Holy Saturday

Today, my aunt had surgery to remove a still baby within her that had been lifeless for weeks. The surgery revealed identical twins.

I wrote this (below), and I want to post it because it is sunny today in Minnesota and birds are flying around and it is difficult for me to remember what today is.

Be Still

Be still, today,
The day of gray
The day of burial
And unmovable stone

Be still, today,
As death stales
Our hope of rescue
Our promise of home.

Be still, today,
As the Christ lies
Heavy and flaccid
Under darkness, alone.

Be still, today,
And silent–
Earth is pregnant with death;
Heavn’s still-birth hour is come.

And another beginning…

I think it took some time for me to get over myself. Well, I’m still in process, but I’ve made progress.  When we are infants and need something we cry, and are subsequently fed, burped, or put to bed.  Crying, then, worked.  Writing, for me, is like crying: it solves the problem.  I haven’t written a new post here in so long because I’ve labeled the personal blog as ‘an unhealthy medium of self-promotion, self-revision, and self-catharsis displayed publicly so as to convince the writer (falsely) that some intimate interpersonal connection and mutual vulnerability exists between he and his readers, all the while accelerating the already inevitable plunge of the post-modern mind into incurable solipsism.”  But it can’t be only that, right? You probably have a blog yourself and you see value in sharing the more intimate or eccentric moments of your day and thought-life with your friends and family and anyone else who may stumble upon your words.  Writing solves the problem.  Your words may encourage; they may inspire; and, if nothing else, they tell the world of you–really the only thing any of us have to tell the world about (everything else is already written and collected in the non-fiction section).  Stories are what we have and I think, at the end of our lives, they will be what really matter to us.  Blogging (I wish there were another word) is a way for us to collect, share, and secure our stories.

I have often wished I could have met my grandpa Hank.  He may have journals and letters I have yet to discover, but I know nothing of his experience, his mind, his eyes.  Writing into this screen with terrible looking blue buttons and sliders and underlined strings of letters de-romanticizes writing, but at least it keeps it so that it may be found again.  Everyone should blog, then, to preserve their story in exactly the way they want it preserved.  I just hope we choose to continue to be genuine (edit less), learn reverence for language (try commas occasionally), reveal ourselves with prudence (I don’t care about anything you twitter), and write.

I thought of starting a weekly something that explores the etymology of words we use everyday.  I thought maybe on wednesday on your lunch-break you could learn that the word wednesday comes from a mystic named Odin.  But this isn’t helpful.  So, I’ll do what I did when I was traveling and I’ll write my stories.  They’ll be less exciting and maybe they won’t sound like stories all the time, but I have to keep doing this because I think it’s good and I believe writing solves the problem, or at least presents it to us so that we can deal with it.

To Gain Again Familiarity

Stange: I read over some posts from this last year and it seems like an old home I lived in before my mind was developed enough to create vivid memories. It was like walking through old rooms with faded crayon scribbles and yellow linoleum with fork holes. Some corners I knew and others only reminded me of photographs I had flipped through once after unloading some box from the basement. I wonder if I cannot remember, it will be as if I never lived. I hope I did or said some things or looked out over some city in such a way that someone else, some dear friend, was prodded to remember; to remember me and that place and themselves with me in that place. Because memory is unfaithful and fleeting, living alone and traveling alone seems careless and eventually opaque. But ugly opaque: not like a worn piece of beach-glass, but like a scummy shower curtain. Now, though, I don’t need to remember much because I see the same everyday. I’ve made a home, at least for a year, and I’ve already engraved a routine into my day. I like it. I like that I know how the sun will hit the window and bend into my room at different parts of the day and I like getting mail.

Did you know I needed them?

I promise I never fished for any praise or affirmation, but it is undoubtedly true-to-type for me to do so.  I am an ENFP: heavy on the ENF and thinking about riding the P-J fence (only because when you try to grow up you have to make decisions and organize your room).  8 out of 10 ENFP’s are women and during my freshman year of college I had a bun and was often mistaken as a woman from behind.  Hmm.  Anyway, “The ENFP has a high need to be affirming of others–and to be affirmed.  This drives them in such a way that they may appear overly positive, even insincere, in praise of other people’s simplest deeds.  Craving such affirmations, ENFP’s will overexert themselves–physically and psychologically–to please” (Type Talk p. 256).   

So now I have gratefully received your “Hey, I read your blog too” and your “Drew and Joe don’t deserve the only shouts” and all the “Without your infrequent updates I’d never make it through the day” and even the unexpected “I keep a lock of your hair in my front pocket, always” and I am affirmed.  Thank you.  

One of my greatest needs has been met via wordpress commenting and so…I will continue to write.

To Drew and Joe.

Sometimes, no many times, I have questioned why the hell I keep writing in my blog.  I don’t often express anything of great value and rarely is the writing very readable.  But, lo and behold, gaze upon and embrace, Joe and Drew continue to read and frequently comment.  They both say things like, Keep writing because it inspires me, or, How else will I know about your life because you never call me, etc.  Well, my dear friends, I write now for you.

My shift at the coffee shop started at 6 tonight.  I came in a bit early to write some emails and surprise the workers into cleaning.  It worked and probably saved me an hour of prep for the music.  The band showed around 7:00 and I introduce myself, get them drinks, help them set up the soundboard, etc.  All great guys.  We talk guitars a bit.  I light candles, dim the lights, and stock wine.  around 7:30 the crowd builds and for the next 4 hours I am frantically pouring wine, BSing about wine (well, kind of.  I know a little, right Drew?) and flirting with cougs for tips.  We made $70 tonight.  One mother of two said I was cute and gave me a 5 spot.  Yea, Excelsior is it, man.  Anyway, after an hour and a half of clean up and money counting I’m sitting in the closed shop under a dimmed light listening to the symphonic radio station drinking a bottled guiness and eating some left over wild rice soup we didn’t sell out of.  It’s somehow the most peaceful I’ve been since I left Germany.  

I got my mandolin glued back together and it sounds and feels better than it ever has.  Tomorrow I may blow some tip money on a tortoise shell pick guard for my Strat and I’ve been looking at Dobros online.  Music won’t leave me alone.  I’m starting to write some songs and maybe I won’t throw the lyrics away.  My Taylor still feels great but I don’t think it sounds as full as the beautiful dreadnought Drew lugs around with him.  

Haven’t yet heard from the old neighbor, but I trust she is well and I am working hard on surrendering all to the Lord and trusting, trusting that all is in his Great Hand.  

Miss my spades partner and my arch enemy when we play spades dearly.  And I recant my claim that I won’t write anymore.  I will, but it will stay very informal.  Actually, I’ve been speaking aloud as I type, so think my voice.

Two Weddings and now I actually have a job.

I made it back.  A few delayed flights but I made all my connections.  I spent 4 hours in JFK right around the dinner hour.  I was hungry and, of course, had not a dime to buy a meal.  I was en route to ask a familiar looking gentleman who sat on the plane from Dusseldorf with me to comp me dinner, when I dug through my passport case one last time.  I found 2o Australian dollars and 1o New Zealand–the orange plasticy bills sparkled like old gold.  I changed them for 18 USD at a currency exchange booth right outside the women’s bathroom.  I sat at the Brooklyn Brewery bar and ordered a hoppy american brew without asking the price.  It was good, and it cost me 8 bucks.  I used my last 10 for a bacon cheeseburger.  I sat there about 2 hours and I talked to everyone who would listen.  I speak the language again! I can talk with anyone! My command of the language and its charming subtleties won me a free beer from the bartender.  She slid it to me without a glance in my direction.  It was like we had an unspoken connection, a rare confidence that no other airport goer shared.  Ha, welcome home.

Spent a few days home resting, and then hopped a 9 hour bus to Chicago for Sam’s wedding: 3 days of ‘class’ and celebration and spike ball, it’s @#$%ing spike ball!  Sat. 6am back on the bus.  Caitlin and Luke’s wedding on Sunday and a sweet Seattle reunion.  Wednesday I started work.  Now the coffee shop has a grip on my life, a job, a routine, something expected and consistent, and it’s ok. 

I’m done writing for awhile.  So call me.  You should know my number.  I’m not going to post it because I know so many people read this.  

Cheers.

Tomorrow: Vienna…I hope.

Tomorrow morning I’ll take the train in to Nurnberg with Drew and wait outside the main entrance of the train station for Dietmar.  He has a blue station wagon.  He said he’d drive me down to Vienna for 30 Euro.  I have 75 Euro left.  (Actually, that’s a lie.  I’m in debt a few hundo, I mean sans school loans.  But I like what my Ma said: In 20 years a few hundred will be like 50 bucks. Yea. Right on.)  Anyway, I’ll still have a bit of cash on me and a free week to explore Vienna.  I’ll be staying with Lukas, a full-blooded viennese I met at L’Abri last month.  I look forward to good meals and conversations with my friend and inspiration for a future business venture from the place where the coffee shop began.  Maybe I’ll even be able to afford to sit inside one. 

Just in case you appreciate details:

Thursday night I board a train at 6pm and ride for 4 hours to Munich. In Munich I change to a 2 hour train that runs back to Nurnberg.  Once in Nurnberg I’ll take a short local train out to Lauf to get the rest of my things, take a shower, eat, and maybe sleep for an hour or so.  (Drew will be in Berlin and en route to the states at this point, so I’ll have to hack it alone.)  Then I’ll get back on the local train at around 5 am (I should check to make sure it runs that early.) And leave from Nurnberg on a train to the Dusseldorf Airport, where I will wait a few hours for my Air Berlin flight to JFK.  Once in JFK I’ll hopefully make it through customs within 2 hours and then change terminals to catch my 8:30pm Sun Country flight back to Minneapolis.  I’ll arrive, if all goes well, at around 11:00pm.   

Praise God, for he has taken me this far!  If you are one of those who need to feel God, like a punch in the face, and then know his salvation, like an endless feast every night, pack up a little backpack and head out into the world for 9 months with 1,500 bucks in your bank account.  Just make sure you have good friends who will rescue you and parent’s who will never let you stay away from home too long.  

I’m probably out until MN.  Cheers.

Rupperswil?

First of all, some of you may have thought that the appearance of the word “right” in previous postings was a misspelling for the word “write.”  If you thought so, you are mistaken.  

This morning I am in Rupperswil, Switzerland, which is about 20 minutes west of Zurich.  Carolyn is an au pair for a family here and they graciously opened up their home for a few of us travelers.  Jake came from rural western China; Buck came from rural coastal New Hampshire (he says he surfs now); Josh and Bethany and Maren and Sara Mylander all came from tribal Ethiopia; Drew came from Franconia; and I flew down from London on an easyjet flight that cost me 30 euro.  We spent the week rolling Schweiz in a red mini-van, with evenings spent around a huge garden table with incredible food and new stories.  Friday we made it to Lauterbrunnen to meet my Dad and bro, Mikey.  We spent a bluebird day hiking underneath the Eiger and Jungfrau.  I did handstands in the meadows.  But the week went fast and everyone has left me.  They all could afford train tickets, and although they were reluctant to leave me behind, I insisted that hitching would be a better option for me.  So, today is Sunday and I just ate two eggs, some potatoes from the garden, and two cherry tomatoes that I picked this morning and I didn’t even wash them because it rained last night.  In two hours I’ll start walkin’ highway.  And Ma, there is no safer place in the world than northern switzerland, k?  

I will see many of you in 3 weeks.  Thank you for your prayers.  Keep well and be joyful, because today is a day to laugh, I know it.

 

I

We had a guest lecturer last night who talked about the internet and reality.  I’ve been slightly convicted.  So, more as an excuse rather than actual application, I choose to, yet again, right nothing of substance.  I would rather talk with you in person.  I pray that that time comes soon.  If it doesn’t or if it won’t, call the Manor: INT+44-1420-538329 and then ask for me.  Also, you can google L’Abri England and get the address to send me stuff, but send it soon because I only have 2 weeks left.  

I will see many of you soon.  cheers.

Psalm 16

Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.

I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.  I have set the Lord always before me.  Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 

Amen.