Divinity and the city bus

As I boarded the big blue city bus today to head into town and buy a Christmas tree, Joan Osborn's "If God was one of us" was starting up on the overhead radio.
This past summer I read "The DaVinci Code" (about two years after all the hype died down) and last night out of curiosity, rented the movie. Of course, the movie cut out a ton and changed the rest... One part I don't remember from the book had me thinking as I walked downtown today.
At the end of the movie, after they have deduced that Sofia is actually from the bloodline of Jesus Christ, she is "sangreal"...Tom Hank's character says something along the lines of "Maybe we don't have to deduce whether or not Christ was divine...Maybe there is divinity in humanity"
Well, while I believe that the book is based on...nothing substantial I also believe that Christ was divine. All this is not where I am coming from.
If you want to read an angry defense over this book, go to your local Christian bookstore. A lot of close-minded nuts have written books in contradiction and defense.
(many without having actually read the book they are angry about...when I say read, I don' t mean "scour looking for points to back your argument up")

My point is about divinity and humanity.
The reason I was feeling so strongly as I heard Joan sing her song on the bus this morning is because of Christmas.
"O come, o come Emmanuel" is, to me, what it is all about. Everything.
Remembering how long the world waited for God to come, to save.
Remembering that we are not alone, that God is with us, Emmanuel.
That God has come to us, saved us, and is making us holy. We are redeemed. We are of Christ's lineage, in a way stronger than blood. He chose us and paid the highest price.
Ironically, the song I listened to this morning talks about "the stranger on the bus" (you all know it...) and what I always try to do when I ride the bus is really see the people I am riding with.
There is the image of divinity in humanity.

(and I found a Christmas tree for three euros...it is a sad little tree that I like because it looks like Charlie Brown's)

haha...I am listening to "Come on, let's boogey to the elf dance!" on Sufjan's 42 song Christmas compilation, phenomenal :)

For letting go...

"Knowledge is the season for knowing when and why....balances and reasons keep me from the fire...and every time I'm placed within a perfect role...people come and go, people come and go, people come and go...
Fire can be friendly, raising perfect pain...burning off tomorrow and yesterday the same...to always be so weak, and never want to know...you know we come and go, you know we come and go, you know we come and go..."

Me Died Blue By Steven Delopoulos

My best melancholy.

October 2006
The air tonight was clean, original and exquisite. Autumn means something significant to me, something filled with symbolism and poetry. It’s as though everything becomes increasingly emotional, more intensely felt, and, to me anyways, thoroughly melancholy.

Watching the dusty thick sweep of the sunset this evening as the day slipped below the brooding wisp of midnight black that surrounds me now, I could feel my thoughts and imagination settle into a big, comfy chair with a cup of coffee, hoping to spend the next few months enveloped in their favorite mood.

Because life deserves to feel like this. Deep and cool, everything suddenly changed for good with one crisp wind.

Chilled Irony with a side of apple cider

The kind of day where you have to slide open the office window.

Close your eyes, take a deep breath, lean back in to make a sarcastic comment to your co-workers.

It smells like fall, the kind of afternoon where I could do something or nothing. I suppose, that since I am writing this, I am doing nothing. But I am on the verge of something. I really am.

Buy some chocolate, and some apples. Make those phone calls, step in every dried leaf along the walk back home.Practice the guitar. Study my Spanish. Keep up with my ballet. Never stop learning. It feels humble and good to still be learning.

I haven't made my bed today, and ten o'clock in the morning feels earlier and earlier. But then, so does midnight.

A little bit more..of that apple cider..from yesterday would be deightful,..so would a walk to the beach. Maybe I will give in to both...

I have to recommend this movie: "Everything is Illuminated" I laughed..very hard. But it's beautiful at the same time. It's a good one.

For the love of Ham and this is all Steve Irwin's fault...

Barcelona.

Most unlikely couple: Walking hand in hand. He was wearing a shirt that said "I cut Scalps Off" She was wearing a shirt that said "Everyone needs Music"...

We got hopelessly lost and had to be transferred by airport security back through the point of no return to retrieve our luggage. The cause of the whole ordeal: the crocodile hunter, of course. I was telling Rebecca that he had passed on, (and she didn't believe me) and recounting how I found out whilst we were walking through the secure exit without our suitcases. In short: Two type Bs don't make a Type A.

Walking through downtown Barcelona at night I thought I had unwittingly stumbled upon the red light district. I saw a building with neon lights in the shape of legs flashing all over. Upon closer inspection, though, I found them to be not legs of exotic dancers, but rather, legs of ham. Sexy Ham. It was a carniceria. Butcher shop. The Spaniards do love their ham though...

New laws for tourists prohibit the entrance of robotic poodles in public parks. Finally, a law I can get on board with.

And here's the bottom line:

In the midst of so much ridiculous (which does make life and travels rather delightful)
I have seen beauty.

Madrid and Barcelona are the most diverse cities. Everyone from everywhere. The languages swirled around me, the faces all so different. We walked el paseo maritimo and parc guille together, myself with all these strangers. You can see the Creator in the creation. Whether it was watching the sun dip into the Mediterranean sea or being shoved into a cattle-car like subway, He can be seen.

And the next life step for me is a very exciting one. I almost always stumble into these things and find that God was leading me unaware the whole time. The dream is more reality every day.

I might need another cafe americano.

he DaVinci Code, Sushi, New Orleans, El Silbedor, and Lorena

So here's what I know:
The big 24 comes in three days...yikes.
I miss my family and the IRS. We always have smashing birthday festivities.

On Sunday I wasn't really with the program...kind of caught up in myself and all my junk. Then a teenager named Lorena walked into church for the first time and sat next to me.
With that, I remembered what we really exist for.

I haven't read a newspaper in maybe over a month. I am ignorant as to what's going on out there. Except I know Spain finally decided to get involved in Lebanon. And that they are dancing on the streets of New Orleans again.

I kind of wish summer would just end already.
Madrid and Barcelona in just two weeks baby! To bad I have so many life decisions to make, no?

About two years after everybody, I am reading The DaVinci Code. He's not all that great of a writer, really. But it's entertaining, despite his use of ridiculous metaphors and redundant words and large words that I know he found in the thesaurus and are not part of anyone's vocabulary. (that was a huge run-on...I never said I was that great of a writer)

Anyone want to send me some new books?

Made some sushi yesterday. Thank God for delicious Japanese cuisine.

I hope you guys aren't suffering from the incessant annoyance of a whistler.
He's lucky we don't have a pistol en nuestra casa.

All in all, life has been, to quote my friend and accomplice Rebecca, "very silly lately..."

Went sailing with the Germans. Yes I did.

And when I say "sailing" I really mean IN A TALL SHIP! Not unlike a pirate ship, actually. But they were not German pirates (that would have been cool though)

So, I went down to meet my friend Veronica for a coffee and to catch up because we haven't seen each other all summer, and somehow I wind up sailing around La Coruna in the hugest (yes, HUGEST is the word) boat I have ever sailed on. It was sooo incredible.
I love when you are just living life and all of a sudden find yourself with the wind against your face and the crisp sea water gently misting you and Germans yelling out sailing commands all around you. I really do.

I am still feeling a little sway, hours later.

(Oh, and to explain a little: All these tall ships from all over Europe are in my beautiful port City of La Coruna for a Tall Ship Regatta. They are sailed by teenagers who do this six week program to learn teamwork and sailing. They race in like six or seven cities that they sail between. Veronica (my friend) has connections with one of the German ones.)


Best day of the week, maybe the month. Hands down.
Do you know those moments when you feel so alive?

November Table Game

I am doing better. I am doing great, really, when I think about it. So I decided to take from Colleen and Thanksgiving tradition (I know it's only August, but I won't have Thanksgiving here in Spain, so I'll play today)
Here are 10 good things:

1. I walk everywhere.

2. I live on the Atlantic coast for the first time in almost 9 years.

3. I have an amazing, beautiful, quirky family...and I love them a ton.

4. I am learning the words to Spanish music on the radio...I have songs that I know (though they are stupid, awful pop songs, this is an exercise in bettering my spanish)

5. Milca lent me her bicycle while she is in Venezuela

6. I am staying in Rob and Nancy's apartment while they are gone, and today I am baking scones.

7. Last night I made balloon animals (something I have only ever done in European countries...) and I learned how to say clown in spanish (payaso...)

8. It's the Festivo Maria Pita, and there are all these free shows...Flamenco this weekend!

9. I am going to Madrid and Barcelona "on business" next month with Rebecca

10. I spend each monday at the beach alone with my thoughts, some good music and a bottle of sunscreen.

The long hot walk.

So, I am laughing at two things. First of all, my friend Nate gave me two seasons of Lost, which I have never watched before and am now completely sucked into. Pathetic. Okay, so funny in how pathetic it is. I knew that would happen.

Also, I am feeling so strangely guilty these days. ¨False guilt¨ is what it´s called when it´s guilt over things besides sin. I mean, not that I don´t sin. But what I am feeling guilty about all the time is stupid. And yet I continue to feel like this. So I´m laughing in a sort of nervous concern for my state of being.

What the heck is wrong with me? You know when you are walking a long way outside and lugging heavy stuff and it´s like a thousand degrees with no wind and you are dripping sweat and all of a sudden you look up to see how far to your front door, realize it´s ridiculously far and then trip and fall down, dropping all your stuff and scraping up your legs?

I am not saying this has happened (well, it probably has...) but that sometimes lately, life has felt like this.

But not always. Just sometimes. Sticky, and painful and overheated and exhauting. Irritating.

Be that as it may, I truly am trying to be content here.

I have several big decisions to make...and soon. And I hate making decisions. In the past, God has just kind of let everything fall into place and I just keep walking and find myself in these places.

I really am trying to hope that that happens this time too. Because I suck at making decisions.

Like right now, I have to decide whether to give into the exhaustion and go watch a couple episodes of Lost, or go work on some projects for work.

We´ll see what happens.

I miss Hot Tamales. Spain doesn´t have very good candy, I must tell you the truth.

Calm...or something like it.

I live in a crazy calm. I meander through the day (and you, my dearest friends will know that I truly mean ¨meander¨ ) and just below the surface God is working. And it usually is this whispering fade of life and changes and beauty and struggle that He pours into my days and being, but then once in a while, I unwittingly find myself standing on a cliff overlooking a beautiful but tumultuous sea as the gales of opportunity, change, fear, excitement and wonder gust over and through me.

You know, when you feel so filled up inside you just need to dance like a crazy person, or squeal like an eleven year old, or roll down a really huge hill like the one in the Princess Bride, or sleep for a year because you are so exhausted by emotion?

Yeah...maybe this is all a little vague. But I am in this place. Just a little undefined.

And right now I am enjoying amazing Italian brewed coffee, and the wee early hours of a lazy day (it´s the crack of noon) and this really great long black layered Spanish skirt that I found (it´s rebajas time) and poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke floating around en mi mente, and more than anything, the arms of God wrapped tightly around my existance.

A day of nothing, or something like that.

11:28 PM
It was my day off today. I rode a bike down to la playa de Santa Cristina, ate lunch at a little patio table, bought 2 liters of water, my first Spanish magazine and spent the day relaxing.
I watched a movie and went shopping to try and find a birthday present for Dustin.
I also made an internal and written vow to add discipline to my life and an even more resolute vow to obedience. It wasn’t just a day of nothing, I suppose. I wonder about myself and tomorrow, though…

Alright, Already...

Okay...Whew, what a whirlwind of life!
Paris finally let me in. So I went. Can I just comment on the Madrid airport? The first five minutes it reminded me of the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Very whimsical...but then it became a nightmare...I was so irritated.
But, whatever. Made it into Paris. Which ended up being just the therapy I needed to recover....let me tell you:

So, I went for an arts and culture conference. Incredible...met the most amazing people, had gorgeous conversations, heard words that inspired and challenged, and felt my heart thud, and wrench and grieve and rejoice.
Okay, so I am a little emotional. (nothing new there)
Sunday morning, as we worshiped in the oldest Baptist church in Paris with voices singing French and English (and Spanish...I couldn't help it) melded together and steeped the air with praise, echoing off high beams and stained glass, God spoke to me in that hushed soul whisper.
And I know exactly what these words mean to me, and I am a little shaken by all that is happening and all that is to come.
But it is good.
Paris, ahhhh, sweet bliss! It even rained for me on Sunday! Made some new friends and talked them into a trip to the Eiffel Tower in the rain at night. They have this light mechanism that makes it "twinkle" for ten minutes on every hour.
We ate chocolate mousse and talked about all we had absorbed and were still trying to absorb from the gathering of artists with more vision and passion than can fit into one week.

If you are wanting to hear more, please write me. I cannot begin to describe all that has happened, not in this blog.

Yeah. Oh, and I lost my cell phone on the subway and freaked out my co-workers here and my family. They called my cell phone while it was lost and this French dude answers. But he did meet me at the train station to return my phone. My only source of contact with the world. I hate it...
Anyhow.
God takes care of us, no? Oui...Si...Yes...

New Earth

All you in Kansas City (and some Waterdeep fans outside) will appreciate this...I am in ¨New Earth¨coffeehouse in Santiago de Compostela, Spain...

It´s actually called ¨Terra Nova¨which is Gallego (the regional dialect of Galicia) for New Earth....

Nate is playing the hammer dulcimer here and there is a new artist displaying her paintings.

It feels like home.

Mediterranean Waters

I'm in Barcelona for an incredible (and surprisingly much needed) staff retreat.

Yesterday I walked along and in Mediterranean (is that spelled right?) waters with the warm spring wind and Steven Delopolous in my ears. I

And yesterday I was listening to a song I have listened to so many times, but it took on new meaning.

Knowledge is the season for knowing when and why...balances and reason keep me from the fire. And every time I'm placed, within the perfect role...people come and go, people come and go...

Fire can be friendly, raising perfect pain. Burning off tomorrow..and yesterday the same. To
always be so weak, and never want to know you know we come and go, we come and then we go.

Of course I always thought about the going...but now I realize the exquisite beauty in the season of coming...even the fire and the pain are truly divine and full and rich.

Now it just feels safe and secure and surrounded. I am in a place of rest and inspiration.

Whimsy and the Spanish emergency room

It's been perfect walking in the rain weather these past few days...not cold, not too windy...just drizzly.
Every once in a while a brushing wind will kick up...the kind that makes you close your eyes. So I do. Just close my eyes and live it.
And I hope that while I am walking those few steps with my eyes closed I don't smack into a lampost or worse, a moving car.
You can only be whimsical as long as you are still alive. And the Spanish emergency room is one part of Spain I do not want to experience.

But in seriousness, I am still pressing on. Sometimes it's so hard and I feel so disconnected. Other times it's exhilerating and full, and then there are days like today. I feel like this is reality.
It's mellow, slightly routine, but every once in a while I sense a calm breathed into my ears.
It's tranquility in the midst of those quick, cool bursts of rainy wind.
Ahhh....Bien. Muy bien.

Listening to an old favorite of mine, the score from 1998's "Great Expectations" I don't know why I just love this cd so much, but it definately suits my mood these days.

Everything intense.

I don’t suppose there has to be a theme to this writing. I mainly just want to get these thoughts out of my head.
I’ve been reading and thinking about a little bit of everything intense. Life, war, justice, eternity, peoples’ souls and how God is in all of these things. I am tired and less talkative these days.

I ride the bus every day and watch people walk the streets and sit beside me and drive their cars, and look out their windows. I grow frustrated and kind of sad. Because I have a very strong sense that so many of them are hurting or numb. And then I try to understand this burden and reconcile it with what I gut-wrenchingly feel about God. Not just God in a general sense…GOD. I can’t say it any other way. I don’t know. All I know is my own self, I understand very little about other people.

It’s true, you know. None of us can really understand other people. Even if we have been through their same situations, it doesn’t matter. Every story is so diverse. Experiences, relationships, time, emotions, they all build into our lives a work of story that is thoroughly unique. Seriously. So there is NO POSSIBLE WAY to truly understand what a person feels when something happens to them. Not completely anyway.
We can only know ourselves. I don’t mean this in a selfish way. I just mean that we should make peace with not understanding a single thing. That’s the way it is. I’ll keep trying, but there is a point of surrender.
People spend their whole lives looking for a way out of pain, a way to feel something, someone to hold their hand. Riding the bus, looking into their faces, I feel very weighed down. If there has to be a point of surrender, then God, I surrender. I’ll never understand these people the way I want to. If I don’t surrender this need to understand, I’ll drive myself crazy.
I stop for a minute, close my eyes. I have to do this several times a day. Breathe out. We can’t know.
Truth exists. Mystery holds truth. God is cloaked in unknown…to us. It’s unsettling, but it doesn’t have to be. When I surrender, as often as I need to, there are moments when I am washed in the calm of profound beauty. In the words of a favorite poet:
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart…try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.” Ranier Maria Rilke

On being thought Stupid.

And if this night won't let me rest,
don't let me second guess
...what I know to be real.
Take my security from me,
and maybe finally...I won't have to know everything.


The days are full...sometimes that's bad because you end up doing a lot and accomplishing...not a lot. And you are tired.
But my days are full in a good way, I believe.

I'm learning a new language. People think I am stupid. It's not bad to go through times when everybody thinks you are stupid.
I know that I am not, and I also know that I kind of am. And that overall, people can't dictate either way.

Except me, I can dictate sometimes, and I think I might be quite good at it.
Hmmmm...

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS:
-20 minutes at the bakery with coffee, a pastry, and the Holy Book.
-A series of travel videos in spanish class...
-Being yelled at by the language school's cleaning lady (and called stupid...but we've already discussed how unimportant that is)
-Being stopped by another car for directions (they always leave frustrated...but I always leave thrilled that at least I look like I belong)
Si...good day.

Pepe plays the guitar.

We have Alpha meetings at a bar down the street from the church every Tuesday night. This past week an older man wandered in to the back of the bar where we meet, because he saw the guitars laying on the table.
He picked one up and began to play this incredibly gorgeous classical Spanish song. Nate, one of my fellow short-termers, began to play with him. Somehow, as we all listened to him and he met everyone, he decided to stay for the meal, and then the video, and then the discussion groups...it was random. But very good.
I don't know what his story is...I have been thinking a lot about it though. Every one's story, so different, but the author of life never ceases to awe me in his innate ability to twist and turn and create the most incredible stories by pouring his presence over the pages.

Pepe. The random guitarist.

Beginning of a wonderful story?

February 2006
As rain raced down the sides and over the shaky bus stop that was my feeble shelter from the pelting rains of La Coruña, Spain, I shivered deep into my oversized rain jacket.
It was one of those nylon deals that folds into its self and zips up into a pouch. I bought it for a trip to Alaska three summers ago, and I will admit that it was a lot more fitting for that trip than for today. Today, it not only provided very little warmth from this chilly Galicia rain, it also was a major faux paux in a very fashion-conscious city. “American, right here!” The jacket screams to the passing cars. Wet, shivering, clueless, American.

A car pulls up to the stop. “This will not end good,” I think to myself “this can only end in disaster”.
The window rolled down and the woman inside began to speak to me. And for so many reasons I couldn’t reply. First of all, I understand little Spanish. I speak even less, and even if I could have understood her, the echo of the rain pelting the plexi-glass overhang and the roar of passing cars on a soaked street made hearing her a complete impossibility. And furthermore, I am pretty sure she was asking for directions (she yelled and gestured in that way that people do when they are lost and frustrated enough to ask a total stranger for help) and I have only lived here for a little over two weeks. Needless to say, it did, in fact, not end well.
I started to say that I don’t speak Spanish, but only needed to get three words out before she looked at me in that sad way, as if to say “You are even more lost than I am…”,rolled up her window and drove on.
It serves her right. Didn’t she notice the huge navy-blue nylon rain hoodie? How do you miss that?
Then again, maybe she was stopping to tell me how ridiculous I looked.
Tough to catch a bus in this town, it is.

I eventually gave up on catching the bus and went home. I didn’t need to go to the supermarket that badly. I sloshed up the stairs to an empty, silent apartment. I needed to call Mom. For being the kind of person who could go days without talking to another person, I was starting to feel a little too isolated. It had only been about twelve hours. “Strange…” I muttered under my breath.
I have a wicked cold. I even had to go back out into that weather to get some cough drops and tissues. Right now I am resting. I really should be studying Spanish, but I want to write this.
I guess I’m hoping it will be the introduction to a wonderful story.

Great Greasy Bouffant, Jean Claude

This new kid from France joins our class two days ago, he´s got this huge mass of hair that can only be defined as a "Bouffant". It's so very greasy. So greasy, that when he runs his hands through this monstrosity upon his head, it just stays that way....he wears pink sweaters (he has at least two different shades of pink sweaters), and he has an opinion that he feels the need to voice on every subject.

We talk about cars, or the news, or food, or music, and really the point here is to learn how to talk about these things in Spanish...he continues to miss the point.

"Me parece que...", "En mi opinion", "Yo creo que"...blah, blah, blah....It´s a good thing his bouffant amuses me so much, or I would not be able to handle having him in class.

Tardy and a bit of a racist.

I eat many pastries. God bless the bakery.

Started classes at la escuela oficial de idiomas hoy.

La Profesora was eh.... 25 minutes late for class and also a bit racist. (I'm pretty positive she was making fun of one of the Chinese girls in class today...) (I will be next, once she hears me speak)

What can you do? At least she can teach me Spanish.

And for 25 minutes I can get to know my classmates. Chinese, German, French, Portoguese, English, Australian, Irish, Brazilian, Polish, and a few others I am not sure of...one guy from the middle East somewhere....

Pretty diverse, no? I am the only American...kind of fun. Too bad we know what everyone thinks of Americans. Good thing I am not from California.

The Ria

This evening I went for a walk along the Ria, where the mouth of the river meets the ocean. The sun was setting and the tide was low, boats sitting on patches of marshy land waiting to float again come morning. There is a footbridge over the water that is ancient....I mean actually built by the Romans....ancient....incredible...

In the evenings all the families come out and walk the Ria together...Old, young, strolling, pushing carriages, roller skating, walking dogs...I was actually one of the very few people out walking alone. Such a sense of family...enjoying one another, enjoying life and creation and the cool air at dusk...it´s something truly beautiful here.