Johnson-Weider Family

Welcome to the website of the Johnson-Weider family! Michelle and Kirk have been together since the summer of 1993; Anton and Alina joined us in December 2004 from Murmansk, Russia. We hope you enjoy our site! Here's an overview:

Wild Irises is Michelle's blog about parenting, art, Buddhism, and life (accessible only to site members). Adoption Resources has links to articles that Michelle has written based on our ongoing adoption adventure, including book and parenting recommendations. Bibliophile is about Michelle's passion for books, with many subcategories, including Buddhist books, children’s books, light reads, and French books. Birthfamily Contact has information about our experiences with establishing and maintaining contact with our children's Russian birthfamily. Bollymania explores our adventures in Indian film and India: Books and More has more books and some movies that continue that fascination. Cinemaniacs features reviews of other movies. The Johnson-Weiders tells a little more about who we are. Stop by Cries of Joy and Anguish to tell us what you think, as well as to find out some of the blogs Michelle follows and some of the internet groups she belongs to.

Here's what's been happening most recently on johnsonweider.com (not including recent blog activity, which is posted on the sidebar):

June 24, 2010: more content added to the India: Books and More page

June 24, 2010: 4 new Bollywood movies reviewed here.

June 5, 2010: A bunch of Indian-related book reviews consolidated on a new page here and 3 books reviewed on my new "light reads" page:  The Mother's Guide to the Meaning of Life: What I've Learned in my Never-Ending Quest to Become a Dalai Mama by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and 2 novels by Laurie Colwin: Family Happiness and Happy All the Time.

May 17, 2010: I have finally added a bunch of Buddhist book and some Buddhist movie reviews here. Also, 13 new Bollywood movies reviewed here. I'm finally up-to-date!

January 16, 2010: a lot of activity recently on the Adoption Resources page as I turn several best of adoption/parenting blogs into articles and add additional useful content

Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. There was no one there.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.
- Desiderius Erasmus

Any idiot can survive a crisis; it's the day-to-day living that wears you down.
- Anton Chekhov

Does it do any good if I conserve?
Intricate reasoning on the causes and solutions of world hunger has its place. But there are times when the only answer is, "Because they have little, I try to take less."

- Doris Janzen Longacre, author of More-with-Less Cookbook

They can cut all the flowers, but they cannot stop the coming of spring.

-Pablo Neruda 

I said to my soul be still,
and wait without hope
Wait without thought...
So the darkness shall be the light,
and the stillness the dancing.
- T.S.Elliot

Above all remember...that you have a great opportunity... Millions all over the world would give almost anything they posses to be where you are. You are there by no desert or merit of your own, but only by lucky chance.

Deserve it then. Study, do your work. Be honest, frank, fearless and get some grasp of the real values in life. You will meet, of course, curious little annoyances...
- W.E.B DuBois  

Chance is fine when you're dealt five aces or at least four queens. Otherwise, forget it.
- Vincent Huidobro (quoted by Charles Simic in The Unemployed Fortune-Teller)

In misery it is great comfort to have a companion.

- John Lyly, Euphues

Pain is real when you get other people to believe in it. If no one believes in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria.

- Naomi Wolf 

You’ve traveled up ten thousand steps in search of the Dharma.
So many long days in the archives, copying, copying.
The gravity of the Tang and the profundity of the Sung
make heavy baggage.
Here! I’ve picked you a bunch of wildflowers.
Their meaning is the same
but they’re much easier to carry.
 ~ Xu Yun
  (From Empty Cloud: The Autobiography of the Chinese Zen Master, Trans. Charles Luck, ed. by Richard Hunn)

Be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust. Avoid providing material for the drama that is always stretched tight between parents and children; it uses up much of children's strength and wastes the love of the elders... Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.
- Rainier Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, quoted in Stumbling Toward Enlightenment by Geri Larkin

I ask Roshi to explain “Buddha nature” to me. This is the crucial concept in our practice, the essential ground from which all being emerges, the universal truth the Buddha realized when he said, “All beings, as they are, have the Buddha nature,” but it occurred to me during sitting this afternoon that I haven't the slightest idea what it means.
“'Formless cannot be explained,” he snaps. He picks up the bell to dismiss me, but then he adds, “Laddy-san, your TV have Channel Two, Channel Four, Channel Five, no?”

“Yes, Roshi.”

“What Channel Zen?”

“I have no idea.”

“Channel Zero! Can any channel! Channel Two can only Channel Two, but Channel Zero can any! Understand? Listen, mathematics you have, how you say, numerator, nominator. Nominator can any number, numerator always zero. Formless, understand? Anger, delusion, insincere, even selfish, all nominator, into zero equal zero! Your life always zero! Thought always zero! Memory always zero! You are completely free!”

- Lawrence Shainberg, Ambivalent Zen: A Memoir, quoted in Stumbling Toward Enlightenment by Geri Larkin.

In China there was a Zen master who spent his time traveling throughout the countryside, visiting different temples, always accompanied by a handful of disciples who were very proud of their master. One day they camped near a river. Looking downriver they noticed another group of monks. At the same moment, a member of the other group noticed the master and his disciples and walked along the path until he reached one of the master's disciples. As he stood facing the river, he asked if the wandering monk could do any magic tricks. He said his own master was particularly talented and in fact, could stand on this side of the river and write characters in the air, and if someone was standing on the other side of the river with a piece of paper in their hand the characters would appear on the sheet of paper. The monk listening to him replied that his master was also very talented, capable of performing the most amazing things. For example, if he slept, he slept and if he ate, he ate. Humbled, his visitor walked back to his group, determined to learn to master such feats even if it took him ten thousand lifetimes.

- from Stumbling Toward Enlightenment by Geri Larkin