surreal

Where to start? I guess I'll just say it as plainly as possible: Last night I went to a performance by crooner Engelbert Humperdinck. It was, without a doubt, one of the strangest concert experiences I've had. On stage you've got a 72 year-old man who, frankly, looks pretty good and has tons of energy for his age. In the audience you've got mostly older women whose antics were incredible. These are adults behaving like teenagers, literally hurting each other to get one of his red handkerchiefs (I guess throwing them to the crowd is his signature move), going crazy when he made obscene jokes about himself. I spent most of the evening watching the audience, not the performer.

So, why did I find myself with not only a free ticket to this concert, but a backstage pass as well? (A pass I probably could have sold for a great deal of money.) Marianne's best friend Emily has a friend she met while doing mission work in Macedonia. Dave's a professional musician, and currently the keyboardist in Enge's band. He got the tickets for the three of us, and then we met him after and went out for a drink. (Sadly, we didn't get to meet Enge himself.)

It was really interesting to talk to Dave about his life, and especially how he tries to live as a Christian in that world. He interacts with people like Enge, stars who have more money than they know how to spend(he's sold over 150 million records), travel and perform anywhere they want, have women literally throwing themselves at them, but are still incredibly unhappy. It's evidenced by Enge's continued drinking problem (which he joked about on stage). I'm inspired by Dave's commitment to the lost people in this world. Of course, he's just starting his professional music career and will take whatever work he can get, but he has visions of doing great things for Christ.

In short, last night was a glimpse into another world. It's good to be reminded that God is just as active there as in other places.

catching up - desert island discs

Some time ago (ok, an absurdly long time ago) I started to list the albums I would want with me on a desert island. I took an unplanned hiatus from blogging and never finished, so I'm going to bang out the whole list in one post. Here goes...

• "All That You Can't Leave Behind" by U2 This is my favorite offering from what is obviously one of the best loved bands of the last thirty years. It's got a wide range of good stuff, from the iconic rock anthem (Beautiful Day) to the reflective and deeply spiritual (Grace). It's telling that at some point I've used almost every track on this album as a listening activity with my ESL students. They never fail to provoke interesting discussion. Of course, as I mentioned about "Live Wide Open," this list is deeply personal and I have personal reasons for choosing this one. The summer I spent at Snow Mountain Ranch was the summer this album burst into my musical consciousness. It was the soundtrack of an incredibly challenging and enriching three months, often thanks to my friends Tom and Drew. I can't think of more perfect songs than Elevation after finishing a grueling hike , or Walk On before starting it.
  

• "When I Look In Your Eyes" by Diana Krall When I tell people about this album I usually point out that it was nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy in 1999, the first time in ages a jazz album had been considered. It ended up losing to Carlos Santana's "Supernatural," but to see Krall in the same category as The Dixie Chicks, TLC, and The Backstreet Boys was incredible (and she walked away with Best Jazz Vocal Performance). Last year's Herbie Hancock shocker was the only other time in recent history that jazz got such love from the Grammy Awards. The album's a fantastic throw back to the days of jazz divas like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. She mixes classic swing standards with lesser known gems. My favorite track is "Popsicle Toes." The combination of Krall's sensual delivery and the wonderful word play of songwriter Michael Franks makes it one of my favorite love songs. Again, though, what puts this over the top is the memory of seeing Krall perform at DeVos Hall in Grand Rapids from the third row. My sister got tickets for the two of us as a birthday present for me, and we had a blast.
  

• "Bach Cello Suites" by Mstislav Rostropovich This is actually two CDs, but there's no way I could choose one of them over the other. If I had to pick just one album of classical music, this is the one. It's ironic because I usually prefer Romantic composers. You'll find much more Beethoven, Brahms, and Mendelssohn than Bach in my collection. But when my former boss Cindy lent me these CDs I was hooked immediately. Rostropovich recorded them in an empty church, as opposed to a studio, and the result is an incredibly warm and resonant quality. The 6 suites express just about every emotion you can imagine, and every time I listen to them I feel something new and different. I marvel at the versatility of something so simple - an unaccompanied cello. In later years I got a copy of the sheet music and tried to play them on my Euphonium. I hadn't grasped the depth of Rostropovich's mastery before then.

I think I could survive with those as a bare minimum. I thought this would be a much longer list, but those are the cut above. I give honorable mentions to: "Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel, "OK Computer" by Radiohead, "Ella and Louis" by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Mendelssohn's "Symphonies 3 and 4", "Crash" by Dave Matthews Band, "Monk Alone" by Thelonius Monk, "In Between Dreams" by Jack Johnson, "The Score" by The Fugees, "Time Out" by Dave Brubeck, "The Messiah" by Handel, "Stunt" by Barenaked Ladies, "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis, "The German Requiem" by Brahms, "Graceland" by Paul Simon, and "Saxophone Colossus" by Sonnie Rollins.

the next chapter

What is it about me and life transitions? For those of you who don't know, this August I'm undertaking another. I was blessed with several great options for next year, but I'll be heading off to Princeton, NJ to start the Mdiv program at Princeton Theological Seminary. It seems like I'm always doing this - leaving friends, church, job, and what currently feels like home. This one will be especially hard since I'll be leaving Marianne for a year. Of course, I have marriage to look forward to at the end of the year. That helps! I'm reminded of Jesus' parables about waiting patiently, but expectantly for the bridegroom. Maybe this coming year will give me new insight into waiting for Christ's return. Marantha Lord Jesus! (and maranatha marriage!)

But as I look ahead to this fall, I'm filled with excitement and trepidation. I can't wait to get back to the academic environment, but I worry about the adjustment. I haven't written an academic paper in a long time. I have all sorts of questions about money, classes, transportation, classmates, but I'm trying to let them go. If I've learned anything from all the transitions I've gone through before, it's that God will be wherever I go. We're pretty sure this next step is God's will, and even if it's not he'll find a way to redeem it. As Neal Plantinga has said, "God is in the salvaging business." Maybe one of these days I'll finally settle down (I hope!).

two thoughts on american culture

1. Last night Marianne and I once again enjoyed the privilege of hanging out with our friends Patricia and Daniel. I use that verb "hang out" on purpose, because of a question Patty had for us. She was wondering if English had a verb that meant to get together with people without having any set agenda or plans. The only thing we could come up with was "hang out," a relatively new addition to English and a usage that is still considered slang by some (Merriam Webster, for one). Using it to mean literally hanging something out (as in your shingle) is somewhat older, but I couldn't get details on the origins of the usage I'm talking about (how I wish I had the OED!). Anyway, I bring this up because in Portuguese there's a wonderful verb - combinar (I think that's the spelling). It's used for this sort of unplanned spending of time together, as well as situations were we might say things agree with each other. One of my favorite examples that Daniel mentioned was coordinating colors, as in "that blue and this brown really combinar." I will now refer to any colors that go well together with the verb "hang out." (i.e. The color of that new couch really hangs out with the carpet.) I wonder if it's fair to draw broader cultural conclusions from this linguistic oddity. Perhaps we from the Anglo-American tradition don't like to spend time together without a secondary agenda, be it drinking coffee or beer, sharing a meal, or something else. Are we too task-oriented as a culture? Does the rise of "hang out" in recent decades mean we're changing culturally? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

2. Two recent reads have brought an interesting cultural quirk to my attention. I love sports, as most of you know, and I picked up a book called Soccerhead: An Accidental Journey into the Heart of the American Game from the library on a whim (actually thanks to an Amazon.com recommendation). Jim Haner, the author and a writer for the Baltimore Sun, volunteers to coach his son's soccer team not really knowing anything about the game. The book is his story of getting sucked into a sub-culture he didn't even know existed. Besides some funny parallels to my own father's devoted coaching of my soccer teams (he was WAY more prepares than Haner, by the way), I especially enjoyed Haner's digressions into the history of Soccer in America. Like many I thought it reached its peak in the 70s with Pele and the North American Soccer League. I didn't know that there had been club soccer for a hundred years before that, and quite competitive clubs at that. In the first three decades of the 20th century clubs like Glasgow Rangers and Inter Milan took trips to America to play against teams from Northern New Jersey and New England, primarily. These were highly ethnic teams sponsored by the textile mills and factories where the players "worked." There was also a strong club tradition in St. Louis backed by the Roman Catholic church, of all institutions! In his discussion of what happened to these clubs Haner pointed to the rise of baseball and the desire for immigrants to adapt to their new country and culture. Immigrant fathers wanted their sons to fit in and be successful Americans, so they encouraged them to play "American" sports. I've also been reading Steven Jay Gould's Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville for fun (I picked it up at the library's bag of used books for $3 sale). In his introductory essay he describes his own childhood in Queens in the 40s and playing stickball. His Hungarian grandparents encouraged this for the very same reasons - to help a Hungarian Jew fit in with all the American kids. Of course, any kid in New York in the 40s and 50s would be crazy not to love baseball. One city had three of the greatest teams of all time, not to mention so many legendary players I couldn't begin to list them all here. I wonder if this type of thing happens with immigrant populations now? Are young immigrant kids playing football or basketball to fit in? Just something to think about.

on justice and war

Yesterday I was reading The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis, and I ran across the following passage. I think it has some relevance to our current military situation, especially the fine distinction between a country’s just cause and the cause of justice itself.

Patriotism has, then, many faces. Those who would reject it entirely do not seem to have considered what will certainly step – has already begun to step – into its place. For a long time yet, or perhaps forever, nations will live in danger. Rulers must somehow nerve their subjects to defend them or at least to prepare for their defence. Where the sentiment of patriotism has been destroyed this can be done only by presenting every international conflict in a purely ethical light. If people will spend neither sweat nor blood for “their country” they must be made to feel that they are spending them for justice, or civilisation, or humility. This is a step down, not up. Patriotic sentiment did not of course need to disregard ethics. Good men needed to be convinced that their country’s just cause was just; but it was still their country’s cause, not the cause of justice as such. The difference seems to me important. I may without self-righteousness or hypocrisy think it just to defend my house against a burglar; but if I start pretending that I blacked his eye purely on moral grounds – wholly different to the fact that the house in question was mine – I become insufferable. The pretence that when England’s cause is just we are on England’s side – as some neutral Don Quixote might be – for that reason alone, is equally spurious. And nonsense draws evil after it. If our country’s cause is the cause of God, wars must be wars of annihilation. A false transcendence is given to things which are very much of this world.

cleveland fun

A few weeks ago Mar and I got together with a few friends for dinner (from L to R: Patricia, Daniel, Barb, Trevor, Marianne, me, Emily). After a long winter spring seems to be budding here, as is our social calendar. It's nice to get out some more, barbecue a bit (veggie burgers - yummmmmm), and enjoy spending time with the good friends we have here.

As for those of you who might want to comment on the fact that this blog has basically been in hibernation for the better part of a year, you are very observant. I make no promises about this being a rejuvenation of any kind. I'm alive and doing well. Who knows if the blog will be as well.

not quite comfortable with the Mary stuff...

My fellow ex-Budapester Sam alerted me to an interesting online quiz by posting his results on his blog. It came as no surprise to anyone that he was pegged as a Roman Catholic. It might come as a surprise to some that I got the same result, though I scored an equal amount of Emergent/Postmodern with my Papist portion. My first time around I whipped through the 63 questions, giving mostly gut reaction answers. The Catholics and Emergents tied for first, followed by a cluster of Reformed Evangelical, Classic Liberal, Neo orthodox, and Wesleyan. I decided it must be an aberration so I took the test again, this time more carefully considering each question. Again, the Catholics and Emergents tied for first (though my score was slightly different than the first time), followed by the Reformed and Liberal groups (no Methodists this time). I will say I felt some of the questions obviously aimed at Calvinists misrepresented the tradition. Even the Heidelberg Catechism doesn't give a straight up yes to “We are corrupt and incapable of doing any good.” It qualifies it with a big "except we are regenerated by the Spirit," if I remember right. The whole quiz obviously simplifies complex schools of thought. And, lastly, Fundamentalism came up dead last both times I took it.

life update, list style

-City of residence: Cleveland, Ohio (specifically, Parma Heights)

-Number of negative myths the city has lived up to: Zero (the river is NOT on fire)

-Most enjoyable Cleveland events: Indians games at the Jake, West Side Market on Saturday mornings, The Lion King at the State Theater, Martin Sexton in a basement hole-in-the-wall bar in Cleveland Heights, the Cleveland Metroparks system, etc.

-Day job: ESL teacher at International Services Center

-Average age of students at ISC: 31 (estimate)

-Location of ISC: the heart of downtown Cleveland

-Number of nationalities of students: 20, and counting

-Length of my daily bus ride: 38 minutes each way, traffic dependent

-Reading I get done on the bus: lots

-Distance from my house to the library: one block

-Night Job: serving at Antonio’s, the local family-owned pizzeria

-Number of years Antonio’s has been open: 36

-Television star who loves Antonio’s and used our pizza boxes on his show: Drew Carey

-Number of church homes found in Cleveland: Zero (please pray for us!)

-Plan for the future we’re mulling over: me going to seminary in the fall

-Age of Kaitlin Annette, my darling neice: 3 months today!

-Date of her baptism: October 13, 2007 (she cried the whole way through it)

-Things about Budapest I miss: countless

-Things about Budapest I don’t miss: also countless

-Average number of days a week I see Marianne now: 7

-(As a reminder) Average number of days a week I saw Marianne a year ago: 0.34