And Now For Something Completely Different

From a totally different mind than that which brought you the beloved classics Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and If You Give a Moose a Muffin comes the next great American children's book:
Don't Let the Moose Drive the Car.



Oops.

Ah well, meet Humphrey. Named for Hubert H. Dad won him for me at the Midway last week. As another Humphrey once said, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. . .who knows what mooseadventures will ensue? :)

The Curse Abides

The Twins have lost every game that I have watched in person or on TV since the post- season of 2006. I was really hoping they'd break this streak last night when Dad, Brenda, and I went to the Dome - they've been pretty hot lately, and they were playing the A's, which is who they were playing when my apparent curse upon them began, so it would be very fitting to turn it around with the same team.

Alas, 'twas not to be. Between a homeplate umpire that had it out for us and some seriously goofball fielding (honestly, sometimes it looked like Larry, Moe, and Curly were playing last night) the curse abides. Argh.

On a happier note, big shout out to Dad for teaching me a much better route to bike to Lake Harriet this morning - only one stoplight and significantly lesser amounts of traffic, potholes, and hills with which to contend. Woot.

Now back to my regularly scheduled vacay. . .

Travelblog: Dresden

Alright, now that a ridiculous amount of time has passed since my trip to Germany, it's finally time to write about Dresden before I forget what I did!

First, I have to say, even though it's been seven years since I was last there, and even though the city has naturally undergone changes in that time, Dresden is still a home away from home to me. A lot of that is because of the dear friends who are there, but it's also the city itself, which I just adore. If you've never been, put it on your "bucket list." Now.

I was amazed at how quickly my German skills came back once I was actually in Germany. I had been trying to practice reading and speaking over the past year, knowing this trip was coming up, but in the States I'd really struggled and realized I'd forgotten much grammar and vocab. Once I was immersed in the culture and language again, much of my ability to understand came back very quickly (though my speaking was still pretty rough). The even more amazing thing is that it's kind of stuck with me since my return - I've been trying to read a little auf Deutsch every week to keep my skills up, and I find it's infinitely easier on this side of the trip.

As it was, the whole week we were kind of speaking Gervakish, flowing in and out of languages as needed to get our point across. Adri is a linguistic genius and when she would get overwhelmed she'd inadvertently start throwing other languages into the mix (at one point during the wedding prep she answered somebody in Russian) - as Burkhard said, "The Holy Ghost comes often when Adri is tired!" :)


(Frauenkirche Dresden)

We just kind of chilled and hung around Dresden for a couple days after the wedding. On Pentecost Monday, took a walk along the Elbe and went to see the Frauenkirche. I had to see it with my own eyes now that it's completed - I remember my first time in Dresden in 1995, passing a bunch of scaffolding as they were trying to sort out the ruins and being told that they were finally going to rebuild it using as much of the original stone as possible. It seemed like it would take forever, but at each successive trip to Dresden, I could see the progress being made. And now it's done. And it's beautiful.


(The Pillars of the Church - really!)

Tuesday we ventured further afield to Gorlitz and Bautzen. Gorlitz is on the border with Poland, in fact, half of the town is in Poland, and the border is now open, you can cross without a passport. So we did. And we all agreed the German side is much nicer. They had some churches with very interesting interior architecture - figures were carved into the base of the pillars that supported the roof, and when we asked about it, folks said they were meant to reflect the people who built the church - literally the pillars of the church! Talk about a great visual reminder of the cloud of witnesses! Gorlitz is also home of the "Holy Grave" - a resident who later became mayor made a pilgrimmage to the Holy Land in 1465, then came back and reproduced some of the sites for the townsfolk, since most of them could never make a trip like that. One of the sites is the garden tomb where the resurrection supposedly happened. The interesting thing is that there was a fire at the garden tomb in the Holy Land in the 1600s, and it was rebuilt differently, so this reproduction in Germany is actually closer to the original, in a sense. Bautzen is over 1,000 years old and is just a cool, quaint old town with many interesting corners and vistas, and much of the town wall is still intact, which adds to its charm. It's also the center of high Schwabisch language and culture.

Wednesday was a Dresden day again. We went to the Panometer, which is a panoramic aerial view of Dresden in 1756, and then we went to the top of the Rathaus tower to compare the Dresden of today to the Dresden of 1756, which was both interesting and fun. Wednesday night we were invited to Nora and Clemens' to grill out, which was also a lot of fun!


(Sachsiche Schweiz)

Thursday was hiking in the Sachsiche Schweiz (Saxony's Switzerland) - a huge park on the border with the Czech Republic. It's beautiful there - kind of reminds me of another favorite place on the planet, the St. Croix River Valley, but with much more dramatic views and greater difference in elevation.


(The true test of my gorillapod at Sachsiche Schweiz - wrapped around a guard rail with a very steep drop on the other side.)

After a long and fulfilling hike, we went to the Neustadt to get some doner for dinner. Hmm. . .doner. Delicious, but as you may surmise from the picture, definitely something you need to eat with good friends - not a good place to take a first date! I lived in the Neustadt the summer I spent in Dresden, so I showed Adri and Burkhard the house I had stayed in, then we walked along the Elbe until it got dark, then it was time to pack up because I had to fly out the next day. :(


(Hmmm. . .doner!)

So, that was how I started my summer, with a couple of glorious weeks in Europe. And I'm going to cap 'er off at the happiest place on earth - the Minnesota State Fair! I'm sure some pictures will find their way onto the blog. :)

Peace,
C.

PS - Christopher's got a new job working as a field organizer for the DFL, from now until the election! Woot!

The More Things Change. . .

the more they stay the same.

A few weeks ago, I read The Grapes of Wrath. It's scary how insightful John Steinbeck is, and even scarier how much has not really changed when it comes to the consolidation of wealth and power in this country, or wealth and power's penchant for beating down and beating up the middle class.

I've also spent much of the summer watching my way through my beloved Northern Exposure collection. And it occurred to me that a lot of the techniques on shows that are popular now were mastered by NX over a decade ago: it was quirky and often utilized fantasy scenes, much like Scrubs or That 70s Show; and much like Grey's Anatomy, it had an excellent soundtrack with music carefully selected to match what was happening on screen, and its episodes were thematic (though often the theme sort of sneaks up on you and you suddenly realize how all the storylines tie to it, where on Grey's it sometimes feels like they beat viewers over the head with the theme to make sure we get the point).

As the Preacher would say, there's nothing new under the sun.

Cute Kid Stories (PK Division)

The last post was so serious, time to lighten things up around here.

Today the synod sponsored a picnic for clergy and families at our local Lutheran camp. Henry (3.5) and Liam (1.75) were there, and they had brought their swimming stuff in a backpack that Henry insisted on carrying. This backpack was only slightly shorter than Henry himself (when he put it on, it was seriously, like, 3 inches off the ground)! It was adorable watching him shuffle around with it on. I was walking next to him from the pool to the picnic pavillion, hearing a gentle "thwap, thwap, thwap" all the way as the bottom of the pack kept hitting the bottom of his legs. I finally looked over and said "Henry, I think your backpack is almost as tall as you are!" He just kept walking ("thwap, thwap, thwap") and casually looked at the pack behind him and said, definitively, "No it's not!" How can you argue with that?!

Also adorable is that he likes to "play communion" - he'll make a chalice and paten out of legos, then recite the words of institution - from memory - holding up the appropriate elements at the appropriate time, then "communing" his family at the appropriate time.

Olivia and Jack were not at the picnic, but they were visiting their Aunt Breen the last night of her bible school. Jack is not quite two and is not super verbal yet, so he hung out with Breen the whole time. She was teaching the kids about the post-resurrection appearance when Jesus gives the disciples the Holy Spirit and says "Peace be with you." As soon as she said those words, Jack jumped up out of her lap and started approaching another little girl with his hand out - he wanted to share the peace!

So that's the cute kid news from central PA this week, where all the PKs are definitely above average.

Peace,
C.

The Weight of History

This luggage tag was a birthday gift from the Mays, and true to my nerdy Lutheran self I think it's hilarious (though i don't know why blogger won't rotate the picture - sorry). Funny as I normally find it, however, I put it up to illustrate more somber thoughts tonight. So let's see just what baggage I'm lugging around these days. . .

The first night of the GME, we heard Katrina Browne speak, then watched her documentary Traces of the Trade. It's about her and a group of her cousins coming to terms with the fact that their ancestors were the biggest slave trading family in New England. It's a good film but heavy - I don't recommend watching it if you're already having a rough day. And watch it with someone you can discuss it with afterwards, not by yourself, if possible.

I've been thinking a lot about the weight of our history ever since that night. Browne said the reaction from many folks, especially those whose ancestors happened to have immigrated after the slave trade and even the Civil War was over, is that "These weren't my ancestors. This isn't my or my family's fault. I have no guilt, no responsibility here." Being the descendent of more recent immigrants myself, and being from a Northern state, I'd have to say this is my normal response.

Browne's response to that (which she credited to conversations with a history teacher) is that later immigrants came because America was the land of opportunity, and it was such a land of opportunity precisely because of an economy largely built on and undergirded by slave labor. In thinking more about it I would also add, even just stepping off the boat and not speaking the language, those later immigrants still had a degree of white privilege that provided opportunities which native-born black Americans were denied, even if their families had been here for generations. So though myself and my ancestors may not have been the perpetrators, we are certainly still among the benefactors of an evil and unjust system. Long before my family ever dreamed of America, the body of Christ was broken here, for us.

But that's not the only weight I'm carrying. Yesterday was the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Part of the argument in dropping the bomb was that it would end the war sooner and ultimately save more lives. My grandfather's life is certainly among those that this decision intended to spare - he was sworn into the Navy the day before the Japanese surrendered. Instead of getting sent to the Pacific front he was sent to Oregon to decommission returning battleships. While my mother was yet a twinkle in my grandparents' eyes, the body of Christ was broken half way around the world, for me.

But it's not just the weight of such history that I'm lugging around. It's also the weight of today. For the body of Christ is still being broken, in this country, around the world, every day, for me. Traces of the Trade brought that up as well - the modern day slaveries and unjust systems that our lives depend upon. I am afforded many privileges and opportunities because of my skin color, citizenship, economic class, and education level, things others are denied because they lack one or more of the same qualities. I am afforded a lifestyle that, while rather simple by American standards, is yet outrageously luxurious compared to most of the world, a lifestyle that is underwritten by the people who work for a non-livable wage (in this country and others), by the people who live next to the factory farms and the garbage heaps and the mined mountain tops, by the soldiers risking their lives to enforce the Pax Americana, by the creation itself, which suffers every indignity and abuse in the name of efficiency, all of whom pay a price so that my costs as a consumer stay relatively cheap (even in a world of rising expenses). This is all the body of Christ, broken daily, for me.


Jesus, that's a hell of a lot of baggage.



Lord, have mercy.

Observations on the B-I-B-L-E

For the past year or so, I've been trying to spend time reading the Bible without an agenda. That is, reading stuff that I'm not preparing to preach or teach a lesson on, but can just sit and dwell with and enjoy and pay attention to in a totally different way. It's just 15 minutes a day - that way if it's a really sloggy passage, my eyes don't glaze over because I know I only have to face so much of it at a time. Conversely, if it's a really engrossing passage, I don't throw my whole day's schedule off because I just couldn't put the Bible down.

A few things I've noticed as a result of this practice: I pay attention a lot differently reading this way, making myself an open book to the open book; I feel my overall Biblical knowledge (and my ability to find specific stories or verses without the aid of a reference tool) has improved; this may sound cheesy, but I actually feel better starting my day out this way (I usually try to read while I'm eating breakfast).

But I digress - this summer I've been working my way through the Deuteronomistic Histories - I'm up to 2 Chronicles. And I know I've read through this before, both in college and in seminary, but it never occurred to me until this past week how differently the same history is presented in 1 Samuel-2 Kings compared to 1-2 Chronicles. The Chronicles read more like the Wall Street Journal, with lots of genealogies and lists, things you might otherwise call "just the facts." There are some stories tucked in there, but conspicuously absent is all the glorious dysfunction of the house of David: no shenanigans with Bathsheba, no incestuous treachery by Amnon, no rebellion of Absalom, no siblings squabbling over the succession of the throne. David does get in serious trouble with the Lord, but it's over an improperly taken census (which seems like an awfully silly thing to provoke God's wrath), not the premeditated abandonment of Uriah on the battlefield (definitely schmucky enough to provoke God's wrath). I've got to say, 1 Samuel-2 Kings is starting to feel like a saucy tabloid next to the dry, "factual," rather sanitized Chronicles.

In any case, it's got me thinking about the (most likely) guy who wrote the Chronicles - why did he leave all that stuff out? What was he afraid of? That it would make the royal family look bad? That it would distract from the "real" or "important" things they did, or somehow detract from the glory of God? Kind of funny when you consider most of the Bible is full of the stories of the screw-ups that God called and used for God's purposes. Our having feet made of clay is kind of the point - actually gives greater glory to God for finding a way to work with us in spite of ourselves.

But the fastidious Chronicles inclusion in the Bible, and their location right next to the randy Samuels and Kings, is also a good reminder - that the Bible, the world, and even God, is big enough to hold all kinds. No one's story (nor chosen manner of relating it) is invalidated or unwelcome. Now if only we clay-footers lived that out as well as the good book does. . .

Peace,
C.

PS - What was with that big hairy deal over the prayer of Jabez a few years ago? It's like, one verse that shows up, very randomly, in the middle of a genealogy! Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.