Ripe pages and spoiled veggies

Sometimes I think that I buy books the way I buy vegetables in the market after a long period of vitamin and color-deprivation. Everything looks good! The ripe tomatoes, the fresh cucumbers, even the radishes I would have snubbed quickly in my childhood--everything looks so lush and tempting.

But then, sometimes, with no plan for using them, they rot in my fridge. A sad, withered cucumber dies a slow and painful death on the bottom drawer.

There are books that have moved with me from bookstore to shelf and from apartment to apartment, and naught but back cover and random middle page have been read...

I've pulled a delectable bit off my bookshelf and upon tasting, and pleased to find it didn't spoil. In fact, it may have just become perfectly ripe.

Things I've Learned

...Or been reminded of in the last few weeks:

• Wear a hat, take vitamins, get enough sleep. Your mother is right, you will get a cold.

• You may be able to get away with doing your homework at the last minute, but it will turn out a heck of a lot better if you do it in chunks, ahead of time. I'm not sure I can say I 'learned' this - (present perfect) - it's more of an um, process...

• I'm still not totally clear on the difference between the definitions of sympathy and empathy, but I think they both have power to level you.

• Sometimes it really helps to grab your guitar and play and sing something really loud.
  

• Migraines stink, but I'm incredibly grateful that for me, they usually last only a day. If I can't give up a day for a migraine, what else am I not ready to surrender a day to?

• Snow makes everything prettier. Until it rains and everything turns brown again.

• If OTR is setting up for a concert in your backyard (and even if you are just dreaming), you should get your butt out of the house and out to their bus to get autographs. Or have them in for coffee. I mean, the dream coulda been so much cooler!

• Once you get accustomed to having excellent cream in your coffee, it's hard to go back.

• Sleeping, showering, taking a bath, cleaning the house, having a good talk, talking a good walk -- all of these can do wonders to help you hit 'reset'

• I probably go through as much toilet paper living alone as I do having a roommate. Yeah I know, TMI . . .
  

• We (humans) are not in control...and there can be a hurricane, or an epidemic, or someone can die, or you can wake up sick, or any number of things can happen. We may think we can prevent or control these wild forces around us, but apparently we can't, no matter how rich or well-educated or paranoid we are.

• We (yes, I'm still talking about humans...hmm, maybe I shouldn't have watched "V" yesterday?) have the potential to have an incredible amount of influence on one another...

• I don't want to become a weird academic. I would like to become a semi-competent one, but would still like to be a person who can relate to people who don't live and breathe scholarship . . .
  

• I still also want to be an artist.

• Sometimes there's no substitute for praying out loud.

• God really is paying attention.
  

Heavy and Light

One of several words for 'difficult' or 'hard' in both Russian and Ukrainian also means 'heavy.' I always think of it because a friend of ours who taught himself English often assumed that it was the same in English. We had driven across the border to Poland to renew our colleagues' visas, and stopped at a concentration camp site near Lublin. After visiting the buildings and the mass grave site, he sighed and said, 'heavy.'
How appropriate, I thought...

Last week could certainly have been called heavy.

Heaviness Monday morning when the call came...She might not wake up.

Tuesday. An early morning marshrutka ride carrying the weight of a different heaviness, the kind that sits in your gut like a rock: a broken relationship, strife, confusion, sadness, anxiety... and upon arrival, a conversation heavy with implications...

...and afterward, a heavy call, a heavy voice, heavy news.

Thursday. A van ride that began in thick darkness and silence. A heavy pot of flowers, and the gravity of death and its witnesses. Heavy shoulders shaking, swaying. Heavy dirt.

There's dirt on my hands from the plant.

The word 'Light' in English has two meanings.
It means both the opposite of 'heavy' and the opposite of 'dark'.

Tuesday. Light broke into my mind on that dark marshrutka ride home, crept through and around the anxieties for the living divided and the divided by death. Light spoke to my soul through music.

Thursday. Light moments in voices and stories and humor. Light of hope in a common Christ, a common vision, a common Comforter. Light burst through clouds, illuminating faces of husband, daughter, son. Light enfolded. Embraced. Light of witness to the reality that is the awesome, fearsome, terrible, compassionate love of the Father.

. . .

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.
. . .
For to us a child is born
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.

This morning

I have a lot to process. And AGAIN I've let a few weeks go by without blogging. And the longer I wait, the harder it is to start again, so here goes. I'm just gonna write.

Can I just say that it makes me a little paranoid now that I 'feed' my blog entries right into my Facebook profile? It's great, because there is actually hope that more than two people will see what I wrote on my blog. It's terrible, because there is actually a chance that more than two people will see what I wrote on my blog. Plus, tons of people on FB don't realize the 'notes' ARE my blog. So heads up, people, this is my blog! Go to allmanack.blogspot.com and you'll see. Whole blog. Right there. Not great, but there it is.

So anyway, the whole posting and having it pop up on Facebook makes me a little embarrassed sometimes. Somehow the Facebook atmosphere is more urgent. Not necessarily important or significant, but urgent. My blog entries are not usually 'urgent.'

But I think I'll stick with it--feeding the blog into my profile. Why not? If I don't want anyone to read my stuff, I might as well just journal. Hmm...

So it's Fall in Ukraine. It's probably Fall where you are too. Leaves are changing colors. I miss the many colors of Western Pennsylvania when Fall comes around. It's pretty here too, but the leaves mostly turn varying shades of orange and brown. Not the bright yellows and reds on our hills at home. But it's still pretty. The markets have a cornucopia of produce on display, most of it fresher than what you'll find in your stores. But our homes are a bit chillier, what with most buildings ruled by central city decisions about gaslines and such. October 15 is the official date for the turning on of the heat--but it almost never happens on October 15th. First year I lived in Ukraine it came on mid-November. I learned the value of a warm bath and multiple cups of tea.

I have my big coffee in hand this morning. And the space heater shut off so that I can trip the electric tea pot without tripping up the fuses today. Two shots at opening the padlock on the fuse box and resetting it yesterday are enough for me for now.

I feel behind on most of my work. A Facebook friend wrote something great a few weeks ago, about October being the month where you realize that your September plans were unrealistic--something like that. Perfectly put. I'm facing a research paper deadline, online assignments for another class, day to day ministries and people to keep up with, a conference coming to plan worship for, and vague thoughts about things I need to change or we need to change that I can't even grasp myself -- let alone articulate.

And then the future stretching out in front of me like a road map with very few of the cities and interstates marked. Frustrating. Exciting. Scary.

Better get to work.

What do you do on a typical day?

People always ask this and I always hate it. I mean, I don't blame them. It's a good question. It's slightly better than "so what's it like over there?" But honestly, I have to respect anyone who asks any kind of question since I'm so bad at asking questions in general. An honest question shows interest, concern, a willingness to be told - which all count for something!

But 'what do you do on a typical day' just seems to work a little better if you have a 9 to 5 job sitting in a cubicle somewhere. Or maybe I'm prejudiced a bit since I don't do that. I dunno - how would YOU answer that question?

Maybe I should just compile a list of random things for when folks ask me. Things that I've done with my time, or that have happened to suck up my time, or just all the miscellanea that could possibly be whatever it is I 'do'. For example:

• have meetings where we plan things and pray
• ride along to villages to sit and talk with people we've met, or lead songs that people have never heard before
• sit and wait for the plumber
• sit and wait for the electrician
• or the water guy
• or be around for the acquaintance who is fixing the bathroom or papering the hall
• burn stuff outside (that was a first today - kinda fun! :)
• brush the neighbor's hair (also a first, last week - older lady came down our stairwell when I did and asked for help because her daughter left too early to do it)
• pay bills at the post office or the bank or wherever, or pick up packages
• buy stuff at the market (walk around, check out everything, figure out which looks best, carry everything home in bags)
• buy stuff at the grocery store, walk about a mile or so total there and back (so keep in mind how much total weight you're buying)
• read stuff about missions
• read stuff about Orthodoxy for research project
• read stuff other students are writing for my online course
• decide which plans to cancel because someone always calls and tells you at the last minute that they need to come over RIGHT NOW or something like that . . .
• meet the neighbor because: A. they've let water run into your apartment from upstairs; B: you've let water run into their apartment downstairs; C: you've locked yourself out permanently and you are using an axe to break in (this didn't happen to me, but it did happen to a colleague)
• teach a bunch of English students how to sing "Take me home, country roads . . . "
• teach a bunch of older ladies how to sing 'za vse tobi ya dyakuyu'
• try to get them to sing something else for a change . . .
• learn to ask people better questions . . .
• tell the story of the Samaritan woman (the woman at the well) in your own words, in Russian
• ride a marshrutka to Kiev, or back to Rivne (mini-bus with DVD player and video screen where you can watch movies while the driver barrels down the highway at high speeds in the direction of oncoming traffic due to construction and limited space for passing....)

These things and many others can fill up the days here. Some days I really feel that I've done something that matters. Other days seem to disappear and I wonder where they went! But I guess that's life, and that reality isn't confined to Ukraine or to ministry.

I just like to write stuff like this now and then (just in case someone reads it) so that no one gets too much of a picture of me leading a 100 small children by the hand through swaying fields of wheat as we joyfully sing 'Kum Ba Yah'.

I mean I wouldn't mind doing that (if we could do that AND not be part of some weird cult) but most days are just more 'normal' or dull--with occasional bits of wonderful, terrible, and confusing poking through.

Hope you are having a wonderful, terrible, confusing, normal day too, wherever you are.

Seriously, am I gonna blog or what?

These continuous two-week (or much more) lags between blog entries are killing me... Uzhass! (for those of you who don't speak Russian, that's 'terrible', not some mildly veiled curse word - tho in my usage, the two are pretty close... :-)

Now I have extra motivation to blog: my online coursework that I'm putting off just a few more minutes by attending to my underfed blog.

The most critical news to share right now is probably my mastery of what our family calls 'dirt dessert' but what everyone else should call 'mint ice cream oreo dessert' or something (because this doesn't involve chocolate pudding nor do we use gummy worms; seriously people!) Of course, when I say 'mastery' i mean 'mastery' much in the way Wesley uses the word 'perfection.' It's a process.... :)

In other, non-whipped news, I have actually touched my Research Design textbook and might actually read a chapter today. For years I've been saying research is part of my job, or I want research to be part of my job, and I've carved out a day in the week or hours in a day to read up on things related to Ukrainian culture, or met with folks to interview them about religion and their spiritual background. But now that I finally am in a real program, I'm scared. I have that accountability that I have been needing and craving. It's real now.

You know that feeling when you're looking at a huge swimming pool... You can more or less see the depth and breadth of it. You know, intellectually, what will happen when you jump in: you'll get wet, you'll wave your arms (and legs, ideally) a bit until you come back up, you'll holler a little if it's cold. But the anticipation, getting yourself to jump in, is a whole separate experience. And that moment after you jump--is another. And that moment just as you hit the water and start going down... You know in just a few seconds you'll be in control again. And technically you were in control of yourself when you jumped. But there's this feeling of the water and the depth and the breadth--this feeling of dying and being out of control. It lasts only a second, maybe even less than a second...

I wonder how long this feeling will last?

This month . . .

Speaking of being backed up (that would be a shout-out to you, MG!) . . .

It's been a busy month. But I wrote a song! Well, technically that was last month, but if you just count back 30 days from now, it's within the last month, so I'm taking it. That's going to be my excuse. There are a couple (not quite final) versions of the song here.

Time is flying as it always does near the end. I fly back to Ukraine in less than a week. It's 'discard that lovely project' time. Forget about getting work done on my paper. Forget about much more organizing (other than that which is required to get 300 pounds of stuff to magically become 50 in one case, 40 in another). Forget about ... well, see there, I just got stuck. Didn't want to write anything else. Maybe I can still manage to --

I always feel like this a few days 'out' from take-off...