Am I in?

Now that I have avoided posting on my blog for long enough that it is just me again talking to the air, I will probably do two posts here maybe even tonight. A while ago my brother joined an exclusive group started by one of my friends from high school. The stone lions are the biggest rage of the internet. I hate being shown up by my little brother. So I had to find a stone lion that was stone-lion-y in a Deutschlehrer kind of way. This lion is in fact over a fireplace in the Goethe-Institute that I visited in Boston last month. I saw it in an assembly room during a very crowded reception for German teachers during a convention for language teachers in general. It was the bright point of the evening--except I didn't have a camera with me. Luckily there was another reception the next night, which I was late for, which meant I had to stand in the back next to the wine for an hour--which would have been fine, except I don't drink--but great accomplishments sometimes require sacrifice. When the talk was over (it was an author talking about her book about--and I am not making this up-- two siblings with a sick cat that they cured by feeding it a very specific type of coffee bean that they then recycled after the cat was finished with it, by roasting the passed beans, grinding them, and making coffee out of them--which they then sold. The high point of the evening was when friends of the author served coffee according to the recipe in the book. There are days when the Word of Wisdom really comes in handy. Anyway, when everyone got up to enjoy the "refreshments" I snapped this picture. So, Charlotte, am I in?

Many, many years ago--I think it was the summer after my mission when I returned to Germany to visit friends for the first time as a non-missionary, my good friend Lutz Wagner gave me his father's iron cross from the first world war. (I am pretty sure it was his father and not his grandfather--I believe he was already quite old when Lutz was born).

I was very honored by the gift. With Germans, the idea of friendship is deeper than it is most of the time with Americans, it is something closer to family than anything else. At least with the Wagners, with whom I lived for several months, I know the relationship goes beyond simple friendship. So you can imagine how I felt when I looked one day (for a class) and could not find the iron cross anywhere. To make matters worse, this summer Lutz mentioned that he had had a medal from his father and didn't know where it was anymore. I had to admit to him that he had given it to me years ago, but that I couldn't find it anymore.

Of course there is a happy end to the story. A couple of weeks ago my parents threatened to throw out all my stuff that was still at their house (it's less than 20 years since I lived there) if I didn't go through the boxes and decide what I wanted to keep. Guess what I found? I feel a little like the woman in the parable that cleaned her whole house and found the money she had lost.

Objects are really just things that should not be important to us at all, but when they become symbols then that changes them altogether. I can't help but think about the changing meaning behind this one. When it was given, it was a symbol of one man's service to his country--a country that, by the time the cross was awarded, did not even exist anymore. For years during the socialist era, it must have sat in a drawer, nearly forgotten as it would have represented a time of capitalist empiricism to some had it been displayed too openly. It was also a symbol of war and militarism and so somewhat ambivalent in the best of times. To Lutz, I would think that it would serve as a memory of his father. I should probably give it back to him.

To me, however, it is a reminder that the family I am a part of is bigger than that I was born to, or that have been born to me, that there are people that I hope to enjoy the eternities with. That, I think, is what it means to have a Pearl of Great Price.

On the Dificulty of Experiencing the real Germany

I had a culture class today with my students in Berlin. The first question I asked them was to tell me the most remarkable thing about their stay so far in Germany. They made comments varying from having to pay to use the public toilets, to the great art we have seen in Berlin and Dresden to the street music played in the subways. All of them were great answers. Then I thought myself about the most remarkable thing I have experienced. For me it was Sunday dinner with a family I came to know in 2001 when I was here last.

I have explained to whoever will listen that Germans are like their bread. They tend to be hard and crusty on the outside. In other words, one of my students remarked that on the subway, no one talks to each other, they stare ahead, or at a book, but they seem to avoid eye contact at all costs. I think this is a defense mechanism to living so close on top of one another that they establish a sphere of privacy about them that can be difficult to pierce. But German bread is only crusty on the outside. Inside it is fresh, and warm, and contains a great deal more flavor and substance than American bread. I think the analogy holds true for the German people as well. Once you succeed in getting past the tough exterior, they are warm and generous beyond what one would normally experience in America. The German word Freund is so much richer than the English equivalent. There is an intimacy in German Friendship that suggests a closeness akin to family. This is what I experienced this weekend. Two families shared in the birthday of a 13 year old daughter, who has grown into a beautiful and accomplished young woman since I saw her last. They invited me into their circle and it felt as if I had always belonged there. Instead of making a big deal of me as their guest, I felt as if I were a natural part of the event. I felt taken for granted–not in the usual negative way that phrase connotes, but as one whom they took for granted as belonging–a friendship resumed as if there had been no break.

I don’t know if my friendship means as much to them as their friendship means to me, but it does not matter, really. For me it is enough to know how privileged, how fortunate I am to be a part of such relationships-not just once, but many times over with many families. I want my students to experience Germany and come to appreciate it the way I do. But I don’t know how to recreate the relationships for them that I have had the good fortune to have made while I have been here. It is not something that anyone else can create for them. Some experiences have to come as they will.




Oh and Dresden was amazing too.

This is What I Love About Mac Computing

I have to begin this post with a confession: I am an equal opportunity computer despisor. I think Macs and PCs can be equally annoying--just in completely different ways. For simplicity's sake, I stay with PCs just so I only have one type of annoyance to deal with. Recently, however, I had a discussion with a friend of mine that is whole-heartedly in the Mac camp. This video made me think of him and his love of the "simplicity" the Mac revolution has provided us.
It reminds me of a video I found some time ago that you can check out Here.
I just wish computer programmers and designers didn't assume they know better what I want than I do.

My good friend in Afganistan

This video maybe best explains my mixed emotions about getting out of the military. Joey and I went to Officer Basic Course together and I spent almost all of my free time with him, his wife, and his two boys. I was miserable at the time, since my wife had to stay home and work. As a result, I became very good friends with his family during my four months at Ft. Huachuca, Az. I honestly struggled in the Army. I am not the best around authority figures, the culture often runs counter to my family values, and the Army never fit into my long-term career goals. One of the things we used to joke about together were the "rules" that we developed while at OBC, one of which was, for example, "never confront a military situation with logic." or the Military corolary to Occam's razor: "given two possible solutions in a military situation, all things being equal, the most complcated, dificult to understand option will be the one chosen." Good memories.

Now Joey is in Bagram away from his family for Christmas, and I think pretty lonely. He is not your average soldier--although there are more like him than you would think. Joey is mild-mannered, never seems to raise his voice in anger, a loving father and husband, a democrat (and from Utah no less) and one of the most intelligent people I know. But he has put himself in harm's way and I did everything I could to stay out of it. A fellow ROTC cadet that we both knew, Bill Jacobsen, died a few years ago in Iraq when the mess hall he was eating in was attacked by a suicide bomber. I really appreciate the contrast of the music with the military equipment in the background. He is due home in March. I hope everything goes well and he returns safely.