Thanksgiving

Kate asks us yesterday, “Isn’t tomorrow your Thanksgiving?” We say yes, and proceed to talk about wonderful foods that we don’t know how to cook, Squanto and Pancake Day (a UK Fat Tuesday that sounds awesome).

The day starts as any other, though, for the first time, the “bus scoile” rolls past us and our little neighbors wave at us from the window in their chipper uniforms. We describe to Phil the concept of okra and he says, “Your Thanksgiving dinner must be like our Christmas dinner.” We tell him no, that though the two meals are similar, we Americans actually have two big eating holidays only a month apart. That’s why we’re fat, I said––that and the fact that, in describing okra and so many other Southern dishes, we use the word “fried”. The English, for Christmas dinner, have a fruitcake-like Christmas pudding, which looks exciting not because of the pastry itself, but rather the fact that, to be proper, it is lit on fire.

We are cut off from home and the ability to call, and it makes us a little wistful. We are surprised, then, that Phil will not tell us what is for dinner, even though he keeps dipping into the cottage to smell it (and I’ll vouch for him, it smells savory and delicious; thick, full scent like a pea soup fog). It unfolds: turkey, mash, gravy, roasted potatoes (one of my favorites here), roasted parsnips, carrots, celery & stilton soup, and dipping bread. Soon afterward, Chris confesses that she has been looking for a whole turkey, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie everywhere, but we had to settle for turkey breast, apple pie & cream, and bread & butter pudding. We tell Chris we may need to be rolled to our caravan after a meal like this, or maybe we can just butter up the sides of the doors and squeeze in.

So what are we thankful for? Your support, prayers, and everything else. A great English family in Ireland. Drinking Potcheen (Irish moonshine) with Doney, Phil & Chris’ son-in-law, who is so Irish we can’t understand anything he is saying; and rapping a song written by his twelve year-old son.

And Phil, two days off surgery for bladder cancer, is working and receiving “a right bollocksing” for it from his wife. He says, in Phil fashion, “I’m going to [expletive deleted] beat it!” He’s full of life, and determined to stay so as long as he can, and I’m so thankful to have been around that for these past three weeks.

The theology blog

After the Sermon on the Mount comes this:

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you? I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. That on is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house.”

Luke 6:46-49 (NRSV, emphasis added)

Ryan and I talk theology while throwing goat poo the same as we talked it in the Abbey in DeLand, using my purple card to get 25% off delicious, near-and-far draft beers. Some of them are made by monks, and are especially good.

If we as people of faith are serious about our faith, then it shouldn’t be weird to be reminded of it while in a bar, or throwing fork-loads of poo and straw, or experiencing the joy of a family that has brought us into their community, or reading a poem. It shouldn’t be too weird to be encouraged in our faith by getting to know people, serving just as or more than we have been served, or how about confronting injustice like our country’s illegal/immoral invasion of Iraq and the subsequent deaths of 80,000+, the stop-lossing of our soldiers, and the billions of dollars that could have been spent on education; the cyclical cycle of poverty that has kept some communities without opportunity and badly educated since slavery times and more; the radical suburbization and destruction of natural Florida, its wildlife, and its natural hurricane protection? If “my faith is my life” as I’ve heard more than once from politicians on the national stage, then why would it be strange to talk about joys and issues facing my brothers and sisters in Christ and God’s Creation as revealed in the environment?

One of my favorite things about these conversations is that they are distinctly human conversations. Too often with fellow Christians I find us speaking of doctrine and spirituality as if we are already “[flown] away to a home on God’s celestial shore”, as the song goes, and we forget the distinctly human components of a faith-filled life such as the power of humility and forgiveness, inclusive love, and the joy – from symphonies to the environment to an individual’s passions and quirks – that we experience by living in a world imbued with divine creativity.

And yes, I believe there is divine creativity in hurling poo and wading through a pigsty. It takes some reconciling to myself, but I am thankful for being a steward of animals, even in the dirty jobs.

Bringing theology to a more everyday, tangible sense, is Jesus in this passage, and it hits me pretty hard. James continues it: “…be doers of the word,” he says,

…and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act––they will be blessed in their doing.

If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

James 1:22-27 (NRSV, emphasis added)

Strong words. Cynical ones, perhaps cathartic. Good words for twentysomethings.

Much of our poo-throwing, dog walking, and goat-feeding time is spent discussing our generation and our own reasons for cynicism. Our generation is the black hole in the ministry of most churches, regularly lumping us in the with youth program, walking past us every Sunday at the coffee cart without a word, and even questioning whether there should be a ministry for our age group at all, for such a transient, low-tithing group. We have been raised in a culture where almost half of all marriages collapse. Where we’ve seen thousands of murders on TV, and in entertaining ways. Where bankers’ misdoings have left us without jobs. Where overly big corporations like Wal Mart chase out local retailers and invade the distinct cultures of third-world countries. We have seen fearmongering drive us to illegal war, torture, and over a trillion dollars of lost funds that could have been channeled to education, science, and health care. We have seen criminality drive us to fear our brothers and sisters because, in many ways, of a criminally poor educational system and a cyclical cycle of poverty that has gone on for generations. Worse, we have seen generations of people, and even Christians, who turn a blind eye to such things because such things make them uncomfortable.

I want to sit in the houses of social outcasts and social elites as Jesus did, knowing our similarities outweigh our differences. I want to reconcile capitalists and communists, rich and poor, Christians and Muslims (and atheists too, for all have valid concerns), old-Americans and newly-arrived immigrant Americans. As a Christian, I want to see the Church reconcile itself to my generation by focusing on how Jesus calls us to live and act toward our brothers and sisters instead of trying to believe it all correctly in the head.

Thank you for Foundry UMC and the other churches that take the challenge of my generation seriously. For my part, I want honesty from you, then love, and then, perhaps, programming. Instead of “What can we do to bring in twentysomethings?” as I’ve heard a number of times, I think the questions should be, “How welcoming, inclusive, and honest are we as a congregation?” Are we willing to welcome and include people regardless of age, gender, orientation, and race and will we realize that, as people, we all have something in common? Are we following the greatest commandment––to love God with all our being and our neighbor as our own selves––or are putting some other bit of doctrine or politics in the greatest place?

Honestly, you’ll get many of us back when we have kids. We will want them brought up in a community and––in a nominally Christian culture––the church will provide a dutiful Sunday fix. But the world will not change with an attitude like this. Unknowingly, they are hearers and not doers, as James said, and the widows and orphans are left unattended. A church that waits for us to walk back in the doors ––and avoids the injustices in the Church and world that have kept us out of Church in the first place––this is the foolish church without a foundation, the church that falls down.

Gandhi said something like, “If I ever saw a real Christian I would be one.” Perhaps what we need isn’t a flawless church, because the Church is made of people and people have a habit of messing up. Rather, let us be the humble and focused Church, knowing that our vices are common to our humanity, yet striving after Christ nonetheless, where there is forgiveness and justice and healing. Perhaps this is what makes us real. Perhaps this is the honesty us cynical folk need to enliven us.

Greyhounds going round and round

Time moves more humanly in the country. A sweet, Irish soon-to-be mum offers us homemade gingerbread people and I eat the one on top, whom she affectionately calls “The General”. She is Lorraine, and two happy dogs rolls around her feet, offering their bellies for a rub. She asks if the Irish curse more than any group of people I’ve met before. Ryan has some reservations, but I say yes, yes the Irish curse worse than any group of any language I somewhat speak or know the curse words of. She laughs and figures so. Visiting her friend in Seattle, she says, she scarcely ever heard a “Jesus Christ!” or “f***ing hell!” but that such a revealing trip still hadn’t changed her ways. We laugh, pet dogs, and eventually get around to talking about the trailer we’ve come to borrow. First, though, Rob – the husband – shows us novel bricks that he has formed out of horse manure from their stable. This is how they keep their house warm, and why one washes one’s hands every time the stove is filled.

Ben takes us to Lystmore Castle and we marvel at its hillside overlook of the river, which a few days ago had been a field. Further on, Ben shows us The Vee, a spot on the mountain road where the asphalt snake curls back on itself, near where a man asked to be buried standing up because he so admired the view. One can see seven counties of Ireland and forests and hundreds of square miles from a rocky perch of scrub brush.

That night, we go to the races with Phil and Chris. I win 3.70 Euro on 10 spent at one of the two biggest greyhound tracks in the country. The Dublin races are live-streamed between races at Cork, so one can always be watching, and betting on, six dogs in multicolored jackets chasing a mechanical hare as it bobs and wags and, after the race, buries itself in a metal box, the dogs gathering around, trying to scare it out.

In other news, I meet a young boy named Darragh. I'm pleased to note that it's pronounced the same way we USA Darraghs pronounce it and, though it's usually a girl's first name and he doesn't like it for that reason, I felt awesome meeting him while he challenged Ryan to MarioKart Wii.

The billys

The billy goats stink with the smell of a hormonal middle school boy. It’s a terrible smell, that thick smell of musk and something pungent that I can’t name in the goat world; in the middle school boy world is Axe. The only difference between the two worlds is that when goats cast such a scent to the four winds, the lady-goats pay attention, but when the middle school boy coats his pits, arms, and shirts in Axe or Tag, the avalanche of ladies that the commercials promise do not come, though they may see a few while their camp counselor puts them outside while they apply the stuff.

Most of the billys are dear, though I try not to touch them (or anything they’ve touched), lest I smell like them. Mancha and Solomon, who are so small that Phil has to get a stepping-box for them in breeding season, are in the same pen and wait for me, their front legs dangling over their pen, like old friends who don’t mind being close. Monty is big and stands on his pen across from the goatshed braying with what can only be, “Lady! Give me a lady!” Standing where he is, he is framed picturesquely by the Irish countryside.

Major, on the other hand, is a miserable old cuss. He charges at me every time I come into his pen, just to see if he can make me flinch. Phil curses at him. I choose to act like a basketball player who has just ripped someone’s shot: “And what, Major?! And what?!” Major may not be, but I think Monty is impressed.

In other news, Cork city is flooded with the heaviest rain in decades, which caused the River Lee to burst its banks. Businesses and the hospital are flooded, but we are on a hill, and it reminds me of growing up in Florida and barely escaping flood after flood after flood, the backyard filling up with water, hermit crabs, and – if we’re lucky – the American alligator.

Bodhrán and knackered

Ryan’s met a young girl, and he’s sweet on her. It’s cute how they meet on the farm: how she perks up when he enters the room; how she leans colloquially against the gate as she waits for him to come over; how, when his back is turned, she sneaks over and nibbles on his shirt to get his attention. She is a goat, and her name is Fudge.

Sadly, Dusty has hurt some ligaments in his wrist between his last race and galloping on the beach this past week, and he has to back out of tonight’s race on the greyhound track. Phil and Chris decide to take us out anyway.

In East Cork, miles or kilometers are meaningless. Time is measured in minutes, because, despite the distance, the folds of the country roads are the real determiner of trip length. So, thirty minutes away we pull into Marine Bar, where there are just two cars. So we sit down and, in the bar’s apparent fashion, Phil and Chris met a couple they’ve never seen before and become fast friends. After the band has had a few pints the place is full, and the instruments come out. As they get situated, the bar attendant places a Murphy’s or Guinness in a special holder on each of their mic stands where otherwise one might put a gadget to hold picks.

The music is great, and I am openmouthed at how quickly the squeezebox player’s fingers move over the tiny keys of the mini-accordion. The drummer’s hand is a blur as he double-strokes the bodhrán and moves his unseen hand behind the skin to create different pitches. The guitarist – the owner of the bar – fingerpicks and leads or harmonizes with that bright, clear Irish timbre, the Italian of English dialects.

All of this frenzy does us well, though I learn to fear the country roads. Ben sits in the front of our big, blue farm van because he wants to be able to see the road and, in doing so, trick his stomach. I realize this wisdom too late and the dark, cruel curves get me so motion sick that the floor, the wall, and my jeans were able to join the toilet in my late-night yakking. It’s over soon, and I lament the fact that one whose head is clear can still be brought to one’s knees by a continuous change of direction. Ryan sleeps nearby, dreaming perhaps of arts, rainbows, or the roar of the waves on the jagged coastline – walking through the pastures and brambles to the place where the water runs off to the rocks and the sea meets it with a crash of foam.

Bram Stoker, though Irish, imagines Transylvania

The werewolf is described, in one part, as a stinky, shaggy-haired hippie with long fingernails and grooming issues. Don’t worry, when it snarls at me it’s perfectly harmless: it lives in Manhattan. In fact, it’s currently sitting in a fireside chair in the office of Doctor Stanley as the werewolf and his wife try to work out how they can constructively raise a child when, every month, the husband turns into a werewolf. This is my play, ideally debuting in Jacksonville next year, and the day has seen some great rewriting.

We miss the afternoon milking because of the muse and Ryan’s much-needed nap. The next day, we make up for it by heaving the entire pile of goat/horse/dog (but not pig) manure and straw and wood chips over several feet into our neighbor’s field, where he will eventually spread it as fertilizer over the entire acreage. Though it is not often this way, it appears to Ryan and me that the fields cannot keep pace with the animals, as the pile grows higher and higher.

We aren’t asked to finish the project, and are beckoned to come down every now and again, our time obligation to Phil and Chris being done, but we finish it because it’s nice to have it done and because now there is room for several more levels to our nutrient-rich, stinking ziggurat.

A moment of departure for Father Ted: Father Ted is a Catholic priest living in the Irish countryside, the leader to his parish – the old, alcoholic priest, who tends to fall down the stairs and the young, naïve and gullible priest – and the upstanding figure that keeps the town community in line. He is a serious man of faith, which is never brought into question, though anyone who sees him realizes his flaws, many of which are quite silly. “Father Ted” is a TV show; syndicated, it’s still one of the most popular shows in Ireland.

Phil and Chris feel obligated to introduce us to it, “To show us the true Ireland.” This “true Ireland” involves, in the first episode, such quintessential moments as a local couple knocking on the parish door and, when Father Ted answers, presenting him with a very inviting Eastertime gift: “Father,” they say, “we thought you’d love a Lenten fruit basket.” He takes it and thanks them and gives a big smile. They say, “That’ll be eight Euro.” And our hosts laugh gregariously.

At the cornerstone of “Father Ted”, however, are plots that could only be made in Ireland. In one episode, Father Ted bets the parish heating bill on a sheep fair and, when his bet is scared by a terrifying beast, he takes it into the parish, gives it a spa treatment, puts on relaxing chant music, etc. and the sheep recovers (albeit with a few more twists and turns). First, we watch “Cigarettes, Alcohol, and Rollerblading,” in which the leader of the rival parish (who is Newman to Father Ted’s Jerry) calls Father Ted and says, “At our parish, we’ve given up smoking, drinking, and skateboarding. And, in the spirit of sacrifice to our Lord, will you give up something similar in solidarity?”

Not to be beaten in the “giving-things-up competition”, Father Ted cuts his cigarettes in half, buries the older priest’s liquor in a cave along the Cliffs of Moher, and forbids the younger one from rollerblading, to much chagrin. Unable to do this on their own, they call a Lenten enforcer: a nun who enjoys sacrifice to the extent of sadism: she pours ice into the tub, wakes them up at five AM, and feeds them only simple porridge; oh, the joys of Lenten remembrance!

In any case, when Father Ted visits the rival parish, he first peeks into the window to find the three rival priests in the library, affronting our hero by smoking a pipe and drinking a beer while pulling the other on a skateboard! They didn’t give up a single thing! Additionally, the nun winds up gorging herself on chocolate while Father Ted is gone, breaking her Lenten vow! A deal is made, and the chocolate is forgotten in order to hold the rival parish accountable to their vows with the fury of a nun scorned: the last scene is the three rival priests running through the countryside in their boxers, screaming, chased by a nun in full habit, wielding a huge tree branch as a switch, a penance stick like a vicious, Catholic firedrake.

I am greatly intrigued by the film and television portrayals of men and women of faith. So often they are either judgmental or so on-the-nose unrealistic that I cannot relate to them. I’m not saying that “Father Ted” is on par with the faithful reality of Dead Man Walking, but it says a lot about a culture to have a popular sitcom that both deeply respects religious leaders while recognizing their humanity and having fun with it.

Our English hosts have been in stitches the whole program, and tell us how “to a T” this is of the Irish. I can’t vouch for that, but can say that the Irish language also has a prominent role in the show. I’m not talking about Gaelic, however. Ryan and I were rather surprised when, in “Father Ted”, one of the parishioners would lament, without censoring, “f***ing hell,” whereas, in “Scrubs” reruns from the States, the word “bastard” is censored. Different strokes for different folks, and though it jars us, we came to learn about our brothers and sisters across the sea. Little did we know that, to our standards, our Irish brothers and sisters are pottymouths, and perhaps, to their standards (though I don’t quite know what they are yet), maybe we are too.

The Goatman Cometh

Ryan joins Phil and Ben at the Cork Farmers’ Market, and it’s raining so hard homes are flooded; Ireland stays brilliant green. I’m back at the farm with Chris and the water pump which busted this morning, so we’re busy making sure all the animals have water. Sarah, the daughter, lives down the road and brings water buckets which we use until the evening when we fix it. In addition to cheese, those at the market bring jam and lemon curd from Sarah’s farm.

Then comes the horror. A goat pen is bedded with straw and, as nature takes its call, we tenders spread more clean straw on top of it. Ideally, the straw should be replaced rather often, and the dirty hay carted to our neighbor’s field, which he uses as fertilizer. Yet the weather has been so foul that the straw has been building up like an old city, layers on top of ruined layers, until it’s a fine, eighteen-inch tel with a goat on top. On the surface, it’s clean straw, but by the bottom it’s solid ammonia heavy and brown with goat urine.

We have done a stinky job, and there’s one more bed to do, but it’s done and needed desperately to be so, then Ben fixes the water pump. Huzzah.

Watching "Scrubs" while dinner is cooking

We’re stable as Chris cooks a mean dinner in the next room and Phil comes in, soaked, from the Irish rain. The wolfhounds take up about half the kitchen space, but that’s how it goes around here. Milo, the small table of his head, pushes me, waiting to be scratched, and it feels like someone is pushing me bodily out of the way; then I see the happy, drooling dogface.

We milk goats twice a day by machine, after we hand-milk a bit to check color and consistency. As we come in, most of them stand up on the doors of their pens, their long ears flopping down and looking like shoulder-length hair as they ask: Food! We walk greyhounds, feed pigs. Fred the horse is my favorite, though, a big, lumbering horse that makes me amazed that such powerful animals can be so gentle.

We’re blessed to be here, both in learning to use our gas-fed caravan whose stove we have to start with a lighter; with the goats whom I now know by name and can milk on our own; the Irish countryside stretching green, punctuated by upraised ditches, cottages, herds of cows and sheep, and the roaring, cliffside sea. We work hard here, more than we’re asked to, and Phil and Chris take us to the shore, framed with infinity and rocky shores.

How good it is, but currently unpoetic it is for me to be stable. I look forward to the day I have a family and will slow down some, but for now I have more countries to see, more poems to read, and more wood-burning stoves to write in front of.

Auteur draws from blue-collars

Being with the Rhodes men, I have a new appreciation for Guy Ritchie. Criticisms I had of the salty language he utilizes – when working next to an accent and vocabulary of Archie from Rocknrolla – such criticisms fall moot at my feet.

We dig out an old pipe and clear the blockage, allowing old whey and water and sanitizer to roll through, undeterred. It’s good tea and biscuits, good company, and amazing cheese.

Ballymacoda & Magpie Cottage Dairy

Monnica and Patrick see us off at the corner next to a green, closed-down sports store where Ben, with whom I’ve only spoken on the phone, is going to meet us. Joe is with us too, speaking of the rugby tickets he’s just bought for 80 Euro to see Ireland and Australia in one of the last games at Cork Stadium. The first two are setting off in a rental car for Patrick’s family history to imbibe from baptismal records.

Once Ben arrives, he takes us through incredible countryside to the Magpie Cottage Dairy, where the goats stand outside and favor us interestedly in the beautiful weather. Ben’s here for a few weeks finishing his parents’ kitchen, and the parents – Phil and Chris – run the small place, which just won second place at the World Cheese Awards. They’re English, settling down in Ireland when Sussex got too dangerous.

The males eye the female goats wantonly from across the field, trapped by their own pens. Occasionally they let out a bleat, and the ladies don’t pay them half as much mind as when Ryan and I bring food. Running with Dusty, one of four greyhounds, he almost skips side-to-side to play with me, and I’m running full tilt. There are two Irish wolfhounds, four pigs, chickens, and Fred the horse.

Here, we eat our first home-cooked meal since Rachel sent us off. It’s delicious and a wondrous departure from peanut butter, sausage, bread, apples, cheese, and sardines.

Apologies on the no post

Dear friends and family! I read on blogging websites that bloggers should update at least two to three times a week, and, this week, I haven't done that! Don't worry, Ryan & I will be back soon with more stories from the sojourn just as soon as we work out some internet issue way out here in the country. If you'd like to googlemaps us, we're on a lovely little goat farm in Ballymacoda in County Cork next to cows.

Cork

We kiss the Blarney Stone and the locals balk and say, no, no we do not, in fact, pee on the stone when tourists aren't looking. It's a relief, and I wonder who told me that rumor and how someone could physically do that, way up in its backbending location on top of the castle. We aren't any more talkative because of it, but I like to think, if we bump into Martin MacDonagh or Eavon Boland on the street, they may say, "Listen to your slim, but effective speech! You must have some great plays/screenplays and poems. Let us publish you." It hasn't happened yet, but we're patient... By the way, the Cormac MacCarthy who founded the castle in the 1400s is not the same Cormac McCarthy who wrote The Road and No Country for Old Men.

On the way here, apart from catching up on sleep - after two hours of Irish dancing lessons and going out with two 18 year-old, quadrilingual Belgians after the hostel neglected to show Che, Part II - Ryan chats with a kindly Irish grandma and I meet Ben, a 26 year-old carpenter in his first year of college in Dublin for sound production. We talk about bands and instruments we play, movies and health care, Obama being good for Europe and the US and how every politician has to strive hard to avoid corruption. Ben traverses the island every weekend, 4 1/2 hours each way, to build a recording studio in Cork (literally: he's building it with his own hands). I'm surprised he's never seen Once, but we both like Glen Hansard.

It's Patrick's birthday today and we almost buy something cheap and Little Debbie-like in a corner store. Opting to walk farther, we find a market so fresh the oysters are still in a fountain-like tank of water, the pigs' heads have yet to be cleared from the butcher's display, and a baker offers an end-of-day sale on cupcakes and bakewells for Zebra Cake prices (ridiculously cheap!). We purchase a bakewell - a cake with almond paste and raspberry jam on the bottom - and it's delicious. In fact, even if we'd had more money, I doubt there would have been anything better.

We leave Monnica and Patrick tomorrow, when we go to the farm and Patrick does family research for a few days. Monnica tags along and they'll eventually go to Belgium, Germany, etc. We hope to see him in Spain and Monnica in... well, she's here for a while, we'll see. Also being left are Joe, an American rugby player who had difficulty finding a job in his home state of Washington; Ethan, a 24 year-old American ex-soldier who was shot in the leg in Afghanistan at 20, is paying for his trip with disability, and is in no hurry to get back to the States; and a host of Aussies, a Canadian, and a fun Kiwi. We haven't seen Ethan since he traveled here with us on the bus and voyaged through the rain across Cork as we bumbled around seeking our hostel. We'd have loved him to join us and Joe for going out, or the excursion with the Aussies/Canadian/Kiwi to Blarney Castle, or to walk past the market ice bins where one could pick up a full-bodied squid with one's bare hands.

Appendix to Dublin

I recall Paddy the Priest at Christ Church where we hoped to visit the tombs. We wanted to see the cat and rat stapled to a board after they were pulled - perfectly preserved - from an old organ pipe and are now awkwardly commemorated next to Christ Church's more formal residents: Strongbow and a handful of old, Protestant bishops.

Paddy blocks the way and tells me it is evensong in an hour and a half and that visiting is over. He's a jolly man, like Santa Claus in his chubbiness and rosy cheeks, with dark, priestly garb and a black coat. We speak of evensong and Dublinia, the Viking museum around the corner, then we're off. He tells me how his Dublin accent differs from the countryside because of that; well, plus the Normans, the English, etc.

We speak of the Celts and how they were a small tribe in Northern India / Pakistan / Southern Afghanistan, and their three migrations. The first I don't remember where it ended up, but the second sacks Rome, prompting Furious Calmenius to reorganize the army into something to defend against the next wave of Celts. The third migration bypasses Rome and winds up in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, but Furious' Roman army eventually goes on to conquer Greece, Carthage, and, well, watch Gladiator.

He tells me of the Normans and how the Queen of England still holds the title of Duke of Normandy. Like Dublin, the Normans hail from Vikings, but they developed very quickly. Armor, chivalry, etc. eventually roll into England and Ireland. They're jerks and wipe out Anglo-Saxon folklore, cementing their victory in England with a suffocation of heritage (though J.R.R. Tolkein brings it back in "Lord of the Rings", and "orc" is Saxon for "invader").

The Normans roll into Ireland where Celtic women were highly valued and fought on the battlefield alongside men. To the Normans, women were chattel - property - from the Norman word for "cattle". This leads women to get the right to vote in 1928, and only thirty year-old, married women at that. Apparently, there are at least two country clubs that still don't allow women to be members. Stupid Normans.

We discuss the special forces and how MI5 goes back to the court of Queen Elizabeth I. I want to revert and ask about the indigenous groups that lived in Ireland before the Celts, but we must be off, and Paddy remains at the door, both blocking and inviting, lake Garfield the cat in black and cool, framing light.

Allow me a momentary departure from story for revolution in Ireland: the Easter Rebellion of 1916. The worst planned and executed of all Irish rebellions, and yet the watershed that brings the island their independence. England had heard of a rebellion on Easter Sunday, for which they were prepared, but the genius... ? ... the genius of their plan is it occurs on Easter Monday. The English stop a Scandinavian ship full of weapons from Germany (hardly an incognito sort of ship), and the battle for that day is won without a shot. Thousands of people drop out of the rebellion, and the English let their guard down.

What I didn't realize is that the rebellion was, in fact, scheduled for Sunday, but it wasn't until late, late Sunday night that 1,500 people decided they were going to rebel after all. They take so long in deciding that they run into Monday, attacking with handguns and are summarily defeated by the full power of WWI Britain (complete with Naval ships shelling Dublin). They are imprisoned and pelted with curses and vegetables by their own people.

To put it all to rest, the British sweepingly arrested more than twice the number of people involved and without trial sentenced ninety to death, putting fifteen in front of the firing squad. This stepping around the law, not the rebellion itself, enrages the Irish to the point of picking up arms and fighting a nasty, guerilla war until Michael Collins signs a treaty with Britain in 1923. Later, it becomes a republic, but Northern Ireland remains loyalist and many are upset and feel sold-out. The civil war starts and Collins is killed by his own countrymen; Seamus tells us of The Wind that Shakes the Barley, a great film about the Civil War, which won the Palm P'Or at Cannes a few years ago.

Dublin after a night's sleep

We make friends with two fellow Five Iron Frenzy fans - two old church friends from Portland meeting up in our hostel - Monnica and Patrick. Jenna and Christa - Canadians - and Johnna and Thea - Austrailians - join us as well. No Brits in the group, we all have laments about the exchange rate, and all gather our various dinners around themselves at the big table in the self-catering kitchen.

We join a three-and-a-half hour, free tour led by Seamus, a fiery-witted Irish student who's not shy to make jokes at the expense of England. We see Dublin Castle, Christ Church, Trinity College, Temple Bar, St. Stephen's Green, and the largest Viking settlement outside of Scandinavia, which was promptly bulldozed to make room for Dublin's government buildings (though years after the police forcefully remove the archaeologists from the site in protest to the leveling, the city admitted they made a poor decision). We learn of the Vikings' two arrivals in Ireland, and how their warm, dark huts had a smoke vent, a door, and no other openings; how two small rooms could house twenty people, and Seamus imagined it was a "spoon fest." We learn how St. Stephen's Green was shattered in the Easter Rebellion and, as the swan's pedal through the area that looks much like Boston Common, Seamus tells us an important fact: "A male swan can break a man's arm with one swipe of it's neck, yet a female swan can break a male swan's heart with just one glance..."

We have community today, it's nice to have slept, and we've gotten a great deal with our hostel. We've seen Dublin, had the required Guinness, and, as I promised Ryan in our mission statement, I've taken time to write. It's relieving. Even more, our farm cannot take us until Sunday, and we were scared, not wanting to spend more days in spendy Dublin. Then we met our new friends, made a reservation in Cork, and will be on the road tomorrow, with jokes and fanfare.

Dublin

I tell Ryan over a hot bowl of soup about the whiny Israelites being led out of Egypt. "Oh man!" they said, "The bread was so much better in Egypt. Man!" Forgetting the Sea of Reeds, they say, "So what if it sucked back there with the whole slave and abuse thing, at least we knew where our next meal was coming from. Man!"

I tell Ryan I don't want to be like that, though heavy backpacks and ATM issues (fixed now) contribute to those sentiments. It's rainy here, and it's nice reading weather. The soup helps.

Zürich

Waiting, waiting. The country outside reminds us both of the beginning scene of the French countryside in Inglorious Basterds and we want to go romp in the Fall colors. Flying over these little hamlets and gorgeous trees makes us feel lame for being stuck at an airport, waiting for our briefly-laid-over flight, by cappuccino machines instead of real, European coffeeshops.

The flight over is good enough, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince soothes our beginning-travel nerves. We sit next to Herbert, and ex-marine military contractor who just returned from sixteen months in Iraq, four days at home, and is now bound for Kenya, Sudan, and wherever the contract brings him. We bond over a Courvoisier the attendant brings us for free because our dinner took a while (even though it didn't), and he wonders what in the world I can do with a Religious Studies major.

Last-minute bank details and being on hold with our credit cards wrapped up our morning and kept us from calling several folks who would've liked a call. Dad, Rev, Kevin, Dixcy, Jenny, Sarah, Randall, Becca... sorry to have missed you guys and much love.

As for us it is good to finally set wheels on another continent, and we have done so with much blessing. Rachel was determined to send us off and has been in Washington since Thursday. The Sweetgreen crew wouldn't let me ay for my last salad and yogurt, even though I had amassed enough points for a free yogurt and then some; said Manuel: "Es su último día." Several friends joined us at the Brickskellar and had a few last drinks, and my manager gave us a beautiful, all-encompassing voltage converter as a going-away present. Amid the sentiment, a plate of Irish Car Bombs falls to the ground, which is why my sweatshirt, also on the ground, reeks of Guinness, Jameson's, and Bailey's.

Perhaps the biggest blessing - apart from the unfathomably full support of Rachel - is the hospitality of Andy and Tawny, who took us in and allowed us a home base with which to pack, repack, and repack again. In their apartment, Rachel cooks for us while we're on hold with Bank of America. She'll be on her own adventures this year, her own sabbatical, and she reminds me in a note I carry around: "We'll be so much cooler and grounded when we get back." And so we shall, God willing.

Zigzag back through these states

I'm aboard the train and I choke the shaking of my hands with a solid four hours of "Rome". I'm on a fifteen-day rail pass to see Taylor and Phil's wedding in Jacksonville, visit Christina Schafer in Miami, see Duke Divinity School, Candler School of Theology, Boston University, and Emerson College before I join Rachel on the peace pilgrimage for a few days before hopping the train back to DC, working for a week before I move out during the weekend, live as a wanderer for a few days and then fly to Dublin. Yeah...

So while I hop public transit to Union Station in DC, I'm carting as many of my worldly possessions as I can fit into my big, blue duffel bag, and I'm a mix of afraid and sad. Afraid because I'm moving too fast, am starting so much over, don't have much money, sad because I'm leaving my church, my friends, and I've packed up so many of my favorite things to not see them for six months.

But Taylor is beautiful and she and Phil look iconic, the rower and frisbee player like the strong, smiling figures on top of the cake. Mr. Bayer plays a beautiful "Be Thou My Vision", his folksy voice sliding cordially over everything, and he backs me up on "Your Love is Extravagant," me on guitar, him on mandolin, my parents on BGVs. Later, Christina and I make Cuban Coladas by pouring a tiny bit of coffee into sugar, making a paste, then pouring the rest in. Jenny comes to visit, and songs are sung and adventures are had in Miami's 95˚ Autumn.

Blessings are felt at Duke, Emory, and BU, with Sarah, Keri, Brett Fox and the camp crew, Jon Gaylord & Clare, Aaron Garner, Billy Krolick, Kasey Cox, and some dear others. I like Duke better than Emory because of its field placements and support for the arts, though Boston has a dear place in my heart and cements the discerning characteristic of this year. Film school at Emerson is great, and when I get back to DC no questions are answered, but I feel more wise and encouraged. It is snowing in Boston when I arrive and I'm surprised at the length and breadth of the east coast.

I join Rachel and the peace walkers at the home of two former nuns who provide the best food of the whole trip. People ask, "What program is she doing it with?" in the same way that they ask me how Ryan and I plan to do our Europe trip, but the beauty of the Peace Pilgrimage is that there is no program, no hierarchy. Some walkers are around for the whole walk, others for only a few days, others for only a few miles. An old veteran who read about them in the paper found them and presented them with a giant peace flag, which they proudly carried with them the rest of the way. I am impressed with the people who honk in support, the housepainters who ask, "What are you walking for?" "For peace." "Right on!"

The deepest part of the walk for me is during a potluck at a United Methodist Church outside of Boston. I combine two thoughts: Adam, the brother of one of my youth, being killed in Iraq and the first time I thought of being anti-war; and Werner Herzog, director of "Rescue Dawn", having his actors wade through dangerous rivers and actually eat maggots because, in an age of digital effects, he "wanted audiences to be able to trust their eyes again." When I see bombs going off above Baghdad, it's so often just nightvision fireworks to me. People are being killed, families are huddled in their homes fearing a miss-strike, and it's entertainment to me. I want to be able to trust my eyes again. I want to be able to see war and let my heart go out in prayer for those on both sides. The man after me was shaken up and spoke of news as "info-tainment" and how so few of us feel the actual cost of war, little did I know it was his job to survey the battlefields of Desert Storm directly after a carpet bombing.

I'm not saying that war will stop now, but rather that it's by simply breaking bread with people and having dialogue that we not only understand our differences, but also have more fun. As Christians, I believe we are called to this, to stop the idea that people in the Middle East, or democrats and republicans, or ex-offenders, etc. are somehow not as human as we are. Back in DC, sitting across from an ex-offenders in Spiritual Support Group - sitting across from some of the most inspiring, spiritual (and changed) people that I know - I feel like I have learned yet another thin place where Holy Spirit moves in the world, between our differences and the learning of something new.

Rachel has finished her walk, taken some needed days resting in Connecticut, and arrives in DC. It's good to see her.

Rachel

An important part of my trip: Rachel smiles in that big, recognizable way in the 8th Day Faith Community of Church of the Saviour. I know her as this before she begins to come to Spiritual Support Group with Sarah and me. Rachel is headed for what she describes as her "Sabbath Year", which she'll start by stepping out into a Catholic Worker community in her home state of Connecticut, and she'll go from there.

I tell this story in this way: she is taking the time to dive into things, from faith to family, that all of us deal with but don't often take the time to deal with. It challenges me as I prepare for the trip in many ways: because I am a writer with no poems finished, a traveler who hasn't traveled to half the places I yearn to see, a lover of language who only speaks English.

Rachel encourages me a lot in this, and I get to encourage her a lot in her stepping out. Sarah gets busy for a few Thursdays nights in a row and Rachel and I wind up going to Julia's Empanadas after group by ourselves, instead of the three of us. One Sunday, after a Church of the Saviour picnic, my plans fall through, Rachel and I end up hanging out, and by the end of it - well, I'm not sure how it went down, but I tend to think we held hands, looked at each other, and thought: "Crap! We're dating, aren't we!"

Catholic Worker led to a silent retreat, and that to a friend in a monastery, and eventually to a 50-day, 1000-mile Pilgrimage for Peace all around New England, walking and inviting churches, schools, and passerby to join in the dialogue of how we can contribute to a more peaceful world, a world in which we act more like Jesus taught us to act toward one another. And after that, maybe take seminary classes in Nicaragua, and perhaps I'll be in Spain by then.

We are the walkabout pilrims

"Two things I ask of you; do not deny them to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that I need, or I shall be full, and deny you, and say, "Who is the LORD?" or I shall be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God."

Proverbs 30:7-9 (NRSV)

Looking at the doors ahead of us, Ryan and I felt somewhat upside down. Traveling during an economic recession seems daft, but I need that daftness in my life right now. In fact, I think that most of the things worthwhile in our lives were foolish to us at one point or another. It's like my friend who asked me to videotape his engagement at the World War II monument: he's scared stiff, and she looks gorgeous - they both look great - and yet, even though anyone who knows them knows she'll say yes, he's scared.

I don't want to be scared into what my culture deems as successful. I don't want to be one of the sad, sad faces when we tell them of our trip and they say "I wish I'd done something like that." I don't want to be another writer who keeps getting rejected and decides to never write again, letting that divine gift atrophy, not knowing that most great writers from James Joyce to J.K. Rowling got rejected far more than they were accepted; Joyce even burned his original manuscript of "A Portrait of the Artist of a Young Man" because of rejection, but he rewrote it.

What do we want? We want to serve people and learn. We want to see things that we have always read about but always heard were far, too far away. We want to write and do art and dive into the passions that God has planted in us in spite of criticism of art and the idea that a successful life is a stable one where the next step is obvious.

We are walkabout pilgrims: stepping out in faith into where we needed to go, trusting that there will be ground beneath our feet. There's no end in sight until May (when I return for a wedding), and though we felt Europe seemed right, we could be in Korea by the end of it all, or Argentina, or the States. Pray for us if you think about it - Lord knows we can use as much of it as we can get - but don't live vicariously through us. Life is a blessing, with many worthy passions and dreams, and there's never a station in life when they can't come to fruition.