Tuesday, April 27, 2010

hajari

As I woke this morning I noticed that the date on my phone was April 27...some people are more apt to knowing dates than others...I not being one of them. So even when I saw the date in my 6am delirium, I was pleasantly surprised. For today is Hajari's birthday. It snuck up on me this year, thus giving me all the more vigor to think of him throughout the day. Hajari was born six years ago, April 27, 2004, just six weeks before I arrived at Mother's Choice orphan home in Hong Kong for the summer months.


It is there that I fell in love with this chunky mohawked child, and for the briefest of moments, I became his adoring caretaker (along with many others, but I was the most obsessed). He was adopted to a local Hong Kong couple that November, and though I have been unable to stay in touch and see him grow, I have all the confidence that he is well loved and cared for. I smile thinking of how he's spending his sixth birthday, what friends he has made, what sport or toy he is most enamored with, etc. So while I think of him today, here are a few of those photos from our summer together.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

the earth and grace

In honor of Earth Day and the many other reminders of creation as of late, here is a favorite of mine from Wendell Berry's Leavings:

XVII.

Hardly escaping the limitless machines
that balk his thoughts and torment his dreams,
the old man goes to his own
small place of peace, a patch of trees
he has lived from many years,
its gifts of a few fence posts and boards,
firewood for winter, some stillness
in which to know and wait. Used
and yet whole this dear place is, whole
by its own nature and by his need.
While he lives it will be whole,
and after him, God willing, another
will follow in that membership
that craves the wholeness of the world
despite all human loss and blame.

In the lengthening shadow he has climbed
again to the ridgetop and across
to the westward slope to see the ripe
light of autumn in the turning trees,
the twilight he must go by now
that only grace can give. Thus far
he keeps the old sectarian piety:
By grace we live. But he can go
no further. Having known the grace
that for so long has kept this world,
haggard as it is, as we have made it,
we cannot rest, we must be stirring
to keep that gift dwelling among us,
eternally alive in time. This
is the great work, no other, none harder,
none nearer rest or more beautiful.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

easter

I ended up hopping in my car Saturday night to spend a last-minute Holy Weekend in Memphis with my family and friends. We shared in a feast that Sunday afternoon with a beautiful mosaic of children (could have manifested into a Baby Gap commercial at any moment).

my nephew, Levi

baby Danielle

Jonny and his new son, Kaleb

Kimbel

Lucy

Thursday, April 8, 2010

namche bazaar


Just a few short miles down from Sargamatha (Mount Everest)