Seeking

One of my hopes for this Christmas break has been that I will have some time to rest and to pray. I have wanted to spend some serious time in prayer for some specific concerns that have been on my heart lately. Recently, I was reminded that I need to be careful of viewing prayer as simply a way to receive answers. Often when I think about “seeking” the Lord, what I am really seeking is not the Lord, but answers to my questions.

What God wants is for me to seek Him, Himself, His person, a relationship with Him. Prayer is not about getting answers to my hopes or fears, but about knowing my Father better. Once I learn simply to seek Him, my need for answers will fade, and I will be at peace no matter the situation. It’s a simple but subtle difference, and I'm still learning.

Travels with Sventoi Dvasia

(Warning: long, detailed travel stories ahead)

Somehow I have been home for four days already and am just now carving out a few minutes to write down my travel adventures. It has been relatively easy to reconnect with people and ways of living here – though the days are flying by faster than I expected. I can’t seem to escape a list-driven lifestyle, even on my “vacation.” There are gifts to be bought, friends to have coffee with, family to tell stories with… I am so blessed to have such a community to return to, and yet in the busyness, what I want most, more than anything, is to hear the voice of God, to seek Him in His sanctuary.

I think this is one of the reasons that I enjoy the process of traveling so much – in that in-between time, those minutes (or days) between when I have left one place and when I arrive at another, I have a great sense of the nearness of God. My existence is stripped down to the space of a bus seat and a backpack full of clothes.

The three days of travel it took to bring me from Klaipeda to Greeley were full to brimming with the voice of the Holy Spirit and the sense that God is truly Immanuel, with me. I am glad of the time that it took- the long bus ride, the layovers- because I was able to gradually, slowly, leave Klaipeda and Europe behind and prepare myself for the brief special time here.

I left Klaipeda with a friend at 10 a.m. last Friday morning, buckled down for the epic-length journey to Frankfurt, Germany which included a somewhat nerve-wracking short connection in Mariampole, Lithuania. Once we’d smoothly navigated the bus transfer, we settled into the coach seats and watched the flat, Iowa-like fields of Poland begin to roll past our windows. Not long into the trip, we noticed that the same family that had been on our bus from Klaipeda was sitting in the row in front of us on this bus as well. Eventually the woman and her daughter turned around and began talking (in Lithuanian) to me and my friend Thor. My Lithuanian comprehension is getting decent, but my available vocabulary is still quite limited, but we all managed to have a nice conversation about our holiday plans, where we were from, etc. After finding out that the family lived in Klaipeda, we asked what street they lived on. “Sportininku,” the woman said. “Sportininku?” I questioned, surprised, “Aš gyvenu Sportininku 14!” (“I live at number 14”) I said. “14?” the woman exclaimed, and then went on to tell us that they lived in building 14 too! Come to find out, they are my neighbors in apartment #4 – I just moved into #3 at the beginning of December!

From then on, we had a nice sense of camaraderie on the journey, and through Thor’s translation, were able to talk about real things. After awhile the conversation turned to church and we talked about the church Thor and I both attend in Klaipeda. The woman was interested in what type of church it is, given that most non-Catholic churches in Lithuania are perceived as being cults or sects. At one point in the conversation she expressed a desire to visit the church once we’re all back from holidays. Clearly, this was a divine appointment – one which was only the first of many over the next days.

I will not deny that 30 hours on a bus are physically trying, and by the end of the afternoon on Saturday, we were wiped out from little sleep and uncomfortable sitting positions! You reach a point of sort of dazed exhaustion just about the time the bus finally gets to where it’s going and you tumble out, gather your things and prepare for the next leg of the journey. We had about an hour in Frankfurt before needing to catch our train connection – I was heading to Stuttgart, Thor via Stuttgart to Munich. It was enough time to allow me to practice ordering a kebab in German (ich mochte eine doner) and to reintroduce myself to the joy of designer coffee (I confess, I stooped to the level of partaking of Starbucks). It was, of course, Christmas Eve, and the station was filled with decorations and people on their way to reunions and gatherings. Holding a cup of good coffee, backpack strapped to my back, full of the sense of being at home in the world, I couldn’t help but exclaim, “this is the good life”!

I occupied myself on the short trip from Frankfurt to Stuttgart by attempting to write down some pieces of the adventure and thoughts about home and travel that had been floating through my head throughout the journey. At a few moments, the sense of aliveness and the beauty of Christ’s Incarnation overflowed in my heart, and tears started to drip down from my eyes. Seeing as I wasn’t going to make it to a Christmas Eve service, I turned on my recording of The Messiah, and opened the Bible to Isaiah 40, to read the promise that:

Every valley shall be raised up,

Every mountain and hill made low,

The rough ground shall become level,

The rugged places a plain.

And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,

And all mankind together will see it.

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

I can’t imagine a better Christmas Eve than to be on the road with a friend, reading these words of life, and listening to the soaring melodies that are just a small taste of the heaven that Christ’s coming has made possible. I was blessed by the Holy Spirit’s presence with me in that train car, the reality of God’s Kingdom at the coming of Christ into the world that pressed in on my chest in a wholly unexpected way that afternoon.

Stuttgart station was my destination for that day, and I was planning to meet my friend Lisa from LCC, whose family lives in Stuttgart, to spend Christmas Eve with her. I was planning to wait for her until their church service let out, but we hadn’t made a clear plan of where inside the station to meet. Thor helped me orient myself and pointed out an internet café where I could send Lisa a message about where to connect. Before catching his train on to Munich, he and I prayed together for continued safe travels and to thank God for His protection and presence thus far.

I took advantage of the hour to send a couple emails and then settled myself in a conspicuous place near the front steps of the station where I thought I might see Lisa when she arrived. I don’t know if it was the exhaustion of travel or the poignancy of the day and the distances traveled, but I leaned back against my backpack with a few round tears hovering in the corners of my eyes. I must have looked especially pathetic because a kind, round German woman with short dark hair and glasses came up to me and began trying to talk to me in German. I being wrung out with travel and hunger, she must have seen the dark circles under my eyes because she made a wiping motion under her eyes, and patted my leg. I could understand the essence of what she was saying, but could only reply, “nine sprechen zie Deutsch” and “Danke!” She was telling me that I am young and strong, and not to be sad, to be brave and not to cry. Then she pointed up with her hands and said, “Gott ist Gut.” “Ya!” I exclaimed, and tried to mimic her phrase, “God ist Gut.” At that, the tears that had been threatening to run over brimmed with thanksgiving. In that moment, I KNEW that God had sent her, she was meant to comfort an exhausted traveler and fellow believer in a cold station on Christmas Eve. “Tonight,” she expressed, pointing to now, “bad. Morgen besser.” Tomorrow will be better.

After a few minutes, she left and I said a prayer of thanks for God’s comfort and then felt like I should make another attempt to find Lisa. I quickly picked up my backpack and turned around, only to see, at that very moment, Lisa walking past me, right across the center of the station, her eyes scanning the crowds for me. We connected with a hug and she led me out to her family’s car where her parents and three-year-old niece were waiting.

I am convinced that one of the most neglected spiritual gifts in modern life is the gift of hospitality – this, though, is not the case for the Friesen family. I was welcomed into their Christmas celebration wholeheartedly, and it was a wonderful blessing to be amongst a family that loves each other so completely. I played with Amelie, Lisa’s niece, held some of the other babies, took the family photographs, ate knudel, drank gluhwein, laughed at the family talent show, ate too much chocolate, and was even given a gift (a bag full of chocolates my family is still enjoying this week!). Despite being on the other side of the world from my own family, I didn’t feel even the slightest bit disconnected or forgotten. Christmas is about this – the inviting in of strangers, the arrival of visitors from far away, God leaving His home to be amongst those who do not know Him, who did not yet recognize Him. Christ himself was the traveler who came the furthest distance on Christmas night.

I got a night of solid sleep in Lisa’s family guest room and then Lisa drove me to the train station Christmas morning so I could catch my train back to the Frankfurt airport where I’d catch my flight to Denver (via Cincinnati). Another short ride, an easy check-in, and a small mishap at security (I forgot to take my cheese-cutting pocket knife out of my carry-on bag after snacking on the bus, and had to surrender it to the security agents. Oh well), I had a good amount of time before my flight boarded, so I had breakfast and a cappuccino. Making my way toward my gate with an hour to spare, I began to feel a strong urge to pray or to go off somewhere to honor Christ’s day in some way. I was walking down one long hallway and encountered a mass of people lining up for another security check, so I detoured around them and down a different hallway.

Just a few steps into my detour I passed a corner, and nearly stopped dead in my tracks. A long silver cross was fixed to a door, and the word, “Chapel” was painted next to it. (For those of you who read Harry Potter, the entire experience reminded me of the “Room of Requirement” that appears only when the characters need a secret place to meet!). I went in and sat down, read the messages of peace and Merry Christmas that other Christians had written in the guestbook, and then wrote my own – some words of a hymn which seemed fitting for the day and place:

We are pilgrims on a journey

We are brothers on the road

We are here to help each other

Walk the mile and bear the load

I was able to spend a half hour in prayer and quiet, and was struck again by the absolute, unequivocal knowledge of God’s presence and guiding over me. There were Bibles in three languages lying open on the table at the front of the chapel, the English one open to, of course, Isaiah 40, so I read:

He tends His flock like a shepherd;

He gathers the lambs in His arms

And carries them close to His heart

I was carried through the rest of the day, close to God’s heart. Sensing this, I wrote my own prayer in the little journal I always carry with me:

What more can I ask You, Apa,

But to hold me this Christmas Day.

Hold me so close I can hear the

Beat of Your heart for the world,

The rhythm You choose for my dancing,

Not my own steps,

But Your time.

In the chapel were several pamphlets in different languages, one of which was a collection of prayers, which I took with me and read over again on my flight. Mary’s words in Luke were written out in a prayer called the Angelus. Mary answers the angel Gabriel saying, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us…”.

I spent much of my flight from Frankfurt to Cincinnati in conversation with the German woman, Melanie, who was sitting next to me. She was returning to her American husband after her first visit to Germany after receiving her Green Card. We talked about places we’d traveled, and holiday activities, and all the things that can be discussed by strangers on long flights over the ocean! Arriving in Cincinnati she was worried about some of her paperwork going through customs, but we stuck by each other, helped each other gather our luggage, and then shook hands as we headed to separate terminals for our connecting flights. Throughout our conversations, I continually prayed that the Holy Spirit would guide me if I was meant to direct our talk toward spiritual things. I know I still need to learn obedience when the Holy Spirit prompts me, but I didn’t sense a point at which I was supposed to say more than I did. After leaving her, I prayed for her travels and her family, and was reminded of something my friend once said – that maybe some people are brought into our lives simply so we can pray for them. Prayer is, after all, our strongest weapon.

My flight to Denver was achingly long, seeing as I had then been on the road for over two days! But soon enough the familiar galaxy of lights spread out over the flat prairie glinted through the plane windows, and I was home again.

The divine appointments didn’t end with my arrival, however. The day after Christmas I woke up when my friend Kelli arrived to take me to coffee. She filled me in on the typical Greeley Christmas happenings, who’s pregnant, who’s engaged, who she saw at the Christmas Eve service, etc. She mentioned that she had seen the sister of one of our high school friends at the service, and found out that this girl, Sarah, was now working at a school in Slovakia, teaching English at a seminary there. It was exciting to hear about another Greeley-ite living somewhat close to me in Europe, but I didn’t know if I’d have time to connect with this girl in the short time I’m home.

Well, you can see where this is going. Kelli and I went to the coffee shop, and walking through the door, we see Sarah and another church friend sitting in the corner. We quickly swapped stories of our activities in Central Europe and began commiserating over the difficult number of cases and noun declensions in Lithuanian and Slovak! I wasn’t even surprised that, of all the people I could run into at Starbucks on the morning after Christmas, I would see her. Of course we were supposed to connect. Of course we should exchange email addresses and make plans to see each other. I should stop being surprised at the way God works, the way He draws people together, and the way He speaks into the world on a daily, moment-ly basis. This is the promise of Christmas, and of Pentecost, after all – God has come into the world, and desires continually to enter it, if we will listen, seek Him and obey.

And you thought I was kidding about the Christmas light insanity

"And the end of all our traveling will be to arrive at the place we started from..."

It is five days before Christmas and I am sitting at Arbatos Namai looking out on a snowy Mazyvedo Aleje, up to my eyeballs in Academic Writing essays to grade, full of end-of-semester wistfulness and a sort of resigned melancholy.

I head to the States on Friday. Through a bus ride to Frankfurt, Christmas Eve with a friend in Stuttgart, and flight on Christmas day, it will be an epic trip. And, even though my I-pod is chock full of suitably folksy songs to accompany my journey home, I am feeling ambivalent about going. Is this weird? In the last few weeks as I have settled into my new apartment and spent a lot of time with so many students and friends in celebration of the holidays, I have felt even more connected and at home here in Klaipeda than I have all semester. And suddenly, I am going to be packing my stuff onto a bus, a train, over land and sea, and be plunked down again in Colorado.

I am scared.

Can I say that? I am fully unenthused about the emotional upheaval that can accompany the abrupt conjunction of my separate worlds. I am not ready for glaring shopping malls full of overweight Americans. I am not ready for garish Christmas lights fastened to every immovable surface. I am not ready to tell the story of my semester over and over and over again until I’m wrung out and limp. I am not ready for jet lag. Or airplane hair. I’m not ready to let my worlds intersect each other and to begin the emotional effort of putting together the increasingly complicated puzzle of my life, with all its different friends and sensations and facets of my personality.

I think I’m feeling nervous about finding a way to let who I have become in these past few months meet up with the person I have been for the past 27 years. Travel is always about the process of maintaining an integrated self, and I fear fracturing. That the stretching of mind and eye and body that these transitions require will eventually stretch me out beyond repair.

The reason I’m feeling this way is because right now in Klaipeda and LCC I am 100% HERE. I have been living in the HERE and NOW in a way that I have not lived in years, and never before for such a duration. Talking with my friends Jared and Jerilyn over dinner the other night, we were discussing our individual perceptions of our time at LCC and how it fits into the bigger picture of our lives. The best word I have found to express my feelings at being here is, arrival. It’s as if all the details of my life to this point in time have brought me here, as inevitably as a plot leads its heroine to the end of a story.

Lately, I’ve been writing a phrase in blue pen on my left hand to remind myself not to look too far ahead, or to live in the past. I write: Cherish What Is. It has been a reminder to me not to get caught up in wishing for what I don’t yet have or what I used to have in the past, whether that be friendships or possessions or ideas.

More than this, I think I fear a lessening of God’s Spirit. I fear not being able to hear Him in the distances and changes I’m about to cross. I fear that I might come back from Christmas break with a less intense focus on the work I’ve been called to. I fear getting too comfortable with the pattern of how things are – I don’t want to lose momentum. This trip home feels like that, a trip, a stumble, in my stride. I know I shouldn’t feel this way. Tomorrow, I’m sure, I’ll feel differently, and I don’t want to hurt my family or my friends’ feelings being so honest. I just wonder if it wouldn’t have been easier to stay put for this holiday!

I should trust more. I should understand that God will carry on to completion the work He has brought me here for.

Still... (gasp)... alive... (gasp)... Last day of school... (deep breath)... hope to write something soon...

Choose, But Choose Wisely

Today's Finest Procrastinatory Opportunity, courtesy of Annie "007" Nelson: The "Which SuperHero Would You Be?" quiz:
http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=92013

Just FYI, I scored as Indiana Jones, for my love of travel, adventure, and history, so we know this thing is pretty accurate.

This Journey is My Own

This song has come to mean a GREAT deal to me over the past month. (Um, so the play count on i Tunes is like, 64 times or something), so I thought I should share it. It's by Sarah Groves, from an album called "Conversations."

This Journey is My Own

When I stand before the Lord, Ill be standing alone
This journey is my own
Still I want mans advice, and I need mans approval
This journey is my own

Why would I want to live for man, and pay the highest price
What does it mean to gain a whole world, only to lose my life

So much of what I do is to make a good impression
This journey is my own
And so much of what I say is to make myself look better
But this journey is my own

And why would I want to live for man, and pay the highest price
And what does it mean to gain a whole world, only to lose my life

And I have never felt relief like I feel it right now
This journey is my own
Cuz trying to please the world, it was breaking me down
It was breaking me down

And now I live and I breathe for an audience of one
Now I live and I breathe for an audience of one
Now I live and I breathe for an audience of one
Cuz I know this journey is my own

And why would I want to live for man, and pay the highest price
And what does it mean to gain a whole world, only to lose my life
And you can live for someone else, and it will only bring you pain
I cant even judge myself, only the Lord can say, Well done.

Oh, this journey is my own

Snowy Day in Klaipeda (View from my apartment - or, at least my apartment for 2 more weeks. I move closer into town on the 12th. Yay!) 

Roll Call

I have been trying most of this evening to craft yet another audience-wowing bit of personal insight for the blog. Having now set a precedent for writing these soul-searching devotionals, I suddenly feel some pressure to make whatever I write about sound intensely spiritual and profound.

Today, people, I got nothin'. I’m tired, dry. Empty.

I don’t want to write about what God is doing in my heart because I’m not really sure He’s doing much at the moment – or maybe I’m not letting Him. I desire to hear the Spirit’s voice every day, and on days when I don’t, I am lost, questioning. This past week I have received more than I have given. I am so thankful for the friends who have blessed me in such small but important ways: friends who have asked me genuinely, “how are you doing?;” two students that stayed over at my apartment on different nights both so selflessly washed my dishes for me! Sunday during prayer time with students at the dorm, one girl prayed for me. She truly prayed for my heart needs, and it was such a blessing. In her prayer, she spoke some amazing words of encouragement and thanks for the work that I’m doing at LCC.

I needed to hear those words this week. Tremendously.

I know that our service should be done only with the desire to hear our King say, “well done, my good and faithful servant.” But it is hard to keep on going sometimes if no one around you affirms that, yes, in fact, you are doing a good job, you are making a difference, you are being the kind of example you want to be.

I don’t want this to sound prideful. I think it does. At my core, maybe I’m just an approval-junkie. Then again, we need to hear words of encouragement from our brothers and sisters in the Lord, and that isn’t the same thing as desiring approval. My approval should come only from the Lord, but we are commanded in the Bible to “encourage one another and build each other up.”

So I'm going to ask something weird here. If you are reading this blog, if you log in here and read these ridiculous soul-baring epics, will you take the time to post a comment? I hear in roundabout ways that people like to read this, but very rarely does anyone post a response. Just say hello so I know you're out there. It would mean a lot to me.

Thanks.

Take These Hands, Teach Them What To Carry

Talking this morning to my friend Christine, we were talking about balance and how difficult it is to keep up with all the expectations that are on us (that we take on ourselves). We have schoolwork, and friendships, and ministry opportunities, and laundry to do, and food to cook, and dishes to do, and prayers we should pray, and a need for sleep, and for service, and for exercise. And we should go to chapel, and study Lithuanian, and have people over for dinner, and talk to others about Jesus, and write emails to friends who love us and who we feel we’ve neglected, and prepare for Bible Study, and plan good lessons, and take the time to have meaningful conversations, and sing in choir, and think about clearing out some of those old sins, and plan Christmas parties, and put things on the calendar and…

The simple command to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself” becomes a juggling act as we try to figure out how to organize our time so we can love God, love ourselves, and love our friends. Those words of Jesus come to mind, when he said, “Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Was he kidding? There is so much to carry in this Christian walk, we feel like we’re staggering up a path, trying to carry a million things with our own strength. There is a U2 song (“Yaweh”) in which the cry to God is to, “take these hands, teach them what to carry.” Maybe we feel like we’re carrying so much because we have decided to pick up and carry things that we aren’t supposed to. Maybe God doesn’t ask us to carry a lot of the things that we think we should.

We can’t carry the future, and yet we walk around with tomorrow’s duties weighing down our heads like bricks. We try to carry the past, not letting go of sins, memories and habits that are heavy. We try to carry the emotions and needs of others, when we cannot be responsible for them anyway. We think we have to carry the past, the present, and the future – and as time-bound creatures, we can’t possibly do this.

When Jesus talks about His burden being light, I wonder if it is because when Jesus was with people, He was fully present to them in that moment. He focused His attention completely upon that person – whether it was Nicodemus, or the women at the well in Samaria, or Pilate. In the moments He had on earth, Jesus did not walk around in a state of stressed-out-ness, trying to love everyone simultaneously. And if anyone could have managed that, it would be Him! Rather, He loved people one at a time, with intentionality and purpose in the moment as it presented itself.

We try to carry too much. Humans can barely carry the weight of a single moment of time. The atoms of an instant are just about the limit of our strength. “Take these hands, teach them what to carry.” And importantly, too, I have to learn what not to carry.

Mano Šiema – broliai ir seserys

It is Thanksgiving week, and despite the fact that Thursday will just be a regular work day at LCC, I find my thoughts circling toward home and family. We had a beautiful dumping of snow on Friday and Saturday, which means I felt justified in cranking up the Christmas music and cooking most of the day on Saturday. In the midst of preparations and daily duties this weekend, a feeling of peacefulness and centeredness settled over me as delicately as the thick wet flakes that caught on my coat.

This is a time of year when it is so easy to miss one’s family. And yet, lately I have been reminded that I am very much part of a family here and everywhere. Last Wednesday I had a great conversation with one of the staff members (Jon) I don’t talk to very often. We were talking about surrendering our hearts and plans to God, whether we’re single or in a relationship or whatnot. (Yes, this is a common topic of conversation with me!) He is at the beginning of a relationship and is full of joy at God’s provision and guidance for he and his girlfriend. Sharing in his joy gives me strength to hold onto trust in God. I hold onto that trust and say aloud, in the tiny bit of Lithuanian I know, Aš nežinau daug, bet aš žinau kad Dievo geras. (I don't know a lot, but I know that God is good).

Jon asked me a great question that afternoon. He asked me if I had considered what this illusive hope of marriage means to me, if I had sought out the root of that desire and surrendered that desire to God. I thought a minute and realized that what marriage represents for me is the desire for home. Realizing that, I can see that what I need to rest in is the fact that the Church is my home – it is our family. Even more, heaven is my home, and my heart will be restless for that place as long as I live, married or no.

But community, relationship, family – that is what Christian faith offers me. Some days here I am tempted to despair, to wallow in loneliness (as I must admit, I did a little bit of after Fall Break). And yet, so beautifully, God reminds me that there is a whole community – a whole family – that surrounds me. When I feel like the friendship deck at LCC has been reshuffled, and I have been dealt out, even momentarily, God speaks to me with tenderness and reprimand. “You are not alone.”

I once heard someone say that, “home is where God is, and we feel him in each other.” This past weekend – through the LCC Thanksgiving celebration, time spent with Lithuanian church friends, and in Spirit-filled prayer with students – I experienced that intense belonging that can exist in God’s family.

And so I am home.

It's snowing!

Everyday Life

One curious detail of life in Lithuania is that many bathrooms do not have handsinks. Instead, they figure you can make due with the spigot in the bathtub, right? My bathroom falls into this category, which means that to wash your hands or brush your teeth, you have to go into the kitchen. After the first couple times of that back in August, I adapted to the custom of washing my hands and brushing my teeth using the bathtub faucet.

One great drawback of this system that must be mentioned, though, is that, should one forget to close the valve that leads to the shower head, upon turning on the water to brush your teeth, you might end up with shower, part 2. This morning, I had just such an experience, even despite the fact that I had closed the shower valve. I bent over to brush my teeth (a full body bend is required to spit in a tub), and a huge stream of water dribbled over my just-fixed hair.

This is nothing revelatory or soul-searching. Just a little insight into my ordinary life in Klaipeda. :)

Pottery Barn is the Devil

I talked to my friend Annie yesterday. Annie was my roommate in Budapest five years ago, and since then, we’ve only seen each other 1 time for about 2 hours – she picked me up from LAX and drove me to Pasadena a couple summers ago. Strangely enough, though, we are just about as good friends now as we have ever been. She is in the process of moving to France to begin work with a mission agency there. (Waiting on a Visa; prayers requested). Basically, we have identical lives – English majors at Christian Lib Arts schools, spent a year teaching in Hungary, came home, got MAs in Rhetoric and Composition, and are now both finding our way back to ministry in Europe. I am more grateful for her than I can say, and when I called her sort of randomly last night, she was overjoyed to hear from me. “I have been carrying my cell phone around for a week, hoping you’d call,” she told me, “I really needed to hear from you! I think this is a divine appointment!”

Previously, I think I would have chalked up a statement like that to over-dramatic-ness, but the way things in my own life have been going, I think she’s right. There are such things as divine appointments – phone calls that come just when you need them, emails from distant friends who just happen to think to pray for you. The Holy Spirit is working in the world. He really is. Why do I ever doubt this? Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer. Prayer has become so natural for me here – probably because I live alone and have no pets, so talking to God is the only way I can have conversations! Seriously, though, I am learning so much about what prayer really does. One thing I have noticed is that prayer makes you aware of what God is doing. Sometimes we might want to just attribute things that happen to coincidence or human effort, but when you pray, you are aware that God is acting. It isn’t even a matter of God simply responding to our prayers. Rather, He is always there working, desiring to enter our lives and times, and when we pray, we wake up to the already-existent reality of God’s work. Prayer helps me see everyday occurrences with the eyes of the Spirit.

And so when Annie tells me that my phone call was a divine appointment, I believe her. She is battling through all the same emotions and questions and doubts that I did in my preparation to move to Lithuania. She is doing the whole, pack-your-apartment, sell-your-car, live-out-of-a-suitcase-for-a-month-before-leaving thing that I did. I was able to share with her all the messy emotions that accompany packing up one’s well-beloved dishes. I know dishes should not represent much of significance when one is deciding how to best serve Jesus, but in a way they do. Annie and I are both 27. A good chunk of our friends are married and have gotten to go through the “setting up house/nesting” phase of their lives. These friends have gotten to register at places like Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel for all those lovely ceramic bowls and wine glasses. They have salad tongs. Heck, I have spent quite a bit of my own money buying said salad tongs and wine glasses after peering over those print-out registry lists you get with wedding invitations these days.

Annie mentioned that she had gone into Crate and Barrel the other day. “Why did you do that!” I exclaimed over the phone, “That place is the Devil!” What I meant was, going into such places is only a reminder that neither she nor I get to “nest.” While most 27-year-olds we know are well into furnishing apartments and homes, and probably have achieved the dream of all-matching silverware, she and I are boxing things up, taking pictures off the wall, and starting over. What I see in those beautiful dishes and bedspreads and smelly candles is the lure of the comfortable, the safe, the fantasy of domestic bliss not found this side of the Donna Reed show.

I am NOT playing a small violin of pity for either of us. Not even remotely. We are both ecstatic beyond measure that God has allowed us to be chosen for service in these ways. Nevertheless, when you’re 27 and all your worldly possessions are stacked in boxes in your parent’s basement, it’s hard not to wonder what’s wrong with you. Why you feel compelled to do such things – again and again?

And maybe that’s how this all connects with prayer. God is working in this world and Annie and I want to join in. That means more to us than fancy dishes and comfortable apartments filled with the laughter of old friends. It means we are trying to be responsible to the call we’ve received, to live lives worthy of that calling. Every believer has this calling – not necessarily the same one – but I wonder how often we pay attention to it, how often we can hear it? Prayer helps me hear. Prayer helps us drown out the nagging voices of consumerism and biological clocks and the voices that would tell us to just settle down and be comfortable. Prayer is allowing God’s voice to speak more clearly and sharply than anything else, and to order my life by it.

(Next blog, stay tuned for why Baby Gap is the anti-Christ.)

Inside the Orthodox Cathedral 

Sort of a typical Minsk scene - big communist block buildings crouching right up next to ancient churches. 

Dispatches from Minsk

Somehow, it is already November. October was a whirl of travel and color, ending in my trip to Belarus this past week. LCC has a fall break during the last week of October, and a girl from my seminar class invited me to visit her home in Minsk. So, after classes finished late on Friday the 28^th, she and I, and a fourth-year student, Ermiona from Albania, joined the group of Belarussian students heading to Minsk on the night train from Klaipeda.

Without too many details (noisy, snoring drunk Lithuanians; burning my hand with the scalding tea water at 3 a.m.; giddy LCC students singing Beatles songs as we pulled into Minsk; having my passport THOROUGHLY examined at the border crossing – and my name passed along to KGB, no doubt), I will simply say that it was an adventure! The week in Minsk with the two girls was like a non-stop slumber party, with me playing the part of the older sister. We stayed up late talking, spent mornings in our pajamas, talking, walked around the city, talking, went to the circus, the opera, ate at McDonalds, talking, and did a lot of shopping. Oh yeah, and talking!

Minsk is an imposing city with lots of imperial-looking buildings, and quite a few Soviet symbols remain around town – in the metro, on factories, in parks. The architecture reminded me of the part of Pest I lived in 5 years ago, though more orderly and rigid than Pest’s ring streets. For those of you who don’t know much about the politics of Belarus, I would recommend paying attention to the next year or so. Since the separation from U.S.S.R., Belarus has been ruled by a president named Lukashenko – who is currently trying to obtain a third (and prohibited by the constitution) term as president. Opinions on Lukashenko vary, but I will say that from my one encounter with the guy, he seems a bit paranoid. J Yup, I actually saw him driving down the street in a motorcade, and of course, could not resist snapping a picture, shutterbug that I am. After taking the picture, we crossed the street and were followed by a tall guy trying to talk to me in Russian. I got Zenija to translate for me, and I was informed that I had to delete the picture I’d just taken. The guy was fairly nice, but obviously Secret Service, given his tiny earpiece and nondescript outfit. I won’t go into detailed descriptions of politics here, but since my visit, the country of Belarus is very much on my heart and in my prayers.

Even given my exciting run-in with Belarussian Secret Service, the highlight of the week was our visit to the International Christian Church of Minsk on Sunday. Walking into the spacious, sun-warmed room, I felt an indescribable feeling of home. And not just because the service was entirely in English. There were believers from Nigeria, the U.S., Belarus, England, Canada and who knows where else, all worshipping together. “This is home,” I thought, “this family of believers, singing and lifting up prayers to the God who connects us all. The Spirit is our place of belonging.” It was a joy to sense the reality of the Christian family and feel connected to the truly international kingdom of God in that place.

The message that morning was given by a minister visiting from the States who preached on the words of Isaiah 61, that Jesus read when He began His ministry:

“The Spirit of God is upon me, to preach good news to the poor,

to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God,

to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion –

to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

a planting of the Lord

for the display of His splendor” (Isa. 61:1-3).

Sitting and listening, as the minister read the phrase – “to bind up the brokenhearted” – I began to cry, and I felt in my heart the Spirit saying, “this is what I am calling you to do.” In my short time at LCC, I have had so many conversations with young women who are truly broken, hurting from the lives they’ve lead, or the choices they’ve made, loves that have gone wrong, or the broken families they’ve been born into. I had a profound sense that God wants to bestow on these women “a crown of beauty instead of ashes.” He wants them as oaks of righteousness displayed for His glory in this part of the world. It was such a needed and unexpected reminder that this is what I am to be about, a big part of why I have been brought to LCC.

Now, the last few hours of fall break light are dwindling into the late Sunday afternoon haze. I have piles of grading left to do – which of course means that my house is spotless, all my laundry is done, and I have been cooking most of the weekend (nothing like productive procrastination!). There are only six weeks left of classes before Christmas break, and I know they will go by in a rush and if I am not intentional, I will miss out on the things God wants me to do. But, I have slept, taken pictures, seen a new country, read a novel, sat on buses and trains listening to music and knowing, without a doubt, what it feels like to be alive, and to know that I know it.

Since my actual pictures of the event were confiscated, I had to make due with my poor cartooning skills. It's more readable if you enlarge it.

This is my "look Mom, I'm still alive!" picture... I'm holding Jane's step-neice, Juliana. We had dinner with Jane's father's family on Sunday afternoon.

On the train from Vilnius to Minsk with a gaggle of LCC students. We look pretty good for having been up most of the night on the train! On the far left is Jane (Zenija), whose home we stayed at. Next to her is Ermiona, the fourth-year from Albania who has been my student helper in my First Year Seminar class.

An old poem, still surprisingly apt

Számok és Nevek
(Numbers and Names)

Can I still count to ten
or twenty
in that, my lost language,
with the words I used only as coins,
for bartering?

They’re escaping like socks from
the laundry,
misplaced
in the back of drawers.
Loose change
from a left-over currency.

Words like socks – how wrong
to imagine I was ever so comfortable
in them.
My tongue never slipping around
the “good evenings”
“sweet dreams.”
My feet never flat on the
ground cobbled roughly with vowels.

I walked through the land
a mute
with a sock-full of coins
to drop in the hands of clerks,
flower-sellers.

Oh for a fortune to spend!
a number to name,
a tongue that remembers the commonplace shape
of good morning -

"Feet for those who cannot be"

Rain has come to Klaipeda. Last night, leaving the school late after spending time on the phone with relatives, wind was blowing limbs and leaves everywhere, and misty rain blurring all the streetlights. With the wind whipping my scarf around my face and my skirt around my ankles, I didn't even try to put up the umbrella! As I usually do in my walk from school to my apartment, I put on music and sort of floated home in a bubble of happy sound. Sometimes listening to certain songs, I am struck by an irresistable urge to run. So last night, at 11:30, wearing my high-heeled boots and a skirt, I skipped and jumped over puddles through my parking lot !

The thought that I kept having as my legs propelled me up over curbs and the four long flights up to my door is that, I have to savor this all - this movement, and motion, and time - on behalf of those who aren't able to. I was thinking of my aunt. For a few moments of time, I felt like I was supposed to live for her - to breathe in the beautiful storm, the color of the light, the rain matting my hair against my forehead.

I called my cousin and my uncle last night, hoping to get a chance to just say hello to aunt Carol. She is in the long, tedious, faith-stretching process of learning how to live again. She is making amazing progress, but I cannot even imagine going from a fully-functioning, capable, mobile, self-sufficient individual to the place she's at now. To be immobile, having to practice and practice to learning how to hold a pen, let alone type.

And so I treasure my own fingers as I type this, and wish I could will a tiny spark of my nerve pathways into Carol's own fingers! In my warm apartment last night, I could only think of how much I want to live on her behalf, of how I want to somehow impart just a portion of my life into hers.

Orthodox Church in Druskininkai 

Druskininkai, October 15th 

Sacramental Theology

We don’t experience the presence of God in our minds alone. We can offer an attitude of prayer, to make space in our heads and hearts for His voice. Yet I am not just a spirit, but a body too. I have a voice that emanates from lungs, from vocal chords, from the placement of tongue behind teeth – air pushes its way up from the seat of the spirit, through the lungs, and breaks into the physical plane of our world.

I must kneel, and feel the weight of my body curled into a ball, forehead in fleshy hands, rocking back and forth in prayer. My body is not insignificant – it is part of the attitude of prayer.

This is why Catholics and Orthodox believers cross themselves, kneel at the top of the knave, and touch their fingers to the images of Christ hung on the walls of churches.

So this morning in my kitchen, my hands cooked bread, and washed dishes – all the ingredients of this ordinary world (flour, coffee, water, soap) – they brush against my hands as little prayers. The actions of hands in the world, small, repetitive, simple, these are what God uses. This small act of cooking and eating and sharing is Grace; it is a way God’s presence is manifest. This is eucharist, is communion.

I stayed home from church to take communion, but I cannot take it alone.

I try to clean the spoons, the bowls, the silverware, and imagine the action as grace. This is how God works – we are tools, utensils, in His hands; we get dirty from use; He cleanses us and uses us again. We are made for service. We are not made to sit gleaming in a locked-up cabinet (or a locked-up heart). We are made to be used, and to allow the Master to take care of us.

This is what I learn from putting my hands again and again into dirty water, into bowls full of batter. I have to know and experience God’s presence in these little things. His grace is spilt out over us in tangible blessings all the time - small touches, wafts of aroma, bits of music, smiles of friends, laughter, the taste of wine, and bread.

Who could have imagined a world so full of food for filling? The bright sky after rain is itself a reminder that God is not far from each one of us. We breathe Him in, and He encompasses us. God should be the delight of my days. In Christ there is “the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way” (Eph. 1:23).

O the Deep, Deep Love

It’s amazing how easy it is to become muddled. To lose focus. It happens so quickly. In the rush of midterms and piles of papers to grade and weekend trips and choir practice – all good and worthy things – these past few weeks, I have not had chances to sit down and simply talk with students. I don’t like feeling a tension between all these different activities. I want to be able to view and sense that everything that I’m doing here in Klaipeda is part of God’s work. But it isn’t. The same pressures on my time, on my heart, on my physical body, are present in Lithuania, just as much as they are in the States.

This morning I should be going to church, as I have the past two months. Instead, I am staying home to try to pray my way through these tensions. I hear God asking me to remember my priorities, and to order my days and my time in accordance with His plans for me. This sounds very grandiose, and probably self-important. But if, as a bookmark I keep in my Bible says, “Each small task of everyday life is part of the total harmony of the universe,” then small tasks are worth paying attention to.

My soul is thirsty to be close to God and to have His presence and love shake my world and its duties upside down. I can’t serve and mentor and teach and encourage if I am not receiving my strength from the love of God. I was talking with a girl I have breakfast with on Tuesdays who is also struggling with how to serve – she is heavily involved in some of the campus ministries. She doesn’t feel like she is doing a good job, even though she has been brought up with all the tools and knowledge to be an effective servant. Instead, she is exhausted, and isn’t able to pray, and doesn’t find any joy in what she is trying to do.

This is what happens when we try to serve out of our own strength, rather than out of God’s love. When I try to serve out of my own strength, I spend my time on the things I think I’m good at, when perhaps God wants to enable me to do the things that are difficult and uncomfortable. I want to sink down deeply into the unfathomable depth of God’s love – as one of my favorite hymns says, “O the deep deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free.” Then the fullness of this love will overflow me and naturally, joyfully, completely flow out into the lives of those around me. (“Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all”). I won’t have to “plan” and “prioritize” how to serve others; it will be unstoppable, as a river is unstoppable.

I have wanted to approach this business of prioritizing my activities here as a checklist – where I can easily choose between what is number two on the list and what is number seventeen. But following Christ is not a business plan. Discipleship is not a checklist that can be laminated and kept in a coat pocket. If it were, we would not need the Holy Spirit – we could simply rely on our handy-dandy list to tell us what to do, what not to do. Instead, we must submit every moment, every decision, every thought, to the guidance of the Spirit and the light of the Word. This is so much harder, but it is the way that we grow – that I grow – closer to our Father, as we seek to hear His voice in the world.

Writing out my “priorities” list today, I wrote out the question: “Why am I at LCC?” I had thought to make a list. Instead, this is the best I can figure:

“to love people in any way I can – in all things, at all times, to ascribe the unsurpassable worth of Christ to those around me. To serve them and to love them as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. I am to be like Christ, and to lay down my self daily, to pick up the cross and to follow Him. To die to the old self and its ways of living, its constant searching for worth and wealth; and instead to find my security, my rest, my home, my hope, my husband, my father, my friend, in the fellowship of the Trinity, and the community of the saints.”

The Eyes of Christ

I wish I could say that I see people with the eyes of Christ, through the mind of Christ. For example, staying at a hostel in Vilnius this week, there was a guy in the next bunk over who made a bit of conversation with us. He is traveling around Europe for two and a half months. Later, I heard him making plans to go out and meet up with other backpackers at a bar, as is the life of backpackers everywhere.

My reaction to this guy was one of smugness, and self-satisfaction. “I could never just travel around for that long without a purpose,” I said to a friend, “I’m over that backpacking phase. It’s just so empty and meaningless.” What I didn’t stop to perceive in this individual is the spiritual emptiness in him, which the eyes of Christ would enable me to see. Instead, he was an opportunity against which to measure my own sense of pride and self-satisfaction.

Why don’t I see people with the eyes of Christ? Why is it not my first impulse to be concerned about the spiritual condition of the hearts of my students? I need to pray and ask God for this vision. I was doing this at the outset of my time here – the Sunday of orientation in August, I sat weeping in my kitchen as I prayed over the names of my seminar students, asking God to help me to love them through His love. I have not prayed like this often enough. This is probably because I tell myself I “don’t have time” to walk around LCC crying over the state of souls. But what else are we on the planet to do? Really?

So my prayer is that of Ephesians 1:17 – 19: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength”

I want the eyes of my heart to be enlightened by the Spirit of wisdom, and to be strengthened by the remembrance of the hope to which we are all called. I have been so challenged lately by a couple others also walking this path of service to God. Yesterday, my little brother sent me the link to his online journal. Reading it, nearly in tears because of the level of his passion, I could see his intense desire to live his life in service of things of eternal value. He is wrestling with what it really means to be a disciple and how that commitment requires a sacrifice of our dreams and desires (so much of what I too have been encountering here in LT). In his writing, he is just on fire with love for God. It isn’t even a question of prioritizing and planning how to serve. That kind of love doesn’t allow any response but gratitude and a life lived in praise.

Recently, in my desire to regain and remember the vision that has brought me to Lithuania, I posted a section of my journal next to my mirror in the bathroom. By the Holy Spirit’s power, I am trying to live it out.

“It is a hard principle to hold onto – to want, more than anything anything anything, the Kingdom of God. To want, more than my heart wants what it does, for every person to come to a knowledge of God’s glory. Paramount.
I want to want You first and foremost. Your story, Your Kingdom, Your Glory. (my life a tiny and infinitesimal jot in the great Play, the whirling dance)”

Holy Spirit, have your way in me.

Check it out

Annie's been posting some great stuff at our Expatriate Letters site lately! Check it out: http://www.expatriateletters.blogspot.com

A typical garden in small Lithuanian towns 

A golden day in Kretinga 

The church at the monastery in Kretinga 

An Audience of One

It is early Sunday evening in Klaipeda, and I hate to admit that I am sequestered in my office on what has been an (according to those who know) unseasonably warm and golden autumn weekend. Fortunately, I was able to spend yesterday exploring the nearby town of Kretinga. I had, ostensibly, gone to grade some of the mountainous stacks of papers that are an ever-present feature of my daily life. Somehow, I didn't get nearly enough done, but had a great day anyway!

This past week at LCC has been "Spiritual Emphasis Week," which has meant lots of activities and opportunites to learn about worship practices and traditions. Thursday evening I went to a Taize-style service at one of the big Catholic churches in town. Friday night was an almost-opposite style, LCC student-led worship night. I am thankful that God has given us so many ways to honor and praise Him - and I am more and more aware of what a gift music is. How wonderful is it that God has given us an instrument to praise Him with!

One special thing about Friday night was a song that a student sung. I don't know all the words but one phrase really struck me. She sung, "I want to live my life for an audience of One." So, so often I think about how I appear to those around me - what do they think? What do my students think of me? My colleagues? Do my supervisors notice my hard work? Do people think I'm pretty? Am I making people laugh? Does anyone see things the way I see them? Who can I share this moment with?

What the song impressed upon me was that in my daily living, I should be living with no further thought than, "what does my Father, my Abba, think of me? What does He see?" It was also a reminder that whenever I am alone, and am happy or full of joy, or am crying out or singing or dancing or simply breathing in the world around me, I am not alone - I have an audience. God sees the things I see. He sees me in those happiest solitary moments that I often wish I could share with someone - He is my audience and He is enthralled. Furthermore, I was impressed with the thought that to live any other way - to live as if everyone else is watching, and as if how I appear to them is important - is to be guilty of idolatry. It is to put others' opinions and approval above the acceptance I have in Christ. To live in hopes that others will notice is to offer a degree of power and importance over me that no one but God deserves.

And so, when I walked around beautiful Kretinga alone yesterday, I was able to remember that above me, and beneath me, beside me and within me, my Father, the Holy Spirit, and Christ my Brother are present. I live and breathe and walk under the sky knowing that my God is Emmanuel, with me.

How can I keep from singing?

I have to ask this question because I don’t know if I’m normal.

Am I the only person who can literally feel music in my bloodstream? I mean, does anyone else actually start to quiver in their stomach, and feel tingles shoot up and down their arms, and course up the spine to the top of their head?

Lately, I have been bathed and draped in music, from the top of my head to the tips of my fingers. I swim in sound. Sometimes at night in my apartment, I have had to push back the furniture in my living room and dance. I am so moved – physically moved – by music, that I’m flushed simply from listening.

It has been awhile since I have sung, or have wanted to sing, as much as I have in the past few weeks in Klaipeda. There doesn’t seem to be any other way to let out all the different sensations running through me. I walk around town with my hands open and lifted a little out from my sides - conducting, praising. My feet want to propel me up into the air.

Some days I am singing those wrenching Jennifer Knapp songs about surrender and holiness and brokenness and faith. Other days I am drenched in Bach cantatas, and pulsing with counterpoint. Some days, I am flush with praise songs or with the words of old hymns. Or Handel’s Messiah: “Lift up your heads, o ye Gates, be ye lifted up ye everlasting Doors;” “Blessing and glory and honor and power be unto Him!”

I think I will fly apart, by pieces. How can I keep from singing? Saturday night on the bus home from our staff excursion to Kaunas, another teacher and I sang hymns together for almost an hour, taking turns choosing which to sing and then singing as many verses as we could remember. I had no idea how deeply imbedded those songs are in me. They are still there, those words and melodies from years and years ago. And now I will remember that singing, late at night in the bus, driving into the foggy dark, for years to come.

I know I sound like an emotional basket case, for better or worse, but really I just think I am giving myself permission to live – to be alive at the level that I always desire to be, where everything touches and intersects everything else. Where there is no separation between my skin and the world outside. Poets try to live like this, and usually kill themselves trying. And in the effort to let so much in, there is always the possibility of pain.

So be it.

A bricked-in window at an old church in Kaunas. 

The quay along the river in Kaunas, Lithuania's second-largest city and the former capital of the First Lithuanian Republic from 1918 - 1930s. 

Our group walking toward the old fortress, which dates to the 1800s and was used by both the Germans and Soviets during their occupations of Lithuania 

The Ninth Fort Museum 

At Rumsiske - an outdoor museum showcasing Lithuanian life and folk culture

A Day Off

Some of you may have noticed an uncharacteristic lack of communication on my part in recent weeks. Don't worry, I haven't run out of things to say! School and all its attendant activities usually lands in full force about the end of September, and then I get my customary autumn cold that sets in when the weather begins to change. This year is no different - okay, this year is LOTS different, but not in some ways!

One great and unexpected blessing of life at LCC - which I know I've mentioned before - is the community of young teachers who spend time together after school, at lunchtime, on weekends, at church, etc. This past weekend, a number of us were able to tag along on the staff outing to visit a couple museum sites and the nearby city of Kaunas. I almost didn't go, considering my writing students all submitted their first essays last Friday, but I was persuaded I needed a day off and went along.

The first stop was at an outdoor folk museum called Rumsiske, where we spent more time walking in the beautiful woods toward the lake than actually visiting the model villages! Oh well. Our second stop was lunch and then on to Ninth Fort, outside of the town of Kaunas. The Ninth Fort was built in the eighteen hundreds and has been built up and fortified many times over during the years. It was used by both the Germans and Soviets during their respective occupations of Lithuania. During WWII, the fort was used as a prison and workcamp where Jews from the nearby Kaunas Ghetto were sent to be killed. Over 50,000 people are buried in the fields surrounding the fort, and a large memorial has been set up to commemorate the atrocities committed there.

No one is ever fully prepared to walk into a place like that and feel the reality of what was done there. I certainly wasn't, despite having visited sites like this one in the past and having been to the Holocaust Memorial in D.C. recently. There is a palpable sensation you get when walking into a place that housed so much evil. It makes your skin clammy and cold, and no amount of small laughter can fill up the empty concrete corridors of such a place.

There were several artifacts in the museum displays that have really stuck with me. One was a photograph of an old woman being embraced by a younger woman. This was in the exhibit dedicated to those who risked themselves to protect Jewish families. This older woman was responsible for saving the young woman's life, and the picture is being taken on the young woman's wedding day. I tried to let that story sink in - to imagine what a potent and bittersweet joy you would feel on a day like that, when so many others never lived to be married, to have children. Another powerful display was a collection of keys, rusty and broken, that had been dug up from the mass graves around the fort during excavations in the 60s. Every single one of those keys opened a door to someone's home, to a family, to a favorite room, to a house that that individual never returned to. Every one of those keys had a face and a name and a life connected to it.

I try to be reverent in the face of such anguish. What else can I do? I always walk past such photographs and imagine how I would feel if it were my family story being read by strangers. What would I want them to feel? I would want them to feel something. And to sit for at least a few minutes on a bench remembering that the sunshine on their faces is a gift, that their place in a peaceful moment of history is a gift, that at any moment we might be called on to face the horrible fragility of our human bodies and lives. I would want them to feel a little guilty, and greatly thankful, and to let history settle heavily and unforgettably into their gut.

Then I would want them to get up and walk with friends, and to think about how numbers mean nothing, but how one human life outweighs the whole world. I would want them to cherish and value human contact, and to enjoy the day at hand in whatever form it takes. I would want them to go into Kaunas and walk along the river, to take pictures of churches and brides, and to climb under fences and to stop for cappucinos. And not for one second to take any of it for granted.

Which is what we did.