hope for haiti

if you're looking for a reliable way to provide financial help for the disaster relief effort in haiti, please consider supporting this fundraiser being organized by my mother and my sister.

Swim-a-Thon to Benefit the American Red Cross Disaster Relief for Haiti

Saturday, January 30th, 2010
Onondaga Community College Pool, Syracuse, NY

Run and Sponsored by Patricia Berman, Mary Defuria, and Meredith Ellis

In 2004, we swam to benefit the American Red Cross after the tsunami. In 2005, we did it again to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina. This time, we are coming together to raise money to benefit the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Please consider joining us or sponsoring a swimmer! In 40 seconds, a country was devastated. In 40 minutes, we can make a difference!

When: Saturday, January 30th, from 11:30-1:30
Where: Onondaga Community College Pool
How: Join us to swim for 40 minutes, or sponsor a swimmer today!

To sponsor: We are asking for you to sponsor by the minute for a forty minute swim for a swimmer of your choice. If you decide to donate, please make your check out to the American Red Cross, memo line Haiti. All donations must be collected by the time of the swim and will be handed over to a Red Cross representative at the event. Please use the donation slip [contact Daniele at shdbjackson at yahoo dot com for the donation slip] with your check or cash and give to the swimmer you are sponsoring or mail to Patricia Berman, Department of Health and Physical Education, Onondaga Community College, 4585 West Seneca Tpke, Syracuse, N.Y. 13215, no later than Wednesday, January 27th.

The American Red Cross assures us that at least 91 cents of every dollar will go directly to Haiti for disaster relief.

still chewing on this one

(i occasionally get into these crazy reading modes. book consuming modes is more like it. which is where i've been lately. so please pardon the glut of other people's words.)

"Every now and then we enter the presence of the numinous and deduce for an instant how we're formed, in what detail the force that infuses every petal might specifically run through us, wishing only to lure us into our full potential. Usually, the closest we get is when we love, or when some beloved beams back, which can galvanize you like steel and make resilient what had heretofore only been soft flesh." --from Lit by Mary Karr

in the army...or anywhere else

please pardon me: i'm having a moment.

when did this happen, exactly? this. i'm pretty sure i had some ambitions, some dreams once upon a time. i'm pretty sure i bought into the be all that you can be song. (i mean, not the army part, though i did have an army recruiter hard on me for years in high school and even after i went to college.)

but it's weeks like these that make me wonder, is this all i can be? really? because i'm pretty sure my current occupations weren't on the list of possibilities way-back-then.

• laundress, housekeeper? (nope, and clearly not my "calling," either, as i'm an undeniable failure at both...and really, mostly okay with that)
  
• chauffeur, carpool mama? (not so much, as i'd much rather drive too fast belting out loud, "inappropriate" music in my little red toyota celica than sing along to "the vitamin alphabet" in my minivan)
  
• miss manners, teacher-of-one-whom-i-must-teach-nearly-everything? (unh-uh. teaching was way never on my list.)
  
• chef, planner-of-meals, coupon cutter, hostess-with-the-mostess? (nah, i'll never live up to my mom's standard on this one and find it discouraging to try.)
  
• nurse, pediatrician, neurologist, gastroenterologist, respiratory therapist? (um, no. no way, no how.)
  
• form-er of a little spirit, prayer instructor, Bible story reciter? (nope, don't think so.)
  
• getting my courtroom fix watching "law and order"? getting out of bed in the morning excited most of all to login to facebook and see whose kids are sick or who had a baby, to check my email to see if that playdate is on (pleaseohplease)? leaving my (measly) mark on the world volunteering in children's ministry at my church? (nope. those weren't my aspirations.)

(if you're currently composing in your head some encouraging comment to leave at the end of this post--mom, this is addressed to you--please don't. just keep reading. this is decidedly not a plea for pity or compliments, i promise.)

but as i was taking care of poor luke who had the stomach flu this week, as i was having my own little pity party as i lay on his floor all night, bucket in hand, waiting to catch the next round and, ultimately, waiting to fall victim myself, i realized that God's vision for me to be all that i can be is bigger than mine. when luke whimpered, "mama, i wish you could do something to make it stop. if you were an antibody, you could. but you're just a human," i realized that i'm a decent science-teacher-of-one. when luke asked why i wasn't taking care of sam when he was similarly stricken, i realized that my mediocre nursing skills were making an impression on his sweet spirit. when my friend with whom we carpool lamented how difficult her week has been without my help in driving her son home from school, stuck home with my sick boy as i have been, i realized that my seemingly-endless minivan time does make an impact in a small but significant way. when luke's teacher told me today how happy everyone was to have him back as he was missed specifically by the students for his encouraging comments daily for the calendar person, i realized that i'm not a total failure in the manners category.

(as a housekeeper and laundress? well, sam cleaned the bathrooms, stricken as he already had been and as-yet unscathed as i was...and the washer broke from all the bedding wash. oh well. and the Bible-story-teaching thing? well, luke keeps me on my toes...and fills me in when i fall behind.)

anyhow, i realized (again) this week that i am certainly not all that i thought i might be. surely, if you had asked me years ago what i'd have accomplished by the time i was in my thirties, the list would have been much more impressive than is my current resume. would the extent of my writing be the few paragraphs i can cram into this space while luke whiles away his hour of rest time? certainly not. would my work as an editor fit neatly into eight hours a week and concern mostly things that no one who cares about punctuation or word choice or consistency or all rest of it will ever read? absolutely not. would my yard look like a plastic toy graveyard, my bathroom like it ought to be condemned by the health department, my laundry closet like a fire hazard that no repairman could ever think of entering? i hope not.

so it's a good thing resumes don't matter when you're in the business of forming people. and in that department, i'll just keep being all i can be and trusting that it's enough.

you down with o.p.w.?

(other people's words, of course. what did you think? but i'm sorry about that song stuck in your head now.)

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung, and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entaglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell." --CS Lewis, The Four Loves

"The result [of catastrophic loss] was love. We learned to love more deeply. That was especially, though not exclusively, true for me. I hesitated at first to risk loving again. There was a protective reflex in me that made me want to turn my back on everyone, even my own family. My experience taught me that loss reduces people to a state of almost total brokenness and vulnerability. I did not simply feel raw pain; I was raw pain. Consequently, I usually found myself on the receiving end of love and friendship. Eventually, I had to decide, however, to become a contributing member of the community once again, not only willing to receive but also to give love. [...] If loss increases our capacity for love, then an increased capacity for love will only make us feel greater sorrow when suffering strikes again. There is no simple solution to this dilemma. Choosing to withdraw from people and to protect the self diminishes the soul; choosing to love again even more deeply than before ensures that we will suffer again, for the choice to love requires the courage to grieve." --Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised

have i mentioned how much i love books?

leafing through

i just this morning finished a book i loved loved loved. i can't stop thinking about it and telling people how great it is. i'll no doubt blog about it soon enough. (the book is a grace disguised by jerry sittser. but that's not really what this post is about.)

as i read the book, i found myself noting pages that contained bits i loved. i couldn't be bothered to slow down enough to copy down the passages, which is problematic, since the book is borrowed and i'll return it to its owner soon. oh, that i had slowed down in reading so many books whose delightful passages i've needed to return! i found myself wanting to absorb this book somehow; i don't want to copy down these bits that touch me so deeply, such that i have to return to some journal to read them again, but i want them to be in me. if only i had a better memory like some people i know who simply contain so many wonderful lines from wonderful books, i found myself thinking.

and then i started thinking of all those books i have loved and lost for not having absorbed them somehow, for not having slowed down to write down--me? not slow down to write?--the things i loved of them. and i realized i love a lot of books.

in fact, i think i can probably count on one hand the books i have read that i haven't loved.

which is not because all the books i read are one kind of book that is the kind i happen to particularly love. i love this book that i finished this morning because its exploration of "how the soul grows through loss," as the subtitle reads, is so familiar and so encouraging. i love a murder mystery or a legal thriller because of a compelling story, like a movie (and if you know me, you know i don't like movies) in my head for my time on the beach or the plane. i love a memoir of a life lived elsewhere in else-times for the stretch it gives my mind to experience someone else's experience from here in my little, little world. i love a something-or-other, whatever it is about, made of beautiful words and sentences and paragraphs simply for the beauty of it, like a painting (and if you know me, you know i'm really not into art). i love a children's book for the delight of the author in it, for the delight of a child in it. i love a play--to read that is (though if you know me, you know that one semester upon a time i lived a dream life in london filled with live theater, too)--for the imagination it takes to make it happen, as it were, in its sparsity on the page. i love a short story for that sparsity, too, for the amazing gift of the author contained in an itty bitty little story.

as i said, i've barely ever met a book i didn't love.

*******************************

i don't write in books. ever. i don't turn down corners or break bindings. i love a new book, all crisp and fresh and not yet crinkled or spilled on or finger-smudged. i want it to stay that way to share with others, too, unspoiled by my reading. i have no place leaving my mark on someone else's thoughts, i don't think. yes, i want a book to be just fresh from the author, unspoiled by others' thoughts or thumbings, and i want to give the gift of such books to others, too, even if i have already read them myself. i want a book to seem just fresh from the author when i pass it on to you, without my thoughts or thumbings intruding on your conversation with the author.

(no, i don't think i'll ever own a kindle or a nook. i don't think so. i like my books with pages, thankyouverymuch.)

**********************************

it takes some chutzpah to write a book. (and no, i can't define that for you. neither can i define schmatta or meshugina or farblondzet or fachadick, but i'll continue to use them...and yes, i did have to look up the spelling of those last few. and no, they're not pronounced like they look, at least not in my family).

ahem.

chutzpah, as i was saying. people have told me often enough these past few years that i should write a book, and heaven knows i've wanted to since i was a kid. it has even been prophesied of me that i will "birth" a book (i kid you not, and i care not, either, what you think of prophecy: i'm known to be a doubter in general, but not when it comes to this person, who hears from God, i have no doubt, and whom i trust implicitly). and i've got the itch. but it takes chutzpah to even say that here, for just the handful of you who read this thing--ha!--and who are all probably among those who have told me i should write a book anyhow. even to say to you i'd like to do this takes more chutzpah than i have suspected i could muster.

but there. i've said it. i've got words in me, and i like them. i like to write them down, and i like to share them. i want other people's books' words in me, no doubt, but i'm also learning something about the words of my own that i have in me.

thumb and think away.

regarding reality and becoming Real

(this blogpost has a soundtrack, of course, and an accompanying text, too. there's a link below to the former; the latter is no doubt on a shelf somewhere in your house. feel free to indulge in these accompaniments or not.)

you dream of colors that have never been made; you imagine songs that have never been played, says a line from a favorite nickel creek song, "this side." i've often hoped that describes something like what eliza experienced in her time here, never having seen the colors that have been made, never having been able to enjoy the songs that have been played. a dear friend who knew eliza well, both in a personal way and a medical way, once described her as living halfway here and halfway Beyond here. that even as she was conscious and really here, she was also not completely conscious and Real here.

after eliza died, another dear friend with similar knowledge of eliza gave luke a copy of the velveteen rabbit, by margery williams. i hadn't read the story in a long time, since i was a child probably. before i read it to luke, i read it myself and wept.

'What is REAL?' asked the Rabbit one day.
[...]
'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'
'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.
'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are real you don't mind being hurt[...]It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.'
[...]
The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

i like to imagine that eliza was undergoing the process of becoming Real--the process that, no doubt, we all have to go through--in a more transparent and quick way than the rest of us. even as we loved her well, she was clearly becoming shabby and worn out, even from day one. but she was loved well, "not just to play with, but REALLY," which i don't suggest affected her ability to become Real, but which i hope did affect her experience of the process: it hurt her sometimes, no doubt, but i hope now that she is Real she doesn't mind--or even remember--having been hurt.

one day you'll see her and you'll know what i mean. take her or leave her she will still be the same.[...] but nothing's the same, as you'll see when she's gone.

And while he was playing, two rabbits crept out from the bracken and peeped at him. One of them was brown all over, but the other had strange markings under his fur, as though long ago he had been spotted, and the spots still showed through. And about his little soft nose and his round black eyes was something familiar, so that the Boy thought to himself: 'Why, he looks just like my old Bunny that was lost when I had scarlet fever!'

and so i live in daily anticipation of seeing eliza with all her spots covered over and understanding, as she no doubt does, what Real really is.

it's foreign on this side.

visionary

Right now all I can taste are bitter tears
And right now all I can see are clouds of sorrow
But from the other side of all this pain
Is that you I hear, laughing loud and calling out to me?

Saying "See, it's everything you said that it would be,
And even better than you would believe.
And I'm counting down the days until you're here with me,
And finally, you'll see."

But right now, all I can say is "Lord, how long
Before you come and take away this aching?"
This night of weeping seems to have no end.
But when the morning light breaks through,
We'll open up our eyes and we will see

It's everything that He said that it would be
And even better than we would believe
And he's counting down the days 'til He says "Come with me."
And finally he'll wipe every tear from our eyes
And make everything new, just like he promised
Wait and see, just wait and see.

--from "See," by Steven Curtis Chapman (on the album Beauty Will Rise; oh, how I am loving this album!)