Three Cups of Tea: in the airport

While delayed at the airport (on my way to snowy white Christmas in the midwest), I picked up for the first time a copy of Three Cups of Tea. I usually read books rather quickly (I read Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in one sitting), but this one has taken me a long time to read -- because I keep crying. Every page, something makes me tear up. And I hate doing that in public. It's one thing to read a book on the plane, but it's another when I've got tears running down my face and I'm sniffling like I have a cold.

So, I haven't finished the book, but so far it is an incredible read. It's been out for a while, and I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't read it sooner. But it is an amazing. I recommend it wholeheartedly. Please read it. If you don't have a copy, please visit their website to purchase a book instead of buying elsewhere. It helps support their cause. When I get done, I'll post more about Three Cups of Tea.

Also, from their website, I learned about Pennies for Peace. That's a project I'd like to think on -- and hopefully participate in even though I don't teach a class of students.

More to come in the new year...

And how did your year turn out?

On lai nhung ngay thang cua nam qua, minh phai noi rang co rat nhieu that bai, va co le cung co nhieu thanh cong. Co nhieu niem vui. Co nhieu canh em ap, am ap trong long. Nhung sao long lai co mot ti hoang mang, nhu la co mot cai gi do hoi thieu xot. Co le minh khong du ngon ngu con nguoi de noi len cai "trong khong". Dung ra khi dem nhung on phuoc, co nhieu hon la minh co the nho. Ky uc la nhu vay do! Chi nho duoc nhung gi cu the cua ngay hom nay va hom qua. Con truoc do -- nhung gi tot thi bien mat va di vang, con nhung gi xau xi, sao no cu bam vao tam tri minh!

Chinh tri, kinh te, xa hoi -- nhung chuyen do cua 2008 cung lam minh buon, chan nan, that vong, nhu la minh mat di niem tin noi cai "goodness" cua con nguoi. Niem tin bi dan dan bi tuop di, tuop di. Boi gi? Boi su trong doi, boi su cho mong.

Trong mua le Advent, minh da mong cho ngay Chua Giang Sinh.

Trong nhung ngay cuoi nam 2008, minh mong cho Tong Thong moi, uoc mong cho mot su thay doi Lon! Mong cho duoc phuc hung, duoc doi moi, de khi mua dong qua, thi minh se nghinh don (spelling phai nhu vay khong ta?) moi dieu moi me, tot dep.

Nhung trong su cho doi mong moi, minh van co ve hoi buon buon. Buon cai gi, chang biet. Chi biet rang co luc thi noi buon no sau sac hon nhung luc khac.

Hom GS trong HT, ong MS hoi tat ca co muon lam "Mari" cua cau chuyen Chua GS hay khong. Minh co chap nhan su cho doi, ban long chap nhan su hoang mang, cam tam nhan lanh su dau don, buon ba, kho khan, thu thach, v.v. Anh chang goi ke ben minh noi Yes. Nhung khong biet minh co du suc luc de lam nhu Mari hay khong. Co du cung rang, chung chat, va nhan nai de dong vai Mari trong suot cuoc doi cua minh? Rui ma minh khong du cang dam, thi chac chan la Chua se giup minh, di nhien. Nhung sao it ai nghi den viec Mari luc ban long co bang khuang, va co the noi cham re noi "toi bang long."

Bang long di em... Voi trong trach nang ne nhu su cho doi cua Mari -- minh ganh noi hay khong? Va rui minh khong biet ket cuoc la tot dep va vui tuoi, thi minh co cam tam bang long khong?

Cho doi nam 2009 co ve nang ne nhu vay do, vi cai goi la "tuong lai sang lang" no that ra khong sang lang. Mot it sang, nhung nang ne kinh khung. Heavy voi su mon muon, hy vong, cho doi...

Tong Cuu Nghenh Tan. Nam moi phuoc hanh!

Scheherezade stole all my words

I am a bad storyteller. No plot, poor character development -- no motivation -- and really bad dialogue. I am also horrible with transitions. Endings are even worse. And while watching tonight's production of The Arabian Nights at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, I realized I have no clue about suspense and The Cliffhanger.

And as I sat entranced by the unfolding narratives, I started thinking about the poems that were (not) sitting in my apartment, on my bookshelves, in my notebooks, (not) on those pages. Why can't I get them written accurately? What words escape me still, preventing me from finishing these poems, this manuscript? In one of Scheherezade's tales, Sympathy the Learned says words are the destruction of worlds. They can be -- both by their presence and their absence, both by their utterance and their silence.

And isn't that what Scheherezade the storyteller was doing? She was building a world -- many worlds -- out of imagination, out of words that she uttered and out of words that she did not. Indeed, the queen of cliffhangers is really Scheherezade. For each tale that she told, there was a cliffhanger that saved her life and that of her sister's. So perhaps each cliffhanger is like the end of a verse in a poem? The space where she stops at dawn like the empty whiteness at the end of a line pulling you farther until you wrap into the next line of the verse, until the next dawn?

She is the poet, the trickster, the storyteller, the writer, the playwright, the puppeteer weaving story within story within story -- until you forget which story frame you're in, until you're completely sucked into the tale, you've become the character -- you, you are the Sheik, or Sympathy the Learned, or even the Madman. Transformations happen before your very eyes as one character melds into another, as one scene dissolves into another and another then yet another...

My mind is still reeling with images from the stage. The sounds, the colors, the music. Oh, the music was beautiful, melancholy, happy, funny, poignant. I was blown away by the entire play -- the actors, the script, the scenery, everything. But nothing I say suffices. Maybe all the words were used by Scheherezade when she told her stories...

I jump into the car and I shout to my brother, "This was the most amazing thing ever!" and he simply nods. "Cool." How unoriginal: "amazing," "cool". Are those the only words in our vocabulary? There are thousands of translations of these tales, and I am struck dumb by this translation, this rendering, and all I have left is "amazing."

That's why I can't write these poems. That's why these tales were told by someone else. I'm simply without words. Simply without.

a Poet, a Cellist, a Violinist, and the Queen of Soul...

will be attending a party with a purpose-driven conservative and a dean of the civil rights movement. To celebrate our first biracial president. One big happy family? Read it here.

Roaming God Charges

Imagine if we had to pay Roaming God Charges. If you leave your home and come to church or temple or prayer house, then there is a set fee that you have to pay- let's say $50 for once a week, $75 for 3 times a week, and $100 for 4. Nights and weekends cost more, naturally. Rollover minutes are only available on a family plan, but you'll need to have 5 or more sign up to be considered family. That way, you'll only pay a bundled charge. But, if you want to access God from outside your "range", you're gonna pay roaming charges in order to dial a signal.

Or, imagine it as "pay as you use." Access to God -- whether through prayer, vision, or voices -- is $2.50 for the first minute, and $0.25 every minute thereafter. If you don't dial God, then you don't pay.

Or, imagine this: God is a central hub where you need to plug into, in order to recharge. The farther you stray, the weaker you are. If you're completely out of range, then you lose. Low battery. Lost signal. No bars. Darkness.

Thankfully for us, God's "mobile" -- everywhere, anywhere, accessible all the time.

In this Sunday's OT reading from II Samuel 7:1-11, 16, God tells Nathan to tell David that God's priority is not on building a temple. The great thing about a tent is that it roams much more easily than a grounded building. God has been moving through, within, around, and with the people for generations. Wherever they traveled, God was with them. And no roaming charges. Zilch.

God says to David "I have been with you wherever you went". No roaming charges. Accessible all the time -- wanted or not.

At the seminary, we've been in deep conversations about online programming. There are discussions in all sorts of avenues with many different partnerships about the grand possibilities of expanding theological education to meet the needs of an increasingly globalized world. Instead of making people go to seminary to "study God" and the history of the church, more and more, theological education is being brought into the local congregations. Instead of defining seminary as an onsite, one location of learning, we're going mobile. We're going global. We're virtual. Classes are offered online and webstreamed. We do distance learning, we have extensions and satellite locations. We creatively move toward different models of theological education in which the institution of learning is flexible, transformative, mobile, moldable into something unique, i.e. contextualized.

It's not to say that we scoff at the onsite community. Everyone says the residential program is an invaluable experience. And it is, but it isn't the only way. Just like accessing God isn't a one way model. Do congregate in a place of worship, for a temple was eventually built for Yahweh. But, look, it wasn't the first thing, and it wasn't the only thing, and it surely wasn't the final thing to focus on. God is mobile. No temple or structure confines God.

Moreover, as a people of God, we are on the move with God -- mobile, accessible, free-ranging. WE are on the move WITH God: Via con Dios. Wherever God is, there we are. As Christ is embodied in us, then where we are, God is. Mobility. Free of roaming charges.

a Case of the Middle Child Syndrome?

There are days when nothing - or few things - go right. You missed an important phone call. You forgot an important note for the office. The wrong people were consulted for a project. The right ideas come a little too late, and the wrong ideas are blurted out too soon. The words you choose aren't perfect -- in fact they're absolutely the worse words in the English vocabulary to utter at this particular meeting. The people you meet -- try as you might, you can't seem to get on their good side. They turn their bodies away from you in a conversation and look the other way -- body language that effectively silences any hope of reconciliation, introduction, familiarizing. They appear onery, but only to you, because everyone else finds them cheerful, kind, generous. You, however, are dismissed like insignificant children not spoken to at the dinner table. The phone call you expect never comes. Who knows if the text message you sent was received. Everything - nothig - is out of sync.

All this was my day. My ordinary, extraordinary day. And it was my friend's super birthday, too.

Did John the Baptist feel something akin to this lack of synchronicity? He was neither the first (not a prophet, he says, not a prophet!) nor the One to come. Sadly, his was the voice crying in the desert. Neither the one with the elder-child responsibilities, nor the favored. Neither the first, unique voice, nor the final, lasting impression. Stuck in the middle.

How frustrating it must have been! Continuously striving to distinguish yourself, to get it done right, to get your point across. Not the smartest, nor the sweetest. Not the prettiest or the most desired, longed for. Something in between. Something to "tie things over". A bridge, but not really a bridge -- merely a disembodied voice crying in the wasteland.

What does it mean to be stuck in the middle? I'm not so sure how this connects, but I think of what's happening all over the globe. The earth is dying a slow, torturous death -- decay, destruction, pollution. Here we are in the middle talking about what we've inherited and bemoaning what we're leaving behind (or not leaving behind). Again, it's like we're a people stuck in the middle. Not the Adams or Eves of the beginning when the earth was rich and plentiful. And not the children who will inherit an earth transformed by Christ's second coming. We're the ones in the midst of the death and decay b/c we can't figure out our problems or live out our solutions.

And look at what's happening with the economy. We're neither the banks nor are we the automotive companies, but boy are we steeped in the middle of it. Right up to our elbows and eyeballs. We're not the ones who caused "it" but we surely are in the midst of "it" whatever you want "it" to be. We're not gonna fix it, but we definitely are living "it".

I'm falling into generalities now, so let's bring it back to NOW. Advent. This Sunday is the fourth Sunday in Advent. We are in Advent. Stuck in the middle of anticipation and waiting. We're wallowing in all its ugly glory. The frustrating mystery, the throat-clenching unknowing. The waiting, the waiting... the waiting. For something to happen. For someone to come. For some.

Remember this?

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.

Be

Stocking up on Toilet Paper like it's my Lipstick Effect

You've heard of the Lipstick Effect? Well, I can't afford to think of cosmetics. Because, well, I can go without lipstick but I can't go without toilet paper. No sir.

And while my friends who look at my TP stockpile laugh like I'm a crazy old woman, I can safely say that I will never, ever run out of toilet paper. Not even if THE major earthquake hits.

So there.

a Sport of Solitariness

I prefer to snowshoe as opposed to skiing. Mostly because I'm bad at skiing. Or rather, I don't ski. I don't know how. I have never gotten off the bunny slopes (there is an horrific video of me trying to ski at Vail no thanks to dad's home videos), and no amount of sheer will could overcome the weight of gravity that pulls me down to the icy ground. My sense of coordination fails to keep me moving, and my legs have no power to keep me upright. I lack the control that holds my body in check, no tension to flex the muscles necessary to hold my positions, no energy to power the drive. If I allow gravity to pull me down the slopes, I'm flailing like boneless jelly and have no control to pull myself together for a stop.

On the ice, I feel out of control. And self-conscious. I am at times a victim of gravity, and at times motionless, the only person standing still, frozen, in a sea of people active and energized, their skis whizzing along the ice and snow with determination and a sense of direction. They move their bodies, jumping on the lift and rising into the cold, biting air. They are suspended above the world, overlooking the snowy white landscape scattered with evergreens. At this elevation, the air is clear, cold, and the people down below are nameless, unrecognizable specks. The wind is still. Focused. Soundless gathering of energy, the tight control. Then... the answering push over and downward, swooping slopes and exhilarating momentum... The pull, the challenge, the freedom of flying by one's self, alone, released from trappings of words and expectations. Trees, rocks, snow, people blurring into one white landscape...

Rilke writes about living in a solitude that I envision can be just as white and vast, and I am enticed by the notion of being enshrouded in that lovely soundlessness. But I am a creature of bad habits. I thrive on moments of solitariness, yet I also crave the energy, the thrill, the hustle and bustle. Most of the time, though, I live in an imbalance of too much solitude or too much in the center of things. When I'm not frozen in the midst of the world, I'm either too long at the top of the slopes by myself, or am a tangled, uncontrollable, jumbled mess coming in full speed at the bottom of the hill without any mechanism to pull myself back in place.

One day, I will find that perfect speed down the slopes, relish the crisp air, gaze in wonder at the snow, languidly swish through the flashes of green trees, and then bring myself to a controlled stop when arriving at my point of destination.

That is what I will do. In my dreams. For now, I'm sticking with snowshoeing.

December Moon by May Sarton

One night when I was visiting Grand Rapids, I was awakened at 3:30 a.m. by the sound of hard scraping from the driveway. I knew the cold meant snow, and I felt it in my bones. But I never thought about the folks who get up at that ungodly hour to go scraping snow off of people's driveways. What did they think about? What did they do? Did it feel like they were at play in the dark? Did they think about making shapes instead of simply clearing away all that white flurry packed on concrete? Did they ever want to pile the snow in front of people's front doors like gift packages to be opened? Were they ever beguiled by the white snow reflected in moonlight -- tempted to momentarily forget their jobs and simply marvel at that snow silence?

Before going to bed
After a fall of snow
I look out on the field
Shining there in the moonlight
So calm, untouched and white
Snow silence fills my head
After I leave the window.

Hours later near dawn
When I look down again
The whole landscape has changed
The perfect surface gone
Criss-crossed and written on
Where the wild creatures ranged
While the moon rose and shone.

Why did my dog not bark?
Why did I hear no sound
There on the snow-locked ground
In the tumultuous dark?

How much can come, how much can go
When the December moon is bright,
What worlds of play we'll never know
Sleeping away the cold white night
After a fall of snow.

Greg House and Stephen Colbert?!

After all this time watching the Colbert Report, I just noticed that Colbert keeps a picture of Dr. Greg House tacked on the wall behind his desk. Why have I never ever noticed it before?! My two favorite characters on TV. Two of the most attractive men. Two of the biggest egos.



Please forgive but I got the pictures from hughlaurie.net and Zune Insider.

Dick Hindman Trio

This past Friday, I went to see the Dick Hindman Trio at the Jazz School in Berkeley. Phenomenal music, and such cute, cute gentlemen! CB was my favorite to look at... He looked literally like a little bobblehead figurine seated behind his drum set, bobbing away. He keeps a mean beat. Solid.

Dick Hindman? Nothing that I can say could describe him. His humor, his skills, his musicianship, his experience. Everything sounded so perfect. Perfect.

And the bass player? Such gorgeous sounds. A deep soul soothing toe tingling warmth that reverberated from the belly of the instrument all the way to my bones. Like there was a string tied from the bass to my belly button and he was plucking my heartstrings...

It was amazing.

Listen to Sheena's Song (Sheena is his wife) here.

Are you planting another tree to replace the one you chopped down?

Our upstairs neighbors have already purchased their freshly cut Christmas tree. Soon they'll be stringing popcorn and other organic ornaments. They'll have lights and maybe even fake snow and possibly the little Christmas time trains that circle the base of the tree.

I envy the fresh smell of pine, the sticky sap, the needles falling everywhere, the bushy arms sticking out everywhere stealing space that we don't have in the living room. But today is only the 2nd day of December. Isn't it too early for Christmas trees? It's hardly Advent -- how can we already be decorating? Do I put out the ornaments and the bells and reindeers and stockings? Do I string up the lights? (And what does all that mean when I will most likely be spending Christmas with the parents in snow country? Is it worth doing it here in our own little apartment?)

Where do you make room for a plastic Christmas tree pre-decked with flashing lights? Next to the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree purchased from Urban Outfitters? In the middle of the room surrounded by books and unnecessary furniture? Out in the back yard facing the blinking lights of the city sprawled below? Opposite the little phalaenopsis orchid that has lost is yellow blooms?

What if, for this year, we didn't put up anything...?