Train Tracks

In a recent post I mentioned the Mix CD Exchangaganza. Here's what I came up with, music to listen to on the train.

Josh Garrels - Restless Ones
U2 - Beautiful Day
Lynard Skynard - Sweet Home Alabama
The Eels - Rotten World Blues
Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues
Martin Sexton - Freedom of the Road
Jack Johnson - Breakdown
Bonnie Summerville - Winding Road
Simon and Garfunkle - Homeward Bound
Little Feat - Oh, Atlanta
The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Road Trippin'
The Allman Brothers Band - Midnight Rider
Muddy Waters - All Night Long
Credence Clearwater Revival - Proud Mary
The Beatles - Daytripper
Coldplay - Clocks
Theivery Corporation - Lebanese Blonde
Cake - Long Line of Cars

some wisdom

I just finished reading Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, for the third time. It starts a little slow, but in the end it's got more truth in it than I know what to do with. I often read parts and thought to myself, that's something I want to share. Here are some of them:

"I am reminded of this precious instruction [when you encounter another person...you must think, what is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation?] by my own great failure to live up to it recently. Calvin says somewhere that each of us is an actor on a stage and God is the audience. That metaphor has always interested me, because it makes us artists of our behavior, and the reaction of God to us might be thought of as aesthetic rather than morally judgmental in the ordinary sense. How well do we understand our role? With how much assurance do we perform it? I suppose Calvin's God was a Frenchman, just as mine is a Middle Westerner of New England extraction. Well, we all bring such light to bear on these great matters as we can. I do like Calvin's image, though, because it suggests how God might actually enjoy us. I believe we think about that far too little. It would be a way into understanding essential things, since presumably the world exists for God's enjoyment, not in any simple sense, of course, but as you enjoy the being of a child even when he is in every way a thorn in your heart." (page 124)

"A good sermon is one side of a passionate conversation. It has to be heard in that way. There are three parties to it, of course, but so are there even to the most private thought - the self that yields the thought, the self that acknowledges and in some way responds to the thought, and the Lord. That is a remarkable thing to consider." (page 44)

"I believe I have tried never to say anything Edward would have found callow or naive. That constraint has been useful to me, in my opinion. It may be a form of defensiveness, but I hope it has at least been useful on balance. There is a tendency among some religious people even to invite ridicule and to bring down on themselves an intellectual contempt which seems to me in some cases justified. Nevertheless, I would advise you against defensiveness on principle. It precludes best eventualities along with the worst. At the most basic level, it expresses a lack of faith. As I have said, the worst eventualities can have great value as experience. And often enough when we think we are protecting ourselves, we are struggling against our rescuer. I know this, I have seen the truth of it with my own eyes, though I have not myself always managed to live by it, the Good Lord knows. I truly doubt I would know how to live by it for even a day, or an hour. That is a remarkable thing to consider." (page 154)

winter blues

They were putting up the Christmas lights on Andrassy this afternoon. It’s dark out now at 4:30 in the afternoon. These days I’m sleeping with two blankets and a duvet (and I’m the king of not needing blankets). I’ve started growing in my winter beard because my face is getting cold.

Winter in Budapest is long, dark, and cold, and I’m afraid it’s here. We were teased with a few warm days this weekend, but it was hard to enjoy because you get the feeling winter’s going to lay down the hammer any moment. Last year was a bit tough for me, and I think a lot of it has to do with the dark more than anything. Budapest is in the far eastern reaches of its time zone so it gets dark quite early in the evening. (How on Earth are we in the same time zone as Paris? Look on a map – we are not close! It’s silly!) This is the big change from the Michigan winters, which don’t seem so bad now (Michigan being on the far western side of its time zone). And, thanks to the worldwide conspiracy to start classes at institutions of secondary education at an absurd hour, I still sleepwalk to school through the pre-dawn darkness. It’s hard to get out of bed in the morning, and after school all I want to do is go home, put on my pajamas, and huddle under a blanket until 6:00 pm when I want to go to bed.

But this year’s going to be different. I have a plan to beat the winter blues: music and books. This started last spring when my friend Sam said, as he prepared to leave Budapest for Duke Divinity School, he regretted not getting season tickets to the Budapest Festival Orchestra while he was here. I said, that sounds like a good idea, and bought two on a whim. In hindsight it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made here. The group is outstanding (Ivan Fischer conducting), and their performance of Mahler’s 5^th Symphony was in the top five of concerts I’ve been to. And since I got two tickets I get to invite different people to go with me each time. It’s a regular night out that forces me back into the real world and buoys my spirits for days.

The concerts have rekindled my love of orchestral music and inspired me to purchase a few CDs. I picked up some old standards, Beethoven’s 5^th and 6^th performed by the Berlin Philharmonic (Herbert von Karajan conducting) , some unknown (to me) stuff by a favorite composer, Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” 3^rd Symphony and “Italian” 4^th Symphony performed by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (Kurt Masur conducting), and that same Mahler’s 5^th, but this time by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein. I’ve been listening to them all the time and they’ve been uplifting.

Later this week I will gather in Brno, Czech Republic with my Teach Overseas colleagues from all over Central Europe to celebrate Thanksgiving together. It’s a wonderful get-together because of the fellowship, relaxation, and (in large part) the food. This year we’re doing a Mix CD Exchangaganza, which means the 16 people participating will all make 15 copies of a mix CD and trade them with the other participants. So, later this week I’ll be getting 15 CDs worth of new music! Of course, it means I’ve been wracking my brain for the last month trying to craft my mix. I can’t wait!

And finally, one of the joys of teaching literature has been rediscovering some of the great stuff I teach. Watching my students encounter these characters for the first time, whether it’s Atticus Finch, Ebenezer Scrooge, or somebody in between, lets me have that experience all over again. I come home wanting to prepare lessons because I like these books so much. Now if only I could find a way to motivate myself to do the grading!

These are some of the reasons I’m optimistic about my second winter in Budapest. It’s still going to be long, cold, and very dark, but I think I’ll just put the kettle on for a cup of tea and make the best of it!

fall break

I'm halfway through the first half of the year. This fall I've felt like I'm in a Star Trek episode, specifically one of those strange ones where they mess with the space-time continuum. Somehow it feels like I've been back in Budapest for about two weeks, but that it's also been about two years since I left my family and Seattle. So, what to do? Go to England, that's what. It was a great week complete with lots of laughs, a few pints at the pub, plenty of the English language (spoken, written, even sung!), many reunions with good friends, and one very difficult goodbye. A few years ago I was very blessed to spend a summer living with the most English man you could ever imagine and his wonderful wife. Tony is no longer with us, but I'm thankful I had the opportunity to know him and look forward to seeing him again someday.