The Meaning of Three Scallops

(Originally posted November 3)

I am on my way to Tajikistan with an intermediate stop in Bishkek. Whenever I am in Bishkek, I am always searching for food that isn't gretchka or chicken, seeking comfort in cuisine.

Indeed, I discovered that a shipment of fresh seafood had just arrived by plane to one of my favorite eateries. On the top of the fresh list were scallops. Though the price was unreasonable, I could not resist the temptation, because a fresh scallop in Kyrgyzstan is as rare as flamingos and palm trees on a tropical beach in Antarctica. Though give us about a half a century, and given current trends, those Antarctic palm trees might just become a reality.

Scallops are the most delicate of seafood. If you didn't know what you were eating, you might not even guess that they are from the ocean as they possess almost no fishy flavor. Scallops must be treated gently, because when cooked improperly they can become rubbery, not much more pleasing than eating an eraser. They are overshadowed by the breading when deep fried and certainly cannot be casually added to soups or chowders like the tough and durable clam, for when placed in a stew, a scallop disintegrates and almost disappears. Luckily the three scallops I was served, were cooked as they should be, seared in a frying pan with some light seasoning, retaining their richness and slight sweetness.

It was a plate of comfort on this raw, cold November day.

Comfort. After I finished my three scallops, I considered the lengths I sometimes go to while living in Kyrgyzstan to seek out comfort, especially in the form of food. And when I contemplate this excessive comfort I am able to obtain, I always seem to think of those who do not have any comfort in their lives.

What kind of unattainable luxury would three scallops be for most of those who live in Kyrgyzstan? Or for most of the world, indeed? And how many on this planet do not have the comfort of shelter? Or health care? Or clean water? Or are refugees? Those of us who seek comfort without consideration, I wonder about the moral condition we possess. I possess.

Perhaps my eternal fate does not depend upon the three scallops on my plate. But maybe it does depend on the concept of comfort. Advancing our own comfort can be a questionable moral endeavor depending upon the circumstance, but there is no ambiguity about our relationship to the comfort of others. For when we cast a blind eye to the comfort of those in need, then we truly must worry about our fate.

The faith tradition from which I come is quite clear. In the final judgment of humanity, mercy is given to those who provide food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, comfort to the sick and to prisoners, and welcome to all strangers. Providing comfort. That is what we must do as humans. Those who do not provide comfort, do not receive mercy.

This election is all about comfort. The President is offering the opposite. Not only isn't comfort being offered to the stranger or the refugee, but instead, the President is offering 10,000 troops with guns to meet a refugee caravan at our border. No food to the hungry. No comfort to the sick. Even worse, hateful rhetoric is offered, pitting one group against the other. Anyone from my faith tradition who supports this vision offered by the President has actually abandoned their faith tradition completely. That is why this election is so important. Depending upon the results, we will be choosing to believe in a society that attempts to provide aid and comfort to all or to believe in a society where only people from certain privileged groups are considered worthy of receiving the common good.

I suppose I should not worry too much about the three scallops on my plate, as long as I am willing to share two of them, with anyone, each and every day. And as long as I work actively and vote actively to extend comfort and hospitality to all those in need. As our first priority. No matter what.

Go Little Vote, Go!!!

Today I picked up my ballot for the upcoming midterm election at the Central Administration Office. My mother was kind enough to send it to me via DHL and it traveled from Spokane to Seattle to Cincinnati, Ohio, to Leipzig, Germany to the DHL sorting center located "North of Moscow, Russia," ironically enough, then to the Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan DHL Center, to the Central Office, where it came into my possession.

As you can see, I cast my ballot for Democrat Lisa Brown for the U.S. House of Representatives against the Republican Trump Enabler who voted in agreement with Trump's positions over 97% of the time the past two years. Unfortunately, my home 5th District is very Republican, but Brown has an outside chance (about 20%) of winning. If enough Democrats win House races across the U.S. on November 6, the Democrats will take control and will be able to stop some of Trump's terrible policies. And they will be able to investigate some of the horrible corruption that Trump and his minions have been engaging in.

This election is potentially the most important one in my lifetime. If the Democrats cannot take back the House, then Trump will remain unchecked and will be able to engage in even worse actions during the next two years. Everyone out there who is able to, be sure to vote as if your life depends on it, because it actually might.

Even though sending DHL packages back and forth across the planet is horribly expensive, the price is worth it, because the cost of not casting a vote is far, far greater. So, fly back to the polling station, precious little vote and may you be one more tiny voice of dissent against the anti-democratic forces currently in power and my wish is that you will serve as one small drop in a massive blue wave that I hope will be the first step in helping to wash injustice and intolerance out of the mainstream of our political landscape and back into the murky depths from which they have emerged.

The Joy of Pie

(Originally posted, June 30)

I have participated in debates, icebreakers, and other activities where people (Americans) discuss which they prefer: cake or pie. While I enjoy cake, I definitely fall strongly into the pie lovers camp. Although, one can find a nice cake in virtually every country of the world, including Kyrgyzstan, pies are a much rarer commodity.

This evening I went out to dinner with my parents and we all had pie for dessert. It is almost July and yet it is only my first piece of pie of the year. Luckily in the State of Washington it is berry season--cherry and berry pies being my favorite type of pie. I enjoyed a delicious piece of Oregon Marionberry pie (a hybrid cousin of the blackberry only grown in the West) and my parents both enjoyed strawberry-rhubarb pie.

The eating of fruit pie is a reminder that the simplest of pleasures are sometimes the ones that touch our spirits most deeply.

America, the Metric System, and Trump

(Originally posted, September 16)

I always find it fascinating that the United States is basically the only nation on Planet Earth that hasn't adopted the metric system. I have spent much of my adult life living in nations that use the metric system and it is so incredibly amazing how much easier it is to use, if only you adapt for a few days and put your mind to it.

Once you get over your initial resistance and stubborn mindlessness, it is such a joy to work in multiples of 10 rather than in multiples of 3, 12, and 5280. It's not just ease of use and its logical simplicity that makes the metric system superior: if the U.S. were to adopt the metric system, even when considering the initial cost of conversion, most studies indicate that, in the longer term, the U.S. economy would gain billions of dollars from being in sync with the rest of the world.

There's only one reason America doesn't adopt the metric system: most Americans would rather remain trapped in an outdated past than make the effort to transition to a better future, because it would require a little work and a change of mindset.

So, what does this resistance to the metric system have to do with Donald Trump?

Donald Trump is like our antiquated system of measurement. Outdated. A relic of centuries past. Something lesser and inferior to other alternatives out there--a pathetic attachment to a warped vision of the past. Trump and the old measurement system are both attractive to those who are fearful of the changing world and resistant to new realities. 62 million people voted for Trump because they were afraid of the changing demographics of America and frightened of the changes that happen in a chaotic world where few jobs are safe and ways of life are never secure.

Donald Trump is proof that America is actually a very fearful country. The notion that we are a country of dynamic trailblazers may have been more true at one time in our history, but Trump is proof that, outside of a few bustling urban areas of progress and progressiveness, the U.S. is a fundamentally backward-looking country. Trump and our clinging to old ways of measurement, just to name a couple regressive American relics, indicate that American individualism is often more a function of our wanting to be isolated in our own little houses in our own individual cars, away from perceived threats. Just as many of our pioneering ancestors were searching for escape, looking for homesteads isolated from society, not integrated with the rest of the world, the Trumpian tribe of Americans is similarly retreating from facing the future by looking to simple, but ultimately unproductive, answers from the past to comfort them. (Besides, it should always be noted that any nation that accepts human slavery, then racial segregation for 90% of its history should never be considered forward-looking or progressive.)

In fairness, there are two tribes in America: the builders of walls and the builders of bridges. Currently the builders of walls are in control as evidenced by Trump, the stubborn refusal to adopt metric measurement, the rise of American Neo-Nazis, and the presence of a hundred other reactionary features in current American life. Whether those of us who wish to build bridges--we who wish adapt and progress, not only in the way we measure things, but also in our refusal to build walls and to accept the intolerance and bigotry of the Trumpists--will ultimately regain control of our nation's destiny is up to us who care. And we must begin now, one action, one meter at a time.

The most disturbing sign I've ever seen in a public restroom...

(Originally posted, September 18)

Evidently some of the customers at this Kyrgyz roadside eatery have a little difficulty using the facilities. It makes me a little hesitant to order the dinner special. Glad I'm not responsible for cleaning this restroom.

Hobbies

(Originally posted, September 30)

When I was a child my hobbies were collecting baseball cards, climbing trees, and attempting to avoid my daily chores. Now my hobby is cooking assorted pastas and making lasagnas. Today's lasagna was particularly gooey and contained mascarpone cheese, Kyrgyz white cheese, mozzarella, sautéed red peppers, tomato sauce with roasted zucchini, garlic, onions, and best of all: a massive center layer of local morel mushrooms from Jalalabad. Strangely, I have morphed from being an eight-year-old boy into a grandmother from Napoli stranded in the Kyrgyz mountains, although at times I feel I am both.

Back to the Blog

Have not posted anything here for several months.  First, I have not have time to write many posts.  My life has been extraordinarily busy.  And when I have posted, I have been putting things up on my Facebook page.  I will put up a few of my highlighted writings from the past months and will try to put something up here from time to time in the future, as well.

Airplane Applause

(Originally posted April 21)

I am traveling this weekend and my first flight was from Bishkek to Almaty. The landing was a bit bumpy and we hit the tarmac twice. This mediocre piloting was rewarded by enthusiastic applause by most of the passengers.

I've never understood this. Why do passengers in many parts of the world ignore perfect landings and clap their hands enthusiastically for bumpy, horrible landings? Last time I landed in Bishkek was one of the worst landings I have ever ...experienced. We hit the runway going way too fast and bounced three times--and I felt the airplane go slightly sideways and, for one quick second, I wondered if we would end up in a bean field at the end of the runway. Of course, the passengers cheered and clapped as if Kyrgyzstan had won the soccer World Cup. "That landing was so bad we should be booing," I told the woman next to me who was applauding with the zeal one would reserve for an extraordinary performance of the London Philharmonic, but she clearly disagreed.

Why do airline passengers in some parts of the world cheer bumpy landings? It strikes me as being like applauding the dentist whose drilling was especially painful or cheering the uninspiring professor whose lecture had made one fall asleep. Are the passengers so glad they made it back to earth alive that they could not contain their enthusiasm that life continues for another day? Or maybe I am misinterpreting the applause and perhaps Central Asians are more ironic and sarcastic than I have previously realized and their clapping is actually brutal mockery of the hapless pilot? Or is the clapping simply aerobic exercise, preparation designed to limber up one's hands up so that bags can be more easily removed from the overhead bins? I simply do not know.

Maybe the answer is that there is simply something wrong with me and my concept of appreciation. Today I felt like applauding because no one cut in front of me in the check-in line at the Bishkek Airport--a shocking thing indeed. I also felt like cheering when no one elbowed their way past me in the boarding line. And the feat that most deserved a full round of applause, in my opinion, was that none of the elderly passengers, myself included, fell down the stairs at the Almaty Airport as we had to descend 25 steep steps with our luggage as we disembarked the plane.

I just hope on my next flight, to Bangkok, we land as softly as a mother putting her baby into the crib for the night, in an airplane wrapped in silence.

Antidotes

I like to eat chicken, perhaps three or four or even five times per week. When it is served to me 13 times in a given week, I have found that I begin to develop strange symptoms. Just the other day I felt the uncontrollable urge to roost on a perch up above the second-floor campus faculty terrace. And last night on YouTube I watched the movie Chicken Run about a half-dozen times.

Even worse, at breakfast this morning I felt an overwhelming urge to eat some of the dozens of kilos of the millet grain that our campus counselor left me when she moved to Khorog last summer. Without even cooking it! But the very worst symptom is the itching I have been having across my head and body. It appears, I have eaten so much chicken that I am beginning to moult.

I was thinking of visiting the doctor to deal with these frightening symptoms of what appears to be "chickenitis," an extremely rare malady one gets when living at high altitudes while simultaneously being fed a diet far too rich in poultry. But here everything seems to be treated with injections and I was not willing to face the needle today, so I had to find a different antidote.

We all know that you can find the answer to everything in Wikipedia and so I did today when I learned that creating a lavish dish you enjoy and devouring it rapidly can instantly cure the effects of chickenitis. So that is I what I did.

You can see that I created a burrito with whole grain rice, black quinoa, minced garlic (that alone cures many things), scrambled eggs with onion, yellow pepper, and smoked Spanish paprika, along with melted American cheese and hand-crafted honey chipotle sauce on top of homemade roti.

And indeed I devoured it rapidly, in all its chicken-less glory. Better yet, I seem to be cured as I don't ever want to see Chicken Run again and my itching instantly disappeared. Now that's something to crow about.

 

Rice-A-Roni

Marooned on the Giant Yellow Spaceship now for 33 consecutive days, I am left at the mercy of the cooks in the dining hall to develop creative and innovative menus. Doesn't happen. This past week, 13 of the 14 lunches and dinners featured chicken--I never thought to serve boiled chicken before dining in our cafeteria and now I know I would never serve boiled fowl to anyone under any circumstance. The variety of starches isn't much better: plain white rice, plain buckwheat, plain mashed potatoes, plain pasta, and plain roasted potatoes, rotated over and over and over again.

This is why I sometimes retreat to the refuge of my apartment to cook up something entirely different. Today, for lunch I cooked up a box of Rice A Roni. When living in the U.S., I would look upon Rice A Roni as a last resort, if I had nothing else at all in my pantry. Rice A Roni would be among the first items I would donate to a food drive, if I were asked to contribute something to those in need. But, here inside the Yellow Spaceship, the box of Rice A Roni I stuffed inside my suitcase last time I visited America feels almost like a gourmet treat a chef possessing two Michelin stars might create.

Rice A Roni was created in the 1950s during that wondrous era in America when the food industry was inventing all sorts of strange novelties to capture the attention of suburban families eager to try out the newest food innovations advertised on that other new innovation: television. This was also the decade when cheese in a spray can, Jell-O, Tang (powdered artificial orange juice), and TV dinners (frozen meals in aluminum trays) were invented. Rice A Roni is a boxed meal with both rice and macaroni, hence the very clever little name. No more would families need to argue about whether to serve rice or macaroni with dinner, when one could have both!!!

Marketing and advertising was also incredibly important for generating sales of these weird Space Age food products. I still remember the catchy song and lyrics from the Rice A Roni ads I heard on almost a daily basis as a kid: "Rice A Roni, the flavor can't be beat. Rice A Roni, The San Francisco Treat!" The song would be accompanied by an animation of a San Francisco cable car zipping across the City by the Bay. Now, I don't know if Rice A Roni was invented in San Francisco, but I can imagine the ad agency that created the Rice A Roni commercials deciding that people across America would be far more likely to purchase a product that had BOTH rice and macaroni if these gullible consumers thought it came from the sophisticated kitchens of that illustrious city. Though I haven't heard the Rice A Roni song in probably 30 years and the product is no longer advertised on TV, you will notice that the cable car remains as the product logo on the front of the box--and the tagline is still on the box too.

What is important is not the history of Rice A Roni. Instead it is the peculiar mixture of slightly overly-crunchy rice and slightly overly-soggy macaroni that matters. In 60 years, The Golden Grain Company still hasn't developed a product or figured out quite the right cooking time where both the Rice and the Roni have the same consistency. Yet, I loved the bowl of fake cheese and fake broccoli, crunchy rice and soggy noodle I devoured this afternoon. When you are marooned inside a Yellow Spaceship: variety, no matter how odd the manifestation, is indeed the spice of life, especially when it harkens back to a day far in the past when the future seemed so promising and limitless.

Unorthodox Easter

(Originally Posted, April 8)

Living as I do in the giant yellow spaceship, I am often oblivious to pretty much everything outside my very narrow sphere of work-related activities. After all, it has now been 26 days since I've had a full off day and I am looking at 13 more days in UCA orbit before I can flee the spaceship and make a run for it.

That's why I was oblivious to the fact that today is Easter. At this point most Americans I know would send me a note on Messenger to see if I might be able to leave the yellow spaceship as soon as possible as it appears I could be suffering from the kind of space/time disorientation syndrome that afflicts astronauts, college students, ER doctors, and binge Netflix watchers, all of whom being groups who don't keep regular, reasonable hours.

Before you send me your worried messages, I can explain. Today actually is Easter--in the Orthodox Christian calendar. Protestants and Catholics celebrate Easter one week earlier because they follow the Gregorian calendar, while the Orthodox church uses the ancient Julian calendar, no longer utilized in the West. I became aware of this discrepancy when some of my Kazakh students came to me to request a place to dye Easter eggs a couple days ago.

So, today I decided to celebrate a second Easter as I had observed Protestant Easter last week by walking near the local mosque and wondering if the Easter message could survive another year of this planet and all its nonsense. But today I could celebrate Orthodox Easter because however I celebrated it, I had nothing to compare it to and so I couldn't become disillusioned when my reality did not meet any possible expectation I might have.

I spent most of Orthodox Easter as my Grandmother Krauss would have spent any holiday: in the kitchen. Why is it I am resembling my grandmother more with each passing day? That's a frightening thought. At least I am not following her practice of clipping K-Mart coupons or saving hundreds of empty yogurt cups for some undisclosed purpose.

I started my cooking Easter, by making an intricate omelet with red peppers, green onions, and three different cheeses. My unorthodox, Orthodox Easter continued with me making chili (so that I could use my red, green, and yellow peppers that were starting to age a bit--another grandmotherly thing to do), and I finished by baking a cornbread. I am not absolutely certain, but I would bet a large sum of money that making chili and cornbread does not represent customary Orthodox tradition.

Fortunately, my unorthodox Easter contained a small moment that has been a part of Orthodox Easter for centuries. The two Kazakh students who had requested a place to dye their eggs knocked on my door, just as I was about to cut into my freshly-baked cornbread. They were holding a platter of beautiful painted eggs and asked me if I wanted one. Indeed, I did.

As I sat and ate my unorthodox meal, I looked at the egg sitting on my table. At that moment the yellow spaceship seemed slightly less confining and I was pleased to realize that, through all my disillusionment, a platter of eggs might just contain a tiny, unexpected hint of the Easter message after all.

Easter

(Originally Posted, April 1)

I always find that my life feels most disoriented on holidays that are celebrated in the West, but not observed in Kyrgyzstan. Today is Easter, and while there are a few churches in Bishkek and throughout the country, the holiday certainly is as visible and evident here in Naryn as a triple rainbow might be.

Pictured is the nearest house of worship to the giant yellow spaceship in which I live. It is an attractive little mosque with a shining gold dome. I have wonder...ed what it looks like inside, but it is not my place, nor is it right, to enter sacred spaces simply to satisfy personal curiosity and so I shall never know what the mosque across the street from where I live looks like, what the sacred feel of it might be.

I have spent the last ten minutes sitting on my dark blue couch, trying to estimate where the nearest church to me might be situated. I think the closest one is a tiny Russian Orthodox chapel, just the other side of Dolon Pass, perhaps 70 kilometers from where I reside. And I'm not sure services are even held there anymore, because in the multitude of times I've driven by the chapel I've never seen any evidence of it ever being used.

What a contrast it is to the previous I place I lived, a town of 10,000 people, where churches seemed to almost outnumber houses. There must have been at least a dozen Baptist churches of various shapes and sizes within 5 kilometers of me in that Arkansan enclave, not even counting all the other kinds of churches present there. Yet I am not confident I could say whether it was that town in Arkansas or this one in Kyrgyzstan that feels more Christian to me, or if the message of Easter feels alive in any place I know.

Perhaps it is because I realize that, yes, tradition matters and observance of our religious beliefs is important, but ultimately Easter, or any religious observance, is alive only in the way it lives in our hearts and in how we take what is in our hearts and how we apply this living message to our lives in the world. The Easter message can have meaning to someone, no matter where a person might be, even if it would take that person a five-day ride in a yak cart to get to the nearest place of worship. Or it can be dead in the middle of a town with twenty five churches.

When I stop typing this post, I will leave my apartment and stand across the street from the mosque with the golden dome, far from any church, and contemplate the message of sacrificing self for the benefit of others that is the cornerstone of the Easter message. Then I will return to my apartment, where are there are no roasted hams, no Easter eggs, or bunnies, or anything resembling my memories of Easter and I will wonder whatever happened to the Easter message, and I will contemplate how the world and me and everything else in between ended up where it is today.
 

Art, Democracy, and the Abstract

Next to my hotel in Virginia was a sculpture park dedicated to celebrating the military experience in America. I stood and gazed at the sculptures for a time before I figured out what was bothering me about them: there was nothing even vaguely abstract about the sculptures at all.

Now, I will admit that occasionally I have difficulty deciphering abstract art and its meaning and, at times, I wonder if the splotches of paint strewn across the wall are nothing more than an artist's fiendish prank to fool the pretentious among us into believing that they are analyzing meaningful art, when, in fact, they are merely looking at paint splotches. I have to remind myself that the fact I can't decipher a piece of art doesn't mean that the work is indecipherable; instead, it could be that I haven't the tools or knowledge inside me to do the deciphering or maybe my imagination isn't sufficiently expansive to see what the artist is able to imagine more clearly than me.

I have captured the images of two of the sculptures. Can you guess what the title of the first sculpture is? Why, it's called "The Homecoming." But, what else could it be titled? No one, except perhaps someone completely lacking the sense of vision, could misunderstand the scene that is being depicted, and I suspect that the meaning is so obvious and overt that even the blind can sense that they are in the presence of "The Homecoming" when they walk by it unsuspectingly, while conducting their daily errands.

The second sculpture called "Pilots, Man Your Planes," of course, depicts pilots running to man their planes. Again, almost nothing is left to the viewer's imagination, except perhaps the identity of the enemy who might be forcing these two pilots to dash so quickly toward their airplanes. And even that doesn't matter as the viewer need only fill in the "enemy of the day" and assume that it is that enemy who is being responded to.

Come to think of it, there are few military monuments that are abstract in nature. When war is the topic, there is no gray area, nothing is abstract, imagination is not required--there are enemies and there is the valor of "our" side. The abstract and the ambiguous are the enemy of those who want to force nations and their people into bloody battle. After all justice, ecumenicism, tolerance, and peace are abstractions, in a sense, that do not lend themselves to such clear-cut depictions and easy sculpting.

If we consider historical example, the abstract is also the enemy of dictators and totalitarian regimes. The Nazis of Germany took great lengths to condemn and destroy what they termed "decadent art," almost all of it abstract, almost all of it deviating from the clear propaganda the state wanted its citizens to take in without thought. Not much in Soviet Art was abstract either, particularly if the dozens of Soviet sculptures I saw in the old Kyrgyz Historical museum are a guide. And now in the U.S., more and more of those from the right wing, Trump supporters, and Republicans lash out against "decadent" art, and abstraction they don't understand or that they find threatening; these groups cut funding from the arts and insist that art fit their narrow conception of the truth. Perhaps it is no coincidence that this assault upon abstraction and the concept of art as a whole has taken place at the same time our democracy has begun to collapse. A democratic society that cannot cope with alternative visions and with the abstract is one that is danger of being overrun by the undemocratic vision of those in power.

I left the non-abstract sculpture park after listening to my fellow park visitors gush expansively at how wonderful and patriotic the sculptures were and how refreshing it was to have public art that everyone can understand--none of that horrible, indecipherable trash, they cheered. The failure of civic imagination, tolerance of only dominant and clearly understood messages, hostility toward alternate visions, and identification of the "decadent"--all are hallmarks of societies where democracy is imperiled or absent altogether. It seemed that only I left the sculpture park that day lacking a warm glow in my heart and possessing a deeper understanding of the descent into darkness into which our society has embarked.

The Homecoming

Pilots, Man your Planes!!!

The Sea

I reside deep in the Kyrgyz mountains, far from the sea. In fact, I have heard that none of the water in Kyrgyzstan even ends up draining into any ocean; every drop of rain that falls or snowflake that melts there stays contained in the highland basins of Central Asia. That is how distant the sea is from the Kyrgyz experience. The moon seems closer and more real to me, though it is not a part of this planet, because I see it almost every night, whereas I feel the sea almost does not exist when I gaze out into the Kyrgyz sky.

This week I am staying meters away from the sea. I hear its rhythmic song as I open my hotel room window and observe the gulls diving across the water in search of food. The Kyrgyz mountains are impressive and I am in awe of their imposing heights, yet the sea is a greater source of mystery as one can trace the point where a mountain touches the sky, but the depth of the ocean cannot ever be perceived from any vantage point, especially from the shore. No wonder tales of mermaids and sea monsters have inhabited the human imagination for so long. Those sorts of creatures are what we humans conjure up when we cannot observe what exists deep beyond our sight.

It is also the expanse and magnitude of the sea that confounds us: it is as close to infinity as we can experience on this planet as the endless heavens are really beyond our earthly capacity to experience and comprehend. When I stand on the shore, I am overwhelmed and feel hopelessly small when facing the largest and greatest feature of our planet as nothing is more immense than the enormous mass of ocean that covers this earth. Each wave that rolls upon the sand is a child of the wave that preceded it and is related to all the ancestors that have rolled upon the land in the billions of years prior to when any of us were here. This cycle of wave after wave has never stopped, has never ceased. Each wave is like a grain in an almost infinite hourglass that measures time almost endlessly. It is a reminder that the sea is the mother of almost everything that exists here on our planet.

Walking along the ocean and inhaling the salty, thick, and heavy air is the greatest joy I experience away from the thin atmosphere of the mountains. But, I will only be able to enjoy a few more days of this luxury before I return to the heights and to life in the giant yellow spaceship in which I live. Sea and sky, earth and mountain, air and water, sun and moon--the elements of life, so seldom do I consider them, yet each day they affect me in ways I do not always comprehend. Before I leave the sea, I will let the freezing salt water wash over my feet, sand between my toes, to remind me of the place in the great infinity in which I've had the good fortune to reside.

What I Found a Short Walk from our Nation's Capitol

While I was in Washington D.C. waiting for my train for Virginia, I took a walk near Union Station and the Capitol Building. Just six blocks from the capitol I stumbled across this small tent village for homeless people.

Six blocks away from the Capitol Building, where just weeks ago Congress passed a tax cut that put billions and billions of dollars into the pockets of the richest Americans, I found a group of my fellow citizens with not much more than the clothes on their backs living on the streets. Thank goodness Congress has its priorities straight, passing a tax bill where well over half the benefits of the bill go to the richest 1% of Americans.

Donald Trump and his Republican minions have passed a tax bill that increases their personal fortunes dramatically, while ignoring poor Americans completely. We live in a country where there are homeless on the streets, almost inside the shadow cast by the building where these unjust laws are made.

Time was running short, so I had to return to Union Station to catch my train. As I boarded the southbound Northeast Regional, I realized I am from a country that has lost its soul and concern for the common good and I wondered if it is even possible for us to regain what has, for the moment, disappeared.

The Meaning of Accepting Pineapple

Often when I post highly political topics on Facebook, I barely get a response. When I mention the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who have been persecuted, raped, and killed in Myanmar and the refugee crisis that has followed and the responsibility each of us has to help, I hear silence. Or I note that millions of American children could lose their health care (causing many children to potentially die), because of Trump's budget...barely a whisper.

That's OK, I suppose. We have enough to deal with in our lives; it's difficult to comprehend and cope with such depressing topics that seem so beyond the ability of one person to impact upon.

There is one pressing social topic, however, that, when it is brought up on social media, it is guaranteed to set off a firestorm of debate: should pineapple ever be placed on pizza? This is one debate that never goes uncommented upon.

I, of course, count myself among those who relishes pineapple on my pizza, especially when paired with Canadian bacon or ham. I have lived in Italy and know that it is an offense to all Italians and many others who live throughout the world. Still, I cannot resist the culinary goodness that comes from pairing pineapple with tomato sauce, mozzarella, and Canadian bacon, upon a platform of crispy crust. The howls of protest and indignation and, sometimes even, condemnation I have received for my pineapple love are really quite surprising in their intensity. But it does not matter. I do not cast moral judgment upon those who cover their pizzas with wretched anchovies or the Japanese for smothering their pizzas with tuna, mayonnaise, and corn. And I will continue to eat my pizzas with pineapple, as it harms no one and provides me with great pleasure.

Recently, I committed my joyful offense at Mario's the trendy Italian restaurant in Bishkek. They have a wonderful wood furnace in which they bake their handcrafted pizzas. And as certain as the sun rises I ordered a ham and pineapple pizza, unashamed by my unorthodox choice. I could feel the judgment of the American couple seated near me as they gazed upon what I ordered, the scowls I could detect out of the corner of my eye was evidence of that. "You eat pineapple on your pizza?" the woman asked me, from her table, with a haughty tone of superiority. "No," I replied. "I just order it to start unwanted conversations with annoying people like you."

Strangely, for some reason, my comment ended the conversation. I don't know why. Despite the awkward silence that ensued, oh how I enjoyed the culinary delight of pineapple on my taste buds, combined with all the goodness of that which makes a perfect pizza.

Pineapple on pizza. It is a metaphor. I consider all the many aspects of life we disapprove of in others. Some of us detest the music of younger generations. Others don't like the clothing or language or mannerisms of various groups they encounter. We are offended when people don't place ice in our beverages, or when they do. Or if someone doesn't believe in God. Or hates Manchester United. Or everything. Most of these discomforts and disapprovals are so trivial, and matter so little, and advance nothing in the world, and don't help us achieve understanding with anyone. OK, so most of these items I have listed are more significant than pineapple on pizza. Yet, it is the same concept: so many of our disapprovals and cultural displeasures aren't cosmically important, but we hold them anyway, even if they divide us. No one is asking anyone else to eat pineapple on their pizza; instead, why don't we all just appreciate the diversity of toppings that we find in this diverse world?

When I had finished my pizza and the wait person had taken my plate away, the remainder of the restaurant breathed a sigh of relief that my offending order had been removed. My taste buds remained content, yet I was saddened when I realized that I lived on a planet where pineapple on a pizza created such trouble and where the Rohingya people go to bed tonight in as desperate misery as they did the night before.

The Failure of "Thoughts and Prayers"

(This essay was originally posted on Facebook a few days after the Parkland school shootings.)

A couple days ago I posted something where I condemned Republicans for only offering "thoughts and prayers" as a response to the latest mass shooting in the U.S. A college student friend of mine responded to my post by writing, "I wonder if thoughts and prayers would work instead of me studying."

That was actually an extremely brilliant piece of snarky writing. Of course, if any student I had ever taught had come to me with an explanation for their poor test score, that they had not studied, but had instead simply "thought and prayed" I would have laughed them out of my classroom. Students have a responsibility to study and work to get their grades and we would never expect God to intervene to help Alice or Bob get a better grade on the test I'd given to my class on Macbeth. Then why do we think prayers are the answer to other, even more serious, problems we face?

Prayer is something that people expect too much from. They think that God sits in the sky and sorts through every request, like Santa Claus, and grants the wishes of those whose prayers are the most sincere or of those who are the best behaved. But, remember, there is no Santa in reality, and no Santa-like God. Prayer is far more complicated than that.

I think the Holocaust should have put an end to the idea that thoughts and prayers can overturn great evil simply by being spoken. Were there no prayers sent to God by the millions who found themselves in concentration camps? I would expect there were multitudes of nightly prayers launched from Auschwitz, Dachau, and other similarly horrifying places. What kind of God ignores those prayers? A "Christian" I knew answered that question by saying their prayers were not answered because those prayers were not sent by Christians who had been saved. What kind of God ignores those prayers, regardless of who they are from? A God who ignores the prayers of the Holocaust because of the beliefs of the senders is not a God worthy any sort of worship.

But, the problems is not God, it is with humans. We don't realize that if God intervenes on the behalf of one, He/She must intervene on behalf of all. And the fact the world does not work in this way is abundantly clear. Some who pray end up dying of cancer and some are cured. There is no way of knowing the reasons why the mysterious occurs and why it often doesn't--the answers have not yet been discovered and they probably never will be. Perhaps the answer is related, though, to the idea that God, if there is such an entity, has given us the precious gift of free will, and when we possess the gift of free will, there is no puppeteer to fall back on when life takes a dismal turn. With free will we are left to take our faith in God, use our free will, and put God's will into action, that is the human fate. It is our responsibility to be doers, going beyond simple utterance of thoughts and prayers.
Prayer, rather than being a plea to some cosmic Santa, is, instead, a way for humans to meditate and to try to find a sense of the spiritual to help guide us to discover the path of truth and light and to discern what God's will might be: prayer is not begging for God to do something, it is establishing a dialogue where we work to seek the truth that exists in what is transcendent. Then, after this process, it is our responsibility, just like it is the responsibility of the student to study to pass their test, to do the work needed to put what is right and good and true into practice into the world in which we find ourselves. The world will never become transformed until those who possess faith realize that WE are usually the answer to our prayers.

Thoughts and prayers. They have their place. But when we face great horrors in the world, whether it be the Holocaust or endless slaughter of our fellow humans because of guns being prevalent everywhere, we then have a duty to take our thoughts and prayers and put them into action so that we do whatever we can to eliminate the harm to our brothers and sisters around us. To do anything less is an affront to those who have perished and indeed is an affront to God, who expects far more from us than mouthing hopeful words that simply evaporate into the sky.

More Adventures in Personal Grooming

This weekend I went to visit my barber at Mr. Nice in Bishkek. Though I do not enjoy visiting the barber, I felt prepared this time as I had already endured most of the techniques that my haircutter had previously subjected me to.

The crucial moment of the haircut is not the haircut at all, but the removal of the hair inside my ears--such are the worries of men of my advancing years. But, I had already faced the process of singeing, where my barber took fire and set my ears on fire as a method of removing that unsightly and pesky ear hair.

This time when he asked me, "Ears?" Ahhh, I was ready and gave him my most confident and self-assured, "Yes!" I should have known something was wrong, when he asked a second question, "Nose?"

Let me provide the gentle reader with some words of wisdom. When someone asks you a yes/no question, that you are not certain what the answer should be, perhaps "No" is the better default answer than the yes I gave my barber. I hadn't really thought it through, that indeed, I was agreeing that my nostrils should also be set on fire.

I closed my eyes as tightly as when I was a child watching a scary movie, anticipating a frightening scene about to take place. But, I figured, that I had already survived my prior meeting with fire, I would able to handle flame inside my nose.

I waited, but nothing happened. No blazing heat against my skin.

I opened my eyes, just in time to witness my barber inserting a giant, 20cm cotton swab inside my nose. Instead of fire, I felt a blob of hot goo swirled around my nostrils. Then another swab inside my other nostril. Then the same swabs inserted inside both my ears. I took a quick glimpse into the giant barbershop mirror--I appeared to be the victim of some fiendish outer-space alien who had inserted probes inside me to determine if I was some form of intelligent life.

As I gazed at my strange new reflection, that is when the sinking feeling filled me that I was about to face a fate much worse than fire. It was hot wax that had been shoved inside me. "Oh no, OH NO!" I shouted silently to myself. I had heard stories from many women I have known, complaining about the pain of waxing the hair off their legs. But, no one that I had ever known, had ever been insane enough to think it a great idea to wax their nostrils and their ears. Except my sadistic barber.

It was like the moment I was I riding a car, that I knew was about to crash. There is nothing one can do, except brace for the pain.

Rip! The wax from the first nostril was torn abruptly from the skin. Pain, yes, but not unendurable. Rip. Other nostril. I really must buy myself one of those little battery-powered nose-hair trimmers, I thought to myself. Rip. First ear. Skin inside one's ear might be slightly more sensitive than that inside one's nose, I determined at that moment. Rip. That wasn't even as bad as a bee sting, I concluded, my best philosophical effort at self-consolation.

I leaned back in the barber chair, savoring the relief one feels when pain subsides. That's when I felt the blast of heat against my ear. "Wait a second," I shouted silently to myself again. "That's not fair. I get both the wax AND the fire." More proof there is no justice in the world.

After my second ear was singed, I took a giant sigh of relief knowing that my ordeal was finished and my visit to the barber was almost done. That's when he rubbed his hands together with some very pleasant-smelling lotion to spread across my ears and face to provide some comfort to my distressed skin. Little did I know that he had chosen Eau de Stinging Nettle as the lotion of choice for the day. Burning worse than the hot wax torn from my nostrils or fire torched across my ears, this infernal lotion had come from Satan's barbershop, where the condemned receive their daily grooming.

I left the barbershop thoroughly defeated, yet without a follicle of hair left in any inappropriate orifice. I wondered what our hairy ancestors of 50,000 years ago looked like with their ears and noses sprouting inappropriate hair like lush tufts of prairie grass. They didn't care; they were just trying not to starve or be eaten by wild animals. It is a testament to evolution and our magnificently advanced civilization that instead of evading dangerous beasts, we now enjoy the privilege of spending weekend afternoons having gobs of wax ripped from inside our noses.

A Scene from January 27th in Bishkek

I am not exactly sure if the GUM shopping center is a month late in removing their Christmas decorations or eleven months early in putting them up. A Happy February Christmas to you all!