Maybe you should just stay home…

6 months into anything, I start to feel discouraged.  The thrill of change is gone.  The crisis of re-learning slows to a steady effort.  I miss the people I moved away from.  I learn the difficulties of my new role.  I am 8 months into my move across the Atlantic.  So I am going to tell you some of the reasons I noticed that a person might be happier staying  home.  And by staying home I mean not moving away from the country.  Visiting other places, but always keeping the residence in the mother-land.

On a practical note, the paperwork of changing countries is a constant stressor.  The first years abroad are often granted in short permissions.  I received a one year permission to reside in Spain.  About halfway through the year I had to find a way to be granted another year long stay.  It is mentally challenging to live somewhere and wonder if you will get kicked out when your papers expire.  And mine was a privileged move with choice and finances.

In addition to the paperwork to live abroad, finding a good income is very tricky.  It is doable possible here in Spain, but the additional legal considerations are overwhelming.  A person in a new country needs to figure out which government(s) they owe taxes to, what work permission they have or do not have, and how they are going to convince an employer to sponsor the next permission to reside in the country.  

I am also  convinced that fitting in abroad is a myth.  Despite practicing the local language 15 years, I am immediately recognizable as an outsider.  Many times I am happy to play this role and my community here shows me love and support despite my foreignness.  But from time to time the sense of being separate hurts a lot.  I feel it most during meals when everyone is laughing at jokes I almost understood but did not quite catch.  Or at celebrations when there is no one I completely relate to and I feel very different from everyone as I chat and visit.

Beyond the individual challenges, your family needs you and you need them.  If no one practically needs you now, someone will while you are abroad.  And the hard thing is that moving abroad usually involves a commitment to a job or community.  You can’t hop a plane and leave unless there’s some kind of emergency need and leaving means losing the sub-par income you found abroad. You might not find a way to regain that job in the future.  You really need your family too even if you feel a strong call to explore and spread your wings.

All of these reasons might show you that you are better off staying home.  If you have anything less than a strong desire to live in another country, do not force yourself to make the move.  If you do have that strong desire, or divine guidance to make the move - go taking care of yourself.  Prepare for the hardships of the factors above.  Keep yourself connected to people you love.   I think my fate is to be in Spain for this span of time.  I have also found so much happiness here, that the painful things are fairly easy to bear.   This will not be everyone’s experience.  Moving to a new country requires bravery and a willingness to take big risks.  But living with purpose in the country of your grandparents’ requires the same admirable traits.  

A Tiny Fear That Rules Me

There are some moments of fear that I conquered and they led to amazing experiences. When I was 12 I ignored my fear of falling to my death and I decided I would start riding roller coasters. When I was 26 I opposed fear of the unknown and took a three week solo trip to Chile. When I was 32 I gave my heart away to my fiance.

So why was I lying in bed this morning too scared to tell my neighbors that they were keeping me awake at 2:30am? My fear measures are faulty. I see more danger than realistic in social situations. As my university professor Dr. Baron King would say, my mind thinks "life depends on" people liking me.  Friends, enemies, jerks, saints;I long for everyone to think well of me.

God is ridding me of this fear bit by bit. Early in the process I realized that it is okay, ethical, healthy, to tell people things they will not like to hear. Offense does not mean wrong doing.  Needs should be expressed and expectations should be voiced.  This is all part of healthy community living.  I started trying this out. Speaking more openly with an especially trusted family member, making unpopular statements in the safety of my best friends, correcting student behavior with the added motivation that the guidance was part of my paycheck.

At 3:15am I was fed up with suffering out of fear. I tried shushing my neighbors. They had been seated on the shared terrace outside my open window chatting for 45 minutes.  I tried telepathically asking them to shut up and let me sleep.  Psychic communication failed me.  I got out of bed and stumbled to the window. I compiled my best Spanish and stuttered a grumpy attempt at "Neighbors, it's very late. You can move away from the window. Move to your left where there is no window. It is VERY LATE.". They did not move as I crawled back into bed, but shortly thereafter they left the rooftop.  I felt moderately proud of facing my fear and majorly disoriented by sleepiness.

The fear that others will not like me has ruled me far too long. I am so glad I am leaving this fear behind me bit by bit and moving into a healthier lifestyle. Sometimes small fears hold us prisoner more than great ones. Sometimes we do not realize how limiting the small fears are.  Walk with me step by step, out of fear and into freedom.

Holding Pain Well

  Six months ago I was thrown into a wall by a large frightened man in a hospital. I was taken by ambulance to an examination room and I recieved a CT scan of my neck and back. No permanent damage was observable. But for the last 6 months I have had limits and pains the CT scan did not predict.

     This month I needed to renew my job as a classroom helper in Madrid, Spain. I love this work and I longed to guarantee a second year placement. Some every day but oddly numerous circumstances slowed my application down 3 weeks. Before I fell asleep last night I saw a small note - I am a week beyond the guaranteed renewal and now my application is acceptable but not prioritized.

     I spent today teaching students things I am passionate about and doing the non-classroom work of my job.  I was surrounded by beauty - the first sun of Spring weather, the spirits of the kids, kind words of my coworkers. I enjoyed a lot of what I lived, but I allowed my pain to distract me from some of what I could have enjoyed.  

     I want to hold my pain like a dog on a leash. I want to feel if it gets out of control. I want to gently pull it back into place so that neither of us is drawn off course. But as much as I can I want my pain to walk beside me; I want to admit it is present and I want to supervise it, but I do not want to carry it in my arms.  

 This is a half formed theory, but I think doing this right will change every day that I live. For many years I lived with so little pain that I could usually ignore any that I felt. As a grown man, I carry pains that I picked up from living life fully. I want to manage that pain in a healthy way so that I can both use the wisdom it brings and enjoy all the beauty around me.

Hooks in my Routine

A hook is a regular occurrence in your life that initiates a routine. It is not clock based but instead it is based on actions, location, or situation. They are figurative places on which we figuratively hang our habits.  Many of the hooks I keep in my life are crucial for bringing me peace.  All hooks are neglected at some point whether for a day or for years.  Because they are enforced by routine, re-initiating a hook is quite doable.

At various points in my life I have used the hook of waking up to practice gratitude. I pray 3 thank yous before I get ready for work. I aim to make these thank yous simple and avoid the many stressful topics that await me every morning. I share gratitude for things like a good bed, a strong body, a warm flat.

A loved one who helps me care for the world recently gifted me a reusable water bottle.  I remember to fill it at the end of my  packing hook.  This hook includes putting some change in my pocket and placing my wallet, phone, pens, and keys in my pants.  Then I check my bag for the materials I will need to teach the day´s lessons.  On an organized day, I fill my water bottle right after I pack my bag.  This prepares me for a more comfortable hour-long commute to work and gives me a ready-packed drink for my big breakfast.

On a work day the park is my next crucial hook.  I  look at my phone on the way out my front door to check messages and reply to anything pressing.  Anything that is undone in the three minutes it takes me to reach the park must wait until the metro.  My phone goes away and I take time to think.  I walk through the park for 10 minutes on the way to my metro.  I try to find one coherent reflection for the walk whether it is a decision I need to make in the next few days, or an evaluation of the recent past.   

Arrival is one of my favorite hooks on a work day.  As soon as I get to my school I purchase a large 2 Euro breakfast at the school cafe.  I take it outside and eat in silence.  I do not allow myself to do any problem solving or planning during breakfast.  It is a time for stillness and for waving at any students that pass by my picnic.  My favorite memories of my arrival hook are the cold winter mornings when the sun was rising just as I finished my breakfast.  The darkness lent an extra layer of peace, and the steaming heat of the breakfast made it all the more beautiful in the winter chill. 

Ideally, the last hook in my day is saying goodbye to my fiance and her mom before I walk home to sleep.  We talk to God for a few minutes together to ask for guidance and share gratitude.  I give my mother-in-law  two Spanish kisses and my fiance walks me to the door.  I kiss her goodnight and she waves to me from the window when I get downstairs.  

I cherish the peace of these special hooks in my routine. Using them brings normalcy to the very abnormal situation of living outside of my birth country. I feel a holistic wellness resulting from their practice.

  Special thanks to Bruce Bundy for helping me to learn to identify and use hooks in my routine.

Foreigner

There is an ancient social law given to my ancestors:

When a foreigner moves into your country, do not treat them poorly. Instead, treat them like they are one of your own people. Love them like your own selves, because you were once foreigners in Egypt.

Lev 19:33 and 34a

I have lived one experience of moving to a foreign land. I felt fears I never considered in my home country and stressors I hardly had categories for in my mind. And my move was well funded, from one well-off country to another well-off country!

I had a life giving experience the other day that made me think about the law above.  I entered a café for the first time, really craving a change in routine and a hot coffee. I had a break in my work day and I found this place on my walk away from school. 

I entered with intense effort to speak the foreign language and convey kindness but confidence.  Within two sentences I had messed up the conversation. I wondered if this shop owner would decide I was a nuisance. I wondered if he would charge me an unfair price. I thought about the unappealing plastic wrapped croissant he motioned to when I asked for a breakfast cake.

 The shopowner repeated the question where I had blundered and I got the response correct.  I sat at a table, feeling overwhelmed - the littelest challenges do that to a foreigner.  The owner disappeared into the kitchen. He toasted that croissant like a gourmet chef. He brought it out with a decorative, hearty slab of butter on the corner of the plate. My coffee beside the breakfast. I savored the experience, read a bit, and tranquilly went up to pay. The owner shook my hand which through me off so much I nearly tossed the Euros I was trying to use to pay. He told me his name was Benedicto - “como el Papa" (like the Pope). I left that bar with the unique happiness of receiving respect in a place I feared I would be rejected.

I went back today. I stopped outside the door and double guessed my decision. What if the second experience is a disapointment?  What if his patience for foreigners wears out? I entered and had another great cup of coffee. The locals at the bar included me in the conversation even though I stumbled when I talked and mostly smiled silently in response to their banter. I waited until the bar emptied a bit, went to pay, and chatted a bit with Benedicto. He showed me all the respect and kindness of a new friend.

I am acutely aware of how people treat foreigners this year. I hope that I will treat other foreigners better when someday I return home. People like Benedicto are changing the world by treating outsiders as if they were one of their own.

Names

Mine means famous. It has never quite fit with my personality. Admired or appreciated I could have lived up to, but I have always belonged in small crowds of close-knit journeys. Mine is also the legacy of my father, and it is a name I am proud to share.

In Spain names have been a strange experience. I ask people their name two or three times when they introduce themself. First I try to hear a name I know as existing and then I try to repeat most of the subtleties of their pronunciation. Some names signal enmity between my ancestors and the ancestors of the person I am meeting.  I tell myself, nearly audibly, "This is not your enemy. Be friendly."

In Spain I struggle much more with names.  I believe part of it is the double memory associated with my name learning here. In Pennsylvania I only remember which pre-made box someone's name belongs in "John, Michael, Deeana. In Spain the boxes are still unformed and names like "JuanJo" that I learn at work begin an enitirely new mental name box.

This year I am putting massive amounts of memory energy into knowing the names of people in my school and in my town. This effort brings the last reflection I want to share. When I remember a student's name for the first time, there is a magical moment. The student feels appreciated and cared for and I feel like I see them as an individual. It is frequently marked by the student exclaiming "you remembered my name" or expressing a satisfied surprise in being known. Every challenge in life is punctuated by moments of happiness and this amazing type of moment is only formed in the respectful meeting of two vastly different cultures.

He has not learned to live

Every country I enter stings my heart.  My girlfriend and I are foreigners living in Spain.  Her family is mostly in Honduras and mine is split between the the U.S. and Thailand.  Every day of our lives one of us is missing someone we love.  This Christmas the five of us in my family of origin made massive traveling efforts and shared a home and a country for 6 days. My heart sang with happiness on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th day.  But it ached for my girlfriend back in Spain each day of the trip.    

On the 6th day my brother returned to work and I felt another sting of sadness.  On the 8th day my sister hugged me goodbye with tears in her eyes and started her drive home.  I walked to the backyard for a tearful moment before returning inside. Then, Dad, and Mom, and I sat together in the emptier house, knowing that my upcoming flight would complete the rupture.     

That night I walked the quiet neighborhood with my mom and was surprised by a thought that leapt out of me “It seems like God is so heartless”.  Why would an all-powerful being rule a world of constant unmet longing?  My life in Spain seems fated and right, so how is it that it carries so much pain? 

There’s a poem I have meditated on for a decade.  This piece of it sounds inside of me:

And he who has not learned to know

How false Life’s sparkling bubbles show

How bitter are the drops of woe

He has not learned to live

This year I have taken big gulping mouthfuls from the Goblet of Life and I have tasted amazing pleasures and bitter woe.  The bitter woe is unavoidable, unless we hide from the path before us.  I think this is Longfellow’s point.  

I think about my God who seems heartless and I think about a truly good parent.  A wise father leads us through painful paths for our own good and for the sake of what is right.  He is purposeful and caring and, in the midst of any necessary pain, he comforts his child.  I have seen these traits in my God.  My pain does not refute Him and it does not condemn Him.  I think about another section of the same poem:

Then in Life’s goblet freely press

The leaves that give it bitterness

Nor prize the colored waters less

For in thy darkness and distress

New light and strength they give  

Pain with a known end is easier to endure.  We look ahead and draw strength from the future where the pain is gone.  This is the most hope Longfellow offers us in the reflection we are using.  The pain of today will not last.

I pledge you in this cup of grief

Where floats the fennel’s bitter leaf

The Battle of our Life is brief

The alarm – the struggle – the relief

Then sleep we side by side

I’ll quote an even older text, because I think our poet left something out.  We have not learned to live until we have tasted life’s bitter pain.  But we have not learned wisdom until we embrace God’s offer of joy.  It is an offer of hope beyond our sorrows.

I am sure 

That neither death nor life

Nor angels nor rulers

Nor things present nor things to come

Nor powers 

Nor height nor depth

Nor anything else in all creation

Will be able to separate us from the love of God

In Christ Jesus our Lord

My First Suegra’s Beans

I find myself in the kitchen, working clumsily with the tools that create the delicious filling.  I am thrilled and nervous.  I have been awaiting the chance to enter the cooking dynasty and today I was asked to prepare the sacred dish for our dinner.  What looked simple in the hands of my suegra feels clumsy and halting in my own.  It is just this year that my Pennsylvanian heart has learned to love these beans.  But I see the dish taking shape, and I plunge ahead with hope.

It is one of many cherished moments.  I am thrilled by my decision to join my family in Madrid and build a love with Jeni. We see each other and her Mom, Tesla, every day now.  For the past three months I have been living firsts. First Thanksgiving in Spain, first time of Jeni hosting my family, first experience living via the metro instead of a car.

Now the first time cooking the beans. We boiled them with garlic and onion a couple of weeks ago and froze them for safe keeping. Now I am alone in the kitchen to add more flavor and fry them up. I call Tesla to clarify one of the proportions and ask Jeni a question about our onions.  My inexperience in the kitchen leaves me nervous.  But after the questions I am stubbornly, excitedly working. My journal full of thoughts and one special bean recipe rests on the counter. My memory works to imagine the steps as I have seen Tesla do them. 

Finally Tesla arrives home and greets me from the entrance. She steps into the kitchen and sees that my work is almost complete. She take a small taste as I wonder how it turned out.

"Mmmm." She says "Mmm." She gives me a partial hug in the tiny kitchen. And I know she sees Honduras in my heart. 

Auxiliar Life

At 8:20 I finish my long commute and enter the warmth of the campus.  I buy my daily breakfast panini and stroll to the quiet cement wall to take a seat.  Hundreds of students are in their first period class and the awkward energy of adolescence is everywhere.

My breakfast purchase is fresh bread and tomato oil topped with cheese and bit of ham. The air is chill and the stately classroom buildings rest in the approaching dawn.

After my short rest in the pleasant morning air, I head inside to finish any remaining prep for the day's classes.  There are three desktops in the spacious teacher's room. Deemed old by their apperance, but faithful as a perfect pair of sneakers.

Then I am waving, greeting, and teaching mini lessons to curious kids living pieces of their lives in their second language. I am an auxiliar in Spain.  I am a volleyball tutor. A biology support. A music professor. Always in English. Always in English..unless I can sneak some Spanish in without upsetting the admins. Sometimes Spanish gives the kids the hope of success they needed to participate in the English lesson.

I pay my rent with my stipend. And split the groceries with some loved ones. If I finish without too much damage to my savings, all the better. But my life here is worth a risk. I have love. That much is clear. And I think it was fate that brought me to Spain.

Immigrant

In another land I understood

I heard every silent word

The pulse of every unplayed chord

Played true upon my ear

There was a time I knew the way

I saw the shapes that went unformed

The meaning of each unseen sign

Was clear as fresh cleaned glass

I left my land and I have found

I cannot hear the songs you sing

Your gestures make no sense to me

And all is left unknown

Hadestown - A Reflection

In 2021, on a long drive home, I came across a mysterious song from a musical called Hadestown.  This musical, which opened on broadway in 2019, examines the love and suffering experienced in modern day life through the characters of ancient Greek mythology.  The soundtrack utilizes energetic jazz music and haunting mellow vocals to tell the story of Orpheus and Eurydice’s doomed romance.

The songs “Road to Hell”, “Any Way the Wind Blows” and “Epic 1” introduce the crucial characters.  Eurydice was “a run away from everywhere she’d ever been”.  Orpheus “ had a way with words and was touched by the gods themselves”.  The two meet at a bar and Orpheus falls instantly in love.  He seeks to woo Eurydice who playfully rejects his advances until she hears that Orpheus can grant what she has never found - a chance to feel alive.  She further discovers that Orpheus is writing a song with the power to rebalance an out of balance world.  These pieces reflect on the power of young, innocent love and set the stage for upcoming heartbreak.  

Tragedy arrives quickly in the young couple’s relationship.  Eurydice tells Orpheus that they are running out of food and firewood in “A Gathering Storm” but he is distracted by his mission to right the world with his song and he walks away.  Eurydice accepts an invitation to have an affair with the god of the underworld when the god offers her food, warmth, and security.  She makes an agreement to stay endlessly in Hades’ underworld and is bound to be eternally separated from Orpheus (“Way Down Hadestown”).  The universally known suffering of forbidden love is played out as the play’s protagonists long for each other and seek to be reunited.

In “Wait for Me” (two consecutive songs by the same name)  Orpheus prepares to enter the underworld with hopes to rescue Eurydice and continue their love in the land of the living.  Hermes shares the secret of the “long way round” to Hadestown and Orpheus claims he would go “to the end of time, to the end of the Earth” to regain his bride. Orpheus completes the perilous journey but even greater danger is present as he faces Hades himself and the damning contract holding Eurydice captive. In a final exploration of suffering, Orpheus fails to rescue Eurydice and they are forced to spend the rest of their lives apart.

The whole soundtrack of the musical is a progressive exploration of love and suffering.  The final perspective is that suffering wins out - again and again.  The only hope allowed is sung by the narrator as he explains that the song is sung despite its tragic ending “as if it might turn out this time”.  Maybe the hope that the story will end with joy is part of what draws me to this musical. I find myself listening to it endlessly.

Fuzzy Identity

I always wiggle into communities that I do not match.  Befriending the football team I never played on. Laughing with the high school drug dealer I never bought from.  I even found an honorary membership in a community of traumatized women.  So I continued the pattern of unusual belonging when I entered a church family abroad.  My church family is a group of loved ones who immigrated to Spain from Latin America.  I am white - both in the government paperwork sense and in the my family cooks with no spices sense.  So it does not take much to see I was not born into my new community.  My habit of mismatching keeps my life interesting and it keeps the borders of my identity fuzzy.   

This week shocked me into reflection.  I showed up to my weekly get together with loved ones in the church and I shook the hand of my strong, tan, Honduran mentor.  He is leading me in a spiritual journey of looking for God and sharing God’s power with others.  As soon as I reached for his hand I felt a sense of relief from whatever I had been processing in my mind that morning.  I was home, well, as home as things get for me here.  My girlfriend was getting ready to sing up front, my suegra was greeting some friends in the gathering room, and I was ready to sing and pray with the people I love.  

My mentor motioned to a white couple in the back row.  “K. has friends here, from Pennsylvania.  Your neighbors are in church today”.  And for a moment, I didn’t really want to be white.  I wanted to be a part of my church family that I meet with every Sunday.  I wanted to be a regular in a room full of people who are very different from me.  I wished that this automatic connection with a couple of strangers was not a part of who I was.

I sat with the white folk.  My girlfriend had saved us two seats next to them so I could help them feel welcome.  And, to be honest, it was the right way to live.  God teaches us to welcome the stranger and that day the strangers were my own cultural/racial kin. After feeling the unpleasant side of undesired association, I also noticed the positive feelings of connection.  It felt exciting to be next to a symbol of home.  And it felt empowering to share snippets of translation about how our church family was worshiping together.  I started to wonder if the couple would invite me out to see the town based on our unintentional cultural bond.

When I left the church building that day I walked home with my girlfriend.  We ate lunch with our neighbor from Chile.  At a table in Madrid, in a piso in Madrid, our home in Madrid.  The close encounter with Pennsylvania drifted from  my consciousness and I returned to my daily patterns in Spain.  My cultural identity is extremely fuzzy.  And it has been for years.  You don’t have to pressure me if you want to know my opinion on the subject.  I am thrilled to be confused about where I belong!

Wandering and Stillness

12 months ago I was in Asturias taking the most epic hike of my life. Today I am riding a train to the same exact place but with a very different itinerary. This trip is a 3 night stay with some loved ones with hopes to focus and strengthen my spirit.

I do not regret the change of plans. A month and a half before this visit, I intended to use my trip to hike the last 8 days of the Camino Primitivo. I mapped out my nightly end points, but even as I did so I started to dream of other journeys - reflection in stillness, community, apprenticeship.

My friends operate a casa rural  in Villaviciosa. Imagine a high end hotel in the most beautiful hills you can picture. Now subtract the excessive symbols of wealth associated with a hotel stay and adjust the image of the building until you see a massive country home full of guest rooms and tranquility.

I dream of bringing at least a portion of this lifestyle into my future. If I never own a casa ruraI hope I can locate stillness and acceptance from the life God has brought me into and carry it into the lives of others. I hope I can share rest with souls that are weary. I hope I can offer fountains of peace. I am thrilled for this chance to learn from my loved ones and to dream of the ways I will bring their lifestyle into my future.