other people's children

Welcome back readers, and welcome, new readers.

A video of a man having a meltdown on a plane because of a crying baby went viral a week or so ago. It’s the type of situation everyone has a reaction to, with some blaming the parents and plenty of others pointing out that crying is a thing that babies do. But even those of us who (hopefully) wouldn’t react to a crying child by shouting at it have at some time been annoyed at other people’s children – maybe for being in the wrong place (a fine dining establishment), or not behaving properly, or breaking something. As birth rates go down and having children is increasingly seen as a choice, the pressure for parents to avoid having their children inconvenience other people increases.

And yet. Even when annoyance is understandable (and we have it on good authority that parents sometimes even get annoyed at their own kids!), as Christians we have been commanded always to welcome this very special category of people, to whom the Kingdom of Heaven belongs and whose angels always see the face of God the Father.

Children of Yeongwol

Trudi – in Yeongwol, South Korea

Have you ever watched a parent patiently yet tiredly struggle to get a screeching, squirming child into a car seat? I have. Actually it was two children and by the time the second one was buckled in, the first one had wriggled free of hers. And then, before dad could put the car in drive, the baby pooped her pamper, giving the older two even more time to play “get out of the car seat”.

When the car door finally closed and the engine started (for the second time), mom and dad looked – not surprisingly – frazzled.

I waved goodbye as they drove off, aware that I’d been with the kids while they were full of energy and easy to entertain. Not really fair – parents always have to “pick up the pieces” and deal with whatever behavior results from overtired children.

Now to be honest, while some might like such responsibility-free enjoyment of those cute little human beings, I don’t really. Sure, it’s fun to let my inner child out now and then to join a child in jumping like a bunny or cooking pebble soup when I am invited to over to someone’s house, but it’s so temporary.

So I love nothing better than a classroom full of children where wet pants, stubbed toes, snotty noses, sandy feet, sticky hands, and yes, even bad breath puffed in my face, are part of the day. I don’t like to watch parents struggle to calm an upset child. I don’t like being an observer. I love to help children move through their emotions: frustrated to calm, angry to peaceful, crying to comforted, grumpy to happy. It’s not easy and it takes time but if children’s behavior is their way of communicating something then I am privileged to join a beautiful dance of mutual teaching and learning.

This puts me in the category of those who have to trust parents: trust that they’re doing their best, trust that their best efforts will work. Thinking I could do a better job and frowning disapprovingly at struggling parents just adds to their stress and probably also develops bad wrinkles. I’m no expert in anything but I’m quite certain that children are sensitive to the tension in the adult heart. Perhaps a kind smile or word of encouragement to parents will release their tension over a child’s disruptive behavior and, like sunshine after rain, storms will subside.

Marianne – in Woodcrest, upstate New York

My Grandpa Arnold was the best grandfather imaginable, and my memories of him are a jumble of picnics and campfires, fixing up go-carts and gadgets, star gazing and storm watching, and endless stories read to my siblings and me. I think about him and Grandma and how they loved us the way children should be loved: spontaneously, with focus on our well-being, and seemingly inexhaustible delight in our company.

In which I and my older brother and younger sister share a picnic with Grandpa

They showered love on plenty of other children as well: those who we brought to their house, those they encountered around the community, and the ones they tutored in public schools over many years. Then in May 2002, Grandpa was diagnosed with advanced cancer. In his few remaining months we continued with the stories and campfires for as long as we could, but as time went on he rested more and more. At the foot of his bed where he could always see it he hung a picture of his dozens of healthy, laughing grandchildren. Next to it (this was during the invasion of Iraq) was a picture he had cut from a newspaper: a weeping Iraqi child, crouched on a road and spattered with blood. I know he prayed constantly for all of us children; the category of “other people’s children” didn’t really figure with him.

The obverse of this is Ursula le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, a story about a city whose abundance and happiness depends on the misery of a single child.¹ Many in the city learn to make their peace with this suffering but it is intolerable to the ones who walk away. And so it should be for us: the suffering of one child should never be the price of adult selfishness. But whether that child is our own or on the other side of the world, there are better things to do than walking away. Many of the things we can do are easy and simple – pushing a swing, chalking out a hopscotch game, appreciating a bouquet of wildflowers and sticks. Others are hard and complicated and need the creative sustained help of pretty much everyone. And always, like Grandpa in his last months, we can pray for all children.

Norann – in Danthonia, New South Wales, Australia

My husband, Chris, and I have done a lot of international travel and have a running joke that if there are going to be unruly children on the fourteen-hour flight between Sydney and Los Angeles, their families will inevitably be assigned seats directly behind ours. Every kick, shriek, food tray upset, tantrum, and toilet trip is felt keenly – a shared experience we never asked for.

Each time this happens, we do our best to be sympathetic (even while giving thanks for the gift of noise-cancelling headphones). After all, Chris and I made the Sydney to New York haul five times while our sons were small: we were that family, squirming and squawking our way through the skies, in the row behind those people. We are well aware that it takes creative parenting and understanding passengers to make a journey like that with little people.

Those two ingredients are needed for any parenting journey, anywhere. Especially in community.

I’ll never forget the time when our community was celebrating communion outdoors: the wine was poured in large, stone jugs, the fresh loaves of bread were arranged on white cloths, and we were singing a festive song before the breaking of the bread. Our Australian community was very small then – just over 50 people – and were were all together in a family-style circle. (At the Bruderhof, only baptized adults partake in the Lord’s Table, but children are often present). In the hush that followed the song, our 4-year-old son squirmed off my lap and rushed to the center table. Grasping the wine jar with both hands, he leaned his face over the top and breathed in deeply. After several audible sniffs he raised his face and announced to everyone, slowly, clearly and with great enthusiasm, “You guys! You get to drink real and true wine!”

I wish I could say that was the only time something like that happened.

Raising children, teaching children, being around children means that we are compelled to drink reality and truth every single day. They want the full story, now, and not later. They insist that we focus on the present and nothing else, including ourselves. They demand our full focus in the best possible way – their vulnerability, tenderness, awkwardness and innocence bring us to our (often sleep-deprived) knees.

Our schedules, timelines, goals, and ideas are perpetually shredded and re-arranged to a better design. A design that renders us as the student, the child the teacher.

C.S. Lewis writes that “children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work."

What we’re enjoying

Marianne

Family games evening: My husband, Kent, and older children are all avid birders; at this time of year I’ve learned to anticipate the slowing of the car every time we drive past a swamp or stretch of river. So when I read a review of the board game Wingspan I thought we might enjoy it, and we do (everyone except the four-year-old). It’s beautiful, fun to play, and has all the merits described in the linked review plus two more that are especially valuable for a family like ours: 1. if someone loses focus and drifts away part way through it doesn’t wreck the game for the rest of the players, and 2. unlike most board games where it’s obvious who’s winning or losing and an unlucky throw of the dice might catapult somebody into a display of poor sportsmanship, with Wingspan you only find out who won after the scores are added up at the end. It is complicated to learn but worth it for the joy of hearing your 11-year-old say, “I am gaining food and then activating my prothonotary warbler so everyone can lay an egg on a bird with a cup nest and then take a rodent from the food supply.”

Trudi

What I’m reading: Recently Bruderhof’s Plough Publishing House promoted Eberhard Arnold’s Innerland series in a new box set. I received a hard copy of the first volume, The Inner Life, from a Korean friend who tried it and opted to wait until Eberhard is translated into Korean. (I commended her efforts and happily accepted the gift.) I read a couple pages but six months later, I’ve finally opened the book for real and am devouring it. Every sentence could be quoted, but I’ll let you discover the gems for yourself. Don’t worry if you’re like me and have to let the book sit for a while. It will wait until you’re ready to read.

What I’m listening to: Beethoven’s 6th symphony, “Pastorale” but only because of some huge old speakers – kindly housed in someone else’s house since my bedroom can’t accommodate such a large sound tower – that blast music that even Beethoven himself could have “heard” vibrating through the floorboards. It’s music for springtime when all nature is coming alive and it’s dynamite.

Norann

What I’m reading: I try to read Madeleine L’Engle’s Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage every couple of years. I first read it in high school (when Marianne introduced me to L’Engle’s fiction), then again after two years of marriage, then after moving to Australia with my very young family, and finally, now, as Chris and I are a few months shy of our 25th wedding anniversary. It’s an honest, profound read that adopts new shades of meaning with every reading. I’m processing it from the angle of having lost my father-in-law, Jerry, to cancer just over a year ago, and having observed the love, care, and absolute loyalty of my mother-in-law, Nancy, as she fulfilled the marriage promises that she and Jerry made to each other 55 years earlier “in sickness and health”. Madeleine’s reflections are not limited to marriage, however, but ring true for all stages of life: “The growth of love is not a straight line, but a series of hills and valleys,” and “If we are not willing to fail we will never accomplish anything. All creative acts involve the risk of failure.”

And now, to end: a recipe - Chicken Maqluba cooked outdoors

Contributed by Norann Voll

Recently, our family was invited to a remote part of our remote property to enjoy an outdoor feast with the Lester and Sandra Wright family in their handmade Adirondack shelter. Lester has taught his family to make maqluba, a delicious one-pot creation which he learned while living in Bethlehem, Israel.

Here’s video of our adventure and the simple recipe:

1. I’m pretty sure this story leans on the Grand Inquisitor episode in The Brothers Karamazov, where Ivan asks Alyosha:

“Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature – that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance – and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth.”

“No, I wouldn't consent,” said Alyosha softly.