Baby’s Room
Our little grandson is old enough to start spending the night with us. First, AdventureMan had to install a gate, as the Baby room is at the top of stairs, and oh, he loves stairs. We can’t take a chance on him tackling the stairs without one of us present to ‘assist’ (i.e. supervise; make sure he is safe).
Back when I first got to Kuwait, I found these gorgeous turquoise panels at the Kuwait Thursday-Friday market for a song. They are a color I think of as Tuareg Blue; the men of the mountains in Algeria and parts of Morocco wear this gorgeous deep turquoise shade, and the dye rubs off and colors their skin, so some call them The Blue Men.
I’ve carted them around for six years now, waiting for the right use. I thought about parting with them when I left Qatar . . . but didn’t. I thought about parting with then here, as I went through a spree of paring down and packing things out to the Waterfront Mission . . . but I didn’t. All of a sudden, I knew how they were meant to be used, and what a wonderful blast of color they put in ‘Baby’s Room.’
I LOVE the patterns on the panels. Every one is different; I could not find any two panels the same. The vendor was Sudanese; I am tempted to think these might be Sudanese; I have never seen anything like them before or since in the fabric souks of Kuwait or Doha. They aren’t quite enough fabric to be saris, but they might be just enough for a sefsari, the cover worn by the women in Tunisia when we lived there – maybe 4.5 – 5 meters each, sold for less than $3.00 a panel. 🙂
We needed to get black-out curtains up, as the Happy Toddler takes after me, up with first light. It’s better for all of us if he can sleep a little later 🙂 But these panels attatched easily to the under curtains, and now his room is all ready for him – now he sleeps in a big boy bed and the crib has converted to a settee.
After all the wonderful days of family and friends, and eating meals back and forth, I was ready for a quiet projects day. I feel so good getting this project DONE! Don’t you love the color of these panels?
Dinner at the Happy Pig
We were all meeting up at the Happy Pig; the mood was meat, specifically BBQ meat, and as it is a family gathering, all tastes had to be considered. Happy Pig is centrally located, great food and, a big plus with the Happy Toddler, family oriented.
Happy Toddler is so much more verbal these days, which is a joy, and gives us many moments of hilarity, but also can be a pain. He believes that “please” means he will be given what he wants when he wants it. He believes that “all done” means he is free not to eat meals when the rest of us are eating. Ah well – he isn’t quite two and has time to learn all these distinctions. Meanwhile, we have to hide our laughter when he exerts his will so unselfconsciously.
What we loved are the Christmas lights:
This is the angel on the top of the Happy Pig Christmas Tree
Outside lights – Christmas gifts
This is a giraffe
This is a hippo – have you ever seen a hippopotamus in Christmas lights before?
Another Happy Pig pig
A Happy Pig Polar Bear
We are having a particularly good Christmas this year; AdventureMan and I are on the same continent, in the same country, in the same time zone, in the same city, and thanks be to God, in the same house celebrating Christmas. We are so thankful. We are so thankful to be near our son and his wife, and our amazing and darling little Happy Toddler.
He loves the train gifts he got, but, again, this is where almost-two can be hilarious – he got a table and chairs he loves. What he loves is to move those chairs all over the house and to line them up in different ways, often as – a train, LOL. He is so serious, as he is creating, and so focused. You can almost catch a glimpse of him as the adult he will one day be.
Moslems and John the Baptist
In Damascus, in one of the most famous mosques, in the very center of the ancient city, is a special area of worship devoted to John the Baptist (in Arabic, Yahyah). As I was reading the readings for today in The Lectionary, I wondered, once again, why such reverence from our Islamic brothers and sisters?
I went looking, and found this in the SoundVision website, a religious website for English speaking Moslems:
John: A Prophet of Islam
Amongst the 25 Prophets mentioned by God in the Quran, one name is Prophet John (peace be upon him). In Arabic, his name is Yahya. He is also a Prophet who figures prominently in Christianity, where he is known as John the Baptist. His story in the Christian tradition is described in Bible Luke 1:5-22.
In Islam, belief in all of Allah’s Prophets is a fundamental article of faith. A person who denies belief in any of the Prophets, be it Jesus (peace be upon him) Moses (peace be upon him), or any of the others leaves the fold of Islam.
His miraculous birth
Prophet Jesus was not the only Prophet who was born miraculously. By miraculous, we mean outside of the normal process of human reproduction Allah has ordained which requires a man and a woman to conceive a child. In the case of Jesus, this meant being born of a mother but no father.
But Prophet Adam (peace be upon him)’s birth was even more miraculous in this sense since he was created with no mother or father. Similarly, Hawwa or Eve (may Allah be pleased with her) was created from a man, her husband, and no parents.
The birth of Prophet John is miraculous because he is the offspring of a barren mother and an elderly father. His father, it should be noted, was also a Prophet named Zecheriah.
“‘Zecheriah, We bring you the good news of the birth of a son whose name shall be John, one whose namesake We never created before.’ He said: ‘My Lord! How can I have a boy when my wife is barren and I have reached an extremely old age?’ He answered: ‘So shall it be.’ Your Lord says: ‘It is easy for Me’, and then added: ‘For beyond doubt, I created you earlier when you were nothing’ (Quran 19:7-9).
“Zecheriah exclaimed: ‘My Lord! How shall I have a son when old age has overtaken me and my wife is barren?’ He said: ‘Thus shall it be; Allah does what He wills'”(Quran 3:40).
With the birth of John, Allah granted Zecheriah his desire for an heir.
“And We bestowed favor upon Zecheriah, when he cried to his Lord: ‘Lord! Leave me not solitary [without any issue]. You are the best Inheritor.’ So We accepted his prayer and bestowed upon him John, and We made his wife fit (to bear a child). Verily they hastened in doing good works and called upon Us with longing and fear, and humbled themselves to Us” (Quran 21:89-90).
The beautiful qualities of John
Allah did not just miraculously grant Zecheriah a son. He made this child a blessing for his parents and beautiful in character. Prophet John is described in the Quran as chaste and righteous.
“Then Zecheriah prayed to his Lord: ‘O Lord! Grant me from Yourself out of Your grace the gift of a goodly offspring, for indeed You alone heed all Prayers. As he stood praying in the sanctuary, the angels called out to him: ‘Allah gives you good tidings of John, who shall confirm a command of Allah, shall be outstanding among men, utterly chaste, and a Prophet from among the righteous” (Quran 3:38-39).
“‘O John! Hold fast the Book with all your strength. We had bestowed wisdom upon him while he was still a child; and We also endowed him with tenderness and purity; and he was exceedingly pious and cherishing to his parents. Never was he insolent or rebellious. Peace be upon him, the day he was born, and the day he will die, and the day he will be raised up alive. (Quran 19: 12-15).
Part of a line of honored Prophets
Finally, as mentioned above, Prophet John is one of the Prophets Muslims must believe in. He is one of the 25 mentioned in the Quran.
“And We bestowed upon Abraham (offspring) Isaac and Jacob and each of them did We guide to the right way as We had earlier guided Noah to the right way; and (of his descendants We guided) David and Solomon, Job, Joseph, Moses and Aaron. Thus do We reward those who do good. (And of his descendants We guided) Zecheriah, John, Jesus and Elias: each one of them was of the righteous.” (Quran 6:84-85).
The following section is from Wikipedia:
John is also honored as a prophet in Islam as Yaḥyā ibn Zakarīyā (Arabic: يحيى بن زكريا), translated literally as “John, son of Zechariah”. He is believed by Muslims to have been a witness to the word of God, and a prophet who would herald the coming of Jesus.[64] His father Zechariah was also an Islamic prophet. Islamic tradition maintains that John was one of the prophets that Muhammad met on the night of the Mi’raj,[65] his ascension through the Seven Heavens. It is said that he met John and Jesus in the second heaven, where Muhammad greeted his two ‘brothers’ before ascending with archangel Gabriel to the third heaven. John’s story was also told to the Abyssinian king during the Muslim refugees’ Migration to Abyssinia.[66] According to the Qur’an, John was one on whom God sent peace on the day that he was born and the day that he died.[67]
[edit]Name
John’s name in Arabic, Yahya, was present in Arabia before the Qur’an was revealed.[68]Muslim exegetes frequently connected the name with the meaning of “to quicken” or “to make alive” in reference to John’s mother’s barrenness, which was cured by God, as well as John’s preaching, which, as Muslims believe, “made alive” the faith of Israel.[69] The Qur’an accords the significance of John’s name to the fact that it was a new name for mankind, in that no one previously had been named “John”.[70] Other scholars hold that John’s name, which they state connects with the meaning of “He shall live”, referred to his legacy, in that his memory will remain in the mind of the faithful for the generations to come.[71]
[edit]John in the Qur’an
In the Qur’an, God frequently mentions Zechariah’s continuous praying for the birth of son. Zechariah’s wife, mentioned in the New Testament as Elizabeth, was barren and therefore the birth of a child seemed impossible.[72] As a gift from God, Zechariah was given a son by the name of “John”, a name specially chosen for this child alone. In accordance with Zechariah’s prayer, God made John and Jesus, who according to exegesis was born six months later,[73] renew the message of God, which had been corrupted and lost by the Israelites. As the Qur’an says:
(His prayer was answered): “O Zakariya! We give thee good news of a son: His name shall be Yahya: on none by that name have We conferred distinction before.”
He said: “O my Lord! How shall I have a son, when my wife is barren and I have grown quite decrepit from old age?”
He said: “So (it will be) thy Lord saith, ‘that is easy for Me: I did indeed create thee before, when thou hadst been nothing!'”
(Zakariya) said: “O my Lord! give me a Sign.” “Thy Sign,” was the answer, “Shall be that thou shalt speak to no man for three nights.”
—Qur’an, sura 19 (Maryam), verse 7[74]
John was exhorted to hold fast to the Scripture and was given wisdom by God while still a child.[75] He was pure and devout, and walked well in the presence of God. He was dutiful towards his parents and he was not arrogant or rebellious. John’s reading and understanding of the scriptures, when only a child, surpassed even that of the greatest scholars of the time.[72] Muslim exegesis narrates that Jesus sent John out with twelve disciples,[76] who preached the message before Jesus called his own disciples.[73] The Qur’an says of John:
(To Zachariah’s son came the command): “O John! take hold of the Book with might”: and We gave him Wisdom even as a youth,
—Qur’an, sura 19 (Maryam), ayah 12[75]
John was a classical prophet,[77] who was exalted high by God, for his bold denouncing of all things sinful. Furthermore, the Qur’an speaks of John’s gentle pity and love for all creatures and his humble attitude towards life, for which he was granted the Purity of Life:
And piety (for all creatures) as from Us, and purity: He was devout,
And kind to his parents, and he was not overbearing or rebellious.
So Peace on him the day he was born, the day that he dies, and the day that he will be raised up to life (again)!
—Qur’an, sura 19 (Maryam), ayah 13-15[67]
John is also honored highly in Sufism as well as Islamic mysticism, primarily because of the Qur’an’s description of John’s chastity and kindness.[78] Sufis have frequently applied commentaries on John’s passages on the Qur’an, primarily concerning God-given gift of “Wisdom” which he acquired in youth as well as his parallels with Jesus. Although several phrases used to describe John and Jesus are virtually identical in the Qur’an, the manner in which they are expressed is different.[79]
Mary at Christ Church, Pensacola
Today was all about Mary, at Christ Church in Pensacola, about the brave young woman who said “yes” to God and conceived out of wedlock, and had to explain about how God sent a messenger angel and the Holy Spirit impregnated her – and who can help but think, as a parent, how hard some of this would be to believe? Brave little Mary, who said “yes.”
There is an ikon of Mary at the front of Christ Church:
I bet you can guess why I love this ikon, why it makes me smile . . . Mary, and her baby boy, are brown! They look like people really look in the Middle East, not Botticelli blondes with big blue eyes, dressed in Italian silks. I also love the way this Mama snuggles her precious little baby to her cheek; he is a baby, this King of Kings, and I like to think he grew up with a lot of cuddling and snuggling.
The Tourist; Olen Steinhauer
Haven’t I read this book before? Or didn’t I see a movie, The American, with George Clooney? You know, depressed assassin? Thinking about suicide? In some villa along the Mediterranean or is it the Adriatic? Some enigmatic handler, and who do you trust? And then The Tourist swerves off in another direction and while this particular thread of plot is new, it still seems vintage LeCarre, only maybe a little less solid information. Lots of jumping from place to place with little motivation, lots of shifts in trust, and betrayals.
While I like books where reality keeps shifting, this one had a few too many shifts for me. I have a feeling that spying is a lot less about fast cars and shooting someone so they won’t give away a secret, and lot more about the dull, painstaking work of stitching together swatches of information in ways that form a meaningful pattern, trying hard not to create patterns that don’t exist. I imagine that there is a big problem today with the huge volume of information, sifting through to figure out what matters, and what is mere distraction.
This book is a good airplane read, holds the interest, but give me LeCarre for the grim grey world of spies and their work any day.
Kisses From Katie by Katie Davis
This is a photo from Katie’s blog: Kisses From Katie.
Do you believe in God? Do you believe that God believes in you? Then how do you live your life? Do you commit 100% to God and trust him to provide as you leave all your riches behind and follow him, serving the poorest of the poor, speaking for those who have no voices?
I will warn you, this unforgettable book has a lot of talk about God in it. A part of me watches in horror, wondering how long Katie can continue to serve God with all her heart, with all her soul, and with all her mind? How long she can work against all odds, trusting in God to lift her and provide for her and her children. This is a true story, an ongoing life. A part of me fears a terrible crash, but the greater part of me prays for Katie, and stands in awe of her courage and her commitment.
I don’t know who told me about Kisses for Katie, the blog. As soon as I started reading it, I was addicted.
Now for the shocker: Katie is only 23 years old. A year before she graduated from high school, she felt an undeniable call to do a 6 week mission teaching in a school in one of the poorest parts of Uganda. At the end of her six weeks, she couldn’t bear to leave. She returned, finished out her senior year in high school (HIGH SCHOOL!) but she never felt entirely ‘home,’ her heart was with the children of Uganda, the poorest of the poor.
Although her parents had her doubts, the strength and consistency of Katie’s belief that she was called to serve in Africa brought them around, and they agreed she could go work for a year in this small, poor village, before starting university. At eighteen, Katie was teaching, raising money for food, tuition and uniforms for over 100 children, and working to prepare all the meals, bathe all the children, and teach them about the love of Jesus.
When I saw, a month ago, that Katie had a book published, I had to buy it. Kisses from Katie is inspirational and unforgettable. Her story continues on her blog, but the book lays all the groundwork, the heartaches and the joys, the delights of her 13 adopted daughters, the horrors of the Ugandan bureaucracy, Katie’s dogged day-by-day fight to claim and save lives. She is a remarkable young woman, powered by an awesome God.
If Katie were going to burn out, I think it would have happened earlier, as she suffered terrible disappointments, and made truly amazing sacrifices to raise her girls, to be their “mommy” and to insure the educations of over a hundred children. With a growing foundation, Amazina, and a growing group of contributors, she carries on, and the miracle of this book is that she doesn’t seem to sense the amazing woman that she is at all, she seems to believe that she is a simple woman following God’s will for her life, and reveling in it, joyfully surrounded by her 13 adopted daughters and frequent foster babies. She feels blessed to have the life that God created her to live.
I stand in awe.
You can order this book from Amazon.com for $12.49 plus shipping. It might even change your life, or how you view your life. Yes, I own stock in Amazon.com. No, I make no money from recommending this book. 🙂
First Flash Mob in Doha, Qatar
Thank you, my friend Hayfa, for sending this flash mob from City Center Mall; very nice;
But this one dates from May 2011, and I love the energy!
And one more, this time at Villagio! Wooo HOOOO, Qatar!
I’m eager to see one done at the Souk al Waqif!
I think Qatar’s National Day is December 18th, and the Qataris know how to party. It would be lovely to see a Qatari flash mob.
Christmas Time in Pensacola
Christmas in Pensacola starts just after Thanksgiving, for most people. I saw a very few decorations go up around Veteran’s Day (11 November) but very few. Most started going up around Thanksgiving. Because we are having some work continuing on our house, I couldn’t do the same decorations I did last year, so I did something new; my goal in the week before I left was to get SOME Christmas up, inside and out.
This year, AdventureMan is here, too, and it makes all the difference. Last year, he left for Kuwait just before Christmas, and I was so sad that it was hard to put a lot of effort into decorating. I did it, mostly because I am too proud not to. (No. I will not let adversity get me down!) But mostly, it takes a lot of energy to fight depression, so this year, I am appreciating just how good it is to have a ‘normal’ Christmas, i.e. my husband is on the same continent as me, in the same country, even the same state, same city, and same residence. It’s all good. 🙂
Our tree this year is smaller – and higher – that other years, and all the ornaments on it are unbreakable. Yes. Happy Baby, now Happy Toddler, will be coming by and I want to protect him – and the tree. Over the years we have collected so many wonderful ornaments that I have a lot to work with, and still manage to have a nice tree; the angel on the top is a traditional angel from Nurnberg, and we bought it the first year we were married. It’s nice to have her high on the top of the tree once more.
Under the tree, covering the table, is a special wool sefsari we bought when we lived in Tunisia, bright red with bands of gold trim. These were everywhere when we lived there, especially in the cold winters, but when we visited, I no longer saw them in any stores. Covering the tree stand, I have one of my smaller Damascus tablecloths; I treasure these coverings, and beads, Pensacola parade beads.
“Beads!” we shouted to Happy Toddler as we put them over his head.
“Beads!” the crowd shouted as the floats went by at the Pensacola Christmas Parade last night.
Last year, even as a Happy Baby, the parade was an enthralling event. What baby wouldn’t love a parade that starts with flashing lights, and motorcycles, and a loudly wailing, lights fashing FIRE TRUCK?? What Happy Toddler wouldn’t love the bands with the throbbing drums, and trumpets, and tubas, and trombones? And the dancing girls, and oh yes – the BEADS! Life is sweet at the Pensacola Christmas Parade.
The parade starts at 5:15 and we get there about 5:14. Here is what I love about Pensacola; you can get there at 5:14 and get a place to park only about 1/2 a block from the parade and be there when the spectacle begins. It is a laid back kind of parade, still a community parade, you see your friends there. It is sort of a Christmas parade, you see some Santas, and some reindeer, and snowmen, and there is usually at least one float with angels, but it is also sort of Mardi Gras, with all the Krewes (local social groups focused on Mardi Gras) on floats with their buds throwing beads, coins, toys and candy out into the waiting, dancing crowd.
Technically, I know this isn’t a great photo because you can’t even really tell what it is, but it is the beginning of the parade, and I love the motion of it all:
As it turned out, we were in a pretty good spot for catching beads, and we loaded down the Happy Toddler, put a few on each of us, and shared the bounty with some of the babies standing behind us. There were some people in front of us who caught a LOT of beads, and as soon as they caught them, they stashed them in a bag; they caught LOTS. Maybe they sell them back or something.
Last week, we took Happy Toddler to Boats on the Bayou, where boats decorated with Christmas lights gather near the bridge and then come parading to the park, and people gathered there sing Christmas Carols. Happy Toddler loves going to the park; the boats were interesting for about five seconds, and then he got to swing and play on the playground, which mattered a whole lot more to him:
It was just a really fun, community thing, and it was pretty, too.
Lunch at the Fish House, always a treat, and their tree is BLUE!
The Pensacola Christmas Parade attracts around 50,000 people every year. Imagine! It is so much fun. What I love about it is that there are so many floats, so many bands, so many civic heroes – you know how I feel about giving back to your community. These people are doing it. On one of the coldest nights of the year, they are on the Krewe floats throwing beads, they are patrolling behind the dog clubs, cleaning up, they are making sure the floats make the turn at Wright and Palafox, they are marching with bare legs in the cold, windy night – and it is so much fun.
Who would think that 50,000 people gathered in one place, competing for beads, would keep it all so civil? There is no place for ‘special people;’ we are all Pensacola citizens, there to enjoy a family evening, and it is just that, it is a great Pensacola evening, one of my favorite of the year.
Best of all was watching the Happy Toddler take it all in. The lights! The sirens! The beads, and the scrambling to catch them! The loud music, the pounding drums! It was all so much fun, and that fun was doubled watching him try to figure it all out. I can hardly wait ’till next year. 🙂
Leaving Seattle
It is so much easier now, now that I am not flying to Qatar or Kuwait or even Germany. I kept a storage locker in Seattle all those years, with boxes and mailing materials, with Christmas wrap, with winter sweaters and boots and coats for Decembers, and shamelessly sleeveless tops and dresses for summer that I couldn’t wear in the more conservative countries where I was living. I kept spare make-up, a back-up hairdryer, shampoos, paper towels, coffee filters, detergent – things I didn’t want to have to keep buying every time I flew into Seattle, which one year was six times.
My last day was always a mad dash to the storage locker to put away all the stuff that stayed behind, maybe mail one last box or two with exotic items like grainy organic cornmeal, quilting supplies, Tony Chachere Jambalaya Mix, or peppermint candies for Christmas cookies (yes, they got them in Kuwait and Qatar, but sometimes not until February) and then there was the rush to the airport, check in the rental car, and go through the drill at check-in.
Yes, I have a special visa, right there. No, you probably can’t read it; it’s largely in Arabic, but trust me, it’s the right visa. Yes, I like living there. Yes, you would be surprised how kind the people are! No, I don’t have any problems. Yes! We do have a church! No, Moslems don’t hate Christians! Not the ones I know!
Before the big downturn, I was usually trudging two big bags, packed to bursting, full of books and things I couldn’t get so easily. By the grace of God, I never lost a bag.
So, this time it is SO much easier. Because it is Christmas, I am still trudging two check-in bags, but they are not so heavy, and not packed to the bursting point. No hassles; I have my printed-out check in, all I have to do is turn in my baggage, piece of cake, woooo HOOOO!
And I have time! I don’t have to get up too early, I have a little time with Mom in the morning, and then I head out for a leisurely drive to the airport.
Uh oh!
This is what I see when I am inside my car:
It bites into my time, just a little, but I warm the car up, flick on the heat and blowers to clear the frost off the windows, and shortly I am driving along the mildly icy-frosty streets to the airport. I’ve missed the peak of rush hour, traffic is still zipping along, and I make the trip to the airport in no time, even glimpsed sunshine a moment or two.
Love flying through Memphis, perfect timing, I get there for dinner and get to grab a Memphis BBQ, oh yum. One of my favorite airports.
Home again, home again, it takes nearly a full day, and it feels so good to be home.
The Day I Might Have Died
“I have a photo you might want.” my Mom said, rummaging under the bed in the office, where I am sleeping while I have a working holiday here in Seattle, running errands and helping her with things she can no longer do easily for herself. I have two sisters living here who take good care of Mom, and I want to do some small part, too.
She pulled out an envelope and looked through it.
“No, not this one, but you might want this one,” and she handed me this photo.
I know to you it looks like a very strange photo; it looks like a very strange photo to me, too. Old photo, probably taken with some kind of brownie box camera, you cannot tell anything, it looks misty and indistinct.
It was taken at an airport ‘lake,’ like a water retention pond, in Juneau, Alaska, when I was around three. In Juneau, the lakes and ponds might stay very cold the entire summer, but these man-made lakes were fairly shallow, and might warm up a little when the temperatures reached the 70’s (F), like in July or August.
What I remember is dropping off, but not being afraid. I was under water, but my eyes were open, and the colors were beautiful and I was just watching the play of color and light, and I just kind of bobbed along.
My aunt tells me that she saw me drop out of sight and not return. She ran out into the water, found me, and pulled me to the shore. She saved my life. Later, when I was grown, she told me the old Chinese adage that if you save a person’s life you are responsible for them as long as you – or they – live. I always felt a special connection to that sweet aunt.
I wonder now if my memory is as I have always remembered it? I can still see the green and gold flickering, just as clearly as when it was happening. I can remember the shock of being grabbed, and hustled to shore, and fussed over, as everyone wanted to make sure I was OK. I remember having to stay on the blanket for what seemed like a lifetime, and then only being allowed to play in the very shallow water. And I wonder if I remember it all, or if I have heard the story so many times that I just think I remember it?
I love this photo. I love the indistinct nature, and mistiness. It is a metaphor for my memory of that day, and I am delighted that a photo exists.
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