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.
'
Friday, May 13, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
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:
- Wearing sandals to go outside - leaning American
- I am a male, and I'm not wearing socks with my sandals - American
- The sandals are flip flops - very American
- The flip flops are from the Gap - apple pie, baseball...
- Shorts are an earthy green - leaning German
- Shorts are not man-capris - American
- Earthy green shorts combined with earthy yellow plaid shirt that doesn't particularly stand out - German
- I wore the same shirt yesterday - very German
- I'm not wearing any black at all, save a digital watch and my glasses frames - very American
- My black glasses have rectangle frames in an effort to look intellectual and cool - culturally neutral, if not a bit pompous
- Italian-cut hair - German
Sunday, May 8, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Initiating Birthday
When I was in high school, birthdays were an excellent chance to display ones social status. I lived in Orlando, Florida, and our high school had two campuses, a huge courtyard, and spacious, outdoor hallways. If it was your birthday, your friends would often give you those silvery balloons featuring cartoon characters and short greeting like, "Your Rock!", available at your local grocery store or 7-11. Almost everyone received a balloon or two, but the popular usually received enough balloons to float a new-born calf. You could see them walking across the courtyard, their glistening prizes bobbing over and behind and beside their heads. An open peacock's tail.
American birthday tradition means that you are the king and your friends and relatives are your servants. This, of course, makes it an awkward letdown to move to a new town where nobody really knows your birthday. This is awkward, because birthdays are more special when your friends don't need to be reminded to be thoughtful. So, actually telling people your birthday's coming up, let alone throwing your own party where you pay for the cake, the drinks and the pointy hats somehow falls in the loss column, soothed a little by the surprise birthday package sent by your mom.
Here in Germany, the whole family went to a birthday party in honor of my wife's Grandmother. It was just today, and it was held in our little towns' nicest biergarten (I ate some delicious maultaschen - yum yum). The difference was, she paid for the whole thing. In Germany, the birthday kid is the servant. As soon as they are old enough, they plan the party. They buy the drinks, food and favors, though I haven't seen very many pointed hats. They send the invitations. They host the party in their flat and clean up afterward. It's a lot of extra work to be the birthday kid, to say the least. So much so, that my father-in-law often plans his vacation around his own birthday.
My sister teaches English in Spain, and she says the Spanish are the same way. She pointed out to me that this relieves the social pressure of wondering whether or not friends would remember your birthday. On her birthday, she brought in her own plate of American brownies to share with her class and bought the coffee for her teacher friends at the cafe where they take their (considerably long) breaks. Everyone was delighted. Even though she initiated, she bathed smiling in all the birthday love.
We'll see how it goes on my birthday (located on the other side of the year). I'm not fan of social tension, much less the feeling you get if the big day passes unnoticed, but hey, I like being treated as a king, and I don't want to spend my birthday preparing like Martha Stewart. One thing I can count on, of course: The birthday package from mom.
American birthday tradition means that you are the king and your friends and relatives are your servants. This, of course, makes it an awkward letdown to move to a new town where nobody really knows your birthday. This is awkward, because birthdays are more special when your friends don't need to be reminded to be thoughtful. So, actually telling people your birthday's coming up, let alone throwing your own party where you pay for the cake, the drinks and the pointy hats somehow falls in the loss column, soothed a little by the surprise birthday package sent by your mom.
Here in Germany, the whole family went to a birthday party in honor of my wife's Grandmother. It was just today, and it was held in our little towns' nicest biergarten (I ate some delicious maultaschen - yum yum). The difference was, she paid for the whole thing. In Germany, the birthday kid is the servant. As soon as they are old enough, they plan the party. They buy the drinks, food and favors, though I haven't seen very many pointed hats. They send the invitations. They host the party in their flat and clean up afterward. It's a lot of extra work to be the birthday kid, to say the least. So much so, that my father-in-law often plans his vacation around his own birthday.
My sister teaches English in Spain, and she says the Spanish are the same way. She pointed out to me that this relieves the social pressure of wondering whether or not friends would remember your birthday. On her birthday, she brought in her own plate of American brownies to share with her class and bought the coffee for her teacher friends at the cafe where they take their (considerably long) breaks. Everyone was delighted. Even though she initiated, she bathed smiling in all the birthday love.
We'll see how it goes on my birthday (located on the other side of the year). I'm not fan of social tension, much less the feeling you get if the big day passes unnoticed, but hey, I like being treated as a king, and I don't want to spend my birthday preparing like Martha Stewart. One thing I can count on, of course: The birthday package from mom.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Would You Believe Him If He Told You?
I once met a man who saw Jesus in a vision. Let me explain.
The youth hostel itself had seen better days, not just from the weather or the bombing, but 9/11 had hurt the tourist industry worldwide. They had failed to pay their taxes, so the government had sealed their front door shut. However, the hostel owners were chummy with the man who ran a dry-cleaners downstairs in the basement of the same building. To get into the Youth Hostel, we had to walk, almost crawl, through the dry cleaners between rows of hanging coats and white walls and climb a stair case into the comfortable lodging, presumably helping our new, grateful friends to stick it to the man.
The youth hostel owners were a group of five or six men. Actually, I don't know how many of them worked with the youth hostel and how many of them were just friends there to hang out. I did know that they sat in the lobby, ate delicious Turkish food and drank Vodka and water and gave us Turkish beer to drink. Istanbul was a great city, but hanging out with these guys each evening was a highlight of the trip.
I know that the youngest of the group did help manage the hostel. He was particularly suave and handsome, and charming as he was, he was the first to offer me a beer and a bowl of the most delicious lentil soup. When he found out that we were Christians, and that we were working in Christian ministry, he began to talk with me about Jesus. He told me how Jesus appeared to him in a dream.
You see, during his stint in the army, he fought Kurdish separatists in southeastern Turkey. He had seen death and explosions, and he feared for his own life. Every night, before we went to sleep, he pleaded with Allah and Mohammad to let him live, but he found no comfort. Finally, in a dream, he saw a man he had not seen before, beckoning him to follow. He knew exactly who it was. It was Jesus, and from then on, he prayed for Jesus to save his life. He finished his military mission unharmed. Since then, he always talked to travelers about Jesus, and my friends and I were not the first Christians who had passed through. Smiling, he showed me his plastic bag full of Gideon Bibles and evangelistic tracts.
I'm told it is not an unusual experience for people in the Muslim world to have visions of Jesus. Personally, I know one other Turk who repented and believed after seeing Jesus in a dream. The difference between him and the handsome youth hostel manager is that the manager did not repent.
You see, beside his Gideon Bibles, he had another collection: girlfriends. His suave good looks and his position managing a youth hostel allowed him to collect girls from all over Europe. He showed me his photo album. A girl from Finland, one from France, one from Germany - they all could have been Bond girls. He knew this was sin. The reason he approached me about Jesus was, like a lawyer reading a contract, he wanted to find a way to be a Christian and continue his conquests. "Can I still be a Christian and have the sex?" was how he put it. I told him God's grace was free, that this sin would not prevent God's love. I told him to commit himself to Christ, and to trust him with the rest. I told him that to repent from his sin, he would need to be willing give up that part of his lifestyle. I told him it would be impossible on his own, but with God, with the support of other Christians, he could. I told him if he would contact me, I would do some research and find a good church for him. I wanted to tell him about God's design for sex. I never heard from him.
Last Sunday, my pastor highlighted Jesus' response to the question from the religious authorities, "are you the Messiah?" in Luke's Passion. Jesus replied, "If I tell you, you will not believe me." In other parts of the Gospels, different people ask Jesus for signs, and he rarely concedes. Why? There's a skeptic in me that wonders why Jesus doesn't simply do something wonderful and magical to silence his critics once and for all, as if the Resurrection was not enough. The Turkish hostel manager is a good example for me as to how signs and wonders are insufficient for true faith.
Think about it. He was utterly convinced that he saw Jesus in a dream, beckoning him. He knew for certain that it was Jesus, not skill, luck or circumstance, that preserved his life in combat. Yet, he refused to follow. He did not trust God for the intimacy and satisfaction that he found having sex with pretty backpackers.
Would you believe Jesus if he told you who he was? Messiah. Savior. Son of God. God's Word made flesh. All in all. All that you need, all that you want, beyond anything we ask or imagine. Would you believe him if you saw him resurrected? Would you believe him if you witnessed miracles?
I'd like to say yes, but I'm not sure that would have done it for me either. What did it for me was love. What did it for me was that, whenever I saw myself, I saw something unlovely. But I learned that, as Zephaniah prophesied, God is with us. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in us. He will quiet us with his love. He rejoices over us with singing. In our unbelief, when we refused to acknowledge God, whether we experience him through word, creation or miracle, he died for us. He rose again, all that he could be with us. He calls us, and whether we see him in a dream or not, he beckons us to follow him.
I hope something finally clicked for the Turkish hostel manager. I don't know if it would have been the message of love - I heard somewhere that "God loves you" isn't the best place to begin with someone from a Muslim background. Clearly, miracles were not enough for him. I hope he repents, and I hope he believes, that he may follow Jesus in life, in death, and, as we celebrate every Easter, in Resurrection.
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