Month: August 2008

Unexpected Topic

There are eight people in my Spanish class, and when I walked in this morning at quarter of the hour or so, four of the others were already there, and were talking about the differences between smoking cigarettes and pot. I’ll come back to this later.

Class began pretty normally this morning, and Thursday being a “class” day rather than a “lab” day, the first third of class tends to be more culture than language. One of the things I like about that is that during our (relatively ADD) discussion, Sr. Turner tends to turn to me for comparisons since I’m the only one in the class who has been to Latin America. He’ll talk about open-air markets in Chile and then ask “How about in Ecuador?”

At some point he made mention that I had been there for three months and one of the girls in the class asked what exactly I had been doing there. Something I didn’t even think about when I began to answer was what my immediate response turned out to be, compared to what it would have been last year. Had I ever been asked that in Raquel’s class when I took the previous level of Spanish a couple semesters ago, I’m sure I would have told them I’d gone with a short-term team and worked in a church and an orphanage. But out loud to a class, I that seriously would have been all I’d have said. And while I kept it brief this morning, I did my best to give a pretty full picture of hosting and a little bit about the whole reason for Missions.

The observation I did make, pretty much instantly (I automatically critique myself any time I talk in class) was that conversation had gone from smoking pot to being the hands and feet of Christ in Ecuador in under twenty minutes.

Even cooler was that Julian (a.k.a. Mr. Turner, the professor) instantly said “And what was the name of the church that you and Jerry go through?” Impressed that he’s already connected me and Jerry even though we’re in different classes, I ignored the detail of with whom the two of us were mostly working and told him Christ Episcopal Church, which he immediately scribbled down on his class notes (which I know he’ll look at several times before Monday). But wait, it gets better. Our professor then goes on this rant about how important it is to help people and how everyone should be involved in Missions.

Something else I noticed was his mention that even though he’s traveled pretty extensively, he regrets that all of it has been either for school or to support himself, when he was teaching English in Spain (something that strikes a chord in my family, anyway). I talked to Lydia today (who has now made it into three posts in just over a week) about how I have the exact opposite situation. Everywhere I’ve ever been has been for Missions and not for study or tourism or anything else. Which is not a problem, especially since I mentioned that we’re all on a Mission all the time anyway. Just something that keeps getting higher on my list to change.

As an overall observation, I just appreciate God’s use of unexpected people, places, and times to get a chance to share a little bit about Him. I feel like this is going to be a pretty cool opportunity with Mr. Turner, and maybe God struck a chord with somebody else in the room today too, or at least opened an opportunity for further growth, particularly some of the things I’ve been asking for lately. And as a sneak peak, I turned in my sermon theme to Diane today, and it’s amazing how much the same it is with this paragraph. Good thing the whole thing isn’t written yet. This is why I quit believing in coincidence a long time ago.

Real Fake Food

I’ve been noticing this for years now, and I don’t exactly have an essay on it, but it’s an observation nonetheless. And it’ll probably be another where the intro is longer than the main point. Oh, well.

Up until this morning, my mom has actually been home when I woke up in the morning. Between her not having to be at school, or at least not until later without students there, and that I’ve been up relatively early and had no responsibilities whatsoever for the first two weeks back in the States, we’ve actually been having breakfast at roughly the same time, which is totally not normal. It also means as I stare blankly into the pantry for ten minutes as I wake up, she throws out suggestions, or actually makes the stuff that I’m too lazy to put together before 8:00am (which is anything more complicated than a Pop-Tart).

One day last week, it happened to be waffles. I went to the fridge as they were being made, and scanned for syrup. There was the real Vermont Maple from my grandparents in North Hero, and there was the glass container of the special cooking syrup (what the heck do you cook with maple syrup?). So I asked the obvious question, “Mom, do we have any syrup?”

“Yeah, there’s two bottles in there.”

“No, real syrup.”

“That is real syrup.”

I hate real syrup. When I was little I wouldn’t eat it at all. And actually, even today I wouldn’t have had her start making waffles if I knew all we had was “real” real syrup.

Much as I’m not going to attempt to break myself of my attachment to mass-produced high fructose corn syrup style syrup, of which no part has ever come from a tree, I do recognize how ridiculous it is that I’d rather have “fake” syrup than the old-fashioned stuff of which the grocery store kind is a cheap imitation.

My generation just likes high fructose corn syrup. While my parents grew up eating real maple syrup, homemade ice cream, and butter that actually came from a churn (at some point), the “real” stuff for me- what I grew up with and am used to- comes from a grocery store shelf, and before that, some factory that started with imitation ingredients and packed it full of preservatives and flavorings that are giving us all cancer.

First Methodist Church has an annual ice cream social at the homes of two couples from the church. We go down to the river and bring homemade ice cream. Just saying “homemade ice cream” makes my mouth water and I associate delicious things with the idea, probably mostly due to my parents’ appreciation for the substance. But saying its name and eating it are two different things. Five minutes outside and that delicious homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream looks like the Ooze from the Ninja Turtles. I contented myself with brownies this year and scanned the new arrivals hopefully for a quart of Bryers.

Real sugar is supposed to be sweeter than high fructose corn syrup. I can tell the difference in the flavors of Ecuadorian and North American Coca-Cola because of the one change in ingredients. And I like Ecuadorian Coke. But I’d much rather have a homegrown and cancer-infused bottle from the good ol’ U.S.A., full of stuff that will probably kill me and free of extraneous bubbles and that old-fashioned disaccharide that’s too expensive for money-bent U.S. corporations to ship to bottlers and distributors in sufficient quantities to sweeten Coke for North American consumption.

As the nostalgic, purist type, I ought to appreciate “real” stuff more. But say “burger” to my dad and me, and while he imagines grilling out in Cincinnati, Ohio, I picture a nice greasy Big Mac in a cardboard box in Anderson, South Carolina. It’s what I grew up with.

Yes, I recognize the ridiculousness of it. And yes, I’m going to go have an HFCS- and preservative-filled cancer-giving glass of root beer right now.

Lunch with the B.O.L.

If you don’t get the title, I’m not explaining it.

I’ve been going to First Baptist for the 11:00 worship service for the past few weeks. Unless I have to go to the 11:00 service at First Methodist to run the sound system or preach, I’ve been taking the opportunity to go to a worship service that I don’t have to be a major part of. For years it’s been a really rare experience for me to be in a worship service and not be either running the sound system or doing one of the various things I do up front. And I’d just stay at my church except I’ve already heard the sermon at that point. Not that it’s not good or meaningful the second time around, but I have the opportunity to maybe get something else out of a totally different service, so why not?

The point of this is that my first Sunday back in the States, I was asked by several people if I would come and speak to one of the Baptist Women’s circles about my experience in Ecuador. Turns out they meet on Monday at noon, right after I get out of class, and they have lunch at Van’s Pizza, which is on my way back from school to anywhere. I have three hours to kill before my Physics lab (which was canceled today anyway) and how am I going to pass up an opportunity to yak for an hour about my summer?

So I printed out 40 pictures and showed up to Van’s with absolutely no plan. That’s how I like things. I have no idea how I’ve developed this, but when I talk off the top of my head, I’m about 10 million times more confident and eloquent than if I have to do something straight off a sheet or some notes. It will probably take me longer to write this blog entry than it did to condense three months into a short presentation for those ten women.

I have one friend in particular (who shall remain nameless) that I can think of who would not only find the invitation something he’d desperately want to get out of, but would just puke at the idea of having to give a presentation like this. I actually had a blast.

I started with a two-sentence or so explanation of the difference between teams and hosts (they all know Ryan and some know Betty or Julie or others) and another super-brief explanation of Youth World and Short-Term/Quito Quest. After that I just went right through our time with the Huaorani and then on to teams and hit the highlights of what it’s all about: partnership, being servants, and letting God work through us.

They asked questions, they laughed, they all freaked out when I showed them the photo of the boa constrictor around my neck. And while they were all so appreciative that a 22-year-old guy would come talk to a bunch of old women, I was thankful to have a non-pulpit opportunity to just talk for more than 30 seconds and not have someone glaze over.

In fact, on a totally unrelated note, I had a similar opportunity with a single person yesterday afternoon. Someone I consider to be a prominent person at my church, and who I’ve actually had some not-so-cheerful arguments with in the past asked me how my “trip” was, and then actually got into the details of the actual job and of the effect of the summer on me. As Colin would say, my mind was “totally bottled.” [sic]

I just about cried twice this afternoon, and for once in the last week, it wasn’t because I couldn’t breathe. Just relaying experiences and observations gave me productive processing time that I wasn’t looking for or expecting, much as I’ve been asking for it. And while people still occasionally say something that grates on my nerves because of lack of understanding, it’s the fact that there are people here to whom I can bring my experience home that keeps me from falling into the lie of “Spiritual Superiority” and makes me love my church(es) here and find my little niche in Elizabeth City.

Someone Actually Reads This?

I marvel every day at the fact that somebody is still reading this stuff.

When I first started even having a blog, it was a chore to post something even monthly, mostly becuase I knew no one was reading it. If you go through the oldest posts on this site, they are actually imported from before dannypeck.net existed and they were hidden away on a wordpress account that no one knew of.

This was set up initially with a dual purpose; firstly, keeping everyone at home updated on my Ecuador excursion in both the laziest and least obtrusive way possible (I didn’t have to send it out to various people, and they didn’t have to read it unless they were intentional enough to come here). Secondly, that it could just be a part of my journal when it came down to events.

I had a vague sense that Billy was reading it and sharing the funny bits with the choir at First Baptist. I knew my parents would read it. What I was not expecting was to come home and people I hadn’t even thought to give my URL to would be telling me how phenomenal a writer I was (they must not read much else). Even weirder was about three quarters of the way through the summer when Cameron asked me a question, and then- both of us too pressed for time for her to hear the long version of my answer- said “Oh, I’ll just read about it on your blog,” which was when I realized that people around me were reading it (and actually knew what I wrote about them).

Getting comments, sometimes here and sometimes on facebook when the entries are automatically imported over there, has been really good though. Just knowing someone read an entry (despite being something hard to get used to after seven years of nobody EVER visiting my websites) makes writing it seem useful. It also is nice to know both that my thoughts can help other people out, and that somebody else might be going through the same thing.

I don’t think I’m a great writer. Especially here. This is some of the least-planned writing I have ever done and continue to do in my life. I use the word “I” too much. If I wasn’t totally lazy, I’d count how many paragraphs start with that letter. But despite that, I know and appreciate that someone will eventually read each of these posts, even if it’s Jerry just checking my spelling.

So, like the post below, this is just a thank you.

The Kind of Friends

I went to the beach last Saturday with Jamie and Elizabeth. I know. Took me long enough to write about it. Give me a break, I went to the Emergency Room this week, so I’m behind on the blog.

I’ve known Jamie since middle school, and we were in the same home room all throughout high school (Patterson, Peck). I think it was really around band camp our sophomore year that we started to be closer friends than just two guys who hung out with the same relatively large group. I’ve known Elizabeth since the ninth grade (I think. She probably remembers me from River Road and I’ll get in trouble for this). We definitely didn’t hang out in high school, and I don’t know when it was for her with me, but I can pinpoint exactly the time when my respect and appreciation for her skyrocketed (which I’m not writing about because it’s unrelated to the overall point), and I think of her as a really close friend now.

If I sit and think of it, I go through the evolution of friendships with everyone I know, particularly the friends with whom I’m the closest. Whether it’s the B.R.O.s (new and old), the band geeks, the girls, or any other group or individual, friendships don’t just happen, they grow out of shared time, personalities (that can mesh, balance, or totally clash at different times), and experiences good and bad.

Coming back to Elizabeth City after a day of putt-put, tanning, and swimming was hilarious. The three of us just laughed pretty much the entire way home about the super-loud speaker at Sonic and our super-bored waiter at Outback. I even said at one point, “We couldn’t have done this with anyone else and had it be this funny.” And because of our history and our humor, it wouldn’t have been.

I remember another instance, at Mike’s house one Christmas break. Billy and James walked in, and we hadn’t seen either of them for months. My hair was really long and I had a goatee at the time, and Billy’s first words upon entering the house and seeing me were, “Dan! Looking haggard!” James, behind him, laughed hysterically, if not a little nervously. Anyone else saying that to someone could probably expect to offend the haggard-looking person in question, but I laughed and gave him a hug, knowing exactly what he meant, and how many stories and inside jokes were involved in those three words and his instant reaction.

There’s lots of silly sayings about friends that go on bumper stickers or chain letters or any number of other ridiculous places. You know like the one from that facebook app that says “I have the kind of friends that if my house were burning down, they’d be there roasting marshmallows and flirting with the hot firemen,” or something about how your real friends just walk in without knocking and pour themselves a drink from the fridge (which sounds like me at the Turner house, whether Mike or anyone else is there or not). And while those are mostly really cheesy, some of them hit pretty close to home.
I have the kind of friends that drag me out of bed at 10:30 (as they tell me what an “old man” I am to be in bed at 10:30) to go do nothing more productive than play Halo or drive to 7/11. The kind of friends who wouldn’t ever put an umbrella in someone’s chimney, but still think it’s hilarious.  The kind of friends that swim to the channel marker in the river at 5:00 am and jump off it illegally. The kind of friends who will still drive to the I.H.O.P. in Virginia just for kicks, even though we have one in town now. The kind of friends that talk about… digestion… on a “mission trip” and about salvation in a bar.

The kind of friends who actually read my blog. Thanks.

Romans 12:1-3

There are a lot of pieces of scripture you hear and say over and over as a missionary. Romans 12 is one of them, and much like my ever-changing take on John 15, now that I’m home I’ve been struck by the meaning of these words. I’m also struck by the fact that this scripture was a large part of two sermons and Jerry’s presentation, all of which I’ve heard in less than a week, sometimes twice. In fact, I’d write my sermon for next week on this passage if it hadn’t been a the sermon scripture for last week at my church and the scripture lesson this morning at First Baptist. It says…

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, Holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- His good, pleasing, and perfect will. -NIV

I feel like every time I heard or read those words during Quito Quest that the focus is so much on verse 1. And in living the rest, that’s what occurs. But especially after looking over my last couple of entries (which are gloomier than I intended, but maybe not as far from the truth in that regard than I pretend) and Sarah and Angela’s responses to those, I see the first half of verse 2 as a Command of Hope.

Wanting to be that “Fruit tree in Elizabeth City” and having doubts and fears and feelings of uselessness, I feel not compelled but Commanded “Do not conform.” I am not the same person as I was when I stepped on a place in May, and being one of those “people with the suitcases,” it’s my responsibility to use what I know and have experienced to benefit those around me, and also to keep check on myself that I am set apart from this world and its patterns, habits, and desires.

I think I know one of the reasons that it’s so hard for anyone to adjust to life at home after the on-field aspect of a short term mission. Something I wrote in my journal this afternoon was that, at least for me, it seems like I’m waiting for God to set a situation in front of me and say “Here you go, Danny. Be fruitful with this.” And maybe that’s because there are so many of those when you are so engaged in missions. Or maybe it’s that you’re just so much more open to and aware of them.

Being useful in life here isn’t a response to a situation, it’s an attitude and an outlook, totally independent of whether we have a certain service at a certain time or fully functional lungs and back muscles. And whenever I’m pessimistic about any of that,  worried about fitting, I can know that I truly am transformed by my time in Ecuador, and be confident as the renewing of my spirit continues.

This Ruins "Never Have I Ever"

Just to preface this, I’m fine now, don’t freak out.

So I’m sitting in class yesterday and we’d just started. I was pretty much just sitting there copying contact information onto the syllabus and taking notes on what little we talked about the first day. About five minutes into class, my side starts hurting.

It felt like a cramp, except a lot worse. However I sat, hunched over my notes, stretched out in the lab chair, or anything between, it still hurt. Worse, it began to hurt to breathe. If I took a fairly deep breath and then held it, it wasn’t so bad, but breathing out was no fun at all. For the next hour and fifteen minutes (and then some… of course the professor ran over) I just had to do my best to stick it out. Becuase to top it all of, it was the first day of class and I was determined not to walk out; even if it hadn’t been, I would have had to have been in more pain to walk out of a class taught by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. (But only slightly more pain).

They ask you at the Doctor’s office “how bad does it hurt” with those smiley/frowny face drawings numbered 0-5 with 5 being the worst pain you’d ever felt in your life. If someone had asked me that on the way home, I’d have said a 4. While I was on the phone with my mom, I’d have said a 5. Just sucking enough air into my lungs to breathe enough to speak shot pain up my entire side. Since I was halfway home by the time I decided it was that bad and called my mom, she told me to get there as fast as I could and she’d take me back the the Emergency Room.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have been driving, especially because Albemarle Hospital is right next to COA.

Long story short, I was there for about 4½ hours, taking X-Rays and other fun stuff, worrying about whether it was a kidney stones, appendicitis, or some crazy Ecuadorian parasite. Turns out I pulled a muscle in my back.

According the the ER doctor, the back is “poorly designed” (I think God might take issue with that statement) and it’s really easy to mess stuff up there (though even he admitted it’s pretty weird to just be sitting in class and have pain shoot through your side for no apparent reason).

I’ve got prescription strength muscle relaxers and Motrin on my bookshelf now and I’m getting pretty bored laying around. It still hurts to breathe, but not like yesterday, and I’m hoping to be up and running by Sunday.

The whole point of writing this is so that nobody can say “Why didn’t you tell me you went to the Emergency Room!?” And daggone it, next time I play “Never have I ever…” I’ll have to come up with a new “good one.” Mine used to be “…gone to the Emergency Room.”

Whole New Computer in 3 Steps

This isn’t exciting to anyone but me. But it deserves to be recorded.

First off, I tripled the memory in my computer tonight. I’m actually ashamed (as a geek) how little RAM I had in my otherwise surprisingly powerful 4-year-old desktop. When asked what it is, I tell people that it started a “Dell” and now it’s a “Dan.”

I also fixed a rather large audio problem that involved iTunes coming through my Philips VOIP phone and Skype emanating from my speakers. The first attempt made ALL sound go through only the Skype phone, and only when a call was in progress (Alltel is going to wonder about all the “Unidentified” calls to my cell) despite all sound supposedly being directly only to the speakers in my Control Panel. The long and short of it is that I eventually won. It always gives you a sense of superiority when you outsmart the computer, especially when it involves sucessful international phone calls and a properly functioning iTunes, both coming through only the intended device.

And finally, my flat panel monitor arrived this afternoon and was installed this evening, freeing up my old CRT for Colin to make a dual monitor configuration (and waste a ton of electricity, but look cool doing it, what with the Matrix screensavers) and freeing up my desk to actually do homework here this semester. And by do homework here this semester, I mean do homework this semester.

Theology According to Regina Spektor

Lydia, I almost hope you aren’t reading my blog.

I put my iPod on shuffle this morning on the way to work. I have no idea why. I never do that unless I’m headed to the beach or farther. But nothing jumped out at me on the way back from COA and I lazily told the little device to pick music for me.

As I came down the last bit of US-17 before I turned down MacArthur and finally looped back around the other way on Ehringhaus to work, Regina Spektor came on. I’m not a huge Regina fan, and must admit that I once even turned down tickets to see her at the Norva (which is the place to see anyone). The only song I have of hers on my iPod is The Call, the song from the movie Prince Caspian, for which I had to buy the entire soundtrack on iTunes as the song isn’t available as a single.

As a musician, and as a (albeit terrible) songwriter, I don’t like telling people my interpretation of lyrics or even hearing (and potentially being influenced by) other people’s. I feel like part of the art form, and part of any art for that matter, is the interpretation by the individual exposed to the final product. I feel like the best artists of any kind are those who can both convey a specific message and yet leave it vague enough on the surface to be able to connect with and mean something to anyone who takes the time to appreciate and feel it.

So just know how much this struck me, both that I’m even writing this about a Regina Spektor song of all possibilities, and that I’m even writing it.

The lyrics, which probably can’t be legally reprinted here, can be found here (and this post will make a lot more sense if you either know or glance over them).

Driving along in Elizabeth City after being at COA and headed to Albemarle Music, two very different environments than, say, Quito, Ecuador, it was probably the “Just because eveything’s changing…” part that caught my attention. But upon further inspection, the entire thing can be applied to leaving Ecuador and coming here. Which I’m not going to do. I feel like I’ve done enough of that for a fortnight straight, and tend to sound a lot more negative than I intend when I do so.

Just the first part of the song (which is to some extent- musically- hard to listen to and yet lyrically brilliant in its simplicity) I relate it to faith. I’ve seen a lot of comments about the song on the internet, and depending on how literally it’s taken, some people insert what they think the “word” might be, with suggestions ranging from “love” to “Jesus.” And even though I point that whole paragraph (I think of it in written terms) to “faith” I wouldn’t insert it so directly. I think of my word as a perspective to go along with the lyrics, and each line as a step in a journey, and her “word” as one of those steps.

As an obvious, identifiable stage at a specific point in time, I would say (broadly, with no academic backing) all of our faiths began as an emotion. Be it guilt, joy, or wonder, at some point in your life you feel something that points you Heavenward, and should that be or grow to a hopeful sense of assurance, you began to think and know God on your own. The biggest leap here, at least for me, even more so than getting to the personal thought part, is that “word,” speaking Truth to others, and even more so the “battle cry” in strength and confidence.

Much like a lot of her other stuff, this song is way darker on deeper inspection. In a word of extremes and absolutes, forgiveness vs sin, faith vs doubts, the world vs the Church, the Trinity vs the Enemy, (and especially in such terms) it should be so much more evident how important it is to know who your fiends are as you head off to the war. (Has anybody actually noticed the pattern? If you’re really that coffee-deprived, I’m italicizing the lyrics).

The less and less vague you get, the less and less anything I write will mean personally to anyone who reads this. So we come again to my musician’s dilemma, and this is about where that side of me wins and I (as usual) let you connect the dots.

And I said I wouldn’t relate this to where I am and where I’ve been (physically) but I’m the author and I can do whatever I want, including reneging on whatever I like. And I’ve read and listened to the lyrics at least a dozen times in a row now and I’d just like to point out that it says “I’ll/You’ll Come Back” “When it’s over/when they call me/you.” That’s all.

First Day

Today feels like the first day of real life to me. Even being in Elizabeth City for almost two weeks, I haven’t had to go to work or school, and even at church I feel like I just show up (compared to the amount of preparedness that usually goes into my mere existence at First Methodist or First Baptist).

I actually see tons of people at COA and Albemarle Music (some I’d prefer not to) and have to deal with “How was your trip… [five second of attentedness]… okay, can you restring my guitar?”

Not that it’s all bad or I’m a total pessimist. There are several people in both of the classes I had this morning that I’m looking forward to getting to know. I’ve had my Physics teacher before for another class and I’m glad to get to have him for an interesting course this time around and also the opportunity to redeem myself significantly in his eyes grade-wise. My Spanish professor is a gringo, which I was not expecting (seriously, who has a college Spanish course with Professor Turner?) but he seems pretty cool and that he really knows his stuff. Plus, like Raquel, Spanish isn’t his first language so he will understand where and why we get stuck (and I might actually be in the top tier of Spanish knowledge in this particular section of the course, which makes me a lot more confident).

Then there’s work. The guys didn’t screw anything up too bad while I was gone (especially amazing since nobody- myself included- thought I was ever coming back). I trained my padawans well. And besides that, if anything does go wrong, I can just blame it on Colin and John because they’re not there. And I blame stuff on Colin at home, so nothing new. Andrew and Riley are both really chill to work with, and have good bubbles. It’s important to have equivalently timed and massed bubbles. Even better, I don’t have a key or an alarm code anymore so if there’s an emergency, Riley has to come instead of me (sweet!) and to top it all off, Linda and Barbara are still so excited I’m back in Elizabeth City and at the store that they’re still hugging me when I walk in the door. Who else has a boss that hugs them when they walk in the door?

While the routine has started again, I can finally feel a difference in my attitude toward people, my thoughts and words about and during class and work, and opportunities I see and am more likely to act upon, to the point that my general fruit fears are giving way more to “stamina” fears in that regard, and I’m believing that whole “Call” to be here despite my emotions about it (see next post for more about “Calls”), and to the point that I feel purposeful rather than habitual, even as easily as I fall into life pouring over textbooks and cost/profit charts (which is a whole different blog entry and culture shock).

Mrs. Boyer would put a gigantic X through that whole last paragraph run-on sentence and tell me to start here.