Things Ya Miss

I am around people ALL the time. When you live in a house with 26 guys and staff, that is just how it is. And right now I don't want to be around anyone. It isn't that I am tired of high school kids. I am just tired of only hanging out with high school students. I really would like to hang with people my own age.

It doesn't have to be much. I would just be happy to have a few folks out at a coffee shop, talking and drinking good coffee. There is a depth of conversation and just a comfortableness when being around people your own age. It is not as hard, because we understand each other. No matter how we grew up, we grew up in the same years and there are a lot of common experiences right there.

So rather than just sitting around or watching Monty Python for the umpteenth time, I am typing on the internet. What kind of messed up modern age, mental satisfaction is that?

Do we care?

Jars of Clay just came out with an album which I think is pretty darn good. I wanted to highlight the lyrics of this song. It chilled me the first time I heard it.

Oh my God, look around this place
Your fingers reach around the bone
You set the break and set the tone
Flights of grace, and future falls
In present pain
All fools say, "Oh my God"

Oh my God, Why are we so afraid?
We make it worse when we don't bleed
There is no cure for our disease
Turn a phrase, and rise again
Or fake your death and only tell your closest friend
Oh my God.

Oh my God, can I complain?
You take away my firm belief and graft my soul upon your grief
Weddings, boats and alibis
All drift away, and a mother cries

Liars and fools; sons and failures
Thieves will always say
Lost and found; ailing wanderers
Healers always say
Whores and angels; men with problems
Leavers always say
Broken hearted; separated
Orphans always say
War creators; racial haters
Preachers always say
Distant fathers; fallen warriors
Givers always say
Pilgrim saints; lonely widows
Users always say
Fearful mothers; watchful doubters
Saviors always say

Sometimes I cannot forgive
And these days, mercy cuts so deep
If the world was how it should be, maybe I could get some sleep
While I lay, I dream we're better,
Scales were gone and faces light
When we wake, we hate our brother
We still move to hurt each other
Sometimes I can close my eyes,
And all the fear that keeps me silent falls below my heavy breathing,
What makes me so badly bent?
We all have a chance to murder
We all feel the need for wonder
We still want to be reminded that the pain is worth the thunder

Sometimes when I lose my grip, I wonder what to make of heaven
All the times I thought to reach up
All the times I had to give
Babies underneath their beds
Hospitals that cannot treat all the wounds that money causes,
All the comforts of cathedrals
All the cries of thirsty children - this is our inheritance
All the rage of watching mothers - this is our greatest offense

Oh my God
Oh my God
Oh my God

Are you in shape?

This past weekend I was in the Alps of Switzerland. While there I was able to watch a bunch of people. And one thing I learned. People there hike everywhere. I have noticed it in Germany too, but not as much. It doesn't even matter what age. Anyone from 6 - 80 is hiking up a mountain. With ease too!

There is not chance that this would happen in the US. And I am one of them. I had 70-80 year old ladies passing me on the hike. I should really work on being in better shape. They keep themselves healthy. They eat healthy and always get exercise. This doesn't mean that they are stick skinny. No matter what their shape, they are able to do many things

Maybe it is something that we need to work on. Stop worrying less about how we look and how much we way and start be concerned about what kind of shape we are in.

It is...really

A post is coming soon. Blogger has been fighting with me all day, but it will happen. Hopefully this will go through.

Peace and love

Them Type A people

Busyness, busyness, busyness.

My word, I have been busy. Who would know that you could be this busy in Germany. Anyway, I have been thinking about personalities. Some personalities get along fine, others do not always mesh well. Yet there are times that we have to mesh with people that we don't necessarily click with.

This can be difficult and to be quite honest, I haven't figured out yet how it works. Any ideas?

It seems like there would be a better solution than just sucking it up and going on with life, but is there a solution for smooth operating interaction.

In other news, go Ravens, Yeah Messiah! and I hope the Yankees lose. Also Cinderella Man is a great movie and the new Jars of Clay album is a good one.

9.11.01

5 years later...

Where were you? Do you still remember? When the first plane hit, I was driving to work listening to Oldies 100 in the DC area. I watched the second plane hit live on tv. It was definitely chilling. I spent the whole day a bit concerned because I was about 8 miles from the Pentagon and in a government facility.

I remember deciding on Wednesday that I would not watch any more news coverage, because it was only doing bad things to me. Wednesday night we had an impromptu church service, praying for people. I remember driving by later and seeing the gaping whole that had been left in the Pentagon from this horror of horrors.

What was the most chilling moment? Seeing people choose to jump from the towers.

A good moment? Seeing people gather around each other to help them however they could.

I know somebody that missed her train so she wasn't at the World Trade Center when the planes hit. Yet almost 3000 people died in the attacks at the WTCs, Pentagon, and Pennsylvania field.

Let us never forget.

Beauty in the eye of the beholder

Well, life goes on. It is funny how life changes. A couple of phone calls and a well placed note or two can just bring you out of your low point. People are cool. I truly believe that we are at our greatest when we are caring. I don't know what it is, but caring seems to bring something a little extra out of us. We seem to forget ourselves and concetrate on helping others. There is something beautiful there.

I was alone...

It has been rough over the last couple of days. I have really been feeling lonely. It is funny when these things hit. This specific part has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. I hadn't realized how comfortable of a support structure I had created around me. When I moved to Germany, that all changed.

I just didn't know how much I rely on others for emotional support. Because that is not there and since I have not yet created a new deep structure, it is hard. Nobody to really talk to. When you don't know people real well, it is not always evident that they care. Even if they do, I won't always feel it because that familiarism and trust is not there yet.

Just something else to work through. I am not sure how, but I have to get through it somehow. So think about it and if you have any suggestions, let me know.

Schön

Ever have those things that make you go grrr. I had a big one of those today. I love nature. I know that many of you will give me a fake AW, but oh well. I also have yet to see any sort of large mountain ranges. Neither the Appalachians or the Black Forest really count. There is a tall hill in the Black Forest called Hochblauen. It is between 3 and 4 km from my dorm. It is also one of the higher points in the Black Forest. On a clear day you can see the Alps from the point.

Yesterday was the first sunny day in a while. I was hoping to get people to go with me. Anyway, I made it up after getting lost and going way out of my way. It is still a gorgeous site, but I was unable to see the Alps. Well, I was pooped after a hard hike and being out of shape my muscles were killing me today.

Today people decided to go up. 6 people in fact. And the kicker the Alps were the clearest that they have been in a while. Grrr!!! Not that anyone was to blame, but it is quite depressing that I was unable to see the Alps. Hopefully one day.

there's no place that I could be without you

Honesty: What a thing. It is so specific and hard to completely carry out. Sometimes complete honesty surprises me. Yesterday, someone came and told me something. I was surprised at the honesty. The thing that they told me was miniscule. It didn't get them in trouble and they had to go out of their way to tell me. It was more of a hassle to tell me than not to.

That is what I mean by complete honesty. It was refreshing and showed that the person was a true person of integrity. I need to work on that. I think that I am a pretty honest person. Some would even say blunt, but I don't know if I would have gone that far.

Props to anyone who can identify the song lyric of a title without using the internet.

What is your comfort level

I recently talked about how nice rain was. That was Saturday evening. Well, the rain hasn't stopped since then. Oh well. It has to sometime. The sun will come out...

People like to be comfortable. We act so much differently when we are comfortable. If we have been to a place we feel more at ease. I have seen a lot of this recently. Between people that have been here in Germany and others.

I only hope that everyone learns to be comfortable. It could be a bad year for them if they don't. Somehow this has started to become a comfortable place for me. I guess because I have been here almost a month. So what makes us comfortable? Hmm. I wonder if it is home.

What is home...(I think I asked that question before)

Rain, Rain on my Face

It is raining. It rains a lot in Germany. Or maybe this is just an odd weather pattern. Anyway, sometimes the rain is annoying and sometimes it is nice. Tonight is one of those nice times. You can just hear it fall calmly against the roof. It is a very soothing sound.

It has really chilled me out. As I write this, I got a bit of Norah Jones playing. Ah, so relaxing. There is something nice about the rain. If it was earlier, I may go for a walk, but some other time. Right now I will just enjoy the soft sounds. And a bit of Donald Miller reading.

What are some things that cause you to chill? Is it a warm drink? Nice music? A soft woman? Or man? Is it a location? I think that it is important to have places that we can just chill. It heals our soul.
Oh, and Waking Ned Devine is an awesome movie…one of my favorites.

How do you respond?

This past weekend I went to Ikea in Germany. It was a very hard experience. Something that I did not expect. The store was under construction and not all of the areas were open. Plus everything was in German and all the workers spoke German. Add on top of that the need I had to get things to allow me to live like sheets and a pillow.

All this put together made for a very difficult and stressful experience. How did I react? I just wanted to get out of there. I needed help, but didn't know how to get it. I decided that it was useless and I gave up in a way. I didn't want to get annoyed further so I just stopped.

Interesting reaction, huh. So how do you react in a hard circumstance?

How is it different?

I had the privilege of being able to go to an amusement park on this past Thursday. It is called Europa Park. There are some definite differences between how it was run and how parks are run in the states. First off, the lines. They stop the lines periodically at different points in the waiting so that the ride queues don't back up as far. I don't see why they do it, but they do.

One thing they do that is awesome is to quickly load the ride. I would say that at most, 30 seconds passes from when a train arrives to when it leaves. No corny announcements. Just people getting off and on the ride. The food is better than at most American parks...and cheaper.

It is a nice park although not many huge rides. There was more food stuff than ride stuff it seemed. It did have one huge ride called Silver Star and that was completely awesome. What a thrill.

I had another post coming, but forgot it. It has been pretty busy, but I will try to stop by here as much as possible.

The Pressure

Have you ever felt like you have to feel a certain way for the people around you? Recently I moved to Germany and was told about how amazing a time I would have. Everybody is so excited about the wonderful time I will have.

Well, there are always ups and downs that we experience in our lives no matter where we are. So what do I tell people. Do I tell them that I sometimes am not doing incredibly or do I just keep it back? The funny thing about this is that I know they want to hear anything that it going on, good or bad. They want to hear honesty. But I have built things up in my mind.

It is amazing how other people's expectations affect us. I have talked about expectations from our side, but never really thought about it from the other way. It is something different to be under other's expectations.

Who's Better

How often do you compare yourself to others? I find that I do it often. The latest has been in the area of contact with the homeland. :-) Also known as the USA. Since I have been in Germany for almost the last week, I get to hear about who talked to the friends or folks or people everywhere back home.

Now I had a fair amount of contacts back there and I guess I have wanted them to miss me more than they are. It seems to be a ridiculous thought because all that is involved in this thought process is comparing myself to others.

I just need to be happy with what I am been given. I am very blessed. There are people that are contacting me and they are very very important to me and that should be enough. I need to be happy with what I have been given and not be disappointed with what I don't have.

Why can't I just show me?

As I mentioned before, I have met many people this week. And even thought I am a fairly honest and blunt person, I have still found myself to be accentuating the parts of me that I think to be good and hiding the rest. I don't get it. I come off sounding prideful or self-deprecating.

Why do I do such things? Why am I not comfortable enough to just show myself? I would bet that others do the same. Why? Most likely has to do with what I mentioned before. That we make snap judgments about people before we meet them.

I wish I could be more honest, but I just put out all this crap. It is amazing how we disappoint ourselves sometime.

People Everywhere

I have met somewhere around 40 people in the last two days. This is crazy. I see somebody and worry about whether or not I have already met them. But oh well, I'll just make a fool out of myself. I am pretty good at doing that anyway.

It's funny how we immediately have first impressions. Actually I shouldn't call them that. I should call it the first judging. I even try not to do it, but I do. I group people into groups before I even know them. Shame on me.

I shouldn't do that. People's quirks are not what define them. It's their heart.

I'm an otter

So I went to the movie by myself this past weekend. I went to see Lady in the Water. It was a very enjoyable movie. Different from M Night's normal movies, but still had the quality of story telling and character development. I have always enjoyed his movies and this was no different.

It was odd seeing a movie by myself. I had no one to talk with about the movie. I guess part of the oddness is because I am so social. I love being around people and thought it was odd to be all by myself. Even though during the movie was no problem, before and after, the silence is incredible.

I will just have to always catch a movie with other peeps. But do they have movies in Germany? :-) I'm flying tomorrow. Yippee.

The Doping Dope

The Tour de France ended recently. The winner was a Mr Floyd Landis. He is from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania which is near where I live. The news has been covering the story quite closely, including story of how wonderful a Mennonite boy he is. Interviews with his parents abound and it seems like there couldn't be a cleaner guy.

Until now. Today the news released that Landis failed a drug test during the Tour de France. More incredibly the stage after which he failed was the same one that he had the big comeback on. Evidently he needed a little help to do it. He has gone from hero to villain overnite. This is just a shame. Although sadly, not too surprising.

I'll be interested to see how the local news covers this one.