On Friday, Miriam will turn 5 years old. She has, for years now, had a special love of all things porcine. Her middle name, after all, is Fern, and she has felt a special affinity for all the insufficiently loved Wilburs of the world.
So when Jane found a pattern for a cute pig pillow, she instantly wanted to make it for her little sister. It looked simple enough.
Bill took Jane shopping for fabric. Miriam's room is pale green, and we are planning to add purple trim this summer. So the resulting plaids and polka dots seemed perfectly fitting.
The only trouble is that my ancient sewing machine quit working with several broken parts more than a year ago. I let my little budding engineers disassemble it as a science project one day. So, we were dependent on the kindness of friends for this project.
Fortunately, there's no shortage of that in our lives!
Jane took all the cut pieces, instructions, pins and pins and pins, thread, elastic, and stuffing to the home of her friend Elizabeth Walton, who is quite a crafty person and has her own sewing machine. I envisioned the two girls working together to sew the puffy pillow pig, even if it turned out a little amateurish. That would just make it all the more endearing, right?
But, I did not predict that upon arrival, Jane's interest in sewing would be surprisingly diminished. The interactions, toys, and activities at her friends' home were suddenly much more distracting.
I later learned that dear Lerenda spent most of the day herself sewing Wilbur's companion, which we are now dedicated to calling "Walton."
Tonight I finished the last details: sewing on the ears and eyes, and closing him up once and for all. I expect one little Fern will be delighted come Friday.
So there he is, in all his fine array: Meet Walt, the pig.
Eve means life. Adam named the woman Eve because she would be the mother of all the living.
But Adam and Eve rebelled against the ultimate Life-Giver, and the Mother of All the Living—and all the mothers of the living to follow her—now has that life-giving experience tainted by death. Now there is great pain in childbearing.
I’ve often thought that the pain in childbearing mentioned in Genesis 3 is not so specific to refer simply to the actual labor pains themselves, though that would qualify. I tend to think that all the pains of motherhood—barrenness, miscarriage, birth defects, loss of a child—are examples of that pain, as is watching your children mature through hard lessons, to fall and have to get up again, to hurt and long for truth that they must wrestle with themselves. Mary, the Ultimate Eve, had her own heart pierced with the proverbial sword, and every life-giver since has felt it alongside her.
I am now experiencing a difficult recovery from surgery. Though not life-threatening, the initial diagnosis was shocking to me. A part of the result of this surgery is the certainty that I will not again carry children in my own body. Am I less Eve, less life-giver, as a result? It is a question I have asked.
As I've been thinking on this state of being, it came to mind for me from a Bible study many years ago that the role of woman in giving life is not simply a matter of producing children. I reflected today on those dear friends I have known who have not been able to have their own families, either due to the gift of singleness, or barrenness, or loss. Are these women not also still Eve? I look at the actions of their lives—the ministry to others, the sharing of their gifts, the words of encouragement they have spoken, the effect they’ve had on other children they have come alongside to support and nurture. They infuse life into the hurt and the weak and the immature and the suffering. This is Eve. This is mothering.
Today, a remarkable thing happened, and this whole idea of life-giving as being something broader and more significant than simply child-bearing literally exploded for me.
Earlier this week, a friend brought me a huge and lovely bouquet of StarGazer Lilies. Oh, how I understand StarGazer Lilies. A double image of the Trinity is represented by two sets of petal threesomes, one superimposed on the other, making the six-sided shape of the Star of David—the symbol of mankind—almost reaching perfection, and yet in mystical union with the Godhead. On the outside, the trumpet-shaped flowers are purely white, without blemish. But look inside, and you see the bright red speckled interior, as if they have been opened up and sprinkled with blood. Now so purified and sealed, each one lifts its perfect trumpet heavenward to stare open and fully exposed at the stars, awaiting the glorious reappearing of our Lord.
These flowers were brought to me cut from the plant. I placed them in a vase of water to prolong their inevitable demise, to enjoy their beauty even while I waited for their death. But these cut flowers somehow didn’t behave according to the natural way of things since the fall.
Aaron’s rod was a dead stick, but to show God’s resurrection power, it budded and produced almond blossoms and leaves. It’s a promise to all who come after and believe.
And so, it seems , it is with my StarGazer Lilies. Today, rather than shriveling and dropping petals, one lily on that cut stem has burst forth with vitality and fertility. It still seeks to bring new life.
What am I to take from this? I marvel at the possibility that this is a message for me, the one who just last week was cut and so, I thought, redefined. But also touched by the Holy Spirit and designed to be in relationship and fellowship while I await his glorious reappearing. Because I am so blessed, I can still bring life and nurture and healing.
So Jane recently saw the movie UP, and that got her to thinking. Is it possible to lift a real house with helium balloons?
As it happened, the homeschool Science Fair was just around the corner, so she decided to pursue this as her project. She would try to determine the number of helium balloons needed to lift a small, wood-sided (foundationless) house completely off ground level.
She started her project by contacting a home-demolition company online. They told her that a two-story house with wood siding like the one she described would weigh about 60.5 pounds per square foot, or 121 pounds per square foot of footprint.
We evaluated pictures of the house from the movie and estimated that the house in UP was about 800 square feet, with about a 400 square foot footprint.
Making her calculations.
She did her math to find that the house should weigh about 48,400 pounds. An online website helped her convert that to 21,954 kilograms.
Toy Jeep = 9 balloon units
Using new pennies, which have a mass of 2.5g each, and our balance, she found the mass of several small items around the house. Then she experimented to see how many balloon units (one balloon unit = 1 12-inch latex balloon, filled with helium and tied with a 3-foot segment of nylon kite string) it took to lift each of those small objects: a toy Jeep, a banana (a la Goodnight Gorilla), a toy football.
Then came the big experiment. She would estimate the number of balloon units needed to lift the model house she was using for her project: a 2-pound, 5 ounce (1,049g) plastic dollhouse in a style similar to Mr. Frederickson's house in UP.
I let her make her estimate based on her own interpretation of the facts gathered from floating the other objects. Her prediction was that it would require 180 balloon units to lift the toy house.
We inflated and tied on balloons in clusters of 10. At 80 balloons, it was clear that this house wasn't budging.
Watching the house hover so briefly.
We kept trying, but our helium supply ran out at 208 balloon units. The house still would not clear the ground, but the front corners were just beginning to lift, and if she tossed it into the air, it would hang there for just a fraction of a second before dropping back down with a serious thud.
Held aloft by just one finger, but it's not quite enough.
After looking at her math again, she revised her estimate to 230 balloon units, but we were unable to test it. She will be presenting at the Science Fair on Friday, stating that she still believes her theory is plausible, but that she was not able to prove it at this time.
Oh, well--I guess we'll be in for a repeat in the future. I wonder if there's grant money available for this kind of research.
Deep snow on the deck railing, 8:00pm Friday night.
Deeper snow, just 20 minutes later.
The numbers: 12 inches of snow. 22 hours without power. 12 kids playing and eating Popsicles in the front yard. 1 lost white glove. 29.6 degrees--the max temp reached in my freezer before the power came back on. 55 degrees--the average temp in the house for most of the day. 8 potatoes baked on the hot stones of the hearth, pioneer style, for dinner. 27 soggy mittens or gloves to wash.
Happy Jill in the snow.
Emma, Jill, and Pilot.
Closeup of Jane as she zips past me on the sled.
Miriam sledding--pure joy for our little wild child.
Once again, our three older girls participated in the CRPC Christmas play. Miriam reprised her angel role. Emma was a townsperson who was also well-versed in biblical prophecy regarding the coming of the Messiah, called before Herod to testify. And Jane was also a townsperson with a solo to sing: Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendor. Another good show, somehow pulled together by the combined gifts of the George family, for whom we are so grateful.
