Glogg and Want

For Christmas Eve, I made Swedish glogg. My parents' Swedish neighbor used to make Swedish glogg, being that she is Swedish and everything, and she brought it over to their house the past couple of Christmases. But this Christmas, she was in Sweden, where I imagine she's wore an immense wool sweater and a viking helmet and while serving glogg in jeweled goblets around a 30-log fire in her father's dining hall, so I decided to step in. For those of you who don't know, Swedish glogg is basically mulled wine, except when you live in a place as cold and dark as Sweden, mulled wine isn't enough. You need to add something stronger to help it go down. The recipes vary, but I used port, rum, and vodka. (my recipe said to use brandy instead of the vodka, but a true chef knows how to improvise, especially when there's no brandy in the cupboard) It's a a witches brew, Nordic style, wine, port, spice and liquor, threatening a nasty hangover to the less responsible, but it's delicious. And mine was too.

So, after the Christmas Eve lessons and carols, we feasted. Not just glogg (just glogg, and you won't be able to find the front door, believe me!), but Russian meat pies (my parents' Russian neighbor was still in Florida), my mom's ham biscuits, my wife's salad: I feasted and I was full. Too full, perhaps, but it was hard not to be.

I wanted it. I wanted all the food. I wanted to brew a successful pot of glogg, and I wanted the rave reviews that I received. I wanted to sit with my family, and open presents with them in the morning. I wanted to see every muscle on my daughter's face expand into delight when I told her that she would get presents tomorrow. I wanted to watch her open her gifts, read through her new books, and line up her new princess figurines in a perfect row on her grandmother's shelf. I wanted Florida sunshine on the darkest night of the year, original Toll House chocolate chip cookies, and my wife's kiss.

I got all these things and more, but part of adulthood has been knowing that want is never complete. You get exactly what you want for Christmas, you're thankful, you revel, you play, and then you realize life's still the same, the same tensions and humor and angst are still there, unresolved. So I temper my wants, allow fantasy to dance in front of me without taking any of it seriously, and learn to work and create and enjoy the moment when the steam circles my nose, wine, liquor, sugar, spice pour over my tongue like an escaped drop of heaven.

It lingers, and now my glogg is a memory that I can't completely place, and I'll go about with my family and friends making more memories, hoping that I'll still carry the best ones for a long time. Happy melancholy, I guess, but it's also I reminder of where so much of our want points to in the first place, how the Author who first turned water to wine uses these desires to point back to him, to remind us that all we want for Christmas was given at the first one.

Nothing New Under the Sun

Oh look, my blog! I found it between the couch cushions, next to a bottle cap and a couple of pennies. I had to dust off the cookie crumbs, not to mention two, no, three impermeable gummy bears, plus hair that could be human or teddy bear. I tell you, one day, you put it down, and the next day it falls through the cracks and coats itself sticky with sugar. Well, I rinsed it off in the kitchen sink, because I found something familiar and needed to write about it. This is from Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. It describes the protagonist's mother, mothering in the late 1800s but still familiar today: 

"In many ways, she was a remarkably careful mother, poor woman. I was in a sense her only child. Before I was born she had brought herself a new home health care book. It was large and expensive, and it was a good deal more particular than Leviticus. On its authority she tried to keep us from making any use of our brains for an hour after supper, or from reading at all when our feet were cold. The idea was to prevent conflicting demands on the circulation of the blood. My grandfather told her once that if you couldn't read with cold feet there wouldn't be a literate soul in the state of Maine, but she was very serious about these things and he only irritated her. She said 'Nobody in Maine gets much of anything to eat, so it all comes out even.' When I got home she scrubbed me down and put me to bed and fed me six or seven times a day and forbade me the use of my brain after every single meal. The tedium was considerable."

If she lived today, she'd have a blog. I say this as someone deep in the careful parenting camp. And I'm sure the Internet makes her "health care book" look less like Leviticus and more like a book of nursery rhymes. I know I wield it like a weapon against any potential malady or sign of ill-health that could approach my daughter. And I'm sure a good portion of it is really healthy! Perhaps in a generation or two my daughter will laugh at this area and say "the tedium was considerable." But I hope she'll also remember herself as well-loved.

Speaking of which, you should read (or re-read) Gilead. I've just finished, and I haven't felt this way about prose since I read Breakfast and Tiffany's a couple years ago. I know Robinson is read and loved by plenty of literary connoisseurs, but for the rest of us, well, this book is a feast and there's no shame in being late for it. I won't say too much about it, because it's one of those books that's best left to speak for itself. I'll only mention a couple things. It's the letters of an aging pastor who knows he's dying to his young son. It's beautiful - more like a hike in the country than any sort of action film - with the most nourishing food for thought gently weaved into the narrative. And there's this quote: 

"For me writing has always felt like praying, even when I wasn't writing prayers, as I was often enough. You feel that you are with someone. I feel I am with you now, whatever that can mean, considering that you're only a little fellow now and when you're a man you might find these letters of no interest. Or they might never reach you, for any number of reasons. Well, but how deeply I regret any sadness you have suffered and how grateful I am in anticipation of any good you have enjoyed. That is to say, I pray for you. And there's an intimacy in it. That's the truth."

With this in mind, I intend to write more. 

Doch, English! Bilingual Children in Germany

A smug feeling crept through my chest as I read about the struggles expat mom has with encouraging her son to retain his English in Madrid. Ha. My little half-expat has embraced both her father and mother tongue, to the point where she was translating some of her German kindergarten (preschool over here) songs for my parents over skype. Ah, yes, glory be to the parents who have it all together.

Of course, if we were ever to have another child of a slightly other disposition, any feelings of smugness could be blown out of the water. A next child could be a stubborn monolingual, too. It could have a different personality, talents and behavior patterns, and that instruction book in my mind based on my first child is about as useful as a manual for Gateway Computers. But, I'm not there yet, my child has embraced bilingualism (so far), and I'll fantasize about being that good. I wonder, though, if Germany has built an advantage for raising bilinguals in its own growing multiculturalism.

I was warned that my daughter might reject bilingualism when she entered kindergarten. It happened to a Scottish-German neighbor couple. Their children were doing fine in English until they entered kindergarten full of children who only knew German. No one shared a second language, so they felt isolated and uncomfortable using it. The added fact that children are talented in finding ways to put each other down, and the children suppressed their knowledge of their mother tongue.

Not so for our daughter. Her kindergarten is in the "downtown" part of our little city, which is its own little melting pot. In her kindergarten, monolinguals are the minority. It's not a strange thing to speak a second language; it's the norm. The fact that she's the only English speaker isn't a big deal, but bilingualism by itself seems to count. Whenever I come to pick her up, I'm surrounded by mixed marriages and people speaking Turkish, Russian, Vietnamese, Polish, Greek, Italian, Armenian, and more. Oh yes, German too. These happy babel sounds mean that the ones who suddenly express themselves in another language aren't some horrifying school-child anomaly, like being the only kid in a tacky Christmas sweater in June. It's just something everyone does.

If economic trends continue, things will stay this way. Germany's economy is chugging a long, and it's continuing to attract the most employable young southern Europeans. Many of these technically gifted immigrants, like the Turkish guest workers and Russian-German immigrants before them, will stay, settle, and raise wonderfully bilingual families.

When I spoke to him about his own bilingual children, a French-German father I know shrugged his shoulders and said, "it's completely normal." "Completely normal." All the kids here are bilingual. This encourages my daughter to retain her father tongue, but there's a downside. I've no reason to be smug.

Ten Things To Say to Young Children That Guarantee Their Parents Will Never Ask You To Babysit Them Again

You know you've thought it. You watched the darling couple get married, settle down, blossom, and then, oh tears of happiness! the woman's belly turned into a baby bump, grew, and, before you can shake a pastel-pink rattle - pop - that plushy miniature human is resting and cooing in the arms of a glowing young Mother.

Twelve-thousand Facebook photos later (good luck analyzing those, NSA!), those two parents, all smug and smiling on the Internet, really need a break. I mean, they haven't seen a film since the first Ironman came out, and the wife always mutters "vodka cranberry" every time her bundle of joy comes running. So, they ask you, their very dear friend to babysit. Of course, they think you'd babysit! You've known them since college, were present at every significant event, you wept at their wedding (and overpaid for that tux/bridesmaids dress, mind you) and kept a social media vigil while their child was being born! I mean, of course!

You have two options. You could tell them the truth: "I don't think your kids like me, besides, I can't be confined to your house when you don't even have HBO! I mean, hello, Game of Thrones!"

Nah, I didn't think so. The best approach is the passive-aggressive approach, because it keeps relational conflict below the surface - where it belongs. So option number two is to warp the minds of their kid(s) into such a twisted little pre-kindergarten knot that those mooching parents never ask you to babysit again. You'll have to sacrifice one night of freedom, of course. But to be free for the rest of your life, tell those lil' anklebiters any combination of the following:

1. "Interesting how your dad made you eat all that salad. Dinner at my house was always a snickers bar with a side of gummy bears. Healthy, and better tasting too."
2. "Baseball is an indoor sport. Extra points if you hit Mom's blender!"
3. "Why doesn't your mom still breast feed you? I guarantee you everyone else in preschool is still breast fed."
4. "Your bed is a dangerous place. If your parents loved you, they'd let you sleep in their room."
5. "Yeah, I smoked to impress people at school. It worked, too! Don't regret it one bit." 
6. "I brought over my favorite movie! It's about a little girl like you! It's called The Exorcist!"
7. "Baths are completely unnecessary. A waste of time, if you ask me." 
8. "Wiping your bottom is completely unnecessary. A waste of time, if you ask me." 
9. "Let's call your granny and ask her why Mommy always pays more attention to her iPad than to me." 
10. "Good night! Remember, I promise you can drink a Coke for breakfast." 

Oh, and if you try any of these with my daughter, I'll release a live badger your living room. 

Meanings of Life

Ben Yu asks, "What do you live for?" (HT: Karin)

A brief summary: Yu subscribes to Absurdism and sees life as fundamentally meaningless given the random nature of evolution, as well as the size and age of the universe compared with our mortality and that of our species. If life is meaningless, then what do (or should) any of us live for? So he crowd sourced the question and got some interesting responses. I thought I'd give it a shot. Even though he asked for answers in email, I'm so late composing my thoughts that I thought I'd use it as a chance to blog.

So, what do I live for? More often than not, I find a sense meaning in meeting my own needs. I don't think this is the larger sense of meaning that Yu is looking for (though I suppose this fits with Absurdism), but let's start at the shallow end of the pool. Meeting needs is a very temporary and superficial form of meaning, but I think it's meaning nonetheless. When I'm hungry, I live for food; when I'm thirsty, I live for drink, however temporarily. Then I start to live for companionship, intimacy, occupation, comfort, work, friendship - however you rank them, much of my life revolves around fulfilling my needs in various contexts with different levels of urgency. I choose to live, because I want these things. It's not the big picture, but there's not much time to think about the big picture when your body tells you that you really need a drink of water. Besides, Wu's post implies that next our lives must be absurd when compared to the size and age of the universe. On that scale, our own need-meeting is not much smaller than say, dedicating body and soul to human progress.

It's once I get to my family where I find myself living for other people. I write this with a delightful three-year-old in the room behind me. I've been interrupted to help color and sniff a candle that smells like strawberries. I'm keeping an eye on her so that my wife can fill a another part of her soul - keeping our garden. I got to observe this kind of behavior most of my, coming from a good family where my family seemed to answer Wu's question with, "you." And when I can move on, follow my families example, I live for them, and when I'm at my best, I live for those who I can come across, those who I'm close enough to effectively help. My neighbor.

We're still small and finite, but I don't see why meaning should be intimidated by humanity's relative smallness and finitude. Sure, we're small. How important is that really? Mountains are teensy compared to the size of the world, which is teensy compared to the Solar System, which is which is teensy compared to the Milky Way, etc... In my eyes, mountains are something regal, and their royal beauty is something self evident, and while I can't wrap it in any sort of reason, I walk away from such an experience with a deeper.

These are some of the reasons my faith is Christianity. Christianity offers a deeper sort of meaning that touches not only the unimaginable breadth of the universe(s), but the little meanings we give ourselves, love and altruism, through work and art, down to familial care and meeting our own needs. This implies that there is a God beyond our vast universe(s), who's taken interest in this tiny planet to the point that he became one of us, to be with us.

I'm alerted to God's presence in many ways, not in the least of which is the knowledge of our own smallness in the light of everything science has been teaching us about time and space, past and future. However, he seldom dwells where he can be prodded and studied, but stays where he can be followed with trust, a trust that knows that he is and has lived out the ultimate source of love. If he exists, then he dances like some sort of woodland fairy, unmeasurable, supplying us with love for him and love for others. I find it immensely comforting that, while he remains beyond our measuring devices, he's never beyond basic human intimacy. Can there be more meaning than this?

Christianity reveals a God beyond all measure who was willing to live and die as we do that he may be with us. For those of us who have trusted in him, he becomes our partner as we meet our needs, love our neighbors, and, if all works out, make the world a better place. It attaches me to a community of Christians, locally and internationally, throughout our species (short) time here. It's an amazing gift, and the offer is there. It's meaning, yes. But it's also life and joy and love.

PS: If you like a think, read Yu's blog.

See You Soon, Dr. Willard

A long time ago, a friend told me that by reading the Gospels, she had fallen in love with Jesus once again. That sounded good to me - I mean, loving Jesus was a big part of being a Christian, and I wanted to fall in love with him, just like that old Jars of Clay song. So, I set out and read each of the Gospels. I did this dutifully, from Matthew to John, but I was a teenager and lacked the self-awareness to admit that it didn't have the same effect. The Gospels, the Synoptic Gospels especially, were a sort of mysterious, holy terrain, full of riddles and sort-of-familiar stories that I only assumed had a direct application on my life because I knew they were supposed to. I was down with David and Paul, but I felt like I was missing the main point.

This all changed when I read The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. I may never have learned about the book had it not been assigned reading for my first stint as a campus ministry intern in Freiburg, Germany. It was heady reading for us, and not everyone on my team liked it - I remember one of my colleagues called it "The Divine Confusion" - but for me, it was magic.

The Divine Conspiracy was the first book (or sermon) that took seriously the Kingdom of Heaven. The Synoptic Gospels are full references to it, but it was a phrase I really didn't know how to handle. The Kingdom of Heaven seemed something very different, very separate from the here and now. Of course, as Dr. Willard points out, this isn't the case. Jesus' first message was that the Kingdom of Heaven was something very close. Because of Jesus, God and his own Kingdom, where his will is done, where Love is the law, is something near, if only we repent and belief this Good News.

This is how Dallas Willard explained it, or at least how I understood it. Almost every pastor I've encountered since has stressed that the Kingdom of Heaven is both "now and not yet," meaning that someday Jesus will return and establish the fullness of his Kingdom, but now we get to feel its presence and participate with us, even as we live among a world very much fallen. In The Divine Conspiracy, Willard stresses the "now" part (though the closing chapter is a wondrous reflection of what's to come).  And in his text, following Jesus became an endeavor of delight and urgency. Think of the last project you worked on, be it for work or for school or for whatever, that really felt like it was worth it, like your gifts were being used to create something that, regardless of whatever else was happening, was in and of itself good. That's how Dallas Willard presented the Kingdom of God, and that's how Dallas Willard presented our Lord's opus, the Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon on the Mount was a particularly hard nut among the Synoptic Gospel mysteries. The understandable critique, a critique that anyone who takes the Sermon seriously has to make, at least once, means: are these even possible? It's beautiful, sure. But it the real world, to rid our lives of anger, contempt, lust, and revenge, not to mention going the extra mile with someone, and all of this without being allowed to show off or worry... well...  It's silly, the way I'm describing it, but it's also honest. It seems a sermon of either ideals or intimidation, rocks that shatter good intentions.

But in a strange way, after reading The Divine Conspiracy, it isn't. To read Dallas Willard means that to follow Jesus in the manner described by his famous sermon is costly, yes, but it's also something rich and rewarding, full of energy without being tiresome. We really can go on the journey rid our lives of these things that suffocate our relationships to our fellow humans - bitter contempt, sexual objectification and revenge fantasies - to live a life where we really love God with all we got and love our neighbors as ourselves. The duty of discipleship became an adventure, a costliness that is worth every ounce of energy expended, for we know that ultimately, it's Christ, his death and Resurrection, that makes the journey possible.

The Kingdom of Heaven is still something mysterious to me, and maybe it's supposed to be. It seems like every pastor or theologian I encounter says something different on the subject, and maybe all of their thoughts fall within a spectrum of truth. But thanks to Dr. Willard, the concept, along with the Synoptic Gospels and the Sermon on the Mount, became something beautiful to me, something that I wanted to enter with all my heart. And with that, Jesus himself, his law, his teaching, his sacrifice and his presence through the Holy Spirit, became more beautiful.

I write this in appreciate and affection for Dr. Willard, who died on May 8th. I am indebted to his life and his teaching, and my highlight-stained copy of The Divine Conspiracy still sits in an open place on my shelf, available for reference.

Family Expressed

How do you express your family? I'm not sure if express is the right word, but I can't think of a better one. Let's see... those people who you live with and share genes and jeans and eat with and love and hurt and see and avoid and mess and clean. How do you present them to the world? After all, if you want the world - friends, colleagues, potential networking contacts, co-members, sports fans, and whomever else - if you want them to actually understand you, they need to understand your family, or at least the pieces you allow to show.

For this purpose, I often utilize that wonderful, free public relations platform called Facebook. There, we wash ourselves and dress up like birthday cakes and smile to create professional-looking photographs that are clearer than reality. They're so clear, they cause the blind to see. Or we get spontaneous shots of playgrounds, snowmen and Christmas presents, family happiness and instant memories. I'm writing with my tongue between my molars, but I do this, and I love it. All these things are worth celebrating like victorious children. Then there are other things beneath the pictures. Messes, tedium, delight, sin, forgiveness, sex, conflict, joy, and things only for the realms of pastors, therapists and bartenders.

To get a more complete family portrait, you need art. For his family portrait, Benjamin Hofer crafted ten songs which lovingly and resolutely fill out his first full-length album, Family History. A few items of business before I continue: Ben is a dear friend - he was the best man at my wedding, and I in his - so you should hear the bias in what I am about to write. His wife Lauren Shea Little on vocals and Wendell Kimbrough in the production chair are also friends. But please taste the free single and see for yourself. This is a good album, perfect for your Saturday-morning song list. (And for a quick overview of all the other useful information surrounding the album, visit Justin's blog)

Ben and Wendell layer vocals, guitars, banjos, percussion, whistling, and plenty more to create the album's thoughtful sound. The production itself is impressive, and it's a compliment to their work, the mastering, and the technology that the album sounds three dimensional, like the musicians are in the room with you and not next door. Most of the music is pleasantly subdued, which makes the title track more of a highlight when, as if releasing some pent up emotion, the musicians start rocking out and fill up every available space with sound.

But even more than layering music, what Family History does well is layer emotions. There are happy songs like "Man's Own Heart" or "We'll Be Laughing" (a personal favorite for me) that carry a splash of regret. Likewise, the sad songs like "Huron, SD" aren't joyless. It's so tempting to talk about family (or for that matter history, love, or politics) in one dimension, and Ben's emotional alchemy not only tells broader stories, it holds the listener to his or her better angels.

However personal Ben's songs are, you'll find yourself nodding, relating and humming along. I spoke with Ben today, and he talked about the joys and pains of sharing family history, but at the same time, he knows that these songs will mean different things to different people. Our families leave us our own scarred map of memories, and Ben's Family History might help shine a light on yours.

One more thing. We expect our entertainment to reach out and grab us. We need a little pizazz from the first page, scene, or song to convince us that we should pay attention. Most of Ben's songs don't reach out and grab us, and I mean that as a compliment. We're adults; we don't need to be grabbed. We have the ability to sit and listen, and that is a marvelous gift. Family History is full of songs like the title track,  "The Dream of Joseph Cornell" or "Huron, SD" that won't greet you at the door like a salesman. But if you sit and listen, you will be rewarded with rich stories told by rich music. As soon as you can, sit down and listen to Benjamin Hofer's Family History. It comes out on April 6th.