In the photo he carries her
As blood drips from her severed leg
Shattered by shrapnel
Extraordinary courage
Reads the caption and the Boston mayor
Says we are fearless
In the face of evil but in both
Of their eyes I see fear
I think this new day my son of the moments and
Years you have been your own only
Hero carrying your shattered self
In both of your eyes the fierce fearful
Resolve to carry on
From calamity
Both of your selves
Born into blood
Into the many selves you would need
Not only to carry but
Console and cajole and conjure and cling
The fear now
Held by another
One
With the fierce extraordinary courage to
Be

Scott Dewey is proud adoptive Dad of Crăciun Lingurar Dewey. Eighteen years ago today, Crăciun was born into a Roma (Gypsy) village in Romania. As a plaque in the Dewey home says, “God danced the day you were born.”

I travelled to Romania for two weeks recently. Out of all my many remarkable experiences, the most amazing was walking into the home of a stranger and seeing at the kitchen table a young woman eating a bowl of soup. Just sitting there, calmly, spoon in hand, slurping soup! Though my heart was pounding at the sight, I held it together in that moment—saving tears of gratitude for later.

Today is Easter Sunday, so I’m writing in celebration of the resurrection of our Lord. No, a software glitch didn’t mess up the timing of this blog post. In the Eastern liturgical calendar, Easter often falls a week later than in the West. Some years I’ve attended Easter services in both USA and Romania on consecutive weeks. Of course in the Christian tradition, every Sunday commemorates the resurrection—celebrated from the early times as “the Lord’s Day.”

So today is simply an ordinary Easter, especially here in the West where it now falls in that long stretch of the liturgical calendar known as Ordinary Time. I’m reminded of Jesus’s post-resurrection appearances that were evidently quite ordinary in nature, according to Gospel accounts. Often he wasn’t even recognized as anyone notable, even by friends. Outside the tomb, Mary Magdalene took him to be the landscape guy. Emmaus travelers mistook him for a fellow pedestrian. Though he performed many spectacular wonders before his death, afterward he typically shared himself with simple touch, a meal, or tender conversation.

I’m not denying or dismissing the spectacular. As a recreational fisherman, I’d be thrilled with the help Jesus gave the disciples in the boat after the resurrection. And I’d welcome the miracles of the apostles in Acts. But I do have a growing awareness of the addiction we might have to the “amazing.” Some observers have even suggested we ban this word. We watch SportsCenter for the Blake Griffin poster jam, not the Steve Nash pick-and-roll play. (Non-sports fans, please resume reading.)

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I was in Romania last week, with members our summer camp team visiting with abandoned children we have known for the past dozen years. Over the years we have grown to be like a large extended family, with our times together resembling “family reunions” more than typical “mission trips.”

For me, the aftermath of my trips to this hard place—a large government child warehouse marked by deprivation and exploitation—is typically deep grief mixed with a little gratitude and brave hope. This time, the proportion was reversed. I find myself overwhelmed with thanks, and anticipation for the future. Our teen and young adult loved ones are going to make it.

I’m not sure what the tipping point has been. Conditions aren’t much better for these guys.

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Where do we look for the sacred?

As I look out my apartment window in Romania, I can view the ongoing construction of a church amid the grey apartment complexes that line the narrow alley. Above the flat-roofed concrete buildings stands a beautiful ornate steeple with four minor steeples surrounding it. Last year before Easter, workers hung from the very top of the structure, laying down sheets of shiny copper to adorn the steeple. This year before Easter, a gigantic bell has been added which rings reminding us of the beginning of each new hour. The strange part of the whole affair is that below the steeples is a shell of a church under construction. There are no windows or doors. Scaffolding of weathered wood boards is tacked to the building here and there. Most of the time no workers can be seen, and certainly no worshippers.

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Imagine what it is like to be mute. To be silent every day, to never say a word. Sounds escape: grunts, moans, the occasional squeal of laughter. But no words.

I first met her in a Romanian orphanage. She was standing in a hallway corner, rocking. It was no gentle swaying movement; her whole body lurched back and forth, back and forth, her hands held awkwardly in front of her to keep balance. I didn’t know she was a girl then, because just like all the other kids, her hair was cut short to keep lice away. I walked towards her and she recoiled, retreating farther into the darkness of the gray walls. “Cum te cheama?” I asked her. What’s your name? She said nothing.

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Alexandru-Iosif Kaltenbacher
March 18, 2003 – October 18, 2007

A cold north wind swept down upon us. The skies looked like storm-tossed seas. We huddled together, shivering. Plastic flowers bedecked the gray headstones that surrounded us. Teenaged orphan boys shoveled damp soil into a rectangular hole dug in the ground. I startled at the sound of dirt clumps thumping on the small casket below.

Today, we buried Alex. He was four and one-half years old. Alex was born to a young Roma (Gypsy) mother who lives in poverty in a small village in northwestern Romania. This young mother knew she could not properly care for Alex. No social system or specialists were in place to help her severely handicapped son.

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We stand in awe of the ocean
The thunderstorm
The sunset
The mountains
But we pass by
A human being
Without notice
Even though
The person
Is God’s most magnificent creation.
- St. Augustine

“If you could take a photograph of God’s most glorious handiwork, what would you photograph?”

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Everything is broken here, it’s a bit of an inside joke. The middle window in the living room doesn’t open without falling all the way off. It’s broken. The door to the bedroom won’t stay shut. It’s broken. Sometimes you get tiny electric shocks when you have your hands under the tap in the bathroom sink. It’s not technically broken, but seems potentially hazardous. We hang clothes out to dry on the line strung between the tree and the shed in the back yard because the dryer is technically, and in every other fashion, broken.

There is a girl here whom I am beginning to love like the way you love the future, in the way you can love the possible and embrace what cannot yet be seen.

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