In honor of the super moon tonight I STAR-ted learning about night photography (heh heh). It was SKY-prisingly difficult. You have to think about composure and exposure, struggle with the lens and the tripod, tittle with little buttons and knobs. It's all very COMET-plecated (okay, i'm done I swear).
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To celebrate starting my Junior year at Houghton College I have composed a list of goals and desires for the coming year. It is imperative to note that goals and desires are different things. This I learned from my dad's road-trip-lecture last week. He is a smart man.
Goals can be achieved without the participation of anyone else. Desires require the co-operation of others. For example, say I want to spend more time with my brother. That requires both his and my participation. He may not want to spend time with me even if I want to spend time with him. Saying that he and I will hang out once a week is not a feasible goal; it's a desire. However, a good goal would be to ask him to coffee twice a week. This way I honor his choice and give myself an achievable goal. He may choose to say no, but I have been intentional about extending an invitation. Some other important qualities of good goals is that they are measurable. Saying "I want to read my Bible more." is a great starting point for a goal. To take that a step further you might say, "I will read one Psalm and one chapter of the Gospels every day." This way you can measure your success and hold yourself accountable. My list of goals and desires (yes, there's a mix) is centered around my commitment to do more of what makes me happy and causes me to progress. It is easy for me to become so preoccupied with homework, insecurities, and feelings of anxiety or depression that I either forget to [or avoid participating in] things that invigorate me. And so, this year I am prioritizing relationships and activities that engage me in Joy -- places where I can truly be myself; growing as a person and encouraging others to grow. A week before I left for Indianapolis I got to spend a very special day on the lake with some great friends. I'm so glad I took so much footage of this sunshine day.
While studying abroad in Tanzania last semester my classmates and I learned a lot about international development and aid. We saw first-hand that providing aid is a complicated topic involving moral codes and cultural sensitivity. Relief work can sometimes cause more harm than good.
When I was fifteen I spent three weeks in France through a foreign exchange program. I hosted a young man named Sylvain in my home and a couple months later stayed with him and his family in Paris. During that trip I visited places that tied my country to Sylvain’s- tied by victory and by loss. All these years later on Memorial Day re-remembering that foreign experience has a new context. It was April of 2009 and after two weeks in Paris, Sylvain and his family brought me on vacation with them to a rural, southern part of France where his grandparents live. After a four hour drive through French country-side, complete with poppy fields, Toy Story clouds, and chateaus, we arrived in a tiny cobblestoned village nestled between Oradour and Limoges. Between emerald fields of grazing sheep and cattle stood a two-story, stone structure that was old enough to look soft instead of cold. Violet posies boasted from flower boxes and the tiny, upstairs-bedroom balconies were gated by curling mint-green iron. A worn tire swing lazed from one of the thick, knobby oaks in the front yard. The door, bright red, provided perfect contrast to it’s dulled counterparts. Everything painted was peeling. Everything white was beige. Everything I could see was older than I, save Sylvain’s triplet cousins who were taking turns on the swing. There is a kind of inexplicable comfort in being surrounded by things that have tempted time and survived. That is how being in France feels. Especially Paris. We went inside and Sylvain’s grandfather, Leo, received me warmly. Speaking the broken English he learned as a boy he insisted on showing me a tiny town named Oradour-sur-Glane. Eager to see more adorable French homes I agreed. I was not prepared for what I would see next. Leo, Sylvain, and I drove out of the charming village and approached a town that looked at though it had been abandoned. We parked, walked past the memorial museum we would visit later, and followed a cobbled path into town. The first thing I noticed was the sound of the place. It was void of the normal outdoor noises. I did not hear birdsong. The buildings were crumbled, roofless, forgotten like Mayan ruins. All around were fences, houses, and trees scorched and stained with ash. The entire town was deserted- streets littered with cars made of rust and broken sewing machines of the same fate. This was unlike anything I had ever seen and a shocking disparity to the beautiful house I had just beheld. There is something inexplicably disturbing about such a setting. It was clear that something terrible had happened in Oradour, France. Leo explained (with the help of his grandson whose English is much better) that the town was attacked by two German platoons on June 10th, 1944. The Nazis were on their way to the beaches of Normandy to provide aid when they came across Oradour-sur-Glane and decided to “make an example” of it. The village-men were rounded up and gunned down while the women and children were herded into a church which was set on fire. The town was looted, destroyed with gunfire, and set ablaze. In total, 642 people were slaughtered. Five men and one woman survived. The town, which has become known as Martyr’s Village, was left in its ravaged state as a reminder of the destruction caused by war as well as a memorial to those murdered there. Seeing it all- feeling the weight of the tragedy- awoke a profoundly deep sadness in me that I did not recognize until later that day. We walked down the empty streets in silence. I kicked a rock. [chapter two] The men grunting and growling dance around us in moonlight with intentional ferocity. Eyes like wolves they lung in turn towards us girls and the young ones beside us. All are clothed in shades and patterns of red- geometric blood splatters like the cow they slaughtered that morning when an artery was nicked and a smooth black spine stooped to it. Sluuuuurpp! I heard as he lowered his lips to the spouting fountain. Oh and they drank that sweet juice right down as it flowed out. So here, now, remembering that sound- the men hum-growl and convulse in time with their grunting, in pace with their self-essencing mouth music. Music that should not be notated. They made it. They made it. Now their chests, mostly bare, are one with the damp, dusk air and a solo tenor voice belts out reaching for the moon as the darkling continues. He slides up the pitches and tops out his own sound. All around me are glistening bodies. I feel energy, sense the nervous excitement of my counterparts as we shuffle our feet and shake our shoulders- no Maasai beads crown our pale skin. But the young ones wear them- the harmonic jingle, a perfect feminine addition to the guttural whoops of the men. I inch my way to the soloist and song comes out of me. I sing I feel it tear out of me, ripping through my throat as my imitated song is pulled to his as it assents. we breathe. I feel the ebb and flow of their breath and intention. I sway back and forth unthinkingly, matching their cresting break, dueting myself. Surrendering to the whims, it feels like sweet submission, a vital part no lesser no greater than a highly esteemed guest. In this dance we find lose ourselves. We find ourselves. In this dance we lose each other. We find each other. The shear might of the Maasai shown- the tall, slender men circled around us women. we pulsated to the pleading, prodding movements. A sacred tenor sings for the moon. And in the middle stands a pale creature singing herself to him. When I was seven my family left our rented farm house and moved from a small town to a bustling suburb just outside the state capital. The new house, only two hours away, presented a new world complete with strange neighbors, cruel kids, and a foreign set of social norms that I had never lived by. In the fall of 2001 I transitioned from a small, private, Christian school to a large, public one. This was not an easy change. The kids at the public school were different from me in ways I had never encountered. For the first time in my life I was Other. I didn`t fit in and I knew it. If asked I’d say my childhood started ending around this time. I was still a child of course (and continued on as one for seven more years), but the euphoric, blissful ignorance often associated with childhood began to disintegrate when I was plopped into Miss Williams’ first grade class on a cold day in November. It is at vulnerable moment such as these that a simple encouraging word can become sweet kindness long-after remembered.
My ideal airplane ride happens like this: I am seated next to a window near the front of the plane. Outside a sunset pallet commands the sky leaving land and sea richly clothed in contrasting emeralds and blues. My dear friend and traveling companion, Emma Watson, laughs at a pun I make about painting and air travel. Emma and I chat about French artists for a bit and then retreat into our introverted selves, putting in headphones and listening to underground indie music. Comfortable. Picturesque. Perfect. My flight from JFK to Zurich last Friday happened like this: I was seated in the middle section in economy. The window I might have seen through from across the aisle was blocked by a large Swiss man. My traveling buddy (not Emma Watson, but still a great lady) was seated five rows in front of me which made chat about French artists impossible. Determined to reach contentment I put in headphones and started to turn on Birds of the Northeast. I was just about to sink into music when a twenty something, Indian man sat in my row and immediately started asking questions from across the empty seat between us. My introverted plans ruined I answered politely looking for a way to end the conversation as soon as possible. Windowless. Stranger danger. Eh. So there I am trying to duck out of talking to this man (who I would later learn was named Amit). Meanwhile, Amit is pursuing dialogue with a fierce enthusiasm I’ve only seen on QVC. Luckily for both of us, after small talk about our destinations, occupations, and interests we began approaching subjects of consequence. It all started with cow pee. Let me explain. At the first lull in our conversation Amit spoke to a flight attendant requesting a vegetarian meal. I slyly popped in headphones. He then turned to my fully headphoned self (do.you.not.understand.social.cues) and explained to me that as a practicing Taoist he does not eat flesh or roots. He went on to say that in his culture animals such as the cow are regarded very highly and that the cow is considered the divine mother of us all. He said that during famine Indian families feed their cows with what little food they have. The families then in turn are sustained by the cow’s milk. They would die of hunger before eating the cow’s food or the cow itself. Amit said that some Taoists even take drops of cow pee on their hands every morning and rub it from the forehead to the back of the neck as a kind of blessing. At that point my headphones were quietly stowed away in my backpack once again. His account of the famine sent my mind reeling. I was challenged to find my own tangible equivalent to the Taoist’s cow and became frustrated when I could think of none. I would not give my last bits of famine food to anyone besides my family and surely not to a cow whose meat would sustain with more certainty than milk. The one comparable example that came to mind was the way some Jews refuse to say or write the word “God” out of fear and reverence. I silently noted to adopt this practice if possible. “I want the devotion of a Taoist and the fear of a Jew”, I thought to myself. If I am honest most days the name of Jesus does not make me tremble. That is a serious problem. I listened with interest as Amit blushed finishing his thought on urine consecrations, “I know it must seem silly to you, but cows are very sacred to us”. I responded saying that such is true of any religion. “Is it not odd to you that Christianity should adopt the image of their Savior’s execution weapon as their defining, sacred symbol?” I asked. He agreed that it was quite odd. Perhaps even more odd than the cow pee. So then we were talking about Jesus. If there’s one thing I know about spicing up a conversation it’s that bring up Jesus will at worst- get you killed and at best- end in life changing commitments to follow Christ. Our interaction ended with thoughtfulness which I think was a fair compromise. |
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November 2015
AuthorLaura Johnson is a junior writing major at Houghton College. Laura writes for The Houghton Star, Mousailink, and One Mission Society. This virtual space is a journal of things that matter to her; tales, musings, wanderings. |