Picture of Charter Hall where we spent New YearsThe next entry you read on this blog, will be from Bujumbura. It is a surreal thought for me. I knew this day would arrive, in fact I had said earlier how anxious I was to get back, but now I feel like I am looking over the edge of a cliff I am about to hang glide off of. We have been packing and sorting like mad, hence the late blog. The biggest issue right now is whether to bring a two-kid jogging stroller and try to pass it through security and gatecheck it. It is the size of a small tank even folded. We will let you know how that goes!
This week has been crammed with quite a bit of activity. Many people have been trying to see us once more so I have had the family of both my brothers’ here in town the past week.
Jonathan and his wife and son live in Cleveland, and my brother Mark and clan hail from North Carolina. We had some post Christmas time together, but at this point it is starting to feel a bit muddled. Oren enjoyed his cousin's though. Here are Fletcher and him making gingerbread houses.
New Years we observed a tradition that has been going on since Rebecca and I were married, which is to join her brother Paul and his family, as well as other friends of theirs at a retreat center on an estuary of the Chesapeake Bay called Charter Hall. In the summer there is great canoeing. In the winter, though, it is beautiful but quite cold outside. We mainly visit a lot indoors, do puzzles and play games (this year’s big hit was ‘Carcisonne’-get it if you like board games.) I also got some knitting needles and yarn as a gag gift and got lessons in knitting while I was there. (Ilearned how to cast on and do a basic stitch) After several hours of work I had to come to terms with the fact that my scarf had not gotten that long. I would say it ended up looking more like a pot holder for a Barbie doll. I will try again, I hope. We had a good time together, although I probably gained a pound in two days of eating there. (two words: chocolate fondue)
Church has been interesting as well our last two Sundays in the US. Last Sunday Rebecca preached at Long Green Church of the Brethren. The passage was from Matthew 2:13-23, Herod killing the innocents in an attempt to kill Jesus. One of the observations she made which is sadly true is that while it is tempting to imagine that kind of barbarism as belonging to the distant past, the truth is it is worse now. Powerful men, mired in fear are no strangers to the kind of atrocity committed by Herod. Just two weeks ago the Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda slaughtered a village of men and young boys in an Eastern Congo village he feared would oppose him in the future.
It also reminds me of a shocking story I heard on NPR. For anyone who thought that slavery was primarily a pre 20th century phenomenon, you might be surprised to know that there are more slaves today (primarily sexual, but also forced labor) than there ever were in the height of the 19th century slave trade.
All this to say, that there is nothing that convinces me that things are getting better as we become more ‘modern’. We are truly more in need of a redeemer than ever. I don’t know what difference the work that Rebecca and I do will make in all of this, but I hope we are able to be able to share a vision of God’s love and justice with those who have been victims of human evil!
This Sunday, David Henry was dedicated at North Baltimore Mennonite Church. With so much to do, it was good to have an opportunity to do this before we left. It was a nice service with an original song composed by our friend Paul Schlitz who set a poem by Christina Rosetti to music.
It was entitled, What Are Heavy:
What are heavy? sea-sand and sorrow:
What are brief? today and tomorrow:
What are frail? spring blossoms and youth:
What are deep? the ocean and truth.
A small group of us sung it. I was part of that group, but the song still sounded beautiful!
The other thing I have been doing this week is putting all of my old choreography videos onto DVD. Since I will be away for 5 years, I feel my video archive will not do too well in storage. Since I have to do all the recordings in real time, it has been interesting to look back on all the works I have done. It is a bit odd at this point, like watching someone else, especially the younger days. Oren came in and watched on a few and I told him it was me. He was not convinced, although in one solo called The Man Who Never Loses His Balance, he actually began to cry when I told him it was about a very lonely person. This piece was based on a poem as well which I am including. The picture from my dance days is not of that piece.
The Man Who Never Loses Balance
He walks the high wire in his sleep.
The tent is blue, it is perpetual
afternoon. He is walking between
the open legs of his mother
and the grave. Always. The audience
is fathers whose kites are lost, children
who want to be terrified into joy.
He is so high above them, so capable
(with a single, calculated move)
of making them care for him
that he's sick of the risks
he never really takes.
Every performance, deep down,
he tries one real plunge
off to the side, where the net ends.
The tent is blue. Outside is a world
that is blue. Inside him
a blueness that could crack
like china if he ever hit bottom
--Stephen Dunn
When I was younger I was pretty sure I understood this poem, now I am not so sure. (The dance, by the way was actually choreographd by Tymberly Canale)
I have written to Burundi to let our friends know we are returning and they are excited to have us back. I am so grateful that we have a community to return to there. Please stay in touch with us and keep us in prayer. If you have skype, keep in on when you are online. We are not online very regularly, but we would love to be able to keep in touch.
My last thought is on ‘counting the cost’. We had a time of prayer with our parents altogether this evening. We read the passage in Luke 15 about counting the cost of being a disciple. Rebecca and I have certainly done that. One cost that is hard to measure though, is the cost exacted on those left behind. I felt a great sense of sadness about the loss of time our parents will have with our children. For both the grandparents and the children. We had an opportunity to acknowledge our grief for the time that will be lost. What is interesting about it was that while our parents were sad, they all had spent many years with their families overseas away from their families as well. I don’t know if this is foreshadowing events in my own future as well, but it would not surprise me. I am wondering how much what we are doing now, will influence the life choices of David and Oren
We will leave from Dulles on Tuesday evening and fly to Zurich and then Nairobi where we will spend two nights. We will arrive in Bujumbura on the 9th.
This week has been crammed with quite a bit of activity. Many people have been trying to see us once more so I have had the family of both my brothers’ here in town the past week.
Jonathan and his wife and son live in Cleveland, and my brother Mark and clan hail from North Carolina. We had some post Christmas time together, but at this point it is starting to feel a bit muddled. Oren enjoyed his cousin's though. Here are Fletcher and him making gingerbread houses.New Years we observed a tradition that has been going on since Rebecca and I were married, which is to join her brother Paul and his family, as well as other friends of theirs at a retreat center on an estuary of the Chesapeake Bay called Charter Hall. In the summer there is great canoeing. In the winter, though, it is beautiful but quite cold outside. We mainly visit a lot indoors, do puzzles and play games (this year’s big hit was ‘Carcisonne’-get it if you like board games.) I also got some knitting needles and yarn as a gag gift and got lessons in knitting while I was there. (Ilearned how to cast on and do a basic stitch) After several hours of work I had to come to terms with the fact that my scarf had not gotten that long. I would say it ended up looking more like a pot holder for a Barbie doll. I will try again, I hope. We had a good time together, although I probably gained a pound in two days of eating there. (two words: chocolate fondue)
Church has been interesting as well our last two Sundays in the US. Last Sunday Rebecca preached at Long Green Church of the Brethren. The passage was from Matthew 2:13-23, Herod killing the innocents in an attempt to kill Jesus. One of the observations she made which is sadly true is that while it is tempting to imagine that kind of barbarism as belonging to the distant past, the truth is it is worse now. Powerful men, mired in fear are no strangers to the kind of atrocity committed by Herod. Just two weeks ago the Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda slaughtered a village of men and young boys in an Eastern Congo village he feared would oppose him in the future.It also reminds me of a shocking story I heard on NPR. For anyone who thought that slavery was primarily a pre 20th century phenomenon, you might be surprised to know that there are more slaves today (primarily sexual, but also forced labor) than there ever were in the height of the 19th century slave trade.
All this to say, that there is nothing that convinces me that things are getting better as we become more ‘modern’. We are truly more in need of a redeemer than ever. I don’t know what difference the work that Rebecca and I do will make in all of this, but I hope we are able to be able to share a vision of God’s love and justice with those who have been victims of human evil!
This Sunday, David Henry was dedicated at North Baltimore Mennonite Church. With so much to do, it was good to have an opportunity to do this before we left. It was a nice service with an original song composed by our friend Paul Schlitz who set a poem by Christina Rosetti to music.
It was entitled, What Are Heavy:What are heavy? sea-sand and sorrow:
What are brief? today and tomorrow:
What are frail? spring blossoms and youth:
What are deep? the ocean and truth.
A small group of us sung it. I was part of that group, but the song still sounded beautiful!
The other thing I have been doing this week is putting all of my old choreography videos onto DVD. Since I will be away for 5 years, I feel my video archive will not do too well in storage. Since I have to do all the recordings in real time, it has been interesting to look back on all the works I have done. It is a bit odd at this point, like watching someone else, especially the younger days. Oren came in and watched on a few and I told him it was me. He was not convinced, although in one solo called The Man Who Never Loses His Balance, he actually began to cry when I told him it was about a very lonely person. This piece was based on a poem as well which I am including. The picture from my dance days is not of that piece.
The Man Who Never Loses Balance
He walks the high wire in his sleep.The tent is blue, it is perpetual
afternoon. He is walking between
the open legs of his mother
and the grave. Always. The audience
is fathers whose kites are lost, children
who want to be terrified into joy.
He is so high above them, so capable
(with a single, calculated move)
of making them care for him
that he's sick of the risks
he never really takes.
Every performance, deep down,
he tries one real plunge
off to the side, where the net ends.
The tent is blue. Outside is a world
that is blue. Inside him
a blueness that could crack
like china if he ever hit bottom
--Stephen Dunn
When I was younger I was pretty sure I understood this poem, now I am not so sure. (The dance, by the way was actually choreographd by Tymberly Canale)
I have written to Burundi to let our friends know we are returning and they are excited to have us back. I am so grateful that we have a community to return to there. Please stay in touch with us and keep us in prayer. If you have skype, keep in on when you are online. We are not online very regularly, but we would love to be able to keep in touch.
My last thought is on ‘counting the cost’. We had a time of prayer with our parents altogether this evening. We read the passage in Luke 15 about counting the cost of being a disciple. Rebecca and I have certainly done that. One cost that is hard to measure though, is the cost exacted on those left behind. I felt a great sense of sadness about the loss of time our parents will have with our children. For both the grandparents and the children. We had an opportunity to acknowledge our grief for the time that will be lost. What is interesting about it was that while our parents were sad, they all had spent many years with their families overseas away from their families as well. I don’t know if this is foreshadowing events in my own future as well, but it would not surprise me. I am wondering how much what we are doing now, will influence the life choices of David and Oren
We will leave from Dulles on Tuesday evening and fly to Zurich and then Nairobi where we will spend two nights. We will arrive in Bujumbura on the 9th. It is hard to believe the weather will be in the 90s there!
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