traveling to Nigeria

So, you've noticed, I'm blogging again. I'm sort of in a crunch between projects and trips and stuff and thought I would leave the blogging alone for a while. But if you are a friend, don't let the appearance of busyness deter you from personal contact. I will be in Nigeria for two weeks in January. I thought I would not keep up with blogging during that time and during preparation but circumstances forced a different decision. The shots I got on Tuesday, all 6 of them, have altered my sleeping patterns. I was told by a friend, one shot would give you especially vivid dreams. I was kind of excited about that, especially since the movies that have been coming out in the last couple of year have been crap. But instead of having dreams. I am wide awake at 4:30 am without the hope of sleeping one more wink till the morning. So, instead of being upset and fighting it, I am blogging, writing and reading. Also, I have decided to blog while in Africa. Several folks have done it. I think it will be possible. I believe it will be necessary, based on the mixed reviews folks have had about my going. I think I know of only one person who has gone into the type of setting and under the type of circumstances I'll be going and he was fine. I'll be more then fine as well and I wish to bring everyone else along on that fine-ness.

"with no place to lay his head"

There was a sight I saw in Guatemala when I was there a few years ago, as I looked out over the countryside from my perch high in the hills. I had gone with the usual suspects: a ministry team who would spend the day teaching local pastors. Walking along a worn path along the highway was an old woman with a load on her back, walking with a man and a child. She looked up at me as I stood in the most elaborate restaurant conference room in the area. Somehow I knew she and many like her had spent the rainy night sleeping under a tree. I did not feel sorry for her, for she had a good rest and was continuing on her way in peace. I looked out at her and desired to have what she had.

In the US, I don’t know if it is exactly illegal to rest wherever one finds a place comfortable enough. I just know that good citizens and often the police will weary themselves with questions at the least and harassment at the most, if one decides to do any sort of lengthy resting on property they do not own. I must say I have learned quickly the full implications of stranger caught in the cross-hairs of capitalist exchange. The hostile exchange sits oddly in one’s soul. I felt guilty for simply being. Then I felt an indignant responsive yet primal need to live, rise up inside from out of nowhere.

Since then I have developed this bad habit of attempting to sleep wherever I can. I used to brainstorm with my friend Greg, where all those places might be. On the livingroom floor. In my car. In the bed of my truck, with my truck parked various places. Once when my house was filled with single women and they kept coming back from a year, or several months overseas and they had taken up every nook and cranny in my house I decided I would sleep on a high shelf on my porch. I endured a summer and a winter there. My friend Greg was much more adventurous. He slept with the homeless folks. He thought about sleeping in the space just wide enough for a human, in the median on 35W. You would just dodge traffic late at night when it was sparse and then in the morning when you rouse yourself, you would persuade morning rush hour traffic to let you back across.

Now, whenever I find it pleasing to my budget to sleep in my car instead of like a more expensive accommodation. I have a particular modus operandi. I pick a neighborhood. A semi quiet one where people leave their car on the street. I visit a gas station or a restaurant before I go there. I do the usual at the restaurant or gas station. Brush teeth. Get into pajamas. Switch from contacts to glasses. I go out to my car and arrange everything for the night. I get out a dark sheet or sleeping bag for the back seat. Dark is better because it is less eye catching. I crack a window: street side or sidewalk side depending on whether it’s a more patrols on the street or a more pedestrians on the sidewalk kind of neighborhood. I get to the intended location. I park. I talk on my cell phone and scope my surroundings to loose any onlookers or suspicious folks. When all is clear, I dive into the back seat for a good night. The next morning is about choosing your moment dive into the drivers seat to drive away to find a gas station or breakfast place or park to use their facilities.

This can be done in virtually any major city. I have found the neighborhoods with high Latino density to be the most friendly. In San Diego, I stopped at a 7 eleven to use the facilities, late at night. I was turned away. I tried again at an obviously latino bar and restaurant and grille. I was welcomed at the door by a woman behind a counter, her hands in a bowl of masa. To my question she smiled and responded, “alla, a lado derecha, miha.” Music was pouring out the back room. I went to see what was happening. A band was playing last call. The man at the door let me through to enjoy. And the bouncer danced with a lady who knew him and asked.

Now lets not all rush out and do this or maybe lets...
One certainly encounters the environment much more tangibly. And I have never been caught and harassed for doing this.

lesson from the ants

The sun was climbing higher in the sky as I ate my breakfast: a bag of dried fruit and nuts. I watched the ants as I was filled with warmth, food and peace. I looked across the barren terrain. The sandy basin to my back with nothing but prickly sparse vegetation. The rugged badlands to the east, where nothing grew. Hills and valleys of rocks like the one I sat upon. Nothing but lifeless barrenness as far as the eye could see. Yet the ants were busily at work around me. A tiny piece of fruit dropped from my hand into the path of an unexpecting ant. My curiosity was piqued. I watched intently to observe how a little ant would respond to a freak accident of consequential gain. It was the only piece of sticky fruit available as far as my eye could see. But for the ant... It paused. Briefly. Then it walked around the piece of fruit as though an object was obstructing its path to better things.

I heard the Lord say to me. You are this ant. Learn to recognize my blessings, which come as though from nowhere.

seeking peace in desert places

 
I went to the desert for peace. I found that the noise was in my head. I went to the desert to pray and then I didn’t know what to say to God. I went to the desert to be alone but somehow everyone came with me. I went to the desert to rest but carried a heavier load than ever before in my life.
Deserts are the living metaphor for life. The journey is long and tedious. The nights are cold. The days are hot. The briars and thorns argue with your intent. The barren landscape mirrors the wretched parts of the empty soul, the thirsty church, the wretched state of humankind.
If you go to the desert, go to encounter wonder and terror.

So the photo is my evidence that it happened. That is my shadow against the setting sun. I pitched my tent beside a range of rock hills to the east of the basin I crossed. The sun fell behind the mountains by 5 and everything was pitch black by 6. Sweat stung the scratches and gashes I received in an encounter with a thorn bush. I washed them clean and left the thorns for removal by the morning sun. I tried to read. But I was afraid. I tried to sleep to forget the fear but the fear prevailed. I tossed and turned. The quiet nothingness contrasted with the noise and worries I brought with in my head, till the helicopters started droning away in the distance and the cold chilled me to the bone. The stars hung into my face. Cassiopeia and Andromeda beckoned me to wonder but I was too cold to be good company. The coyote’s song brought the dawn to comfort and soothe. I frantically climbed the hill of rocks that shadowed my abode from the rising sun. I sat down to contemplate the lessons given by ants. Peace and fullness flooded me to the pit of my soul as I soaked in the morning sun.

deserts and scholars

 


So I'm off to some desert wandering and scholar stalking.
I'll be back in a week.

Where have I been?

Yes, It's been great and wonderful as pictured above but also hard.
(Pictured is the Atlantic shores on the outer banks, just north of St. Augustine de la Florida--the oldest settlement on the continental USA.)

neighborhood stage

So, there’s this alleged gang in my neighborhood, according to the neighborhood granny watch.* According to the granny watch report, there is a middle aged man who is moving out because his teenage son got jumped by the Asian gang that lives in the house immediately behind my property. In a report to the neighborhood crime complaint person entitled, “Trouble in Paradise” she talks about how those kids have been intimidating this man’s teenage son, so he wants to move out ASAP to where the gang can’t find his son. And he won’t report anything because he’s afraid of retaliation. She goes on to talk about me and how I was on the council and would have an inside perspective but “who knows? for all [the granny watch] knows I might be a member of the gang.”

I decided to respond...

I talked with M last night, who lives in the house across the street from the "house of Hmong kids who jumped his youngest." I've also been keeping an eye on them and talked to M and others about the possibilities in approaching the problem. We could do it the "Revival Row" way or we could get the city involved. If we get the city involved, it would just be a matter of reporting the house as an unregistered duplex and the property owners, which live in the upper portion of the house would get fined and all that good stuff. Then they most likely would reconsider renting out the bottom part to the said "gang." It is also very likely that the home is over-crowded and the new landlord licensure laws would crack down on them pretty hard. So, if we want to go about it this way, we would have to find out for sure if the property was registered as a duplex, which I am assuming it is not.

However, part of me feels badly about tattling on my neighbor to my big brother city and using good tax dollars for something we could see about resolving ourselves. Especially since we don't know exactly what is going on there. Remember *** H. Street. It was the problem property of the neighborhood 5 years ago. Everybody wanted them out. Everybody complained about them. Yet 4 years ago we could have just called the city on them and run them out of the neighborhood, but Revival Row decided that wasn't really the Christian thing to do. So, we befriended them, made inroads into their lives, took care of their kids. We went to their family reunions and invited them to our parties. We did all this while the drugs and alcohol and the police calls and the violence flowed freely under our noses--but we got some good barbecue out of it and some second hand highs. And look now, they've moved somewhere else and decided to go to rehab and live a different life.

Maybe we can talk to the family that owns the “new problem property.” Ask them what is going on with their renters. I have conversed with the lady and done business with her ex-husband. Her present husband snowblows my sidewalk, for which I am tremendously grateful. And yea, maybe I should go "become a member" to this "gang" and give everyone the insider scoop. :)

Incidentally, it was granny watch who named my little community “Revival Row.” She is agnostic but she likes us and has taken under her wing all those kids from that previous problem property. She does more for them than we do now.

* What is the neighborhood granny watch? Well, it’s all quite high tech. It’s that "granny" that sits in her rocker with a cat on her lap, looking out her window at all the goings on in the neighborhood. It’s a really good idea to be friends with the granny watch, because she helps you and she is quite entertaining. Bring her a plate of food every now and again so she won’t have to make her own supper. And if you are her friend the worst she’ll ever do is call the police on your friends who stop by for dinner because they just look like trouble. She will also notice when you come home at 3 am after a late night study session. And she might put out a rumor about the reason your whole house is full of women is because everyone is gay. So, you just tell all your roommates to invite a guy friend over and walk down the sidewalk in front of her window and hold hands. I love granny watch! And by the looks of it, I will be granny watch some day.

all the way to Calgary

So I’ve been out of the country for a stint. I went on a spiritual retreat in Calgary, Alberta. And I drove. Mapquest said it would take 23 hours. I left at 9 pm one evening and got there at 9 pm the next evening. And I took a 2 hour nap in North Dakota and another longer nap before crossing the Minnesota border.

I took an audio book along and was reminded of why I don’t read fiction—Not many fictional stories impress me or have ever impressed me. Other than that, I sang along to my CDs, prayed and talked to myself to pass the time and on the way home I prepared a speech, practiced it and drove directly to the meeting I was to give it at, upon entering town.

The retreat was amazing! The most holistic approach to personal transformation I have ever encountered. The teaching was quality stuff, presented by ordinary folks. Time was provided for personal reflection and then also “counseling” which was a mixture of the deepest prayer I’ve ever experienced in addition to dialoguing with two other counselors who had been assigned to me.

The Canadian Rockies.

The barren plain between Portal, ND and Calgary.

Yes. I drove for hours and hours on end.

the simple AAR: deviantly Abby style

Pre-trip arrangements:
Ride to airport. Cost: my running partner insisted on taking me.
Flight from Mpls to Dulles. Cost: $140
Borrowed my sister’s car for commute and travel to and from all locations below. She insisted that I not rent a car. Cost: Dedication to familial oneanothering—mind you, she is my younger sister, which means I was involved in rearing her!
Snacks and water purchased for the week: granola bars, bananas and a six pack of bottled water $8.58

Schedule:
Fri am – Train pass from the Vienna commuter lot. Cost: $10
Fri noon – Talked myself into the last sessions of the ETS for $10
Fri aftnoon – Fought with my computer wireless hook-up at the local Caribou—cost: dead phone battery and $2 drink.
Fri 7-8 pm – Mennonite Scholars and Friends Reception (good food, boring company)
Fri evening – gathering of Bethel students and alumni at local burger joint (great company and recommendations for the days ahead) Cost: 10.39
More train pass and parking fees: $20
Night spent in the car in a parking lot. Temperature: 38 F Slept well. Woke up early.
Sat Breakfast: free at the Renaissance (Starbucks coffee ran like a river from this place—the additional spread was amazing: cereal, soda, pastries, tea, fruit, muffins. I had to refrain from gaping and stuffing my pockets.)
Sat 9-11:30 am Karl Barth Society of North America: debate with Hart on the analogia entis. The Bartian arguements were terrible.
Sat lunch – Lunch buffet at a Lebanese dive. $8 (good company—books and the Arabic chatter of customers)
Sat eve – sister’s going away reception at Mt. View. Great 4 part harmony and my brother gave a short meditation.
Night spent at Mt. View. The bed felt great on an aching body. Cost: my cousin and sister’s service at the nursing home
Sun am – to church with my cousin, brother, sister and sister-in-law at the outreach church in Charlottesville
Sun lunch – at Mt. View Cost: hospitality received/hospitality given
Sun 5-6:30 – Science, Technology and Religion Group: Interpreting Quantum Mechanics—Christian and other perspectives.
Sun eve – crashed numerous receptions—Princeton’s was the most memorable. Bag check: $5
Sun night – rode the subway to the end of the line with new friends going the same direction
Night spent in the car in a different parking lot. Temperature: 35 F
Mon am – sponge bath in the restroom at a very nice suburban mall.
Breakfast: scouting out the free Starbucks and breakfast spread at the Renaissance.
Mon session – Latino Religion, Culture and Society Group: Legacies of Colonization
Mon noon – book hunting
Lunch: Fuddruckers in Chinatown—cost: 12.18
Afternoon and Evening: travel to SMBI with a telephone booth stop to transform minor but significant details into the image of a 5 years younger aspiring SMBI student.
Night spent in the girls dorm at SMBI.
Tues am: breakfast at SMBI—cost: participation in generational line of Amish Mennonite community (thorough knowledge of the Mennonite 5 points of separation game.)
Classes attended: Urban Evangelism and Theology I: Doctrine of God
Lunch at SMBI—cost: more Mennonite connection games with the administrator—score: one degree of separation (my sister taught school with him)
Tues afternoon and eve: Travel to Lancaster. Looked up an old friend in Ephrata. Accepted a dinner invitation with a new friend and his wife, who I met at the conference. They bent over backwards to find a local lady who sold coverings out of her basement. The Mennonite lady opened her shop after-hours for me, so I could fit on coverings and then trusted me to pay her when I discovered I had no means of payment with me. Absolutely amazing! Cost: mutual love, grace, generosity and trust from those in the community of God. (Who would steal coverings anyway?) Oh, and the new friends wanted me to, and I quote him… “meet their son so he could fall in love with me and then I could become their daughter-in-law”—potentially expensive? or an investment of substantial returns?—depends on one’s perspective.

Cost of gas to and from all the above locations and returning home to Minnesota: $103
Total cost of trip not including books purchased or membership fees: $329.15

definitions:
covering—that white thing I wear on my head
ETS--Evangelical Theological Society
AAR—American Academy of Religion
SMBI—Sharon Mennonite Bible Institute
Mt. View—Mt.View Nursing Home, A facility for the aging, staffed entirely by Amish Mennonite youth doing voluntary service or pursuing nursing degrees.

interesting facts about Abby’s AAR adventure

Books purchased at the AAR:
(Listed in order of those I found most exciting to lesser)
The Beauty of the Infinite by David Bentley Hart
Friendship: Interpreting Christian Love by Liz Carmichael
The First Hebrew Primer
Mastering New Testament Greek by Thomas A Robinson (…complete with a personal demonstration of the software tools by the author himself.)
Introducing Radical Orthodoxy by James K A Smith
A Concise History of Christian Thought by Tony Lane

Stupid things done at the AAR:
Got my shoe laces caught at the bottom of an escalator full of people creating a panicked people pile-up on top of me. Embarrassment suffered: 0.

General appearance: lots of black, quasi-business, conservative Mennonite image. No room for the homeless living out-of-the-sack look, although that was sort-of the reality.

Most devious thought:
Wow, someone could go husband hunting here!

P.S. The objective of my AAR adventure posts is not to get people to send money. Rather, it is to demonstrate to myself and others that things can be done differently. Living on the lowest budget possible without abusing hospitality and avoiding appearance of poverty are my intent, as I rubbed elbows with, well, those with fatter wallets (or credit cards) while mingling with conferees as sort of one of them but deviating when outside of their visual scope. I decidedly chose my alternative accommodations, for reasons such as identification with the poor, for personal challenge and purposeful lifestyle deviance.

I look forward to next year. The intellectual climate is addictive! The meetings will be held in San Diego, which means the climate will be amazing. I will be able to hear the crash of the ocean waves all night and breathe ocean air. Perhaps I’ll go on a short retreat to the Mojave Desert again.

the benefit of meeting strangers

Four years ago, while I was sitting and reading in a coffee shop in uptown, a young man approached me. He asked me if I had ever modeled for anyone and wondered if I’d be interested in modeling for him. Since he was more polite than your average person, I gave him the time of day. I asked if he had a website with some examples of his work, which I could review. I took his number and website. After considering it a while, praying over it, I got the distinct sense that this guy was harmless and generally respectable. I looked his website over. He did great portraits. Somehow he captured expression and personality on his subjects’ faces. And he took pictures of guns and ammo. I had an ulterior motive—I wanted to break into a new circle of friends. Somehow I sensed this was a step in that direction. I called him up. We set up a time for the shoot at his apartment. I called a trusted friend and told her where I’d be at, because I knew my roommates would simply freak out.

I got to the apartment. He set up the equipment and started the shoot. About a half hour into it, we’re both getting a bit bored. He suggested pulling out some props. He goes to his living room closet, rummages around, and then emerges with the biggest gun I have ever seen. I freak out in my head as he approaches me with it. But in an instant, I switch into a mental clarity that I get, only when in a crisis that requires action. The closest exits leaped out at me—the door behind him and the patio behind me. I note what I am standing on—bare apartment carpet and the backdrop (no plastic, with which one could roll-up a body into). If I got shot, it would be very messy. I was instantly aware of myself him and God as I took a read of my new friend’s body language and general vibe. Everything seemed calm and nonchalant. My blood pressure dropped back to normal and I modeled the gun for him.

This guy is now the hub of the largest network of friends that I have. He has introduced me to quite a number of intelligent geeks and quality peers. One of the friends he introduced me to won my trust immediately. After only a couple conversations, he asked me candidly, so are you interested a friendship or some other relationship. I told him I was interested in the friendship. Anything else was out of the question. He also introduced me to a lady who is a well-spoken, competent leader and a plethora of other artistic and unusual people as well as those of foreign decent. I’ve also met a conservative, home-schooled, evangelical airplane mechanic, who is quite involved in politics and defending his freedom.

virginia

I have been again plunged back into the thick of Amish-Mennonite culture of late—pleasant recollections, stark realizations of things I have forgotten, things I now appreciate that I once railed against and the things I forgot I hated. (For those who don’t know, the TC, where I’ve lived, is quite thin for A-M culture.) It’s like coming home. Or actually more like detox but in a liberating sort of way.

I’ve been in Virginia visiting my sister.

. . . I forgot to bring socks and everyone wears dark socks for church. I watched people start, do a double take and then a quick avert—the culprit, my white legs.

. . . I marveled at the level of clean. Every morning I looked for hair, dirt—anything—in the most readily dirty place I could think of, the corner behind the toilet and the part of the sink behind the faucet. But nada! For 4 days I lived in a dorm-like situation with 16 girls and a common kitchen. It was like dorm room living, except it was like living with 16 girls trained to be cooks and cleaning ladies. I never thought the lack of slime and grime would give me such culture shock.

. . . My hair is as long but trimmed—yet ridiculously short compared to the never-cut hair of some that hangs to the backs of some girls’ knees.

. . . The sermons are great! No intellectual treatises on some concept five shades removed from practical reality. Those are great too—but I like to hold intellect and practicality in sway. Nope, here we’ve got for you here, true practical instruction for daily living given like pistols, shooting strait from the hip. It’s actually quite refreshing. “Tithing isn’t optional,” the preacher said. “God tells us we are to give generously.” I needed to be told my diet coke habit wastes my money and is unhealthy. I was even at a wedding where the pastor all but gave personal marriage counseling—delivered quite tactfully, with lots of humor. Here dude, step on my other toes too.

My sister, my cousin and I biked DC along the Potomac. It was a great activity for those cut from the same cloth. We’ve all inherited my grandma’s full throttle energy level, it seems. It was also a pleasant freedom to be wearing a more in your face barrier for the English—billowing skirts and large white headcoverings. People sure looked at us. One guy even bothered to tell us he had just seen some Amish and pointed us in their direction. And yes, billowing skirts and bikes work just fine together.

The humor and the creative entertainment was enough to make my sides ache. I had forgotten about the antics—the constant “war” of trickery and pranks Mennonite youth played on each other. I was shocked at how often everyone used the f word or engaged in it, given our recent debate on modern parables. I suppose some things just don’t translate—one needs to experience them. Go here and scroll down to brothers and sisters