At the Twilight’s Last Gleaming

Without watermelon, without hot dogs, without Auntie Eva’s cracked tennis court, without fireworks and without family…I celebrated my country yesterday. 

Through Matt and Heather, I was invited to a 4th celebration for American ex-pats in the area, and I was shocked to show up to the park and see about a hundred men, women, and children, speaking my language, playing baseball, and wearing red, white, and blue Old Navy t-shirts.  I was so happy I almost cried.  I remember my Mom used to buy us these stupid shirts, and force us to wear them, so the four of us kids would end up looking like some walking Old Navy ad.  Yesterday, I wanted to wear one.

After this, I went up to the hill overlooking Lauf to join in the Kirchweih festival.  We met up with about 10 other friends, and sauntered into a huge beer hall filled with clapping, singing, and table-dancing Germans.  The 4th of July fantasy that was conjured at the ex-pat party was quickly ruined by this staggering reminder of Germany.  But then again, what says “God bless America” better than a loved pair of lederhosen?

I sat at our long wooden table, and for about five minutes just felt myself zone out completely.  Watching, observing, listening, eavesdropping, smelling, and feeling.  I know that I will never have another 4th quite like this one, so I smile and just soak it in…I think to myself, “Life is funny and strange.”  Then I rejoin the conversation…or at least I try to.

Following the Festival, we marched up the moonlight trail to the K3, the local high school hang-out to dance and hang out with the rest of the under 25 crowd in Lauf.  I got to see my old host-brother Peter, and that was really great.  In fact, I saw a ton of people that I’ve gotten to know over the last 10 months, and it felt good.  I am known, I am recognized, and I am loved by people here.  That is a great gift.  One that makes me want to cry again.  No one sang the Star Spangled Banner at the club.  I believe the anthem for the night was provided by Kanye…which I guess is patriotic in its own way too, right?

So that was my 4th of July.  I was actually quite fearful that it would be a depressing evening, but despite it’s lack of normalcy, it was good.  It is obviously strange to not be with my American friends and family, but I think it’s better to choose to be happy and content without spending too much time languishing in all of the things that I am missing out on.  These experiences are a privilege and I don’t want discontentment to overshadow their unique beauty.

So, that’s how I celebrated the birth of our nation.  What about you?  To my friends around the world…did you have fireworks?  Did you meet any other Americans?  How did it feel to be on the outside, not a part of the big celebration?  I hope that you all had a good day.  To my friends and family at home, how did you celebrate?  What made it great?  Would you share your stories with me?  I would love it!

Thanks for reading, sharing, for commenting, and for living life together.  I pray that you might have the perspective to recognize how blessed you are!  Take care of yourself, of others, and as always, God Bless America. 

And for now, Tchuus aus Deutschland! dk~

Artsy

Growth Illuminated

Just thought I’d post this piece of art that Nick and I put together last month.  I’m really proud of it and am hoping to finally mount it up on the wall sometime this weekend.

More Milosz

Esse

I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro stations flew by; I didn’t notice them. What can be done, if our sight lacks absolute power to devour objects ecstatically, in an instant, leaving nothing more than the void of an ideal form, a sign like a hieroglyph simplified from the drawing of an animal or bird? A slightly snub nose, a high brow with sleekly brushed-back hair, the line of the chin - but why isn’t the power of sight absolute? - and in a whiteness tinged with pink two sculpted holes, containing a dark, lustrous lava. To absorb that face but to have it simultaneously against the background of all spring boughs, walls, waves, in its weeping, its laughter, moving it back fifteen years, or ahead thirty. To have. It is not even a desire. Like a butterfly, a fish, the stem of a plant, only more mysterious. And so it befell me that after so many attempts at naming the world, I am able only to repeat, harping on one string, the highest, the unique avowal beyond which no power can attain: I am, she is. Shout, blow the trumpets, make thousands-strong marches, leap, rend your clothing, repeating only: is!

She got out at Raspail. I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees.

Not my Style

It is not my style to gush about relationships.

It is not my style to publish love letters,

Or to make an exhibition of my heart-adorned sleeves.

Not my style one bit.

But that’s why it’s important to say:

Carolyn, I am so thankful for you.

I am thankful for redemption, for renewal.

I am thankful for how the Lord is working in your life.

And I am thankful to continue to share in it all with you.

Thanks for an amazing weekend, and I will look forward to the next.

Love you lots,

Drew

 

Things that Made Me Smile Today

• New Secret handshake with Stefan
• Learning to play the Accordion with Simon
• Sam, Matt and Heather’s 9 month old son, who is the happiest baby ever
• Josh Ritter on www.last.fm
• A “Priceless” text message from Carolyn
• An awesome magic trick following lunch this afternoon at the Boehm’s house…way to go Mr. Boehm…very impressive!
• Dropping in at The Art of Living to borrow six wine glasses from Jurgen as I am hosting the Ohlwerters for dinner tonight. 
• Riding Life
• My apartment which feels more and more like it belongs to me. 

Auf Gehts Deutschland Schiess ein Tor!!!

I got to speak with Zach last night for the first time in a really long time.  Hearing his plans to go hiking with my Dad for four nights this weekend in the Never Summer Wilderness made me miss my home and my family.  This is something good that the Kreeger men enjoy doing together, and it feels strange to not be there for it.  Also, I am reading a book called The Places in Between, about a young Scottish guy who walked through Afghanistan two weeks after the fall of the Taliban in 2002.  Reading his accounts affirms the adventure of being a foreigner, and the black and white pictures of the snow-capped mountains he traversed also make me miss the feeling of a bag damp upon my back, my legs pulsating, and my mind focused on nothing other than the next step.  I will be home in about four weeks, and even though it will be a short time, I will definitely get in as much hiking, fishing, and mountain biking as I can.  

 

After we caught up for some time, Zach asked what else had been going on in my life for the past few weeks.  As I thought about it, it could really be summed up in one word: Fussball.  If you are American/ignanant, the European Championship has been going on for the last two weeks and will continue for 9 more days.  This year, the tournament is being held in Switzerland and Austria, and 16 European teams are competing from Croatia to France to Poland.  To give an example of the frenzy, Turkey won it’s qualifying game last week and 7,000 Turkish people crowded into a tiny square in Nurnberg to dance, sing, drink, and celebrate the night away. 

 

Last night, Germany played Portugal in a life or death quarterfinal match.  After showing very poorly in their last match against Austria, most of the people here that I spoke with were reluctant to place any kind of hope on their team.  Portugal, after all, is fast, stylish, and boasts the best player in the world in the young Christiano Ronaldo.  In the typical self-demeaning Franconian fashion, most of my English students placed their game day wagers on Portugal.  I, however, learning to be patriotic and optimistic from my American upbringing declared that Germany would win 2-1. 

 

I finished work at 4:45, four hours before kickoff.  Took the Underground home.  Got a quick bite to eat, and then bicycled off to the café for youth group.  The kids showed up to youth group wearing two or three yellow, red, and black scarves tied around their arms and chanting “Deutschland, Deutschland.”  This would carry on for the rest of the night.  We watched the game on the top floor of the café, where the projection screen had been converted into a huge television screen.  

 

I took some video from the celebration last night, but in my technological retardation, I’m having some trouble getting it up…needless to say, Germany won the game, the party lasted well into the morning, and I feel my optimism has been vindicated.  The semifinal will be on Wednesday against either Turkey or Croatia, and I’m planning on going to a big public viewing in Nurnberg…should be crazy!

 

So that’s been what’s up.  I think that games are on ESPN2 in the states, so if you have the chance, tune into to the next Germany game, and we can celebrate together! 

Careworn

It’s 6:30 on Saturday morning, and a young man comes in and out of consciousness as he slowly sinks lower and lower on the slippery pleather underground seat.  Wearing a black beanie, a dark hoodie, blue jeans and worn Vans sneakers, he could be miscategorized as another one of the city’s clubbers, sleepwalking home from a night of drunken carousing.  His face would not contradict this hypothesis, either.  He doesn’t hide exhaustion, but unlike his few fellow passengers, he is not weary because of excess or misjudgment.  Like his once grass-green shoes, his countenance evidences a long journey and a great distance covered.

 

The underground he rides hardly has any right to it’s name as it haphazardly zips through the earthly darkness.  Sometimes you can feel it descend lower and lower, and sometimes it raises up high enough above the traffic to make you feel queasy.  Somewhere between lies an indefinable gray.  Regardless of inclines or declines though, the movement is always forward, always toward home.

 

As he is pushed through shades of gray, fragments flash through his head:  A picture taken in front of an unbelievably enormous stained-glass window, arm wrapped around a curly-haired compatriot.  The train jolts down.  Moving darkness.

 

His eyes relax, not having to fight off the impending sunrise.  Behind closed eyelids, he attempts to relocate himself in Prague, but instead finds memory leading him to a candle-light balcony and a conscious gaze locking his eyes as he attempts to understand and empathize the loss of a father.  Feelings of sorrow, regret, fear, and still hope arouse his soul. 

 

The track comes to life: screaming friction.  Brakes.  Eyes catch the sign for the stop at Rathenau Platz.  Two more until the main train station. 

 

An anxious man checks his watch, vacates his post, and is replaced by an African business woman delicately eating her pretzel.  As if a pretzel could be eaten delicately.

 

The train lurches away.  Flourescent lights.  Then deepening gray.  Then once again, black.

 

His neck relaxes.  His shoulders sloop further.  His head nods.  Is it the gray world of dreams that he enters, or is it yet reality?  An open field in the shadow of castle ruins, three friends sprinting through the long grass, chasing after a flimsy white Frisbee.  He hurls the disc, but the streak of pink flesh that is Michael is unable to connect, slowed by both the uneven ground and the uneven flight.  Laughter rings out.  Didn’t we forget to go swimming?

 

Nurnberg Hauptbahnhof rings out on the overhead speakers.  He must transfer.  He leaves the underground, rise up on the escalator, check the giant departure board, and makes his way to platform 3.  He is 4 minutes early.  No time to buy the croissant that his empty stomach is craving.  This business of transferring used to scare him.  Would he get on the wrong train.  Go the wrong way?  Have to pay a 40 Euro fine for having bought the wrong ticket?  These worries have vanished by now though.  Stepping onto the train bound for Lauf, he has another transition in mind.  The transition from friends, speed, late nights, and vibrant colors, to an empty apartment and a pile of dirtied dishes. 

 

And of course he has grown tired from the pace.  He has spent everything he had.  But rather than finding himself to be poor and broken, his tired face deceives the blessing and joy that lies not too far beneath.  In his tire, he is reminded of his youth, his vibrancy.  He is reminded of the gift of community and friendship.  And he is reminded, yet again of the Good Father who directs him.  His riches may be increased, or they may be decreased.  He may have high times where all is light and motion, or low times where the darkness hushes any movement.  But regardless, he is moved forward, moved forward to a home that awaits, that is full of treasures far greater than could creaded in the deepest of half-dreams. 

 

He sits on the train for Lauf, knowing that he has a home, and that his destination lies there. 

Luzern

A place can change over time.  Colors fade, lose their distinction.  Things get misplaced or forgotten.  Like the white castle in the background of my photograph.  Of course the wooden bridge in the foreground with the awesome octagonal tower rising out of the swift river has stayed with me, but that white castle seemingly camouflaged itself into the green hillside of time.  I forgot the Montana hotel on the waterfront as well, particularly how it seems to hover above the other buildings, creating a Parisian feel for some reason.  The streets had become wider too, allowing more room for error.  The number of tiny city squares with enough branching alleys to make hide and seek an adventure had diminished over the last five years.  Strange that our memory has the power to recreate a place, to retell a story.

 

I was fearful that the story that I had been recreating for myself about this place had become terribly false.  I worried that the passion and joy that I attach with Luzern was more due to my soft-light nostalgia than the actual truth of the place. 

 

It is strange to revisit a place.  You can restore, recapture, and mostly remember.

 

Although my mind lost many important things such as the swans on the river or the red flowers along the bridge, the spirit of the place was truly preserved.  Luzern is the beautiful town that I remember from a brief day trip five years ago.  The mountains are that impressive against the open lake.  As you walk through the twisting city roads, a unique charm is communicated.  I hope that Carolyn and Joe felt it like I did.

 

Now I have been there for two days.  Once as a high-schooler on whirlwind tour through Europe with a missionary basketball team, and now with two of my closest friends as a 23 year-old resident of the neighboring country.  What a joy to continue to layer memory onto this place that I enjoy so much.  Losing Joe in the market, letting Carolyn play hard-to-get, and eating pistachio gelato by the lake are now glue-sticked upon other fragmented photos from five years ago to create some small collage of this place.

 

Can I say that I know Luzern?  Absolutely not!  To do so would be ignorant and arrogant.  The picture that I have gained has been limited to be sure, but if nothing else, Luzern has seen the same young man at two very different stages of life, and I hope that it has witnessed growth, deepening, and maturity. 

 

I’m sure that I will go back in some years, and just as I am excited to see how the city has changed and stayed the same, I am looking forward to walking beside the lake, staring into the glassy surface, and witnessing both the preservation and growth in myself. 

Again…for the First Time

Please, please…hold the applause…that’s right ladies and gents, the three lads at Kriemhildstrasse 12 have successfully activated internet after 6 weeks of frustrated waiting.  (Okay, let the clapping recommence).

Do you ever have a good friend that you don’t see for a year or so, and then it’s always a bit strange knowing how to talk to them in that first meeting?  That’s a bit how I feel with the internet and this blog.  I feel as if I don’t quite know where to start with catching up on the last couple months of life.  It’s really just impossible, but if I could just say a couple of words it would be these:

Friends: what a blessing it has been to have Nick here since the end of March.  As he begins to talk about the next stages of his journey, I am growing more and more saddened as I realize that he cannot stay and continue to share life.  This apartment has been given life from the conversations, meals, and publicly heterosexual hugs that have been shared over the last two months…what gifts!

To add to that, the one and only Joe Thomson has joined our cohort, and has been steadily increasing his German vocabulary since he got here just over a week ago.  Was I surprised to come home from work today to find these two caught up in a cloud of about 15 German children ages 9-15, as they played ping-pong together outside of our flat?!? …no, not at all. 

I am a bit jealous though as Joe is leaving me for the weekend to hang out with Carolyn in Switzerland.  I told him to take the names of any overzealous Swiss dudes, so I can take care of business next time I’m in the Canton.  She was here a week and a half ago, and it was one of the most perfect weekends in my memory.  We had the most pristine picnic at one of the coolest city parks in Nurnberg when she got in on Saturday…I can still taste the cheap wine, the market-bought strawberries, and the warm loaves of Italian bread with Moz..Mmm…Mmmm!!!

Home is the other main thing.  It has been an extreme blessing to have an apartment of my own, to create, to rest, to laugh, to think, to read, and to sleep in my own place.  I am overcome with thankfulness.  I counted the other day, and I’ve already had over 20 visitors, and as many as five overnight guests at the same time…not bad for such a small pad!!!

So that’s the news folks…if you had stopped, you can start the applause once again.  It’s good to be back, and I am looking forward to sharing this new life with you in the days to come. 

Take Care, dk~ 

 

Late Last Night While I was Sleeping…

So I walk through the night and enter into a small courtyard illuminated by some small cafe which hasnt turned out the lights yet.  Against the glow, I make out the silhouette of a man in a suit and tie encircled by a group of what I can only describe as young ruffians.  As I draw nearer, I sense the man’s panic.  The thugs see me, and for some reason become intimidated, and scurry off into the shadows like cockroaches.  I am a hero.  I approach the distressed buisnessman, and it turns out to be none other than Barack Obama.  He maintained his composure, as I would expect of him, but I understood the thanks that he silently communicated.  Realizing that he must have chosen this courtyard to steal away from the spotlight for a moment, I quelled the number of rising questions that quickly began surfacing in my brain, and just played it cool.  He mentioned that he remembered me from before.  I don’t remember feeling surprised.  I then ordered a cappucino which seemed absolutely natural despite the late hour.  I asked him a couple of questions about how the campaign was going, and appreciated his honesty and integrity.  Knowing that I had served my duty, and not wanting to infringe any more, I thanked him for the chat, excused myself, and continued my night time walk through the shadows of sleep.