throwing sand

On my brisk autumn walk this afternoon, I walked down the canal on Village Road. Or Village Drive. Village Something, anyway. But before I digress, allow me to progress. Three boys were playing in the canal, all probably eight years old. As I approached, one of them climbed out of the canal to join his friend on the bank. The third one stayed below.

"Hi," said the boy in the striped shirt as I passed by.

"Hi," said I. "Having fun?"

"Yeah."

"Good deal."

I continued on, not expecting further conversation. But then I heard a bright voice pipe up behind me. So, still walking, I half-turned to look.

It was the second boy, the little blond one. "I'm just throwing sand," he informed me, matching action to words.

I chuckled. "That sounds fun, too."

The little blond one looked at me one more time, then scattered another handful of glittering sand as he pronounced: "I lost all my strength just getting up here."

I don't remember what I said in response, but it doesn't matter. I fell in love with that kid right then and there. Because isn't that just how it is sometimes? We lose all our strength just getting up there, so all that is left to us is to throw sand with big smiles on our faces, thereby brightening the lives of strangers (mayhap friends yet unknown) who're passing by.

:o)

truth, beauty, and goodness

I'd love to post the whole from which I'm borrowing the following quote, but I'd like to avoid the specter of plagiarism. If you'd like to read the whole post (which is short and very worth the read), you can find it here.

"What if we were nice to each other? What if we put cynicism and snideness aside and saw beauty and possibility in everything?

"What if we all treated each other as we wanted to be treated? What if we loved our neighbors and acted toward them with affection and understanding?

"...What if we aspired to promoting the values of Truth, Beauty and Goodness? What if we saw Truth as Love, Beauty as Mercy, and Goodness as Ministry? What if we made those acts of Love, Mercy, and Ministry, the cornerstones of our lives?"

--Liz Cratty


As I've recently discussed with several of you, I see myriads of possibilities. All the time. In every situation, in every conversation, I see multiple possible outcomes--and, sometimes, outcomes of the outcomes. Sometimes, this can become paralyzing...because I see both good and bad possible outcomes, and it's hard to know which decision to make in order to maximize the possibility of a positive end result.

I'm probably not saying this clearly enough. For a writer, I have an awfully hard time expressing myself sometimes.

Anyway...please to be trying to get what I'm saying. ;o)

The point is this: I read that quote up there, and my imagination takes over, unfolding all the myriad possibilities of the what-ifs Cratty poses. And you know what? Every single one of those outcomes is positive. Every one of them is Good. And every one of them leads, in turn, only to further Goodness--maximized and exponentially multiplied.

There is no paralysis here. There is no fear. There is no looming darkness. There is only truth and beauty and goodness, world without end, amen. In the fulfillment of this set of what-ifs, there is relief, release--and maybe, if we give ourselves permission to hope--redemption.

I'm trying to hope.

I'm trying to let myself move, realizing that movement will not engage the attention of the monsters under the bed.

I am trying to see.

the day my home country started getting bigger again

Hungary remembers picnic that cracked Iron Curtain
AP

SOPRONPUSZTA, Hungary – It was a picnic that changed the course of history.

Twenty years ago Wednesday, members of Hungary's budding opposition organized a picnic at the border with Austria to press for greater political freedom and promote friendship with their Western neighbors.

Some 600 East Germans got word of the event and turned up among the estimated 10,000 participants. They had a plan: to take advantage of an excursion across the border to escape to Austria.

Hungarian President Laszelo Solyom and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were taking part Wednesday in festivities Wednesday marking the 20th anniversary of the "Pan-European Picnic," which helped precipitate the fall nearly three months later of the Berlin Wall.

One of the key factors allowing the Germans to escape: the decision by a Hungarian border guard commander not to stop them as they pushed through to freedom.

Lt. Col. Arpad Bella and five of his men had been expecting a Hungarian delegation to cross the border at Sopronpuszta by bus, visit a nearby Austrian town as a symbol of the new era of glasnost — or openness — under reformist Soviet leader Mikail Gorbachev, and return to Hungary.

Instead, at the planned time of 3 p.m., Bella suddenly found himself face to face with 150 East Germans marching up the road to the border gate, which had been closed since 1948.

"I had about 20 seconds to think about it until they got here," said Bella, 63, during an interview where the gate once stood.

"Had the five of us confronted the Germans, they would have (overwhelmed us)."

Once the initial group got through hundreds more East Germans joined them. Still vivid in Bella's mind was the reactions of the Germans, including many young people and families with small children, once they were on the other side.

"They embraced, they kissed, they cried and laughed in their joy. Some sat down right across the border, others had to be stopped by the Austrian guards because they kept running and didn't believe they were in Austria," Bella said. "It was in incredible experience for them."

Laszlo Nagy, one of the organizers of the picnic, was startled by the East Germans' actions, who left behind hundreds of cars and other possessions near the border for the chance to make the short walk to a new life in the West.

"Some of them were waiting for this moment for 20 or 30 years," Nagy said. "They left behind everything ... because freedom has the greatest value."

Dirk Mennenga was one the "Ossies," a nickname for East Germans, who made it to Austria on that day. He had come to Hungary from Dresden.

"We had planned beforehand that we would try to cross the border through Hungary," Mennenga said. "We didn't know how easy or difficult it would be."

After seeing flyers promoting the picnic, Mennenga thought the event could provide an opportunity to escape West.

"It was a very emotional situation," Mennenga said. "There was a sole border guard. A young Hungarian man kept pointing the way and before we knew it we were in Austria."

While Bella was unaware of the East Germans' intentions, behind the scenes the Hungarian government had already decided that it would somehow let them go West.

Miklos Nemeth, Hungary's last prime minister of the communist era, said the picnic and the East Germans' breakthrough on that day was one in a series of steps that brought democracy to most of the Soviet bloc within a year.

"It was a planned process on behalf of the government, but it was a transition where everyone was also seeking to secure their own future," Nemeth said.

With 80,000 Soviet troops stationed in Hungary, Nemeth said it was difficult to know how Moscow would react to the unprecedented events.

"In my mind this was an important event, a test," Nemeth said. "And fortunately, Arpad Bella ... although he did not get any information, he decided in the right way."

Tens of thousands of East Germans had traveled to Hungary as expectations mounted that the more moderate Communist country might open its borders to the West.

They lived in makeshift shelters in Budapest on the grounds of the West German Embassy and at a tent city set up by a Catholic parish.

In the weeks after the picnic, East Germans continued to make attempts to cross the border, although many were still turned back. Then, on Sept. 11, Hungary began allowing all East Germans to travel West.

Bella continued his career as a border guard for several more years before retiring in 1996, later even working as a consultant on developing aspects of the Schengen agreement, which now allows for borderless travel within 25 European countries.

"I didn't think of myself as a hero. How could I? I wasn't even sure I'd be around for another week," Bella said. "If the Russians had wanted to come, they would have swept us aside like nothing."

For Nagy, the significance of the events of Aug. 19 has grown over the past 20 years.

"At the time, we didn't feel like we were making history," Nagy said. "It was the world's greatest garden party."

oooh, a p.s. before bedtime

This year's Christmas presents, just for fun:

* "The Children of Hurin" by J.R.R. Tolkien (posthumously published)
* Mama's gray sweater, which is over 40 years old and which I've wanted since I was a kid
* earrings
* knit cap
* calendar of Chemnitzer pics
* comforter set, new pillows, sheets--our bed looks so pretty now!
* jar of Grandma's hot pepper jelly
* gift card to Kohl's
* yearly Christmas tree ornament (my parents have given me one every year of my life)

* and a well-needed reminder that most of the world didn't get any Christmas presents.

I am thankful for God's blessings.

Anybody like to share presents or thankfulnesses?

transitional ruminations

I feel as though I'm overdue in penning some words about the cultural transition that Ed and I have been going through. To begin, I'd like to grace you with a top ten list that illustrates one of the frustrations that goes along with transitioning, namely, the fact that people often don't know what to say to us. (Please note that I am not angry over these utterances, but frustrated.)

Top Ten Things NOT To Say To Cultural Transitioners And Why
(in random order, though I have a particular dislike for #s 5 and 7)

1. How was your trip?
It wasn't a trip. It wasn't a vacation. It was my life. Please to be noticing the difference, thank you. ;o)

2. We've been praying for you to come back.
I think I know what you mean when you say that, and you might think that's a lovely sentiment. But when you say that, what I hear is that you've been praying for me to be separated from people and places I love. That's neither helpful nor encouraging.

3. You've got a lot of time on your hands now! You could (fill in blank with an activity or a job for which I have expressed no interest).
I didn't come back here with no plan of what I want to do with my life. This was not a spontaneous, frivolous decision. Much thought and prayer and planning went into it. Please don't assume I'm sitting around, bored, with nothing to do, just waiting for you to come rescue me with ideas that would make *you* happy.

4. Oh, you were in XLand? I was in XLand back in the '70s....XLanders are so (fill in the blank with a prejudice you developed while you were over there for two years 30 years ago).
Please don't assume your experiences were my experiences. Also, please refrain from telling me, based on your few months' experience, what the people of my homeland are like. Not to be snotty, but I do believe I know them better than you do.

5. Adjusting? Oh, give it a couple of months, you'll be fine.
I see. And the last time you went through cross-cultural reentry was...? Oh, you've never left your home state? Ah.

6. It's so good to have you back. I don't know why anyone would want to leave here in the first place.
(Okay, so nobody has said these words to me directly....but the implication is all over the place.) Well, probably because God created a whole, huge, interesting planet that I want to know about, not just a single continent.

7. I bet you're proud to be back.
I'm sorry, but I don't even know what that statement means.

8. It's good to have you back.
Why? You've never had more than two or three conversations with me. You don't know me. How could my presence possibly signify in your life one way or the other?
(Note: This truly applies only to those who haven't made an effort to get to know the returnee. If you do know me, and if you have made the effort, it is definitely heart-warming to hear you say that you're thankful for my being here!)

9. Aren't you glad to be back?
Yes. No. Maybe. Sometimes, the answer changes from one hour to the next. If you're not prepared to listen to an answer you don't really want to hear, please don't ask.

10. We're so glad to have you home.
This isn't my home. For one thing, I didn't grow up here. From that perspective, I haven't lived in my "home" for 12 years. For another, I spent the last 6 years building relationships and planting roots somewhere far removed from here. This isn't my home. This is your home. On this earth, I don't have a home. And actually, I'd like it to stay that way.

11. Unspecified.
Open to anyone who wants to share some of their own experiences of being on the receiving end of remarks of this sort, as well as dealing graciously with them. I don't always. Especially when it's stuff like #s 5 and 7. ;o)


Looking over the last 8 months (we have been here over 8 months--that is so weird), I can see a lot of lows, a lot of highs, a few plateaus, and some banged-up knees and elbows as we've tripped and fallen and sprawled flat on our faces and gotten back up again. I say "we" because Ed and I both have dealt with our share of spiritual and emotional scrapes and bruises...but really, I'm talking about my own transition here. Cross-cultural reentry is an intensely personal experience (which is what makes it so difficult to describe to anyone who has never experienced it), so each person's is different.

My lowest point so far was Earlyapril through mid-May. The bathtub incidents kind of set off the depression--but if it hadn't been the bathtub, it would've been something else. But I've had help. Help from a wonderful, loving God, who has sent wonderful, loving people into my life and placed me in loving, wonderful communion with them. I've had help through open, honest, in-depth conversation. I've had help through "The Artist's Way" (by Julia Cameron--THANK YOU, GAIL!!!), which is opening my eyes more and more to what it truly is that God created me to be. I've had help through a loving, wonderful, commiserating husband, who has actively grown with me even as he deals with his own transition issues.

I feel very blessed. I not only feel it, I *am* it, and I live it. I hesitate to say that I am learning to be content, since that is such a huge concept....but I think I am beginning to learn it. I am beginning to know why I am here, I am beginning to know what the next step could look like, and it's an unknown shape, but I'm excited about it instead of terrified. I feel as though I am unpacking my mind here, instead of merely unpacking cardboard boxes. I am beginning to travel light again, instead of schlepping around the misery of not knowing who I am. I am beginning to feel/see/hear reference points, reorient my inner compass, tune my inner self to the resonance of God's universe.

No matter what happens, I always know that eventually, I'll be at peace. Moving over here, finding myself in a low spot of sadness and depression, I knew that eventually I'd be at peace.

It's nice that at-peace is starting to happen again.

echoes from the randomness

A Brief History of the Life and Times of the Winsome Wench in Her Weirdness...

I wouldn't say that Ed and I were desperate up until Monday morning. Yes, we were very, very busy, and yes, we had no downtime, and yes, we were rather concerned that we wouldn't have time to get it all done...... But all things considered, I don't think we were desperate. I'd say we weren't even frantic. We were just very, very busy. And tired. Did I mention tired?

But when you compare International Moving Adventure 2007 with International Moving Adventure 2001, the 2007 version is going much more smoothly. In 2001, when we moved to Chemnitz, we had no clue what we were doing. The night before the movers came, we stayed up working in the apartment until 3 a.m. This time, we were in bed at midnight the night before the movers came. Some might think that a 3 hour difference does not great progress show (thank you, Yoda)... But in 2001, we also had an entire room marked "Do Not Enter" while the movers were working, a large room full of stuff that we had to get rid of after they left. This time, in 2007, we had only about half of a medium-sized room of leftovers. Plus, this time, there's our general feeling of preparedness resulting from having started this process 8 months before the move instead of 6 weeks before. ;o)

Anyway....Monday morning, the movers arrived, brought their packing materials upstairs, built some cardboard boxes, and started packing. And suddenly, Ed and I had nothing to do. We weren't allowed to help them pack, because the insurance only covers our belongings if the movers are the ones who packed the boxes. There was nothing more to organize, nothing more to sort, nothing more to throw out. All we could do was sit and watch as these five strangers entered our space, went through our things, put all our things in boxes, and took them away.

I was tired. I was relieved that I didn't have to pack it all myself. I was excited. I was sad. I was amused by the banter of the men as they worked. I was nervous when one dude started packing up my oil paintings. I hovered and made him nervous, so I forced myself to go sit in the living room and let the poor man do his job. I was glad that we were finally getting this step of the process out of the way. I was numb from the back-and-forth motion of this emotional roller coaster.

Tuesday afternoon, when they started taking the last of the boxes downstairs and packing them into the 20-foot container, I thought I was going to cry. We finished up paperwork, tipped the guys, and watched as they drove away. They honked and waved, and we laughed. Then we went back upstairs. I looked around the emptiness of our apartment, and all I wanted to do was get out of there. It didn't feel like home anymore. Later that evening, when we were coming home from Tuesday night Bible study, I started to cry because we couldn't go home and I felt homesick, and all I wanted to do was go home.

Have I mentioned the emotional roller coaster?

The last few days have been more of the same, but much less intense. In Germany, renters are required to paint the apartment before they move out, so we've been working on getting that started. Today was the first real work day, and thanks to multiple helping hands, the stairwell is clean, and three rooms are completely finished. Three down, three to go. The best part is that our landlady intends to have all the carpets but one ripped out, so we only have to worry about protecting the one. We can smear paint all over the rest, which speeds up our work considerably. Yay for practicality.

Since Monday, we've been living over at Karen's (aka KarenCamp). It feels funny to "come home" over here now instead of to our own apartment. Pippin seems to be adjusting well, although she's having difficulty with the Stay Off the Table Rule. She's really enjoying the ground-floor windows. For her sake, it would be nice if we could find a ground-floor place in Oklahoma City. But that's another story for a future time.

I think I've rambled on enough for now. In short, we're busy, we're tired, we're of very mixed emotions, we're enjoying the "last times" we're spending with various people. All of this, of course, is reinforcing in me the knowledge and the sense that I am truly at home nowhere on this earth. My citizenship, my allegiance, my home is heaven. Perhaps God has led me to this rootless, often-moving, TCK life because he knows that I need it; perhaps I need it so that I will know where my true refuge and sanctuary and comfort is.

Check out 2. Corinthians 4:18 and Philippians 3:20. God says it better than I can.

a meeting of cultures at war

Well, I’m still sick, but am feeling better. Monday, I finally broke down and went to the doctor. When I told her that I’d wanted to try getting rid of this without antibiotics, she looked at me and said, “Considering your sinuses, I wouldn’t recommend that.” So I’m meekly taking my medicine (clarithromycin) as the doctor ordered.

Something else I want to write about, though. This is something I’ve wanting to write about for a long time, but I always forget. Well, this time, I told myself that I was going to follow through and not let these thoughts just fade from my mind!

Today (Tuesday), Ed and I had to go downtown to the Ausländerbehörde (Foreigners’ Office) so that I could get my new visa stuck in my passport, since my old one expired today. Nothing like last-minute, right? ;o) Anyway, on the way home, we stopped at Galerie Roter Turm (“Red Tower Gallery”), which is a downtown shopping mall. There, we ate lunch at Kervansaray (I think that’s how it’s spelled, anyway), our favorite Turkish place.

We’ve been going to this place fairly regularly for quite awhile, long enough for the guy who works there to know what we want before we order it. We always have great conversation with him. He’s really friendly, outgoing; and if there isn’t a horde of other customers, he’s always happy to take a few minutes to chat with us. He told us to call him “Joe,” saying that his real name is too long and complicated.

Shortly after we started eating regularly at Kervansaray, we found out that Joe isn’t actually Turkish. He’s Iraqi.

Joe always has something interesting to share with us. I’m not sure how long he has lived in Germany, but it’s long enough that he can communicate effortlessly in German. He has family all over the world: an uncle in Australia, another relative (I think) in Canada, and his mother and one of his sisters still live in Iraq. He hasn’t been back to Iraq in two years because travel there has become too dangerous.

His news about his homeland always interests me a lot. He calls his mother about once a week. He always worries about his mother and sister because their city, Kirkuk, is plagued by terrorist activities. Car bombs are a particular danger. His mother’s house has no more windows because bomb concussion has broken all of them. They can’t go out at night because there’s an after-dark curfew.

Joe talks about how the last time he was in Iraq, he passed through a checkpoint guarded by American soldiers. He wanted to try talking with them, but his English isn’t good enough. And this is the crux of the matter, the reason I am writing about this: Joe likes Americans. He thinks it’s past time for American troops to be out of Iraq…but he likes Americans. He likes us.

As their countries remain locked in war, two Americans and an Iraqi have peaceful, pleasant, open conversation, making friends with each other…in German. ;o) Not only that, but the two Americans are Christians, the Iraqi is Muslim, and on occasion they even mention religion and are able to find a few plots of common ground.

This is one of those situations I take as proof that in spite of all the evil things happening in this world, there are still some things that are good and right.

I’m thankful that God crossed our path with Joe’s. He’s a good reminder that no matter where you go, no matter the apparent evidence to the contrary, there are still open, friendly, warm people who try to brighten the corner of the world where they are.
Ed and I want to try inviting Joe and his wife over for dinner. I have no idea if they will accept…but we want to get to know them better. Who knows what God might do? :o)