Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
Edelweiss - Part 2
I had just become a teenager when my grandmother took me to her home town. Aachen was a charming city -- the winter home and final resting place of the great ruler Charlemagne and frequented throughout history by people seeking healing from its natural hot springs. To this day, I remember it vividly.
There was a massive cathedral in the center of the city. My grandmother told us it was the oldest of its kind in all of Europe and that Charlemagne himself commissioned its construction. Protruding from the wall in the vestibule was a statue of an open lion’s mouth. When Gran Gran was a child, Omi used to tell her that if she put her hand in the lion’s mouth, the beast would magically come alive and snap her fingers off. Truth be told, it was a frightening figure to see in a church.
Our hotel was called The Quellenhof. It was old, resembling a British palace. My cousin Scarlotte and I loved walking up and down the enormous wooden stair case to our room. We would hold our chins high and tell each other we were Deutschland princesses. It was at The Quellenhof that I was first introduced to the bidet. One evening, my grandmother found Scarlotte and me turning on the water full blast, sending the stream straight up to the ceiling. She was mortified.
One morning after breakfast, we walked through a small park that served as a supersized median between two streets. In the center of the park was a large circular flowerbed full of purple, white, and yellow blooms. It was protected by a brown steel railing that came up to my knees. I did not think much of it. Germany was full of flower arrangements and lush city parks.
Gran Gran walked up to the railing and stared at the dirt as if she could see right through it. After a moment, she looked over her shoulder and called for me to come. I walked up beside her. She looked very sad and almost instantly weary. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, she spoke.
“Do you see those flowers, Elissibiss? Beneath the flowers is a bunker. Omi and I used to run to this place during the air raids. We would run down that street, you see?” She pointed with a frail, wrinkled finger. It was as if the bombs were falling then and there. “It would be so loud,” she whispered, “and I would run as fast and as hard as I could. ‘Komm schnell,’ Omi would scream.” Come quick!
It was eerie. An underground bunker, but now somehow befitting: unmarked, but all covered with flowers. A grave lavished with blossoms to cover the scars of the past.
My grandmother turned from the flowers and began to walk towards the street. When she reached the curb, she looked up at the roof tops of the adjacent buildings and like a bloodhound, locked her senses onto a target. This time, she did not have to call my name. I had remained close by her side.
“Look. There. On top of those apartments. Do you see it?” She lifted her arm and pointed her finger to direct my view.
It looked like a black soldier’s helmet stuck on the top of a pole. Its silhouette cut through the blue sky like a shadow in a spotlight. It stood over all the passing people and cars and cast down moments best forgotten.
“That’s an air raid siren,” she said. “I guess they never took it down. Maybe they kept it just in case. Just in case it should happen again. They would sound the sirens, and usually in the middle of the night. That’s how we knew it was time to hide. Sometimes, if the bombing wasn’t too bad, we would just hide in the basement we shared with our neighbors. Aachen was one of the first cities to be bombed.”
Traffic slowed, and we crossed the street. We walked a couple of blocks down rolling brick streets until we reached an intersection with a nice-sized corner store. “Schorn” was written above the glass frontage, and all kinds of miscellaneous merchandise were displayed in the windows. Above the store was an elegant home decorated with sculptures and chiseled ornate designs. Through the windows, I could see fine drapes. Even the hardware on the door was nicely polished.
“This was my home, and that was my family’s store. My cousin, Hans, runs the shop now, and I have no idea who is living in the house. See that top window? That was my bedroom. And that one, right there, that was our kitchen. And see the big curved windows that wrap around the corner? That was our living room.” Gran Gran paused for a moment.
“One night, through that window, a bomb came in. We were all down in the basement hiding, but my friend, Manfried, was in that room. He was hit by the bomb. It exploded around his body. You see, Elizabeth, he was Jewish, and we could not take him into the basement with us. People would know he was a Jew, then he could no longer hide upstairs. The living room was as close to the ground as he could get. It was just the way it was back then. People did not understand and accept other people like they do now. I will never forget …”
I did not ask any questions, and she did not offer any more explanations. Fear seeped into my stomach.
“Come on.” She said.
We walked across the street and into the shop. Cousin Hans was waiting.
-----------
My final exam for senior social studies was not an exam at all. It was an essay on the effect of history in our own personal lives. The assignment was to look into our families’ past, then find an interesting person to interview. We were to write about this interview in a final essay. Many of my classmates interviewed their parents about civil rights, Vietnam, Woodstock, and the Cold War. One kid even bragged that his grandfather was a D-day survivor.
I wanted to interview Gran Gran. Her story was sure to impress my teacher. I knew that not every student had a German war survivor hanging from a branch of their family tree. I needed an A on the final in order to make an A in the class, but it would not be the end of the world if I didn’t get it. I had already been accepted to college.
The problem with interviewing my grandmother was that she hated to talk about The War, and even more than that, she hated people knowing she had been a part of it. Maybe she feared Barbara Walters and a camera crew would come knocking on her door, or maybe she was afraid that the people in Opelika would look at her somehow differently. Maybe she feared the equation that might be applied to her: World War II + German = Nazi. She enjoyed being part of society’s woodwork – just a quiet little old woman walking her dog through Municipal Park.
She had already overcome adversity in America, and I don’t think she wanted to open old wounds. Small-town Alabamians did not greet her with their infamous southern hospitality when she first arrived after The War. After being seasick for a week and shoved through Ellis Island, she had hoped Opelika would bring a clean slate and a new life in the land of liberty and justice. In many cases, she would have been better off a black woman drinking from the white fountain, than a German, fresh off the boat, living next door to a soldier’s grieving mother.
It was a hard phone call to make, but I did it despite my anxiety. I asked her if I could come over and interview her for a school project. She was hesitant, but eventually agreed. I drove over to her house with a tape recorder and a notebook. My teacher had given us a list of sample questions to ask in our interviews, but I didn’t bring it along. Talking about The War with Gran Gran could not be prompted. It just had to flow out. That’s the way it always was.
I sat on a footstool, and she sat in her recliner. She asked me to please not hand in the tape, and not to let other people have it. I promised her that I would only keep the tape for myself. She leaned back in her chair, took a long sip of cranberry juice and Sprite, and began to speak.
“In late November or early December 1944, Omi and I had fled Aachen across the border into Belgium. We thought it would be safer there. It was early winter, but the snows were already very heavy. It was extremely cold, and food was hard to come by.
“We could not have chosen a worse time to flee. Have you ever read or heard about the Battle of the Bulge, Elissibiss? I think it was Hitler’s last major stand against the United States and Britain. Omi and I got stuck in the middle of it.
“We found a potato cellar in the Belgian countryside to hide in. There were other people hiding in the cellar with us. I think that most of them were from Belgium and maybe one from France. We were all afraid, hungry, and desperate.
“One day, we all felt the ground shake and the cellar rumble. It was different from the bombings we had become accustomed to. This was a constant roar. The people started screaming and chaos filled the cellar. A woman looked out and saw tanks coming from the west. It was the Americans.”
She took a troubled sip of cranberry and Sprite.
“The people in the cellar began to murmur for someone who knew how to speak English. Omi spoke up and told them I could do it. She told them I had been privileged enough to attend fine schools in Aachen, and that I could speak bits and pieces of many languages, but was very fluent in English.
“They gave me a white handkerchief and told me to stand in front of the oncoming tanks. I was supposed to tell the Americans that we needed their help. I was so afraid, Elissibiss. The tanks were enormous and deadly. I was only eighteen.
“I walked out across the snow and into the path of the oncoming tanks. With my heart pounding and my entire body shaking, I closed my eyes and shook the handkerchief in the cold air. I felt certain they would run me over without a thought. I had made it through air raids, train bombings, and interrogations, and now I was going to die at the hands of the people who had come to liberate me.
“To my surprise, the lead tank stopped, and a very hard spoken soldier came out. I wept and begged him for mercy and for help. I told him I was German, but that I was no harm to him. He asked me how many people were in the potato cellar. I was so scared that I bumbled and mumbled and could not recall.
He screamed, ‘Listen to me, woman. How many Germans are in that cellar? I want you to think long and hard about that question, because if you lie to me now, I will cut your head off right here in the snow.’
I hesitated. I could hardly think. I told him that the only Germans in the cellar were my mother and me. But Elissibiss, I did not really know for sure. I prayed that none of the people hiding with me had been dishonest. I didn’t know for sure. A group of soldiers infiltrated the cellar. My body fell limp as a dish rag when it was finally confirmed: I had told the man the truth.
The Americans helped us all that day. They took us into their caravan, and I think they set people up in protected refugee camps once they got into Germany. As for me and Omi, once the Americans discovered that we were not Nazis and that I spoke both German and English, they set me up as an interpreter for General Patton and his forces, and let Omi live and travel with me.
The Americans took good care of us until The War was over. We had food and shelter, and once, when I became very ill, they got me penicillin from a ration reserved for their own troops.”
Her focus returned from visions of the past, and she was looking at me again.
“Do you think that’s enough for your paper?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think that’ll be plenty.” I said. I smiled at her.
There was a massive cathedral in the center of the city. My grandmother told us it was the oldest of its kind in all of Europe and that Charlemagne himself commissioned its construction. Protruding from the wall in the vestibule was a statue of an open lion’s mouth. When Gran Gran was a child, Omi used to tell her that if she put her hand in the lion’s mouth, the beast would magically come alive and snap her fingers off. Truth be told, it was a frightening figure to see in a church.
Our hotel was called The Quellenhof. It was old, resembling a British palace. My cousin Scarlotte and I loved walking up and down the enormous wooden stair case to our room. We would hold our chins high and tell each other we were Deutschland princesses. It was at The Quellenhof that I was first introduced to the bidet. One evening, my grandmother found Scarlotte and me turning on the water full blast, sending the stream straight up to the ceiling. She was mortified.
One morning after breakfast, we walked through a small park that served as a supersized median between two streets. In the center of the park was a large circular flowerbed full of purple, white, and yellow blooms. It was protected by a brown steel railing that came up to my knees. I did not think much of it. Germany was full of flower arrangements and lush city parks.
Gran Gran walked up to the railing and stared at the dirt as if she could see right through it. After a moment, she looked over her shoulder and called for me to come. I walked up beside her. She looked very sad and almost instantly weary. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, she spoke.
“Do you see those flowers, Elissibiss? Beneath the flowers is a bunker. Omi and I used to run to this place during the air raids. We would run down that street, you see?” She pointed with a frail, wrinkled finger. It was as if the bombs were falling then and there. “It would be so loud,” she whispered, “and I would run as fast and as hard as I could. ‘Komm schnell,’ Omi would scream.” Come quick!
It was eerie. An underground bunker, but now somehow befitting: unmarked, but all covered with flowers. A grave lavished with blossoms to cover the scars of the past.
My grandmother turned from the flowers and began to walk towards the street. When she reached the curb, she looked up at the roof tops of the adjacent buildings and like a bloodhound, locked her senses onto a target. This time, she did not have to call my name. I had remained close by her side.
“Look. There. On top of those apartments. Do you see it?” She lifted her arm and pointed her finger to direct my view.
It looked like a black soldier’s helmet stuck on the top of a pole. Its silhouette cut through the blue sky like a shadow in a spotlight. It stood over all the passing people and cars and cast down moments best forgotten.
“That’s an air raid siren,” she said. “I guess they never took it down. Maybe they kept it just in case. Just in case it should happen again. They would sound the sirens, and usually in the middle of the night. That’s how we knew it was time to hide. Sometimes, if the bombing wasn’t too bad, we would just hide in the basement we shared with our neighbors. Aachen was one of the first cities to be bombed.”
Traffic slowed, and we crossed the street. We walked a couple of blocks down rolling brick streets until we reached an intersection with a nice-sized corner store. “Schorn” was written above the glass frontage, and all kinds of miscellaneous merchandise were displayed in the windows. Above the store was an elegant home decorated with sculptures and chiseled ornate designs. Through the windows, I could see fine drapes. Even the hardware on the door was nicely polished.
“This was my home, and that was my family’s store. My cousin, Hans, runs the shop now, and I have no idea who is living in the house. See that top window? That was my bedroom. And that one, right there, that was our kitchen. And see the big curved windows that wrap around the corner? That was our living room.” Gran Gran paused for a moment.
“One night, through that window, a bomb came in. We were all down in the basement hiding, but my friend, Manfried, was in that room. He was hit by the bomb. It exploded around his body. You see, Elizabeth, he was Jewish, and we could not take him into the basement with us. People would know he was a Jew, then he could no longer hide upstairs. The living room was as close to the ground as he could get. It was just the way it was back then. People did not understand and accept other people like they do now. I will never forget …”
I did not ask any questions, and she did not offer any more explanations. Fear seeped into my stomach.
“Come on.” She said.
We walked across the street and into the shop. Cousin Hans was waiting.
-----------
My final exam for senior social studies was not an exam at all. It was an essay on the effect of history in our own personal lives. The assignment was to look into our families’ past, then find an interesting person to interview. We were to write about this interview in a final essay. Many of my classmates interviewed their parents about civil rights, Vietnam, Woodstock, and the Cold War. One kid even bragged that his grandfather was a D-day survivor.
I wanted to interview Gran Gran. Her story was sure to impress my teacher. I knew that not every student had a German war survivor hanging from a branch of their family tree. I needed an A on the final in order to make an A in the class, but it would not be the end of the world if I didn’t get it. I had already been accepted to college.
The problem with interviewing my grandmother was that she hated to talk about The War, and even more than that, she hated people knowing she had been a part of it. Maybe she feared Barbara Walters and a camera crew would come knocking on her door, or maybe she was afraid that the people in Opelika would look at her somehow differently. Maybe she feared the equation that might be applied to her: World War II + German = Nazi. She enjoyed being part of society’s woodwork – just a quiet little old woman walking her dog through Municipal Park.
She had already overcome adversity in America, and I don’t think she wanted to open old wounds. Small-town Alabamians did not greet her with their infamous southern hospitality when she first arrived after The War. After being seasick for a week and shoved through Ellis Island, she had hoped Opelika would bring a clean slate and a new life in the land of liberty and justice. In many cases, she would have been better off a black woman drinking from the white fountain, than a German, fresh off the boat, living next door to a soldier’s grieving mother.
It was a hard phone call to make, but I did it despite my anxiety. I asked her if I could come over and interview her for a school project. She was hesitant, but eventually agreed. I drove over to her house with a tape recorder and a notebook. My teacher had given us a list of sample questions to ask in our interviews, but I didn’t bring it along. Talking about The War with Gran Gran could not be prompted. It just had to flow out. That’s the way it always was.
I sat on a footstool, and she sat in her recliner. She asked me to please not hand in the tape, and not to let other people have it. I promised her that I would only keep the tape for myself. She leaned back in her chair, took a long sip of cranberry juice and Sprite, and began to speak.
“In late November or early December 1944, Omi and I had fled Aachen across the border into Belgium. We thought it would be safer there. It was early winter, but the snows were already very heavy. It was extremely cold, and food was hard to come by.
“We could not have chosen a worse time to flee. Have you ever read or heard about the Battle of the Bulge, Elissibiss? I think it was Hitler’s last major stand against the United States and Britain. Omi and I got stuck in the middle of it.
“We found a potato cellar in the Belgian countryside to hide in. There were other people hiding in the cellar with us. I think that most of them were from Belgium and maybe one from France. We were all afraid, hungry, and desperate.
“One day, we all felt the ground shake and the cellar rumble. It was different from the bombings we had become accustomed to. This was a constant roar. The people started screaming and chaos filled the cellar. A woman looked out and saw tanks coming from the west. It was the Americans.”
She took a troubled sip of cranberry and Sprite.
“The people in the cellar began to murmur for someone who knew how to speak English. Omi spoke up and told them I could do it. She told them I had been privileged enough to attend fine schools in Aachen, and that I could speak bits and pieces of many languages, but was very fluent in English.
“They gave me a white handkerchief and told me to stand in front of the oncoming tanks. I was supposed to tell the Americans that we needed their help. I was so afraid, Elissibiss. The tanks were enormous and deadly. I was only eighteen.
“I walked out across the snow and into the path of the oncoming tanks. With my heart pounding and my entire body shaking, I closed my eyes and shook the handkerchief in the cold air. I felt certain they would run me over without a thought. I had made it through air raids, train bombings, and interrogations, and now I was going to die at the hands of the people who had come to liberate me.
“To my surprise, the lead tank stopped, and a very hard spoken soldier came out. I wept and begged him for mercy and for help. I told him I was German, but that I was no harm to him. He asked me how many people were in the potato cellar. I was so scared that I bumbled and mumbled and could not recall.
He screamed, ‘Listen to me, woman. How many Germans are in that cellar? I want you to think long and hard about that question, because if you lie to me now, I will cut your head off right here in the snow.’
I hesitated. I could hardly think. I told him that the only Germans in the cellar were my mother and me. But Elissibiss, I did not really know for sure. I prayed that none of the people hiding with me had been dishonest. I didn’t know for sure. A group of soldiers infiltrated the cellar. My body fell limp as a dish rag when it was finally confirmed: I had told the man the truth.
The Americans helped us all that day. They took us into their caravan, and I think they set people up in protected refugee camps once they got into Germany. As for me and Omi, once the Americans discovered that we were not Nazis and that I spoke both German and English, they set me up as an interpreter for General Patton and his forces, and let Omi live and travel with me.
The Americans took good care of us until The War was over. We had food and shelter, and once, when I became very ill, they got me penicillin from a ration reserved for their own troops.”
Her focus returned from visions of the past, and she was looking at me again.
“Do you think that’s enough for your paper?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think that’ll be plenty.” I said. I smiled at her.
Friday, March 9, 2007
C-SPAN
“I don't know what I'm going to write about this one,” Cleshonda said, and I agreed. With the rest of our class we stood in the afternoon heat. The sun bore down on us the second we exited the C-SPAN bus and gathered in the parking lot. It had been a brief, unexpected lecture given on a cool couch facing buttons and TV screens.
A chatty man with a black rat tail relayed anecdotes about the big days in C-SPAN history. A camera crew from a local station popped in to film us, which I found ironic, since I'd just told Elizabeth that I'd be O.K., “as long as we aren't filmed, I hate being on TV.” Then after a few jotted notes, a free pen and pamphlet, we were prematurely tossed back into the real world.
Wasn't what I expected at all.
Having toured CNN headquarters last summer, I expected a watered down version—part propaganda, part politics, part control room demonstration. Maybe we would get to do one of those cool fake broadcasts, or deliver the weather, or film something. Although, the CNN tour wasn't exactly what I had expected either, but I did get a wave from one of their anchors...I've forgotten their names now.
But Cleshonda's words rang in my head as I walked back to my car following the field trip. I tried to formulate the beginning of an essay on the C-SPAN bus, but kept hearing my classmates conversations. For a long while, Aaron, and Elizabeth studied the outfit a girl was wearing (she must of gotten dressed with her eyes closed, but they gave her points for...effort). Aaron noted that our guide was definitely not camera ready. We all joked about Bush, discussed Jamaica, and laughed when our teacher asked the guide about fast food. I couldn't remember one small tidbit about C-SPAN, but I laughed all the way home.
A chatty man with a black rat tail relayed anecdotes about the big days in C-SPAN history. A camera crew from a local station popped in to film us, which I found ironic, since I'd just told Elizabeth that I'd be O.K., “as long as we aren't filmed, I hate being on TV.” Then after a few jotted notes, a free pen and pamphlet, we were prematurely tossed back into the real world.
Wasn't what I expected at all.
Having toured CNN headquarters last summer, I expected a watered down version—part propaganda, part politics, part control room demonstration. Maybe we would get to do one of those cool fake broadcasts, or deliver the weather, or film something. Although, the CNN tour wasn't exactly what I had expected either, but I did get a wave from one of their anchors...I've forgotten their names now.
But Cleshonda's words rang in my head as I walked back to my car following the field trip. I tried to formulate the beginning of an essay on the C-SPAN bus, but kept hearing my classmates conversations. For a long while, Aaron, and Elizabeth studied the outfit a girl was wearing (she must of gotten dressed with her eyes closed, but they gave her points for...effort). Aaron noted that our guide was definitely not camera ready. We all joked about Bush, discussed Jamaica, and laughed when our teacher asked the guide about fast food. I couldn't remember one small tidbit about C-SPAN, but I laughed all the way home.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
God's Real-live Coconut
“Amy, stop. God told me to prophesy over you.” A rather bold statement, I know. Amy was in a very conservative bubble considering her Christianity, but was not opposed to things like prophecy and praying in tongues that man doesn’t understand. I was afraid that she wouldn’t have anything to do with hearing what I had to say, but I couldn’t help it. The Spirit was stirring inside of me and I had something to tell her.
I was walking her home from my house which was only about six houses away from hers. It was nighttime, and it was kind of awkward to just stop in the gutter on the side of the street and tell her that God spoke to me. I know I sounded eccentric.
“Okay,” was all she replied. Her tone was questioning, but not judgmental.
I took a deep breath and began to pray. I always get nervous when things like that happen, but every time I just step out and let it happen, no one involved is disappointed. The Spirit began to show me pictures, as is usually the case when He decides to speak through me. I stood with my eyes closed watching the images flash in my mind and praying that He would tell me what they meant. Sometimes they are not literal.
“God has already delivered you from something in your past and you have returned to it for comfort. He wants you to turn to Him and not to the same struggles that He has pulled you out of,” I said with a slight amount of confidence. I’m always afraid that I just make things up and God will smite me for pretending that it’s from Him.
Amy stared with a blank expression in her eyes and her mouth slightly open. “Do you know what it is?”
“Yes, but I don’t want you to be upset with me for knowing. You haven’t told me, so maybe you didn’t want me to know and I didn’t try to know, so if you don’t want me to acknowledge that I know, then I won’t.”
“Tell me.”
“God showed me an image of you in your closet cutting yourself. I didn’t actually see blood or a knife, but I knew that’s what was happening. My view was from behind you. You were on your knees but bent over close to the floor. I felt like your wrists were bleeding, but your stomach was actually what was being cut at the time. God wants you to know that you don’t have to hurt yourself just to feel something. You have known Him and you know that He can protect you from that. You know that He can fix whatever it is that’s driving you to cut yourself.”
“Eric, there is no way that you could have known that.”
This time I was attending a “house church” in Birmingham. The church that I attended while in school at UAB did not hold a conventional service on Sunday nights. Instead they had house churches where people who lived in a certain area went and brought food. The responsibility of feeding everyone was shifted every week, and the purpose was to discuss the previous morning’s sermon. I liked this concept because it wasn’t like most churches where you hear something once and you’re not really ever given a chance to ask questions.
The discussion was done. The leader took prayer requests as usual. He prayed the prayer that I had expected, but my body felt as did every time I knew God wanted something more to happen. I felt heavy and expectant and my heart rate sped up only slightly, but I didn’t say anything to the leader. When he was done praying, not one of the 15 people in the small apartment living room moved. No one even went for the food.
“I feel like we’re not done yet,” the leader announced non-chalantly.
“I feel the same way,” I shouted with conviction.
The leader continued, “Let’s pray a little more and see what happens.”
There were a few words given that I don’t recall. I know that a few people were ministered to. I only remember that God gave me something to say, and before I knew it, my mouth was moving.
“Someone in this room is holding back. You have something that you need to share, but you’re afraid to.”
Silence. Stillness.
Emerging timidly from the background one of the girls who had not been so shy during the night’s discussion spoke up. She explained that she had been experiencing some personal medical problems that could turn into more serious conditions. She did not explain the nature of the problems, just that she was having some tests done would like prayer for her health and for the doctors to know how to treat her.
Like any other Pentecostal church group, everyone immediately gathered around her to lay hands on her and pray. Those who couldn’t reach extended a hand in her direction. She was comforted by holding tightly the hand of a friend she had brought with her to visit our house church and they sat side-by-side on the coffee table because that was the closest to the center of the group that they could get.
I never closed my eyes during our prayer for her. I don’t remember ever touching her during the prayer. I remember praying for all the things that anyone would expect. I remember when everyone was done praying, they relaxed their arms and she lifted her head which had been bowed and opened her eyes only to look directly into mine.
I had to say it before I thought about it too much, “I believe God would have you to know that whatever this condition is, it is not a punishment for your past. Your sins have been forgiven and this is in no way indicates God’s love for you or the amount of forgiveness you have received.”
Before I really knew what happened she began wailing. She melted into the friend who had come as a visitor and sobbed uncontrollably, snot and tears everywhere. The friend wrapped her arms around her and told her it would be okay as apologies and comforting words were racing through my head but not coming out because I had not expected that reaction at all. I thought I had just emotionally devastated her.
“We were praying for confirmation about that,” the friend explained. “These are tears of joy.”
“Oh, good.” I felt my face relax and the panicked expression fade. My heart began to slow, and breath returned to my lungs.
The members of the church that I visited in Bahia Solano, Columbia, live very primitively when compared to my luxurious American life. They raise chickens, fish, and knock coconuts from trees for food. I believe the way they utilize the coconut is very creative. They chop it up, grind it into a fine powder, and mix it with rice. It’s served in a small pile or mixed in with soup which is flavored with some sort of leaf and has a whole fish in the bowl.
This might sound appetizing to some. I, on the other hand, loathe the thought of coconut flavor. It makes me cringe on the inside to think about it, and the only food I hate worse than coconut would be the onion because it taste the same way that body odor smells. Coconut flavored anything leaves my mouth feeling dry and the bitter taste lingers on much longer than any taste is welcome to. I find nothing enjoyable about coconut.
When we approached the front of the church, there was an elderly woman outside working on a fresh coconut. I thought about how glad I was that didn’t have to endure that taste on a regular basis. Immediately after that thought, she offered a small piece of the coconut to me to eat as a welcoming gesture. She tried to communicate with me in Spanish, but I quickly explained, “No habla espanol.” (being the ignorant American that I was, I didn’t know that it was supposed to be hablo.)
I accepted the piece of coconut because I had been taught that when on a mission trip, you do not refuse the food of a native. If you are not hungry, if it looks gross, if you know it’s something you won’t like, you take it anyway and deal with it. I smiled and secretly thought, “I’m doing this for Jesus, I’m doing this for Jesus.” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and popped it in my mouth before I could think about it.
The ugly, brown outside part was kind of grainy, but not bad. The white part was AMAZING! I had braced myself for a terrible flavor, but it was not only one I had not expected, but the exact opposite. It tasted crisp and crunchy. It made my mouth feel clean. Oddly, it was similar to the feeling I have after brushing my teeth.
So what was the difference? God’s real-live coconut was actually pretty good. All I had to do was try the real thing. It made me think about God Himself. About how many times I had been hurt by the church or by leadership of a particular church. About all the evangelists on television that offer a vile of healing water and manipulate every last penny out of little old ladies who send in their last cent. I remembered all the stories about hidden sexual sins within the clergy and even the protestant pastors.
The God that I had gotten through these people was just like the coconut I had always gotten in America. He left a bitter taste in my mouth at times and I used to loathe the thought of what the He stood for and the flavor of affliction that He brought to the world before I actually took time to get to know Him. I would say that a large portion of the world looks upon the Christian God with such disdain as a result of corrupt pastors and people who are only trying to earn the prestige and the money with His name. He is often looked at as wrathful, vengeful, and even hateful at times. Why does a good person suffer from starvation and sickness while the corrupt pastor is living it up in one of his houses in Beverly Hills?
I don’t have the answer to that. I do know that God is actually more like Columbian coconut. The real-live, unhindered, non-processed God is so much more than power in Pat Robertson’s prayer cloth, or the anointing in a bottle of oil purchased from TBN. The sad truth is that a lot of people will never know, or care to know, the real-live coconut version of God.
I also know that if God didn’t love the people he created, he never would have spoken to me to speak to those girls. He would have let Amy go on cutting herself, never hearing from Him, and suffering in her confusion. The girl in Birmingham would have gone on with feelings of condemnation and self-pity and guilt because she would have blamed herself. He spoke to them out of love and concern for them, not wrath or judgment.
I’ve recently heard a song by John Mark McMillan that speaks of God’s love for us. He says, “Heaven meets Earth with a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest and I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves us.” I know God. At least I think I do. And I know that I would never eat American coconut ever again, even if I had liked it before.
I was walking her home from my house which was only about six houses away from hers. It was nighttime, and it was kind of awkward to just stop in the gutter on the side of the street and tell her that God spoke to me. I know I sounded eccentric.
“Okay,” was all she replied. Her tone was questioning, but not judgmental.
I took a deep breath and began to pray. I always get nervous when things like that happen, but every time I just step out and let it happen, no one involved is disappointed. The Spirit began to show me pictures, as is usually the case when He decides to speak through me. I stood with my eyes closed watching the images flash in my mind and praying that He would tell me what they meant. Sometimes they are not literal.
“God has already delivered you from something in your past and you have returned to it for comfort. He wants you to turn to Him and not to the same struggles that He has pulled you out of,” I said with a slight amount of confidence. I’m always afraid that I just make things up and God will smite me for pretending that it’s from Him.
Amy stared with a blank expression in her eyes and her mouth slightly open. “Do you know what it is?”
“Yes, but I don’t want you to be upset with me for knowing. You haven’t told me, so maybe you didn’t want me to know and I didn’t try to know, so if you don’t want me to acknowledge that I know, then I won’t.”
“Tell me.”
“God showed me an image of you in your closet cutting yourself. I didn’t actually see blood or a knife, but I knew that’s what was happening. My view was from behind you. You were on your knees but bent over close to the floor. I felt like your wrists were bleeding, but your stomach was actually what was being cut at the time. God wants you to know that you don’t have to hurt yourself just to feel something. You have known Him and you know that He can protect you from that. You know that He can fix whatever it is that’s driving you to cut yourself.”
“Eric, there is no way that you could have known that.”
This time I was attending a “house church” in Birmingham. The church that I attended while in school at UAB did not hold a conventional service on Sunday nights. Instead they had house churches where people who lived in a certain area went and brought food. The responsibility of feeding everyone was shifted every week, and the purpose was to discuss the previous morning’s sermon. I liked this concept because it wasn’t like most churches where you hear something once and you’re not really ever given a chance to ask questions.
The discussion was done. The leader took prayer requests as usual. He prayed the prayer that I had expected, but my body felt as did every time I knew God wanted something more to happen. I felt heavy and expectant and my heart rate sped up only slightly, but I didn’t say anything to the leader. When he was done praying, not one of the 15 people in the small apartment living room moved. No one even went for the food.
“I feel like we’re not done yet,” the leader announced non-chalantly.
“I feel the same way,” I shouted with conviction.
The leader continued, “Let’s pray a little more and see what happens.”
There were a few words given that I don’t recall. I know that a few people were ministered to. I only remember that God gave me something to say, and before I knew it, my mouth was moving.
“Someone in this room is holding back. You have something that you need to share, but you’re afraid to.”
Silence. Stillness.
Emerging timidly from the background one of the girls who had not been so shy during the night’s discussion spoke up. She explained that she had been experiencing some personal medical problems that could turn into more serious conditions. She did not explain the nature of the problems, just that she was having some tests done would like prayer for her health and for the doctors to know how to treat her.
Like any other Pentecostal church group, everyone immediately gathered around her to lay hands on her and pray. Those who couldn’t reach extended a hand in her direction. She was comforted by holding tightly the hand of a friend she had brought with her to visit our house church and they sat side-by-side on the coffee table because that was the closest to the center of the group that they could get.
I never closed my eyes during our prayer for her. I don’t remember ever touching her during the prayer. I remember praying for all the things that anyone would expect. I remember when everyone was done praying, they relaxed their arms and she lifted her head which had been bowed and opened her eyes only to look directly into mine.
I had to say it before I thought about it too much, “I believe God would have you to know that whatever this condition is, it is not a punishment for your past. Your sins have been forgiven and this is in no way indicates God’s love for you or the amount of forgiveness you have received.”
Before I really knew what happened she began wailing. She melted into the friend who had come as a visitor and sobbed uncontrollably, snot and tears everywhere. The friend wrapped her arms around her and told her it would be okay as apologies and comforting words were racing through my head but not coming out because I had not expected that reaction at all. I thought I had just emotionally devastated her.
“We were praying for confirmation about that,” the friend explained. “These are tears of joy.”
“Oh, good.” I felt my face relax and the panicked expression fade. My heart began to slow, and breath returned to my lungs.
The members of the church that I visited in Bahia Solano, Columbia, live very primitively when compared to my luxurious American life. They raise chickens, fish, and knock coconuts from trees for food. I believe the way they utilize the coconut is very creative. They chop it up, grind it into a fine powder, and mix it with rice. It’s served in a small pile or mixed in with soup which is flavored with some sort of leaf and has a whole fish in the bowl.
This might sound appetizing to some. I, on the other hand, loathe the thought of coconut flavor. It makes me cringe on the inside to think about it, and the only food I hate worse than coconut would be the onion because it taste the same way that body odor smells. Coconut flavored anything leaves my mouth feeling dry and the bitter taste lingers on much longer than any taste is welcome to. I find nothing enjoyable about coconut.
When we approached the front of the church, there was an elderly woman outside working on a fresh coconut. I thought about how glad I was that didn’t have to endure that taste on a regular basis. Immediately after that thought, she offered a small piece of the coconut to me to eat as a welcoming gesture. She tried to communicate with me in Spanish, but I quickly explained, “No habla espanol.” (being the ignorant American that I was, I didn’t know that it was supposed to be hablo.)
I accepted the piece of coconut because I had been taught that when on a mission trip, you do not refuse the food of a native. If you are not hungry, if it looks gross, if you know it’s something you won’t like, you take it anyway and deal with it. I smiled and secretly thought, “I’m doing this for Jesus, I’m doing this for Jesus.” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and popped it in my mouth before I could think about it.
The ugly, brown outside part was kind of grainy, but not bad. The white part was AMAZING! I had braced myself for a terrible flavor, but it was not only one I had not expected, but the exact opposite. It tasted crisp and crunchy. It made my mouth feel clean. Oddly, it was similar to the feeling I have after brushing my teeth.
So what was the difference? God’s real-live coconut was actually pretty good. All I had to do was try the real thing. It made me think about God Himself. About how many times I had been hurt by the church or by leadership of a particular church. About all the evangelists on television that offer a vile of healing water and manipulate every last penny out of little old ladies who send in their last cent. I remembered all the stories about hidden sexual sins within the clergy and even the protestant pastors.
The God that I had gotten through these people was just like the coconut I had always gotten in America. He left a bitter taste in my mouth at times and I used to loathe the thought of what the He stood for and the flavor of affliction that He brought to the world before I actually took time to get to know Him. I would say that a large portion of the world looks upon the Christian God with such disdain as a result of corrupt pastors and people who are only trying to earn the prestige and the money with His name. He is often looked at as wrathful, vengeful, and even hateful at times. Why does a good person suffer from starvation and sickness while the corrupt pastor is living it up in one of his houses in Beverly Hills?
I don’t have the answer to that. I do know that God is actually more like Columbian coconut. The real-live, unhindered, non-processed God is so much more than power in Pat Robertson’s prayer cloth, or the anointing in a bottle of oil purchased from TBN. The sad truth is that a lot of people will never know, or care to know, the real-live coconut version of God.
I also know that if God didn’t love the people he created, he never would have spoken to me to speak to those girls. He would have let Amy go on cutting herself, never hearing from Him, and suffering in her confusion. The girl in Birmingham would have gone on with feelings of condemnation and self-pity and guilt because she would have blamed herself. He spoke to them out of love and concern for them, not wrath or judgment.
I’ve recently heard a song by John Mark McMillan that speaks of God’s love for us. He says, “Heaven meets Earth with a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest and I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves us.” I know God. At least I think I do. And I know that I would never eat American coconut ever again, even if I had liked it before.
Monday, March 5, 2007
Adventures at Planet Fitness
Two-hundred and thirty-one pounds. That’s not right. I should try this again. I reset the scale, sliding the weights all the way to the left and stepped off. I took a deep breath and stepped back on only to see the same result: two-hundred and thirty-one pounds. It makes me wonder if the scale is broken in order to manipulate people into thinking they really need Planet Fitness because that’s about 11 pounds heavier than my scale at home.
No matter. I was still enjoying the place. During the tour, the guide mentioned about, oh, 600 times that Planet Fitness DOES NOT cater to body-builders. The list of rules was quite extensive. Not only do they have normal dress-code rules about what could or could not be worn while exercising, the regulate sounds, too. No grunting, no dropping weights, no cussing, or you will be embarrassed by the “lunk alarm” and possibly have your membership canceled.
I think I like this extremist approach. That way I’m less likely to be laughed at when I go to work out. Unless someone like Bruce Alford happens to be there. He thought it was quite hysterical when I was trying to figure out one of the machines. I assumed it was something you used to work your abs, but as I was demonstrating for Cleshonda, Mr. Alford appeared trying to stifle a laugh. He didn’t do a very good job. Apparently the machine is intended to work out the lower back. Therefore, I was on the machine backwards. Yes, yes, it was quite funny.
After the ab/back machine, we moved to the free-weights. I volunteered to bench press, expecting to undergo more humiliation. I am not a fit person, nor do I believe that I have impressive upper body strength. In fact, I view myself as physically weak person. Mr. Alford proceeded to place the weights on the bar, and I almost hyperventilated: “DEAR GOD, I’m can’t lift that!”
His head moved backward a little, his eyebrows wrinkled and his eyes got bigger and shot back and forth. “What? This isn’t even that much.”
I thought, “So the humiliation will be worse that I thought.”
I said, “Oh, okay. As long as you spot me.”
It wasn’t as heavy as I anticipated. I underestimated myself. That’s good. Maybe I can do this.
Despite the rules and the slight embarrassment, I really liked the place. In fact, I purchased a membership. I have been inspired to get healthy. For ten bucks a month, what do I have to lose? I’ll just stay away from the free-weights just in case.
No matter. I was still enjoying the place. During the tour, the guide mentioned about, oh, 600 times that Planet Fitness DOES NOT cater to body-builders. The list of rules was quite extensive. Not only do they have normal dress-code rules about what could or could not be worn while exercising, the regulate sounds, too. No grunting, no dropping weights, no cussing, or you will be embarrassed by the “lunk alarm” and possibly have your membership canceled.
I think I like this extremist approach. That way I’m less likely to be laughed at when I go to work out. Unless someone like Bruce Alford happens to be there. He thought it was quite hysterical when I was trying to figure out one of the machines. I assumed it was something you used to work your abs, but as I was demonstrating for Cleshonda, Mr. Alford appeared trying to stifle a laugh. He didn’t do a very good job. Apparently the machine is intended to work out the lower back. Therefore, I was on the machine backwards. Yes, yes, it was quite funny.
After the ab/back machine, we moved to the free-weights. I volunteered to bench press, expecting to undergo more humiliation. I am not a fit person, nor do I believe that I have impressive upper body strength. In fact, I view myself as physically weak person. Mr. Alford proceeded to place the weights on the bar, and I almost hyperventilated: “DEAR GOD, I’m can’t lift that!”
His head moved backward a little, his eyebrows wrinkled and his eyes got bigger and shot back and forth. “What? This isn’t even that much.”
I thought, “So the humiliation will be worse that I thought.”
I said, “Oh, okay. As long as you spot me.”
It wasn’t as heavy as I anticipated. I underestimated myself. That’s good. Maybe I can do this.
Despite the rules and the slight embarrassment, I really liked the place. In fact, I purchased a membership. I have been inspired to get healthy. For ten bucks a month, what do I have to lose? I’ll just stay away from the free-weights just in case.
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