10 Years Ago, Part One

10 years ago I spent the summer in Dresden. The Fund for Theological Education was kind enough to give me a large scholarship with very few strings attached. "Do something that will enhance your ministry and then tell us about it" they said.

So I went abroad, took classes at the Goethe Institut during the week, and bummed around Lutherland on the weekends. Though I had been abroad before, it was my first time truly living abroad for an extended period of time.

It was an awesome experience. I liked Germany before, but that summer I fell in love with it. I loved how easy it was to go pretty much anywhere on public transit; I loved how ecologically conscious they were; I loved how walking, cycling, or taking the tram was the default mode of operation; I loved broetchen for breakfast everyday; I loved the little hole-in-the-wall doner stand down the street from the school; I loved the tasty senf at the beer garden where we'd have our weekly Stammtisch; I loved the gelato cafe on the Neustadt side of the Augustbruecke; I loved the Semper Oper and the Zwinger gallery; I loved the noise car tires made as they rolled over cobblestone streets; I loved that church bells rang to announce the noon hour; and though it took a period of adjustment I came to love that you were expected to bring your own bags to the grocery store, and that most stores would be closed by 6 pm every night and always on Sundays; I loved that people would spend Sunday afternoons with friends and family, relaxing at home or out hiking or touring or something.

I loved my class at the Goethe Institut too - our teacher, Ute, was fantastic, and I loved the diversity in the room, with students from France, Romania, Libya, China, Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. - I feel like there were even more countries represented (and certainly among the whole institut there were more) but these are the only ones I can remember right now. In any case, it felt like we were this mini-UN, working together to learn and understand this language and culture that was not our own, sharing things about our own cultures in the process.

When class ended I joined up with some German and Slovak friends (including Adri) to go hiking in the High Tatras mountains, an incredible way to cap an incredible summer.

It was a summer that filled me with such hope for the world - that if our little microcosms of national diversity could learn from and learn with each other, and work together so effectively to reach common goals, then certainly we as a richly diverse global body of humanity could get there too.

I had a hard time with cultural readjustment upon my return. I was cranky and frustrated with Minnesota for all the ways it failed to be Germany. I was (as I always am) sad for saying goodbye to Adri and not knowing the next time we'd get to see each other. And I was wrestling with some deep vocational issues - I had been a reluctant seminarian to begin with, and certain things about the summer had me seriously questioning whether I should really be a pastor.

I went to bed the night of September 10 thinking these were the greatest of my problems. Despite my frustrations, I was still so enthralled by the winds of that summer - the view they had allowed me, the incredible ride they had provided me - that I was completely oblivious to how close they had carried me to the sun. . .