Mid-winter

Jesus is (NOT) the reason for the season

(Wait a second… put down those pitchforks and torches… hear me out for a moment…)

Early humans, as they began to migrate northward, would have been shocked to discover that in some parts of the world, the sun not only got lower in the sky, it would even disappear for days, weeks, months at a time. This would have been cause for great concern. The sun gave warmth, light, and life; its disappearance meant Death. Appeals to the gods would have been made. Sacrifices, offerings, food, family, whatever it took to appease the wrath of the gods, it was worth it… if only the sun would rise again.

Eventually, year after year, the sun returned to its former glory. Clearly, this was because the people had been faithful with their gifts and offerings; what else could explain this phenomenon? So the rites and rituals deepened, like sharp lines being cut into stone, each passing year carving layers of meaning into humanity’s consciousness. 

Some rituals were fun and lighthearted. Others were desperately dark.

Time passed. Entire civilizations rose, fell, and were forgotten. But midwinter arrived every year like clockwork. In England, they built a maze of enormous stones, arranged them in a particular way, and watched the sunrise on the shortest day shine through. The Romans celebrated the feast day of their sun god, Sol Invictus (“the unconquered sun”). The Norse had their Yule celebration, derived from one of Odin’s names. All around the world, disconnected tribes and disparate civilizations unknowingly joined together in a global festival, both pleading with the gods to return the sun to them, and thanking them for doing exactly that.

Mid-winter has been a day of entreaty and enjoyment since time itself began to be measured. 

And then, some time around 2,000 years ago, a child named Yeshua was born. Year, month, and date unknown. Best guess? 4 BCE (the term “B.C.” doesn’t really seem appropriate here…), September or March, or sometime in-between. But probably, most likely, almost definitely, not on December 25 (or January 6, for that matter). His birth was observed by almost no-one, except for a strange cast of nobodies. The sun didn’t shift, the seasons didn’t rearrange themselves, and midwinter - with all its rites and rituals - happened that year as usual. And the next year, and the year after that, and for centuries to come, midwinter came and went again and again. Same parties, same sacrificial goat, same drunk uncle, same chant and dance, same dark fear and hopeful joy. 

Many years after the life and death of this man named Yeshua, it was decided that his birthday should be celebrated. Who decided it, no-one seems to know. Some of his early followers thought that celebrating birthdays was a pagan ritual that should be avoided; others clearly thought differently. How they picked December 25 and/or January 6 is unclear as well. The best evidence seems to point, however, to a deliberate attempt by the leaders of this new religion of Yeshua devotees to repurpose and repackage the midwinter festivities as a celebration of the birth of Yeshua.

They even gave the event a new name: “Celebration of the Messiah.” Or, as we call it now, Christmas. 

The man named Yeshua - anglicized as Jesus - did not start Christmas. He wasn’t born then, and the celebrations which mark the day predate him by centuries, if not millennia. So why do we still coincide these celebrations in the way that we do, birth and death, arrival of son and departure of sun?

This day in December continues to be a day of entreaty and enjoyment, as it has always been. It is humanity united in saying, “Deliver us from the darkness!”, and “Let us eat and drink and be merry, for the sun will soon return!” This is what we celebrate and hope for still, all these millennia later. Entreaty and enjoyment, pleading and partying, both have their place on this day.

Jesus the Christ is not the reason for this season. But it seems fitting the birth of Light is celebrated in the deepest Dark, that this person who lived and died and kept on living can point us in new ways to some old truths:

Dark turns to Light,
Death to Life,
Night to Day,
the Sun rises again.

Regardless of which day that Jesus was born, or whether we even believe such a person ever existed, we can all use Christmas to look back and celebrate the blessings we’ve received, and to look forward and ask for blessings to continue. And that is as good a reason for the season as any.

13 Books from 2016

These are some books I read this year.

Some came out in 2016, and some didn’t. They all made me think or feel or experience something significant. There were only going to be ten books on this list, but then it was really hard to decide which ones to cut… so it’s thirteen instead. I try to review/summarize them in one sentence, two max. I'm not linking to webpages where you can buy them because I'm lazy, and also because I'm assuming you are capable of operating The Google.

Books! Here they are:

The Emotionally Healthy Leader - Peter Scazerro

Most influential book I read all year; has shaped and informed everything from my marriage to my meetings.

The Divine Magician - Peter Rollins

That thing that you want is not actually the thing that you want, which you won’t ever realize until you get the thing and then find out that you don’t want that thing, but another thing. If that made sense, you should read this book.

The Sympathizer - Viet Thanh Nguyen

If you thought you could never sympathize with a Vietnamese communist spy living undercover in America, then you should not read this, because you will.

Divine Dance - Richard Rohr

Join the flow, and enter the dance into which the Divine invites you. 

Hillbilly Elegy - JD Vance

The “American Dream” does not working for the working poor, and negative cycles of family dysfunction are almost impossible to escape.

But What if We’re Wrong? - Chuck Klosterman

A book I was planning on writing, but Chuck got to it first, saving me a lot of time. Also, gravity might not exist.

Searching for Sunday - Rachel Held Evans

Leaving a church is easy; leaving a community is not, but sometimes it’s necessary.

Everybody’s Fool - Richard Russo

Unloveable characters that you cant help falling in love with, especially if you read or watched Nobody’s Fool.

Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Black bodies matter.

My Struggle: Book 5 - Karl One Knausgaard

Part five of a long, slow, excruciatingly painful train wreck that you simply can’t look away from. Part six (at least, the English translation of it) can’t come soon enough.

Finding God in the Waves - Mike McHargue

Science Mike’s journey from Christian to atheist to... christian?, while deconstructing the ‘science vs. faith’ dichotomy along the way.

The Sin of Certainty - Peter Enns

Certainty is a good place to start, but a terrible place to stop; trust is a far better destination.

How To Be Here - Rob Bell

A very Rob Bell-ish book about being your most you self; if you already like Rob then you’ll love this book, and if you don’t, you won’t. (Could also be said of almost every book he’s written).

That's my list! What's yours?

September

It’s hard to believe that September is already at an end. But so it is. After a month of rest and recovery, now I’m back to the world of business and busyness.

I despise being busy. I don’t mind it when life is full - when there’s long lists of things needing to be done and the days are packed with people and places - but when things get busy, I start to lose steam very fast.

I’d draw the distinction between the two - busy and full - as this: Busy is when there’s lots of things happening. Full is when there’s lots of things happening, but they’re things with value and purpose to them.

Lots of meetings? Busy. Lots of meetings with people and about projects that I care deeply about? Full.

Lots of travel? Busy. Lots of travel to places and people that I care deeply about? Full.

This past month has been something of a mix between being busy and being full. I’ve spent time in three different countries (Norway, Lithuania, and eastern Latvia), all in the past week and a half. I’ve been working on three different projects (Master’s thesis, upcoming event in Rezekne this October, organizing Bible studies at my flat for the fall term). I’ve been trying to finish this newsletter for the better part of the month as well, which is kind of sad to think about. 

It’s been a full month, interspersed with bouts of busyness. 

I’m learning to say no to things. I’m still not good at it, especially when it involves people. But it’s becoming more and more essential for me to know how to say “No” well. 

My first year in Latvia, my goal was to say Yes to everything. If someone asked me if I wanted to go somewhere/ do something/ meet someone, I would answer “Yes!” almost before they finished asking. I wanted to be open to every experience and opportunity I could soak up.

My second year in Latvia, I decided to learn how to say “Maybe.” Still open, but slowly starting to filter through opportunities as they arose, trying to understand how to fit everything into my life and my life into everything.

This, my third year in Latvia, my goal is to learn how to say “No.” Not to be a negative person, or recessed in my own little enclave, sheltered from the world… but to have focus, direction, and clarity. Drawing from the experiences of the past years to understand, who am I, where am I going, and what am I supposed to be doing along the way?

It’s harder than it sounds. And it sounds hard.

One of the highlights of this past month was a time when I said “No.” I had scheduled something for the afternoons of the two days I was back between excursions. Return home Sunday night, full days Monday and Tuesday, leave again late Tuesday night. I should have said “No” in the first place, or at least “Not now.” But pride, coupled with a strong desire to please others (who of us doesn’t idolize the busy person who somehow keeps it all together), prompted me to fill the very two afternoons I needed some space with… busyness.

In another time, it would have been full. But at that time, it was busy.

So late Sunday night, after wrestling with my self all weekend over it, I emailed the appropriate people to reschedule what had been planned. My only regret is that I didn’t straight up say, “I’m exhausted, I need an afternoon to recharge in the middle of a very full stretch, can we reschedule?” Instead I said, “Sorry, can’t make it tomorrow- something’s come up.”

(Still overly concerned about the opinions of others, apparently).

Nevertheless, I was - and remain - quite proud of myself for recognizing (albeit much later than necessary) the difference between “busy” and “full” in this particular season. And in taking action to cut away whatever contributed to busyness, even if it was important business.

Small steps. But significant ones. Moving from busy to full doesn’t happen in a month.

With

"He's with Jesus now. ______'s with Jesus."¹


Really? We know this? How?


Was it something he said? Because people can say almost anything, regardless of whether they mean it or not.

Was it something he did? Because people can do all sorts of things. The worst person ever still had moments of good, and even the best of us still screws up more often than we'd like to admit.

Was it something he believed? if so, how would we even know what he believed? Well, we'd probably base it on what he said or did, which... oh... yeah.


We want to know. Something in us craves that knowledge, that certainty. We almost have to know... or to be slightly more abstract, we have to know that we can know. Or else, all that we believe or do or say is at risk of collapsing around us.

But my 'knowing' can't be based solely on what I see, what I hear, what I observe. My senses can be fooled. My powers of observation are limited and finite. I don't even know my self well enough to 'know' for sure, at times, what I think or believe. And if I don't even know my self, how can I know what anyone else thinks or believes?

There is one thing I'm beginning to know, however: 


Jesus. 


Incompletely, peripherally, humanly, haltingly. Truth be told, I know very little of or about him, especially in light of everything he was, is, and will continue to be. And even then, all that I know of him comes exclusively from his desire to reveal his deeply unfathomable self to me, not because of some bright insight on my part, or special knowledge I've discovered.

But what relatively little I know of Jesus leads me to believe, to cling to, even to say that I 'know' this about him:

Jesus has the power to save.

And not just people who do, say, or believe the correct or proper things, either...

Jesus has the power to save anyone.

                                                                 Everyone.

Even me.

Even _________.

Even the world, and all of creation.


Jesus, I trust, will not deny salvation to any who truly desires it.

(Not deserves...

                              Desires.)


Do I desire the salvation, the new Life, that Jesus offers? Or even more simply, do I straight-up desire Jesus himself?

I do. If there's one thing I desire - or, as could perhaps better be said, if there's one thing that I long to long for - that would be it.

My friend desired this. He longed for it, deeper and fuller than I probably ever have myself. And because of his desire that I witnessed, and because of the Jesus that I know, I also find myself able to say, 

"Yeah, he's with Jesus." 




¹I heard many people say this phrase, or something similar, after the death of a close friend earlier this summer. It rubbed me the wrong way at the time, and I couldn't understand why, since it should have offered me a lot of solace and hope. This is my attempt to make sense of some of the thoughts and emotions swirling around as I tried to process the meaning behind a statement that was simple on the surface, but got increasingly confusing and complex the more I thought about it.


                     

August

This was a month of recovery.

I had what was probably the best vacation I’ve ever taken in the middle of the month. It was everything I’ve ever dreamed that a holiday should be- restful, relaxing, restorative. 

What makes a vacation a vacation? How do you separate out work from relaxation when the people you work with are also the people you play with?

I don’t know. But this felt about right.

I’ve discovered that if I want to have a proper holiday, I need to get away. Leave my flat, leave the city, leave the country, find a cheap flight to somewhere - anywhere - where I don’t have to answer the door, my phone, or emails. Detach from one world, and allow myself space and time to reattach to my self, to my surroundings, and to God. If I don’t make space and prioritize this time, then I soon find myself drifting through life, never connecting deeply to anyone or anything, quickly becoming overwhelmed by the tyranny of the urgent.

Time to slow down. Breathe deeply. Sleep, Read, Repeat. To do exactly what my heart longs for, and nothing else.

I so rarely allow myself the luxury of doing something simply because I want to. Uninfluenced by the desires of others, fueled only out of my awareness of the echoing cries of my heart. I can become so attuned to others opinions that it’s possible to lose sight of who my true self actually is.

“Love your neighbor as your self” requires one to love themselves also. If I do a bad job of loving my self, how can I then love my neighbor?

Time in the mountains is always restorative for me. Being outdoors, hiking running walking boarding, exploring and adventuring. As I was sitting on one of my favorite spots on one of my favorite mountains, I asked God a question:

“How come you feel so close and easy to find here, but it’s so difficult to find you when I’m back home in Latvia?”

The answer came quickly, and surprised me:

“You expect to find me here, so you work to find me. Will you put the same effort into finding me where it’s difficult to do so as where it’s easy?”

The time to expend effort is not when the going is easy. It’s when it’s uphill and a struggle.

Walking down a mountain is, in some ways, very easy. Someone who is in poor shape can keep up (to a certain level) with someone in better shape. Of course it’s still work. Legs get tired, knees and back get jolted, you have to keep a careful watch on the path ahead. But it happens, almost whether you’re trying hard or not. You go downhill.

Walking uphill is a different story. Grinding, grunting, gasping, keeping legs pumping while your lungs scream for you to stop; that’s where training, dedication, and community keep you moving.

Where will I work to find God? I find him in the mountains, whether I want to or not. When I dive into a good book and am challenged by new thoughts and ideas, God is easily with me. 

But on a Monday morning, early a.m. while the coffee is still brewing; will I look for him then? When I’m feeling lonely and tired and frustrated, will I take a moment to find God then? When I feel like I’m in a spiritual smog and breathing air thick with pollutants, will I seek him then? When the long slow grind of living in another country and culture eats away at my precious reserves of energy and zoe, will I then keep hiking uphill, lungs gasping and legs pumping, searching for God?

Rest is important. Finding times and places where God is easy to find are invaluable. But the mountaintop experiences aren’t meant to be that which I strive towards and for. They arrive, they bless, and then we return to the hazy lowlands.

That’s where I live. That’s where I work.

I’m so thankful for the time of rest that I was privileged to have this month, and for the close and intimate way in which God met with me while I was gone. And I look forward to see how he will fuel my desire to find him in the hazy smog of the daily grind.

July

Every Zosna Camp is special, but this one was especially so.

That’s in part because it was the apex, building on 20 years of camps.
And it’s in part because it was the last, ending 20 years of camps.

At the beginning of the camp, I decided that my question for the week would be “How do I finish well?” I knew that this was likely the swan song for this particular iteration of the camp, and that this would, in all likelihood, be the last time that Zosna Camp as I’d come to know and love it, would be held.

How does one finish well?

I don’t know. But I feel like I - like we - did. And that’s an incredibly satisfying feeling.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever been more exhausted than I was at the end of the camp. I was wearing too many hats for too long, getting too little sleep and caring for too many people and programs during the day. By the end of camp, I was so spent that I was literally staggering around, barely enough energy left in my weary bones to drag my legs across the ground.

But it’s all worth it. Why? The smiles and tears.

The smiles are easy to fall in love with. Kids having fun, feeling loved, throwing water balloons and eating sausages and talking with friends and basking in the warm glow of the fire late into the night. Adults having fun, feeling loved, getting hit by water balloons and eating sausages and talking with friends and basking in the warm glow of the fire (not-quite-so) late into the night. The smiles take some time to warm up, but once they start, they’re hard to stop.

The tears are harder to appreciate.

The boy with developmental delays who wakes you up at 4am, crying, because people have been making fun of him around the campfire and he feels alone and left out and wants someone to walk and talk with.

The girl who can’t bear to leave camp, to say goodbye to the friends she’s made and the place she loves. Leaving a place of warmth and safety for the cold, uncertain world which she comes from and returns to. Tears running down her face as she says goodbye.

The student, from another country and here to help for the week, so overwhelmed by their experience here that they don’t know how to express the potpourri of emotions coursing through them - love, joy, exhaustion, confusion, anger, relief, disappointment, elation, longing, etc. - except through tears.

Me, as I say goodbye to this place and these people, to this camp. Eight summers I’ve been here. Eight out of twenty: not a majority, but still a large sample for a big kid from America who never lost his love of summer camp.

The rest of July has been a blur. In one sense, I feel like I’m still recovering from that single week of output. The team has been a blessing to have, but now that they’ve left I feel slightly guilty to admit that I’m glad they’re gone. 

Everything has a good time to end. Summer trips, naps, movies, even relationships are sometimes meant to come to an end. Nothing is designed to go on forever, and neither should we expect it to. Life itself has to end, in order that it may continue.

It was sad to say goodbye to the summer team - Than, Michelle, Sarah and Erynn. But the sorrow was largely balanced out by the joy I felt in the time we had together, the places we went, people we met, and things that we did. Our time was full, we used it well, and it came to an end.

I feel the same about Zosna. Twenty years, eight years, one year: the time was full, we used it well, and it’s come to an end.

And I feel that, as much as I was enabled to do so, I finished well.

June

This has been an odd month, filled with beginnings and endings.

It started with the sense of a new beginning. Along with some other friends of mine, we’d been trying for quite some time to help our mutual friend, Andrejs, to find some steady work and a stable environment. And while the way forward didn’t appear certain, it looked like - at long last - an opportunity to both serve him and enable him to serve others had opened up.

I was excited, and also relieved at the same time. His situation had been wearing on me for some time, wondering and worrying how to help my friend, and at the same time wrestling with questions about how to help. Was I reluctant to open up my home, my wallet, my life, simply because of the convenience cost to me? Or, as I was telling myself (and being told by others), was that something that would end up costing us both in the long run?

So when an opportunity surfaced to help him, and enable him in some small way to help others, I was thrilled. Both because it meant there was something for him… and also because it meant less would be demanded of me.

Beginnings can quickly end.

Less than a week later, my friend and flatmate sat me down, early on a Sunday morning, and told me that Andrejs was gone. Had been killed. Stabbed. Suddenly, bizarrely, without any apparent motive or backstory.

Did I kill him? Did my failure to invite him to come live with me, my insistence that he stay in his hometown and seek a way forward there, contribute to his death? Of course not. And of course yes. 

Decisions always have consequences. Can I live with the consequence of the ones I’ve made? Am I sure enough that I chose wisely, that I had his best interests at heart, and not just my own selfish needs? Of course. And of course not.

Calling friends. Making plans to attend the funeral. Ironing my white shirt and black tie. Driving to the funeral. Seeing tears streaming down the faces of stoic, otherwise emotionless men. Driving back. Emptiness.

And this was the beginning of the summer.

One week after the funeral, the summer team arrives. Four bright, eager, expectant Americans (are there any other kind?). Three of them in Latvia for the first time, and one who was back for his second trip. He knew Andrejs too, returned in no small part because of him. Somehow it was cathartic to talk about it, together, reminisce and remind one another of our friend. Share some tears of laughter and sorrow in the same conversation.

We prepare to go to Jani camp - a midsummer camp hosted by LKSB - but because I manage to misplace the keys to the van, we’re delayed. Eight hours of searching later, we find them, but not before we miss the beginning of camp. Another odd start.

And yet,

and yet,

life moves forward, and is filled with good.

Our delayed arrival ends up bringing us closer together as a team.
Shared loss draws me closer to many others who also loved Andrejs.
I speak at the last night of camp, and despite minimal preparation, God seems to use my raw and honest sharing in meaningful ways.

This summer started with an ending. But it did start. Questions still remain, wrestling amongst themselves in the back rooms of my soul. In some ways, the busyness of running a summer program, hosting a team and coordinating a camp provide the distractions that I need to keep from wallowing in a place of grief. But there’s still unresolved layers of sorrow waiting to be processed.

And yet,

and yet,

the summer has started, and is already filled with good.

Ukraine

"Have the events in Ukraine affected you at all?"

Yes and no.¹


First off, some geography: the Crimean region of Ukraine is about as far from where I live as Orlando is from New York, Denver is from San Francisco, or London is from Rome. So on one level, it's akin to asking someone in Colorado if they worry about earthquakes and tidal waves, or asking someone in New York if fears about alligators, hurricanes, and long lines at Disney World keep them up at night.² So in that sense, no, I wouldn't say that I experience a sense of unease solely related to geographical proximity.

Another factor which edges the answer towards "no" is that Latvia is a member of both the EU and NATO. Ukraine is not.³ This doesn't mean that a EU or NATO member country is immune from unrest or upheaval... but it does mean that the consequences of outside intervention are much, much higher, and - one would think - much less likely.

But on the "yes" side of the balancing scale, Latvia not only shares a border with Russia, but it also has the largest population of ethnic Russians in the EU. The country has only regained its full independence within the last twenty-five years, after multiple decades of occupation by multiple regimes, so there are some understandable question lingering at the back of people's minds:

"Is it happening again?"
"Are we next?"



Yesterday, when I was out for a run, I noticed that there was a plethora of policemen and women surrounding the freedom monument in the city centre. They were there to make sure that those commemorating "Legion Day" - which honors Latvian soldiers who fought for the Nazis in order to repel the Soviets during WWII - wouldn't clash with groups protesting the event.

Needless to say, it's controversial day, no matter which angle you look at it from. And I'd be lying if I said that it didn't take me slightly aback to see so many police gathered together, particularly in light of what was happening far - but not so far as it seemed at first - away in Ukraine. And until I recalled why they were there and what was happening, I found myself wondering, albeit briefly: 

"Is it happening again?"
"Are we next?"



Have you ever heated up spaghetti sauce in a pot on the stove? You know how it'll simmer for a while, heating up slowly, and then all of a sudden  - *blorp*⁴ - an air-fueled bubble of sauce catches you by surprise as it bursts, splattering red sauce everywhere?

Rarely is the blorp a random event. So many tensions still exist in so many places, slowly simmering until they come to a boil. Pressure cookers packed with so many diverse ingredients, all of them contributing - in different ways - to the blorp.



I became aware of something interesting a couple of years ago: my subconscious self was reacting to certain words and sounds in a negative manner. Even if I didn't understand the words or sounds - which I didn't - and even if they were being used in a positive and affirming fashion, they carried a negative connotation in my mind.

I was reacting to Russian.

Why did I have a mild but noticeable internal negative reaction to a beautiful, rich, and vibrant language such as Russian? 

Propaganda.

See, in the West, we tend to live under the assumption that the only propaganda which exists is being used by our enemies to defame and belittle us. We're awesome,⁵ and if you don't agree, then you're wrong. North Korea uses propaganda.⁶ Russia uses propaganda. Uganda uses propaganda.⁷ The West - and especially America - uses Truth, Justice, and Moral Imperative. After all, it's not propaganda if it's true, right?

Here's a question, though: Do you think the fact that the character with a fake Russian accent in the movie almost always turns out to be the bad guy has an effect on how you perceive the very sound of the language? Does the equation "Russia = Communism = Evil," which those of us who grew up during the Cold War era were taught, influence our perception of a language and culture?⁸

Do you think that the news coverage you're reading about the issue is free from bias or influence? That your perception of what is happening in the Crimean region of Ukraine is unaffected by decades of ice-cold conflict?

Do you think if there were unfinished hotels or bizarre toilets during the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 that we'd have cared?⁹



This isn't to paint the situation in Ukraine as entirely grey, or to frame the participants in the ongoing standoff there as having equal moral or legal grounds. There are shades of black and white, elements of right and wrong in even the most ambiguous of situations. But it is worth reminding us that the issues are rarely clear-cut, and that we - West or East, American or Russian, EU or CIS - are almost never as innocent and holy as we are told to think that we are.

Whenever ideological battles are being fought, and world powers grapple to see who is biggest and strongest, it's the average, everyday, normal people who end up getting hurt the most. Russians, Ukrainians, Crimean Tartars, the people who work jobs and hold pensions and sweep the streets and own shops and have normal human wants and needs and dreams and fears. People who will suffer no matter which side declares victory in the end. Economic sanctions, recession, conflict and struggle, toil and trouble... there's no easy way forward for anyone involved. 


The people who lose the most are always those with the most to lose.


And because of that, I pray that what's been happening in Ukraine does have an effect on me.






¹Please bear in mind that everything being written here is from the viewpoint of an outsider (and an American outsider at that). I don't have a firm grasp on all the intricacies and cultural complexities involved in what's happening in Ukraine right now, and am answering the question above only from my personal perspective
²It's New York, so the answer would still be "Yes." But you get the point
³One of the main catalysts of the protests in Kiev was an about-face by the government on some trade agreements with the EU
⁴About as onomatopoetic as it gets 
⁵This usage of awesome goes out to a German friend of mine who - correctly - thinks that Americans use it way too much. I consciously tried to avoid using the word in a talk I gave recently, and he still counted 4 or 5 times when it appeared in my vocabulary. Awesome
⁶Random but true fact #1: Kim Jong-un is the best friend of former NBA player Dennis Rodman
⁷Random but true fact #2: "Uganda" and "propaganda" are the only words in the English language that end with "-ganda." Hence my inclusion of Uganda
⁸This isn't meant to minimize the negative effects of Communism. But Russian culture existed long before Communism, and its roots run far too deep to ever be completely absorbed into whatever political structure is currently in place. Communism was an idea and a system; Russian is a culture, a language, a people. Very different
⁹Technically, yes, we'd have cared; making fun of Canada is a time-honored American pastime. But it would have had a completely different tone and agenda to it; more like a big brother quasi-affectionately making fun of a younger sibling, and less like the high-school hallway, mean-girl gossip which it came across as

Riga sunset

Weather

"How's the weather there? Do you freeze in the winter? Is it colder than you're used to?"

Actually, my experience of winter here has been surprisingly... normal.¹

Everything is supposed to be different, mysterious, and foreign when you move to a new country. And most things are.

But not everything is different. Some things feel surprisingly... normal. And other things - like the weather - feel not just normal, but like you've been preparing for them, albeit unknowingly, for most of your life.

Exactly seven years ago, I was dreaming about what to do with my upcoming summer. My job contract, apartment lease, and university studies² would all be completed by the end of that May, and I didn't have anything planned after that.

In other words, it was the perfect chance - and possibly my last good one - to indulge in some travel.

So I started looking for a short-term missions/service opportunity that could take me abroad. There were seemingly countless options dotted around the globe, but most of them had a major drawback in common:

They were too close to the equator.

I would love to someday visit Africa, Central America, Southeast Asia, and many other places with warm climates... just preferably not in the summer. Give me a choice between temperate and tropical summer weather, and I'm going to choose temperate almost every time. 

After all, I grew up in the northeast, not the southwest. I have more experience with -40 than +40 degrees.³ I've shoveled my way through snowdrifts well over my head. I've bought snowshoes because they were a requirement for a job, not just for fun. Swimming in the ocean, no matter the time of year, was always more of a dare than a delight, summers were fleeting, and flannel was my friend.⁴

So, if I'm perfectly honest, the weather was a major factor in my selection criteria for where to spend my summer.

Sure, had God spoke clearly and firmly shown me that it was time to turn up the heat, I'd like to think that I would have decided differently. But He didn't. So I did what seemed to be - relatively speaking - natural and logical:  I looked for somewhere with weather that wouldn't cause me to melt into a giant puddle of sweat.

And from among all the trips listed on various organizations' websites, there was one that happened to fit perfectly with the dates I had available, was located somewhere with a more temperate summer climate, and - almost as an aside - would let me visit a country I'd long wanted to visit (Norway) and another one I'd never really heard of before (Latvia). So, after about fifteen minutes of thought,⁵ I decided:


"Sure, why not, let's do this."

Once you find yourself somewhere, you can often look back and identify a long and connected series of events which led you there, but which you were completely oblivious to at the time. Why is this? How do we not recognize our destiny before it arrives?

When I was younger, and my mom would tell me to "put on a sweater, I'm getting cold just looking at you!", I didn't think to myself "Ah-ha! This must mean that I'm destined to dwell in a climate zone similar to the one I find myself in now, so I should limit my search for future living areas to those which have a 'Dfb' Köppen–Geiger climate classification."⁶


No. At the age of ten I thought, "Huh, my mom is really weird."

I'm a big picture person; I like to understand how the pieces fit, where they're leading me to, what they mean. I want this now, here, today. And that desire can be helpful. But when I try to pre-write a story before I'm at the ending, I quickly get into trouble. Because life is unpredictable, and it's almost impossible to plan out where we'll be based solely on where we've been.

"Where, what and with who?" are incredibly important questions that everyone asks at some point in their life. But it's been my experience that, more often then not, the clues to the where, the what, and the who become illuminated in retrospect, but are often difficult to see, if not downright invisible, along the way. And to try and shoehorn my life into a mold I've cast based on my non-omniscient forecast of my future means I'm in danger of missing the beautiful spontaneity of those moments when everything slides into place and makes some level of sense in a glorious burst of insight.


In fact, the moment when you reach your destination is often the same moment you realize you were even on a journey to begin with.


So instead of being a detracting factor, the cold winters and short-but-sweet summers here have actually been a pretty big selling point for me. You could even make the case that they were the main reason I ever came here in the first place. 

The small things in life, the thousand different facets of my character and preferences and experiences and likes and dislikes that make up "me," are arranged in such a way that I'm all but certain to find the answer to the big questions not in flashes of future revelation, but in a retrospective glance over my shoulder as I realize, of course... I've been headed here all along.⁷


And that even something as seemingly insignificant as the weather isn't too hot, or too cold, but just right.⁸

¹To be fair, I've only experienced one full winter so far, so that can hardly be considered as a comprehensive survey. But it was cold and snowy and long, so I think it qualifies as a legitimate sample.
²It took me seven years to finish. Seven. Years. There were some gaps in between, but still... who takes seven years to get their bachelor's degree? 
³Celsius, of course. -40 is the same in both scales... but +40 is really not too impressive an extreme if you're using Fahrenheit, and +100F loses any sense of symmetry.
⁴I'm told that I wore almost nothing except flannel shirts and jeans my first semester at college. I think this is an apocryphal story, but nonetheless it highlights both the stereotypical Maine dress code and the need for warmth almost year-round.
⁵Total time involved in mentally processing this decision: approximately fifteen minutes. Total time spent in Latvia since that decision: approximately two years. Good thing I didn't know what I was getting into
⁶True story: both Maine and Latvia are located in "Dfb climate zones" (aka "humid continental warm/cool summer") according to the Köppen–Geiger climate classification system. Who knew? And who or what is a Köppen–Geiger? It kind of sounds like a delicious ice cream bar
⁷Peter Rollins shares some very interesting thoughts on this concept, albeit at a much more meta-level than I, here; highly recommend taking a couple moments to view
⁸Ironically, we're currently experiencing a "meteorological autumn" in Latvia, with unseasonably warm temperatures - above freezing! - and no snow at all, at the same time when the entire northeastern United States is being slammed by record-breaking levels of cold and snow. What does that mean? I have no idea. But I find it all mildly amusing

Student

"What, exactly, do you do?"
"What does your average day look like?"
"Can you explain what you're doing in Latvia?"
"Do you have a job? Or something? What do you do?"


I'm a student.¹

This is my go-to reply when asked any of the questions above, or various and sundry other permutations of them. Sometimes people just want a simple answer that they can categorize, define, and shelve away for future reference. "I'm a student" gives them the freedom to do that, but it also helps remind me of my primary role here.


I'm a student in the traditional sense, as I'm enrolled in a full-time masters program at a university here in Riga.² It's been a great chance to meet some other students, learn about the education system from the inside, and get some more training and experience along the way. The university has graciously offered to include a language component in the study program as well, which makes it an even more worthwhile opportunity.³ It's been a learning experience on every level imaginable so far, and I'm sure will continue to be so through the remainder of my study program.



Beyond just my university studies, though, I want that label - student - to categorize how I approach my entire life. If I hope to become fluent in the culture as well as the language, then I need to begin with the understanding that "I know nothing."⁴ If I'm able to recognize and absorb that concept, then it puts me in a place where I'm ready to learn everything.

In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not. ⁵ 


A few weeks ago, in a small group I meet regularly with, a discussion started on a controversial topic. As it happened, this particular topic has been of great personal interest to me, and about which I've done quite a bit of personal study and research in the past. So I had, as I felt, something to offer, something to communicate, even something to teach.

But as I sat there listening, I realized that even though I understood what was being said, I lacked the words - not to mention the mental processing speed and acuity - to be able to jump into the conversation. Once I conjugated my verbs, formulated semi-coherent sentences from my meager vocabulary, and inserted myself into the flow of conversation, enough time would have passed that my comment would drag us backwards in the discussion, not forwards

So I sat there, internally chafing away as I thought of intelligent and clever questions long after the time for them had passed, frustrated with myself and my poor language skills.⁶ 

But then the thought slowly dawned on me that I did have the opportunity to contribute something meaningful; to sit, to watch, to listen, to learn...

And to pray.

Isn't that a valuable contribution? Perhaps the most valuable?⁷


A Psalm I've been reading from recently says this:

"Let all that I am wait quietly before God." ⁸

To be here - to really be here, in a fully-present and fully-functioning sense - I need first to learn how to sit, to watch, to listen and to learn. 

To be immersed and observant at the same time.

(In other words, to pray).


And you know what? It's hard. Really hard. And it doesn't matter what country or culture I'm in, the struggle is the same. Because to be a student means admitting that I don't know it all, that I need to learn, that I'm not the center-of-the-universe, master-of-everything that my inner ego often tries to convince myself that I am.

Each of us is born with a series of built-in confusions that are probably somehow Darwinian.  These are: (1) we’re central to the universe (that is, our personal story is the main and most interesting story, the only story, really); (2) we’re separate from the universe (there’s US and then, out there, all that other junk – dogs and swing-sets, and the State of Nebraska and low-hanging clouds and, you know, other people), and (3) we’re permanent (death is real, o.k., sure – for you, but not for me).

Now, we don’t really believe these things – intellectually we know better – but we believe them viscerally, and live by them, and they cause us to prioritize our own needs over the needs of others, even though what we really want, in our hearts, is to be less selfish, more aware of what’s actually happening in the present moment, more open, and more loving. ⁹

Self-identifying as a student gives me the space - and the grace - to learn. And to be reminded that it's less about what I have to give, and more about what I'm willing to learn. And that its not about me, as much as I'd like to think that it is.



I'm here to be a student, and I hope and pray that I will become one in the fullest sense possible.






¹I'm more than just a student, but I can only cover one facet at a time- two more to come soon
²By the way, if you're ever considering higher education, you should strongly consider getting it overseas. It costs me the same for an entire year in a Master's program what I paid for one class when I was working on my Bachelor's degree ten years ago. 
³At least, that's the plan; it still hasn't happened yet, but will hopefully occur soon. Things tend to happen in a more spontaneous and informal way here. 
⁴I wrote some more about this idea last year here
⁵From Four Quartets, by T.S. Eliot
⁶Confession time: I've been unfocused and unmotivated when it comes to my language studies this term. Sad but true. I say this here to hopefully motivate myself into a more consistent effort in the new year
⁷I have skills, gifts, talents, experience, wisdom, and so much more to offer. For sure. But am I offering it from a place of power or a place of prayer? That's the question
⁸From Psalm 62
⁹From a NYT reprint of a speech by George Saunders

Loneliness

There are several questions that I get asked on a regular occasion. They're great questions, too, but it's rare that I have a great reply ready to go.

So, I'll be answering some common questions over the upcoming weeks. This is as much for me as it is for you; not only only do I want to give answers to your questions, but I've also started to realize that sometimes I'm asking the very same questions of myself...



"Do you ever get lonely?"


Of course. All the time.¹


Loneliness is a funny thing. Most people go to great lengths to try and avoid it, to dull its sharp edges and even to find ways of pretending that it doesn't exist. But be sure of this: even in the fullest and most connected of lives, there is room for loneliness to live.


"[L]oneliness often has nothing to do with being alone. For some people, feelings of isolation are sharpest during times that are in fact defined by togetherness — celebrations or the holidays, for instance. Walk into a bustling shopping mall or a buzzing holiday party this time of year, and even within a crowd — or perhaps especially in a crowd — it's possible to feel unbearably alone."²


Of course, living in a foreign country is an excellent way to become exceptionally aware of how lonely you are. Separated by both language and culture from everyone and everything around you, it's possible to feel loneliness in deeper and rawer ways. But I've discovered that the loneliness I've experienced when living overseas didn't just appear ex nihilo; it was sitting there all along, waiting to be discovered.

The roots of my dissatisfaction, of my feelings of loneliness and isolation, are not found in a lack of people, or in foreign languages or cultures or countries, in being single or married or in a church or small group or sitting alone in a room by myself. My loneliness inevitably arises from both a discontent with self and - here's where it gets really scary - a discontent with God.

As humans, we're wired for community and fellowship  And more often than not, God chooses to meet our needs for connection and companionship through other people. But if I try and use other people to fill my needs, I end up doing just that:

Using people.


"When our loneliness drives us away from ourselves into the arms of our companions in life, we are, in fact, driving ourselves into excruciating relationships, tiring friendships and suffocating embraces. To wait for moments or places where no pain exists, no separation is felt and where all human restlessness has turned into inner peace is waiting for a dream-world. No friend or lover, no husband or wife, no community or commune will be able to put to rest our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness."³


I crave connection, intimacy, relationship. But if I'm not finding those things first in God, then I risk using others to fill those needs in ways that are ultimately harmful to both myself and to them. Or, in failing to use other people, I can easily use other things instead. Computers, phones, food, exercise, books, games, and videos are but a small sample of the many ways we try to fill the infinite void with finite things. 

Ironically, the best antidote I've discovered⁴ for loneliness is solitude. In learning to be in solitude, with my self and with God, I then have the opportunity to interact with the people I'm with in richer and more meaningful ways. And even if I'm surrounded by people I know and love - as I am, often, both here in Latvia and also in the U.S. - but haven't made time to be with my self and with God, I can quickly succumb to feelings of isolation. Bitterness. Frustration. Annoyance. And of course, loneliness.

Solitude is devoid of loneliness, and frees me to be truly with others around me in ways I otherwise never could.


So yes: I do get lonely. And I'm definitely more aware of those feelings while living overseas than I am at home. But that's not entirely a bad thing, as it's pushed me to find my source of connection and contentment in solitude, rather than in my surroundings. My prayer is that my increased awareness of the loneliness which lurks within will prompt me to scratch that itch with solitude, and not to try and use other people, places, or things to fill a need which is aching to be met by God.⁵



¹Before you get too worried and concerned about my overall well-being: I'm ok. Really, I am. But if you still feel concerned, please send me cookies.
²From Time.com; full article here
³From Reaching Out, by Henri Nouwen. If you've never read anything by Henri Nouwen, please stop reading this and find something - anything - of his and read it. Your life will be better for it.
⁴To say I "discovered" solitude as an antidote it is sort of like saying Columbus "discovered" America. I knew it existed because I heard about it from others, but then I've found it to be true for myself as well.
⁵Who, ironically, often does so through people, places and things.

Money

Living overseas can be expensive. Even in a relatively affordable country such as Latvia, it's easy to see significant chunks of your income disappear down a drain towards shipping, customs, postage, fees, bank charges, etc., if you're not careful.

Just getting access to your money can become an expensive proposition. There's many ways to transfer money internationally, but most options are either (a) very expensive, (b) very lengthy, or (c) both. However, I've discovered one method that is, beautifully, none of the above.

My U.S. bank account has a special program for international travelers which has very low transaction fees for purchases or withdrawals you make with your debit card anywhere in the world. It's still a small expense, but considering most banks will charge you a significant percentage of every transaction - and also tack on some usage fees just for fun - it's incredibly minimal.¹

So, when I want to transfer money to my Latvian bank, I simply make a withdrawal from my U.S. bank account using an ATM here in Latvia, and then re-deposit the cash here. 

Here's the really odd part: Oftentimes, I use the exact same machine for both transactions. So all I'm doing is, in one sense, withdrawing money from an ATM... and then putting it right back. And like magic, money moves from a U.S. bank to a Latvian bank for negligible cost and almost zero time or hassle.²

I always feel kind of suspiciously guilty when I do this. Sometimes I even purposefully withdraw cash from a different machine than I deposit it into, just so it looks less bizarre.³ 



A couple of years ago, I was in a very tight spot financially. I was raising support to move overseas, and wasn't yet drawing a salary, so I was basically trying to live on nothing (or as close to it as possible).⁴ 


And then, since this is the way life usually works, my computer died.


Now, you could argue that a computer is a luxury, not a necessity, and that the mere fact that I owned one showed that I clearly wasn't as bad off as I might have thought I was. All of which is very true. But for what I was trying to do at the time, it was a very integral part of my efforts to communicate with people and inform them about this new direction my life had taken. So this was a particularly crushing blow to what I hoped to accomplish, how I hoped to do it, and more than that, to my ego. I was faced with the fact that I didn't have what I needed, and had no way of attaining it.


And then, since this is the way God usually works, someone bought me a new computer. 


A really nice one, too. which is still going strong - I'm typing on it right now - and which has been a blessing on every level imaginable. In fact, it was far nicer than the computer it replaced, and never would have even entered into the decision making process of what model I would choose to replace the not-so-dear departed computer.

This was an overwhelming event to process. So, as I usually do when overwhelmed, I went out for a long nighttime walk. I was by the ocean, looking out across the width of a large bay, and seeing the twinkle of countless stars mirrored by the lights from an endless string of houses lining the shore. And as I walked and thought, and was silent and listened for an explanation of what had just happened, it was if I heard the words being spoken to me,

"All that you see is Mine."

The concept wasn't new - the idea that everything belonged to God is something that had been drummed into my consciousness from an early age - but the depth and awareness of it suddenly jumped to the surface of my consciousness in a way it never had before. Stars, homes, sea and sky, waves and double-wide trailers, all I could see, all was his. Overwhelming, empowering, exhilarating. All belonged to him, was from him, and of course he could easily provide me with a new computer. Chump change for the one who owns all.

And then,

"All that is Mine is yours."

Jaw drops. Chest tightens, breath shortens, dampness at the corner of the eyes that isn't entirely due to the salt air. New awareness of the depth of my place and privilege in this world, overwhelming gratitude mixed with a convicting sense of responsibility and care for all that is entrusted to me.


So now, when I'm juggling wads of cash an trying not to look either suspicious or like an easy target at an ATM on the street in Riga, I try and remind myself of those words as I have the cold hard cash in my hot little hands:

"All that you see is Mine,
all that is Mine is yours."

If properly remembered, this keeps me humble, and it keeps me honest. I own nothing, and yet have been given all. So whatever is placed in my hands, I want to use well for as long as it's there, honoring the owner, until he sees fit to return it to his safekeeping or pass it along to someone else.

Sometimes you're given something to hold for a lifetime,
and sometimes for 30 seconds in front of an ATM on a busy street.

Regardless, I hope to keep those words at the front of my memory, my consciousness, my heart:


All that I see is His;
All that is His is mine.




¹Insert unsolicited plug for ECCU (www.eccu.org) here. They've been a great bank to work with- highly recommend for anyone living/working in some kind of overseas ministry capacity!
²There are some drawbacks to this method, such as the inability to transfer large sums of money and the small risk that you'll get mugged in the 30-second interval between withdrawing and re-depositing your cash
³"Wait, did that guy just get money out from the ATM and PUT IT BACK AGAIN?!? Was something wrong with the money? Is something wrong with him?"
⁴Which was only possible thanks to mom and dad generously letting me move back home for a while. Thanks guys!

Titles

You know you've arrived when you're the main feature on the church sign.

It still stops me a little short, though, whenever I hear or see myself being called a 'missionary.' It's an accurate description of what I'm doing, but that word carries a lot of baggage for me.¹ I grew up reading biographies of people like William Carey, Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael, pioneers who gave up everything and risked their lives as part of their calling.

Me? 

I have a comfortable flat, 

good friends,

plenty to eat,

relatively frequent visits back home,

easy communication with friends and family around the world,

opportunity to study at a university,

and the list could go on.

That's not to say that it's all sunshine and smooth sailing, but I find it hard to place my experience in the same class as others who might share the same job description, but who risked and suffered and gave all they had. Early pioneers in the American missions movement packed their belongings in a casket when they set sail, knowing it was likely that they'd die overseas.

My suitcase has rolling wheels, a telescoping handle, and a frequent-flier priority-handling tag.

A closer look at the church sign, however, shows that there's more than one name on it,² and this is where things start to get interesting. One of my best friends from growing up is now the pastor at the same church we went to as teenagers. Perhaps one of the more surreal moments³ during my entire time in the U.S. was arriving at this church to speak one Sunday morning, and being ushered into the pastor's office, now inhabited by my good friend. Who would have guessed that almost fifteen years after we both started going to this church, that we'd have ended up there in that room together, now as a pastor and missionary, both supported by this small but vibrant community of believers?

God uses the unlikely, the unexpected, and the unforeseen. I see it reading through the stories of those who left home and country to pursue their dreams and callings. And I see it around me, along the twisted paths of life winding their way to a place that could only have been coordinated by someone with both a sense of humor and a sense of purpose.

I'm hesitant to call myself a missionary, for a multitude of reasons. Some reasons come from a good place,⁴ and others from insecurities, doubts and fears. But I do find a sliver of ownership in that word in this sense: I've sought to make myself open and available to wherever the spirit of God might lead me; 

sometimes it sends you around the world,

sometimes you end up right back where you started,

sometimes you find yourself in over your head, and

sometimes you find yourself in a spot that is perfectly you.

Missionary or student, warehouse worker or meter reader, the name of the job is less important than the availability of the heart. My prayer is that whatever my job title is now or in the future, that I will keep striving to make myself available, wherever that might lead and whatever labels might be applied.

¹Good baggage, but baggage nonetheless.

²Just in case you thought I was growing overly egotistical

³In a good kind of surreality 

⁴As much good as has been done by people bearing the title of "missionary" over the years, it can carry a negative connotation for some people. I hate to put myself in a box, or to allow others to do so, and try to avoid easily-defined labels. That's just how I roll

America

I recently was able to spend almost a month back home in the U.S.  Seeing my family again was a tremendous joy, as was reconnecting with friends scattered across the country. Prior to this visit, it had been the longest stretch that I'd been outside of the U.S.,¹ so I was more than a little curious about what the experience would be like. 

I was expecting to discover that I'd either grown cynical and jaded, disappointed with the American lifestyle and how I found it lacking, or else would find that I'd become misty-eyed behind rose-colored glasses, with everything appearing to be wonderful, beautiful, and apple-pie on the fourth-of-July perfect.



As you might expect, it was a little bit of both.


You know what struck me the most? How easy everything was. I mean, everything, including many things that I never would have thought as being either easy or difficult in the past. But now, they were gloriously, splendidly easy, and I felt comfortable and capable in everything I did;

Going out to eat,
pumping gas in a car,
driving down the highway,
speaking to a group of friends,
buying groceries at the supermarket,
a million little things that I've always taken for granted. 


Sometimes you have to be shown how little you know in one area to recognize just how proficient you are in another. When I'm trying to operate in an unfamiliar language, culture and country, everything is conscious. I have to think about the conjugation of that verb, the polite greeting to say to that person, carefully read that sign on the elevator before I realize that it's not going to open its doors for me unless I work there and have a key.

There are a million cultural codes that you never even realize you know, until you're in a situation where you realize you don't know any of them.

I may not know every code, pick up on every single cue, or read every situation perfectly, even in my home country. But compared to my capabilities overseas, I felt like a cultural wizard, understanding everything and a complete master of the situation at all times.


It was nice.


You know what else I realized? How little I've appreciated my country, compared to how much I complain about all that's wrong with it:

I complain about bureaucracy,
moan about the political system,
whine about the high taxes I have to pay,
make fun about how fat and obese we are,²
worry about the erosion of our religious freedoms,
and fail to appreciate a million little things that I've always taken for granted.

And, as usual, my failures in this area were brought to my attention when I realized how frustrated and annoyed I would become when others spoke poorly about the country they were living in.³ It's not a perfect place - I'll be one of the first to admit that - even if we do have the unfortunate reputation of sometimes acting as though it is.

But we've been unduly blessed with wealth, with freedom, and with more than I could possibly give words to in this space. I've taken it for granted, grown jaded, and mocked my home for all that is wrong with it. As my world has expanded and I've begun the dangerously delicate process of trying to unweave strands of truth from the tangled webs of culturally influenced beliefs which make up my world, I want to arrive at the place where I can appreciate that which is beautiful while also seeking to change that which is broken. 


I'm not there yet, but I hope that my time overseas - and at home - will propel me in that direction





¹It'd been over a year and a half since I'd moved to Latvia, and a year+ since I'd set foot in the U.S.
²Ok, seriously though, America: it is so incredibly sad to see how far you've let yourself go. Please, put down the fork and go for a walk. Please. 
³This is a double-edged sword of sorts, because not only am I convicted of judging others about something which I myself struggle with, but I'm also confronted with the weakness itself. Ouch.

Departure

Tomorrow afternoon I fly to the U.S.¹

It's a very surreal feeling to be returning. There's so much I'm looking forward to; people and places, food and fellowship, the coffee shop where I used to stop by every morning on my way to work downtown, mom's blueberry pie, road trips and radio broadcasts of the Red Sox on cool summer evenings.

But even in four weeks - which is how long I'll be sojourning stateside - I'll only have time for little tastes of favorite things. A slice of that pie, a coffee with that friend, a visit to that church, an evening around that table with those people. Tastes which will delight, but also leave me wishing for more.

Such is life.

That being said, I'm very thankful for even those small tastes. It's an enormous privilege to be able to travel, especially across the distances which I've had, and will have, the chance to traverse.² I don't want to take it for granted. It used to be that you could only cross an ocean once in your lifetime, and even that crossing was uncertain to end in success.

Now, I complain if my seat isn't comfortable enough, or if there aren't any movies showing on my personal entertainment system that I want to see.

Aside from giving you new experiences to enjoy, travel also serves the purpose of helping you to appreciate your past. Where you've been, what you've done, who you were with. It's often the absence of those things that gives you opportunity to fully embrace the depth of what they were and what they meant.

The author and poet T. S. Eliot describes it as such:

"We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, unremembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning" ³

Or as Joni Mitchell put it, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone"⁴

In a reverse take on this principle, one of the reasons I'm looking forward to being in the U.S. is that I won't be in Latvia. Not because I'm desperate to get away - if anything, as much as I'm looking forward to being back in the U.S.,  I'm slightly reticent to leave - but because I know that my time away will help me to realize just how much this place has come to mean to me in the time that I've been here


I love Latvia.
I love America.
I can't be in both at the same time.

But I am thankful that I have the opportunity to stay connected to both places, both groups of people, and all that they mean to me. It tugs at the corners of my soul to be constantly caught between two places, but that tension brings with it a deeper appreciation for everything that I've been blessed with.


And for that, I'm thankful.

¹Thankfully, this trip was planned, unlike last year's, when I was compelled to leave on very short notice due to my failure to procure a residence permit in a timely manner. Hard to believe all that was transpiring just a year ago!

²According to my records, I've logged something north of 150,000 miles over the past two years. Crazy.

³From Four Quartets; Little Gidding

⁴Contrary to popular perception, this song wasn't written by Counting Crows, only covered by them. I just found that out myself. Thanks, Google.

Time

I tend to treat Time like a container, with carefully measured increments marked on the outside so I know how much life can fit inside. If something fits into my Time jar, then it fits. And if it doesn't, then it doesn't. There's only so many hours in a day, days in a week, weeks in a year, years in a lifetime. Time is a precious resource, so it needs to be measured, guarded, valued.

This is, of course, good and true.
 

                                                            (Except when it's not). 

At the camp in Latvia I've been going to for the past goodness-knows-how-many years, Time somehow transubstantiates from container to content. The things which you would normally have to fit into your Time jar become, instead, the jar which Time is then made to fit into. 

There is a camp schedule which is posted, with times listed for the various events and activities of the day. But as the week progresses, you begin to realize that the times are more fluid than solid, melding and morphing around the actual camp, instead of forcing the camp to fit into them.

And as Time passes by, you realize that it's still a valuable thing. But other things start to gain their proper value over and above Time. Things like Relationships. Conversations. People. Events, games and meals are allowed to go on until they're finished. The sequence becomes more important than specific time when something occurs. When is Bible study? After breakfast. When are games? Before lunch. When is lunch?

Next.


As pretty a picture as I might be painting now, it's far from the utopian paradise it might appear to be from the outside. Like, when you're hungry, and desperately wondering how long a wait it will be until the next meal, and the only answer you get is "Lunch? It's next."¹

Next? When's Next?

But even then, if you stop and think about it,² next is the only time when anything can ever occur. Sure, you can give Next a number, or a configuration of the arms on a clock face, but the soonest anything can be is next.


Time is valuable. And it deserves to be measured, guarded, and valued. But as valuable as Time is, people, relationships, conversations, and even some events and moments and meals, are far more valuable still. 

Jesus entered into Time so that he could be with people. Allowed his timelessness to be trapped in the container of Time, to let his limitless self be limited. But - and here's the important thing which I need to keep reminding myself - in the midst of his urgent, frantic, full life, with an end date and place firmly in mind, he always found time for people. And not even just people, plural, but a person. A person is always worth pausing for.


Camp time is imperfect. Lunch is often late, and sometimes things don't happen when they should, if at all. But the beauty is that in that week, in that place, People become the container. And somehow, Time manages to fit in just fine when it's all said and done.

¹I must admit: I uttered that response on more than one occasion. And having been both the messenger and receiver of it at various times, I know how frustrating it can sometimes be. Especially when you're hungry. Especially when you're hungry.
²Which you should only do after lunch.

Stone Cushions

Last week, I bought a bunkbed for my flat.

There is a significant story lying within even that simple sentence, but that is for another time. What makes that statement relavent to this story is that this bed was the first piece of furniture that I've purchased in the entire time I've lived in Latvia.¹

When I moved to Riga last year, the flat was almost completely empty. The few items that were there would hardly be worth mentioning in any other context: there was one old, sheet-covered armchair. One rickety kitchen chair. A small desk-like contraption. And two or three other small pieces of furniture that had also been abandoned due to their ramshackle appearance and rickety construction by the previous denizens of the flat.¹

But there were no couches. No chairs or credenzas, no bookcases, bureaus or beds. There was a room we called the kitchen, but it was completely bare: walls and windows were all you would find. I slept on an air mattress for the first couple weeks, until a kind friend donated a bed, which instantly became the best piece of furniture in the flat.

It was, for all intents and purposes, indoor camping.³

Meanwhile, in Norway, some friends of friends heard about Latvia, and the opportunity to be involved in what God is doing here in some very practical ways. And, of most import to this narrative tale, about the need for furniture to fill this large, echoey, basically empty flat.⁴

And so, at the beginning of June last year, through a series of fortuitously timed that you couldn't have orchestrated if you wanted to, a ship sailed from Norway to Riga, where it delivered a truckload - literally - of furniture. Most of it was slightly used, but all of it was still perfectly usable. 

And here's the kicker: it was all free. Not one penny, centim or kroner was paid for a single piece of furniture, or for the transport of it to Riga, or for customs or duties or import taxes or anything else.⁵ 

I'm not sure what to call that except a miracle.

After the nation of Israel crossed the Jordan river into the land which had been promised them, their leader Joshua made them take twelve stones from the riverbed - which they had just walked across - and arrange them into a memorial on the other side. The idea was that when their children's children asked why there was a weird pile of stones sitting there, it would be a natural way to introduce the story of God's miraculous provision. Of delivering his people to the land he had promised them, even going so far as to dry up a river in flood season so they, and all their goods -  beds, chairs, kitchens, cushions - could safely travel to the other side.⁶

I don't have any stone memorials. But I live in a flat full of furniture, where every single piece screams out, "God did something here." Every cup, every lamp, every chair is a testament to his provision.

As it turns out, couch cushions can be a memorial just as much as rocks pried from a just-dried riverbed can.


(And they're far more comfortable).

¹Small clarification, upon further reflection: I have been involved in the purchase of a stove, a refrigerator, and a washing machine. But since those are technically appliances, and since saying that the bed was the fourth piece of "furniture" I've acquired for the flat doesn't sound anywhere near as good, I'm going with this interpretation.

²And have all been subsequently abandoned by the current resident (me).

³It might sound worse than it was, especially since I enjoy camping. But cooking on a hotplate and sitting on a rickety chair grows wearisome even for me after a while.

⁴My friends who own my flat also wanted to see it furnished, so they told their friends about the need. Word quickly spread, and soon everything from a renovated kitchen to an unused office to random chairs and beds were being offered, along with practically everything else you could possibly want to fill an empty flat. And now these friend-of-friends are just friends, which is perhaps the best part of this whole story.

⁵There was a real possibility that the officials at the shipping dock were going to reject the shipment or demand an extortionary sum of money to accept it because they had lost the paperwork for it. Yes, you read that right.

⁶From Joshua 3 and 4

Anniversaries

A little over a year ago, I landed in Rīga. It's hard to tell whether the year has gone by fast or slow;  I seem to have an inbuilt tendency to deny that time passes in anything but its normal pace, but this year has, in fact, felt almost exactly as long as it has actually been. My time here has, to this point, been everything and nothing like I expected, better and harder than I ever would have dreamed.¹ 

I've taken some time this week to do some reflecting on the events of the past year. While enjoying a decidedly non-Latvian meal last evening,² I read through my journal entries from the past couple of years, covering the journey to and my first year in Latvia. I'm a consistently sporadic writer in my journal even in the best of times,³ so it's less of a stream of consciousness and more a series of snapshots, significant moments incompletely captured with graphite and paper.

One consistent thread seemed to wind through the assorted verbal snapshots, which was a sense of being caught in between two worlds: the world of Here, and the world of There; Here being where I am, and There being wherever I am not. 

Deep, I know. 

But part of the significance is that, even being where I know I'm meant to be, there is still the constant temptation to let myself feel pulled to the There. And the opposite is true, as there is the threat of ignoring the There in order to live more fully in the Here. There is a healthy tension which can exist, keeping me from either being too immersed in the Here or There, or ignorant of either locale, but the balance between the two - especially while living in a country and culture that are not your own - is a difficult one to maintain.

Perhaps the oddest realization was that as time has passed, I haven't settled deeper into either Here or There, but instead have found myself increasingly living in the proverbial "wood between the worlds." As I assimilate myself more into Latvian life and culture,⁴ I find that I'm simultaneously becoming slightly less American in the process. That is to say, as I add, I also subtract:

Every choice is filled

both with potential

and exclusion; to 

grasp is also to release,

and the rising of the sun

obscures the distant glimmer

of nighttime diamonds.

The more I become whoever it is I'm becoming, the less I find myself either Here or There, but in the land in between. It's a good place to be; it's the place I'm meant to be. But while it's consistently good, it's not always easy.

Latvia just had an anniversary of its own; twenty three years since the Restoration of Independence. I've been here for one of those years; a small part of the story of this country, even in the most near-sighted, short-term sense.⁵ It's important for me to keep this sense of scale and perspective in mind as I move forward, and remind myself that as hard as I might try I can never become Latvian. And as much as I'd sometimes like, I can't remain the American I have been either. My identity is now somewhere in the middle, neither Here nor There.

Being forced to find identity outside of your location or birthplace is not always an easy thing, but it does push one to seek for something deeper, more permanent, and grounded in something more real than soil and flag and passport pictures.

Which leads me to being thankful for a Source of identity, a vine to stay connected to, which reaches out to wherever I happen to be, giving life and meaning and purpose.⁶

¹A Dickensian statement if ever there was one, but its no less true because it's been said before

²I think "hamburger and french fries and a coke" is conversely about as American as it gets. What can I say, I still need to feed my burger belly from time to time

³Apparently that habit carries over to this blog as well

⁴I'm hardly going to be mistaken for a Latvian anytime soon, but that's never been the goal. I do hope to become fluent in the language and culture at some point, but that day is still years away

⁵Latvia as a country has formally existed since 1918, but you can trace the cultural and lingual heritage back far further

⁶John 15

Freedom Monument in Rīga, on the anniversary of 

Latvia's Restoration of Independence