Summer Joy 12: Merry-go-round

Longing

This merry-go-round included Onward, Christian Soldiers and Jesus Loves the Little Children in its repertoire. Visions of Narnian animals going forth to battle danced in my head, during the first.

Summer Joy 11: Vacation

Father and son

". . . . the time cannot be long, . . . number. . . every moment, charging it with meaning. Love in ignorance squanders what love, informed, crowds and overfills with tokens of eternity."
--from Ellis Peters' An Excellent Mystery: The Eleventh Chronicle of Brother Cadfael, 1985

(Thanks to the Lean Librarian for recommending Cadfael, and to Sparrow, for passing along Circle of Quiet and Wittingshire's appreciation of him.)

Once more to the lake

For the past few months, I've read of your travels: to the sea, to Texas heat and tornadoes, to Disney World, Italy, Yosemite, a writing seminar in New Mexico, England's New Wine conference of caravans, the family farm in Iowa, the Florida sister, CBA in Denver, romance in New York City, the Norwegian fjords, historical and scenic sites of western Canada, the RWA conference in Reno. (Sorry if I missed anyone. :-)

(Here I sit in the flat Midwest, where we slowly grow wheat, corn, soybeans, beef, chickens, and dairy cows to feed you all.)

Tomorrow we take off for a few days.

I will take along "Learning the Ancient Rhythms of Prayer: Why charismatics and evangelicals, among others, are flocking to communities famous for set prayers and worshipping by the clock," an article originally published December 9, 2000. Paul Boers, the author, is pastor of Bloomingdale Mennonite church in Ontario. Christianity Today has linked it on their website as part of their observance of the passing of Brother Roger, the founder of Taize.

If you have time to surf, Barbara of Being Barbara, Being Mum, Being Me has a thoughtful post about letting go of one's children, a theme that has also recently surfaced on Circle of Quiet and Wittingshire. Barbara's post is especially interesting because she lives in Great Britain, and she reflects on changes in family life over several generations there.

Mel of Actual Unretouched Photo also has a beautiful post on taking her son to visit her aged grandmother, who is about to pass the century mark.

Enjoy.

The Cases of the Disappearing Dentist, the Lean Librarian, and the Man Who Saw Purple

There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. Proverbs 30:18-19

1. Last week I inquired about the curious absence of the female dentist from the practice we have been frequenting for several years. I hadn't seen her for months; her name had disappeared from the sign outside the office door. "She took a year off to write a murder mystery, and now she's trying to market it."

What was she thinking, as she worked on our teeth?!

2. Librarians are scarce, since the advent of online catalogs and self-checkouts (scanners) at our local library. Last week, unexpectedly, one asked if she could help. I was perusing the classics, but told her I liked mysteries. I liked good writing, had read most of the old mysteries, and the new ones were either cutesy or had too much violence and psychological darkness. She nodded, referring to several writers who had started well, and gone off track. "That's what sells." She shook her head over Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connelly and Ruth Rendell.

Suddenly, the librarian became animated: she had liked Rendell's Judgement in Stone. The murder was because of illiteracy! The woman killed people because she couldn't read! That was a good one!*

3. Friday, my son and I toured a local mall (wheelchair-assisted) to search for school clothes. We ran into a friend in the domestics section of Kaufmans's. I bemoaned the difficulty of choosing paint colors. She said she and her husband find it difficult to agree on colors. He's colorblind in the blue/green part of the spectrum. They're having trouble leaving their white walls behind.

A royal blue couch she liked appeared to be Barney purple to him.

*The librarian recommended the historical mysteries of Lindsey Davis (particularly Silver Pigs) and Ellis Peters. I prefer to read historical fiction only if written at the time in which it is set. I once heard Niall Ferguson, a Harvard history professor, voice this preference during a C-span interview, and realized I shared it.
I did follow the librarian's recommendation and try Silver Pigs. I did not enjoy it enough to continue beyond the first 30 pages or so. I will give Ellis Peters another try. I think I read that Madeleine L'Engle enjoys her.
Note: If you follow the Ferguson link, you will find it is an off-topic, but fascinating, article (by an atheist): Heaven knows how we'll rekindle our religion, but I believe we must (HT: Mere Comments).

Summer Joy 10: Bulb catalogs

Burgundy Lace (actual color deeper than appears here) with muscari

This week we received the first bulb catalog of the year from Breck's, "direct to you from Holland since 1818."

At our previous house, knowing crocuses, tulips, daffodils, grape hyacinths, Dutch irises, and lilies were asleep beneath the snow gave me a sense of anticipation from New Year's Day through the month of March.

The previous owners had left large purple crocuses, yellow daffodils, orange Asiatic lilies, and a few stray tulips. Partly inspired by the glorious array of color put forth during Tulip Time in Holland, Michigan, I added a few more bulbs every year. By the time we moved, there were not yet the masses of color recommended in Mrs. Greenthumbs, but there was something new coming into bloom continually during spring and early summer.* I was sorry to leave it. (The subsequent owner has apparently torn out most of the landscaping and replaced it with the ubiquitous yew.)

Now we start anew, with a yard which, until now, has had no time for spring-flowering bulbs. Where to start.

Breck's has a good coupon included in its catalog. Bluestone Perennials, here in Ohio, is a trusted source of plants. I will also check out the bulbs at Free Trees and Plants, which employs workers with disabilities.**

I have learned from my sister-in-law in Florida, and our own experience living in Georgia, that gardeners in the south cannot grow most spring-flowering bulbs; the cold season down there is not long enough for their hibernation period. Tulip bulbs would need to be kept in the refrigerator several months, in Florida, for them to bloom.

Tulips and daffodils are one compensation for our long, cold winters.

*I see Bookish Gardener is able to keep this progression going during spring, summer, and probably fall.
**Thanks to Dawn at Frugal for Life, for adding them to her site.

Dutch iris

Facing reality: precursor to grace

Last month, I read J. Mark Bertrand's account of Andy Crouch's speech to the Christian Booksellers Association about the need for more realism in Christian fiction. Crouch speaks:

And this is the most basic test for quality in fiction, it seems to me: is it absolutely faithful to the real, and absolutely faithful to what is strange and extraordinary within the real? For the Christian this is another way of saying, is it about grace? Because grace is the interruption of the unexpected in the real. Cheap stories barely touch reality—they present a simplified simulacrum of reality, a version that is easier for the storyteller and for the reader alike.

This week, I read Catez Steven's review of the movie City of God, which depicts life in a slum in Rio de Janeiro. She realizes some Christians would have problems with the language and violence depicted in the film.

The film has an R rating, so I'm not giving a blanket recommendation to see it. I know some people will have a different criteria than mine. But it has me thinking too. So much of the popular visual Christian media is tailored to our Western comfort zone. To be frank, some of it seems to be about "bless me and don't portray the harder aspects of others lives".

I have to say that related questions arise in the minds of some parents of children with special needs. We sometimes limit sharing about our experience with those outside the disability community because we are afraid they couldn't handle the truth of how hard it is. They are too weak. Or they would condemn us as complaining or tell us to get a Prozac prescription. Or it would increase the prejudices they already have against those with disabilities. They may just not care. It takes time to listen.

1. When you are not open to hearing about the pain and struggle of a person's history, you are closing off an avenue to hear of the grace that accompanied it.

2. Accompanying someone along a difficult journey is a risk. Will grace happen?

Reading: Peanut's Story, Just Thinking
Cheap Hope (HT: Mere Comments)

Summer Joy 9: State fair

Yesterday at the State fair, my husband sent me off to the Arts and Crafts building to look at quilts. I detoured into an air conditioned auditorium and found the Ghirardelli Chocolate baking contest. No free samples, but we got baking tips from the moderator, who took questions while the judges tasted.*

She asserted that baking, unlike cooking, is a science. Exact measurements are much more important in baking. Is this arguable?

Parchment paper: She uses it for almost everything except cakes. Don't use it if you want a cookie to spread and flatten out.
Ganache: Use cream and chocolate. Cut chocolate into equal-sized small pieces. Heat the milk until steaming, then add to chocolate. Wait five minutes. Stir with whisk, starting in middle, moving toward outer edges. (The questioner asked how to avoid separation of particles in a ganache.)
Baking time: The moderator never times her baking. When you can smell a creation, it's almost ready to take out. Then you start using a toothpick to check for inner dryness. She said baking times vary greatly because of differences in ingredients and ovens. Most baking times given on cake mix boxes are too long.**
Fudge: The recipes using marshmallow creme are popular and no-fail.
Flour: Don't buy more than you will use in a month or so. (!) Store in airtight container rather than original package.
I have already forgotten how to obtain gritty sugar or crispier cookies. Overcook the first, adjust fat or flour on the second?

This year, Ruth Cahill became the first Arts and Crafts contestant ever to be inducted into the State Fair Hall of Fame. She has been exhibiting food at the fair since the late 1950's. This culture overuses the word "awesome," but I could almost attribute it to this woman.

*The moderator shared that there were many requests for this job.
**I once had a roommate whose boyfriend baked. He never used a timer. He claimed he waited to remove them from the oven until the Holy Spirit told him to take them out.

Wildflower: Queen Anne's Lace

Wildflower: Ironweed

Summer joy 8: surprises in the garden

This week Early Girl lived up to her name, as she pulled into second, behind the cherry tomatoes. Yesterday I found what I thought were sloooowly ripening red tomatoes (when I checked several days ago) had turned golden yellow, and I picked 20 in one day! Eleven red tomatoes were ready on the three other plants, which had yielded a grand total of four or five, so far.
If you are a gardener, you know these little surprises are among gardening's choice rewards.

"We are protecting our children from the wrong things!"

Last week our Beth Moore video covered goodness and kindness, in her series on fruit of the spirit. Goodness, not passive, does (acts).

She had recently spoken with a woman who was pregnant with a baby with Down syndrome. The mother had come to terms with the diagnosis, and believed the baby would be a blessing to their family. However, she was worried about the effect the baby would have on her other children, concerned about the sacrifices they would have to make. Beth exclaimed, "We are protecting our children from the wrong things!"

She shared about how much her daughters had learned about selflessness during the years they had had a child with special needs in their house.* The little boy had cost time and money, but she felt the blessings he brought were well worth the sacrifice.

She knew a family who had a child with Down syndrome. The siblings had to help with things like riding on the bus and finding the way into the school in the morning. Beth asserted that helping was good for those children. It taught them to think of others. The expectant mother need not worry about a child with special needs depriving her other children. "We are protecting our children from the wrong things."

*I'm not sure whether he was fostered or adopted. Eventually, after five to seven years (I think) he left.

Risk (?) 2

For it is a dreadful truth that the state of (as you say) "having to depend solely on God" is what we all dread most. And of course that just shows how very much, how almost exclusively, we have been depending on things. But trouble goes so far back in our lives and is now so deeply ingrained, we will not turn to Him as long as He leaves us anything else to turn to. I suppose all one can say is that it was bound to come. In the hour of death and the day of judgment, what else shall we have? Perhaps when those moments come, they will feel happiest who have been forced (however unwittingly) to begin practising it here on earth. It is good of Him to force us; but dear me, how hard to feel that it is good at the time.
C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady, 1967, p. 47.

When it comes to children, parents so often have to depend on God for help. We race against time to help our son develop skills that make him as independent as possible, to increase the probability that he will not be put into an institution when we are gone, but that a good family will welcome him into their home. We have to depend on God for his continuing development and his future home life.

(I have to add I am continually inspired by hearing stories of people, bloggers among them, who have adopted children with special needs into their homes. I know there is a similar program for adults in a nearby state, which I would like to look into, when I get time.)

*C. S. Lewis. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Summer joy 7: harvest

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Genesis 8:22 (Amplified)

Summer joy 6: rain

Tuesday night, after days of sweltering temperatures, our heat wave finally broke. The heat index had been reaching the low 100's F for a couple of days. Off and on yesterday, rain, sweet rain.
(Thanks to Actual Unretouched Photo, from the ever mild and rainy Northwest, for asking.)

This is just to say

(with apologies to William Carlos Williams)

I have eaten
the first cherry tomatoes
that were ripe on
the vine

and which
I wanted
to save
for a picture for you

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and sun warm

Summer joy 5: green fields

Soybeans (neighboring field)

July 25 addition:

. . . . the drive from here to the hospital is so pretty. I steer clear of the interstate and take Highway 61, known to southeast Missourians as “the old highway,” through a couple of dozen miles of rolling farmland. The trees along Highway 61 are so green this week that Technicolor couldn't begin to capture their intensely saturated hue, . . . . Art, I'm sure, means more to city dwellers who live far from such natural pleasures, and when I return home to the city, mine will mean more to me. At present, though, I'm happy to revel in the world around me as I drive to and from my temporary job as a caregiver. That seems to be all the beauty I need.
(from About Last Night, where arts critic Terry Teachout is blogging about leaving New York to spend some time caring for his aging, ailing mother, in his southeast Missouri hometown.)

(Apologies to aggregators and rss feeds, if this repeated. Blogger is not wysiwyg with text wrapping photos.)

Why is this night different from all other nights?

Because tonight I am thankful my son survived this morning's fall down the stairs. (He has survived two falls off the bed, one down a few steps held by mom, one down a few steps held by dad.)

He usually scoots down safely "in sitting," unless assisted to walk down. This morning I left him half way down, and went to start breakfast. He evidently started down, and decided to pull his knees up inside his t-shirt, which he does when cold (in the a/c). I heard three thumps. He was curled on the floor, silent, face contorted in pain, bleeding from the mouth. Then he started crying quietly. (Was he holding his head oddly?*) The emergency squad was here in a few minutes, and found he was in no apparent, immediate danger. So I took him down to the emergency room. He smiled at me, right upper lip swelling, in the hospital parking lot, and I thought he was probably going to be ok. We went in, and he was checked over and out in a record one hour, 45 minutes. (When he had a concussion, 19 months ago, the visit lasted close to five hours.)

If the worst had happened, I would not cry because we lost our son with Down syndrome, but because we lost our son. I would cry because he had not yet learned to talk, and I had not gotten to know him like I wanted to.

This night, like all other nights, is a night to be thankful.

*Like about 15% of children with Down syndrome, our son has atlanto-axial instability. One of the cervical vertabrae in his neck is weak. He is cleared for horseback riding and the trampoline, but not for somersaults or anything that places pressure on the head or neck.

Summer Joy 4: family reunion

My grandmother birthed 19 children (including two sets of twins) in 24.5 years, according to my aunt. The 14 who survived early childhood attended today's reunion, along with many of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

When I entered the cafeteria, the crowd was a blur, so I focused on the food: chicken; meatballs; dressing made with homemade bread; slow cookers of noodles, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, mixed vegetables, and sloppy joe filling; taco salad; fruit salads; vegetable salads; watermelon; cheese plates; a vegetable platter; and about 14 kinds of dessert.

On tables to the side sat water, lemonade, sweet mint tea, unsweetened iced tea, and coffee. One aunt asked another, "Do you think other family reunions have this much food?"

Summer Joy 3 : reading

I am bringing this to the surface from a behind-the-scenes email follow-up to Summer Joy 1, in which I recommended Expecting Adam, by Martha Beck. (Beck is a contributor to Oprah's O magazine.)

Expecting Adam is an entertaining book. Warning: Beck is pro-choice, a lapsed Mormon, and sometimes lets her imagination run away with her. As a married mother of one and a Harvard student, she finds herself carrying a child with Down syndrome. She attends a disturbing class in which abortion for children with disabilities is endorsed, but decides to allow her son to live. Adam brings the Beck family a lot of joy, while radically transforming their perspective on the value of an IQ. Their journey will make you laugh; it will make you cry.

Mitchell Zuckoff's Choosing Naia tells a story along similar lines, but with a more serious tone. It carries additional layers; the child will be bi-racial. The father is black, and doesn't want his daughter to have a double stigma to deal with. It has been awhile since I read this, but I felt for the man in his struggle. If you believe God makes the choice to give a child life, you do not face this particular turmoil. The wife did give birth to the little girl, and the family learned to love her. If I remember correctly, the paternal grandparents were firmly pro-life, and gave the couple moral support. I believe the couple was visiting churches, looking for a good fit, toward the end of the story. (The book is based on a series of articles Zuckoff wrote for the Boston Globe, as he followed the family's journey.)

Michael Berube's Life As We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child is another account by a pro-choice intellectual. This couple didn't know their son had Down syndrome before he was born. Both parents were professors, and here again, love for child with a disability causes a deep shift in the way his parents view intellectual ability. Berube gets wordy and political. It is fascinating to watch a pro-choice pragmatist trying to argue against aborting children with Down syndrome. I respect this man for loving his son and for his disability advocacy, in spite of his ideology.

I am not recommended these books as uplifting Christian reading, but as a path to insight into the way some families deal with having a child with a disability. They are well-written and interesting. Mourning is changed to joy; what parents greeted with dread turns into a blessing. They are inwardly transformed by their children.

I found the discussions of choice disturbing, but waded through them (1) for the sake of the rest of the story, and (2) because I thought it valuable to understand how people think in these situations. They are a part of the reality in which we find ourselves. (Our local Down syndrome association gets calls from people who are making murder an option when their unborn child is diagnosed with Down syndrome.) I did not understand how these parents could remain pro-choice after having their children. I felt they were blinded by the culture.

For encouragement, try Gene Stallings' Another Season. Stallings is former University of Alabama football coach, and father of Johnny, who has Down syndrome. One of the pediatricians in the group we use attended U. of Alabama, and knows who Johnny is, which makes me feel connected. If I remember correctly, this was a Christian family.

Recommended reading: Changed by a Child: Companion Notes for Parents of a Child with a Disability, by Barbara Gill.