Happy Independence Day!!!

Enjoy watching the fireworks, waving a flag in the parade, and eating too much potato salad!

But also remember what this holiday celebrates - a revolutionary idea of human nature and government.

Some good readings:

The Declaration of Independence, of course!

A great article entitled "What Do We Celebrate on the Fourth of July?"

Common Things

I'm reading through George MacDonald's Diary of an Old Soul for the second or third time now. It's a series of holy sonnets for every day of the year. With each reading, I discover new insights, or, rather, I find old insights as true and real as ever. I particularly liked the one for today:

July 4th

Master, thou workest with such common things -
Low souls, weak hearts, I mean - and hast to use,
Therefore, such common means and rescuings,
That hard we find it, as we sit and muse,
To think thou workest in us verily:
Bad sea-boats we, and manned with wretched crews -
That doubt the captain, watch the storm-spray flee.

Another sonnet from Diary of an Old Soul here.

A C.S. Lewis Summer

In a moment of random resolutions early this summer, I decided to attempt reading all of the C.S. Lewis books that I have not read. I think this resolution must have stemmed from my English professor last semester, whose expertise is Lewis, and who studied Lewis at Oxford. I had already read many of Lewis's books: Mere Christianity, The Chronicles of Narnia, Till We Have Faces, Perelandra, Out of the Silent Planet, and The Abolition of Man (which we read in class this past semester). But not nearly all of the major works.

It all began with a random purchase. I brought home from school a copy of The Four Loves, which I picked up at the college bookstore on the recommendation of my friend P.R. I had started reading it, but I was still in the introductory chapter on "Likings and Loves for the Sub-Human" - not very far. I decided to finish it; I always begin my search for "what to read" with the books I have left unfinished.

Finishing The Four Loves gave me a sense of accomplishment; I always feel that way in the wake of finishing a classic book. And I turned to other things. But, after a couple of days of being without Lewis's wry humor and clear prose, I decided that I wanted to read more.

Of course, I couldn't make some kind of reasonable resolution, such as reading three or five more of his books. Instead, I resolved to finish reading his major works. Besides, I was tired of being left behind in any conversation revolving around classic Lewis texts at school. My school tends to draw devotees of Lewis and Tolkein, and I often find myself sadly behind in Inklings lore.

So, after completing The Four Loves, I began The Screwtape Letters. At first I found the book an abrupt transition - I went from a clear prose exposition of ordered love to a witty, sardonic series of letters which made my skin crawl with the awareness that I was much more unaware of the factors that influence my decisions than I enjoyed thinking. I began to look at my thoughts with a bit more suspicion.

I then picked up The Great Divorce on recommendation of my friend S.T., who said that she read all of it on a rainy day. The thought of dreamy, rainy reading inspired me. Lewis's sardonic prose became, in this book, dreamy and wistful, reminding me of moments at the end of Perelandra. Lewis recorded a series of conversations between ghosts and Spirits with a gentle, sad compassion. Each conversation revealed tendencies in my soul - and made me weep over them.

At first, each book seemed separate, distinct. Soon, however, familiar patterns re-emerged. First, a clear, logical prose style emerged, without pretensions to grandeur, but yet scorning the baseness of slang and poor grammar - a style that sought only to communicate clearly. Even when the idea being communicated is the height of poetry and beauty itself, Lewis seeks only to allow the beauty and poetry of its nature to shine through the language, as light shines through a window. And sometimes a glorious subject can transform simply clear prose into something luminous:

If we cannot "practice the presence of God," it is something to practice the absence of God, to become increasingly aware of our unawareness till we feel like men who should stand beside a great cataract and hear no noise, or like a man in a story who looks in a mirror and finds no face there, or a man in a dream who stretches out his hand to visible objects and gets no sensation of touch. To know that one is dreaming is to no longer be perfectly asleep. (pg. 141)

Lewis's descriptions of the Christian life also began to evince certain patterns. Lewis continually emphasizes that Christianity requires a complete reorganization of life centering around God. Christianity, to Lewis, requires the kind of radical change that happens to a person were he to discover that up is down and down is up, or that left is right and right is left. As a Spirit says in The Great Divorce:

That's what we all find when we reach this country. We've all
been wrong! That's the great joke. There's no need to go on pretending one was
right! After that we begin to live.

To Lewis, such a radical change should make us laugh, jump for joy, just like a man who can finally see, who finally understands how to view reality, would feel. Christianity initiates us into reality, and Lewis continually attempts to help us glimpse the abundance of potential inherent in this new world. He fills the reader with a sense that the future will be wonderful beyond our wildest dreams.

And, slowly, this summer, Lewis's works have encouraged me to keep my eyes open for the real, the glorious, the heavenly. I'm beginning The Problem of Pain tomorrow morning, and I have The Weight of Glory and Miracles on my bookshelf.

Now, for you, my readers (what is left of you, poor dears). My question to you is, what other works would you recommend? What is your favorite Lewis, and why?

Promises, Promises

Ah me, I have reneged on my pledge! Despite my good intentions at the beginning of the summer, this blog has been abandoned. Not that I didn't have my excuses. I got an internship at the local newspaper. I got sick. And I've spent a lot of time with all the people I love - always an amazing thing!

But, excuses do not cover broken promises. As a goodwill offering, I'll post my recent favorite Shakespeare sonnet. Actually, sonnets - I have two current favorites.

And, hopefully, this post will beget others....

Sonnet 97

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness everywhere!
And yet this time remov'd was summer's time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
But hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute:
Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

I love the contrasting images that Shakespeare develops in this poem, especially how he uses the imagery of birth and conception to characterize the seasons. Winter is filled with "bareness," while summer bears "the wanton burden of the prime;" Shakespeare paints summer as a women heavy with child, while winter is a bereaved, baren widow. I also love how he contrasts the seasons of the inner world with the seasons of the outer world, and priviledges our inner changes of season as the more influential on our behavior - an observation easily evident to anyone who lives with the wonderfully changeable moods of a family:-)

Sonnet 110

Alas! 'tis true I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new;
Most true it is that I have look'd on truth
Askance and strangely; but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.
Now all is done, have what shall have no end:
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof to try an older friend,
A god in love, to whom I am confin'd.
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
Even to thy pure and most, most loving breast.

I wrote an English paper on this poem this semester, only to find out after I had written it that this poem is considered one of the most difficult Shakespearean Sonnets to interpret! I fell in love with it when one of my school friends and I sat around on a Saturday afternoon and read the sonnets aloud; nothing captures the beauty of Shakespeare's meaning more than reading aloud. I love the mix of optimism and regret in the poem; the joy and hope with which the poem ends does not lessen the mourning, regretful nature of the poem's beginning. According to my interpretation, the poet doubles the language of the sonnet to write it both to God and to his lover, repenting of leaving them both, but avowing his unshakable constancy henceforth.

In Which Miss Kiernan Returns to Her Post....err....Posts

Today I asked myself, "Can anything be more beautiful than life itself?"

What a gift it is to live and breathe and love and smile and laugh. Revel in it with me.

Oh, and, by the way, hello again:-)

Yes, I have returned, not only home from college but to this forgotten, dusty blog. My head is crammed full of such a number of things, my vocabulary and thoughts have expanded beyond measure, and my world is full of so many new, crazy, wonderful people.

College is a wonderful experience, especially for the unprepared, because everything is new and exciting. The hard part is that you finish so soon. After all, I just began attending, I just went through orientation, I just got there. And now I'm back home for the summer, life here at home as continued without me, in two months I will be a sophomore, and......before I know it life will have snuck up behind me and frightened me with its sudden appearance. My friends and family are very found of sneaking up on me and scaring me - they say that I have a wonderful scream. Apparently life enjoys their fun as well.

I expected to work this summer, but no one needs me to flip hamburgers or mix cappuccinos, so I'm stuck at home reading and writing. Needless to say, I'm not complaining. Hopefully soon some stories, essays, and poems will be appearing on this blog.

Speaking of poems, I think I'll go work on them now; until then, consider yourselves one and all duly greeted and welcomed into summer!

Wir Eilen ~ From Bach Cantata 78 "Jesu, der du meine Seele"

Wir eilen mit schwachen,
doch emsigen Schritten,
O Jesu, O Meister, zu helfen zu dir.

We hasten with eager
yet faltering footsteps,
O Jesus, O Master, for help unto Thee.

Du suchest die Kranken und Ihrenden treulich.

Thou faithfully seekest the ill and the erring.

Ach hore!
Ach hore!

O hear us!
O hear us!

Ach hore, wie wir!
Die Stimme erheben, um Hulfe zu bitten!

O hear us, we pray!
Our voices are raising to beg thee for succor!

Es sei uns dein gnadiges Antlitz er freulich!

Let your countenance ever smile graciously upon us!

Donald Miller Survives

A few months ago, Annie Sullivan and I found ourselves in our local Christian bookstore. I can't remember the purpose of our visit - it did have one - but I know that I soon began meandering around through the shelves of books. Meandering through shelves of books is a dangerous activity for me, because sooner or later I encounter a book that jumps off the shelf into my hands and makes itself so overwhelmingly appealing that I absolutely cannot leave the store without taking it to the cashier and getting permission to take it home. This is hard on my pocketbook, I know, but I can't help myself.

As I was meandering on this particular visit, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller threw itself from the shelf into my hands. I recognized the title, having recently read a cursory review of it in WORLD magazine during my weekly scan for cultural news. And the book had shelf-mates, three alluring titles: Searching For God Knows What, To Own A Dragon: Reflections on Growing Up Without A Father, and Through Painted Deserts. As I began thumbing through the book's pages, Annie Sullivan joined me, always a sure sign that book-buying is in our near future. My fingers felt the soft paperback copies and thumbed through their pages, and my eyes drank in words, phrases, and paragraphs. I liked the way Miller's words were strung in phrases like lights on a Christmas tree. I liked the soft whisp of the pages underneath my thumb. And I like paperbacks.

To make a long, agonizing story short, we bought three of them - Blue Like Jazz, To Own A Dragon, and Searching For God Knows What. (Annie insists that I add that they were on sale and we had a coupon, so that means we're not total gluttons!)

Usually when I splurge on a book (or...books), I'm pleased with my selection, even if my pocketbook isn't. I often comfort myself with the thought that, if I starve, it will be in pursuit of the best books. Also usually when I splurge on a book I spend the rest of the day or evening poring over it.

But when we arrived home, it was late and I was tired, so I retired to bed, leaving Annie to look Donald Miller up online and read snippets from our purchases.

When I awoke the next morning, however, I was greeted with the unhappy countenance of Annie Sullivan, sitting in my desk chair. She was not happy with those books. She did not like them, no, she did not. Just come and read, she urged me, just come and read what he wrote.

In searching online she had found a damaging article. A short selection demonstrates why she disliked it:

Here are some examples of how Bush is unlike the average evangelical....He
is dishonest. While Bill Clinton is often seen as a liar by the evangelical
community, at least he had the integrity to say “sexual relations” as opposed to
“sex.” What he said regarding Monica Lewinsky, then, was technically true
(though no less misleading and dishonest and furthermore dishonorable.) It is
President Bush who has no such conscience. I can only think he considers his
lies justified by his American/Christian agenda. That is, he believes it is okay
to use Satan’s tactics to build God’s kingdom. The specific lies are too
numerous to mention, but see this short list.

Now, I do not agree with all of the President's policies. But Miller's article seemed to reflect a misinformed and prejudiced opinion, an ideology that shapes facts to its designs. Such ideologies tend to ruin clear thinking and good writing, and I did not approve of Miller leaning so heavily on an ideological crutch. In his books, Miller often expresses his frustration with the American evangelical church, and many times I share his frustration. Sometimes, as in this selection, it seems as though Miller lets his frustration cloud his judgment to the point that he cannot see good in anything that aligns itself with the evangelical church.

Further proof of his ideological leanings was given in his books, such as this selection from Searching For God Knows What:

In his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Al Franken included a
provocative multipage comic strip about a man named Supply-Side Jesus. In the
strip, Supply-Side Jesus walks through the streets of Jerusalem stating that
people should start businesses so they can employ the poor and should purchase
exotic and expensive clothes and jewelry so their money will trickle into the
economy and, eventually, bring bread to the mouths of the starving.

In the comic, the disciples come to Supply-Side Jesus and say they want to
feed the poor directly, but Supply-Side Jesus says no, that if you give money or
food or water directly to the poor, you are only helping them in their laziness
and increasing the welfare state. Eventually, Rome catches up with Supply-Side
Jesus and, before an angry mob, Pontius Pilate asks the masses which man they
want to crucify, Supply-Side Jesus or another man who, in the comic, stands
beside Pilate humbly, a disheveled and shadowy figure. The crowd chants they
want to free Supply-Side Jesus because they like his philosophies, and they want
to crucify this other man, the shadowy figure standing next to Pilate. Pilates
tells the crowd this other man is innocent, that he has done no wrong, but the
crowd refuses to listen and instead chants, "Crucify him, crucify him." Pilate
then lets Supply-Side Jesus go free, and orders the innocent man, whose was
Jesus of Nazareth, to be crucified.

I sat there reading the book at Horse Brass Pub in amazement. Here was Al
Franken, a known liberal who often lambastes the conservative Christian right
but who also, somehow, understands the differences between the Jesus the
religious right worships and the Jesus presented in Scripture. One Jesus is
understood through conservative economic theory, the other through the
Gospels.

Once again, I do not hold an overly favorable opinion of the evangelical church's presentation of Jesus. Still, Miller's choice of example is rife with partisanship, prejudice, and misinformation, political qualities that he often claims in his books to wish to rise above. As is evident, he fails miserably. And this was not the only example. (Miller's reference to "conservative economic theory" in this passage particularly frustrated me, because I think that a truly free, capitalist economic theory is reflected in Biblical truths. But that's another post.)

In short, Annie and I were not happy customers. We wanted our money back.

Back the three titles went into the shopping bag. Back we went into the car. Back we went along the highway. As we drove, I kept flipping through the books, reading quotes here and snippets there, looking to see if there was anything of value, any new view of the truth that would enrich our lives, any beautiful paragraph that it would be poverty to live without.

And I found some. I found many. There was the beginning of Blue Like Jazz:

I am early in my story, but I believe I will stretch out into eternity, and
in heaven I will reflect upon these early days, these days when it seemed God
was down a dirt road, walking toward me. Years ago He was a swinging speck in
the distance; now He is close enough I can hear His singing. Soon I will see the
lines on His face.

Or this story from Searching For God Knows What, while Miller is discussing the way we make the gospel into a formula, a 3-step process to salvation:

A few weeks later I learned an invaluable lesson from a wealthy and
successful businessman here in Portland who owns a chain of coffee shops. A few
of us were sitting in one of his shops one morning, and another friend asked if
we had seen the World Series of Poker on television the night before. None of us
had, but that mention led to a conversation about gambling. My friend who owns
the coffee shops told us, in a tone of kindness and truth, that nobody he knows
who is successful gambles; rather, they work hard, they accept the facts of
reality, they enjoy life as it is. "But the facts of reality stink," I told him.
"Reality is like fine wine," he said to me. "It will not appeal to children."
And I am grateful my friend stung me in that way, because this truth helped me
to understand and appreciate life itself, as it is, without the false hope
formulas offer. I didn't read formula books after that because reality is like
fine wine. I am quite snobby about it, if you want to know the truth.

When Miller discussed his experience with living in community and how difficult it was for him in Blue Like Jazz, I felt conviction deep inside:

The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story
about me.

God brought me to Graceland to rid me of this deception, to scrub it out of
the gray matter of my mind. It was a frustrating and painful experience.

I hear addicts talk about the shakes and panic attacks and the highs and
lows of resisting their habit, and to some degree I understand them because I
have had habits of my own, but no drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No
rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world
belongs to me, all people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so
powerful as self-addiction.

And when I opened his To Own A Dragon, I found a wonderful description of the kind of security I've had as a member of a loving family - and a window into the world of those who have not:

If you believe that your family will fall apart without you, you probably
go on to believe your community will fall apart without you, and then your city
and country. And in just about every dynamic you walk into, you would feel the
need to lead, to hold things together, to bring life and service to the people
you interact with - just as you had done when you were a kid with your
family.

And, conversely, you can't blame a kid for feeling unwanted if his father
takes off. If you think about it, God gives a father a specific instinct that
makes him love his kid more than anything in the world. And I suppose that same
instinct was floating around in my father's brain, too, but for whatever reason,
he took a look at me and split. Even the instinct God gave him wasn't strong
enough to make my dad stay. And that has made me feel, at times, there is this
detestable person living within my skin who makes people feel as though they
must carry me on their backs. Walking through the park one night I realized I
was operating out of a feeling of inferiority. Deep inside, I believed life was
for other people - that joy was for others, and responsibility was for others,
and so on and so on. In life, there were people who were meant to live and
people who were accidentally born, elected to plod the globe as the despised.

So, sitting in the parking lot of the Christian bookstore, we decided to let Donald Miller stay, to let him survive in our home. We would take him, both the good and the bad, just as we take the good and the bad when we make friends or love our family members. We would learn from his mistakes and be made wiser by his wisdom. After all, isn't that what reading is all about?

Carnival of Homeschooling

"Interplanet" Shannon of PHAT Mommy is hosting an intergalactic Carnival of Homeschooling this week and doing a superb job of it, so head on over and enjoy the selection of posts that she has culled. Be especially sure to read The DHM's discussion of old vs. new history books and Mama Squirrel's rebellion against subjects.

The Question

Often, people ask me, "Where did you go to school?"

My answer?

I was homeschooled.

This is a fact, a scientific building-block of my life. I breathe. I eat. I am a girl. I was homeschooled. I spent the same 12 years in school as everyone else, but I spent them at a kitchen table instead of behind a desk.

And yet, a rich and bountiful world hides behind those three words. This physical fact is a gateway to a whole world of spiritual beauty, a world where life marries learning in a glorious daily ceremony.

Were the fact that I was homeschooled merely a fact, the many responses it receives would seem unwarranted, even exaggerated. Some people raise their eyebrows in a mild questioning scorn. Others pull out a file marked "Proof of Good Parenting" and proceed to walk me through its contents. Some offer pity for my plight; others assume my stupidity. For such a factual answer, their responses aren't very scientific.

Those three words are more than a fact, however. They usher the mind into another world, a world with its own norms, its own customs, and even its own arguments. To hear those words is to stand in the shoes of Columbus, placing one's foot on the sand of a new world.

And, as any student of early colonial history knows, not all explorers know how to approach the unique customs and norms of another culture.

Some see all these new customs as savagery. Swelled with the glory of their own culture, they see all else with eyes of scorn. All is negative. All is regressive. Their own culture has progressed far beyond that of these "savages." There is, indeed, much that could be improved in this new world, but there is also much good, much from which these explorers could learn. But to accept help from the savages is unthinkable to them, so they return to their own world with tales of the savages' incompetence.

Others see the good things in this new world. They observe its ideas and customs with open eyes and see much from which they could benefit. But this good threatens them. Whatever faults it may have, they find their own world sufficient as it is. Yet they are reluctant to admit that they may be accepting less when they could reach for more. So they defend themselves to the inhabitants of the new world. They pull out dozens of proofs for why they are better, why their ways are superior, why they are more intelligent for adopting their own ways. Finally, they return to their own world, pretending to feel a superiority that their own eyes have denied.

A few explorers, however, truly open their eyes and ears to the beauties of this new world. They see the good, the bad, and the ugly, but they also freely admit that their own ways have a good, a bad, and an ugly. And, as always when we see with clear eyes, they are changed.

Some choose to stay. They pull up their roots and become courageous pioneers into new territory. Others leave for home, but they bring valuable lessons and ideas with them.

All are changed for the better by the experience.

It is into this that I usher a person when I answer their question, "Where did you go to school?" The question is quotidian; the answer, a simple fact. Nothing special seems to go on in the physical exchange. But the spiritual world is humming with a whir of activity.

No wonder their responses aren't scientific.

Sensing Joy

Sometimes, I can just sense joy in a room. And I sensed it last night.

I felt it in the beat that pulsated in the floors and crept up my legs into my hips. In the way my hips began to move, with jerky, graceless movements, guided by an abandoned sense of rhythm.
I heard it in the loud voices reverberating against the kitchen walls, mingling boy and girl, adult and child, in one carefree mass of sound. In the calls of "one" "two" "three" and "four" as passion was exuded in playing at business in a game called Pit.

I smelled it in the sweet sweat and chocolate sauce and lemon lotion. In the chili powder and cherries and fresh tomatoes.

I tasted it in the large taco salad dripping with salsa and green olives. In the vanilla ice-cream smothered in strawberries.

And I saw it in the faces of young and not-so-young, as neighbors gathered on a Saturday night to eat and play together.

Europe, Day 1: Augsburg, Germany - continued

Let me record now that Laura is one of the prettiest girls I have ever met. She complements her golden hair, blue eyes, and slim figure with a warm smile and welcoming manners. And the most interesting accent of any foreigner I've ever met.

After hearing her southern "twang," my foggy mind tried to comprehend what was going on. It failed; I stood there trying to be friendly while feeling like a zombie. Laura led my roommate and me out of the bevy of noisy teenagers to her tiny European car. I had forgotten how small European cars can be. I had also forgotten how much you can fit in them when you really work at it. Laura managed to stuff both my roommate's and my large suitcases in the back of her miniscule car, plus fitting both of us in somewhere.

I don't remember much about that ride. Laura was very friendly, and her southern accent became explicable when she said that she had spent a year as a foreign exchange student in Arkansas. She finished off her southern accent with true southern hospitality, something that I was later to learn is also Bavarian hospitality. My southern relatives would have been proud.

When we arrived, my roommate, Evy, and I stumbled out of the car in front of a large brick house. Lovely greens, blues, pinks, purples, reds, and oranges surrounded the house, colors which soon gained the solid forms of a garden with an fish pond and small gazebo under which sat a picnic table and chairs. After being shoved through various ugly man-made buildings and machines while flying, I caught a breath of truly fresh, natural air, and the fog in my brain cleared a bit.

Laura ushered us inside what we soon realized was a small apartment building, with three separate apartments. Laura and her sister, Claudia, lived in the top apartment, and their parents lived in the bottom apartment. The middle apartment was where Laura's grandfather had lived before he passed away; since then it had remained empty.

We left our bags in the lobby and went into the bottom apartment to meet Laura's mother, Monica. As soon as we walked in Laura launched into a stream of German, which was soon joined by a stream of her mother's, making a river of German, flooding our ears. The language washed over me, and I just took it in, wondering if this is how a baby feels as she lies in the middle of the floor with sounds full of import washing over her head.

The apartment had low ceilings and dim lighting. German decor was scattered about a house that otherwise had all the marks of cookie-cutter '60s design, which is the same in all the Western countries. Monica ushered us into the drawing room and offered us the first of what seemed like hundreds of drinks during our visit. Bavarians water their guests as though they are plants, and you certainly flourish in their homes.

After greeting us in her broken English, Monica inquired about my German last name. When did my family come to America? Did I speak any German? I'm not at all close with my German relatives - the grandfather who had German blood died when I was eight - so I dug quickly through the dusty files in the back of my mind and threw out a date - the 1850s. Monica nodded her head; that explained why I didn't speak German.

Limited small talk went on between all of us, interrupted periodically by heated arrangements made between Laura and her mother under the cloak of German. Laura offered to take us to their local mall; they were very fortunate to have a mall, and parking was free on Saturdays. Evy and I asked if we could freshen up and take a shower, so we said goodbye to Laura's mother and went out into the lobby.

After a refreshing shower, we took a trip to the mall and a little walk around town. My memory is faint here; Laura pointed out all the Augsburg historic landmarks, but I was concentrating too hard on staying awake to notice. She then bought us ice-cream, and we went home.

When we arrived, a bevy of Laura's German relatives were gathered in the back garden, sitting with rapt attention around the TV screen showing the current World Cup game. Helmut was quite in love with the World Cup; he had a special fussball area in the back garden, with a TV screen, tables, chairs, and a little board on which he kept track of all the games, writing down all the scores. (Later in our stay he tried to explain his passion for the game, but the mix of his urgency and his limited English stopped the conversation before it started.) The barbecue was going, and a table was spread in front of the garage, filled with pasta salad, leaf salad, roasted veggies, and delicious Bavarian breads.

In the front garden, under the gazebo, was another table and chairs, and this is where Laura, Evy, and I brought our gleanings from the barbecue. We were soon joined by Sebastian, Laura's cousin, who brought two girls from our choir who were staying at his house, Jamie and Brittany. Not long afterwards Laura's sister, Claudia, and Claudia's boyfriend, Tom, came for supper.

I was starving, so I said a quick prayer and fell to. The food was glorious, and this impression was not merely a result of the gentle breeze, fading sunlight, and ravenous hunger. Monica truly was a wonderful cook. Throughout our meal the adults kept bringing us plates of food, long after we had become stuffed Thanksgiving turkeys. It seemed to give them immense pleasure to see us eat.

Conversation was a mix of the embarrassing and the hilarious. Laura, Claudia, Tom, and Sebastian all spoke and understood English, but speaking the language and knowing the idiosyncrasies of the people are not quite the same thing. Our lack of knowledge of German quirks was far worse, however. I think we were rather amusing.

After we were done eating, Sebastian's best friend from down the street joined our party, and conversation continued. Now that I was full, I was getting headaches from trying to prop my eyelids open; I was beginning to fantasize falling asleep on the table. However, that would have made me even more amusing, I think.

Soon a trip to the local beer garden was proposed, and that was when Evy, Jamie, Brittany, and I let the cat out of the bag: we weren't allowed to drink alcohol, according to the rules of the choir. There was a moment of shocked silence and then a barrage of questions, most of which were variations on "Are you sure?" Some of the girls professed that they would drink if the rules allowed it; I don't ever plan on drinking, which proved to be even more of an astonishment. Laura found a compromise; the beer gardens offered (a few) non-alcoholic drinks, and we could sample those. I threw a longing look towards my bedroom window, but followed the group to the cars.

Even though I don't drink, being in a beer garden made me feel like a drinker. I was *very* uncomfortable. I was sitting at a rickety picnic table in front of a large, tavern-like place. My hosts sat around smoking and nursing their tall glasses of beer. I sat and stared at the tall beer glass in front of me, filled to the brim with a dark substance. It didn't matter if it was only orange soda and Coke; I felt like one of the drinkers. Sebastian's friend was sitting across the table from me, blowing smoke in my face, making my clothes smell like those of a smoker. It was a strange experience, and not exactly pleasant at the time.

I think now that I was just tired, but inside I freaked. I didn't like being in a place where people were giving themselves lung cancer and getting drunk (just for the record, no one was even remotely close to drunk that evening). I was afraid Laura would have one too many, and we would be stuck in Germany with a drunk driver behind the wheel. These are frenetic thoughts, I know, but I was too tired when I got there, and my sleepiness made me snap.

I forced my mind to calm down, and it did. Soon I began to enjoy myself - the breeze was relaxing, and my drink was tasty. I listened as the German swirled around me, with its throaty, raspy sounds. I realized that this was an experience that I would only have once: my first time with Germans, doing what Germans love best.

It was harder to keep myself awake when I was enjoying myself, however. Soon the German was drowned out by waves of sleepiness, and I knew I had reached my end. I told Laura that I was tired and ready to go home; she jumped up, graciously leaving her free Saturday night with friends, and drove us back to the house.

I think the other girls stayed up with Laura to watch a movie, but not I. I walked upstairs, threw what looked like pajamas on, maybe brushed my teeth, and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.