Archive for the Personal
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011
Black History Month: Christmas colors
On Christmas morning in 1969 we two sat on the floor on either side of the small chess table that was my wedding present to Johnny. On the table was a tiny clay nativity scene I’d bought at the UN Gift Shop in Pasadena. The figures were pretty typical, but since they were made in Mexico, the faces were more brown than the color that was called “flesh” north of the border (whose flesh anyway?)
Beneath the table were our gifts to each other. From that first Christmas together grew a tradition for us–a creche is always the visual focal point of our family’s celebration.
I have no idea how many scenes we have now. I always hope to find one when I’m traveling in another country. Or I get them when they’re less expensive after Christmas to use at home or give as wedding or Christmas presents.
But not just any manger scenes. My daughter has brown skin and dark hair, and it’s not likely that Jesus was a fair-skinned, light-haired boy. His mother and the other people who surrounded him probably looked more like Talitha than like me.
Christmas is the second most important celebration in our year. While it’s not a time that we are intentionally emphasizing race, race is always an integral part of who we are. And I do want Talitha to be able to resonate with what she sees of Jesus.
The nativity sets that interest me don’t have northern European coloring. They are made of unpainted materials like metal, glass, or wood that don’t portray skin tone, or they have Mediterranean or darker coloring.
Some of my favorites come from Cameroon or Guinea and the people look sub-Saharan African. I suppose that raises a question: Isn’t that just as unrealistic as portraying him white and blond? Yes and no. Yes, I know it’s not likely Jesus had very dark skin and tightly textured hair. But no, because his human heritage is in that part of the world.
I’m not asking anyone to throw away their sweet little light-skinned baby Jesus scenes. But won’t it be wonderful if our sweet light-skinned children find it perfectly natural to picture Jesus as brown?
From here on out, white sisters and brothers, let’s keep asking ourselves: Can we love Jesus as much when we picture him with darker skin?
(You are invited to submit a true story to be considered as a guest post during African-American History month. Details.)
Friday, February 4th, 2011
Black History Month: 2 & more by Tim Ladwig
I have admired Tim Ladwig’s work since I first discovered it in Psalm 23. The inner-city morning-to-night day of a brother and sister illustrates the truth of this favorite psalm.
His portrayal of The Lord’s Prayer follows a little girl as she accompanies her handyman father when he helps a neighbor.
Yesterday I recommended a favorite of mine by Nikki Grimes. Today Grimes’ poetry and Ladwig’s illustrations join to present the sweet bond between a father and his son in When Daddy Prays.
(Please submit a true story to be considered as a guest post during African-American History month. Details.)
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
Black History Month: Books
(Please submit a true story to be considered as a guest post during African-American History month. Details.)
When we adopted Talitha, we became a multiracial family. African-American history became part of the mix of our family’s history.
The books on our shelves started to change. Now I was noticing whether the illustrations in a book included children of various ethnic backgrounds. I hope many of you will be wiser and more into real life than I had been before that: I hope you will be seeking books that are multi-racial and multicultural even if your family is all one color.
A number of people have asked me for book recommendations. My best first advice is to keep your eyes open wherever you usually are finding books. But of course, it helps to get recommendations too. Pamela Toussaint has collected about 250 titles and descriptions in Great Books for African-American Children. It was published several years ago, so newer books won’t be listed, but it’s a good start.
One of my favorites is Come Sunday, by Nikki Grimes. It begins with Mama waking LaTasha on Sunday morning. “Time to shed dawn’s cozy quilt” has become part of our home language.
Then each short poem, paired with an evocative, luscious illustration, leads us with affection and tender humor through LaTasha’s Sunday. Mama braiding her hair, the imaginative hats at Paradise Baptist, the pinches on the cheek, the music that brings the congregation to dancing, the potluck meal of ”collards and ham and honey-glazed yams, fried chicken and black-eyed peas, and pumpkin pie” . . . .
Oh, now I’m thinking of another book and another. Another day.
What are your favorites?
Tuesday, January 25th, 2011
Two little peas in a pod
Have I mentioned that we’ve been blessed with grandtwins? And that they live only about a 10-minute walk from our house?
Now that they’re scooting and rolling, I can’t put them to nap on my bed anymore. But my good old thrift-shop portable crib is looking about half adequate.
What I’m thinking about is a couple of sleep tents called peapods, which will keep each baby in place for sleeping, but will be easy to stash away when they’re not here.
Their 2-year old brother still sleeps in his sometimes. It’s so much more convenient than schlepping a crib around. I really like it.
One of the pleasures of being grandmama: getting to play with the new baby stuff invented after my babies’ day.
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011
Happy birthday, dear Johnny
Yes, the title is lifted from the birthday song, but I want to be clear–dear is not a throwaway word. And to be very clear, dear Johnny is nothing like dear John. Exactly the opposite, in fact. I’ve never written Dear John to him, nor have I ever written him a Dear John.
I am very thankful for this day–the 65th anniversary of the birth of John Stephen Piper to William Solomon Hottle Piper and Ruth Eulalia Mohn Piper.
God formed his inward parts and knitted him together in his mother’s womb. I praise God for Johnny is fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. His frame was not hidden from you, when he was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
My thanks to God includes his writing the days of Johnny’s life so that Johnny’s pages overlapped with mine in 1966 and merged permanently and inseparably with the chapters of my life in 1968.
Your eyes saw his unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for him, when as yet there was none of them.
I am thankful that all of our days are in his hands.
How precious to us are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If we would count them, they are more than the sand. We awake, and we are still with you.
Happy birthday, dear Johnny.
(Scripture quotes adapted from Psalm 139:13-16)
Monday, May 10th, 2010
Sabbatical
The first day of May was the first day of the leave of absence that my husband has spoken and written about. I told you how much this means to me.
Wise friends suggested that I should take a sabbatical from blogging and tweeting, just as he is. I really didn’t want to do that–strongly didn’t want to. So that was a good clue that I need to follow their good advice.
For the next few months, I won’t be posting or responding to website emails and comments. I have gotten some very good suggestions and questions from your comments and emails that I want to post about sometime, but not now. I’m saving them for later.
I don’t want to lose you internet friends, so I hope you will do a couple of favors for me.
1. Please maintain your email or rss subscription, or subscribe if you aren’t already. There will be a couple of missions-related short seasons during the sabbatical when I will probably blog. If you’re subscribed, you won’t miss those posts. And then you’ll know when I’m back at the end of the leave.
2. Check my Recommendations page once in a while. Lord willing, we two will be doing some reading together and individually during these months, and I’ll be adding suggestions to the Recommendations along the way. Also I’ve sorted recommendations into categories so it is easier to see what’s there.
Thank you so much for your prayers for us and our family. God is good. All the time. And you are part of his goodness to us.
Monday, April 19th, 2010
More photos
Our talented tenant, Jenny, has posted a few of the photos she shot of Johnny and Talitha before the Father Daughter Tea on Saturday.
Saturday, April 17th, 2010
Cut once, sewed once, dress done
I finally pushed through my silk-terror and cut out Talitha’s dress for the Father-Daughter Tea. And I worked with my procrastination perfectly, getting the fasteners sewed onto the jacket 45 minutes before Talitha needed the dress this morning.
At this moment, father and daughter are in a festive hall filled with glittering daughters and proud fathers.
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
Measure twice, cut once
When I went to China a few months ago, Talitha sent me with one gift request–red silk to make a dress for this spring’s father-daughter event at church.
The event is soon–very soon–and if it looks like I’m blogging to put off cutting into the silk, I am. Here’s the mental conversation.
Me: I’ve never sewed with such expensive material before.
The other me: You’ve already cut the dress out of an old tablecloth and fitted it on Talitha, so you could make your adjustments there, so what’s the problem?
Me: Yeah, but to actually touch scissors to the silk. What if I mess it up?
The other me: How many yards to you have?
Me: More than I need.
The other me: So-o-o?
Me: Well, I guess I could cut another piece if I mess one up.
The other me: And how many years have you been sewing?
Me: Since I was Talitha’s age.
The other me: So close that computer and get off your . . .
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
Brass is my dogwood
It’s been a tradition in my Georgia family to take a trek out into the woods sometime around Easter to see the lush wild azaleas and dogwood blooming amongst the pines. I haven’t been home at Easter time since we were married, so the hills of oranges, pinks, magentas, whites, golds, reds live for me only in my mind.
When I visited the flower show here in Minneapolis a week ago on the last day of March, the first thing I saw transported me to Georgia on about that date in 1992.
My father died on March 26, 1992. His funeral was just a couple of days later. So it would have been on the 30th or 31st that Johnny and our sons and I hiked out to the azalea hill. I hadn’t known how much I was counting on God to soothe my spirit through the beauty of the sweetly-remembered azaleas and dogwood. I hadn’t known until we got there and discovered all the buds still closed–not one bloom in sight.
While Johnny and the kids climbed on nearby stone wall ruins and splashed in the rocky creek, I lay face down in the pine needles and wept as I hadn’t wept after the first moments when I knew Daddy was gone. My grief over the absence of the azaleas sucked into itself my grief at the absence of Daddy.
EASTER FLAMES
A Villanelle Far from Home
by Noël Piper
Azalea and dogwood blooms hide the old mill,
dead pine straw ablaze as the hearthplace of spring. But here,
brass is my dogwood and far from its hill.
When Daddy’s fire died and forever was still,
his granddaughters gathered white blossoms out where
azalea and dogwood blooms hide the old mill.
I thought, when our kinfolk had all gone back home, “I will
look for his flowers of flame while I’m here.”
(Brass is my dogwood and far from its hill.)
Sparks of tight buds were the promise I found – still
too early for flames; so the pine straw caught tears where
azalea and dogwood blooms hide the old mill.
The dogwood that hangs from the chain on my neck, still
carries the heart of the ones at the mill, though here
brass is my dogwood and far from its hill.
My northern azaleas resist winter-kill,
and bear flickering flames, pink and orange, of where
azalea and dogwood blooms hide the old mill.
Brass is my dogwood and far from its hill.
Monday, April 5th, 2010
Time for flowers
Talitha and I went with friends last week to the Annual Flower Show at Macy’s.
Stepping off the elevator, I felt like the air was composed of totally different ingredients than Minnesota winter air. I could have been happy just to stand and take deep breaths.
I try to be economical (frugal, cheap, pinchpenny), but by this time of the year, I’m springing for a bouquet of spring flowers whenever I’m at the supermarket.
So this hour was a mini-retreat for me.
If you live in or near Chicago, Minneapolis, New York City, Philadelphia, or San Francisco, you have till this Sunday, April 11 to take in the flower show.
Sunday, April 4th, 2010
Easter 2008
Easter 2008 stays in my mind.
The ground was covered with snow, not what I expect on Easter. I thought that was going to make it difficult to find Felicity’s small memorial plaque.
But as the sun was rising, I discovered a snowman watching over her. So I knew her big brother Orison had visited the day before.
She lives her name, Felicity–perfect happiness. Still it’s hard not to be able to do anything for her.
I laid my pink springtime blossoms there.
