My roommate Scott (Jiang Zhongle) from China looked around my church and said with a smile, “I’m definitely the minority.”  I agreed in laughter.  He was a minority but there was another person from China in our midst.  A couple from our church has just adopted a seven-year-old girl from China.  Her new name is Mandy and her English is not so good. 

She is cute but she is confused and probably frustrated that no one around her understands her.  She can’t tell stories or disappointments she can’t ask questions or give commands.  She has trouble taking directions and heeding advice.  She has been here for a few weeks now and she is getting used to that confused look when she speaks to someone and I’m guessing that that reassuring (adult) smile is probably getting old to her.  Her dad said fortunately she is a good artist and that is how she communicates sometimes.  So I had my roommate meet her.  And in a matter of minutes she had taken him aside and was talking his ear off.  He sat on the ground and she squatted in typical Chinese fashion.  It was a beautiful scene.  She was telling him things about her past and about her present.  Conveying frustrations and asking advice.  She was furiously speaking and listening.  It was as if my friend Scott was her Chinese oasis and she was very thirsty.  

Her American brother was asking the dad, when they could go home and eat lunch and her dad watching the situation replied, “as soon as she’s done talking.”  I later told her she was very cute in Chinese and then asked her if she agreed and she confidently did.  When they were leaving she said, “buh bye!”  Pray for Mandy. 

 

–Change your diaper…-Eric

A Thousand Words

I’ve been hanging around Books-A-Million reading the above book.  While doing so, I came across this picture of George W. Bush meeting with former president of China Jiang Zemin…and when I did, I paused for a moment for it summed up allot.  I think pictures have an uncanny way of speaking to us and telling us things about ourselves and our experiences and this picture was no different.  After making sense of it all, I phoned Tyler and told him that I found a picture that spoke unspeakably.  He googled it and we laughed as he saw what I saw… he understood what I understood.  Well, I’ll just let the picture speak for itself…

 

–Silence says much about a person…-Eric

Two Story Tellers

A Russian and a Jew.

 

I’m speaking of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Bob Dylan.  If you need a new perspective on the human condition then I suggest this novelist and this songwriter.  They are uninhibited-truth-tellers. 

 

Dostoevsky is a psychologist of the soul, I guess that makes him a priest and Dylan is, “pure philosophy” (Grant Woody)… both are void of sophistry and both are worth the time on the wall.  They take the fruits of passion, art and truth and grind them together to make a darn good smoothie. 

 

–“Everyone in town is moderately depressed” (Walker Percy)…-Eric