"we will have these moments to remember..."

1913 - 2010

i stopped checking messages because i didn't want to hear the news without my parents. i lay in bed last night, and i thought, "what if he's already gone?"

and, as it turned out, he was.

"ninety-seven is a ripe old age" but you always hope for more time, more opportunities to be together.

it's weird to hear other people talk about him, to read news coverage that describes him as a national figure, a party leader, a signatory on an important letter... he's just papaşa.

three gifts

i eaves-read another person's book on the subway today and was inspired by this question: "what three values would you most want to instill in your children?"

the first one that sprang to mind was generosity. dr. mark greene's dying words to his daughter, rachel, were: "be generous. with your time. with your love. with your life... be generous, always."



i kind of want those to be my first words to my children.

curiosity: the world is a wonder, and when i catch myself less than in awe, i know i am in trouble. i don't want my children to be often in that kind of trouble.

integrity: even when it's all you've got, it can keep you warm at night.

what would you give?

poirot's investigations

genre books tend to get a bad reputation, on account of appearing superficial. but the more agatha christie i read, the more i see important psychological and sociological insights in her writing. "appointment with death" has more to do with dysfunctional families than with sleuthing. the murder seems entirely incidental to the story. and it's not just the mystery genre - or, indeed, just christie - that works this way. if verne and wells are any indication, science fiction is likewise a means of dissecting sociological/political themes.

anyway, one well-documented characteristic among the more interesting fictional detectives is that they're sort of rogues - their relationship with the established process of law enforcement is a precarious one. holmes, poirot, marple, and even house all fall into that category. i haven't read enough of arthur canon doyle's work to say if this part is also ubiquitous, but it is absolutely fascinating to me how often in hercule poirot's "practice" the murderer manages to escape charges by committing suicide, suffering from a terminal illness, or ending up in a fatal accident. agatha christie just didn't seem all that interested in legal procedure, though the importance of justice was underscored in all her mysteries. indeed, she gave tacit (and sometimes reluctant) approval to vigilante justice in at least three of her novels.

i've been collecting the poirot books for years now, and when i got to 24 out of 39, i realized that the editions i wanted were no longer in print. i'm determined to get all the titles, one way or another, in close-to-similar-editions. my most recent acquisition was "dumb witness" which involves a posthumous letter, a rich spinster, and an adorable dog named bob.

owned
read
missing!

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
Murder on the Links (1923)
Poirot Investigates (1924)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
The Big Four (1927)
The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
Black Coffee (1930)
Peril at End House (1932)
Lord Edgware Dies (1933)
Murder on the Orient Express (1934)
Three Act Tragedy (1935)
Death in the Clouds (1935)
The A.B.C. Murders (1936)
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
Cards on the Table (1936)
Death on the Nile (1937)
Dumb Witness (1937)
Murder in the Mews (1937)
Appointment with Death (1938)
Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938)
Sad Cypress (1940)
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940)
Evil Under the Sun (1941)
Five Little Pigs (1942)
The Hollow (1946)
The Labours of Hercules (1947)
Taken at the Flood (1948)
Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952)
After the Funeral (1953)
Hickory Dickory Dock (1955)
Dead Man's Folly (1956)
Cat Among the Pigeons (1959)
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (1960)
The Clocks (1963)
Third Girl (1966)
Hallowe'en Party (1969)
Elephants Can Remember (1972)
Poirot's Early Cases (1974)
Curtain (written about 1940, published 1975)

also posted at diet of bookworms.

8

i heard my mom on the phone once, finding out her friend had leukemia... nu se poate (it can't be) was all i could make out. it can't be, it can't be... but it is, you know? it's hard to escape stories of people sick and dying, people in pain, in general - i know you guys are all touched by hurt, too, whether it's your own or that of other people. it's like all that stuff in the united states of leland: if you look deep enough into anyone's eyes, it's like there's this tremendous sadness, and they're just fighting to bury it under pta meetings and card games and status reports and facebook and shoes and books and movies and garbage.

i was thinking about how irrational love can be. i was thinking about how, when i sit beside nancy and no one's at home, i ask her, "are you happy?" and there is no earthly reason to hope that she will ever be happy, let alone be able to tell me that she's happy. how love is about hoping against all odds, without ignoring the sadness. i don't know what st. paul was on about, separating faith, hope, and love. i mean, you can argue with me if you really want, but i'm pretty sure those three aren't that distinct from one another.
 
my dad and i were talking about what it would be like to actually live each day as if it were your last. i joked that your friends and relatives would finally say, "listen, i get that you love me... you don't have to call every day and spend an hour on the phone with me, telling me how much you value me. i get it, i really, really do." sometimes i wonder if anything "practical" could get done if i took love seriously. maybe what scares me most about death is that there isn't enough time to really love people. maybe the beatles were right: eight days a week is not enough to show i care.

o is for otta-otta wa-wa

there really isn't enough internet ink to describe my "weekend" in ottawa. i was there for a mennonite central committee student seminar - pursuing security in an insecure world.

aside from the formal agenda, there was time to eat sushi with heather, look for a dress for corina's wedding (no luck!), gawk at ice sculptures, try my first beavertail, enjoy a good steak, and catch up with mel for the first time in nearly two years! the weekend was jam-packed and wonderful, apart from snow bullets, puddles, bitter wind, and the fact that the tv in our room stopped working after i watched american's best dance crew.

but back to the seminar... it covered food security, poverty in canada, principles of non-violence, and restorative justice. we ate butter chicken and shawarma and chatted about khadr, fair trade, and obamamania. i was offended by the candy sold at the war museum's gift shop and the elevator broke while we were in the peace tower on parliament hill. there was a lot in there to think about, but i'll just share three:

one: a long trek through the snow led us to the war museum, where we wandered independently, at our own pace. on the way to the four galleries, there's a display of photographs depicting battlefields from the first world war. they're downright brilliant - the colours, the clarity, the composition. and this deeply disturbed me. when i take photos of nancy, kevin, michael, and pat, they often don't turn out very well. it's hard to capture on (digital) film the beauty i see in my friends at l'arche, because that beauty isn't always aesthetic. by contrast, these battlefields - the sites of countless bloody, torturous deaths - were absolutely, even devastatingly, gorgeous. the irony was almost palpable.

two: finally, something occurred to me at the war museum as well as during the tour of parliament, after we'd spent a little time in the memorial chamber. my thought was, is there room for expansion? has the museum set aside space for a gallery devoted to future wars? where will the names of the 108 soldiers who have died in afghanistan go?

there's something deeply disturbing about the need to make room for reminders of future death and devestation. that question's been haunting me. maybe in a good way.

three: the last gallery in the museum is a catch-all, covering everything since world war ii. one creative display featured music videos of some songs addressing the cold war: genesis, u2, elton john, the scorpions, and so on. who knew that the final countdown was not so much about magic tricks as it was about mutually assured destruction? (wait... given gob's mad skillz, those two might not be so different.)



another of the songs on the list was nena's 99 luftballoons. the (english) lyrics are super - all the more so if you've read the backstory.

"exceptional"

standing in the hallway of the widow's house, i put down my egg salady bagel and said, "i know it's strange to philosophize at a time like this..."
"no, it isn't," dad said.

i laughed. "well, ok, it isn't. anyway, the other night, we went outside to see the lunar eclipse. and i said to adil, 'there's nothing special about this: a rock is casting a shadow on another rock. there's nothing spectacular about it... and yet, it's beautiful.' in fact, lots of people were out freezing their toes and noses off, watching the moon turn red. but there's nothing so amazing about it. same with this," i pointed around me. "it happens all the time. hundreds, thousands of times a day. it eventually happens to every person. there's nothing unusual about it... but it's ugly and painful and shocking, every time. even though it's ordinary."
"yeah," he tilted his head. "in the end, it appears that perhaps everything is extraordinary."

whenever i ask my dad how his day was, he says, "extraordinary." he doesn't mean to imply that something terribly unusual happened, or that the day went spectacularly well. he means it literally: it was unlike every other day he has ever experienced. entirely unique.

we let things become ordinary when they needn't be so. we let it happen to words, touch, rites, exchanged glances, sunsets, numbers, brushstrokes, and elephants. we let it happen and, all the while, say that we seek meaning and hunger for wow. we're, um, ridiculous.

"finding God in the ordinary" and all that isn't about injecting spiritual mumbo jumbo into the banality of everyday life, reinterpreting everything in some tenuous way. and it's not about retreating from the ordinary so that something magical can happen. i mean, sometimes it is, but it shouldn't be.

lunar eclipses and weak knees and friends' deaths and kids' prayers happen because rocks cast shadows and people are attractive and cancer cells grow and parents drag their offspring to church. ordinary, mundane things. but - without ascribing purpose at all - i think it's safe to say that they have the power to shake us out of the ordinary. to open our eyes to that truth my dad spoke, just hours after shaking a shovelful of dirt over his friend's coffin:

everything is extraordinary.

kaddish

my mom had a kindergarten in our home more than twenty years ago. one of our favourite games was playing house. miron was my husband. we would go and buy potatoes together.

we visited miron and his family in montreal more than ten years ago. he ate escargots. i still prefered potatoes.

miron gabriel deca (mutunica)
on saturday, september 9, 2006 at toronto. beloved son of tereza barta and anghel deca. loving fiance of olga evstifeeva. dear brother of daniella, stefana, and roman. he will also be remembered by doru bandol and his dear friends. loving him infinitely and missing him forever. at benjamin's park memorial chapel for service on monday, september 11, 2006 at 3:00 p.m. interment: the pride of israel section of mount sinai memorial park. shiva: 154 st. john's road.

magnified and sanctified be God's great name in the world which He created according to His will. may He establish His kingdom during our lifetime and during the lifetime of Israel. let us say, amen.
may God's great name be blessed forever and ever. blessed, glorified, honored and extolled, adored and acclaimed be the name of the Holy One, though God is beyond all praises and songs of adoration which can be uttered. let us say, amen.
may there be peace and life for all of us and for all Israel. let us say, amen.
let He who makes peace in the heavens, grant peace to all of us and to all Israel. let us say, amen.

and pleads for all his bleeding love

365 . . . and i still haven't learned to mourn. i miss you.

sum up!

stolen from my friend, paul:
1) was 2005 a good year for you? yes and no . . . what a non-answer. relationships blossomed and significant growth occured this year and that wasn't easy. i guess "good" is an apt word.
2) what was your favorite moment of the year? supervising the bus back from camp with the calgary kids . . . i felt like i was doing something important. (for the record, every time someone came to me for advice or prayer comes in as a close second.)
3) what was your least favorite moment of the year? experiencing disappointment with all sorts of relationships
4) where were you when 2005 began? in toronto at my parents' house
5) who were you with? my parents and sissy
6) where will you be when 2005 ends? in calgary (just barely back from mexico)
7) who will you be with when 2005 ends? janet, jeremy, jill . . . others?
8) did you keep your new year's resolution of 2005? i had an "i want this but can't do it by my own willpower" wish . . . and it did come true.
9) do you have a new years' resolution for 2006? hmm . . . maybe another wish. working on it.
10) did you make any new friends in 2005? yessir . . . so good, so good.
11) who are your favourite new friends? steve, janet, jeremy, and jill
12) what was your favourite month of 2005? may - corini came to visit and i went to kelowna.
13) did you travel outside of canada in 2005? i will on Christmas eve!
14) whch states/provinces did you travel to in 2005? back and forth between alberta & ontario, with a wee trip to kelowna, bc, in may. and i'll hit houston on Christmas eve on my way to mexico.
15) did you lose anybody close to you in 2005? my friend brandon died in may
16) did you miss anybody in the past year? aplenty
17) what was the best movie you saw in 2005? i enjoyed rewatching "love actually", "the believer" and "the apartment" . . . new movie-wise, "madagascar" was fantastic
18) what was your favourite song from 2005? it's not new, but it's new to me:"hurt"
19) what was your favorite record/cd from 2005? i don't think i bought any new albums this year . . .
20) how many concerts did you see in 2005? i can only think of three, and two of them were school-related
21) did you have a favorite concert in 2005? omara portunondo
22) did you drink a lot of alcohol in 2005? not so much
23) did you do a lot of drugs in 2005? there was that one night with the nyquil . . . i wish i were kidding
24) did you do anything you are ashamed of this year? can you imagine 365 consecutive days of not doing something shame-worth??
25) what was the worst lie someone told you in 2005? none of them were life-threatening.
26) did you treat somebody badly in 2005? i have this pattern of knowing how to be good, but ignoring that :P i can be a lousy friend at times.
27) did somebody treat you badly in 2005? yeah. i work with residents.
28) how much money did you spend in 2005? every penny the alberta government will let me use.
29) what was your proudest moment of 2005? dealing with a boundary issue in my friendship with a guy. we were both uber-mature about it, and we're better friends now! :D
30) what was your most embarrassing moment of 2005? as if.
31) what would you change if you could go back in time to any moment of 2005? i would have written my papers already
32) what are your plans for 2006? i don't love plans, but how's this: find quiet, achieve balance, be diligent, keep at that compassion thing, read for fun . . . and see my sissy graduate (before me!)

rethinking

You've probably heard it said that worship is a way of life, an attitude of the heart. Romans 12:1 tells us as much: "present your bodies as living sacrifices, for this is your spiritual act of worship." Whatever your list of "worship duties", none of it compares to laying your life down at the feet of God. But what does that look like?

Last March, a friend of mine found out he had leukemia. At 23 years old, he was given three to six months to live. When he died two months later, I struggled with God. Brandon had had dreams and goals that were never accomplished. Wasn't God supposed to give us the desires of our heart? We're not even talking about crazy dreams - he wanted to get married, to have a family and to be a youth pastor! Isn't that good stuff that God wants for us? I couldn't understand why God would cut his life short. I still don't.

But after spending the whole summer thinking about all this, here's what I came up with: God made us to dream. There's never going to be a time when I run out of dreams. In reality, there's never going to be a point when I can say, "Alright, God. I'm done now. There's nothing left that I want to do." I have my agenda, and it's an endless list of noble, wonderful things I want to get done in my life. I have my agenda, and as long as I cling to it, death will never be welcome. I have my agenda . . . but it's possible that God's may be different.

The truth is, my most important agenda item is checked off: I gave my life over to God almost eight years ago. When I did that, I was supposed to give Him my agenda, too. Not as a wish list, but rather with the words "please, edit this!" scribbled across the top. It's not my agenda that matters anymore, it's God's. When He's done all He wants to do in and through my life, I want the way I die to bring Him glory, too.

It comes to this: I'm ready to go when God says so.