a rant

The menus have a sufficient, even significant, amount of selection to them at the restaurants I'm working for. The finer dining of the two ranges from a glorified tofu dish, to a goat cheese and portobello mushroom ravioli, right on through to the market priced fillet mignon, with several nods to the sea (scallops, salmon, a nightly seafood special) in between.

About a month ago the chef derived a burger that could hold its own with the other dishes, presumably in taste, and absolutely in presentation. The burger is speared with a stack of olives and grape tomatoes, grilled according to the customer's order, adorned with the perfect proportions of complimentary ingredients, and befriended by an ornate tin, lined with a billowing linen napkin, full of French fries seasoned with duck confit.

You wouldn't expect a hamburger to make its way on to the menu at an establishment like this one, but - coming from a devout vegetarian - this burger does itself well. I immensely enjoy setting it before a guest. The visual encounter alone frequently elicits "oohs" and "aahs".

Imagine my surprise, my disappointment, my aghast when I chanced upon something less than appreciation the other night. It was not chagrin or criticism or disapproval that I encountered. I would have welcomed such a response in place of the one I received after setting the delicately crafted dish down in front of a guest.

"Thanks." And without taking so much as a pause, a breath, a moment to actually intend the gratitude just offered, "Could I have some ketchup?"

Some ketchup? You want some ketchup to go with your twenty-five dollar hamburger and fries? Are you a little worried that the chef back there in his "kiss the cook" apron might have, sometime during his culinary education in Paris, failed to learn how to make the food taste good on its own? You a bit nervous that he forgot to include something that would have made the meal better? I'll go ask him for a side of ketchup... and get slapped in the face for insulting him. No, I won't ask him, I'll just see if I can scrounge up some ketchup packets in the back, somewhere next to the creme brulee, or the fondue, or the bruschetta, or the olive tapenade. Honestly, you want some ketchup?

I thought all of that right away, but no more than that because she kept opening her mouth wider and wider and managed to display her ignorance more completely, "And some mustard... and," she looked to a friend, "Should we get some mayo? And some mayo."

It was pretty well precisely at that moment that I went ahead and stopped believing that the customer is always right. The customer isn't always right. The customer isn't always anything. There is potential for the customer to be right, or gracious, or naive, or rude. There are a lot of possibilities. One thing I have come to expect from time to time in the midst of my interactions with human beings is an attitude of entitlement. But the perfectly horrid coupling of entitlement and rash ignorance was nearly more than I could stomach. That the customer is always right is a dangerous myth marinated in flattery. It holds no true merit.

I do believe in customer service, in lovingly wanting what's best for other individuals. I don't believe in telling someone outright that they are stupid (even when the occasion implies it). I cordially tried to talk her out of ruining the artwork that had just been placed in front of her. I tried to talk her into perhaps waiting and trying the food before conceptualizing how she (also a credentialed culinary expert?) might better it. You don't let someone do themselves harm without a bit of a struggle, some effort at interference. Nonetheless, sometimes you end up squirting each of an assortment of condiments into little silver ramekins, arranging them on a small white plate, keeping a smile on your face, and quietly lamenting the poor soul's demise.

Two-toos

I'm waiting tables at a small restaurant/pub/brewery by day and running food for a fancier fine dining establishment by night. At Scholar's Inn (the latter) last night one of the gentlemen that washes dishes asked me if that was a prison tattoo. He was referring to my right forearm. I don't think he could see my left one, but there's a tattoo there too. I have two new tattoos.
Upon taking to heart the Hebrew words Shalom and Shekinah I decided to take them into my flesh as well, a covenant of sorts, a permanent reminder.
The Hebrew language as a whole intrigues me - it's longevity, the elusive nature, fertile stories that have been told and carried with it. It isn't impossibly elusive, but it seems to be that, in order to interact with it and receive it's fullest impact and meaning, a person needs a hefty propensity toward imagination. This is true of all spoken and written words, but it's easier to forget with the language one uses everyday, and easier to remember (for me) when the language is backed up with countless generations of tradition and utility, and a touch of sanctification.
So the simple, stolid nature of the Hebrew script, and the fervent, florid meanings of the Hebrew words got under my skin.
Shalom - peace. A wholeness to hope toward. A desire for unity. A desire for unity at the expense of hatred, not at the expense of diversity. I reach out my right hand to the world, to my neighbor, and with it an extension of peace; remembering that all children, women, and men are my kin.
Shekinah - presence. The divine dwelling amongst earthen vessels. Linguistically this word is feminine, and carries with it an image of God, who is every bit as much Mother and Beloved as Father and Lover, wandering the dusty wilderness of this earth and these relationships that we belong to. Dwelling amongst us, wandering with us. I reach out my left hand to the world, to my neighbor, and with it an extension of presence; being present to those who are around me, and receiving their presence as a gift. Both necessary to who we are and who we are meant to be.


O Thou, far off and here, whole and broken,
Who in necessity and in bounty wait,
Whose truth is light and dark, mute though spoken,
By Thy wide grace show me Thy narrow gate.
(Wendell Berry)

December 10th 2006

I turned twenty five yesterday. It was really fun.
A year ago I wrote this entry in a little red journal:

"In front of a mirror I stood and was self-aware, nose to nose with myself, in a big way for the first time in a long time. Self-aware and self-confused, uncertain about how to situate myself in the world.
A big question, pointless maybe -- Who is looking back at me? I looked close enough to see the reflection of my own reflection in the wet dark centers of my eyes. Who is that?
He who drinks his lover in with the same eyes, and succeeds at stilling her heart with his words and touch long enough to have her trusting him.
He who takes the Eucharist like a child takes candy, like a glutton. Feeling around for God with his tongue between bites. Mostly hungry, but almost as desperate -- and by no means sure of which is the nobler motivation.
He who dabs at paper with his pen; or blinks through a few pages of literature; or gives enough of himself to the people around him to keep them interested and intrigued. All these things, from time to time, trying to rake out something more than an existence.
I was close enough to see my pores, to see my face that was a lot more of a child's face last time I looked that close.
Luckily my step-brother knocked on the bathroom door and startled me away from myself. But I'll have to go back. There's something in my that needs sorting through. I need to listen some more, to almost cry some more, and to stare..
Later I talked with my infant niece about the significance of the experiences that are common to life but new to me, the ones that are all bundled and tangled up inside of me right now. She laughed and gurgled spit out from between her vibrating lips."

Having done those things -- sorted, listened, started crying finally -- I expect to be right back at it this year. I may even arrive at some statements to share, if not here then in some format somewhere else. I'm feeling stronger this December 10th than I did the last one.
Today I'm driving an hour south, from Indianapolis to Bloomington, where I have an appointment to sign for an apartment there. I'll be moving come January. This feels like a big transition. I think I need to talk with EllaAnne some more; she's shaping her gurgles and spit into words now, but continues to remind me that no matter what words I might manage to arrive at, laughter probably still sums it up the best.

the sacrament of cereal

On the same morning that I gave Lauren a ring with a diamond in it (a diamond passed down to me that once belonged to my great-grandmother, reset in a whitegold band, pure and simple) she gave me a hand crafted metal bowl, unfree of blemishes, the perfect size in both width and depth. She and I enjoy cereal, enjoy the experience of sharing it with each other. We enjoy life. We enjoy each other's hands and feet. The bowl is small enough for a bowl of cereal and just big enough to wash one's hands and feet in it, or to wash someone else's hands and feet in it. I think it's sturdy enough for life.
It was July 11th, early in the morning before anybody else in the whole world was awake, that Lauren and I got engaged. And we've been that way ever since.

application unsent

a month or two ago i was filling out an application for christian theological seminary, which is just that, a seminary, here in indianapolis. i didn't finish the application cause i changed my mind, but i didn't waste my time filling things out either. i had begun a draft of my personal statement, specifically the part about what i want to be when i grow up. i wrote about wanting to be a professor because i get excited about contributing to other people's education, which is of course contributing to their formation and their process of becoming who they are. then i thought about what sorts of things have contributed to making me the sort of person that gets excited about things like that, or just the sort of person that i am in general. the influences are as many as the people i've met and the conversations i've had with them, i decided. the influences are intricate and convoluted.
my formation -- as in the lines scrawled in black across the canvas of my life, the lines that give me shape -- was initiated by things like parental influence, religious heritage, culture and my social status within it. these are the things that distinguish me as a person who belongs to a certain time in a certain place, and who bears certain expectations.
my becoming -- as in the colors that fill me in and make me me -- are such things as the decisions i have made to adventure, play, love, speak, read, pursue, be still, encounter, and desire. things like my experiences in the wilderness, encountering the natural elements, encountering God, encountering a subtlety of existence that exceeds in quality the one that exists in the midst of the always striving elements of civilization. like books i've read and teachers i've had that have told me explicitly or in disguise, didactically or suggestively, that truth is mediated to us through metaphors; that imagination is essential for deciphering the truths within these metaphors; and that it is the same with God, beauty, and hope as it is with truth. like relationships that have integrally communicated to me that i am loved and capable of loving, and in the process have periodically revealed to me how it is that i go about receiving and expressing love. like the places i have gone in response to my commitment to an established revulsion toward the status quo; the places i have gone geographically, theologically, and life-stylistically.
these are the things that distinguish me as a person who is himself and not finished and, like the rest of you, not quite definable. it is the first that give my body shape and the latter that fill it with breath.

----------------

in the meantime, even though i changed my mind about cts, i'm still pondering and precariously close to pursuing more education. i listed a few reasons for this pursuit on the incomplete application.
--because i can't stop thinking. and a context for that, a plot of land that my thoughts can flourish in, would not be a bad thing to have. without it they might run amuck, get overgrown, and not end up nourishing anyone.
--i'm ready for some more structured intellectual stimulation.
--i want to teach, and like it or not (a lot of the time i do, some of the time i don't) i need credentials to do that.
--i want to teach, but i need to establish a big, fat, insatiable habit of learning first.

---------------

and then the application asked about my values. i made a list on the back of the envelope that the application came in. -- listening -- awareness -- simplicity -- primacy of relationship -- blessed are the peacemakers -- significant amounts of creating, noticing, and appreciating beauty. i jotted down that i value several of the traditional things as well. things such as fidelity and honesty and ambition and hard work. further to the right on the envelope i noted that i value travel and home, reading and writing, people and solitude.

lauren and i ran the indianapolis mini-marathon together on saturday. our experience contributed significantly to my renewed appreciation for large portions of humanity getting excited with one another about doing something fun, beneficial, and difficult. when that happens that's good news as far as i'm concerned. i value that.

I've been back a year

Before coming back from Europe last year I spent my final night in the Dublin airport and sat there with my eyes squinted tight trying to see what it was that I had just experienced. The most accurate thing I determined was that I was much the same as when I had left and that I was much different.
The similarities and differences between what characterizes a human on one portion of her/his journey compared to another portion are almost always blurry. Very seldom do we wake up dramatically distinct from the person we went to sleep as. But always, I'm convinced, things are happening and shifting in us subtly. We hope for the better, but it's best not to worry about it too much.

---------------

Right now the things I'm big on (which is to say: the things I'm thinking about, reading about, talking about, and trying to, even if ever so slightly, live about) are, amongst other things, in no particular order, the following:
-- environmentalism. I pray each night that God would help me to honor the earth and all its inhabitants. That prayer hasn't gotten fully answered yet. Neither is it any great comfort to me to know that every single person reading this, and everyone who isn't, could do a better job at it. We're each actually responsible - regardless of our faith or politics - to do so.
-- feminism. Feminism is not about angry women wanting a platform, and it's not about suggesting that only men are capable of oppression. Feminism is about acknowledging that an essential voice throughout history and in the world today is far too typically and easily ignored. It's mostly about wanting to live somewhere where mutuality and embrace are the norm rather than domination and alienation.
-- rethinking salvation. A step away from the traditional concepts of heaven and hell, toward a (hopefully) more complete desire for wholeness and justice (corporately, and then personally too).
-- rereading the bible. Trying to express an appreciation for the bible as a magnificent collection of literature - if not all literary masterpieces (some are, some aren't) than at least literary treasures. And trying to express that in such a way that doesn't warrant the assumption that I'd like to take God's voice out of the bible.
-- language. Not like cuss words and stuff. But an awareness of the affect of the words and symbols, images and metaphors that we use. How we term our world and articulate reality carries a lot. I consider the language we use to talk about God to be of specific, and even elevated, importance.

That's just a touch of the temperature of who I am or what I'm about (or what's the difference?) right now. Just a touch.

McTrees

I feel sorry for the trees off of interstate 84 planted in the picnic area of the McDonalds; situated there to give a touch of atmosphere to an otherwise plastic scene.
I feel like one of them someitmes. All tree-y and wild and connected to the earth with life and nourishment coursing, gracing through me. But my roots pressed up against the concrete of the suburbs, my soul situated in the midst of a plastic culture promising the fulfillment of plastic dreams.
It's hard to flourish beneathe the golden arches.

Panentheism

The people whose lives I am, in one way or another, currently involved in are representative of much. Their lives expose me and break me open to the layer of reality beneathe the crust of the life that I live when it's just me that I'm concerned with.
I kissed a woman's face this morning, was told that I am loved and knew it to be true, nigh on limitless.
I hold my infant neice about everday, the well being of my soul requires it. She tells me about how valid it is to be vulnerable. She is complete and whole, with her limbs filling in and beginning to flail about with some purpose and precision; but she is thorough in her neediness, adorabley so.
I walked through the hallways of an elementary school with a young girl who has been mostly unsought after for as long as she has been capable of blinking through the tears that come as a result; that come as a result of being passed from home to home, not knowing which family to fall in love with.
I held and restrained and chased after and reasoned with a six year old boy adopted only two years ago from Russia. He fluctuated from anger to adoration rapidly, back and forth, barely receptive to the love and hopes wrung tightly from the ragged lives of the teachers and parents who are everyday with him.
Another boy, eight perhaps, with down's syndrome follwed me from class to class and sometimes followed the directions I gave him. We read together. He looked at me with his eyes locked into mine and he touched my beard with curiosity.
I talked on the phone with my friend who is smarter than most friends that I have and more confused about life than he is smart.
I talked face to face with a pastor who is just as real life as I am, and at least as sensitive to it.
I traded greetings and brief conversation with my neighbor who is late into his fifties. He's a dealer, and in his spare time, like a bit of a parent, he keeps watch over his young white naive neighbors.
And then some.
And these things happening to me, to us -- if we'll just open our eyes and realize it -- are far more significant than they are transitory. They happen - snap - like that and I wake up tomorrow barely aware, if I'm lucky, that somehting divine took place when my life rubbed up against hers or his, theirs. Life is happening. All around you life is happening. So hang on tight or blink your eyes fast - whatever you need to do to cope or keep up. Your knuckles will go white and you'll blink your eyes dry before you realize that all around you life is happening. Then you'll let go and dampen your gaze. Then open your eyes wide for once and breathe in big deep breaths that tingle your skin as they enter your lungs. Let go and die. See God everywhere, in almost everything. And simply live.

Psalm 126

It was nearly seven years after I experienced the knife, which was only eight days after I left my mother's womb and first experienced exposure to this world, when I saw the lunatic spew out his prayers and poems with globs of spit pasted to the corners of his mouth.
We had been traveling more days than I could count. I was young and slow in the mind, and I could not count beyond what my toes and my fingers helped me with, but our days in the dust were beyond that number. I was young, my feet were soft and they grew raw. The beasts shriveled where they are meant to be heavy with milk and instead the heaviness was in their heads which hung down like stones on the ends of their long necks. The women took steps slowly. The children whimpered, when they didn't have enough breath to wail. The men were either quiet or violent. No one remembered why we walked. We just walked. One reliefless step. Then another. Without emotion, without purpose, without so much as a swallow of water to divide between our company. Our throats ached, cracked like the ground beneath me shoeless feet. And no one remembered why. Except the lunatic. Apparently he remembered; and his feet, toes bleeding, carried him from one clump of the travellers to another, eyes laughing and beard frothing, tiring us all the more with his rhyming racket..

the nameless one has made us
free
we dream we dream
our mouths are filled
with laughter
see
we dream we dream
my tongue alive -
wiggles, rattles, spittles song
to the nameless one
here, with us
all along
the way we dream

He raved about the Nameless One. He raved about our dreams. I don't remember dreaming. I remember being hungry, being thirsty. I remember squinting against the sun and digging sand out of my ears. But his eyes rolled up in his head when he laughed, the thick locs on his narrow head shaking. My father said to ignore him. My mother stifled a smirk. My baby sister passed gas. And the lunatic went on -- clawing at the dirt, screaming at the desert, mad with a fool's hope. He said we'd be happy. He said it in a prayer. Said we'd water the dusty fields with our tears and harvest a whole crop of happiness.
No one believed him, he was a lunatic.

At Hubbard and Cravens I talked with Jeff.

Jeff said that Paul Tillich called God the 'ground of all being' and pointed out how appealing that must be to me because I am grounded; in the sense that I like the earth, I like having my bare feet touch the dirt and the press of sharp rocks against my soles. He's right, it is appealing. Because it almost doesn't limit God. It almost lets God just be, without qualifiers and particulars. Qualifiers and particulars eventually have to get trashed. They are (and are meant to be) pretty and nice smelling at first. Then they wilt and should get dumped into the kitchen garbage. Lots of us keep the wilted particulars around because we can't stand an empty vase. But we shouldn't worry much. The garden is in full bloom.

my hippie spirituality

It begins with long hair, on my head and on my face, unkempt; and it manifests itself in the odor of my armpits often unadorned with deodorant, the hand sewn elbow patch on my thinning thrift store sweater, and a more often than not vegetarian diet. It begins there because these things have to do with me on the outside, and I believe spirituality has a lot to do with me and my body and how we interact with the stuff of the world that is going on outside of us. It continues in that my recent spiritual life has been one of less discipline; more of a barefoot, free-love, go-with-your-emotions style of (christian) spirituality. My focus has rested more heavily upon peace and love; shifted from the prove-my-point debates of the classroom, to poetry readings in a field where we all sit cross legged in a circle with smiles on our faces. Someone picking at the strings of an old guitar. And Jesus is unavoidabley central to it all, because this flimsy, free life of the spirit that I have been living has somehow sustained me and been sustained, even without the aid of drugs and sex, even with only a limited amount of rock'n'roll.

'over the hedge'

deceit. nudity. forbidden love. revenge. homicide. car chases. violence. explosions. family values. materialism. commercialism. capitalism. gluttony. secrecy. romance. mission. loss. redemption. pleasure. friendship. forgiveness. community. seduction. diplomacy. diabolical banter. world-stopping hyperactivity. satire. hypocrisy. destruction. reconstruction. pain. growth. ruin. and wonder.
plus the soundtrack is the fruits of the combined efforts of ben folds and hans zimmer.

i would encourage everyone to see this movie.

paria day four

an entry i penned during the walk through the canyon and desert that surrounds the twists and turns of the paria river in arizona/utah, an adventure that i shared a week ago with my trail mates: sparrow, friar, and mouse (aka laurence, ryan, and scott):

we were to walk with our Abba today and let Him let us share our dreams. 'what are your dreams?' is what we started the day with. and, 'let your heavenly Father whisper to you about you.'
my dreams, or the metaphors for them, are changing -- i still want to battle complacency, but my metaphor doesn't require bloodshed anymore - or at least not the involuntary shedding of another's blood.
now i dream of sculpting awareness into the everyday moments.
i dream of helping people become aware. aware of real life situations in our local and global communities. aware of the beauty and tragedy that spins together on this globe. aware of God. aware of eachother. aware of the cries for justice, the cries for friendship, the cries for acknowledgment. i want to help people be aware of things like hunger and warfare and sickness that exist unnecessarily; and to help people be aware that the way we live has an effect on these realities - helping the realities to become worse, allowing them to remain, or aiding in the solution. i want to help people be aware of their neighbors' hurts, or even to be aware that they have hurting neighbors who need to be loved actively, not ignored, not judged. i want to help people be aware of their connection to the earth, and aware of our general disregard for it. i want to help people be aware of our connection to eachother. i want to help people be aware of our connection to Someone who most of us call God. I want to help people be aware of the general truths of the teachings of the Christian church.
mingling hard won understanding of the spiritual life with the gritty, given details of the day to day. mingling action and contemplation, the sacred and the profane, the human and the divine, heaven and earth.
i want to help people be aware in these ways and more, and i don't want to leave them there just as i don't want to be left there. i dream of joining together with the human beings around me to dance toward an appropriate response in thought, word, and deed. so i dream of being a part of a community of increasing and tangible awareness that is committed to God's dream of love and peace.
i hope for this dream to come true.

ocean sides

apparently now that i'm back home (one of them) i won't be writing as much on this weblog.
that's kind of what i expected, but the past couple weeks have seen to its being true.
i will still write sometime probably.

still sifting through the emotions and realities that go along with being back on this side of the atlantic. believe it or not, this side of the atlantic is not far off from the other side. it is different, but not even mostly different, only some. there are people that need to be loved. there are moments that ought to be lived well - both intentionally and carelessly at the same time. there are responsibilities that are sometimes daunting, sometimes delightful. it's important (essential?) to share conversations and craft memories with others; just as it is to seek the hefty peace of God in solitude.

the public transportation in indy sucks, there isn't as much cobblestone, and it doesn't smell the same. but other than that..

a forehead with a story to tell

I've got this awesome tan face, pale forehead thing going on. I wore a bandana while I was walking in the hills, a bandana and no sunscreen.
I'll sleep in a bed, under a roof for the first night in six tonight. I'll fall asleep to the sound of people snoring instead of sheep bleating.
I'm going to miss the sheep.
And a whole lot else too no doubt - but I'm ready to come home. And I'm coming home.
Flight number 93, Dublin to Chicago OHare, Tuesday 10.45am.
Peace..

a plea for fencelessness

Even the tiniest fragments of life shared has the power to quelch great furies of lonliness.
Broken bread and the common cup, Bonhoeffer's 'Life Together', the doctrine of the holy Trinity, People's Market in the park between Sandycove and Dun Laughaire -- we are meant to commune; by these things and more I have been convinced. And the idea of such communion, not to mention the brief and often whispy but very real glimpses of its realization, is absolutely saturated with the staggering hope of what some of us call the gospel.
I'm ready to live this, and to know it, and to spread it like the contagion that it is.
Now how do we go about it?
I believe it begins and ends with laughter.
I believe along the way it is just as full of tears and honest struggle as it is of the playful endeavor of creating memories of joy.
I believe it means we begin loving one another even and especially when it makes us sweat and feel pain. I believe it means we begin loving not only each other but also the others we label as 'them' until 'they' have disappeared into the all embracing 'us'.
I believe we ought to take seriously, and maybe even literally, some of the things that Jesus more-than-suggested; some of the things we have failed to include in our white-picket-fenced gospel of personal space and private property.
We should pray. We should want it. And we should try.

"The new story [which is also the oldest] is about communion, and it will be up to us whether we experience it as a taste of heaven or as a dose of the other place." (a.jones)

re-imagination

Reading 'Re-imagining Christianity' by Alan Jones, Episcopal priest and Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. He tells about how 'the monks who prepared him for the priesthood taught him that the life of faith was like falling in love.' He says, 'the monks told us that three experiences would be ours: pregnancy, suffereing, and communion. These three gave life its dramatic structure.'
Pause a moment.
The images of Mary with her son, the image of Christ on the cross, and the mystery of the holy Trinity. Pregnancy, suffering, communion.
As images and art these are more prevelant in the Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox flavors of Christianity than they are in the Protestant -- but as realities I think these elements are common not only within all sects of Christianity but within all of the branches of humanity.
On the most basic level each of us each day should be able to see, if we open our eyes wide enough to take notice, that we do indeed experience pregnancy, suffering, and communion. We are, each of us at some point everyday that we are alive, pregnant with hope for something, anything. Whether it be a noble hope, for a world in which peace dominates; or a simple hope, for a kind word or just a smile from a neighbor, even a stranger. We each experience suffering, that is not difficult to admit. We each find ourselves hurt and hurting, and it is more often than not a result of a hope deffered if not shattered. Communion - we desire it, we need it, and, thank God, we receive it. And if that's not the case, if you happen to be the one whom communion has managed to ellude then go to someone, or go to God, or a tree or a lake or a bird or a flower, and extend a hand, an embrace, a look, a compliment. For such an extension results in reception, and that is communion.
How invigorating it is to me that these realities of the human situation - pregnancy, suffering, and communion - are not only represented but fulfilled in the Christian tradition. Or is it the other way around? Or who cares?

tunes

The past few days I've been dancing and humming to all sorts of tunes. The tune of the Blasket Islands across the white speckled waters on the western coast of Ireland. The tunes of the dynamic personalities manifested in Joey the Irish bus driving poet and Sherah the middle-aged, boisterous, stout, redheaded psychologist from North Carolina. The tune of rain on my face from a top the battlements of Blarney Castle. I swum in the Atlantic with Eric the quasi-agnostic Swede. The waves that took us under were just a stones throw from the hillside where the first scene from Far and Away was filmed. In Killarney I caught one final set of Irish traditional music in the pub with the fire place, and I found a book of Seamus Heaney's poetry to flip through in Adare's small town library.
Dublin welcomed me back for the night.
Tomorrow - sabbath in People's Market between Sandy Cove and that port that sounds like Dunleery, but is spelled something like Dun Laoghaire.
Monday I look to the hills..

my friend edinburgh

goodbyes are tough. and it's hard to hug a city.
a few more hours in this place that has become for me.. what has it become? it is not home, i don't want to keep on living here, but it has been.. what has it been? this place has been the backbone of my pilgrimage. and leaving it feels significant in such a way that might make me cry and will definately make me smile. leaving it leaves me happy-sad, empty-full.

many a wrong and its curing song
many a road and many an inn
room to roam
but only one home
for all the world to win
(g.macdonald)

olives with garlic in 'em

The combination of Lauren, Cassie, and Amy is a thing more to be experienced than described. If you get the opportunity I fully recommend that you embrace it. When said combination is combined with the sharing of one's favorite city, the sharing of meals, the sharing of tea, and the sharing of adventures, what results is a heart (or several) quickened toward happiness.
I love hanging out with girls. Especially the sort who play in mud on Scottish hill sides (or was the mud playing with us?), who infect you with the enjoyment they are feeling at any given moment, who buy you ludicrously delectable cups of hot chocolate and make vats of spinach pasta with olives jammed full of garlic mixed in next to the sun-dried tomatoes, and who consider the wetness of rain to be a touch of welcome, a whisper of endearment from the author of all weather, the author of all that is right and good and lovely.
You should have seen the sunset we got their first night here. God likes us, I'm convinced.

The combination of Lauren, me, and not an ocean in between us will also remain undescribed.. "for words are vain, reject them all, they utter but a feeble part.." It was poetry. The best bits of life are.

providence

My first night in Italy I went to sleep out in the open under the stars and a clear sky. I woke up out in the open in the rain. For the most part after that I slept inside under roofs, but never the same one twice.
In Vernazza, which is a coastal village in Italy not all that far from Genoa where I flew in to, I met Geoff, who is Australian, from Queensland, and he is a pentacostal. Our stories connected in such a way that we moved rapidly from acquaintanceship to brotherhood; he enriched my faith.
In Barcelona, which is on the eastern coast of Spain and a lot bigger than Vernazza, I met Chris from Berlin, and we didn't delve into many matters of faith, but he certainly brightened my day.
When I got to Pomplona at 5am one morning it was very cold and I was very alone. At about 5.17am I met Iago, who also had a backpack and also planned to walk across Spain, but he was planning to walk across more of it than I was. Iago smoked pot twice during the seven hours we were together and he said a few cuss words in English, maybe some in Spanish too, I don't know, even still I think he was an angel because I'm convinced that, without his help, I'd still be wandering around Pomplona aimlessly with a sad, confused look on my face. He helped me find a train that would take me to Leon in the middle part of northern Spain, that's where I started walking.
My first day on el Camino do Santiago (the Way of Saint James) I met Laura from Iowa, except sort of from Madrid, because she has lived and taught english there for four years. She is Jewish and is passionately afraid of snakes, but even more passionately in love with languages. Next year she is moving to Beijing because she wants to learn to speak Chinese. Laura and I shared lots of meals and lots and lots of conversations, she also enriched my faith.
I walked for a day with a German woman named Dorothy, except the German version of Dorothy which probably has dots over the 'o' and ends with an 'a'.
I walked a bit with Rainer from Austria too, he's the first person I've ever walked with, except my Grampy Mitchell, who was difficult for me to keep up with. The garlic soup at the restaurant we ate at was well worth the effort.
Gregoire, who also walks fast and far and at all hours of the night, is a culinary artist and he is who I'd stay with if I ever visited Germany.
Faith and Leslie from Ohio, who were visiting Santiago de Compostela, took it upon themselves to make a mercilessly wet and rainy day into a wonderful one when they invited me to breakfast about an hour before my flight back to London.
A significant number of things like that kept happening all throughout that made it difficult for me to not believe in providence, or at least that there is a God who likes me and has some sort of influence over the ordering of events and encounters.
I had fun learning a couple Italian words and some Spanish phrases, I patted several stray cats, made friends with a few dogs, wanted to bottle up one of the small farming villages I walked through so that I can pull it out and sit in it when ever the world gets too busy and hurried for me, and I walked all the way to the Atlantic, went for a swim.
Aunt Doris made my life more beautiful before and after my adventures by receiving me into her home, feeding me at her table, and beating me at Skip-Bo. If everyone had an Aunt Doris the world would be a better place.
Speaking of beauty, there's a good bit more of that on her way to me now, but I'll write on that later.. one heart stirring experience at a time..

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

today (30/1/06)

some observations from it, experiences during it, glimpses into it..
-- a nose that hurts from the cold of the morning while i juggled the names of three foreighn sounding train stations trying to find the one with the 9.22 to Kralupy
-- singing the canadian national anthem for a class of czech highschoolers and having them sing theirs for me in exchange
-- the little yellow birds with the black foreheads and wingtips that keep crossing my path
-- a low ceilinged tunnel then the old cemetary where a tired angel statued over a grave with an evergreen bow resting on her shoulder
-- new tastes, filled belly
-- aaron and i synchronizing our ipods to bright eyes' melodies while we strided over slick cobble stone and past the man smoking some not-a-cigarette
-- getting mail that smells nice
-- unshoeing feet that don't

today was a really good day.

disciplines

My brother David has this incredible ability to take words and sculpt them into the shape of questions that help you take a look at the important things - whether those things have to do with your insides (introspection/contemplation) or if the important things have to do with what is all around you (kingdom vision/awareness). In this way he is an artist.

He is also an athlete, in that he has quite a disciplined training regiment regarding the condition of his heart and soul. He's a coach too because he extends this regiment to others (in chunks that are manageable for them). One of the chunks that he sculpted is called the "rear.view.mirror" - it is a collection of questions to puruse through pondering up answers and in so doing you sort of evaluate the past year of your life. He sent it to me and a handful of others toward the end of 2005. (www.zigsrearviewmirror.blogspot.com)

Going through it was kind of like getting a physical at the doctor's, because you have to sit there in your underwear all vulnerable, you get poked, and it's not always very comfortable - but, if you're interested in staying healthy, it's not a bad idea to go through with it.

One of the prods asks about the spiritual disciplines, and asks more specifically about which ones you have been trying or enjoying, which ones have recently been significant in your spiritual formation.

For me, while I was in Edinburgh especially, receiving the elements of the Lord's supper was perhaps the most beautiful source of spiritual nourishment - and it was a discipline because I went to communion even when I felt like staying where I was (in bed sleeping or on the couch reading a book). Other spiritual disciplines I have stayed divinely-connected by are: randomly pausing to breathe deeper and look around, sitting on benches or on the porch, going for walks, whistling, colouring with crayons, poetry, and listening to wordless music while sipping something hot.

You should try the colouring with crayons one, it is tranquilizing.

skipping

I had my first official Czech class today - eavesdropping on and participating in Aaron's language lesson with Alešš. Czech is a fun language to look at and fascinating (as are all languages really) to listen to. They have vowels, like we do, and use them, but more sparsely - they don't seem to be as concerned as we are with slipping vowels in most everywhere. They're not as afraid of consecutive consonants.
I also got my travel pass today - good for třicet (thirty) days (and the "c" in třicet makes a cool "ts" sound not a "ss" or a "k"). With it I can skip across Prague via metro, tram and bus. And we've done a fair bit of skipping already. Aaron and I even waved farewell to Prague for a couple days and I got to experience cool places called Sokolov, Karlovy Vary, and Cheb (which is pronounced way different from how you just pronounced it in your head).
More than Prague (and other places in the Czech Republic) though I've enjoyed getting to know the inner workings of Nehemiah's world. Nehemiah Williams is the most fully alive individual I've encountered yet on my journeys. He's got a contagious passion for aviation, he is quite well read, has an extensive library which he eagerly shares from, he's an artist, he's extremely social and outgoing, a world traveler, and most of the time now he poopoo's and peepee's in the toilet. He and I are rapidly becoming great friends.
Many memories being made, new words being learned, and lingering conversations being had. Here's some pictorial representations of some of it..










sokolov, tattered-wet-butt-giving chair outside of joel's flat, where i met brian as well


















traveling by train, second class












mike, aaron, and aram - it looks like we're in a band, we'd make a great band (mike plays guitar, aaron knows music, i have a bandana on)



















big hug offered to all from the centre of old square in prague



















the wind that made my eyes watery, enroute to cheb



















my faithful travelling companions



















me and one of the locals



















my new friend mike, my old friend the mountain hardware windstopper, and my me












bark bark



















my nano in action, nehemiah enjoying the sporadic musical movements composed by jon brion for eternal sunshine of a spotless mind

praha

about 42 minutes before i get on a bus that'll take me to edinburgh's airport.
a few hours before i get on a plane that'll take me to prague's.
meeting aaron and phoebe and nehemiah williams there - and i'm really excited and really curious about what will ensue throughout the remainder of this month and the majority of next.

took a long walk in the rain last night to say, not "good bye" but "good bye for now" to edinburgh. feeling grateful. feeling ready. feeling pleased.

"I sat a long time, unwilling to go; but my unfinished story urged me on. I must act and wander." (george macdonald penned those words, but i would have as well had i thought to before he did.)

more dense

This is from an essay by Natalie Rusz, found in a book that Santa gave me, and I think it's really quite moving. Natalie spent much of her childhood being cared for with other children in a children's hospital where "we were some of us handicapped, but none disabled, and in time we were each taught to prove that for ourselves." She wrote:
"For most of us, as people of crisis, it became clear that horror can last only a little while, and then it becomes commonplace. When one cannot be sure that there are many days left, each single day becomes as important as a year, and one does not waste an hour in wishing that that hour was longer, but simply fills it, like a smaller cup, as high as it will go without spilling over. Each moment, to the very ill, seems somehow slowed down and more dense with importance, in the same way that a poem is more compressed than a page of prose, each word carrying more weight than a sentence."

good days, good man

Some reflections/memoirs about my time here, brief and scattered, I penned in my journal last night, I hope they give you a few more glimpses of what it's been like:
When I walked into the hostel back when Wayne was the manager, or like he did just the other day as he biked passed me on the sidewalk, he would shout out with his half Australian, half uniquely-Wayne accent, 'Big man!'
When I walk into the Posh Lounge I'll likely find a Sweedish girl there knitting, though they are just as likely found in the kitchen doing the same.
Sometimes the sky is a deep deep blue with night time inside of it and stars sparkling through. Sometimes, like tonight, it's an almost-ugly grey, and it would be ugly if it weren't so beautiful. And when the sun gets stuck and lingers on the horizon - whether it's going down or coming up - bits of the sky get lit up with a whole variety of pastels. And I suppose that's no different from other places where the sun sets or rises, but there is something peculiar and wonderful about the pastel bits of sky being juxtaposed against the old plain stone building tops.
Sitting in St. Giles and looking up - sometimes it's the echoes that get to me, get in me, sometimes it's the silence - tonight it was the thought that pretty well every stone must have been placed individually.
I think I'm going to miss hearing cuss words during lots of the parts of everyday - not that I particularly condone cuss words - it's just that there's something about hearing them that tells you you aren't completely isolated from the world. Maybe I'll start listening to more rap - or perhaps I ought to make friends with more people who say cuss words.
Living with lots of vegetarians hasn't been quite as contagious as I would have thought - I had a hot dog for lunch today (didn't pay for it thought) - but I think I may begin to tread in that direction anyway.
I had a walking pic nic through a trashy park yesterday on the eastern fringes of the city - it wasn't very pretty, but quite pleasant.
Oh, and the way, everyonce in a while, something catches me unprepared to be touched - like the moon did rising out of the clouds last night while I stood atop Calton Hill, or like select salutations from certain letters often do, or like happens when my sister's tone of voice over the phone hints at her well being, or like when I kneel by my bed or stick the upper part of my body out the window to pray and the words come, words that actually mean what I feel and hope and want.
These have been good days.

Also, I'd like to share Chrales with you:
I don't know how old he is, I think he's 57 or maybe 61, but he's really healthy and energetic and young seeming - probably because of the cod liver oil he ingests (however it is one ingests cod liver oil) each morning. I think he likes to smile more than me, more than Santa Claus and Bob Marley even. A smile settles well on his face, settles better in his eyes. He seems possessed - not by a demon, although the gap in his teeth and the way he gets excited and bugs his eyes wide open at you wagging his head with laughter does have him resembling a goblin (a cute goblin, not a scary goblin) - not by an angel either, I'm not sure what he's possessed with, he just strikes me as one possessed.
We went to church together yesterday, had some tea afterwards. At church last night we crossed paths again and afterwards went out for tea. He's got a faith that is humorous - not ridiculous humorous - just unique and easy to smile at. Listening to him talk is overwhelming and fun - he goes real fast and switches gears like my cousin in his suped-up Mustang.
My favorite was talking with him about Jesus - hearing him say odd philisophical things about the energy and providence and omni-presence of God, then say, with his white-South African accent, something as simple and fundamental and perhaps, when it comes down to it, just as whaky, as, "What a savior we have in Jesus!"
Truly Charles. Truly.
He also said something else about being on guard against the wiles of our human nature, which is a whirling vortex of conflicting emotions.
And he bought my tea both times.
He's a good man.

how he prayed

After the bible was read from by the old gentleman whose face looks a bit like an owl's and whose voice suggests a wisdom to match it, the minister prayed before standing to continue with the liturgy and administer the elements to us. He prayed, saying that the lives and words and efforts of the four saints - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - as they composed their experiences into the writings that are held sacred by the church and that have softened hearts continuously, with power, over the centuries, are cause for (and here the r's rolled off the tip of his tongue) great gratidude.
And if nothing else, this is so. Whether inspired, illuminated, dictated, or simply scribbled down on a whim - those words, which we may or may not always heed, which we may or may not always feel warm inside about, have in them a transforming power that long proceeds us and will most likely out last us.
Bring them to life Holy Spirit - in our lives and in the lives of those most unliving.
Grateful. Amen.

Genesis 12.6

Astride one of the largest branches highup in the great tree of Moreh at Shechem - I wonder what we would have seen. Abram's caravan of relations and possessions cresting the dusty horizon. Moving slow by that time no doubt - wearied by the miles left behind them. But if we were able to crawl down a bit, unnoticed by those approaching, if we were able to get close enough but stay hidden enough to see into Abram's eyes (which would equal seeing into his thoughts and inner emotions) I wonder what they would have contained.
Would they tell the story of his journey, complete with conflict, confrontation, obstacles; containing the pain of a good home left and the delight of new sights seen, new territory approached and explored? Would that be clouded with doubt? doubt of himself and doubt of that Voice he heard -- the one that all his friends assured him was merely indigestion, the one he couldn't ignore and couldn't stop dwelling on. Would they be aglow with a wild, untameable peace? peace that he couldn't be rid of even if he had wanted to, peace that haunted him and watered the flower of enthusiasm that was budding so miraculously in his heart?
And if his eyes looked one way as he approached the tree would they look another way as he trekked through the hills east of Bethel? Did the father of faith have room in his soul to vary? Does faith offer the space for its possessor to take in lungfuls of whatever emotion is stirring in the air at any particular moment? Can the faithful appreciate and enter into the moment's emotion while living out of a source that goes much deeper than emotion?

humbly hugely happily

I stood at my window a couple evenings ago, being sad for many of my friends at the hostel - sad that they're stuck in a pointless lyfestyle and don't have much in the line of hopes and worthwhile desires. Then later, while I was waiting for my £2.95 all day breakfast (roll, beans, ham, sausage, egg, and black pudding) at Castle Arms I asked Angus what he wants to be when he grows up. Angus has dread-locks, a mustache and a soul-patch that help him resemble Captian Jack Sparrow, and he smokes pot. I had already labeled him in my own head as one of the hopeless, dreamless, stuck. He slapped me in the face with this dream of his to start a network of organic farms in South Africa whereby he could teach locals to support and sustain themselves while funneling tourist money into the local economy. How's that for a not-worth-while desire? Sounds like he wants to change the world to me. I was humbly, hugely, happily corrected.

After having breakfast for supper I went to my first ballet ever - Cinderella at Edinburgh's Festival Theatre. The colours and costumes were extravagant and fabulous to look at. The way they stand up on their toes like they do is well worth applauding. It's a lovely story. Some funny parts. No Gus Gus, but well done nonetheless.

And I've been reading Lilith by George MacDonald, who wrote lines like this:
"Please, king, I'm so afraid of being afraid."
"My boy, there is no harm in being afraid. The only harm is in doing what Fear tells you. Fear is not your master! Laugh in his face and he will run away."

enriched

since last i wrote: buckingham palace has been danced in front of, a couple corners of london and several of its streets have been thouroughly explored; pin nics have been had, the new year brought in (a top a double decker bus heading north somewhere between big ben and ben nevis), and many of my favorite edinburghian spots have been shared.
sharing the sights and sounds, having new conversations, and experiencing unchartable adventures with father and kelly brought a much hoped for contentment - we have (i think) been mutually enriched.

with my holiday over i'll be setting my hand to the plow again and probably, before the day is over, be tagging tartaned handbags at ness.
i'll be in edinbugh for two more weeks. there's an air plane holding a seat for me to go with it to prague on january the 19th.
at least that's what i have planned.
but really..Who knows.

digestive crumbs

he came, he ate my digestives (leaving only crumbs) and drank the milk (cleaned his own dishes) pinned a stocking to my bed and hopefully continued on his jolly way to help make your Christmas magical and full of experiences worth smiling about, moments worth remembering.
my days have been filled with blessed interactions around the hostel, transatlantic-phone-relayed conversations, and an appropriate allotment of solitude, usually taking the shape of walks throughout the city.
and i saw King Kong for free - one of the hostel-dwellers works at the cinema. i enjoyed it. i'm a sucker for a story with fist fights and love in it; it had both.
and i finished reading Phantastes by George MacDonald, which is even way better than King Kong, because it not only has love and fist fights in it but poetry and fairies as well.

enroute this very evening to London where, tomorrow, i'll meet father and Kelly for some shared adventures. shared adventures are a thing i greatly desire and i am excited!

one more sleep

Matthew chapter three.
In those days (which is to say, the days when miracles happened more blatantly than ever, when God was whispered to walk amongst us) water-wading-body-baptizing John showed up in the wild parts of Judea with a message vibrating forth from his vocal chords and shaking the rocks around him, "Turn around, turn around cause God's Dream is sneaking up on us!"
John's the one that the crazy old sage Isaiah had talked about all those years before, "A voice issuing from the wilderness - 'Clear the road, mark the way, God's coming through!'"
All he wore was his own hairy skin and a few tattered scraps of animal hide. He chomped on bugs for nourishment and drank down honey straight from the comb. People came from the city, people came from the countryside - people came from all over opening up their souls to John and letting him dunk them in the river and hold them there until their lungs screamed for air, until their hearts cried out for new life.
But once, when the teachers and preachers came tip-toeing out into the wild regions trying desperately not to dirty their garments all the while ignoring their own soiled souls, John called them out on the fake lives and complex lies they were living. He said this to them (and, if we're honest, to us all), "Bunch of snakes! Why are you slithering and sniveling out this way? You think running to daddy everytime you're in trouble is going to save you? No - it's time you start owning up to your own crap, it's time you start blossoming with acts of kindness. Your dung heap lives are as good as fire fuel if you don't."
Then he turned to everybody else and let them hear, "I splash you with some water, get you a bit wet - and that's a sure enough sign that you want to live better, but" (and here he whispered, drawing those intent, dust smeared faces all the closer) "one's coming..one's coming who can make you live better. I wouldn't even dare finger his shoe laces. One glance from him and you'll be washed cleaner than clean with wind and fire. One touch from his hand and your insides will melt. He'll find the good in you, if there's any there to be found - and if not, he'll clean out the bad. One's coming..."

And so our time of waiting draws to a close, only to begin again. Let's get wrapped up - like all those presents under our trees - in the intensity of our coming Savior.
Peace. Merry Christmas.

Christmas in Edinburgh

There's the winter wonderland, which has all of the high priced rickety rides that you might hope to find at any fair or exhibition - and all of them crammed snuggley into one small pocket of the city; right along side of the outdoor skating rink which they've been trying desperately to keep frozen in the above freezing temperatures of these winter days. Mostly what results is a mass of people gliding about a pond of almost-slush with their ankles all wobbley in rental skates and smiles spread across their faces.
There's the nativity what a golden retriever in it on the corner of West Princes St. Gardens, not far from where I rolled down the hill in my Santa suit. The life size nativity pieces were sculpted not immaculately but roughly, with a touch of the grit and earthiness that I'm sure must have accompanied the initial event of the incarnation.
And from my window, five or six stories off the deck, I can see across the way over the tops of chimneys and streets and terraces, into the windows of some sort of office building where they have Christmas trees on each level all lit up with different colors. Off to the left I can see the subtle but proud summit of Arthur's Seat; at night time the moon lingers above that and if I cast my gaze straight ahead it reaches to the belt across Orion's waist. And I suppose these last bits don't have much to do with Christmas, except that anything celestial and everything wonderful ought to remind us of the miracle behind this holiday.
May it be so with you.
May it be so with me.

proud feet

Last night I got to talk about faith and spirituality for a while. Pam, who is from Australia and lives at the hostel right now, working in Edinburgh saving money up to get on the road again, and I went to the Castle Arms, which is a pub about 37 big steps from my front door where they have this thing called the Traveler's Menu and its reserved for us hostel dwellers, it has food on it that is cheap enough to be considered by backpackers and scroungers like us, but good enough to actually enjoy. I had nachos with heaps of stuff on them. Filling. £2.95. Miracle.
Pam has her chin pierced (most people here don't), she rolls her own cigarettes (most people here do), and her parents are practicing Roman Catholics. But she got sort of tired of (or perhaps was never much interested in it in the first place) a Christianity that didn't mean much at the level of the soul. She doesn't seem bitter at all, but I got the impression that, as fas as she could tell, Christianity was mostly boring and useless, though perhaps a bit mysterious as well. Can't say that I blame her, a lot of times Christianity (Protestant or Catholic or whatever) tends to come across that way doesn't it? I'm not sure who's to blame?
But anyway..as we were talking she got me telling her what it is I think Christianity is, or is supposed to be all about. She listened real graciously and I don't quite remember what I said but I enjoyed saying it and I think it was halfway coherent. Throughout the conversation I talked about God as if God exists without a doubt; just because that's pretty well how I approach life.. but I know there are doubts, lots of them, I think that's alright and that it's good. It's alright that Pam asked, "What if, in the end, you find out you were wrong all along?" It's good that she asked, "What is God anyway?"
I haven't had all kinds of interactions like that, but I think under the surface (and there's often several layers of surface) these are the sorts of fears people are confessing and these are the sorts of questions they are asking, in one way or another, when we encounter them regardless of the kind of interaction.
God grant us eyes that peel and ears that delve; then courage or patience or whatever it may be that we need in order to respond well.


We also all decorated our Christmas tree last night here at the hostel. It stands 14 proud feet tall and I got to put the tinsel up around the very very top.

a poem that stumbled upon me

Cross skyward floating ablend with the night

Jesus hanging from the ceiling all tangled up on a cross so luxuriously adorned

And me sitting staring
or walking wondering

In speechless proclamation (which is contemplation)
I can't escape
We shan't escape
the question:
What difference does Jesus make?

In answer I blink an unknowing blink
or smile a smile like on the face of a child

What difference, what difference, what difference
up there
does Jesus make?

Stuck on, plastered on to some crosses with years of complacent idolization
Idolizing the son of God with his bleeding hands, his bleeding sides, his bleeding brow
Fixing him to the cross with our
inaction our
indifference our
toleration of indecency

Some crosses emptied of flesh
Bare and naked like the Jesus we've peeled off of it
Peeled and empty and left to dangle round our necks
below our chins held high with the touch of arrogance that comes
with the assurance of our place round the throne

What difference does Jesus make?
Stuck up there half dead
Or ripped off and disregarded
Where's the living Jesus?
Where's the moving Jesus?
Where's the loving Jesus?

He spoke of movement
we've settled for inaction
He touched with love
we are touched with arrogance

What difference does Jesus make?
Can't be answered by the sound of sloppy words
Only answered by our unknowing, our cease striving, our becoming

"Come to me all you who are sick of the way things are
the way things ought not be
and I will give you rest
I will show you peace
I will teach you the rhythms of grace
Only come to me
Become like me"

What difference does Jesus make?
What difference are we making?
For Christ's sake, what's the difference?

pictoral proof of me (and steve) in scotland

our shared ascent of Arthur's Seat - Steve jet-lagged and me glad to have a friend near enough to touch.






some reading material - (actually a super big book full of old fabric samples at Holland and Sherry in the little town of Peebles, where they make luxury fabric for the suit company Steve works for)





my basement at ness - see the cute little harris tweed tartan teddy in the box on the floor? you too could hold him tight - ww.nessbypost.com






us clubbin!






Scotland forever! - our hike through Glen Nevis just around the corner of Fort William

the sauntering santas

This morning, after sharing some brekky comprised of toast, eggs, clementines, oj, etc (with Wayne, Roger, Emma, Beck, Kristy, Anthony, and another guy whose name I don't remember but he has his eyebrow pierced and his hair is sort of like Ben Blevins hair) we met up with hundreds and hundreds of other people - all shapes and sizes, even a few different colours. We met in the gardens that are sandwiched between Princes Street and the castle, we all put on Santa Claus suits and we went for a bit of a jog serenaded by some kilted piping Santas; all to raise some of the good Queen's currency to put into the "When you wish upon a star" foundation. It was brilliant!
I was fortunate to pass the rest of the afternoon with my friends, each of us in our red felt pants, at "The Last Drop" listening, talking, listening. Fascinating people - with real life hearts, emotions, opinions, and stories about what their days on this earth have been like.
This evening I received a sweedish birthday cake (late but ludicrously delicious) from the Swedes, decorated gingerbread cookies (I made a gingerpig and gave him smarties for his nostrils), and there were Christmas carols at St. Giles.

Enjoying here.
Missing home.

for mom and dad

twenty-three years ago something very significant took place in my life.
this morning i think of that occurence (though honestly don't recall much of it) and wish to extend my thanks to my parents for being who they are and helping me to be, and for their nearness to me as i have grown and as i become.

with the tastes from the Lord's table and a taste from mom's kitchen (mint squares received yesterday - christmas is officially allowed to come!) fresh in my mouth, i'm ready to embrace this damp day in edinburgh -- ready to embrace another year of life; moved by the unforced rhythms of grace...

spiced tea and tickles

I have celebrated the Sabbath now several times with the Edinburgh City Corps of the Salvation Army during their Sunday morning worship. The Salvation Army, as I understand it, is rooted in the methodist tradition - as is my own Wesleyan heritage. Just as the liturgical celebration at St. Giles is refreshing like a glass of cold water, the more familiar style of church carried out at the Salvation Army is soothing like a mug of warm tea. (Still different though, a different sort of tea - spiced with songsters and a brass band and uniforms and their own lingo.)

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I continue to enjoy the encounters - brief and extended - that are given to me. Sometimes I almost miss them, but as often as I remember to I cherish them..
Rob the yoga instructor from the Netherlands, late into his fifties, small, and quirky as all get out. He was at Fort William when Steve and I were there, a week later he was in the bunk above mine here in Edinburgh - leaning his head over upside down while I read the psalms with my tikka to tell me, with his broken english and evangelical-vigor, how important experience is when it comes to religion and life and anything.
A chicken packed pita and chips at the pub with Anthony from Sri Lanka then Australia then Canada now here. He ate a meatless double burger since he's a vegetarian and an accountant. We shared stories. Talked about hopes, desires. Both love the films 'Big Fish' and 'Finding Neverland' and 'Swiss Family Robinson'. He's never seen 'Princess Bride'.
Remember Johnny our brother with the dreads dreaming toward being a reggae singer? He came in one night while I was working at the desk and had a slew of Bob Marley pictures from an old calender, gave me a couple - one of them with Bob Marley's teeth bared smiling, the same sort of smile that Johnny mirrors whether he means to or not.
Talking with Greg about the food he eats to fend of sickness and avoid hangovers, helping Maria remember my name by drawing a picture of a ram, bantering behind the desk with Rachel and Katie, being offered turnip chips from Ash and Alaya, piano lessons with Jen, a chat about cuisine and literature with Sweedish Charlie. And let's not forget the Irish lady in the shop who sounded (as much as a middle aged woman with class can sound) like Brad Pitt from 'Snatch'.

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Leaned up against a damp statue of some sort last night to look, really look, at one of my Christmas trees (I have many in the city) while I listened to Enya sing 'Silent Night', only without english words. Appreciating the way Christmas tickles the heart. Missing the sharing of tickles.

combatant clemintines

steve left this morning.
i walked about edinburgh seeking information regarding my post-christmas travels (which, in time, you will read fully about).
i've got a bit of a runny nose, but loads of clemintines to combat it with.

and here's some words from one of my favorite writers - words that i have to return to often:
"Yes, crucifixion before resurrection, winter before spring, a seed left to die in order to yield a harvest, such is the pattern of life, of living. We must walk through the petite mals, the little deaths, and on occasion the grand as well. But, our focus is not on the death, our view is toward the promise, the fullness, the freshness of new legs and unrestricted heart! This is how our Lord’s pattern is different than all of the rest. Instead of distracting us with the illusion of “comfort” or medicating us with“leisure”, He shows us up front the cost of honesty, the price of becoming real. Ole Wormwood would have us playing X-Box while the van drives headlong, full speed toward the cliff. Brother of Life takes our hand and walks us through the valley (ah, the flowers and plains and grizzlies!), no illusions, no distractions, no smoke or mirrors, just true life – with company."

with Company...

Let me tell you about Holy Communion at St. Giles..

My alarm clock wakes me around 7.37am, Communion is at 8, I don't need that long to get there, but I need that long to get there in time to experience the deep silence and grand space of the place 15 minutes prior to the sharing of the elements. I wake up and my flesh, damn it, tells me I want to sleep. I say, "No I don't," it says, "Yes you do." Then I look at it with a hard cold look and swing my legs out of bed. I wiggle into my pants, put on shoes but no socks, drape my coat over my shoulders and flee to the eucharist. Sometimes, when I'm lucky, I meet the man walking his two short-legged, puffy-bellied dogs as the city starts waking up with a pink tint up against the stone fo the buildings. The minister sits on a bench just inside the doors to guide us God-hungry (or at least God-curious) individuals to the little cubby of a chapel tucked against the north side of the church. Then we sit, one two or three of us - eventually four, seldom five - in that deep silence and grand space of the place until the bells toll. After the bells I hear the squeak squeak and clunk clunk of the steps carrying the man who is carrying the elements to us - bread wrapped up in a cloth like the mystery that it is and wine in the sliver goblet with little dents, the goblet that reflects the hands that carry it, the black and white tile of the floor, the thirsty lips that approach it with care.
The squeaks and the clunks make my heart skip, like the whistle at the start of the game - only more sacred.
The minister places the elements before us, then sits with us, usually right next to me, making our four count five or our seldom five, six. Quiet. He reads a psalm with words and voice and accent that hangs and flows like the white robe he's adorned in. It's my native tongue and it's a foreign language all at once. It's music in cognito. He reads more, from the gospels sometimes, from the letters others. And calls Jesus names, beautiful names. Then his prayer - not a written prayer, but polished and crafted with careful thought and poignant phrases - each time a bit different, each time more or less the same: "Feed us that we may feed others." He approaches the symbols of flesh and blood and turns to face us. Then back and forth we climb our way through the liturgy like the switch backs of a steep ascent. "Give thanks to the Lord," he says. We say, "It is meet and right so to do." And other words, back and forth. "Lord Jesus Christ..have mercy upon us. Lord Jesus Christ..have mercy upon us. Lord Jesus Christ.." And just when we're ready to plead for mercy a third and final time something shifts - a sudden boldness, a sudden desperation, or just because it's written this way in the lectionary - who knows - but for some reason we finish with the wild request, "..grant us thy peace." And most of us believe it is possible, the rest of us go through with it hoping that it might be. The elements blessed, committed - the minister nibbles and sips then brings them to us. The man on my left absorbs the elements with haste, as if the mercy and peace we've been speaking of, believing in, hoping for may escape if he takes too long. The woman on my right, the one whose face has been glowing the whole time as if Jesus was there holding her hand and telling her secrets, chews the bread pensively and sips the wine cautiously not wanting to arrive on the other side of this experience. I love how dry the bread is in my mouth. I love how the cup covers my whole face when I tip it up to receive the drink offered to me. Then we all shake hands - like at the end of the game, only more sacred - briefly breaching the barrier of island-existence and in so doing passing a hint or two of the previously mentioned peace with a moment of touch and a shared smile. We don't sit down until the minister speaks a good word over us and leaves with the leftovers. After that we can stay as long as we need to - long enough to let it all setlle in, long enought to wonder at what it is that just happened during that handful of moments between one deep silence and the next there in the grand, sacred space of the place.
Once I stayed long enough to be the last one, long enough to be the one to blow out the candles as I walked back toward the door and the world waking up, as I walked back there all nourished in my soul.