Marko Polo

Gone with the wind...

2010-10-06T10:03:00.002-06:00

I suppose if you still read this (and my site meter tells me some people actually do check in from time to time) then I should let you know that I have moved. I'm still writing, but now it's at Dancing Through Life. Check it out. This place feels old. Time to start something a little more fresh.

Boston

2010-05-28T10:49:00.003-06:00

I'm in New Hampshire right now. My friends and I, you see, decided to trek up north to visit some friends we met through our study abroad experiences who go to UNH. They came and visited us in Springfield, so we thought we'd return the favor. Thus, on Monday we hopped in the car and schlepped 25 straight hours to spend a week in the great Northeast (particularly Boston and New Hampshire).

We've got a lot of wonderful things on the agenda. We visited UNH's campus, we spent some time in Portsmouth and saw a Celtics game, and so much more. Yesterday we bought SRO tickets to Fenway Park to watch the Royals play the Sox. Though I couldn't overtly root for Kansas City for fear of getting my ass handed to me by a mob of angry Bostoners, I cheered in my heart and much to my surprise the Royals won! We even found ourselves sitting about sixteen rows up behind home plate by the fifth inning. It was a great evening.

Tonight we'll be in Boston again to watch the Boston Ballet perform some of my favorite choreography of all time. It's a show called Black and White, a showcase of Jiri Killian - a prominent choreography from the Netherlands Dans Theatre - choreography. I fully expect an incredible show and a moving evening.

We've seen great nature, wonderful cities, and inredible events (who'd have thought the Royals could EVER beat the Sox?), the best part has been the comradery. I have incredible friends. They bring life to the situations we find ourselves in. They care about myself and each other. It's some wonderful complimentarity.

Last night Dave, my best friend who got me going to church again, and I had a great conversation on the drive home from Boston about liberalism vs. conservativism, our growth as people throughout our four years of college, and what life might look like in the years to come. He talked and I listened. And then I talked and he listened. And I felt like we both really listened, which is such a rarity I cannot even begin to express how wonderful it is to experience it.

I love being with people. I love even more being with people who respect each other and are committed to aiding each other in growth and development. It's such a beautiful thing.

I've got other issues I'd like to blog about soon as I've had some deep thoughts percolating in my head during this trip that I'd like to get out, but that will have to wait for the next day or two. To my family who happens to read this, I love you and I'll see you all soon!

-Marko

Am I a Writer?

2010-04-25T15:34:00.003-06:00

After my last post, I started to realize how much relief I feel when I post something. There is something cathartic about creation, about expression through some media, that I'm attracted to. I've always written songs, played music, danced, or written when times got tough. Suddenly, for whatever reason, I think I've convinced myself that I'm too busy to do those things anymore. Big mistake.

So now I find myself writing, and further, I find myself asking myself if I am "a writer," whatever that means. Not that I'll ever attempt to do anything with it, but the fact that writing is an incredible form of relief is a convincing enough argument for me to stick with it, at least casually. And as the next few weeks will be stressful indeed - papers upon papers, graduation anxiety, etc - you can bet I'll make a few more posts before the semester is out to help get away.

The recent stress in my life has led me to some new conclusions that I feel like I should try and talk about on here. I think I'll just make a list of things I've been thinking a lot about recently. I haven't had time to systematize it anyway, so it's all in there kinda haphazardly.

1) Some things in life are worth forgetting about. While there are lots of things that are worthy of dwelling over and systematically working through, I've discovered that sometimes it really is okay to just forget about some things. Some things are just too small and minor in the grander scheme of things to really stress about.

2) There are a whole plethora of things we simply can't know. God, Jesus, the afterlife, what other people are really thinking or motivated by, the future, etc. There are just so many things that fall outside of our human minds. Often times this means these things fall into the category of stuff worthy of forgetting about (or at least not dwelling over) and other times it means we should give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Regardless, it doesn't help to be pompous about everything and pretend like we're the epoch of wisdom. We're not.

3) It's okay to be different. Being a 22 year old male ballet dancer, a philosophy major, a liberal amidst a family of (mostly) intense conservatives, intensely questioning religion in a town - and family - of seriously serious Christian folk, and the like are OKAY! It's fine to be who I want to be as long as I've reflected upon that and know why I'm doing it. It's also important to maintain integrity and morality amidst these things, but a lot of things are just noise. And when other people try to question my life, I've gotten much more okay with writing them off.

4) People are just about the only things that matter to me. Friends and family. That's it. Screw religious dogma. Screw making money. If God truly is dead in the Nietzschian sense, then the only thing that CAN matter is other people. We make the darkness bearable. We bring light and joy to each other. We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams. Everything else just exists to either enable relationships between people or get in the way.

That's all the random ponderings I've got for now. Hope everyone is doing well and I look forward to writing and reading more on the blogosphere soon.

A time to be born, and a time to die...

2010-04-22T21:42:00.002-06:00

I'm not sure why I'm writing this. I can't pretend to say that I'm going to commit to anything, that I want to grow as a writer, or any of that. What I can say for sure is that I need so very badly to express myself in words. There are some emotions, some states of mind, that are only fully realized when they're shared. I learned that in my Rhetorical Criticism class.

I had one of those moments the other day; one of those moments where only words can bring into existence the true emotion, the gravity, the reality of a situation. I grew up with a friend named Keith. He and his brother Scott were two of my very best friends in high school. They went to youth group with me, I went to their house nearly every day for video games and snacks, and we'd laugh as we watched stupid movies together for years and years. I went to college and Keith and I remained close. I'd still come home and spend time with him and his family - though that time became less and less frequent after I moved away from the Lake - and we were still a big part of each others' lives.

Keith and I still keep close. He comes to my ballet performances when he can. I make it to Fulton to visit him and his girlfriend when I can. I love his soul, and he nurturs mine. Scott, his little brother, lived in Springfield for the past year. We talked from time to time, but never really spent much time together. I didn't know him well after I left high school except what I heard through his brother.

But still, when I heard on the phone Tuesday afternoon that Scott had taken his own life, I was demolished. I got a text letting me know, a phone call to confirm, and then I do what I do whenever anything major happens in my life: I called my dad. And it wasn't until I spoke to my father that Scott's death, the reality of Scott's death, really came to me. All I said was, "Dad, Scott shot himself this morning. He's dead," and I was awash in grief. I was driving, so I had to pull my car over. And I wept.

He was twenty. And a good looking guy too.

I've wept a lot for Scott and for his family over the past few days. I've wept alone and I've wept with those who loved him like I did. He was a great kid with a heart of gold. He let us all know via facebook the morning he took his own life that he cared about us. He wrote:

"Scott knows that no words can express how much I care about all of you, so I hope you will settle for these. I love all of you for every minute of my life you were in it. You all made my life better in your own ways, and for that I can't say enough. Now I'm going somewhere that I can't be followed, and it saddens me to say it, but I must now say goodbye. Goodbye."

I weep even now as I read his loving words again. I wish there was more I could give him now besides words and tears.

Scott's words are a testament to his compassion. He was always trying to give me things. I have a collection of Scott memorabelia in my room this very moment that he gave to me. We shared our love of music, our devotion to those we care about, and we shared precious time together. We talked about girls and guitars. About high school and our futures. He gave me so much.

And that's where Scott has to continue to live for me and for all of those amazing people whom his life touched: In his willingness to give. Who knows why he lost hope or why he felt that he had no way out; one cannot make sense out of a senseless act. But now it is our job to press on, to love for Scott, not to stockpile our time and compassion but to hold our hands open for all to take freely. The only way we can find our way out of this, to make the darkness bearable, is together. It is by loving the way Scott loved. Freely. With abandon. Until the end.

I'm going to miss you, my dear beloved friend. We all will. I hope you have found the peace you were looking for.

My Forays into Feminism...

2010-03-09T10:37:00.003-06:00

I've considered myself a feminist for years. After taking several classes and reading various books that introduced me to the subject, I've been thoroughly inculcated to believe that women deserve reality on their own terms and we all need to be working to rid our lives of patriarchy in whatever way it manifests itself in our lives. As a man, I know that I have a particular perspective on this matter that may or may not always be perfectly in line with some of the more radical readings of feminist thought, but I also believe that doesn't matter. If feminism is about equality and finding solutions to the issues of patriarchy, then we have to see each other as individuals in a society facing an oppressive system which effects ALL of us, not just women.

That being said, yesterday was International Women's Day and when I walked into the building which houses my first class, I was greeted by a cornucopia of signs which were trying to point out male privilege. As a man (and a white one at that), I understand that I benefit from patriarchy in certain ways, so these signs were not necessarily a surprise to me. What really bothered me about these signs was that there perspective was intentionally antagonistic and as a man I felt essentialised, totalized, and moral degraded by them.

In a situation where equality is the goal, totalizing the other and making blanket statements about who they are and what they're like is terribly counter-productive. This is evidenced by the fact that many of the signs, by the end of the day, had graffiti scribbled on them by men claiming ownership over their privilege. You simply cannot expect men to recognize the ways in which patriarchy effects them by antagonizing them about it. It's demoralizing and it creates more injustice.

Further, I was personally offended by the ways in which these signs failed to realize that men are also effected negatively by patriarchy. In a hegemonic system of patriarchy, the only men who truly benefit are those who fit most perfectly into our ideals of patriarchy. Homosexuals, unathletic men, those deeply in touch with their emotions and feelings, and those who display what we might consider feminine characteristics regularly lose in this system. And the men who "win," I believe must do so by sacrificing much of what makes them who they are (i.e. their emotions, their capacity for care, their time spent at the gym maintaining that perfect Greek physique). What we're left with is a system which upon first glance benefits men and oppresses women, but upon further inspection truly demoralizes everyone involved by failing to realize them as individuals and forcing them into pre-conceived notions of what it means to be a man and a women. I would argue that nobody truly fits into these roles as they are conceived of as ideals in our society.

So I was offended yesterday on several levels. I was upset with the organization who put up these signs for 1) attacking me as a "man" and failing to realize my individuality or the complexity that the title "man" involves and 2) doing feminism in general a disservice. Antagonistic rhetoric never serves to build bridges between oppressors and the oppressed. The demonstration yesterday, I believe, only served to push people further into their corners.

Rest assured, I'm teaming up with a fellow feminist (a girl) and we're writing a respectful critique of yesterday's display (which, as it turns out, was perpetrated entirely by female faculty members) and sending it out to those involved and to our local student newspaper. I hope that this will raise awareness of the issues of gender inequality while at the same time build positive relations between men and women in a way that we might be able to work together to curtail oppressive systems at work in our lives.

Buddhism at Work...

2010-02-25T20:45:00.002-06:00

Now I don't consider myself a serious Buddhist anymore (don't worry, Walter family), but that doesn't mean that I can't learn a lot from the Buddha and the simple truths he outlines in the Noble Eightfold Path. Let me share with you a bit of my life. This is going to include me sharing some stuff about myself which my family doesn't know, so if you're one of my family members you can either:
1) Stop reading now. Wouldn't want to tarnish your perfect idea of who I am!
or
2) Read this ALL THE WAY THROUGH before you start to make judgments about my character based off of it. Thanks!

So anyway, about a month or so after moving to Greece, I started smoking. In my defense, hanging out with Greeks regularly and not smoking is a bit like hanging out with your average American and not eating fast food. Possible? Yes. Likely? Not very. When I came back, I quit. I was smoke free all through the summer, but when I came back to Springfield I started smoking again. At first it was just pipes on the front porch every now and then. Then it was my pipe on my front porch every night. Before long, it was back to cigarettes regularly. I was smoking regularly (that is to say 3-5 cigarettes a day) from about September until last month with the exception of a few weeks here and there where I tried to quit unsuccessfully.

Quitting smoking is tough, people. I only smoked 3-5 cigarettes a day and it was HARD. I can only imagine those 3-5 packs a day people and how insanely difficult it must be for them. I STILL want to smoke every day and it's been somewhere around six weeks since I smoked. At this point, it's not about feeling normal again but about learning that this state of constant craving - sometimes more and sometimes less, though it's increasingly less and less - is my new state of normalcy and I've got to learn to deal with that.

So even though I'd tried to quit several times after starting up again, I never could. What was different this time then? Buddhist psychology. Plain and simple. Let me explain.

The idea behind a lot of Buddhist psychology is that we are what we think. When we are constantly thinking about something, some object, some person, some emotion, it begins to consume us. We become our emotions or cravings that we revolve around. Science backs this up. When we think about things or encounter situations regularly, we begin to form neural pathways that in many ways dictate the way we'll react. They create what our mind considers "normal." So, for example, if every day you react to situations with anger, your brain will form neural pathways which make anger your default setting. You get addicted to certain chemicals and certain pathways that those chemicals follow. Naturally, when you try to break habits then, you'll experience some forms of withdrawal. It's just the way we work.

This is a simple truth, neither good nor bad, but it can be used in a myriad of ways. I chose to apply these ideas to my everyday life when I put my foot down to quit smoking finally. Every day I wake up and take a shower first thing. It's a fairly mindless activity, but I turned it into the doorway for change. You see, when I hopped in the shower every day, I would start giving myself positive talks. I'd be lathering the shampoo into my hair saying, "Today is going to be a good day. You can totally do this, and you can totally have a great time doing it." I began every day building myself up. I did this not only to enforce my decision to stop smoking and give myself strength to get through another non-smoking day, but also to try and relieve some of the natural depression that stemmed from nicotine withdrawals. You know what? It worked like a charm.

It's a beautiful thing! And now that I'm calling myself a non-smoker again (it's been long enough that I think that's warranted), I'm using my morning shower time to reach different ends. Lately, I've been working on my self-esteem. I'll be rinsing out my conditioner thinking, "Dammit, man, you're cool. People like you, and why shouldn't they?" Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to be some type of egoist or turn myself into a monster. I just think that I deserve to have a feeling of self-worth, and I'm going to give it to myself. I find myself walking around campus happier, smiling and whistling more, looking people in the eyes and smiling, and holding my head a bit higher.

The point is this: Buddhism has some really simple yet profound truths that are directly applicable to our lives. Even just small daily meditations can change your life. You are what you think, and it's pretty much unavoidable.

Sometime I'd like to spend a bit more time talking about some of the more profound notions of this line of thinking. I know this thinking works for emotional pathways, but what about propositions? Can I convince myself of anything but meditating on it long enough? John Wesley, for example, used to say, "Preach it until you believe it." In this light, that thought has some serious implications. That's all for another day, however. I hope this post hasn't messed with too many ideas of who I am!

On Being Wild...

2010-02-23T10:42:00.002-06:00

I just finished reading "Walden," Henry David Thoreau's masterpiece, for my Senior Seminar. Yesterday we had our final discussion about it, and I realized something strange. There's a little throw-away line about how we all need to do something to keep us "wild," to keep us alive and mindful, to have something to keep us excited about life and not stagnant. We went around talking about what we do to keep ourselves wild, what revs our engines so to speak, and I realized that I've really lost that part of myself somehow over the past few years.

I used to be really passionate about so much in a childlike, simple kind of way. Every day was an adventure which I attacked with vim and vigor. Somehow though, for a myriad of reasons, my life became very calculated. I do most things now because I should do them, or because they're good for me, or because they're safer, but that passion and intensity have somewhat dissipated.

I'm not saying that my life is bland or boring or that I'm not sure about what I'm doing. I have a great life and I know where I'm headed, but there's something not quite there. It's like I'm not really getting out and living, stepping outside of myself and growing. I feel more like I'm in a defensive state these days. Like I'm just preparing for the next bad thing to happen. It's really draining and stressful. I feel very anxious a lot of the time about my life.

So I guess that I'm going to be on a quest to reclaim my wildness, to live boldly and suck the marrow out of life. I don't really have any idea how to go about that yet, but I'm really ready for this cold winter - both literally and metaphorically - to be over in my life. I've spent enough time recoiling. Time to stir some shit up.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears! I just want to be excited, really excited, about something again.

Clearing my Mind...

2010-02-21T22:14:00.002-06:00

Lately, when I hold Yoko, I've been talking to her. I've been working on strengthening our bond together because as I see it, she's going to be the only thing coming with me from this life into the next.

When I graduate and leave Drury, all of my friends will disperse. The community I've worked four years to create, the people who've been with me through it all, essentially the loves of my life, will disperse. My best friend David is moving to New Orleans with the Episcopal Church to help rebuild. Matt will be moving to Tennessee on scholarship to Vanderbilt's divinity school. Valerie will head to Kansas City with Nic to work at some company. There will be a few people left in Springfield, but I won't have a home there anymore. I'm so proud of all of us. We're all doing really great things with our lives, but it's really difficult to grow up and see through my childish desire to just put my fingers in my ears, close my eyes, and stomp around screaming at the change.

Yoko, however, will be delving deep into the unknown together. Together, we'll either make it in the dance world or we won't. It feels scary, I guess, to be going through the biggest change in my life with only a dog by my side. Not that she lacks commitment or loyalty or anything, but our conversations tend to be a bit one-sided.

It's tough for me to see the up side to graduation sometimes. I'm leaving the place I love, the people I love, the lifestyle I love, to go after something I'm not even sure I'll be able to make a living doing. I'm not saying that I'm choosing the wrong career path (I'm pretty positive I'm not), but it just seems strange to me that for the first time in my life I'm not as excited about the future as I am about right now. The future just seems like the end of today, which is a sad death in my mind. It's going to be a tough fight. That's for sure.

Is this normal? I feel a bit like a tamed animal who is about to get dropped off on the side of the road to fend for itself. Sink or swim. And do it alone. It's really terrifying.

The Ends of Science...

2010-02-18T09:30:00.002-06:00

Yesterday in science class I was having a discussion (some would call it a debate) with the chemistry professor. He made some off-handed comment about how God, or what we often times call God, is really just the gaps that science has yet to fill. "Mystery" is really just what we don't understand YET, but given enough time and testing, we'll get there.

Now, if you know me at all, you'll know that I'm really going to resist statements like that. They're dehumanizing, hubristic, and ultimately (I believe) wrong. So after asking a few more questions to make sure I had his position right (he conceded that it's very possible that science will never figure everything out, but the initial point that everything is essentially explainable in terms of physical cause and effect relationships and that the God of "mystery" will get eeked out given enough time remains) and then I tried to defend a bigger God than that, or at least the possibility that the universe isn't composed of entirely of phenomena explainable in terms of descriptive propositions. If I can get that point across, I've at least made room for science and God to coincide without encroaching upon each others' territory too much.

So let me try to give a few examples that get at my intuitions.

Imagine I find someone who has NEVER encountered sadness in any way and then I give them a book containing every single proposition about the entirely physical phenomenon of depression. This book contains everything from the physical and chemical states that cause people to feel depressed to a list of actions that depressed people have been known to commit while depressed. The book has everything. Journal entries from depressed people, lists of famous people who have had chronic depression, etc, etc. Now I ask you this: Assuming that this person had never experienced any sort of sadness and she or he had then learned everything there is to know about depression, would she or he have any idea what it feels like to be depressed?

Or how about this one:

Yesterday I went to go see a production from the Alvin Ailey II dance company. They came to Springfield and put on a FANTASTIC show (which I got $10 student rush tickets to!). There was one piece in the middle entitled "Essence" which I believe tried to articulate using poetic movement how it feels to be trapped inside yourself with some monstrous issue. The dance was just one woman on a chair. She stayed with the chair the whole time, unable to break her attachment to it no matter how much pain it seemed to be causing her to be sitting there alone. She writhed, she struggled, she laughed, she cried, she even tried to compose herself and put on the good face, but all to no avail. It was a beautiful piece, and incredibly moving. Here's an excerpt from it that I found on youtube:

Anyway, I was watching this piece while sitting next to one of my very good friends whose mother passed away last semester. I blogged about it here, and you can read a bit about her experiences. While watching it, I couldn't help but relate the dance to how she must be feeling. Going through something like the death of a parent. Seemingly alone. No one can really help deal with the pain. I have to admit that I cried a bit during the piece, overwhelmed by the emotion it caused me thinking about my friend and what she must be going through.

Again I ask you: If I gave you every bit of information regarding me, my friend, the dance we watched together, our chemical states, etc, would you be able to feel how we felt last night? Even now I must admit that if I had every propositional fact possible about my friend, her mother's fatal illness, and knew her even better than I did, it would be impossible for me to know exactly what she's going through.

My point is that there is an end to science. There is a chasm, an unbridgeable chasm, that science cannot cross when we go from the realm of propositions to the realm of humanity. Science simply cannot give us insight into how things feel, into how they effect us as meaning-seeking people. Science cannot help us grasp subjective reality through facts and data. So yes, science is useful and helpful and arguably even necessary, but it can never tell us everything. There will always be a gap between science's explanations of my friend's pain and my friend's pain from the subjective point of view. And to me, that's a good thing.

The Time Has Come...

2010-02-16T08:41:00.006-06:00

to blog again. Not because I've had some life revelation, not because I feel a deeply ingrained need to express myself on a public forum, and not even because I feel like I have a whole lot to say. I'm starting again for two reasons. 1) I really need to stay in practice with my writing. If you're not moving forward, you're moving backward. 2) I miss my blogging community. It's a positive force in my life, so back to the grindstone I go. I'm not going to make any silly promises of "Oh, I'll be sure to blog every day for x days," or "I'm going to start a theme presentation that will keep me going for the next x weeks." I'll try to blog every morning since I have the time and I just want to follow my thoughts and see where they lead me, linguistic errors be damned.

Today I'll write about what I think is probably the biggest joy in my life as of late, which is my puppy, Yoko. Named after the infamous Yoko Ono (I wanted a name to do with the Beatles, but Lucy was too popular and Eleanor sounds strange for a dog), MY Yoko came into my life unexpectedly in late November of last year. A good friend of mine who is closely involved with one of the local shelters came to me one morning during class and said, "Hey, you wouldn't want to take a puppy we just rescued, would you?" Apparently it was close to euthanasia day at the pound and my friend took Yoko home with her (I'm not quite sure of the legality of that move, but what I don't know won't hurt me) to save her from certain death. Seeing as I have a fenced in backyard where I'm staying now, I agreed to hold onto Yoko. This is how our story began.

That day I came home to a small black puppy with a head three times too large for her body who enjoyed playing tug of war with her rope toy. My roommates and I weren't sure whether or not we were going to keep her - there was some disagreement between the three of us for the ensuing week or two on the issue - but that night sealed the deal for me. That night, you see, Yoko got VERY sick. She went from playful puppy to bedridden babe in about three hours. She had severe diarrhea and vomiting, so I took her to the vet the very next morning. The diagnosis: Poor Yoko had flat and round worms, kennel cough (think bronchitis for dogs), and - you guessed it - parvovirus. Parvo, the virus's shorthand name, is like dysentery for dogs. With out patient care, most dogs have a 35-50% survival rate. Yikes. And with all the other ailments draining her immune system, I feared the worst. Most people would have put her to sleep right then and there, but I'm a big softy. Her big brown eyes had stolen my heart and I was ready for the fight.

The next week was intense for me and my little labrapei (that's the name I came up for her breed. Half black lab half shar pei). She didn't eat anything for about eight days. She didn't move either. She just sat curled up in our laps all day long. Every few hours I would have to force feed her pills or small amounts of pedialyte, or a nutritional gel the vet gave me, but aside from that she just looked sad.

The third day of parvo was the trough. She didn't sleep at all (which meant I didn't sleep at all) and she had a strong resemblance to one of those Ethiopian children you see on television who have no food. That morning, having not slept at all, I drove her to the vet as soon as it opened. I was ready for the vet to tell me that she needed to be put to sleep because she was doing so poorly, so that entire drive was heartbreaking for me. I sang James Taylor to her while she sat in my lap. I actually showed up an hour before the vet, so they let me sit in the waiting room with Yoko for an hour and they brought me coffee. I spent that entire hour holding her like a child and talking to her. I promised her lots of things about how happy I'd try to make her if she kept fighting, about how much fun we'd be together, and I assured her how much I loved her no matter what. It sounds sappy and silly, but it was a really strong experience for me.

Despite her appearance, the vet said she still had some fight in her. We pumped her full of fluids once again and I took her home to rest. The next day she turned the corner and started to slowly perk up, and it was all progress from there. Over the next few days, she started walking again, eating on her own, and having solid bowel movements. Again, it sounds silly, but you should have seen the smile on my face the first time she was able to eat on her own or even the first time she had solid poo. I'm officially hooked.

Since then, she grown exponentially (though she still hasn't quite grown into her ginormous head), learned all kinds of tricks, been potty trained, and just two days ago she learned to jump onto the bed for the first time. She's great for me. She gives me a reason to come home, something warm to hold onto while I watch movies, someone to snuggle with at night, and a constant playmate. You can see a few pictures to chronicle growth here. The first one is her at a few weeks old taken at the pound, the next one is her in December post-parvo (it was my Christmas card), and the last one is one I took this morning. She's only about halfway grown too!

Ft. Hood...

2009-11-12T10:41:00.003-06:00

Thirteen individuals died and thirty-one were wounded at the shooting at Fort Hood. That means thirteen families have had the ultimate wound inflicted upon them. Thirteen mothers had their children torn from them. Thirteen fathers will watch their sons and daughters being lowered into the ground. And thirty-one families will be effected in ways they never could have imagined.

I want this to be kept in mind when we talk about Fort Hood. This idea should be in the foreground, on the tips of everyone's tongues at all times during this discussion. These were real people with real families who are experiencing real, inescapable, undeniable grief.

In the past week or so, I've heard different news organizations talk about this incident in different ways. Some of them haven't gotten past the idea I just mentioned. We're hearing news flashes about what Obama wants to do about it, about what Lieberman wants to do about it, about what the people want done about it. The BBC is reporting on it, and the world mourns with us over the deaths of soldiers on our own ground.

Perhaps we could have prevented it. The guy who committed the crime showed warning signs; he apparently talked to al Qaeda members via telephone and email. We knew about it. Maybe we can talk about how to prevent these kinds of things in the future. Maybe we can talk about what went wrong in this particular incident that made us do nothing in response to the warning signs he gave us. That might be an appropriate place to go with this discussion, and we're seeing it shift in that direction a bit.

What I've seen a lot of, sadly, is news organization using this terrible incident as fuel for their base. It's sensationalized, yes, like all other news stories are; however, I'm seeing that sensationalism turn into ignorance and fear-mongering like what we saw after 9/11. People are starting to blindly attack Islam again, talking about how violent and dangerous it is. They're beginning to turn this incident, one that thirteen families are going to be mourning for years to come, into another log on the fire of the crusade that we've been participating in for decades. It's become politicized, strategized, and mobilized to suddenly be some means to an end.

"It's Obama's fault!" I hear from Hannity and Limbaugh.

"Blame the Islamic extremists!" I hear from Beck.

I suppose this is my point: How does it reflect us as Americans if all we do with tragedies like this is turn them into propaganda for a party or a cause? We're all scrambling over how to use this event to drum up support for our presence in Afghanistan or attack our liberal "victim-loving" president, but thirteen families just want their children back. I see these actions as vulgar. It's repulsive. When are we going to stop being pundits and spinsters and start being human?

My two cents: Things like this are going to continue to happen across the globe until we can stop placing blame, stop going on crusades, stop marginalizing and ignoring people for our "causes" and start being compassionate, empathetic human beings towards each other.

History...

2009-11-10T10:35:00.003-06:00

My African American Lit class has gotten me thinking a lot about history and the way it impacts our lives on an everyday level. Personally, I'm somewhat confused as to my own relationship to history, so I'd like to use this as a forum to work that struggle out.

The way I see it, we have two histories to relate to. The first is our personal history, which all of us have and cannot avoid. I am the youngest of three. My dad is a pastor and my mother is a nurse. There have been lots of different events and circumstances in my life that have shaped me to be the particular Mark that I am today. I've personally experience this kind of history and can reflect upon it and my relationship to it. For me, this is a fairly simple and unproblematic concept.

The second relationship to history is what really interests and perplexes me, however. I'm part of a culture. I live in a certain society at a certain time in history. While I understand the ramifications of how this effects my day-to-day life and has a PROFOUND impact on who I am, I fail to identify myself with it. It's a strange thought, but maybe I can illuminate it better by describing people who do identify with their cultural history.

African American writers, for example, spend a good deal of time focusing on how their cultural history shapes who they are. I'm reading Toni Morrison right now, and she seems to think that you cannot simply be an individual living in a society. You are a member of that society, and that society's history is your history which you must learn to deal with. Her characters have to learn what it means to be black, to have an oppressed and checkered history. I guess for a group who's history is a little more tangible in their daily life, I understand how this is relevant. Still, for me, I don't know.

My history is white-washed. George Washington cutting down the apple tree kinda stuff. It's a bunch of tall tales, myths, that never really happened but that we tell ourselves in order to justify our modern selves. Aside from that, I don't even know which history to look for. Am I an American? Am I European? Should I associate myself with the history of Great Britain as an Irish descendant? Exactly who I am is a little muddled and confusing, so exactly which history is "my" history is confusing as well.

I suppose on one level, people could say that it's important to understand how your history shapes you, but you don't have to personally identify with it. Currently, for example, if I were to personally identify myself as an American I'd feel nothing but ashamed of our actions. That's just me though. Thoughts? Comments? Reflections? I'd love to hear them!

Judgment...

2009-11-08T20:20:00.003-06:00

I've been thinking about judgment a lot lately, about our rights to judge others and such. It makes me want to tell a story.

When I was in grade school, I got picked on a whole lot. I was tormented pretty mercilessly (grade school kids learn to torture long before they learn to be merciful, sadly) by what felt like every kid in the school for every reason they could find. I'm just starting to analyze and see how deeply these years have effected my personal growth as an adult and how much of that pain I still carry with me, but that's another post for another day.

What I want to convey first is how horrible this was to me as a child. I remember how much I hated everything about myself. I remember going shopping for clothes with my mom one day and crying in the dressing room because no matter what I tried on, I never looked cool enough. I remember the day after I got beat up on the playground by a kid begging my parents to not make me go back to school and face the ridicule of the moribund masses of my peers. There were lots of experiences like that. It was a hellish few years for me.

One of the kids who came after me the most was a little blond kid named Keith Baldwin. Keith was meaner to me than the rest which made me hate him the most. When he finally moved away my sixth grade year, I was completely relieved. "One less jerk to worry about," I thought. He moved to Jefferson City and I didn't hear a thing about him for a few years aside from the occasional line or two about how people missed him (which infuriated me) or about when people would go visit him. Then, one day in eighth grade, an email was circulated through my school. The teachers informed all of us that Keith and his little sister came home from school one day and the two of them were murdered by their mother. Their mother went insane and shot them to death and promptly turned the weapon on herself.

"Good," I thought. "One less jerk to worry about." When I thought that, it became apparent to me that I had some issues to work through.

Slowly, stories about how Keith's mom had literally tortured him leaked out. Friends would tell about how Keith's mom poured salt in Keith's eyes and stuff like that. It was demented. It took me years to think about it fully, but I began to realize that Keith probably didn't have the easiest time with life. He took that out on me. The older I get the more okay with it I am. As I think about it, most of the kids who made fun of me came from broken homes, single parent situations, abuse fathers, etc. Not that their actions against me are justified, but they're certainly more understandable and forgivable in that light.

The point is this, my friends: We're all products of our environments. Keith made fun of me because it's how he expressed his anguish. His friends followed suit. I'm a product of those actions too. Again, this doesn't make all of our actions acceptable or exempt us from responsibility, but it seems to lighten the load a bit.

I was talking to one of my friends about judgment in a Christian setting the other day while we were riding in the car. I ended up telling her my story about Keith and then asking her, "Was Keith a sinner? When Keith picked on me, can he be held responsible and judged for it?" You know, I don't know the answer to that question, but for me it illuminates something about the way a lot of us Christian people think and a lot about why people don't like us. We're quick to judge. We don't think a lot before we pass judgment. We don't realize that the evil deeds don't just crop up in this world. They're conditioned and created by other evil deeds. That makes me question a lot about what's traditionally thought of as "God's judgment," which inevitably is a euphemism for our judgment in God's name. I just want to put that out there. Maybe we'll all think a bit more before we pass judgment. Maybe we'll be a bit quicker to forgive next time.

Two Things...

2009-11-03T09:47:00.002-06:00

First, I'd like a bit of discussion and hopefully some thoughtful replies. Second, some awesome entertainment.

So firstly, I've been pondering in my head the extent to which difference breeds hatred. Particularly in the political realm, I find myself having a very difficult time learning that those who are different than me have validity. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I've thought out my arguments or that I'm just an egotistical jerk (as I often can be without my knowledge), but when it comes to people who have different political opinions, specifically to people who are staunch conservatives, I find myself having a difficult time not letting that get difference get in the way I view them as humans.

Example.

I have a friend whom I love deeply. She's a beautiful person who cares about the same things that I do in praxis, but she recently confessed to me that she's an intense conservative. She thinks laissez faire capitalism is the best possible system, socialist nations are filled with unhappy and unhealthy people (she also equated socialism with communism), and that Regan's economic policies were the best thing this country has ever seen. As much as I love her, this is a pretty glaring difference in our perspectives and I just don't know how to 1) communicate with her at all about it and 2) not let it get in the way of how I see her as a human being. For me, these issues touch on my faith in God, my love of my neighbor, and everything I think is wrong with humanity today. How do you do it, guys? How do you not let difference breed hatred? I'm assuming it starts with a strong and healthy dose of humility, though I'm wary of getting to the point that I delegitimize myself in the process, but then what? Yikes!

Okay, now for some promised entertainment. To my friend who is Blogging Incognito, I think your son might particularly enjoy these videos.

Lovers of the Poor...

2009-11-02T10:04:00.002-06:00

Lovers of the Poor
By Gwendolyn Brooks

arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies' Betterment
League
Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting
Here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair,
The pink paint on the innocence of fear;
Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall.
Cutting with knives served by their softest care,
Served by their love, so barbarously fair.
Whose mothers taught: You'd better not be cruel!
You had better not throw stones upon the wrens!
Herein they kiss and coddle and assault
Anew and dearly in the innocence
With which they baffle nature. Who are full,
Sleek, tender-clad, fit, fiftyish, a-glow, all
Sweetly abortive, hinting at fat fruit,
Judge it high time that fiftyish fingers felt
Beneath the lovelier planes of enterprise.
To resurrect. To moisten with milky chill.
To be a random hitching post or plush.
To be, for wet eyes, random and handy hem.
Their guild is giving money to the poor.
The worthy poor. The very very worthy
And beautiful poor. Perhaps just not too swarthy?
Perhaps just not too dirty nor too dim
Nor--passionate. In truth, what they could wish
Is--something less than derelict or dull.
Not staunch enough to stab, though, gaze for gaze!
God shield them sharply from the beggar-bold!
The noxious needy ones whose battle's bald
Nonetheless for being voiceless, hits one down.
But it's all so bad! and entirely too much for them.
The stench; the urine, cabbage, and dead beans,
Dead porridges of assorted dusty grains,
The old smoke, heavy diapers, and, they're told,
Something called chitterlings. The darkness. Drawn
Darkness, or dirty light. The soil that stirs.
The soil that looks the soil of centuries.
And for that matter the general oldness. Old
Wood. Old marble. Old tile. Old old old.
Note homekind Oldness! Not Lake Forest, Glencoe.
Nothing is sturdy, nothing is majestic,
There is no quiet drama, no rubbed glaze, no
Unkillable infirmity of such
A tasteful turn as lately they have left,
Glencoe, Lake Forest, and to which their cars
Must presently restore them. When they're done
With dullards and distortions of this fistic
Patience of the poor and put-upon.
They've never seen such a make-do-ness as
Newspaper rugs before! In this, this "flat,"
Their hostess is gathering up the oozed, the rich
Rugs of the morning (tattered! the bespattered . . . ),
Readies to spread clean rugs for afternoon.
Here is a scene for you. The Ladies look,
In horror, behind a substantial citizeness
Whose trains clank out across her swollen heart.
Who, arms akimbo, almost fills a door.
All tumbling children, quilts dragged to the floor
And tortured thereover, potato peelings, soft-
Eyed kitten, hunched-up, haggard, to-be-hurt.
Their League is allotting largesse to the Lost.
But to put their clean, their pretty money, to put
Their money collected from delicate rose-fingers
Tipped with their hundred flawless rose-nails seems . . .
They own Spode, Lowestoft, candelabra,
Mantels, and hostess gowns, and sunburst clocks,
Turtle soup, Chippendale, red satin "hangings,"
Aubussons and Hattie Carnegie. They Winter
In Palm Beach; cross the Water in June; attend,
When suitable, the nice Art Institute;
Buy the right books in the best bindings; saunter
On Michigan, Easter mornings, in sun or wind.
Oh Squalor! This sick four-story hulk, this fibre
With fissures everywhere! Why, what are bringings
Of loathe-love largesse? What shall peril hungers
So old old, what shall flatter the desolate?
Tin can, blocked fire escape and chitterling
And swaggering seeking youth and the puzzled wreckage
Of the middle passage, and urine and stale shames
And, again, the porridges of the underslung
And children children children. Heavens! That
Was a rat, surely, off there, in the shadows? Long
And long-tailed? Gray? The Ladies from the Ladies'
Betterment League agree it will be better
To achieve the outer air that rights and steadies,
To hie to a house that does not holler, to ring
Bells elsetime, better presently to cater
To no more Possibilities, to get
Away. Perhaps the money can be posted.
Perhaps they two may choose another Slum!
Some serious sooty half-unhappy home!--
Where loathe-lover likelier may be invested.
Keeping their scented bodies in the center
Of the hall as they walk down the hysterical hall,
They allow their lovely skirts to graze no wall,
Are off at what they manage of a canter,
And, resuming all the clues of what they were,
Try to avoid inhaling the laden air.

-1960

The more things change, the more they stay the same, no?

This poem makes me angry. I find myself very flustered with the self-righteous; those who want to help, but only "the worthy poor. The very very worthy and beautiful poor." Really, all that I see in most instances of people wanting to help the poor is that people want to feel better about themselves for having helped the poor but get disgusted by the barbarity of the problem, by how much it actually requires of you to interject and make a difference (myself included). So I suppose I'm upset not only because I see this kind of self-righteousness happening all the time, but because it touches on something in myself that I find loathsome.

I think we tell ourselves lots of things to avoid reaching out and helping people. "I'm far too busy right now," or "the problem's just too big for one person to make a difference in," or - the most insidious lie, "If they could just pull themselves up from their bootstraps!" How can you pull yourself up from your bootstraps if you don't have any boots? I'm just so frustrated by the poverty issue in the world, and particularly by our own egotistical perspective on it.

Life Without God...

2009-10-29T10:00:00.002-06:00

There have been several posts by my friends over at Every Square Inch which have stated, both explicitly and implicitly, that without God (and I'm assuming that they mean also without Christ) life can have no meaning. I'm not entirely sure what they mean by this as there are several different possibilities for application of that statement, but in any case I strongly disagree. I've been debating with them on their blog, but I wanted to take some time to really explicate myself and state my case in hopes that 1) I'll create some good dialogue, and 2) they'll understand me a bit better than they do currently.

So...

If you want to say that life has no meaning without God, I think there are two basic ways you can apply that statement. First, there is the ontological argument that without God, life as a phenomena cannot be meaningful (or, from a Christian perspective, that life cannot even exist). In this case, people who are living without God in their lives CAN have meaning, but they're in a sense "borrowing" it from God and not recognizing it. They're taking meaning from God's creation meant for them and not giving God the credit. I'm okay with this argument (I think it's the most tenable in an argument for sure), but I'm not entirely sure this is what most Christians mean when they say things like, "Without God, life can have no meaning."

The second way this phrase can be applied is on the personal, everyday level. Thus, when you're saying that without God life is meaningless, you're saying that without a personal relationship with God (and Christ implicitly) a person cannot be fulfilled. The argument here as I understand it is that we all have a "God shaped hole" and that we are not realizing ourselves as fully human unless we put God back in our lives where He belongs. I think this position is on some level convincing, but here's what you've got to do to hold it:

1) You have to show how people without God (and without Christ specifically) don't have meaning in their lives. More specifically, you have to find people without a relationship with God and Christ who are perfectly happy and successful in the "meaning making department," if you will, and convince them that they actually DON'T have meaning somehow. To me, this either makes the person who is trying to argue that life without God is meaning look either inhumane in some way (they're trying to make people feel guilty or unhappy without cause), silly (they're out of touch with reality), or you'll find yourself deflating the term "meaning" to something...well...meaningless that nobody really cares about or wants in their lives.

What's even more compelling for me in this case is that you've got to make this argument for not only extreme secularists (Dawkins et. al) but also for those who are active participants in other religions. Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. cannot have meaning under this framework. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time looking at people like Gandhi and the Dalai Lama and telling them that their lives aren't meaningful. As humanitarian and compassionate as they are, I think again we run the risk of devaluing the term "meaningful" to be something no one really cares about or wants in their lives.

2) You have to argue against post-modern existentialist philosophy. Wow. That's tough, especially seeing as it's unnecessary. There are lots of fantastic Christian existential philosophers who have already done the leg-work that these guys are wanting to do (Kierkegaard and Tillich specifically come to mind) and they do it in a post-modern and therefore more currently understandable, accessible, and acceptable by the everyday thinking person. Anyway, what you've got to do, in my mind, is argue somehow that there is no relativity in human experience and the power of human agency to decide what is meaningful and what is not is a misguided notion. I'm not entirely sure how to do this without looking either archaic or fideistic.

So there are my thoughts, for what they're worth, and I'd LOVE to get some feedback. As it stands, I think the onus is on a believer in the statement "Life can have no meaning without God" and want to hold that position on an everyday level to explain how 1) people who seem to have meaning without God DON'T have it, and 2) rebut existentialism. I'd really like to see that argument.

As an addendum, I think that we're better off leaving accepting the fact that life can have meaning without God. I don't want to say that all meanings are the same and that having any meaning at all means that you're completely fulfilled and happy. I'd argue that a personal relationship with the Divine makes you more fully human, more realized, and more fulfilled than you could otherwise be (i.e. that having a relationship with the Divine is part of our nature and we should embrace it), but there are lots of negative things about rejecting meaning without God. It in some sense dehumanizes us and rejects the notions of free will that the Bible says we're created with, mainly, and I don't think I can accept that consequence. When we're totally free, when we can freely choose to accept God over and against the other things in the world, our choice is MORE meaningful than it would be without meaning in other departments. I think that saying life can have meaning without God actually makes the choice to worship God a more valuable and laudable choice than it would be otherwise. What do you all think?

Some Recent Thoughts...

2009-10-23T10:44:00.002-06:00

You know, I'm not really upset that I don't post often anymore. It's not that I'm not posting because I don't have things to say or I don't want to be part of this online community I've worked years to cultivate and be a member of. I'm not posting because I'm out doing things. I'm living my life. I'm dancing, or studying, or hanging out with my friends, or at church, or something like that. I'm completely okay with that.

That being said, there have been some incredible things going on in my life recently.

Last weekend, for example, I was in Kansas City to watch my first ever professional ballet (strange, I know). My friend Valerie and I wanted to go ever since we found out about it at the beginning of the year and we discovered we could get student rush tickets for $12 the day of the show, so we drove up together and spent the night with her sister and brother-in-law. The show was fantastic even with my critical eye pouring all over them.

Strangely, my favorite part wasn't even the mainstage production, Carmen, but the shows which were supposed to build up to it. There was one piece, Splendid Isolations III, which was simply breathtaking. I teared up in the middle. It was a ten minute contemporary piece about a man and a woman who were deeply in love but they couldn't seem to reach each other. This distance between them was symbolized in the dance by a parachute-like dress which extended ten feet in either direction. They used the dress in some, well, splendid ways to represent the issue and how the couple was dealing with it and she finally took it off at the end for a gorgeous finalle pas de deux. Amazing. And a great intro into the foyer of professional dance productions for me.

Yesterday in dance class my instructor was trying to explain a concept using analogies from old children's tv shows.
"You guys have to be like Gumby," she said.
"Who's Gumby?" responded the eight tiny dancer girls in the room as I smacked my forehead, confounded.
"Okay, be like Stretch Armstrong. You guys know who that is, right?"
"No." Another forehead smack.
"Alright," she said in a moment of I-swear-I'm-not-this-old frustration. "Who do you guys know from movies or tv shows that is really stretchy?"
"How about Elastagirl from The Incredibles?" tweeted the audience of what I was now seeing as babies.
"Elastagirl it is." One more forehead smack on my part, just because I'm starting to really understand one more part of growing up, and I'm only 21. Yikes. This is only going to get worse, isn't it?

Yesterday I deleted over 300 friends from my Facebook. It was a strange experience. I'm not sure if people who grew up without the internet as part of their upbringing appreciate how central to our identities some of these websites can become. I've had a Facebook page since I was 17. I've had the same email and instant messenger since I was 11. These things grew up with me. I think on some level, they disperse our personal identity to be something online as well as something we carry with us. At the very least, these things are a symbol of our material selves; they're something we understand our material selves and our relations to other material selves through, which has some pretty profound implications.

Anyway, I was going through my list of what was then 894 friends. *Click* Another high school mate is dismissed from being associated with me. *Click* There goes that girl I had a crush on for a few weeks but haven't talked to in two years. *Click, click, click* An old professor, a fellow blogger I never talk to, someone I met at my sister's wedding. It's really strange, but every click is a decision to let go of a part of myself in some way or other. Each person dismissed from the status of Facebook "friend" is something I have to reflect upon and ask myself, "Is this person still representative of myself as I am today?" It was a nice experience ultimately. I do feel lighter now, more clarified, more solidified.

That's really all for now. More later! For now, I have to finish up my fall break, which includes three papers, a test to study for, and two books to finish. Fall break, indeed!

On Being Perfect...

2009-10-16T09:55:00.002-06:00

I struggle with being perfect. I have my whole life. I want so badly to not make mistakes, to cross every "t" and dot every "i," and I pummel myself with hatred and disgust when I screw up.

I'm not sure if there are many others out there like myself who find themselves filled with a deep-seated desire to never fail at anything. "Perhaps when we finally get it right," we tell ourselves, "we'll feel complete at last." Maybe that's true, but we'll never know. We'll never reach that point.

I was dancing last night, learning new choreography for the upcoming Nutcracker performance, and when I screwed up (which is inevitable in ballet) I hung my head and walked off the floor in the middle of the rehearsal. I couldn't handle the shame I felt first at not being able to live up to the unreal standard I had set for myself and second at the way I reacted to my failure. It was an eye-opening moment for me.

I've been having these discussions with people for the past few weeks. I'm quick to forgive others for their shortcomings or their failures, yet when it comes to myself I cannot let anything go. I'm relentless in my masochistic attacks.

I feel like if I can figure out this perfection thing I'll finally be worthy of the love I get from those around me. Until then, I'm a constant disappointment to people who think highly of me, "for," I tell myself, "all they're really looking up to is the fake me. If they knew how terrible of a person I really am, they'd surely reject me outright." This goes for all of my relationships. My friends, my ballet instructors, and God. Until I can figure out how to be perfect, all I want to do is remove myself from these relationships because I know I'll continually disappoint everyone I come into contact with.

Yikes! That's a dead-end street, isn't it? What's missing from this picture, I believe, is forgiveness and an understanding of what it means to be a human being (not to mention a proper view of what a healthy human relationship looks like). My problem now is that I'm not quite sure how to reach that goal.

My Life Till Now...

2009-10-13T13:23:00.002-06:00

"My Life Till Now" was the title one of my best friends made for a note on facebook which described, well, her life until now. On Tuesday, you see, her mom died after a long and hard fought battle with lung cancer. I'd been praying for her for months (along with many others), and she was finally relieved of her suffering. I want to start by sharing an excerpt from Kristen's note, because I think it's really well put and it brings me several different forms of hope. She writes:

[ All I can say is "Thank you". Thank you Mommy for being such a wonderful, gentle, selfless soul. You've taught me so much in the 21 years I've known you. I hope that eventually I can be just as good of a servant to others as you were to me and our family. Thank you to all my friends; you've been there for me to cry to, vent to, run to, and be frustrated with life with. Without you this would have been much, much, much harder; not that it has been easy by any means. Also, thanks to people I'd never imagine to care about me so much. You've latched on and never let go, and for that I am so grateful. Lastly, I thank God. My peace and strength ultimately comes from Him. From day one I've been praying for peace in this situation and he's granted that to me through each and every tial, including this one. Without Him, I'd be a total blubbering mess, but with his help and guidance I know it'll be alright and I'm only a half blubbering mess.

Mom, I'll see you later. Everyone else, please keep in mind that the people you love are finite and give them a massive hug while you can. ]

Beautiful, no? So was the funeral, which I attended in Berryville, Arkansas on Saturday morning. The service was fine, but mostly I was just overwhelmed with joy at the thought of being able to be there for a friend in her time of need and repay her a bit for the love and kindness she's showed me.

It makes you think though. We're all going to die. Everyone we ever have known and ever will know. It's tough to deal with, but necessary, I believe, if we're going to live authentically. I know I called up my parents that day and told them I loved them. I even made a trip home a few weeks ago because of this whole situation just to hug my family. How do you deal with death? Does it make you let go of your attachment to life or make you grip it all the more?

Anyway, I've cleared my head a bit in the past few months and I think I'm ready to start making my way back as a writer in the blog-o-sphere for a while. I've got some thoughts I need to get some feedback for, so look for me once more!

On Being White...

2009-09-16T11:36:00.002-06:00

I've been at Drury University for four years now. It's a liberal arts school with a strong emphasis on human rights issues in America. In my mind, that's probably the most valuable thing I've learned about while being here. Still, that doesn't make it easy. I'm currently in African American Literature reading abolitionist writers (W.E.B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, etc) and it's really hard for me to do. Let me tell you why.

I'm white. I'm a while MALE. AND I'm in the middle class. Basically, I embody everything that has been wrong with this country since its inception. I'm not overtly racist, classist, or gender biased, but that doesn't mean that I'm not currently benefiting from hundreds of years of gruesome acts of hatred based on race, class, and gender. All of that makes me feel very conflicted.

Du Bois talks about the concept of double consciousness. He says that when he realized that he was different from everyone, when he realized he was black, he suddenly became aware of the fact that he had two separate identities struggling to take supremacy over his character. He was both an African and an American, and that created a veil between him and the outside world while he simultaneously waged war with himself over how to successfully integrate his two identities.

When we were talking about that in class, my professor rhetorically asked, "When did you discover that you were white?" Even though it was a rhetorical question, I answered him.

"Freshman year of college for me," I said. You see, even though I knew about racism and had heard of all the bad things associated with it, I was SEVERELY sheltered from it until I came to Springfield. My high school had next to no diversity whatsoever, so I lived my life thinking that I was merely a white male living in a time when racism had had its influence on history and now it only existed in small pockets of America and the minds of small people. When I came to Drury and started reading civil rights writings, feminist thought, philosophy, theology, I began to see things very differently. Suddenly I was doubly conscious of two very different identities within me.

I have my white, middle class male side which I am not acutely familiar with. This is who I am and who I must learn to take responsibility for being but not who I want to be. Alternatively, I have my meek, shy, scared little boy side who just wants everyone to get along and love each other. I don't know how to reconcile myself. I want to totally decry the role that middle class, white men have played in the history of the world, but I AM one.

It's also difficult to try and make that point in class discussions. What usually ends up happening is I'll start to try and make the point but end up looking like a whiny racist, sexist, classist man. I feel as though there is no way I can make the point that I'm not racist or sexist despite my appearances and cultural heritage. It just seems to me that even by those who champion justice, often times we still make judgments based on color and gender.

Hiatus...

2009-09-07T17:44:00.003-06:00

I'm on an indefinite break from blogging. I still read everyone else's blogs regularly (no worries there), but I don't have the time or energy to contribute to my own blogs anymore. I'm not sure if I'll keep this site up and running or just get rid of it just yet. Time will tell. Hope everyone is well and I also hope to hear from you all soon.

Write!

2009-08-22T12:54:00.001-06:00

JOIN ME! You’ve been following the news, as I have. NOW WE MUST DO SOMETHING. Here’s my personal intention and commitment. It’s quick easy, clean.... YOU CAN DO IT, TOO!

Step 1: I handwrite a brief letter to my Senators. “Dear Senator …, I voted for you. I have placed my trust in you. I hereby respectfully request that you unequivocally INSIST on the inclusion of a public option or its equivalent in any health care bill that goes to President Obama. Yours truly, (signature.)”

(Find your senators’ addresses here:)

Step 2: I place my letters in sealed, stamped envelopes, marked in bright, unmistakable letters on the outside: PO/PO (for Public Option/Post Office) in order to identify it as a part of this effort.

Step 3: IMPORTANT! On Tuesday, September 1 at precisely NOON o’clock, I drive, ride or walk to my nearest United States Post Office and silently place my letters in the outgoing mailbox. Suppose I were to find hundreds of like-minded people doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time? I shake their hands. What about hundreds of thousands, if not millions of good-hearted Americans? We will all come to the US Post Office. We will all place our letters in the outgoing mailbox. We will all shake hands.

What’s so complicated? I promise to do this no matter if I’m the only one in the entire country, but I invite you to join me. With your help in forwarding this email and your commitment to this simple action, we can stage a massive, elegantly simple, nation-wide demonstration that links cities, towns and villages throughout the country. It will require a few minutes of your time, but WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

YES, WE CAN! A vast majority of us say we want significant health care reform. Now is the time to back those words up with action that cannot be ignored or dismissed. PLEASE JOIN ME WITH YOUR OWN PERSONAL COMMITMENT! AND FORWARD THIS TO OTHERS WHO WILL JOIN US! Seriously. We will all meet at our US Post Offices all over the country at noon on September 1st.

Please use the comments on this post to RSVP for the "Health Care March on Washington."

I've Just GOTTA Say This...

2009-08-16T20:59:00.000-06:00

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A "DEATH PANEL" IN THE NEW HEALTH CARE PLAN!!!!!!!

Geez, people. Do your homework.

Daily Considerations...

2009-08-12T10:25:00.003-06:00

You know, when you decide you want to change stuff about yourself, you actually have to change stuff about yourself. It can be such a pain!

I have made some serious changes about the way I function in this town so that perhaps I won't fall into the same habits I used to. Being in the same places, doing the same things, and being around all the same people would be overwhelming. I don't know if I have the strength of will to uphold my remodeled self in the face of that, you know? Thus, things have got to be a bit different for this coming year.

I'm not living on campus, my friends have really changed for the better, and my list of activities has been revised and streamlined. The biggest changes so far this year include taking on more of a roll in my church (which is a lot of fun!), being at the ballet studio a lot more for both dancing and work, quitting my fraternity.

The fraternity thing was a big decision to make because on a small campus, you risk alienating a lot of people doing something like that. Still, it had to be done. When I joined, we were a pretty positive group of guys. Since then, all that place does is party and look for ways to get out of doing good things and punishment. Though the people individually may be good people, as a group it isn't a good thing and I'm really tired of having myself associated with it. I called the people I still really care about who are in the fraternity to let them know why I did what I did, and I haven't really looked back. I'm quite happy about my decision.

The point is this: Sometimes you've really got to do the things you've got to do. Like it or not, comfortable or not, keeping things the same means exactly that: keeping things the same. And now only two weeks until school starts up once more!

A Slow Shift in Person...

2009-08-08T13:16:00.003-06:00

It's official. I missed two days of blogging in August and broke my streak. It's incredible how quickly life can get in the way, you know? I decided that I was going to blog every day for the month of August, and not one week in I had already fallen off the wagon. Too bad.

I think the thing I want to talk about today is how much I've noticed a change in my priorities since leaving for Greece. Before going abroad, my life was a mess. I was struggling with balancing my schedule, hanging out with the wrong kinds of people for the wrong reasons, and I lived a fairly hedonistic lifestyle. It was something I really wasn't happy doing but continued to do anyway. I think that when you're sad, it's much easier to look for quick ways out and find small, short bursts of intense happiness instead of learning how to live a balanced life and find deep, sustained pleasure in living for the long haul.

Somewhere along the way in Volos, I figured out how to live for both today and tomorrow. And what's more is that that mentality has stayed with me since moving back to the US, which is something I'm proud of. I'm happy right now even when I'm not so happy (if that makes any sense), and I have found ways to derive meaning and satisfaction from living for long-term goals I've set for myself. Even if I stumble along the way, which I often do, each fall seems to be from less and less a height and it becomes easier and easier to forgive myself and get back up.

There have been lots of ways in which this has shown itself to be fruitful in my daily life. I've seen my circle of friends transition and my relationships with these people get deeper and more meaningful, I've noticed myself be able to handle more intense situations in much easier and less stressful ways, and I'm generally more enthused about doing the things I know I should do to be the person I want to be. I'm finding real joy in waking up and studying the Bible, going to church, not participating in my old lifestyle, etc. It's really rewarding to me, and the fact that I find it rewarding in turn makes me feel even more rewarded! It's a beautiful thing.

You know, I don't really have any recollection of when the change occurred within me or what made me shift my priorities. It's really strange. I expected something like that to be a big "aha!" moment in my life and suddenly I would change, but no. I find that I have casually drifted into this new lifestyle like slowly walking away from the shallow end of the pool until my feet no longer touch the ground.

Last Night...

2009-08-05T16:47:00.002-06:00

(This is cross-posted from my other blog Conversations from the Back Porch. I realize that not everyone who reads this blog is Christian or religious at all, but I still want to share this part of myself, so here goes!)

For about a year I've been going to First and Calvary in Springfield. It's a wonderful Presbyterian church with a fantastic college ministry. I stumbled upon it when my friend David "invited" me (good story, but for another time) and I really haven't left since then. It's a place where I'm loved, nurtured, and feel free to be myself. So needless to say, I think finding a good community is essential to our growth and development as Christians. That fact courses through all of Paul's writings (and the rest of the Bible too, but Paul's just more specific about it), but it's not anything that Paul has written that makes me believe it. It's the changes I've seen in my life because of it.

That's the end of my plug for church for today. I actually want to talk about something different. I want to talk about an amazing experience I had last night.

On Tuesday nights we have our college service. We always do something fun and interesting and I almost always learn something new, thought provoking, and growth stimulating. So last week (I wasn't there) the group did an exercise where they wrote letters to themselves from God about what God might want to say to them over the next year. It sounds a bit strange to think about writing a letter to you from God, but it turned out to be really productive. When the service was over, everyone handed their letters over to the ministry staff, who spent the next week raking through them for common themes which were shared last night. It was such an incredible experience, and I believe I encountered God's voice for the first recognizable time in my life last night.

Here are the common themes that ran through these letters:

1. God consistently uses consisten expressions of love. Each of these letters had emphatic, tender expressions of God's love for us as if we might forget and need reminders.
2. God expresses hopefulness about our future and asks us to do the same. The letters all suggested that we should be patient and rest assured that there is indeed a wonderful plan for our lives.
3. God expressed our need for discipline, consistency, and mindfulness. It was never forceful or abrasive, but God seemed to want us all to know that this is an area we can and should work on, especially as school begins.
4. God promised provision. All of our needs will be accounted for, so we need not worry.
5. God always spoke words of encouragement and strength.
6. God used many affectionate words in these letters. Clearly, God not only loves us. He likes us!
7. God clearly has a purpose for us as individuals. We were all created uniquely and God wants us to display our uniqueness as we go after our common goal as the body of Christ.
8. Trust. God asks us to trust him and expressed that He can be trusted.
9. God wants us to know that we have nothing to fear in the future. Everything is manageable with Him.
10. There was a lot of language about remembrance, suggesting that our struggle isn't about learning new things but about implementing what we already know to be true but don't live according to.
11. We have every reason to be hopeful in God.

As I copied down this list, I was overwhelmed by the presence of the Spirit. It seemed to me that the theme running through all of this list is that God wants to know us!

It seems like God is longing for us. God seemed to take the opportunity that arose last week to really reach into our lives and tell us. I really felt God's desire to know me last night, like my heart was being tugged towards a deeper relationship with an infinitely loving being. It was the strangest and most incredible feeling!

That's all I really wanted to share. God is longing, pining, starving for a relationship with us! He loves us! It's a beautiful thought to me, and I hope to you as well.

Nothing to do....

2009-08-04T17:27:00.005-06:00

You know what I've found is the hardest thing to do in life so far? Nothing. The hardest thing I've had to learn is that sometimes I have to do nothing. Worse still is when I want to do something and I can't for whatever reason.

Here I'm thinking about this in two different ways.

The first is when you could be doing something but are doing nothing instead. My new house doesn't have a TV. No DVD player. I find that I'm often just sitting at my table with a book or sitting on the front porch watching people walk by. It's strange. It's been hard to teach myself to slow down and not be such a busy body. It'd be much easier for me to have a list of things a mile long to do all night (even if I wasn't particularly thrilled with the list) than to do nothing instead. Still, I think it's a very important skill to learn.

The other more difficult way of "doing nothing" is when there is something that's really stressing you out in your life but you have no power over it. You can do nothing besides just worry, which is in no way productive. There are a few situations like that in my life right now and it's absolutely killing me. I want to help, I want to do something, I want with all of my being to just fix whatever's going on. But I can't. And I know it. I have to learn to just breathe and accept that fact.

Both of these types of "doing nothing" require that the person who is doing nothing to have a certain amount of comfort in their own skin. When you aren't able to occupy yourself with anything, you're left alone with yourself and all of your insecurities. It'll either drive you crazy or teach you how to embrace yourself for all that you're worth.

I'm figuring this out. My biggest allies right now are my friends who are willing to just be there and listen to me and God who gives me comfort. Only a few weeks left until school starts and I can distract myself all over again! Truly though, I'm thankful for this time. It's really healthy and therapeutic for the time being. I'm glad it's not permanent though!

Goin' Greener...

2009-08-03T18:14:00.003-06:00

I've been concerned for a while about going green (basically since coming to college three years ago), but recently I've decided that it's time to step it up a notch.

There have been a few reasons for this change, but mostly I have been thinking about a verse in the Bible that I think is interesting. Genesis 1:26 says that God created mankind and give us "dominion" over the Earth and everything on it. I've heard in my studies that the word "dominion" could be better translated as "stewardship." We were given the Earth not to subjugate it and bend it to our will, but to be its caretakers and watch out for it. This is a mandate I think we've completely neglected and have to make up for.

All of this paired with the fact that the people around me just keep giving me great ideas has made me really refueled me and made me take some further strides in my attempts at being environmentally friendly.

So here are a few of the things I've done to up the ante:

I have vowed to not drive my car more than three times a week. I live in a perfect location in Springfield (less than two miles from anywhere worth going), so my bike suffices nicely. The only times I can imagine needing to drive my car is when I need to pick something or someone up. Works for me.

I hang my clothes dry in my back yard instead of use the dryer. It saves energy AND it gives them that REAL spring day smell!

I mow my lawn with one of those crazy old school push mowers with the blades that rotate when you push it. It's REALLY hard work, but it's yet another way to reduce my carbon emissions.

My sister has started making all of her own cleaning supplies out of natural materials, so I joined in on that too. Everything from washing detergent to toilet bowl cleaner can actually be made at home, and it's just as effective! It's healthier (for yourself, your pets, and the environment), it's CHEAPER, and you save plastic by not buying bottle after bottle.

I've learned to vote more with my purchasing power. Buying locally whenever possible is a good start. Buying organically is even better. In a capitalistic environment, how you choose to spend your money has a big impact on the world around you. This means that choosing your brands wisely, buying as little plastic as possible, and in general doing your homework to be an ethical consumer is vitally important.

So in conclusion, being a good steward of this planet isn't just a good idea. It's not just something I see as necessary for our survival on this planet. As a Christian, I feel like it's a spiritual mandate. So go be green!

P.S. Except for food, being as green as possible actually makes life cheaper. I save bundles on gas, electricity, water, and I just don't buy as much stuff in general. So do it!

Racism...

2009-08-02T11:55:00.004-06:00

Apparently it's still a problem here in America, and these past few weeks have proven that beyond a doubt. The Louis-Gate/Boston Cop scandal paired with the birther stuff is just too much for me.

Dr. Panza over at A Ku Indeed recently wrote a piece about the birther movement on his blog. As it turns out (or as a lot of us have known all along), the birther movement appears to simply be a mask people are wearing for various reasons. Many of them are simply angry righties who want to get Obama out of office using any means necessary (including, apparently, making things up). Many of them, however, appear to be racist and are using the birther cause as a means of making their racism more palatable.

After searching the web a bit, I found some really disturbing stuff on the topic. I started with this great article about the geographical stratification of the birther movement (kind of) and then moved forward from there, only to find myself more frustrated. I think that maybe by sharing it, I'll feel a bit better.

So let's start with some stuff from Fox News.

I'm not sure if I heard that right, Glenn Beck. Did you really just say that Barack Obama has exposed himself as a man who "has a deep-seed hatred for white people or the white culture"? Rush Limbaugh, did you really just mess with a MLK Jr. quote to relate yourself as a slave? I suppose I can understand how frustrating it must be to be both a member of the most powerful race AND gender on the planet and to have that power threatened by your president. It's a terrible thing. Personally, I think Rush has his strategy backwards. If he really wants to keep his God-given right to world domination, I think he should HOPE that Obama goes after the "Oreos." They're next on the list of currently oppressed minorities in this country who want to have a piece of the WASP pie!

Okay, so that was a bit of an invective rant, but I find it hard to take these people seriously. And I think Maddow hit the nail on the head with her analysis of the situation.

As I got further into my web surfing, I found some more really disturbing stuff about the state of racism in our country. Check out this article from the NY Times. The Deep South apparently didn't get the memo that the Supreme Court actually ruled on this issue IN 1952!!!! Brown vs. Board of Education established that separate is not equal. Yet still, we're separating things in our school systems by the color of our skin.

And by this point in my searching, I became really befuddled. I often find that when I'm doing research on world issues I become overwhelmed. I get hit with the true gravity of the situation and my optimism, which has become the fuel I use to keep me going throughout my day, temporarily evaporates. Apparently racism is still alive and well in my country, and apparently I'm naive enough to be surprised by that fact. Strange. (Actually, as it turns out, all I have to do to immediately lose the optimism I have for my country is look up the sales records for Ann Coulter's books. Augh.)

Oh well. At least my buddies over at Comedy Central are able to completely dispel this stuff while simultaneously making me laugh over the absurdity of it all. Check it out!

John Stewart Eviscerates the "Birther Movement"

AND

Orly Taitz Has No Idea Stephen Colbert Is Making Fun of Her

Good Day, Sunshine...

2009-08-01T07:59:00.002-06:00

I've spent the past few months waking up fairly early. It started as kind of a bummer, but the longer I'm at it, the more convinced I am that waking up early is the way to go. Here's why:

1. If you're my age (21) and a productive person, it's highly probable that you will get more done before 10am then the rest of your friends will in their entire day. That just feels good.

2. Seeing a sunrise when you wake up feels like opening a present. You never know exactly what it's going to be, it's always exciting, and it's fun for free. AND, when you see the sunset later in the day, it's like you've been given TWO gifts!

3. The goods at bakeries and coffee shops (the good kind, that is) will be fresh and often times still warm when you go to get them. Plus, the lines are always shorter if you get there early.

4. You can save energy by managing your day such that the majority of your waking hours are spent when the sun's out. If the sun's up until 8:30pm like it is right now in the summer, you only have to have your lights on for like two hours!

5. The times when you really need to wake up earlier than normal are SO much easier if you're used to waking up early. For example: While at CPYB I had to wake up every day at 7am as opposed to waking up at 10am like a normal 21 year old male would do. Thus, when I had to wake up at 5am to drive back to Missouri, I only had to wake up two hours earlier than normal instead of FIVE hours earlier. An extra cup of coffee was all I needed, and I felt great all day.

6. From experience, the early morning crowd that you'll bump into while running errands is much friendlier than the late night crowd.

That's all I can really think of right now.

Also, I thought I'd post a poem my best friend Keith wrote for me a while back. Keith, who's an accomplished writer, shares a deep disgust for the poet Gertrude Stein with me. He wrote this poem to commemorate his dislike of Ms. Stein and sent it to me, and now I'm sharing it with you. Enjoy!

"Gertrude Stein"
By: Keith Stegall

There are few poets I hate more than Gertrude Stein. There there here there are far star are there here there. Poets I hate formica to slate harmonica stains the brains light on window panes of poets I hate. Despise the rise of reichs hikes up the hilltops the traintracks sudden drops out of starbursts poets I hate hate formica to slate are far star are are are.
The way she repeats gives me a headache. The the way the way way wei shu tao te ching shingles on a flight of stairs of pigeons alas glass on ice break the steak on wooden dice way the way way. Repeats repeats repeats tomorrow me borrow seed sorrow hold a headache on your shoulder. Shoulder holder molder shoulder are far should star starbursts fold down up up down down down up down.
And they never make sense. Refrigerator.

2009-07-31T16:15:00.003-06:00

So it's been a while and my life's been kinda crazy. Sorry about that.

I'm officially back from PA and recovered from the intensive. I miss dancing six hours a day and all the people I was surrounded with, but I'm glad to be back. It'll be nice to have a fairly normal routine for a while, although next week is another intensive with my home school, Springfield Ballet. All in all it was a great experience and it made me twice the dancer I was before.

After thinking about it and talking about it with lots of knowledgeable people, I've decided that my primary plan after graduation is to move back to Carlisle, PA, and attend CPYB full time for a year or two and then audition for companies. I'm fairly certain that I've got what it takes to dance, I love it, and so I'm gonna go for it while I'm young and I still can. If all else fails, I'll still have a degree in Religion and Philosophy, so life is good.

Aside from that, everything is going swimmingly. I moved into the house I'll be living in for the next year yesterday. It's everything I hoped it would be and more. The house is a small 50's bungalow in a perfect little neighborhood. I've got a cat, Sophie, and one roommate, which is perfect. It'll be a nice transition away from campus too (I'm about two miles from campus, which is perfect for the bike that I use to go everywhere!).

So that's me for now! I'm going to blog every day for the month of August. I want to get back in shape for the school year and also stop being such a non-dedicated blogger. So here's to the advent of a new academic year!

Fourth of July...

2009-07-06T19:10:00.002-06:00

So I'm in PA enjoying the Northeast. It's a gorgeous part of the country and there are lots of benefits to being here. My personal favorite is the history of this area and all the fantastic sites to visit.

So I took advantage of that on Saturday, the fourth of July, and drove to Gettysburg to celebrate my nation. It was an interesting experience to say the least.

There was a reenactment going on, which was a negative thing in my eyes. There were lots of tents up full of women in giant petticoat dresses and men with full beards and suspenders, almost all of which were actually mini shops selling memorabilia. The site was full of life, both visitors and reenactors, and that took out the majesty for me. Because I was being assaulted with versions of what the battlefield would have actually looked like, I wasn't able to get the impact of using my imagination and internalizing it all.

Still, it was nice to have been there and learned what little I learned, even if I would have rather seen it under different circumstances.

The battle of Gettysburg was a fierce and terrible fight. The field which is now beautifully green and flowing would have been enveloped in crimson blood and gore. Neighbors, old family friends, and family members in different uniforms would have been bayoneting each other. It would have been gruesome.

Something struck me about it later when I was sitting outside with my host family here in Pennsylvania. We started hearing fireworks off in the distance, and I was somewhat put off. Two hundred years ago if we would have been sitting in the same spot, we would have heard the same sounds but we would have been filled with fear instead of national pride. How did we make that transition? Do you think people even think about that connection anymore? Do they realize that when we're setting off fireworks we're really commemorating a terrible battle? It just seemed kind of strange to me.

Just a couple of thoughts. That's it for now!

Dispatches from the Pennsylvanian Frontier...

2009-07-04T07:46:00.003-06:00

I'm sitting in the living room of the family I'm staying with sipping coffee and doing one of my favorite things of all time: watching Le Tour de France!

Today is day one and I'm pumped. I wait 11 months every year for this almost-a-month-long race. There's something about it that I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's the lasting excitement of waking up for three weeks without knowing who's going to come out on top. Maybe it's the intense athleticism and seeing human beings reach our potential. I think today my favorite part of it is the teamwork; I love the purity of the communal effort to give one man, the leader of the team, a title which will glorify them all. It's inspiring. This year should be interesting with so many superstars on team Astana (Lance Armstrong of course, Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer, Chris Horner, and Popovych) to see who they choose to rally behind, but that'll just add to the excitement.

Woohoo! What a way to kick off the fourth!

Later today I'm headed to Gettysburg. I'm in PA right now and it's the fourth of July, the anniversary of the Gettysburg battle. I can't imagine a better time and place to celebrate my nation and think about exactly what that means to me.

Personally, I'm doing well. I'm resting my legs for a while after two weeks of being on the rack of ballet. I'm doing great, learning a lot (I'm already seeing myself make huge improvements over the two weeks here), meeting lots of people, and really enjoying myself. Here's the thing that's been on my mind lately:

I'm 21. This is a year for me to make some huge decisions and I don't know what to do. I'm torn between choosing between the future I think will be safe and practical and choosing the things which might be more of a bet.

I could go to grad school or law school and follow the simple future. It would surely be difficult, but at least practical and leading to a solid career.

OR I could go to a school for ballet. I could give everything I've got and bet on myself that I could make it happen as a professional dancer. I'm old and I started late, but few people have a better work ethic than me and few people have my determination and passion. It's strange to think about. I truly could make it work, but there's more at stake than that. Am I going to be able to pay off my student loans? What am I going to do when my shelf life as a dancer is up?

There are so many ifs and buts, but here's my big question: If I don't go after my dancing and do chase a dream I've got, will I regret it? Will I be content with myself if I don't try? I don't know. I'm hoping that the next month or so will give me an answer I can live with.

I'm a rather dramatic person these days, huh? Hmmmmm. Sorry about that.

The Little Things...

2009-06-26T06:52:00.002-06:00

You know, the big things in life either happen or they don't. You learn to roll with the punches, I think, and watch as certain events fall into place (or not) and help define your future.

It's the little things, however, that get us from day to day. If you can't learn to see the joy in the smaller things in life, you're going to be rather miserable and unable to experience the kind of placid contentment that I shoot for in my everyday life.

For example.

I'm living with a family here in PA that has an 18 year old son who has a severe mental disability. Mattie, as we call him, is a fantasatic kid who loves to bang on things and make noise all day long. He loves to clap, and clap he does. All day long. He also doesn't like to clap alone. He'll grab your hands and make you clap with him. And you know, it would be a chore if he didn't get so much joy out of it! The first day I was there I was clapping for probably 30 minutes straight and Mattie didn't stop giggling the whole time. It's impossible not to smile with him when something as simple as clapping keeps him so happy! It's awesome!

It really helps you put things into perspective. Mattie doesn't care about getting into colleges or girls or any of the other stupid things kids at his age are worried about. He wants to clap. And he wants you to clap with him. And that suffices to keep him happy. Awesome.

And another example.

Yesterday was a bad day for me in the studios. I'm sore so my body isn't responding to the corrections I was trying to give it like I'd like it to and I had a nazi teacher woman who was rather demanding for my first class, so I just started my day feeling worthless and awkward. That mentality followed me around all day even though I tried to dispell it. Still, I had men's technique class at the end of the day and finished up my afternoon on a mediocre note.

At the end of the class, one of my new friends Ben (who's probably 12) followed me out of the classroom and said, "That was a great class for you! Your attitude aribesque was fantastic!" That made my whole day better. I didn't care that my teachers were beating me up all day. Ben thought I had a great attitude aribesque.

It's the little things, my friends. Let's try to remember that.

Hello from PA!

2009-06-24T06:57:00.002-06:00

I'm in Carlisle, PA and my ballet program, CPYB, has officially begun. It's day three and I'm kinda sore (though not as much as when I was playing football or when I blew out my back in high school) but having a great time. I've got a myriad of teachers, almost all of whom have had professional dance careers and many of those that have have had very prodigious ones. Yesterday, for examply, I had my first ever modern dance class which was taught by Jamie Ray Walker, one of the only eight females in the Paul Taylor Dance Company, one of the best modern companies around. It was great!

Every day I dance about five hours. Two technique classes each an hour and a half, a men's technique class for an hour, and a pas de deux (partnering) class for another hour. This happens Monday through Friday and Saturday I dance for only about three or four hours (I don't really know how it's going to work out since I haven't had a Saturday here yet!). I already feel like a better dancer. I'm surrounded by fantastic guy dancers who I think were born wearing tights and a dance belt which is really helping me improve. There really isn't any competitiveness or squabbling for position and that seems to open the door for lots of cooperation and helping each other out.

I'm really glad of that. Dance is an artform, not a sport. It's not about competitiveness or one-up-manship. It's about expression and beauty. People who understand that and treat dance like that not only have a better time when they're dancing, but they also seem to just rise above the people who just want to be the best. They're the people you want to be around.

I don't really have much time to get on and post daily seeing as I dance from 10:30am until about 8:30pm with 20 minutes commute each way. I'm worn out by the time I get home and don't really want to do much besides eat and lay down. So I'm sorry that I haven't been on it as much as I'd like to be! Currently I'm living my dream and I couldn't really be much happier. I'll keep you posted though! Be well!

Another day another dollar

2009-06-17T09:51:00.003-06:00

I've been reminded over the past few weeks of the power of the family unit. When you think about it, the family you were reared by has pretty close to EVERYTHING to do with who you are today and I'm just not sure we respect that enough.

For those of us who were lucky enough to grow up in a good, happy, and well-functioning family, we were given a priceless gift. As I grow up, I'm learning to lean on my family members more and more. There really isn't anything, any length of land or sea, any seemingly insurmountable obstacle, any plan of my own, that I wouldn't overcome to help any particular member of my family. Not really because I feel any sense of obligation (though surely that exists) but because I love them and I want them to be well.

Confucius was right yet again, I'm afraid. If we could only somehow find a way to see the entire world as family, we'd be in good shape.

Consequently, it's been every so obvious to me over the past few weeks that when something goes wrong in your family, it seems like anything going right in your world has no meaning. The world is robbed of color. I'm going to work hard to keep this in mind when I'm dealing with others.

I'm excited to leave Springfield today for the first time I can really remember because I get to go home and see my parents for a few days. Then it's off to PA, and I shall either return in a box or as a dancing machine. Time will tell. I'll try to think of more substantive things to write sometime soon. Right now I'm kind of ambiguously documenting things that are going on in my life. Seeing as this blog isn't anonymous, I can't exactly go into deep detail about some of the things going on. This week has mostly been for me in that respect (and about trying to get back into the habit). At least I'm blogging regularly though!

2009-06-15T14:33:00.003-06:00

Today has been a reminder for me of just how much we all need good friends who are willing to listen to us and be there.

I went to lunch today with the college minister at my church, First and Calvary, here in Springfield. He's on a five day fast so he didn't eat, but I enjoyed some lovely Chinese food while we talked about a bunch of questions I had regarding my spiritual life.

I feel very silly sometimes, you know. I know all of the arguments for and against God, Christianity, spirituality, etc, inside and out. Still, I can't really seem to fully convince myself of much. It isn't that I don't care or that I'm in denial about the answer that I have deep down inside, I'm just genuinely unsure of a lot. For me, everything comes down to a choice. I can reason myself into or out of any set of beliefs I'd like to. Simple as that. So I get to choose. I just have to learn how to do that now.

When things get rough, you're never alone. There will always be people there to help you. Remember that. I have to remind myself of that a lot. Today was one of those days.

Freedom Isn't Free...

2009-06-13T19:58:00.003-06:00

What's that actually mean, anyway?

I see it everywhere here in Springfield. It's on bumper stickers, billboards, tattoos, church signs, and everything in between. Most of the slogans are printed on some type of ribbon, usually yellow (here's a GREAT article informing that, by the way), and accompanied by a tacit embracing of our current "war on terror" (again, not a term I fully understand).

So my question is this: What exactly does "freedom isn't free" mean?

Well, let's start with the term "freedom." We all want to be free, right? So it would seem like this isn't a very controversial place to begin.

I'm assuming that the bumper stickers are not enticing us to enter into some debate on free will, so we'll put that one aside. I'm guessing (and this is Mother Culture whispering into my ear) that we're talking about the simply freedoms here. The "freedom tos" and "freedom froms," as it was phrased in my Intro to American Politics class. Freedom from oppression, freedom from tyranny, freedom to consume, freedom to associate with whom we choose, and so on and so forth. I'm already smelling something fishy.

The party that has chosen to associate themselves so closely with the phrase "freedom isn't free" and other pro-war sentiments, the Republicans, have decided that choice here at home is not important.

Those who slap "freedom isn't free" bumper stickers on their car would do their best to make sure homosexuals never have the choice to get married or adopt children, women never have the choice to abort under any circumstance, nobody has any choice but to speak English in America, everyone eats sleeps and breathes Jesus Christ, and nobody had any choice but to purchase American made products. So essentially what I'm assuming now is that the "freedom" in the slogan "freedom isn't free" is a very loaded term. It doesn't really refer to "freedom" in its pure sense, but rather a particular brand of freedom.

So then the next obvious question is this: Why is freedom not free? The slogan is obviously suggesting that the price of freedom is blood, and that's not something we should be taking lightly.

This one makes a bit of sense to me, actually. There are circumstances, I believe, in the face of true danger, that one must be prepared to take up arms and fight for their right to survive. Instances like WWII come to mind. So again, at face value, I think we can probably accept this premise. Freedom isn't free. I'm fine with that.

However, it's being misused. Those in the Middle East don't pose a threat to my freedom. If we want to discuss whether or not the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and the like pose a threat to their own people's freedom we can surely do that, but let's not kid ourselves into believing that we're currently fighting for fear of our own oppression. We spend more money on defense in one year than the entire Middle East would spend in a decade (and certainly more money than any terrorist group could ever acquire in its entire existence). We're more technologically advanced and better trained than those in that particular area of the globe will probably ever be. Any keen thinker could tell you that we can't really see them as a threat to the United States of America on the whole. That's simply absurd. So what are the real reasons we're fighting? Why are our coworkers, our teachers, our neighbors, our friends, our families, our brothers and sisters, taking the lives of other human beings in the desert as we speak?

And we've come full circle to the original question: What does "freedom isn't free" mean in context? It seems as though most of us can agree with it as it stands without it's political affiliation, which I think is one of its problems. It's PROPAGANDA. It's meant to trick people into buying into it. That's how slogans like that get their power. They say something simple and unassuming so we can all ascent to acknowledge it, but by doing so we're tacitly acknowledging something bigger (and usually far more sinister, as propaganda isn't a tool used when the facts alone would convince anyone with half a wit).

I suppose I'm not exactly sure where to go from here besides to say that I'm frustrated with the rhetoric that's being used to blind us. Have the powers that be decided that we can't decide things for ourselves so they resort to sound bytes and trick slogans to try and get us to buy into their points of view? Are we to blame for having so much going on that we don't have time to really inform ourselves and think critically about what we're consenting to? I'm not really sure, but we've got to start doing better.

Another week has came and went...

2009-06-13T10:30:00.002-06:00

So it's been more than a week since my last post, and I'm sorry for that. I'm apologizing to anyone left who might still read this, but to myself as well. I've lost a lot of self-discipline in some areas since returning. It's just difficult to sink into a routine when you're moving around every few weeks and trying to prepare for lots of different things at one time. Enough of that.

This week has been a challenge on a few different levels, one of which is too personal to write on this blog.

First of all, it was Fairy Tale ballet camp at Springfield Ballet and I got to be the assistant teacher for the week!!!! The camp was composed of nine 3-4 year old girls and focused on the ballet Cinderella. They got in every morning at nine with their cute little pink leotards and Mickey Mouse voices and sat down with Ms. Berea (my partner in crime - a 19 year old dance major at a local university) for story time where we read to them the ballet. Then we watched a scene from the Royal Ballet's performance. All the little girls oooed and awed over the shimmery tutus the ballerinas were wearing what Berea and I gawked at their flawless footwork and partnering. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. ;)

From there it was snack time - Goldfish galore! - followed by Creative Movement class. That's basically forty five minutes where we try to establish some sense of discipline in the classroom, spatial and bodily awareness, and introduce them discreetly to ballet (their bodies aren't developed enough to start working on the real thing yet. We don't want to mess them up!). It's a lot of fun, but a bit like herding cats.

Then it's off to the park (Springfield Ballet is located in Jordan Valley Park, my favorite park in Springfield) where they'd all line up on a giant rock and jump into my arms, one by one, for about twenty minutes straight. Then, finally, back inside where we'd sit down and learn about the instruments of the orchestra together. All in all, it was a very tiring but wonderful week. I love love love children and I really appreciated the entire week, which gave me another opportunity to learn how to be around them.

Other than that, the week was pretty nonchalant. I read a quote the other day by Mark Twain which said, "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them," so I'm going to work on that again and stop watching so much television. I'm working on Anna Karenina right now, which is nice. I really enjoy turn of the century Russian literature. It's very thought provoking and I'm really enthralled with their culture, which seems to be hell-bent on being courteous and following societal rules. Seeing as I'm very fond of social structure, it really works with me.

I suppose that's all for now. Time to do something productive!

2009-06-05T10:26:00.004-06:00

Peter, you're right. This blog has played a valuable role in developing what it is that I actually think and believe. I think that if I allow it, and continue to write regularly, that role will continue. Things that don't continue to grow are dead.

So what exactly is it that I think these days? Well, a few things to be sure.

I'm currently house-sitting for a friend of mine's family while they're away at a church camp for two weeks. This is the greatest job ever! I get a roof over my head, temporary companionship from a dog and a cat (though I'm scared to death that the 14 year old dog, Dixie, will die on my watch), and there's always something more to do. I love to clean and I love this family, so I'm enjoying my days going through the house and dusting, vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, cleaning countertops, and really thoroughly enjoying myself. I'm a week in and it's been a greatly relaxing experience.

Aside from that, I'm working and training at the ballet here in Springfield again to try and prepare myself for what comes next in my summer. Two weeks from today, I leave for Carlsburg, PA, to participate in Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet's five week summer intensive. I'll be dancing something like forty hours a week working on my technique. To me, this is a dream. I haven't actually been dancing for too long which is making me incredibly self-conscious and almost scared to go, but I can't really imagine doing anything more incredible this summer, so I'm gearing up! More (and more interesting) things on that soon, I promise.

Did you know my brother is a Navy Seal? Well he is. He got accepted to the program while I was in Greece and he ships out on my birthday, December 15th, for his training. I've got lots of mixed emotions about it. My brother has had a bit of a checkered past and I'm glad he's taking this opportunity to really take care of himself. It's given him a sense of direction in life and he's finally doing something that has really gotten him excited (not to mention how proud of him we all are). That being said, my brother's new profession is that of a killer and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't agree with war in general, and I REALLY don't agree with America's recent wars in particular. Regardless, my brother has pledged his oath to serve President Obama (a silver lining) and will be a trained killer in about two years time. Lots of food for thought there.

I've also got some interesting philosophical/religious issues floating around in my head these days. Here are the propositions I've been playing around with:
1. Jesus and his followers claim that he "saves" them (I'm not entirely sure what that means).
2. There's an exclusivity about this claim, thus Jesus and his salvific powers must offer something that no other religion does.
3. If all of this is true, things should be different. The lives of Christian people should be different (dare I say better? More fulfilling? More virtuous?) than those of the people around them.
4. (3) is obviously false, which by logical association means something is wrong with (1) or (2).
So that's where I am with that! I'm not sure why this particularly problem is causing me so much trouble. It'd be easy to just caveat the argument and say something like, "This is in regards to 'orthodox' Christianity or modern, popular Christianity." I don't really know though. I've set up an appointment with my pastor from my church here in Springfield to talk to him about it. We'll see!

So that's me right now. Turns out that I actually do have thoughts to explore. Hopefully this space will continue to provide help for me, and on a more regular basis.

Where do we go from here?

2009-06-02T09:31:00.002-06:00

So I haven't been much of a blogger lately (on the writing side, that is. I'm still reading everyone else's stuff daily). Let me share my thoughts on why, because there is a why.

I don't really feel like I have a voice right now. I don't have anything I want to say or anything I feel like is worth being said right now. I'm out of school, so I don't have any philosophical ponderings to share (though I'm still reading and learning). I'm back from Greece, so there is no great adventure to share with everyone. I'm not doing anything particularly interesting with my daily life and I don't much enjoy just sharing my life for the sake of sharing my life. It feels too narcissistic to me. So for now, I feel like I've got nothing to say.

Further, I don't really think this blog has a solid direction anymore. I'll be spending the next few days thinking about that, but I've lost my energy and inspiration in regards to this space and I'm not sure how I'm going to get it back, though I still want to blog and think it's a healthy and beneficial experience when done correctly. So I guess I'll be starting over as soon as I get it all sorted out and feel like I've got a reason to come back.

Growing Up...

2009-05-16T20:25:00.002-06:00

I just had the strangest epiphany of my life.

I'm watching Benjamin Button with my family, and one of the characters said, "When I was a boy I used to love to wake up before everyone else was up, run down to the lake, and watch the day begin."

I thought to myself, "I'd like to do interesting things like that as a child." Then I thought, "Wait, I'm not a child anymore. Where'd it go?"

I've never before experienced a feeling like that before. To tell you the truth, I never want to experience a feeling like that again.

Back Home...

2009-05-16T08:15:00.004-06:00

It's a Saturday morning, and I'm sitting in my parents' living room watching a movie with them. We've been watching the Today show and playing with our seven month old puppy Mo all morning, and now we're just hanging out drinking coffee. Life here is slower than I remember it. Well that's not entirely true, I guess. Salem has always been kinda dull. :-)

This week I stayed in Columbia with my brother, sister, and brother-in-law (who for all intents and purposes is my brother too) to get away from the Salem hum-drum. It was pretty nice! We played video games, made meals together, went on walks, played with their dogs, worked out, and just enjoyed each others' company. It was lovely.

Now I'm back in Salem for a few days before I leave for Springfield to start dancing ballet and working again. I consider Springfield my home now, so I'm pretty excited to get back for the first time.

Life in the States hasn't been too bad, though there have really been some differences. What I think is really interesting is the way we interact when we're together. In Greece, people spend time together and they really do spend time together. We'd go to cafes and just chat about things together. Here in Missouri, I've noticed that yes, we're together, but there are always distractions. Right now, we're watching a movie and I'm on the computer. One of us always seems to be on a cell phone. There's just always something different going on. It's strange.

So things are going well lately. I'm recharged, I'm back on a normal human schedule, I'm getting back in typical Mark Walter shape, and spending time with people I love again. I love it.

Also, there were huge storms that went through Salem the day before I got here! When I rolled into town, there was no power at all, and there were hundreds of downed trees all over the place. There's been tons of damage, but people get by pretty well in small towns. They tend to take care of each other. Anyway, there are some felled trees in our backyard too. Check it out!

Η ζωή είναι πολύ ωραία...

2009-05-12T10:51:00.003-06:00

Αλλά τα έχιε με άλλον.

I'm back.

I've been back for four days now, but I just haven't really wanted to post. I haven't been sure of what to say. But I've been here long enough to start noticing a few things within myself, and I have a strong desire to get back on this blog and start writing again. I'm replenished, I'm inspired, and I'm ready for a new adventure.

First off, America hasn't changed. Things are still the same here in MO. In terms of scenery, it's still gorgeous. I'm still in love with the Missouri terrain, the sloping hills, the gorgeous trails, blooming trees, rivers and lakes. I think Missouri's natural beauty actually holds a strong candle to that of Greece, which is saying a lot.

In terms of people, I miss Greece. The people here still struggle with what I feel like are very insignificant issues. In the four days that I've been here, I've already encountered strong examples of bigotry, racism, religious fanaticism, and the ever so prevalent American isolationism.

I find that my natural tendency in conversations is to talk about Greece or London, to share my experiences that I've acquired recently, but I'm trying really hard to stem that for a few reasons. First of all, I don't want to be THAT guy. I don't want to be that annoying person who's been everywhere and really just wants to brag about it. Granted, I'm not trying to brag. I just want to talk about it because it's been my entire life recently. Still, I know how quickly I'd get tired of that if I were in the other person's shoes. There are other reasons, but I won't get into those now.

Today I saw a picture of a postcard I sent my family while I was in Greece. On the postcard was the waterfront where I walked every day with my friends, and for the first time I was really struck with a sadness about being away. I miss my friends. I miss walking down the seaside and discussing politics, or learning Greek, or just being engaged by our cultural differences. I loved it.

I realized on my last day in Greece why I was so distressed to leave. It wasn't because I regretted anything I did there, but it was because I didn't regret a single thing I did or didn't do in Greece. I lived exactly how I wanted to live. I was exactly the person I wanted to be, and leaving that behind is difficult. Leaving behind the people whom I've grown to love and have helped inspire my growth over the past few months is difficult.

So that's just a few quick scrawlings since my return. I'm sure as I collect myself more over the next few days/weeks, I'll be returning to this space to talk about it more. I find that it helps a bit. Don't know why!

Anyway, I hope all is well in everyone else's lives and I look forward to hearing from you all.

Let's Put Things in Perspective...

2009-05-06T08:23:00.001-06:00

Oreos!

2009-04-24T08:58:00.000-06:00

I'm a huge fan of factual, positive movements. Check this out.

Prepping for Departure...

2009-04-24T06:15:00.002-06:00

I'm staring my departure in the face now with exactly two weeks left in Greece. The light (or maybe darkness?) is now visible at the end of the tunnel. In the very near future I'm going to be forced to deal with a lot of emotional issues, so I'm preparing myself now. I'm starting to sift through all my past experiences, spend more time with the friends that I've made, and construct what I'm calling my "departure strategy."

Here's what I've been thinking:

I've had extraordinary experiences here. I've learned so much. I've grown so much. I've gotten many steps closer to becoming the kind of person I want to be someday. I'm scared to death of coming home for that reason. I'm afraid that when I go home, I'll just become the person I used to be and forget all about who I became in Greece, all the people I met along the way, and all the lessons I learned. I know that people will probably expect me to be the same and that it will be a lot easier to just sink back into the old habits than it will be to create new ones, new friendships, new outlooks on the same things. That's a paralyzing fear for me. Maybe I'm not strong enough to keep up this new pattern in the face of old expectations.

So here's my strategy.

If I encounter Springfield, my family, my friends, my professors, everything, like it's brand new and I'm experiencing it all again for the first time (because really I am. I'm seeing it all with new eyes), then this problem will seem much smaller. No longer will I see myself trying to fit into the "old world" which has expectations for me. I'm a new person, and I should expect to visit the same old places like a traveler, like a tourist of sorts, finding a whole new place for myself once again. Every day should look like a new day, every thing should be seen with fresh eyes. In this way, I'm not a victim of previous circumstances. That seems like it will be simple enough, I suppose. I just have to constantly think about it for a few weeks once I'm back.

I think my big problem is going to be facing depression at leaving behind all of these amazing people, places, and experiences in Greece. The task of continuing to be the person I have learned to be while here in Greece seems easy compared to the task of not being upset that I've left so much behind.

The same strategy that I've devised to deal with maintaining my new character changes when back in Springfield extends to this problem too.

If I see life as a journey, all of it, without boundaries and home bases, the playing field is leveled between Springfield and Greece. Even if I were to sit in Springfield for my whole life, things would change. People would come and go. Nothing in life ever stays constant, so really this trip isn't bringing anything new to my attention. It's just making it more prominent. So I can either refuse to accept this fact and be angry at the constantly changing world my whole life, or I can peacefully come to terms with it and learn how to fit my experiences in Greece in with that mindset. I choose option two.

What that means in practicality is that I have to learn how to see my experiences in Greece not as something I experienced once and have since left behind, but rather as something that happened to me and is now part of who I am. I carry it with me always, as I do EVERY experience in my life. Greece perhaps had a greater impact on me than the rest due to its intensity, but that doesn't mean I have to regret leaving. It also doesn't mean I can't learn to experience every day in Springfield the same way as I did my time in a foreign country. Again, I get to choose.

So here's the moral of the story, and this is probably one of the biggest lessons I've learned while here in Greece: We construct much of our reality. If we acknowledge that fact, we are in a position to control how that reality is constructed in many ways. And seeing as our happiness depends on the way we interpret the experiences we have, we are largely in control of whether or not we are happy.

I hope this actually works when I get back. Theories tend to shift, or sometimes collapse, in the face of reality. Time will tell!

I hope you are all well and interpreting life optimistically wherever you are and whatever you're facing!

Χριστός Ανέστη! Christ is Risen!

2009-04-19T04:14:00.002-06:00

So the past week was holy week here in Greece. We're on the Eastern Orthodox calendar, not the Roman Catholic, so we're a week off. This causes Christ to die and be resurrected twice a year, but whatever. That just makes him twice as cool, I suppose.

Anyway, I had the opportunity, nay, the privilege of attending the Good Friday and Resurrection services at the church right outside my house. My good friend here, Γωγώ, the one who's been helping me figure out what it would be like to teach English here, invited us to attend with her and helped us through it all since it's a totally foreign tradition. What an amazing few nights!

Friday night, Good Friday, is the night when Christ died. Around 8, people started filing into the church. When I walked in, I was struck not only with the amount of people of all shapes and sizes filling the chairs but also with the flowered casket of sorts that was sitting at the front of the sanctuary. Everyone who had entered was lined up in front of the casket where they proceeded to cross themselves and kiss the picture of Christ which was in the bed of flowers. Me and my friends followed Γωγώ through the line and then awkwardly kissed the fallen Christ.

At the time, that had no particular meaning to me. It was just weird. But as I watched people follow through the line for the next hour or so, it started to become really cool. People were mourning their fallen savior who died for them. He came to the Earth to show us a better way to live and we killed him. Now we're mourning and paying our respects. It was very cool.

From there, we sat and listened to the priests sing lamentations for the next hour or so. There are three songs they sing, I was told, and each one has a different meaning (and all in Ancient Byzantine Greek, so I had no hope of comprehending them). The only one I really remember was written from the perspective of the Virgin Mary mourning her son. It says something to the effect of, "Oh my son, you are my spring flower. You are the twinkle in my eye. Where have you gone to?" It's very beautiful.

After the singing had taken place, we all lit candles we got at the beginning of the service and followed the priests out of the church. They carried the flower casket and led the procession to the waterfront where we met the rest of the churches in Volos. Everyone in the whole town followed their fallen savior to the ocean where we heard more singing and a sermon from a priest. I understood a lot of this one. He said something to the effect of, "Christ has died. He was a teacher. He came here not to only make us happy, but to give us hope. He was a teacher who freed us from our sins and made it possible for us to be one with God once again. He died tonight for the whole world, for everyone. And tonight is a hopeful night, for though Christ has died, he will rise again and conquer death." I'm paraphrasing since I neither understood everything nor took notes.

From there, everyone followed their flowered caskets back to church. At the church, there was a little mini-drama. The church now represented the underworld and one of the priests, who carried a Bible, represented Jesus. The priest knocked on the door which another priest on the inside symbolizing Death opened. The Jesus priest uttered a few words and Death cowered before him as Christ proceeded in. We all followed him into the church, first crossing ourselves as we prayed and walked beneath the flowered casket. In the church there was a liturgy and we all headed home in hopes of the following evening.

Which leads me to last night (bear with me people).

Last night we all entered into the church around 11:30pm to the sound of the priests singing the lamentations again. We picked up another candle, this time they were all white, and waited. At around 11:55, everyone exited the church into the courtyard which was by this time totally packed. Someone exited the church with a lit candle and the light was passed around the courtyard while the priests stepped onto a platform in the center of the square. There was some liturgy which I didn't understand and at midnight, the priests declared triumphantly, "Χριστός Ανέστη! Χριστός Ανέστη!" (Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen!). It was amazing! People cheered, the church bells rang out, fireworks started going off, and an undeniable feeling of happiness passed through the crowd.

From there, lots of people left and went straight home to eat meat since lent is over. My friends and I went back into the church for the rest of the service. There was more singing, more liturgy, more ritual movements, but this time it seemed more hopeful. The priests were more active. They walked through the crowd carrying a crucifix, or incense, or candles. I left when communion began since I had neither prepared myself by fasting or converted to EO.

I went up to my fourth floor apartment to watch the rest. I could hear it too since the church has loud speakers that they blast from. I looked out to the mountain and saw a giant fireworks display. The whole thing was just unreal. The energy, the excitement, the ritual, the meaning. I loved it.

Today everyone is sitting outside roasting a pig on a spit and listening to traditional Greek music at full blast. I'm gonna go walk around and take pictures!

Christ has Risen!

I'm Alive

2009-04-13T13:05:00.003-06:00

You know, I have no excuse for not posting lately.

I've had lots of time, I've been dealing with lots of stuff, I've been experiencing a lot, and I miss everyone. I have NO excuse. Still, I don't do it and I don't know why.

I think I'm trying to wrap my head around leaving in less than a month, which is no small task. I'm anticipating a harsh readjustment period.

I'm also trying to prepare for the next few weeks of class in which I'll have to write three rather large papers and do two massive presentations. Yay!

Still trying to pin down this summer.

Prepping for my parents' visit to Greece in two weeks.

Currently, I'm in the Peloponnese (Nafplia, to be exact) and having a grand ole time putting off the real world. We're visiting ancient sites (Mycenae, Corinth, Sparta, etc) and more modern stuff (Venetian castles and beaches), so I'm enjoying myself.

Still, it's hard to shake the anxiety of the coming weeks. There's a lot to try and deal with, and I'm trying to handle it one day at a time. Blah. Too much to think about, do, fix, sign up for, etc. I'm not a fan of growing up sometimes.

I think all of this is making me feel a heightened state of anxiety and loneliness, but not depression. It's just the realization that there's a lot on my plate and I feel like I'm facing it all on my own.

So I'll do my best to keep everyone updated over the next few weeks, but don't expect too much out of me. I love you all and appreciate your comments and emails still, I just feel like the blog is a bit much for me at the moment.

Back in the swing of things...

2009-04-02T07:08:00.002-06:00

So yes, I've been back in Volos. I've been studying Greek like crazy (I'm learning new tenses! There are eight...), working hard to research and write a paper due Wednesday, and trying to hang out with my local friends as much as possible seeing as I have a limited amount of time left here. That's a wholly separate issue that I'd rather not think about at the moment...

So here's what's been going on in my world:
I'm still doing lots of blogging, but recently it's been on the commenting end and over at CftBP (Conversations from the Back Porch) where I engage in religious discourse. Reading The Shack has really stretched me. It's made me rethink and rediscover a lot of my religious beliefs in regards to Christianity in a very positive way. Also, knowing more about what I believe has really made me more sensitive to what was wrong with my belief system beforehand, and in that way it's made me more in tune with the powers that be and the messages that they send. I know that was a vague statement, and maybe I'll write on that soon. I sort of wrote about it in this post from CftBP if you want to have a look.

I've been working to resolve the next year or so of my life, especially the coming summer. Will I dance ballet for the summer? Will I just get another minimum wage job in Springfield? Can I even get a job in this economy? Will I stay here in Greece for the summer and make some serious money and ties with English schools?

I got the O.K. from MSU to take graduate courses there next semester, which means I'll actually be beginning my MA in Religion before I graduate college. That should be a nice way to save some time, a bit of money, and make me go completely insane my senior year. I'm looking forward to that a lot! At least I'm not worrying about whether or not I got in anymore. One worry down...

Oh yeah, I've been researching that too. Today I've planned to meet with a few of them via my friend Γωγώ (Georgia) and discuss what having a career as a native English speaker here in Greece would look like. I'll be back with news. Promise.

Basically, I've been working hard to figure myself out, come to terms with leaving Greece in the next month, and try to get some grip on what my life might look like after I graduate in t-minus 13 months (AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). I promise a more substantial post soon, but I've been slightly distracted and stressed out lately. I love you all!

And Off to Nicosia...

2009-03-25T09:45:00.002-06:00

I left Volos yesterday at 6:15am for the Athens airport. From there it was a short flight to Cyprus, where I'll be until Saturday. And now, here I sit in Nicosia, Cyprus's largest city, trying to collect my thoughts enough to share with you a bit about how moving it is to be here.

First off, this place is physically beautiful. Imagine Florida, flat and arid, with the occasional mountain plopped down in the middle of nowhere. Now populate that land with a huge variety of people (Greeks, Turks, Sri Lankans, lots of European tourists, Indians, etc) all situated in cities that look like a run down version of Springfield, MO and you'll have Cyprus in mind. It's totally strange, but cozy.

I can't for the life of me figure out how to feel here. Let me tell you why.

Cyprus has one of the most mixed up, tragic, and bloody histories of anywhere I've ever heard of. It's got an amazing location for trade being placed right in the middle of three continents, so everyone has always wanted a piece of it. It's been owned by the Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Byzantines, Ottomans, and Brits (most recently). I'm sure there are more that I'm leaving out. It gained its independence from the British in 1960 and became an independent nation populated by Turkish and Greek Cypriots. They lived mainly in peace together until 1970 when Greece tried to reincorporate it into their fold. As a reaction, Turkey invaded and split the country in half in 1973. They ethnically "cleansed" (the most ironic word to use)the northern half of the Greek Cypriots, keeping the north for themselves. Lots of people died. Lots more were made homeless.

For a long time, nobody could cross the dead zone which divided the two halves of Cyprus. The line which divides them, by the way, runs straight through Nicosia, the city I'm staying in, so I really get to see its effects. There are checkpoints open now so tourists and native Cypriots can cross from north to south (though they still can't stay on the opposite side overnight), but it's still very messy. You see, in an attempt to repopulate the northern half, which now had a low population due to the "cleansing" (which actually resulted in the death of some of my professor's family, though all he'll say about it is "we won't dwell on these things," and I'm glad for it), Turkey rounded up many of its homeless and threw them in Northern Cyprus. Since they're not native Cypriots but Turkish citizens, they're not allowed in Southern Cyprus.

During the years after the invasion, Cyprus (which is actually only Southern Cyprus) got lots of foreign aid and began to flourish economically. North Cyprus, which is Turkish, got nothing, so they're very impoverished. We went through the checkpoints today and saw the Turkish side. It looks like a wasteland with gypsies and children who play in the dirt. Horrible. And since most of its inhabitants are Turkish citizens who were transplanted from their homeland, they can't go to the south at all. They're stuck in the mire.

The whole thing is a huge mess. I can't figure out what to do, how to feel, how to act, how to think. All I kept thinking to myself today as I saw Turkish citizens standing on the walls with razor wire fences looking down at the land they are told they aren't allowed to touch was, "This is not how we are supposed to live. This is not how things are supposed to be."

So yes, Cyprus is a beautiful place. It's fantastic and has an amazing culture. But I'm still unsure about it all. It feels like living in limbo.

Back in Volos...

2009-03-23T13:53:00.003-06:00

I've spent my last days in London. They were lovely. Filled with more art, more sightseeing (Royal Ballet Academy!!!), and lots of time with my good friends. David and I spent the last night together drinking beer and playing guitar. We harmonized as we played Ben Folds, Coldplay, Death Cab, Sufjan Stevens, and more. It was the perfect way to finish off our two weeks getting closer as friends. I'm gonna miss that guy.

So yes, I'm back in Volos. But only after the worst day of traveling ever.

I almost missed my flight, which made me almost have a panic attack and made me almost want to jump in front of the train.

I had allotted myself two and a half hours to leave for the airport, a one hour journey. My flight was at 2:05, so I left at 11:30. Firstly, I got on the subway going in the wrong direction on accident. So I got off and got on the right subway. No big deal. A five or so minute delay.

Then when I got to the train station and bought my ticket to Luton, I found out the train was cancelled. So I had to wait another 45 minutes until the next train. By this point, I'm freaking out.

I get on the train, 45 minutes late, and I'm shaking. By the time I make it to the airport, it's 1:35. I've already checked in online, so I sprint to the check-in place, get my boarding pass and head to security. They tell me I've got to check my bag (why, I don't know), so I sprint back down to boarding and they check my bag. Then, once again, I sprint back to the security guys. I wait in line for an eternity (tick tick tick), get my shoes and belt back on (tick tick tick), and run with every ounce (milliliter?) of strength I have left to gate 14. I made it right when the airport lady had closed the door, which she re-opened for me and I got on the plane. I was sweating, panting, and shaking, but I made it. At 2:00. Lesson learned.

From the flight, I had a tough time finding the correct bus station in Athens to get back to Volos. I've been working at it for two months now, but the language barrier is still substantial. I made it to A bus station (the wrong one) and was so tired and frustrated that I just took a short taxi ride with a nice bilingual driver to the correct station. I got on the bus and made it back to Volos at 2:00am. What a day!

I miss London. I miss my friends there and feeling completely at ease in an English speaking country. It feels weird to say that, but I made some really good friends in the nine days I was there, especially with the three who were in Greece with me the week before. Great people. It'll be nice to see them again someday (not all of them go to Drury with me).

And now I find myself conflicted. I love Greece. So much. And I love the people here. Dimitri and I had a great conversation today about life and about how interesting it is that we find ourselves in each others' lives for such a short period of time. What does it all mean? I don't know, but I love it. Still, I have to leave in six weeks. How do I handle this?

I know I'll miss Dimitri, all of his friends, walks down the jetty, the bells that wake me up at 7:30 every morning, and dancing tango until five in the morning. Still, I don't know that I could live without my friends and family back in the States. I already find that I miss it there. I wonder daily what the weather is like in Springfield, how my friends are doing, whether the trees have started to bud yet, how the ballet production is going without me, etc. It's just a terrible conflict of interest.

But that's life, isn't it? We're always confronted with these choices and we have to deal with them. Maturity, I believe, is learning how to do that. For me, it's already heart-wrenching.

My Newspaper Article...

2009-03-20T18:12:00.002-06:00

I just wrote this and sent it in to my school's paper for review. Hopefully they'll print it! Anyway, thought this crowd might enjoy a gander at it.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The past few months spent in Greece have opened my eyes to more than just new ideas about ancient Greek history or new cultural norms and mores. It’s opened my eyes to new ways of being. Spending hours in the cafes with the Greek friends that I’ve made and becoming more familiar with their language has given me an insight into just how different our cultural backgrounds are, the struggles they encounter as a people, and the lens which they see the world through. It’s been an amazing overload of information and experiences which has given me a new tools with which to reevaluate my own past experiences and beliefs.
One major question I’ve had to ask myself since moving to Greece has to deal with comparing socialism with capitalism, one of the last things I was expecting to learn about when I left for Volos. When I left the states, I favored socialism over capitalism a thousand times over. I’d never been in any country but the USA before, so all I had been doing was comparing the two philosophies as abstract entities. Being in Greece, a country with socialized healthcare, has really opened me up to what socialism looks like in practice.
You see, everyone studying at the Drury center in Volos had to go to the hospital to get approved for a residential visa. As we were being poked, prodded, and x-rayed, I got a great opportunity to experience a socialized hospital firsthand. Everywhere we went the waiting rooms were packed. They were filled with people, young and old, with minor infirmities. Occasionally a person with a serious affliction would nonchalantly be wheeled through as everyone in the waiting rooms lifts their expressionless faces to see the spectacle. What a sobering experience.
Talking with my local friends, I discover that while healthcare is free (in most circumstances), it’s almost impossible to get care for something that isn’t urgent. Many people live their lives in a constant state of discomfort because they can’t afford to spend days at a time in the hospital waiting room with no guarantee of getting treated.
The Greek system doesn’t sound like the best possible solution to healthcare, but I find myself wondering whether things are much better in the states. Because healthcare is privatized in the US many people, a number that is rising daily, can’t afford to get any care at all. So yes, we have exemplary healthcare, but there is a growing number of people—hard working people who have jobs and are doing everything in their power to take care of themselves and their families—who simply can’t pay.
So the question arises: Is it better for everyone to get free healthcare and experiences these often painful adversities (the Greek system), or is it better for healthcare to be expedient and effective but only for those who can afford it (the US system). As we continue to face the healthcare crisis—which is now exacerbated by the global economic crisis—I think it’s important to be asking ourselves these types of questions. Should we lower the standards so everyone can be cared for or should we keep the bar high and exclude those who can’t pay? Or is there a middle path? Just some food for thought.

London!!!!!

2009-03-19T13:01:00.010-06:00

What a week! I’m forcing myself to sit for a while because I’ve basically taken London by storm and now my body is making me pay for it. While I’m resting, I figured I’d put up a post of my journey through the town so far. Believe me, it’s quite extensive.

Saturday:
I arrived with my friends in London, we had some dinner and a pint at a local pub, and then I toured the city at night. I saw Pickadilly and Oxford Circus, Trafalgar Square, lots and lots of monuments, Big Beg, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, and finished off by eating dinner in China Town. It was an amazing experience! I almost had a heart attack when I was in Trafalgar and looked up to see Big Ben all decadently lit up. Definitely a sensory overload.

Sunday:
I woke up and grabbed some breakfast in the cafeteria with my friends and then took off with David to see Abby Road. We saw the road and took a few pictures of ourselves and the Beatles studio, found a lovely church to go into (St. Mark’s. Ha!), saw Violet Hill for all you Coldplay fans out there, and headed back to the school. That night we went to a really cool little hole in the wall pub named Crowns and Cushions for a pint. It was the epitome of every stereotypical London pub I’ve ever imagined. While we were there we watched a cricket “test” (they’re not called games) and sang Rolling Stones music with a bunch of drunken British guys. Amazing! I couldn’t imagine a more British thing to be doing at night.

Monday:
I woke up early and headed out on a solo mission to North London. My first stop was St. Paul’s cathedral, which was really interesting. It’s SOOOO beautiful and absolutely massive, but it’s got a sadness about it. Religion in London is all but dead, so St. Paul’s is more of a giant tombstone of a once thriving religion or a monument to human ego than it is a center of worship. It’s very interesting.
From there I walked across the Thames River via the Millennium Bridge, a very cool modern walking bridge, and made my way into the Tate Modern, a modern art museum. I spent about three hours there, and it was time well spent. I saw some very well known artists like Dali and Picasso, but they weren’t my favorites at all. One artist, a man by the name of Francis Bacon, does amazing work describing the human condition. His not very flattering paintings articulate the pain, helplessness, and struggles that we face as part of being human. It was very evocative and emotional to look at. I saw lots of different artists with lots of different messages, and it was a day well spent.
I walked out of the Tate and saw the London Tower Bridge off to my right a ways and figured it’d be a great idea to walk across it, so I did. Along the way I bumped into the Globe Theater (!), saw the Gherkin Building, London City Hall, and the London Tower. How fantastic! I couldn’t have had a better time!
That afternoon was lovely, so my friends and I decided we’d go for a walk. We went through Hyde Park, which was flooded with Londoners enjoying the weather. We saw a statue of Peter Pan, watched people playing with their dogs, and ended up making our way to Buckingham Palace. We saw the palace, the statues around it, the guards, the tourists, and headed home. It was very beautiful, but not as impactful as I’d have expected it to be. At least I can cross that off my list, though!
That night David and I headed to South London to see a few spectacles. We saw the British National Library from the outside and tried to see Platform 9 and ¾, but they’re doing construction on King’s Cross Station, so we couldn’t go! Sad day. Oh well. I was tired anyway (long day), so we walked back home and went to sleep.

Tuesday:
David and I got up and went straight for the British National Library. While he was picking up a library card, I toured their exhibits. Wow! I saw a small exhibit on Darwin and some of his originally hand-written works and then toured their main exhibit. I couldn’t take pictures, but I wrote down the highlights of the exhibit:
An original copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Mozart’s marriage license, original Handel manuscripts, a letter from John Maynard Keynes to Falk, Lenin’s application for a British reading card under a false name, John Milton’s commonplace book (!), two handwritten books by Jane Austen, a handwritten poem by Wordsworth, Bronte’s handwritten copy of Jane Eyre, Lewis Carroll’s diary, Byron’s handwritten copy of Lord Jim, an original Oscar Wilde poem, Virginia Wolfe’s notebook, a handwritten copy of The Insomniac by Sylvia Plath, Beethoven’s tuning fork (ironic, right?), original Beethoven manuscripts, original handwritten Beatles lyrics including “The Fool on the Hill,” “Help,” “Yesterday,” “Ticket to Ride,” “A Hard Days Night,” “Michelle,” and an untitled verse by Lennon, Captain James Cook’s journal, a 1633 copy of John Donne’s sonnets, a 1640 copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Galileo’s first publication, DaVinci’s notebooks, Newton’s first publication, a Gutenberg Bible, a first edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy, one of the oldest known copies of the Qur’an, the Golden Hagadah, the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Alexandrinus, the Articles of the Barons, and the Magna Carta (yes, the Magna Carta).
Whew!
From there, Dave and I made our way back to the dorms for some lunch, hung out for a while, played Ultimate Frisbee with his roommates, had some dinner, and made our way to a great bar in Camden Town to celebrate St. Patty’s day. Turns out most London people don’t celebrate it, by the way. The American’s, however, LOVED it! It was really awkward. Still fun though!

Wednesday:
I woke up early again and went to the British National Art Museum by myself for a few hours. I still plan on making another visit, but in the short time I was there I got to see some amazing 13th-16th century stuff including Raphael and DaVinci. Raphael, by the way, isn’t as impressive as I’d have thought. I was slightly disappointed. I had a great time looking at the religious themes throughout the centuries, though. Amazing stuff!
From there, Dave and I met up, had another meal in China Town, wandered around the markets for a while, and made it to an Evensong service at St. Paul’s. Another amazing experience! The church is more beautiful than I could have expected, and just hearing the choir sing and echo throughout the cathedral was incredible. So simple, but so beautiful.
Last night was the best part of all. London, you see, has an intense ukulele culture and my buddy David brought his ukulele for me to play! He had tickets to a different concert with his friends, so he gave me the directions to the bar and sent me on my way. I proceeded to spend the next three hours drinking Guiness and singing along with a bunch of drunken Londoners playing ukuleles. Incredible! We sang stuff like Brown Eyed Girl, Build Me Up Buttercup, I Wanna Be Like You (from Jungle Book), and Ring of Fire. The best moment of my entire life, however, was when I was singing Hey Jude at the top of my lungs with a bunch of British people and our ukuleles. Talk about a cultural experience! I couldn’t have asked for more.

Today:
Dave and I visited the British National Archaeological Museum. Intense! We saw lots and lots of stuff including Napoleon, Cleopatra’s body, the REST of the Acropolis (the British stole most of it), lots of Asian sculptures (always a favorite of mine), Native American artifacts, Middle Eastern stuff, and much much more. That place is MASSIVE! I can hardly believe it! I’ve got more pictures than I can count from there. It’s incredible, but Dave and I tackled that place. We totally conquered it in about five hours. Intense.
We found an amazing vegetarian restaurant with a 5 pound (the currency) buffet, so we sat down and had a meal. I’ve never experienced so many forms of tofu in disguise! Again, a whole new experience, and again it was absolutely wonderful.

And now here I sit. Even just after writing this, I can already think of a thousand amazing things I'm leaving out! An embarrassment of riches! Anyway,I’m resting up a bit from the intense few days I’ve experienced and trying to catch my breath before I head out again tomorrow. I’ve still got to do some homework before next week and read a bit, but I wanted to drop you all a line and update the blog a bit. Hope all is well wherever you are! I look forward to hearing from you all soon!

And happy birthday Mom!!!!!

My Journey So Far...

2009-03-16T03:08:00.003-06:00

Sorry I've been so lax with the blogging lately! It's been really hard to find a few spare moments amongst all the traveling that I've been doing lately to just sit down and type. Allow me to recap the past two weeks:

Last week my friends from Drury who are studying in London showed up in Greece. We hung around Volos for about four days and enjoyed the local scene there. I showed them Makrynitsa, a beautiful little fairy tale town on Mt. Pelion, they met my friends, I introduced them to frappe (the popular Greek coffee drink), and we basically milked the town for all it was worth.

We then traveled to Athens for a few nights. We stayed in an AWESOME little hostel right outside of the Plaka and journeyed from there. I'm pretty sure I destroyed their feet from all the walking I made them do, but I took them through every inch of the Plaka, we climbed Lycabettus and Fillopopou Hills, climbed the Acropolis, went to Zeus's Temple, saw both the Greek and the Roman Agora, saw the 1896 and 2004 Olympic Stadiums, journeyed through Syntagma Square and the Royal Garden, and had (once again) good frappe. It was one intense week for us all!

Then on Saturday we all got on a plane and came back to London where I've spent the last three days. So far I've seen SOOOOO much! I've been to Oxford Circus, Pickadilly Circus, Chinatown, Abby Road (yes, I took a picture walking across it barefoot), Violet Hill (for all you Coldplay fans out there), Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, St. James Park, Hyde Park (thanks for that tip, Peter! We saw Peter Pan there!), and we spent last night in the perfect image of a British pub. The old British guys in there were drunkenly singing Rolling Stones while dancing. It was perfect. I'm sure I'm forgetting so much!!!!!

Today I've got a day planned to go visit St. Paul's cathedral and then head to the Tate Modern museum of Modern Art during the day and then who knows during the night! Should be exciting! I'll try to stay a bit more on top of things from now on. Enjoy the States for me!

New Thoughts...

2009-03-07T05:03:00.004-06:00

First, a few things. It seems, in some strange turn of events, that this blog has turned into my personal life blog instead of what I tried to create over the last year. I was hoping to have a centrally themed blog based on some type of academic analyzation of religion or philosophy, and that worked well for a while. However, due to the fact that I left the country, I started using this to allow my family and friends to passively keep up with my travels and adventures. Thus, it's become an online diary of sorts. I don't really like that idea, but whatever.

Still, when one door closes another one opens. I STILL have a blog where I can discuss religion and philosophy, as Conversations From The Back Porch opened this month. Bill and I are having a great time trying to think of things to write and learning to open doors of conversation. You can't really tell by the comments sections yet, but we've gotten some really good responses. I've received emails and facebook messages opening up dialogue and creating conversations about modern Christianity where before there was none. It's a beautiful thing.

Onward...

First thing I'd like to say is that the human race and it's intelligence simply flabbergasts me. I say that at the risk of sounding like some kind of speciest who values human intelligence above all other traits an entity could possess in this world (which is absolutely not true). I just wanted to point out something that I think is absolutely incredible.

I've just been thinking about language a lot lately, and it's SOOOO complicated. When I think about how much memory we have, the ability to recall it in a split second, the ability to understand and process words being said to us in no time at all, it's just incredible. Every day I experience a thousand difference scenarios in which I realize how complicated language is. I'll want to say something like, "You did that very well," but I don't know past tense. Or maybe I want to talk to a friend who seems to be having a hard day and comfort them, but I simply don't have the vocabulary. Or perhaps I'd like to string together a sentence like, "I want to go to eat with my friends," but that has something like three different verbs and a plural direct object at the end, and I don't fully understand the grammar behind it yet. AH! It's both frustrating and completely astonishing at the same time. I find myself in awe of the people around me who are fluent in their own native language.

Also, a bit about last night and yesterday.

I'm learning to dance the Argentinian tango! I also have bipolar tendencies. Sometimes, that's a bad combination.

I'd been kind of pushing through overreactions and strong desires to be left alone and sulk all day, so I should have been prepared for the evening, but I wasn't really thinking about it. So when I got up to try and tango, I stumbled around the dance floor for a few minutes and became morbidly embarrassed to the point that I just sat off to the side for about two hours. I worked through it, with the help of my friend Dimitri and the realization that most of what I was going through was chemical and I've learned to overcome that, but it wasn't very fun. By the end of the night, I was dancing tango with my friends Αγγελική (AnggelleekEE) and Γωγώ (GhoGHO) and having a great time, laughing every time we'd step on each others' toes or when we'd bump into another couple, but it was definitely interesting.

One of the overriding lessons I'd like to take away from it all is how hard it is to be a minority. I've never been a minority, so I had no idea what it might be like. And let me tell you, there are a lot of factors at work. There are a lot of times when I feel like I simply can't relax at all because I feel like everyone is staring at me (and honestly, there are times when that's true. The other day at the hospital I got started at for probably about two continuous minutes by the entire waiting room. No joke). I can NEVER blend in, and that's stressful when you just want to sit down and relax, be part of the crowd. I also feel a lot of times like failure isn't an option, like there are forces of subjugation at work and people are expecting me to screw up because I'm the stupid American with light skin and bronze hair. Sometimes, it's just too much and it drags you down.

It's about learning how to be comfortable with who you are in whatever situation you're in. There are a lot of times I wish I could just have olive colored skin, dark hair, and not be noticed at all. Still, I'm learning how to be different and be comfortable with that. Diversity is something to be treasured, but sometimes when you're the one who's diverse that's difficult to realize. I'll have to think about that more and work on it.

Still, it's good to have experiences like that and grow through them. It's nice to experience stuff like that, because I'm sure I'll have a different take on the situations around me when I get home. I'm still having a great time and I miss you all very much! Be safe and happy, friends.

A Common Language?

2009-03-05T06:05:00.003-06:00

Here's a quick thought that's been on my mind lately:

I find it really interesting that we can translate languages. As far as I know, we can translate every language. There isn't a human language on the planet that can't be translated by skillful people. For the most part, with practice you can even understand the connotations and emotions that words in each language bring about. What this says to me is that there is a "bottom line," if you will, to mankind. We all experience the world in some common way. I'm not saying that we don't have differences. We most certainly do. I just think it's interesting that humanity has some common themes, no matter where we're from, no matter what language we speak. There is a certain way of being human that we can all understand on some levels.

Dr. Panza (if you're reading this) didn't Chompsky try to do some work on this idea to show that there is a common human epistemology and language is an artifact of that commonality? Interesting idea....

Chronos Is Not Dead...

2009-03-01T06:14:00.004-06:00

In Ancient Greek mythology, there are a myriad of stories used to convey lots of different things. Sometimes, the stories are world history in disguise, such as the stories of Helen of Troy. Other times, their allegories for the human condition. All of them are really interesting and creating, and they make you rethink the history we all think is "objective" (remember, the Greeks don't have a different word for "history" and "story").

One of my favorite stories is that of Chronos, Zeus's titan father. Chronos, you see, had a tendency to eat all of his children in order to maintain his authority and not be overthrown by his Olympian children. Rhea, Chronos's mate, became angry that her offspring were being gobbled up, so with the help of Ouranos and Gaia (the Sky and the Earth), she hid away her son Zeus and fed Chronos a rock instead. When Zeus became powerful enough, he destroyed Chronos and freed his brothers and sisters from his belly. Thus, the Ancient Greek Pantheon we know of today begins.

There are a lot of different morals to be ascertained through the reading of this story. The one I want to focus on today focuses on the relationship between Chronos and Zeus. Chronos represents time. Time eats us all, you see. The idea is that Zeus has slayed time, has freed us from the constraints of being fleeting characters and turned us into immortals (or has at least given us the opportunity to become immortal). Thus, Zeus is to be revered as the head of the Pantheon by allowing us the ultimate gift: the opportunity for eternity.

Here's what I find interesting: I have traveled through the ancient ruins. I have seen the statues of our hero Zeus crumbling and weathered. I have seen the remains of the civilizations which once revered this character for opening eternity to them. I'm not exactly sure what to make of it all, but it is interesting. Chronos has the last laugh after all. His son enjoyed prosperity here for a while, but Zeus's temples on Olympus are collapsing and no one remains to worship at them.

Again, it helps put things in perspective. Right now is nothing but a minuscule dot in the grander scheme of history. We think everything we have is the epoch of culture, thought, knowledge, etc. We especially think this about religion with our closed-off monotheism.

Keep in mind that I say this from the perspective of a young man striving to be a follower of Christ. I am not saying that our religions aren't valuable and true in some senses. What I am saying is that we could probably stand to lose a bit of our huberus. What do we have to gain from declaring ourselves the ultimate authority on everything? Nothing, I argue. We deprive ourselves of the ability to grow by closing our minds to new and challenging ideas about faith, religion, philosophy, life.

I know lots of people are going to argue with me on these points. We all want to believe we're absolutely right in our beliefs at all times. Maybe some of us are - though I highly doubt it. All I'm saying is that at one time, entire civilizations thought that Zeus had slain Chronos. I've seen their remains.

God Grant Us Humility...

2009-02-27T12:11:00.002-06:00

Marco enters a city: he sees someone in a square living a life or an instant that could be his; he could now be in that man's place, if he had stopped in time, long ago; or if, long ago, at a crossroads, instead of taking one road he had taken the opposite one, and after long wandering he had come to be in the place of that man in that square. By now, from that real or hypothetical past of his, he is excluded; he cannot stop; he must go on to another city, where another of his pasts awaits him, or something perhaps that had been a possible future of his and is now someone else's present. Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches.

"Journeys to relive your past?" was the Khan's question at this point, a question which could also have been formulated: "Journeys to recover your future?"

And Marco's answer was: "Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have."

-Italo Calvino, "Invisible Cities"

I'm discovering more and more that traveling is not about learning, but instead about unlearning. It's not about gaining knowledge or experiences, though surely this is a very positive side-effect, but it's rather about realizing how much knowledge and experience you don't have. It's about humbling yourself. There is so much I will not know in my life, and traveling is showing me more and more that I'll never know, making me realize that knowledge is not the goal of life at all.

With this comes comfort. Knowing that I do not and cannot know everything is a relief. It helps me realize that life is not so much about how much you know or what field you are learned in. Instead, it's about who you are and what you do with that knowledge. How we apply whatever knowledge and experience we have is more important than merely having the knowledge and experience. For me, this has put everything in such a different light.

Seeing as knowing everything is an impossibility, knowing anything becomes icing on the cake. Pity that most of us have to be thrown into entirely new circumstances to realize just how small we really are and refocus on who we want to be.

Another interesting thing I've noticed here in Greece is that every time I leave a place, it's monumental for me because I realize that I'll probably never go back to that place ever again. I mentally prepare myself for every visit. I try to come in with a blank slate, without expectations, take all the pictures and meaning I can, and leave happily. I wonder how much that transfers to the daily grind. Every moment in our lives is the only time we'll ever experience that particular moment, ever have that particular opportunity to do something, etc.

There's no real overarching theme or point to this post, just ponderings of my travels that I wanted to share. Happy carnaval weekend to all of my Greek readers!

I'm Back!

2009-02-26T11:33:00.003-06:00

It's true. I spent the last four days out and about in Northern Greece visiting Thessaloniki, Pella (where Alexander the Great launched his campaign), King Phillip II's burial tomb, Meteora (wow), and lots of other places. Another trip to add to my recent list. I'm getting an embarrassment of experiential riches here! I'll be sure to update on the trip itself more as time passes, but right now I'm going to fill out a meme for my friend Peter over at The Buddha Diaries. I'm a bit travel weary, so I need something not so intense for the evening.

1) How do you sleep at night?

Is your sleep affected by the national angst? Do you drop off easily, as you always did? Or does it take a while to get to sleep?

For starters, this meme is pretty focused on the economy in the US and how it effects us personally. I'm not in the States right now, and I also don't have any financial investments that would be effected by the problems. I'm also pretty aloof as far as the ways of the world. Anyway, rest assured that though I'm not in the states, the economic crisis is global and I hear about it every day. People are hurting everywhere.

With regards to sleep, the crisis itself doesn't effect my sleep so much because I don't really think about it. I don't necessarily drop off easily most nights, but it's never much of a struggle.

2) What strategies, if needed, do you use to get to sleep? Pills? Sheep? Late night television shows? And/or...?

I have a developed a few strategies. The first thing that keeps me awake is if I'm worried about something or haven't finished a task, so sifting through that (whether it be just in my head or actually doing something) comes first. Next, I'll find something mental to focus on. Typically I'll run through something monotonous like a ballet barre routine or mentally going over guitar scales. Typically those hypnotize me to sleep. If not, it's likely that there's something wrong with my diet and I'm going to suffer through the night.

3) Do you wake up in the middle of the night, plagued by obsessive thoughts?

Staying asleep is more difficult for me than getting to sleep. Sometimes I wake up from nightmares I can't explain (typically once a week). Sometimes I have to go to the restroom. Lots of times I wake up because of chronic back pain from an injury I got from high school sports. I'm a very light sleeper. Typically I wake up about four times a night for various reasons.

4) What strategies do you have to get back to sleep?
Since I'm almost always involved in some vivid dream, I find that trying to sink back into that dream by concentrating on what was happening brings me right back into dreamland. If that doesn't work, it's back to the strategies outlined above.

5) Are your dreams affected? Are they more anxious than before? Do they wake you up in a sweat? Or are they peaceful, innocent, undisturbed by the general malaise?

I almost never have "peaceful" dreams. There's always some kind of action going on. Lots of times it's a zombie dream (still never figured that one out). Other times it's got something to do with someone I know having some kind of problem I have to deal with. Even when it's not a nightmare-ish dream, it's always bright, brilliant, and detailed. I suppose my mind's always at work!

So there are my answers! Not sure if they're exactly what you're looking for Peter, but it was a fun exercise! Hmmmmmm.....who to tag.....

I tag:
Lady A from Xanga,
Shanna from Almost Finally,
Jess, my sister, from 20 Something and Not Counting,
Anyone from Every Square Inch that might be interested,
and Bill Pershing from Life Interrupted

On a related note, Bill and I are starting a new joint blog that kicks off in just a few days (March 1). Back Porch Conversations, as it is called, is going to be a Christian blog focused on opening up conversations between groups that typically aren't prone to dialogue, discussing theology, and whatever else strikes our fancy. Be sure to check us out! We're likely to have lots of special featured guest writers including guys like Tony Jones, Brian McLaren, etc. Look forward to seeing you there!

My Global Project...

2009-02-22T07:13:00.004-06:00

In conjunction with two book we're reading right now by a man named Italo Calvino (an amazing Italian author you all should read), I had to compose a description of the city I know most intimately. Naturally, I chose Springfield, my latest home, and I tried to describe it in the most subjective way possible (as if there's an objective way to describe anything! Ha!). Anyway, I really enjoyed this assignment, so I decided to put it up here. Some of the passages are intentionally allegorical (some more obviously than others), and some are just meant to inspire images. My goal was to be vague with most of my descriptions, giving you the freedom to fill in the gaps however your mind sees fit. It isn't about explanation, it's about experience.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Describing a city is absurd since no city exists outside of experience, so today I’ll describe my experiences of my city. In doing so you’ll learn more about me—and also about yourself—than about my city, surely, but I’m beginning to think that that’s the point. My descriptions follow an order of size, from smallest to largest.

In the center of town, one giant edifice stands fully erect. Built originally as a status symbol and still perfectly maintained, it is now surrounded by shambles and serves only as a compass.

In the warmer months, the lights dim and one can hear the explosions of victory resounding from a nearby sports complex.

In the center of town there are neighborhoods where one can walk for hours and never see the same house twice. Still, the feeling that you haven’t experienced anything different since the first row persists. The only things that change are the names.

In short sleeves and long sleeves, I feel pavement like brail via my bicycle as I observe now the blooming flowers, now the dense summer air, now the colored leaves drifting downward, now the grey winter sky aching to lighten itself.

Trees are everywhere. It is as if the city used to be an open field and a farmer scattered seeds all across the plain. Some seeds contained the plans for an oak and pine trees, others apartment complexes and office buildings.

One night I was atop what I thought was a lifeless parking garage hoping to flea the movement of the world. The world turned still, and I gazed unexpectedly at the most beautiful sunrise. Surprises are everywhere. One need only look.

Within city limits, the earth has been homogenized. Everything is flat and even. If one wishes to race down hills or hug curves, one has to leave the city in search of diverse topography.

On warm summer days, the scent of factories processing corn meal, like thick musty dog food, pervades for miles and miles. To outsiders, it’s obtrusive. Some find it comforting. I tend to think the scent itself doesn’t matter. People choose how to feel about it.

Green meadows speckle the city. They hide between warehouses and government buildings waiting for you to notice them so they might caress the soles of your feet. Some have fountains, some caves, still others have monkey bars. During the day they’re filled with small children and giggles. At sunset they harbor lovers and artists. Later still they house the homeless and narcotic dealers.

Sometimes, when I’m having a bad day, I visit the largest tourist attraction in the entire state, which is in my city. I walk the aisles marveling at the millions of ways we humans have devised to kill things as efficiently as possible.

There are streets, only a handful among the thousands of the intersecting lines, which leads to a graveyard in the center of town. I have paced between the rows of headstones, reading the epitaphs, for days. Some days never a word is spoken, other times magnificent orations. Still, I’ve never seen another person there.

Every couple of blocks you’ll see a giant yellow sign with the silhouette of a cowboy, or golden arches standing on red plains, or a white siren in a green circle, each depicting a different way to feed an addiction.

On Sunday mornings, the buildings are all full, so I go to church. Outside of the city a few miles you’ll find pavement winding through a reserve where I go to meet God. I hear my deity in the bubbling brooks, I see my deity in the flight of birds and butterflies, I feel my deity in the rush of wind.

For one reason or another, I have found that very few people exist in my city. In search of people, one finds instead mostly titles, opinions, beliefs, memberships, held together by a physical proxy.

Visiting the grocery stores late at night is eye opening. People wearing nothing but rags carrying children with dirty faces stand in line where only hours before wealthy businesspeople bought their prime rib. I’m not sure why the schism exists. I don’t think either group wants to be near the other.

When the church bells strike twelve, you can hear the nocturnal creatures emerge from their shelters. Police sirens echo through the streets, train whistles blow, drunken wanderers utter the occasional shout, and I wonder what they’re all looking for in the dark.

The city crawls with students. Everywhere you look there is a café filled with textbooks and collegiates aching to tell you what they know about Kung and Kant, Donne and Dumas, or Christ and Krishna.

There is a small diner downtown that serves the best breakfast food. On Saturday mornings I like to drink my coffee there while I observe the cook prepare my eggs and listen to the couple behind me talk about their grandchildren or their wedding day or the big day of shopping that lies ahead of them.

There is an organic coffee shop on the square downtown where the baristas will tell you everything you need to know about life while serving you a cup of the best Guatemala Antigua you will ever taste.

On the first Friday night of every month, there are several things to witness downtown. One can marvel at the art in the galleries, or there are always the circus performers in the historical square swallowing fire, or there are always those filled with hate making themselves obvious. They stand on the corners shouting—or at least it looks like shouting; nobody ever hears them—about the evils of this world and how they’re God will have no mercy on the sinners.

My city is a global headquarters for religions which stand against more than they stand for. Every Sunday morning you won’t be able to find anyone until at least noon. Except the droves of homeless people. They smell like rotten eggs and locker rooms.

After a time, I have found that every part of my city speaks to me. When I first arrived, all the roads and buildings were shy and quiet. Now I see them and they tell to me about the time I was here with so-and-so, or the time I ate there that Tuesday evening, or the time I took that friend to the hospital. Nothing is silent, even if it only speaks to tell me who I should bring on the next visit.

The city is connected by a single trail I have spent hours speeding through, though it’s hard to find. It starts in a field to the North, winds through neighborhoods, parks, churches, banks, restaurants, and finishes again in the wilderness in the South. At the end, the traveler finds her or his self standing on a bridge overlooking a gushing river eroding everything in its path.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anyway, I leave tomorrow morning for Thessaloniki and Meteora, so I'm not sure when the next time I write will be, but I'll have more interesting material when I return. Take care!

New Random Thoughts...

2009-02-21T05:30:00.003-06:00

Things I've never thought of before coming to a different culture:

Dogs, apparently, can be bilingual. They can also have accents.

There is lots of communication that takes place outside of language. Dancing, music, glances, laughter, crying, certain gestures. None of this can be stopped by a language barrier.

People don't need everything legislated for them. Here, the laws are lax and the enforcement is even MORE lax. Still, by some miracle of God, they get along just great. Even when Big Brother isn't looking over everyone's shoulder all the time, society functions perfectly.

People everywhere face essentially the same problems with different variations and degrees. Everyone wants to eat, drink, have a place to sleep, feel secure, and be loved. I think humanity has more in common than it has differences.

On the Acropolis, there have been many different sets of buildings over the years. The Greeks chose intentionally to reconstruct the Roman edifices. What this shows is that we can, and do, choose which past informs our present circumstances. Some choose Adam and Eve or the Buddha as their setting, others choose their parents ability or inability to love. Some choose nationality, others political affiliation. We do choose.

Thought of the Day...

2009-02-20T07:51:00.002-06:00

"The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want."
-Mark 14:7

Here in Greece, there are lots of beggars. Every day I walk down Ermou, the main vendor street, and my heart breaks. I see men and women with horrible disfigurations, children being held limp from malnutrition and fatigue in their parents arms, and men and women dying from addictions. All of these people are holding out cups begging for change in Greek and I honestly don't know what to do.

I'm an action-oriented person when it comes to faith. Every day I pray to God that I might see the world the way God sees the world, that God would fill me with an overwhelming compassion for God's people. People all over the world need help. And I'm not talking about "saving souls," whatever that means, I'm talking about bringing people out of the cold. It's tough though, right? How do we do that?

I had a conversation with my friend Διμίτρις (Dimitri) about it the other day, and apparently everyone is perplexed by this phenomenon. You see, if you don't give them change, you basically feel like a bastard. On the other hand, if you DO give these people change, you're only addressing a symptom of the problem and ultimately you're enabling this lifestyle of begging. You encourage it, you know?

It's a big problem all over the world. People are starving. People can't put a roof over their children's heads. People can't afford clothing. The list goes on. Jesus tells us that the poor will always be with us, so apparently this isn't any kind of new problem. Still, that doesn't excuse us from our obligation to reach out and be the hands and feet of Christ in this world. The next question is this: How the HELL do we even start?

Lent...

2009-02-19T02:38:00.002-06:00

Lent has been on my mind lately. I'm in a place where I can't really ignore it or forget about it like I do back in the states, so I think I'll try to participate this year.

As I understand it, Lent a 40 day long period that we use to help cleanse and prepare us mentally and spiritually for the death and resurrection of Christ. We're supposed to use it as a tool to bring us closer to God so that we might experience Good Friday and Easter in a more robust way. I love it. I know I particularly need a 40 day long period of discipline, perseverance, and growth towards my ideals.

This year, however, I've been somewhat stuck on what I feel like I should be doing to prepare. A few years ago I gave up caffeine for 40 days. It was incredibly difficult, but I don't necessarily feel like it prepared me spiritually for anything. I just got crabby and tired.

So this year I think I'll be a bit more deliberate about coming closer to God. This year I've elected to pray every morning when I wake up and every night when I go to sleep for the entire period of Lent. I think that's a good appropriation of this year's time, and it's something I feel like I need to do.

It's time for a little forced development, which is another way of understanding this holiday. The verse that's been in my mind all week is I Corinthians, 8:11, which says, "When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." I'd like to put my priorities in the correct order. I'd like to do away with the childish ways I act and begin to think and act like a man.

Blog Reactions...

2009-02-18T06:44:00.002-06:00

My friend Bill over at Life Interrupted wrote a great piece on the use of theological debate. His post hones in on a point I think is undeniably self-evident.

What use is theological debate if we're not doing what we're told to do?

Lots of people argue about which Bible translation to use, whether or not gays should marry, whether or not abortion should be made legal, etc. The fact is this: In about the time you take to read this post, thousands of people will starve to death around the world. A child dies of malaria in Africa something like every six seconds. Millions of people around the world will go to sleep without a roof over their heads and with no clean water to drink.

Don't get me wrong. Theology can have a huge impact on these problems, but it has to be used as a tool for good and not evil. It can be very manipulative and dividing. Also, there are a lot of theological problems that can be harmful to this planet. For example, when you think that the only thing that matters is the immortal "soul," then you're going to spend more money sending Bibles across the globe than helping hands. That's a problem. In the book of James, we're told that true religion is caring for orphans and widows in their time of need. Sometimes we forget about that, don't we?

If you want to minister to people, if you REALLY want to change people's lives, you help them. You extend your hand and SHOW them who Jesus was, not just TELL them. You ease their suffering.

The whole point, I guess, is to try and keep all of our ponderings and prattling in perspective. To the extent that our theological debates motivate us to act more like Jesus tells us to act, to be a blessing on this earth and help alleviate the pain of our neighbors, it is helpful and good. Beyond that, it's worthless. We should consign it to the flames, as Hume would say.

Τι γίνετε στην Ελλάδα;

2009-02-15T09:55:00.003-06:00

I've got a lazy Sunday afternoon on my hands and I haven't laid down a substantive update of my adventures in Greece for a while, so I suppose now is the time!

Let me give you a walk-through of a typical week for me in Volos:

Δευτέρα-Τετάρτι (Monday-Wednesday) - Wake up with the bells at 7:30, make coffee and breakfast, and out the door by 8:15. Greek II from 9-10:30, and a different class (Mediterranean Culture, Global Futures, or Greek Practicum) from 10:30-1. Then lunch and lounging around until I go to sleep and do it all over again! I usually study, read, write, or surf the web. Depends on where I am. I actually try to spend most of that time out in the city, usually at a coffee shop, so I can be around the Greek people and practice talking more.

Πέμπτη-Κυριαχή (Thursday-Sunday) - Lots of time on my hands. I wake up whenever I feel like it (though I still have the church bells to contend with), go through my morning routine, and then I fend for myself! Again, lots of reading, writing, surfing the web, and spending time in the city trying to meet people. On the weekends there is a group of us that go out to the bars where it's REALLY easy to meet people. Speaking of which...

This weekend was pretty crazy! Don't worry, Mom and Dad, I'm still being responsible. But let me tell you, I've made some massive strides as far as speaking Greek and meeting local people goes! Thursday night my friends took me to our new favorite bar, Drops, where we met all the bartenders, the owner, and all of their friends. They're all really fun, laid back people and they LOVE to give us drinks for some reason. So......we went back on Friday!

On Friday we met a group of very cool locals and relaxed with them for about three hours. I discovered the key to meeting people here: I start off with the pleasantries (Hi! What's you're name? Where do you live? What do you do? All in Greek now, by the way!). Then, when they ask where I'm from, I have learned that when I say, "Είμαι απο την Αμερική, αλλά δεν μαρέσιε Bush," which means "I'm from America, but I don't like Bush," I'm almost always given a huge smile, a hug, a kiss on both cheeks, and then we chat "Obama!" And then they buy me shots for the rest of the night. Whoa! Who knew meeting new people could be so simple?!?!

The group we were hanging out with at Drops on Friday invited us back for a celebration on Saturday. One of the girls, you see, is named Valentine, which means yesterday was her "Name Day." In Greece, they don't really celebrate their birthdays. They celebrate the day their Saint Day, or Name Day. Since she's named after St. Valentine, we celebrated! Greek people love to drink and dance, so we drank and danced. Until 5am. Goodness gracious.

All in all, I spent less than 20 euro in the bars in three nights. I bought one, maybe two beers a night and then some group would adopt me and give me drinks the rest of the evening. When they find out I'm an intelligent American who speaks Greek and actually wants to talk to them and learn about who they are, we're suddenly best friends. Last night, one of the guys actually looked me in the eyes and said, "Tonight, everything is on us. You don't pay for anything." So I gave him a very emphatic thank you and told him I'd help out with the tab next time. "No no no!" he replied. "While you are in Greece, you are our guest, and we are very hospitable people!" Apparently if they ever come to America though, I'm going bankrupt!

Another thing: These are the most loyal people I've ever seen in my life. Last night at the bar one of the girls I was hanging out with - her boyfriend is the one who told me that everything is free for me while I'm with them - started getting hit on by some dude from another crowd. Γιώργος, another guy I was hanging out with, was so outraged by his friend's girlfriend being hit on that he actually started swinging at this guy. I went over there to help break it up and the girls grabbed me and said, "No no! This happens all the time! Don't worry about it." It was broken up quickly and I learned my lesson about not hitting on girls that you think have boyfriends. I've never seen that kind of dedication from friends! It's crazy! And it makes me really happy to have made friends this weekend too!

So I experienced a lot this weekend, made a lot of friends, and learned some too. And don't worry, I really didn't drink myself stupid. The Greeks do drink a lot (and, ipso fact, I did too. It's really taboo to turn down drinks), but they space out their shots well and dance it off as soon as they put it in.

I've noticed that already my English is suffering from my attempts to become bilingual. Because I don't speak fluent Greek and they don't speak fluent English, we all end up speaking in broken sentences, using terrible grammar, and gesturing a lot to get our points across. Consequently, when we leave the bar I always find myself talking to Roddy like I'm trying to talk to one of my new friends. It goes like this:
"Rohit, tonight was very good, no? Ο Γιώργος, he is very nice man. The people were good to us, ναι?"
It's weird, but it works. It takes me about two hours of reading and thinking in nothing but English to start using proper grammar and descriptive adjectives again. So sorry if this post isn't up to snuff grammatically!

On another side note, my dreams are starting to have Greek in them. I'm pretty sure that's a good sign. Most of the time I understand it when my subconscious talks to me in Greek, but - strangely enough - not always. This morning I had to wake up and open the dictionary to realize what I was saying to myself in my sleep. It's really weird.

One Year Ago Today...

2009-02-14T08:48:00.005-06:00

Today I wanted to take a brief respite from the normal stuff where I try and piece something together that people from the outside might find value and intrigue in. Today I want to write for myself and be all cheesy and emotional. I really try not to do that so much on this blog because I don't want it to become a diary, I want it to be substantive, but today I just want to write. I need to get these thoughts out of my head.

One year ago today I broke up with Lindsey. Truthfully, I still think about her all the time. I read her blog with interest, I catch myself daydreaming about trips we made together, she even shows up in my dreams every now and again. It isn't so much that I want her back (though sometimes I do) or that I think we shouldn't have broken up when we did (I still think that was a good decision for us both). Mostly I miss my friend and I regret the way I handled it all.

Look, I know things happened the way they did and I can't change that. I know I was really, really young and that I did the best I could have. And I know I learned and grew a lot through it all, so ultimately it all worked out the only way it could have and it worked out for the better. Still, growing up is hard. That's really the only way I can put it. Growing up sometimes means learning the hard way. Sometimes you learn by doing the wrong thing, by hurting people you care about, by failing and hurting yourself.

And I really haven't been the same since. I have tried dating a lot since then, but it always works out terribly. In retrospect, I really haven't been fair to the girls I've dated since Lindsey. I'm just not ready to open up again and let people in, so I always accidentally lead girls on and hurt them. I actually lead myself on, too, and I always have to come to face to face with the realization that I still haven't quite figured it all out yet.

So I really just wanted to write this post for a few reasons. I wanted to remind myself that I'm still human. I'm still hurting and I've still got a place in my heart for that relationship that taught me so much and helped me grow. And I still have the opportunity to wake up and use that experience to help me become the man I want to be. The key, I think, is recognition of the truth that I can't just do what I have been doing and expect different results. I can't continue to run away from myself and hide, or intentionally keep myself too busy to deal with it all. Time to put on my big boy pants, and what better day to reflect on it all than today.

So that's that, I suppose. A little anti-climactic, but that's life. All is well here in Greece, just so you know. It snowed today! Now the mountain I see off in the distance has a white cap. I've been meeting lots of locals lately (that's the great thing about bars), and they invited me to a birthday party tonight, so I'll having fun. I love you all and I hope to hear from everyone soon!

To Everyone I Know...

2009-02-12T09:31:00.003-06:00

Call it metta, call it a prayer, call it what you will.

I just really want to take this moment to let everyone who reads this blog, whether you read it regularly or sporadically, whether you know me personally or not, or whether you just found this blog googling "Marco Polo," that I love you.

No matter where you are or how often you stop in, I love you. I hope this post finds you all happy, healthy, or on your way there. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. We're all in this together.

Homesickness...

2009-02-09T09:25:00.003-06:00

It's true. I'm 21 and yesterday I felt homesickness for what I think is the first time in my life. I am typically really good at being away from home, away from my family, and basically being on my own for long periods of time, but this is different for a number of reasons. Allow me to enumerate, but worry not my friends. This post has a happy ending.

For starters, I'm here with nineteen other Americans and they basically all have their own pre-established circles of friends because they're all Architecture majors. Yuck. That makes it harder for me to step in. They're around and I'm sure I could talk to them if I really needed to, but it's just hard to make your way as the new guy in a group of old friends, you know?

What I've also discovered is that everything closes all the time here in Volos. Sundays, Monday and Wednesday afternoons, and every day between the hours of two and five thirty pm, the city just shuts down. They call it siesta, so I suppose I should nap, but most of the time I just sit around and wish things were open. I discovered some coffee shops today that stay open, though! All is not lost!

The thing that I find is the real killer is boredom. I can't speak the language (and most Greeks don't speak fluent enough English to have a conversation) and the other Americans have their own thing going, so conversation (as well as general mindless communal hanging out) is out. I liken it to being forced into monasticism. Like suddenly I've been forced to take a vow of silence, but it's stranger than that. My words here are impotent. They have no meaning, so my silence isn't because I can't or refuse to literally make noise, but rather because I'm not understood if I do.

Normally this isn't really too much of a problem. Normally when I'm alone, which I often am - willingly, I will do any of a myriad of activities. I'll read magazines or newspapers, watch tv, get on the internet and chat with friends, ride my bike, go to the ballet studio and dance, etc. However, all of my stocked up boredom activities are rendered useless here! No ballet studio, all television is in Greek, as are magazines and newspapers, time zone differences make chatting with friends impossible, no bike, no swimming pool. Ah! I'm alone with myself! That is sometimes the scariest thing in the world.

So yes. I spent yesterday very miserable, lonely, and basically feeling sorry for myself and my lot in life. Then I got to have a nice long video conversation with my sister, my brother-in-law, and then both of my parents. I then went to sleep, woke up, and went to class (I love class, for those of you who don't know. Something about feeling like I have a purpose makes me content). Rejuvenation!

After class, I went to the Volos Starbucks and spent about two hours studying Greek, reading a book, and chatting with the local baristas using my broken Greek. They're really nice people and very willing to help me! A good Starbucks is just what I need here. The coffee tastes exactly the same no matter where you go in the world. The music is exactly the same too. And the interior decorating. So if I really work hard at it, I feel like I'm sitting back at my home in Lake of the Ozarks reading a book at my favorite store. It's perfect. (I sent an email to Starbucks corporate headquarters today thanking them for their global presence, which has its perks)

Then, walking back to the academic building from Starbucks, I had an enlightening realization. I'm in Greece on my own! How cool! I'm going to coffee shops by myself and having miniature conversations in a language I don't speak very well! I'm going to clothing stores, restaurants, and markets by myself and holding my own! Realizing that today was very empowering and instead of feeling alone because I'm relatively alone in a country where I don't speak the language, I felt all the more mature and strong.

I can do this. I AM doing this. How cool.

Being American Abroad...

2009-02-08T03:19:00.002-06:00

My friend Peter over at the Buddha Diaries wrote a lovely piece on what it has meant to him to be an immigrant American citizen for the past forty or so years after moving from England. It was really intriguing, thoughtful, and it made me think that it's about time for me to write about my experience as an American abroad. So here's what I've noticed so far in some necessarily frank words.

Before I left, I made sure I knew how to say, "Γειά σας! Εμαι απο τον Καναδός," which means, "Hi! I'm from Canada!" I would rather not have been associated with the Bush atrocities. Then in November, I started humming a different tune as the whole world rejoiced with me over the election of Barack Obama. Suddenly I wasn't ashamed to be an American. I didn't feel the need to lie about where I was from.

Still, the reality is that I haven't exactly been accepted with open arms and trumpet heralds. My best friend whom I always travel with here actually IS from Canada, and when we introduce ourselves he is greeted with smiles and raised eyebrows. I, on the other hand, am greeted with a sort of telling smirk. I'm tolerated around here, but not always happily. They don't think I know any Greek, so when we're done introducing ourselves and they're talking to each other, I often hear the words "βλάκα" or "ξένο," which mean "stupid" and "outsider." To be honest, I don't think people like knowing I'm from America. It's really disheartening.

Why is this? Well, I think it stems from a few things, but it helps to put things in chronological context. America really is an infant of a nation. We have about two hundred years worth of history to speak of, and those years aren't necessarily filled with courage, moral uprightness, and good deeds. We started settling this nation by slaughtering the Native Americans, followed up by slavery. Since then, we've had lots to be ashamed of. Stepping in WAY too late in WWII, Vietnam, the Cuban embargo, the Cold War, not to mention all the recent events under the Bush administration which are too many to mention individually. I know there are ways to justify every event on that list from an American perspective, but outside perspectives aren't as forgiving. They tend to frown upon these things.

All of the countries over here, on the other hand, have histories that go back thousands of years in most cases. And they feel very attached to those histories. They don't see themselves as individuals within a country, they view themselves as part of a cultural legacy which has seen the rise and fall of empires. They lived through Caesar, Hadrian, Nero, Jesus Christ, the Ottoman Empire, Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini. Not to mention everything they have to be proud of: Aristotle and Plato, Beethoven and Bach, VanGogh and Monet, John Paul II and Mother Theresa. It's ridiculous.

Here's a simile that I often use when trying to think about my place as an American in this country: America is like a loud, headstrong college graduate trying to be authoritative in a group of well-established people. We're always trying to tell people what to do, forcefully trying to be right, always wanting to be the loudest, always having all the answers. And yet, we never stop to realize who we're talking to and the experience which informs the opinions and decisions of our peers. Can you imagine how annoyed you'd get if the new kid on the block kept trying to tell you what was the right thing to do when your country INVENTED GEOMETRY?

Still, age isn't always an indication of wisdom. We as Americans often times have great ideas, amazing innovations, and insightful opinions which are valuable in the global community. Being young has its advantages. We don't have set traditions, so we're free to do things in new ways. There's a certain beauty in that. The key, I think, is to be humble about it and defer to the experience and authority of those who have gone before us. It's the middle path, the road between blind courage and reserved wisdom, that we need to learn to travel.

As for me? I plan on being as gracious a visitor as I can be. I've always been a fan of changing stereotypes, and I intend to do that once again on a global scale. I'll continue to say I'm from American when I get to know people and then be as polite as possible. Maybe it will help, maybe it won't, but at least I'll be doing my part to change the American perception abroad.

Off to Church...

2009-02-05T12:43:00.004-06:00

I've decided that since I will have tons of time on my hands this semester (I'm only taking 13 hours of class, three of them are implicit within the program, and I'll only be in class three days a week) I've decided to take it upon myself to do an in-depth study of the Eastern Orthodox Church. I'm really excited about it. I know that makes me sound like one of the biggest nerds in the world, but let me explain a bit more.

It's known here simply as the Orthodox Church because, due to it's history, it really is seen as the original church. Prior to 1054 (the formal date, though there had been conflicts for decades prior), there was only one Catholic Church. Christianity was celebrated as one body of Christ throughout the world. However, due to some theological debates and, mainly, power struggles, the churches split into the West (the church we know now as Catholicism and it's protestant children) and the East, which is the Orthodox Church. That's a bit of background.

Fast forward for some present-day theology. The Orthodox Church sees itself not as a human construction which exists to help people find their way back to God. Rather, they see themselves as an extension of God himself here on Earth. The Church as a building has a foot in both the spiritual and the physical world. As such, it is constructed and maintained in a way that would make people feel like they're literally walking into heaven when they enter the building.

The walls are all covered in ornate, hand painted murals depicting Biblical stories. The rooms are flooded with natural light filtered through stained glass windows. Sweet smelling incense is lit and hung from golden vessels. Families, three generations at a time, form processionals through the narthex kissing icons, crossing themselves, and lighting votive candles as physical releases of their prayers to God. Trust me when I say that it really does feel like setting foot in God's house.

I'll be attending mass this weekend for the first time. In such a traditional church, I'm pretty intimidated. There are so many movements I don't know, so many meanings I don't yet understand. Not to mention I'm sure I'll be the only light skinned, red-headed person in the church (also within a 100 mile radius) and I don't speak the language yet. I've asked for pointers from all the Orthodox people I know, including all of my religion professors, but I'm still kinda frightened!

Still, there is something entirely captivating about this rich tradition. It's so mysterious, and I imagine it will maintain that mystery no matter how much I learn about it. It's got so much history (again, status quo for Greece) and I have so much to learn from them. I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes, both with the research and with mass this weekend!

Makrynitsa and Mt. Pelion...

2009-02-04T13:36:00.003-06:00

So the past two days were field trip days. Cool stuff, but truthfully I'm getting somewhat tired of the constant bus rides and stuff. So here are some quick highlights:

First of all, I need to get this out there. Panos, our guide, keeps saying things like, "This village isn't very old. It was founded in the 1800s," etc. What I find funny about this stuff is the fact that what is considered "not very old" to a Greek is actually older than the country I'm from. Weird. Now onto the actual stuff.

So we went to Makrynitsa yesterday, and it was fantastic. Imagine every Prego commercial you've ever seen that's set in a tiny mountain town with some old woman speaking Yiddish. That's Makrynitsa, accept it's in Greece and instead of Yiddish it's Greek, although for the most part I can't tell the difference because 1) I don't know Yiddish and 2) the locals speak so fast that it all sounds quasi-jibberishy to me.

Seriously though, it's a very spiritual and aesthetically gorgeous town. Being there feels like being transported back in time. I kept looking down at the city off in the distance. It was surreal, like I was actually removed from the world and its twisted, unsatisfying ways. Like Makrynitsa was imbued with a sense of peace, and simply by being there I was given that simple gift for a few hours. I'll never forget it.

Today was pretty nice too. More sightseeing on Mt. Pelion. Mt. Pelion, by the way, is known throughout mythology as the home of the centaurs and the summer home of the Gods. Very cool. And the place has a voice of its own with the gorgeous fog rolling in through the olive trees and apple orchards, the one lane cobblestone roads, the wooden taverns which line the road, and the view of the ocean and Greek islands that goes on forever. It's amazing.

Something that really struck me is the reality of WWII from Europe. Like I said, Greece was struck particularly hard for several reasons. Firstly, Mussolini tried to invade butt the Greeks whipped his butt, so when Hitler finally succeeded he treated them rather spitefully. Then in return, the Greeks formed one of the strongest resistances to the Nazi regime. They're truly a people of indomitable will and strength. But like I said before, they paid dearly. One third of the country died of starvation alone. Thousands upon thousands more were slaughtered outright.

A few things stick out to me about this whole things. What struck me first is the fact that I've talked about this stuff in school for years, but I saw it as a long gone reality and the world as we know it has move past it. Not true. It's still very much a part of life here in Europe. It's memorialized everywhere, it's talked about daily, it is in no way forgotten. The war has become a deep root of their cultural heritage that informs who they are today. That was an intense realization for me. I honestly hurt for them.

The second realization was that this war didn't just effect Jews. What I had learned in school is that Hitler invaded and the Jews were shipped off and killed but everyone else was pretty much fine. Sure, they were living under occupation, but if they kept their noses clean life was good. Again, not true. MOST of the deaths here in Greece were Gentiles. They were people who heroically stood up against an evil man. They put their lives at risk for what they knew was right and payed the ultimate price. What courage! What strength! It's unbelievable!

Again, I'm beginning to see that throughout history this kind of thing has become status quo for the Greek people. They see a need and they meet it. When they're on their own, they're a very relaxed and simple people, but when in the face of struggle they unite under one banner and are impossibly strong. I can't wait to learn all I can from this amazing culture so that I might become a better person through it and take some of that back with me to America. We have a lot to learn, I'm afraid.

Volos: The Beginning

2009-02-02T11:42:00.003-06:00

Γιεά σας στον Βόλο!
The picture above is the view from my fifth story apartment in Volos which I’m currently sitting in sipping coffee and watching some football (or soccer, for those of us from the States) with my roommate. We’ve got the door open to our balcony so we can have a nice breeze and enjoy the view of the snow capped mountains in the distance. If you look through our kitchen window on the other side of our apartment, you’ll get a view of the Aegean sea which borders Volos. How lucky am I?!

Let me tell you about some fun quirks my new home has. For starters, we have the mixed blessing of living literally right next to a beautiful Greek Orthodox cathedral. It’s gorgeous and it’s a local hub since Volos is a very pious town, BUT the bell tower dings every half hour and it sounds very long and ceremoniously at the beginning of every mass. Mass is every day at 7:30am and 5:00pm. Fun! At least we’ll never have to set an alarm for class in the morning!

We’re also having fun figuring out things like European washing machines, kitchen equipment, neighbors who don’t speak our language at all, finding the things we need at shopping centers, and other silly little things like that. Still, we’re overwhelmed with joy to be here and have this fantastic apartment. Life is beautiful! Αφτό ζωή είναι πολί ορέα!

Yesterday we drove from Athens to Volos which took about three hours total with our incredibly slow bus driver and the craziest driving I’ve ever witnessed in my life. We trekked through the beautiful Grecian countryside which is a combination of gorgeous sloping grassy hills, mountains, and ocean. Greece is geographically juxtaposed, you see, and it makes for some beautiful sightseeing. I’m really working on ways to get my photos up on the internet so you can see everything I’ve talked about, but so far the only way to do that that I’ve found takes several hours. More time than I’m willing to spend. When I figure it out, I’ll let you know!

We arrived in Volos around four thirty yesterday evening, settled into our gorgeous apartment (a five minute walk from the Spierrer building where I have class), and walked the downtown area to see what life is like for the locals. After that, the whole group of students (twenty of us total) went do a beautiful restaurant on the sea for our welcome dinner courtesy of Drury University. It was a traditional Greek meal with lots of fresh seafood and some fantastic dessert. It was a lovely way to cap off move-in day!

Today was pretty easy. We just did a walking orientation of the city which included things like the hospital, shopping centers, local restaurants, the local Volos University, and other necessities of life. This town is very different from Athens. It’s about 150,000 people, so it still has a small town feel. Most people don’t speak any English (which isn’t much of a problem), they’re all more relaxed, and everything is much more slowly paced. From the hours of two thirty to about five, for example, the entire town goes to sleep. All the stores close, the factories shut down, and life stops. It’s even illegal to make noise during those hours too. Talk about easy living! The Grecian lifestyle is something to be admired.

Volos has a strong historical background, but not as ancient as Athens. The town has SOME ancient undertones, but it really started getting large in the 1800s. Since then it’s been your traditional port city with little to write home about. What I do find interesting, however, is the fact that Volos had one of the largest Jewish populations in Greece prior to WWII. Not only that, but most of the Jews lived through the war. Since Volos is right next to the Pelion Mountains, the Jews fled to the hills and formed a resistance movement. They fought for their freedom against the Nazis during the war and maintained their numbers throughout. How amazing! And yet, it’s to be expected of the Greeks (and the Jews, historically). They’re a people who are very relaxed, and at the same time they’re completely fearsome and are a force to be reckoned with. I’m completely amazed by this culture.

My roommate and I have undertaken the task of becoming fluent as quickly as possible, by the way, and we’re making some serious headway! We’re already able to order at restaurants and have small conversations with people on the street! Still, Greek is a very difficult language due to its high declination. We’ll at least be able to meet the locals halfway, which makes them feel great. I’ll be sure to let you know how it all pans out! Take care, friends! I’ll have a more substantive update later, I just wanted to let everyone know I’m here, I’m safe, and life is very, very good. Ανδίο σας!

My Final Days in Athens...

2009-01-31T13:01:00.000-06:00

Γιά σας, φοίλι μας! I figure an update on life in Athens is in order!

Yesterday was a fun day of walking. We went all over downtown Athens to Σύνταγμα square, which means Constitution Square, and saw the wrath of the riots. The phrase of the winter here was “Merry Crisis and a Happy New Year!” There were lots of government buildings covered in graffiti (which isn’t a HUGE surprise since everything else in Athens is covered in graffiti as well, but when translated, this graffiti was particularly graphic), and there were lots of stores and other public things that had been badly burnt. It was a very interesting sight to behold. Everything’s died down now, so no worries.

Later we visited the 2004 Olympic Stadium and the mall, both of which were really fun. The stadium is an amazing feat of engineering, but it’s completely deserted now. A total wasteland. Out of the entire complex built for 04, only a few buildings are still in use. It’s terrible!

The mall was lots of fun though. It’s fun to see the Greek kids in their own element. Everyone in Greece is dressed to the nines all the time, looking like European models for premier designers, and that’s especially the case at the mall where all of the teenagers spend their parents’ money. It’s really entertaining to see them all with their friends. With all of the cultural differences, some things don’t change. Teenagers are still teenagers, acne and all. They scrabble for attention amongst each other, and even with the language barrier the social stratification is crystal clear. It was a nice reminder of the fact that all of our differences cannot change the fact that we’re all still human and we’ll always have some binding ties.

Today was a lot of fun, but very different. It was our last full day in the big city and we’d already seen all the major historical and archaeological sites, so we hopped on a ferry and visited Αιγίνα. It’s a beautiful island that’s about an hour to get to by sea, which gave me plenty of time to sit, journal, and enjoy the day. It wasn’t exactly beautiful outside though. It was about 40 degrees and raining, but sometimes you have to pay your dues.

We had a great day on the island just putsing around and visiting shops. I had THE BEST meal of my life (seriously), which consisted of cod in a red wine tomato sauce and the most succulent octopus I’ve ever experienced. It was delicious!

Meals here in Greece are totally different, by the way. First of all, Greeks eat lunch anywhere from two to four pm and dinner anywhere between eight and ten. Also, a meal isn’t just eating food and moving on. It’s an event. I regularly see locals spend three to four hours at a restaurant. They’ll have an appetizer, sit for forty-five minutes, have another course, drink for another hour, have dessert, keep drinking, and head out whenever they feel like their food is good and settled. Twice a day. It’s crazy!

They do the same thing at cafes with Frappe, a Nestle drink of milk and Nescafe instant coffee shaken with ice. They’ll sit at a café for an entire day with their friends smoking and talking. Everyone smokes, by the way, and they all smoke inside. Everywhere. Apparently Athens just passed a law that comes into effect in 2010 that bans smoking inside, but for now all the buildings (except the museums) are smoky.

There are lots of weird quirky things like that here in Greece. Driving is insane. The cars pretty much drive and park however they see fit. “There are no real laws in Athens,” says Panos. “There are only strong suggestions.” And it’s true. The motorcycles and mopeds are particularly crazy. They drive on the sidewalks, in between cars on the highways, and pretty much wherever they please. And you damn well better get out of their way. That’s just the way things are. It’s a very exciting thing, stepping out your door in the morning!

And another thing. There are wild dogs EVERYWHERE! They’re very relaxed and lots of fun. They’ve actually become one of my favorite parts of the city. Our group will often accumulate four or five wild dogs who just roam the streets with us for no reason for hours at a time. When they see someone or something they perceive might threaten us, be it another group of dogs or pedestrians or a car, they go into attack mode. It’s very flattering. They fit this city, which is very haphazard and dirty. Athens is the least pretentious place I’ve ever been. Things are the way they are, wild dogs and all, whether you like it or not and nobody is going to give you any excuses. You can either take it or leave it. I love it.

That’s all from this side of the globe for now! Sadly, I’m off to Volos in the morning. I’ve fallen madly in love with this city and hope to return sometime soon. It’s called The Big Village, and it’s just that. I’m comfortable everywhere I go and can find anything I need right around the corner. Everything here is a juxtaposition of excitement and fast-paced living, eccentricity and quaintness, and at the same time there’s a sense of peace and tranquility about it all . Anyway, here’s to Volos! I’ll be sure to give you an update from my apartment there when I settle in. Have a great day, wherever you may be reading this!

Athens!

2009-01-29T12:49:00.001-06:00

Today and yesterday have been two of the most eye-opening, awe-inspiring days of my life. We’ve been really busy, and we walk everywhere so my feet are kind of sore, but it’s a small price to pay for the cultural education I’m getting. I’ll try to give you a picture of what life has been like, but I’m sure it will fall short.

Yesterday I woke up around 3am Athens time (that’s 7pm Missouri time). Jet lag sucks, guys. I went to the lobby of my hotel and got on the internet, which was nice. Finding free internet here is tough, as I’ve said, so I had to pay a few euro to log on for an hour. I hung around and read some guide books (thanks, Jess!) until breakfast with my roommates at six thirty and then waited until nine for the day’s events to start up.

We headed straight to the Acropolis at nine, which was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. There is so much history there, so many stories with so much weight. We heard about the Parthenon, the Erekthion, and the temple of Athena and Nike, each with their own amazing stories. The most incredible part was the view, though. You can see all of Athens and the surrounding mountains and bay from all angles of the Acropolis. It’s breathtaking and very humbling.

Our guide told us some of the stories behind this city, which really helped me to put what I was seeing into context. Athens has seen the rise and fall of Caesar, Nero, Alexander the Great, Herodius, the Turks, Hitler, and many more. It’s been raised to the ground and rebuilt many times. Where ever you walk, you’re standing on twenty meters of rubble from older civilizations. Everything is built upon centuries of history.

When I thought about that as I looked out on the city from the Acropolis, I couldn’t help but feel like part of some grander beautiful story. This too shall pass. Hard times, happy times, stress, pain, ecstasy, joy, fear, despair. They’re all fleeting. Athens is a testament to that fact. The city endures all things and sees all emotions come and go with the wind. It’s a difficult feeling to describe, but I felt at once very small and incredibly empowered. It’s an amazing, spiritual place that I could spend hours writing about (and I did, in my journal, when I was up there. Three, to be exact).

We’ve done lots more since then (visited the Plaka, which is the touristy market place with lots of shops and cafes, seen lots of architectural advances and innovations, talked to lots of locals and made friends, visited the largest museum in Greece, drank, ate), but my other favorite moment so far was visiting a modern art museum in the renovated industrial district. The featured exhibit was by an artist named Αννα Κινδγνη, who lived from 1914 to 2003. She lived in Greece (or Ελλάς) through the Turkish war (which is something we don’t really hear about as Americans, but it was pretty brutal) and WWII. WWII, by the way, was suffered very intensely by the Greeks. Mussolini tried to take Greece but failed miserably, so when Hitler attacked he was furious. Many of the Greeks were killed outright, and the rest were starved. Two thirds of Athens’ population starved to death during the occupation. The work of Αννα really reflects that pain and struggle.

All of her work is done in charcoal, which really makes it pop out against the white paper. The quasi-characaturized figures are haunting. Their bodies are emaciated with hunger and their eyes stare at you with a despair that you can’t ignore. It’s all exacerbated by the fact that the drawings are nothing but black and white figures. There’s nothing to focus on but the well portrayed emotions of the pieces. It’s tragically beautiful, and it says so much about the Greek people.

Panos Leventis, our program director, and I have gotten to know each other fairly well over the past few days. He and I had a lengthy discussion about the Greek people and exactly what it means to him to be Greek in order for me to better understand the people around me and where they’re coming from. These people have so much cultural history. It’s amazing. Panos says it’s both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, you are part of something great. You are a member of a group of people who have endured and done so much in the three thousand plus years they’ve been on the planet. On the other, you have a legacy which is nearly impossible to live up to. Being Greek almost entails a responsibility to be the greatest person you can be in all areas. If you don’t, you simply aren’t living up to your potential as a member of the Greek nation. Take it or leave it, but it’s a great insight into the people I’m surrounded by constantly.

Again, I’m having a wonderful time and growing exponentially. I’ll be in Volos on Sunday evening (early Sunday morning for those of you in the states) and I hope to talk to you all more frequently then. Enjoy your ice and snow in Missouri!

Greece: The Beginning

2009-01-27T20:27:00.003-06:00

Hey friends and family! Life has been a bit touch and go lately due to travel. I’ve officially been in Greece for a little over a day, but I’ve been busy sightseeing and it’s been really hard to find free wi-fi anywhere. There’s a nice café right around the corner from my hotel with free internet which works great with my caffeine addiction! This afternoon my roommate and I walked down there, grabbed some traditional European espresso and sat on the internet for a while to get in touch with our families.

So far, it’s been a great trip! I landed in Athens at about 6pm local time (10am central) and met up with my roommate Roddy who had been waiting for me in the airport since noon. We hit the metro, which was really cheap and easy, and found our hotel by 7pm with the help of some restaurant owners. Roddy and I didn’t have hotel reservations until the next morning, so we dropped off our luggage with some friends at the hotel and went back to the restaurant where we met the locals who helped us find our way to the hotel. We had some amazing food, drank some ουζο (a Greek 80 proof sipping liquor that tastes like black licorice), and enjoyed some time with the waiter and owner.

After dinner we basically toured Athens at night on foot. It was an amazing experience! We saw the Parthenon and some other amazing ruins, went through the streets and saw the markets (which we revisited in the light today), and got lost only to find ourselves again…IN ATHENS!!! Athens is gargantuan, by the way. I've heard that something like 80% of all modern Greeks live here. There was a point last night when Roddy and I climbed to the top of Καραμείκος, which is some gorgeous ruins on a hill even taller than the Acropolis, and we got a glimpse of the city, which went on for as far as the eye can see. It was gorgeous. Imagine this in every direction going on forever:

There have been some really noticeable differences while in Greece aside from the language barrier. First of all, EVERYONE smokes, and they do it inside. At all of the restaurants and cafes we’ve been to, people just light up inside. When we’re walking down the street, all the locals have cigarettes in hand all the time. Whatever. Local culture, I suppose. I kinda like the smell of smoke anyway, so it’s not really a bad thing.

Secondly, everyone is really, really friendly. I think this might have something to do with the fact that they all know I’m from America and it’s the tourist off-season, but I’ll take it however I can get it. When people see us staring at a map or looking for something, immediately five locals come to our aide and ask if they can help. All the store and restaurant owners stand outside their shops and ask us if they might be of any help. They show us their local deals and tell us they’d love to have us sit down and relax with them. Tonight, for example, we found an amazing restaurant with a really hospitable owner. We got great service and amazing food with a free bottle of wine, free deserts, and a free extra glass of wine at the end of the meal. The meal was only 8 euro for amazing food and drink, and we ended up sitting down for about two hours. Wow. What a place!

The program actually starts tomorrow. I’ll be sure to write about it with lots of pictures and keep everyone updated. Rest assured family: I’m safe, I’m happy, and I’m having the time of my life! I promise to put up more pictures when I get time soon. I hope everyone back home is alright! I hope to hear from you all soon!

Song

2009-01-25T10:29:00.001-06:00

The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.

Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human--
looks out of the heart
burning with purity--
for the burden of life
is love,

but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love--
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
--cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:

the weight is too heavy

--must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye--

yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.

Allen Ginsberg

The Life of Marko Polo...

2009-01-21T21:29:00.007-06:00

This past week has consisted of preparing myself to leave. In four days, I'm off to Greece to study for the semester, so I've been traveling around the state doing the things I need to do and seeing the people I want to see before I won't be able to see them for the next four to seven months (depending on the summer).

I spent a week in Columbia seeing my sister (Jess), brother (Pete), and brother-in-law (Eric). We went to church together, played video games, ate lots of good food cooked by my lovely sister, and generally hung out and enjoyed each others' presence. It was a lovely, relaxing few days. Exactly what I needed. The pictures you see were taken in Kaldi's, which is the coffee shop Eric works. We like it so much that we even hang out there when he's off the clock!

I also traveled to Fulton to visit one of my very best friends Keith who's studying at Westminster University. We hung out and had a little party at his new house. It was a perfect goodbye-for-now to one of my most treasured friends.

After Columbia and Fulton, it was off to Springfield for one last hurrah with my companions at Drury. I had the privilege of hanging out with one of my old coworkers who has turned into one of my closest friends (amazing the kinds of friends you make when you make yourself vulnerable and start communicating openly with the people around you) and spent the next day relaxing at Drury with my friends Eli and Shanna. We talked, ate, threw around a frisbee, and generally reveled in each other and the friendships we share. It was perfect.

So just a few more days! From there, this blog will become a nexus of sorts for my friends and family seeing as phone calls will be really difficult with the time differences. I'll post lots of pictures and stories fairly regularly (I'm sure there will be lots of both to be shared). It'll be awesome!

On a lighter note, the Yorkie saga continues with my family. We have a new puppy, Mo, who has captured everyone's hearts. He's a sweet, quiet, shy little guy a he's a lovely addition to our household. Check it out!

The Grand Inquisitor...

2009-01-18T22:48:00.003-06:00

Today I had lots of time to kill. I went to early service with my sister and brother-in-law, and then they went off to teach Sunday school to little kids. Since we rode in the same car, I just brought some books and relaxed with a cup of coffee for about two hours. It was kinda nice.

I found myself holding my copy of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, a book I haven't found time to REALLY embark on yet. I still haven't taken any good chunk out of it, but I DID read the oft-quoted chapter, "The Grand Inquisitor." I can finally cross that off of my list (now I only have about 860 pages of the book left before I can REALLY cross it off!). Anyway, it made me think a lot.

In the chapter, Dmitri outlines a poem he wrote about Jesus coming back during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Jesus never says a word, he just helps people and gives people looks of infinite compassion and love. Strangely, when the Grand Inquisitor sees Jesus bring a young girl back to life during a funeral procession outside of the church, he immediately has him detained with the intention of burning him at the stake.

First, the Inquisitor tells Jesus not to speak. "You have no right to add anything to what you have said already in the days of old," says the Inquisitor. He then jumps into a lengthy and very thought out discussion about how even though he knows this is truly Jesus, he fully intends on executing him in the morning.

You see, Jesus is dangerous to the Church. He pushes for absolute freedom of all beings because only love that is freely given has meaning. The Church (this is passage was speaking directly about the Catholic church during the Inquisition, but I'm sure Dostoevsky had a broader audience intended) has become an entity based on power.

Dmitri pushes this idea by having the Inquisitor talk to Jesus about the times he was tempted in while fasting in the desert, comparing and contrasting the answers Jesus gave Satan with the answers the Church ultimately gave Satan. Jesus rejects the bread Satan offers, rejects the vulgar display of power by jumping off the cliff, and also rejects having the world's power at his fingertips. The Church, on the other hand, gave in to Satan on the third temptation. They now work for Satan and lust after power. The Church has been forced to go back and "correct" much of the work of Jesus, which encourages people to think for themselves and question authority.

It's a fictitious story, but let's have a look around. Many churches (the kind I like to attend anyway) are still focused on loving people and creating communities focused on bringing about the Kingdom, but let's face it. Lots of religious people would be much happier if we lived in an oligarchy, if the separation between church and state didn't exist.

It's a problem all belief systems (especially Western ones, historically) face. When you think you have "truth," it only makes sense to try and proselytize, to give others the truth. From there it's only a small leap before you're codifying that "truth" (which has by now surely become perverted from its original simplicity and beauty) and forcing people to believe it. "It's good for them! Even if they don't see it yet, sooner or later everyone will come around to see the light." A monster has been created.

So here's the point: If Jesus came back today, would the powers that be love him or have him burnt at the stake? Surely he'd shake things up a bit with his infinite compassion and stares of love, but would we kill him just like we did two thousand years ago? What about the Church, more specifically? What if we were told that we, as an organization, had it wrong? Would we gladly accept criticism or would we too assassinate Jesus? I don't have answers, just questions. They're interesting ones, though.

Turns out warm beer isn't the ONLY Breakfast of Champions...

2009-01-15T13:44:00.004-06:00

I'm almost finished with Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s book, "Breakfast of Champions." It's pretty amazing, which isn't something I expected to be saying when I picked it up two days ago. I used to hate that kind of writing because it made me feel dirty, hopeless, and angry at the world. Books like 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, etc, just made my idealistic soul ache.

I suppose I've changed a lot in the past few years though (as this blog can bear witness to), because now I find myself giggling at the absurdity of it all. "Breakfast of Champions" reminds me of a modern, more comical version of Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground" with it's constant barrage of absurdity. It's written from a third person perspective of someone who seems completely removed from the planet Earth. The narrator thus takes the liberty to explain every little detail we take for granted and in doing so points out how everything we see as normal is actually completely foreign, everything is strange; nothing makes any sense out of the context of our short, strange little lives. So what can you do but laugh? It's kind of a relief when you think about it.

Also, I'm struck by how much things haven't changed in the 36 years since the book was written. Vonnegut's book points out lots of problems facing the Western World in 1973, and not many of them are any different. Pollution abound, materialism being unsatisfactory, racism, homophobia, gender inequality. They're all still around (though we've made significant improvements in some of those areas). Still, I can't help but wonder why we're still scratching our heads trying to find solutions to problems outlined clearly and succinctly in literature over thirty years ago - which in my mind means these problems were around long before that.

Perhaps that means we don't really care as a society. In life, when something goes wrong, you assess whether or not the problem is worth more than the cost to fix it. So when you don't fix a problem, it means that fixing it has a greater cost than letting it nag you. As a society, does that mean that we think trying to address racism, homophobia, gender equality, and materialism (the most insidious) would cause greater strain than they're already putting on us? I don't think that's possible. I think we're just lazy.

Anyway, enough rambling for the day. Go pick up "Breakfast of Champions" by Vonnegut, Jr.! It's a great book and it will make you think.

McMessedUp...

2009-01-13T15:54:00.000-06:00

Watch this. It's very long, and I didn't plan on watching the whole thing when I brought it up, but it sucked me in. It's amazing, and it investigates these issues in some ways I've never thought of before.

Solutions?

2009-01-13T11:15:00.002-06:00

Perhaps I should clarify the problem as I see it.

The world is consumed with violence. That violence, from my vantage point, is only being aided and abetted by the US and I do not trust the US's motivation. That is the foundation of my problem.

The crux of the problem, however, is that Christianity has been sucked into it. We "crusade." The religion has been hijacked by political figures, specifically the Right, to justify global atrocities. That is unacceptable to me.

So what are the solutions?

Religion is being used to get people on board with political agenda precisely because it's so powerful and so many people find their meaning in church, so Christianity must be reclaimed and used to change people's minds about the world around them. We have a responsibility as global Christians to remind the people we go to church with, the people who find their life's purpose in Jesus, exactly who Jesus was and what he preached in its entirety.

We have to recreate Jesus. The Jesus being used to support US involvement in global conflict is not the Jesus of the Bible who authored a message of peace, of removing ourselves from the ways of this world. Jesus called people to a higher purpose than toiling over barrels of oil, fighting about petty differences like ethnicity or sexual orientation, he cared about more than the bottom line, and Jesus was most certainly about more than simply saving souls. He cared about each and every person in the here and now, not just the here-after. We have to remind people that Jesus preached a message of actively sidestepping the world's goals which include thinking that stuff will make us happy, the inherent good of economic growth, and the quest for political power - often at the expense of peoples' lives.

I think my friend Nate is right - we have to "crusade," if you will, for human rights issues. We need to be outraged in some sense by countries like North Korea and regimes like the Taliban; HOWEVER, fighting fire with fire doesn't work. That's the core of Jesus's message. If we want to change the world - and I think we NEED to change the world now or face a rather gloomy end for all of humanity in the next century - then we have to march to a different drummer. We have to love people, ALL people, and be passionate about it. Jesus's message needs to motivate us to be activists for peace. I think history has shown us that war doesn't lead to peace. Violence begets violence.

As for the theory that the Pax Romana was a peaceful era brought into the existence by a hyper-powered authority? Perhaps, but let's look a bit closer.

Remember: Jesus's story takes place during the Pax Romana, so that gives us a bit of a historical perspective. So yes, there was "peace" in world, but at what cost? The only people who can enjoy the kind of peace that a hyper-authority brings about are those at the very top of the political scale because in order to maintain that peace, you have to maintain a constant military threat to all who would oppose you. That includes your own citizens.

Take the Jews, for example. They were under constant watch by the Romans who feared that the Jews might stage an upheaval and try to establish their own political authority. The Jews dealt with this subjugation in several ways: Essenes retreated to the wilderness, Sadducees and Pharisees integrated and compromised part of their religious message to do so, Zealots became violent against Rome. Nobody was happy. Further, look at the land in the time of Jesus from a Biblical perspective. Perhaps there weren't any wars, but human rights issues were abound. Corruption existed on every level, and the only way Rome could keep people from staging a coup d'etat was by hanging people on crosses in common areas so all could see what happens to those who threaten the hyper-authority.

This, the Pax Romana, is where the Jesus narrative comes from. We achieve TRUE peace by establishing new, higher values. We have to create a self-sustaining community with compassion and love as the currency, not oil and money and power.

Does that clarify my position and perhaps give some insight into a very possible solution? Goodness. I could write a freakin book.

Why I'm Pissed Off...

2009-01-10T21:47:00.002-06:00

My friends, the US supplies approximately 53% of the world's weapons.

In 2003, 80% of the top buyers of US weapons (20 of the top 25 top clients) were countries that our own State Department labeled undemocratic or countries known for their failure to uphold human rights, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Here's a REALLY fun fact: In 1999, the US weapons industry supplied arms to 92% (!) of the conflicts in process ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET, often supplying both sides of the conflict. We also usually recieved more money in arms sales from those countries than we gave them in aid.

There have only been 29 years in all of documented human history when peace has reigned, and as long as the US exists, I don't see that number growing. We're whores of destruction. My country is not the least bit interested in solving world conflicts, only profiting from them. I'd rather my country's economy descend to the depths of hell than we all have beach houses and Mercedes' because the way things stand right now, all of the things we are so privileged to have are covered in blood.

I'm even more pissed off because the religious right, the Moral Majority, is in favor of it all. Let's look at some quotes from religious figures in the media:

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war." - Ann Coulter

"There will never be world peace until God's house and God's people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world. How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy money changers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top?" - Pat Robertson

"I believe that God has planted in every human heart the desire to live in freedom. And even when that desire is crushed by tyranny for decades, it will rise again." - George Bush

Just a few examples. What bothers me is the rhetoric (which you can see moves from very explicit and abrasive with Coulter to very implicit and subtle with Bush) is such that it utilizes Christianity and a belief in God to both cover up the US's sinister role in world conflicts but also push for further involvement in conflicts. These conflicts have nothing to do with "freedom" or "God's will," I assure you. It's about money.

I can't even find words to convey how angry I am with all of this right now! I want to move out of the country, to march on the steps of the White House, to strip naked and stop being a consumer on any level. I just don't know how to react.

What makes me even more angry is that I know I'm going to be lulled back to sleep by the decadence I'm surrounded by, courtesy of the US's bloody reign. I may be mad for a while, my friends may be angry, I may even create a movement of irate people who are willing to commit themselves to protest for months on end, but eventually we'll all go home, put on our Tommy Hilfiger shirts, and fill up our SUVs at the closest Texaco. I feel miniscule and helpless against the horrific injustice of the world we live in.

Love Continues...

2009-01-07T21:18:00.002-06:00

A quick thank you to Ted Bagley for pointing out to me that I have put the cart before the horse. All this talk about how to love, and yet, what is love? I'll be the first to admit that this question is pretty frightening. I've been thinking about it all day, and trying to "define" or "pin down" love has been for me like trying to nail jello to a wall. I'm always missing something, it's not quite intuitive enough, it's not got enough explanatory power. Here's what I've heard so far from my family, who has been my sounding-board today:

1. Love is putting something before yourself.

2. Love is an verb AND a noun.

I really don't like part 1. I think maybe this helps explain my built-in tuitions about why it's so hard to love. I've been raised with a notion of love that has some sense of martyrdom hidden in it. So in order to love, you've got to give something up and sacrifice somehow. Maybe that is incidentally true sometimes, but I don't think self-sacrifice is a necessary condition for love.

I think part 2 has revealed to me that there are lots of different types of love, like C.S. Lewis points out. There's love as in sex, friendship love, filial love, and then there is the love I'm trying to define but can't. It's bigger than friendship, passionate romanticism, and even filial relationships (though I think family is probably the best metaphor we have to help understand this bigger agape-like concept I'm trying to define).

So here's what I think right now: Love is a virtue, or state, that motivates one to see the other as an extention of the self and act in regards to the other's well-being. When you are loving something, no longer are you seeing the difference between yourself and the object of your love, so "giving of yourself" for the other isn't really vocabulary that makes sense. Because the other person and you become one, in a sense, you aren't "giving of yourself" when you are acting on their behalf; rather, you're still acting in a way which will maximize your own happiness, but you realize that your happiness is dependent upon some other person's happiness.

I know that this sounds very self-interested and typically self-interest is seen as wrong, but I don't think self-interest is necessarily wrong. I think we start with self-interest evolutionarily. It's the only way we learn to survive. When we're children, we're self-interested because we need to eat, to sleep, to be well. I think the goal is to learn to extend that self-interest to everyone else. In that way, I think we lose our sense of "self" and realize that there is no "me," but that everything about me and my contentment is intertwined with everyone else. I'm not self-contained.

So that's what I've got so far. Any thoughts?

One Final Note on Love...

2009-01-06T14:05:00.002-06:00

I email back and forth with a blogger friend who has really opened me up to some wonderful ideas on the subject of love. Recently, she sent me an email that I feel is a good capstone to my recent ponderings on the matter (which have proven to be quite fruitful in practice), so I'd like to share this email anonymously with all of you in hopes that you might be able to take from it what I have: A deeper understanding of what it means to love and from where that love stems.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello Mr. Walter,

I've been thinking about your situation off and on today because it makes me think of related stories in my own life. Today I went searching for an excerpt from one of Deepak Chopra's books. When I found this quote it changed my life... even though I cant recall how I found it.

Before I give it to you let me set the scene for that stage in my life. I was deeply in love, in what I would call a bi polar relationship. For some reason, I put so much of my SELF worth into whether or not people loved me.

In this case, this guy would run hot and cold all the time... and I kept thinking I could have some "control" in the situation. That maybe if I loved enough, the return would eventually turn positive. And if it didn't, it was a problem with ME and not the other person.

"When you find a genuinely loving person, as you have, you will see that you are in his heart not because you look a certain way or act a certain way, but because he is following his own nature. Loving others is just the easiest way he knows how to be. When you realize this, the whole problem of not deserving is exposed for the illusion it really is. " - Deepak Chopra

In other words, I could love this person to all of my ability- but if he by nature is incapable of returning love in a mature or honest way- then it doesn't matter WHAT I do. The reflection is upon him and his limitations... its not about MY worth or MY limitations.

Now you've been talking about "returns" from what I gather. You are a certain loving and friendly way with people and you are not getting the "result" that you want. Whatever the result is, doesn't matter.... the point is, the OTHER person is not at a place to give it to you or simply doesn't want to.

And this all circles around to expectations- and having expectations. That is shaky ground for all of us. Because expectations are like guarantees in life...

So its important to find people in your life for whom you have shared understandings. An honor code for which you guys stand behind and strive for. It helps to be on the same page so to speak...

On another personal story, I once said something to the effect of, "Where's my 'reward' for loving people?! What's the point in trying if you don't get anything in return?"

My friend tilted his head to the side, almost confused,"Isn't love in and of itself reward enough?"

When you use love like a commodity or bartering tool then things get a bit sticky. I can reward people with affection and feel like I'm punishing them by taking it away. But that's childish (even manipulative) in concept. I can harshly judge others, proclaiming who is and isn't worthy of courtesy or kindness... but what would that say of my arrogance and ignorance?

But lets just say my intentions are good... the fact that I'm looking to be recognized, appreciated, hailed, or rewarded for my efforts says more about my need for something else.... then it does about love.

The fact that I AM capable of love, that I practice it, that I'm open to it, that I explore its meanings with honesty despite every reason I have to be jaded.... IS an amazing achievement! That "reward" is enough when there is a sea of people who seek this existence with clinging hands, fear, confusion, and a need to tear things apart....

It is my contribution to life, that I practice love... That is surprisingly wonderful.

Needless to say-

This doesn't protect me from rejection or hurt- no one is protected from that. But one thing I know I have, is the ability to make choices out of love (Including self love and self preservation) or out of resentment, loneliness, or fear. Whatever we choose has powerful impact on the lives we touch.

~~~~~~~~~~

My friend has illuminated a bunch of hidden expectations and ulterior motives I've not been able to see for myself through her insightful, caring, and certainly patient series of emails. It seems like a character issue now more than a give-and-take issue. The goal looks more like developing the sort of character which finds enjoyment in bringing love into the world no matter what the return. After all, the return is not in our hands. So I think maybe it's time to move on to "joy," the second fruit of the spirit. Surely by having some ground-floor understanding of love, we'll be able to begin understanding "joy" which will in turn give us a deeper understanding of the nature of love.

That's all from Florida for now! The beach was lovely this morning, by the way.

A Death in the Family...

2009-01-05T17:39:00.002-06:00

Yesterday tragedy struck the Walter residence. It breaks my heart to write about it, but I need some sense of catharsis. Really, I make it out to be much more dramatic than it really is (though it really is a traumatic event), so I'll try to keep it all in perspective.

Anyway, round about 8:30 last night I was downstairs wearing my pajama pants packing to come to Florida (Sanibel Island, to be exact, where I'm writing this post) and I heard my mother screaming. It wasn't a scream one hears regularly like when one stubs one's toe or cuts themselves making dinner; no, this was a much more gutteral scream that you only hear when something hurts more than a physical wound. Immediately I started running upstairs fearing that something had happened to Dad, and I beheld a sight I don't think I'll forget for quite some time.

As I reached the top of the stairs, I saw Mom and Dad in the kitchen weeping as my dad held the lifeless body of our one year old yorkie puppy, Truman. Truman had taken over for me on the homefront when I went to school, so in many ways he had become an adopted child and was loved like a member of the family (albeit a yippity member, but we all loved him immensely). So there he was. Gone yet still physically there. He looked exactly the same as he always did - eyes still open, hair still flowing and soft - but his body was spiritless and unresponsive to Dad's loving cradle.

He had been let out earlier to use the bathroom. Sometimes we're irresponsible and let him go without supervision. He's a good dog and he always comes back, so we never worry. After he hadn't shown up for about twenty minutes, Dad got in the car and went looking for him, ultimately finding him inanimate on the side of the road. He'd been hit by a car.

My immediate reaction was to turn Mom away from Truman's tiny inanimate body, so I grabbed her and brought her into my chest for her to cry with me over the loss of her baby as Dad continued to hold Truman and look for signs of life. Dad walked outside, I think just to have something to do, and cried into the sky for a bit. After about twenty minutes of holding onto Truman for the last time, Dad laid him down and walked around inside with Mom. I let him have his space and walked around the house discreetly picking up all of Truman's toys, his tiny doggie bed which would remain cold tonight, and his food bowl still half full. All they are now are remanents of a memory nobody will be able to recall without a bit of pain for some time, so I hid them.

Dad decided he needed to give Truman a proper resting place, so we walked out into the wintery air together, grabbed a shovel and a pick, and marched downtroddenly into the backyard. Dad dug and dug - I knew he needed to physically work out the emotions that he was feeling - until there was a hole that might be worthy of the puppy he loved. He gently scooped up Truman's tiny powerless body, carried him around a bit longer - we walked to the front porch where Dad picked up a small stone tile with the word "faith" embossed in it - and gently put him down for the last time in the cold, dank tomb we had made for him. Dad and I clawed at the dirt with our gloved hands through blurry vision (mine was blurry because I was damning the tears to be strong for Mom and Dad; Dad was more honest with himself and just wept over the grave of his lost companion) until there was a small mound upon which we placed Truman's gravestone.

I stayed up for a while longer in Mom and Dad's room to just be a silent support and let them know how much I loved them. Once everyone had been pacified sufficiently, I went to sleep, though none of us slept well. I just couldn't get the image of my once playful friend's body out of my mind's eye.

There are several valuable lessons in all of this, which is why Truman's epitaph, "faith," is so fitting. There is pain, yes, but through pain we grow and learn. The first lesson for me is a reminder of the flux and utter impermanence of life. We have to be able to maintain a balance between loving the things we have in our lives and becoming attached to them in a way that brings more suffering into the world. Easy, right?

The next thing that we all thought about was the fact that Truman was a dog. He was a very beloved dog and we will all miss him, but he was in fact a dog. We're all very thankful that tragedy didn't strike someone in the family. Surely things like that do happen to people every day and the potential exists that something that traumatic could happen to someone in the family, but for now we have more time to love each other and we've been given a lesson in how to love through Truman's life and death.

So there you have it, friends. Everything is in flux. We are guaranteed nothing. We do have a choice, though. We can let this truth irk us and cause us to grip things in this world tighter, ultimately causing us more pain; or, we can use this truth to elevate us to previously unknown levels of peace and a hightened ability to love each other. We aren't loving each other despite impermanence. We are loving each other because of impermanence. So go forth, be mindful, and embrace this moment in all of its sensations.

Love...

2008-12-29T14:01:00.004-06:00

There seems to be a dilemma here with love. We have an intuition that pure love is inherently good and it has intrinsic value. When we love, we are doing the right thing. The problem for me is that I have a hard time remaining satisfied with life when all I'm doing is reaching out to others and not looking out for myself, so I slump back into selfishness again and again. Trying to act off of the knowledge that selflessly loving others is good will only allow us to continue for so long before we relapse. It seems that in order to actually love the way we feel we are supposed to love, we've got to find a way to find true satisfaction in it.

Strangely, I went to church with my sister and brother-in-law yesterday and they preached on the topic of love. The pastor layed out an interesting argument which touched on the dilemma mentioned above, and he brought in Jesus as an interesting solution to the problem. I don't really feel comfortable talking about coincidences in life being "God's plan" as that creates WAY too many sticky theological problems that I don't want to deal with, but I was pleasantly surprised when I heard what he was preaching about.

The solution I heard on Sunday was twofold. First, we have to re-evaluate what we mean when we talk about happiness. Does happiness mean living in a state of ease where we are not confronted with trouble? Does happiness essentially mean traveling the path of least resistance? When you get down to it, that sounds like cheap happiness, and it ultimately doesn't sound very meaningful. Perhaps we should try to think about happiness as meaning living a life oriented towards a goal we have pre-established. Happiness turns out to be not an emotion, but rather a sense of deeper satisfaction built upon the knowledge that you are doing what you were meant to do. Often, that will lead to the emotion we refer to as "happiness," but the emotion and the sense of satisfaction aren't necessarily connected. There is a lot of room for discussion and further concept connection here, but I think this sounds about right for me.

The second solution, which is really an extension of the first solution, is faith. When we are utterly convinced that our actions are correct, we can feel at ease and find a sense of peace in them. This, however, takes faith. We have to have faith that we are doing the right thing. One can only think about acting for so long before she or he hits a wall in their thinking and just has to take a leap of faith and act. I can't every really be sure that I'm acting for the right reasons or that my belief system is completely in tact and correct. We all have to have faith at some point. If our faith is strong enough, the selfishness that irks us so much dissipates.

I think this is because our selfishness is essentially fear. If we are unsure that we are acting for the right reasons, we will revert back to self-sustaining behavior. At the very least this buys us more time to think about what is right and what is wrong. Faith removes the fear we experience in the uncertainty of action.

So it's that simple, I guess. If we want to be satisfied with loving, just start loving and know that you are doing good. We've got to have faith, true faith, in something - be it Christ, anatman, humanism, etc. - and that makes all the difference.

Producing Fruit...

2008-12-27T16:52:00.002-06:00

So last night I was lying in bed thinking about life and I realized that I haven't really done anything lately to help become the kind of person I aspire to be on the emotional, human front. Sure, I read a lot and grow in knowledge and that is important, but I have more respect for the unlearned lover of all people than the man with a doctorate and without a heart. So I've decided that I'm going to work towards cultivating the Fruits of the Spirit. They are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. These traits are enumerated by Paul (one of my least favorite writers of all time) in the book of Galations.

I am enthralled with these ideas. There is a great song sung in church that says, "And they'll know we are Christians by our love," which is what the fruits of the spirit are all about. It ties in with another one of my favorite quotes which says, "Go out and preach the gospel. And if you must, use words." My friends, I don't know up from down most of the time in terms of spirituality, but I do know that people need to be loved like Jesus loved. Actively developing the fruits of the spirit will help me be the positive force I want to be in the world.

So I'll start with love. How do we develop it, not only for others but for ourselves as well? I think that it starts with a healthy hedging of the ego, a sense of impermanence about the world, and an understanding of the concept of equanamity. All of these are Buddhist tenents, I realize, but I think they accurately pin down what love is all about. When we realize that nothing is permanent, we are freed to engage fully in this moment (which is the only moment we can love and be loved). When we let go of our ego, we are allowed to love people for who they are, not for how they make us feel or for what they give us. When we are equanamous, we are able to love everyone, not just those who we think "deserve" love. The prison inmate needs love. The homeless need love. The CEOs whom we view with contempt also need love. Further, they all deserve to be love. We don't love people because they've changed into our conception of who should be loved. Rather, I think we love people and hopefully THAT transforms them.

That's what I've got so far. Do any of my Buddhist (or Christian) friends have any techniques on deepening our sense of love for others?

Christmas!

2008-12-25T16:58:00.002-06:00

First of all, merry Christmas everybody! I haven't really had time to update lately because of Springfield Ballet's production of The Nutcracker (I had the honor of being the Nutcracker Prince!) and I got kicked out of campus housing on Friday. It's been a bit haphazard since then, but things are a bit more settled now.

So I've been sitting around the house with my family watching TV all day. It's just what we do. It gives me ample time to ponder, which is what I do best these days. Seeing as it is Christmas, most of my thoughts have been centered around this Jesus character we've all been hearing so much about. Specifically, what does it mean to say that I am a Christian? I say that I am a Christian mainly because it's a title that, try as I may, I cannot escape. I was born into a Christian family and see the world through a Christian lens, so I'm okay with living with it and making it something I can be proud of instead of running away from it. So what is it all about then?

Okay, ground floor: Being a Christian means believing in Jesus Christ, right? That isn't very simple though, is it? Am I believing in Christ as some metaphysical savior, like I have some ethereal soul that is lost in limbo or something? Or am I believing in Christ as a man who figured out how to live?

A lot of people say that Jesus "saves" us, but then the question becomes this: What is Jesus saving us from? Are we being saved from ourselves? From our "original sin"? From each other somehow? Seeing as I don't really think original sin makes any damn sense and I don't really know how to make sense of any of this "panicky metaphysics," as Daniel Dennett puts it, that Christians try to posit when talking about the soul and all of this "sin" stuff. What that tells me is that perhaps all of this stuff exists, but if God really meant Jesus to come save us metaphysically he would have given us another sensory aparatus to understand exactly what we're being saved from, right? Thus, let's toss it out.

That means that Jesus's role for me must have something to do with life in this world. More and more I'm becoming comfortable with putting Jesus in the same boat as Gandhi, King, Mohammmed, and Mother Theresa. All amazing people who helped usher in new social systems of equality. They've all learned to tap into some deeper sense of humanity and taught us to come together and love one another more fully. I don't really know why we need Jesus to be more than that anymore. Why do we need him to be above and beyond this world hanging out in heaven fixing our "soul," whatever the hell that is? I don't really understand it. I am, however, plugged into a community which sees this as a necessity for our happiness as human beings. So I'll learn to deal with that.

For the time being, I'm celebrating a day which reminds us of one who wanted to teach us all how to be at peace with one another, to turn the other cheek, to pray for our enemies, and to care for the least of us. Today is a day for humanitarians. Let's enjoy it!

Smiling...

2008-12-16T21:58:00.002-06:00

Tonight we did a full run through of The Nutcracker, which was a lot of fun. During the second act, I sit on a throne the whole time and I'm required to smile the entire time as the girls dance around me for about thirty minutes. I was worried that my face would be sore and I'd be worn out from all the smiling after the show, but it wasn't! That makes me think that my smiling muscles are in great shape. I guess I smile a lot in everyday life! That makes me want to smile even more, my friends.

Go get your happy muscles in shape, people!

Beginnings and Ends...

2008-12-14T18:29:00.005-06:00

I've been thinking about the nature of beginnings and endings lately. There have been quite a few in my life lately, so naturally the topic's on my mind. Where to start?

This is my last week in Springfield for the next nine months or so. It's a really scary thought. I'll finish out my days here this week and head on an adventure that will lead me around the Midwest for the next month and then off to Europe for the following semester. I'll be departing from my friends, from Springfield Ballet including everything it's taught me and all the people there I've grown to know and love, my professors who've invested their time and energy to help me grow and learn, and my family who are just a few hours away. I'll trade it all in for the unknown. It's a scary thought to say the least. Leaving what's comfortable for what is unknown is horrifying for me. I'm very anxious about it all.

I realized sitting in class Friday that I was sitting in what would likely be my last philosophy class ever. I've finished my requirements for Philosophy (and then some) and now I'm on to finishing my Religion degree, which will likely include me leaving Drury a majority of next year to pursue my MA in Religion at MSU. It was a very humbling moment. All I could think was, "Do I really deserve this degree yet? Have I learned enough? Did I try hard enough?" Surely, I could have pushed myself harder, absorbed more, internalized more, understood more. Then again, I think I've lived the last three years well. A wise man once told me not to let my education get in the way of my learning, and I think I've created a fine balance of the two in my life.

I don't know what to do with it all most of the time. It's overwhelming. There are times when it hits me all at once and I just want to close the door to my room and not open it again. I want to stay here where I'm comfortable and where I've been happy, but I know that even if I were to close the door, the world outside would keep moving without me. I've got to look forward and take the road less traveled. I've got to make myself accountable for my own future, take responsibility, take charge of my life and have courage in doing so.

What I'm realizing more and more is that my life is intertwined with so many others around me. I can't sit in my room and try to live in the past, wonderful though it was. I have a responsibility, a duty, to those who have made me who I am today (all of my wonderful professors, Ashley Paige Williams at Springfield Ballet, all of my friends and fellow bloggers who have helped me through my tough times over the past few years, my amazing family whom I can never appreciate enough) to continue on, to reach my potential. Every time it feels like the end of a stage of my life like it feels this night, I need to not imagine a door closing. I need to imagine a new door opening with all of the people who have helped me along the way standing behind me urging me to walk forward and keep going on the journey. Yes, I'm anxious and scared, but I'd be a fool not to push myself to that next level.

So here's to new beginnings which couldn't exist without old endings.

God's Penis...

2008-12-09T20:12:00.002-06:00

I recently wrote a paper that I became very invested in, and it's opened my eyes to a lot of interesting things that go on in the world around us that most of us never notice.

My paper was on masculinity in the Bible. My thesis, essentially, was that the Israelites created a notion of a hyper-masculine God (I'm remaining agnostic about whether or not they did this consciously, though I suspect it was a subconscious move), which means they were essentially worshiping masculinity. This was is natural move for a patriarchal society. If they don't perpetuate their system of power actively, it dissipates and those who are in power due to this system lose their authority. Thus, they created a masculine God so their masculinity could be justified by divine command.

The complication is that by putting masculinity on a pedestal like they did, Ancient Israelites condoned many acts we would find disturbing today including violence towards women, discrimination against those who’s masculinity competes with their own, and also the exclusion of men within the nation of Israel itself who did not properly display the “divine masculinity.” They worshiped a God who showed lots of signs of righteous anger (think Sodom and Gomorrah). It gets worse when one reads the prophetic writings (Ezekiel, Hosea, Jeremiah, etc) because here we see a metaphor of God as husband and Israel as wife. This marital relationship looks more like spousal abuse than love to our modern interpretations, but that's what you get when your God is hyper-masculine.

All this hyper-masculinity gave Ancient Israelite men permission to impersonate this God and act in horrible ways, as I stated before. We see this throughout the Old Testament (and to a great degree in the New Testament, though Jesus throws a giant wrench in the system, which is probably why he was killed). Lots of stories like that of Judges 19 (read it. I triple dog dare you) occur as examples of brutality towards women. It doesn't stop at women though. Because hyper-masculine patriarchy requires all males to be in constant competition, even the males lose in this game (though they do receive material dividends). Guys like Reuben and Joseph end up getting into lots of trouble due to masculine competition, though Joseph is eventually exonerated.

I could write about this situation forever. Rest assured, it's really quite interesting and I'm very passionate about it for some reason. My question is this: How does this affect us today? Where is hyper-masculinity lurking in our everyday lives in the 21st century? I've really started to see it in my life due to my intense research lately.

For example, our curse words reinforce our patriarchal system. They all bring to our attention something we find shameful or embarrassing about ourselves. Shit, piss, asshole, dick, they're all accounted for. The worst two, I believe, are "fuck" and "suck." When I say things like, "Fuck you!" or "This sucks," I'm really equating being penetrated in some fashion with being bad. Thus, the female body and homosexual men are subordinated. My power and authority as a man are perpetuated.

What else is out there? How else am I tacitly subordinating women and reinforcing my own unjustified authority? It's there to be found, we just have to look.

Religious Violence...

2008-12-07T16:59:00.002-06:00

Allow me to take a moment to peacefully, thoughtfully vent.

I read this post by Jamie G. on the blog I've recently started following called Progressive Buddhism and was very interested in the discussion that started to follow. The discussion honed in on the idea that religious violence didn't have a rightful place in Buddhism. "Great," I thought, "I couldn't agree more."

There seemed to be a bit of ignorance on the part of some of the bloggers though, who thought that Buddhism has NEVER espoused violence. It has. Every religion has. There is no pure, blemish-less faith. So I commented on the post, displaying some instances of Buddhist violence. I also wanted to try and flesh out some of the tacit assumptions being made by the commentators. Essentially, by saying that Buddhism isn't a violent faith, they were silently claiming that other religions WERE naturally violent, and I take serious issue with that statement. I tried to comment on the idea that even though all religions have displayed instances of violence, that does not make the religion itself violent, only the people who claim to follow the faith. All religions are, at their core, based on peace. Read any of they sacred texts and you will see this as an indisputable fact.

I was disappointed to see that the very next comment by Jamie G. was a slightly ad hoministic comment claiming that I was "naive" to believe that all religions are peaceful. "I think an academic study of the Abrahamic faiths in their early history quickly disproves 'every' [religion to be peaceful]," says Jamie. Admittedly, Jamie doesn't know I'm a religion major and naturally he'd assume that I've never studied every Abrahamic tradition academically. I've read numerous books and written papers on all three. I've studied their sacred texts. I know what I'm talking about. It irks me that I was assumed to be stupid when I made that comment.

I am idealistic, yes. I am not, however, naive. I'm not ignorant. I'm hopeful. And I think this type of conversation has always bothered me about modern Western Buddhists. There is some feeling of superiority by a lot of them for some reason. I did a survey of Western Buddhists last semester, and almost all of them left Christianity because they were hurt by it at some point in the past (Jamie himself went on to admit this later in the comments section), and I think this causes them to close their minds to Christians. So when I come onto the blog and attempt to defend Christianity or Islam or Judaism, I'm attacked. It's unjustified.

I think people are people, whether they're Buddhists, Christians, or atheists. We all have a desire to be right. We want to be justified in what we are believing. Why does this translate into a desire to prove other people wrong? The two ideas don't have to go hand-in-hand. Why can't we be at peace with ourselves AND allow others to be at peace with themselves as well, even if they're different from us? I have no desire to convert people to my system of belief (if you can call it that), but I do ask that everyone show each other a little bit of respect and default to compassion when we aren't sure who's right and who's wrong. Religion should be a vehicle we use to help us connect with each other and with something beyond ourselves, not a tool wielded to inflate our egos and deflate others.

Hedonism...

2008-12-06T22:07:00.003-06:00

I suppose at the end of the day most of us are still ruled by our appetitive natures.

Piety...

2008-12-05T14:36:00.002-06:00

Bear with me while I continually re-adjust the color scheme of my blog. I liked the black because it looked mysterious and it was very cut-and-dry, but it was a bit too oppressive. This is at least a bit more welcoming.

Something that has been on my mind a lot lately is the fact that I'm very religiously minded but I've never been able to make myself a very pious person. On one level I like to tell myself that all my researching and constant thinking about the subject is itself a form of piety. I'm being true to how I was created by engaging my natural tendency to question, to push deeper into life's mysteries, and to not simply be dogmatically religious. Hinduism acknowledges this path to enlightenment (Jnana yoga), that there are people who find Brahman through scholarship and academic searching. Still, I wish I could be the person who is committed to spiritual practice.

Perhaps it stems from my uncertainty about what it is I'm praying to or meditating on. Or maybe it has developed from my desire to be pious but my lack of religious experience. Try as I may, I've never felt like God answers my prayers and I've never experienced some deeper sense of truth by meditating for hours on end. It makes me feel like a milquetoast searcher. I'm not quite sure what to make of it all.

Am I really just a middle of the road follower who is unable to commit, or is my lack of commitment a sign of dissatisfaction with the spiritual route? Maybe I just don't know what I'm doing when I try to be spiritual? I'm not sure. Maybe some of my more devoted spiritual followers could give me a pointer or two...

Funny or Die...

2008-12-03T20:47:00.003-06:00

Jessica, my sister is right. This blog needs a bit more humor. So here it is, my friend. A video she left as a comment on my last blog post. I hope you all laugh like I did!

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Christian Environmentalism...

2008-12-02T11:08:00.003-06:00

So lately I've been hearing a lot about environmentalism on a blog or two around the interwebs. I've also heard a thing or two about it from friends around campus, and that's probably because there was a convocation speaker here about three weeks ago who discussed Christian environmentalism. Dr. Cal DeWitt came and spoke to us both as an environmental scientist and as an Evangelical Christian (what a rare combination!), and I think it spurred a lot of debate and thought.

I remember during the VP debate hearing Sarah Palin talk about "global climate change" and her agnosticism towards humanity's causal relationship towards it. She recently evolved a bit on her stance in an MSNBC interview where she admitted that man could play a role in global warming, but we don't know the true extent. I'm not happy with her stance still, but at least she's showing a bit of change and progress. My belief is that one can only bury their head in the sand for so long before they get tired of all the dirt in their mouths.

I got really upset when I read this post by a web site dedicated to finding out what the Bible really has to say about our lives. At first I was excited to read them quoting Gen 1:28, which is the verse in which God gives man stewardship over the earth; however, I went on to read them say things like "We should not allow environmentalism to become a form of idolatry." I knew right then I had entered Spin Alley. They went on to misconstrue a lot of facts and give out a lot of false information about global warming and continue to put the environment backseat to our relationship with God.

Don't get me wrong my friends. I don't think that we should be pantheists who worship the environment and somehow deny God. I simply don't understand why the Right is making it an "either or" choice. That's silly. I think if one is truly honest with themselves, there is no way to get around environmental ethics, especially if you're religious.

If someone gives you a gift out of love, that gift becomes something greater than the object itself. The object becomes a symbol of the affectionate relationship you and that person share. In that way, you would never take the gift given to you and destroy it. That would be a sign of great disrespect for the person who gave you the gift and it would betray you for the less than virtuous person you really are. In that way, how can we as Christians deny the fact that we must do everything we can to take care of our planet which was entrusted to us by God (Biblically speaking)? We cannot. The planet, just like everything else we encounter in life, should be seen as a metaphor for our relationship with God. If our relationship with God does not fill us with the compassion needed to care for Earth, chances are our relationship with God isn't in good shape.

I'd be more than willing to debate this with anyone, but I don't think any Christian in their right mind could back up the idea that God wants us to do whatever we want with our planet. We can't drill everywhere, we can't kill everything, we can't pave everything over. It's disrespectful and it will ultimately lead to our own demise.

What I'm still trying to figure out is this: Why are Christians so obstinate in this area? Really, I think selfishness and ego are at the heart. There is a deep desire to maintain status quo, which gives them permission to continue doing whatever they want as long as they think they've got the "truth" nailed down and their relationship with Baby Jesus is okay. We've gotta work on that, I think.

On to Christmas..

2008-11-29T15:57:00.002-06:00

Well, the world has officially been rid of several hundred thousand turkeys thanks to the holiday we celebrate which heralded the death of the Native American way of life and Manifest Destiny, so it's on to bigger and better celebrations.

Christmas!!!!

Let me first remark on how strange it is that people had Christmas lights up, holiday commercials were already airing, and Christmas decoration sections were up in all the major shopping chains LONG before Thanksgiving came to pass. I feel bad for Thanksgiving, you know? How would you like it if you had an older sibling whose birthday was about a month after yours and weeks before your birthday, your parents start decorating for your older sibling's birthday? I think I'd be totally bummed out. Sure, holidays don't really have feelings, but I still think it's kinda strange.

Now to the real point of this post. It's Thanksgiving break, and I've had a lot of time to kill over the past few days. The Walter family has a long tradition of just leaving the TV on while we go about our day (I know, I know), and so I've caught a lot of commercials recently. What have I learned from all of this? Our society is completely owned by corporations. We are completely materialistic, or at least that's what the commercials tell us we should be.

I see clip after clip of people opening gifts that will FINALLY fulfill them, things made of plastic or metal or gold that will end their sadness once and for all. I remember watching that stuff as a little kid and thinking that I'll feel complete once I finally get those Power Ranger toys (which I eventually got because I have amazing parents who love me, but I always felt like I was still lacking something after about three days of playing with my new toys). Let me just say that at the end of the day, I'm worried about the health of our society.

I know it comes as a surprise to everyone, but there is probably something wrong with this country. I worry that we are so bombarded with corporate propaganda that we actually buy into it, especially because I know from experience that children are especially suceptable to it all. I know that the corporations are never going to stop slamming us from all angles with advertisements, so it looks like it's up to us. Either people are going to realize that things won't make them happy, or they'll just keep buying and buying and buying.

I'm just not sure. I know there are a lot of people out there who see through it all on one level. I'd like to think that I do, but then I get this overwhelming desire for a new CD or video game or (fill in the blank). Will the recession help? Maybe because people don't have as much spare cash, they'll start to think of ways to just enjoy being together for the holidays, not rely on stuff for their contentment. Maybe, just maybe, we'll learn to actually celebrate the holidays as they were meant to be celebrated. I suppose we'll see. I have a little faith in humanity yet.

Thanksgiving...

2008-11-28T11:09:00.002-06:00

It's Thanksgiving again, and that brings about a few different responses this year. While I was expecting to have some anxiety eased by the break from the daily run-around, I find myself feeling bored and looking for things to occupy my time (hence the blog post). I also find it hard to relax around my family, all then who were here this weekend, because most of them don't really know who I am and we're all very different in our beliefs. Okay, okay, I know. I'M very different in my beliefs. They're pretty much orthodox for the Midwest. Either way, it's interesting to try and take a step back to observe.

Yesterday at dinner we went around the table and each named one thing we've been thankful for over the past year, starting with me. Strangely, I found myself struggling to come up with an answer I was really satisfied with. I couldn't help but think about all the strange things that had happened to me over the past year. One year ago, I was in Bixbee, Oklahoma enjoying Thanksgiving with Lindsey and her family. Thinking back now, our relationship had already started to become overly difficult, but I still loved her. That time and those emotions still feel so powerful and near to me, even considering the fact that we've been apart almost as long as we were together. It was a very consuming relationship in all regards.

The past year has witnessed the advent of me getting into ballet, which has been a very positive thing for me (regardless of how good I am at it). Last year I was involved in residential life at Drury, which turned out to be very destructive for various reasons. I found a church to go to which I really enjoy, I've found myself in an entirely new circle of friends on campus, and now more than ever I'm entirely confused as to what the future holds for me. I think I summed it up well when I told my family at the dinner table, "It's been a rebuilding year." So much change, so little time to settle into it all. And it won't be long until I'm off to a foreign country for a semester, bringing more change and less certainty than ever before!

Is this what growing up is like? I can't help but think that the existentialists are right. There is no certainty in life. If we're looking for genuine surety and comfort in life, we're going to find ourselves searching until the day we die. Maybe every year is like this for everyone. Constant flux (surprising, eh Buddhists?), constant gain and loss, never a moment of rest. How does one deal with it? That's my question for the week, I suppose. Panza, this one's for you: How does one become comfortable amidst the anxiety, absurdity, and unsurity of life? How will I be able to sit at the Thanksgiving dinner table next year and say, "This past year has been so wonderful! I'm so content with where I am!"

I promise I'll put up a real post with content and less whining soon. It's just been a stressful weekend.

Confucius should have been a danseur...

2008-11-22T13:36:00.003-06:00

I'm sure Confucius would have loved ballet. I've been dancing for about nine months now and I'm constantly struck with the similarities between classical ballet and Confucianism. It strikes me more and more as I get better at dancing. Let me explain.

When I started doing ballet, I was not dancing. I was moving in prescribed manners. I was learning technique which was giving me the building blocks of dancing, but simply doing movements as they are dictated to you does not make you a dancer. So that's how dancing starts. It's sort of like an incredibly complex game of Simon Says wherein one tries to perfectly imitate the teacher in order to instill muscle memory you can draw upon later when you're actually dancing.

This is paralleled in Confucianism by the Li, or the set of rituals which dictate what one should do in any given social situation. Confucius tells his so something to the effect of, "If you don't learn the Li, how will you know where to stand?" The Li is the social equivalent of ballet technique, instilling you with the knowledge of how to navigate your way across the dance floor of life. The similarities become more interesting when you take the analogy up a notch, I think.

As I have taken more classes and striven harder to become the best danseur (or male dancer) I can be, I have realized that there is this magical moment that occurs from time to time when no longer am I doing the prescribed movements. I'm dancing! I know the moves well enough to begin to manipulate them in very discreet and subtle ways in order to express my emotions, convey meaning. Degages, plies, and pirouettes don't exist for their own sake; rather, they become a self-verifying language that exists between dancers. To those who understand the language, they can watch another dancer and have a deeper understanding of that dancer's personality, emotions, and feelings at the time.

Back to the Li. The Li exists for exactly the same purposes. We start learning the Li in order to fit into social situations. The Li is not virtuous in itself, but exists as a means to convey virtue; for when one becomes acquainted enough with the Li, it becomes a language in the same way as classical ballet technique. Performing rituals at certain times in a certain way helps those around you who understand the language of Li to understand what you are trying to convey better. When you break a ritual knowingly, you are conveying a deep statement to those who take ritual seriously.

I think it's very cool. Dancing for me has become a means to convey my emotions, but also to help people realize their own personalities by watching me (or, more likely, a more experienced and talented dancer). When you hear a beautiful song, read a touching poem, or watch a perfectly performed ballet and it resonates deep within you, what is really happening is that the perfection of what you just experienced is awakening some deep sense of truth within you, allowing you to realize a deeper sense of authenticity and humanity. Ultimately, fine arts like music, poetry, and ballet exist as vessels for realizing ourselves and others, much like the Li of Confucius. I think he would have liked ballet very much.

For those of you who think ballet is staunch and boring, I've posted an link to an amazing performance of the Romeo and Juliet bedroom scene as performed by Alessandra Ferri (who is an amazing dancer known for her passion and amazing feet) and Angel Corella, currently my favorite danseur. This scene is a perfect example of how something as basic as human movement can be used skillfully to convey deeper truths and help us recognize something about ourselves.