Un Till

Whitney Houston and the Joyful Noise

2012-02-12T15:39:00.000-05:00

It's a strange sadness, the sadness I feel at the news of Whitney Houston's death. I've never been much of a pop music guy, and I could never be called a real Whitney fan. I never bought an album, and I only know the songs that the casual radio listener would know. I remember my mother singing along to "I Wanna Dance with Somebody"in the kitchen back in the day - probably having a welcome respite to those incessant children's albums (as I am now all too familiar with). I remember being annoyed as a Middle Schooler when it seemed like "I Will Always Love You" was the only thing they played on the radio. Yet even with my distance and preteen attitude, Houston's voice always stuck with me more than her fellow pop divas and more than pretty much all the other voices that haunt my speakers.

I think I know why. In several places, the Psalmist invites us to "make a joyful noise to the Lord." Houston sang with an unhinged joy, the kind of joy you see in a two year old girl when she dances to her favorite song. As far as I can see, none of her talented contemporaries had that. Maybe they could match her in attitude or showmanship or however else you measure divas, but they couldn't match her in joy. The joy recalls that famous scene in Chariots of Fire where Eric Liddell, the Scottish missionary who was preparing for the 1924 Olympics is accused by his sister Jennie of ignoring God's work to run all the time. He tells her, "I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run, I can feel his pleasure." (And for what it's worth, Ian Charleson beautifully captures Liddell's joy in the film)

Houston sang as if she could feel God's pleasure, and it was infectious. Yes, her problems were legion - a bad marriage, drug abuse and all the trappings of deification. I can't say I'd have done better. I can only pray the same prayer I pray for any of us: God have mercy on her. I can only hope that she has been found with Jesus, where her voice can soar with the joy of the heavenly hosts.

Pay to Potty? Only Under the Following Conditions

2012-02-11T13:53:00.000-05:00

Whenever I'm in Europe (nowadays, that's pretty much all the time), I get a lot of advice. No, not personal advice, except for one time when a lady at a restaurant said I shouldn't allow my daughter to throw silverware at her. (strict, these people! Strict!) No, I mostly get advice about how my home country, the good ol' US of A, should be run. All sorts of issues come up, but lately, economics have been the hot topic. You see, they blame our current economic difficulties on a brand of cowboy capitalism that enriches the fat cats at the expense of Joe and Jane Average. Now, I agree, it's horrible to enrich yourself through exploitation. But friends, I've seen an insidious form of exploitation, exploitation of our basest needs, right here in virtuous Baden-Wuerttemberg. It happened while I was at Stuttgart's Main Train Station and I urgently had to use the restroom (note to my British readership: restroom is American for loo, which is slang for toilet, if you're still not with me).

Now, as the patriots over at Stuff America Does Best have pointed out, public restrooms are treated as a right, are readily available, and unlike other public institutions, they don't have to make ends meet with funding drives. But this isn't so in Europe, as I discovered in Stuttgart. No, in order to come to the appropriate place of relief, I needed to fork over a Euro (which is like a buck forty!) to a company called "Rail and Fresh Public Toilet Facilities," which is just one brand name of Hering International. Do you know what that means? Somewhere sits a German fat cat wearing a pin striped suit, legs crossed and propped on his antique oak desk, teeth clenched around a cuban cigar that he only takes out to yell at his Swedish secretary (named Kitty), and all he has to do is listen to the Euros plop every time we have to go plop. This is an atrocious form of predatory capitalism - demanding our cash when we're vulnerable and dancing in desperation.

Ok, I know Rail and Fresh offers clean facilities and scent sprayers among other amenities, and plenty of women have already told me that they'd gladly shell out a Euro for a clean place to sit, but such ~~luxuries~~ necessities should be a given, not extra incentive to have us pay to do what our ancestors have always done for free using chamber pots kept under the bed. To get my hard-earned Euro, Mr. Monopoly Man's German cousin, you're going to have to offer the following:

Scent sprayers must spray top-of-the-line cologne, none of the cheap stuff. I prefer Eternity by Calvin Klein, but you'll have to offer a variety to suit the needs of your clientele.
Complimentary champagne, served in a crystal glass
Sauna, complete with steam room and optional Thai Massage
An assortment of wordy and snobby newspapers and magazines, including the following: The Economist, The Guardian, The Times, The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Die Zeit, Die Welt, Der Spiegel, Die Frankfurter Allgemeine, Die Sueddeutsche Zeitung and all of their French, Spanish, Italian and Turkish equivalents. What? USA Today? If you must. But no tabloids. We want this place to be classy.
A flat screen TV in each stall and over each urinal
Silk toilet paper
Relaxing music, yes, but performed live by a professional string quartet
Professional cleanings, yes, but by the cast of Downton Abbey
A short Circus Olay show, repeated on the hour
Beat Poetry reading every Friday
A warm towel after you wash your hands provided to you by a man in a tuxedo who speaks a southern accent. Doesn't matter from which country - it could be the southern part of the U.S. or the southern part of Portugal, as long as it's a southern accent.

If none of these services are offered, then I will be forced to go with the competition. And by competition I mean a dark corner of the train station. Or one of the port-o-potties reserved for the Stuttgarter 21 protestors. Or a toilet on a parked train.

Elmo Among Other Monsters

2012-02-04T05:31:00.000-05:00

When it comes to Sesame Street, my daughter is following in my footsteps. I love Sesame Street, still do. It was the only show that I was both consistently allowed to watch and enjoyed watching. The show's educational, yes, but not only did it "make learning fun," but it captured the joy of learning things, a joy so many of those drab hygiene and physical science videos we watched in school never had. Add in smart pop culture references and characters kids and adults can care about, and you've got yourself a fine piece of television. So in this new age of the Information Super Highway, one of my first acts as father was to plop my kicking baby in my lap and watch YouTube videos of classic Sesame Street. She loved it so much I can't open up the lap top to do something important (like write a blog or goof off on Facebook) without having my daughter run up, grab my leg and in her best "melt papa's heart voice" say: "Letter B?"

There has been, however, a cultural shift since my childhood of sitting on our plaid-green couch to watch a show brought to you by the letter "K." You see, one of the biggest appeals of Sesame Street was that it was always a little rough around the edges. The street itself appeared a bit dirty, the characters lovable but gritty, the pictures and film had sort of a Public Television residue that smelled of cheapness and passion and authenticity. But this has changed. Sesame Street looks gentrified. Take a look at the website. You won't find smoother edges in Buckingham Palace. It's as clean the surgery ward. There's been a change, and I can sum it up in one word: Elmo.

No question Elmo is the Street's most popular character. No question. If you visited the website, then you were greeted by his sweet furry face. That same face makes the little icon on the URL. He's everywhere, including my daughter's crib and coloring books. He's ingeniously designed for maximum cuteness and cuddliness. The cute one with a cute voice, and his cuteness has spread all over Sesame Street like a funny picture on Facebook. When I was home for Christmas, my mother wanted me to go to the local art house theater to see a documentary about Elmo's mover, shaker and speaker, Kevin Clash. His story is a powerful, feel-good, American-dream story of the best kind. No doubt he's a genius at his chosen career, and if there's a puppeteering pantheon, then he will sit with Jim Henson and Frank Oz to judge us all. But I couldn't see the film. There were some scheduling difficulties that explained this. But the truth is, I hold a grudge against Elmo. I miss the old furry monsters, like the ones in this old "C is for Cookie" video.

It's not that the old monsters have been fired. Cookie, for one, still plays a prominent role (though the good folks at Sesame Street are reigning in his gluttony to help confront America's childhood obesity problem). And if you look through the website's list of muppets, you'll find characters like Herry, Frazzle and the Two-Headed Monster, all monsters of the old school. The old-school monsters weren't like cuddly kittens. They were more like your crazy uncle's biker friends. You know who I'm talking about. They were rough. They drove American-made motorcycles, drank beer from the bottle and had powerful, meaty arms. In fact, they may have both showed you your first tattoo and given you your first sip of beer. Your love for them was mixed with fear. They weren't ones for snuggles, but if you ever had a problem with a bully, needed repair work on the tree house or were threatened by a rabid dog, you knew you could count on them, just like you could count on old-school monsters. Now, not only are they crowded out by Elmo and his relentless sugartooth, but they're in a sad state. Look at their pictures on the website. They look like they've been thoroughly scrubbed and shampooed by a child-marketing expert.

I don't mind Elmo's existence. Cuddles are necessary, and I wonder how many of today's conflicts could be solved (or at least eased) by a good snuggle. But life has rough edges, and Sesame Street's greatest strength was that it could acknowledge this and still take joy in singing, laughing and learning.

Of course, the Elmo promotion is on to something. My daughter loves Elmo, the same way she loves puddles and pretty dresses. With no prompting (certainly by me), she was drawn to them. Among her army of stuffed animals, she has two Sesame Street dolls: Ernie and Elmo. Ernie was my favorite growing up. My daughter likes Ernie, and Ernie is my daughter's main sleeping partner, because by chance we threw him in the crib when it was dark outside and she needed a friend. But as much as she may try to hide it, Elmo is her favorite. She just sees him first. Elmo's like that gregarious kid in your third grade class that always made your teacher smile in a way she never could for you in spite of your obvious superiority in both behavior and grammar. Whenever we watch that old "Letter B" video, her next request is "Elmo." Doesn't matter which Elmo video, and there are lots to choose from. And, given time and mood, I indulge her. But I use my fatherly authority to throw in some old-school monster videos too. After all, there's more to fatherhood than snuggling.

The Allure of Cowardice

2012-01-28T17:37:00.000-05:00

A great American poet once sang:

"I'm not a coward I just never been tested
I like to think that if I was I would pass
Look at the tested and think there but for grace go I
Might be a coward I'm just afraid of what I might find out"

Ok, maybe the Mighty Mighty Bosstones aren't exactly what you think of when I read "great American poet," but hey, me still likes the ska, and besides, the tune takes me back to high school. Moreover, this is the lyric that comes to mind whenever I reflect on the Costa Concordia disaster and the cowardice of her fleeing captain.

From his cringe-inducing dialogue with the Italian Coast Guard to eye-witness reports, it looks like Captain Francesco Schettino was tested and did not pass. His cowardice was shameful in and of itself and all the more so if it cost additional lives. His actions are deplorable, and we can all hope that he'll face the appropriate legal and professional consequences. Yet, as we rush to condemn, joke, or muster up talk-show host outrage, we should keep in mind that we may one day be tested as well. We should be careful with our judgments.

Cowardice is an ugly vice, especially when we look at it from the outside. But when we face the choice between self-preservation and self-sacrifice, self-preservation can look smart, wise and even beautiful. Have you ever been in that situation? I know I have. Nothing as dramatic as a sinking boat, of course. It could be as benign as lying to a colleague or a family member to hide your own mistakes, or avoiding confrontation someone who is stronger than you. Even when it means refusing to do what's right, it's alluring to protect body, dignity and reputation. The boat begins to shift and break and suddenly the lifeboat makes more sense than all those things we learned in Sunday School. Like most everything else we call sin, it's ugly, but in some perverse place that's very natural to us, it's understandable.

Of course, I know some people who are naturally courageous. They make the best sea captains and soldiers, police officers and pastors, not to mention any other career that involves confrontation and risk. If this describes you, then know that I envy you. C.S. Lewis wrote somewhere that courage is the virtue that enables all of the other virtues. You have a shorter path to self-sacrificial love. For the rest of us, the Costa Concordia tragedy is a call for reflection: what would we have done? Would we have elbowed aside the old and the young for a place in the lifeboats? Or would we have risked our necks so that others wouldn't have had to? More to the point, are we avoiding commitments, confrontation, responsibility or love out of fear, and what can we do to overcome this?

I have a few ideas. First, be honest with yourself. I'm an expert at rationalization. It's not good to allow cowardice to hide behind intellect. The truth is our friend, and the sooner we look it in the eye (an act of courage itself, albeit a private one), the better.

Second, friendship is a great help here. I know most guys have a story from school or university where, having confessed our fears to ask a girl out, our friends egg us on and encourage us to make the step. The same thing can happen with any of the circumstances I described earlier. Have safe friends where, between beers and laughs, you can talk about the places where fear has us trapped. Cowardice is weaker against numbers.

Finally, Christianity has a great thing called repentance. If we've given in to cowardice, sometimes it's too late to undo it. Other times, we just can't go through with what we ought to do due to fear. In both instances, we can take frightened hearts to the Cross of Christ. There's a great old hymn called "Rock of Ages," where the choir sings to Christ to "be of sin the double cure, cleanse me from it's guilt and power." If cowardice is too big to crawl out of on your own strength, well, Jesus died on the cross to break sin's power over us. You can confess your sins to Jesus, and he will help you grow in courage. Second, if the guilt of a cowardly act is stuck in your soul like a bee sting, well, Jesus died on the cross to take our guilt as well. Repent and believe the Good News, follow him, and grow in courage. After all, if sacrificial love is the most excellent example is courage, then what is more courageous than the cross?

Nones and Lovers

2012-01-22T12:41:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting to write about Eric Weiner's New York Times column on Americans and God since it came out in December, but I've been busy doing other things, like trying to work for a living and thinking up warm-weather holiday songs. And the truth is, I wanted to give it some thought, because I think it's worth responding to as a Christian. Weiner represents a form of non-belief that is probably more prevalent than the faith of convinced atheism. He's undecided, a self-described "None." What's a None? Well, here:

We Nones may not believe in God, but we hope to one day. We have a dog in this hunt. Nones don’t get hung up on whether a religion is “true” or not, and instead subscribe to William James’s maxim that “truth is what works.” If a certain spiritual practice makes us better people — more loving, less angry — then it is necessarily good, and by extension “true.” (We believe that G. K. Chesterton got it right when he said: “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.”)

I suspect that Nones number even more than the increasing number of people who check "none" on the surveys. I bet that many who cross "Catholic" or "Protestant" or "Muslim" or whatever belief are practical Nones, the cultural inheritors of a religious faith without significant bearing on their thoughts, decisions or prayers.

Weiner's "Noneness" is more nuanced than the None who just hasn't thought much about the afterlife between work and family and recreation. After a "health scare", this "rationalist" began to explore faith. In doing so, he went on a literal spiritual journey, traveling the world to sample the varieties of religious experience, which he chronicled in his book Man Seeks God: My Flirtation with the Divine. At this point, I should make clear that I haven't read Weiner's book, and answers to the questions and criticisms I'm about to write may be found there. Nevertheless, his Times column has made a statement about the Nones' view of religion in America, and it's worth addressing.

For starters, let me say "amen" to the None's strong discomfort with the cross-pollination of piety and politics. While there have been times when the church should have done much more (I don't think Weiner would argue with Dr. King here), and I've wrote here before how unimpressed I was by large Christian gatherings using lots of (self-serving?) superlatives in their marketing. It's the sort of thing that would have made me want to clutch Noneness like a life-preserver had I not already been spoken for.

Weiner himself thinks humor is important, and I agree with him (note my heading). He thinks that "precious few of our religious leaders laugh. They shout." Yes, I hear them shouting too. I hear them shouting every time CNN talks to the latest loudmouth to draw a crowd or some doomsday prophet gets much more media attention than they deserve. But I can testify that while every church will have its sour-faced mice, much laughter can be heard between the pews. I grew up in a laughing family, surrounding by laughing people, and all of them thought you could know the Lord personally and would be happy to talk about it. We Christians run the whole gamut of emotions if you take the time to get to know us. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and disagree with Weiner's Chesterton quote: "It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it." Well, every religion can be joked about, and the best jokes come from within the ranks. Rather, it is the individual's jokes that are the test of his own character. Are they capable of joking? And when they do, is it in the right time and place for the best effect? Or are their jokes there for reasons of poison, to prey on the innocent and to build themselves up at others' expense? As some religious guy wrote somewhere, for everything there is a season. If you're a None genuinely seeking God and you visit a church that seems incapable of humor (and I've been there), give it one more week to make sure that your perceptions aren't clouded by a bias against the kind of people who show up there every Sunday (I have to watch myself there too). But once it's proven that the jokes are either unavailable or inappropriate, run (don't walk) to the exit. Bad humor's a good reason to find another church, but it's be a poor reason to try and put distance between yourself and God.

If Weiner has distance between himself and God, humorless blowhards have contributed to it. He needs a new kind of religious leader. He writes:

The answer, I think, lies in the sort of entrepreneurial spirit that has long defined America, including religious America.

We need a Steve Jobs of religion. Someone (or ones) who can invent not a new religion but, rather, a new way of being religious. Like Mr. Jobs’s creations, this new way would be straightforward and unencumbered and absolutely intuitive. Most important, it would be highly interactive. I imagine a religious space that celebrates doubt, encourages experimentation and allows one to utter the word God without embarrassment. A religious operating system for the Nones among us. And for all of us.

A Steve Jobs' of religion... sounds nice doesn't it? It sounded nice to me until I began to unpack the analogy. I'm a fan of Apple products, and I am using one to write this blog post. But as sleek, hip and user-friendly as they are, they aren't for everyone, as Microsoft's "I'm a PC" commercial slyly picked up on. Weiner's religious space wouldn't be something for all of us. It would be one more niche in a crowded market. Furthermore, high-technology is effective to the point that it is individualized, that I can sit alone in my computer which is my own electronic kingdom, filled with my apps and my favorites and my bookmarks and social networking sites where I can pay attention and ignore people at my own leisure without fear of boredom, pain or small talk. It's straightforward, unencumbered, intuitive and interactive because it's mine, made in my image and serving my purposes and, for the small price of targeted advertisement, I can be as spiritual and unspiritual as I want, I can experiment, celebrate my doubt or my faith with no book or leader to tell me that I might be in any way off base (and if they do, I can simply delete their comment). I can utter whatever the hell I want, because as far as I'm concerned, I'm alone.

Christianity, to my daily dismay and glory, has a different user experience. It involves other people. I go into a church and I sing songs and say prayers and listen to words with all sorts of people. People with the wrong politics, the wrong interpretations, the wrong family traditions, the wrong styles, the wrong jokes. Their flawed behavior is rarely intuitive and often encumbers me. It's interactive, alright, but the interaction involves me putting aside my desires and agendas to meet other people where they are. It can be very tedious and often takes years to fully feel like part of a Fellowship (and having recently moved, I'm feeling these bruises once again), but it is well worth it. To sing and pray together with someone else in the presence of Almighty God... to have actually done that makes it worth it to come back and drink from the fountain, again and again. Weiner contrasts the private and public nature of religion, but his conclusions are too individualistic. Spirituality is private and public, yes, but knowing God is a communal experience - it's community with Him and with everyone else who has taken the plunge. It's there that we "become more loving" and experience "human grace."

I sympathize with the Nones' desire to remain outside all of this. I sympathize, because I detect something in them that I know in myself: a fear of commitment. Let me explain by way of politics. I confess that I find it difficult to commit to a particular political viewpoint. While living in Washington, I knew people who delighted in this commitment. They had strong politics, and they could argue them so well that I would be convinced until I talked with my next friend who had a different view. Everyone was right, and they could prove it. Moreover, the incivility and ill-humor of our political leaders and the media's appetite for scandal and provocation makes me feel about politics the same way Weiner feels about religion. But at the end of the day, I have to vote. I have to check the box next to the candidate I think is best and which statue or bill sounds the most reasonable. If I don't participate, my voice is completely marginalized and I miss out on the privileges of representative democracy.

Much like politics, religions have their loud blowhards and people who take what I feel is an uncomfortable delight in having strong opinions. But the responsibility for my participation does not rest on them - it rests on me. Commitment to God is less like buying an iPad and more like getting married. It's all encompassing, and we don't get to sever our ties when confronted with suffering, discomfort, other people or the fact that it's often us that needs changing. But the reward, and Christianity's key selling point, if you will, is love. Indeed, the Bible says that God himself is love and that all of God's law is summed up in loving God and loving each other. We're invited into this love through an act of love. Jesus died on a cross 2000 years ago that we may experience God's love through communion and fellowship with him, even when we're humorless blowhards with bad politics. The question then, is not whether we have the right operating system. It's whether we embrace Love or none.

Germany's Next Top President!

2012-01-16T03:58:00.001-05:00

Everyone back home in the good ol' USA is on the edge of their seats, watching the state by state results of the presidential primaries, but here in Germany, we've got some presidential problems of our own. The Republican candidates are going out of the way besmirch the President's and each others' credibility, dragging each other through the pigsty of dirty politics, half truths, contradictions and comparisons to a horrible-sounding place called Europe. Meanwhile, Germany's own President has jumped in the mud himself, and the media is piling it on.

Now, wait, you might say - isn't Germany's President that yellow-haired woman who keeps dragging her feet every time it's time to bail out a Mediterranean country? Nope! That's actually Germany's Chancellor, and she's the one with the real power. Germany's President is more of a Ceremonial figure-Head of State who gets to make speeches and sign legislation. The current President is one Christian Wulff, who, while governor of one of Germany's states, evidently accepted a cheap loan from a friend. A bit slimy, but slimier still when he threatened the Bildzeitung with "war" should they publish the story. This enraged the rest of the media so much that they united in calling for his head and focused their esteemed pages on the President instead of more important things, like the possible economic collapse of the Eurozone and play-by-play reports of "Jungle Camp," a c-celebrity, eye-candy reality TV show (ok, at least they saved room for that). Thus, if the German media get their way, Wulff will admit that he is no longer honorable enough to hold the post and step down.

The question, of course, is who would fill the vacancy. Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, I am happy to announce my candidacy! With your help (especially if you happen to be part of the Federal Commission), I'll be the most honorable President the Federal Republic of Germany has ever seen. I look forward to being a figurehead - smiling, signing things, giving speeches and taking people to lunch while everyone else works to keep the Euro from unraveling. It's a tough job, but, as they say, somebody's gotta do it.

Now, let's discuss my qualifications:

Great hair - Thanks to my Italian barber, my hair is both honorable and presidential.
Speeches - I give great speeches. For evidence of this, let me submit my "Toast to the Lassies," which I gave at my Scottish friend's Robert Burns Supper.
Political openness - I will happily represent whichever honorable party chooses to nominate me, and take their advice in choosing judges and things like that (Again, I'm much better at the ceremonial parts of the position. I'll leave the important parts of the job, especially if it requires research, to my staff). The phrase "honorable party" excludes both the extreme right and the extreme left. However, I look great in black, red, yellow, green or pirate. (Herr Kretschmann, rufen Sie mich an - ich habe Zeit!)
Experience with Foreign Dignitaries - The Federal President has an important role in welcoming dignitaries before they get down to business with Madame Chancellor. Hey, that's exactly what I did during my internship in DC! Score!

Now, I anticipate some drawbacks. You might be saying, "Um, Mr. Un Till, the Federal President must be German and older than 40. You are neither." Well, let me respond to these uncivil accusations.

First, let me address the age thing. Yes, it's true, I am not yet "over the hill" as they say. But, having a child has aged me at least ten years. Now that I'm a dad, I go to bed early, wake up early and avoid fast food. Moreover, I've become irritable, especially after 8:30pm. I've never listened to Justin Bieber, Katy Perry or Bon Iver, and I think most of the new technology out there, what with the fancy touch screens and portable readers and Facebook timelines, is strange and intimidating. I may not have a gray hair on my pretty little head, but trust me when I write this: I am old at heart.

Now, the citizenship thing is a bit more complicated. But I did have a German (though a big part Estonian) Gramma, and I'm married to a German girl and I have a half-German daughter. In any case, this is another good reason for the German and American governments to follow the Economist's advice and and allow me to have two passports.

So, what do you think? Will you join my campaign to restore honor to the Presidency?

Two questions - I realize one of the perks is a mansion in Berlin, but my wife is a Swabian, and from what I've read, her kind is not welcome there. Can we move things to Stuttgart?

Second, how's the pay?

Notes on a Funeral

2012-01-06T06:29:00.000-05:00

1. The Deceased

On December 30th at the age of 90, Oma Lore died. My wife's grandmother was the last remaining on either side of the family. Here is what I wrote about her in an email informing my parents' of this significant event.

I wanted to let you know that [my wife's] grandmother (and [my daughter']s Uroma) went to be with the Lord last night. She passed away in the apartment below us while we were fast asleep after our weary travels. She leaves a big hole in all of our lives - she always reminded me of our Granny, sweet and devout, someone who allowed Christianity to work in her heart her entire life so that she truly loved and treated people well, even as she didn't now who they were. This morning, her nurse (who, not knowing the news, came for her usual visit) told [my father-in-law] that she was one of her favorite patients - a breath of fresh air after treating so many people who spend their last moments bitter and resentful. I'll especially remember her for the pure delight with which she received [my daughter]. The two of them were good friends (and sometimes partners in crime when it came to sneaking chips and sweets). She rarely remembered me, but she always remembered [my daughter], and [my daughter] was always happy to see her. At breakfast this morning, I told her that Uroma is "away" and is now with Jesus. I'm not sure how much she understands, but between the emotion that fogged the room and the all the jetlag, she's been both clingy and especially sweet.

There's sadness, but there's relief and joy in her parting. She was in a lot of pain, and she had often said that she wanted to go home. We had a sense that she was simply waiting for it to end. [My father-in-law] and his sister gave her so much love at the end of her life, taking turns caring for her that she never needed to be sent to a home and making good use of the flexibility both of them have. That being said, I'm also happy for them that this work is complete. She was, of course, a quiet housemate (and she was old enough that she couldn't hear our music or baby crying or whatever), but we would hear her praying every night. While age had broken down most of her faculties, she never lost the ability to pray. Every night, she would sit in her bed and talk to Jesus, blissfully unashamed that her neighbors could hear her. Now, just like Mary, the sister of Martha, she's sitting at his feet.

She is on the tail-end of the war generation. The scars of the Third Reich and World War II can still be seen and felt in Germany, but those who have lived through it are becoming fewer in number. One of those scars was on her husbands' eyes. He was just twenty when he was called to defend Germany in 1945, and combat with the Allies cost him his eyesight, bringing him into the community of the Kriegsblinde, war blind. Oma Lore was the nurse who would escort him home from the center where he learned to function. He loved her, and was delighted to learn that they were from the same town. His first marriage proposal was rejected, because she was not sure if he was strong enough in his Christian faith. When my family talks about him, he reminds me of GK Chesterton's thankfulness and wonder. Blindness from a war that wasn't his idea to begin with (and killed some family members) could have embittered him, and everyone would have understood. But he remained thankful for life, working as a masseur, growing his garden, reading Tolstoy and searching for wonder (my wife said he was always great for conversation). He's a model to me, the blogwriter who can dwell on failures, bad decisions and bitter pills. Perhaps that's what convinced Oma Lore to become a blind man's wife. Now both of them stand before the Lord in a place with no war or blindness. Their bodies healed.

2. The Organ

I don't get to traditional churches that often - you know, the ones in the middle of most European towns and in American towns in Norman Rockwell paintings with huge, beautiful towers (we go to a more modern church), but the organ and organist at St. Blasius's in Plochingen are lovely. C.S. Lewis, who cut his teeth on Wagner and classical Greek poetry, had a bias against organ music and hymns, but my tastes are simple enough to delight in the beautiful sounds which played Oma Lore's favorite hymns to bring comfort to my family. In fact, as someone who plays a mere guitar for church, I was a bit envious that one man could make so many sounds and combine them so beautifully. With almost every other instrument, you need the support of others to reach those deep basses and soaring trebles of competing volumes. One organist, his arms, legs, feet and fingers dancing effortlessly across the great machine, filled the church with the sounds of an entire orchestra.

3. The Sermon

The pastor told Oma Lore's story from her perspective (think what I wrote in the email, but as if he were channeling her to tell it in sort of a spoken-word poetry). It wasn't a theological treatise (though I enjoy those on any occasion) nor was it an old time religion alter call (here I'm less of a fan), but her life was a Gospel message. The pastor knew that by simply echoing her years, he was casting seeds at the hearts of all of us in the pews, shivering in the January cold between pieces of art. I hope we listen.

4. The Cemetery

The Cemetery at St. Blasius's is a beautiful record of history of this town. So many names marked, memorials to the war dead to a classmate of my wife's who lost her life to a car accident a long time ago. Oma Lore's family grave is on the front row, right next to the path. But in one of her later acts of charity, she asked that she and her husband be buried a few rows back. Why? Well, the Germans are very good at tending their graves, and there's a special pressure to keep the tombs on the front row spic and span. She felt that pressure herself with the family grave and didn't want to extend it to her descendents. Of course, given her love for everyone and their love for her, not to mention her husband, I trust that this site will remain well-visited and well-flowered.

We lined up in the rain a few rows back. There was a funny moment when the wind turned my large, red umbrella inside out. Everyone else stood in line and waited to scoop dirt into the grave while I hopped around like Charlie Chaplin trying set things right. Though if I made a scene, no one behind me was in the mood to comment on it. I was in the front of the line, because I married into it. There were plenty of people behind me who knew Oma Lore better than I did. One of the mysteries of marriage is that it's a mystic bond, not just to one person, but to her family as well. My umbrella, properly scolded, was now in place and I leaned against my wife as she, with a beautiful expression (this was a sort of sadness that shown through as beauty) dropped her flower into the hole in the ground.

5. Coffee and Cake

After the ceremony and burial, the family and the guests met at a local restaurant for traditional coffee and cake. This included delicious buttered pretzels and yeast buns with raisins. My 2-year-old daughter, who took her nap during the ceremony, rejoined us. After devouring rolls and pretzels (please, please don't give her coffee!!! I don't think anyone did...) she ran around the restaurant. I followed her, watchfully. Once again, I told her that Uroma was with Jesus. It's still hard to tell if she notices the loss of her good friend, the one who would sneak her potato chips while her health-conscience parents weren't looking, the one who she last saw being carried out of the house by medics. She ran around the restaurant like she would run Oma Lore's apartment, delighting in good food and the attention from older relatives. Having already been through a huge move and a couple of long family visits, she is indeed aware that large parts of her life (like the American side of the family) are not here, but they are elsewhere and can be seen in pictures and skype conversations. At the restaurant, she tested the different steps and doors and tried to sneak into the kitchen. How does a two-year-old feel the absence caused by another kind of distance? The mood at the restaurant was light, all things considered. This was not the funeral of a life cut short, but of a life well lived and loved.

6. Should we mourn?

Sometimes, we Christians become concerned when we find ourselves doing something natural. Often, it's in our pleasure - can we enjoy good food and drink, for example? (Yes, if we do so well) But there's also the question if we should mourn at a funeral. There was a charismatic guy at our high school who would lead prayer meetings at the flagpole. He once said he wanted his funeral to be a big, wild party (and presumably, no frowns). Then he would go on to prophecy about his future children. Less flamboyantly, Oma Lore herself once told my wife not to cry at her funeral. She would be in a better place, and I believe that she is. I wonder if, on her last day, Oma Lore saw a vision of Jesus, scars and all, telling her, "today you will be with me in paradise."

But mourning has precedent. We know it does, and we ache with the loss of people we know and even some of those we don't know. In the Bible, Paul writes to the Philippians that had his friend Epaphroditus not survived his horrible illness, he would have experienced "sorrow upon sorrow." Jesus himself wept at the funeral of a man he would call back to life only moments later. (C.S. Lewis beautifully pictures this at the end of The Silver Chair in the Narnia series, with the lion/Christ-figure Aslan crying over the death of King Caspian. I wanted to quote it, but it seems my copy of the book is on a different continent.) Death is a final reminder what the fall hath wrought, that this world, full of sin and separation from God, is not as it should be. Death reminds us that it took a death to be reconciled to God, and though death is defeated, though Paul mocks it by asking, "where, o death is your sting?" we cannot help but be sad. There is nothing contradictory in a crying Christian, but our tears lead us to our Comforter. A Christian funeral is a bitter drink of mourning and hope, of sorrow and joy, of cross and Resurrection. We cry, yes, we mourn deeply (it's ok to!), but we are comforted.

Sometimes It's Better to Receive Than to Give

2011-12-27T14:49:00.001-05:00

We didn't do the whole presents thing this Christmas. And yes, I am bragging about how we survived Christmas without embracing the mass consumerism in which you probably indulged (*pursed lips, judgmental eyes*). No, not really. In fact, as much as I appreciate pure family and food, I do miss the childhood anticipation, the feeling that the one thing on my Santa list would set the world right if I found it under the tree, and the valuable lesson of the inevitable anticlimax. My pajamaed sisters and I would wake up at an hour most of us would not care to even know about and sing Christmas carols until my parents woke up. Then, with my dad's camera flashing, we would rush to the tree with only a millisecond to notice the beautiful store-front (or tree-front, to be more accurate) display that my mom had finished only three hours earlier. What followed was always carnage (or a massacre, to borrow my friend Sandra's phrase). No liturgy. No waiting while your little sister struggled with ribbons. Maybe we missed a valuable lesson in patience and delayed gratification, but we didn't miss out on those other things the gifts bring out in us - gratitude, appreciation and a real knowledge that, unlike the Santa myths, we were receivers, recipients of the blessed bounty of our parents' work and grace.

2011 has been a year of receiving. My family and I, offering very little (other than cute pictures of our daughter on Facebook), have been surrounded by givers. Friends helped us with housing in the States, family helped us with house and car in Germany, and this was after they helped us fly to Germany in style. We received babysitting, plenty of free meals and the time and room for both an Alpen vacation and further education. All the givers in our life had been given much, and they only gave inasmuch as they received. Now, I'm writing for free and teaching for pennies, hoping to carve out enough of a subsistence that we can be better givers ourselves. Whenever I get to that point, it will be riding on the backs of so many who gave to us.

We didn't do the present thing, because my family in the States decided to forgo presents and pitch in to fly us to Florida. So we had one big present, a sunshine holiday, family, lots of pictures and plenty of food. It's an appropriate final gift after a year of receiving. After all, Christmas celebrates the Word who was both with God and was God, becoming a gift for us. That's why Christians took the dark pagan solstice holidays anticipating the return of the light and transformed them into our own Christmas feast. We celebrate what the Apostle John calls this "the true light that gives light to everyone" who came into our world. To follow Jesus is a gift available to us all. It is well worth receiving. May you receive much in 2012, so that you may give.

Walkin' in a Summer Wonderland

2011-12-23T14:16:00.005-05:00

We're here. My family and I escaped the darkness of Central Europe and their Christmas Markets to spend the Winter Solstice (and surrounding holidays) in sunny Orlando. I'm enjoying sunning myself in my flip flops, taking my daughter to the beach and sleeping with the fan on, but I've noticed something: Christmas can be a difficult time for Floridians. An overlooked aspect of all the cultural wars surrounding the holidays is how "northern-centric" most of the festivities are. We sit here in our lounge-chairs drinking pina coladas while holiday films and music paint an idyllic scenes of snow-covered houses, steaming hot cocoa and Tommy Hilfiger models sitting around the Christmas tree in comfy sweaters. We poor southern souls dream of a white Christmas, knowing that the only way we'll get one is if we go on a ski vacation. In this economy? Forget it. The rest of the country puts on their galoshes to go caroling in the snow with Tiny Tim before a hearty dinner of roast goose, and we're left out.

In order to combat this insidious anti-warm weather bias in our solstice festival culture, and in the classic American spirit of Christmas war retaliation, I'm going to re-write some holiday classics that visits the sunny side of the "most wonderful time of the year." Below are some attempts, but this is a work in process. Feel free to add your own suggestions.

Walkin' in a Sunshine Wonderland

Jet skis zoom, are you listenin'?
Flowers bloom, sunsets glistenin'
A beautiful sight, the tiki torch bright
Walkin' in a sunshine wonderland

Gone away, is well none of the birds
Here till March is the snowbird
He comes from New York
In a car full of torque
Walkin' in a sunshine wonderland

A Christmas Song

Shish kabobs roasting on an open fire
sunscreen covering your nose
Yuletide carols being sung by the pool
and folks dressed up like Michael Phelps

Everybody knows a palm tree and some mistletoe
Help make the season bright (not that the sun isn't bright enough already)
Tiny tots, with their cheeks all aglow
looks like we forgot the sun block

Jingle Bells

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle through the land
Oh what fun, it is to ride in a four-wheeler in the sand
(repeat)

Dashing o'er the beach
in an uninsured vehicle
by the waves we go
too hot to laugh, so we giggle...

Frosty

Frosty the snowman, shouldn't come to Orlando
In the summer swelt, the poor guy will melt... hey, dibs on the pipe!

The Death of Someone Who Cared

2011-12-17T16:00:00.000-05:00

In 1998, I spent a month in Bologna, Italy with Agape Europe, a Christian student group. When I shared this with an Italian friend a few months ago, she was surprised. The University of Bologna, she told me, had a reputation as a Communist stronghold and many there were decidedly anti-Christian. At the time, I was naive about the reputation and no one reacted to our message with hostility. But if I had known, it would not have discouraged me - quite the opposite, actually. Not because I enjoy antagonism - I'm the type of sensitive soul who wants everyone to play nice. But some things are important, and I'd rather discuss important matters with someone who passionately disagrees with me than with someone who just doesn't care.

Perhaps that's one reason why Christopher Hitchens' columns in Slate and Vanity Fair were appointment reading for me (the other two reasons are both his informed opinions on pretty much everything and the quality of his prose, agree or disagree), and it's why I join everyone who marks his death with sadness. It seems like every scribbler in the business has written an obituary of sorts (many of them are quite moving), but Michael Gerson of the Washington Post best expresses my thoughts as a believer:

(Hitchens) recognized that there is one argument worth having about religion: Is it true or false? The rest is sociology. Hitchens thought religion to be false and dangerous, but not trivial. This may help to explain the affinity of many believers for the world’s most articulate unbeliever. Hitchens took the largest questions seriously.

I find having a strong antithesis to my own views energizing. They force me to examine and explain, not in the face of a tract or a political advertisement, much less in the face of emotional pressure, but in the face of an intelligent person who has purposefully and thoughtfully rejected my worldview (I've even used this space to exercise a response to one of Hitchens' essays). And if we really believe in truth, in Ultimate Truth, then we have nothing to fear from this. The truth is our friend, my father likes to say. This isn't to say the world of apologetics isn't dangerous. It has teeth, and it's best to go in well-armed and well-education, in community and in prayer. But if apologetics is dangerous, apathy is deadly. If Hitchens' polemics has caused more people to consider Ultimate Reality, then for that, we can raise our hats in appreciation.

Learning Colors

2011-12-11T11:07:00.004-05:00

My (almost) two year old has been working on her colors. Here's a conversation we had some time ago while on a walk:

Me: What color is that car?
Daughter: Blue!
Me: Hmmm... actually it's red. What color is the grass?
Daughter: Blue!
Me: mmm... actually the grass is green.
Daughter: Grass... green!
Me: Exactly. What color is that house?
Daughter: House... blue!
Me: mmm... well, the house is white.

A brief pause. We both look around.

Me: Ok, what color are papa's jeans?
Daughter: blue!
Me (in my best praising voice): Exactly! Very good!

She's getting better.

Hamburger! Cheeseburger! Wutburger!

2011-12-04T07:34:00.011-05:00

Speaking of Christmas markets and meat, if I ever set up my own booth for all the holiday festivities, it would be an old-fashioned, American hamburger stand. I mean, other than McDonald's, Burger King, Starbucks, Hollywood, Friends, Sex in the City, 65% of everything else on TV, Coke, Sprite, (all you who bleed red, white and blue, start humming "America the Beautiful" here) Pepsi, binge-drinking college students, Subway, Kentucky Fried Chicken, women playing soccer, foreign policy, the Ford Focus, CNN International, Gangster Rap, Jack Daniels, the Twilight books, Cowboy films, Native American street musicians and several military bases, the Germans really don't get enough of the good ol' U. S. of A. It's a good thing I'm here.

I would name my stand "Wutburger," after the city of Stuttgart's own wutbürger, those brave citizens who have stuck it to the Man and his insidious plans to... let me check my notes - build a nuclear power plant? No, that's not it. Send German troops to war? hmmm... nope, that's not it. To use child labor pour nuclear waste into the Neckar river? Hmmm... nope. Ah, here it is: The Man's insidious plan is to... modernize Stuttgart's train station. The wutbürger have thwarted this dastardly scheme by camping out by the main train station for the past... how long? Well, at least since I've been here. You can almost hear Neil Young singing:

"There's something happening here
And what it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man building a train station over there
and it might cost too much money to be worth it depending on who you ask..."

(In their defense, I should point out that the train deal was pretty shady and dishonest to begin with, and that the train station could cause damage to part of Stuttgart's historic garden. The frustration resulted in the reigning Christian Democrats being kicked out in the last election. We're now ruled by the Greens in partnership with the SPD, and I wish them all the best)

"Wutburger" is a wonderful word. Burger means citizen (this fact has done extensive damage to the transatlantic relationship, particularly at lunch time.

German diplomat: "We must ensure that our mutual economic policy is in the best interest of the burgers!"

American diplomat, drooling: "Mmmm.... burgers...")

Wut, pronounced "voot" is hard to translate into English, but it includes a distinctively German brand irate rage. You'll experience wut if you commit one of Germany's unpardonable sins, like walking in the bike lane or or driving on the sidewalk. (people are strict here!) If you'll take a comparison to American politics, the Wutburger combines the rage and demographics of the Tea Party with the politics of Occupy Wall Street. Thankfully, the German commitment to pacifism trumps even the most extreme cases of wut. Think peaceful, seething protests. Against train stations.

I'd name my burger stand for the Wutburger, because they've had a tough week. It seemed like a victory for them that the funding for the train station was put to a popular vote last Saturday. Alas, democracy revealed that their "people's voice" didn't actually represent the people. The citizens of Baden Wuerttemberg decidedly voted pro-train station, revealing either a state-wide love of trains or a deep-seated distrust of hippies. So to all the wutbürger: you fought the good fight. Put your plackets in the recycling bin. Roll up your tents. Come on down to the Christmas Market and enjoy something hot off the grill. Yes of course there's a vegetarian option.

My "Wutburger" hamburger stand would feature the following culturally relevant offerings:

The original Wutburger - When I think of wut, I think of spice. Yes, the wutburger would be covered in Dave's Insanity hot sauce and feature several of those chilli peppers that even burn your skin. Why? You know what's worse than the Man building a train station? The Man building a train station while your tongue is touching the sun.
The Swabianburger - This burger may look modest on the outside, but the quarter pound beef patti will be covered with spaetzle, lentels and brown sauce. Eating the burger change your pronunciation so that your "s" sounds like "sh", cause you to keep your steps swept clean and give you a better taste in automobiles.
The Berlinburger - Like the city it's named after, this burger is poor but sexy. Poor because it's made from grade "F" canned ground beef. Sexy because it's covered in curry ketchup (hey, it's what they eat up there, so it must be sexy). Instead of a bun, you get two jelly donuts. Being the cheapest burger among the menu, it will be the most popular among Swabians, which causes resentment (even wut) among actual Berliners.
The Bavarianburger - The Bavarian is the most expensive burger on the menu. Not content with a simple beef patty, the Bavarian is augmented with sauerkraut additional meat, including three strips of bacon and a huge slab of pressed liverwurst. It's also covered in honey mustard and served with a liter of beer (two liters if you show up to the stand wearing lederhosen). Because the burger is rich, it's favored to win the Burgerliga every season, regardless of form from other burgers, and usually does so as long as the superstar meats don't quarrel (when they do, people roll their eyes and complain about the Hollywoodburger). It is therefore despised by every other burger on the menu, but let's be honest, it's the only burger that can consistently represent the Burgerliga in European competition.
The Frankburger - Covered in delicious green sauce and laced with Euro Notes.
The Ruhrburger - The proud burger of the mining industry, it actually consists of several small burgers combined to make the largest burger on the menu.
The Freiburger - Vegan, crunchy and only cooked in a solar power oven. Which is difficult in December.
The Hannoverburger - The only burger on the menu that speaks Hochburger.
The Cologneburger - Chances are, you've already seen this burger on TV.
The Dusselburger - A more expensive version of the Cologneburger.
The Hamburger - A beef patty served on a bun with pickles, lettuce and tomatoes. Hey, what were you expecting?
The Buffettburger - Lettuce and tomato, Heinz 57 and french-fried potatoes.

The Corner of the Christmas Market

2011-12-02T14:47:00.003-05:00

I am so thankful for Christmas markets. You have no idea. They're like warm little campfires, providing a homey glow in the dark, German December. It's dark here for this Orlando boy. The sun rises in part of the South and sets in another part of the South, never having the courage to muster more than a 9:30am light. At 4:30pm, when the sun leaves its last pink kiss on a southbound cloud, I feel as though someone owes me something.

This, of course, balances itself out in June, where the sun is less like Apollo and more like Aphrodite: standing in all her glory, not just beauty herself, but shining on the world to make every part of it lovely, all the way to 10:30 at night when she finally lets the stars join the party. In any case, a little glühwein with friends under golden lamps at the Christmas market helps me forget how much I miss the summer. Thank you, Germany, for your Christmas markets.

On the first day of Advent, my wife, daughter and I decked ourselves in layers of cloth and went down to Plochingen's Christmas Market. I tend to like the small-town Christmas markets more than the huge ones like in Nuremberg. The big ones get repetitive – the same trinkets, sweets and glueweinstubes repeated checker-board style all over town. Small-town Christmas markets are quaint and lovely and you can see from one side to another and still not have the time for all the pleasure offered. We don't need Carnival. We need lights and lebkuchen and warm alcohol.

Even the small Christmas market is a bit overwhelming for my 23 month-old daughter. Crowds, people and scary bearded men. So I took her to the part I knew she would love: The corner of the Christmas market, a make-shift stable full of live animals. Beautiful fuzzy ponies (my daughter squealed and said “Donkey! Donkey!”) and cotton-back sheep, all hoping the visiting children would share their sweets. We petted a pony on the nose and fed grass to a sheep (no lebkuchen for you, wooly!), but then I noticed something else. Two cardboard cutouts of a man and a woman in robes and a discarded baby doll in the feeding tray.

These were, of course, the holy couple and the holy child, Mary, the virgin mother, and Joseph, her fiance, and their baby, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. These poor cardboard figures leaned against the back of the stable as if waiting to be packed and recycled as holiday cards. Baby Jesus was half-covered with a blanket and looked like someone had tossed him in the manger from a distance of 40 feet. The holy family was thrown in there with so little love that I wondered if the whole purpose of this hesitant nod to religion was to keep Gramma from cussing without ruining the fun part. This was a stark contrast to the beautiful wooden manger scene front and center in Stuttgart's Christmas market (though I should point out that if German kitsch is to be believed, then our Lord was born with hair like Thomas Gottschalk). A starker contrast was the nativity scene I saw a long time ago in New York where I watched the Radio City Christmas Spectacular featuring the Rockettes. It was pimp my manger, baby, with golden stars and lucky charms, live camels and (I'm almost certain) live angels. Heaven on earth, right before the Rockettes came out and kicked their pretty legs. Deh, deh, dah, deh, dada....

The Plochingen manger scene is more accurate. Discarded to the margins during a hectic season, Joseph and Mary were kicked to a cave (sorry folks, the hotel is booked!), great with child, where God would step into the world onto animal feed. The Eternal, now a helpless infant, not in the best American hospital money can buy, but wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger. I can tell my daughter that God was once a baby like her, learning to walk and speak and eat. I can remind myself that he was rejected from the beginning. Ignored and forgotten by all but a few shepherds, away from the city lights where they could hear the angels. For some reason, these shepherds believed their eyes and ears and ran to worship something that couldn't lift it's own head.

If you've ever felt rejection, if you've ever been forgotten, left out or ignored, then know that Jesus identifies with you. We Christians don't believe that God remained something distant, unwilling to be grasped or touched. Jesus came to earth and brought the Kingdom of Heaven very near. He felt every rejection, pain and temptation that we felt. And what's more, he took the rejection, pain and temptation that we inflicted (on him and others) upon himself. He died as we should have died, and Resurrected that we may live. That's why the old Christians took the darkest time of the year to celebrate his birth; when all hope is gone, God shines his light in the darkness, and the darkness cannot understand it.

Wherever you are this Christmas, in the darkened north or the sun-kissed south, remember the child. That vague, fuzzy feeling of Christmas some people talk about – there's something to that, but it should lead us to more. It should lead us to a specific point in history where a child was born and God filled his lungs with oxygen. Remember the child if you are lonely and rejected. Remember the child if you warm your body with glühwein while laughing with friends (I hope you can do that at least once this season) or while shopping out of love and obligation or while watching your favorite holiday flick. Remember the child, light of life, true God of true God, wrapped in cloths, placed in hay. It's too beautiful not to believe.

Sausage Salad

2011-11-21T05:25:00.004-05:00

Just like the zombies, Germans like to eat brains on a plate. Ok, it's not actually brains. Sausage salad only looks like brains, spread neatly over a nice, round saucer and served with a slice of bread and a little bit of parsley.

I was first introduced... well, warned of sausage salad by an American colleague when I lived in Freiburg. That day, the University of Freiburg's cafeteria was serving the cold, pink, flimsy treat. "It's sooooo disgusting!" were my colleague's foreboding words. "They actually make sausage into a salad and eat it!" To my surprise, his words were true. We Amis opted for the schnitzel, but student after student hungrily accepted this pork wurst, sliced in strips, covered in vinegar and cheese and unceremoniously plopped in IKEA-like bowls. Hardly a student refused the "brains on a plate" - you'd had thought the cafeteria was giving away free beer. I didn't' eat very much that day. The cafeteria smelled even funnier than usual.

Some time later, I was walking the streets of Freiburg with a German friend who suddenly said, "man, I could really go for a delicious sausage salad right now." I nearly dropped my backpack. "You really like sausage salad?" I asked, hoping that my tone of voice didn't expose my cultural insensitivity. "Oh yeah..." My friend had a strange smile on his face. He wasn't looking at me, he was looking into his memories. The thought of sausage salad brought forth remembrance of home, hearth, mom and family dinners long past. The same thoughts come to my mind whenever someone says "fresh baked chocolate chip cookies" or "turkey and stuffing." My friend was drooling. Sausage salad, this cold, pink, appearance-of-brains concoction is German comfort food.

Now, I'm no Andrew Zimmer, but I like to think of myself as a brave eater. I'm also a champion of most German cuisine, especially Swabian fare, but it's been a mental effort for me to come around to the virtues of sausage salad. Whenever I confess my hesitation, Germans (immediate family included) are flabbergasted. "What!?" they snort. "You don't like sausage salad!? They don't have sausage salad in America!?" They look at me like I've grown up on locusts and honey. But before I can point out that, where I come from, sausage is considered a meat, they forget about me, dream of a nice, heaping plate of sausage salad and begin to get sentimental for their mothers. Then they go to Aldi and buy a ready-made pack.

But let's get real. I come from the land that invented Hawaiian Punch, Wonder Bread and the McRib. We Americans have no grounds to criticize the cuisine of other lands, however brain-like. We need to pull the can of lite beer out of our own eye before we can condemn our neighbors. So recently, I sat down and ate sausage salad with my wife (who ravenously attacked it, the way I would attack a fresh baked enchilada). Judge not by appearances. It's actually not bad. Light, savory, oily, vinegary (in the best possible way) - a good, quick dinner. I still wouldn't order it at a restaurant when there are so many heavenly alternatives - Kaesespaetzle, Schnitzel, Maultaschen - but I'm beginning to see the appeal. Maybe the zombies have a point after all.

An Open Letter to My Daughter

2011-11-16T08:21:00.005-05:00

Dear Daughter,

It's been a great 20-plus months. Your mom and I are proud of the way you're growing: walking, talking and fulfilling that divine duty of being unspeakably cute. However, now that you are freely running around and resolutely expressing your own opinions, it's time to set some ground rules.

Every morning, you are to eat nutritious oatmeal with little pieces of apple mixed in, not banana-chocolate chip muffins (like the four I ate).
You are not to walk in the street (as I often do, because I like having more space).
I know you like the YouTube videos of classic Sesame Street songs that we watch together, but goofing off on the Internet is a destructive waste of time. Oooo... someone posted a link on Facebook analyzing the challenges facing the Bears' offensive line.... interesting... stay there, I'll be back. (reads for ten minutes, then opens a political blog from a Twitter feed)
Speaking of glowing screens, relaxing in front of the television is not a healthy way to spend an evening (fortunately, you go to bed before your mother and I indulge in this nightly ritual).
Never let your anger get the best of you. This is especially relevant in the car, where we have to deal with TAILGATERS!!! HONESTLY, ARE PEOPLE JUST SO FULL OF THEMSELVES OR SO PERSONALLY FRUSTRATED THAT THEY NEED TO PUT THEIR LIVES AND THE LIVES OF EVERYONE AROUND THEM IN JEOPARDY TO SAVE, WHAT, SEVEN SECONDS OFF THEIR COMMUTE!!???? HEY!! YOU IN THE AUDI COUP WITH THE PRETENTIOUS SUNGLASSES! GET OFF MY... I'm sorry, where were we?
Refrain from all addictions. Oh wait, my coffee just ran out... I'll be right back (hurries to kitchen.... )
I know that you have enjoyed getting to know some of the little boys in the church playgroup. Let's remember: it is never too early for fatherly intimidation. Be sure to tell them that your dad is an expert in five forms of martial arts and is particularly effective with nunchucks.
Finally, it is in poor taste to wantonly post personal reflection, pseudo-insights about religion (or sports or politics or philosophy) or attempted humor on some blog where anyone with Internet access can read it.

The 1% and the Wee Little Man

2011-11-05T09:27:00.000-05:00

Aside from breaking my solemn vow never to learn anything practical, a fun part of my venture in Frankfurt was the opportunity to see the "Occupy" or "99%" protesters up close. I love a good protest - the best ones are colorful, diverse and peaceful, and Occupy Frankfurt (from what I saw) has been all of these things (though giving Frankfurt's current significance, I expected it to be bigger, but maybe I'm just spoiled after living in DC during the Spring of 2003).

It won't surprise you that my attention has been focused by the worldwide movement's scattered references to Jesus (which I saw in pictures - especially from London - but did not witness in Frankfurt). Most of them refer to how Jesus drove money changers out of the temple, identifying the Lord with the protesters against the rich and powerful 1%.

There's much to this. God's economics are different than those of the world, and story after story, proverb after proverb, shows how unimpressed our Lord is with storing up treasure on earth. Jesus was often found with the poor and the marginalized and was often criticized for hanging with the wrong crowd, and scripture reminds us how God "brings down the rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble." Personally, whatever economic good they may achieve, I find the confidence, the slick suits, the making money from money, the pace and the goals of the financial industry foreign and uncomfortable, and all the more so for whatever complicity they have in the economic crisis. So put Jesus and me in the tents in Frankfurt, New York or London.

Except this. You see, all the prophetic language about the rich and powerful who ruin our lives got me thinking about a sermon I heard last February by a certain injury-prone Washington pastor (listen to the sermon - if anything I write is sloppy, inaccurate or just plain wrong, blame the blogger and listen to the preacher for your edification). It's about Jesus' confrontation with a character as slimy, if not more so, than the worst Wall Street or Washington has to offer. If you went to Sunday school, you've probably heard of him. His name is Zacchaeus, and we Sunday school kids used to sing "Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he!" Yes, he was little. And he was rich for all the wrong reasons. He collected unjust taxes from his fellow Jews on behalf of occupying powers, then exhorted plenty of extra for himself. He prospered while his neighbors suffered. He was the 1% in the town of Jericho.

As for Jesus, he was stopping by Jericho on his way to Jerusalem for the climax of the Gospel story, telling people about the Kingdom of Heaven along the way. Throughout his journey, he had mentioned that the poor were blessed, told the story of a rich farmer who died with his wealth after refusing to share it and had just pointed out that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for the rich to come into his Kingdom. When the Gospel of Luke introduces us to Zacchaeus, the little man who preyed on the rest of the town, we'd be forgiven for expecting little Z to finally get what's coming to him.

That's not what happened. Zacchaeus was so desperate to see Jesus that the wee little man climbed up a tree - expensive digs and all - just to get a better look. But it was Jesus who looked at him. He called him by name. "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I'm staying at your house today!" A sign of honor and fellowship - Jesus would break bread with this stooge, this crook, this greedy slime ball. The good folks of Jericho, little Z's victims among them, understandably grumbled. I know I would have. Jesus was going to occupy Zacchaeus' house for all the wrong reasons.

That's the problem with Jesus. We line up to demand justice from those who ruin us: the 1%, corporations, political parties, presidents, slum lords, druggies, moral degenerates, academics, bureaucrats, foreigners, locals, family members and whoever else. And maybe we're right - everyone was sure right about Zacchaeus. Then suddenly, we find Jesus crossing the battle lines to have lunch with the very people whose head we want. This is painful. Real crimes have real victims - tragic ones at that.

And yet, look what happens to Zacchaeus. He joyfully receives Jesus, converts and gives justice plus interest. He says, "half my goods I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold!"

This is good news, not just for Zacchaeus or his suddenly prosperous victims. A couple chapters earlier, after a rich young man was unable to do what little Z did (bringing about this "camel through the eye of the needle" remark from Jesus) the disciples ask a good question. "Then who can be saved?" Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out that they "regarded the case of the rich young man not as in any way exceptional, but typical... for every person, even the disciples themselves, belongs to those rich ones for whom it is so difficult to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." This isn't a problem of the 1%; it's a problem of the 100%. Jesus' answer? "What's impossible with men is possible with God."

Jesus' Kingdom is something very near, so close to us by his grace. He's willing to visit our houses, to eat with us and to be with us. All we have to do is something we can't do without his help - let go of all our idols, i.e. repent and believe this Good News. It might mean giving up wealth, family or ambition. It might mean loving the enemies, the very people against whom we protest. But if we joyfully receive his grace, we learn to give grace to others and maybe, just maybe, an excellent sort of justice will follow - kind of like 2000 years ago in Jericho.

Frankfurt

2011-10-04T14:08:00.003-05:00

I'm in Frankfurt for the next few weeks, and I must say, Europe's financial capital is making a wonderful impression. The heavenly weather helps, of course. I've always had a little bias against Frankfurt - it seemed to me like Wall Street without the rest of New York. (Indeed, I learned today that a nickname for Frankfurt, besides "Bankfurt", is "Mainhatten." Main - pronounced "mine" - for the river hat runs through it, and the rest, well, if you don't get it ask your neighbor...) I saw plenty of people with power posture and chic suits, and the skyline is a neighborhood of skyscrapers with the names of banks shining proudly at its points, but Frankfurt has more to offer.

I've only been here a couple days, but here are a three things that Frankfurt has going for it:

The Main River - Majestic, and with a splendidly-kept river walk, the Main is clearly the place to be where there is good weather. Joggers, bikers, walkers, lovers, picnickers and (happy day) biergartens rest on either side.
Transport - I've never seen a metropolitan so bike friendly (of course, I've never been to Amsterdam, but I've been to Berlin and Munich), and the Frankfurters take full advantage.
Diversity - In my mind, there are few things finer than walking among a spicy mix of nationalities, languages, colors, sizes, shapes, ages and activities. I suspect that part of this was tourist and the American military bases, but the whole gumbo must also think the international financial institutions, the university and the general life of the city of Frankfurt.

Praising the King

2011-09-29T08:15:00.000-05:00

History is littered with gruesome tyrants and horrible monarchs. Gaddafi is the latest to be properly knocked off his throne, and reports of a mass grave discovered by Libyan rebels are just more reminders of what happens when a human claims god-like authority. I come from a country founded on enlightened, anti-monarchist principles, and within that country, I was born (and recently left) a state whose flag features Lady Liberty standing victorious over the Tyrant. Anti-authoritarian sentiments are, for obvious and very good reasons, particularly strong here in Germany. Thus, for Christians who wish to proclaim the Gospel in this part of the world, there is an understandable tendency to downplay the monarchical language in the Bible. For example, the Gute Nachricht ("Good News") translation of the Bible shows Jesus proclaiming "God's New World" instead of "the Kingdom of Heaven."

Worship leader Albert Frey has a different idea. On my desk, I have his 2006 album, provocatively titled Fuer den Koenig, or "For the King." Perhaps more provocatively, the cover is a picture of a sword that reminds me of the sword Gandalf hands to King Theoden in the film, The Two Towers. It's not aggressive - the sword lies chivalrous and downward facing on a scarlet cushion. If this strikes you as offensive or corny, at least take a moment to consider the album's liner notes. Frey was inspired to study in depth the kingly language in the Bible after researching the Middle Ages. This prompted the songs and the album, but he is not callous to recent history. He writes (and the following is my hasty translation of the album's liner notes. I'm aiming for accuracy, so if it sounds clumsy, believe me when I say it sounds better in German):

"It is sometimes asserted that we German speakers find approaching the kingly side of God difficult, because we have not had a monarchy for a long time and have bad experiences with authority sitting deep in our collective conscience. We honor neither stars nor politicians nor saints as much other peoples."

All true, and maybe even too understated. But instead of retreating, watch what Frey does. His response is to turn it on his head.

"It is my opinion, however, that our skepticism can also help us with our search for true worship, because we are less likely to be bedazzled by mere human glamor. For us, it is fully clear that no human being can totally embody the ideal of the King."

Where others see a barrier, Frey sees an opportunity. He goes on to take it home:

"But in spite of this, we naturally have the Sehnsucht for a good authority, for a power who does not abuse, but rather acts in love. And this Sehnsucht compels us to the throne of God. More than any of the old stories, from King Arthur to The Lord of the Rings, we find Jesus, truly, as the Good King, even when we find him, apparently powerless before Pilate, answering 'you said it, I am a King'... He is the true King. When we worship him - and that's the point of the songs on this CD - we are put right with a natural order, in spirit, in the invisible world as much as the inner world of our souls. When we proclaim who He is, we happen upon who we are: the daughters and sons of the King, people with worth and power to reorder our lives and fight for his Kingdom."

This isn't all macho knight stuff, though.

"The personal side of this good authority is the Father. God is also a loving Father, and that is also the theme of some of the songs. We need both of these moments so much: before the Throne of the King and in the arms of the loving Father. God claims us as Father and he claims us as King."

One of the reasons Albert Frey is my favorite worship leader in any language is that his songs effortlessly and without pretension weave together all the emotions of Christianity. Fuer den Koenig is one of the best examples of his work. Frey leads us to celebrate the majesty of the King and the intimate love of the Father. The listener, the worshiper, mourns, celebrates, proclaims and stands in awe.

If you understand German, buy it. And if you remain skeptical, give it a shot, anyway. Cast aside our human failure to live up to the King, from evil tyrants to Hollywood kitsch. You might find the True King, and in finding him, as Frey points out, we find our worth as well.

One Reason I'm Not a Naturlist

2011-09-26T09:58:00.005-05:00

A little over a week ago, Alex Rosenberg made a case for naturalism in the New York Times. It's a strong case, and there's a lot I could write in process or in response. But then he writes this:

"That doesn’t mean anyone should stop doing literary criticism any more than forgoing fiction. Naturalism treats both as fun, but neither as knowledge."

Fiction is fun; if it were not fun, I would not read it (and I often stop reading a novel when it ceases to be fun for me). But if fun is the only thing Professor Rosenberg gleans from fiction, then I wonder if he is reading the wrong books.

Do Not Hinder Them

2011-09-22T07:32:00.003-05:00

We ran some errands in downtown Plochingen today. We walked downtown – the weather was too beautiful not to do so. The sun, already autumn gold, warmed the ever-enchanting view of my wife and daughter ahead of me on the sidewalks. They looked like icons from an ancient Eastern Church.

After a few checks off the to-do list, our company parted. My wife would run to the little discount grocery store to buy a Knoedel for today’s lunch, and my daughter and I would stay in Plochingen’s pedestrian zone. The plan was to free my daughter from the confines of her stroller and let her little legs run up and down the street, as she had done in the past. But she wanted to go somewhere else. “Jesus!” she cried, pointing at the downtown chapel.

We were at the chapel the Sunday before. There was a children’s church service put on by the Protestant church. They sang wonderful little songs and learned about how, when Jesus was twelve, he stayed at his Father’s house. There were paintings of Jesus on the wall, medieval-style sketches from his life and death and life. At the front, like so many other European churches, there’s a statue of Jesus on the cross. (The comic highlight of the morning was when she pointed out that the Crucified One was “naked.”)

“Jesus!” she said again, matter-of-factly, still pointing at the chapel. At first I did not want to go in. Why go into a stuffy room with Europeanized Jesus pictures when we could still enjoy Germany’s September sun? “Jesus!” she insisted. Nervously, I looked at the stern sign on the chapel door warning people to be quiet and reverential while in the building. “Jesus!” she said. Then I remembered something Jesus himself once said: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them.” I opened the door and we went in.

My daughter pointed to one of the paintings. “Jesus!” she said again. This time she was not insisting but acknowledging. She hurried down the center aisle to the statue of Jesus on the cross. “Jesus!” she said. “Cross!” she said, pointing. I had never heard her say the word “cross” before. My daughter excels at pointing and acknowledging. Perhaps, in this case, it was her own way of worshiping.

In some ways, I find it strange that a child finds Jesus so interesting. When I was a child, I knew Jesus was good, but I had to grow into him. I preferred more adventurous Sunday school stories, like David fighting a giant or Samson’s action-hero invincibility. It was only later that I realized how Jesus, in his ministry of reconciliation, was so much stronger than either. I don’t know if my daughter’s child-wisdom will remain. Maybe, with age and other distractions, her interests will go elsewhere.

What I do know is that one of my responsibilities as a father is to show Jesus to her - to tell her about Him and to teach her what he said. I am to model Jesus for her. For this task, I am insufficient; we both need grace. One day, she will decide for herself if she will live up to her Baptism, if she will live up to this moment in Plochingen’s downtown chapel, if she will abide in Jesus and participate in his ministry of reconciliation. One more thing I know: if she is truly interested in Jesus, at any point, the worst thing I could possibly do is hinder her.

Cheese Fit for a Poet

2011-09-20T06:41:00.005-05:00

Editor's Note: There have been some technical difficulties over at Justin's food blog, but while our vacation is still fresh, I'd like to offer the food posts from my "Austrian Correspondence" series. Later, I'll re-post them on the food blog and include pictures.

It's all about dairy, my friends. The Alps, to use a messy example from the good ol' USA, are, as if the state of Wisconsin was dropped into the Rockies. Amazing mountains with a culture of hiking, climbing and all the other mountain sports, combined with the best dairy products I’ve ever tasted. I tasted some good food, here, but it's the dairy that's worth writing home (and blogging) about, starting with cheese.

"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.” G.K. Chesterton

You can always count on Chesterton for the good one-liners; I found the above quote while looking for a different one in a different context. But he has a point. Cheese is a wonderfully tasty and complex food, and the process of making good cheese is a journey of work and aging, not unlike that poetic beverage - wine. But Cheese gets such a bad rap that I really couldn’t imagine a poem about cheese that didn’t sound just silly. Cheese has so many connotations, from the farm all the way to the kitchen, that are more quaint than poetic. Smelling like cheese is not a compliment, and cheesy humor is associated with kitsch, cheapness and vulgarity.

Here in the Alps, just like other cheese-producing places, much of the culture is kitschy (or cheesy, if you’d like). Oompa music, lederhosen, quaint farmhouses and roaming cows with bells around their neck – I love it, but high culture doesn’t come to mind. But the cheese produced here is worthy of song and sonnet.

To my left, I have two cheeses, fresh from the farm. The first is called Komperdell “Village Cheese,” produced right here in Tirol. The texture is comfortable – moist and delightfully smooth. It has many tastes and would work well with a multifaceted wine, and wine is one of the flavors that jumps out when it touches my tongue. It’s a white cheese, and has many of the properties we Americans associate with good Swiss cheese, but much more savory.

The second sample could accurately be called Swiss Cheese, because we crossed the border and, aside from indulging in some duty-free shopping, visited “Sennerei Samnaun,” where the cheese is produced. The taste is both milder and deeper, as if it has more to say to you the more you eat it. The texture is much more firm to the bite and dry but in a pleasant way.

Both cheese sure beat the heck out of anything I’ve eaten from a supermarket. Naturally, they’re more expensive too, but they'd be even more expensive if we were not so close to the farm. If you’re not in the Alps, it’s worth the effort to take a weekend and visit the closest Dairy Farm, so you can eat this wonderfully complicated and delightful food. Who knows? It may even inspire poetry.

The Only One My Daughter Fears (Or, Does Our Pediatrician Have a Star-Covered Robe He's Not Telling Us About?)

2011-09-17T06:36:00.004-05:00

My daughter loves people. If you've ever seen her, chances are, she's happy to see you. She'll let you pick her up, she'll smile, she'll laugh at all your jokes and she'll give you kisses when it's time to leave. Not only is she sugar and spice, but yes, everything nice is thrown in. There are only two people she fears. The first is not just one person, but a people group, and that is blond-haired boys her age. She fears them because, a few weeks ago, a blond-haired boy, born the same week she was born, came and visited. When introduced, my daughter attempted a friendly greeting. With a smile on his face, the blond-haired boy raised a metal toy car above her head and, with the focused speed of a lumberjack, clocked her cross-eyed. Understandably, she avoided him the rest of the day and now treats all blond-haired boys with suspicion. As her father, I am making it my duty to encourage and expand this suspicion, so that it applies to all boys and so that it lasts well into adulthood.

The second person she fears is our pediatrician. We visited him the other day. My daughter had a minor stomach issue, but, as with all of my daughter's minor issues, this one set off that same nightmare my wife and I have every week. You know, the nightmare all parents have, the nightmare that ends with all my daughter's minor issues become the subject of a Lifetime Original Movie. So, to escape our worst fear, we took our daughter to visit her worst fear.

Our pediatrician is a superb pediatrician. I am aware of his diagnostics saving at least one life, and all the ratings and local parental gossip are highly complementary. Our experience is good - he is another example of a man excelling and taking a proper joy in his profession. But our daughter, who always enjoys playing with other sick kids in the waiting room (though keeping a skeptical distance from blond boys), shrieks like that girl is Psycho when he walks in and doesn't stop until she's safely in her stroller three blocks away. This doesn't phase our pediatrician. He goes about his business with a stoic smile, prodding my daughter's belly (and taking a few kicks in the process) while speaking to my wife an indecipherable Swabian dialect. His impeccable bedside manner is friendly and funny.

I suspect the reason he scares my daughter so much isn't the danger of shots (she had most of hers in America already, and though she's due for another soon, she hasn't had one here yet), but his appearance. He looks like he went to Med School at Hogwarts. He has a long, thick black beard, like a neat bird's nest hanging from his face. His large eyes and long, thin nose complete the picture. I really, really want to see him in a blue robe covered in white stars and gold moons.

We left that day, and my daughter's screams subsided into suspicious sniffles. She was fine, he told us. Yes, perhaps. Or perhaps he simply slipped the right potion into her screaming mouth when we weren't looking.

Under Familiar Trees

2011-09-13T09:35:00.005-05:00

How do you take time to enjoy the familiar?

A general difference between America and Germany is the immediacy of nature. Both countries have excellent forests, mountains, rivers and trails, and a lot of people who like to enjoy them. However, nature seems more immediate over here. In American, (at least in the cities and suburbs) in order to enjoy nature, I had to drive somewhere, but when I got there, I was a good many miles away from civilization. Here, I can get out of my house and walk five minutes and to be surrounded by trees. This was true in bigger cities, not just the small towns. The trade-off, of course, is that when a country the size of Montana has 80 million citizens, civilization is never far off. I prefer the German way, though, for the simple fact that I hike a lot more.

I am getting to know the Hills of Plochingen. They aren't as vast or as awesome (think the King James Bible sense of the word, not the Ninja Turtle) as what we climbed in Austria, but they have a patient beauty. I say patient, because it's the type of beauty that speaks against the Internet age. Now, let me be clear that I like the Internet age. I get to communicate with friends all over the world. Heck, I get to have friends all over the world. I get access to content, pictures and sports scores like like they grow on trees and it's always harvest. And I get to write on the Internet, here in my own little corner of the information super highway! It's like Jimbo Fischer putting me in at tight end for a few plays. It's like Juergen Klinsmann letting me play attacking midfielder at the 80 minute mark during a friendly. Thanks, coach, I'll put myself in! Rudddyyyy! But the temptation is to value novelty over stability, to constantly engage in a frantic search for the next thing.

That temptation sneaked up on me during an unexpected hike. My wife and I drove our daughter to the top of the mountain for a little family time. There's a trail fit for strollers and a few playgrounds up there (plus a track, tennis courts and a biergarten, but we didn't use those). After some family R&R, my wife suggested I walk home, through the woods and down the mountain past all the little houses with apple trees. That day displayed all the virtues of September: summers glory was fading into gold, no longer white hot, now nurturing. The air was cleansed by yesterdays rain. An hour's walk in such conditions was a piece of Eden. But along the way, that Eden was attacked, sabotaged by my own impatience. I wanted to change sites to other trees. I wanted to switch tabs to bigger mountains or click on a link to open up a vibrant cityscape with an edgy soundtrack. And hey, I wanted information. I have big decisions to make, and I didn't feel it happening in all the stillness, rustling leaves and decaying apples. I wanted to read what people were saying: blogs, forums, respected newspapers - these would either inform my decisions or provide a balm from their pressure.

I'm thankful to God that I saw this. He showed it to me. It was then that I could say a firm "no" to my desire to control the scenery. However familiar, his creation is there to love, to appreciate, to enjoy. These dwarf mountains, as innocent as ancient children, these apples trees, bursting with hope and life and taste. Every leaf - a work of art as much as a work of biology. A friend reminded me the other day that it's God who makes us lie down in green pastures, even when we'd easily run off to whatever is next.

Walk a familiar path. Look at a tree or a flower, the one you've seen a thousand times and, with patience (and not without effort), watch the poetry. Feel the tenderness, like a reflection of what an aged lover feels when he sees is wife of fifty years, a reflection of Him who sees us and knows us - every part, every moment - and loves us. This may be a good step in the direction of loving Him back.

Best Case/Worst Case -- Florida State II

2011-09-06T04:36:00.005-05:00

My traditional best case/worst case post about my Alma Mater is a little late, mainly due to a labor dispute between writers and editors. But it is that time of the year where we can escape the realities of war, economic difficulties, professional productivity, civic obligations, family life, personal health, religious ritual and academic study to focus on one thing: college football. Thus, it's my honor and my duty to contribute. Just like last year (and with the appropriate apologies to the experts), I will examine the best case and worst case scenarios for the Florida State football team.

Best Case:

Unfortunately, the Seminoles have already passed up their opportunity to achieve best case. Yes, they trounced Louisiana-Monroe, their week 1 cream puff, 34-0, (hey, if you schedule Oklahoma, you can justify playing cream puffs. Not that that helped us last year...), but that was not best case. That was, at best, barely-meets-expectations case. Best case is when you commit no turnovers, have no need to punt, score a touchdown on every drive and not allow a single first down. The minimum score for a best case game is 98-0. So, for the remainder of the season, the best case scenario would be a series of 98-0 shellackings, with extra touchdowns scored on in-state rivals. By the time the ACC Championship comes around, the team is playing so divine that Florida State's players, coaches, professors, students and alumni all reach a light-producing higher plane, producing blessing, peace and justice the world over.

Worst Case:
The worst case scenario is quite the opposite. In this nightmarish dimension, the Florida State Seminoles, starting next week, fail to gain a single yard, much less first down, field goal, touchdown or safety. The defense allows the opposing running backs to pass through their tackles like Shadowcat, giving up 98 points per game plus extra touchdowns against in-state rivals. The horrendous performance on the field causes the team to literally implode into a black hole, engorging all matter and light into the spot in space where Doak Campbell Stadium once stood. Perhaps some of us might have escaped had we not cut the Space Shuttle program. As it is, the only ones who can flee the earth are the astronauts in the International Space Station, a billionaire Russian oligarch and three cocktail waitresses from the Russian's favorite St. Petersburg night club. Not that any could make it far, anyway....

Prediction: Somewhere in between. Happy football watching!

A Mighty Fortress

2011-09-03T04:47:00.003-05:00

I lived in Germany for two years, and it's been several months since I moved back here from Washington, D.C. But a couple weeks ago, I had an essential German experience for the first time. I was privileged to sing Martin Luther's majestic hymn, "A Might Fortress is Our God" in the original German with a German congregation. Not only that, but I was on worship team duties, so I got to be a part of the creating and leading process.

I had never before heard the German version in its entirety (unlike some other famous German hymns like "Praise to the Lord the Almighty," sung in English and German at our wedding, or "Fairest Lord Jesus"), but it was a divine experience. The good news for English speakers is that Fredric Henry Hedge's translation is an excellent piece of work - near word for word perfection. Hedge added a couple of notes and syllables to the original to work it out, but it's very well done. (I was previously unaware of the other translations - I grew up singing Hedge's versions, but I hope I am speaking as someone who knows both languages well rather than as a sentimentalist when I say that the other translations I've read don't capture Luther's text nearly as well)

"A Mighty Fortress is Our God" is nicknamed the "Battle Hymn of the Reformation," but paradoxically, I find it a hymn of great comfort. It's a very familiar hymn for many of us who grew up in a Protestant church, and because of it, it's easy to miss the intricacies. Look at it again. It concisely outlines our weakness against the devil's schemes but then celebrates our Advocate, "the Man of God's own choosing." In light of our Lord Saboath's triumph, this Christ-centered hymn ends in a glorious call to repentance:

Let good and kindred go; this mortal life also

The body they may kill; God's truth abideth still

His Kingdom is forever

The best hymns and songs manage to confront the various emotions of Christianity. Luther's hymn goes through fear, faith, comfort, triumph and conversion. Because of this, whether singing or leading the congregation, there are two modern tendencies worth avoiding. The first tendency would be to skip a verse or two. We do this with most hymns to accommodate the modern attention span (myself included), and it's a trade-off that all of us make (especially with those 17-stanza marches in the hymnals). We always lose something when we do this, but verse skipping ruins the flow and scheme of "A Mighty Fortress." This is one of those songs where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Besides, it's only four verses, so hang in there. Sing the whole thing.

The second modern tendency is more in a personal level. The combination of the hymn's familiarity and the hymn's unblushing reference to spiritual warfare can tempt us to remain "above the fray", so to speak, as we sing it. It's easy to mouth the ancient words without letting them penetrate mind, heart or will. Read it again. See for yourself why that would be a shame.

How Then Shall We Enjoy?

2011-08-29T09:27:00.007-05:00

Kevin DeYoung offers Christians some good advice about confronting the continuing problem of binge drinking on College campuses. Read the whole thing for introduction and explanation, but his five step program is: 1) Know your enemy (i.E. debauchery poses more of a threat to young Christians than anti-Christian arguments), 2) Have a mature attitude towards alcohol 3) Be boldly Biblical 4) Show tough love 5) Remind Christians who they are.

Good list, but I think something's missing. I know what binge drinking look like. I went to a big state school where the T-shirts read "a drinking town with a football problem." My freshman year, we were the #1 party school and the #1 football team. I've seen wasted students do stupid, disgusting things, and I've read about worse. I mourn, not because they partied, but because they failed to party properly.

We serve a Lord who turned (a lot of) water into (a lot of) wine. During his time on earth, he went to a lot of parties, to the point where his enemies not only accused him of hanging out with the wrong crowd, but of being a drunkard and a glutton. But Jesus was neither.

We're not to be drunkards, and DeYoung is right that we should make that clear. Nor should we be gluttons. But I think "mature attitudes towards alcohol" should go more into how Christians should drink. Or, for that matter, how Christians should feast, tell jokes and have fun in general. This should all be in the context of a larger theology of pleasure, where pleasured is affirmed but not worshiped. Without such affirmation, Christian warnings about pleasurable things give the impression that we'd prefer to avoid fun all together. I've seen plenty of college testimonials that went something like this: "I used to party, but then I found Christ, so now I don't." Wow, count me in.

Instead, Christians should learn excellence in pleasure and not hide it. We should show how humor can be hilarious without engaging in cheap obscenities or destructive sarcasm. We should show how we cook, eat and enjoy exquisite foods without making a god of our stomachs. And we should show, especially to those who are still too young to partake, how good drink can enhance flavor, camaraderie, conversation and romance, and that those who settle for the over-consumption of cheap booze are missing out on something far greater. Of course, excellence in pleasure should clearly show that there are times not to partake - that there are seasons of feasting and fasting, and that there are times to be serious and that our happiness does not rely on drink. Excellence in pleasure includes knowing when to stop and when to say no, how to recognize and and give deference to our weaker brothers and sisters.

That's why this passage from DeYoung's post isn't very helpful:

On the other hand, the Christians that recognize the good gift of wine or beer need to grow up at times. Christian upperclassmen (and other adults) who can drink legally should be careful with alcohol consumption around underage believers. They should not talk about beer like it’s the coolest thing since Sufjan Stevens. Christian liberty is no reason for social life and conversation to revolve around the conspicuous consumption of alcohol.

Often, beer is better than Sufjan, Bon Iver, Tupac or whatever else is in your iPad. To not say so would be dishonest. Our social lives shouldn't worship alcohol, but neither should we treat pleasure in alcohol as some sort of embarrassing thing we have to hide. Alcohol is more likely to be a dangerous, forbidden fruit if we treat it like one. Moreover, if Christian youth do not have good models of excellence in pleasure, especially the pleasure of drink, then the alternatives offered by peers and media will be much more tempting.

Loriot, or Why German Humor is a Laughing Matter

2011-08-26T07:02:00.005-05:00

Humor is one of those strange facts of existence. It's universal, everyone has it to some extent. It heals, it hurts, it unites, it divides. It helps us to understand, it clouds our understanding. It's important for me just for the way it makes life go down easier, not to mention how it helps do something I'm not always good at: connect.

Humor, of course, is difficult to translate across cultures, and living in another country, the change in humor can have, if you'll take the analogy, similar emotional effects to the change in diet. There are exciting new surprises, but there are certain dishes you grow up with that you start to miss. Here in Germany, I love Swabian comfort food , I've been pleasantly surprised by the varieties in pork and I'd take my wife and mother-in-law's cooking to any fancy schmancy chef. At the same time, I miss good, old-fashioned American chicken dishes and fresh chocolate chip cookies (ok, whenever fresh chocolate chip cookies are unavailable, I miss them, regardless of the cultural context). If you travel a lot, a menagerie of things you miss becomes quilted to your brain so that regardless if where you plant your feet, you're acutely aware that you are missing something. But better to have tasted than to have never tasted, or to have laughed than to have to have never laughed. Better, also, to remain in the present (usually).

Even as I miss semi-ironic banter with my sisters, Saturday Night Live, the Onion, or Jon Stewart, I've found that German humor is a foreign delight. This might surprise you, as every other country in the world judges the Germans as less funny than their own culture. Just across the North Sea, the English judge the rest of the world as less funny than their own culture, and they doubly judge the Germans. My parents have a book of joked about different culture, and it has only one joke on the Germans. It's a quote attributed to Mark Twain: "German humor is no laughing matter." Of course, in Germany, not taking yourself seriously is very serious business, which is why Twain's short piece, "The Awful German Language," sits front and center in most downtown bookshops.

But let me once again insist, German humor can be delightful, and my case and point is Loriot, the German comic died on Monday. Like many of the best comedians, Loriot was a master of his own language, so a proficiency in Deutsch is necessary to get it. Although some of it translates well, and I'll leave it to Philip Oltermann to explain how in his great post on Loriot (he also does a service and links to some of Loriot's best sketches).

I had never heard of Loriot until his obituary was the front page of every newspaper and the feature segment of news station. For the past two nights, my wife and I watched documentaries about him and his work. We laughed together. Loriot's sketches produce that uncontrollable, uninhibited belly laughter, the best kind. Between breaths I notice: life is better now.

That Horrible, Horrible Place Called Ikea

2011-08-25T06:54:00.005-05:00

Let me start by outing myself as a user of Ikea products. I sleep on an Ikea bed with two mattresses - my wife's was specially made for her, but mine was from Ikea (we have two-mattress beds here in Germany - which is quite sensible, the more you think about it). My clothes are folded (mostly) and jammed into one of those sturdy, practical Malm dressers. I get a little emotional when I think about the white Erktop couch we left inside the Washington beltway. In fact, I think the chair upon which I sit was a result of that merry band of Swedes, but I'd have to ask my wife as she bought it a long time ago.

But the Ikea shopping experience, which has happened to me several times, is a flagrant violation of the Geneva convention. Their enhanced shopping method is several surreal labyrinths of household goods, worthy of Dante, Kafka, Hitchcock and the latter levels of the original Super Mario Brothers. The purpose of this, to the best I can ascertain (it's always difficult, after Ikea, to remember what's real and what isn't), is that each display, each fluorescent lamp, each bag of affordable power strips, lands a body blow to the mind. Overloaded with information, color, stimuli and a complex series of numbers that supposedly guide the shopper/victim through their warehouse (final level where you fight the big boss if you have enough power points and appropriate ammo, though I really don't remember if that part is true), the shopper is unable to make competent purchasing decisions, so he buys everything on his list and requires a military convoy just to get it all home.

This week, my family, against our better judgment, embarked to Ikea. We have two Ikeas to choose from - I think they hover around major metropolitan areas like those space ships in Independence Day. They lured us in with an email: kitchen chairs were on sale - 20 Euros off. We needed kitchen chairs - four of them. To boot, we also wanted nightstands, various kitchen items and curtains. We hopped in the Ford Focus and drove over there, the day calm, the weather hot but cheerful, rock'n'roll on the radio. We arrived at the mothership and were ushered (invited? Tempted? Who can say?) into a parking garage - it had only two levels, but the first one must have been as tall as Mt. Rushmore, because we drove upwards for miles, our car twisting up the ramp like it was one of the screws holding an Ikea dresser together until, nauseated (and in no condition to drive a car through a busy concrete enclosure, not to mention actually parking the darn thing), we reached our destination.

Somehow I parked, and we walked in, already disoriented. There's a friendly-looking place where you can leave your child with a friendly-looking Ikea employee. I looked over there. Our daughter is only a year and a half years old, and the kids need to be three to be left there. All the kids were watching a movie. I couldn't see what it was. There was a Pixar poster on the wall, but I bet that was a diversion. I suspect that the kids were really watching an instructional video on breaking kitchen chairs and nightstands, so as to send parents back to buy more as soon as possible ("Hi kids! Today, we're going to see what a hockey stick can do to a table leg!").

I'm told all Ikea stores are basically the same, but I never remember what comes first. Beds? Couches? Bathroom? Kitchen? All I remember is that there is a lot of furniture, surrounded my mesmerizing displays of idyllic rooms full of suspiciously perfect right angles. I'm also told that there are shortcuts through Ikea, and if you know what you're doing, you can actually get through the store quickly, kind of like how, at Target, you can buy what you need and escape unscathed (except for being forced to breathe in that inhumane popcorn-maker smell when you walk in the door, but that's for another blog post). Maybe it's true, who can know? But I think it's just a rumor that the Ikea authorities let fester for the sake of false hope. All I know is that when we were in the bowels of the Ikea kitchen displays, we could no longer find the sale we were looking for. Filled with panic, my wife realized she had not printed the sales email. We looked at each other. Beads of sweat grew on our foreheads as I struggled to hold on to my squirming daughter. I knew that if she ran off among the maze of cabinets and high stools, I might never see her again.

My wife took out her cell to call her parents to make sure the email was correct (conveniently, we left our notebook computer on their kitchen table). No signal. Not a bar. I took out my phone. Same results - just a blank screen that glowed uselessly until its automatic lock-down kicked in. In Ikea, no one can here you scream.

My wife and I locked eyes. That's all we had time for. She was beautiful. Quietly, but with a sense of purpose, she raced back the way we came (we had left a trail of those papers where you're supposed to write your product numbers, just in case). Ikea can bring a couple together in our desperation. But it can also tear us apart. I observed another couple arguing. It was a heated, angry exchange about what to buy for their bedroom. The woman was arguing on the authority of her nesting instinct, magazine articles, color patterns and thousands of childhood dreams. The man was arguing on the authority of their bank account and the actual size of their apartment. I didn't see how it ended. In an effort to distract her from the gravity of the situation, I took my daughter to make faces in a full-length mirror.

Time is different in Ikea. Who knows how much time passes outside of the store, or how long we were actually in the store. What I do know is that my wife made it back to us, but I really don't know how long it took. My beard was thicker, though, and my daughter was taller, but that may have been the mirror playing tricks. My wife's parents were able to confirm the sale, even if there were no indications in the mother ship.

Bruised, tired and hungry, we made our way to the cafeteria. Some might argue that the cafeteria is one of Ikea's redeeming features. After all, Ikea is one of the few places in Europe that offers free refills. But, chugging down my third glass of Ikea-brand cola like a Roman oar man on a break, I realized that the that was the catch. The free refills! What spurs the obesity epidemic if not the mass availability of sugar water? And what causes furniture to sag, slouch and break more than obesity? I looked down at the cream sauce oozing over my salmon. I looked over at the fries my wife was sharing with my daughter. I felt my chair creak and struggle beneath me as the conspiracy formed in front of my eyes. I returned our trays, shaken, and we quietly made our way down the escalator to the lower level.

The lower level of Ikea is room after room, stage after stage, of small appliances, lights, silverware, art prints and potted plants. There are baskets of products so inexpensive and appealing that you find yourself filling up your yellow bag with them without really thinking. "Yes, I'll take six of those three packs of picture frames." But the good news is that the cunning furniture displays have mostly stopped, though the damage has been done.

The warehouse is the final stage. The warehouse is where you actually get your furniture, vacuumed packed into immovable boxes, stacked on shelves, row after row after row, like the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. After an Indiana Jones-like search, we found our chairs and night stands, which we put on a pushcart and made our way, wearily, yearning for freedom, to the checkout lines. The checkout lines are automated. I scanned the chairs. Still no sale. I swiped the Ikea-family card, which usually is good for a free cup of coffee. Sale! We got what we came for! We got what we came for! My wife and I embraced. My exhausted daughter napped in the umbrella stroller.

We hurried out, making no eye contact with Ikea employees or other customers. We wanted to see the sun again. Under the weight of six, compact boxes, the Focus bent but didn't break. We drove away. What day was it?

Later, struggling to build our new nightstand, I realized I put a shelf in backwards, compromising the entire project. The white boards of some sort of pressed meatloaf wood, twisted and scratched as I tried to correct the error. The horror. The horror.

Did a Big Idea Make Big Ideas Elusive?

2011-08-22T15:29:00.011-05:00

This weekend, some friends sent me Neal Gabler's interesting New York Times commentary, "The Elusive Big Idea." In it, Gabler bemoans the lack of influence compelling intellectual ideas have on modern Society. We make icons of those who, in the past, not only thought of something new, but also captured the attention and commanded the respect of the rest of the Western world, to the point where their ideas not only transformed their own field but impacted society as a whole. Freud's study in psychology brought about a paradigm shift in his own profession and influenced literature, theology and much else. The same could be said of Einstein with physics, Niebuhr with theology or Keynes with economics. Not only that, Gabler argues, but the ideas, and the intellectuals who argued for and about them, held more respect in popular culture. He writes:

"A big idea could capture the cover of Time — “Is God Dead?” — and intellectuals like Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal would even occasionally be invited to the couches of late-night talk shows. How long ago that was.

If our ideas seem smaller nowadays, it’s not because we are dumber than our forebears but because we just don’t care as much about ideas as they did. In effect, we are living in an increasingly post-idea world — a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can’t instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are disseminating them, the Internet notwithstanding. Bold ideas are almost passé."

Now, you might be thinking, isn't the screen I'm staring at now a pretty big, transformative idea? Couldn't we add the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg to our pantheon of people with good, world-changing ideas? No, writes Gabler.

"Entrepreneurs have plenty of ideas, and some, like Steven P. Jobs of Apple, have come up with some brilliant ideas in the “inventional” sense of the word.
Still, while these ideas may change the way we live, they rarely transform the way we think. They are material, not ideational."

In fact, all this information technology is part of the problem.

"Where are you going? What are you doing? Whom are you seeing? These are today’s big questions. It is certainly no accident that the post-idea world has sprung up alongside the social networking world. Even though there are sites and blogs dedicated to ideas, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, etc., the most popular sites on the Web, are basically information exchanges, designed to feed the insatiable information hunger, though this is hardly the kind of information that generates ideas. It is largely useless except insofar as it makes the possessor of the information feel, well, informed."

I understand these this intense need to be informed, and the makers of social media, not to mention search engines, were smart to capitalize on this. A few minutes ago, I had to close the tabs with my Facebook and Twitter feeds just so I could stay focused on this blog. Gabler goes on to write how traditional media, the disbursers of big ideas, is suffering in an instant information society. Print is shrinking in market share, and popular television talk shows no longer invite intellectuals to sit on their couches. Instead of pausing to think, we now have the means to gorge ourselves with information, and we use it.

We're a narcissistic society, it's true, though I'm sure other professors had said that about their students a generation ago. Also, I don't think profit and intellectual thought are as antithetical as Gabler says it is. He admits that there are indeed thinkers with ideas to give and mentions a few examples, but they just don't have the same impact or attention of the idea generators of the past. But I largely agree that today, with our glut quick, instantaneous information and fewer ideas that manage to influence everyone.

Here's the thing, though. Isn't the death of a big idea, in part, the result of ideas themselves? Gabler laments the fall of enlightenment thinking, which he says is related to the death of the big idea, but he never mentions a big idea that critiqued the enlightenment itself: postmodernism. Postmodernism's flagship tenet is the deconstruction of meta-narratives, which is another way of saying big ideas, is it not? Postmodernism became popular, because some big ideas, full of influence, impact, debate, scholarship and much else, were devastating. Consider this neat summary from an Economist article five years ago (about which I wrote here):

"The founding post-modern text (as books are called in pomo) is by two Germans, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Published in 1944, “Dialectic of Enlightenment” examined the culture that had given birth to Auschwitz. It declared that “enlightenment is totalitarian”—that the 18th-century attempt to replace religion with rationalism had supplanted one form of mental slavery with another. God had been elbowed out by fascism, communism, Marxism, Freudianism, Darwinism, socialism and capitalism. The post-modernists thought their job was to “deconstruct” these grand theories, which they called the “meta-narratives”. The pomos would free people from them by exposing their sinister nature."

What hath big ideas wrought? Yes, Freud and Einstein had big ideas, but so did Hitler and Stalin. Perverse as they were, they were birthed in an enlightened culture where ideas, to use Gabler's words, were not "intellectual playthings," but had "practical effects." Indeed, it was fear of Hitler that caused Einstein to apply his big ideas towards the creation of the atomic bomb. If big ideas are less important to many of us, it is, in part, because they managed to destroy themselves in the process.

What is the result of the postmodernist critique of big ideas? Well, one is mass individualism, which Gabler laments without naming. As the Economist article points out, Capitalism has taken advantage of this with niche marketing, which is perhaps why Mark Zuckerberg has probably had more of an impact on most of us than Steven Pinker (to use one of Gabler's examples). Aided with technology, we all get to pick and choose what we read, what feed we follow or whose pictures to tag. But it doesn't necessarily mean we cease to think; our thoughts rarely rest in conformity with our preferred ueber-thinker, and when they do, that thinker has less impact on society as a whole. I primarily use Facebook to share links and read the links my friends have posted, and much of it is good, substantial stuff. Ideas are not extinct, but there's a lot more of them, and, for better or for worse, it's less likely that the big few will dominate.

Yes, this leaves all of us wide open for narcissism. Furthermore, I share Gabler's dislike of celebrity gossip and the computer-like gestation of information without thought, not to mention a preference for long, thoughtful essays over the verbal volleyball of cable punditry. I wish Letterman would feature a prominent professor for every actor he hosts. But I would rather live with our frantic, electronic marketplace of ideas and distractions then go back to a time when an evil idea could become so dominate.

Will Wilkinson, in reply to Gabler, believes (and "would bet his immortal soul") that "more big ideas... were studied, discussed and produced in 2010 than in 1950." He goes on to put a sunnier face on modern intellectual discourse:

"A TED talk or a book-talk spot on "The Daily Show" may not have the audience or cultural centrality of a half-hour with Dick Cavett on ABC in 1970, but more people are consuming and discussing big ideas, old and new, than ever before. The difference is that the audience and the discussion has become fragmented and decentralised.

The fun part is that I, as a lay thinker, can join the discussion right here on the information super highway. For those of us who prefer a cooler, more intellectual environment, the answer is to remain relentlessly thoughtful, reading and considering the ideas we come across. Before, of course, we post them on Facebook.

Neurotics Like Us

2011-08-20T07:39:00.002-05:00

Over at First Things, Bryan Wandel describes “Christian Neuroticism,” which is particularly acute among American Evangelicals given our historical tension with modernity and the impact of the Pentecostal Movement. Bryan explains: “Thus, many American Christians have had their minds wrung by the challenges of extrahistorical standards (due to the fundamentalist response to modernity) while their epistemologies have been strung out on the throes of immediate communication with God. This is not an enviable situation.” (Read the whole thing, for a fuller explanation of both the history and the psychology involved. I should also point out that I knew Bryan in D.C., and was thrilled to see his name “On the Square”)

It may not be enviable, but he goes on to write that it may not be so bad after all. An advantage to this acute state of being in but not of the world is creativity in line with the likes of Lewis, Elliot, Kierkegaard, Solzhenitsyn and Tolstoy. He goes on to conclude:

“Is the neurotic Christian unhealthy? Possibly. But you would have to judge him according to the norms of both his cultures. Moreover, this tension may be merely an enhanced version of the tension that all people are susceptible to when living in a finite, hurtful world. The world is good, and yet it is bad. People are spiritual beings, but find themselves far from God. The Christian neurotic, with the right guidance, might have the best experience to relate to when the world seems cruel and contradictory.”

I link to this, because Bryan provides a good angle on some of the tensions of Christianity that ceaselessly and with various levels of distraction occupy my mind, but his essay gave me two additional thoughts.

First, if modern American Evangelicals have a tendency towards neurosis, then we’re in good company. Aside from Bryan’s all-star lineup of writers, I know that Baptist Preacher C.H. Spurgeon suffered depression, and modern psychologists would have probably diagnosed Martin Luther with bi-polar disorder. We might even see a little neurosis when we read about Augustine’s spiritual search, and while I am insufficiently read in the old saints, I suspect that these tensions are a common theme. In scripture, we find that Jesus tells us to expect difficulties and opposition when we go out in the World, and the behavior of his disciples (gyrating between cowardice and courage, faith and fear, bold commitment and hesitation) is, in my eyes, comfortingly neurotic. Much of Paul’s pastoral instruction seems to be guiding his flock through the inherent tension between the world and the Gospel of Christ (I’m reading through 1 Thessalonians right now, whose message seems to be “glad to hear you’re doing well, Jesus is coming back!, so be good, keep calm and carry on). Then there are the cries of the Psalms and the prophets, not to mention ancient Israel’s struggle to be a people set apart from the pagans. So, I suspect that if we are a bit neurotic, then we are only experiencing what God’s people have experienced throughout the ages, with our own cultural and historical context to give it a different flavor.

Second, other than creativity and possibility having “the best experience to relate to,” I can think of one more positive result Christian neurosis, one that, used well, will benefit the Christian neurotic as well as those in his life: prayer. Such conflict, such tension, such unresolved stress between our desire to see God’s kingdom come while still live and thrive in our own world should cause us to see our insufficiencies and (if you’ll pardon the cliché) bring us to our knees. A prime benefit of Christianity is that we, by the Son and through the Spirit, get to commune with the Father. Prayer seldom resolves our tensions or fills our lives with ease (though how often we wish it would). But prayer does deepen our relationship with God. We drink living water from the source, and in that, we taste richness of the life He has given us.

Joy in Writing

2011-08-17T03:40:00.002-05:00

I've put aside at least two posts this weekend. I also left a couple of post ideas festering in the fantasy stage of the process. My writer fantasies usually involves: 1) a blogpost changing the world for the better 2) it goes on to make me independently wealthy without damage to my soul 3) for my efforts, I am interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air. It goes something like this:

TG: Un Till, I have to say, your posts are well-written, inspiring, and worth the outrageous wealth that has been showered upon you. Yet, you keep rejecting a stable career as an Abercrombie model to type on the internet. What is your secret?
UT: Well, Terry (may I call you Terry?), it all comes down to my humble refusal to obsess about myself.

Ahhh.... (dreamy smile before coming back to earth with a frightened shutter)

But the aforementioned posts tempted by anger, and anger, while sometimes appropriate, is a dangerous emotion to publish on the Internet. There is something to this, though. Part of writing's charm and joy is processing our emotional responses to something.

I've been thinking about why I enjoy writing. I wish I enjoyed building machines as some of my relatives do. Building things create beauty and discovery and economic stability, not to mention tremendous opportunity to practice generosity. But I enjoy opening up one of those glowing built things and typing words on it (in between reading words at other growing places). Writing helps me make sense of my reactions to what I read and experience; it helps me sort out my messy top drawer of emotion, imagination, thought and memory. When I'm finished, I better understand close things like my daughter's voice or distant things like another country's national tragedy. Not that I ever truly understand them, but it takes me down the road, loosening some convictions and tightening others. Posting these thoughts where others can read them gives them a measure of discipline and accountability that was not otherwise there. I've journaled before, and I'll probably do so again, but the results are usually (not always!) a fire hose of free-writing gibberish, offering me only outlet without light. The idea that someone may actually read it means I have to make the swarm of bees that I call my brain somehow coherent. And (to the best of my abilities) fair, honest and respectful. Or completely silly.

When he completed the Narnia series, C.S. Lewis received a lot of mail from children asking him if he would ever write any new books about the land of Aslan, Lucy and Caspian. Lewis always wrote back, "no," but he encouraged the children to write their own Narnia books. "It's most fun!" he would write (at least I think that's how he put it - my copy of Letters to Children is elsewhere). And it is, for many of us. Give it a try. After all, part of the great fun of the Internet is we all get to write on here for free. If you find your posts are angry, though, be careful. Shouting "you fool" is a dangerous indulgence.

Thoughts on True Belief

2011-08-08T07:08:00.012-05:00

I'm taking "The Response," the much-publicized prayer and fasting rally starring Texas Governor Rick Perry, with a grain of salt. I've grown up in American and Evangelical culture, and both strands are prone to hyperbole. The website reminds us that we are in a "historic" moment that demands a "historic" response and that this "historic" prayer rally will start a "historic" movement towards... what? Prosperity? A more Christian nation? More Christians in the nation? A revival of sorts? Did this "historic" rally go above and beyond all the other "historic" rallies? I've sat in various stadiums and hotel ball rooms to be told how America was on a crossroads so many times that it doesn't really stick anymore.

This is not to downplay the problems in the U.S. or anywhere else. Debt, division and war are serious and sobering things. Prayer and repentance are appropriate responses. But I fear (and I hope my fear is wrong) that much of the hyperbole is to blaze a path for a great man (to rephrase the website), so that Governor Perry or someone like him will be a new Evangelical David, casting stones at Philistines with different political opinions, a legion of praying voters behind him.

These thoughts on The Response were first provoked by Frank Bruni's recent NYTimes column entitled "True Believers, All of Us." After commenting on the media response to, well, The Response, he begins to critique faith in ideologies all together, left and right, religious and political, corporate and private. Aren't we all like those silly Evangelicals in Texas, holding on to our little beliefs and refusing to face reality when challenged? Why do people hold such beliefs? Of course! They want easy answers in tough times. Bruni writes:

"Clarity seduces. So does simplicity. We don’t want to hear that different skills produce different results in different contexts, but rather that there are “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” the number specific, finite. We like to believe that triathlon training will trump genes and keep all major illness and minor sagging at bay, and that the metabolic alchemy of a cabbage-soup diet or a no-carb diet or some other diet will work wonders and obviate humdrum moderation. Magical thinking, all of it."

As for America's troubles, Bruni has a response of his own.

"And right now, with the stock market floundering and our credit rating downgraded and millions of Americans stranded in unemployment and Washington frozen in confusion, the temptation to look for one summary prescriptive — for certainty, even miracles — is strong. We’d be wise to resist it. To get us out of this mess, we need a full range of extant remedies, a tireless search for new ones and the nimbleness and open-mindedness to evaluate progress dispassionately and adapt our strategy accordingly. Faith and prayer just won’t cut it. In fact, they’ll get in the way."

I share his skepticism of clarity and simplicity, five points to happiness, diets that claim you won't feel hungry or pre-canned political solutions. But like it or not, some form of ideology will always drive politics. If Bruni wishes to separate politicians from the ideologies of those who elected them, then he doesn't have a prayer.

More to the point, his criticism of ideology is guilty of the same simplicity admonishes us to avoid. Ideas often come from people with worldviews, and we have a lot of those. If he wants to see a "full extant of remedies" for our economic woes, then he can peruse the websites of various think tanks, newspapers and faculty papers. Few solutions would be faith-free, and I would be suspicious of anyone who claimed no bias. They come from people with different views about government, commerce, responsibility, economy and morality. Most of them are be well-reasoned, logical and accompanied by graphs. All the data, of course, must be interpreted, and here is where humans cease to be computers. We start debating how many angels can dance on the head of a deficit. After all, we don't have labs to test every economic idea in academia and advocacy (and, for good reason, we don't give our government the dictatorial power to do such things). We have data, ideas and history, all of which are opened to interpretation based on what we believe. True believers, all of us.

Rather than encouraging the impossible task of jettisoning belief for the ideal of rational social science, let's encourage our politicians to take Bruni's Times colleague Ross Douthat's advice. No American political party has the majority or the capital for a sweeping ideological victory, Douthat argues. They should not give up on their beliefs nor cease to hope about the future, but while America (and those who represent us) remains divided, they need to remember their responsibility to govern effectively.

Bruni is correct that we long for simple solutions and quick clarity. It sells well, and people in business, politics and religion have all taken advantage of it. But true belief is grittier. Among the reasons I remain a Christian is that Christianity refuses to be the bag of goods some folks sell it as (see the prosperity gospel, for a worrying example of this). Christianity never promises ease, health or worldly political conquest. The Biblical picture of Christianity is one of relationship: often parent to child, husband to wife, even friendship. The best of these relationships, from whatever perspective you experience them, are not a series of simple solutions easily replicated on PowerPoint. But they make life deeper, richer and more hopeful. When these relationships are perverted, we taste hell. Christian faith is a difficult, refining, fiery, trying, dynamic, wonderful, loving relationship with God through Jesus Christ, reconciled by His blood and sealed with His Spirit. It's complexer than the finest of wines, and it's worth drinking deep.

This leads us to prayer. Prayer is not a vending machine button to a better life or a better America. It's a the communication essential for the relationship to function. (For further reading on prayer, I highly recommend A Praying Life by Paul Miller, which I wrote about here). A life of genuine faith and prayer does not "get in the way." More often, it allows us to see clearly and humbly face our problems.

This leads me back to The Response. Again, I'm underwhelmed by hyperbola and weary of any political use of Christianity. But if 30,000 of my brother and sisters genuinely practiced repentance and prayed for their country, then a good thing happened underneath it all. If The Response enriched their relationship with God and sent them back into their communities in humble faith and prayer, then may they be examples and proclaimers of true belief.

Kicking It With the Bundesliga

2011-08-05T13:49:00.003-05:00

After waiting at least a month and a half, German soccer is back! That's right, as I write this, defending champions Dortmund are trying to score goals against Hamburg in the opening game of the Bundesliga season (updated - Dortmund dominated 3:1). Now, you might be thinking, why should I care about the Bundesliga? Your thoughts could run something along the line of "wait, aren't the sexiest soccer teams and most tabloid-ready stars in England and Spain?" Or you might be thinking, "aren't I an American, programmed to think that any sport without hitting, either people hitting each other or people hitting a ball with a blunt object, is uncivilized?"

Well, let me make a few points in favor of the Bundesliga before giving you a whistle-stop tour of the league. I've already argued in favor of soccer in general, so let me say that I like hard, clean hits that don't lead from the helmet as much as the next guy, but there's a reason the rest of the world likes soccer. As for the Bundesliga itself, yes, it does lack the star power of the English and Spanish leagues (and Italian, depending on the year), but I would argue (admitting my strong German bias) that it's the most interesting major soccer league. First, there have been four different champions in the past five years. In England, Spain and Italy, you really only have two to choose from. Yes, Bayern Munich is a perennial frontrunner, but what exciting league doesn't have that? Besides, I get the impression that in England in particular, folks (or at least the media) are more interested in the running soap opera of the business of soccer than the game itself. Oh, and one more thing. As ESPN's Uli Hesse (the best Bundesliga commentary in English and one of my favorite sports columnist all around) explains at the end of every season, the Bundesliga teams score more goals per game than any other important league.

Ok, so now that you're convinced, here are some teams to keep an eye on (Fair warning, I will be mixing sports analogies and metaphors to help an American reader understand the league):

Borussia Dortmund: The defending champs are one of the most sympathetic and beloved teams in Germany. The teams from the "Ruhrgebiet," mining and industry cities in northwest Germany, are where many of the traditional soccer teams and "real" fans reside, and Dortmund is their flagship. The Ruhrgebiet is what the Great Lakes region is to the NFL, and Dortmund, wearing black and gold, traditional success and national sympathy are Germany's Pittsburgh Steelers. They have two flaws. Last year, they were terrible at penalty kicks, which could come back to bite them in international competition (the top three, this year, four, teams go to the Champions League and compete against other European teams), and their poc-a-dot uniforms were clearly the results of a Middle School art project.
Schalke 04: Schalke, another great Ruhrgebiet team from the city of Gelsenkirchen, is Dortmund's arch rival. Their cities are so close together, and the rivalry is one of the best in the world's (think Army-Navy, Chicago-Green Bay, Giants-Dodgers before California). Unlike their enemy, Schalke has never managed to win a Bundesliga title. Their biggest success was winning the UEFA cup a long time ago, which is like saying your college won the NIT in the 90s. This run of almost-success makes them the pre-1994 Boston Red Sox of the Bundesliga. They had a rough time of it last year, but did win the German cup and were decent in the Champions league before getting knocked around by Manchester United. At the end of the season, after despondently watching Dortmund hoist the Bundesliga trophy (which would make a great tray to serve deviled eggs), they lost their world-class and German #1 goalkeeper Manuel Neuer to the following team.
FC Bayern Munich. Bayern buys superstar soccer players, hogs media attention, considers 2nd place a bad season and has won more Bundesliga titles than any other team. In this, they embody the collective spirit of the Yankees, Cowboys, Lakers and Fighting Irish. So many Germans hate them, yet walk around a random German town on any given day and you'll see about a dozen Bayern jerseys. After their disastrous 3rd place finish last year (the year before, they won the Bundesliga, the German cup, and lost to Inter Milan in the Champions League final) they bought a new coach and several new superstars to even out their already eye-popping line up. If you watched the World Cup, where the Germans ran circles around every non-Spanish team they faced (ok, they fell asleep against Serbia, but that didn't matter in the end), than you've seen most of what Bayern has to offer, including the wonderfully named Bastian Schweinsteiger and the young starlet Thomas Mueller. Their foreign star-power is great as well - in the rare occasion that both stars are healthy, the Frenchman Frank Ribery and the Dutchman Arjen Robben (the World Cup's worst flopper, but a spectacular footballer nonetheless) make perhaps the most dangerous winger combination in the world.
VFL Wolfsburg: I gave the English a hard time for their soap opera approach to soccer, but Wolfsburg coach Felix Magath is Germany's guilty pleasure. Whether getting fired, getting rehired, winning championships or fighting with players, the former Bayern and Schalke coach turns heads like car accident. The sports how I watched last night gave un-fancied Wolfsburg much more attention than it deserved simply because everyone wants to see what Magath will do next.
Hamburger SV: Hamburg is one of the oldest, traditional and beloved soccer teams in Germany. So much so, that some post-Christian, sports-crazy fans took the next logical step: they built a cemetery for soccer fans. They were mediocre last season and are currently getting thumped by Dortmund, so their fans might want to consider dying during a season when they can afford some better players (and reconsidering their priorities in general).
Hannover 96: Hannover is rarely a good team, but they were last season's big surprise with a 4th place finish. Also, American fans should pay attention, because they are captained by Steve Cherundolo, who, evidently, is the only American outside defender capable of taking on a Mexican striker (prove me wrong, Klinsi).
Baden vs. Wuerttemberg: Ok, I'm in a bit of a bind as to who I should root for. You see, soccer is angry regionalism in Germany, and the big rivalries are often between different tribes of Germany. I was introduced to the Bundesliga in Freiburg, Germany's answer to Portland, in the solar-powered stadium of this rarely-good but scrappy and appealing team. Freiburg is in the region called Baden, where the ancient Badische tribe of Germans live. However, I married a Swabian, and currently live in the area of VfB Stuttgart - a traditional club who won the Bundesliga several years ago. The Swabians are the Badens' arch-rival tribe, and Freiburg and Stuttgart are rival teams. So, Freiburg is my first love, but I'm surrounded by VfB fever, and hope to get to a game or two this season. I'd like to root for both, but that's like rooting for both Florida State and that team Tim Tebow used to play for (name escapes me...). Thoughts? I can't serve two masters, but can I root for two rival Bundesliga teams?

Bowmore Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky “Surf”

2011-08-05T13:19:00.006-05:00

The Swiss side of the border. Boasting some of the Alps highest mountains, and presumably some of the best skiing, it also has entire villages that act as airport gift shops. It’d duty free shopping, between Swiss hotels and bubbling mountain streams, you can buy kitschy or profane T-shirts, liquor, jewelry and perfume without being hassled by the taxman. Other than gasoline, which was a good 30 cents per Liter cheaper than what we get in Deutschland, the prices weren’t so outrageously good that we were tempted to max out our credit cards (though other tourists, it seemed, did not share our opinion), but I did take advantage of the to buy some single malt whisky and a small cigar from a certain island country that my home country doesn’t get along with.

Yesterday, the afternoon rains had temporarily cleansed the land of the goopy yellow pollen that had been devouring my body from within. A clear evening beckoned. I took the cigar, the scotch and a my bag of books to the Ferienwohnung’s backyard. Therein, among the impeccable grass and beautiful flowers stands a wonderful building. It’s a combination shed (filled with the necessary equipment for backyard games like badminton) and a kitchen. A lovely stone porch nestles two sides of the building, and I sat down on the side that faced the mountains.

The cigar was mild and modest, a small Romeo and Julia, but delicious nonetheless. The whisky fit perfectly. I developed a taste for Scotch when we lived in a Scottish-American household, but I’m still a novice. My decision at the store was based on no research whatsoever, but was more of that special combination of price and marketing, which influences most of my purchasing decisions. I went with a Bowmore Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky called “Surf.” Surf is the cheapest Bowmore whisky available on the Austrian-Swiss border. Surf offers your palate “warm smoke, oak and honey, balanced with a hint of zesty lime.” Maybe it was the cigar, but I missed the zest lime, but the rest was true. The smoke flavor was strong and came tantalizingly close to the border of overwhelming, but that’s what made it interesting and, let me say, delicious. It also made it go well with the cigar. With smoke in my mouth, I looked to the mountains. The sun weakened, the Alsp turned purple, to the peace and praise of our Creator. Be thankful for his bounty: evening, mountains, cigars and scotch.

Is the Hundertwasser House Germany's Answer to Dr. Seuss?

2011-08-04T03:19:00.008-05:00

The most beautiful building in the small city of Plochingen is St. Ulrich's, the Protestant church that presides over the Neckar River with the majesty of an aging monarch overlooking his court. The second most beautiful building is St. Konrad's, Plochingen's handsome Catholic church that lies just down Hindenburgstrasse from my in-law's house. But if you visit Plochingen's official website, the first image you see is a fuzzy-edged picture of the city's own Hundertwasser House.

In the early 90s, the famous Austrian architect and artist Friendensreich Hundertwasser (his name means "Reign of Peace Hundred Waters," though he was never a basketball player) agreed to design a masterwork for this sleepy Swabian town. The house, which is a high-walled courtyard containing apartments and cafes and an enormous "Rain Tower" which may or may not collect rain, stands proudly in the middle of downtown.

The purpose of this courtyard is to convey Hundertwasser's distinct characteristics: "happy colorfulness, round forms and playful balconies." Also, Hundertwasser planted a live trees in the balconies and roofs. These "tree renters" serve as an important testament that not only people, but trees live in apartments.

The other night, my sister and I made an investigative visit to the court yard to, just like a certain bear who went over a certain mountain, see what we could see. It is playful and colorful, without a doubt. The visit confirmed my suspicion that Hundertwasser, much more than an esteemed architect, is the German speaking world's answer to American children's book author Dr. Seuss. To my eyes, the best way to describe the Hundertwasser House, with it's playfully scattered windows, generous reds and sparkly blues, randomly drooping colorful drops (evidently to make it look natural), wonderfully loopy corners and curves, can best be described as Seussville. In fact, now that I regularly read Dr. Seuss's ABC book with my daughter, I was surprised to leave the courtyard without seeing a Fiffer Feffer Feff (with his four fluffy feathers) or the Zizzer Zazzer Zuzz. It would be the perfect place for Thing 1 and Thing 2 to chase the Cat in the Hat in father's ten dollar shoes. They did not serve green eggs and ham, but this didn't surprise me as it would have clashed with the color-scheme (Red Fish and Blue Fish, however, would fit right in). I should also say that I don't know anyone who lives in the apartments, so I can't report whether or not they would object to being called "Whos."

Anyway, I can only approach the Hundertwasser House with the fun and humor, but as the Germans say, nothing for ungood. It's clever, quirky, but very unique. And it makes sense that it is featured on the website; every town in Germany has at least one beautiful church, but who has an avaunt garde apartment complex that will turn heads (for better or for worse) of all the people who commute into Stuttgart? The rain tower sticks out of Plochingen's houses like a balloon salesman sticks out of a crowd of children. The Grinch leans out of it to hear if we are still singing.

Klinsmann and Bradley

2011-07-29T14:24:00.004-05:00

The U.S Men's National Team got their (Ger)man. Juergen Klinsmann, Germany's successful player who led Germany to the 1990 World Cup and 1996 European title, and who, as a coach, led an un-fancied German side to a 3rd-place finish in 2006. The Summer of 2006 is fondly remembered here as a "summer fairy tale," and Klinsmann quit while he was ahead. Given he lives in California and understands American soccer, the U.S. has had him in his sites ever since.

The value of Klinsmann is obvious. He already has one successful World Cup run with much higher stakes (his own soccer-mad country on his home soil), and his prefers fun, attacking-style soccer. Success + Fun, throw in a little celebrity, and you get a great hire!

However, living in Germany, the land of skepticism, has taught me to view every situation with a critical eye (even if it is undeserving). Is Klinsmann the best man for the job? He's an exciting personality and was an excellent player. But many here think the brain behind the 2006 run was current German national coach Jogi Loew, who was Klinsmann's assistant before his promotion and has kept Germany's run of (alas, title-less) success going ever since. Meanwhile, Klinsmann's last coaching gig at Bayern Munich lasted just over half of the 2008-09 season. During his tenure, he brought in Buddha statues and wellness activities into the Munich training facilities without rallying Bayern's superstars to their expected success. After taking a drubbing from Barcelona to crash out of the Champions League competition, Bayern sent Klinsmann his marching orders and hired a replacement to pick up the pieces.

So, can Klinsmann coach the U.S. to success (at least a World Cup quarterfinal) without Loew? Also, it seems like the U.S. has a similar personnel to what Bayern had in the Klinsmann era. They just don't have the defensive horses to play attacking style soccer. Hey could be the spark we need for to go to the next level (World Cup semi-finals), but for these reasons, my enthusiasm is tempered.

I'm now going to do something that will probably expose me as "not a real fan" or a soccer doofus. I'm going to offer a defense of Bob Bradley. Sam's Army and the most rabid of U.S. soccer fans are howling with glee after Bob Bradley's sacking. They've wanted his hairless head ever since he had the temerity to start his son (never mind that Michael Bradley has been one of the consistent and reliable players over the last few years) or that, though he coached the team to an iconic win over Spain in the confederations cup, they blew a 2:0 lead to Brazil in the final (just the five-time World Champion/definition of a soccer country Brazil). Or maybe it was, after dramatically winning their group, the U.S. lost to Ghana in the round of 16 (never mind that Ghana was an excellent team playing a home game who literally got robbed of a spot in the semifinal). Or maybe it was that the U.S. got plastered by Mexico in the Gold Cup a few weeks ago (never mind that, after blowing it against Panama in the opening round, Bradley made all the right moves to get to the final, and that Mexico could be called the most-improved national team of the year).

Bradley's time may have been up, but I've always liked him, and I'm sad to see him go. He worked hard and held his head up, always knowing he was never the U.S. soccer federation's first choice. No, he did not reach the quarterfinal, and yes, Mexico is now #1 in North America (though I suspect this has more to do with the rise of some Manchester United quality strikers at El Tri and America's defensive deterioration than coaching competency on either side), and under his leadership, the U.S. boxed above his weight so much that I wonder if he buckled under the expectation he helped create. Maybe it didn't help him that, as ESPN Leandar Schaerlackens points out, he never went out of his way to charm the media or the public, but that's one of the reasons I liked him. I find it refreshing when someone, especially a public someone, doesn't feel the need to be a salesman.

But, whatever your opinion of the Bob Bradley, Klinsmann is the now the man, and I hope my skepticism is wrong, unfounded and just a result of living just East of the Rhine. I can only wish Coach Klinsmann well, and that he brings our boys to the next level of the beautiful game.

Theology, Sensibility and Meeting John Stott

2011-07-28T14:43:00.005-05:00

My one visit to London (so far) was to tag along with my father on a conference for the evangelistic organization now known as Cru (though it was and still is called Agape in the UK). Dad worked for Agape/Cru, but he was also studying for the pastorate at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. Thus, he was excited to take his oily 16-year-old son and his cute 12-year-old daughter to a church called All Souls, where their pastor emeritus, John Stott, was scheduled to preach.

I found the music a bit stodgy and the building beautiful, but it was the white-haired pastor-theologian successfully captured the attention of my teenage self. I confess, I am fuzzy on the details, points and applications, but his sermon showed me something: the possibility of confronting a miraculous, challenging and all around chewy corner of scripture and remaining human, sensible and pastoral, intelligently and graciously leading the listeners back to God. This was the point all along. He preached on the mysterious prophecies in the book of Daniel, a book that I had rarely heard covered, save the felt sunday school story boards about the Lion's Den. I had also been to excitable conferences on biblical prophecy that seemed to lead more to culture war than to knowing and loving God (my youth pastor at the time offered some helpful correctives). He had the gift to combine wit and grace, and in that he parsed other interpretations, offered his own and pointed to the hope of the Gospel.

I now own a couple of John Stott's commentaries and have used others to for personal and communal Bible study. He is, in many respects, a reliable theologian of first resort whenever I need a better understanding of any part of scripture. But his gracious and reasonable presence that Sunday in London impacted me more. This attitude has been particularly helpful when faced with difficult questions from non-Christians; when I'm at my best, I imitate it (not always the case, sadly).

John Stott died today. His hope his seen, his faith is realized and, with Christ Jesus in paradise, his love is complete. His impact on the church can't be understated, nor his impact on the clergy who follow in his footsteps (see this moving post from one of the pastors at my old church in Washington), my father included. That day, he rallied us to have a picture taken with wise pastor, who graciously conceded. The picture is one of Dad's treasures. He often reminds me that there's a picture of me with John Stott. I consider it an act of God's grace that I met him and heard him that day.

Philippians in the Alps

2011-07-27T07:37:00.002-05:00

A comfortable vacation in the Alps feels like the wrong setting to think about the Paul’s letter to the Philippians. I’ve heard it said that the Philippians were among the poorest churches, and Paul himself wrote to the Philippians from his final imprisonment. Suffering is a primary theme. And yet, you’d be forgiven if you didn’t notice this at first glance. This is because the other theme, running side by side throughout the whole letter, is joy.

Paul is in prison, and he is very aware that he faces the death penalty. Yet over and over again, Paul commands the Philippians to rejoice. He can’t help himself but to repeat it again throughout the letter, between other instruction, admonition and explanation. It's as if he's a little girl who just learned the word.

It’s a beautiful letter. Even the instruction, usually the part of Paul's letters where I'm tempting to stop paying attention and fantasize about the Cubs winning the World Series, blooms into song. Consider this passage, which starts with admonishment. “Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus [at this word, Paul forgets himself; you can almost hear the John Williams-led orchestra start to play music here], who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Why be humble? Why serve? Why should I forget my natural inclination to look only for my interests, to consider my desires, my interests, myself more significant that others? Because of Jesus, about whom Paul doesn’t just preach, he sings. He continues the theme later on when preaching against any sort of religious superiority (in this case, those who claim following Christ requires circumcision), by saying Paul considers his own religious superiority rubbish compared to “knowing Jesus Christ my Lord,” and, knowingly tying it back to the are of suffering, that in deed, he was sharing in Christ’s suffering.

In spite of what I said earlier, there is a sense that it is appropriate to read Philippians on vacation. My family is here seeking peace. We’re here to settle our souls after what felt like an unending season of transition. It’s marvelous, and as I’ve mention before, the surrounding mountains remind me of my Creator. They help me to do what I should do in all circumstances, to do what Paul famously instructs the Philippians to do, if they truly want peace. “Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say, rejoice! Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me-practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Amen.

A Summer Fashion Proposal

2011-07-25T13:21:00.003-05:00

I just visited weather.com, and it looks like some afternoon storms are cooling off the DC area. That being said, I felt nothing but sympathy for the residents of my former hometown, who have spent the last couple of weeks sweltering in the hundreds. Here in Germany, it's been in the 70s, 60s when cloudy (Sunday felt like winter in Florida).

The summer months are particularly tough on the men of Washington DC. Women business attire allows moderately short skirts and short-sleeve blouses. This attire can handle the mid-Atlantic heat. But the conservative business dress of the District mean that men, from Capitol Hill to K Street to Think Tanks, must enclose their sweaty necks in a tie wear a suit jacket Amazon-like conditions. Moreover, male business attire ensures that the energy-guzzling air conditioning units of every office, restaurant and government building will be running until every room could house a flock of penguins (with Morgan Freeman's soothing voice narrating their activities. Hey, I'd watch it).

So, with debt payment and spending buts pending in Washington, perhaps they should consider their AC bill, not to mention the sanity of any man who has to walk from his taxi to the Longworth House Office Building as if going through a sauna.

Once again, Japan is showing the way - not just in reliable automobiles and penalty kicks, but in hot weather business fashion. Facing a summer energy crisis after the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese government is encouraging their suit-wearing class get rid of the jacket and tie for a look that conservative-dress purists would deride as business casual. And, really, why not? What's so important about the convention of a long-armed suit and a piece of silk hanging in front of your shirt that you couldn't withdraw them for a season for the expressed purpose of everyone's felicity, not to mention comfort and less energy spending. It may even help politics. Perhaps the current fiscal debates would be more effective, not to mention more courteous, if President Obama and Speaker Boehner were wearing short-sleeve cotton button downs with a throat capable of breath.

Plus, everyone can put their suit and ties back on in October. And in January, to save energy, not to mention the heating bill, everyone can wear fashionable, colorful sweater vests.

The Goody Bag Strategy

2011-07-22T09:40:00.003-05:00

A surprising thing for a parent, at least for this one, is all the little plans and contingencies you have to make and consider when going about normal human life. Even more surprising, particularly as one who takes little joy in having things planned out, is that I often make these plans instinctively.

A few weeks before going on vacation, my daughter started to walk. Immediately, her world expanded. She was a late bloomer, as I’ve said before, and I think what really got her going is that she finally realized crawling would only get her so far. On feet, she could explore the world, or at least her grandparents’ backyard. And their house. And our apartment. And try to sneak off and run down the street like a freed hamster when we’re not looking. Whenever she gets bored, she comes to me, grabs at my hand, and, in a voice so precious that you don’t quite realize it’s a command, says, “walk.” It’s what I get for repeating the word over and over again when actually teaching her the deed. We walk, hand in hand, down the street or to the raspberry bushes (she’s going to be disappointed when we get back to see how they’re out of season) or to visit the goats that live behind the retirement home. It happens often, which means my daughter gets bored often. She gets bored, now that she knows there is a vast world to explore on two legs.

So, when packing, the thought struck my wife and I that we need to ease boredom in our Ferienwohnung, which, with one bedroom, is smaller than our apartment and much smaller than Oma and Opa’s house. That’s where I came up with the goody bag strategy.

The goody bag strategy is to fill up a small duffle bag with (based on my observation) her favorite toys and books. I won’t allow her to know that the bag contains all of the treasures. Rather, on each day throughout our vacation, I reintroduce her to one of her prized possessions. It’s worked fairly well. She squeals with recognition when it’s a toy she particularly likes. For example, she has a teddy bear with a tag that says “Charly” but whom she simply refers to as “Bear” (note to toymaker: please don’t name your toys. It’s more satisfying when children come up with their own names, even at 18 months). Showing her Bear, after a few days’ absence, was a delight for both of us. “Bear!” she cried and embraced her old friend. Now, my wife and I can steal a few moments of vacation reading (or writing) while she puts Bear “night night” (by stuffing him through the bars of the crib) or has Bear eat “nyum nyums” (by seating him in her high chair).

Books are effective too, though not always for buying us a break. I’m trying to raise my daughter to love books, and I’ve made a point to read to her well before comprehension (which is what all the parenting books say to do, anyway). It worked, but now she’s old enough to try to dictate when she gets read to, which cuts into those wonderful moments I refer to as "me time." I will be there, sitting on the sofa, in view of the Alps out my window, newspaper or one of my three vacation books before me. My daughter will pick one of her own books and, with an expression of sweet expectation, look at me and say, “book.” Once again, it’s a command, not a request. To break it would risk tears, tantrums and a pitiful look of unadulterated heartbreak that could melt granite. Hey, what are vacations for, other than catching up on my Dr. Seuss or Richard Scarry?

Curiosity, Exploration and the End of the Shuttle

2011-07-21T01:07:00.000-05:00

Two of the past few weeks' biggest news stories are, at one level at least, more related than they appear. The first is NASA's final Space Shuttle mission, a story that captures the sentimental attention of this quasi-Floridian. Throughout my years in Orlando, we would be awakened by sonic booms, or join the entire neighborhood outside and look East for the shuttle launch. My father described it as a camera flash followed by a tail of smoke. Even before we moved to the Sunshine State, I would excitedly watch the countdowns with my parents to see those wonderful machines suddenly create tidal waves of smoke to propel itself into orbit. The idea that America's astronauts are suddenly international hitchhikers saddens me, not because there's any shame in in foreign air travel (indeed, I wish China, Russia and co. all the best), but because human space travel was an exhilarating American venture.

The second story is the News of the World scandal in Great Britain. I dislike both tabloid journalism (except for the opportunity to smirk at a clever headline) and schadenfreude, so I honestly haven't been following all of the lurid details. What got me thinking about the two stories in connection was both the Economist's decidedly unsentimental take on the space program and Die Zeit's smart reflection about the scandal and tabloid press in general.

The Economist seems more than happy to bury the risky ambition of human space travel, and their Eeyore-like response has been rightly chastised by its readers. It would be a pity if their prophecy, with a view of the world about as exciting as an accounting spreadsheet, proves correct. Yes, space flight is risky and costly, but those involved know the risks and know the cost. That is why they are called heroes. Space exploration, including human space exploration, is worthy of both public and private investment; It's worth the investment of intelligent minds, careful hands and courageous souls.

This leads me to the Zeit article. Die Zeit reminds us why tabloid journalism is so profitable, and why those who run and work for these newspapers have an enormous incentive to break convention, morality and law to sell us the profitable details. We want them, and we're willing to pay. Why? Because we are curious creatures. We're curious enough to slow down and look at the traffic accident on the other side of the highway. We're curious enough to look through the open windows of private residents. Curious enough to buy the newspaper that can feed us all the gossip as quickly as possible. Whatever else Murdoch did, he knew human nature well enough to spot a lucrative business opportunity. As politicians, pundits and public wax on about these crimes, we would do well to remember, as the Zeit does, that they would never have been committed had there been no market for it.

But inasmuch as curiosity is a vice, it is also a virtue. One of the most intelligent men I've ever met was a maintenance inspector for Walgreen's in Orlando. I got to know him, because his second job was my summer job when I was in college, and we would carpool to work together. Whatever he lacked in university knowledge, he made up for in his ability to ask the right questions on any given subject. These were the kind of questions, spurred by an uninhibited but non-morbid curiosity, that aimed like a sniper's laser at the heart of any issue, from theology to aerodynamics, to deliver the maximum amount of useful information. It was an impressive gift, and (I have to admit) I still envy it. On the same note, die Zeit has an interesting quote from Albert Einstein (my rough translation): "I'm not especially talented, but rather passionately curious."

Curiosity ranks high among the virtues that propelled us into space. And in the midst of budget battles, war, economics and everything else bringing fatigue to our nation, I worry that this curiosity is being squelched. Yes, as the Economist points out, much of that curiosity is still being worked by today's Einsteins, the scientists who launch satellites, look through telescopes and collect data to help us understand the universe in all its dimensions. This is wonderful and commendable work. But there is a courageous sort of curiosity that calls the bravest of us to actually go there ourselves. To break orbit. To land on the moon. To go beyond. Sure, we can lampoon this with Star Trek quotes or smilingly mourn them with these quotes (h/t Adam), but our society is no better without this spirit.

We are curious creatures. Curiosity is a gift from God, and like all gifts, we can use it for good or ill. The courageous curiosity of the explorer, out of fashion today perhaps, is a nobler investment than tabloid journalism. We're willing to invest a lot of money so that the Rupert Murdochs of the world can feed our curiosity about stars, celebrities and suffering souls. I'll admit that the gratification is not nearly as immediate, but perhaps our curiosity is better focused upwards.

The Mountains Declare

2011-07-20T05:19:00.002-05:00

If you ever hike the Alps, don’t be surprised if you see, perched between hay fields and pine forests, small alters to the Crucified Savior. There seems to be one for every grassy field that creeps around the feet of these mountains. They’re like large bird houses, except the front is open and has a small painted statue of Jesus on the cross. Sometimes he is alone; sometimes he’s flanked by Mary and John. At his feet are pieces of grain, flowers or candles, small offerings and prayers.

It’s as kitschy as a Hallmark Card and probably stained by superstition, but in some ways, you can’t blame them. In central Europe, religion is for two people, children and country folk. Children, to get a little culture and values training before they have to take on the real world, and country folk, because, bless them, what do they know about reality?

But, really, you can’t blame them. I know I can’t, because today I hiked the Alps. I hiked, with my wife beside me and my daughter strapped to my back, little creatures on a country path surrounded by a congregation of mountains. The Alps are a congregation, that’s the best way to describe them. These ancient giants stand in a position of wizened and lively worship, and they beckon all who crawl on them, however lost and diminished, to join in.

Worship. Worship beckoned me, hiking the Alps. The Alps are glorious, jagged in a way that comes across as both random and purposeful. They stand as proud equals to the clouds, some bald, some defying July to wear patches of glistening snow. Unending pine trees grow bravely upwards until the point that the mountains are too high and they can no longer grow. They form an evergreen skirt around each mighty hill, a quilt of needle and bark to measure the years. The congregation sings, joys and sorrow, celebrating the summer sun until evening winds cool the daylight passions into meditations of wisdom.

Worship beckoned me. “Heaven is a place that everybody here believes in. Why we have every reason,” wrote American folk singer Pierce Pettis about a town of country folk in Alabama. Hiking the Alps, I could relate to the country folks. I wanted to build an alter or at least find two decent sticks to make a pine cross. I wanted to lift my hands and sing the words of an anointed shepherd. I recognized the handiwork of a Creator, and I knew enough about myself that I knew I needed the Creator to be a Redeemer. I knew that the woman walking next to me, the girl strapped to my back and the passing strangers in hiking boots were his handiwork too, and in the presence of the mountains, my loves for them deepened in their various paths, like the streams of melting snow that carves the wrinkly face of an ancient hill.

Has busyness, disenchantment, noise, pollution or just plain pride left you disconnected from God? Are you hurting from hope, weary of faith and unable to love? Are you doing just fine, convinced that you’ve mastered your life with no pressing need to look up. Hike the Alps. Or the Appalachians. Or the Rockies. Catch a ride to the closest mountain range. Find a path that graciously allows you to climb something much larger than you, something that has been around much longer than you or your family or your city. Hike with your eyes open. How, then, could you not join the congregation? How could you ignore beckoning worship? How could you not relate to the country folk? How could you not become a psalmist, singing, “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord,” “What is man, that you are mindful of him” and “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name above the Earth!”

A Few Words About Our Ferienwohnung

2011-07-19T06:56:00.004-05:00

Ferienwohnung literally means holiday apartment, but the German word sounds so much better, I will continue to use it.
Ferienwohnung is pronounced “FAIR-ee-in-VOH-nung.”
The Ferienwohnung belongs to an elderly couple, whose pleasantness and helpfulness are so genuine that I never had the feeling it was a professional customer service. There are several Ferienwohnungen in their house, here in Serfaus, Austria – a resort town in the Alps. Every day, our hosts work to keep the back yard pristine.
The back yard includes a well-behaved lawn, a vegetable garden, a flower garden and a small goldfish pond.
My daughter loves the little goldfish pond, and we visit it every morning. There’s also a statue of a little boy holding his hands out. My daughter feeds the little boy by putting clovers in his hands and refers to him as “Boob.” Please be advised that “Boob” is southern German slang for “little boy.” If you are the parent of a little boy, I apologize in advance if my daughter calls him Boob.
Our Ferienwohnung house is one of many, all over town and up and down our particular street. Each of them are in good condition and, presumably, making money, and there are cranes here building more. I detect no sense of bitterness or competition between the house-owners. Indeed, while visiting Boob, my daughter and I got to know the man who owns the house next door. He invited us to use there swing, and we took him up on it. Every morning, after we visit Boob, my daughter and I hop the wooden fence to use the neighbor’s swing.
Our Ferienwohung itself is on the bottom floor of the house, but that doesn’t matter, because it’s easy for us to get to the garden (to visit Boob), and all of our windows face the valley to give us a majestic view of the Alps.
Speaking of windows, the one downside to our Ferienwohnung is that this is the first German house I’ve been to without Rolladen (or roller blinds, but the German word is better), or at least very dark curtains. Our curtains are sufficient for modesty but useless against the summer sun, and useless for a napping 1 and a half year old. The solution? We put her pack’n’play inside the bathroom and hung our picnic blanket over the window, the only window small enough for our picnic blanket. She’s sleeping peacefully as I write this. Thankfully, the toilet is in a different room.
The Ferienwohnung has a dishwasher. Hallelujah.
The Ferienwohnung has a flat screen TV with digital cable, so we are not missing the Women’s World Cup.
The digital cable package includes two embarrassing Evangelical channels, a German one and an American one. The American one showed a prosperity gospel preacher in the morning, and in the evening showed a concert featuring Michael Tait, formerly of DC Talk (where’s he been?). I did not watch much of either. The German evangelical channel is much more subdued and features elderly people talking about spiritual matters, as well as nature scenes and piano muzak in the background.
There are also several channels that primarily feature German folk music. Think lederhosen, oompa bands and liter biers. I think elderly people in Germany watch these channels the same way my grandmother would always watch Lawrence Welk reruns.
Other channels produce "Schlager" Music. Schlager music is the music of choice for German beer halls since the 70s. Schlager combines German folk music, disco and Tom Jones for a sound that makes you want to drink more. I saw a schlager singer with the combined powers of Luke Skywalker's hair Clark Gable's mustache.
We’re saving money by not using the Internet. This is a forced fast, and not only do I feel very uninformed, but my hands are beginning to shake.
The furniture, from bed to wardrobe, is firm, comfortable and of excellent quality.
All in all, this is a comfortable place to return and reflect. Beauty and nature mean processing. I do this better when I turn off the television and sit where I can look one direction to see my wife and another direction to look out the window for an awe-inspiring view of the Alps. Why look elsewhere?

Packing - It Helps You Enjoy Your Vacation Without Guilt

2011-07-18T13:31:00.003-05:00

There’s something about America’s puritan work ethic that makes me feel guilty about vacation. Be it beach, mountains, Disney, Vegas, whatever, there's a little devil that sits on our shoulders telling us that we don’t deserve to relax, that the only people who deserve to relax are the handsome old people in the investment bank commercials who have clearly earned their lavish retirement on a Yacht in the Caribbean.

Fortunately, for those of us currently on vacation Austria, there’s an exercise that relieves the guilt. It’s called packing. Packing for a family makes daggum sure you earned your stay in the mountains. This is especially true if it's your first time taking baby on a vacation, and you’re aren’t exactly sure what you need. For example, we had to ask ourselves, “Will their crib be sufficient or should we bring the pack’n’play?” We brought the Pack’n’Play, happily, which we can shove in the darkest room in our holiday apartment.

When it comes to packing, my wife is management and I am labor. She thinks of every possible contingency and packs accordingly (which helps avoid my usual contingency: "How late is Target open? Is there a Target in Tirol?"), and I carry everything to the car like Atlas, except that I wear clothes, I don't have that much beard and none of our luggage is spherical, though that would be cool. Wisely, we have clothes and shoes for all sorts of weather, plenty of food, and lots of books (we’re both bookworms, and I’m a moody reader who needs options). Basically, we had just enough room in our Ford Focus for our necessities (yes, I said necessities) plus a family of three, squeezing our persons between briefcases, books and bananas (our daughter loves bananas).

Of course, it was the Ford that worked hardest out of all of us. Our car braved the twisty roads through the Alps weighed down like a Camel on which you shouldn’t throw a piece of straw. It handled like we had a full grown African rhinoceros seated next to our daughter. But the Focus truly was the little car that could, bless her, and she handled her duty with distinction.

But when we got their and unloaded, we, family and automobile, could rest in the mountains, as deserving as the retirees in the investment banking commercials.

Back from Austria

2011-07-17T08:54:00.005-05:00

The first thing we noticed is that the hills surrounding Plochingen were smaller. They looked more like bumps, actually (though, I have to admit, they felt like mountains again when I tried to run up one during my jog this morning). That's what they looked like yesterday, when we arrived back from our two-week vacation in Serfaus, Austria, a resort town located in the mighty Alps. For any Americans reading this, the Alps are the mountains in The Sound of Music, and yes, the hills were alive. For any Austrians reading this, I'm sorry. I know that movie is a stench to your nostrils, and I won't mention it again.

Of course, mountainous is relative. My home town of Orlando is so flat that you can climb a palm tree and see Cocoa Beach on a clear day. When I went to college, Tallahassee's modest hills seemed mountainous by comparison. Plochingen's small green mountains, not unlike the Appalachians, are another beauty all together, but it was a wonderful thing to hike the Alps (more on that later).

Our holiday apartment did not have internet access, save an inconsistent shared computer in the hallway, which was good only for short emails, light Facebook stalking and reading post-match Women's World Cup reports. Nonetheless, I made it my habit to write as often as I could (all most every day! *patting myself on the back*) about what I saw, felt and experienced in Austria. In the next couple of weeks, I will edit and post my better musings on this blog with the label "Austrian Correspondence" (though I don't rule out that I'll post other things as well). I will also comment on some of the Alps' delectable dairy products on Justin's food blog.

I'll start tomorrow, but in the meantime, let me say adieu to you and you and you. (sorry)

Watch the Women's World Cup

2011-06-27T04:09:00.005-05:00

You thought it was all over. You thought that when Spain finally hoisted the men's World Cup trophy last year, that the soccer proselytizers would disappear back into the cornfields and you could move on to something more American, like arguing about whether an entire collegiate sports program should be punished if their star quarterback sells an autographed jersey (if the school in question is your rival school, the answer is "of course, the rules are the rules and we must defend the integrity of college football." If the school in question is your own, the answer is a diatribe about the injustices and hypocrisies of college football and why these athletes should be played, not to mention how your rival school manages to get away with every cheat under the sun).

Nope. I'm back with a vengeance, following up last year's World Cup sermon with an even more demanding admonishment: Watch the Women's World Cup. Yes, it started just last night over here in Germany, where the hosts defeated Canada 2:1 and France eaked out a 1:0 win over Nigeria.

The last time I really sat down to watch women's soccer was an Olympic Gold Medal game between the U.S. and Brazil. The U.S. was full of tactical smarts and the experience of those heroes who won the World Cup on our home soil in 1999. The Brazilians were true up-and-coming talents, playing with the same flair and athleticism for which their male compatriots are known. Eventually experience trumped athleticism and the U.S. pulled it out in a thriller. Every moment was saturated with excitement and passion: sport at its finest.

Soccer is a beautiful game, and these ladies play beautiful soccer. No, it won't match the world-uniting passion of the last year's World Cup, but here in Germany, as in the U.S. in '99, the stadiums are sold out, the fans are ready to cheer, and it looks to be a great tourney. And, from an American perspective, we actually have a shot at winning this one (we've won two, as indicated by the stars on their uniforms). Defending champs and hosts Germany are probably the favorite, with talented Brazil and U.S. teams not far behind. Dark horses include France, Norway and Sweden.

One more reason to watch it: I have a daughter. She's probably too young to pick up on it just yet, but I'll have her in the room with me anyway. I'm teaching her to kick her fluffy little toy ball. She may very well inherit my overall lack of athletic prowess, but I hope she grows up to know that sports, competition, physical training, teamwork, winning and losing are all good things. These are all things worth experiencing and worth celebrating. I hope she won't buy into the notion, still common here, even though Germany is hosting, that soccer is a men only obsession. Mia Hamm, the U.S.'s best all-time player, always said that a primary motivation to play was to inspire little girls, and she seems to me a better inspiration than so many of the women or men who make it on our television screens. My daughter is a little girl with little legs, but underneath her curly hair lie budding dreams waiting to bloom. If those dreams include kicking a black and white ball, then may she be inspired anew every four years.

In the meantime, pop open a bottle of German beer and turn on ESPN. It's about to start.

Learning to Walk

2011-06-25T07:06:00.004-05:00

My daughter is a walker. It took her a little while, right up to the year and a half "start-worrying-says-the-doctor" deadline. It's been a fun process, letting her little hands grasp my pointer finger as she, with escalating confidence, moves her chubby little legs across the living room floor. She's naturally cautious, but she's recently realized the utility of staying on two legs, and loves the opportunity to take off down the street or explore the garden with her Oma (credit where credit is due: my father-in-law bought her some shoes that, unlike her other shoes, were clearly made for walkin').

Do you know of anyone who remembers learning to walk in their childhood? I know I don't, and I doubt my daughter will either. But these small steps for baby will grow in to adult steps that will carry her a world over. This is a cause for thankfulness, as Chesterton famously pointed out when he wrote: "As children, we were grateful for those who filled our stockings at Christmastime. Why not be grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs." Worth thinking for any of us who can easily tackle a staircase or hike a trail through the forest. Working limbs for the glory of God.

My daughter won't remember the lesson, yet she'll remember to walk. God designed her legs for this purpose and, Lord willing, these legs will carry her well through the years. This could serve as a bit of encouragement for anyone finding him- or herself in the position of teaching, among them pastors and parents. It's almost a running joke among Christians, where, week after week God's word is preached to us. I often find myself thinking, "wonderful sermon last week! I felt so invigorated as I sat in the pews! Now, what did he talk about again?"

Sometimes, perhaps even often, we remember those moments where a seed, faithfully thrown, hits our hearts and begin to take root, causing positive change and enlightened understanding, even when we're quite young. But as I've been writing (and indeed reading) more, I've become aware of an unaccounted for inventory of knowledge, particularly spiritual knowledge. I'll read about a concept (this week it's been Christ-like service as espoused in Philippians 2-3, which is as beautiful to think about as it is difficult to apply) that will awaken dormant thoughts and teachings, waiting in my mind to be breathed upon. Where did I learn them? A sermon? A conversation with my father? A book? A blog post? A song my mother sang to me as a baby? Some combination of the previously mentioned?

Sometimes, I'll remember; sometimes I won't. I like to remember. I like to remember who to thank, who was important to my journey. But the point is that I remember, and that I put it into practice, that I don't forget my face the moment I walk away from the mirror. That's why I think that, even when we can't immediately regurgitate the relevant facts like Will Hunting, even when we've forgotten last week's sermon or a proverb from our granddad, there's still hope. We're laying down the bricks in a house we can't understand. We're adding seasoning to the mix of every soul. We're teaching each other to walk, tentative step by tentative step until we learn to walk to new heights. Something worth remembering, even if you never remember having read it here.

Oma Lore's Lute

2011-06-24T13:46:00.006-05:00

We found a treasure upstairs.

You see, my family will move into the upstairs part of my wife's Grandma (or Oma, around here) Lore's (pronounced LOR-eh, but close enough to "Laura" for English ears) house. Between my wife and I, Lore is the last remaining grandparent, and my daughter's only surviving great grandparent (duh). She's seen a lot in her 90 plus years, from war to Wirtschaftswunder to Wiedervereingung. She was a nurse who helped World War II veterans after the war when the fighting was over and Europe split. This included a young soldier who was blinded on the Eastern front just as the Russians were closing in. The young soldier would eventually fall in love with her, marry her and bring her back to the house where we will live - the house where my father-in-law was born. (Home births were a necessity before they were a trend)

This means, of course, we keep finding treasures as we clean out the cupboards and closets. Upstairs, there are enough built in wardrobes to occupy the Pevensie children for weeks. So, I was happy, but not particularly surprised when, while struggling to put together a chest of drawers from IKEA (carpenter I am not), my mother-in-law graciously interrupted my work to show the ancient instrument she had found.

It was a beautiful old lute, not quote broken, but decayed with age and non-use. It was wrapped in a wonderful cloth case that tied up in strings at the top, like a bag of coins. The instrument is about two and a half feet long. It has a skinny, chestnut-brown neck with enough room for eight metal strings (at the moment there are only four). The bottom is shaped like a fat teardrop and is more of a birch color, while the rounded back extends a good six inches with its brown and birch stripes. There's a pleasantly shaped oval hole under the bridge, and beneath that is what I would call a pick guard on my guitar, but perhaps it's a finger guard for the Lute, with a painting of some spiky flowers crossed behind a mini-Lute. I see it and I imagine Bards of the Middle Ages, traveling from town to town to tell of wondrous stories while playfully plucking those twangy strings.

It's unplayable right now, and nicked up for good measure. It belonged to Oma Lore, who used to play guitar and piano, but had not played on her Lute since World War II. I asked my father-in-law why this was, and he was of the opinion that in spite of her better efforts, musical talent didn't run through the family's genes. By way of an example, he told me that he's much happier with heavy machinery, and a chainsaw ringing through the forest is a song in his book.

In the meantime, I intend to take the Lute to a music shop to see if anyone there can revive it. If it's beyond repair, then it'll make a hip deco piece for my office. If not, does anyone out there want to teach me to play the lute? I can pay you in song.

Closed for Corpus Christi, or The Farming Practices of Protestants

2011-06-23T06:38:00.006-05:00

Anywhere you live, you can see how the customs, culture and holidays of any land is bathed in their history. This is, of course, true in Germany, and one of the interesting things about being here is observing the remaining residue of the Reformation and the ensuing conflicts in produced. Many towns, including my own, have a large Protestant and a larger Catholic church, for example. Some areas still find a strong religious identity that defines their area, such as the proudly Catholic Bavaria. And of course, the States with enough Catholic citizens and influence have Catholic Holiday off.

So, my new home state of Baden-Wuerttemberg is closed for business today for the feast of Fronleichnam, or Corpus Christi. B-W is traditionally Catholic and Protestant and was historically divided by not just religion, but by tribe, fiefdom, economics and much else until Napoleon conquered the whole area and put it under one administrative unit (which no one bothered to change after Napoleon's defeat). We didn't growing up staying home for such religious holidays in the States, so not being Catholic (or high-church Anglican, for that matter), I couldn't tell you when the feast was or how it came about (but for the full story, you can read all about it on Wikipedia or talk to your Catholic friends).

I've since learned that Germany's Protestants had their own Corpus Christi tradition. Martin Luther called the day un-biblical and "the most damaging of all feasts," as Corpus Christi celebrates the Catholic view of the Holy Eucharist. As a provocation, Protestant farmers in Germany would always plan to fertilize their fields on Corpus Christi, creating a pungent smell for the Catholic processions. Patriotic Protestant that I am, I have neither fields nor fertilizer, and besides, there's not much of a movement to stick it to the Catholics anymore. Practicing Catholics still march in the Corpus Christi processions, while Protestants, and pretty much everyone else, enjoy the day off.

The German Phenomenon of House Shoes

2011-06-17T09:40:00.006-05:00

Walk into the front door of any German house, and you'll be confronted with shoes. Shoes upon shoes upon shoes. In my in-law's house, for example, there is a a shelf full if shoes - dress, crocs, Birkenstocks, hiking boots you name it - that goes all the way to the ceiling. It's on your right side when you walk in the front door, and it contains enough shoes to cover the feet of every football player in the AFC North. They sit in slots upon slots, sort of like the key-holders of an old-fashioned hotel.

You see, there's never a moment, especially for German men, when their feet are exposed to open air. That means wearing socks with sandals, and that means having different shoes for indoors and out.

I am, of course, a product of the great state of Florida. Whatever else that may mean, it also means that I love the flip flops. I love the moment when my feet are freed from the confines of shoes and socks and, naked as the day they were born, exposed to the earth's atmosphere. Need to go outside? Put on your flip flops and embrace the tan lines. Need to come in side? Kick off the flip flops if you want, but it's a pretty laissez faire attitude towards foot ware. Part of the thrill of getting home from work was always to free my feet from their prison of leather and cloth and feel the coolness of our home carpets.

This is also different than the Japanese custom, where any foot gear inside is verboten (to use a German term). In college, I had a Japanese study partner. Whenever she came to my college apartment (which at the time, I shared with two good friends), she would remove her sneakers and place them neatly upon our the illegible brown scratchy thing that passed for our welcome mat. She said she couldn't believe how we Americans would soil our floors by wearing our foot gear inside. I was worried our carpet would soil her otherwise clean feet. Of course, if we studied at her apartment, I would forget the rule and step like a clumsy barbarian, full shoe upon her silky, white, shampooed and conditioned floor. I would then meet an icy stare from my study partner and wondered if I hat kicked over some Japanese holy scripture-book. Then I would see the impeccably straight row of sandals and sneakers by the door and retreat to the front door to remove my foul sandals, sniffing like a punished puppy.

Here in Germany, it's not a matter of taking your shoes off, but it's about constantly changing your shoes. Whenever you come inside, you take off your outdoor shoes and put on your house shoes. Whenever you go out the back door, you take off your house shoes and you put on your garden shoes. A good German has the appropriate shoes at every exit, and appropriate house shoes waiting for them, perhaps more.

There are several varieties of house shoes. There's what we Americans would call bedroom slippers - warm cushy things to make February more liveable. Crocs are very popular here, both the name brand and a variety of imitations. They also double as garden shoes, but you're not supposed to have your indoor crocs be your garden shoes. But the most popular house shoes by far are Birkenstocks. Birkenstocks migrated to the United States on the feet of hippies, and millions of us like them for their comfort. But, weather permitting, we wear them everywhere, and without socks. After a couple of months, an American's Birkenstock sandals each have a foot imprint that perfectly matches the owner's foot for maximum comfort. That footprint is always so black that one wonders if the American's bathroom floor is made of coal.

Most Germans exclusively wear their Birkenstocks inside. Men always wear them with socks, as if their toes would fall off if given too much oxygen. Although I suspect the real reason here is hygiene. Keep in mind, if you wear socks with your sandals, you will be less likely to have feet that smell like a cattle farm at the end of the day - "cheese feet" is what the Germans call them.

And frankly, I'm a bit insecure because I don't know if I have the shoes to keep up. Sure, I have some bedroom slippers for the winter (somewhere), but if I put them on in the summer, my feet sweat like a jungle explorer in a cannibal's stew pot. I went and bought some generic crocs at Lidl (a store that must be the result of breeding Trader Joe's and Wal-Mart), but then I discovered that these shoes were good for painting the house, but I couldn't wear them anywhere else. I would need painting shoes (for good reason), garden shoes, outdoor shoes, and house shoes, not to mention other outdoor and indoor shoes for every entrance of the house. And this does not include your basic running shoes, dress shoes or hiking shoes. I think that, per year, the average German spends as much time changing shoes as Americans spend watching television (ok, maybe not that much).

In the coming weeks, I have to get to a store and get a couple more pairs of generic crocs and maybe some Birkenstock sandals. In the meantime, I'm still wearing my Gap sandals everywhere. The cheese feet of the loud American.

A Moment

2011-06-15T16:05:00.003-05:00

Today, I had a moment. It was one of those unexpected moments that breathes spirit into my nostrils, adding liveliness to existence. I had spent most of the day painting what will be our apartment. I had just finished painting the parts of the upstairs we were going to use - bare essentials for us to unpack and move in. The last paint job, at least in those upper rooms, had been during the Vietnam War, so it was a dirty, paint-for-survival type of work where those brown splotches you thought you painted over would resurrect and beg for more. Nonetheless, I painted the rooms a satisfactory white and declared I was done, just before dinnertime.

The moment occurred when I was washed and sitting in my in-law's kitchen, decompressing from labor by reading interesting things on the Internet. My father-in-law came in and brought my daughter with him. He sat all of her one-and-a-half years in the high chair and left the room, but not before giving her a fat chunk of soft pretzel (in the States, babies eat Cheerios all the time, in Germany, soft pretzels). For the first time that day, father and daughter were alone.

I continued to read, but she wanted me attention. She smiled at me with a playful flicker in her dark eyes. She inherited my brown eyes, which also belong to my mom and two of my sisters. But there's something about those eyes that make them unique, something in the way that there's still so much to learn or to experience that give them a depth my aged eyes lack. Or perhaps its something built in to make a father's heart melt. Either way.

She wanted me to sing, so I sang. "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" is her current favorite, and she can do the hand motions in her own swinging baby way. Her hair used to be so short, but now playful curls spread out from her round head like a bush in the spring time. She wanted more food, so I went and got a Kiwi. "Wee wee!" she squealed when she saw it. I cut it in half and fed her slivers of green fruit with a spoon.

The Kiwi was reduced to two half-shells, and I wanted to empty the dish washer, but I needed a distraction. The solution was "la la." La la is what she calls my in-laws' CD player. I turned it on, wondering which old rock album from my father-in-law's collection was in it. It was an old Rolling Stones record with mostly songs I didn't recognize. No matter. My daughter and I danced to Keith Richards and Mick Jagger while I put the plates and coffee cups away.

During this moment, I savored one of the good parts of life. It's the part that feels as if this little girl is a piece of hope and love dancing in my arms. The part that knows when she looks at me through those deep brown eyes, she sees me as someone important.

The Mystery of Unity

2011-06-06T14:01:00.003-05:00

Since my arrival in Germany, I've been experimenting with a Bible-reading method that one of my DC pastors recommended. Growing up in the church, much of my understanding of scripture has been shaped memorizing Bible verses, an activity I found incredibly dull as a child but learned to love and benefit from as a young adult. If you're not familiar with the Bible, one of its pleasures is to find out what a rich text the book is - for anyone, not just grannies and scholars. You can take a single verse and savor it for weeks, dwelling in the depths of the complexity and beauty of our triune God and His Gospel, His good news for all of mankind. Many preachers, such as Charles Spurgeon, could preach wonderful sermons based on a couple lines. My own spiritual life reached new depths and a stronger foundation when one of my youth pastors preached on Zephaniah 3:17's joyous celebration of God's love for his people.

I am grateful for this, of course, but the Bible was not written with chapter and verse in mind. The danger with a verse-focused diet is that the reader sees scripture as a series of disconnected set pieces. Each of these verses are wonderful, but they are only part of the point that, say, Paul in his letter, or a Gospel writer, or a Psalm-writing poet is trying to make. And in the Bible itself, each book, each narrative, each poem, each prophecy are part of a collective whole, the story of creation, fall and redemption.

So it was with this in mind that I followed my pastor's suggestion and, rather than focused on little stories or verses or set pieces, I would read an entire book of the Bible, at a normal reading pace. And re-read it the next day. And re-read it twenty times. (It's not clear to me when we are supposed to re-read it - if it's a once a day pattern or an evening of pure craziness. I bravely chose once a day.)

Ok, I realize that this may sound about as fun as a road trip across Kansas, but hear me out. Like nearly all things that turn out to be worthwhile, it requires some slogging. Around the fifth or sixth time I've read the text (if even that), the words got blurry. I found myself skimming like a lazy farmer, and the reading voice in my head turned impatient and sarcastic. A couple of days later, I would think of things more important than reading it again, like surfing the internet for updates about Brazilian soccer teams.

But hold on. Sometimes, resilience really is worth it. This wasn't some sort of Sisyphean effort of spirituality, but an attempt to know God and his ways from someone who was drinking from the source, in my case, Paul. The book I've been reading is Ephesians, and reading and re-reading the whole thing helped me see the book and the message in a new way.

If you want to delve into a verse or two, Ephesians has some excellent set pieces. One of the first verses I memorized, without really even trying, was 4:32: "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you." I knew this because when I was five, my mom knew a catchy jingle to which the verse was sung (understandably, she was also keen that I knew Ephesians 6:1). Growing up in a Reformed church, I could not avoid learning 2:8-10 - "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." And during college, I spent what must have been a semester meditating on what the NIV calls "A Prayer for the Ephesians," Ephesians 3:14-20, where Paul's prose seems to turn into poetry and he asks us to do the impossible - "to grasp how wide and how long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses all knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

These verses remain in important part of my spiritual journey and a continual source of comfort, strength and love. But without reading the whole thing, there remains much undiscovered. For example, what I learned reading and re-reading all of Ephesians is that the book is focused on a mystery that Paul seems really excited about. God's unmeasurable love is certainly mysterious and exciting, but that's not it, at least directly. God's providence and that hot spiritual topic of predestination are mysterious, though that's not it either, even if that's the first thing Paul talks about in the letter. Let's quote the man himself: "This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promises in Christ Jesus."

In other words, the mystery is unity under the head of Christ. Read through Ephesians, and it's clear how excited Paul is about this point. The theology and poetic assurances and prayers of the first three chapters seem to underscore that we are united with Christ, and the practical instructions of the last three chapters are all about promoting and maintaining this unity. And in a way, it's hard to understand Paul's excitement. I think if I'm honest, sometimes the the things that get my blood flowing, the things I really spend my time thinking about are defending and promoting my gifts, my values, my ways, and the things that separate me or differ me from others. Paul acknowledges differences, but he tells us to bring them together in one house, in one body, in trusting submission to Jesus Christ, whose love is without border.

And maybe that's why unity is such mystery. Whatever our platitudes, unity is difficult. Tribalism is part of our fallen humanity, to treat the different with suspicion, ridicule or hate. To unite with others involves an amount of self-sacrifice that I find unnatural. Paul himself can hardly believe it happens - these walls of hostility being torn down in Christ. The church universal is so often a sad story of division upon division. But, when unity happens, when mystery is acted out, it is beyond beautiful, a heavenly symphony of different instruments, different parts, one leader, one song.

That's a beautiful thought, isn't it? It's a point worth getting excited about. It's a point worth acting upon. And how easily I miss it, in practice and in scripture reading.

Small Mercies

2011-06-06T13:31:00.002-05:00

Germany is almost finished with what is set to be the driest spring in over a century. The news has described the whole season as summery. If so, then it's been the summer of love for the trees and grass on these hills. The plants have been spewing pollen like their Eyjafjallajökull (yes, I copied and pasted that), with few showers to wash the earth (and the cars, and the deck chairs, and anything else I left outside) clean. And for our household allergy sufferers (my wife and myself - my daughter, not yet, but genetically, she's doomed) it's been pretty nasty. During the afternoons, I feel like Godzilla emerged from the river to make my nose itch.

But this morning, rejoice, there was a rainstorm. It was a Godsend, and I mean that. It was as if the earth was given a million little baptisms, wiping away the pollen - not to mention my itchy, goopy tears. Afterwards, the air was so clear and fresh and revitalizing - it's like the feeling the commercials tell you you'll get from deodorant soap. It was a gift, and I needed it today. I needed the energy, the clean oxygen, the clear head and the ability to keep my nerve (I love it when I have that!). I needed it because we visited a place that must be in violation of the Geneva convention.

Autobahn

2011-06-01T03:40:00.005-05:00

If you are a male, as I am, and you grew up in America, as I did, and you went to public school, camp or church youth group (I did all three), then you've probably had a conversation like this:

Boy 1: "Dude, did you know that there's a road in Germany with no speed limits? It's called the Autobahn! "
Boy 2: "Really? That's awesome!" (Note: The word awesome may be substituted for other slang words indicated the intrinsic goodness of no speed limits, depending on region or generation)
Boy 1: "Yeah, some day I'm gonna drive on it!"
Boy 2: "Me too!"

I've never really been a car guy. I didn't have posters of sports cars growing up, and I always drove clunkers until I could finally afford our Toyota Camry, a responsible automobile which we sold before moving to Plochingen. I don't really know my way around an engine, and I don't have a need to soup up a perfectly functional car to go faster. But, even with all this, I can't escape the romanticism that comes with the word Autobahn. No speed limits. None of those bossy little square signs that shout numbers and guidelines in the combined voice of your father and your kindergarten teacher. None of those small-town cops ensuring revenue to their precinct by crouching behind trees and billboards like hungry pumas, ready to devour those whose only sin was haste. I'm not a car guy, but I've known something that all boys know: speed is fun. The schoolyard equation went something like this: Faster = Funner. More Faster = More Funner. The evidence? Slides. Roller Coasters. Not to mention those car commercials where the wealthy, well-polished man finds achievement, enlightenment and true human potential while driving a German sports car faster than Superman can fly. As a great American thespian once said, "I have a need... for speed."

So yesterday, I dawned my sunglasses, kissed my daughter goodbye, and drove on the Autobahn from Stuttgart to Munich. Strictly speaking, the Autobahn is Germany's interstate system. They have a simple number systems, just as we do. We drove on the A-8, which is like driving on I-8 in the U.S. In fact, we got our idea for the Interstate highway system from Germany. Throughout WWII, the length of time to get war supplies from one end of the U.S. to another was a constant frustration for General Dwight D. Eisenhower. We had no Interstate system at the time, and State roads are slow, windy and aren't always suitable for army caravans. After conquering Germany, he was so impressed with the Autobahn system that he imposed one on us when he became president a decade later. Except ours had speed limits.

What was my stallion? A Mercedes? A BMW? A Porsche? Nope. My car was a Ford Focus, baby. Ok, but this is par to course. In Germany, Ford actually does good business selling things that are practical - and I happily turned on the radio as I drove a vehicle with decent trunk space (a luxury over here) and good gas mileage (a necessity).

To my disappointment, one of the first things that I saw on the hallowed highway was a speed limit sign. Yes, there are speed limits on parts of the Autobahn. Usually for construction, proximity of a busy city area or just a hazardous mountain road. The restrictions usually fall around 100 kilometers/hr. (60 MPH), 120 KPH (75M MPH) or 130 KPH (80 MPH). But those don't last forever, and eventually, I came to a place where I saw those accusing numbers crossed out. Restriction erased. It was there that I stomped the pedal like a Sumo Wrestler and let out my barbaric yalp, which caused a confused stare from my wife over in the passenger's seat.

Yes, I hauled. I hauled as fast as that little Ford motor could safely carry us in those condition, which was about 140-150 KPH (86-93MPH). Ok, so I didn't do anything manly or death defying. But at least it was nice not to be concerned about the speed limit. Here's the other thing: the driving was relatively safe, in spite of the lack of speed controls. That's because in Germany, there are additional traffic rules, and, here is the key, people actually follow them. The Germans don't have the liberal interpretation of traffic statues that most Americans have. During the entire trip (about two hours), no one, and I mean no one, attempted to pass me on the right. Turn singles blinked, people slowed down if needed to. That's not to say there weren't impatient jerks on the road - that's a cultural universal. But these were rule-abiding jerks - insufferable but not dangerous. The slow cars and trucks (tractor-trailer trucks have speed limits and additional rules imposed, no matter where we are) compliantly stayed in the right lane. I was a middle lane kind of guy, traveling at middle lane speed. The left lane - you should've seen the rubber burn there.

Every once in awhile, I would look in the mirror and see one of those beautiful German cars in my rear-view mirror. Mercedes, Porsche, BMW, Audi. Sometimes it was hard to to tell. Behind me, they would just be specs on the horizon. They would pass me in a flash of black (it was almost always black). Then, they would be a spec somewhere forward, in the future. That is the majesty of a German sports car, using the Autobahn for its created purpose. I'm sure their drivers achieved enlightenment and true human potential while in their vortex. Or in any case, whatever they experienced could be described in two words: More funner.

How To Spot a Christian Buzzword

2011-05-31T02:16:00.005-05:00

If Christian marketing uses the word twice in the same sentence, chances are, you've got a buzzword. Consider this, from the back cover of The Wisdom of Stability by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove:

"A work of startling authenticy, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's new book speaks to each of us who seek an authentic path of Christian transformation."

I'm not sure I can handle that much authenticity. Is this one of those places where "keepin' it real" goes to far?

No to knock the book, of course. The Wisdom of Stability was recommended by a friend. My wife has read about a third of it, and I've read the first chapter. Wilson-Hartgrove might overstate the scriptural case for his points (though I should reflect more here), but I'm thankful that he wrote a book about staying rooted. As someone who's trying to settle after wandering for the better part of a decade, I resonate with the theme. After all, it's a book of startling resonance for everyone who wants to resonate with authentic Christian transformation.

Surviving the Commute

2011-05-28T04:15:00.005-05:00

I remember reading (or hearing) somewhere that the length of your commute is one of the most consistent happiness indicators. Regardless of classification (such as nationality, religion or social-economic status), those with shorter commutes were happier than those with long commutes. It made sense to me at the time, and now Anne Lowery has done the world a favor by documenting the horrors of the long commute in Slate. She writes, and I second, that:

"Commuting is a migraine-inducing life-suck—a mundane task about as pleasurable as assembling flat-pack furniture or getting your license renewed, and you have to do it every day. If you are commuting, you are not spending quality time with your loved ones. You are not exercising, doing challenging work, having sex, petting your dog, or playing with your kids (or your Wii). You are not doing any of the things that make human beings happy. Instead, you are getting nauseous on a bus, jostled on a train, or cut off in traffic."

She goes on to examine the research that shows the correlation between commuting and obesity, divorce, loneliness and other maladies.

An obvious take away is to sacrifice those big things we want in a house - a spacious yard, fireplace, enough TV channels to entertain the entire population of Tokyo - to pay a little extra for a smaller flat or house closer to where you work. Lowery points out:

"Given the choice between that cramped apartment and the big house, we focus on the tangible gains offered by the latter. We can see that extra bedroom. We want that extra bathtub. But we do not often use them. And we forget that additional time in the car is a constant, persistent, daily burden—if a relatively invisible one."

Not to mention high gas prices. Also, if are an employer, I suspect that employees with shorter commutes are not only happier, but more productive and less prone to that creeping resentment about work cutting into their personal life. I may be worth the investment to pay additional salary to employees who live within fifteen minutes of the office (for the business minded, is anyone out there aware of companies who do this? Would it work?).

In the mean time, more and more of us find themselves living like that opening scene in Office Space where the protagonists stop-and-go through the traffic. If we're unable to make the potentially life-saving lifestyle change to reduce the commute, what should we do? I have a few suggestions based on my experience, but these fit to my personality and may not work for everyone. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

Embrace Public Transportation. I had a long commute in DC, and it was actually a little bit shorter to drive in than to Metro (or in sometimes, bus-then Metro) in. Complaining about Metro is one of Washington's number one pass times, up there with the Army 10-miler and bashing the leaders of the opposing party. But whatever Metros problems, the train system is much safer and much less stressful than driving inside the beltway. DC area drivers are an unholy alliance of important people who can't stop blackberrying, college students, tourists and people with diplomatic immunity. Plus, the designers of the northern Virginia road system must have had population control in mind. And folks say I'm a relatively calm person, but behind the wheel I can turn into a cussing, raging hulk. Even if it took a little longer, riding that train got me to and from work in a safe and more-relaxed manner that was better for my soul. On top of all this, public transportation is better for the environment. Not every town has public transportation, but if it's available, I recommend taking it.
This leads me to my second point, which is to use your commute to catch up on your reading, pray, catching up on the news, or whatever else that may cut into your home life. One of my old pastors mentioned that he uses his Metro time to veg out. He has five kids at home, so on the Metro, he reads interesting news articles on his iPhone. Vegging out of the way, he can focus his energy on his kids when he got home. In Washington, I had a pattern where I would pray in the morning (I pray through prayer cards, as suggested by Paul Miller his book, A Praying Life, which I reviewed in December) and devote my ride home to pleasure reading. This is more difficult if you drive of course. But if you decide my commute is where I catch up on the news or listen to a book on time, then that's one less thing your hours in traffic will take away from you.
If you can, make exercise a part of your commute. It makes sense that people who have long commutes have health problems; they simply have less time to move around. They come home and face the choice: do I spend time with my family or do I hit the gym? One way, of course, is to bike to work, which is what my wife's Uncle Gehard does. Now that I live in a bike-friendly country, I hope to be a bike-commuter as well. I did not bike in Washington (it takes a brave soul to bike in DC), I got off the Metro at a place (Farragut West, for those of you familiar with the area) where I would walk twenty minutes to my office (DuPont Circle). This is not the way to get perfect abs, but it got my limbs moving and my heart pumping ten times per week, which ain't bad.

Again, these may not work for you, and none of these are a perfect answer. But I find that if you can use your commute to accomplish one of your daily goals, such as exercise, reading or simply staying informed, your less likely to experience the commuting hazards Lowery describes. How is your commute? How much would your life improve if it were shorter? What are your commuter survival tips?

Are You Ready for the Apocalypse?

2011-05-23T13:00:00.000-05:00

By now, we've all had fun with Harold Camping's looney toon proclamation that May 21 is (was?) Judgment Day. One of my favorites: A friend joked on Facebook about leaving a post-rapture pile of clothes at the front door. I also liked PETA's admonishment to make your last supper vegan, which I saw pictured in the NYTimes. My own joke, after one of my German friends made sure to point out Camping's nationality, was: "no one knows the hour or the day, except the Americans." Yes, rest of the world: We're that good! Of course, Jesus explicitly said that no one knows the hour or the date, which leads us to this billboard.

We should joke about it. Yes, there are things here that are deadly serious, particularly those in Camping's group who left jobs, family and everything else that helps them through this world, because they thought the next would start over the weekend. May God be with them in this time and provide for their needs. But, humor, rightly used, is a balm and an alarm clock. It helps us process the absurdities native to this fallen world.

Yet, once the giggling has subsided, Camping leaves us with a very real question: Are we ready for the apocalypse? Yup, there's funny word. Funny enough for DC residents to dub last year's record-breaking snowstorm, "Snow-pocalypse," though I doubt a northern city such as St. Paul would have been intimidated. In spite of the humor, my favorite part of the Anglican liturgy is when we all shout, "Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!" It's a proclamation, growing in controversy with each sentence, that pops out like a firework in the middle of the church service. No one disputes the first, and the second sentence aligns us with all Christians throughout history. But the third - that "Christ will come again" part - does match us with the loonies?

No one knows the date, and anyone who claims they do should be treated with suspicious, correction and, if necessary, laughter. Nonetheless, the hope of Christianity is that Christ really will come again and set things right. Do you long for justice and fairness? Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. Do you want an end to war, conflict and violence? Christ will come again with a peace much deeper than we can ask or imagine. Do you wish someone would undo the violence we've done to creation? Christ, the creator and new creator, will come again. Do long for your body, your heart or your mind to be healed? Christ, the healer, will come again.

In the meantime, those who follow Christ are to engage in His work, united as one body, in preparation. That's why such talk about a second coming should never be an excuse to avoid working for the good - the good of ourselves, each other and this world. The more we grow in love for each other, the more we make peace with each other, the more we strive to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly in our God, the more we long for Christ to return and bring all of these things into completion.

We also realize something else. You see, that last sentence, "Christ will come again" is only good news because of the first two: "Christ has died, Christ is risen." You see, we all fall short. There is something in us that leads us to be unjust and unfair. There's part of all of us that is fallen into division, into a sort of "unpeace" - with each other and with God. We all need to be created anew. In his death and Resurrection, Christ bore our guilt and brings us new life. That means that injustice, disaster, even death does not have the final word. This good news is news of freedom. This news is like the way fresh water tastes after not drinking for three days. The well is deep, and we're invited.

How, then, do we respond? We turn away from any injustice, greed, selfish-ambition or any other sin so natural to us, and believe this good news. Paul writes that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation - the old is gone, the new has come. It is in such hope that we can wait with joy and, yes, expectation that Christ will come again.

That's why, with all the absurdity, arrogance and blindness in a doomsday prophecy, there's something beautiful there as well. CNN managed to interview Tom Evans, the only one of Camping's followers to take questions the morning after (according to the article, Evans served as a spokesman for Camping's radio ministry). The others were, understandably, lying low. Evans said,

"When you as a person believe God is coming back, and you believe the evidence is very clear that he's coming back, that is something every child of God longs for. In a moment, we'd be changed and spend eternity with God. I'm not ashamed of that at all. I'm not ashamed of wanting and hoping for it."

Whatever the problems of pride, theology or pure silliness, the hope that "Christ will come again" is a hope we share.

Are you ready for the Apocalypse? There will be an end. For the majority of us, that end comes in the form of death. Death will be a personal apocalypses, but the wonderful news of the Resurrection is that death does not have the final say. At some point, Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. He will make all things new. I dare not say when, and I dare not describe what it will be like. No one can. But as we go about our lives, cracking jokes to help us with life's absurdities, let's remember that this theme is worth serious reflection.

Multitasking

2011-05-17T15:05:00.002-05:00

Multitasking - feeding my little girl while giving my wife a foot massage.

Cha-CHHIIIIING!!!!

That sound you hear is the sound of me racking up brownie points.

"I don't want to keep her from getting her dinner." My wife said that as she pulled her foot away. Evidently, while kneading my wife's arch with my left hand, I neglected the spoon, which hung limp over a bowl of mushy vegetables from my right hand. "Nyum Nyum!" shouted my daughter impatiently. Nyum Nyum is how she says Yum Yum, which as you probably guessed, means "food," "feed me," or "feed me NOW."

Maybe those researchers are right...

Business Classy

2011-05-17T03:30:00.003-05:00

That's right. We flew business class. That seven-hour plane ride from Washington-Dulles to Frankfurt? Luxury. Luxury like a De Beers commercial. It was pimp my ride, Lufthansa addition, and baby, we ain't going back.

Ok, we will go back. I have a hard time envisioning a scenario when business class tickets will be in my price range. But, as Ferris Bueller once said, "if you have the means..."

Our business class tickets were generously bought with my in-law's frequent flier miles. The reason? We were moving, and we had a lot of luggage. More luggage than Paris Hilton. Plus our stroller. Plus my guitar, who in a perfect world would get her own seat and be lovingly polished by stewardesses once an hour during the flight. And if you fly business class, as we discovered, they smilingly and with much care and gentleness accommodate so much luggage that you wonder if the plane will pull a trailer behind it as it soars through the clouds.

Actually, it's probably a clever strategy. Most actual business travelers fly to their high-powered meetings like George Clooney's character in Up In The Air, no baggage except a mini-rolling carry on. These men are under so much stress and pressure, that they could do without the uncertainty and lost time that comes with checking a bag. Thus, when families travel business class, there's plenty of room for checked luggage. And to my surprise, we were not the only families in business class. I had feared, with some justification, that my babbling, crying, ever-exploring daughter would draw the ire and angry looks of haggard executives seeking solace in their in-flight martinis. In fact, the closest people to us were a beautiful Indian family who, angelic son and daughter in tow, were flying from Washington to Mumbai. I bet they had enough luggage to fill the Taj Mahal.

On top of that, we found out that the business class section on our flight wasn't even half full (or should I say half empty? I never know...). The lovely woman at ticketing informed us of this as we checked in. She gave us the kind of customer service you give to someone who saved your mother's life. "Since we will have extra seats available," she said in a voice that was both soothing and truly grateful for my families' existence," why don't we put you and your wife on either side of an empty seat. We won't actually be selling the seat for your daughter to use, but if no one needs it, feel free to put her there." You mean my daughter won't need to sit on my lap for seven hours straight? Yes, please. To my right, I looked over at the masses in the common, er... economy class, crowded in their line, angrily quarreling with Lufthansa workers about the size of their carry ons. They must have been waiting in line since President Obama's inauguration speech.

After checking in, we said our tearful goodbyes to our Scottish friend and my lovely sister who is known for Scottish poetry, both of whom were kind enough to caravan us and our possessions to Dulles (Washington area residents will know that this is a sacrifice in and of itself). Then we made our way to the plane.

There they were, three seats in the middle of our plane for our family, and enough room between any other seats for gnomes to play volleyball. As predicted, plenty of those seats were empty, including one for the baby to use. The only downside was that my beautiful wife was far away from me. Economy class is always a good excuse to snuggle with my wife, which is one of my favorite activities. She was so far away that I wondered if I would have to send the butler with a hand-written note on the family stationary every time I wanted to communicate with her. I peered towards the rear of the plane where, for a brief moment, I saw the commoners, packed together like caged chickens. Graciously, a flight attendant pulled the curtain so we couldn't see each other. I would hate for their envy to boil over into a full-fledged Marxist uprising. Plus, I didn't want to have to deal with empathizing for my fellow man, his knees pressed uncomfortably against his food tray, trying not to touch the fat man with a head cold to his right, nor the unwashed college student in pajamas and flip flops to his left.

I had so much leg room that Dwight Howard could have sat comfortably in my seat. The chair itself, by way of an assortment of buttons conveniently located at my right hand, could bend in several places into a thousand positions. It took a little time and effort to find the position of maximum comfort for my dainty, business class body. Ah, but I found it! There was even a massage function. Unfortunately, all that ever happened was some buzzing under my thighs. I was hoping that an in-flight masseur would come and work out all the knots that parade down my spine. Maybe I didn't push the button hard enough.

Let's talk about the Lufthansa flight attendants for a moment. Lufthansa has the best flight attendants I've ever come across, even before experiencing the niceties of business class. They are the best, because they are the best dressed. They still wear the wonderful flight attendant uniforms American airliners (who knows why) gave up in the seventies. Their perky yellow scarves, their dapper berets cocked perfectly to the side, their sailor outfits all tell you, if I'm willing to put this on for you to have a good flight, you will have a good flight.

Of course, they are even better when you fly business class. They fawned all over my daughter the entire flight. Not only did they set up a lovely bassinet for her (which proved ineffective and perhaps a little unsafe for a fifteen-month-old who wants to grow up to be a mountain climber - hey, it's the thought that counts), but each one on different occasions throughout the flight bought her luxurious snacks, mostly German bread, which is luxurious, and wonderful, Lufthansa-themed toys. We are now in possession of several stuffed, fluffy airplanes and a felt mobile with dangling clouds, stars and planes. More importantly, the flight attendants knew that a luxury flight was incomplete without plenty of luxury drinks. Before our flight had taken off, when I was testing the bending limits of the joints in my chair, a smiling stewardess offered me a glass, not a plastic picnic goblets you get at Target, but a glass of Champagne. The wine menu's elegant selection was available to me the duration of the flight. Oh, and the food...!

So much airline food seems like frozen stuff the supermarkets were unable to sell, so they provide them bulk rate to the major airline carriers. That, of course, is the lot of the common, I mean economy class. In Business class, I had a three course meal with real silverware and plates. We ordered off a menu. Lufthansa business class meals are the creations of German celebrity chefs, whose bios were conveniently available in our inflight magazine. The salad I ate was by far the least-rubbery grouping of vegetables I've ever experienced on a plane, but the highlight was the main course. I can't say if it was the best lamb I've ever tasted, but it was up there. You'll pardon the cliche, but the meat really did melt in my mouth. The sauce was a spectacular curry-based combination of flavors that told my taste buds, yes, this is what you've been waiting for. Heavenly. For dessert, my wife and I shared an exquisite combination of fruit and cheese, artistically arranged on a porcelain serving tray. I'm sure back in common, er... economy class, they were sticking their sporks into a half-thawed chicken thigh filled with cheese or trying to digest some uncomfortable, gas-inducing pasta sauce, wondering if a cup of table wine really is worth five Euros. Not I, feet up, belly full of contentment.

What else could I talk about? My own little TV, where I got to choose from dozens of movies or TV shows, and that I could watch on my own time? The little toiletry bag they gave us or the warm towel to wash our little faces? I didn't even mention waiting for my flight in the business class lounge with a buffet and open bar. They even came to get us so we could board before all the riff-raff.

There was, however, one aspect of intrigue. Whenever I needed to use the bathroom, a frequent event after all that bubbly, I noticed an inviting, spiral staircase to another compartment on the plane. That was the staircase to first class, something all the poor souls who sit in business class aspire to. Naturally, I wasn't allowed to go up. But what did they have up there? Did each person have a personal flight attendant who had spent a month studying their subject beforehand as to anticipate their every possible need or desire. Did they get not only a spacious seat, but an entire suite, complete with sauna and aged wine bottled before the invention of the airplane? Were they all hooked into a computer program like the Matrix, except to experience the sort of pleasures not available to the rest of us in this life?

I know one thing they did get: their own chariot to the airplane itself. I know this, because I saw it in Frankfurt while my family and I waited for our connecting flight to Stuttgart. There we were, sitting in the terminal with all the other sheep, looking expectantly at the small jet in which we would all squeeze, when suddenly, a brand new Porsche pulled up right by the plane. The driver, with the efficiency and elegance of the best-trained servant, got out of the car and opened the passenger door. Out stepped a tall, middle-aged man whose suit probably was about as expensive car, only to be matched by price of his perfectly-placed sunglasses. All eyes upon him, he strolled easily onto our plane, many, many minutes before even those carrying business class tickets, babies or both.

Now that's the way to travel.

Paint the Town Green

2011-05-13T14:02:00.003-05:00

In moving to Baden-Wuertemberg this year, I am experiencing a little piece of history. You see, B-W is one of Germany's 16 states (I like impressing, or at least thinking I'm impressing, my Germans friends by telling them I can name all 50 U.S. states. Thank you, "Fifty Nifty" song), the one that lies in the southwest corner. With the exception of the wonderful college town of Freiburg, which the Sueddeutsche Zeitung's "Jetzt" blog called the Portland of Germany (actually, they called Portland the Freiburg of America), the state is about as conservative as you can get here in Europe. It was the home of the Pietist movement and is still the closest thing to a Bible belt you'll find in these parts, plus it is a center of industry, boasting top companies like Daimler, Porsche and Bosch. All these combine to make B-W the German equivalent of a red state. Except that in Germany, the red party is actually the Social Democrats, who are the heirs of the socialists and currently their main left-leaning party. The color of the more conservative Christian Democrats is black, perhaps making it the Batman of political parties.

Except that now the Greens are in control. Yes, Green means the same thing here that it does in the States, except that in Germany the Greens are a viable political party. Foreign policy buffs may recall that the Greens even held a national coalition government with the Social Democrats several years ago. Americans may best remember Joschka Fischer, that same government's foreign minister during the Iraq war. During a speech about why he thought the war was not a good idea, he famously switched from German to English when Donald Rumsfeld took off his translator headphones, though I don't know if he actually shouted, "pay attention, Rummy!" In their parliamentary democracy, the dominant left- or right-leaning party usually needs to form a coalition with a smaller party in order to control the government. The Social Democrats like to partner with the Greens to form what nobody except me calls a Christmas tree coalition. The Christian Democrats like to partner with the Free Democrats, the yellows, to form a bumblebee coalition. The Free Democrats are what the Tea Party would be if it were dominated by university intellectuals.

But now the Greens rule Baden-Wuertemberg. Or, more accurately, they are the dominant party of a coalition with the Reds, which is a bit like having Ralph Nader asking Barack Obama to be Vice President. For more bad U.S.-German equivalencies, let me say that the Greens winning in Baden-Wuertemberg is a bit like having the Green party take over Texas. Our (I write "our" saying even though I'm not a citizen, I am a resident with healthcare and Kindergeld) new Minister-President - B-W's governor - is Winfried Kretschmann. Even though he shares a barber with Kim Jong Il, I actually find him to be a sympathetic figure. He's over sixty and comes from a small town in the Swabian Alps, Germany's answer to the Appalachian Mountains. True to the Green roots, he does not want to be known as a Landesvater, or "Father of the State," which is usually a perk of the job, though I don't know exactly what it means. He prefers to be a fellow citizen, who happens to be in charge. He has a strong Swabian accent, which is important as the governor of Mississippi saying "y'all", but he spoke enough high German for me to understand him on the news last night. Unlike pretty much every politician I've seen speak on either side of the Atlantic, he doesn't come across as a salesman. He has a reputation for being pretty even handed and fair and gave more diplomatic answers regarding his pro-bike, pro-train transportation plan (unlike his new transportation minister, who, in an interview with a national newspaper yesterday, called some Porsche-driving as a libido-form of car driving, which probably won't go well here in Germany's motor-city).

How did the Greens take over? I'm not sure exactly, but evidently everyone was upset about a train station, which the Greens bravely stood against because of tree-removal, but the other parties supported, because they had already paid for it. I just came from Washington, where the problems include two wars and a huge debt. It's not bad to move to a place where the biggest problem is a train station.
'

Germanness Inventory

2011-05-10T16:10:00.004-05:00

On my way to congratulate my wife's grandmother on her 90th birthday, I took mental notes about my person to see how I am adapting to the German culture. The following is a brief (and by no means comprehensive) Germanness inventory:

Wearing sandals to go outside - leaning American
I am a male, and I'm not wearing socks with my sandals - American
The sandals are flip flops - very American
The flip flops are from the Gap - apple pie, baseball...
Shorts are an earthy green - leaning German
Shorts are not man-capris - American
Earthy green shorts combined with earthy yellow plaid shirt that doesn't particularly stand out - German
I wore the same shirt yesterday - very German
I'm not wearing any black at all, save a digital watch and my glasses frames - very American
My black glasses have rectangle frames in an effort to look intellectual and cool - culturally neutral, if not a bit pompous
Italian-cut hair - German

Smaller

2011-05-08T04:43:00.005-05:00

After fifteen years, I revisited the house of my childhood.

This was a couple months ago, while my family was still in the DC area. I was born a Virginian, growing up first in that wonderful college town called Blacksburg (I don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything bad about Blacksburg - and I honestly can't think of another town with that distinction), then, ages five through almost thirteen in a suburb outside of Richmond. After that, we moved to a flat and swampy place, which is and isn't home.

Would leaving anywhere at thirteen mean leaving with a bad taste in your mouth? That was the case for Richmond. While I missed the hills and the seasons, I had just walked through that threshold called middle school where the young and the oily exercise some primal need to create tribes and enemies. My experience was nothing unusual, but it created enough isolation and self-loathing that I was not unhappy about moving on.

Pre-Middle School, you could not have asked for a better neighborhood to grow up in, this suburb of Richmond. First the hills. There will hills on the streets, around the block, that seemed to go down forever, teaching courage 1st grade bike riders. There were other hills that went through peoples yards, between houses. Once or twice a year, God gave us enough snow to close schools and send us sledding between trees and down storm drains. There were also trees. The oak trees of our neighborhood were worthy of poetry, diminishing houses in their majesty and falling enough leaves to busy every Saturday throughout the fall. Oh, and the yards. Each house had an enormous backyard and an enormous front yard, yards that, to my little eyes, were like football fields - and to this purpose we used them, running and tackling on leaves and acorns.

Our own yard was its own wilderness. It sloped on a hill I don't know how many meters until you finally reached a chain-linked fence. At the top, there was grass, but down at the end of the hill, which we would sled down Calvin & Hobbes style (I was never brave enough to try a wagon), was a wooded area - our own forest of the towering oaks. It had a little stream bed going through it, not to mention a play house the previous owners left for us, and a garage, the roof of which was my little place of solace. It was a back yard a child could literally explore.

And then our house. Our house was multilevel - when I was a little older and our upstairs was populated by sisters and the residue of pink-lacy toys, I got my own room in the basement-lower level. We had a living room upstairs which my mom could keep presentable for the outside world, and a downstairs den with a chocolate brown carpet that children could keep as dirty as a baseball diamond. My favorite feature of the house was the exterior. The lower level was brick, but the upper level, the face of the house up to the pointed roof, was Tudor style - a white background with brown beams and brown trim around the windows. It made the house stand out as something handsome in this world, something you could point to smiling saying, this is where I live.

We returned to Richmond as spring was just awakening, because I thought it would be a shame to live in Washington for more than four years and not show my wife the house of my childhood. We stayed with some dear old friends - the sort of friends you invite to weddings whatever the separation of time and space. Then, we saw our old neighborhood.

It should not have come as a surprise. After all, I've grown. But my old neighborhood was smaller. It was as if the entire world had swallowed a shrinking mushroom from Alice in Wonderland. The hills were bumps, mere formalities between higher and lower. The trees no longer towered, naked as they were from the winter. The biggest trees, my favorite trees, the ones in the front yard in the flowerbed with the squirrel nests, had been felled. They had gotten sick, reported a neighbor. Worst of all was the exterior change to my house. The Tudor style front needed to be replaced several years and go, and so it was - with hospital-white panels. It looked like the side of a trailer. So many of the other houses were still handsome.

Something else was also smaller. Those middle school memories, my first confrontations with human nature at its ugliest - when human nature has woken up and hasn't had coffee - the memories of hate and isolation. They were tiny. They were overcome, replaced by time, space, adulthood and the power to make your own decisions. They were overcome by a God of love, who took the worst of human nature upon himself and rose again. The God who loves the young and the oily.

We had a wonderful neighbor who still lived there. She told stories of who was left and who moved on. Her front yard was peppered with wonderful toys for the neighborhood children to use. One little boy, who lived somewhere nearby among hills and trees, hopped on a scooter and, with speed and courage, road down the incline that was my neighbor's driveway. I bet he thought it was a mountain.

Plochingen

2011-05-05T09:29:00.003-05:00

"Plochingen is beautiful," quipped my father-in-law with his twinkly, mirthy grin. We were driving from the Stuttgart airport to his hometown, which is now our hometown. One of the first things you see when you drive into Plochingen from the Autobahn is a bulking junk yard filled with scrap metal, like a magnified steel-wool forest. It's pretty ugly. Hence, the quip.

From where I sit, it's different. I'm sitting in my wife's old bedroom, which is in the basement level of their house. She grew up in the bedroom a floor above us, but when she was finished with high school, she and my father-in-law rebuilt the basement into a comfortable living space. My father-in-law built every part of the house. He builds and manages houses - even though he has the equivalent of a masters in engineering, he would rather be outside working with his hands then designing in an office on a computer.

The basement level actually has a door into the backyard. That's because the house was built into the side of a small mountain, so the front door, facing towards the summit, is a good three stories above the backdoor. One level up are two rooms, once and now bedrooms for family members, however far they wandered before. Above those rests a bright and spacious living room. On every level are balconies and wonderfully big windows that ensure the sun is a daily guest.

If I step out, I stand in the backyard, which is, to be more accurate, a garden. The side of the mountain is lovingly shaped with stone and grass and trees until you walk down, step by step, level by level, to the next row of houses and apartments. These include, incidentally, the residencies of my wife's brother, aunt and uncle and grandmother. It also includes an empty apartment where my family will begin its life in Germany. Blessing and grace, abundant.

Beyond those houses, I can see the town center (the aforementioned junk yard is, happily, beyond my line of vision). Plochingen invites the small town sort of life that I never experienced in the suburbs. It's a little place, but I can still walk downtown and find civilization: coffee shops, stores, cobble stone, statues and a big church. Where I sit, all the houses in the city below have matching red-tiled roofs, each with a high, pointy peak in the middle. They make their own spiky mountain range through the river valley, trying to keep secret the fact that they are individual units, made by the hands of man. The afternoon sun casts his golden blessing on the whole scene. Plochingen is beautiful.

The Italian Barber

2011-05-03T04:07:00.007-05:00

Somewhere between packing, catching diseases, moving countries and being a family man, I forgot to get a haircut. In college, and during both of my years in Germany, I simply let my hair grow. The style around the turn of the millennium (if you can recall to those days of Y2K scares and mobile phones without screens) was for a man to have each of his hairs shorn tiny and combed forward so it came to a single point at the front. Everyone respectable had it, which bothered me for some reason, so I let my locks grow. I cut it short and pretty again every time I needed a desk job, but as a student or missionary I played Sampson (without the muscles). Some Women protested (though when long hair became fashionable again half a decade later they protested when I cut my hair), but sometimes my hippie hair invited comparisons to Jesus, John Lennon and Vigo Mortensen's version of Aragorn. Not bad company, if you ask me. Of course, I was also cast as a mental patient and a hobo...

I spent my last half-decade as a respectable DC urbanite with a matching haircut, and here in Germany, I need hair that assures anyone I meet (an immigration official, for example) that I'm ready to have a place in society. So, I went to a barber.

My in-laws recommended the Italian barber their Uncle Helmut frequents. Uncle Helmut lives across the street and used to worked at the town's brewery before he retired (sadly, the town's brewery also had to retire). His hair always looks distinguished, so I agreed. Plus, you don't need an appointment for this particular Italian barber.

Many barbers in Germany are Italian. In my German course during our Freiburg years, we once practiced our auditory understanding by listening to a funny story about a German housewife charmed by her Italian stylist. Many of them immigrated to Germany with their families in the 60s and run barber shops and restaurants today. Yes, as Texas is a good place to find Mexican food, southern Germany's not a bad place to find an Italian restaurant.

When I opened the door to the barber shop, I felt like I had walked into a retirement home. The men (even though the sign outside said they cut ladies hair, the posters, the magazines, the clientele and the barber were clearly masculine) ahead of me and behind me in line were long in the tooth, to say the least. Their short hair suggested they visit the barber shop every week (where my roadkill toupee look suggested other priorities), but, at least while I was there, it lacked community of the classic neighborhood barber in the States (not that I would really know about that with all my visits to Hair Cuttery - I only know it from books and movies). If the old men were regulars, they did not acknowledge one another. Part of me would have enjoyed a waiting room filled with old men telling stories, but it's not in the German nature to talk to strangers, at least not without a couple liters of beer in the belly. Instead, everyone sat in their chairs looking as if their previous appointment was for a root canal.

The Italian barber, veteran immigrant that he is, adopted the German custom of not being talkative, but his lips were curled in a constant Cheshire Cat smile. His movements and features, though not animated or (to northern European/North American eyes) overstated, betrayed his heritage. His forearms had almost as much hair as some of his clients. I watched him over my borrowed copy of Geo, Germany's answer to National Geographic. He worked with concentration, intensity and excellence - the sort of way I imagine the classic Italian artists working. Each of us received a run-of-the-mill men's haircut - no colors or frills, but the results, including mine, were somehow classier and much more attractive, then they would be had we visited a bored stylist who wished he could be sculpting the locks of the new Dutchess of Cambridge, much less a national haircut chain. It was as if each one of my hairs were given love and attention needed to become a better part of a whole.

So, if you are ever in Germany and in need of a haircut, let me make one suggestion. Go Italian.

Initiating Birthday

2011-04-30T08:05:00.004-05:00

When I was in high school, birthdays were an excellent chance to display ones social status. I lived in Orlando, Florida, and our high school had two campuses, a huge courtyard, and spacious, outdoor hallways. If it was your birthday, your friends would often give you those silvery balloons featuring cartoon characters and short greeting like, "Your Rock!", available at your local grocery store or 7-11. Almost everyone received a balloon or two, but the popular usually received enough balloons to float a new-born calf. You could see them walking across the courtyard, their glistening prizes bobbing over and behind and beside their heads. An open peacock's tail.

American birthday tradition means that you are the king and your friends and relatives are your servants. This, of course, makes it an awkward letdown to move to a new town where nobody really knows your birthday. This is awkward, because birthdays are more special when your friends don't need to be reminded to be thoughtful. So, actually telling people your birthday's coming up, let alone throwing your own party where you pay for the cake, the drinks and the pointy hats somehow falls in the loss column, soothed a little by the surprise birthday package sent by your mom.

Here in Germany, the whole family went to a birthday party in honor of my wife's Grandmother. It was just today, and it was held in our little towns' nicest biergarten (I ate some delicious maultaschen - yum yum). The difference was, she paid for the whole thing. In Germany, the birthday kid is the servant. As soon as they are old enough, they plan the party. They buy the drinks, food and favors, though I haven't seen very many pointed hats. They send the invitations. They host the party in their flat and clean up afterward. It's a lot of extra work to be the birthday kid, to say the least. So much so, that my father-in-law often plans his vacation around his own birthday.

My sister teaches English in Spain, and she says the Spanish are the same way. She pointed out to me that this relieves the social pressure of wondering whether or not friends would remember your birthday. On her birthday, she brought in her own plate of American brownies to share with her class and bought the coffee for her teacher friends at the cafe where they take their (considerably long) breaks. Everyone was delighted. Even though she initiated, she bathed smiling in all the birthday love.

We'll see how it goes on my birthday (located on the other side of the year). I'm not fan of social tension, much less the feeling you get if the big day passes unnoticed, but hey, I like being treated as a king, and I don't want to spend my birthday preparing like Martha Stewart. One thing I can count on, of course: The birthday package from mom.

Would You Believe Him If He Told You?

2011-04-23T04:48:00.008-05:00

I once met a man who saw Jesus in a vision. Let me explain.

Some years ago, I took a weeks vacation to Istanbul with a group of friends. The Turks are always hospitable, but the tourism industry was especially happy to see us. First, the weather was cold and snowy, which is not something we associate with onion-domed mosques and Ottoman palaces. Second, most tourists were doubly scared because of a terrorist attack on Istanbul just two weeks earlier. Needless to say, my group of friends plus one lusty Australian backpacker were the only lodgers at our youth hostel.

The youth hostel itself had seen better days, not just from the weather or the bombing, but 9/11 had hurt the tourist industry worldwide. They had failed to pay their taxes, so the government had sealed their front door shut. However, the hostel owners were chummy with the man who ran a dry-cleaners downstairs in the basement of the same building. To get into the Youth Hostel, we had to walk, almost crawl, through the dry cleaners between rows of hanging coats and white walls and climb a stair case into the comfortable lodging, presumably helping our new, grateful friends to stick it to the man.

The youth hostel owners were a group of five or six men. Actually, I don't know how many of them worked with the youth hostel and how many of them were just friends there to hang out. I did know that they sat in the lobby, ate delicious Turkish food and drank Vodka and water and gave us Turkish beer to drink. Istanbul was a great city, but hanging out with these guys each evening was a highlight of the trip.

I know that the youngest of the group did help manage the hostel. He was particularly suave and handsome, and charming as he was, he was the first to offer me a beer and a bowl of the most delicious lentil soup. When he found out that we were Christians, and that we were working in Christian ministry, he began to talk with me about Jesus. He told me how Jesus appeared to him in a dream.

You see, during his stint in the army, he fought Kurdish separatists in southeastern Turkey. He had seen death and explosions, and he feared for his own life. Every night, before we went to sleep, he pleaded with Allah and Mohammad to let him live, but he found no comfort. Finally, in a dream, he saw a man he had not seen before, beckoning him to follow. He knew exactly who it was. It was Jesus, and from then on, he prayed for Jesus to save his life. He finished his military mission unharmed. Since then, he always talked to travelers about Jesus, and my friends and I were not the first Christians who had passed through. Smiling, he showed me his plastic bag full of Gideon Bibles and evangelistic tracts.

I'm told it is not an unusual experience for people in the Muslim world to have visions of Jesus. Personally, I know one other Turk who repented and believed after seeing Jesus in a dream. The difference between him and the handsome youth hostel manager is that the manager did not repent.

You see, beside his Gideon Bibles, he had another collection: girlfriends. His suave good looks and his position managing a youth hostel allowed him to collect girls from all over Europe. He showed me his photo album. A girl from Finland, one from France, one from Germany - they all could have been Bond girls. He knew this was sin. The reason he approached me about Jesus was, like a lawyer reading a contract, he wanted to find a way to be a Christian and continue his conquests. "Can I still be a Christian and have the sex?" was how he put it. I told him God's grace was free, that this sin would not prevent God's love. I told him to commit himself to Christ, and to trust him with the rest. I told him that to repent from his sin, he would need to be willing give up that part of his lifestyle. I told him it would be impossible on his own, but with God, with the support of other Christians, he could. I told him if he would contact me, I would do some research and find a good church for him. I wanted to tell him about God's design for sex. I never heard from him.

Last Sunday, my pastor highlighted Jesus' response to the question from the religious authorities, "are you the Messiah?" in Luke's Passion. Jesus replied, "If I tell you, you will not believe me." In other parts of the Gospels, different people ask Jesus for signs, and he rarely concedes. Why? There's a skeptic in me that wonders why Jesus doesn't simply do something wonderful and magical to silence his critics once and for all, as if the Resurrection was not enough. The Turkish hostel manager is a good example for me as to how signs and wonders are insufficient for true faith.

Think about it. He was utterly convinced that he saw Jesus in a dream, beckoning him. He knew for certain that it was Jesus, not skill, luck or circumstance, that preserved his life in combat. Yet, he refused to follow. He did not trust God for the intimacy and satisfaction that he found having sex with pretty backpackers.

Would you believe Jesus if he told you who he was? Messiah. Savior. Son of God. God's Word made flesh. All in all. All that you need, all that you want, beyond anything we ask or imagine. Would you believe him if you saw him resurrected? Would you believe him if you witnessed miracles?

I'd like to say yes, but I'm not sure that would have done it for me either. What did it for me was love. What did it for me was that, whenever I saw myself, I saw something unlovely. But I learned that, as Zephaniah prophesied, God is with us. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in us. He will quiet us with his love. He rejoices over us with singing. In our unbelief, when we refused to acknowledge God, whether we experience him through word, creation or miracle, he died for us. He rose again, all that he could be with us. He calls us, and whether we see him in a dream or not, he beckons us to follow him.

I hope something finally clicked for the Turkish hostel manager. I don't know if it would have been the message of love - I heard somewhere that "God loves you" isn't the best place to begin with someone from a Muslim background. Clearly, miracles were not enough for him. I hope he repents, and I hope he believes, that he may follow Jesus in life, in death, and, as we celebrate every Easter, in Resurrection.

Beer, Downstairs

2011-04-22T04:43:00.003-05:00

Beer is best consumed in two places: outside, under the sun, at a picnic table with friends or downstairs, in a basement bar, at a small table with friends.

While I look forward to this summer's biergartens here in Germany, my final round in Washington was in the perfect downstairs environment. Two days before our departure, a few friends huddled with me around a table at the Beer Baron, what Brickskeller near DuPont Circle used to be. It's essentially the same thousand-beer bar with some minor improvements in the important areas, such as service, cleanliness and having beers on tap available downstairs.

Downstairs bars should be dark, but not in a lost or oppressive sense, but in a way that is warm, welcoming and comfortable. In such an environment, we check our worries around the same time that the girl at the front checks our IDs, leaving them to choke on city streets filled with cars, haste and the need to be going somewhere. Beer Baron fits the bill. Golden light trickles from each lamp like a back yard stream. The walls are brick. Downstairs bars should have brick walls, or stone, or something that, in the old days, would have looked presentable caked in cigarette smoke.

An important point: where we sat, we could not see a television. So many bars these days have TVs in every direction. Given the American attention span and our appetite for sports and news, I suspect that any bar not bricked with glowing screens puts its bottom line in serious danger. Don't get me wrong; I do enjoy watching sports at bars, with friends, where we can hear each other shout at the players and refs, but bless the bars without televisions. Televisions perniciously distract from what the best bars can do. They allow men to talk, to bond, those two mysterious things we observe women doing pretty much everywhere else. So we sit at our table with delicious, carefully-brewed beer, warm light and bricks shortening the path between our hearts and our mouths.

DC is a city of monuments and museums, green space and French architecture. I love walking around it, breathing in accomplishment wherever I go, being carried by the idealism, the expertise and the ambition. Two days before my departure, however, I left all of these things on the surface. Instead, I descended into a basement to drink beer with friends.

A Poem Worth Reading, Especially This Week

2011-04-17T11:49:00.003-05:00

I randomly bought a book of Gerard Manley Hopkins poems at a used bookstore (a dangerous place for me to carry cash). Many of his poems are a chore to read and don't conform a lifestyle of glowing screens and busyness, but every time I practice concentration to read one, I find it well worth the effort. They were full of complexity - complex verse, complex thoughts, complex Christianity. I wish I could say I read him more often, and I won't see my book again for at least six weeks.

Fortunately, one of my pastors posted a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, both a chore and a joy to read, that is better than anything I read in my book. It's especially worth reading this week (which is why he posted it), as we remember death darkest, resurrection and new life. Read it.

The Joy of a Job Well Done

2011-04-14T10:19:00.003-05:00

I'm sure you've had this experience before. You're doing a task you don't particularly care for, perhaps even at a job you don't like, but in all of the repetition, you start to feel joy. You grow in excellence and work quickly, and the satisfaction of a job well done sneaks in like an unwelcome guest at your negativity party.

I don't know whether or not the man who packed our belongings into a 200 cubic foot pod liked is job or not, though I suspect he does. He has been at it for fifteen years, ever since he moved to the States from Guatemala. He packed, taped and carried boxes of books, clothes, wedding presents and baby toys with a sort of gusto that comes from professionalism and know how. He was only about 5'6", maybe even less, but I think he could bench press my entire extended family if they all sat evenly on a metal pole. He was cut. In fact, with his shaved head, tanned skin and action movie physique, he looked just like Vin Diesel.

The best part was when taped up a box. Here his motions were more Bruce Lee than Vin Diesel (though no high-pitched Kung Fu screams). Within the span of a single second, he would rip off a piece of tape, close the box lid, tape it firmly and without creases or bubbles and without danger to any of the box's contents and, with that same gusto, tear off the end of the tape from the roll. He did this with machine-like precision. Whenever I tape up a box, the same process takes me five minutes and usually involves wasting too much tape as the pieces fold in two or get stuck on the floor. I look like a chimpanzee trying to open a jar of pickles.

I stood in the corner, nibbling my lip as I fretted about our worldly goods, wondering if they would all fit in the pod, while Vin Diesel/Bruce Lee merrily boxed and carried. I bet he could have fought 20 ninjas at once. It was a beautiful morning, and later, my wife and I stood outside to see him and his two partners pack everything in. It was incredible. My wife got annoyed when I hummed the Tetris theme song. Everything fit and then some. Of course, the proof will be in the pudding, that all of our belongings make it in tact to Germany. In the meantime, like a sunny spring morning, it does the soul good to watch someone take joy taping, boxing and carrying.

My Contribution, Part 2

2011-04-12T07:12:00.003-05:00

Here is my second posting to the Lenten devotional.

In the 10th Commandment, God prohibits “inordinate” desires. Why? Because, as we saw yesterday, God loves us so much that he wants for us to be at peace, not only with one another, but also in our hearts. Consequently, God’s prohibition against covetousness is simultaneously a commandment to contentment. We are to be so satisfied in the Lord that, instead of resenting God or neighbor for what we do not have, we remember what we do have and give thanks. A covetous heart makes it impossible for us to experience God’s peace. That’s why this commandment comes at the end of God’s list of ten. Covetousness makes us much more likely to break the other nine commandments, as theft, adultery, idolatry and the rest are often rooted in it. A content heart, however...

Read the rest.

My Contribution

2011-04-11T13:00:00.003-05:00

I am privileged to be a contributor for my church's online Lenten devotional. The devotional goes through the Ten Commandments, and I wrote two articles on the 10th Commandment, the first of which was posted this morning. The entire series has been excellent, so if you have not read them yet, by all means start from the beginning. My post is below. My pastor made some good edits to what I originally wrote, including smoothing out the syntax and adding the sign post analogy to emphasize the 10th Commandment's connection to the previous nine.

I once read an article in which an atheist ridiculed the 10th Commandment, because, unlike the other nine, it commanded inner thoughts and desires rather than actions. What he didn’t understand was that the first nine commandments share the same problem. As we have already seen in previous posts, outward sins like murder and adultery begin in the heart too. There’s nothing new about the starting point of the 10th Commandment. Rather, it’s like a sign warning that the bridge is out. The sin that pours forth from within our hearts has washed out any way ahead paved by our own external moral righteousness. The 10th Commandment is one last barrier erected across the road, warning that peril awaits all those who continue on ahead unimpeded. But what does it mean to blow through the barrier of the 10th Commandment? It can’t mean the prohibition of all desires. There are, of course, healthy desires... Read the rest.

Humanity Does Its Worst

2011-04-05T20:26:00.004-05:00

Roger Cohen's anger is righteous. Any reasonable person should be angry. A buffoon of a cleric apparently burns a Koran in Gainesville, enraged Islamists react with murders, which their leaders fail to condemn. Jones' demonstration of what the Apostle Paul calls zeal without knowledge would have been more compelling if he himself were walking the streets Mazar-i-Sharif. As it is, his violation of another Pauline admonition ("to make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be Holy," as Adam points out) made unwitting martyrs out of UN staff in the same city. Of course, no act of buffoonery or provocation can justify cold-blooded murder, and if Cohen is right that Islamic leaders have failed to make unqualified condemnations, it is all the more despicable.

Here is Cohen's conclusion:

"This column is full of anger, I know. It has no heroes. I’m full of disgust, writing after a weekend when religious violence returned to Northern Ireland with the murder of a 25-year-old Catholic policeman, Ronan Kerr, by dissident republican terrorists. Religion has much to answer for, in Gainesville and Mazar and Omagh.
I see why lots of people turn to religion — fear of death, ordering principle in a mysterious universe, refuge from pain, even revelation. But surely it’s meaningless without mercy and forgiveness, and surely its very antithesis must be hatred and murder. At least that’s how it appears to a nonbeliever."

Indeed. But I think Cohen has the wrong culprit. Much violence has been committed in the name of religion. But much has also been committed in the name of politics, and people like Cohen certainly don't avoid that. Much has been committed in the name of tribalism. And much has been committed for reasons purely personal. Self-serving buffoonery and bloody revenge, as inhumane is they are, are human characteristics. Religion is at its worst when it channels and institutionalizes these characteristics. The same can be said for political or tribal activity.

Now, I can't speak for another religion, but Christianity agrees that religion is meaningless without mercy and forgiveness, the antithesis of hatred and murder. That's why Paul preaches against zeal without knowledge. That's why Jesus commands us to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us.

"Religion" has as much to answer for as politics, tribalism, passion and so many other isms. The answers Cohen seeks actually belong to the perpetrators themselves. In fact, Cohen's longing for an answer, for justice, is a better reason than any on his list why "lots of people" (historically, the overwhelming majority of the human race) turn to religion. Jones, along with every terrorist and inquisitor, will one day give an account to God himself, who is far more offended, hurt and angry at murder than we are.

Unfortunately, the desire for justice, right at it is, will lead to a mirror. In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis writes that the essential question of hell is not about Hitler, Nero or Judas Iscariot (here he could add today's religious terrorists), but about you and me. On that same note, Paul reminds us (I say remind, because if we're honest, we know) that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." We all will have to give account to God some day. Thankfully, Paul's sentence does not end there. He continues "...and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

That's the best reason for turning. Not turning to religion, which anyone can use or manipulate. It's turning to Jesus Himself. God's own Word, made flesh, took on God's wrath, offering us mercy and forgiveness. We humans have a lot to answer for, and in Jesus, we find the answer we need.

You've Got Tweets

2011-04-04T15:36:00.004-05:00

At least one other blogger beat me to it (I did a "just in case" Google search on the topic), but at least it was an original idea among my friends, and besides, we have a different angle.

With Borders bookstores closing all over America, and various social media replacing that quaint, old-fashioned practice known as electronic mail, it's time for a sequel to that quintessential 90s movie, You've Got Mail. Yes, it's a generic love story - "oh, no, I hope they end up with each other and not with the uncomfortable, incompatible person they're currently dating!" plot regurgitation, but the backdrop of the rise of internet, email, online relationships and mega-bookstores makes this the kind of movie future historians will watch as they consider the 90s.

The plot of the sequal could be something like this: Played by Tom Hanks, widower Joe Fox (Meg Ryan's cold at the end of the movie was actually a warning sign) is also grieving the loss of 60% of his mega-bookstores, forced to close in the wake of fierce competition from a popular web-based discount store called "Nile." From his iPhone, Joe vents his sorrows through his anonymous Twitter account, @NY154. He begins to be followed by another anonymous person known as @Netgirl. The two begin playful but earnest banter and begin to fall through instantaneous messages of 140 characters or less.

Of course, @Netgirl is really the owner of the Nile website, who mostly tweets inside her expensive but lonely office, located in Nile's 150-acre Silicone Valley complex. She could be played by... oh, I don't know, Reese Witherspoon, or how about Gwyneth Paltrow? Of course, the love regurgitation story is beside the point (I'm sure they'll both be dating undesirable comic-relief characters who you pray they don't end up with). The real point will be to show future generations the rise of smart phones and social media, along with the demise of outlet chains. One of the classic movie moments will be where Joe Fox waxes on about the good old days, when people sat around in bookstore coffee areas reading magazines instead being glued to a screen all the time. At another point, @Netgirl would tweet from Fox Books: " Only 40% off for a best seller? Who pays that much!?" She will also make fun of Fox Books' awkward attempts to come up with a rival to her successful electronic reader, "The Blaze." At the end, of course, we'll learn that love conquers all, even sentimental attachment to your doomed business.

Yes, I think this is the movie you've been looking for - the one you'll use when telling the grandkids about early 21st century life.

Presuming to Blog

2011-03-27T19:00:00.000-05:00

Among fatherhood's pleasures, I especially enjoy the role of teacher. It could be gratifying because I have a desire to be listened to and appreciated, or it could be a genuine bi-product of our created role as parents. Either way, from the morning diaper change to evening prayers, I am an expert on the alphabet, a scholar of stair climbing and a genuine professor of potty. Less encouragingly, my increasingly-perceptive daughter observes how I treat her mother, how I take care of our possessions and how I respond stress, conflict and chores. I am a conscious and unconscious teacher.

Often, this is a joy, but it is also a weighty responsibility. God has given to me enormous spiritual influence over this child, and Jesus has some strong words for those who abuse this. The Bible recognizes the pleasure and the power of teaching, and I for one love that role - I love the moment when someone who previously did not understand a concept, especially if it is a lovely concept, grasps it - their eyes open like a blooming flower and the muscles in their face relax. This is a joy and a privilege, and it is often very Godly. When I was a missionary in Germany, I remember sitting in a pub discussing the Gospel over beers with a good friend (hey, somebody has to do it). I got to show him that astounding truth Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 5, that Jesus died and rose again that we may be reconciled to God. For my friend it was a new way of seeing Christianity, and life in general, and it was a moment to cherish, hopefully for both of us.

Yet, remember how much harm we can do through our speech. James writes: "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." With this verse in mind, along with the digital flair up over Rob Bell's new book, John Dyer writes in Christianity today that not many of us should presume to be bloggers. It's good practice to imagine what James would say to the digital age, and Dyer he argues that social media does not encourage the self-control he describes:

"In fact, they encourage an opposing value system. Social media relentlessly asks us to publish our personal opinions on anything and everything that happens. There is no time for reflection in prayer, no place for discussion with other flesh and blood image bearers, and no incentive to remain silent.
You must declare your position, and you must declare it now."

It is sobering to remember that we will be held accountable for our words, and perhaps more so the words that we so unaccountably scrawl on the internet for the world to see. This, I suspect, is an increasing pastoral problem (and parenting - I often wonder when we will allow our daughter to start a Facebook account. Parents, what's your household internet policy?) - how do we act like Christians on the Internet? I note that Dyer himself is blogging about the question, and his forthcoming book From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology will presumably provided this much-needed service. I certainly echo Dyer's call for restraint, reflection and wisdom, and I can probably point the finger to myself as well.

There are, however, two points in the article that concern me. First, in citing the Rob Bell hubbub, he avoids talking about online behavior of Christian leaders. He has some good analysis elsewhere, but he concludes that "best-selling authors, major authors or public theologians" have a different responsibility. That much, is indeed true, but shouldn't good Christian behavior on the internet start at the top? I don't think many of the Christian sheep bleating their opinions on universalism into cyberspace were being particularly original. Were not a majority just following, and retweeting their shepherds? I agree, many of us need to slow down and think before hitting that publish button, but in the larger discussion of online Christianity should include its uses for Christian leaders (incidentally, I have been edified by our own church's internet use, including the blogs my pastors contribute to, as well as our current online Lenten devotional).

Second, what kind of technological use is Dyer advocating? He concludes with

"I say, let the teachers teach and let them be judged more strictly.
As for the rest of the priesthood of believers, let's believe what we believe and then, as James advised, "show it by [our] good life," sharing our beliefs with those embodied souls in our immediate vicinity—just like Christians before 2004 used to do."

Well, yes, let's be cautious about our postings, particularly if we are trying to punch above our theological weight limit. And yes, we will better glorify God by showing these things through our good lives, and yes, one of the dangers of any technology is that it isolates us from our neighbors. I worry though, that Dyer leans to far in the other direction, towards an unhealthy disengagement by lay-Christians from a new part of reality. Like it or not, we are in a post-2004 world. For better or worse, much of our world is now online, and part of showing a good life, of letting our lives shine before others, means doing so online. Yes, there are dangers. And no, an online life should not replace a real life among family, friends, neighbors and co-workers. But the internet provides new opportunity and new ways of love, encouragement, prayer and edification. We are to be salt and light in all spheres, including the digital one.

That's why I don't think all of the high-tech idealism is unfounded. Dyer points out the danger of Facebook constantly asking "what's on your mind" or Twitter asking "what's happening" every time we log on - it can be an invitation to exhibitionism and a bane to self-control. There is danger there. On the other side of the coin, these questions are an invitation for users to join a greater conversation, a conversation that will only be as sinful as we make it. I like using Facebook to photostalk friends and share articles that I think are interesting - two pleasures I did not have pre-2004. I also use it to better understand the lives of missionaries we support and receive prayer from a woman in Chicago who has a social-media propelled praying ministry.

And, while Blogspot and Wordpress may give way to a lot of hot air, I for one am grateful to some of the lay Christian bloggers out there. Joshua's Spiritual Klutz blog, is regular, practical Christian wisdom, and I'm glad he is willing to put it out there. He's a trained writer and a good communicator, and a blog is a good place for him to serve with these gifts. The question, then, goes beyond whether or not a lay-Christian should blog (though that is a good one to prayerfully ask) to how can that blog edifying? This will be true for any Christian who writes, sings, paints or plays an instrument, all with varying levels of notoriety.

In many ways, that is why I presume to blog. Yes, God will hold me accountable words, and perhaps more so for words that anyone with a smart phone can find. I hope that this blog is an outlet for my thoughtful, creative side - a side that I don't get to use much these days, but a side I wish to use for God's glory. I'll be the first to say how short of that I fall. I try to avoid going beyond my pay-grade on any subject, and, while I presume to blog, I don't presume to be an expert, espousing my carefully researched ideas to my followers. I hope these are thoughtful responses and reflections, in all, part of that greater conversation.

If this is a conversation, then I hope for some feedback. How should the Christian engage social media? How do we read James 3 in light of Facebook, Twitter and blogs? How can we be salt and light online? How do leaders - from pastors to parents - teach their pupils about the internet? Think carefully before you hit publish, but I hope I'm not leading you into darkness when I ask, what's on your mind?

Mourning Songs

2011-03-12T09:54:00.005-05:00

I am the beneficiary of a generational revival of Lent. My fellow X and Millennial Christians, tired of consumerism and anti-intellectualism, embrace the art, beauty and rhythm of church liturgy and calendar. Of course, our parents rebelled against the spiritual deadness and old-school stodginess of tired liturgical churches. It makes me wonder what we're doing that my daughter will deconstruct to form her own spirituality.

In any case, the rhythm and art of liturgy is sweet worship for me, and this season of Lent touches it even deeper. I see why so many Christians, through space and time, celebrate and have celebrated our Three-Personal God through seasons, stages and processes, weekly, daily and yearly. My role as worship leader underscores this even more, because I have regular responsibilities in song selections. During Lent, we avoid songs with the word "Hallelujah" (or its variations). More importantly, as Lent is a time to mortify our sins, we sing some beautiful songs of mourning.

There are two types of mourning songs. The first type wrestles with the problem of evil. Songs such as Matt Redman's "Blessed Be Your Name," or Tim Hughes' "Whole World in His Hands" and "When the Silence Falls." These songs are powerful, and it is appropriate that they are so popular. In this fallen world of tragedy both public and personal (the earthquake in Japan being our most recent reminder), we need these songs, as much as Job, as much as the Psalmists.

The Lenten songs of mourning don't climb charts like the others do, but they are equally powerful and equally necessary. I'll admit, many of them are not especially satisfying, and in that, they serve the purpose of Lent - self examination, confession and repentance. It is never a comfortable or (in a way) particularly refreshing for these songs to turn the tables on us. With the "problem of evil" songs, we raise our arms and cry to God, "why?" With the Lenten songs, we examine the uncomfortable fact that we are at least part of the answer, that there is evil within us that requires light and cleansing. The other day, one of my fellow worship leaders and I practiced "Before Thy Throne, O God, We Kneel," where we ask, in catchy tune and clever verse, for "a ready mind to understand/the meaning of thy chastening hand/whate'er the pain and shame may be/bring us, O Father, nearer thee."

Other Lenten mourning songs include: "By Thy Mercy," "Psalm 51: God Be Merciful To Me" (based on David's psalm of repentance), "Psalm 130: From the Depths of Woe" (a Martin Luther hymn that understands our dependence on God's grace) and "Poor Sinner Dejected with Fear" (how's that for a cheery title?). As these songs, often painfully, soften our heart for repentance, it is good to realize that Lent should prepare us for Easter (please note: this link is to the first of my church's home-grown Lenten devotional. I highly recommend subscribing to it). In forty days' time, we go before the cross and then celebrate the Resurrection. Then, we will sing the songs of cross and Resurrection. They are beautiful, and I look forward drinking them deeply. But how much more beautiful are they when we come before God unshackled from sin? How much more beautiful is this song under the lightness of forgiveness?

Until then, we continue to sing:

"Let the fierce fires which burn and try
Our inmost spirits purify
consume the ill; purge out the shame
O God, be with us in the flame!
A newborn people may we rise
more pure, more true, more nobly wise"

Burns Supper II

2011-03-02T22:14:00.003-05:00

This is over a month late, but regular readers (cough) may remember that I gave the Toast to the Lassies at the Robert Burns Supper party my Scottish flatmate threw two years ago. At the risk of being outdone, my sister gave the Reply on Behalf of the Lassies at event this past January. It describes the dating life in our own hometown of Washington (something I'm sure Robert Burns would have sampled had he visited), and is based on Burns' own poem, "The Rights of Woman."

This evening, I would like to read to you my adaptation of Robert Burn’s speech, the Rights of Woman. He wrote the poem for one of the many women he had his eye on, Louisa Fontenelle, to deliver at a benefit dinner. My version takes a slightly different approach, though one I believe our poet would have approved, to reflect the places and the means by which DC’s men and women carry out their romantic affairs. Please feel free to follow along on the papers provided, and then keep them for personal reference in the future.

DC’s Romantic Undertones

An Occasional Address

While the Nation’s eye is fixed on mighty things
The fate of health care and the fall of left wings
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp Afghanistan
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
DCs romantic undertones merit some attention.

The first, in the sexes’ intermixed connection
Happens in the heat of presidential election
The tender flower, who delivers her debate
Makes helpless the man, and seals his fate
He may think partisanship renders their nexus a fling
Until it’s yearly rekindled at State of the Union bing-o.

The second connection – but ladies please take caution –
WMATA can offer the most thrilling option
Each man who embarks on his morning commute
Can be sure he’s observed and deemed unattractive or cute
There are, indeed, several different types
From politician to hipster, a lass can choose what she likes
Furtive glances over the top of a book
Shy smiles, batted lashes, sweep him away with a look
Now, foolish man, if you choose not to act
It is only your loss, for she’ll keep her posture in tact,
She doesn’t fret (though you find yourself quite the catch)
For at the next stop, there’ll be a whole new batch.

Our third and our final, could happen to any Washingtonian,
So never underestimate what could happen at the Smithsonian.
A man who gazes at the Hope Diamond so bright,
Or a woman “admiring” the work of the Wrights
Neither is present for their respective exhibits
There’s only one goal, and that’s to gather some digits
As on the train, the same tactics apply,
A smile, a wink, a flirtation, a sigh.
Whenever we use our museums to charm
It takes only a moment for us to completely disarm.

So in a city split upon party lines,
With do-gooders and cynics, and many great minds
To what really unites us we must all raise our glasses
And toast the romance, the seduction, of DC’s lads and lasses.

The Old Yellow Booklet

2011-02-21T16:12:00.000-05:00

One of my roommates commended to me an Austin Farrer sermon called "The Old Rosewood Desk." In thinking about his old desk full of youthful treasures, the Oxford pastor, theologian and friend of famous Christians like C.S. Lewis, he reflects on childhood statements of faith, such as a confirmation certificate. Through this, he reminds those of us who have turned to Christ, however, long ago, that a constant factor in our ever-changing lives is fidelity: Our own fidelity to God and God's fidelity to us. The former only being possible through the ladder.

In sum, preaches Farrer:

"Man, knowing that without faithfulness he cannot be anything, looks for a loyalty to which his whole existence, and not part of it only, can be pledged. And who deserves this measureless, this all-embracing faithfulness, except the faithful God? Those childish undertakings, those writings on cards, confirmation professions, have grown dim and somewhat unreal. It is now that we must make up our minds, and pledge our obedience to the faithfulness of God. If we do so, we shall bring our former resolves to life by our new decisions. We shall, indeed, bring to life something older than our youthful resolutions - that is, the grace of our baptism, when the resolution was not yet ours, but our parents'; and we shall bring to life something older even than our baptism - Christ's will for our salvation when he died on the cross; and older than that, the everlating faithfulness of god on which the world was built.

Religion is not self-improvement, or decent conduct or emotional worship. Religion is fidelity. 'Promise unto the Lord your God and keep it,' says the psalm. But the fidelity which is the soul of religion is not our fidelity, it is God's. We give ourselves to him in no reliance on our own trustworthiness. Experience has taught us what we are. Our Confidence is that god's faithfulness will prevail over our faithlessness, that he will recall us, that he will not let us go."

It is appropriate that I quote and write on my mother's birthday. I believe I was five years old when I made a childish promise of my own. When I write "childish", I don't mean in a negative or demeaning sense, but I use the word because I was a child when I made the promise. We lived in a Richmond, Virginia townhouse that had a counter that separated the small kitchen from a carpeted dining room. I sat on one of the three comfortably-padded bar stools on the dining room side, and my mother stood in the kitchen, leaning on the counter with her elbows.

It was there that she shared the Gospel with me. Her tool was the Four Spiritual Laws booklet, designed and used by CCCI, the large para-church organization my parents worked for (and for which I would later work in Germany and New Orleans). If memory serves me, it was the classic mustard-yellow booklet that probably looked cool in the mid-eighties. The color, judging by a pair of pants my middle sister owns, seems to be making a comeback.

It's a simple Gospel presentation - God's love, plan and purpose; our sin and separation; Jesus, the cross, the Resurrection, the way; our repentance. And a few thoughts on what to do next, including further reflection and finding a church. My little mind, in some way, understood enough of this to claim commitment to Jesus Christ as the only hope of my salvation, conduced by a loving mother and a Little Yellow booklet.

I echo Farrer. However much I change, however much I seek to define myself, however much changes of countries, cities, technologies, jobs, churches and friends will alter my malleable body, mind and soul, fidelity remains something constant. This is not because I am good and being faithful. Whenever I stand in my church and confess the Creeds, I am not touting my ability to be true to the three-personal God it affirms. Rather, I am trusting in his fidelity, patient through the eons and the minutes.

It has not made my life easier or more successful. Indeed, I often wonder if I should have chosen more ambition instead of a sort of faithfulness. But to be the beneficiary of a love deep and divine beyond our understanding, to have a hope in a grand and renewed creation, to have genuine intimacy with creator and sustainer of all things, is worth more than anything else I've been offered.

In this post-modern world, fidelity to anything is viewed as suspect. This is for two reasons. From marriage to country to religion, human beings are historically bad at fidelity. I know a man who refuses to marry, because he does not have an example of a faithful marriage in his own family. Second, many who are good at fidelity are faithful to the wrong thing. A suicide-bomber is a hideous example of someone faithful to the end.

Fidelity to Jesus, as Farrer points out, relies on His fidelity, not ours, and in that we can have great comfort. Even better, we are faithful to Love and Justice, Grace and Holiness, God incarnate. We are right to suspect worldly fidelity, but God's fidelity leads to human flourishing. For these two reasons, if you have read this far and have not committed your life to Jesus, why not start now? My mother and the yellow booklet put me on this path. Join me.

Love Songs for Grown Ups

2011-02-13T13:00:00.000-05:00

Not quite a decade ago, Over the Rhine was finally coming to Orlando, my hometown. I was still there at the time, and I couldn't wait. The state of Florida can be a geographical inconvenience for smaller indy-bands, not worth the gas and the effort to travel all the way down the peninsula somewhere between Atlanta, Athens, Birmingham and New Orleans. Besides, Orlando doesn't quite have the cool indy reputation for such acts. This time, however, with the wind of their epic record Ohio filling their sails, husband and wife duo Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler were heading to the sunshine state.

Then, before the tour came to any palm trees, they sent an email out to all of their fans. Their marriage was suffering, and that was more important than concert-hall serenades. They cancelled the remaining shows went back to their southern Ohio home to work, to talk and to reconcile. Once again, no Orlando concert (and when they finally came a couple of years later, I was across the sea and literally over the Rhine), but ever since that season of forgiveness, reconciliation and redemptive love, Over the Rhine's music aged like French wine. Their love songs, already some of the best on the market, grew up, taking on new dimensions of desire, regret, pain, healing and beauty.

There have been several albums since, and the latest manifestation just came out on February 8. Some albums, I like at first listen and then later realize we have less in common. There are other albums that feel uncomfortable at first but win my heart as the CD spins and I begin to understand. I have loved The Long Surrender since I first heard a few clips on an NPR interview and continue to do so after saturating my work and my leisure with every track (you can listen for free by clicking the "record player" link on their website. Let me know if you agree - hopefully my enthusiasm hasn't damaged impression by way of expectation).

Working with producer Joe Morgan for the first time, The Long Surrender is full of musical adventures not previously explored on Over the Rhine records. Keys are pressed, strings are plucked, percussion instruments are tapped, tickled, pattered and beat in places new and refreshingly unexpected. The feel of the album is an old Paris nightclub full of smoke and expatriates. Or perhaps a 1920s Cincinnati speakeasy, full of jazz, smoke and women in flapper hats. In fact, I think that cities and municipalities should lift their smoking bans whenever Over the Rhine roles into town, just to give their concerts a proper ambiance.

It opens with a call of sort: in "Laugh of Recognition" Bergquist sings out: "C'mon boys! Time to settle down/What do you think you'll gain from all this runnin' around?" The journey of love, relationship, pain, hope and brokenness continues. And of course, a major theme is their own marriage: honest love songs to and for and about the other. Yet their story, unique as it is, is full of universal thoughts and emotions, left unexplored in so much of today's art about love. In interviews, Bergquist and Detweiler remark that while most love songs are about the beginning of a relationship, theirs are about what happens next. And the truth is, what happens next is a majority of the time. Those of us in what happens next need songs, stories, support and celebration.

It would be easy for such art to be lovey-dovey kitsch. It would be just as easy to focus on the darkness, to despair of marriage, relationship and long-term love. As I've alluded to before, the art that appeals to me is complex enough to include for better and for worse. Thankfully, somewhere between Disney and films like Revolutionary Road stand mature songs like "Undamned," "Oh Yeah, By the Way" and that deliciously wordy history of the Berkquist/Detweiler marriage, "Infamous Love Song." These songs are balm for those of us who believe marriage is so much more than a piece of paper from the city hall, for those who believe marriage is beautiful, earthy, spiritual and sacramental, for those of us who believe it is God's artwork: wonderful, full of depth and sadly tainted by the fall. We rejoice with relief when in "Days Like This," we hear Bergquist sing:

"All I wanna do is live my life honestly/I just wanna wake up and see your face next to me/Every regret I have I will go set it free/It will be good for me."

Given all of this, it shouldn't surprise us that grace is another reoccurring theme. The album's closing anthem, "All My Favorite People," is the sort of song you can sing waiving a Bible or a bottle of beer. Book or beverage, we sing along:

"All my favorite people are broken/Believe me, my heart should know... All my friends are part saint and part sinner/we lean on each other/try to rise above/We're not afraid to admit that we're still beginners/We're all late bloomers/When it comes to love."

One of the most honest lines you'll ever hear is the title and chorus of the song: "Only God Can Save Us Now." The song is inspired by the nursing home where Karin Bergquist's mother lives. "Only God can save us now" was the exclamation of one of her mother's fellow residents. The song describes the crazy antics of the seniors and reflects that there's a good chance that will be our final stop as well. When we get there, we remember there are some things only God can do.

The Long Surrender navigates the joy and pain of love honestly and carefully. With its detailed production, I will say it lacks the spontaneous power of Drunkard's Prayer, the 2005 album that was born when they stopped their tour before I could see them in Florida. Drunkard's Prayer, along with the German worship music of Andrea Adams-Frey and Albert Frey (another married music duo), helped me to take courage and begin the journey of my own marriage. (The title track if that album, incidentally, has one of my all-time favorite lines in song: "You're my water, you're my wine/You're my whisky from time to time.") But, The Long Surrender makes me root for Over the Rhine as a band, because their songs speak to thing in ways so many others don't express, in ways that continue help me. It since they lay it all out there, The Long Surrender also makes me root for their marriage, for my marriage and for other marriages, infinitely more important than any music a marriage may produce.

And whenever I root, I pray. I can't help it. I believe, as much as I believe the chair on which I sit will continue to hold me, that our Lord entered this world and sympathizes with our weaknesses. All his favorite people are broken, because, we all are. We lean on each other, and we all lean on Him, to rise above. And He, the ultimate lover, love incarnate, intimately understands the joys and pains of love, in marriage or otherwise.