"All I want is love, I confess to this
I will take You, Lord, all I have to give."
- "Time", Third Day -
We pray for time and get it in the long, silent hours of two unscheduled days. With time, my jeans become decent with the aid of a needle and thread. Movies watch themselves. Winter Olympians scratch their curling brushes across the ice as I learn that 13 million Americans spend more than 50% of their income on housing and rent, that I'll be riding this summer to stop it (indecent, unaffordable housing, not curling). We contemplate the return journey, though the concept of end seems surreal. With time, life finally still like a beautiful crater lake with its beauty and profound depth.
So much has happened unexpected from Rachel to film school to... well... traveling and serving in Europe. To continue unexpected, I never liked curling, then I met Eve Muirhead. I've not met her, but she's 19 with fun-trendy hair, Scottish, and plays bagpipes, and if I met her randomly on the streets of the UK, I wouldn't mind giving her a high five.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
Merger
I wanted to write this with many Wesley quotes and bits from the several newspaper articles, both from Methodists who see the merger of Methodist and Anglican Churches as positive, and several more who grew up Methodist and, ideologically, feel the Methodist Church is rolling over to get a belly-rub from Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. We've just moved, and I've had to leave my articles with the electric blankets and open space of Thurlby Manor. So here are my thoughts without them:
I do not agree with a state-established Church. I believe that Constantine's involvement with Church polity--calling together the Council of Nicaea to reconcile differences between the East and West and consolidate doctrine and giving Christian soldiers Sundays off among other preferential treatment--was the start of Christianity's compromising shift from a radical, illegal community preaching good news to the poor to a well-financed religion that became status quo. Instead of radical people becoming Christians--and being known by their love--everyone became a Christian (at least nominally so), and the radical ones became the odd ones out within Roman culture.
It is with this lens then that I cast a wary eye on recent events in Britain. The Methodist Church, originally an Anglican reform movement, has re-merged into the state-supported Anglican Church.
State-established or not, there are some incredible people within the Church of England, our dear friend Nick Walsh included, and these people are doing amazing things for God, their hearts in the right place; for my mind, though, to be supported by state funds is to be in the state's pocket in some way. Often, the government does things of which the Church should not be supportive--torture is a good example--and if we are serious Christians, then we should be protesting this, or at least dropping down in prayer, wondering how the human spirit could get so low; but if our meal ticket comes from the government, then we are limited in our Christian nonviolent opposition, else our families go hungry. So we bite our lips and grow complacent, and the light of faith that burns within us becomes less recognizable as the spirit of Christ, for we are unequally yoked.
John Wesley, however, never focused on this high criticism. His concerns were more local, and the first time he was barred from preaching within the Church of England--as a student at Oxford--it was for asking, basically, "Are we a Christian nation? Nay!" For all its provocation, his concerns were local: instead of attacking the Church as a whole, he is really asking his listeners, "Are we owning our own faith, or are we status quo Christians? One look at government and we see we're not a Christian nation, and let's not worry about being one. How are we, in this room doing at being Christians?"
So Wesley called for reform, not separation. His focus was on the cobblers, the miners, and everyone else the Church of England was too nervous to reach out toward. Though he was, for most intents and purposes, shoved out of the Church, he never left it, to the chagrin of some of his fellow Methodist leaders. His movement challenged people to better their minds through learning, their bodies through exercise, and their spirits through integrity and a relationship with Christ. He read widely, and his own every-shifting theology drew from all over Christendom, from Eastern Orthodox all the way to Jonathan Edwards, (though throwing out the idea of double predestination wholesale). It was this movement he hoped would be a breath of fresh air to the Anglican Church and re-enliven it. And now, 219 years after Wesley's death and the Methodist leaders' subsequent withdrawal from Anglicanism, English Methodists have come back home.
I think Wesley would have approved of this merger, but I think he'd say we have work to do. Visiting at Emory University, I heard Dr. Rex Matthews say that Methodism very well might have worked better as a reform movement than it did as its own denomination. So now that Churches are reunited, will we shed our ties to government? Will we move out of our old, dead buildings into gymnasiums and let those stone money-pits wither except for the few we turn into museums of a bygone age? If we can do these two things I humbly think we'll be well on our way to re-enlivening Christianity in England.
All I really know is that families are splitting up, reasonable people in government have poorly voted on illegal, personal war, and that lawyers are allowing lawsuits that make doctors, restaurant owners, and every other working person watch their every step with fear. Furthermore, Westerners are ignoring their neighbors because of their TV sets and forgetting the blessings of their bodies, friends, and nature. If that doesn't say that our culture needs the love of God through Christ, nothing else does, and if this merger means one less division within Christianity, then I am for it too.
I do not agree with a state-established Church. I believe that Constantine's involvement with Church polity--calling together the Council of Nicaea to reconcile differences between the East and West and consolidate doctrine and giving Christian soldiers Sundays off among other preferential treatment--was the start of Christianity's compromising shift from a radical, illegal community preaching good news to the poor to a well-financed religion that became status quo. Instead of radical people becoming Christians--and being known by their love--everyone became a Christian (at least nominally so), and the radical ones became the odd ones out within Roman culture.
It is with this lens then that I cast a wary eye on recent events in Britain. The Methodist Church, originally an Anglican reform movement, has re-merged into the state-supported Anglican Church.
State-established or not, there are some incredible people within the Church of England, our dear friend Nick Walsh included, and these people are doing amazing things for God, their hearts in the right place; for my mind, though, to be supported by state funds is to be in the state's pocket in some way. Often, the government does things of which the Church should not be supportive--torture is a good example--and if we are serious Christians, then we should be protesting this, or at least dropping down in prayer, wondering how the human spirit could get so low; but if our meal ticket comes from the government, then we are limited in our Christian nonviolent opposition, else our families go hungry. So we bite our lips and grow complacent, and the light of faith that burns within us becomes less recognizable as the spirit of Christ, for we are unequally yoked.
John Wesley, however, never focused on this high criticism. His concerns were more local, and the first time he was barred from preaching within the Church of England--as a student at Oxford--it was for asking, basically, "Are we a Christian nation? Nay!" For all its provocation, his concerns were local: instead of attacking the Church as a whole, he is really asking his listeners, "Are we owning our own faith, or are we status quo Christians? One look at government and we see we're not a Christian nation, and let's not worry about being one. How are we, in this room doing at being Christians?"
So Wesley called for reform, not separation. His focus was on the cobblers, the miners, and everyone else the Church of England was too nervous to reach out toward. Though he was, for most intents and purposes, shoved out of the Church, he never left it, to the chagrin of some of his fellow Methodist leaders. His movement challenged people to better their minds through learning, their bodies through exercise, and their spirits through integrity and a relationship with Christ. He read widely, and his own every-shifting theology drew from all over Christendom, from Eastern Orthodox all the way to Jonathan Edwards, (though throwing out the idea of double predestination wholesale). It was this movement he hoped would be a breath of fresh air to the Anglican Church and re-enliven it. And now, 219 years after Wesley's death and the Methodist leaders' subsequent withdrawal from Anglicanism, English Methodists have come back home.
I think Wesley would have approved of this merger, but I think he'd say we have work to do. Visiting at Emory University, I heard Dr. Rex Matthews say that Methodism very well might have worked better as a reform movement than it did as its own denomination. So now that Churches are reunited, will we shed our ties to government? Will we move out of our old, dead buildings into gymnasiums and let those stone money-pits wither except for the few we turn into museums of a bygone age? If we can do these two things I humbly think we'll be well on our way to re-enlivening Christianity in England.
All I really know is that families are splitting up, reasonable people in government have poorly voted on illegal, personal war, and that lawyers are allowing lawsuits that make doctors, restaurant owners, and every other working person watch their every step with fear. Furthermore, Westerners are ignoring their neighbors because of their TV sets and forgetting the blessings of their bodies, friends, and nature. If that doesn't say that our culture needs the love of God through Christ, nothing else does, and if this merger means one less division within Christianity, then I am for it too.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Impromptu
Dancing 'round the kitchen with the spindly ladies while the green
blog notebook lies shunned in my bag,
Lunch Club day with mince, sausages, potatoes I mashed, Coffee
Morning people hanging around and beans from a tin can,
Colorful aprons and ladies making salads, cheerful welcome to the
regulars from the market outside, the drop-in church members,
Old folks coming soon, the way we serve them, provide a cheap meal
and a place to be, most having nothing else to do,
The way they relate to Ryan and me the warm but one-sided way of a
pensioner with a grandchild.
The green book, my soul, crying out muffled like the devolving agony
of wool clothes in a dryer,
The atrophy of it, plate by plate, the conversations,
The pleasant sense of life almost complete, of children had,
Dreams done and dusted, like a period of architecture,
Feet on the mantelpiece, the relaxation of having done what you
wanted before your body wouldn't let you do it,
A sense of relaxation far from myself, almost subcontinental,
difficult to understand without seeing it in the flesh,
A pleasantness I cannot relate to, whose language I cannot speak.
And yet the wisdom of a well-furrowed brow, the capacity of old
smile lines to love,
If we are the young fighters who determine the course of earth with
our wits like blades and our loins,
In the categorization of old wisdom among the many good-and-ill
pursuits of modern knowledge,
Then let us find where our deep gladness and the world's deep hunger
meet and hence find our place,
Though we give great thanks for where we are we've no choice but to
pray, "O Lord, hasten to save",
For the world today is vast like the Fens, drained fertile and flat,
islands becoming towns surrounded by farmland and we can see
everything,
Hasten to save, because finding deep gladness now is like finding one
light against the multitude of stars, feeling alone against the barrage
and the smog and the miry firmament and that is if we have the
courage to open our eyes,
Because I'm trudging as it is, many-leveled and tired, scarcely able to
keep my eyes open to reality,
Preferring instead my imagination--what it is they must see--finally
from their linear home at the end of the world:
The constellations, so crisp in hindsight, set across the inky night sky
with peremptoriness.
blog notebook lies shunned in my bag,
Lunch Club day with mince, sausages, potatoes I mashed, Coffee
Morning people hanging around and beans from a tin can,
Colorful aprons and ladies making salads, cheerful welcome to the
regulars from the market outside, the drop-in church members,
Old folks coming soon, the way we serve them, provide a cheap meal
and a place to be, most having nothing else to do,
The way they relate to Ryan and me the warm but one-sided way of a
pensioner with a grandchild.
The green book, my soul, crying out muffled like the devolving agony
of wool clothes in a dryer,
The atrophy of it, plate by plate, the conversations,
The pleasant sense of life almost complete, of children had,
Dreams done and dusted, like a period of architecture,
Feet on the mantelpiece, the relaxation of having done what you
wanted before your body wouldn't let you do it,
A sense of relaxation far from myself, almost subcontinental,
difficult to understand without seeing it in the flesh,
A pleasantness I cannot relate to, whose language I cannot speak.
And yet the wisdom of a well-furrowed brow, the capacity of old
smile lines to love,
If we are the young fighters who determine the course of earth with
our wits like blades and our loins,
In the categorization of old wisdom among the many good-and-ill
pursuits of modern knowledge,
Then let us find where our deep gladness and the world's deep hunger
meet and hence find our place,
Though we give great thanks for where we are we've no choice but to
pray, "O Lord, hasten to save",
For the world today is vast like the Fens, drained fertile and flat,
islands becoming towns surrounded by farmland and we can see
everything,
Hasten to save, because finding deep gladness now is like finding one
light against the multitude of stars, feeling alone against the barrage
and the smog and the miry firmament and that is if we have the
courage to open our eyes,
Because I'm trudging as it is, many-leveled and tired, scarcely able to
keep my eyes open to reality,
Preferring instead my imagination--what it is they must see--finally
from their linear home at the end of the world:
The constellations, so crisp in hindsight, set across the inky night sky
with peremptoriness.
Light upon little ones
I try to teach little Ben a bit of science, mainly that if he keeps drooling on my mirrors not only is that gross, but the drools hampers and distorts his reflection. This strikes a chord of sorts, because Ben tells me he wants to be a scientist/ninja when he grows up, and reflections are important in that field, he says, reflections help detect evil. Come to think of it, ninjas do tend to be astute in physics and powder-making, and regardless, I am glad that Ben, with food still crusted all around his mouth, thinks that my station is fun, experimenting with lights when he could be making party hats.
This is Messy Church, a pilot outreach program at Deepings involving young kids playing for a bit, then doing crafts revolving around a particular message, then singing and hearing this particular message, then food, then done. Ann is making party hats, Ryan lanterns, and I have a bowl of water with floating candles in it, looking at how the light from the candles bounces, how we can reflect it, see the backs of our own heads. While Ben is still there, Adam (not me) comes along--about 8-10 years old--and we bond over elementary physics, having an awesome name, and not wanting Ben to get burned by the fire.
It's a successful day, and Ryan brings it full circle with the unveiling that Jesus is the light of the world. Not that, I should clarify, when we enter a dark room we should look for a Jesus and hold it up to see where the obstructive furniture is, rather that he is the light to our life. The kids are squirmy, but appreciative, and the parents I think really liked having someone else play with their kids for a little while.
Two extra things are worth mentioning: I have trouble saying "no" to children in things that I would have done myself at that age... or still do. So when Ben is drooling on my mirrors, I take the opportunity to teach him about how, when we do something like drool on the mirror, or wipe our hands across it, we obscure ourselves, and the mirror doesn't work as well. In the same vein, when I see youth club kids running around with a ball like crazy, I rarely stop them, knowing that not only would I have one the same thing--and may have learned a lesson by running smack into a wall--but I would have felt lame not running around with the ball. Yet there's only so much drool I can take before having to say, "Hey, little haas, that's gross." Perhaps when I have my own kids I shall do this better, because while I don't mind them running into a wall (though I don't want it), I really don't want them to be über-droolers.
Second, I phone Trevor to ask for mirrors while I am collecting as many as possible. He asks me how much I wanted, to which I say "All that I can get," which is true. So he makes some funny comment about exchange rates and begins to count mostly in twenties until we get to a hundred-and-thirty-something. Through his hearing aids, he thought I said "Euros", and though England is on the pound, he incredibly gathers all of the Euros in the house so that I might be able to use them. He and Val had some good mirrors too, but today his goodheartedness makes me feel very silly.
This is Messy Church, a pilot outreach program at Deepings involving young kids playing for a bit, then doing crafts revolving around a particular message, then singing and hearing this particular message, then food, then done. Ann is making party hats, Ryan lanterns, and I have a bowl of water with floating candles in it, looking at how the light from the candles bounces, how we can reflect it, see the backs of our own heads. While Ben is still there, Adam (not me) comes along--about 8-10 years old--and we bond over elementary physics, having an awesome name, and not wanting Ben to get burned by the fire.
It's a successful day, and Ryan brings it full circle with the unveiling that Jesus is the light of the world. Not that, I should clarify, when we enter a dark room we should look for a Jesus and hold it up to see where the obstructive furniture is, rather that he is the light to our life. The kids are squirmy, but appreciative, and the parents I think really liked having someone else play with their kids for a little while.
Two extra things are worth mentioning: I have trouble saying "no" to children in things that I would have done myself at that age... or still do. So when Ben is drooling on my mirrors, I take the opportunity to teach him about how, when we do something like drool on the mirror, or wipe our hands across it, we obscure ourselves, and the mirror doesn't work as well. In the same vein, when I see youth club kids running around with a ball like crazy, I rarely stop them, knowing that not only would I have one the same thing--and may have learned a lesson by running smack into a wall--but I would have felt lame not running around with the ball. Yet there's only so much drool I can take before having to say, "Hey, little haas, that's gross." Perhaps when I have my own kids I shall do this better, because while I don't mind them running into a wall (though I don't want it), I really don't want them to be über-droolers.
Second, I phone Trevor to ask for mirrors while I am collecting as many as possible. He asks me how much I wanted, to which I say "All that I can get," which is true. So he makes some funny comment about exchange rates and begins to count mostly in twenties until we get to a hundred-and-thirty-something. Through his hearing aids, he thought I said "Euros", and though England is on the pound, he incredibly gathers all of the Euros in the house so that I might be able to use them. He and Val had some good mirrors too, but today his goodheartedness makes me feel very silly.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
I need your help!
Picture it: miles of road, stretching out over the badlands, the mountains, the forests--which often coincide with the mountains--the lakes, the deserts, two different oceans, all things I've seen from twenty thousand feet in an airliner that now I'll be seeing from the ground up. It's a crazy idea, cycling across the United States, but I've been wanting to do it for years, even before I heard about Bike & Build when Cari Zylstra came back to Stetson to visit, completely ripped, after her summer of cycling and serving with Bike & Build.
Yet I cannot do it without your help. In contrast to many cycling-across-the-country programs, many of which put its participants up in nice hotels and feed them good meals, Bike & Build will see me sleeping on church floors, eating PB & J, and spending my days off on Habitat for Humanity build sites with new homeowners, pouring sweat equity into homes they have worked so hard for.
I'm excited about Bike & Build because it is a chance to take all the hardships of cycling across the country and use it to better people's lives. All of the proceeds that I raise for Bike & Build, after covering the basic costs of the trip, go entirely to affordable housing groups like Habitat for Humanity; and Bike & Build's extremely efficient, three-person staff make sure that there are as few overhead costs as possible, which has enabled riders like me to donate over 2.3 million dollars over seven summers.
For my part, I will be raising $4,000, cycling across the country with a team of around twenty, and sharing about the need for affordable housing--eliminating poverty-level, ramshackle-type housing as well as eliminating homelessness by providing building materials at wholesale prices to hardworking families who put days and days of "sweat equity" into their own homes--over potlucks with local churches, community centers, and more. Yet, to take it a step further, Bike & Build not only serves these groups, but also seeks to create a lifelong sense of service in its participants, which I am incredibly excited about, having sought to promote this same sense of service in my three years of campus ministry at the Wesley House in college.
Yet, as I said, I cannot do this without your help. Money is tight for everyone, but if everyone were able to give just $5, I would be very, very well along my way to my goal of $4,000. Yet I cannot say enough how vitally I need, even more than money, your prayers and support. This is a crazy time of life, but such an opportunity, and I want to be a good steward in as many different dimensions as possible! I want to bike, build, write, lift people up, and so much else. If you have hours to volunteer, please volunteer, if you have friends who like stories, share with them a bit of this crazy story as it goes on, if you have prayers, please lift us up, and the list goes on.
However, if you would like to support this cause financially,
1. Please visit this website: http://www.bikeandbuild.org/cms/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,118/
OR
Visit www.bikeandbuild.org and select "Donate" from the left-hand side of the page (this will lead you to the same page as the link above)
2. Select my name from the list of riders, which reads: "Darragh, Adam (SUS)" [I am taking the Southern US route, hence "SUS")
3. Donate!
Thank you for your support, in any way you can give it. Once again, no adventure is possible without the love and support of family and friends, and no part of the world can be made better without goodhearted people who support in whatever ways they can.
Yet I cannot do it without your help. In contrast to many cycling-across-the-country programs, many of which put its participants up in nice hotels and feed them good meals, Bike & Build will see me sleeping on church floors, eating PB & J, and spending my days off on Habitat for Humanity build sites with new homeowners, pouring sweat equity into homes they have worked so hard for.
I'm excited about Bike & Build because it is a chance to take all the hardships of cycling across the country and use it to better people's lives. All of the proceeds that I raise for Bike & Build, after covering the basic costs of the trip, go entirely to affordable housing groups like Habitat for Humanity; and Bike & Build's extremely efficient, three-person staff make sure that there are as few overhead costs as possible, which has enabled riders like me to donate over 2.3 million dollars over seven summers.
For my part, I will be raising $4,000, cycling across the country with a team of around twenty, and sharing about the need for affordable housing--eliminating poverty-level, ramshackle-type housing as well as eliminating homelessness by providing building materials at wholesale prices to hardworking families who put days and days of "sweat equity" into their own homes--over potlucks with local churches, community centers, and more. Yet, to take it a step further, Bike & Build not only serves these groups, but also seeks to create a lifelong sense of service in its participants, which I am incredibly excited about, having sought to promote this same sense of service in my three years of campus ministry at the Wesley House in college.
Yet, as I said, I cannot do this without your help. Money is tight for everyone, but if everyone were able to give just $5, I would be very, very well along my way to my goal of $4,000. Yet I cannot say enough how vitally I need, even more than money, your prayers and support. This is a crazy time of life, but such an opportunity, and I want to be a good steward in as many different dimensions as possible! I want to bike, build, write, lift people up, and so much else. If you have hours to volunteer, please volunteer, if you have friends who like stories, share with them a bit of this crazy story as it goes on, if you have prayers, please lift us up, and the list goes on.
However, if you would like to support this cause financially,
1. Please visit this website: http://www.bikeandbuild.org/cms/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,118/
OR
Visit www.bikeandbuild.org and select "Donate" from the left-hand side of the page (this will lead you to the same page as the link above)
2. Select my name from the list of riders, which reads: "Darragh, Adam (SUS)" [I am taking the Southern US route, hence "SUS")
3. Donate!
Thank you for your support, in any way you can give it. Once again, no adventure is possible without the love and support of family and friends, and no part of the world can be made better without goodhearted people who support in whatever ways they can.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Minding Manors
Thurlby Manor hangs back from the main road, ensconced in black that headlights set upon like murky dishwater. It's a huge place, with acres of adjacent land leased about to farmers (not serfs, I asked), the place itself a massive house of three living rooms, innumerable bedrooms, 1720s construction and caramel-bricked Victorian additions. Ann and Tom welcome us in the old milking parlor / kitchen and introduce us to the whole wing of the house in which we will be staying and all the ghosts therein.
Miriam, holding the best cup of coffee in the Isles confronts me, her Northern Irish accent popping like green firewood: "I organize your whole life," she says, all the hymnals and DVDs we've borrowed peering back at me with glow-in-the-dark dog eyes. "I cut your hair, too. Why aren't I in your blog?" I start to say something, but then Jim stands up beside her, long and thin, "What about when we watched Burn After Reading and George Clooney..." But Jim falls asleep during movies! "But you fall asleep during movies, Jim," "Yes," he says, "but when George Clooney finally shows the audience the type of chair he's making and you all screamed in shock and laughter and I jumped off of the couch as if there were a fire and I was ready to run outside--that didn't make it into your blog?"
I'm kind of left stuttering, the long, perfect-for-pacing-while-writing halls beginning to fill with ghosts.
"It's about time you put me in your blog," Carol says impatiently. "You've borrowed my Barack Obama and Bill Bryson books!" Her husband, Brian, standing over her shoulder, "And she got you started on having peanut butter with your porridge, which everyone seems to think is so American and strange." I tell them I have no time, to which Carol replies with a curt "Quite right, quite right," and then bursts into laughter for about two seconds, her whole face lighting up. Then it's serious. "What about," she asks, "when I told Ryan, you know, 'You're not short, but you're not tall for an American, are you?' That was one of the first things I said to you. And that doesn't get into the blog?"
"Carol, you're getting out of character, and where did Miriam go?"
Crap, the zombies about which I am writing a philosophical screenplay are totally taking up my pacing space, and walking in front of the TV on which we are watching television ambrosia: the Winter Olympics. The former pastor, William, and his sons are throwing snowballs at me too, and one of them nails me in the eye just as my eyelid closes--a move which commands respect. They're totally blocking my view of doubles luge, but such is the case with unwritten-about zombies, Olympians, pastors-sons-who-love-art-and-metal, and don't even get me started on all of the annoyed literary devices that hang around demanding inclusion. Allusion is giving me a look that's almost as awkward as the prospect of donning spandex and laying flat back on my teammate at 85 miles per hour, that is to say, doubles luge.
Miriam, holding the best cup of coffee in the Isles confronts me, her Northern Irish accent popping like green firewood: "I organize your whole life," she says, all the hymnals and DVDs we've borrowed peering back at me with glow-in-the-dark dog eyes. "I cut your hair, too. Why aren't I in your blog?" I start to say something, but then Jim stands up beside her, long and thin, "What about when we watched Burn After Reading and George Clooney..." But Jim falls asleep during movies! "But you fall asleep during movies, Jim," "Yes," he says, "but when George Clooney finally shows the audience the type of chair he's making and you all screamed in shock and laughter and I jumped off of the couch as if there were a fire and I was ready to run outside--that didn't make it into your blog?"
I'm kind of left stuttering, the long, perfect-for-pacing-while-writing halls beginning to fill with ghosts.
"It's about time you put me in your blog," Carol says impatiently. "You've borrowed my Barack Obama and Bill Bryson books!" Her husband, Brian, standing over her shoulder, "And she got you started on having peanut butter with your porridge, which everyone seems to think is so American and strange." I tell them I have no time, to which Carol replies with a curt "Quite right, quite right," and then bursts into laughter for about two seconds, her whole face lighting up. Then it's serious. "What about," she asks, "when I told Ryan, you know, 'You're not short, but you're not tall for an American, are you?' That was one of the first things I said to you. And that doesn't get into the blog?"
"Carol, you're getting out of character, and where did Miriam go?"
Crap, the zombies about which I am writing a philosophical screenplay are totally taking up my pacing space, and walking in front of the TV on which we are watching television ambrosia: the Winter Olympics. The former pastor, William, and his sons are throwing snowballs at me too, and one of them nails me in the eye just as my eyelid closes--a move which commands respect. They're totally blocking my view of doubles luge, but such is the case with unwritten-about zombies, Olympians, pastors-sons-who-love-art-and-metal, and don't even get me started on all of the annoyed literary devices that hang around demanding inclusion. Allusion is giving me a look that's almost as awkward as the prospect of donning spandex and laying flat back on my teammate at 85 miles per hour, that is to say, doubles luge.
Lunching with the theologian
Don and Joan look at each other with eyes that are at the same time loving, deep, and hungry. It is the healthy look of newlyweds, in black and white, the same look they carry about themselves sixty-two years later, though mealtime is over. A war bride, Joan married into an age of rationing, she and Don--like many of our congregations--substantiating their diets with their own vegetables and the local rabbit population, practicing simple maths by counting the planes going overhead toward Germany and subtracting the remainders as they came back.
Don is our stooping theologian, an indefatigable spirit with a deep well of a mind, slowed only by two hip replacements and hearing aids that make crowded lunch clubs sound like white metal concerts. Joan darkens the door of lunch club to check on us, and just stand there, her smile a billboard across her face enhanced by old smile lines.
We talk for four and a half hours. About future. About the recent merger of the English Methodist Church back with the Church of England (which I will write about soon!) About postmodernism and how Don is worried about it, but how I feel that's just the tide changing--like the dawn of punk and the controversy they created--and how we need to roll with it and, daresay, enjoy it. How more important than anything in ministry to young people--apart from love--is honesty. We're all messed up people, right? Saved by grace or not?
We're at the extremes of age, Ryan and me at 23, Don and Joan in their 80s, but we are revolutionaries. We think Jesus is cool and must love God and neighbor--and we disagree on a ton--but we have the core! I would even venture to say that, should we have to flee earth on a spaceship because--and Ryan and I talk about this--global warming drowns the polar bears and the moose begin to take over the earth--then I think we'd be a pretty good team, their wisdom with our enthusiasm, their visioneering with our steadfast ability to... um... communicate with space moose?
Don is our stooping theologian, an indefatigable spirit with a deep well of a mind, slowed only by two hip replacements and hearing aids that make crowded lunch clubs sound like white metal concerts. Joan darkens the door of lunch club to check on us, and just stand there, her smile a billboard across her face enhanced by old smile lines.
We talk for four and a half hours. About future. About the recent merger of the English Methodist Church back with the Church of England (which I will write about soon!) About postmodernism and how Don is worried about it, but how I feel that's just the tide changing--like the dawn of punk and the controversy they created--and how we need to roll with it and, daresay, enjoy it. How more important than anything in ministry to young people--apart from love--is honesty. We're all messed up people, right? Saved by grace or not?
We're at the extremes of age, Ryan and me at 23, Don and Joan in their 80s, but we are revolutionaries. We think Jesus is cool and must love God and neighbor--and we disagree on a ton--but we have the core! I would even venture to say that, should we have to flee earth on a spaceship because--and Ryan and I talk about this--global warming drowns the polar bears and the moose begin to take over the earth--then I think we'd be a pretty good team, their wisdom with our enthusiasm, their visioneering with our steadfast ability to... um... communicate with space moose?
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Birmingham
This past weekend, went to Birmingham. But we didn't go to Birmingham. We went to Stratford, which is just outside of Birmingham, and we went to a church that is based in Birmingham yet has a satellite church in Stratford--we went to church on a satellite!--then watched Ireland play poorly and lose and England play poorly but win in rugby at a house in suburb of Birmingham that is not Birmingham--it's a suburb--but, like the New Jersey suburbs of New York City, these suburbs get called "Birmingham" by people far away, but really people?! Poor suburbs and their self-identification issues.
We are in Birmingham/not-Birmingham because Val and Trevor have whisked us away. They are pensioners, like most everyone in our congregation, and Trevor has hearing aids which mean that he sometimes rather humorously doesn't hear us when we speak to him, but their wit is sharp as new Armani. Their 37 year-old daughter, Lucy, lives here, and it is at her house we watch rugby in between visiting William Shakespeare's birthplace and eating handmade burgers and drinking English bitter, liking in particular a company called "Badger" because animals make anything better--we sojourners here are easily amused--and badgers are especially random and wonderful.
To top it off, we visit Lucy's church, a recently-charismatic-but-now-switched-to-Free-Methodist-for-reasons-I'm-not-sure-of-but-aren't-because-of-any-ill-will, and it is called "Renewal." We go to two services with her, one in Stratford--the satellite!--and one in Birmingham proper, and it is warm to be in the company of modern worship, preaching that we can really can sink our twentysomething teeth into because we relate to it, and, as ridiculous as it sounds, the renewal we feel being the the company of young people and, in particular, pretty girls. For some reason, out of all of the single ladies in our patch, the fifty-year age difference at minimum is just off-putting. I say this in jest, but perhaps it is like a freshwater fish swimming up through brackish water. We are moving fine, doing good things in our part of the sea, but it feels so good to spend some time back in our stream, where the wonderment about future and catharsis about the state of the world are shared, the sense of excitement it brings to take a deep breath and just be oneself among a school of friends.
We are in Birmingham/not-Birmingham because Val and Trevor have whisked us away. They are pensioners, like most everyone in our congregation, and Trevor has hearing aids which mean that he sometimes rather humorously doesn't hear us when we speak to him, but their wit is sharp as new Armani. Their 37 year-old daughter, Lucy, lives here, and it is at her house we watch rugby in between visiting William Shakespeare's birthplace and eating handmade burgers and drinking English bitter, liking in particular a company called "Badger" because animals make anything better--we sojourners here are easily amused--and badgers are especially random and wonderful.
To top it off, we visit Lucy's church, a recently-charismatic-but-now-switched-to-Free-Methodist-for-reasons-I'm-not-sure-of-but-aren't-because-of-any-ill-will, and it is called "Renewal." We go to two services with her, one in Stratford--the satellite!--and one in Birmingham proper, and it is warm to be in the company of modern worship, preaching that we can really can sink our twentysomething teeth into because we relate to it, and, as ridiculous as it sounds, the renewal we feel being the the company of young people and, in particular, pretty girls. For some reason, out of all of the single ladies in our patch, the fifty-year age difference at minimum is just off-putting. I say this in jest, but perhaps it is like a freshwater fish swimming up through brackish water. We are moving fine, doing good things in our part of the sea, but it feels so good to spend some time back in our stream, where the wonderment about future and catharsis about the state of the world are shared, the sense of excitement it brings to take a deep breath and just be oneself among a school of friends.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Epworth
The man with the fluffy white wig, buckled shoes, and a lit candle tells us that if John Wesley were hanging around now, he definitely would have an iPod. We are following him through Epworth, the birthplace of John Wesley, and we follow the dual lights of his candle and that of his companion, a woman in an 18th Century dress who trails behind us.
As a Christian, a Methodist, and a Wesley scholar, this is a site of pilgrimage for me: the site of the original rectory which, burning down in an unfortunate and suspect fire, saw the six year-old John escape just before the house collapsed, plucked from the second-story window "like a brand from the burning"; the kitchen in which Susanna, his mother, began a church meeting for over 150 people when the local vicar, who was replacing her husband while he was away, was stilted and ineffective--and over which, when the replacement wrote to Samuel [the father] to complain that this woman was undermining him, Samuel told her to cease and desist, to which Susanna replied, basically: "He's not doing it. If you want to restrict the Lord's work, then sure, I'll stop, but that will be on your head." She was a cool lady.
This is the place where John and Charles received much of their schooling, experienced their fireball of a mother who laid the groundwork for all of the organizing work they would later do. Where Charles wrote the first of his 6000+ hymns. Where, when John was barred from the Anglican Church, he ascended the only place he was legally allowed to do so--his father's grave--and preached the Good News to the common folk in the open air and drew great crowds.
About the only thing I remember from my last visit here in 2003 is the dressy Madame Toussade's wire-based figurine of Wesley, and how short the man was. He's still just as short, but I am surprised now by how much open space there is in the Old Rectory, that is to say, the house. Samuel was a chronic debtor, which meant that upon his death the house and everything in it was quickly scattered to the four winds in repayment. Epworth itself, a family home at least since the Wesleys moved in in 1695, then remained a family home until the 1950s when it became the preserved site it is nowadays, though the wide rooms and short carpet remind me less of the period furniture scattered well about than the days of one-TV-families, "Leave it to Beaver", and Frigidaires.
But it's not about whether it looked exactly the same in Wesley's day. It's about being the presence of a history that has changed the history of the world. That changed the face of Christian ethics. That called the Anglican Church to task and reminds us to love people who don't look like us, because they are just as much God's children as we are. That brought hope to the lower classes, which, some folks are telling me over here, prevented a second Civil War in England, sparked by the French Revolution.
Looking at Samuel's commentary on Job in Latin and his novelization of "The Life of Christ" in heroic couplets, Charles' music stand that saw so many uses, I taste and am challenged by that history. I learn more: not only was John a preacher, ethicist, organizer, activist, hymn-writer, and diarist, he also wrote a book for a time when physicians were scarce and health care was nonexistent. "Primitive Physic" offers simple, natural remedies to common maladies, which very well may heal a person, though, if it didn't, the solutions would do no harm. It's simple stuff, like "Please eat well and exercise, and don't drink beer or liquor when you're pregnant," but it was positively revolutionary when most people couldn't get such knowledge elsewhere... and the proceeds from the book paid for clinic costs Wesley started at at least three different churches where people could receive free health care.
As we leave, I think about that book, which I never came upon in all of my Wesley research, and was shocked to find, as it's so different from everything else he's written. How much time do I spend on the things that I find fascinating, and how much time do I sit still, waiting for the rain of life to stop so I can go back to being productive? I know that life is not all about productivity, but I have been given a great curiosity for languages, a strong desire to jot down poems as they randomly come to mind, wherever I am, and abdominal muscles that would love to see the light of day, among other things. While Wesley may or may not have had a six-pack, and certainly had a hard time sitting still and enjoying a place before he moved on, he was very good at carving out time to be a good steward of all of his interests; all of his diverse publications support that thought.
I want to be like that. I want the Dewey Decimal System to find my name scattered all across the various sections of the library. I want Google to fall into tears of frustration as it pulls up: "Poet, Playwright, Minister, Filmmaker, Friend, Father, Son, Brother, Lover, Musician, Journalist... can this all be the same guy?!" Yes, Google, cry your tears because I have much to be a good steward of, and too much zest for life to let you compartmentalize me.
As a Christian, a Methodist, and a Wesley scholar, this is a site of pilgrimage for me: the site of the original rectory which, burning down in an unfortunate and suspect fire, saw the six year-old John escape just before the house collapsed, plucked from the second-story window "like a brand from the burning"; the kitchen in which Susanna, his mother, began a church meeting for over 150 people when the local vicar, who was replacing her husband while he was away, was stilted and ineffective--and over which, when the replacement wrote to Samuel [the father] to complain that this woman was undermining him, Samuel told her to cease and desist, to which Susanna replied, basically: "He's not doing it. If you want to restrict the Lord's work, then sure, I'll stop, but that will be on your head." She was a cool lady.
This is the place where John and Charles received much of their schooling, experienced their fireball of a mother who laid the groundwork for all of the organizing work they would later do. Where Charles wrote the first of his 6000+ hymns. Where, when John was barred from the Anglican Church, he ascended the only place he was legally allowed to do so--his father's grave--and preached the Good News to the common folk in the open air and drew great crowds.
About the only thing I remember from my last visit here in 2003 is the dressy Madame Toussade's wire-based figurine of Wesley, and how short the man was. He's still just as short, but I am surprised now by how much open space there is in the Old Rectory, that is to say, the house. Samuel was a chronic debtor, which meant that upon his death the house and everything in it was quickly scattered to the four winds in repayment. Epworth itself, a family home at least since the Wesleys moved in in 1695, then remained a family home until the 1950s when it became the preserved site it is nowadays, though the wide rooms and short carpet remind me less of the period furniture scattered well about than the days of one-TV-families, "Leave it to Beaver", and Frigidaires.
But it's not about whether it looked exactly the same in Wesley's day. It's about being the presence of a history that has changed the history of the world. That changed the face of Christian ethics. That called the Anglican Church to task and reminds us to love people who don't look like us, because they are just as much God's children as we are. That brought hope to the lower classes, which, some folks are telling me over here, prevented a second Civil War in England, sparked by the French Revolution.
Looking at Samuel's commentary on Job in Latin and his novelization of "The Life of Christ" in heroic couplets, Charles' music stand that saw so many uses, I taste and am challenged by that history. I learn more: not only was John a preacher, ethicist, organizer, activist, hymn-writer, and diarist, he also wrote a book for a time when physicians were scarce and health care was nonexistent. "Primitive Physic" offers simple, natural remedies to common maladies, which very well may heal a person, though, if it didn't, the solutions would do no harm. It's simple stuff, like "Please eat well and exercise, and don't drink beer or liquor when you're pregnant," but it was positively revolutionary when most people couldn't get such knowledge elsewhere... and the proceeds from the book paid for clinic costs Wesley started at at least three different churches where people could receive free health care.
As we leave, I think about that book, which I never came upon in all of my Wesley research, and was shocked to find, as it's so different from everything else he's written. How much time do I spend on the things that I find fascinating, and how much time do I sit still, waiting for the rain of life to stop so I can go back to being productive? I know that life is not all about productivity, but I have been given a great curiosity for languages, a strong desire to jot down poems as they randomly come to mind, wherever I am, and abdominal muscles that would love to see the light of day, among other things. While Wesley may or may not have had a six-pack, and certainly had a hard time sitting still and enjoying a place before he moved on, he was very good at carving out time to be a good steward of all of his interests; all of his diverse publications support that thought.
I want to be like that. I want the Dewey Decimal System to find my name scattered all across the various sections of the library. I want Google to fall into tears of frustration as it pulls up: "Poet, Playwright, Minister, Filmmaker, Friend, Father, Son, Brother, Lover, Musician, Journalist... can this all be the same guy?!" Yes, Google, cry your tears because I have much to be a good steward of, and too much zest for life to let you compartmentalize me.
Monday, February 15, 2010
A quarry to be pursued
Ryan’s heart is kind and pure and is both augmented and offset by creatively thought out and tended facial hair. We are direly in need of haircuts as well, as we both tend to be both sides of the ocean, and both sides of the ocean we both tend to attract unwanted advances from God’s children that we try to play out the best we can. For example, our bear-like appearance—substantiated by the fact that we randomly shift into bad German and Deep Southern accents and our bloodshot eyes from using old contacts that we should have disposed of months ago but don’t because they still work and we’re really cheap—tends to encourage young people to ask us if we have any pot. We do not.
Now this is not to say that there are any people in the world that we do not want to talk to—everyone is one of God’s children and, being that, deserves to be loved and heard out!—just that everyone of these children has many facets to their personalities and there are certain facets we would prefer were not enlivened in our presence. For example, an elderly man may find the advances of an eighty year-old woman entirely positive, perhaps creating an air of enticement in the room, the heart-drum sounding out both parties’ nervous energy in faster and faster strokes, until it rolls like it hasn’t in years… but such enticement is lost on a twentysomething who isn’t used to this sort of flirtation from anyone, who sees in this person his grandma, and responds: “Uh… Thanks?” And we are flattered, just not used to being flattered as plainly as a woman hugging Ryan the other day and longingly saying, almost unconsciously, “Beard!!!!... I haven’t felt one of those in a long time…” Awkward, but flattering.
For me, I see the pot requests, the fixation of old ladies, and have to look up and say, “Um… do I give off this impression?” Adding to it, ever since working in Dupont Circle I tend to get hit on by random dudes, whether it’s as simple as a random Spanish dude subtly dropping his number on my table or a guy at Starbucks reaching across the counter because I forgot to shave off the soul patch for work and the dude wanted to touch it and I wasn’t paying attention. While some folks would jump at the chance for this attention, I don’t quite understand why I enliven this in people. I think creative facial hair and crazy regularhair has something to do with it, but at least my chill grooming habits—both in the States and abroad—doesn’t set off police intuition…
So Ryan is in the Bourne Post Office, this little building in the middle of a sleepy little town of residences, coaching inns, and stream-borne ducks and swans. I’ve headed home, and am wandering around looking at the black swans who sleep humorously balanced on one foot with their long necks twisted back, resting their heads on the pillows of their wings, but Ryan has dropped into the Post Office to send a quick Valentines note to his mom when two police officers slide up beside him. “Sir?” one officer asks, startling our bearded protagonist, who fears he has been loitering. The officer continues: “Have you been knocking on doors?”
Our hero replies: “No, sir, I have not.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir, I’m quite sure…” All that’s on the card so far is “Happy Valentines Day, Mom, Love, Ryan” and the other folks in the Post Office are listening curiously.
“When you finish, can you step outside so we can talk to you?”
“Well, when I finish, can I get postage and mail it?”
“Sure…” The other officer buts in, “Sir, from your accent, I gather you’re an American?” he asks.
“Yes I am, I’m from the States. Do I need to show any ID?”
“No, no ID,” and they leave.
Less than a minute later, a third police officer comes up and asks, “Do you know where Victoria Place is?”
“No,” says the bearded hero, much confused by now.
“We have a match of you CCTV.”
“What match?” the Florida bear says, startled.
“Blue jeans, blue jacket, backpack, and beanie.”
Ryan swallows. “Did he have a beard?” he asks appropriately--an appropriate question for any occasion--“or long hair?”
“No, we didn’t get any of those descriptions.” Then he leaves as well.
The three officers stand in the doorway of the Post Office, and a policewoman outside gives him a solemn wave. There is the voice of another beyond the window. Five officers. Later, Ryan relates their stances to mean, instead of just checking up on what’s going on, they are standing, saying, “I’m hunting you.” That is, until one says, “Well, I’m not gonna bring him in.” The woman shakes her head: “I don’t think it’s him, guys,” she says. The third adds: “He’s writing a Valentine to his mom,” then they go outside.
Finally, when Ryan exits the shop, he is the only one there apart from the random passerby. The police have all left.
Turns out, Colin says, that they were probably all community service officers and would have no authority to make arrests, probably just responding to someone going door-to-door asking for money as tends to happen in Bourne, which Ryan would not do. Yet in the States he has been pulled over several times and not charged, like when he swerved to avoid an armadillo on a deserted road in New Smyrna the police officer called for three cars’ worth of backup. It was innocent then, as it was innocent now, but one wonders, is it the beard, or do police officers, as well as old ladies, feel the need to take part in his humble awesomeness like children to sugar candy or bees to doing the waggle dance?
Now this is not to say that there are any people in the world that we do not want to talk to—everyone is one of God’s children and, being that, deserves to be loved and heard out!—just that everyone of these children has many facets to their personalities and there are certain facets we would prefer were not enlivened in our presence. For example, an elderly man may find the advances of an eighty year-old woman entirely positive, perhaps creating an air of enticement in the room, the heart-drum sounding out both parties’ nervous energy in faster and faster strokes, until it rolls like it hasn’t in years… but such enticement is lost on a twentysomething who isn’t used to this sort of flirtation from anyone, who sees in this person his grandma, and responds: “Uh… Thanks?” And we are flattered, just not used to being flattered as plainly as a woman hugging Ryan the other day and longingly saying, almost unconsciously, “Beard!!!!... I haven’t felt one of those in a long time…” Awkward, but flattering.
For me, I see the pot requests, the fixation of old ladies, and have to look up and say, “Um… do I give off this impression?” Adding to it, ever since working in Dupont Circle I tend to get hit on by random dudes, whether it’s as simple as a random Spanish dude subtly dropping his number on my table or a guy at Starbucks reaching across the counter because I forgot to shave off the soul patch for work and the dude wanted to touch it and I wasn’t paying attention. While some folks would jump at the chance for this attention, I don’t quite understand why I enliven this in people. I think creative facial hair and crazy regularhair has something to do with it, but at least my chill grooming habits—both in the States and abroad—doesn’t set off police intuition…
So Ryan is in the Bourne Post Office, this little building in the middle of a sleepy little town of residences, coaching inns, and stream-borne ducks and swans. I’ve headed home, and am wandering around looking at the black swans who sleep humorously balanced on one foot with their long necks twisted back, resting their heads on the pillows of their wings, but Ryan has dropped into the Post Office to send a quick Valentines note to his mom when two police officers slide up beside him. “Sir?” one officer asks, startling our bearded protagonist, who fears he has been loitering. The officer continues: “Have you been knocking on doors?”
Our hero replies: “No, sir, I have not.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir, I’m quite sure…” All that’s on the card so far is “Happy Valentines Day, Mom, Love, Ryan” and the other folks in the Post Office are listening curiously.
“When you finish, can you step outside so we can talk to you?”
“Well, when I finish, can I get postage and mail it?”
“Sure…” The other officer buts in, “Sir, from your accent, I gather you’re an American?” he asks.
“Yes I am, I’m from the States. Do I need to show any ID?”
“No, no ID,” and they leave.
Less than a minute later, a third police officer comes up and asks, “Do you know where Victoria Place is?”
“No,” says the bearded hero, much confused by now.
“We have a match of you CCTV.”
“What match?” the Florida bear says, startled.
“Blue jeans, blue jacket, backpack, and beanie.”
Ryan swallows. “Did he have a beard?” he asks appropriately--an appropriate question for any occasion--“or long hair?”
“No, we didn’t get any of those descriptions.” Then he leaves as well.
The three officers stand in the doorway of the Post Office, and a policewoman outside gives him a solemn wave. There is the voice of another beyond the window. Five officers. Later, Ryan relates their stances to mean, instead of just checking up on what’s going on, they are standing, saying, “I’m hunting you.” That is, until one says, “Well, I’m not gonna bring him in.” The woman shakes her head: “I don’t think it’s him, guys,” she says. The third adds: “He’s writing a Valentine to his mom,” then they go outside.
Finally, when Ryan exits the shop, he is the only one there apart from the random passerby. The police have all left.
Turns out, Colin says, that they were probably all community service officers and would have no authority to make arrests, probably just responding to someone going door-to-door asking for money as tends to happen in Bourne, which Ryan would not do. Yet in the States he has been pulled over several times and not charged, like when he swerved to avoid an armadillo on a deserted road in New Smyrna the police officer called for three cars’ worth of backup. It was innocent then, as it was innocent now, but one wonders, is it the beard, or do police officers, as well as old ladies, feel the need to take part in his humble awesomeness like children to sugar candy or bees to doing the waggle dance?
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The prowlers
Today Eve is a case-in-point. She is about 4.5 feet tall, hunch included, with smile wrinkles deeply traces around her mouth and mischievous eyes not dulled a bit by her ninety years. For some reason, she reminds me of a meerkat, the way she carries herself, never up to her full height, but always looking like she is about to call out to someone or be otherwise up to no good. That said, she also loves her domain, among the other pensioners, World War II vets, farmers, schoolteachers, and they love her.
She's a celebrity of sorts at Lunch Club--she has a walk-on role in the Bourne town pantomime, where she plays the villager who catches the Big Bad Wolf--and Ryan and I are obligated (as it goes with old ladies) to come over and give her a hug, and Even and I often joke about the significance of our names. Today, though, she's standing up. I bring over some water and a gentleman at her table I don't know stands up and Eve grabs my hand. The gentleman proceeds to get the whole room's attention and says, "You may know that we have two young men from America helping us. Well, this is Eve," he points, "and this is Adam." The whole room gasps.
"You know what Eve did to Adam, right?" Oh, they know, and he doesn't need to say anything as Eve pulls out an apple and presents it to me. Now I can either run away and hide or enjoy the moment, so I take it and take a huge bite, though, as I begin to hold it high, someone shouts, too late, "But it's the apple of temptation!" But the deed is done. Then Trevor pops up completely randomly from the middle of the room and says, "Adam! Did you eat of the apple I have forbidden you?" I say nothing until I have hidden from Trevor behind the minuscule form of Eve, when, safe from his momentarily-deified eyes, I say the only logical thing one can say in that situation: "The woman made me do it!"
Everybody laughs and I shake my head with a mixture of disbelief and awesomeness for having pulled it off so well; a heterogeneous mixture, however, because no disbelief or sense of awesomeness can hide the uncomfortableness of being hit on by old ladies. It is as if all propriety has gone out the window and, if they want to flirt, they say what they want to say.
Looking at women my own age, I wonder if I would want this or be terrified by such forthrightness. I am a dreamer, and I must say that I am attracted to a woman who can support me when I'm right and tell me when she thinks I'm wrong with no ifs, ands, or buts, though in a loving way. Yet this is a type of forthrightness that I believe only elderly folks can get away with without seeming creepy. It's likened to Rev and I sitting our grandkids down one day and going through an animated reading of the entire script of Star Wars: A New Hope. We could do that now, but it would be weird; if we do it then, the kids have to listen, because it's grandpa and grandpa's Turkish-speaking little brother.
Granted, I've worked at Starbucks in Dupont Circle and getting hit on by people whose personalities, ages, and genders I am not interested in no longer bothers me. It doesn't much flatter me, but I deal with it well. I am Spiderman, after all. Yet Ryan and I will hang out with Eve any time, because she's as mischievous and ready for a joke as we are. In front of everyone, she gives me another apple and points out Ryan on the other side of the room and says, "This is for your friend, there." So Eve is awesome, as are so many tenderhearted old folks who regularly warm us with their company. Yet, like Starbucks, there are always a few who cross the line into uncomfortable/hilarious-if-you-look-at-it-right territory, as a woman did who just had cataracts surgery who wanted a hug before she dropped her hand to my rear and said, "Oh! I'll touch your bum." I laugh and give her friends a hug too, because, honestly, I don't know how even Spiderman would have dealt with that.
She's a celebrity of sorts at Lunch Club--she has a walk-on role in the Bourne town pantomime, where she plays the villager who catches the Big Bad Wolf--and Ryan and I are obligated (as it goes with old ladies) to come over and give her a hug, and Even and I often joke about the significance of our names. Today, though, she's standing up. I bring over some water and a gentleman at her table I don't know stands up and Eve grabs my hand. The gentleman proceeds to get the whole room's attention and says, "You may know that we have two young men from America helping us. Well, this is Eve," he points, "and this is Adam." The whole room gasps.
"You know what Eve did to Adam, right?" Oh, they know, and he doesn't need to say anything as Eve pulls out an apple and presents it to me. Now I can either run away and hide or enjoy the moment, so I take it and take a huge bite, though, as I begin to hold it high, someone shouts, too late, "But it's the apple of temptation!" But the deed is done. Then Trevor pops up completely randomly from the middle of the room and says, "Adam! Did you eat of the apple I have forbidden you?" I say nothing until I have hidden from Trevor behind the minuscule form of Eve, when, safe from his momentarily-deified eyes, I say the only logical thing one can say in that situation: "The woman made me do it!"
Everybody laughs and I shake my head with a mixture of disbelief and awesomeness for having pulled it off so well; a heterogeneous mixture, however, because no disbelief or sense of awesomeness can hide the uncomfortableness of being hit on by old ladies. It is as if all propriety has gone out the window and, if they want to flirt, they say what they want to say.
Looking at women my own age, I wonder if I would want this or be terrified by such forthrightness. I am a dreamer, and I must say that I am attracted to a woman who can support me when I'm right and tell me when she thinks I'm wrong with no ifs, ands, or buts, though in a loving way. Yet this is a type of forthrightness that I believe only elderly folks can get away with without seeming creepy. It's likened to Rev and I sitting our grandkids down one day and going through an animated reading of the entire script of Star Wars: A New Hope. We could do that now, but it would be weird; if we do it then, the kids have to listen, because it's grandpa and grandpa's Turkish-speaking little brother.
Granted, I've worked at Starbucks in Dupont Circle and getting hit on by people whose personalities, ages, and genders I am not interested in no longer bothers me. It doesn't much flatter me, but I deal with it well. I am Spiderman, after all. Yet Ryan and I will hang out with Eve any time, because she's as mischievous and ready for a joke as we are. In front of everyone, she gives me another apple and points out Ryan on the other side of the room and says, "This is for your friend, there." So Eve is awesome, as are so many tenderhearted old folks who regularly warm us with their company. Yet, like Starbucks, there are always a few who cross the line into uncomfortable/hilarious-if-you-look-at-it-right territory, as a woman did who just had cataracts surgery who wanted a hug before she dropped her hand to my rear and said, "Oh! I'll touch your bum." I laugh and give her friends a hug too, because, honestly, I don't know how even Spiderman would have dealt with that.
BBC One, BBC Two...
The BBC is a model of journalism and programming greatness. Of course, I can only really compare it to the States' broadcast news, but I remember Jesse and I hanging out in our room in Panajachel, Guatemala, with a full range of cable channels, and we chose the BBC World News. Reporters actually get screen time and are encouraged to delve deep into their stories! No one gets a microphone shoved into their face! It is informative, relatively unbiased; it is like NPR for the eyes!
Making the BBC even cooler is that it broadcast the Super Bowl. After a great night of television, from the joys and trials of small town, Victorian life in Lark Rise to Candleford to the rare paintings and 7-foot-long broadswords of The Seven Ages of Britain, all excellently written and funded shows from the people who brought us Planet Earth, Rome, and a ridiculously long, but authoritative version of Pride and Prejudice.
All that to say, we were thrilled when we began to hear the overly-dramatic orchestra-rock of the greatest sporting event in the history of 2010. Here, it began briefly with Alex Smith of the 49ers and Rod Woodson from the Hall of Fame talking to various British commentators before it switched and the voices of Phil Simms and Jim Nantz filled the room like a thousand tiny violins... and, for the sake of this story, these are soothing, homelike violins, like the voices of friends or peanut butter. We are thankful to the BBC for providing this moment and when kickoff happens and we get ready for one of the best things about the Super Bowl... we are back to Alex Smith, Rod Woodson, and the Brits. There are no commercials.
Granted, the commercials wouldn't have much bearing on a British audience, and, if BBC broadcasts something, it will have no commercials. Yet it felt cruel that Jim Nantz would say, "If you haven't seen enough of these Super Bowl commercials, go to x website after the game for all of them!" But we can't activate said website from the UK! So, friends, if we missed some good ones, we may ask you to act them out when we get home. We don't need much in the way of costumes, just people to read the lines, sing the songs, and make Budweiser Clydesdales as anthropomorphous as possible.
Making the BBC even cooler is that it broadcast the Super Bowl. After a great night of television, from the joys and trials of small town, Victorian life in Lark Rise to Candleford to the rare paintings and 7-foot-long broadswords of The Seven Ages of Britain, all excellently written and funded shows from the people who brought us Planet Earth, Rome, and a ridiculously long, but authoritative version of Pride and Prejudice.
All that to say, we were thrilled when we began to hear the overly-dramatic orchestra-rock of the greatest sporting event in the history of 2010. Here, it began briefly with Alex Smith of the 49ers and Rod Woodson from the Hall of Fame talking to various British commentators before it switched and the voices of Phil Simms and Jim Nantz filled the room like a thousand tiny violins... and, for the sake of this story, these are soothing, homelike violins, like the voices of friends or peanut butter. We are thankful to the BBC for providing this moment and when kickoff happens and we get ready for one of the best things about the Super Bowl... we are back to Alex Smith, Rod Woodson, and the Brits. There are no commercials.
Granted, the commercials wouldn't have much bearing on a British audience, and, if BBC broadcasts something, it will have no commercials. Yet it felt cruel that Jim Nantz would say, "If you haven't seen enough of these Super Bowl commercials, go to x website after the game for all of them!" But we can't activate said website from the UK! So, friends, if we missed some good ones, we may ask you to act them out when we get home. We don't need much in the way of costumes, just people to read the lines, sing the songs, and make Budweiser Clydesdales as anthropomorphous as possible.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
The National Health Service
Among the many things that England does well, key are: roast potatoes in the fat of a chicken that cooks efficiently beside it; well-mannered and great (in the sense that Pride and Prejudice and ancient, Grecian statues are great) sideburns that reach out like the many-splendid tentacles of many glorious gray squid from the side of rosy old men's faces; and the National Health Service.
After World War II, with a bankrupt country still rationing food until 1952, somehow England recognizes that health care is a basic human right and starts the National Health Service in 1948. Strange that American didn't do something like this at that juncture, with $26 billion worth of new factories switching from tanks to Frigidaires, $140 billion in savings and unspent war bonds, no bomb damage, and practically no competition (thanks to Bill Bryson's latest book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid for this information). It made sense, though: with the workforce pyramid-shaped, with a large group of blue collars at the bottom with a small percentage of white collars on the top, whereas now, in the age of American insurance companies' notorious loopholes and denial based on pre-existing conditions, the pyramid is curiously balanced on a small critical mass of blue collars, the larger portion of us doing something more white collar.
This is all well and good, but a key difference is that England seized the opportunity to provide access to health care for its citizens while everyone was down and everyone knew what down looked like. There were less fears of socialism not just because it's a European country, but because almost everyone was hurting, and the NHS provided access to a basic human right, though one could pay more to get faster, privatized care.
Now I grew up with good health care, but I won't have it when I get back. Even when I do get it, like my last policy with Blue Cross, Blue Shield, they will probably refuse to cover if anything happens to my jaw, which was operated on during the winter of 2007/2008. Meanwhile, Ryan can't much afford it and has had to pay his last few injuries out of pocket, we have a friend dealing with cancer who lived faithfully and ate healthfully all his life, we know a single mother with kids who will be in dire straights if she gets hurt (for she can't afford care for herself after paying for her kids), and this issue takes on particular prominence as we sit with Val and Trevor, our hosts for this week, as their American son-in-law in North Carolina struggles to pay the rest of his $500,000 bill after the girl who hit him on his bike's insurance will only cover $30,000 dollars max, and he had been in the market for new insurance.
All that to say, the news we get from the States regarding health care is discouraging. The English certainly don't understand our debate (they, after all, have the NHS, and it is matter of fact: "Of course one should have access to decent health care"), and I figure churches would provide this service--as they do soup kitchens and other services for the dispossessed--if they only had the capital to do so. It's ironic to both of us that the U.S., with the best health care in the world, is still strapping to meet the health care needs of millions of its citizens due to fearmongering and nervousness about giving up part of our income that we may use to send our kids to college or, more likely, buy another TV, pay for cable, or in general purchase meaningless shit; and as I say that I point a strong accusatory finger back at myself, the pack rat who buys books and trinkets he doesn't read and holds onto them with the sentiment of Imelda Marcos. How many cars, TV sets, and trinkets do we need? Do we have to live in the suburbs where we drive everywhere?
Of course, as with any institutions, there are problems with the NHS, and, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if another country did health care better. But it's sort of a sacrament here: knowing that, whatever happens, one is covered. One may have to wait a spell, but such is the case with our emergency rooms anyway, and we're always looking for ways to cut that wait down. Moreover, I won't miss a tenth of my income (in England, it's 11%) if I know it keeps me from paying exorbitant medical bills.
As it is now, I feel like we Americans are pioneers, in the sense that we live away from civilization. We are goodhearted and, as Val and Trevor are seeing with their son-in-law, people are looking out for him, strangers are donating money, and encouraging them; but when the injury strikes, or the disease invades, we uninsured are stuck on our own on a great plain, able to get emergency care, but saddled with the debts of that hospital visit for the rest of our lives. Now, I am a moderate, and do not believe in straight-ticket voting--actually, I believe such voting is, honestly, an insult to our intelligence, because both parties (and the other, smaller ones) all have something valid to say. Yet the vast opposition to this reform by most of the Republican party brings to my mind echoes of rebuilding New Orleans during Bush's presidency, wherein the rich, more white neighborhoods were repaired and are thriving, and yet the 9th Ward still lays in ruins to this day (at least it did when I was there in March of last year) because they don't have the money or political power that the more white parts of the city do. While there are some incredible Republican lawmakers, I feel this opposition is like sitting in a tower, insured and out-of-touch, while us commoners toil below, our children's futures on the line every time we cross the street.
After World War II, with a bankrupt country still rationing food until 1952, somehow England recognizes that health care is a basic human right and starts the National Health Service in 1948. Strange that American didn't do something like this at that juncture, with $26 billion worth of new factories switching from tanks to Frigidaires, $140 billion in savings and unspent war bonds, no bomb damage, and practically no competition (thanks to Bill Bryson's latest book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid for this information). It made sense, though: with the workforce pyramid-shaped, with a large group of blue collars at the bottom with a small percentage of white collars on the top, whereas now, in the age of American insurance companies' notorious loopholes and denial based on pre-existing conditions, the pyramid is curiously balanced on a small critical mass of blue collars, the larger portion of us doing something more white collar.
This is all well and good, but a key difference is that England seized the opportunity to provide access to health care for its citizens while everyone was down and everyone knew what down looked like. There were less fears of socialism not just because it's a European country, but because almost everyone was hurting, and the NHS provided access to a basic human right, though one could pay more to get faster, privatized care.
Now I grew up with good health care, but I won't have it when I get back. Even when I do get it, like my last policy with Blue Cross, Blue Shield, they will probably refuse to cover if anything happens to my jaw, which was operated on during the winter of 2007/2008. Meanwhile, Ryan can't much afford it and has had to pay his last few injuries out of pocket, we have a friend dealing with cancer who lived faithfully and ate healthfully all his life, we know a single mother with kids who will be in dire straights if she gets hurt (for she can't afford care for herself after paying for her kids), and this issue takes on particular prominence as we sit with Val and Trevor, our hosts for this week, as their American son-in-law in North Carolina struggles to pay the rest of his $500,000 bill after the girl who hit him on his bike's insurance will only cover $30,000 dollars max, and he had been in the market for new insurance.
All that to say, the news we get from the States regarding health care is discouraging. The English certainly don't understand our debate (they, after all, have the NHS, and it is matter of fact: "Of course one should have access to decent health care"), and I figure churches would provide this service--as they do soup kitchens and other services for the dispossessed--if they only had the capital to do so. It's ironic to both of us that the U.S., with the best health care in the world, is still strapping to meet the health care needs of millions of its citizens due to fearmongering and nervousness about giving up part of our income that we may use to send our kids to college or, more likely, buy another TV, pay for cable, or in general purchase meaningless shit; and as I say that I point a strong accusatory finger back at myself, the pack rat who buys books and trinkets he doesn't read and holds onto them with the sentiment of Imelda Marcos. How many cars, TV sets, and trinkets do we need? Do we have to live in the suburbs where we drive everywhere?
Of course, as with any institutions, there are problems with the NHS, and, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if another country did health care better. But it's sort of a sacrament here: knowing that, whatever happens, one is covered. One may have to wait a spell, but such is the case with our emergency rooms anyway, and we're always looking for ways to cut that wait down. Moreover, I won't miss a tenth of my income (in England, it's 11%) if I know it keeps me from paying exorbitant medical bills.
As it is now, I feel like we Americans are pioneers, in the sense that we live away from civilization. We are goodhearted and, as Val and Trevor are seeing with their son-in-law, people are looking out for him, strangers are donating money, and encouraging them; but when the injury strikes, or the disease invades, we uninsured are stuck on our own on a great plain, able to get emergency care, but saddled with the debts of that hospital visit for the rest of our lives. Now, I am a moderate, and do not believe in straight-ticket voting--actually, I believe such voting is, honestly, an insult to our intelligence, because both parties (and the other, smaller ones) all have something valid to say. Yet the vast opposition to this reform by most of the Republican party brings to my mind echoes of rebuilding New Orleans during Bush's presidency, wherein the rich, more white neighborhoods were repaired and are thriving, and yet the 9th Ward still lays in ruins to this day (at least it did when I was there in March of last year) because they don't have the money or political power that the more white parts of the city do. While there are some incredible Republican lawmakers, I feel this opposition is like sitting in a tower, insured and out-of-touch, while us commoners toil below, our children's futures on the line every time we cross the street.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
The Year in Review
There is Christmas, there is my birthday, and then there is Oscar night. These are the days that halt the earth in orbit, the biggest holidays of my calendar year. All are red-carpet moments: when the tiny infant baby Jesus came out with pudgy fists of healing power; when I came out with the eventual capability to grow cool sideburns and by which I accumulate another year of wisdom; and when people who thought I was weird for liking the non-traditional critique of immigration policy in "District 9" can watch it again and finally realize its insightfulness and wonderfully out-of-the-box storytelling as it gets nominated for Best Picture.
Please realize that both Easter and my mom's birthday both have high station on this list, but I beg you readers, after wading through my catharsis regarding film school: this is Oscar season. Please indulge me.
After Wall-E's snub from Best Picture last year, we were all forced to ask: if The Dark Night isn't as good as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but is easily the most well-made film within its genre--the superhero film--of all time (and stands strikingly well by itself even to people who don't like the Batman comics), does it deserve mention by Oscar as one of the best of the year? And what do we do with Wall-E and other animated films--which are all in the running for the Best Animated Film award--when it is one of the best films of the year in general? And what about those incredible indie films that will only be noticed by the non-indie community by a nod from the Academy (which will help put more bread on the table of these struggling filmmakers)? The answer: ten Best Picture nominees.
First off, I have an apology to make. I didn't think Sandra Bullock had it in her to do what she has done with The Blind Side, and this will forever add depth to what we refer when we mention "a Sandra Bullock movie" (often populated by Miss Congeniality, romances, and other entertaining-but-not-necessarily-life-altering films). Moreover, I thought that Precious looked incredible when I saw the preview first, but feared it was like this year's Notorious, which was targeted only to a small audience. They have defied my expectations, and I have to apologize to both movie and give them mad props.
Anyway, in the Best Picture nominees we've got District 9's incredible blend of immigration commentary and pumping sci-fi action. We've got An Education, the stolid art house piece. We've got the very applicable Up in the Air, in which Jason Reitman cast several people who have lost their jobs in this past year as the people George Clooney reluctantly has to fire (his business is to let people go when their employers don't have the stomach). Props to The Blind Side and Precious, heartrendering stories. Up! finally brings Pixar into the Best Picture category which Wall-E and Finding Nemo were so close to having before. The Coen brothers are back in a pseudo-spiritual film with no big names (A Serious Man). Colin Firth is finally in an Oscar-nominated movie where he does not play the nice, cheated-on husband (he's up for Best Actor for A Single Man), though Jeff Bridges looks like he'll finally take one home for playing a rugged old country musician in Crazy Heart.
It's been a South African year, with aliens descending on Johannesburg in District 9 (which I hope will take home a writing Oscar) and the surprisingly sparsely-nominated Invictus, Clint Eastwood's look at Nelson Mandela's first years in office and unifying a new South Africa under a World Cup rugby team. Gavin Hood, the other South African with a movie out this year, won't be taking any home for Wolverine, though he did win one for his Africaans crime story--Tsotsi--a few years ago; I didn't like Wolverine, but Hood's got skills.
Yet I am most excited about the duel between Avatar, The Hurt Locker, and the well-deserved recognition of Tarantino's new Inglourious Basterds. James Cameron and Kathryn Bigalow, former spouses who still help each other on their films, are both up for 9 Oscars, and Tarantino's wonderfully slow-paced film--wherein the tension ratchets up for twenty minutes often before exploding into impossibly quick, explosive violence--is up for 8. Yet The Hurt Locker is the most successful film about the Iraq War, pt. II, and the only nominated one apart from Tommy Lee Jones' Best Actor nod two years ago for In the Valley of Elah; also, Bigalow's nomination makes her the second American woman ever to be nominated for Best Director, and one of only four or five that have ever been nominated, but never won. While Avatar is a shoo-in for many technical awards--it sports the best CGI in history--I think it's Bigalow's year, and am excited to see what happens with this small, independent film. Finally, as a screenwriter, I have to give love to Tarantino's latest effort, especially to Christoph Waltz, the quadrilingual, part-goofy, part-sadistically evil Austrian SS agent who ensures World War II will have a different ending. I'm always excited when an actor who was on the decline for years and years (as he was in Europe) gets a chance to come back in a big way. Such is the correlation with Tarantino's films with John Travolta, Pam Grier, and others.
For the first time in a while, I don't feel that anything was slighted this year. Of course, I've only seen a number of these films, since we're traveling, but, of what I've read of them, I'm excited to come back and get NetFlix.
Please realize that both Easter and my mom's birthday both have high station on this list, but I beg you readers, after wading through my catharsis regarding film school: this is Oscar season. Please indulge me.
After Wall-E's snub from Best Picture last year, we were all forced to ask: if The Dark Night isn't as good as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but is easily the most well-made film within its genre--the superhero film--of all time (and stands strikingly well by itself even to people who don't like the Batman comics), does it deserve mention by Oscar as one of the best of the year? And what do we do with Wall-E and other animated films--which are all in the running for the Best Animated Film award--when it is one of the best films of the year in general? And what about those incredible indie films that will only be noticed by the non-indie community by a nod from the Academy (which will help put more bread on the table of these struggling filmmakers)? The answer: ten Best Picture nominees.
First off, I have an apology to make. I didn't think Sandra Bullock had it in her to do what she has done with The Blind Side, and this will forever add depth to what we refer when we mention "a Sandra Bullock movie" (often populated by Miss Congeniality, romances, and other entertaining-but-not-necessarily-life-altering films). Moreover, I thought that Precious looked incredible when I saw the preview first, but feared it was like this year's Notorious, which was targeted only to a small audience. They have defied my expectations, and I have to apologize to both movie and give them mad props.
Anyway, in the Best Picture nominees we've got District 9's incredible blend of immigration commentary and pumping sci-fi action. We've got An Education, the stolid art house piece. We've got the very applicable Up in the Air, in which Jason Reitman cast several people who have lost their jobs in this past year as the people George Clooney reluctantly has to fire (his business is to let people go when their employers don't have the stomach). Props to The Blind Side and Precious, heartrendering stories. Up! finally brings Pixar into the Best Picture category which Wall-E and Finding Nemo were so close to having before. The Coen brothers are back in a pseudo-spiritual film with no big names (A Serious Man). Colin Firth is finally in an Oscar-nominated movie where he does not play the nice, cheated-on husband (he's up for Best Actor for A Single Man), though Jeff Bridges looks like he'll finally take one home for playing a rugged old country musician in Crazy Heart.
It's been a South African year, with aliens descending on Johannesburg in District 9 (which I hope will take home a writing Oscar) and the surprisingly sparsely-nominated Invictus, Clint Eastwood's look at Nelson Mandela's first years in office and unifying a new South Africa under a World Cup rugby team. Gavin Hood, the other South African with a movie out this year, won't be taking any home for Wolverine, though he did win one for his Africaans crime story--Tsotsi--a few years ago; I didn't like Wolverine, but Hood's got skills.
Yet I am most excited about the duel between Avatar, The Hurt Locker, and the well-deserved recognition of Tarantino's new Inglourious Basterds. James Cameron and Kathryn Bigalow, former spouses who still help each other on their films, are both up for 9 Oscars, and Tarantino's wonderfully slow-paced film--wherein the tension ratchets up for twenty minutes often before exploding into impossibly quick, explosive violence--is up for 8. Yet The Hurt Locker is the most successful film about the Iraq War, pt. II, and the only nominated one apart from Tommy Lee Jones' Best Actor nod two years ago for In the Valley of Elah; also, Bigalow's nomination makes her the second American woman ever to be nominated for Best Director, and one of only four or five that have ever been nominated, but never won. While Avatar is a shoo-in for many technical awards--it sports the best CGI in history--I think it's Bigalow's year, and am excited to see what happens with this small, independent film. Finally, as a screenwriter, I have to give love to Tarantino's latest effort, especially to Christoph Waltz, the quadrilingual, part-goofy, part-sadistically evil Austrian SS agent who ensures World War II will have a different ending. I'm always excited when an actor who was on the decline for years and years (as he was in Europe) gets a chance to come back in a big way. Such is the correlation with Tarantino's films with John Travolta, Pam Grier, and others.
For the first time in a while, I don't feel that anything was slighted this year. Of course, I've only seen a number of these films, since we're traveling, but, of what I've read of them, I'm excited to come back and get NetFlix.
PYV (Pretty Young Vicar)
Irenee is cute and can pull off trendy clothes, and I hope that my wife (should she exist) might look something like her when she is forty and, for that matter, I would like to look like the male version of her when I'm knocking on that decade's door as well. That said, there's an inherent sadness in this note: the youngest and most attractive person in our "patch" here in South Lincolnshire is, in fact, a 40-year old mom of three. I haven't felt this parched for young people since I drove from Jacksonville to Duke University with Keri, a feeling like the first drink of water in days.
So Ryan and I are at Lincoln cathedral, a magnificent little town full of character and shops not even mentioned in our guidebook, its cathedral on top of a hill which, within our congregations, is spoken of with the utmost daunting. "Enjoy the cathedral... [fear comes into their eyes] if you can get up the hill!"
It's perhaps our favorite cathedral in England, and we decide to go to Litany? Why not? When in Rome, right? Even though, when we've been in Rome... or other cathedrals in the past three months we've been lame and not gone to experience any services... whatever, so we decide, in despite of not doing as the Romans did in all of our opportunities before, we decide today that we are, in fact, in Rome, and should do as the Romans do. So we go to Litany and pray for the Jesus in our world and the judgment of the Queen.
I slip out after Litany for the WC, and meet the Communion group, only to find that Ryan is sitting next to a beautiful young girl in my seat! After being here in the patch among many elderly, I'm sure the only way he let her purloin my seat was that he was stunned out of his wits.
There's a seat next to her and I take it and she quickly figures out that we have no idea how the order of service goes, so she leads us through the program with a kind pointer finger and a reassuring smile. She is Ellen, a twenty-five year-old vicar-in-training in Scarthorpe, also with an elderly, Anglican congregation, and we immediately all realize that we are awesome and go to lunch. We talk about how Jesus' way in politics is a policy of high and low, walking the fine line between extremes, stepping with prayer the way of peace. We chase the state of the Church for young people down with cost-effective vegetarian food before we realize we have ten minutes to catch our bus, and Ryan and I hug our new friend and sprint away, made faster by the slope of the hill which would be perfect for skiing except for cobblestones and pedestrians.
Sometimes it feels like twentysomethings are a dream left back on the classy, Lincoln streets, but we read about them in books and know they are out, elsewhere in the world. Apart from that, we are blessed with a community of those young at heart as David and Val, in their 80s and 70s respectively, who take us to Lincoln and walk us through the turnstiles of the train station with one ticket for the four of us. Val is behind us, and Ryan or I says, "Looks like you're taking up the rear," to which David leans to the turnstile officer and says, with a gesture back at Val, "And what a rear it is..." Still making people uncomfortable with their flirtation after fifty years. Who says it has to stop?
So Ryan and I are at Lincoln cathedral, a magnificent little town full of character and shops not even mentioned in our guidebook, its cathedral on top of a hill which, within our congregations, is spoken of with the utmost daunting. "Enjoy the cathedral... [fear comes into their eyes] if you can get up the hill!"
It's perhaps our favorite cathedral in England, and we decide to go to Litany? Why not? When in Rome, right? Even though, when we've been in Rome... or other cathedrals in the past three months we've been lame and not gone to experience any services... whatever, so we decide, in despite of not doing as the Romans did in all of our opportunities before, we decide today that we are, in fact, in Rome, and should do as the Romans do. So we go to Litany and pray for the Jesus in our world and the judgment of the Queen.
I slip out after Litany for the WC, and meet the Communion group, only to find that Ryan is sitting next to a beautiful young girl in my seat! After being here in the patch among many elderly, I'm sure the only way he let her purloin my seat was that he was stunned out of his wits.
There's a seat next to her and I take it and she quickly figures out that we have no idea how the order of service goes, so she leads us through the program with a kind pointer finger and a reassuring smile. She is Ellen, a twenty-five year-old vicar-in-training in Scarthorpe, also with an elderly, Anglican congregation, and we immediately all realize that we are awesome and go to lunch. We talk about how Jesus' way in politics is a policy of high and low, walking the fine line between extremes, stepping with prayer the way of peace. We chase the state of the Church for young people down with cost-effective vegetarian food before we realize we have ten minutes to catch our bus, and Ryan and I hug our new friend and sprint away, made faster by the slope of the hill which would be perfect for skiing except for cobblestones and pedestrians.
Sometimes it feels like twentysomethings are a dream left back on the classy, Lincoln streets, but we read about them in books and know they are out, elsewhere in the world. Apart from that, we are blessed with a community of those young at heart as David and Val, in their 80s and 70s respectively, who take us to Lincoln and walk us through the turnstiles of the train station with one ticket for the four of us. Val is behind us, and Ryan or I says, "Looks like you're taking up the rear," to which David leans to the turnstile officer and says, with a gesture back at Val, "And what a rear it is..." Still making people uncomfortable with their flirtation after fifty years. Who says it has to stop?
Live from the Corn Exchange
Apparently the Zulu language is onomatopoetic and their spear, the Assegai, is so named because of the sound it makes being pulled out of a person's flesh. I've learned about this before, on a documentary TV program that has stayed with me since childhood, but I'm hearing it again from a long-haired Scot on the stage at the Bourne Corn Exchange.
This is the annual evening of the Len Pick Trust, a Bourne farmer who somehow came to great money and, having no relatives left alive, decided, when he died, to give the whole lot to Bourne. So Bourne gives a lot to various small-town, charitable causes, hosts an annual event with a celebrity speaker and free wine, and Trevor (one of our most mischevous and humorous Thurlby hosts) has scored us tickets: he's the chairperson.
It opens with three grammar school singer/songwriters, who make sounds on their guitars that I can only dream of, then Neil Oliver takes the stage. He's a bouncy, long-haired Scottish archaeologist, but, when he and some colleagues proposed a show to BBC about the UK's diverse coastal region, presented by Michael Palin or Billy Connolly, the bigger presenters couldn't be found; so he, the archaeologist with well-combed hair, found himself plopped in the presenter's seat. However, on "Coast", there was already an anthropologist and a professor of archaeology tagged to present certain stories, and BBC, trusting that the public wouldn't know either way, decided to name Oliver an "historian", even though he isn't one. So, if you watch "Coast" and see "Neil Oliver, historian", you may point at the TV with enthusiasm and cry "untruth!" then sit back and enjoy the program.
Really, "Coast" is like a coastal, English version of "This American Life". They interview families whose generations have been born and lost at sea, men and women who escaped disastrous U-boat strikes during World War II, French Resistance fighters who trained on the coast, and more. It's sociological, environmental, and Neil Oliver has a cool accent.
So to Zululand. I remember this from a "From the Ends of the Earth" documentary show on PBS (which Oliver reminded me of when I stood up and asked about it), which staged a massive battle in Zululand (now South Africa) where 1,640 British out of 1,700 were killed and disemboweled under the darkness of a lunar eclipse. Some 30,000 Zulus rush in in "The Horns of the Buffalo" formation, surrounding the surprised redcoats. Some of the warriors have taken compounds that block out pain, and are shot and get up, shot and get up, several time over. To make matters worse, with the smoke the rifles put out, they couldn't see their enemies, that is, until their dark, disguised bodies charged through the smoke a few feet away.
This is what I remember of the battle of Isandlwana. What I didn't realize was that the British provoked this war. That, after the horrendous loss of life the British never sent young drummer boys with their troops. That the Zulus fought with spears and clubs because they felt killing a person was tremendously unclean, and that, if you were going to kill someone, one might at least be man enough to do it face-to-face. A bygone idea for our modern world, but one to give pause.
So why harp on this battle in all of its gruesome detail? Because this is the battle that first made Neil Oliver, archaeologist, interested in television. As he wandered the battlefield that had been picked over since January 1879, he still managed to find the precise places where the Zulus wore their enemies' clothing (as a way of asking for purity after the uncleanliness of killing) by the buttons of the clothes, finding pieces of ammunition boxes that marked exactly where the British soldiers had stood in this field. That the story was still vivid in his findings over a hundered years after the initial telling. That, though distant history, we can still pull something from it.
It is worth noting that, before hearing of death, disemboweling (which was meant to set their enemies' spirits free), and archaeology, Ryan and I presented our story and pictures to the Girls' Brigade, and seven less-than-ten-year-old girls giggled with glee at Ryan's pictures of the dragon he carries around and the fact that I, apparently, look like Dr. Who.
This is the annual evening of the Len Pick Trust, a Bourne farmer who somehow came to great money and, having no relatives left alive, decided, when he died, to give the whole lot to Bourne. So Bourne gives a lot to various small-town, charitable causes, hosts an annual event with a celebrity speaker and free wine, and Trevor (one of our most mischevous and humorous Thurlby hosts) has scored us tickets: he's the chairperson.
It opens with three grammar school singer/songwriters, who make sounds on their guitars that I can only dream of, then Neil Oliver takes the stage. He's a bouncy, long-haired Scottish archaeologist, but, when he and some colleagues proposed a show to BBC about the UK's diverse coastal region, presented by Michael Palin or Billy Connolly, the bigger presenters couldn't be found; so he, the archaeologist with well-combed hair, found himself plopped in the presenter's seat. However, on "Coast", there was already an anthropologist and a professor of archaeology tagged to present certain stories, and BBC, trusting that the public wouldn't know either way, decided to name Oliver an "historian", even though he isn't one. So, if you watch "Coast" and see "Neil Oliver, historian", you may point at the TV with enthusiasm and cry "untruth!" then sit back and enjoy the program.
Really, "Coast" is like a coastal, English version of "This American Life". They interview families whose generations have been born and lost at sea, men and women who escaped disastrous U-boat strikes during World War II, French Resistance fighters who trained on the coast, and more. It's sociological, environmental, and Neil Oliver has a cool accent.
So to Zululand. I remember this from a "From the Ends of the Earth" documentary show on PBS (which Oliver reminded me of when I stood up and asked about it), which staged a massive battle in Zululand (now South Africa) where 1,640 British out of 1,700 were killed and disemboweled under the darkness of a lunar eclipse. Some 30,000 Zulus rush in in "The Horns of the Buffalo" formation, surrounding the surprised redcoats. Some of the warriors have taken compounds that block out pain, and are shot and get up, shot and get up, several time over. To make matters worse, with the smoke the rifles put out, they couldn't see their enemies, that is, until their dark, disguised bodies charged through the smoke a few feet away.
This is what I remember of the battle of Isandlwana. What I didn't realize was that the British provoked this war. That, after the horrendous loss of life the British never sent young drummer boys with their troops. That the Zulus fought with spears and clubs because they felt killing a person was tremendously unclean, and that, if you were going to kill someone, one might at least be man enough to do it face-to-face. A bygone idea for our modern world, but one to give pause.
So why harp on this battle in all of its gruesome detail? Because this is the battle that first made Neil Oliver, archaeologist, interested in television. As he wandered the battlefield that had been picked over since January 1879, he still managed to find the precise places where the Zulus wore their enemies' clothing (as a way of asking for purity after the uncleanliness of killing) by the buttons of the clothes, finding pieces of ammunition boxes that marked exactly where the British soldiers had stood in this field. That the story was still vivid in his findings over a hundered years after the initial telling. That, though distant history, we can still pull something from it.
It is worth noting that, before hearing of death, disemboweling (which was meant to set their enemies' spirits free), and archaeology, Ryan and I presented our story and pictures to the Girls' Brigade, and seven less-than-ten-year-old girls giggled with glee at Ryan's pictures of the dragon he carries around and the fact that I, apparently, look like Dr. Who.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Dragon gingivitus (BU is done)
Picture this: the dragon has gum disease. It is big and gilded and resplendent--I mean, come on, it's a dragon--but it hasn't been a good dragon and, contrary to its mother, ignored certain dietary requirements, and now has gum disease. So when the dragon grasps me in its mouth, and the world goes dark and stinky (dragons don't brush their teeth either), I--exhausted--was able to yank out just one tooth and create barely enough space for me to crawl out and come back to you, my readers.
Boston University is applied to, and Emerson and Bike and Build before it. Despite exhausting work, and many cogs to fit into each wheels, congregation members kindly share their internet with me, not minding my frenzy; my dad does all of the paperwork that I, in our limited access to technology, cannot do from across the pond; Miriam and Jim are encouraging and steadfast; and Ryan puts up with me throughout it all, even yesterday when I had to tell a 9-photo short story about disillusionment: he played the just broken-up and left protagonist, looking for any sign of where his vixen had gone, but there was no trace...
So the dragon may now be tamed, or it may run free. I hope it will be tamed, and I will be able to enter film school in the fall, but if not, I'll find another dragon, almost get eaten by it, and emerge victorious, and you all will be along for the ride, the magnificent creature sillhouetted by the horizon and a rising sun as we soar over this world.
Boston University is applied to, and Emerson and Bike and Build before it. Despite exhausting work, and many cogs to fit into each wheels, congregation members kindly share their internet with me, not minding my frenzy; my dad does all of the paperwork that I, in our limited access to technology, cannot do from across the pond; Miriam and Jim are encouraging and steadfast; and Ryan puts up with me throughout it all, even yesterday when I had to tell a 9-photo short story about disillusionment: he played the just broken-up and left protagonist, looking for any sign of where his vixen had gone, but there was no trace...
So the dragon may now be tamed, or it may run free. I hope it will be tamed, and I will be able to enter film school in the fall, but if not, I'll find another dragon, almost get eaten by it, and emerge victorious, and you all will be along for the ride, the magnificent creature sillhouetted by the horizon and a rising sun as we soar over this world.
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