Book Report: Why I loved "Gilead"

It can be summed up in the following paragraph:

"I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can't believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don't imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try."
--Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

While reading it I found myself reverting to the college habit of reading with a pencil in hand to mark particularly relevant passages. Read it.

missy

Florida in January

Missy and I joined the geese in flying South for the weekend. We spent four beautiful, warm, sunny days in Clearwater, Florida -- introducing Missy to my grandparents (Small), and catching up with my dad and brother. We spent two days on the gulf coast beach, soaking up rays and searching for sand dollars and shells. I think we even came away with a slight tan (not shown in left photo)! We always traveled in a caravan -- in our rented Grand Prix, my brother's King Ranch truck, and my dad's rented mini-van.

We spent some time showing my grandparents the photos from the wedding, as well as parts of the video. They were unable to make the trip to Idaho in August. We also celebrated my dad's upcoming birthday with a night of steak at the Roadhouse restaurant. I think Missy thoroughly enjoyed her first visit to Florida, and might even be convinced to go back (I hear she's conspiring with the family ladies to head to Orlando in May).

Snow on the Mountain

No, it is not snowing here (although it has finally cooled down to reasonable winter temperatures), nor have we become mountaineers. We had a fun, friend-filled weekend...plus, we work for the government so we got to celebrate MLK Jr. Day from the comfort of our home. Ah, long weekends. Best part of my job.

Last week stretched out forever, due to the impending weekend visits of not one but TWO friends from the old Oxford days. Hoo-rah! On Friday night Jill, who was headed back to Massachusetts from doing doctoral research in Richmond, camped in our spare room. Mmmm, tea and late night talks. Why do these people understand me better than most after only one little semester together?

And on Saturday night Krista and her fiance Scott came through to brighten up our home again--they had been on a long-weekend-wedding-planning-jaunt, but they squeezed in dinner, a sad Redskins game, and wedding picture viewing with us--absolutely delightful! Jill and I forgot to capture the moment on film (film? micro chip?), but here's a pic of Jason, Krista, Scott and I in our little kitchen. It was wonderful to meet Scott, and now we can be old pals when we see him at their wedding in April. :)

Monday night we shared some "snow on the mountain" with some of Jason's friends from work. Snow on the Mountain is a very odd sounding meal, but usually a winner--who would have thought that almonds, pineapple, green onions, and celery piled on rice would be tasty? You'll have to stop by to get the full effect, complete with "snow" (coconut) and flags on top! We had a great time last night, and I'm convinced that I need to go to Africa, even to just be able to meaningfully engage in conversation about African politics.

mjs

One Thousand Wedding Pictures

Quite a few people have emailed to say they are looking for wedding pictures on our blog. It turns out that we have about 1,000 pictures, thanks to the popularity of digital cameras and the wonderful people who made cds of their photos from our wedding and sent them to us. As you can imagine, it would be not even a little bit worth it to try and post even some of our many, many pictures on here, so we've scrapped together an online photo album, complete with wedding photos, for you to peruse. Our professional photos, fabulously done by Debbie Brown, were too large to add, so if you want to see them you have to come and visit. If you sent us pics (thank you!) you may recognize some in the album.

We'll keep our album on the sidebar under "Places to go," and we will try to keep the picture files updated so that you have something new to look at every now and then.

Happy Friday.

Update on Miracles

We had joy-inducing news about Grams yesterday, and I wanted to share it. Less than a week after the doctors said that there was almost no chance her spinal cord would heal from her Christmas Eve fall, she has feeling in her toes! I really like doctors and nurses (being related to quite a few myself), but I occasionally like it when they are wrong. :) Last night we were talking about ways that God "brings back the dead," and right now I am overflowing with that truth--both watching Him literally bring her back physically one step at a time and also experiencing the way He brings life to my soul, awakening hope and faith and passion so that I am alive like never before. Can we all just jump for joy together and whoop? On three now...

On a less miraculous (but nonetheless unexplained) note, why is it so warm outside? It was 65 yesterday, here in Washington in January. The radio djs kept telling us to "enjoy the weather." What? Put on shorts and go fly a kite? I am supposed to be curled up with sweaters and hot tea on the couch, perfectly content with windows between me and the snow. If it does not get back to normal frigid temperatures soon, all of nature--including me!--will start instinctually transforming into springish creatures and our sap will rise too high to go back to winter contentment...

Christmas Spiriting

Jason here, commenting on a few 2005 Christmas season memories. We leaped into the Christmas spirit early this year, lugging a real evergreen into our small living room, displacing essential pieces of furniture along the way (thanks to Jeanette for the peanut M&Ms for the tree decorating party). Missy cooked up a few Christmas cookies -- and I ventured into the spirit carving out a few for our Sunday School class holiday party. Given our pre-December 25 departure to Idaho, we earned a questionable reputation among the Bunn family for opening Christmas gifts early (complete with present-opening giddiness from Missy -- see photo), exactly seven days before Santa's famous flight. Apparently that's an offense among certain groups of in-laws, but thankfully we didn't endure any particular punishment such as coal in the stockings.

The highlight of the month, next to the Ford's theatre outing (see entry below), was the Christmas Concert put on by the Washington Choral Arts Society at Strathmore Music Hall. This 190-plus voice choir accompanied by an apt Kennedy Center orchestra presented an inspiring holiday concert, complete with modern composed movements and traditional carols, which definitely put us into the Christmas spirit.

Dawn and Brian invited us over for a gingerbread house construction activity. I quickly learned that this is an activity requiring immense patience. Our first home collapsed from the weight of the roof -- the frosting took an exorbitant amount of time to harden! Missy resurrected the house from the ashes, and it didn't look too bad when we were all done. On top of all this, we attended a number of holiday engagements, turning down many others including one hosted by the Swiss Embassy. December was a busy month, including a quick day trip to London for a Sudan meeting. It was good, however, to catch up with my grad school friend Jimmy, and his new wife Kayrn.

Ring a Ding Ding!

Just a quick post to commemorate midnight...52 minutes ago. We spent the evening at my aunt and uncle's house with family, firing up our competitive juices with pool, ping-pong, fusball, and Catch-Phrase. No pics, as we were way too busy trying to beat the socks off each other to bother with the camera! :) I think Jason will be giving his impressions of Christmas soon, photos and all.

And for those interested, an update on my Grams: She had surgery today to fix her neck and give her injured spinal cord room to heal (right now she has no feeling below her waist), so we are praying for complete recovery, and her heart and lungs are continuing to heal. We are all anxious for her to get that respirator out so that she can talk again--she has an awful lot to say after 7 days in ICU! But she's doing well, we're encouraged, and if you want to keep updated we've got our own blog for that: www.johnsonprayer.blogspot.com. In the meantime, though we are saving our Christmas presents from her to open later, I have taken the liberty of tasting the rice krispie treats she made to ensure that they are still good. Mmmm... :)

Lots of 2006 love,
Missy

A Different Kind of Christmas

Just wanted to let you all know what is going on in our family and ask for your prayers. We had planned on spending Christmas in the mountains with my (Missy's) family, but yesterday as we were loading up the car to leave my grandma tripped over an uneven part of the sidewalk and slammed face-first into the bumper of the car and then the cement. She stopped breathing and her heart stopped three times in the course of the morning, and we spent most of yesterday in the emergency room and the ICU. Praise God, though, last night she started to flutter her eyelashes in response to our visits and tonight she had her eyes open and was nodding her head furiously and grabbing for our hands.

We crave your prayers, as she continues to heal and the doctors figure out exactly what happened. Today they determined that when she fell she also had a heart attack (caused by the fall, apparently), and there was some damage to her spinal cord. At this point her legs are paralyzed and it is likely she will undergo surgery after her heart is strong enough. She's still in pretty tough shape and still critical, but the improvement today was phenomenal. It is already incredible to see how God has worked--yesterday the doctors told us that they were losing her, that she had massive internal bleeding, and by the time they transferred her to the hospital with the trauma unit they found no bleeding at all. It is awesome to remember that we have a God who is absolutely, completely in control of life and death.

And we've had a good Christmas. Not what we had planned, but we are all here together and we all took turns singing Grandma Christmas carols (whichever ones we could all remember the words to!) in her room. How thankful we are for family and friends who have called, brought food, visited, and prayed! The ridiculously large pile under the Christmas tree seemed pretty irrelevant when it came to celebrating Christmas this year.

Well, forgive my rambling here (though if you can't ramble on your own blog, where can you?). I hope your Christmas was wonderful and that you, too, were able to celebrate miracles.

mjs

Unfestive

Very unhappy about the following news from the House Majority Whip's office.

SATURDAY`S FORECAST:

On Saturday, the House will meet at 9:00 a.m. for legislative business.

*Members are advised that a Sunday session is possible this week*

mjs

"God Bless Us, Every One"

This weekend we took in what has become my favorite Christmas "tradition" (shh, I'm hoping that if I just secretly keep buying the tickets every year it will become a tradition) and went to Ford's Theatre to see "A Christmas Carol." If the name of the theatre sounds familiar but you can't quite put your finger on it, think the infamous night that President Lincoln went to the theatre. (And yes, it is pretty sweet to live in DC sometimes.) Ford's Theatre, btw, is one of my favorite tourist spots in Washington (though I do get ridiculed for that preference from time to time) and every time I sit there and listen to the story I hope just once Lincoln will decide to stay home for the evening. Does it ever boggle your mind how powerfully single events shape history?

Anyway, Dawn, Brian, Jason and I went to the afternoon show and traipsed around downtown for the early evening. If you haven't seen or read "A Christmas Carol" for a while, you should head to the library and pick it up. It is funny, frightening, heart-wrenching, and pretty much makes you want to be a better person. And may we, like Mr. Scrooge, know how to keep Christmas well.

fa la la la la...

As promised, here are some photos of our "decked halls"--as well as some of the not-so-decked areas of our house, in case you want to see where we live. I will note that though someone DID set up a blow-up snow globe complete with Santa, Frosty, and constantly blowing snow outside our condo building, I have not photographed it. You will have to use your imagination.

This first photo is our living room, which looks much larger than it is (see, Marbs, this is what our house looks like with furniture! :)). We had to do a bit of rearranging to get the Christmas tree in, but all is well...for a month or so!

Next we have our pretty spare room, recently completed (thanks to Mom!) and eagerly awaiting your visit! Mmm, comfortable bed, calling your name...

And here is our green-and-red bedecked dining room.

And our fabulous new kitchen--we are deeply indebted to Jason's dad, who sacrificed the tip of a finger for this room.

And our bedroom, in cranberry. Of course. (Please ignore the messy packing, Jason's leaving for London this afternoon.)

Whew! That was a lot of uploading!

mjs

deciding

In my head a debate has been raging regarding this blog--will it be a breezy Small Family Newsletter, rife with weekend updates and picture-tours of our little home, or will it be more introspective, a writer's journal to fill with the random thoughts flitting through my head during the day? I still have time to lay a foundation, as no one has yet been invited to view the blog (and I suspect Jason himself has not yet seen it, as the internet was "undergoing construction" when he tried last), though the Christmas letters with its mention should go out by the end of the week. But I have spent the morning diverted by some of your blogs and writings and have concluded that I am certainly no writer, though I like to pretend, and I should stick to family Christmas letters and constituent mail.

(btw, does it strike anyone else as odd that we use words that go with very physical things (construction, etc.) to describe something so cyber and (in my mind, anyway) theoretical? I find the idea of tearing through a website with cranes and backhoes quite amusing, but perhaps that is only because it is Wednesday morning and I am bored.)

So breezy newsletter it is. On the way to work this morning Shaanti and I swapped stories of pulling out really awful Christmas decorations bought at Walmart after Christmas when the pickings were slim and shared a resolution to spend that money this year on one nice decoration instead of fifteen plastic snowflakes that we will never, ever put up. We spent the weekend Christmassing--two parties on Saturday, then a Christmas tree and decorating the house on Sunday. If only I had cranked out some Santa-shaped cookies... Our tree, I swear, grew between picking it out at Home Depot and arriving in our living room, and we spent some time debating whether or not we actually needed a couch for the month of December. After moving it, the furniture, and ourselves 4 times and vacuuming the floor 6 times, we finally have it in place. Pictures will certainly follow.

Until then, let's watch a subcommittee hearing on college football...

mjs

P.S. It also strikes me funny that the spellcheck on blogger doesn't recognize the word "blog." Okay, so I have a lame sense of humor--for the love, we are doing a Congressional hearing on college football!

and we're on our way...

The first blog entry. So intimidating, so critical, so "first-impression," so...well, so finally started , after three tries. I really don't think we can put off entering the "blog world" any longer, especially since I find great joy in other people’s blogs. Though I have the underlying fear that no one will ever read this, perhaps there is one other person among our acquaintances who, like me, gets a big kick out of seeing Thanksgiving pictures.

So here you go--a first class ticket to our life, courtesy of blogger.com. Check often, post comments, and generally feel that you have an open door to our little home. Enough for now: we are bloggers. I'll inudate you with pictures later.
mjs