things that make me go "hm..."

"John Howard Yoder makes the distinction between a pacifism that simply advances the claim that it can “achieve what war promises to achieve, but do it just as well or even better without violence,” and that (to him authentic) “kind of faithfulness that is willing to accept evident defeat rather than complicity with evil….”"

Scarborough

I chilled this week-end with a bunch of cool old folk on the Yorkshire moors, near Scarborough and Pickering, if you can believe it. These folks have been die-hard pacifists since WWII, and sometimes longer, and they still want to be peacemaking actively. God willing, I will still be working for peace in 50 years. (Unless, of course, we achieve world peace before then. [ha. ha. ha.])

Saturday afternoon we did a four mile hike across the moors to the oldest Christian monument in England and the only complaining came when they all realized there was no way we'd make it back in time for tea. Tea, it isn't just a stereotype.

I'm also including a picture of our house supper this evening, so you can get a sense of where I'm at. It's sad 'cause Tim and Charletta are leaving for home really soon. They have made these first few weeks really solid for me. Best of everything to you both!

good-byes

Kat just left for school and won't be back for a year. I hate good-byes.

pictures!

On flickr under doramg

Check 'em out!

They are mainly blurry, but still exciting! And I ran out of uploading time for the month, more will follow!

Also I changed things so even non-bloggers can now post. Post people, post!

vigil

I just got in from my first vigil here. It was different than manifestations that I've been part of back home. For one thing, there was no marching. For another, there was more anger. It was an amalgamation of groups, some for peace in Lebanon, some for Palestinian rights, and some general "peace" folk. I loved that there were lots of families there. I was unhappy with the young men burning flags. I resented the guy who came up and hassled me. Like seriously buddy, I'm here supporting this cause, why are you giving me a hard time?

The square where it took place is in front of the parliament buildings, and there is no cross walk to safely reach it, can you imagine? They are making it as hard as possible for people to demonstrate. The government buildings themselves were imposing and distant. It felt very much as though we were directly petitioning the stone and being rejected.

Dahl

I cooked my first meal here tonight.

As I was preparing the dahl I had an unexpected rush of memories. I have made dahl so often in the last two years, I suppose it's inevitable that I have a handful of emotional experiences assoicated with it. It was serendipitously fitting for my first cooking adventure here.

Heather was making a salad for herself at the same time and cut the end of her finger off. An equally unexpected memory has now been added to my dahl-related store.

"He's a lovely man."

Men here will frequently refer to other men as "lovely." I think that rocks.

I went to an all day workshop yesterday on "Applied Christian Study" or some such, and it struck me forcibly that I've thought very little about religion in general for the last year and a half. That will have to change. The last session of the day was on "The Uniqueness of Jesus." While it rubbed me in every wrong way, it was not quite as terrible as I initially feared. It isn't that I don't think Jesus is unique, because I do. It's just that I also think Guru Nanak, the Prophet Mohammed and the Buddha (to name just a few) are also unique. And so am I. And so are you.

Saturday nights are movie nights. We watch a movie then discuss it. Last night was "Everything is Illuminated." I found it simply fantastic. Though, I'd heard somewhere it wasn't very good, so maybe having very low expectations going in made a difference. I particularly appreciated the moments of cultural confusion and the whispers of the surreal.

Everywhere that I walk, including our back garden, there are holly bushes, roses, wisteria, lavender, English ivy, all these plants I've always read about but rarely seen. And that rocks too.

Pride

I heard a story the other night about being shot at in an American ghetto. My first reaction was, bizarrely, a sense of insufficiency. I've never been shot at. I've always lived in security. After reflecting a bit though, I realized it felt rather more confusing that someone could seem proud of the experience. I should be proud, and also thank God profusly every day, that I grew up in a country whose gun control laws mean there are very few pockets where one would need to fear gun violence.

That said, I feel some pressure to get my rear onto a CPT delegation already. Since it's still my first week on the job, however, I may have to continue to be patient.

I realized the other day just how "sheltered" I've been. I was walking down the street midafternoon and I saw a large, 20-something year old white man take a running leap and smash the side of a telephone booth. Someone he was with yelled at him, but other than that, people just ignored it. I was shocked and disgusted to see someone behave like that. Random violence, so not impressive.

and a prayer

"To be fully human, fully myself,
To accept all that I am, all that you envision,
This is my prayer.
Walk with me out to the rim of life,
Beyond security.
Take me to the exquisite edge of courage
And release me to become."

- Sue Monk Kidd

The Last Unicorn

I just watched it again for the first time in years, and I have to say, that is one childhood classic that has actually gotten even better with age. So profound!

Landed!

...at midnight last night. Thanks to a ridiculously long line at customs, got in at 2am.
Today: I went to coffee and met my housemates. Followed the host mother around to learn the basics of the building. Went to prayers. Ate lunch. Watched the last 18 minutes of Tarzan. Went out and explored, bought groceries, discovered Europe doesn't believe in lactose intolerance, got wet (must buy an umbrella). Watched a dvd to learn about Anabaptism (which I believe qualifies as hazing). Ate supper with my housemates. Watched the daily show with my housemates. Did yoga with my housemates.

These people, they do community good.

Beautiful pain

I think I relished Seville the most of all the towns we visited.

Courtesy of Lonely Planet, we found a nifty bar on a back street that had impromptu flamenco and guitar sets. We heard two men sing, one older, one younger, but they had matching expressions of pain while singing. The flamenco dancer gave a powerful and passionate presentation, but also with a sense of intense concentration, not the joy and showmanship I usually associate with dance performances.

The churches in Seville left me ruffled and vaguely nauseated. Life-sized statues dressed in excessive gold-gilded outfits, layers upon layers of golden plasters, alterpieces, icons, mumbo-jumbo, I just couldn't understand what would make an entire culture dig a style of decoration that totally offended my sense of esthetics. But then my dad challenged me to look a little more deeply.

These same statues and icons almost entirely have expressions of deep sadness and pain. What we hypothesized is that the culture in southern Spain is one that has had to deal with a lot of darkness (from the Inquisition to Franco, it's been a bumpy ride), and so their religion needs to express that. At the same time, no one wants to look at suffering all the time, so you trim it with gold and silver and precious stones.

Like the flamenco, you wrap the pain in beauty. In the case of the dance, rhythm, melody, and grace. Seeing a connection between these religious expressions (which weirded me out) and the flamenco and music (which I loved), really helped me appreciate the culture here in Andalucia as a whole, rather than just in bits and pieces.

Cordoba

Mmm...sizzling! After cooling our heels in the north, it's been a relief to be back in the sun. The big excitement today was visiting the Mesquita. The Mesquita-Catedral is now the city's official cathedral. The cathedral was built in the middle of a mosque that can hold 40,000 worshippers. The mosque was built on the site of a Visigothic church, and actually recycled many of the roman pillars from the church in its original construction. Likely that church was built over some pagan place of worship. And so the world turns.

The cathedral is a bit of a beautiful Baroque monstrosity plunked in the middle of graceful Islamic simplicity. Albeit, complex simplicity, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

We ran into two brothers from TO in our quest to find internet. I hadn't realized how much I'd been missing talking to people my age until after we parted ways.

All the newspapers I've seen lately are in Basque and Spanish. I wonder what's going on in the world?

The Basque Country

Because I knew the Basque country (like Quebec) wanted independence, and because I'd heard a thing or two about the ETA, I was excited to be seeing the Basque country while in Spain. If I'd just gone as a tourist though, it would have been just like any other pretty place with ancient tree-covered mountains, the ocean, and cute red-tiled villages.

Luckily for me, my Dad's gift for connecting with people meant we were staying with a Basque family in a small town. We got lectures on Basque history and the current situation from the family's father. We also got an in to a local concert and a night drinking and singing on the street (our contribution to the post-concert concert was "Gens du pays").

I put my gradually developing smattering of Spanish on hold, and picked up a couple Basque words (thank-you is eskerrik asko, numbskull is tonto). I found it both exhilirating and exhausting communicating with the mother and daughters, as the dauthers had only Basque and Spanish and the mother could understand some French, and I of course have almost zero Spanish and no Basque.

My now moderately-better-informed opinion on Basque independence is that the situation is nothing like that in Quebec. From what we gathered, basically, Canada, for all its faults, is a democracy. The official opposition can be a separatist party. In Spain the official political party for Basque independence has been outlawed. Outlawed, can you imagine? And I'm not talking about the ETA. I can't believe that after four years of university it can still surprise me how lucky I was to be raised in a country like Canada. Happy belated Canada Day everyone!