The Last Christmas Party

The last party for me was yesterday evening. I am very glad they are finally over. Too much of a good thing. I am now wasted - not from imbibing but from too much social interaction. And I still have a week to go. Why am I wasted? Because I never get to keeping my daily life in order - the apartment is a mess, my desk has English papers flung all over it, my pantry is a disgrace, and I am dealing with several friends who need to do homework concerning nurturing loyalty in the deepest relationships with people. And I also went through a grueling session at the dentist on Tuesday, causing me to miss 1.5 days of work.
I cannot complain about anything. Really. But at some point the social pressures to be everywhere begin to wear on you. How I long for a time like in the photo above - just sitting at the water with someone and having hours to talk about anything. I took this photo at the Elbe River in Dresden - the sun made the exposure come out the way it is.

I don't know if I will get to posting another entry before my flight to Texas or before Christmas - there is so much happening at the moment. Maybe I'll do it on the plane over Greenland.

But I wish you time for reflection and meditation, time to be thankful for everything and to think about others - Christmas is a time when many people suffer because there are empty places at the table, and they are reminded again how their lives feel empty. I hope we can all comfort each other with the true message of Christmas: God's unconditional love for all of his creation.

Torn Between Two Worlds....

My life in central Europe...

My home in a suburb of the Dallas Fort Worth area...

My home someday, when I join the rest of my family here - my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents.

Advent greetings to all as the Christmas season 2008 officially and liturgically begins. For me this has become the time of year I dislike the most. I am no Scrooge. December is jam-packed with too many Christmas parties, too many people who want to get together "one last time this year", and too many crowds in the Leipzig Christmas Market, which is supposed to be one of the best in Germany. And to these reasons comes another: this will be my first Christmas without any parents; they are all buried in the cemetary you see in the photo above. There is simply too much going on in 28 days, and I am always relieved when January 2nd arrives, signalling the return of normal life.

This year I am again in Texas over Christmas, but this visit will be very difficult - my first visit to the home I grew up in, when I will experience it without parents. As my life continues to be successful over here in the "old world", I am torn more and more between the two continents.

I have one brother left in my immediate family, and one cousin with whom I have a close relationship. But putting the facts on the table produces the following scenario: I have very little contact to anyone in the states anymore. There are about five people in Texas who keep in contact with my by email, and some of them read this blog. No-one ever calls me on the phone, never ever. My mother was faithful - she was the consummate model of faithful unconditional love - and she always called me if more than a week elapsed with no contact. Yet when I visit Texas for only three weeks, at least two friends from Germany call me just to see how I am doing. And I know they are waiting for postcards from Texas.

So is this simply no more than the "out-of-sight-out-of-mind" phenomenon? Or does this speak to the different nature of relationships on the two continents? In the German culture, you traverse a huge psychological distance when you move from stranger to acquaintance to friend, for you use a different pronoun to address a friend (du instead of Sie) and you use their first name and not their last name. And friends often greet each other very affectionately here - two grown males will hug each other with their cheeks pressing against each other, and female friends kiss each other on both cheeks - reminding us of French customs. Americans, in contrast, are the world champions in smiling and laughing, but close body contact is something many of us shy away from. I remember a comment from former President Clinton how he did not like to hug men.

It seems that Americans are much more self-made individuals, where Europeans more typically find their self-definition in the web of family and friends as a type of psychological safety net giving them a context for life. Think of the cartoon figures in the states: Batman, Robin, the Lone Ranger, Spider Man, they all are lones who don't really seem to have any close friends, and if they do find close friends, as Spider Man fell in love, it can spell problems for their identity as a hero.

With all of these thoughts in my mind, I will be glad when normal life returns, so that I will have more time to think about these things.

I hope Christmas can give you moments of reflection and peace.

Winter Wonderland in November....?

It's too early for this!! My geraniums are still blooming! Don't cover them up, Mr. Snowman...

Here we are in Frostyland and not even December yet.... This is the way our week is starting. I have just taken this photo a few minutes ago for your.... uh...pleasure. This weekend was busy, since I celebrated American Thanksgiving a few days early (Thanksgiving is on Thursday, but it is no holiday in Germany). We were seven people sitting at my table for a traditional Thanksgiving meal. The highlight of the evening for me was my pumpkin pie I made "from scratch" as we say - I even made the pie crust myself! And it tasted great. Everyone liked it. But when you go to the market and select a fresh pumpkin for the pie, you first have to bake it for an hour, then scrape the meat out and purée it in a blender. Then you do the rest of the recipe. It was a lot of work, but it was well worth it.

At Thanksgiving we give thanks, of course :-) What did I give thanks for? 2008 is a very bad year for me, overshadowed by the theft of my car in mid March and above all the death of my dear Mother on March 31. But I am always thankful for my loyal dears friends, and I reminded them of this at this meal. Of course, I have more friends here than only these at the table, but these at the table belong to the inner-circle of those who are helping me make it through this time of finding life after the death of the last parent. I want to share their (first) names with you: Stephan, Tobias and Claudia, Sebastian, Matthias and Gesine.

I'll go to work in a little and battle the snow, as I remember and give thanks for my dear friends here. Who are your friends you give thanks for?

Who's in charge? People or Technology?

The old post office in Hearne, Texas, where my grandmother was the Postmaster back in the days when people wrote real letters to communicate.

The good old-days, nostalgia, talking about hours spent washing clothes, doing the dishes at the sink, hanging up the wash to dry on the clothes line - those were the days when we had time.
Now we have all these convienience appliances and technology: washing machines and dryers, dishwashers, microwave ovens, kitchen machines, coffee makers, etc. But we have much less time than our grandparents had, even though machines do all the work they used to spend all day doing.
Worse than that, we don't communicate very well. But wait, we have flat-rate calling plans for our mobile phones, land lines, and we have DSL internet, chatrooms, discussion forums in the internet, email (yawn), youtube, skype, text messaging, and probably some more I am leaving out. We are reachable 24 hours a day at every moment. I can experience something breathe-taking here in Germany, grab it on my digital cam, and within one hour friends and family in Texas can experience it with me and comment back. That is possible, at least.

But alas, that never happens.

Technology and convienience have duped us into thinking we have to stay "busy" all the time. Mobile phones are constantly flashing, ringing, buzzing, with someone texting or calling, so what does everyone do? They never answer the phone - let the voice mail pick it up, and "sometime" they will return the call. The time advantage technology gives you is thus down the drain.

And, in my opinion, the classic human weakness eliminates the advantages technology gives us. We become accustomed to the instant effortless communication and assume it, so it is no longer important. Who cares if I sit on an email or a voice mail for two weeks? Everyone is texting and emailing all day anyway, so it means nothing. Or "someday" I will find them on chat and we can catch up "then"....
It seems a predisposition of the more individualistic western mentalities - the USA at the forefront of these - to be preoccupied, "excited", about that which is in front of my nose at this moment. All else pales into oblivion while I am raptured with the object jumping up and down in from of my nose right now. The problem is, technology gives up so many things jumping up and down in front of our nose right now. We have no brain or emotional space for things stored in our memory bank.

There was a time when writing or getting a letter was something special. You got out your fountain pen, cleaned it, filled it with fresh ink, selected a piece of stationery, and began composing your thoughts to someone as you also produced a work of art - penmanship. And when you opened your mailbox and found such a letter, you sat down to open and read it. We still have a letter my great-grandmother wrote over 100 years ago, and her tears are on that letter - what a priceless treasure. When you read that letter, you entered another world as the world jumping up and down in front of your nose paled into oblivion.

Who recongizes anything personal in a times new roman font on a computer screen? We dash off emails with etrocious spelling and grammar, and if we are responding to a previous email, we often don't even answer half of the concerns our writer mentioned in the previous communication. Text messages have become like short hand - something that needs unraveling and fleshing out. And so we sit in restaurants with real live breathing people and ignore them while we stare at our mobile phones and punch letters into the screen for a text message - what a bass ackwards world!

I wonder if we have lost touch with the uniqueness of life and our relationships. Technology makes communication into a ware to be traded and sold on the market, to be quantified and packaged for the masses. We may have email, chatrooms, mobile phones, etc. available 24 hours a day, but the right opportunity for sending or responding to a message is not available 24 hours a day - there are only certain windows for such times. And those who purposefully ignore the distractions jumping up and down in front of their noses so that they can use those windows of communication, those people will help us save humanity from technology. Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?

A Post-mortem on Halloween and All Saints Day

I was reading in a book on culture analysis - the chapter on final things in the Middle Ages. I paused to reflect on the comment that in the Middle Ages death was a part of daily life and thinking. It was a part of life. Today it apparantly is not a part of life.

In earlier generations people died at home (as they were born at home), you had wakes at home, and the cemetary was around the corner. You saw the undertaker go down the street, and you knew someone close by had died. So much of medieval literature and art directly speaks to the moments just before death - in those days anasthetics were not known, so dying was very painful. And then a sketch depicts an angel pulling the soul out of a dead person via the mouth.

Today we die in hospitals, often with no family or friends at the bedside at the hour of death. We embalm the dead, so that they look like they are asleeep dreaming pleasantly, and we cart them to massive cemetaries far from our daily lives. And the last hours before death are experienced - if at all - as a doped stupor, since morphine and other narcotics supress all pain. Birth has the epidural for the mother, so why not more drugs at the other end of life?

What has happened? I think we have shoved death out of life. We run from it, ignore, pretty it up, as if it were another event that can happen to some people who aren't careful.
We can't be certain about a lot of things in life - about money, marriage, children, our health, the weather. But we can all be certain that we will all die, the only question is when. This one experience we will all share together. And how will we look back on it when we are on the other side?

All Saints Day - or Day of the Dead - can help us remember some of these things. Commerical Halloween sweetens it all up, which can be good in some aspects. But where's the sweetness in death? Well, that's another topic.

The Tyranny of Success

I am having random thoughts today around the pressure our world puts on us to be successful. We need to try, to make our best effort, to accomplish things - no one wants to be lazy, or inefficient. But sometimes (maybe even often) things happen that make life appear unsuccessful, or even a failure.

What does that mean? If a life is a failure, unsuccessful, then should that life have never happened? The doctor who tells the expecting mother that her child will be severely handicapped and asks her to consider aborting - what does that tell us about the way we think life should be? The senior citizen in her wheelchair in a nursing home looks at you and says, "I am no good for anybody or anything now - why am I alive?"

Or perhaps you are in the middle of your life. Your spouse leaves you - with more than an empty house. Now you have house payments, alimony, the glances from neighbours and family, and you wonder how all the holidays and rituals of life are supposed to happen with this picture of the intact family destroyed - so your family - or even you - is/are a failure?

You loose your dream job and can't find another similar job, or you have a devastating accident and are handicapped for the rest of your life. You can think of many similar situations to paint the picture of failure and disaster. Economics tells us that in every society there are people who contribute nothing to the society economically - they produce no goods or services, but they use up resources of the society. While it is important to track this to help an economy function well, when we focus too much on such analysis, we lose focus of the totality of life.

Life is precious simply because it is life. Period. Every life is unique and contributes to lives in ways we cannot fathom. The woman who did not abort her supposedly handicapped child now has a 16 year old gifted young son who plays the violin beautifully - where's the handicap? The senior citizen in the wheelchair has family and friends who still think about her every day even though she has been dead almost 20 years. She was my grandmother.

Life is not the sum of the goods and/or services we generate for a group. Life is a gift that, in my deepest conviction, comes from the creator of all things, and everything the creator makes is good. But sometimes we are so selfish or short-sighted that we cannot or will not see the good in something (or someone) that/who seems to serve no purpose. The end of this kind of thinking has already been seen in the Third Reich's attempts to annihilate entire groups of people.

Perhaps we should re-evaluate how we evaluate a society: how does it deal with and treat those who give it nothing (in goods and services) in return? And while we are at it, we can hold the mirror before ourselves and conduct the same evaluation in our own lives every day. Do we protect and cherish life of every kind?

"Revocation of Our Independence"

Good day to all readers on this fair Friday. I have just gotten this notice from a thoughtful friend in Leipzig. Now, after all our problems with various administrations, it would appear that we are finally returning home.... Do enjoy this riveting read....


To the citizens of the United States of America from

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent
candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we
hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective
immediately.

(You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties
over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which
she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for
America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be
circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following
rules are introduced with immediate effect:

-----------------------

1. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as
'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn
to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix
'-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise.' Generally, you will be
expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up
'vocabulary').

------------------------

2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises
such as ''like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form
of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let
Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be
adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the
elimination of '-ize.'

-------------------

3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

-----------------

4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns,
lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and
therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns
should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out
without suing someone or speaking to a therapist,then you're not ready
to shoot grouse.

----------------------

5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything
more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be
required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

----------------------

6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will
start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time,
you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of
conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you
understand the British sense of humour.

--------------------

7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been
calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

-------------------

8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French
fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato
chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in
animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

-------------------

9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually
beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to
as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be
referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable, as they
are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can
only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth
- see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as
Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of
further confusion.

---------------------

10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as
good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to
play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English
dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having
one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

---------------------

11. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of
proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in
time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American
football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds
or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

---------------------

12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to
host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played
outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world
beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn
cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the
sting out of their deliveries.

--------------------

13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

-----------------

14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's
Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all
monies due (backdated to 1776).

---------------

15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with
saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes;
plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

------------------

God Save the Queen! Isn't she sweet

Out of sight out of mind

Nix von wegen "aus dem Auge"! Out of sight - out of my mind... no way...

It has been about 28 months since I started this blog. Al Gore praises blogs and internet forums as a way to finally recreate a type of public square, where people can truly exchange ideas and participate in the flow of information in all directions. I am sure this blog does indeed help Mr. Gore's concern.

I choose the name of this blog with a particular phenomenon in mind which one my friends in Lübeck has mentioned when weighing the pros and cons of life in the United States. How often does contact seem to dissolve or perhaps fall asleep? After so many shared experiences in the land of the free, one goes to another continent, and after a time you simply don't here from people any more - "out of sight out of mind" as we say in English, or "aus dem Auge aus dem Sinn" in German. I created this blog as an effort to battle against this "sight-mind" predicament, and since some I know in the states welcomed my new blog, I looked forward to more reliable contact. Now we can share photos, and they can get an idea of my life here in east Germany and compare it to life in the Lone Start State.

And now, when I look over the comments that have accumulated and the results of the live feed, I see my most loyal readers and commenters are all either in the European continent or "down under". Readers from the states are few and far between.

But how baffelling it is that the people who know me in so-called real life seem so uninterested in any kind of regular checking-in - even just visiting the page would show interest requiring almost no effort - you won't "bust a gut" clicking on the link for this blog. And I know when I visit the states the next time all will be normal - as if I had just been there yesterday. So there is no animosity or estrangement in the works - I think, at least.

I am thankful for any and all readers - what a unique opportunity to in some way get to know people you could never contact otherwise. But I now wonder if my friend in Lübeck is correct. Are we Americans simply that way, that we have such short memories that we forget anyone who is not physically around us regularly? Or are we "soooo busy" that we just can't click on one more link? "I am busy" seems to be the existiential justification for existence in the western world these days.
Do we need more effort to create forced remembrance in our lives? A little thinking, a little looking, and "someday you will find me in Saxony"....

Falling Asleep Elegantly

I wake up to this view every morning - from the south window of my bedroom.
Here I am today standing in my living with my east deck behind me.

Someone who didn't know when to stop playing - in a beautiful garden I walked to on Sunday.
Fallen leaves on steps in a garden.
a stream I run alongside several times a week.

Greek splendour by the lake in the park.
the river flows...
such brilliant colors
the path I run along three times a week.

Autumn can be a very sad time, since it reminds us that life around us dies. The trees turn barren, and certain plants that only live one season soon die for good. But for a short time this process of death and going into hibernation takes on unique beauty, revealing facets of plants we never see in the prime of their life. What is Fall doing at your location? I'll bring more photos along soon, as the colors get more dramatic.

Starbuck's is finally in Leipzig

This was at a Starbuck's in Cologne. Now I don't have to travel several hours to get to the next one...

Yesterday - Monday - was an eventful day, because Leipzig has finally joined the ranks of every major German city - it has at least one Starbuck's cafe. Of course, it looks, sounds, and smells like every Starbuck's, whether in the USA, in Munich, Berlin, or Cologne, or in an airport somewhere. I didn't have a lot of time today, so I only had one coffee and a sandwich of tomato, mozarella, and ciabatte. I did hear many different languages: British and American English, English with a German accent, normal Leipzig-German, accent-free standard German, and German with a thick Italian accent.
The Leipzig cafe is situated at the corner of the Nikolaistrasse and Brühl with a beautiful corner seating area providing a panoramic view of this part of the city centre.

I remember many conversations in Starbuck's in Berlin, Cologne, and in the Dallas area. But then I also remember that I often had my mother with me when visiting Starbuck's in Texas. So now the two worlds coalesce, erasing away some of the disparity between them.

The Terror of Truth's Beauty

A summer thunderstorm approaches and would attempt to disturb the peace of a cemetary.

If you click on any photo, you will see the orignal (larger) size, revealing many details. Here the clouds are stunning - mountains and valleys parading across the sky, but yet there is terror to this beauty - wind, hail, lightning, flash floods not only participate in, but are this beauty also.
Towards the end of the last movement in Mahler's second symphony one experiences a musical version of this. The text speaks of dying in order to live, of rising again, and as the gigantic orchestra, organ, and massive choir, supported by rumbling bass drums and tympani, prepare the listener for the revelation of this resurrection, one of those rare moments of sublime beauty occur that strikes terror in you - as if you must shout "stop this, I can't take any more of this beauty!" while you begin to writhe.
I think this is what the authors recording theophanies in the Old Testament experienced when they saw the God of Israel on the mountain; beauty and truth simply too intense and too much for a human in this life to process and deal with.
But we keep seeking and creating - or imitating - truth and beauty; our destiny or a diversion?

Unity Day in Germany

Standing at the door from the kitchen onto my deck, today you have this view...
On my west deck looking north you enjoy these colours...
On my deck looking south you have this treat.... if only it were warm so I could sit out...

Happy Unity Day to all.... this is a recent holiday in the rather recently re-united Federal Repubilc of Germany - 18 years old now. What do many Germans do on this holiday? Last night the youth were getting drunk; lots of beer, vodka, and Jägermeister drinking going on in the trams late last night. I was also at a party - with plenty of excellent cocktails, so I was in bed at 1:30 am. today.
What are we all doing today? Many are taking trips with the extended weekend. Some are simply resting and catching up on things around the house (there I am), and a few will go to some memorial worship services commemorating German Unity.
How sad it is that this new unity seems to go so unnoticed. Many have forgotten what cold-war Europe was like, what life in the GDR was really like. Please see the film "The Life of Others" ("Das Leben der Anderen") for an interesting study of the systematic surveillance of everyone in that society.
Or maybe unity has become more a romantic notion of something that is not achievable or perhaps not even desireable. Germany is, after all, so full of regional dialects, cultural variations, etc., that someone in Freiburg im Breisgau probably has more in common with someone from Zürich than with someone from Hamburg.

What am I doing today? I am drinking tea, eating my scones I just baked myself, listening to music, going to a music instrument museum this afternoon, doing some translating, and meeting a friend this evening at an Irish pub for dinner and beer from the island. I may make it to an intercultural festival in the city centre. And I may sit out on my deck here on the fourth floor and enjoy the view - now you can enjoy it with me!

Autumn

Fall begins - leaves become colourful and reflect in a large pond in the middle of Leipzig
A typical street in the city - apartment buildings from the Gründerzeit of the late 19th century with cobblestone streets - no trace of Fall here...

Fall is unfolding now. Today is a wonderful clear day at the end of September. The sunlight now has that typical soft golden character I never see in Texas, and every morning there is fog, since the ground is still warm and the air is cooling rapidly.
The problem is, the days are getting so short. What do you do here to fight that? You start going to events - concerts, cinema, plays, markets, and you make plans for Christmas. Fall here is full of memory days - Reformation Day, Day of German Unity, Day of Prayer and Repentence, Ertnedankfest - where you give thanks for the harvest.
After all the outdoor activity of Summer, Fall seems a good time to reflect with candles and tea. But this is also a dangerous time - cold, dark, and damp - what do people with depressive tendencies do? This is a good time for us to be alert for ways to help others, which may also help us make it through these days better.

little red rose

beautiful blue Morning Glories - I brought the seeds with me from Texas in April.

A poem I never understood:

"O little red rose, Man lies in direst need! Man lies in deepest pain! I would rather be in heaven!"

This is the first half in translation from Des Knaben Wunderhorn.

Just after we had buried my mother, my brother bent over the fresh grave and, with tears in his eyes, selected one little red rose to carry back home in remembrance.

Instantly I understood this poem.

How beautiful is the little rose - yet fragile and soon withered.

How could it be that true love and beauty could go on without decaying? Is truth, love, and beauty so destined?

Fresh figs with Blue Bell vanilla ice cream - I always remember my grandmother in Hearne and the figs from her tree.

Lantana - speckles of orange and yellow - I remember my other grandmother and this flower in her front yard.

The sound of gravel crunching under the tires - and I always got ready for a big long hug from my grandmother as she picked me up and kissed me.

These are all part of the little red rose - reminding us of exclusion and embrace as we look forward to the end of exclusion.

summer smiles surprised as time walks by

I like street cafés here. Leipzig has many. They let you people watch, so you see lives go by - wide, thin, tall, short, well-groomed, yawn-boring, and knock-down good-looking. How much of this is voyeuristic or simply part of learning to understand the nature of life?

Saturday evening I wanted to go to an open-air concert of the Gewandhaus Orchestra - one of the oldest ensembles in the world. Just before the concert began, it started raining, so the event was moved into the concert hall. Immediately the 2,000 people gathered began streaming to the other side of the square to be the first into the hall. We, with our wine and beer in hand, sought a street café on the side-line and just observed the chaos. Since one of the guys in our party was the public relations director for this orchestra, I had an inside angle on the whole event. Since the hall did not seat 2,000, we decided to forgo the event and sought a tapas bar instead. After the concert all the orchestra musicians came to the tapas bar also, so we still had some skewed participation in the event, and we did a lot of people watching.

I also watch the leaves - fall is starting, but summer is still here. It is sunny, highs in the upper 70s (25 C), and yet the leaves are turning. Reminds me of a German poem "Sommer lächelt, erstaunt und matt in dem sterbenden Gartentraum" (Summer smiles surprised and drooping in the dying garden dream - my own translation). This does not happen in Texas, but in Texas we do not sit in street cafés and watch the people saunter by. And in Texas the leaves fall in a day or two, instead of in a month or two.

Yet I enjoy this - it gives me the illusion of standing away from the stream observing life passing by in many others, though I actually do continue to participate in this passing.

These thoughts help me when I feel overwhelmed by the passing by of life in my own existence.

a sad anniversary

At the time it was insignificant - now a priceless photo...

Five months ago today my mother left this life to join the most important people in her life. The problem is, she left two of us (my brother and I) here in this life. In this photo you see my mother with her husband, my father, on her right, and her mother, my grandmother, sitting below her. As we spend more time in this life, we see more clearly that who we are is a product of those who were always there for us, regardless of how we accepted it. 15 months after this photo was made, two of those in it passed on to the rest of our existence. Five months ago my mother joined them. 

I hope you have a reflective Sunday, as we come into the time of year when the environment changes so quickly. 

memories

My mother remembers her parents at their graves. Now we remember her at her grave. 

God sees the rainbow and remembers his promise to never again destroy the earth by water. 

What happens when you remember someone or something? 

Your hard drive changes the magnetized pattern, and it is remembered. But the word betrays the human process. Re-member me. Put me back into your body, into the members of your body. German uses sich erinnern - to put something  or -one inside oneself. A memory becomes a part of our self, our life, in some way. It is more than a sterile storage of a fact or row of data. 

A memory is a part of us, it participates in our life now and belongs to our person. 

And those things that are a part of us and belong to our person are all memories of some sort. 

Before you click on delete - whether on your laptop or in your real lap, consider if you want to remove this memory from your life. 

But are you even able to forget those things that are really a part of your life? So German calls a memorial statue a Denkmal - literally - think about it. 

These thoughts are very important for all of us - please re-member them. 

encore Berlin

Voilà La Fayette! A glass cylinder in the middle becomes a fashion statement...
Ludwig helps Felix select drinking pots...
Ludwig leaving the mens department wearing his purchase...
Ludwig and Felix (and I) eating in the restaurant section of La Fayette...
The Von Humbholt statue in front of the Humbholt University in central Berlin. 

What do you do in the middle of August? Go to Berlin on the weekend. That is what I did. With the high-speed train from Leipzig, I was at the main train station in Berlin on Saturday morning after only one hour of a rail jaunt. I can always go to Berlin, but this was a way to spend the weekend with Felix and Ludwig - two brothers originally from Leipzig. 

We wanted to see the Babylon exhibit at the Pergamon Museum, but the line was terribly long, so we opted for the Martin Gropius building with a museum hosting an exhibit on "the Graves of Paestum" - remnants from a temple and grave area in southern Italy. We ate Saturday at "Gorilla" - a natural food restaurant, where I discovered that gorillas only eat plants - I never knew vegetarians could get so strong and big.... 

Well, it was a wonderful weekend with shopping at La Fayette, KaDeWe, and other places. Enjoy my photos and come to Berlin! As the mayor there says, "Berlin is poor but sexy." If I go there, then both must be true...lol. 

Tagging revealed.....

I have just come in from running - how do you like the flowers? I am not talking to you through the flowers but next to them.... 

And here I finally respond to Chris' tagging. By the way, "Durch die Blume reden.." "talking through the flower" means criticizing someone in a very indirect way, something I do not do - on this blog, at least... 

A. Attached or single? Single....

B. Best Friend? Some are already departed, other still among us, and I share my apartment with one of them...

C. Cake or Pie?  Torte...

D. Day of choice? Saturday - more concerts...

E. Essential item? Tea!

F. Favorite colour? Sky Blue

G. Gummy Bears or worms? no no no...

H. Home Town? Bedford, Texas

I. Favourite indulgence?  Sachertorte

J. January or July?  January (July is too hot!) 

K. Kids?  Yes, but please don't try to repopulate the globe in one..... 

L. Life isn't complete without.... genuine love.

M. Marriage date? N/A 

N. Number of brothers and sisters? 1 brother. 

O. oranges or apples? Oranges

P. Phobias? None, really. 

Q. Quotes? Solomon from the Old Testament: "Love is stronger than Death." Amen. 

R. Reasons to smile? Every time I remember that genuine real love conquers all. 

S. Season of choice? Spring, when the sunlight has a soft golden hue and life returns. 

T. Tag 4 people: Karen, Ruth Ann, Bettina, and Randy C. in Arlington (which means he will have to get a blog...). 

U. Unknown fact about me? I am (distantly) related to Larry Hagmann (the infamous J.R.) 

V. Vegetable? Always! Vegetarians will save the environment!! 

W. Worst habit? I imitate musical sounds of elevators and other machines that serve us in daily life. 

X. Xray or ultrasound? sonar.

Y. Your favourite food? real sourdough bread and a real French baguette. 

Z. Zodiay sign? Capricorn, but I do not believe in Astrology. 

How do you like my geraniums? In Texas the heat makes it impossible to grow them, but here it's easy....

I have been tagged by Chris in Austin, so I will get this over with quickly, since I am going to the movies in a few hours to see "The Elephant King" - a movie about two brothers, one living in Thailand and the other back home in the US. You guess why the movie interests me.... 

c'est la vie en Europe... 

And I can't seem to cut and paste my answers into the little window - what a bother.... so I will have to do it later....

Collage: Leipzig City Centre

The Leipzig Cotton Manufactur - a historic building
A view of the St. Thomas Church from Café Luise, one of my favorite places. Here I am sitting outside drinking coffee and enjoying this view. 
The clock tower of the old city hall, from the 15th century
The Grimmaische Straße - one of the oldest streets in Leipzig. 
The Messehofpassage - trade fair passage - seen from Café Darboven. 
A restored department store building - housing Karstadt now. 
The contrast of old and new in downtown Leipzig
The Passage in Speckshof - the inner court of the Speck building. 

Here you have snapshots of my daily life, since my work takes me past most of these scenes several times a week. I often take breaks here to prepare for classes, read, or just relax. 

Knowledge is Power

Join me for a fresh espresso and a praline of your choice - over 250 to choose from...
Or would you rather read the Munich paper with me and have a cup of coffee in the Biergarten at the Glashaus...
Okay, we talk over espresso, and you see this backdrop...

This is not really about coffee drinks but rather a topic on my mind for years. 

Many things motivated Europeans to leave the "old world" for the new. Among them was the idea - born of the Enlightenment but not new - that "all humans are created equal". This is no new idea. In the New Testament Paul quotes the Old Testament, saying"God is no respector of persons...". Literally from the Hebrew, God does not stand there as an ancient Asian Despot, before whom all must bow their faces and touch the ground with their foreheads, after which the despot allows some to raise their head, while others must remain bowed. Not so with the real ruler of all: he gives no special advantages to anyone. 

This is truly still a radical thought: no color of skin, no academic or royal title, no professional or theological or church achievement, no amount of money or appearance gives any of us an advantage over others. 

We all share in the same human predicament: saved by grace but still subjected to the human shortcomings, among which the greatest are the lust for power and money. 

The founding fathers of the United States were well aware of these shortcomings - they built protective measures into the Constitution to assure that no one interest group would have the opportunity to take advantage of others. These are referred to as checks and balances. Behind this was the wish - the prerequisite - that knowledge must flow freely and in all directions in a group that preserves the equality of all humans. 

Perhaps you are already thinking with me. "Knowledge is power" said an ancient Greek philosopher, especially when I know something you don't know, and you don't even know that I know it. Not only does this address the serious responsibility of journalists. It also alerts us to how easy it is create an imbalance of power and influence, which often results in unfair advantages to one group over other groups, which can sway the hearts and minds of others unfairly. We sometimes call this propaganda, sometimes coercion, sometimes downright deception. 

While we may shake our heads when we see this on the political front of various nations, it is even more revolting to experience this in a group that would quote Paul before it would cite the US Constitution. Those who would uphold the unity we all have in Christ - the sameness and equality of all believers - can then also deliberately establish approved avenues of procedure to intentionally hold knowledge from those who they, as leaders, have been called to care for. 

Earlier times saw the condemnation of translations of the Bible or banning teaching except from approved persons or institutions. The Roman Catholic faith presents another variant: divine sanction as the wild card. If you need a justification for your special priviledges with knowledge (and, thus, power), you simply need a direct mandate from God. According to this, the directives of the church leadership are also from God himself. And the King was also ruler by God's grace, so you had better obey the King and not question his power. 

Yet Protestant secular leaders and free church leaders still aspire to such divine mandates. "I believe God has called me to be......" . You fill in the blank: governor, preacher, president, bishop, whatever. if God has called you, then who dare question your authority? 

But, aren't all humans created equal? Paul said that, and he was certainly called by God. But how intoxicating can power be..... as the current world stage shows.  Checks and balances serve us well, as we all correct each other and hold each other in check and balance, when we realize our equality. Yet leaders - individuals and groups, political and church - can hire and fire, pro- and demote church workers stateside and abroad using their monopoly on power and knowledge to stage pro forma meetings, any kind of "discussion" forum, even though their decisions were already made well in advance. Numerous cases in US current events come to mind. Indeed, this very writer has experienced first hand in the religious arena the detesting hypocrysy of being duped into staged situations in which the real matter to be decided was the power and reputation of others, and this writer's fate played only an ancillary role. 

What am I learning from this? How tragic it is when someone or some group claims others have nothing to tell them, or they refuse to communicate openly to others. And, in any decision-making forum, I always look for the checks and balances. Does the leadership communicate openly? That is, does the leadership engage in true open discussions, and not simply impart information to others? Too often have I experienced staged meetings, in which leadership simply made announcements or probed the participants for information while revealing nothing about their thoughts. 

I am thankful for the more critical journalism here in Europe and for the lessons that have been learned from totalitarian goverments restricting knowledge and power. But the danger of falling back never abates. Yes, even literary theory helps us, as semiotics and deconstruction help us to uncover the power structures so deeply assumed in the narratives we read and promulgate in our daily lives. Critical reading and discussing are essential, yet who takes the time for that nowadays? 

If you have read with me, I hope your espresso kept you alert.... and thank you for your attention. 

Saturday Evening Mass in St. Peter's Church....

Some of the hauntingly beautiful stained-glass windows
the chorus in action with the Camerata Lipsiensis
a close-up of chorus and orchestra
Another close-up
The duet Domine Deus, rex coelestis 

The Peterskirche from outside
And from inside
sacred spaces
Today was no normal Saturday. I was running errands in the city this afternoon and taking a break in a café, where I saw someone wheeling an elderly lady in a wheelchair. Suddenly I saw my mother in front of me, and the whole range of emotions exploded. 

When you think you may be recovering, this happens to remind you how little time effects healing. 

I decided to go to a concert in the Peterskirche - St. Peter's Church - just south of the city centre and only 10 minutes by tram from my flat. At 7:30 pm. the Oratorio Choir of Tokyo (Japan, of course) was performing J. S. Bach's B-minor Mass with the Camerata Lipsiensis, a Leipzig orchestra made up primarily of music conservatory students. This should help my mood, I thought. 

As you see from the photos above, the Peterskirche has an almost mystical and quite sacred atmosphere. Restoration moves slowly in this, one of the few gothic churches of Leipzig, giving it a type of haunted atmosphere. Add the late evening sun streaming through the stained glass windows, and you are ready for a gothic romance. 

Then the performance began. This is an excellent choir that has already produced several professional cds, including a recording of the Bach B-minor Mass. Such standards were noticeable in the performance. Here was an intimate Bach that played, in the baroque fashion, with the melismen and tacitura, creating an ephemeral melody line almost like incense wafting through the rows. 

I am always amazed at the style of Bach concerts I experience in Leipzig, the home of Bach for his last 27 years of life. No matter which group performs, there is a vitality and joy in the playing that makes it hard to sit still during the concert - J. S. Bach is still in the air here, and time stands still as music 250 years old seems as fresh as if the ink on the pages were still wet. 

Though I own a recording of this mass, this is the first hearing that has called to my attention how much dissonance Bach has put into the work. Melodies and harmonies move chromatically in a way one would assume in the late 19th century. Perhaps my favorite section was laudamus te - we praise you - sung so personally by the soprano soloist. When it came to the section of the credo - et ressurrexit tertia die - you felt the power and glory of something humans still cannot fathom. 

Finally, at the end, I realized dona nobis pacem - give them peace. Time cannot heal all things, but, as I experienced in this concert, peace can still come in spite of grief. 

And, this concert was free - it was a gift from the chorus to the St. Peter's Church in Leipzig. What a beatiful gift - a showing of grace - from messengers from across the world. As if God gave his blessing, during the final dona nobis pacem it began pouring rain and thundering and lightening outside - what perfectly timed divine support for the tympani and trumpets, as we all were ceremonially baptized in the deluge as we then left the church with the last chords and words still in our ears, hearts, and minds.