“The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us the divine floods of light and life flow no longer into our souls.” Elizabeth Cady Stanton

a moment of sunlight in Seattle

Many stories and moments and memories as we celebrated the wedding of our son Adam and his love and Riddhi in Half Moon Bay, California. Family, friends, color, ceremony, food, laughter, tears–but the best part was seeing the joy as Adam and Riddhi looked into each other’s eyes. Really the best.

Here are some of the moments and events:

Pujas

Pithi -- Riddhi's turn

Pithi -- Adam's turn

Groom's Dinner

Barat

Ceremony

With my newest daughter

Hopefully, Michael Kelly won’t mind if I share part of his message with you:

“Very many thanks indeed for the many messages that you sent to me early last week. They arrived just as I was leaving for Rwanda, for a workshop on Stigma and Discrimination for personnel from higher education institutions from Rwanda, Botswana, Kenya and Uganda. It was a good but very full and demanding week.

When in Kigali last week I was able to visit the National Memorial Site commemorating the 1994 genocide. A very traumatic and harrowing experience. What was most moving was the hall with pictures of beautiful children, all of them aged five or six or less, and all of them brutally murdered during the genocide. You could almost feel the children jumping out at you in the pictures to get a hug or embrace, but all they received was the bullet or the machete. And it’s terrible to think that the world is letting something similar happen in Darfur, eastern Congo, and other parts. When will we ever learn? And will children help us to learn that we must stop this appalling destruction of innocent lives? Maybe, some year, a World Forum could go back to this issue of children and conflict situations (something you dealt with in Montreal and possibly also in Belfast, but that bears revisiting).”

In Boston I spent a day with Martha Vibbert at SPARK at Boston Medical Center in Mattapan. This program serves fragile children, working to nurture them in a “normal” early childhood program and develop and sustain their possibilities. Part of their work is with young adults who were in the program as very young children, who are living with AIDS, mentoring them to create futures. This program has figured out how to create a home, a place of safety, for children with great vulnerabilities and for their families, and it is working hard to ensure their futures. As I spent time in the program, I saw these young adults caring for severely challenged little children. I heard music that they are composing and recording. I listened to the bits of their stories that they were willing to share. And I saw their skills and their enjoyment of working with young children. Hopeful people doing important work. Quite the program.

We visited with Chip and Leah Rood, recently retired creators of Gryphon House. Now these are people who are passionate about politics and possibly as deeply in love with books, ideas, reading. It’s curious what being around passionate people can do to a person. Being with Chip and Leah makes me eager to pick up the books in their living room and dining room and kitchen and bathroom–and begin to read. I have to be careful not to just tune-out with a book in the midst of our conversation. They make me excited about books and eager for the ideas–what great role models the Roods are, and great friends too.

In the photo they are enjoying my granddaughter Caroline.