Proof That Hungary Doesn’t Belong to Eastern Europe

(or at least doesn’t resemble Belarus)


-I found sweet potatoes, microwave popcorn, caramel sauce, and Philadelphia cream cheese in the grocery store
-The grocery store looked like a two story classy Walmart with its own parking garage underneath
-There were lots of roundabouts on their roads
-Roads and sidewalks were narrow
-There were lots of hills
-There was a large lake, and it was actually pretty
-I saw blue skies and sunshine almost every day
-I ate at a Mexican restaurant in the downtown
-There was lots of graffiti in the downtown
-Prices are very expensive: I paid over $20 for a sandwich at a small café
-The movie theater featured flicks in English
-People don’t speak Russian, or those that do, don’t like to
-On the other hand, most people understand English even if they don’t speak it well

my presidential hopeful

If a song could be president
We’d hum on Election Day
The gospel choir would start to sway
And we’d all have a part to play

The first lady would free her hips
Pull a microphone to her lips
Break our hearts with Rhythm and Blues
Steve Earle would anchor the news

We’d vote for a melody
Pass it around on an mp3
All our best foreign policy
Would be built on harmony

If a song could be president
We’d fly a jukebox to the moon
All our founding fathers’ 45’s
Lightnin’ Hopkins and Patsy Cline
If a song could be president

If a song could be president
We could all add another verse
Life would teach us to rehearse
Till we found a key change

Break out of this minor key
Half-truths and hypocrisy
We wouldn’t need an underachiever-in-chief
If a song could be president

We’d make Neil Young a Senator
Even though he came from Canada
Emmylou would be Ambassador
World leaders would listen to her

They would show us where our country went wrong
Strum their guitars on the White House lawn
John Prine would run the FBI
All the criminals would laugh and cry
If a song could be president

-If A Song Could Be President by Over The Rhine

If you don't know this band, you should.

American politics from a Brit, er, a European

An interesting conversation took place this week between my new British classmate and myself:

Brit: American politics are so exciting.
American: How so?
B: You stay up all day and night watching the results come in, it’s like this exciting game. And it’s never predictable like it is in England, elections in England are so boring. But it always seems to me that those on the east and west coasts stick together in their choices while all the states in the middle go for the opposite guy. I figure everyone in the middle of the US is either really stupid or really crazy; they always pick the wrong guy.
A: For clarification, what do you mean by ‘the wrong guy’? The guy who loses or the one you don’t like or…?
B: The guy who wins.
.....
B: I don’t like to be called an Englishman.
A: How about British?
B: No, I don’t like that either.
A: Why? You live in England, right? Are you not from there?
B: Sure, I live there. But I don’t feel like an Englishman.
A: Are your parents English? Are they from England?
B: Well yes, they live in England. But they are originally from Lithuania.
A: So would you consider yourself Lithuanian?
B: Hell no. I never want to live in Lithuania.
A: Where do you want to live?
B: Wherever there is ocean and mountains.
A: How about Switzerland? They have mountains and lakes.
B: No, I want to go scuba diving. I want to live near the ocean.
A: How about Egypt?
B: No way! I’d hate everyone there.
A: How about Greece?
B: No, I also would hate it.
A: How about somewhere in Asia?
B: No.
A: Well you could come to the States. I’m sure you can find mountains and ocean there.
B: Not in the same city! I’m thinking maybe I’d live in Canada.
A: Really? Have you been to Canada?
B: No.
A: Hmm. Maybe you should stick to England… So what do you want to be called if not English?
B: I’m a European. You can call me a European.

*****

Another interesting occurrence this week at my Russian class. We had a visitor come sit in on our class. He was Turkish. He sat down in a chair next to me, and pulled out his laptop while we were going over some new vocabulary. As I glanced over, I noticed his laptop wasn’t just any laptop… it was a MacBook Pro… in fact, the exact same one as I own. It was my first time seeing someone with a Mac in Belarus besides myself… definitely NOT an everyday occurrence! (After class, I told him he had a very good computer, the same as mine. His question in response was where I am from. When I told him the States, he started talking to me in English. Said he used to live in Chicago.)

*****

I also informed my Russian teacher and classmates today that the forbidden fruit in Genesis was not (necessarily) an apple... because the Biblical account does not specify what type of fruit. My teacher was quite shocked to be debunked of her long-held notion... Once again, culture serves as the preferred foundation of truth.

the cold.

It is so cold here that the roads and sidewalks have all turned white.

It is so cold here that your face feels frozen as soon as you walk outside, making you think maybe there was still moisture on your face from showering that got icy, but no, it's just that cold.

It is so cold here that you sometimes forget you are wearing gloves, because the air goes right through them.

It is so cold here that my iPod earbuds get stiff and fall out of my ears over and over again.

It is so cold here that there is not only fog and frost on the windows of vehicles, but yes, even a layer of ice that coats the insides of all the windows of the buses, completely obscuring your view to the outside... and even though buses should have heaters, most of them are not operational or are neglected to be turned on.

It is so cold here that the only warm places I have found are 1. the metro and 2. my bedroom. Ironically, since they turned the heat on in my building, it has become like a sauna in my room. I have to sleep in shorts and a t-shirt and leave my door open to get cooler air from the rest of the apartment, or the little heater in my small bedroom will make it stuffy real fast.

Ah, winter. And it has only just begun. Temperatures were -16 degrees Celsius yesterday. Oh, it will get much worse... MUCH worse...

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.