12 days of Christmas.

I am interested in recapturing, or perhaps, capturing for the first time, the spirit of celebrating Christmas for 12 days, starting on December 25th. Of course this is difficult in American culture, what-with the big shopping frenzy-buildup to the 25th and then the holiday being "over", other than catching the "after Christmas" sales. It's after because Christmas is, effectually, over.

But this is not how it has been in the church calendar. There is a song about the 12 days of Christmas, which I hear is reputed to have spiritual significance. Perhaps that is an appropriate starting point to discovering the meaning in the 12 days. But the practical question remains.. how to incorporate a 12-long day Christmas celebration into your home, your family, your church, your own heart?

I'd love to hear ideas and suggestions for celebrating Christmas for 12 days... leave them in the comments, along with any other feedback of course. ;)

Christmas.

Arise, shine, for your Light has come! It shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

I've enjoyed a Christmas celebration this week that has been completely different from any previous celebration of the holiday. The biggest highlight has been coming to Denmark and enjoying time with friends from home, whose conversation and company has been most enjoyable, encouraging, and refreshing. The second biggest highlight has been worshipping with their international ecumenical community here in Copenhagen.

First, this community though ecumenical is led by a Lutheran pastor. I had never been to a Lutheran service, though in many ways it has been similar to my reformed tradition back home, a tradition that I have missed since being in Belarus. One thing I found interesting was how they commune at the Lord's table. Everyone came to the front of the church, to the chancel, gathered in a semi-circle and kneeled before the altar with other believers to receive the elements, by intinction, and real wine was used. (as it should be, :) ) I loved this aspect of kneeling side by side with my family to commune. We also communed at the Lord's table Sunday, Monday on Christmas eve, and Tuesday on Christmas.

Christmas was a special service because it was held in the home of the pastor and his family. We enjoyed a relaxed brunch, then gathered in the family room. (see photo above) At the front was a manger holding the bread and the goblet with the wine for communion. It was a reminder... the babe in the manger became this broken bread and poured out wine. The manger that held a babe was also holding the broken body and blood of our Lord, God's presence with us... and now, at communion, we remember anew how God's presence is continually with us. The Word took on flesh, and dwelt among us. This presence was temporal and yet is at the same time eternal.

I have never had a Christmas like this one. I have never been to so many times of worship and communion before. I completely loved it. It made me also think about how sometimes I know of churches that don't hold services on Sunday if Christmas is on Sunday.... and it led to thoughts about being a widow or orphan, or perhaps even just spiritually an orphan or widow. There are tons of people who do not have a nuclear family or whose family they do have do not care to celebrate Christmas by worshipping the King. If our churches stop meeting on Christmas, for "family time," what happens to the orphans and widows? The students and singles? The elderly and sick? The lonely and isolated? Is it good or even right for them to celebrate Christmas alone? Isn't it antithetical to Christmas to celebrate alone? Not because the holiday is a family holiday in the cultural sense of the word, but a family holiday in the spiritual sense...! Shouldn't we spend the holiday with our family in Christ? It seems there is a whole contingent of folks out there who may not have a community to be with on the holiday... so it is my hope that the church would step up to the plate, or maybe individuals and families, to open their doors to the "stranger" who is alone, be they an actual orphan or widow or spiritually so... Everyone needs community, especially at Christmas.

I found myself a "stranger" in a strange country among people who are not my nuclear or blood family in a church I had never set foot into before... and yet I felt in my heart and soul that I was not alone, not at all a stranger. I was with friends who are also my spiritual family... I was with an international family in Christ who in a matter of three days knew my face, name, connection to Denmark, my story... who welcomed me to the Table with them, who laughed with me, talked with me, communed with me. It was beautiful. I hope every person who remotely finds themselves or feels themselves alone or isolated in this world will be sought after by the Church, by families and individuals, and treated not as guests, but as family at the same table, under the same roof, just as I have been ever-so graciously welcomed.

Thank you Tilley's, thank you to the church here in Copenhagen, those who made me feel like family and not an inconvenient guest or worse, just a visitor passing through or even a stranger...

unholiday depression overseas...

I have on more than one occasion railed about the commercialism in America, and the consumeristic, materialistic addictions we as Americans have that are, literally, consuming us from the inside out. This commercialism and consumerism is all the more rampant at the time of Christmas. Oh, how I once loathed when the malls would be rife with Santas and trees and stockings, advertising, tempting you, to buy this or that trinket, this or that item… and how the pressure to buy buy buy and please please please others often racks us… and it will break us. For a month, maybe even two, Americans are surrounded by commercials, advertisements, decorations, meant to supply the spirit and joy of the holiday, the Christmas spirit perhaps. Oh, I grew to hate it. I already hated malls, all I needed was another time of year to have an even better excuse to avoid entering their premises.

And yet.

Here I am, miles and miles away. I am in a culture that does not celebrate Christmas until January 7th. Even then, it is not their big holiday. It is their religious holiday, for religious types. Which means it goes basically unnoticed by the culture at large. Maybe they’ll give you the day off of work and studies, but maybe not. No, the real holiday here is New Years. In searching for Christmas cards, it’s ironic that from the outside, they LOOK like Christmas cards, at least, your run-of-the-mill American “Christmas” scene sans the baby Jesus (“Christlessmas”). Bells, garlands, wreaths, snow covered homes, ornaments, pine trees, sleds, presents, candles… But when you read the words, they rarely make mention of Christmas… rather, they wish you a happy new year. Ironic.

Maybe you wonder, how is the new year celebrated here? I’ll tell you: they have new year’s trees, very much like our Christmas trees. They exchange gifts. They spend it with family, and occasionally with friends. They eat a lot of food. They watch TV after midnight when the President gives a speech congratulating the people on the new year. They have fireworks. They drink, a lot. They don’t go to work the next day. This is new year. And Christmas? Most people don’t celebrate it at all.

So I find myself… missing America at Christmas time. Yes, even slightly missing the barrage of decorations and music incessantly playing in the shopping malls… but I remember being in the States and feeling like it was Christmas time, awaiting it. There was more anticipation for its arrival. Maybe I anticipated the days off of school or work. Maybe I anticipated time with family and watching American football on TV. Maybe I anticipated the holiday foods. The scents of sugar cookies and apple cider and fires in the fireplace and pine. The joy of stealthily wrapping a few carefully selected gifts for those near and dear to me. Hearing the piano played, or singing some carols. Seeing the sanctuary every Sunday, decorated and reminding me of One’s great coming. Such joy, expectation, anticipation, delight, wonder... Here, I am lacking some of this luster, this Christmas spirit. Granted, nothing about trees and garlands and lights truly belongs to Christmas... but it brought me joy, and ushered my heart into a time of expectation, reflection... here I find I'm simply falling into a dry winter depression. No one here is thinking much about Christmas and only a handful celebrate it on December 25th. Every “Christmas”-esque decoration is hailing the new year, not the birth of Jesus. No one knows any Christmas hymns to sing. Here we are, less than 10 days away from the day, and I still don’t feel like it’s already here… Celebrating holidays overseas is just not the same. It is enough to make me feel depressed!

I am thankful though, because I must make my own preparations, in my mind and heart as well as among my friends, for this great celebration. Two days ago, my roommates and I hung up decorations: tree, garland, lights, candles, cards, stockings. We played Christmas music from my computer. There was even some snow blowing around outside our window. Though vastly different from being among family and friends at Christmas, it was still very much welcome… without such little things, the holidays really are very depressing for an expat.

(Luckily, this expat won’t be alone on Christmas. I’ll be visiting wonderful people sojourning for this year in Copenhagen. Perhaps there, we can enjoy fellowship on this day, and together celebrate the great Advent.)

All the more, how I must, on my own, look deeply into myself, and once again find that great joy worth searching the whole world over for, worth giving up life as we familiarly know it for… the joy that is good tidings and peace on earth for men… the joy of knowing the mysterious and beautiful Love Incarnate.

html help?

if anyone knows how to help me fix my header/banner/photo montage thing so it's not cut off on the top and bottom like it suddenly is now... shoot me an email. that would be a big help! ;)

highlight of today.

Today, after returning home after 3pm to thaw out, I had the most delightful surprise waiting for me in my mailbox: the Fall 2007 edition of The College, St. John’s alumni quarterly. Last year I never received a copy over here in Belarus… this year, for some reason, I was mailed a copy! Thank you whoever sent it; it was certainly a highlight to me. I sat over my 3pm lunch reading it cover to cover. It’s so nice to feel engaged and connected to a community even when very far away.

How rare, it seems, that we take the time to practice dialectic with one another, to not merely read for our own enjoyment and betterment, but to intentionally discuss and strive and search for truth and beauty with other pilgrim souls... this is what I miss most, and what I long most to foster in my life, a community of questions and discussions and striving for truth and beauty and understanding and getting at that deep marrow of life... but it must be a community, or something essential is lost to this whole endeavor. Adventures are meant to be shared. So is life. So are thoughts. So are questions and the quest in them.

pomp & circumstance

Today, I was hoping to get a glimpse from across a five lane road of none other than President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. Alas, it was not meant to be. Now, I did wait patiently in sub-zero temperatures at our infamous Victory Square. I even skipped the second half of my Russian class, in hopes of seeing him and hearing him give some short speech. The military arrives. Roads were blocked off. Metro was inaccessible. The military band arrives with instruments. Film crew arrives and sets up. Black clothed security patrols the streets and the square. Photographers are preparing to snap away. People rush around talking on their cell phones, radios squawk. A banner proudly welcomes the president. Light poles are adorned with flags of Belarus and Russia, side by side. The colors of Red, Green, White, and Blue are seen wherever your eyes glance. Students line up on the curbs of the streets surrounding the Square, flying high the flags of those two countries. There was certainly a lot of pomp, but the circumstance was less than hoped. I was there. I arrived after 11:15am. I was watching. Waiting. I was joking with my friends that maybe his car was speeding and he got pulled over. They joked back that maybe he forgot to bring his passport with him, or tried to enter the metro without a token. We waited longer. We were freezing. It was 1pm when my Korean classmates decided to leave. I decided to hold out a little longer. I stood with a Frenchman and a Swede. We shivered. We talked with some Belarusians. We asked “official” looking people and “unofficial” people when the President might arrive… no one knew. We were told 11:15. We were there at 11:15. No President. Fashionably late, I suppose. By 1:35pm the band and military left the square to practice and take a break underground. Probably to warm up as well. Students were leaving in droves. The flag-bearers didn’t want to stick around anymore. If we knew when he was to arrive, we might have been able to know whether it was worth it to wait. But by 1:45pm, I decided my nearly frozen fingers and toes were more precious to me than seeing Russia’s President. As usual, lots of show! But where was the delivery?

Maybe I can read about it in the paper tomorrow.

small worldliness

Interesting experience the other day. I go to a Belarusian gathering of believers and before meeting at the Table, they showed a short film clip about a guy who carries this card table around and sets up his own communion for passerbys, which is for the most part ignored or unnoticed. But this wasn’t even what struck me. As soon as they started playing the film, I knew exactly where this film was shot. It was shot in the historic downtown Annapolis, Maryland. None other than my college town. There was Stevens hardware on the corner, there were the boats at city dock, the market house behind the dock, there was the food court at the Annapolis mall, etc. Every place in this video I had been. Now how weird and random is this: I’m halfway around the world in a culture entirely other than my native country and culture and in this place, I find myself on a Sunday morning at a service entirely in the Russian language, watching a short video clip in a room full of Belarusians (with a few Russians, Chinese, Slovakians, Cameroonians, Nigerians, and the scattered Americans as well), and there we watch together scenes from a town that I once called home. The strangeness of the circumstance made me smile.

chores.

I've come to realize that differences in life between Belarus and America extend beyond just the obvious "exterior" cultural ones... differences permeate home life as well. For example, I have learned how to deal with many adjustments at my apartment. I've learned how to light, operate, and control my own water heater. I've had to adjust to life without a dryer, instead having to "freeze dry" my clothes on the balcony or drape them over the heaters. I now work exclusively with a gas stove AND oven. I've had to deal with my inability to control the temperature in my apartment. Plus, when it's cold and the heaters have not been turned on, I've learned that I have to tape my windows, which are old and create drafts. I regularly use a trash chute that's located in the stair well of my building on the 9th floor. People always remove their shoes once they enter an apartment. Of course, there is also no dishwasher. (I'm privileged to even have a microwave.) But last week I discovered yet another way that apartment living in Minsk is different than in the the States: cleaning the carpet.

In Minsk, you can buy vacuum cleaners. However, they are expensive, and my roommates were not willing/able to pitch in for one. So, we decided to do without a vacuum cleaner. But when last week I was expecting many friends to come over as company, and knew we would be sitting on the floor of my living room, I realized the carpet would have to be cleaned somehow. I quickly realized you can't sweep carpet with a broom. (I tried.) I ended up having to resort to a wet rag. I was on my hands and knees, trying to scrub and gather dust and dirt and whatever else out of the carpet. It took me over an hour and even then, the job was neither complete nor thorough. I felt like Cinderella. It was not glamorous... and I hope I don't have to do that ever again. ;)

In the States, my favorite chore is mowing the lawn. I love yardwork. I love working with my hands, working with plants or building things from wood or grilling food, or anything having to do with design. Everything else is pretty much boring routine, but above all, my least favorite chore is probably laundry. (All the moreso in Belarus.)

always snowing, always melting, always snowing.

the past week we've had this pattern of snow covering the ground overnight, covering the earth, and then by mid morning the next day, it has already melted.... it repeats this process, and has repeated it, for at least the past 3 days.

I thought about how this is a picture at times of life. When we're sleeping, at peace, resting, trusting our Dad above, we receive His grace, His love, His mercies, which are new every morning. Then something happens and we "muck it up" and it starts melting. It melts because we can't hold onto the ingraspable, and we're imperfect and don't always dwell all the time in His goodness and grace and love. What's amazing is that we're promised He'll keep pouring out His mercy on us, keep making us as new creations, keep covering our scarlet sins with white snow...

This is just one of many promises we have from the One who came to be Incarnate, to demonstrate His love to us, and who we can joyously celebrate, especially this Advent season. I've wanted to be more intentional to celebrate Advent in a special way, as this special time of year... I'd love to hear in the comments how you celebrate Advent.

I'm not 25% Irish for nothing

Your Inner European is Irish!

Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table.

Who's Your Inner European?

lucrative McD's career?

I know a guy, a university student, here in Minsk who works at the McDonald’s. He was recently promoted to work as a cashier. He only works part time. I wondered if he enjoyed his job. I don’t know for sure first hand, but his roommate speculated that he liked it because it made good money. So. I had to ask. How much money does a McDonald’s employee in Belarus make? The answer was very interesting.

According to my friend, if a person starts working full time at McDonald’s, on the lowest rung of job opportunities, say, the janitor… full time work will pay them $300 a month.

This is shocking. Well, $300 is practically nothing by American standards. Rent on a single apartment will probably cost you at least $500 in my city back in the States, so $300 would not even cover your basic rent expense each month. But in Belarus, economy is of course much different, and thus so is cost of living. Did you know that this McDonald’s employee would earn more money than a full time teacher? Not only that, but most likely, this McDonald’s employee would earn more money than most full time professions for the average worker in Belarus! The McDonald’s employee would certainly make more money than either of my roommates, who have university degrees.

So there you have it. Belarusians could make a decent living by working as a janitor at McD’s. Not just decent, but better than most. And they don’t even need higher education.

convenient cages

I love the smell of toasted brown bread. Mmm.

The joys of apartment living: hearing other people’s arguments.

I saw the sun today. It is becoming a rarity so I feel like I should note every time it happens.

I saw a little 8 or 9-year-old girl riding the same bus as me the other day. She struck me because she looked like she could have been an American girl. I say this because nowadays, kids in the States are incredibly fashionable at a young age. (I think back to when I was in elementary school, and remember the fashion conscious bug really didn’t hit me until the 6th grade, and then I really didn’t go anything about it until 8th or 9th grade. I didn’t really pay attention to it until I realized other people around me did.) This particular little girl had a pink and grey backpack, which matched her pink and grey socks peeking out from under her skirt and tall boots. She also had a matching pink glitter hair tie. To top if off, she had a striped pink scarf. This girl was cute. There was, however, one dead give away that she couldn’t be American, and was actually Belarusian: she was carrying a plastic bag with her. If you take a quick survey of people on the public transportation, you can easily see that 90% of the people riding the bus or metro are carrying a plastic bag. It may hold their groceries, their schoolbooks, their work or important papers, their umbrella, … who knows. But everyone seems to carry them - men, women, elderly, working class, students, and kids alike. (Not me.)

I was talking to my roommate the other day. We were talking about transportation. In Minsk, there are many cars, but most people use buses, trams, trolleys, and metro. Of course this is in stark contrast to how most Americans get around, mainly by car and only by public transportation if they live in a big city. Even then, people often drive first to their stop to get the train into the city if they don’t actually live in the center. My roommate shared about her friend in Minsk who bought and started driving a car in the past year. Apparently, she has begun missing public transportation. She misses seeing all the people.

I wondered whether any Americans would be able to relate to this… would anyone actually prefer to give up their car, which affords them convenience, privacy, comfortability, freedom, complete control over temperature, music, speed… and choose to deal with the inconvenience of waiting for and catching buses, standing for long periods of time, being surrounded and at times squashed by other people, often feeling cold from the continual drafts coming through the opening and shutting doors, being at the complete mercy of the driver and the traffic that day…? It seems very unlikely to me that any American would rather choose this. But this is also because we have grown so accustomed and reliant on our cars. We don’t even really carpool anymore. Spouses rarely share a car. Work partners rarely travel together. But over here, people are not used to having their own space, their own privacy, in their vehicles. So now, some people who have experienced this convenience are longing for the people that are absent from their personal automobile. They miss the interaction and the connection to their people, their neighbors you could say.

So my roommate concluded that she doesn’t think she could ever live in America. She says that for her, as well as her friend, she likes the metro and the buses. Her favorite part of the day is taking public transportation.

Something in me doesn’t fully “get it.” I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I’m American and I love driving… But part of me also dreams of giving up my car and just biking everywhere. I don’t, notice, dream of giving up my car and taking public buses everywhere.

I now have to wonder and ask and push the question, are we as Americans missing out on something by leading our lives the way we do, or, in the words penned by my favorite band, “do we know what life is outside of our convenient Lexus cages”? Is there something “Gone” that needs to be regained?

russians like rum

Russians love their vodka. This is a well known fact. Though of course, they also like cheap beer, the other drink of choice for alcholics over here. But they also like rum.

My Russian friends have passed on a recipe for an extremely tasty mixed drink that I personally never heard of (that’s not saying much, though). I was told it was awesome, but I probably won’t get a chance to make one while I’ve over here. So if someone else wants to try it, you can let me know how it turns out. Unfortunately all I can give you is the ingredient list; I have no idea about the proportions. But I’m sure you can have some fun with trial and error.

"Mahita"
Brown Sugar
Lime
Mint
Sprite
Rum
Crushed Ice

verses out of rhythm

These days I find myself walking the autumnal streets with a smidge of melancholy and wistfulness in my spirit. I feel like singing Simon & Garfunkel. Not only that, I feel like I’m dwelling and living out their songs. Every moment in this season and weather and place makes me want to dance at a Scarborough Fair… gives me the sense that darkness is my old friend… calls me to lie down like a bridge over my troubled waters… finds me wishing I was homeward bound to someone who would comfort me… and loses me in a dangling conversation… and I sometimes get the sense as I gaze from my window to the streets below that I am a rock and an island. (Because I have plenty of books to protect me…)

Oh, what melancholy. There’s beauty in the melancholy, but these songs are but a fitting foil for the greater beauty of the reality and truth of hope and joy itself. Inexpressible and glorious it is.

groceries

Planning for two meals this week: 30 minutes
Shopping – for the very first time by myself! – at the large indoor/outdoor public Komarovsky Market: 40 minutes
One bag of celery: $4
One avocado: $3
Four potatoes: $.40
One bunch of green onions: $.50
Three white onions: $.40
One small packet of walnuts: $1.50
One garlic piece: $.25
Five tomatoes: $1.50
One head of broccoli: $1.25
One head of cabbage: $.75
Time spent carrying these groceries in my messenger bag, in the rain: 2.5 hours
Time preparing soup and salad at home: 2 hours
Time spent cleaning up: 30 minutes
Time it is now: 23:11

Time it took to get this posted: 20+ minutes
Time for bed. Phew!