Of Music 🎶 and olive shoots
On February 13, 2021 by Keturah HaferkampOne week in quarantine; one more week to go. Our community makes things easier on us. There are 5 families quarantining at one time. Keeping track of meals for us all and helping us with general needs has been a sweet blessing. Yesterday a professor friend and her husband (also a professor. Both are retiring soon) prepared a wonderful meal for our family. I’m humbled and touched by so much generosity.
As we sat around the table during dinner (supper) last night our girls asked us about the act of grafting a plant. Plants are a huge part of our family’s life. One of the big things we are looking forward to after quarantine is the care and keeping of the International Faculty Community Garden. We also now own several house plants, trees etc. Their care is part of our everyday.
Naturally conversations about plants are part of our everyday too. So at dinner last night the kids asked about grafting–had we ever seen it done? I chuckled. My dad, their grandad, is a gardner. When I was a child he grew collard greens (many other things too) which are a hearty plant and yield lots of food. I used to watch him break a branch from a stalk and then stick it straight up in dirt, water it and let it be. I remember my 12 year old self feeling strong feelings of ambivalence. I didn’t know much, but I knew he was in for some disappointment. He knew I was in for a surprise.
The branch took root and turned into its own stalk. Amazement at this has never left me. I explained to the girls that sometimes he’d even take a branch from another greens plant, slice an opening at the stalk and pressing the two together at their wounded parts, he would bind them together. After watering and adding some nutrients he’d leave them and wait. And would you believe that the plants became one!
We are like that. My husband took over explaining how the metaphor relates to our lives while I took a bite and watched them listen–like olive shoots around our table. 🫒
Oak trees, like olive trees, grow best in dry climates. The sandy, easy to drain soil of Southern California made for lots of mighty oak trees. Trees like these thrive in the Mediterranean. I saw olive groves for miles (kilometers?) when I visited Spain many years ago. At the base of gnarled, elderly oaks and olive trunks often sprout tufts of green shoots. It would be easy to think the tree is nearly dead until it starts producing shoots within perfect reach of human hands. The shoots can be pulled from the bulky, hoary base and distributed into orderly rows to make trees of their own.
Transplanted shoots don’t become trees overnight. Grafted branches won’t produce fruit overnight. Becoming is a slow, gradual process. I pray we see the fruit of these conversations around the table.
May we see our children’s children!
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The department director’s trip and arrival did not go as planned. Their family departed Honolulu to Guam to Manila and was supposed to connect to Seoul. But they were turned away at the gate in Manila and forced to return to Honolulu and wait, then reconnect to San Francisco where they then flew to Seoul. In all over 40 hours of flying time and 3 times over the Pacific in 3 days!!! 😳
This pandemic has upended so many plans and frustrated the best attempts at moving forward with the everyday. Immigrating across the world was already difficult; the global pandemic has definitely made things more challenging.
They are now safely arrived upstairs and we praise God for their safe arrival. We hear the pitter patter of little feet every now and then.
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The evening before yesterday evening we were making our own noise: we cleared the floor, turned the music up loud and danced til dinner was done. 🙂 We made JjaJangmyeon, courtesy of the Korean government, which provides 14 days worth of rations for folks in quarantine.
Music has this way of enlivening. Sing is among the most reiterated commands in the Bible so it comes as no surprise that music enriches Life. We sang, we danced and then we ate. I’m so impressed at these daughters of ours. Where in the world did they learn to dance?
I hope we didn’t disturb our neighbors. 💃🏾
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These are special days in East Asia. It is Lunar New Year. Praying for peace and blessing on all. ✨