I would never forget this. . . .

Christianity Today has posted a philosphers' potpourri.

WHAT REALLY COUNTS in life is that at some time you have seen something, felt something, which is so great, so matchless, that everything else is nothing by comparison, that even if you forgot everything, you would never forget this.
Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers

Our son's birth--the moment of silence, the first cry.

In the fine print: George Will, Peggy Noonan

From George Will's Newsweek article about his son Jon, who has Down syndrome:

Jon has Down syndrome, a chromosomal defect involving varying degrees of mental retardation and physical abnormalities. Jon lost, at the instant he was conceived, one of life's lotteries, but he also was lucky: His physical abnormalities do not impede his vitality and his retardation is not so severe that it interferes with life's essential joys--receiving love, returning it, and reading baseball box scores.

One must mind one's language when speaking of people like Jon. He does not "suffer from" Down syndrome. It is an affliction, but he is happy--as happy as the Orioles' stumbling start this season will permit. You may well say that being happy is easy now that ESPN exists. Jon would agree. But happiness is a species of talent, for which some people have superior aptitudes. (from Eternal Perspectives Ministries web site)

I once saw an interview of George Will, in which he was questioned about "the tragedy" of having a child with Down syndrome. Mr. Will replied that, "Down syndrome is not a tragedy; it's an affliction. And it's not my affliction, it's his [Jon's] affliction." That was interesting to me, as a parent.
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Years ago, I read Peggy Noonan's memoir of her years as a speech writer for President Reagan. She's written several books since then, the most recent being a biography of Pope John Paul. Mary Walsh reviews the book in the recent issue of Touchstone magazine (p. 41-42). She quotes Noonan:

I always got the feeling with John Paul that if he could have narrowed down the people he met and blessed to those he loved the most, they would not be cardinals, princes, or congressmen, but nuns from obscure convents and Down syndrome children, especially the latter. Because they have suffered, and because in some serious way the love of God seems more immediately available to them.

Everyone else gets themselves tied up in ambition and ideas and bustle, all the great distractions, but the modest and unwell are often unusually open to this message: God loves us, his love is all around us, he made us to love him and be happy.

A time to plant (annuals)

Last night I stuck four Beefmaster tomato plants in the back flower bed, among the (fading) tulips, malva sylvestris, hollyhocks, blackeyed Susans, phlox, salvia, and delphinium. This is my first year for malva sylvestris. So far, they've bloomed proliferously.

I also planted trailing blue lobelia, and salmon and white petunias, in two baskets hanging over the deck. Three large flowerpots got more salmon and white petunias. The long planter has the same, plus a sweet potato vine. The deck gets sun from the south, so keeping these plants sufficiently watered for the summer will be a challenge.