It takes a village....Thulani Temba Marshall Smith - April 1, 1998

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Come help us celebrate Thulani Temba Marshall Smith's 13th Birthday, Friday, April 1st at his house - 122 E. 32nd Street - 6:00pm. Food and drinks for all, and as we say, "Cheers and well done Thulani!!!"

I just looked at my Journal Volume 6 - On the cover are these words: Thulani Temba Marshall Smith - The Peace Child & Creator of Hope, welcomed into this world by all of us, April 1, 1998:

Here is my journal entry for Wednesday, April 1, 1998:

"He was born at 4:30pm. We each held the boy and prayed for him in a circle as he was passed around. His mother sang a song....Rod delivered him as the birth coach. What an experience. I imagine we will have lots to talk about with Jenny (who gave birth alone as a teenager) and Laurie who has a daughter. I do believe he will want to adopt the child!!! Wow, saying "YES" more than "NO" has lots of ramifications."

April 2nd, 9:45 am: "Rod called from his cell phone...he is adopting Thulani Temba Marshall Simth, and brining him home to 215 E. 32nd Street. ROD IS A FATHER!!!!! Thulani is a grandchild of Judy Blough and godson of the Reel family. He will be raised to embrace his African heritage and American heritage. To God be the Glory."

Friday April 3rd, 7:30pm: Rod arrived home with Thulani Temba Marshall Smith. Judy had dinner for everyone. We lit the Rhino and Thulani didn't even wake up...he is a good baby. All the kids wanted to take care of the boy. We smoked a cigar and drank some beer, but forgot to open the Champaign."

Saturday April 4th, 9:00am: We went to Rod's this morning and everything went well last night. The baby slept well, waking at 3:00am and 5:00am. He will be getting a passport soon. Yesterday the ________ called and dumped some anxiety on Rod...about adopting the baby. Rod spent some time with Ann trying to get perspective...was he doing the right thing...was his mother being fair, not giving couples the chance of adopting the baby? He talked with her again at the hospital to get her input...she still was firm about Rod adopting Thulani...she explained that few American's have Ubuntu ("I am what I am because of who we all are"-soul, spirit), but Rod has it. They can communicate without words...the mother and Rod. It certainly seems right. "I believe the Lord has his hand in this...the finger prints of God are all over this..." Out of Africa, Amen!

Well done Rod, and Happy Birthday T.....

Next page in the journal: April 1st, 1998 Editorial entitled, "Moral preening on a trip to Africa" by Mona Charen. "....the outlook for most African babies born today is terribly bleak."

Cheers and Blessings on St. Patrick's Day

Esther De Waal reminds us that the Celtic world of faith understood life as a journey rather than merely a destination. Encouraging a deeper, fuller way of being, of living within the whole of themselves and Creation, St. Patrick nurtured a nation of agrarian tribes in the baptism of their collective and fertile imaginations.

With a generous spirit of orthodoxy, the ancient Irish Christians were able to embrace the natural rhythms of Creation, both the light and the dark seasons. These seasons became symbols of the Celtic refusal to avoid pain and suffering, while at the same time rejoicing and celebrating the fullness and goodness of humanity created in the image of God.

Centuries before the Great Schism of early faith communities into Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism and long before the Reformation, Celtic Christianity was instinctively communal, shunning any separation of praying and living and working. For them faith was inseparable from ordinary life with no notions of sacred/secular divisions. All life including Creation was..."taken up by a Christianity that was not afraid of what it found but felt that it was natural to appropriate it into the fullness of Christian living."

Celtic culture shared much with the traditional and aboriginal peoples around the world who rejected overt individualistic and competitive inward-seeking lifestyles common today. They recognized themselves instead as belonging to one another and embraced life as mutually interdependent beings within the whole web of Creation.

Our quantum world and the new science that describes it today, speaks the same language of mutual holistic entanglement, linking us all together in this unfolding work of Art that we Christians call the Kingdom of God.

"The Celtic world touches all of this but yet remains totally unique, earthly, and mysterious, knowing darkness and pain but equally rejoicing in light, full of poetry and song and celebration, showing us the depths of penitence and the heights of praise, touching us in the secret hidden parts of our own selves and yet connecting us with others. So although each of us is in the end solitary, St. Patrick reminds us that we travel in company with those who have made this journey before us, by the whole company of heaven, the saints and the angels, a "cloud of witness", who surround us and who hold us up as we go."

Cheers, and enjoy the Celtic challenge!

O'

Adapted from The Celtic Way of Prayer - The Recovery of the Religious Imagination by Esther De Waal