The Quiltmaker's Gift

To wrap up Kid's Week, which it seems I must do, much to my disappointment (What fun this has been, keeping me on my toes and keeping me mostly accountable - still a bit of slight back-dating, but I'm getting the hang of routine blogging!), I share with you one of the loveliest, gentlest, most cheering children's books in existence, The Quiltmaker's Gift!

Author Jeff Brumbeau tells one of the most gripping children's stories about giving, punctuated with gorgeous illustrations by artist Gail de Marcken.

Together with the similar themes of...

A Gift for the Christ Child, a book about a child growing up with mild depravity (After all, how much do you need to have enough? In other words, what constitutes "enough"?) in a South American country (Guatemala, I believe), who nevertheless passes what little he has to the Christ Child, perceived as having even less (which may very well be true for a congregation in South America - uy, church politics and finance!),

and

The Christmas Moccasins, Ray Buckley's illustration of the power of forgiveness, reconciliation, and a resilient giving spirit, a story which will throw you off kilter, destabilize your idea of an idyllic children's fable (Did you forget about the Brothers Grimm?), with its tale about a young boy and his aged grandmother who, on their walk home one winter's night, encounter a small band of rash, disaffected adolescents and suffer injuries from the violence of these shameless youths, which tale also serves as testament to the incredible power of unwavering love, compassion, care, and understanding (For how much introspection and insight does it take to see in another's brazen, blazing, blinded behavior a violence far deeper than that found in this individual alone, in his or her capacity for hatred and senseless impulsiveness, a violence that has slowly ignited such a one into this rage?),

...also books of sharing, the stark message of The Quiltmaker's Gift inspires gratitude and kindness. The story of generosity shines brighter with every delicate and different telling!

The Quiltmaker's Gift threw me with its social justice themes, most evident as the King explores a broader --poorer, but also fuller-- world outside his palace walls, slipping off another layer of superficiality until he has less than nothing and so has begun growing into a truer appreciation for the gift of life. A Gift for the Christ Child shook me with its simple story and stunning, devoted characters. Christmas Moccassins threw me with the extent to which the violence written into our culture did not escape the focused scope of a children's book, with its piercing telling of the realities of darkness. The accompanying illustrations to all of these stories transformed their already strong impression and mesmerizing radiance into sparkling beauties.

No doubt when you find yourself (or someone you know) lacking in vibrancy, joy, and confidence, or in overall invigoration, these giving stories will splash youthful spirit over you, like cold water solidifying a day, stunning with its spark of awareness, giving voice to the preciousness of life in a very visceral way, giving, giving, always giving, until one day, we give ourselves back, having not simply exhausted the gift but having also splintered off pieces of that gift along the way and passed them along to others by means of a quiet generosity (I find myself reminded, as often happens, of the way the father in Jostein Gaarder's The Solitaire Mystery always greets a new day, which approach I will now have to dig up for you to share the relevant passages!).

Join me tomorrow for my half-a-year-later assessment of my course on microfinance and ecovillages in Senegal, and later on, as well, for notes on the spectrum of sustainable lifestyles, the clamor for energy efficiency, recent developments on the genetic front, and the way to greet a day mentioned above.

Keep reading: The Quiltmaker's Gift...

Missionaries

I met some Mormon missionaries today on the walk back down to the house from the end of the trail, where I'd finished my run. I caught sight of them down the block before they approached me, initially hoping that if I didn't make eye contact and stayed on my (opposite) side of the street, they wouldn't approach me. Well, that proved impossible, perhaps our encounter even seems inevitable, since they were missionaries after all.

I decided to speak to them cordially, acknowledging their human-ness as with any other fresh interaction with strangers. I have a hard enough time as it is curbing my mean-spirited streak, attitude-heavy. Before they spoke, I contemplated making some mention, rather unpleasant and not even accurate or deferential (to indigenous spiritual practice), that I believed in and practiced the original Native American spiritual traditions already, and in their proper form, thank you.

They went through what felt like an excruciatingly long introduction (since I had already taxonomized them) about being from a church in town, missionaries from The. Church. of. Jesus. Christ......(excruciatingly long pause).......of Latter Day Saints. Did I have time, blah blah blah.

I came up with the following response (not my best, but afterwards I considered how I might respond in the future, and nothing nearly as cordial or fitting came to mind; for instance, "I am a student of philosophy and theology and have spent plenty of time studying questions of faith. At this time, I feel perfectly comfortable and content with my own spiritual experience and so do not feel I need to hear any new message. Thank you. Good day." And perhaps even one day, I could say "Actually, I've read The Book of Mormon" and then see what happens!): "Well, I'm not really in a position to hear such a message right now [I had hoped my disheveled appearance from finishing a jog would have spoken well enough for itself, such that they wouldn't approach me, for apparently being out of place and not near a home in which they could speak to me, yet somehow they weren't dissuaded], but I've met with groups of missionaries in the past [which was perfectly true]. Sorry."

Then the guy asking said to me (it really felt as though he were about to fall apart), "Do you at least happen to know anybody around who might be willing to hear our message?"

Not a regular resident of the area, I had to deny them this, but I offered that perhaps since it was a nice summer evening, and there were plenty of people out enjoying it, they would find someone who was. And I wished them a nice evening.

Another exchange, in which they asked if there was anything they could do for me (I found this a bit odd, off-kilter), a bit of grandiose gesturing from me dismissing this strange inquiry, and another smiley, breathy, "No, no, I just hope you enjoy your evening."

Missionary work was one of the first big turn offs for me from the Baptist church in which I grew up, and in an extension of that swearing off, a dismissal of all of Christianity as a whole, for a time. I have chronicled my spiritual journey elsewhere, though perhaps it's time to bring it back to the foreground here in my blog. Anyhow, my early inklings as a history and anthropology student instilled in me much guilt for living just past an old creek bed in a house where no house used to sit and tribes used to roam freely, and it also aroused much suspicion and disdain in my being when, at Children's Sermon, a special interlude in the service where the pastor spoke to the kids, who came forward and gathered round for stories, magic tricks, puppets, and all sorts of marvelous, enticing stuff, little pieces of cardboard were produced, which could be turned into little houses or plain boxes with lots of colorful print about religiously-oriented mission work in places like India, quickly-assembled cardboard piggy banks to donate to such abomination organizations.

This bothered me to no end. Did not the people of India already have Hinduism, a perfectly valid religion, to follow reverently in their land? (At this time, nuances about the populations of Muslims, Buddhists, Jains, and other spiritual minorities or sects in India did not have especial prominence in my knowledge.) In any case, it was a step on my way to being swept up with Daniel Quinn's writing, which wove together so much of the uneasy feelings I'd already developed about the trajectory and ambitions of this culture into a coherent, acceptable (to me) whole. Missionaries rely on archaic views of the Other and what exactly that other needs in terms of assistance in physical and spiritual nourishment, and otherwise.

There was a lot of interesting material in the most recent part that I read of If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways about several common misconceptions of reality tied to Christianity, old premises that don't hold up to scrutiny, a topic I felt pleasantly surprised to find Quinn addressing, as I've spent so much of my time since Ishmael learning about logic, partly to find how Quinn fits into the intellectual precedent as a writer not officially of academic books, though heavily grounded in the findings of biology, anthropology, history, etc..

Keep reading: Missionaries...