Nihonga

This post is in honor of my friend, Dr. Ronald Paul Baker, who passed from this life on March 10, 2023. He was joyful, kind, and wise. I wrote this essay years ago, after my first trip to Sierra Leone in 2017 with him. I will miss him.

“The nihonga process, a Japanese form of art… flows out of a thousand-year refinement …malachite and azurite are strikingly beautiful in the form of rock, but to use them for nihonga one must pulverize them, shatter them into small prismatic pieces. They are to be layered, sometimes over sixty layers, to create a refractive surface—a laborious and slow process…The layers take time to dry and in the act of waiting an image is revealed.” Makoto Fujimura, Silence and Beauty,

Rural road in Sierra Leone

In 2017 I began following the liturgical calendar in my scripture reading. My church homes have never been liturgical, so though I pay attention to Lent and Advent, terms like Ordinary Time were new to me. I intended to focus on healthy rhythms. In the neat rectangles of my planner, I jotted down hopes and plans—things like regular family meals, exercise, and paying more attention to my prayer life.

But the regular meals and workouts would begin after a trip to Sierra Leone, West Africa.  Through my job, I was to accompany a team of medical personnel to a hospital in Mattru Jong. The hospital began as dispensary in the 1950s. With both Western and Sierra Leonean staff, it developed into an important center for health until the Sierra Leonean Civil War in the 90s when rebels took it over, ransacking and looting. The hospital is still rebuilding.

Mattru UBC Hospital sign

The medical team flew out of Detroit on January second, with a layover in Europe and arrival in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, in the evening of the third. We took a small bus to the dock to the ferry and crossed into Freetown.where we stayed the night in a Western-style hotel.

The walkway to board the ferry

The inside of at the ferry on a trip to Sierra Leone in 2018

The next day we drove seven hours, then boarded a ferry to cross the Jong River and were pulled across by muscular men using a pulley system with a thick metal cord. And so we arrived in the town of Mattru Jong.

Mattru Jong river ferry

One of the vehicles about to drive onto the ferry on another trip

We stayed a guesthouse with running water but limited electricity. The hospital’s generator was only fired up for surgeries, so we started and ended most days in darkness, using kerosene lamps and flashlights to find our way.

            On the first morning after our arrival, the call to prayer and the too-early crowing of roosters combined with jetlag to wake me up way too early. After fumbling my way out of the lower bunk bed and through the mosquito net, I felt my way to the door and emerged to complete darkness.  The night before we had arranged dishes, paper towels, granola bars, and flashlights on a table by my door, but after locating all the other objects by touch, I finally gave up on the flashlight and made my way to the couch. The night before, water had pooled around the toilet, and I chose wait for light to navigate the situation. So, there I sat, bladder full, my eyes searching for dawn for what seemed like hours before someone else got up, someone who had the good sense to have a flashlight beside their bed.

Most mornings during our stay, I awoke well before daylight and read Scripture with the light of a flashlight.

Psalm 72.12 For he delivers the needy when he calls. The poor and him who has no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence, he redeems their life. And precious is their blood in his sight.

I have no medical training, but because my work involved sending personnel who would join the local staff, I sometimes shadowed the doctors to see what medical treatment entailed in this place with limited material resources.

Sometimes I held hands. 

I held the hand of a woman as the anesthesiologist found the right spot in her spinal cord for the epidural before a C-section.

I held Mabel’s hand and sat on her bed as she winced and held my hand tight when a doctor on our team carefully lifted the dressing from her flesh. Her spinal hadn’t taken during a surgery before our arrival, so her uterus had been removed with limited anesthesia. She said she would rather have her life than her uterus. But still. She was in her teens, and it is hard to be infertile in Africa.

I held the hand of a woman as tears streamed down her face during a painful rectal exam which confirmed advanced cancer, a death sentence.

I held any hand I was directed to by the medical staff as that was really all I could do.

Dr. Baker with a patient in Madina.

Surgery performed with visiting team members and Sierra Leonean hospital staff.

Dr. Baker with his friend Joe French, who had worked in the surgery as an assistant since the early seventies. Dr. Baker said when he and his wife arrived in Mattru to work at the hospital in the early seventies, Joe taught him many things. By the time I visited in 2017, Joe was referred to as Pa French and was still assisting in surgery. He finally retired a few years later.

A visit and dinner at the Beah family’s home in Mattru Jong. Mrs. Beah had been Dr. Baker’s babysitter when his parents were missionaries there. Later, Dr. Baker and his wife would come and raise their family, working at the hospital. The Beah’s had worked in education throughout their careers. Mr. Beah’s sight was failing, and Dr. Baker insisted that we were fine without more light as night fell.

The doorway into Mr. and Mrs. Beah’s home.

I prayed for Michael, who had needed to wait for days for needed surgery. When we arrived and the doctors opened him up, pus fountained from his belly. The stench permeated the room, and a first-year nursing student on the team had to leave to catch her breath for a few minutes. I wasn’t there for the surgery or the next day when he grinned and claimed that he was at 75%, but I met him later as our doctors were still worried about the amount of pus flowing into the tubes coming from his abdomen and as he bartered with a wide smile for a visiting doctor’s iPhone. 

A grocery in Mattru Jong.

Plasticware at the outside market.

I heard a sermon recently on Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. The pastor pointed out that the procedure for making olive oil involves a great pressing, and that what Jesus was enduring as he prayed and bled sweat like blood among the olive trees was a pressing like that of the olives.

The road to the hospital at sunset

I came home. During the week when I was orienting our team of four people who were preparing to work at the hospital, I heard that Michael wasn’t doing well, and then, on a day where we were having lunch at Applebee’s, he died. I wept.

Days in February were unseasonably warm that year, far from the heat of Sierra Leone, but not ordinary for Indiana. And then events in my family twisted and turned until I sat on the edge of another hospital bed, holding my daughter’s hand. And prayers that I had whispered in the dark early hours for the sick in Mattru became my prayers my daughter and for myself, prayers distilled down to what was essential and small.

Have mercy.

By a river back in Fort Wayne

As Lent began, the neat rectangles in my planning notebook stayed blank, empty. The days were dark and difficult enough without adding a practice of lenten denial.

And in those days of spare prayers, I thought of the pulverizing and shattering of malachite and azurite into tiny slivers in the Japanese art of nihonga. If the shattering and pulverizing, the sickness and injustices, are to be withstood and resisted without the hope of some kind of beauty at the end, I am simply lost.

I must hope that scars can be healed and made beautiful, that trauma can be redeemed. I must believe that the resurrected Jesus, made perfect through suffering, a high priest king who knows and understands pain and abandonment and betrayal, whose suffering led to ultimate redemption, redeems our pain as well. 

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1 Peter 1:6-7

I confess that I am impatient. I want to leap to the end of the process. I want to skip to the last page and know the end of the story. I want what is broken around me to be put back together and made shiny and new and whole.

Here the nihonga process instructs me. It is slow and laborious. The layers, sometimes over sixty, placed one at a time and allowed to dry. And it is only in the waiting that the end result, one of glorious reflection, shines.

Fabric from the market stall where we bought material

Looking Up

Psalm 23 is the first scripture I learned by heart. I was eight, and we lived in a mobile home in Casper, Wyoming. It was a six-month stay after a few months in South Dakota and before Wichita Falls, Texas. I got to church on a bus driven by a Baptist pastor. I play the words of Psalm 23 on repeat in my head when I can’t sleep. It’s what I recited when I was in the hospital in January, waiting to go in for wrist surgery to repair my broken bones. I’ve written the words out for a friend mourning a great loss. I whispered the words to my heart through still waters and dark valleys.

I’ve been reading K.J. Ramsey’s book, The Lord is My Courage, this week. From the first chapter’s title, “The Lord,” to the final chapter, “Forever,” it’s a slow walk through the psalm, word by word, phrase by phrase. It’s an artful blend of deep theological reflection, storytelling, and neuroscience, exploring faith and courage amidst fear and trauma. I’d planned to read a chapter a day, but I’m running through it instead of walking, knowing that this is a book I’ll be coming back to again and again.

I was tired Thursday morning. I’d spent a lot of Wednesday on a screen, both working on all things dissertation and scrolling more than is good for me. I hadn’t slept well.

The Psalm for the week was Psalm 121, and I read, I lift up my eyes to the hills,

Where does my help come from?

The Lord,

Maker of heaven and earth.

Ramsey writes, “Tunnel vision is real…when stress swirls around you, your vision constricts. Our eyes narrow to focus on the threat, just like prey in a large field zero in on the predator coming at them…The danger waves a red flag of alarm to our bodies, sending split-second instructions through our brainstem to put our bodily systems on ready-alert for attack.

…shifting your sight up and out can shift the state of your nervous system toward calm and hope.”

It’s not that working on the computer is a bad thing for me. Especially with this dissertation process, I am grateful for the access to information and the ease of typing. But the gentle words of the Psalmist, “I lift up my eyes to the hills,” and Ramsey’s perspective from neuroscience encouraged me to begin the day with a walk, to fill my eyes with the sights at Eagle Marsh.

I noticed things.

The plucky milkweed plant still standing after the mowing.

A family of ducks in the stream…

…that flew away as I walked by.

Deer getting their last nibbles of grass in before bedding down for the day.

And then I realized I had spent more time at the marsh than I planned and jogged and walked to my car and got ready for a day at Shipshewana with my mom and Anna.

Today will begin with a morning walk of the dog around the neighborhood before getting back to the screen and all the good work that is happening there. But I’ll be taking breaks to lift up my eyes, whether to my windows, out in the yard, or around the block. I’ll be taking in the yellow, oranges, and reds that are exploding on the trees. I’ll be feeling with my body my place in this world. And it will be good.

On Growing Problematic Orchids

I have a small collection of orchids that I’ve received as gifts or purchased over the years. They languished for a long time. After the flowers they came with dropped, they stopped blooming.

I’ve never been good at paying enough attention to keep picky plants alive. But I didn’t throw them out. I just put them in places with just enough light, watered weekly, and hoped for the best.

Until I realized that information was online, only a click away, and lifted the plastic conainers out of their ceramic pots to find a pools of water collected at the bottom. The roots were brown and mushy, rotted. My regular, overly generous watering was drowning the roots.

So I purchased potting bark, took the orchids out of their plastic pots, and shook off the old, rotting potting medium. I cut off the rotted roots, and replanted in fresh bark. I still water weekly, but not more than a quarter of a cup. Sometimes I will lift the plastic container from the ceramic pot to check, making sure the bark gets wet but has time to dry before the next watering. For the most part, the orchids have recovered from their wet years and flower, though I have a couple that are holding out on me.

A couple months ago I was wondering how to grow orchids from seed. I quickly found that the process is a detailed, scientific endeavor involving words like microscopic and contagion and years. Definitely not for me. But I did find orchid growers who sell tiny orchid starts. They sell them in bundles of twenty to twenty-five that have been growing together in a closed environment, jumbled together in a glass bottle or plastic container for a year or two.

I decided that this I could try. I ordered two types from an orchid conservatory and heard back right away. One variety would require a wait of a couple months. The orchid starts weren’t ready for unflasking..

But the other variety was ready. There was one catch. The orchids were Problematic. They hadn’t been unflasked at the right time so had been growing together for three and a half years, so some of the seedlings were no longer viable. I could go on a waiting list and wait for the next regular flask or, if I was willing, they could sell me a virtual flask. They would unite two of the Problematic Flasks, let them adapt to each other for few weeks, and send them to me.

I was intrigued with the idea of having Problematic Orchids, and after a flurry of emails back and forth, an agreement was reached, and I prepared. I purchased potting medium—sphagnum moss, a stack of 3 1/2 inch plastic pots, plant fertilizer, and waited.

When the Problematic Orchids arrived a few weeks later, I set up my planting station on a table on our deck. I took the mass of teeny tiny entwined seedlings out of their plastic baggie and settled in for the delicate task of detangling and sorting the separated seedlings onto paper towels. It took almost an hour.

There were a lot. Almost sixty. More than I had moss for, so I ordered more moss and finished the planting a few days later.

I now have ten containers that hold from two to sixteen baby orchids each. They look nothing like the online photos I’ve found of this process where straight rows of similar-sized leaves line up neat and ready to grow. Mine are either long and wiry or tiny and vulnerable. About thirty look like they’re making it.

Scott asked if I plan to sell these, if this is a business opportunity. I laughed. This process will require at least two years to grow a flowering orchid, likely longer. People can pick up an orchid for $15 at Aldi or Kroger. And anyway, who knows what I’ll be about in two, three, or four years. I do have a sliver of a dream though. My young adult daughter has begun doing pottery on a wheel, and I imagine flowering orchids growing in ceramic pots shaped and glazed by her hands that we could sell together. I shared the dream with her, and she smiled wide. That would be fun. But who knows what and where we will be in two, three, or four years. She may be on to something else.

I may be as well. I left my job of six years in August and am finishing my doctoral dissertation. The future is particularly uncharted right now. I know what I need to do—research and write—and that is my focus. I don’t think much about what is beyond. That’s why I got the orchids. So much is unknown and some parts of my life, like this dissertation, take a while. The slow, almost imperceptible growth of these orchids is a visual reminder of patience and faithful care.

I should receive the regular unflasked orchids in the next month or so. I imagine the bundle will be 20-25 like-sized viable seedlings. Their pots will look like the ones online, neat and tidy. I will put them next to the Problematic ones, water and watch.

January 10 through the 15th Lectionary Reflections

Last Monday morning I read Isaiah 62:1-5 and wrote out some of the passage in red, underlining a phrase that struck me, “…for the Lord delights in you.” The passage is about God’s love for ancient Israel even as they experienced the consequences of their unfaithfulness. The phrase reminded me of a friend’s question a few months ago, “What does God love about you?” Her question had stumped me. I tend to think about God's love as general, something that’s true, like gravity, but I do think real love is specific and personal and tangible and tied to action.

Paul’s description of love in I Corinthians comes to mind, “Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” To the degree with which my thoughts, words, and actions towards those I love are in line with this description, I'm loving them well.

At midday, not long after I read this passage, Scott and I ventured out in the neighborhood to walk the dogs. I fell on a snow-covered patch of ice and hurt my right wrist. An x-ray showed a bad fracture, with multiple pieces of my wrist needing to be put back together. The next day, a surgeon put in a plate. The rest of the week I spent most of my time in a nest of blankets on the couch, taking pain medication, watching the great British Baking show, and figuring out what I could and could not do one-handed. Since I usually write as I read scripture,I decided to try with my still-healthy hand.

I wrote out psalm 36:5-10 with a green pen in a shaky left-handed script, “your steadfast love reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.” With our dogs curled up at the end of the couch near my feet, I read “you save humans and animals alike,” On Thursday I wrote out first Corinthians 12:7 in dark blue, “To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.” On Thursday evening, we experienced good food and dessert brought over by friends. Definite common good.

Friday’s scripture was John's description in chapter 2 of The wedding at Cana. I jotted down words and phrases from the story in light blue. “Wedding at Cana/six stone water jugs used for Jewish rituals of purification/filled with wine.”

I’ve never understood why Jesus would turn the water to wine, especially as his first miracle. Why would John, who only records seven miracles in his whole book, include this one? Sure, Jesus saves the hosts from the embarrassment of not having enough wine for their guests, but there's no indication that they asked for help or ever knew the source of the wine. Those who are unimportant and excluded being included in the knowledge of what is really happening—with only Mary, the servants, and his disciples really knowing the whole story—is a thread that will run through the Gospel. But still. Water to wine?

I thought about the difference between the uses for the water and the wine. Water was used for outer rituals of cleanliness for a Jewish household, while the wine was shared with a large number of invited people to celebrate a wedding—the coming together of the bride and the groom.

In the third chapter of John, in Verse 28, just a page over from the description of Jesus’ first public act, John the Baptist says, “I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason in my joy has been fulfilled.” It strikes me that Jesus is the bridegroom. Matthew, Mark, and Luke each Jesus words referring to himself as a bridegroom. The wedding in Cana is both a memorable celebration, with the best reception wine ever, and the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in a particular time and place that will end with him giving himself for his bride. He’ll fulfill promises that were made way back to ancient Israel and extend the invitation to all people, so that verse back in Isaiah 62, “The lord delights in you,” includes me on my couch, still covered in blankets with dogs at my feet.

Gazebo

I am nearing the end of my time in Myerstown, Pennsylvania, for my first residency in theological studies. The hotel I’m staying at isn’t fancy, but it suits—clean and comfy bed, close to campus, plenty of space for my roommate and my stuff.

As I sat in the hotel courtyard earlier this week, I was reminded of Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, “Filling Station.” So here’s my bow to Elizabeth Bishop and beauty in unexpected places.

I sit in the hotel courtyard
On a metal chair
My books stacked on
A faded green plastic table with
A hole in the center for
An umbrella
That is not there

Tables and chairs
Line the periphery
Wood, metal, plastic
A hodgepodge of
Black, white, and mostly that faded green

Odds and ends
A metal bucket with rust on the bottom
An open box
A garbage can
And a green hose in a heap

Once (I imagine)
There were pots of geraniums or impatiens or some other
Bright and beautiful dash of color
On the chains hanging from hooks
Around the perimeter

And in the middle of the courtyard,
Surrounded by fresh black mulch
And evergreens
Ornamental grasses and hostas

A gazebo
A haven of fresh paint
And attention and care

I think of Elizabeth Bishop’s
”Filling Station”
And wonder, "why, oh why, the gazebo”

Traveling Mercies

I returned from a trip to Sierra Leone this week and am still slightly jet lagged. As I write, I'm calculating that I just need to stay awake for two more hours, then I can go to bed without messing up my adaptation. It's Friday and in two hours it will be 9pm.  

I like some things about travel--like walking around airports and people watching. I also appreciate that I can watch whatever movies I want to on the mini video screens during the flight. But it's just about impossible for me to sleep in a plane. It's not that I'm anxious, just uncomfortable sitting upright, whether I have a neck pillow or not. 

For this trip, I flew from Fort Wayne to Detroit, and then to Amsterdam. The plane was delayed leaving from Amsterdam, but arrival in Freetown was still to be before 9pm, which would give time for customs and a trip on the Sea Bird Express Ferry to Freetown and a solid night of sleep stretched out on a bed before leaving the next morning for the drive to Mattru.

As the plane descended towards the airport in Sierra Leone, the pilot announced a problem with landing apparatus. He assured us that we would be able to land but that the issue was perhaps not repairable in Freetown. We circled until it was decided that we would fly onto Monrovia, which was the next scheduled stop that evening before heading back up to Amsterdam.. There were a few groans, but not an uproar. 

In Monrovia red lights from nearby emergency vehicles flashed, but we landed with no incident. Passengers for Monrovia deplaned. Freetown passengers, mostly Sierra Leonians, waited while the technical problem was repaired. The cabin was cleaned. Groups stood and chatted. New passengers, who were to fly to Amsterdam, embarked. Every twenty minutes or so we were told to wait five or ten minutes for news of the plan. Three hours passed.

The talk amongst Sierra Leonians was relaxed and relatively cheerful. They talked about politics and how to make more things work. There was a general sense that it was Sierra Leone's (Salone's) fault that the plane was unable to land there.

At one point, there was a possibility of flying the plane back to Amsterdam (keeping those passengers on schedule with connecting flights) and then flying the rest of us to Freetown. I'm glad that wasn't announced until after the fact, because I would have died a little inside. 

We eventually did fly to Sierra Leone. 

After customs and baggage, a boat trip, and friends meeting me, I took a cool shower, put a fan in place, and plopped onto bed under a mosquito net. It was 4am. 

I whispered thanks to God for that bed, and it was true, relief-filled, deep thanks. And I slept. 

I think discomfort is sometimes a good thing for my soul. There were other lessons and stories from my time in Sierra Leone, but gratitude in the midst of physical discomfort is the one that is lingering during the process of getting over some minor jet lag. 

And also, one word of wisdom for anyone traveling soon who doesn't sleep on flights--choosing to watch Terms of Endearment followed by La La Land near the end of forty hours of no sleep is unwise. The combination puts you in a tearful/musical state that lingers longer than it should.

Bright and beautiful flowers at the convent where we slept before leaving Freetown.

Thankful

"Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is the measure of our gratefulness. And gratefulness is the measure of our aliveness. Are we not dead to whatever we take for granted? Surely to be numb is to be dead." David Steidl-Rast (A Sunday quote from a few weeks ago in my Sacred Ordinary Days planner).

One of my favorite moments of Thanksgiving was when Scott joined me in the morning to prep the turkey. I was giving him step by step directions--rinse the turkey, dry the turkey, etc., and all was going swimmingly until I said, "Separate the skin from the turkey and spread butter around," and my husband of almost twenty-five years just looked at me. It was the look you give when someone tells a joke that is not only unfunny, but verges on inappropriate. That deer-in-the-headlights stare you give because you simply do not know what to say.

I wasn't joking.  And I talked him through the spreading of the Thanksgiving Turkey Butter under the Turkey Skin, and all was well.

Another Thanksgiving moment was this...

Sure, the picture appears to be another run of the mill out of focus holiday photo, but when I checked to  to see why the picture was dim, I found a smudge of mashed potatoes on the lens (I was in charge of the mashed potatoes this year and got a little overzealous with the mashing), so I call this, "The Thanksgiving Mashed Potato Filter." Which is wonderful. And the fact that this is my first picture of baby Oliver makes it even better.

My picture without the filter is clearly inferior. Oliver would have none of it...

And there's our new used dog, Toby. He's a five or six year old rescue dog who

goes from lap to lap.

My little brother, undaunted by the task of turkey carving before him...

Yes, there are two turkeys. Because 30 this year, and

because in our family, one must never ever run out of

food. Ever.

Our turkey carving team...

The spread...

My little sister...

And other little brother...

The patriarch and matriarch...

The young men...

The older young men...

Young Justin.

Happy first- time grandma.

There's Toby asleep on Anna's lap, his preferred spot.

A little "To Kill a Mockingbird" during a quiet moment.

And that quote again...

"Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is the measure of our gratefulness."

So grateful for the gift of family and friends and times of bounty and laughter. And pie. Thankful for pie.

Tourist in My Hometown

This morning it's raining. And I kind of like it. After a bursting-at-the-seams kind of full week, it feels good to sit on the couch, still in my pajamas. Pepper is across the way, laying on her back, paws in the air. Justin's team should be in Elkhart by now, practicing before their soccer game, Scott's on the way up to spectate, and Anna's hanging out after sleeping in.

Last weekend, my mom, sister, and I toured Fort Wayne during Tourist in Your Hometown. Lots of downtown places were free, and the day was clear and beautiful.

We ate at Pint and Slice, where I discovered a tasty goat cheese salad and enjoyed this view from the building across the street. I don't know what that curvy platform at the top is about but I think it's ultra--groovy.

The reflection of clouds in sun in the windows of buildings--old and new--caught my eye.

I don't know the story behind the art on the wall here.

This is one mosaic flower from a patch along a street.

This drummer is by the art museum. I told Justin I took it for him. He approved.

We didn't go in the History Center, but I love the sign jutting out from the building. And the building.
And the sky against the sign and the building.

Groovy silhouettes on a street.

We went to the rooftop of the Embassy Theatre. Looks like the IMP building is leaning.

So I cropped it out.

Lovely sister taking pictures. Along with everyone else. It is cool to have thousands of people from Fort Wayne taking pictures, like geeky tourists, of their own town.

The rooftop.

We went to the Botanical Conservatory, which was packed.

I'm fond of these wind chimes. My mom said you could make this on your own. I know i will never make it on my own. But I can dream.

An event being set up for later in the day. Also, before we got here, we went through a beautiful garden within the conservatory that I didn't know existed. I took no photos but was kind of enamored with it.

Our last stop was the cathedral. Monks were singing worship songs and praying for peace.

 I came across some old friends, so stayed to chat instead of going inside.

Another time.

So we circled back, and I got one more shot of the groovy turquoise within its diverse community of buildings.

Thankful for sunny days in the city and rainy days at home.

In My Backyard

This evening Pepper barked to be let inside, but when I opened the gate, she gave me that look that said she wanted me to come out.

You know the look. So I followed her.

I followed her to the woodpile. Where she barked at something lurking in there and then wandered off.

And while she walked the perimeter of the fence,  I noticed mushrooms on the log pile.

And went back inside to get my camera. Because really, are these not amazing things to be growing in my backyard?

I'll show you the color pictures in a minute. Be patient. But the black and white here makes me happy. They're so delicate.

Reflection of a puddle of water. In a mushroom.

My goodness.

And now for the color pics.

I like the hint of light orangey goop on this one. 

More light orange and the white against the bark.

We've had things growing in our refrigerator multiple times that look like this one. 

I like the blurry green of our mini suburban-style forest.

And the mushroom lake reflection with a hint of color.

Vertigo

Five weekends ago, I got out of bed in the morning, and the bedroom spun around and around. I braced myself, said, "Whoa," (because I'm not cool) and waited for it to pass. The sensation stayed with me throughout the day. The kitchen spun when I bent down to get a pan. The living room spun when I put on my shoes. It was bizarre, so of course I didn't go to the doctor but thoroughly Googled vertigo.

After reading the Wikipedia entry, medical articles, and comments on chatrooms, I decided that the  combination of allergies with the two flights that Anna and I had taken back from Oregon the previous day had unmoored some important inner ear thingy. I would wait it out. So I learned to wait a few seconds before standing, to steady myself with a hand. To get up from bed slowly and to even enjoy the sensation a little when my head hit my pillow at night.

Bit by bit, I've steadied, and rooms no longer spin. I expect I'll be completely back to normal soon.

Back in January, I started Beth Booram's Starting Something New. I stalled in a chapter about discernment. The book was to be my companion as I considered and prayed through the next steps in my work/vocation/vision journey. I thought I was getting closer to figuring out my next steps and was almost ready to move onto the next chapter. But then some things shifted in a vertigo kind of way, along with my plans and expectations. And then another shift happened with Anna's school situation, and our plans and expectations have turned upside down.

A few days felt like this description from Booram's book:

The crossroads of change and choice can be a very confusing place. At times a fog rolls in and obscures our vision. We feel paralyzed, exhausted, frightened, alone. Our hopes are shattered. Instead of being able to look down various paths, we can scarcely see our own feet, much less a path. Our ability to think is constricted. Our energy is limited. The process of discernment is overthrown as we concentrate on first surviving. Lois. A. Lindbloom

Some days my prayers have been for mercy and not much else, and other days I've prayed a long list. I'm no longer paralyzed though, just doing what needs done and trying to be wise, paying attention, and maintaining a sense of humor. 

In the midst of the topsy turvy, I've been surrounded by a good company of friends and family and am planning to laugh a great deal next weekend during my karaoke themed birthday party. By which time, the vertigo should be completely gone. And the rest will get sorted in good time.

Eagle Marsh

Some pictures from a foggy morning in Eagle Marsh. 

Mink!

Comfort

I’m a creature of comfort. 

I love my comfortable couch and dining room chairs with cushions. I love flannel sheets in the winter. I love the feeling of warm water. I love air that is not too hot, not too cold on my face. I love warm drinks with just the right amount of sweet. In The Lord of the Rings, I identify fully with the hobbits, with their Bath Song and concern about missing second breakfast.

I’ve done fine when I’ve lived without these things. During our years in Gabon, the air was usually not comfortable. It was hot and sticky. I survived just fine with lumpy cushions on rattan furniture and stiff chairs. When we moved to Nice, I appreciated the increase in physical comfort even as I missed the warmth of Africa, like the way friends hold your hand until you let go when you greet one another.

Our church in Nice helped run a retreat center up in the mountains. A great deal of work went into making it hospital and beautiful, and our weekends there were filled with friendship, hikes, and laughter. But. There was not one comfortable place to sit in the whole place. I brought it up one time—what if we brought in a couch and chairs with cushions? And my friends were perplexed. For the French, a retreat center in the mountains should be rustic. It’s a place to enjoy the beauty of nature. Wooden benches for dining and plastic chairs for gathering were all you needed.

During those years overseas, our churches had no bulletin or outline for me to follow, to know what was ahead. I sat on hard surfaces—benches in Gabon, pews in France--during long church services where I squirmed and shifted. My French friends were willing to get hungry during long meal prep—no snacking to tide you over. My Gabonese friends were more willing to go without food or sleep to pray and sing together over a weekend. I noticed these differences and my attachment to comfort and plenty. I mostly went with the flow and learned in small ways to live with discomfort even as I always noticed it. Always squirmed.

So. Comfort.

I’m thinking about comfort and my deep appreciation for all the ways I am comfortable. But I’m thinking about Lent too. In my churches, Lent has sometimes been observed as a convenient time to practice focused prayer or read a book together. Good things. I've never put much focus on Lent as a period of waiting or sacrifice. 

My good friend in Nice, Cristina, is from an orthodox tradition where fasting and going without were a part of her year. We often celebrated holidays together, coloring Easter eggs and decorating Christmas cookies. She would say, “Non, merci,” to small things in the weeks leading up to holidays. Things like sugar. And I wonder if her understanding and joy in the bounty of the holidays—like my Easter cinnamon rolls—was greater because of what had come before.

I’ve been reading Soong-Chan Rah’s Prophetic Lament these days as I consider the brokenness of our world, of my world. Rah writes,  “The absence of lament in the liturgy of the American church results in the loss of memory. We forget the necessity of lamenting over suffering and pain. We forget the reality of suffering and pain.”Whether it’s attending a day about racial justice or reading statistics and stories of the refugee crisis, I find myself at a loss. I feel a call to pray more intentionally in the coming weeks. To lament. I’ve found some guides that will focus my prayer because I am often at a loss for words. 

I’ve also wondered what it would look like for me to actually be uncomfortable in some tiny way over Lent.

I’m not talking hair shirt or anything drastic, like cold showers or uncomfortable furniture.

I’ve been thinking about sugar. I drink tea a couple times a day with a spoonful of sugar. I’m partial to bits of chocolate and cookies. It’s funny, but this week as I began to consider this tiny going without, I felt compelled to bake up a batch of chocolate chip cookies. And I did.

Over the last few days, I've noticed the sweetness of sugar—the French vanilla creamer in the coffee I had yesterday, my strawberry yogurt, my Girl Scout thin mint snack when I got home from work—and faced a tiny bit of fear. What would I do without a sweetened cup of Earl Grey tea in the morning? Seriously. I am worried about this.

And I would probably do this imperfectly. I am not one to be full of steely resolve. 

But, I am trying to listen these days. To fully appreciate where I am without being numbed by it. And maybe letting go of a small thing for a brief period of time. 

A Visit to Washington D.C.

Last weekend, I was in Washington D.C. visiting my friend, Denise. Denise and I go way back to twenty-one years ago when Scott and I first arrived in Libreville, Gabon.

Denise and her husband, Sanders, welcomed us into their lives and their home. They welcomed others too, young volunteers from the Peace Corps or other organizations, who would come into the city on breaks from their work in villages. There was always plenty of food and cards and games at their house.

We would eventually have children around the same time. I stood by her hospital bed after she gave birth to her first child. When our adoption process screeched to a halt with an uncooperative official, she prayed me through it.

These days, as I write my book, Denise and Sanders are everywhere, through the pages of our years in Libreville, popping up to visit when we live in Nice. They were with us in Fort Wayne when our cat was run over.

In April, Denise had a massive heart attack. She was in Bulgaria, in the final months of her posting in Sophia. She had to fly to D.C. for rehabilitation in May, leaving her family to finish the school year and pack out the house. Plans for their next posting in Ghana were nixed, and she got news that her heart wasn't recovering as well as they thought. She is doing well now, has a defibrillator implanted,  just in case.

In September, she came month of training in D.C., while her family stayed at the Colorado house they rent out when they are oversees. Denise found a position open in Belgium. They will get there in the next few days.

While Denise was in meetings, I popped into the National Coalition on School Diversity at Howard University. Author Susan Eaton, who has been a friend to The Reclamation Project, visited a few years ago and wrote this. I was able to catch the her keynote interview Nikole Hannah-Jones, journalist recently featured on NPR's This American Life with her story, The Problem We All Live With.

I didn't have time to walk around the grounds and explore, but did pause in front of this mural in the law building, where the conference took place.

I took the metro in DC and loved it. It brings back memories of France and city living without a car. In a city metro, people with different skin colors and economic realities, with different languages and and perspectives, are in one another's space. I think that's a key difference between communities in mid-sized cities like Fort Wayne, and cities with public transport that's truly used by everyone. There are few spaces in Fort Wayne where this happens.

Denise and I went to the National Gallery of Art on Saturday. I've been thinking ever since about a connection between essays and what I saw there, but that's another post.

But I will say that this picture fascinated me. In the 1850s, Haussmann set about redesigning Paris. The streets were narrow, and he widened them, giving space for scenes like this. It's kind of like the metro, but more pleasant, a place for where all kinds of people gather.

 We also did a little shopping. Denise will start work without business clothes, so we found suits and dresses, and I snagged this for Anna...

And, my friend Jen, who spent a year with us in Nice, joined us Sunday afternoon. We had a Vietnamese lunch, talked and talked, had tea and chocolate.

I've always said that I don't like travel, which is of course ironic, since I'm moved and been a part of so many places. We have collected our fair share of stories about transatlantic travel with babies and toddlers, with ice storms and lost luggage and shut down airports. But now that we're settled in Fort Wayne, and any travel I've done is low-key, I have to say that I like it. I like the way a new place gives space for ideas and perspective. And of course, I am so thankful that every once in a while I have the chance to reconnect with precious friends face-to-face.

On Words and Immigrants and Joy and Harps

I've been reading Eva Hoffman's memoir, "Lost in Translation, a Life in a New Language," this week. It's not a new book, and I don't remember exactly how I came across it and why I put it on hold at the library, but I was happy to see it next to a book I actually remembered putting on hold.

Eva and her family moved from Poland to Canada in 1953 when she was thirteen, an age when issues of identity and belonging are already a big deal. Her words speak eloquently of the struggle we face when we lose a place and a language and forge our way into the unknown. It's a valuable read.

I've been writing lately about challenge of finding the words to name my past and present. I lived in a lot of places and moved to a country where I disappeared behind a language for a while. And, like everyone else,  I'm seeing pictures of refugees and thinking about the lot of those who are displaced, for whatever reason.

Here are some quotes:

"I am suffering my first severe attack of nostalgia, or tęsknota--a word that adds to nostalgia the tonalities of sadness and longing. It is a feeling whose shades and degrees I'm destined to know intimately, but at this hovering moment, it comes upon me like a visitation from a whole new geography of emotions, an annunciation of how much an absence can hurt. Or a premonition of absence...

"...this radical disjoining between word and thing is a desiccating alchemy, draining the world not only of significance but of its colors, striations, nuances--its very existence. It is the loss of a living connection.

"This verbal blur covers these peoples' faces, their gestures with a sort of fog. I can't translate them with my mind's eye. The small event, instead of being added to the mosaic of consciousness and memory, falls through some black whole, and I fall with it. What has happened to me in this new world.? I don't know. I don't see what I've seen, don't comprehend what's in front of me. I'm not filled with language anymore, and I have only a memory of fullness to anguish me with the knowledge that, in this dark and empty state, I don't really exist.

"Because I'm not heard, I feel I'm not seen. My words often see to baffle others. They are inappropriate, or forced, or just plain incomprehensible. People look at me with puzzlement; they mumble something in response--something that doesn't hit home...But the mat look in their eyes as they listen to me cancels my face, flattens my features. What do I look like here? Imperceptible, I think, impalpable, neutral, faceless.

"The more words I have, the more distinct, precise my perceptions bemuse--and such lucidity is a form of joy.

There's some irony in her describing her state of wordlessness with such beautiful words. Most of us who work to learn another language never attain that level of lyrical intimacy. I am fluent enough in French, but certainly not lyrical.

Speaking of joy, Anna had a music lesson yesterday, and after playing the violin as she walked around the room, getting a beautiful tone while her teacher played along on the piano, she tried out the harp. She sat and strummed and plucked and closed her eyes. The sound was beautiful. She was beautiful. And she spoke of joy as we left.

The Rialto Community Storyboard

I love how though the selfie was taken with my phone, I still don't know where to look for the picture. So very technologically savvy of me.

We meet for an hour and a half twice a month. We are writers of songs, children's stories, poems, essays, novels, short stories, blog posts and probably other things I don't know about. Some write only when we are together; some write all the time. For all of us, I think, the group is a solid place, where we know one anothers' work, can report back, check in.

Our words go out into the world in small ways. There is the poem that is going to be printed on a t-shirt. The lyrics put to music. The story going to an agent. The blog post beginning a series. But they are going out, which requires a certain amount of courage, I think.

What do we do? We gather, and then, maybe since we're mostly introverts or maybe because I'm mostly in charge and always a little awkward at small talk, we get right to work. We pull out words we've written since we last met and listen to words about crayons and conversations and books and temperaments and keys.

Last night, I read this from Scott Russell Sanders' Writing From the Center, "Writers have always sought out one another's company. What the workshop ideally provides is a community of people who read widely and well, who savor words, who enjoy using their minds, who take seriously what young writers wish to take seriously. Such a community is all the more vital in a society where books in general and literature in particular have been shoved to the margin, where language has been debased, where the making of art seems foolish beside the making of money."

Yesterday morning, at home, I was all set and ready to write about a new thing. I put in my working title and then just stared at the page. It wasn't writer's block exactly. I just didn't feel up to the task. So, last night, pen in hand, gathered with my writing friends, I did what I could not do alone in the morning.

We always write for fifteen minutes. This isn't a time for keyboards; we write in notebooks or scrap paper. Some of us will type up the words at home and expand and complete. Others let the words stand as they are.

After we write, we read aloud, if we want. Sometimes we stumble over our messy writing or out of sync words. Sometimes we say nothing; it was enough just to write. Sometimes the language of a poem or story is strong and clear, and I'm amazed that people can write something so beautiful, just like that.

We respond to what we hear.

And then we pack up. It's pretty simple stuff, but so necessary, I think, to this sometimes lonely endeavor of finding words.

Sei Shonagon and Seneca

The blog's been tired lately and needs a little pick-me-up, so I'm going to share some of my reading throughout the month of September. Maybe twice a week. Or so.

Today's quotes are from Phillip Lopate's anthology, The Art of the Personal Essay, An anthology from the Classical Era to the Present.

Sei Shonagon was a lady of the court in tenth-century Japan. In The Pillow Book she wrote lists like, "Things Which Distract in Moments of Boredom" and "Annoying Things."

Her list of "Hateful Things" made me smile.

"One finds that a hair has got caught in the stone on which one is rubbing one's inkstick, or again that gravel is lodged in the unstuck, making a nasty, grating sound.

One has gone to bed and is about to doze off when a mosquito appears announcing himself in a reedy voice. One can actually feel the wind made by his wings and, slight though it is, one finds it hateful in the extreme."

Me too, me too.

On the other hand, Seneca, a stoic who lived in first century Rome writes this about noise,

"I have lodgings right over a public bathhouse. Now imagine to yourself every kind of sound that can make one weary of one’s years. When the strenuous types are doing their exercises, swinging weight-laden hands about, I hear the grunting as they toil away—or go through the motions of toiling away—at them, and the hissings and strident gasps every time they expel their pent-up breath. When my attention turns to a less active fellow who is contenting himself with an ordinary inexpensive massage, I hear the smack of a hand pummeling his shoulders, the sound varying according as it comes down flat or cupped. But if on top of this some ball player comes along and starts shouting out the score, that’s the end! Then add someone starting up a brawl, and someone else caught thieving, and the man who likes the sound of his voice in the bath, and the people who leap into the pool with a tremendous splash. Apart from those whose voices are, if nothing else, natural, think of the hair remover, continually giving vent to this shrill and penetrating cry in order to advertise his presence, never silent unless it be while he is plucking someone’s armpits and making the client yell for him! Then think of the various cries of the man selling drinks, and the one selling sausages and the other selling pastries, and all the ones hawking for the catering shops, each publicizing his wares with a distinctive cry of his own."

Plucking someone's armpits!

This is why we read the ancients, people.

And then onto philosophical musings on noise,

"There can be absolute bedlam without so long as there is no commotion within, so long as fear and desire are not at loggerheads, so long as meanness and extravagance are not at odds and harassing each other. For what is the good of having silence throughout the neighborhood if one's emotions are in turmoil?

Which is true, but still...the din of that bathhouse every day...

Then, this...

“This is all very well,” you may say, “but isn’t it sometimes a lot simpler just to keep you away from the din?” I concede that, and in fact it is the reason why I shall shortly be moving elsewhere. What I wanted was to give myself a test and some practice. Why should I need to suffer the torture any longer than I want to when Ulysses found so easy a remedy for his companions even against the Sirens?

I could go into musings about the span of a millennium and cultures between these two writers, conjecture about the relative freedom Seneca enjoyed as a man in ancient Rome versus the rigidity of Japanese court life and how these realities played into the writers' concerns and subjects, but I have my own concerns and world today, so I'll leave those musings for another time.

And on that note, I'll get to classwork as I enjoy the sounds of my morning: my fingers on the keyboard, Pepper's soft snores and the distant rumbling of the garbage truck.

My commonplace book

A few weeks ago, my friend Krista shared articles on Facebook about commonplace books: How and Why to Keep a Commonplace Book and Project: Start a Commonplace Book. I hadn't heard of commonplace books before. But anything with book in its name is worth a look.

Wikipedia says this, " Commonplace books (or commonplaces) were a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. Such books were essentially scrapbooks filled with items of every kind: medical recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas. Commonplaces were used by readers, writers, students, and scholars as an aid for remembering useful concepts or facts they had learned. Each commonplace book was unique to its creator's particular interests."

In other words, commonplace books are a place to record stuff. 

This made me happy because I've always written down stuff.  I've always bought journals and notebooks and filled them with notes from talks and quotes from books. For years, I felt slightly guilty about this. These empty pages were meant to be journaled in, meant to be filled with my thoughts, right? 

I've finally come to peace with my non-journaling self. I write essays and articles. I don't journal. It is ok. All is well.

But, my jottings have been scattered in random notebooks--a couple graph paper legal pads for school reading, a pretty one for spiritual reading, a red spiral bound notebook that caught other stuff. 

So, now that I had a name for what I do, I went over to Office Depot and stood before the notebooks, then walked across the store to the journals and walked back to the notebooks and back to the journals and finally decided that my first 'real' commonplace book would be pretty. I chose a squarish journal with quality pages. I like inky pens, and thin lined or graph paper sometimes bleed through.

I chose one with a groovy cover because of the pleasure of it. 

Apologies for the bad lighting. I'm writing from bed this morning and couldn't be bothered to search out a non-blanketed surface and natural light for the pictures.

I'm keeping a running list of books I'm reading on the inside cover. Many of these are essay collections for school reading, though, who am I kidding really?  I'll be reading essay collections forever. They're my favorite. In the words of Philip Lopate, I "lo-o-ove essays..."

The list. Three of these are mine, and I am happily underlining. The others are from the library.

In books that I own, I underline, I like writing out quotes that strike me and coming back to them later. 

Page one.

The reasons a sentence strikes me vary--some of them because they are so true, like this from Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder's biography of Paul Farmer, "A minor error in one setting of power and privilege could have enormous impact on the poor in another."

Others because an author has captured something that I have tried to, like this description of a snake, from Scott Russell Sanders, Writing From the Center, "The rope of muscle jerks and vanishes so quickly into the weeds..."

Months ago, I was trying to capture the quick slither of garter snakes that I remember from my grandparents' house in Michigan. I won't steal Sanders' description, which is so much more vivid than what I ended up with. But it struck me. So I wrote it down.

Righthand page filled with quotes from David Shields' Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, which is startlingly cool.

I was trying to find a passage that struck me in Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy and flipped back and forth over the pages until I came across it, a passage about God's love that I may use for an article. When I found it, I opened my commonplace book to record  and found that I had already written it down. "The fondness, the endearment, the unstintingly affectionate regard of God toward all his creatures is the natural outflow of what he is to the core..." I had been thinking about how I want my love for people to mirror this, I don't want to just put up with or love by not being impatient or unkind, but I... wait, that's for the article or a post...

I added a little to the quote, the part that I had been thinking about and will keep circling around this idea.

Now, back to the physical world around me...

Eddie is a solid cat, but not quite as big as the picture makes him out to be.

Yes, we let pets on our bed. I like to tuck my feet under Pepper. Don't judge.

Later this morning, I'll be driving two and a half hours to Avon, west of Indianapolis, for Justin's soccer game. He left on the bus at 7am from school after getting home late from a gig north of Fort Wayne. After the game, I'll whisk him up so he can make another band gig this evening.

Scott and Anna have activities closer to home today, an appointment this afternoon, picnic with internationals this evening. We're working laundry and straightening up in between. And did I mention the dishwasher is broken? Ahhh, the life of the mind.

Bison!

 When I send an e-mail or text to a French friend, I usually sign off with, "Bisous!" the word for those cheek-to-cheek kisses that people in the French-speaking world use to punctuate their Bonjours and Au revoirs. I have to be careful though. Autocorrect consistently morphs my affectionate closing "Bisous!" into the not so affectionate and somewhat perplexing, "Bisons!" 

I'm pretty sure I've always caught this before pressing send.

So, bison!

They were everywhere at Yellowstone. On the day we drove in, traffic had slowed. I'll have to say that Yellowstone is the only place I've ever been where people get excited about slowed traffic. We were wondering what we'd see ahead, hoping for something good, and eventually inched past a bison walking down the road. Crazy. I glanced over and am pretty sure that he and I connected in our oh so brief moment of eye contact before I pulling my attention back to the steering wheel and the bumper of the car ahead.

Bison!

On another day, at the end of hike that included views of a storm over lake...

This is one of my favorite pictures of Anna from the trip--Sharpie henna on her left arm, AWP writing buttons on her backpack, headphones around her neck, stolen t-shirt (mine)...

...the sepia version...

...and an awesome piece of driftwood...

I took several pictures of this. So groovy.

It looks like a crab here, I think.

...we were headed back to the cars and encountered two lounging bison.

Cars in view, tired children, insurmountable obstacle...

One just about directly on the path, another to the right. We were pretty much up-to-date on the recent spate of bison gorings and tossing, so took the long way around to the cars, through the prairie grass, in the hoof prints and past the mud wallows.

Bison!

On another day, visiting thermal features, we were told we would see something on the other side of the sulfury cloud.

Had to put the black and white version here because it is so very cool. I think anyone standing in front of billowing steam and sulphur looks all kinds of awesome.

We approached...

and...you guessed it...bison!

I figure this is the bison version of a spa treatment.

I was going to go for a bison and me selfie, but as selfies are not my strong suit, my brother-in-law took the picture (thanks, Jeff!).

Signing off, full day of second week of writing residency ahead.

Bisons!

Michelle

Old Faithful

Since returning from our extended family trip to Wyoming, I'm wishing for the days when people rounded up friends, family, and unsuspecting neighbors to watch long vacation slideshows. There was a time when people did that, right?

As I watched all the other thousands of visitors take pictures of animals, mountains, thermal features, fellow travelers, and themselves, I did wonder where all these photos were going--surely not all on Facebook. 

For my part, I'm thinking a little post-vacation blog series. In honor of those days of slideshows in the basement, I'll start with a batch that I loved in black and white--our visit to Old Faithful...

Cousins getting good seats for the show.

My stylish niece.

Something about a crowd of people with phones in the air. I kind of love it.

There she blows.

My girl filming for her post trip movie. I love everything about this--her intensity, her cousin's Mona Lisa smile and sunglasses, and the crowd behind.

Loved the photo action to my right too.

Simmering down.

The cousin crew at the sign. A tourist from another continent had just walked by and taken a picture of American kids at the sign. I had to explain that they were fair game, a part of the scenery.

Garissa

It was Friday, Good Friday, when I read about Thursday's attack on college students which left 147 dead at Kenya's Garissa University. Kenya is far from Gabon, the country in Africa where we worked with university students for eleven years. Gabon is on the west coast, Kenya on the East--a continent away. Kenya is English speaking, not French. I've never been there.

And yet.

I've slept in a dorm room with student friends at Omar Bongo University in Gabon. I've met with students for Bible study and choir practice and a shared cold bottle of Coke on campus. I attended weekly meetings in a room on campus where we prayed and sang together. 

I know the feel of a university in Africa. Students work very, very hard. A college education is not a given. With their degrees, graduates will not only be supporting themselves but their extended family. They will be contributing to the development of their country and community. 

In Gabon, Christian students had a level of discipline that was new to me, sometimes jarring. They were willing to meet to pray for hours on uncomfortable chairs in the heat and humidity. They cooked for those who were sick, served in their churches, got sick with malaria. 

I read these separate posts from our sister organization of InterVarsity, FOCUS, in Kenya, on Easter morning:

April 4th. We can confirm that the Christian union members in a prayer meeting in Garissa university college were among the first targets of the terrorist attack. It appears most of whom died. They have gone to be with the master whom they loved and served. We pray for strength for the relatives as they seek to identify bodies, and rest them in peace. Shalom.

April 4th. FOCUS staff were at Nyayo stadium to offer support for the students who survived who were anticipated from Garissa. Some other staff and student leaders were at the KNH hospital to pray and console with those who were admitted at the hospital. By yesterday there were about 24 students admitted, and by Saturday afternoon about 13 had been discharged. Meanwhile the rescued students were moved to Nairobi today, as part of the process of getting back to their families. Let us pray that the agony of identifying bodies and finding the loved ones who are not accounted for will not be long-stay for the relatives.

April 5th. All staff in Nairobi are on the way to Chiromo Mortuary to console with the parents of the Garissa University College students and offer support to them. Let's pray for God's grace and strength as they go through this difficult and tedious process of identifying the bodies.

Over twenty students were meeting together for prayer Thursday morning, like students met at our InterVarsity prayer meetings at Ball State (though there were never twenty of us), like our students at Omar Bongo University in Gabon, like the small groups of students in Nice, France. They were the first ones targeted.

At church, I was grateful that the sermon focused on the pain before the resurrection; sometimes we like to skip that part. For these families in Kenya, death will always shadow Easter. Easter will be the day they identified their sons' and daughters' bodies at the Chiromo Mortuary. 

I have to sit with that. 

At church, as we sang about Jesus' resurrection, death seemed near. Knowing that our colleagues in Nairobi and students’ families were facing the horror of death changed the way I sang about Christ's victory. I cried.

I believe in the resurrection, even in the face of unimaginable horror.

And I will keep praying for peace, for shalom, even as darkness seems like it's winning.