One day last week after another hungry morning and meager lunch, I decided to go to Subway for a sandwich. I was glad to see a familiar, colorful truck parked nearby: the Fojol Bros were back in the neighborhood. I’d rather patronize those spunky guys in their carnival lunch truck, than spend money at a chain restaurant any day.
A colorful welcome sight
Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Last October I was chatting at the market with a local farmer who sells herb plants and greens, like lettuces, endive, and arugula, to plant in the garden. I asked if she thought it was too late to plant lettuce and spinach seeds for a fall crop. “Not at all,” she said, “Plenty of time.” I was skeptical but sowed some seeds anyway: red and green lettuce, turnips and spinach. They each grew about an inch or two by the time truly cold weather stopped them in their tracks. “Oh well,” I thought, “a small loss, but worth the try.”
Nature finds a way
I put the poor, shivering, little baby lettuce and spinach out of my mind, consigning them to temperatures down to the teens, snow, ice, and strong winds. Imagine my surprise in early February to see about a dozen spinach plants actually growing. Harsh winter did not kill them. So completely did I not believe that the healthy little buggers were actually growing before my very eyes, it took my wife to say, “I think there’s enough for us to eat. Why don’t you pick us a mess for supper.” And I did. And it was good. I wonder what was most satisfying? Was it eating the delicious, fresh spinach, or feeling the pride and wonder of produce from my own garden, miraculously grown and harvested in February!
You’d think I’d get over being so surprised by the vigor of life, the inexorable press of nature to produce living things.
From the Bride’s Father’s Notebook – Day Four
Thursday, December 24 (Christmas Eve!)
This morning was church. I wept to hear the story of the Great Cosmic Surprise, the birth of Jesus from Mary among farm animals. God-in-flesh in straw. What’s he doing here? Why would he come? I was comforted and wept tears of relief at such a word spoken in the scary, fragile context of this world and it’s condition. Even good news, such as this wedding, is fraught with uncertainty as any human endeavors are. And of all things, this isn’t just any human endeavor; it’s my own daughter getting married. How will they make it? Will they have enough money? Can their relationship grow and mature to take the blows it’s sure to get? God with me, you say? In the straw and manure-filled barn that is my life? I’ll take it! I more than took it. I wept tears of joy and amazement to hear the joyful story proclaimed.
Illumined by the miracle
After church we stopped at a Starbucks. We four laughed and talked, sharing a coffeed, festive moment.
O Lord, grant me to greet the coming day in peace. Help me in all things to rely on Your Holy will. In every hour of the day reveal Your will to me. Bless my dealings with all who surround me.
Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of soul, and with the firm conviction that Your will governs all.
In all my deeds and words guide my thoughts and feelings. In unforeseen events, let me not forget that all are sent by You. Teach me to act firmly and wisely, without embittering and embarrassing others.
Give me strength to bear the fatigue of this coming day with all that it shall bring.
Direct my will, teach me to pray, pray You Yourself in me.
Amen
(An excellent combination of good writing and good praying.)
My wife had the enviably clever idea of cutting a few forsythia branches from a huge bush near our apartment, and sticking them in water to force them to blossom earlier than their outside brethren on the bush.
Worked like a charm! Lovely!
It worked like a charm. She set the first bunch in a medium sized vase along with sprigs of lavender and rosemary from the garden. High drama for us, watching the little budlets grow and swell each day until after a few days, Fwoom!, they appeared. Lovely.
Today Katie and I finally made it to church. We actually tried to go a couple weeks ago. We found the building but we couldn’t find the service in the building. What?! How can you not find a service in a church building? You’d think something like that would be obvious, wouldn’t you? It would be in nearly any usual church anywhere else in the world. The problem is that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (the CHS), is very, very unusual.
The unusualness of our church experience began before we were anywhere near the building itself. Sunday is the first day of the week. Most calendars make that plain. The U.S. work week begins on Monday, the second day of the week. Most churchgoers attend on Sunday, the first day. In Israel, the holy day is the Sabbath, the last day of the week (Saturday), making Sunday a normal work and school day. My point is that our habit of cutting travel time to church close, knowing the route there is mostly vacant streets won’t work here. I learned we needed to treat it like a normal work day, leaving earlier than you’d think necessary to allow for rush hour traffic.
Procession Leaving the Holy Sepulcher from the main entrance
We parked outside the Old City and entered via Jaffa Gate, one of the major entrances into the old city, and made our way down the narrow, stair-stepped, shop-lined lanes to the CHS. The actual main entrance into the church is on the side of the building. I walk in, impressed equally by the large scale of the place, the massive stones in walls and pillars, the soaring ceiling, the many nooks, crannies and passageways heading in different directions, as well as the wear inflicted upon it over the centuries to which smoothed flagstones, indented stone stairways, and besooted celings bear mute witness.
I left my children in the big, unpredictable, cold world today on their own to face the elements alone, far from my protective care. Let me tell you it wasn’t easy. We’ve been together for a while now. I felt close to each one. Why does it have to be this way? Why? Can’t I just keep them at home, enjoying their perky ways, their bright, happy appearance? Honestly, they add so much to our family. The place seems empty, a little duller with them gone. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself.
Ready to leave home
Waiting for the bus on a crisp lovely morning, I see a dozen or more lines across the sky, crisscrossed and fluffy-white. Some are narrow, most, wide with varying edges; undulating cords across the heavens. Are they all made by planes? Perhaps. Maybe the temperature and humidity are just right for these trails to linger and weave strands across the firmament. Some might be clouds. It’s a beautiful pattern of lines and bars some spiraling, others, cottony swaths slathered across the deep blue morning sky. The rising sun heats the nearest lines white hot, glowing, brilliant over the east, turning cotton to white gold, an alchemy I long for.
Click play for a soundtrack to this post: Stars and Stripes Forever
Happy March 4th!
I like to say to my office colleagues on the 4th of March, “Today is my favorite day of the year.” Invariably they ask why. “Guess,” I say. “Is it your anniversary? Birthday,” they venture? I can’t remember anyone guessing it. Few people hear the date as I do, at least at first. Finally I explain that March 4 is the only day of the year that makes a sentence. Another pause. A furrowed brow. “A sentence,” they puzzle? “What do you mean?” Finally the punchline, stating what for me is the obvious: “March Fourth! Get it? March Forth! It’s a day for bold and decisive action.” Then the eye rolling, sometimes a laugh, and sometimes a funny look that sort of says, “Sheesh, brother, you’re a strange one.”
Maybe I am. Maybe I wish more of us were. Continue reading
