Uh….

HOLY COW! I have a blog…! I almost forgot about that…

Well. I’ve been a tad busy what with COLLEGE and all…midterms and research papers, etc.

I’ll be back SOON. I promise.

Have you missed me…??

Arrogance?

Every now and then I come across a post that is SO good that I just have to share it with you.  Usually the author has stated something that has been turning around in my mind, but I haven’t had the time or the ability to put my thoughts into words as they have.

Julie Clawson, at One Hand Clapping, has written an outstanding post entitled “Is Intellectualism Arrogant?”.  It resonates deeply with me, I think because within the past year I have become so much more introspective with a great thirst for knowledge, be it theological, cultural, or whatever.  I think this is an outgrowth (ingrowth?) of my natural introversion that was bound to happen as I grew older.  I particularly loved her comment: “I want the news, or my TV shows, or my faith to make me think – to make me push beyond myself and go on that journey of discovery.” Her post is not too long…I encourage you to go check it out.

Pierced

It was almost as if I was home, and not with you.  The expanse of blue overhead was clear, with white smears of clouds, looking benign and familiar.  The glazed gold warmth of the South Asian sun spilling around me had not yet saturated the day, and I turned my face toward it, feeling my spirit lift.  It felt like a spring morning in the Carolinas.  Gradually I brought my attention back to the peaceful rooftop restaurant with its wicker tables and chairs and potted palms swaying lazily with the light breeze.  Then a peculiar scent brought me crashing back to you, to your chaotic piece of earth.  Your scent wafted up from the streets below, the smell of cow dung and garbage discarded by the sides of the buildings.  With a sigh, I became aware once more of the frenetic symphony of your streets; men yelling to be heard over one another in the selling of their wares, dogs barking, the incessant blowing of truck and auto rickshaw horns, and the revving of motorbikes.  All of this provided the background music.  The breakfast that the hotel staff had prepared for me was tempting, if I put aside the fact that I heard one of them spitting onto the floor as I climbed the stairs and passed the kitchen on my way here.  I was ravenous, in spite of the smell of dung. I simply held my breath as I scooped the delicious potatoes with red and green peppers into my mouth and as I gingerly held the hot glass, sipping the spicy masala chai creamed with the milk of one of your buffaloes.

From the moment I stepped onto your soil, you were an assault on my senses.  You overwhelmed me with your extroverted energy and your pulsating life.  It took me a day or two, but I began to peel away the layers of my resistance to your romance, to the beauty that lay beneath your squalor. It happened, though. I fell in love with you.

I’m not sure when it happened. Perhaps when I first stepped through the gate and stood there stunned by the magnificence of the Taj Mahal.  Or perhaps it was the sight of the aimlessly meandering, ribby cow stopping to eat from the garbage cans just outside its entrance.  The juxtaposition of the wandering cow and the grand Taj baffled me.

Maybe it was when I was riding in the thick, relentless traffic in an auto rickshaw and we had to stop in the middle of the road as a huge elephant, carrying a load of humans on his broad back, crossed the intersection.  Or maybe it was the auto rickshaws themselves, jockeying for first place as they honked and careened around dogs, cattle, cyclists and trucks with bumper stickers that read “Honk Please” pasted to their back ends.

Perhaps it was the relative peace of the rooftop restaurant above the cacophony of your crowded and filthy streets that captured my heart.  Or, crazy as it sounds, perhaps it was the ghastly goat market, every edible part of that animal cut up and on display for dinner, flies crawling on the raw meat, blood running in the gutter, smelling like death and life.

Maybe it was the surreal experience of walking in Old Delhi beside Tibetan mountain women, their thick, coarse braids hanging long down their backs, their embroidered skirts dragging in the dust, yellowed teeth showing as smiles split their faces.  Maybe when I saw the moonlight strangely illuminating the huge, hairy beast, a yak, perhaps, standing taller than a man at a train station at midnight, I knew that no other place on earth was like this, like you.  Maybe that pushed me over the edge, into the free fall of infatuation.

I think it was all of it.  The dichotomy of your wealth and poverty crushed my chest with breathlessness.  Your children with filthy hands pulled at my arms and begged for food, and there was a mother, bare-bottomed baby on her hip, who grabbed the bananas from my hands because I was too slow distributing them to her brood of children.  Your people, your hungry, hurting, happy, hopeless, hopeful people stole my heart.

I hear your music in my head. I can’t escape it. The sitar and the sound of the spiraling singing haunt me. I hear the tinkling of the bangles that your women wear. I feel the silkiness of the pashmina fabric flowing around my neck.  I see bitter chocolate eyes, with cataracts and yellowed edges.  I see warm, soft smiles and glossy dark heads that duck and bobble in the way only your people do.  I will never see the world the same way again. Your poverty has made my wealth seem excessive and meaningless. Your ugliness has elevated beauty for me. Your most beautiful places have made all other beauty pale.

It was this love that pierced my heart. It was this romance that found me madly, in a moment of third world randomness, scrubbing my nose with an antibacterial wipe as the man in the marketplace sharpened the diamond tipped pin.  It was this love for you, for your people, that made me stand unflinchingly as the man pushed the pin through my left nostril.  It was this heady romance that held me still as he used small jewelry pliers to pull the pin through, snip off the longest length of it and curl the remaining part up inside my nose.

I am pierced. This reminder of you I will have with me always.  Every time I feel the pin, every time I see the glitter there, I think of you.  I remember how you stole my heart.  I remember how you broke it. You are India. You are a part of me.

Bono, the Hubs and I…in the Same Building…

…along with several thousand other people, but honestly, will I even SEE them…???

So, in case you haven’t heard…THE HUBS AND I ARE GOING TO SEE U2 IN ATLANTA ON OCTOBER 6TH!!!

Oh, sorry, was I screaming…?

Okay…I’m a tad excited.  This will be THE biggest concert that I will have ever gone to. Really.  And come on, it’s U2!!!   Not only do I love their music, but I also love Bono. The respect I have for this man as a humanitarian and as a follower of Christ is immense.   I have spent the past day or so looking at Youtube vids of various interviews with Bono, and I believe that he is serious about his faith and about caring for the poor.

So, I thought I’d share a video with you!  I found several of the interview that he gave with Bill Hybels (Pastor of Willow Creek Church in Chicago, IL) a few years ago.  It’s a pretty good vid in giving a glimpse into Bono’s heart.

(disclaimer: the video doesn’t end neatly, because Bono is asked a question that he doesn’t answer before the vid is up.  Also, it’s subtitled in German, I think, but if you listen and don’t read, you shouldn’t be too distracted. )

Read it and laugh!

Every now and then you just need a good laugh. And boy, howdy, did I need one tonight! After all the edumacation going on in my brain thing, I just needed to read something NON SCHOOL RELATED and laugh my hiney off, which is pretty much what happened when I read Bye, Bye, Pie’s post from, ummm…yesterday, I think. Read it and laugh:

http://byebyepie.typepad.com/bye_bye_pie/2009/09/a-new-lowe.html

Update!

So, 6 year old daughter does  NOT have H1N1…instead, she has strep throat! The initial strep screening was negative, but the culture from that grew some nastiness this past weekend. She’s on an antibiotic and that should take care of it. Her fever was gone today, anyhow, and she’s been feeling well enough to play around the house, and she never ONCE complained of a sore throat. So go figure…!

This is Her Brain on Sick…

Six year old daughter is SICK. We think it’s H1N1, which is the nice way to say “Swine Flu”.  Her fever soared to 103.3 yesterday, and this is what she looked like then:

I gave her a dose of Motrin and she began to feel better. I know this because she began to draw and paint. She was churning out pictures like a pez dispenser.  She then hung them, all of them, by herself, on the side of our refrigerator:

This morning, without Motrin, her temp is a mere 101.  And just now, this is what I found in the living room:

Notice the kitty ears and dance leotard she’s wearing?  This is how she is usually dressed around the house.  Notice also that the chair has become an oven and she’s baking cookies.  Creativity abounds again.  I think she’s feeling a bit better.

My September 11th Baby…

I hate to admit this but I used to have a really hard time remembering son #2’s birthdate.  I mean, I would know when his birthDAY was coming, and I never forgot his birthDAY on the actual DAY, but if someone asked me what his birthDATE was, I would turn it around in my head somehow and blurt out “11/9″!  I don’t know why. I don’t think I’m dyslexic. But that’s what would happen.  Up until 8 years ago.

Now I never forget that his birthdate is 9/11.  I also remember because that is the day he actually entered the Marine Corp…on his 19th birthday, 9/11/05.  And today, he exits the Marine Corp. and becomes a civilian again.

Do I think that the impact of the events of 9/11/01 on his young life (he was 15 at the time) had anything to do with his desire to join the Marine Corp.?  I’m not sure.  I do know that during the six months or so that he took to decide whether or not he wanted to join, he would talk to me about his thoughts.  Late one night he told me that his friends just didn’t seem to understand his desire to be a Marine. He would try and try to explain it to them, but they didn’t get it.  This was frustrating to him.  In trying to explain it to me, he said, “Mom, I think it would be the greatest thing I could do with my life…to lay it down for something bigger than myself.”

What does a mother say to that…?  Unlike his friends, I got it.  But I didn’t like it. It terrified me. It also humbled me. And it made me proud.

I have no idea what I said in return to him that night. But I am glad that he’s here now.  Here with us, as a civilian, and celebrating another birthday.  So, Happy Birthday, sweetie.  Welcome back to civilian life.  And thank you for your service on behalf of our country.  You were a good Marine. You are a wonderful son. I love you!

The Reception

Sitting in the icy, air conditioned room, I shivered.  It wasn’t the cold, however, that was to blame, but rather the anticipation of what was about to happen.  I felt a shaking deep inside that I could not still, though I tried to breathe deeply and evenly.  I reached out to take my husband’s hand and felt the trembling there, too.

Suddenly there was a commotion in the hall outside the room.  We heard hushed voices and with a jolt I realized that there, in that outside hallway, was a person who would change my life forever.  Someone I didn’t know, and yet, somehow, I did.  My knowledge of this person was very one dimensional, limited to generic information on a piece of paper, but still, I felt the connection between us crackling through the wall.

Our names were called and my husband and I stood with jello-like legs and made our way to the open door to the hall.  All around us there was crying and wailing, loud and persistent, and not unexpectedly, bursts of joyous laughter.  As we reached the door, my eyes strained to see what, up until now, had been only mine in a well worn photograph.  Glancing at my husband, I gained courage from his smile; though he didn’t speak a word, his confidence helped me to relax.

Finally the name was announced, sounding foreign and yet familiar.  Then she was there, passed along by hands that had cared for her, but would no longer.  Those hands were relinquishing her, and we were, gladly, receiving her.  I was vaguely aware of the flash of cameras, the whir of video and the murmur of Mandarin as I took my fourteen month old daughter into my arms for the very first time.

Lions, Gorillas and Bears, OH MY!!

Yesterday we went to the zoo. It was a gorgeous day in SC and the zoo was packed! It had been several years since we last hit the zoo, and we thoroughly enjoyed the day.  I’m not feeling particularly creative today (hence the reason I am putting off homework, which is a rough draft of a narrative story, due next week). So once again I am going to take the easy way and just post a few pics for you!

First, the requisite zoo signage picture…

Inside, we saw the lovely long legged flamingos…and there was a BABY flamingo. I’ve never seen a BABY flamingo before…have you??

Quiet, resting lions…

Ba-ba-ba-BOONS with pink booties, as six year old daughter loudly pointed out…

Graceful giraffes…

And this guy, who I felt I actually communicated with…He walked right up to me (umm, fence between us) and looked into my eyes and then “waved” his ears at me as I said “HEY THERE” over and over. It was a crazy, “in the wild” sort of moment. Of course, maybe he was just shooshing flies away from his eyes…

And then the funny gorilla…maybe the same one who escaped from his camp one day last summer and beat up a zoo worker.  He seemed like a character. It’s a really poor picture, sorry. He’s on the other side of a plate glass window and he’s laying on his back, eating handfuls of grass. He had one leg propped up on the window, just enjoying his snack! First one fistful, and then the other.

Daughter # 1 and daughter #2, in front of 170 year old Galapagos turtles…

And finally, the reptile exhibit.  Six year old daughter was fascinated by this python…

We finished off the day with some dang good burgers from Fuddruckers and that was that! Thanks for checking in. Next up, a post about one of the most special days in my life!