I’ve been so busy sending calendars out (hand-written notes on the hundreds of letters we send with them – my hand grows withered and shaky by the end of each year) I haven’t had the time to post the second half of the 2012 edition as soon as I had hoped to. But better late than never – here we go!

This picture, this quote – ok, a BIT of a stretch to make it go with generosity. In fact, I loved the combination so much it gave me the idea for next year’s theme  (Passion!) and I thought I’d save it to use then. But never having been one for delayed gratification, I figured out a way to make it fit in my mind and slipped it in before anyone thought to question me.

What’s the connection? That’s me the fundraiser speaking there, courtesy Mary Oliver. Do not trouble me with budgets. Don’t disturb my sleep with the mention of an empty bank account. I’m casting the weight of those facts aside, see. I’m planning to be dazzled by your generosity. I’m looking to float above this difficult world.

(And that’s my nephew Owen Angelo showing how it’s done.)

August. These three little girls. I’ve never met them, but I am in love with their mother, Natasha Badhwar (and I’ve only met her once). There is something so evocative about this picture with this Biblical verse . . . the confident expectation of the children’s postures – the giving, the receiving – simultaneous and circular: the perfect image for that profound truth.

There is so much happening in this picture you fall into it and just go on gazing . . .

September, on the other hand, may be a bit too literal. For those of us who work in special needs, this is almost a hackneyed image (blowing out candles is a standard speech therapy exercise), yet it never fails to captivate our guest photographers. And this particular rendition manages to turn the cliche into something meaningful and deep. The child so intent on the flame, so eager to blow it out; the teacher so intent upon the child, anticipating his joy when he succeeds and ready to re-light it and start all over again and again and again . . .ironic in the context of The Buddha’s quote, yet no less true for that.

I love October for its exuberance and certainty – that birdie is going to come down. I may miss this swing, but there will be another chance, and another and another. Give and it will be given back. It’s your turn, it’s my turn, it’s your turn again. This game goes on and on.

Moy Moy is always the November pin-up girl. That’s just the way it goes. Maybe it’s nepotism, maybe it’s superstition. But Moy Moy is Miss November.

This picture has a story (Of course. They all do, don’t they?). Moy Moy was having a small seizure when I took it – those uplifted eyes are one of the symptoms – but it happened so quickly it wasn’t until I looked at the photo that I realized what had happened.

There is a book called “The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down” which is the literal translation of the word seizure among the Hmong people. The book is about a Hmong child living with her refugee family in the US who had seizures all her life and about her family’s understanding of what was happening to her vs that of the Western doctors who were treating her.

So often as I give Moy Moy the medications which keep her seizures under control I wonder about this. I think about the wisdom she has brought to our lives and the personal cost both to her and to us in acquiring it. I am grateful for the anti-convulsants which give her some tranquility and respite, but I am also drawn to the Hmong understanding of the spirit catching her . . . the Hafiz poem sums it all up for me: that God is watching her, that He kisses her forehead, that she has a holy lamp inside her heart.

And finally, December. This moment between a therapist and a child so perfectly captures the truth of Wordsworth’s line. This good man may never have recalled this moment (except that it’s now immortalized!) but its effect on this child may never be forgotten. We never know what will be remembered, what will be stored, what will wound and what will heal . . . I see these moments so often at Karuna Vihar – between our children, the young adults, the staff, the parents, our donors – all a part of a life on the edge, all aware, to one degree or another, of our precarious universe and of our deep need for each other, for the benefit of the doubt, for generosity.

The calendar, as I have said many times, is my favorite part of my job. It is my chance to send my deepest feelings about life and work and this three ring circus we inhabit out into the world, to thousands of friends and well-wishers and fellow travelers.

Thanks for your part in this journey. Happy New Year. May 2012 bring you joy and contentment and peace.