j&b haze

The nearly steady drizzle in Edinburgh didn't keep Josh and Beth and I from exploring the streets by foot, taking it all in - glory and graffiti alike - though it did probably push us into the pub a bit more frequently than we may have gone had the sun been shining bright on our days shared here.
And we went to the Isle of Skye - I'd tell you about its splendor but you wouldn't believe me, you'd say that my contact lenses must have a rose tint to them, and maybe you'd be right - but there's no denying: it was the stuff of dreams.
Ewan McLeod was our guide, the driver of our bus, and a storyteller at heart. He enjoyed profanities like a school boy enjoys sweeties (which is what Ewan and most other Scotsmen call candy). He was packed to the brim with energy, creative information, and convictions that rubbed pleasantly though not comfortabley on my soul.
We played cards. One time I got twenty-one points and Josh and Beth only had two or three if you added all their points together. It's really fun playing cards with them because they bicker like they've been married for at least fifty years. We laughed a whole bunch. And we ate almost the same amount.
They left yesterday and I am assuming, after a long day of travel, got home to the Belfast that isn't in Northern Ireland safely.

I'm leaving Edinburgh for a few weeks and I may or may not be writing stuff here on 'aramgorn' during them. Still pray for me though, and chances are I will pray for you a time or two.
Bus tonight to Canterbury, my Great Aunt Doris lives there. We're going to play Skip-bo and tell tales - Canterbury ones.
Thursday March second I fly from London to Genoa in northern Italy. Thursday March twenty-third I fly from Santiago de Compestelo in northern Spain back to London. I'll let you know about the in between stuff after I find out about it.

"And he felt the joy of a traveller discovering a new, unfamiliar, and beautiful world." (tolstoy)

onward

leaving prague in a touch more than eight hours.
it has been remarkable. and by "it" i mean the city, the people, the adventures, the memories, and the moments that i have crossed paths with this month. by "remarkable" i mean worth remarking about. instead of only word remarks though i will share three picture remarks before booking it to the airport and (as nehemiah himself would say in an almost complete sentence) "go bye-bye on a high-guy."




the metro - so fast, so loud, so the way to go. this is me with two of my favorites: aaron and bumble, who has a head in real life, just not this picture.



see the faces, note the expressions (particularly aaron's) -- that's just how cool my time in prague was. (that's bumble with his head on.)



the best sight in all of prague - a store front window display not far from our flat on Kamenicka. these boys are brilliantly happy to be playing with their toy train. and it makes me laugh. everytime.

three

i have done more than three cool things recently, nonetheless here's three cool things that i have recently done:

went skiing with aaron (who snowboarded) in the mountains that are about three hours of pleasant bus riding away from here. the snowflakes were many, the slopes taxing and forgiving all at the same time, and they had these t-bar lifts that got aaron giggling like a school-girl everytime one hit me in the back of the head.

taught more czech students about canada - doing my best to correct some of the stereotypes and typify some of the others. by the end of class we had discussed igloos, beavers, maple syrup, canadian beer, the existence of God, favorite ice cream flavours, and i had them all singing 'o canada' with gusto.

finished reading 'resurrection' by leo tolstoy. it is a novel that has the potential to pull its reader into the centre of a struggle with the complexities of the system of oppression and injustice that was apparently functioning at the head of russian society around the time when horses pulled carriages through the city streets (the sort of system that still functions today in so many societies and in the world at large). it is about a rich guy who encounters his own idifference, rebels against it, and spends five hundred pages trying to atone for his past sins while coming face to face with the sins of his present - sometimes feeling beautiful and noble like atonement and sometimes feeling dirty and messed up like sin. it's about a rich guy who had dreams, lost them, and goes through a very slow process of finding a field of hope to cultivate more dreams (similar ones, but new ones) in once again.

and now i will go do more things..

in the present tense

I met Lucien Zell the other day. I don't know quite how to describe the encounter because it took me by surprise, caught me without all of my be-prepared-for-cool-encounters receptors turned on. Unforgetable, maybe? Totally random, or, because it seems that way, totally not. He's a poet, that's what he does, that's who he is. He has dread locks, a dark beard with a strand or two of white here and there, and he only has one hand. I told him I'm an aspiring poet, and I got the impression that, were we to remain friends, he would hold me to that.
In a bookstore tucked along a small street not far from the river he showed me a book of his poetry. We sat there and offered select bits of our stories to each other.
We were joined by a Czech student he knew, and I learned that my love goes out naturally to some and gets damed up enroute to others. Lucien was fun to love, because we connected, the other guy was easy to be bothered by. Oops.
In a tea room, a few turns and a slight stroll away from the bookstore, the three of us sat in low chairs and shared a meal together - each of us approaching life in a different way, but maybe not really, but yes really too.
Lucien listened with his ears open wide, and eyes the same way. The words and phrases we passed back and forth as we crafted the conversation (or do they craft us?) kept on hitting targets in me, kept striking me in tender spots - the spots that tell me I'm poetic, I'm romantic, I'm hopeful.
I like meeting other people like that. It helps me, somehow, in my belief that Jesus was and is like that.
We talked about Jesus, Lucien and I. Lucien said beautiful things about Jesus, true things about how Jesus wanted people to love each other and how he didn't want to start up violence and hatred in people's hearts even though that's what ended up happening, because that's what always seems to end up happening. But Jesus didn't want that, Lucien said, he didn't want to get mixed in with the struggle for power. Jesus wanted people to be kind and to live life well, and in a bold display Jesus went about loving and living well.
I think Lucien would probably talk about Jesus in the past tense only, I didn't notice, but that's the impression I got. I think Lucien probably could approach spirituality without it all being saturated with Jesus. Lucien's pretty tolerant and I think he could stomach the religions without Jesus just as readily as the ones with Jesus. And that doesn't scare me too much; doesn't scare me in the sense that I'm not afraid of Lucien because of it, I embraced him as a friend rather than skewering him as a threat.

I read something tonight by an old friend and mentor of mine. He wrote about me and a lot of my peers - people who are sifting through an emerging if not fresh sort of Christian spirituality - and his words were stuffed with encouragement toward us. He also extended some warning, because that's how he thinks - he finds positive things in various approaches to faith as well as things to be wary of. "Keep Jesus," he wrote. And by it he meant, when we talk about Jesus we ought to talk about Jesus in the present tense as well as the past tense; and if we're really bold we'll talk about Jesus in the future tense too, maybe we'll even talk to Jesus and not only about Jesus. My old friend and mentor meant that if we're really interested in the Kingdom of God, life to the full, loving our neighbors as our self - if we're committed to these things - then our spirituality has to be saturated with Jesus; if we're going to live religiously then our religion has to be saturated with Jesus; if we're going to live, period, believing and hoping in those things, then our lives have to be saturated with Jesus -- and not just a "once-upon-a-time" Jesus and not just a "happily-ever-after" Jesus but a real live right here and now Jesus.
I'm glad he reminded us to keep Jesus. I'm glad he didn't suggest that we should feel threatened by people who don't.

the hunt

Aaron designed a scavenger hunt for me, handed me his camera, gave me a Czech/English dictionary, a map of the city, and pushed me out the door. So much fun. He had me riding trams and the metro, looking for graves and castles and signs with penguins on them. I walked through some of the grittiest and most graffitied bits of Prague. I discovered some of the most beautiful urban-vistas. I climbed trees, made friends, and pretended I was a photographer.
Below are a handful of the pictures I took – some that I’m in, some that I’m not.
Enjoy. I did.

ones i'm not

ones i'm in