I have spent the afternoon sorting donations, and I am pleased to report that we will be sending at least 50 backpacks to Japan next week. Amazing!
Have you put together a backpack to send? There is still time!
Backpacks for Japan Update
Operation Backpacks for Japan
I haven't written anything about Japan, a country where I have spent many happy weeks and where I have many friends. I've watched the news coverage of the disaster (is that word even big enough for what continues to happen?), and I remind myself of what Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers to so many of us, once wrote:
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.But Japan is so far away. How can we be helpers? Here's how!
Operation Backpacks for Japan
The Girl Scouts at Camp Zama in Japan are collecting "comfort backpacks"to distribute to displaced children across the country, and YOU can help! There are three ways to help:
Send a Backpack: buy a child's backpack. Fill it with a few goodies from the list below. Stick it in a box with a note of love and support (use simple English), and mail it to:
Send a Backpack: buy a child's backpack. Fill it with a few goodies from the list below. Stick it in a box with a note of love and support (use simple English), and mail it to:
USA Girl Scouts - Zama
Att: April Snyder
GDS Box 62
APO AP 96337-9998
Donate Money: the church I attend is doing a giant shipment of backpacks in the next few weeks. If you would like to contribute money instead to help with the cost of materials or shipping, you can put a check in the mail to:
St. John's Lutheran Church | Att: Angela Nickerson | 1701 L Street | Sacramento, CA 95811
Write "Japan Backpacks" in the memo line. You can also contribute online -- just note that your funds are for "Japan Backpacks." We will be sure to send you a receipt, and 100% of your donation will go toward this project.
In the Sacramento area? You can drop off donations at the church, too. Check out the list below of suggested items to be included in the backpacks.
Start a Backpack Drive Yourself: the Girl Scouts at Camp Zama have all of the information you need on their website.
Start a Backpack Drive Yourself: the Girl Scouts at Camp Zama have all of the information you need on their website.
Get your kids involved! Get your office involved! And if you're getting involved, leave a comment below and let us know!
Here's the list of suggested items to include in the backpacks you send:
- children’s backpacks
- paper, pens, crayons
- flashlights w/ batteries
- small stuffed animals
- playing cards
- hats
- small packs of tissue
- non-perishable snacks
- games, jump ropes
- hats
- small blankets
- hairbrushes/ combs
- toothpaste/ toothbrush
- lotion
- chapstick
- sanitary items / toilet paper
Thanks for being a helper!
Becoming Nicodemus
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish by may have eternal life.” John 3:16
Behind the Duomo -- in the center of historic Florence, Italy -- sits a small museum. The sign over the door simply reads, “Museo” -- not particularly strong advertising which probably explains the lack of crowds in this museum. But the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo holds one of Michelangelo’s most personal and dramatic works of art: the Florentine Pieta.
When, at the age of 24, Michelangelo finished the better-known "Rome Pieta," he became an instant celebrity. But that stunning, polished work is the composition of a younger man... one who lost his own mother when he was six years old. "The Rome Pieta" is the work of a young man looking for financial security and trying to make a place for himself in Renaissance Italy. "The Florentine Pieta" is a work of another kind.
In 1574 Michelangelo’s best friend, Vittoria Colonna, died. Vittoria had been his deepest confidante. Every Sunday afternoon, they sat on a balcony at the convent where she lived in Rome. Together they discussed the deep theological questions of the day: What is the nature of grace? What is the nature of sin? Who has religious authority on Earth? They had watched the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation first-hand, and they were both keenly interested in theology. They wrote letters to each other and shared poems back and forth.
So, when Vittoria died, the seventy-two year-old Michelangelo was bereft. He turned to poetry, writing about her as a blessing in his own life:
But Heaven has taken away from me the splendor
Of the great fire that burned and nourished me;
I am left to be a coal, covered and burning,
And if Love will not offer me more timberMichelangelo also turned to marble for solace. He began work on "the Florentine Pieta," a deeply personal piece which he intended to be his own gravestone. "The Florentine Pieta" depicts Nicodemus and two young woman supporting the body of Jesus as it is pulled down from the cross. Nicodemus’ face is a portrait of the artist himself.
To raise a fire, in me there will not be
A single spark, all into ashes turning.
So, why did Michelangelo choose to depict himself as Nicodemus? Because, like Nicodemus, he was filled with questions -- and yet, he simultaneously believed. In their dialogue, neither Vittoria Colonna nor Michelangelo feared asking hard questions. They both saw questioning as a deeper part of faith -- not a popular opinion in Rome during the Counter-Reformation. Indeed, much of their recorded dialogue sounds rather Lutheran in context and might have endangered Michelangelo’s career had it been made public. Thus Michelangelo was obsessive about burning his papers leaving relatively little behind after his death.
Reread that story of Jesus speaking to Nicodemus (John 3). Jesus doesn’t shame Nicodemus for asking him questions. He answers. And Nicodemus continues to ask him the hard questions. But when it comes time for the crucified Christ to be taken from the cross, it is Nicodemus who is there to do the hard work -- perhaps still asking those deep and important questions -- but believing all the same.
Michelangelo’s self-portrait, then, is one of both humility and faith. He, too, has questions, but there in stone he puts himself at the foot of the cross, believing all the same. After eight years of work on "The Florentine Pieta," Michelangelo abandoned the piece. But even unfinished, it is a work which speaks to the power of faith and the artist’s comfort with a questioning spirit. And perhaps as an unfinished work, it is even more powerful, for while we believe, like Nicodemus we also have questions... perhaps even to the very end.