Why is it we don’t really know about people until they
die?
For instance, after work last Friday, David and I and Carla Boelkens
took in the recently released film Julie
& Julia, starring
Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. (Oh,
a chick-flick, I can hear some thinking—but my husband
loved it, pronouncing it “one of the best films I’ve seen recently.”)
Directed by Norah Ephron, the narrative line melds the stories of Julia
Child in 1950s France at the start of her cooking initiatives with that
of modern-day writer Julie Powell, who is trying to “find herself” in
New York City. The contemporary Julie, disappointed in life and
overwhelmed with the success of her college classmates, finds comfort
in cooking. On a whim, encouraged by her husband, she decides to take
up the self-appointed challenge of preparing all 524 recipes from
Child’s successful classic Mastering
the Art of French Cooking, blogging about it as she goes.
The film is a delightful character study of the emerging identity of
two women struggling to find a central calling. I loved it!
Streep is in her artistic element. She inhabits Julia Child’s quirky
and expansive personality without making a caricature out of her. David
loved that both husbands, particularly the urbane, intellectual and
artistic Paul Child, interpreted sympathetically by Stanley Tucci, were
portrayed as fully developed and supportive personalities—Child,
particularly, ahead of his time.
This film, of
course, is inspiring cooking orgies in kitchens across the country. It
certainly did in mine. I spent one hot weekend making melon soup and
attempting to master the mysteries of vert-vert (green cake) from the book
Monet’s
Table: The Cooking Journals of Claude Monet. (Due, I’m sure, to my
deficiencies as a baker, it was a disaster from start to finish—but I
tried…)
Baking challenges aside, the best aftereffect of the film was that on a
foray with David to Borders Books (he had birthday gift-cards totaling
$35 and shared it with me; he bought a 700-page book on the Holocaust),
I picked up Appetite
for Life: The Biography of Julia Child by Noël Riley
Fitch. Oh my goodness!—all the things we don’t know about celebrities’
lives. Julia Child was a remarkable woman. Some of her bios indicate
she met her husband, Paul Child, when she was a file clerk working in
the Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner of the CIA) office in
Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in India during World War II. Indeed, Julia
often said she was a “file clerk” when she met the cosmopolitan man who
was to become her future husband and who introduced her, according to
back-page copy, to the “glories of art, fine French cuisine and love.”
The truth is that when most of her Smith College friends were getting
married, Julia volunteered to work with the OSS and ran the Office of
Information, using her considerable organizational skills to code,
catalogue and transmit the highly secretive war correspondence. At
first, she served in India in the office of Lord Mountbatten, then was
transferred to the interior of China, to Chungking on the Yangtze
River. War swirled around her office and coworkers, the revolutionary
troops of Mao Tse-tung battled with the followers of Chiang Kai-shek.
The Japanese army advanced. Military planes flew overhead. Plagues
raged; typhoid took its toll. But despite her “file clerk” disclaimers,
Julia and her ten assistants were “privy to all messages, both incoming
from the field, or Washington, etc., and outgoing to our agents and
operatives all over China-Burma-India,” Paul Child once wrote.
According to one expert, the OSS “amassed an incredible amount of
information about practically every nation in the world,” data that
would be used for years to come in every branch of the military.
Due to the Childs’ war duty, due to Paul’s later posting, after their
marriage, with the State Department as a Foreign Service officer in
Paris, due to Julia’s wealthy family and her education at Smith
College, the Childs knew practically everyone who was anyone during
those years. Theodore White was a friend who was originally a war
journalist. Their diaries are cluttered with names of close friends who
they seemed to keep for their entire lives—people who became important
in arts, politics, literature and government. It was quite a life. The
two of them were partners in labor and maintained a love affair in
marriage that is remarkable to read about.
In addition,
Julia was charming, winning, able to approach people from different
cultures and befriend and appreciate them. With a positive disposition,
she was above engaging in backbiting or petty jealousies, and with
Paul, she bit off life in a way that was exceptional and
inspirational—to me, certainly—but to her friends and family as well.
She didn’t have enemies. How amazing!—and all this without a religious
focus. Her high value was relationships. She lived that value out in
her life: She had people in her homes as guests, held dinner parties,
tested new recipes on embassy acquaintances, established working
friendships with cooking, publishing and NPR television-broadcasting
colleagues. All I can conclude was that the woman was not contemplative
and certainly no introvert—but she was admirable and loved by her loyal
associates, colleagues, friends and family; certainly loved by her
husband.
I have thought recently that it is tragic how little we know about
people until they die. They are often so much in the news, the
temptation is to assume we know who they are. However, I’ve found
myself thinking after the death of some public figure, I didn’t realize that. Why
didn’t I know that! Why doesn’t the press emphasize these remarkable
accomplishments when these people are alive? Why do we have to wait
until death comes to appreciate the victories and successes (often
successes that come after failures) of people we think we know.
Were you aware, for instance, that the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver
graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in sociology? Did you
know that she worked for the State Department in the Special War
Problems Division, emphasizing care for veterans with emotional trauma
after returning from war? Did you know that she was a social worker at
the Penitentiary for Women in Alderson, West Virginia, or that she
moved to Chicago as an employee of the House of the Good Shepherd and
Chicago Juvenile Court?
Most of us know that Eunice Shriver (President Kennedy’s sister, for
those younger than my generation—all of us were “Kennedy
family-saturated” in our earlier adult years) was the prime mover
behind the Special Olympics, but did anyone also know that the Joseph
P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation, which she led, exists to establish
programs, committees and institutes in order to achieve the prevention
of mental retardation by educating and improving the means by which the
larger society deals with its citizens who have mental retardation.
According to the Shriver Center biography on Eunice Shriver,
initiatives implemented under her guidance “include the National
Institute for Child Health and Human Development (1962), changes in
Civil Service regulations that allow persons with mental retardation to
be hired on the basis of ability rather than test scores (1964), the
Special Olympics (1968), major centers for the study of medical ethics
at Harvard and Georgetown Universities (1971), and the ‘Community of
Caring’ programs to reduce mental retardation among babies of teenagers
(1981-1997).”
If you want to spend 45 minutes that will bring tears to your eyes,
lift your spirit and make you vow to be a better person, go to the
Special Olympics Web site. Click on Eunice Shriver’s 1962 Saturday Evening Post
article about her sister, Rosemary. The article is a manifesto on how a
nation should regard its mentally challenged citizens. It is wonderful!
Then click on the section that shows several clips of a classic Irish
wake. You will howl as nephews (all claiming to be Aunt Eunice’s
favorite) tell outrageous stories of this most liberated of women (whom
Robert Kennedy, Jr. repeatedly deems “pious”). Ted Kennedy, Jr. (a
civil-rights lawyer for the disabled) tells one story of a sailing race
off Hyannis Port with Aunt Eunice and his father, Senator Ted Kennedy.
Their boat was in the lead, heading toward the point where the racers
turned and sailed back to the finish. While tacking, Eunice leaned back
too far, fell overboard and called out, “Go on! Go on! You’ll lose the
race. Pick me up on the way back.” So they did. She treaded water for
20 minutes, their boat turned around the point, picked her back on the
last leg, and they won the race. Don’t overlook clips of the funeral
with grandchildren reading the Scriptures, leading the prayers of the
people—a homespun, grand Catholic liturgical funeral in the beautiful
Hyannis church of St. Xavier.
What did
these two women have in common? They lived life completely,
exuberantly, jammed with friends and family and colleagues who all
adored them. They lived richly, wealthy in fullness, loving and being
loved. Age did not daunt them.
What do these biographies after death say to me? Two things.
First, I want
to do the end of my days better than I have done the middle. I want to
laugh with friends, be outrageous, care deeply about the needy, make my
passions count. I want to know about people now, not just after they have
died. Indeed, I want to know and be known. I want to love and be loved.
I want to participate deeply in the moments (like holding a Peach Day
in my kitchen, canning; one friend has already signed onto the labor
staff—we agree a day like this is a day of creating art, of capturing
summer’s beauty.)
The second
thing these biographies (and many others) say to me is that God seems
to have the peculiar aspect in His nature of looking only on our godly
accomplishments. What an amazing thought: With all the flaws, foibles,
idiosyncrasies, failings, sins, denials and truancies of the human
lives recorded in Scripture, Hebrews 11 seems to indicate that when we
die, all God remembers is whether we have been faithful. By faith Abel
… by faith Enoch … by faith Noah … by faith Abraham …by faith Isaac …
by faith Jacob … by faith Joseph … by faith Moses …
(We will overlook the apparent chauvinism of this passage and remind
ourselves that most great men are great because great and faithful
women stand beside them!)
So here’s to Julia, to Eunice—to the unnamed women of faith. Here’s to
taking the time to really know the people in my life. Here’s to living
the life large that God has given. Here’s to aging outrageously. Here’s
to shouting out to our racing companions, “Press on! Press on! Pick me
up on the way back!” Here’s to treading water. Here’s to keeping the
purpose of life in mind. Here’s to winning the race. Here’s to being
faithful. Long live fidelity!
Karen Mains
ANNUAL ADVENT RETREAT OF SILENCE:
Sign Up Soon!
Here’s a thought—several men have inquired if men can come to the
retreat. Our annual 24-Hour Retreat of Silence is only so because by
default the Hungry Souls lists are mostly women. Because we are
conducting a back-to-back retreat this December (for the first time),
we could easily make the weekend (Friday-Saturday) retreat
inclusive—for men and women. BUT—we don’t want five men to sign up and
be overwhelmed by 24 to 30 women attendees. So if men are expressing
envy about their wives or women friends attending Retreats of Silence,
please let Melodee Cook know at
. She acts as our volunteer
registrar. If enough men indicate interest, we will make sure that
planning will be gender-inclusive.
In 2009, the first retreat will run from Wednesday, beginning with
dinner, December 2 through Thursday, ending by 4:00 in the afternoon,
December 3. The second retreat will run from Friday, beginning with
dinner, December 4 through Saturday, ending by 4:00 in the afternoon,
December 5.
This will make room for those who work during the days and don’t feel
as though they can take time off during the week.
Our fees will be $120 for a single room with private bath. However, if
you register early, by October 15, your fee will be $100. If you bring
someone who has NEVER attended a Hungry
Souls Advent Retreat of
Silence, the welcome fee for any new attendees (and for you) will be
$90.
(The weekend retreat costs us $5 more. Add that amount to the fees --
$125, $105 or $95.) The cutoff date for registrations is November 25.
Since we must
give a firm number to the Bishop Lane Retreat Center in Rockford, IL
and pay for that number, we cannot return payments after the cutoff
date.
Valerie Bell, Karen Mains and Sybil Towner will lead these two retreats
again this year. This Hungry
Souls Retreat of Silence is a guided
retreat. We begin silence at 9:00 the first evening. If you are
interested, contact our volunteer registrar Melodee Cook at
.
If you are outside of the Chicagoland area and would like to fly in for
any of our retreats, our staff or volunteers will be happy to meet you
at the airport and facilitate any sleeping arrangements that might need
to be made for our silent retreats.
AFRICAN BAGS ARE HERE!
We now have 300 African-made
kanga-cloth bags in the Global
Bag Project office. Carla Boelkens and I will gladly hold
home-based bag parties in the Chicagoland area. Just sign up at
and
we will get in touch with you. Carla and Doug Timberlake fly to Nairobi
September 4. David Mains is using frequent flyer mileage and will have
to transit alone via Turkish Airlines through Istanbul, then down to
Nairobi. Pray for him; he is 73. They will be organizing personnel and
systems to purchase fabric, train bag-makers, ship bags overseas, and
filming, hopefully, three more bag-maker stories (every bag has a
story). To see the first such story, of Mary Nduta, watch it on YouTube
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcWFLbQ3u0M&NR=1.
For contributions of $30 (+$6.95 shipping/handling), we can provide you with a kanga-cloth,
artisan reusable shopping bag. Shipping and handling are extra. Jim
Whitmer and his wife, Mary, photographers par excellence,
have put
together a YouTube “Dancing Bag” clip. That link is HERE
and will show
just a sample of the kanga-cloth patterns that are available. The bags
are cotton; the fabric is made in East Africa. The bags’ bottoms have a
firm lining, and the straps are reinforced. Proceeds go directly to the
Global Bag Project
and are helping to sustain the living of Christian
sisters and their families. Some of the HIV/AIDS widows we work with
are struggling with health issues. There are 30 or more children
involved with these mothers. Pray for renewed health for our African
friends. Make out a check for $36.95 to The Global Bag Project, and send to P.O. Box 30, Wheaton, IL 60187.
Please pray for safety and strength for David, Doug and Carla. We also
need financial donations to underwrite some of the expenses. David and
Karen are taking out a home equity loan to provide liquidity when
needed, but in this economy and at the end of a summer without many
gifts, your contributions toward the project will be greatly
appreciated.
Reminder!
The Soulish Food e-mails are
being
posted biweekly on the Hungry Souls Web
site. Newcomers can look that over and decide if they want to
register on the Web site to receive the biweekly newsletter. You might
want to recommend this to friends also. They can go to www.HungrySouls.org.
Karen Mains
"I want to do the end of my days
better than I have done the middle. I want to laugh with friends, be
outrageous, care deeply about the needy, make my passions count.
I want
to know about people now,
not just after they have died."
Book Corner
Appetite for Life:
The Biography of Julia Child
By Noël Riley Fitch
Makes
you want to cook, and live and invite friends over for dinner.
Some great videos I’ve watched recently might also lift your
spirits. They were exceptionally moving to me.
Taking Chance,
an HBO presentation starring Kevin Bacon, tells the story of how
one Marine, killed in Iraq, is accompanied all the way home by military
personnel. Truly a moving slice of society.
The Soloist
starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jamie Foxx tells the story of a Los Angeles Times
reporter who befriends a gifted musician who is also schizophrenic and
homeless. Through this moving and challenging story, the viewer is
introduced to the plight of the homeless in this western city (more
than all the major cities of the States combined) and to the people who
work among them. Be sure to view the Special Features on the DVD.
Mark Twain,
a documentary on his life by Ken Burns. Karen and David traveled to
Hannibal last summer with grandkids and made a note to pick up this
series. Well, it’s being watched this summer. But half of Twain’s book,
Life on the
Mississippi, has
been read so far. Both the DVD and this book are a rich reintroduction
to America in the 1900s. Twain scholars and biographers in the
documentary beautifully explain Samuel Clemens’ (alias Mark Twain)
contribution to American life and literature. We really understand the
role of Huckleberry Finn
(the
first novel giving the viewpoint of a black male portraying his
feelings and desires as a human being). All considered, it was, and
still is, a stunning accomplishment. The book was banned, when it was
released, because the vernacular writing was considered indecent. Twain
is quoted as rejoicing over that fact, seeing that the banning would
probably sell 25,000 more copies!
