How To Spot a Christian Buzzword

If Christian marketing uses the word twice in the same sentence, chances are, you've got a buzzword. Consider this, from the back cover of The Wisdom of Stability by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove:

"A work of startling authenticy, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's new book speaks to each of us who seek an authentic path of Christian transformation."

I'm not sure I can handle that much authenticity. Is this one of those places where "keepin' it real" goes to far?

No to knock the book, of course. The Wisdom of Stability was recommended by a friend. My wife has read about a third of it, and I've read the first chapter. Wilson-Hartgrove might overstate the scriptural case for his points (though I should reflect more here), but I'm thankful that he wrote a book about staying rooted. As someone who's trying to settle after wandering for the better part of a decade, I resonate with the theme. After all, it's a book of startling resonance for everyone who wants to resonate with authentic Christian transformation.

Surviving the Commute

I remember reading (or hearing) somewhere that the length of your commute is one of the most consistent happiness indicators. Regardless of classification (such as nationality, religion or social-economic status), those with shorter commutes were happier than those with long commutes. It made sense to me at the time, and now Anne Lowery has done the world a favor by documenting the horrors of the long commute in Slate. She writes, and I second, that:

"Commuting is a migraine-inducing life-suck—a mundane task about as pleasurable as assembling flat-pack furniture or getting your license renewed, and you have to do it every day. If you are commuting, you are not spending quality time with your loved ones. You are not exercising, doing challenging work, having sex, petting your dog, or playing with your kids (or your Wii). You are not doing any of the things that make human beings happy. Instead, you are getting nauseous on a bus, jostled on a train, or cut off in traffic."

She goes on to examine the research that shows the correlation between commuting and obesity, divorce, loneliness and other maladies.

An obvious take away is to sacrifice those big things we want in a house - a spacious yard, fireplace, enough TV channels to entertain the entire population of Tokyo - to pay a little extra for a smaller flat or house closer to where you work. Lowery points out:

"Given the choice between that cramped apartment and the big house, we focus on the tangible gains offered by the latter. We can see that extra bedroom. We want that extra bathtub. But we do not often use them. And we forget that additional time in the car is a constant, persistent, daily burden—if a relatively invisible one."

Not to mention high gas prices. Also, if are an employer, I suspect that employees with shorter commutes are not only happier, but more productive and less prone to that creeping resentment about work cutting into their personal life. I may be worth the investment to pay additional salary to employees who live within fifteen minutes of the office (for the business minded, is anyone out there aware of companies who do this? Would it work?).

In the mean time, more and more of us find themselves living like that opening scene in Office Space where the protagonists stop-and-go through the traffic. If we're unable to make the potentially life-saving lifestyle change to reduce the commute, what should we do? I have a few suggestions based on my experience, but these fit to my personality and may not work for everyone. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

1. Embrace Public Transportation. I had a long commute in DC, and it was actually a little bit shorter to drive in than to Metro (or in sometimes, bus-then Metro) in. Complaining about Metro is one of Washington's number one pass times, up there with the Army 10-miler and bashing the leaders of the opposing party. But whatever Metros problems, the train system is much safer and much less stressful than driving inside the beltway. DC area drivers are an unholy alliance of important people who can't stop blackberrying, college students, tourists and people with diplomatic immunity. Plus, the designers of the northern Virginia road system must have had population control in mind. And folks say I'm a relatively calm person, but behind the wheel I can turn into a cussing, raging hulk. Even if it took a little longer, riding that train got me to and from work in a safe and more-relaxed manner that was better for my soul. On top of all this, public transportation is better for the environment. Not every town has public transportation, but if it's available, I recommend taking it.
   
2. This leads me to my second point, which is to use your commute to catch up on your reading, pray, catching up on the news, or whatever else that may cut into your home life. One of my old pastors mentioned that he uses his Metro time to veg out. He has five kids at home, so on the Metro, he reads interesting news articles on his iPhone. Vegging out of the way, he can focus his energy on his kids when he got home. In Washington, I had a pattern where I would pray in the morning (I pray through prayer cards, as suggested by Paul Miller his book, A Praying Life, which I reviewed in December) and devote my ride home to pleasure reading. This is more difficult if you drive of course. But if you decide my commute is where I catch up on the news or listen to a book on time, then that's one less thing your hours in traffic will take away from you.
3. If you can, make exercise a part of your commute. It makes sense that people who have long commutes have health problems; they simply have less time to move around. They come home and face the choice: do I spend time with my family or do I hit the gym? One way, of course, is to bike to work, which is what my wife's Uncle Gehard does. Now that I live in a bike-friendly country, I hope to be a bike-commuter as well. I did not bike in Washington (it takes a brave soul to bike in DC), I got off the Metro at a place (Farragut West, for those of you familiar with the area) where I would walk twenty minutes to my office (DuPont Circle). This is not the way to get perfect abs, but it got my limbs moving and my heart pumping ten times per week, which ain't bad.

Again, these may not work for you, and none of these are a perfect answer. But I find that if you can use your commute to accomplish one of your daily goals, such as exercise, reading or simply staying informed, your less likely to experience the commuting hazards Lowery describes. How is your commute? How much would your life improve if it were shorter? What are your commuter survival tips?

Are You Ready for the Apocalypse?

By now, we've all had fun with Harold Camping's looney toon proclamation that May 21 is (was?) Judgment Day. One of my favorites: A friend joked on Facebook about leaving a post-rapture pile of clothes at the front door. I also liked PETA's admonishment to make your last supper vegan, which I saw pictured in the NYTimes. My own joke, after one of my German friends made sure to point out Camping's nationality, was: "no one knows the hour or the day, except the Americans." Yes, rest of the world: We're that good! Of course, Jesus explicitly said that no one knows the hour or the date, which leads us to this billboard.

We should joke about it. Yes, there are things here that are deadly serious, particularly those in Camping's group who left jobs, family and everything else that helps them through this world, because they thought the next would start over the weekend. May God be with them in this time and provide for their needs. But, humor, rightly used, is a balm and an alarm clock. It helps us process the absurdities native to this fallen world.

Yet, once the giggling has subsided, Camping leaves us with a very real question: Are we ready for the apocalypse? Yup, there's funny word. Funny enough for DC residents to dub last year's record-breaking snowstorm, "Snow-pocalypse," though I doubt a northern city such as St. Paul would have been intimidated. In spite of the humor, my favorite part of the Anglican liturgy is when we all shout, "Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!" It's a proclamation, growing in controversy with each sentence, that pops out like a firework in the middle of the church service. No one disputes the first, and the second sentence aligns us with all Christians throughout history. But the third - that "Christ will come again" part - does match us with the loonies?

No one knows the date, and anyone who claims they do should be treated with suspicious, correction and, if necessary, laughter. Nonetheless, the hope of Christianity is that Christ really will come again and set things right. Do you long for justice and fairness? Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. Do you want an end to war, conflict and violence? Christ will come again with a peace much deeper than we can ask or imagine. Do you wish someone would undo the violence we've done to creation? Christ, the creator and new creator, will come again. Do long for your body, your heart or your mind to be healed? Christ, the healer, will come again.

In the meantime, those who follow Christ are to engage in His work, united as one body, in preparation. That's why such talk about a second coming should never be an excuse to avoid working for the good - the good of ourselves, each other and this world. The more we grow in love for each other, the more we make peace with each other, the more we strive to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly in our God, the more we long for Christ to return and bring all of these things into completion.

We also realize something else. You see, that last sentence, "Christ will come again" is only good news because of the first two: "Christ has died, Christ is risen." You see, we all fall short. There is something in us that leads us to be unjust and unfair. There's part of all of us that is fallen into division, into a sort of "unpeace" - with each other and with God. We all need to be created anew. In his death and Resurrection, Christ bore our guilt and brings us new life. That means that injustice, disaster, even death does not have the final word. This good news is news of freedom. This news is like the way fresh water tastes after not drinking for three days. The well is deep, and we're invited.

How, then, do we respond? We turn away from any injustice, greed, selfish-ambition or any other sin so natural to us, and believe this good news. Paul writes that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation - the old is gone, the new has come. It is in such hope that we can wait with joy and, yes, expectation that Christ will come again.

That's why, with all the absurdity, arrogance and blindness in a doomsday prophecy, there's something beautiful there as well. CNN managed to interview Tom Evans, the only one of Camping's followers to take questions the morning after (according to the article, Evans served as a spokesman for Camping's radio ministry). The others were, understandably, lying low. Evans said,

"When you as a person believe God is coming back, and you believe the evidence is very clear that he's coming back, that is something every child of God longs for. In a moment, we'd be changed and spend eternity with God. I'm not ashamed of that at all. I'm not ashamed of wanting and hoping for it."

Whatever the problems of pride, theology or pure silliness, the hope that "Christ will come again" is a hope we share.

Are you ready for the Apocalypse? There will be an end. For the majority of us, that end comes in the form of death. Death will be a personal apocalypses, but the wonderful news of the Resurrection is that death does not have the final say. At some point, Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. He will make all things new. I dare not say when, and I dare not describe what it will be like. No one can. But as we go about our lives, cracking jokes to help us with life's absurdities, let's remember that this theme is worth serious reflection.

Multitasking

Multitasking - feeding my little girl while giving my wife a foot massage.

Cha-CHHIIIIING!!!!

That sound you hear is the sound of me racking up brownie points.

"I don't want to keep her from getting her dinner." My wife said that as she pulled her foot away. Evidently, while kneading my wife's arch with my left hand, I neglected the spoon, which hung limp over a bowl of mushy vegetables from my right hand. "Nyum Nyum!" shouted my daughter impatiently. Nyum Nyum is how she says Yum Yum, which as you probably guessed, means "food," "feed me," or "feed me NOW."

Maybe those researchers are right...

Business Classy

That's right. We flew business class. That seven-hour plane ride from Washington-Dulles to Frankfurt? Luxury. Luxury like a De Beers commercial. It was pimp my ride, Lufthansa addition, and baby, we ain't going back.

Ok, we will go back. I have a hard time envisioning a scenario when business class tickets will be in my price range. But, as Ferris Bueller once said, "if you have the means..."

Our business class tickets were generously bought with my in-law's frequent flier miles. The reason? We were moving, and we had a lot of luggage. More luggage than Paris Hilton. Plus our stroller. Plus my guitar, who in a perfect world would get her own seat and be lovingly polished by stewardesses once an hour during the flight. And if you fly business class, as we discovered, they smilingly and with much care and gentleness accommodate so much luggage that you wonder if the plane will pull a trailer behind it as it soars through the clouds.

Actually, it's probably a clever strategy. Most actual business travelers fly to their high-powered meetings like George Clooney's character in Up In The Air, no baggage except a mini-rolling carry on. These men are under so much stress and pressure, that they could do without the uncertainty and lost time that comes with checking a bag. Thus, when families travel business class, there's plenty of room for checked luggage. And to my surprise, we were not the only families in business class. I had feared, with some justification, that my babbling, crying, ever-exploring daughter would draw the ire and angry looks of haggard executives seeking solace in their in-flight martinis. In fact, the closest people to us were a beautiful Indian family who, angelic son and daughter in tow, were flying from Washington to Mumbai. I bet they had enough luggage to fill the Taj Mahal.

On top of that, we found out that the business class section on our flight wasn't even half full (or should I say half empty? I never know...). The lovely woman at ticketing informed us of this as we checked in. She gave us the kind of customer service you give to someone who saved your mother's life. "Since we will have extra seats available," she said in a voice that was both soothing and truly grateful for my families' existence," why don't we put you and your wife on either side of an empty seat. We won't actually be selling the seat for your daughter to use, but if no one needs it, feel free to put her there." You mean my daughter won't need to sit on my lap for seven hours straight? Yes, please. To my right, I looked over at the masses in the common, er... economy class, crowded in their line, angrily quarreling with Lufthansa workers about the size of their carry ons. They must have been waiting in line since President Obama's inauguration speech.

After checking in, we said our tearful goodbyes to our Scottish friend and my lovely sister who is known for Scottish poetry, both of whom were kind enough to caravan us and our possessions to Dulles (Washington area residents will know that this is a sacrifice in and of itself). Then we made our way to the plane.

There they were, three seats in the middle of our plane for our family, and enough room between any other seats for gnomes to play volleyball. As predicted, plenty of those seats were empty, including one for the baby to use. The only downside was that my beautiful wife was far away from me. Economy class is always a good excuse to snuggle with my wife, which is one of my favorite activities. She was so far away that I wondered if I would have to send the butler with a hand-written note on the family stationary every time I wanted to communicate with her. I peered towards the rear of the plane where, for a brief moment, I saw the commoners, packed together like caged chickens. Graciously, a flight attendant pulled the curtain so we couldn't see each other. I would hate for their envy to boil over into a full-fledged Marxist uprising. Plus, I didn't want to have to deal with empathizing for my fellow man, his knees pressed uncomfortably against his food tray, trying not to touch the fat man with a head cold to his right, nor the unwashed college student in pajamas and flip flops to his left.

I had so much leg room that Dwight Howard could have sat comfortably in my seat. The chair itself, by way of an assortment of buttons conveniently located at my right hand, could bend in several places into a thousand positions. It took a little time and effort to find the position of maximum comfort for my dainty, business class body. Ah, but I found it! There was even a massage function. Unfortunately, all that ever happened was some buzzing under my thighs. I was hoping that an in-flight masseur would come and work out all the knots that parade down my spine. Maybe I didn't push the button hard enough.

Let's talk about the Lufthansa flight attendants for a moment. Lufthansa has the best flight attendants I've ever come across, even before experiencing the niceties of business class. They are the best, because they are the best dressed. They still wear the wonderful flight attendant uniforms American airliners (who knows why) gave up in the seventies. Their perky yellow scarves, their dapper berets cocked perfectly to the side, their sailor outfits all tell you, if I'm willing to put this on for you to have a good flight, you will have a good flight.

Of course, they are even better when you fly business class. They fawned all over my daughter the entire flight. Not only did they set up a lovely bassinet for her (which proved ineffective and perhaps a little unsafe for a fifteen-month-old who wants to grow up to be a mountain climber - hey, it's the thought that counts), but each one on different occasions throughout the flight bought her luxurious snacks, mostly German bread, which is luxurious, and wonderful, Lufthansa-themed toys. We are now in possession of several stuffed, fluffy airplanes and a felt mobile with dangling clouds, stars and planes. More importantly, the flight attendants knew that a luxury flight was incomplete without plenty of luxury drinks. Before our flight had taken off, when I was testing the bending limits of the joints in my chair, a smiling stewardess offered me a glass, not a plastic picnic goblets you get at Target, but a glass of Champagne. The wine menu's elegant selection was available to me the duration of the flight. Oh, and the food...!

So much airline food seems like frozen stuff the supermarkets were unable to sell, so they provide them bulk rate to the major airline carriers. That, of course, is the lot of the common, I mean economy class. In Business class, I had a three course meal with real silverware and plates. We ordered off a menu. Lufthansa business class meals are the creations of German celebrity chefs, whose bios were conveniently available in our inflight magazine. The salad I ate was by far the least-rubbery grouping of vegetables I've ever experienced on a plane, but the highlight was the main course. I can't say if it was the best lamb I've ever tasted, but it was up there. You'll pardon the cliche, but the meat really did melt in my mouth. The sauce was a spectacular curry-based combination of flavors that told my taste buds, yes, this is what you've been waiting for. Heavenly. For dessert, my wife and I shared an exquisite combination of fruit and cheese, artistically arranged on a porcelain serving tray. I'm sure back in common, er... economy class, they were sticking their sporks into a half-thawed chicken thigh filled with cheese or trying to digest some uncomfortable, gas-inducing pasta sauce, wondering if a cup of table wine really is worth five Euros. Not I, feet up, belly full of contentment.

What else could I talk about? My own little TV, where I got to choose from dozens of movies or TV shows, and that I could watch on my own time? The little toiletry bag they gave us or the warm towel to wash our little faces? I didn't even mention waiting for my flight in the business class lounge with a buffet and open bar. They even came to get us so we could board before all the riff-raff.

There was, however, one aspect of intrigue. Whenever I needed to use the bathroom, a frequent event after all that bubbly, I noticed an inviting, spiral staircase to another compartment on the plane. That was the staircase to first class, something all the poor souls who sit in business class aspire to. Naturally, I wasn't allowed to go up. But what did they have up there? Did each person have a personal flight attendant who had spent a month studying their subject beforehand as to anticipate their every possible need or desire. Did they get not only a spacious seat, but an entire suite, complete with sauna and aged wine bottled before the invention of the airplane? Were they all hooked into a computer program like the Matrix, except to experience the sort of pleasures not available to the rest of us in this life?

I know one thing they did get: their own chariot to the airplane itself. I know this, because I saw it in Frankfurt while my family and I waited for our connecting flight to Stuttgart. There we were, sitting in the terminal with all the other sheep, looking expectantly at the small jet in which we would all squeeze, when suddenly, a brand new Porsche pulled up right by the plane. The driver, with the efficiency and elegance of the best-trained servant, got out of the car and opened the passenger door. Out stepped a tall, middle-aged man whose suit probably was about as expensive car, only to be matched by price of his perfectly-placed sunglasses. All eyes upon him, he strolled easily onto our plane, many, many minutes before even those carrying business class tickets, babies or both.

Now that's the way to travel.

Paint the Town Green

In moving to Baden-Wuertemberg this year, I am experiencing a little piece of history. You see, B-W is one of Germany's 16 states (I like impressing, or at least thinking I'm impressing, my Germans friends by telling them I can name all 50 U.S. states. Thank you, "Fifty Nifty" song), the one that lies in the southwest corner. With the exception of the wonderful college town of Freiburg, which the Sueddeutsche Zeitung's "Jetzt" blog called the Portland of Germany (actually, they called Portland the Freiburg of America), the state is about as conservative as you can get here in Europe. It was the home of the Pietist movement and is still the closest thing to a Bible belt you'll find in these parts, plus it is a center of industry, boasting top companies like Daimler, Porsche and Bosch. All these combine to make B-W the German equivalent of a red state. Except that in Germany, the red party is actually the Social Democrats, who are the heirs of the socialists and currently their main left-leaning party. The color of the more conservative Christian Democrats is black, perhaps making it the Batman of political parties.

Except that now the Greens are in control. Yes, Green means the same thing here that it does in the States, except that in Germany the Greens are a viable political party. Foreign policy buffs may recall that the Greens even held a national coalition government with the Social Democrats several years ago. Americans may best remember Joschka Fischer, that same government's foreign minister during the Iraq war. During a speech about why he thought the war was not a good idea, he famously switched from German to English when Donald Rumsfeld took off his translator headphones, though I don't know if he actually shouted, "pay attention, Rummy!" In their parliamentary democracy, the dominant left- or right-leaning party usually needs to form a coalition with a smaller party in order to control the government. The Social Democrats like to partner with the Greens to form what nobody except me calls a Christmas tree coalition. The Christian Democrats like to partner with the Free Democrats, the yellows, to form a bumblebee coalition. The Free Democrats are what the Tea Party would be if it were dominated by university intellectuals.

But now the Greens rule Baden-Wuertemberg. Or, more accurately, they are the dominant party of a coalition with the Reds, which is a bit like having Ralph Nader asking Barack Obama to be Vice President. For more bad U.S.-German equivalencies, let me say that the Greens winning in Baden-Wuertemberg is a bit like having the Green party take over Texas. Our (I write "our" saying even though I'm not a citizen, I am a resident with healthcare and Kindergeld) new Minister-President - B-W's governor - is Winfried Kretschmann. Even though he shares a barber with Kim Jong Il, I actually find him to be a sympathetic figure. He's over sixty and comes from a small town in the Swabian Alps, Germany's answer to the Appalachian Mountains. True to the Green roots, he does not want to be known as a Landesvater, or "Father of the State," which is usually a perk of the job, though I don't know exactly what it means. He prefers to be a fellow citizen, who happens to be in charge. He has a strong Swabian accent, which is important as the governor of Mississippi saying "y'all", but he spoke enough high German for me to understand him on the news last night. Unlike pretty much every politician I've seen speak on either side of the Atlantic, he doesn't come across as a salesman. He has a reputation for being pretty even handed and fair and gave more diplomatic answers regarding his pro-bike, pro-train transportation plan (unlike his new transportation minister, who, in an interview with a national newspaper yesterday, called some Porsche-driving as a libido-form of car driving, which probably won't go well here in Germany's motor-city).

How did the Greens take over? I'm not sure exactly, but evidently everyone was upset about a train station, which the Greens bravely stood against because of tree-removal, but the other parties supported, because they had already paid for it. I just came from Washington, where the problems include two wars and a huge debt. It's not bad to move to a place where the biggest problem is a train station.
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Germanness Inventory

On my way to congratulate my wife's grandmother on her 90th birthday, I took mental notes about my person to see how I am adapting to the German culture. The following is a brief (and by no means comprehensive) Germanness inventory:

1. Wearing sandals to go outside - leaning American
2. I am a male, and I'm not wearing socks with my sandals - American
   
3. The sandals are flip flops - very American
4. The flip flops are from the Gap - apple pie, baseball...
   
5. Shorts are an earthy green - leaning German
6. Shorts are not man-capris - American
7. Earthy green shorts combined with earthy yellow plaid shirt that doesn't particularly stand out - German
8. I wore the same shirt yesterday - very German
9. I'm not wearing any black at all, save a digital watch and my glasses frames - very American
10. My black glasses have rectangle frames in an effort to look intellectual and cool - culturally neutral, if not a bit pompous
11. Italian-cut hair - German
    

Smaller

After fifteen years, I revisited the house of my childhood.

This was a couple months ago, while my family was still in the DC area. I was born a Virginian, growing up first in that wonderful college town called Blacksburg (I don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything bad about Blacksburg - and I honestly can't think of another town with that distinction), then, ages five through almost thirteen in a suburb outside of Richmond. After that, we moved to a flat and swampy place, which is and isn't home.

Would leaving anywhere at thirteen mean leaving with a bad taste in your mouth? That was the case for Richmond. While I missed the hills and the seasons, I had just walked through that threshold called middle school where the young and the oily exercise some primal need to create tribes and enemies. My experience was nothing unusual, but it created enough isolation and self-loathing that I was not unhappy about moving on.

Pre-Middle School, you could not have asked for a better neighborhood to grow up in, this suburb of Richmond. First the hills. There will hills on the streets, around the block, that seemed to go down forever, teaching courage 1st grade bike riders. There were other hills that went through peoples yards, between houses. Once or twice a year, God gave us enough snow to close schools and send us sledding between trees and down storm drains. There were also trees. The oak trees of our neighborhood were worthy of poetry, diminishing houses in their majesty and falling enough leaves to busy every Saturday throughout the fall. Oh, and the yards. Each house had an enormous backyard and an enormous front yard, yards that, to my little eyes, were like football fields - and to this purpose we used them, running and tackling on leaves and acorns.

Our own yard was its own wilderness. It sloped on a hill I don't know how many meters until you finally reached a chain-linked fence. At the top, there was grass, but down at the end of the hill, which we would sled down Calvin & Hobbes style (I was never brave enough to try a wagon), was a wooded area - our own forest of the towering oaks. It had a little stream bed going through it, not to mention a play house the previous owners left for us, and a garage, the roof of which was my little place of solace. It was a back yard a child could literally explore.

And then our house. Our house was multilevel - when I was a little older and our upstairs was populated by sisters and the residue of pink-lacy toys, I got my own room in the basement-lower level. We had a living room upstairs which my mom could keep presentable for the outside world, and a downstairs den with a chocolate brown carpet that children could keep as dirty as a baseball diamond. My favorite feature of the house was the exterior. The lower level was brick, but the upper level, the face of the house up to the pointed roof, was Tudor style - a white background with brown beams and brown trim around the windows. It made the house stand out as something handsome in this world, something you could point to smiling saying, this is where I live.

We returned to Richmond as spring was just awakening, because I thought it would be a shame to live in Washington for more than four years and not show my wife the house of my childhood. We stayed with some dear old friends - the sort of friends you invite to weddings whatever the separation of time and space. Then, we saw our old neighborhood.

It should not have come as a surprise. After all, I've grown. But my old neighborhood was smaller. It was as if the entire world had swallowed a shrinking mushroom from Alice in Wonderland. The hills were bumps, mere formalities between higher and lower. The trees no longer towered, naked as they were from the winter. The biggest trees, my favorite trees, the ones in the front yard in the flowerbed with the squirrel nests, had been felled. They had gotten sick, reported a neighbor. Worst of all was the exterior change to my house. The Tudor style front needed to be replaced several years and go, and so it was - with hospital-white panels. It looked like the side of a trailer. So many of the other houses were still handsome.

Something else was also smaller. Those middle school memories, my first confrontations with human nature at its ugliest - when human nature has woken up and hasn't had coffee - the memories of hate and isolation. They were tiny. They were overcome, replaced by time, space, adulthood and the power to make your own decisions. They were overcome by a God of love, who took the worst of human nature upon himself and rose again. The God who loves the young and the oily.

We had a wonderful neighbor who still lived there. She told stories of who was left and who moved on. Her front yard was peppered with wonderful toys for the neighborhood children to use. One little boy, who lived somewhere nearby among hills and trees, hopped on a scooter and, with speed and courage, road down the incline that was my neighbor's driveway. I bet he thought it was a mountain.

Plochingen

"Plochingen is beautiful," quipped my father-in-law with his twinkly, mirthy grin. We were driving from the Stuttgart airport to his hometown, which is now our hometown. One of the first things you see when you drive into Plochingen from the Autobahn is a bulking junk yard filled with scrap metal, like a magnified steel-wool forest. It's pretty ugly. Hence, the quip.

From where I sit, it's different. I'm sitting in my wife's old bedroom, which is in the basement level of their house. She grew up in the bedroom a floor above us, but when she was finished with high school, she and my father-in-law rebuilt the basement into a comfortable living space. My father-in-law built every part of the house. He builds and manages houses - even though he has the equivalent of a masters in engineering, he would rather be outside working with his hands then designing in an office on a computer.

The basement level actually has a door into the backyard. That's because the house was built into the side of a small mountain, so the front door, facing towards the summit, is a good three stories above the backdoor. One level up are two rooms, once and now bedrooms for family members, however far they wandered before. Above those rests a bright and spacious living room. On every level are balconies and wonderfully big windows that ensure the sun is a daily guest.

If I step out, I stand in the backyard, which is, to be more accurate, a garden. The side of the mountain is lovingly shaped with stone and grass and trees until you walk down, step by step, level by level, to the next row of houses and apartments. These include, incidentally, the residencies of my wife's brother, aunt and uncle and grandmother. It also includes an empty apartment where my family will begin its life in Germany. Blessing and grace, abundant.

Beyond those houses, I can see the town center (the aforementioned junk yard is, happily, beyond my line of vision). Plochingen invites the small town sort of life that I never experienced in the suburbs. It's a little place, but I can still walk downtown and find civilization: coffee shops, stores, cobble stone, statues and a big church. Where I sit, all the houses in the city below have matching red-tiled roofs, each with a high, pointy peak in the middle. They make their own spiky mountain range through the river valley, trying to keep secret the fact that they are individual units, made by the hands of man. The afternoon sun casts his golden blessing on the whole scene. Plochingen is beautiful.

The Italian Barber

Somewhere between packing, catching diseases, moving countries and being a family man, I forgot to get a haircut. In college, and during both of my years in Germany, I simply let my hair grow. The style around the turn of the millennium (if you can recall to those days of Y2K scares and mobile phones without screens) was for a man to have each of his hairs shorn tiny and combed forward so it came to a single point at the front. Everyone respectable had it, which bothered me for some reason, so I let my locks grow. I cut it short and pretty again every time I needed a desk job, but as a student or missionary I played Sampson (without the muscles). Some Women protested (though when long hair became fashionable again half a decade later they protested when I cut my hair), but sometimes my hippie hair invited comparisons to Jesus, John Lennon and Vigo Mortensen's version of Aragorn. Not bad company, if you ask me. Of course, I was also cast as a mental patient and a hobo...

I spent my last half-decade as a respectable DC urbanite with a matching haircut, and here in Germany, I need hair that assures anyone I meet (an immigration official, for example) that I'm ready to have a place in society. So, I went to a barber.

My in-laws recommended the Italian barber their Uncle Helmut frequents. Uncle Helmut lives across the street and used to worked at the town's brewery before he retired (sadly, the town's brewery also had to retire). His hair always looks distinguished, so I agreed. Plus, you don't need an appointment for this particular Italian barber.

Many barbers in Germany are Italian. In my German course during our Freiburg years, we once practiced our auditory understanding by listening to a funny story about a German housewife charmed by her Italian stylist. Many of them immigrated to Germany with their families in the 60s and run barber shops and restaurants today. Yes, as Texas is a good place to find Mexican food, southern Germany's not a bad place to find an Italian restaurant.

When I opened the door to the barber shop, I felt like I had walked into a retirement home. The men (even though the sign outside said they cut ladies hair, the posters, the magazines, the clientele and the barber were clearly masculine) ahead of me and behind me in line were long in the tooth, to say the least. Their short hair suggested they visit the barber shop every week (where my roadkill toupee look suggested other priorities), but, at least while I was there, it lacked community of the classic neighborhood barber in the States (not that I would really know about that with all my visits to Hair Cuttery - I only know it from books and movies). If the old men were regulars, they did not acknowledge one another. Part of me would have enjoyed a waiting room filled with old men telling stories, but it's not in the German nature to talk to strangers, at least not without a couple liters of beer in the belly. Instead, everyone sat in their chairs looking as if their previous appointment was for a root canal.

The Italian barber, veteran immigrant that he is, adopted the German custom of not being talkative, but his lips were curled in a constant Cheshire Cat smile. His movements and features, though not animated or (to northern European/North American eyes) overstated, betrayed his heritage. His forearms had almost as much hair as some of his clients. I watched him over my borrowed copy of Geo, Germany's answer to National Geographic. He worked with concentration, intensity and excellence - the sort of way I imagine the classic Italian artists working. Each of us received a run-of-the-mill men's haircut - no colors or frills, but the results, including mine, were somehow classier and much more attractive, then they would be had we visited a bored stylist who wished he could be sculpting the locks of the new Dutchess of Cambridge, much less a national haircut chain. It was as if each one of my hairs were given love and attention needed to become a better part of a whole.

So, if you are ever in Germany and in need of a haircut, let me make one suggestion. Go Italian.