We return to the National Museum of Art to browse the top floor.  We’ve saved it, knowing that we won’t get an adoption appointment today.

We enter the most fabulous rooms of paintings by Georgiy Melikhov (1908-1985).  In 1947, he won the Stalin prize, which speaks volumes.  Back then, of course, any artist who didn’t paint the right things, write the right things, were taken away in the dead of night and shot.  So, to be able to paint and write within the constraints of Soviet rules would have allowed an artist to keep painting, keep writing–keep putting bread on the table.

Melikhov’s paintings are warm with light and grand in scale.  It’s as though he’s stolen the sunlight and made it perform extraordinary things.

“Country Yard in Kaniv” (1948)

“Flower piece. Blue Flowers” (1950)

“Musical Morning.  In memoriam of S.D. Osipova” (1980)

“Vera Repicheva, Brigade Leader at the Rose Valley State Farm” (1961)

“The Merry Month. May” (1977)

Afterwards, we return to our coffee shop on Khreschatyk and ask the questions we have for today.  May I warn you?  If you are faint of heart when you hear Job-like questions (someone questioning God or doubting Him in any way), please don’t read any further.  You will be in a state of consternation for days.

Now then, here was part of our discussion.  We are still perturbed that because of one social worker’s mistake (and my subsequent oversight in proofing), we’ve been invited to the Ukraine prematurely.  We’re still not sure how this whole thing works.  Obviously, there are other parents who have been invited for their appointments, and if a child has become available, they would get first dibs.  I’m sorry to sound so business-like, but that’s just the way it is.

Also, although we’ve been praying to God to somehow make this whole thing work out, we’re not sure that God intervenes in situations like this.  I mean, really, it’s like two soldiers on opposite sides of the field praying to the same God to please protect him from his enemy.  Who does God protect?

Being a scientist at heart, I believe that God has set the earth in motion with certain undeniable laws, such as the law of gravity or the law of thermodynamics, or even the way population ecologies work (obviously, these laws have been discovered and named by scientists, not by God, but you get my meaning).  So, what that would mean, for instance, is that the way our world is supposed to work is that some of us are supposed to get sick and die, some of us will be more prosperous (because we are more fit and able to get resources), and some of us will not last very long because of a multitude of other reasons.  In fact, if you take this one step further, we humans are the only ones actually defying how things are supposed to work.  We’re keeping our ill and deformed alive with medicines and hospitals.  We’re attempting to keep everyone alive, and hence the overload on the environment and other species.

That’s just one way to look at it.  So, if we don’t receive a child this trip, the conclusion might be that that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

But if there is a God, and if we’ve felt all along that this was right and good, and that we were meant to adopt a child, why have we been blocked?  Do we only imagine this type of God to suit ourselves?  Do we wish to be good, and then be blessed because we are?  There are some who would say we’re being tested, but in that case, we’ve failed already, by rejecting the first child offered to us–one who will, most likely, be fully blind someday.  Some would argue that she was our child, and we thumbed our noses at her.  We did not accept God’s gift.  There are others that would simply shrug their shoulders and say it wasn’t meant to be.  There are others who might say that this dark night will turn into a happy morning, if only we’d be patient–as it says, All things work together for good, to those who love the Lord–but am I taking that out of context?  I’m not sure.  Even others would say we’re being punished for something we’ve done.  Isn’t it amazing how many ways one could skew this?

As we leave the coffee shop and head to our favorite restaurant, we’re exhausted just airing these doubts, and it’s good to do something tangible–to fill our bellies.

When we arrive back at the apartment, we call the director.  There is no answer, and soon, we hear from his assistant.  There is no appointment available on Monday.  “Maybe we will hear something on Monday,” she says.  This means she hopes there’s an availability on Tuesday.

[Main post image: “Portrait of Verunya” by Georgiy Melikhov]