kneel on a cushion next to the chair and I try to be as searching and as thorough as I can. I mumble a few things. I feel remorseful as I say them, but it is like a retroactive confession. Jesus has already washed me clean.

Finally, I just fall silent. I am praying: Lord, if there is more that you want me to say, please help me remember.

Nothing.

I can't speak for a long time. I wonder if the Bishop is uncomfortable in the silence. Or impatient to get home. Or bored. Or as dumbstruck as I am.

I finally manage to finish.

It is finished.

I am absolved.

I am asked to pray for the Bishop, a sinner, like me.

A man forgiven. Like me.

A man of God.

Like me.

We embrace, say goodbye, go on our way.

For me, Easter came early this year.

Sweet Jesus at the altar

Maundy Thursday:

Only one person signed up for the overnight vigil at the Altar of Repose and she didn't show.

A few emails back and forth between me and my fellow 'altar' coordinator. I agreed to sit the vigil between 10:30pm and 1am. He would sit until 10:30. We'd see if we could find some other folks to sign up at the Maundy Thursday service. I made a few calls and left messages. We agreed that we might have to close the church early if no one came.

I left immediately after the service on Thursday and drove to Cumberland for the monthly drum circle. I know it was weird, book-ending two of the most solemn events of the Triduum with some raucous djembe playing, but I decided, by golly, that if I was going to sit the vigil for hours on end, I might need to blow off a little steam first.

Drumming ended at 10. I raced back to church and entered through the side door. There were two people sitting in the Messiah Chapel. My friend, James, and a man I didn't know.

The big stone altar under the carved image of Jesus was covered with twinkling votive lights and tall glass vases, each with a single stem of some kind of pure white flower. In front of the chalice that contained the consecrated host, there was a red votive light. The church was chilly and quiet. The two men were sitting quietly, in silence.

My new cell phone died, so I had no idea of the time as I sat in the pew. I think hours creeped by.

I wanted to get closer to the consecrated host, so I grabbed a needlepoint kneeling cushion from the rail of the little chapel and moved it to the base of the stone altar on which the chalice was resting. I sat at the base of the altar, my back leaning against it. I closed my eyes and felt like I was in Gethsemane. But strangely, I didn't feel anguish or sadness like I usually do while sitting the Vigil. Instead, I felt a sense of calm, love, forgiveness. Love. I felt like I should be praying, but I kept saying to myself

'Lord, I ask you for nothing. I just want to love you. I just want to love you.'

There was a knock at the side door. My friend Vera arrived. It was midnight.

I went back to my seat at the base of the altar. I was in shadow, so I don't think I was distracting to the others. Eventually James and the other man left.

I sat at his feet. I leaned against the stone.

Just let me love you, Lord.

I wanted to kiss the chalice that held the host, but I was afraid I'd knock it over or get lipstick on the beautiful white embroidered cover.

So I just sat at his feet. Just let me love you, Lord. Nothing else. Just love you.

I felt a great sense of joy that I could sit like this. I knew that if I was anywhere other than my own Grace church, I'd have to sit in a pew... which is ok, too. But truly, I wanted to be as close to the Host as I could. I wanted to be right there.

Just let me love you Lord. Nothing else.

I got up. Some of the candles had gone out. I gently pulled replacements from the glass bowl they were held in. I gingerly moved the little vases aside and brought the glass votives to the front of the altar, so as not to knock over a vase or disturb the chalice. I replaced the white wax disks and carefully lit them, sliding them back into position.

Just let me love you, Lord. Nothing else.

I sat back down and lay my cheek against the cold stone of the altar. I had been weeping the whole time.

Finally, I heard Vera moving about and opened my eyes. She was standing, looking at the altar, at the carved image of Jesus, at the chalice. I stood up and walked over to her. Gave her a hug. Held her for a moment.

Then the two of us sat on the steps that lead up to the altar and started talking about what Jesus has done for us in our lives. We witnessed to the power of his love. Shared our doubts and fears. Smiled at Jesus' patience with us.

There was a knock at the side door. My friend Paul was standing there, waiting.

It was 3am.

He came in and said that he would stay until dawn.

Vera and I walked out into the cold night, empty streets, full moon. I got in my car and drove home.

Just let me love you, Lord.

Nothing else.

A new Friend

My friend, John, has become a real Friend. This week he joined the Religious Society of Friends.

We have been corresponding for a few years now...and this is a huge shift for him. But lucky for us, he is starting to blog about it, so you can follow the story yourself.

http://friendlyhesychast.blogspot.com

Shrouds

Palm Sunday was a busy day for me. I was playing drums for the procession around the church and I was reading the part of Jesus in the Passion narrative. I was distracted and a little nervous.

Then, I walked into the church and saw all the crosses shrouded in red fabric and truly, I choked. I wanted to just crawl down the aisles on my knees and beg him to forgive us.

I have asked my parish priest to hear my confession on Good Friday and I am almost sick at the thought of sitting for three hours listening to the last words and THEN having to go in there and tell my priest all the crap that I do, day in day out, that holds me back from God.

Oh, Jesus. Your mercy is great.

Holy Week is here.

Ashes to ashes

It has been a tough week around here. My husband's 46 year old sister died, unexpectedly, on Friday, from complications after a mastectomy.

I was out of town at a conference and didn't have my cell phone charged. On Saturday evening I came back and heard the bad news. We are pretty shattered.

This week has been a kind of slow motion process of getting ready for a wake and funeral, and then actually going through it. On Monday night we went to the funeral home and saw her laid out.

I grew up in a culture where death was never faced head on. We didn't do wakes or funerals in my family. At best, we would do some sort of an informal memorial gathering, using weeks or even months after the actual death. Everyone was quietly cremated. We never saw the body. We never went to church. We never did any of that.

I have come to feel that it is better to just come face to face with it. There was something beautiful and extraordinary about touching my sister in law's body. Holding her hand. Runny my hands over her hair. Kissing her forehead. Smoothing her dress. Her flesh was cold. There was no life there. But those were the exact things we would have done in life and it was comforting, even as we knew that she was already in the arms of God.

Chau was loved deeply. At 9 months old, she had slipped from death's fingers when she survived a terrible illness. She didn't escape unscathed, however. Her brain was permanently and profoundly damaged from the fever. She had epilepsy. She was paralyzed on one side of her body. She was mute. She probably understood at about a 3 year old's level. In a family that is uncomfortable with physical affection, she was always doted on and adored. She loved kids and they loved her. My niece, from the time she was an infant, was incredibly attached to her. Chau would even share her dolls with Emma. It was a sweet relationship.

At Swan Point Cemetery, in Providence, they let you go to the cremation. So after the wake and the mass yesterday, this morning found us on a rainy, cold day, saying a last goodbye. We arrived at the chapel early and sat waiting. She arrived in a big cardboard box, which made me smile a little. The funeral home guys wheeled the box in on a cart and stood back to let us have some time with her. We took off the lid to have a last moment. Then we followed her into the room, watched as they loaded her into the furnace and my brother in law pressed the button to start the process.

Later, as I sat with my boys, I asked if they were scared about it. No, they said. I reminded them about what we heard on Ash Wednesday, that God makes us from dust and to dust we return.

Chau is not dust. She is in Heaven with God.

Thank you, Jesus, for the 46 years. We know they were a gift.

Banh Xiao

 

Nguyen took this picture last time he was in Vietnam. It of a girl making the pancakes I keep talking about.

Crash landing

My parents said that they got very depressed when they got back to Newfoundland after the trip to Vietnam.

I was too busy to be depressed, but today, finally, it hit. I just feel... ugh.

Luckily, my drumming class is tonight and I hope it will pick up my spirits.

In the mean time, a couple of stories from the trip:


An afternoon in.

We wanted to stay in the hotel, one lunchtime, because we were all tired and going into the streets in Nha Trang was, in itself, exhausting sometimes. Nguyen went to the lady that made banh xiao, the little rice flour pancakes stuffed with seafood and dipped into fish sauce. A few minutes later he came back with enough for each of us to have 4 of them. And 6 china bowls for the fish sauce. And 6 china plates for the banh xiao. And 6 pairs of chopsticks. And a plastic bag with the liquid sauce in it. And another with the lettuce and cilantro and hot peppers. The lady must have thought he was a little crazy to ask for 24 banh xiao to go, but by this point he was a regular, so she entrusted him with all the gear on his word he would bring it all back, clean. Which he did, of course. (We washed it all in the sink of our hotel room!)

The total cost was less than $5.

Portraits

I never felt comfortable photographing the locals because it felt a little intrusive. But Nguyen had no such hesitation.

One morning he went to the market near our hotel in Saigon and started taking photos of the ladies in the food stalls. They must have thought he was Japanese because of his big camera! So they started joking about him in Vietnamese, saying he should pay them 5000 dong each to take their pictures. He laughed and said, "how about 10,000?" (about 65 cents) They were a little embarrassed he understood them, but told him that tourists often take pictures in the market, but never come back with the photos.

Nguyen came back to hotel and found a photo processor across the street. While we mosied around the neighborhood, the store was making prints from our digital card. A couple of hours later, the kids, Nguyen and I returned to the market and started handing out the pictures. The ladies laughed their heads off! And were so thrilled, too. They fussed over the kids and asked me lots of questions that I didn't understand. Some of the ladies who didn't get pictures were disappointed, so we promised to come back some day and take their pictures, too.

Today's lunch.

I miss the food in Vietnam, so today for lunch I made a little stir fried beef with Chinese broccoli and noodles. It took me about 10 minutes, cost less than a McDonald's lunch and tasted almost as good as the street stall noodles I ate in Nha Trang. Plus, I used less than 3 ounces of beef, so I have plenty for dinner tonight, too.

Screw the South Beach diet.

48 hours and then some

So, jet lag isn't just that you are tired. It's that you wake up at 2 am and can't get back to sleep because your body thinks it is 2pm and wants some good noodles for lunch. Which of course would be impossible to get, even if the restaurants were open, which they are not, because food in the United States just isn't as good.

It is a simple fact that everything we have eaten since coming back has more or less been a disappointment. Even our own home made breakfast today, with eggs which were likely laid a month ago, was terrible.

We got back very late on Wednesday night, exactly 27 hours after we were supposed to, because our 747 jumbo jet to Hong Kong had some unexplained mechanical problem and they ended up canceling our flight on Tuesday morning. United Airlines seemed like they had no clue how to handle the situation. (400 frustrated passengers!) But they eventually sent us off to the swankiest hotel in Sai Gon with meal vouchers and taxi fare and promised to get in touch with us with further instructions.

The New World Hotel is the very one that Bill Clinton stayed in when he visited Viet Nam a few years ago, and happens to be right across the street from the very modest place we stayed for our first two nights in Sai Gon. So it literally felt like the chickens had come home to roost. (And yes, there ARE chickens in downtown Sai Gon, LOL.)

The New World has the most beautiful swimming pool I have ever seen. It is designed so the water is at the exact same level as the tile patio surrounding it. The whole area was filled with tropical plants and chaise lounges, big white umbrellas and beautiful fluffy blue towels. The water was about 85 degrees, which is to say hot as a tub, but since the air on Tuesday was in the high 90s, it was actually refreshing.

The boys wanted to use our 'lost day' for hanging at the pool. Nguyen was on a quest for his last street vendor meals. He had visited the Banh Xiao stall the day before and wanted another go at it. This one, he said, had curry in it, which made the rice flour pancake yellow. It was the size of a dinner plate and stuffed with bean sprouts and shrimp, pork and squid. He took off for the afternoon while the kids and I took naps.

Which is a darn good thing, because United left us a message that we were to get up a 3am and take a cab to the airport for a 5am check in.

So, for the second day in a row we were up WAY before dawn. We got to the airport and all 400 displaced passengers, with our mountains of luggage, were in line trying to find out if we were going to get home today.

United got us seats on Cathay Pacific for the long leg from Hong Kong to San Fransisco. And United could take care of us for the rest of the flights. (4 altogether!)

From the time we got up to the time we got to our front door, we had been traveling for 33 hours. Yesterday I slept until 2:30 pm.

We are home. But oddly, we don't feel like we are home. Our house seems strange to us. Overstuffed with stuff we don't really need. Big. (Which is funny because it has always seemed too small.) It is strangely silent here. The hum of the highway, which used to irritate me no end, is nothing compared to the constant honking of traffic in Viet Nam. At 11pm last night I stepped out of the house and was stunned at how quiet it was.

And the world here, even with it's billboards and signs and cars and traffic and mini malls and STUFF seems, strangely, bare. Where are the street vendors on all the sidewalks? In this neighborhood, where, even, ARE the sidewalks?

The whole time I was in Viet Nam, I felt unable to really say much about it. The experience was so huge in the experiencing of it, it seemed impossible to distance myself enough to really look at it and take it in. I wonder if that will change now that we are back.

Last night we looked at some of the photos and I am very glad we took so many, because truly, I had already forgotten so much.

We are home. Sort of.



Thanks to all for your comments along the way. I finally got a chance to read them this morning and it moves me to know that you all were with me on this amazing journey. I am sure that I will be writing about it more, as I process it.

Rain in Nha Trang

It has been raining since my parents left, but we are still having a great time in Nha Trang. The other night, my new-to-me sister in law took us out to dinner. It just so happened that she chose the place we have been going for coffee and breakfast every morning, so we were already regulars!

It was a great evening. We were joined by her uncle, who works for the train department. This was fortuitous, as Nguyen and I were trying to get 1st class train tickets to Saigon for tomorrow, but discovered that they were sold out. I am a little embarrassed to admit that we took advantage of the connection and let Nguyen's brother ask about securing us seats. The train guy/uncle got on the phone to try and get us tickets.

Dinner wasn't really dinner, but more a series of stunningly delectable appetizers and tons of beer. At first we were fairly moderate, having a round, then another. The Vietnamese drink their beer with ice, but Nguyen and I drink it straight. Luckily it was good and cold. We prefered Saigon to Heineken. The dishes served ranged from very simple (stir fried corn kernals with chili peppers, pork and green onions) to complex (shrimp spring rolls wrapped in a kind of rice paper netting I have never seen before. They were incredible.) We had little clams with garlic and panko breadcrumb topping, cuttlefish steamed and served with soy sauce, stir fried noodles (for the kids... they are now, officially, addicted to them) and, well, beer.

As the evening wore on, I noticed that my lack of Vietnamese seemed less and less important. We were laughing and relaxing and having a grand time. The train guy, it turned out, wasn't a typical lower ranking party guy at all. He was brought up in the South and vehemently opposed the communist government, even trying to escape the country several times. Once, he actually almost made it, but had a change of heart as he realized that he would never see his mother again, so he came back and decided to make the best of it. And he has been very successful. Now he pins his hopes for the future of his country on his children and their generation. And as Vietnam is the fastest growing economy in Asia, I'd say he has reason to be hopeful.

The waitress brought a case of beer and left it at the end of the table. I start splitting beers with Nguyen so that we are only drinking half what my brother in law and the train guy are having. And still, my lightweight husband starts getting pretty plastered. But he says to me that this is a right of passage that he missed because he had to leave the country when he was so young. I laugh and agree to help him stagger back to the hotel later.

"You can put this in your blog," he says. And here it is.

Where are the kids, you ask? For the last couple of nights, they have been invited to spend the night at my in laws. We were happily suprised to find that the boys have a 10 year old cousin who is visiting from Australia with his mom and baby sister. Vincent is a very sweet boy and the kids get along famously. And older cousin Tam watches over all of them. So they are safely off at Pop's house.

The restaurant is beautiful. It is really just a big thatched roof with rust colored columns and a big tile floor. In Vietnam, there is very little distinction between the inside and outdoors. It surprises me that there are no walls at this place. Everything is just wide open. There is a patio with a canvas awning which abuts the sea wall, so we are just feet from the pounding surf. It is one of the few places in Nha Trang that you don't hear the roar of traffic, which is why we have grown to love it for breakfast. And the bathrooms are beautiful! They are housed in a separate building. I told Nguyen that if I ever build a house in Vietnam, I want it to be like those bathrooms. Brown tile floors, ochre yellow walls, a thatched roof and dark wood trim.

Finally, Nguyen says he is ready to go back to the hotel. We survey the damage. A case of beer bottles, several empty plates... big, big, smiles.

And 4 first class train tickets to Saigon.

A down day in Nha Trang

My parents left today, and I confess I am feeling melancholy about it. Their flight leaves Nha Trang in a few minutes and we won't see them again until May.

Noah and I also had a bit of tummy trouble today. Nothing serious, but we just didn't feel up to speed. So we skipped the trip to the aquarium and spent the last couple of hours lying in our room watching Animal Planet on tv. For lunch, Nguyen brought us a couple of loaves of French bread, right from the oven. They were still warm and were a great choice.

This has been an extraordinary trip so far. We have packed our days, and today was no exception. Before they left for the airport, we went with my parents to the Cham temple at the top of the hill in the neighborhood we are in. It is a beautiful place. The towers are from the 9th century and 4 of the 8 of them survive. Originally Hindu, they are now a mixture of Hindu and Buddhist. Inside each tower is a diety, to which pilgrims light incense and leave offerings. 3 of the towers are really small, and one is quite large. I left my shoes at the door of one of the small ones, as requested, and entered. It was filled with incense smoke and the interior walls were black from 11 centuries of smoke. The diety presiding inside was a stone depiction of a woman, I think, who was dressed in actual cloth clothing. The incense sticks were in a package next to a burner filled with sand, so I drew one out and said a little prayer to my God for the safe travel of my parents, and my thanks for such a wonderful, life changing trip. Then I lit the stick and poked it in the sand with the dozens of others.

Outside one of the towers, a trio of Cham musicians were playing. There was a flute player and two drummers playing traditional Cham drums. The drums intriqued me, of course. They are wooden cylinders, about 2 1/2 feet long. The musicians play both ends at once. On one end, they use a stick.... on the other, their hand. During a break, I squatted beside them and peppered them with questions, which Nguyen translated. The drums they were playing were so old they had no idea when they were made. The end they play with sticks is made of buffalo hide. The other end is goatskin. The ropes holding the heads on are also buffalo. The drums sounded beautiful. I asked one of the drummers if he knew of anyone still making these drums and it turned out that his brother does. Unfortunately, the brother lives in the mountains, several days journey away, so there is no way I can buy one. I said I would love to take a lesson from him some day. He said he would teach me to play and then make a recording for me so I could practice. Just like Sidy!

I asked the drummers if the rhythms had dances associated with them. At that, the drummers called over several women who were dressed in traditional highland garb. They began to play a different rhythm and the women danced for us. We were simply thrilled. Like African music, the rhythm changed in the song to indicate a change in dance steps. And like African music, the two drums were playing different rhythms which layered together into a very complex and beautiful piece.

Nguyen took a ton of photos, so as soon as we are home I'll post some of them. Talking with those Cham drummers was really a highlight for me!

But my tummy is still bothering me and my parents left today. I am going to miss them terribly.

Back to Nha Trang

We are packing so much into each day, I am losing all track of time. Perhaps I am going to borrow an idea from my Buddhist friends and 'be here now'.

So, right this very moment I am sitting in a dusty internet cafe near our hotel. It is filled with teenage kids. There is American music playing and lots of cigerette smoke. The keyboard sits on a filthy pull out shelf covered with cigarette burns. My guts are churning a little, so I may have to cut this short! I will say we have been remarkably lucky with regard to our intestinal health. No major problems so far. The food here is great. I have never tasted such fresh seafood in my life, which is ironic considering I am from New England.

This morning we took a boat ride up the river that empties right next to our hotel. It was amazing that after only a few hundred yards, the hustle and bustle of Nha Trang was replaced with the most idyllic countryside. We saw amazing birds of all descriptions, including one with a fantastic irridescent green tail. Tons of various herons and egrets. Water buffalo and cattle grazing by the banks. Very few people, as they must have all been off working.

At one point we passed under a rickety wooden bridge that my husband confessed he rode over on a scooter on his last trip. He said that halfway across, he got scared, but couldn't turn back, so he crossed over. As we passed under it, I realized it was shear madness for him to cross!

This has been an amazing experience. So much has happened. There are simply no words to describe exactly what this has been like.

I tried to go to church in Da Lat on Sunday, even though the only service is at 5am. I was worried I would oversleep, so basically was awake all night. The plan was that I was going to go with my wonderful nephew, Tam. At 4am, I got up and got dressed, trying not to wake my kids. Nguyen was up anyway because he has been waking up that early every day. At 4:30 I went to my nephews room and knocked on the door. I didn't want to knock too loudly because our driver was in there, too. I tried again. No response. He was still asleep! Nguyen offered to walk me to the church, but I didn't want to leave my kids alone in case they woke up. I didn't feel comfortable walking alone at that hour, either, so it turned out that Nguyen went to the service instead. It was one of those lovely little turns of events that don't seem quite accidental in retrospect.

Later that day, I walked up the church with him. It is a beautiful, weather beaten cathedral. There are bright stained glass windows and hand carved stations of the cross all around the nave. I knelt in the front pew to pray, then joined Nguyen back outside. He was chatting with an old man in the yard.

On the steeple of the church, there is a rooster wind vane. All the years he was growing up, Nguyen referred to the church as the chicken church. He was always curious about that weather vane. So he asked the old man about it.

The rooster is the symbol of St. Peter, of course. As I stood there, I was suddenly deeply moved that Peter is symbolized by his failure. His denial of Christ. It reminds me that we are all, well, human. St. Peter, thank you for that.

This coming Sunday, we have arranged for the boys and I to accompany my father in law to his church at the far more civilized (but less monastic) hour of 7:15. I think he is very excited we are going with him!

Tonight we are taking the whole family out to dinner as a thankyou for their great hospitality. And we have all of us, my parents and children and I, agreed that it is imperative that we learn Vietnamese. Already we have picked up quite a bit of the language, but it only serves to show us how much we don't know.

Nguyen just tapped me on the shoulder to tell me that he is going to walk over to watch someone who is weaving a basket boat on the sidewalk a block down the road. We watched, a few days ago, when he and his family (including the ancient mother) were hauling 25 foot bamboo out of the water and onto the shore. They had paddled up river for hours to cut the bamboo, then floated it back downriver to cut and split into thin pieces to use to make baskets. Around here, some of the fishermen use a boat that is actually a shallow, round basket, sealed with resin. The boats are about 5 feet in diameter, and actually weigh a ton, so when they have to move them on the ground, they tip them onto one side and roll them.

My guts have subsided a bit. I still can't access my blog to read comments. I wonder if the government of Vietnam has blocked blogger? I have heard that that sometimes happens in China. In any case, when I get back to the states, I will catch up.

Finally, I have to say I am tremendously grateful for this time with my parents. It turns out we are great traveling companions. We have been very relaxed and have had a wonderful time together. We keep talking as though we are going to do this together again... and I think we might actually do it.

I pray you are all doing well. I miss you guys!

Love,
Rachel

Da Lat

Our days are so full I am finding it difficult to get away and find a computer. Plus, for some reason, I am unable to view the blog, which means I am not able to read any comments. But I CAN create posts, so here I am at 8:10 pm Da Lat time, taking a moment to catch up.

Several days ago, in Nha Trang, we almost decided not to come to Da Lat, my husband's home town, because we heard it was overrun with western tourists and it is a several hour drive. In the end, though, we discovered that if we used the new road, it is only three hours from Nha Trang, so we went ahead and hired a driver to bring us up.

Thank God.

It is one of the most spectacular places I have ever been. The drive through the mountains was utterly stunning. The new road is still cut from the side of the mountain, so it twists and turns along, creeping upward in some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen in my life. You can see for miles, into sweet valley communities at the bases of ancient, rounded, lush green mountains. We drove into the clouds and could only see the white line of the road. We drove along craggy granite and sandy red orange limestone. Everywhere you looked the view was more spectacular then the last one.

Finally we began to drive through high mountain fields bursting with artichokes, coffee, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbages and all kinds of flowers and vegetables. The mountain people (called Hmong in RI... they have a different name here in Viet Nam) have lovely villages high in the mountains. Some have started farming in a more modern way, but many still practice slash and burn agriculture. Their houses, high in the mountains, are built of the local pine and are painted bright, happy colors.

Da Lat itself is a beautiful city. It is true that the tourism has affected it tremendously, with whole neighborhoods torn down to create street after street of small hotels. But get just a block or two away from the main town center and suddenly you are in a quaint, colonial style village. Before the French arrived, Da Lat didn't exist... so here the French influence is still very strong.

Yesterday (it seems longer ago than that) we went to see my husband's childhood home. It has seen better days. My father in law built it some 40 or 50 years ago, and since they left Viet Nam, it has changed hands several times, always through party officials. It has finally ended up a somewhat dilapidated rental unit for college kids. The corrugated steel roof is rusting through and all the paint is being eaten away by mildew. But still, my husband grew up in this home and it was very moving to stand in the very alley he walked up every day to get to his school.

As we stood there, an old man next door walked over to us and smiled.

"Bonjour" he said. I was suprised because we have heard absolutely no French since being here. We excitely replied and told him that Nguyen grew up next door. He lit up when he recognized him, shouted for his daughter and invited us in.

What a lovely visit we had. The old man's daughter was my eldest sister in law's best friend as a child. She asked after everyone and invited us to dinner, but since there were 8 of us, we said it would be too much of an imposition, but promised to come back next time we are in Viet Nam.

Ok. So here are the all important details.

We have completely violated every single food rule our travel doctor gave us.

Raw veggies: couldn't live without 'em.
Ice Cream: Yup, we finally caved and bought the kids packaged cones.
Ice: Only once, with fresh squeezed orange juice. We drank the juice really fast while knocking on wood.
Street vendors: Oh my, yes. Thank goodness for the street vendors. The Pho for dinner tonight was some of the best I have ever had. We sat on plastic stools around tables on the sidewalk and had a great meal for a buck a bowl.
Unpeeled fruit: Strawberries and a whole bunch of fruits we don't know the names of. In most cases we wash them in bottled water. The green mango from the market was peeled by our vendor, with a knife of unknown cleanliness. We dipped the mango in a chili infused salt and assumed it would kill any bad beasties.

Are we tempting fate? Perhaps, but so far only Emmett has had any distress and it might have been a virus he brought from home. It was a 24 hour deal.

We are growing to love this country. And whenever we practice our Vietnamese, we are universally met with great enthusiasm. In fact, we have had such joy at engaging with the Vietnamese people. It has been one of the best parts of this trip.

That's all for now. We are about to open a bottle of Da Lat wine for a nightcap.

All Love,
Rachel

Another Vietnam post

There is so much to talk about I can't even come up with a name for my posts. Do I want to tell about the lunch we had yesterday? We went back to my Father in laws for the second time. The dishes were more or less the same, but the mood was much less formal. More laughing. More relaxed. At one point my Father in law, Pop, put his hand on my leg and I held it for awhile. Unheard of, really, but totally comfortable.

We practiced our paltry Vietnamese while eating a kind of sweet and sour fish soup, stir fried cuttlefish (delicious) and grilled prawns, this time with the shell removed because Chi Leung realized that Americans prefer it that way.

For dinner we found a lovely sort of fusion place across from our hotel. The food was boring compared to the delicacies we have been eating, served with plain old soy sauce instead of the Umami bomb fish sauce combos that my sister in law makes. But it is the only place where we can hear the ocean instead of the constant thrum of motor scooters, so for 750,000 dong (about $60) we had 2 bottles of local wine, 6 or 8 dishes, including shrimp and wild boar, and a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label to go.

We went back this morning for coffee and french bread with fried eggs. They were the best eggs I have had in decades. Chickens work hard to scratch out their dinner here, but oh, does it pay off. The yolks were bright orange and stood to attention like sun soldiers on the white plates. We broke open the french bread loaves and stuffed them with the eggs. My husband ate these very sandwiches as a child. One every 12 days because they only had one chicken and had to collect eggs for over a week so that every kid would get a sandwich.

Back at the hotel, we cracked the Johnny Walker and got weepy listening to Nguyen tell us the story of the day he left Vietnam. It is all coming back to him. He has remembered the details all along, but last night described the terror for the first time. It was the first time he had seen the ocean, since he's from the mountains. His first time on a boat. Trying to go from a fishing boat to a huge American ship, in the dark, knowing that some of the people didn't make it because they got crushed between the two vessels. Sea sickness and terror as he watched the church they had spent the night in get bombed as they were pulling off shore.

It is almost impossible to imagine this live and let live people in the midst of a war. Just watching the traffic convinces me that they are essentially a peaceful bunch. I have seen nothing that even remotely hints at hostility, even when there was a minor collision between two motor scooters yesterday, one of which carried a man, his wife and his infant baby. Not even a hostile glance as they pulled apart and went on their way.

It is hard to imagine a war here.

Today, we are off to the market.

The internet connection is so bad I was unable to read your comments... so please know that I am not ignoring you all! I will check in when I can.

All Love,
Rachel

Where to begin?

I am sure I feel a little like my friend Amy did during her trip to India. There is no way to really describe what you are seeing and experiencing. No way to communicate what Vietnam is. I can tell you about the breakfast we ate this morning, in the middle of a sidewalk, on tiny plastic stools, squatting over banh xiao pancakes fried on tiny pans over a charcoal brasier. Or I can tell you about the lunch at my father in laws house, where we were the guests of honor, waited on hand and foot, served exotic and expensive dishes that my sister in law spent the morning preparing. My step mother and I had to work hard not to weep at the kindness and hospitality of it, because we knew that if we did start crying we would embarrass our hosts.

The drive from Saigon (more properly, Sai Gon) was a sort of Asian version of Godard's Le Weekend. We cruised past life on the road. 9 1/2 hours of scene after scene. Cows in front yards. Water buffalo lounging in a muddy puddle. In Sai Gon, slums the likes of which I have never seen before. And God this is a filthy country. Trash everywhere. But every morning the proprietors of the little shops come out to sweep their sidewalks, just in time for the party officials to cruise down the street littering it with leaflets thrown out of the back of a truck blasting martial music, or the local pooches taking their morning crap. (Poor dogs, too. You can tell from the texture of their shit that they aren't eating purina. More like rice and veggies, if they are lucky.)

I have realized over the past few days that in the midst of the sensual overwhelm (sights, smells, and oh, God, the constant, unrelenting noise) I am quite moved that this strange place, In which I am a complete stranger, is my husband's homeland. We are more different than I ever imagined. More different than he ever let on. But the fact that he feels right at home here, where I feel like I have landed on Mars, says it all.

The children are wonderful. They are just totally unselfconcious and interested. Bored, sometimes, when we aren't at the beach. (Which has been most of the time.) Their circadian rhythms have been off since we got here, with the unfortunate side effect that they have been getting up at 3 am and waking me up along with them. This morning they sat on the balcony of our room, overlooking the South China Sea, and watched the sun rise. I tried to get more sleep.

Emmett was sick for a day, throwing up everything he ingested, including rehydration salts. I was worried, but just as I was threatening to take him to the hospital for IV rehydration, he ate a bowl of white rice and drank a bottle of water and is now swimming with his Boppa.

Initially, we checked into a Canadian owned hotel in the midst of the tourist district of Nha Trang. It was loathesome. I felt like I was in the middle of Fort Lauderdale with cyclos. I found out later, after we checked out, that my father actually went back to his room and cried because he had traveled so far only to land in his worst nightmare: a tourist trap. So, we asked Nguyen and his brother to find us better digs. We ended up across the bridge, less than 3 miles, but a world away, in a hotel that doesnt' have any signs in english, with a balcony overlooking the bay and no top sheets. The staff is friendly and happy when we try our Vietnamese out on them. We love the room and the beds. We don't love the canned bitter melon tea in the mini bar. The beach is too filthy for swimming at this end of the bay, but you can walk out the front door of your hotel and are right in the middle of Vietnam with nary a white person in sight. You should see the looks we attract. Frank curiosity, especially since we are traveling with a Vietnamese man. Looks, giggles and mostly huge smiles. We are a parade whenever we walk down a street. (Carefully avoiding the gutter!)

I am overwhelmed in all ways. But wouldn't miss this for the world.

Internet access is cheap, but I have to wait my turn at a cafe, so I am not sure when I can post again.

And I must be perfectly frank that I don't miss anyone from home. I have barely thought about home at all, we are so busy processing what we are experiencing here. I would probably feel differently if I weren't traveling with my kids.

By the way, Peter, as we were driving up the coast, I thought to myself how much you would love this place. Maybe someday you will come here with us.

All Love,
Rachel

We are here!

After 30+ hours of travel time, I am sitting in the lobby of our hotel in Saigon. It is about 7am local time. The flights were uneventful, which is to say a smashing success. I will never forget what it is like to fly over Hudson's Bay and into the endless night of the North Pole.

We are tired, but very energetic. Haven't had breakfast yet, but were awoken to the sound of roosters crowing in the middle of downtown.

Had a little taste of bureaucracy last night when we were told to fill out the same form three times because we hadn't done it EXACTLY the way the 22 year old Immigration Agent wanted. And already some questions about how the venerable grandparents reacted to the amerasian grandkids. The kid/agent inquiring first made sure I couldn't speak Vietnamese before delicately asking the question.

The weather is mild. I'd say about 80 degrees this morning. The Hotel (extravagant at $50 per night for the 4 of us. $35 for my parents) has the best shower I have ever had and a view of an alley.)

It is incredible that yesterday-ish, I was having a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee in an airport in Warwick and today-ish, I am in Ho Chi Minh City, listening to Vietnamese radio and the sound of scooters beeping endlessly.

Love, Love, Love,
Rachel

Hurry up

And wait.

Our flight this morning was canceled yesterday, due to anticipated bad weather in Chicago. Should we be surprised by a snowstorm in February in Chicago? I think not!

So the boys and Nguyen and I went to the Ash Wednesday service last night at Grace and I felt pretty darn penitential, all things considered. I was moved that Nguyen accepted the ashes on his forehead and then wore them to dinner afterwards. We went to a funky Portuguese place in East Providence and ate fish.

Today we get what feels like a free day. We are packed and ready. We have no more major errands to run. I even left a message for my drumming teacher that if he has a spare hour I'd love to have a lesson before we go. We slept late and tidied up a bit and have time to blog about it.

Life is good, even when it is not what we expected.

Tomorrow, God willing, we get on the plane and end up halfway around the world.

It's hard to be a light in the world....

When you are in full scale panic mode.

Which I am.

Right this second.

Between Nguyen harrassing me about about getting the tax stuff together and the fifty THOUSAND things I still need to do before we leave for Vietnam at 4am on Thursday, I am in a more or less constant state of melt down mode.

Which isn't to say that I am screaming or anything. Just. Edgy.

And since I get the trots when I get nervous, I have been spending a bit more time than usual in our lovely 1927 with the 1950's redo pink and black tiled bathroom.

Too much information, I know.

Tonight I am going to my drum class, and hoping that concentrating on a lively African rhythm will set me straight.

And prayer. Lots and lots of prayer. Because it's hard to be a light in the world without God's help, too.

A bit of fluff

Yeah, it's a meme. But it was so funny I had to do it!

Thanks to Marybeth for this one.

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME (first pet, current car): Sophie Mazda
2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME (fave ice cream flavor, favorite type of shoe): Chocolate Dansko

3. YOUR NATIVE AMERICAN NAME (favorite color, favorite animal): Purple Rabbit
4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name, city where you were born): Elizabeth Newport
5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME (the first three letters of your last name, first two of your first name): Ngura
6. SUPERHERO NAME (2nd favorite color, favorite drink): Red Wine

7. NASCAR NAME (the first names of your grandfathers): Albert Lewis
8. STRIPPER NAME ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy): Chanel #5 Reeses (That one so doesn't work...)

9. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME (your fifth grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter): Deltradicci Denver
10. SPY NAME (your favorite season/holiday, flower): Autumn Iris
11. CARTOON NAME (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now): Apple Red Sweater
12. HIPPIE NAME (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree): Banana Beech

Dancing in the dark

Well, not quite dancing... but grooving on the elliptical trainer at the gym. The power went out this morning at Planet Fitness, so instead of watching inane stuff on the tv, I was grooving to my Afriki album on the Ipod. (Which I coincidentally brought for the first time because I was bored with the junk they broadcast on the tvs at the gym.)

I have a love/hate relationship to the ipod. On the one hand, it is cool to have your own personal soundtrack as you go about your business. On the other, I think music is meant to be a communal experience. I love listening with others, dancing and singing along. It seems isolating to listen alone.

Working out has been great, thoough. I started a few weeks ago because I wanted to be in better shape for the Big Trip. So every day I have been doing about 20 minutes on the elliptical trainer and then working either my arms or legs on the nautilus machines. (Do they still call them that, I wonder?)

Yup. I am superwoman:

Faster than a lazy water buffalo. More powerful than a kid selling gum on Nha Trang Beach. Able to lift extra large bowls of pho.

The Big Trip

I am thinking it is silly to spin off yet another blog. (Three and counting at this point...) So I will be posting about my big trip to Vietnam here.

First, the particulars:

6 of us are traveling together. My husband, kids, my parents and I are flying from Providence to Chicago, from Chicago to Hong Kong and from Hong Kong to Saigon. (No one, and I mean no one, calls it Ho Chi Minh City!)

The flight between Chicago and Hong Kong is the longest leg, of course. It is just under 16 hours. Oddly, it is the one part of the trip that worries me. (Bad food? Nah! Malaria? Nope. Cockroaches the size of poodles? Pshaw! 16 hours in a confined space? It's enough to scare the crap outa me.)

I have prepared for the long flight by buying an inflatable pillow and packing ambien. Better living through chemistry, I say. I'll probably get some saline for my nose, too. The last long flight I took, my nose hurt like crazy by the end of it.

But oh, we are so excited. We leave in 2 weeks. My father in law is preparing for us. We are beginning to pack. We have our shots, our passports, our visas (very official from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, complete with a red star in the corner.) We have rehydration salts and immodium. We have water tablets and nalgene bottles. We have 6 bottles of bean sauce for my father in law. We have a box of wine and a phrase book.

We are getting ready.

Confidential to A.F.

Welcome home!

I can't wait to hear about India. Wanna do lunch? I don't have your email!

Love,
Rachel

The evangelist

Suddenly, I am evangelizing.

Not the showing-up-on-your-doorstep-talking-smack-about-the-state-of-the-world kind. Not telling my friends that they are destined to an eternity of hellfire and bad food if they don't mend their ways. Not even Jesus is Lord and until you accept that you are doomed.

Nope. I am just inviting people to visit my church. And they have been. And some have stayed. My son's friend mentioned a couple of weeks ago that they were planning to visit the Baptist church in the neighborhood.

"Really?" I said. "What's your mom's number at work?"

At which point I called her and invited her and the family to come to Grace on Sunday.

"I'll swing by and show you how to get there." I said.

They came, and it turned out that long ago, they had been Episcopalians until their parish closed and they never found another church.

They loved Grace. They joined. The kid is now in the middle school youth group with Noah. The teenager is excited about the mission trip this summer. The parents are going to volunteer to make sandwiches for the homeless. They all went up and took communion for the first time in years.

When I talk about my church, I talk about it with such joy and affection, I think people get interested.

A week ago I had dinner with friends and yesterday one of them showed up for the 10am service at Grace. She is a Unitarian Christian who is, I think, coming to understand that there is an oxymoronic element to that. She is longing for the sacraments. She is longing to hear about Jesus in church. She longs to sing his praises. So there she was. Next week she is coming to Lectio Divina before the service.

I loved my UU church, but interestingly, I never invited any of my friends to come with me. Well, maybe once or twice. A lesbian friend checked it out once, but it was the most dour of services. Doom and gloom, like Lent without the uplifting possibility of redemption. Even the hymns that day were like dirges. One of the problems with a UU church is you really never know what to expect. One week it was a sermon on the redemptive elements of Harry Potter. The next it was a survey of Sufi poets. The next it was a diatribe on how the Catholic church mounted a smear campaign against Mary of Magdala. My friend never came back.

Getting people excited about a church is, admittedly, a little bit of bait and switch. Because it is not that I think that Grace is the be-all of churches. Or that going to church is even the point. It is that something remarkable has been happening there. God is kicking butt. People are experiencing transformation. Redemption. Miracles are occurring. Yesterday a man who has been coming for almost two years took communion for the first time. (Maybe he figured if Nguyen could do it, he could too, LOL.) Grace is a community of people who are earnestly seeking to be in deeper relationship with Jesus. So, by inviting people to our beautiful building with our great choir and sweet, funny priests and friendly parishioners, I am actually inviting them to open a door to God. I figure if I try and get them in the pews, God will do the rest.

So, what are you doing this Sunday?

1 Corinthians

Thank God for the bible. I love reading it. I love studying it. I love living by it.

Lately I have been struggling with myself. I have been obsessing over whether this person is mad at me, or that one thinks I am a jerk. Essentially, I think, it has been a kind of self-centeredness gone berserk. Of course you are cranky because of something I did. Doesn't the whole world, including yours, revolve around me?

So today I was at Bible study with all my dear dear friends and we were reading Corinthians and leave it to Paul to get straight to the point and whack me upside the head.

1 Corinthians 4:3

3 I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

For me, this means that I need to let God be the one to judge me. Not you. Not my friends. Not myself, even. And I need to be very careful not to judge others.

After bible study, I sat in a pew and prayed for awhile, asking Jesus to let me rest in his peace. In him, I do not fret. I am calm. I am safe. I am free.

Jesus' baptism

Yesterday during Lectio Divina, we were reading Matthew's account of Jesus' baptism. I read first. Inexplicably, about half way through the reading, I choked up. I just started crying.

Next it was my friend's turn to read. I pulled myself together and tried to understand what had caused my reaction. Since there were only two of us, I read the passage a second time. Once again, halfway through, I began to cry. This time I was nearly sobbing. I had to get some tissues to wipe my nose. My makeup was smeared all over my cheeks. My face turned red.

What in the world happened?

The night before my baptism 4 1/2 years ago, I randomly opened the bible and landed on this very passage in Matthew. At the time, I didn't know what baptism meant. I had asked my minister to baptize me as a symbol of my surrender to God... but did not understand the sacramental nature of what I was doing. I don't think my minister had a clue about that either, to be honest. He knew I was earnest. He believed I was genuinely being called to do this thing. But he had no idea what it really was. We sailed past the whole Jesus issue. Being a Unitarian at the time, it didn't occur to me to specifically talk about Jesus at the baptism. It wasn't until days later that I realized that the made-it-up-as-we-went-along baptism had done something totally unexpected: I was baptized by the Holy Spirit. I became a Trinitarian. I became a Christian. And most importantly, I died and was reborn in Christ, Jesus. I died and was reborn.

Which to someone who hasn't experienced it, sounds a bit off the wall. Maybe even frightening. But to me, it was blissful. Scary at times, especially in the weeks following my baptism. But joyful nonetheless.

Yesterday, when reading the passage from Matthew, the feeling that opened the floodgates was gratitude. And a sense of calm and peace and joy, mixed with a bit of longing, too. John was unworthy, and yet Jesus chose him. I am unworthy, and yet I, too, feel I have been chosen to serve God. Mostly what I felt was a kind of calm that only comes with resting in the presence of God.


Mat 3:13

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.
Mat 3:14

But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
Mat 3:15

Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
Mat 3:16

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.
Mat 3:17

And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Strange

Every once in awhile I feel drawn to purge my old notebooks and diaries. A couple of years ago, I threw out my diary from High School. Today, I was looking at my tattered collection of bad poems and adolescent declarations of love from 9th grade with intention of tossing it. My stuff was positively embarrassing.

But in the midst of the schlocky poems and gushing love letters, I found a type written letter to the parents of a friend:



Oct. 9, 1979

Dear Mr. and Mrs. F_____,

I am a friend and somewhat of a confident of your son G. He seems to feel that your punishments are unfair and he is afraid to talk to you about it.

I realize that this is not my business, but I think that G is really depressed. He constantly mopes about in class and feels that everyone is out to get him, which, needless to say, is totally untrue. I think you should have a talk with him about his feelings.

I know G loves you both very much, but I believe he feels a complete communication block. If you could learn to accept him as he is, rather than ask him to be something he isn't, I am sure you would both be better off.

I left the letter unsigned. Apparently I never sent it. It is such a strange artifact of my life as a prep school kid.

My friend G killed himself 4 years ago and though I am certain that nothing I could have done would have ever changed that, it seems that even as a 9th grader, I could see that something was wrong.

Beloved God,

I pray that my friend G is at peace. I pray, too, for his parents, who even now must be filled with grief. And today I pray for all who suffer from mental illness and depression. Give them strength to seek help, Lord. And be with them in their pain.

Poked

We went to the travel clinic at Miriam hospital for our shots for the Vietnam trip. In a word:

Ouch.

I had the worst of it, with 5 shots. (FIVE!)

I got typhoid, tetanus, measles, hepatitis A and the flu shot. Noah was also pretty bad, with three, including the dreaded tetanus, which makes your arm feel like it has a rock in it for a month.

Emmett handled his shots well, but then fainted afterwards, so we had to apply cold compresses and get him sugared up on ginger ale and lollipops. Nguyen had just 2 because his were still good from the last trip.

I have to say that I am starting to get very excited! We leave in 5 weeks and are starting to get all our ducks in a row. I am designating a spot in the guest room to start piling stuff. We have a long list of things we need for the trip, including deet and sunblock, imodium and electrolyte solution. Ear plugs and sleeping pills. Tee shirts and shorts and sandals. (Especially for me, as they won't have size 10.5 in Vietnam, LOL!)

We are beginning to pull together our itinerary, too, with a planned stop in Mui Ne on the way to Nha Trang.

Just can't wait!

Joy to the world! The Lord is come

Did it work for you? Did you wake up on the 4th Sunday of Advent and suddenly realize that the energy was shifting? It was right around Saturday when I began to see the Light at the end of the darkness.

A plan had been percolating in my head: We'd decorate the tree on Christmas eve. I bought a beautiful wooden Nativity set from Guatemala, complete with three cows, three kings and a baby Jesus as big as a cow. The children would unwrap it and set it on the mantle. My brother, mom and friends Tom and Donna were coming over to eat appetizers and light the 4 Advent candles and the wonderfully cheesy votive candle with the picture of the Holy Family I bought in the Spanish section of the grocery store.

It all went as planned. I cooked appetizers and baked cookies all day. Nguyen took a rare day off and helped clean the house and get ready. He chopped cabbage and carrots and wood ear mushrooms for his famously delicious egg rolls. The kids pulled out the boxes of decorations and spent the day stringing lights and hanging ornaments. In the end we had a tree with colored lights on the bottom, white lights on top, and no ornaments above 5 feet up. It turned out to be the most beautiful tree we have ever had.

I went, alone, the 2:00 service at Grace while Nguyen and the kids finished getting the house ready. It was quiet and beautiful. Fr. Rich preached a wonderful, heartfelt sermon that made me cry.

My plan of all appetizers was a hit! The food was delicious and simple. Before we dug in, I read a prayer I wrote. (Inexplicably, I couldn't find my Book of Common Prayer.)

It was a relaxed, funny, joyful and loving evening.

On Christmas morning, Nguyen got up and said "I feel like going to church." and since I was waiting for my family to come back, he went alone.

When my brother arrived, he asked where Nguyen was.

"At church", I said.

"Alone?"

"Yes."

And suddenly, something shifted for my brother. Later he joked about it, calling Nguyen "Bible Boy" and worrying that my husband will try and evangelize him. In all his bluster, though, I know that he was pondering this new turn of events.

Later, when my mom arrived, we made a fabulous breakfast and had a wonderful conversation about religion, politics and just about everything else you aren't supposed to talk about. As I drove my mother to the airport, she said "that conversation was my Christmas wish. That we would all talk and listen and enjoy each other's company."

Seems like maybe we all got our wishes this year.

Praise to you, Lord Christ. Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Seashells

My father and stepmother have a beautiful tradition for Christmas.

Back when my grandfather was alive, he and my grandmother collected scallop shells on the beach near their cottage in Truro, Massachusetts. Grandpa carefully drilled tiny holes at the top and strung them, in pairs, on florist's wire to use as Christmas tree ornaments. They made dozens and dozens of them.

After both of my grandparents died, my father inherited the scallops. Somehow, he and my stepmother came up with a wonderful tradition. Each year they take a sharpie marker and inscribe the names of friends or relatives who have died during the year. Then they spend an evening putting up all the shells that have accumulated over the years. It is a very moving process. One by one, they read the name and talk about what that person meant to them. Plenty of tears flow. (Usually plenty of scotch, too, I think!)

Last year, in Newfoundland, I was part of this for the first time. I came across the name of my friend Gig, who had died a couple years before, during Holy week. And my granny. And other friends of the family. My mother in law. Even beloved pets.

In the midst of the tears, we had such joy at having known them.

Stymied

I admit it. As a Christian, I have no idea what to do with Christmas. Not the religious piece. That part seems clear enough. We are in the midst of a penitential time of introspection and anticipation. We hear about John the Baptist on Sundays and go to confession. We examine our inner darkness and try to clear the way for the coming light. All that makes sense.

What doesn't make sense is how to do that while the world is screaming at you from every corner to

Have fun!!!!

Buy stuff!!!!

Buy more stuff!!!!

On SALE!!!

Back before I was a Christian, I loved the 'out in the world' version of Christmas. Nguyen and I would listen to sappy big band Christmas albums and go shopping at 2 am at whatever store was open. (Zayre's used to stay open all night in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Remember that, New Englanders?) We'd make hot apple cider and decorate the tree.

Maybe all of this is going to happen on Christmas Eve, from now on. As it is, we have had a tree since the Saturday after Thanksgiving... but haven't done anything more than string a simple string of white lights. No ornaments or star. No wreaths on the house. No lights on the bushes. It just doesn't seem right to be doing all that during Advent.

This is all so new to me, this oddball conjoining of the sacred with the profane. What do you, as a Christian, do with this? Your thoughts and comments are welcome!

On the occasion of a Nor'Easter

Beloved,

When sin knocks at the door
Of my heart
Let me keep it closed, shut tight.

When Joy approaches
I will throw open the door
And invite Him in.

Community

I have been thinking about the ways that God uses community to help us grow as Christians. Increasingly, I am grateful to be a part of a religious community like Grace church.

Being in community with others means that we get to practice being Christians. When difficulties in our own lives arise, we have people who are committed to helping us through them. When we see others in pain, we are called to extend a helping hand to them. It is powerful in both cases.

Nguyen and I have been worried about a congregant at Grace who is battling major health issues. We called his friend last week and invited them to the Wednesday evening Eucharist. They came. When the priest brought communion to my friend in the pew, I was overcome with joy because I felt so sure that he is no longer alone in this struggle. Not only is he bound to Christ with this rite, but all of us are bound together through it. Together, we face his challenges, losses, fears. Together we support him through this painful time.

During Advent, I have been struggling some painful issues of my own. Things that I wanted to hide and keep secret. But gently, God offered me a way to open them up and expose them to the light. He gave me a way out. He gave me a spiritual friend. A Godparent. The sacraments of communion and confession. The words of Thomas A Kempis. A community of people who love me, and whom I love. God gave me all these things to remind me that I never have to struggle alone with my sins and fears.

2 years ago I sat in the Rector of Grace Church's office and told him all the things I disliked about his church. I told him that I was unhappy, but that God was calling me to stay. I confessed that I was none too pleased about it, but that I would stick it out as long as I felt God was asking me to be there.

Yesterday I called him to tell him how grateful I am to be a part of Grace Church's community. Miracles are happening. Love is abounding. Blessings are everywhere. I thanked him for his leadership and his willingness to let the Holy Spirit be in charge.

Miracles are happening.

Thanks be to God.

The Messiah

It is a spectacular experience, seeing The Messiah live for the first time. It is true that I have gone to Messiah sings for the last few years, but this year we scored tickets to the sold out production put on by the Providence Singers and the RI Philharmonic. It was a gorgeous production.

For me, it was almost like seeing David Bowie for the first time. I actually wept a little hearing my favorite pieces performed live. For years now I have been listening to the Bernstein version of The Messiah on a more or less endless loop in my car. I can sing all the words, I know all the music parts, I play bits of it on the piano. So, when the orchestra began playing Sinfonia, I felt tears streaming down my cheeks.

Since my children know the score so well themselves, after years of hearing it in my car, I think I will bring them next time. I am sure they will love it.

Thank you Handel.

Wednesdays at Grace

I have already mentioned that we have a beautiful sung service at Grace on Wednesdays. This week I invited my husband, kids and a friend to join me. They did. The kids were remarkably un-squirmy... even when Noah lost a tooth right in the middle of the homily and started bleeding all over the place. It was a heroic effort, but he got through to the end without distracting everyone around us. (The tooth fairy will pay extra for that, I think!)

But here's the thing: Nguyen took communion. I tried not to make too much of a fuss, but truly, I wanted to blubber like a baby when he came up with us. Afterwards I jokingly asked if he felt a lightening bolt from the blue. No. But it turns out he has been praying every day.

I am so grateful.

Advent is upon us.

I am a couple of days late, but today I went to the church supply place here in town and bought some simple purple votive glasses for an Advent wreath. I placed them on a round glass plate scattered with seashells. The candles themselves are white. It is spare and lovely.

I also picked up another copy of the Imitation of Christ. I think that will be my Advent reading for this year. I loaned out my other copy awhile ago and now would like my friend to keep it.

This morning at bible study, we began with the Advent lessons for next Sunday. I read Isaiah 11 and admit, I couldn't get through it without tears.

A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
²The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
³His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
⁴but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
⁵Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

⁶The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
⁷The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
⁸The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
⁹They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.

Lord,

For all you are, for all you have given us, and for all you promise, I am thankful.