Friday, August 01, 2008
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Currently Listening
Food in the Belly
By Xavier Rudd
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For the longest time, I never understood why God always would refer to Himself as the “bread of life”. I, for one, don't really eat a lot of bread, living in the United States. At home, the word “bread” makes me think of what bookends a piece of meat and some vegetables, or a side dish to go along with a really fancy meal. There are other times that “bread” makes me think of bakeries and coffeehouses, but I often don't have enough money to eat at those places. And even at those places where bread is the main attraction, it often is because of the special condiments inside the bread, such as cheese, fruit, sweets, and so on. Bread is always an afterthought at home; something that gets butter or jam slathered across its surface, or topped with cheese, before being halfway eaten and given as leftovers to the family pet. No one in middle-class America cries over a lost piece of bread. Why? Because it's bread, and if you really want some, you can get some for a little over a dollar at your local grocer. Even if you're homeless, and don't have that dollar, it's not hard to find a soup kitchen or shelter that has some handy.
But this was all before I came to Ecuador. I'm not going to tell you that I live in a little thatched hut surrounded by trees, where half-naked people with bones through their noses serve me bread. Because while that would make for an entertaining story, it would also be a big fat lie. I live in a nice home here, with bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and so on. But here, bread is life. I've never been much for bread back home, because the words “carb-conscious” or images of overweight people always swim around in my head every time my eyes find themselves staring upon a piece of baked goodness. I often will take off the bread in a sandwich, to cut back on calories and get rid of the fat on my body that never seems to go away. Living here changed that for me, though, because I'm served foods with carbohydrates four times a day, and if I don't eat, then I starve. Breakfast often consists of bread, juice, and coffee. Sometimes eggs are served, but even when they are, two eggs are cooked for the entire family, which are then divided equally for each member. Lunch often consists of pasta soup, an entree with rice, potatoes, a portion of fish or chicken, popcorn, bread, and juice to drink. Merienda (an evening snack) is more bread, served with coffee. Finally, dinner consists of the little meat that is leftover, served over rice, with potatoes, bread, popcorn, and juice to drink.
As someone who grew up obese, and to this day has a slow metabolism, there were many times when starving seemed like a very desirable option. But my host family would have none of this. My host family would go so far as to try to convince me in Spanglish that there were certain kinds of bread that would help “carb-conscious” people lose weight. At home, I live on a diet of fruits, vegetables, a little bit of lean meat here and there, water, tea, and coffee. With the exception of the occasional cookie, I virtually eat no sweets at home. I don't put sugar in my tea or in my coffee, and I don't eat bread. Not only do I feel better from living on this diet, I have lost a lot of weight from it. So when my family gave me the the “carb-conscious” bread to eat, I didn't really believe them. As far as I was concerned, I was beginning to think that my host family was part of a conspiracy that involved finding out what I ate at home, choosing the polar opposite of those foods, and making everything that I do not eat the national diet of a small country.
But as I watched the way other people eat here, I began to realize that everyone is not eating this way because they are a part of a national conspiracy. Everyone is eating this way because this is the food they have. “Variety” is not a part of the language or the consciousness in Ecuador. Life and diet are simple here. Living in America makes me forget this at times, where life and diet are not so simple. The main diet here is a supplementary side dish on the family table at home. Growing up with variety has made me come to expect it. Whenever my family has leftovers from a previous meal, we save it in the refrigerator for days, so that variety is preserved. Here, the leftovers from lunch are dinner served, and no one says a word. Whenever my family goes out to eat, we make sure to choose a restaurant that we have not eaten in a while, so that variety is preserved. And as variety is preserved by going to these different places, we choose different items off of the menu than before. Here, my host family takes me to the same restaurants, and we order the same things. Even at different restaurants, the menu is virtually the same: some form of meat with rice, potatoes, bread, and juice. Because of this, many restaurants don't even have menus.
It took me a while to figure out that variety comes from wealth. And it was after I finally understood this that the menus and similar entrees made sense. The wealth we have as Americans gives us access to variety. And when all we understand is variety, we forget bread. We forget what we have to have to live day-to-day, because we are all so busy looking up and down long menu lists and salad bar options, trying to decide what we want. I think it's sad that we waste our time with such trivialities while people in other countries starve, simply wanting bread. It wasn't until I went to another country that I understood why people would want bread. Bread is universal. It is the most basic of sustenances, and is easy to make. It doesn't cost much, either. Bread is accessible to anyone with flour, yeast, and a stove. It fills you up, and it gives you energy to go on and about your life. Bread gives you life, and anyone can have it.
I think it's interesting that the more money people seem to have, the less bread they choose to eat. I think it's also interesting that the less money people seem to have, the more they choose to talk about God. This is not to say that money in of itself is bad. Neither is the variety that comes with having money. But I do think that having these can be bad in that it gives us so many options and so many choices; so much variety, that we don't know what to do with it, other than to live with variety. I don't know anyone with money that chooses to live on bread alone. They move on to bigger and better things, like fine wine and steak. Bread sits in a basket on the table behind the fine wine and steak, like God in a Church service on Sunday. This is when I realized why God constantly reminds us that He is the bread of life and not the steak of life, or the multivitamin of life. God is simple like bread, and is available to anyone, regardless of wealth. He may not make our lives a world of flavor, but He's really all we need to live. We need Him not as a supplement, next to steak and fine wine, or only on Sunday. We need Him all the time.
Many of my friends talk about what they are going to eat when they return to the States. I've been dying for sushi, to be honest, but other than that, I've gotten used to the food here. Even though I got sick of seeing potatoes, rice, bread, and juice at first, I've learned to become content. I've even learned to enjoy bread. And another thing I've discovered is that living on bread alone does not make me gain weight. I've lived on this diet for a month, and I'm not any different than I was before. What made me gain weight when I was younger was variety. The variety of healthy and unhealthy foods I had in excess caused me to gain weight. I always thought that the reason that I lost weight was because of a variety of foods without lots of fat and sugar. But I now see that the real reason that I lost weight was because of a lack of variety, by living on a strict diet of vegetables, fruit, lean meat, water, tea, and coffee.
This is not to say that variety in of itself is bad. Variety is wonderful. Variety expresses the creativity of God. Variety is only bad in excess, when you have so much of it that you forget what is important. This is not all to point fingers at you. I'm pointing just as much at myself, if not more so. We have all lied to ourselves, saying that we are fine with God as a side dish, or one day a week. What I am saying is to enjoy variety for what it is. But don't let variety make you forget the essentials. Don't let variety make you forget what matters for day-to-day living. Don't let variety make you forget the simple life. For food and God are about continuing life. It was never about the variety or the religion. Both were always about a means directing us towards what we need to live, and not the end. But I think I've said enough about this. It's probably about time for us to eat. Who's ready for some bread?
Friday, July 25, 2008
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Currently Listening
Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
By Sigur Ros
see relatedDo you know how to party like a Cuencan? I don't think you do. In all actuality, the likelihood is that you do not even know who or what a Cuencan is. For starters, a Cuencan is from Cuenca, which is a city in the glorious country of Ecuador, South America. And it is here in Cuenca where I am spending the next few weeks of my life under the gracious wing of the Viajello family, taking eight hours worth of Spanish courses and fumbling my childish grasp of the language among patient locals. While my American friends and acquaintances celebrated the fourth of July resting underneath a night sky illuminated by light given off by fireworks in the distance, I was learning how to Salsa dance in front of a live band.
The best part is that the people here put the family in “family reunion”. It's like living in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, except no one speaks English. My birthday on the second happened to coincide with a family reunion that was taking place because of a wedding. So, on my second day here, I was thrust into the middle of a fiesta that would last for four days. Four days celebrating the family that is and the family that is to come. Aside from six hours of dancing, there were dedications, whole roasted pigs, and lots of laughter. If any of this sounds a bit excessive, that's because it is. But that doesn't matter here. Because here, everything is family.
If you have a dog, people will generally ask you two questions about the dog. First, what the name of your dog is, and second, what kind of dog it is. In the United States, people that meet you will generally ask two questions about you. First, what your name is, and second, what you do for a living. But that is not so here in Ecuador. It took me over a week to find out what my family does for a living. This is not because of my terrible Spanish-speaking abilities, for I know how to ask that. It is because people here understand people apart from their professions. People have their jobs, and then they have their life at home with family. Of the two questions people tend to ask of one another, the second question is different in Ecuador. The second question is not to inquire about what you do for a living, but rather, where you are from. Here, it's not what you do. It's where you are from. It's who you are.
Divorces are not common here. And it is because of this that I finally understand what people like James Dobson are talking about when they mention that the disintegration of the family is directly related to a loss of faith in God on a national level. Though I am able to see evidence of globalization in the way the youth strut their American clothes and play with their cell phones, Catholicism and belief in God remains the national consensus here. Through technology, the world has become as small as it has ever been. And yet, as the world becomes smaller, so do our families. I have aunts and uncles I haven't visited in two, three years. I have Korean relatives overseas whose faces I have never seen, and whose names I have never heard.
The globalization of the world has made it relatively easy for people to travel and communicate with people of other cultures. It has made it possible for people like me to study a foreign language in a foreign country. On the other hand, it has also made it possible for families to start over in a new location every eighteen months for the sole purpose of pursuing work. And not only has technology made stories like this possible; it has made stories like this commonplace. Ironic, that while technology has made worldwide communication as efficient as ever, it has also minimized personal communication because of all the time we spend working.
As a person living in a single-parent home, I am not able to speak for those with two working parents. What I can say, however, is that many of my friends live in households where both parents hold jobs. And it is because of this frenetic lifestyle that many of us have learned to multitask. For this reason, I feel strange when my host mom gets up to do the dishes. I instinctively get up to help, but my host mom stops me every single time and reminds me in Spanglish that it is not my place to do the dishes. Living in America has made me forget that each individual has their role; their place. The culture of my beloved country has taught me both lie and truth, in that men and women are equal. Men and women areequal in every way. They deserve the same liberties and the same responsibilities; the same rights and the same punishments. But they traditionally have different roles. And I believe that it is because of these different, complementary roles that the family thrives so well here. When everyone in the family in America tries to do the same thing and everything all at once, we do what any breathing organism would do. We get burned out.
When the emphasis in Ecuador seems to be centered on family, the emphasis in America seems to be on the self. The idea that one has a role because there is something bigger than one's self is often viewed with curiosity or humor in America, for in America, everything is about us. It can be seen in the countless advertisements that grace billboards and the countless self-help books that line the shelves of bookstores. Conversation is guided along not by family news, but by how much one makes annually, what kind of car one drives, where one works, and so on. We are not concerned with the family as a unit, or with roles.
I especially felt this while I was watching female wrestling. Now, I don't typically go out of my way to watch female wrestling, or male wrestling, for that matter. I'm not particularly fond of the sport, really. But one night, as I turned on my television to put a movie in, female wrestling happened to be on. I sat and watched for a few minutes, mystified, before finally laughing. There was something so horribly awkward about watching a lady hit another lady over the head with a chair. And it was hilarious for all the wrong reasons. I thought aloud to myself, “That's just notsomething women do.” Then, I paused, and thought, “Wow. That was an incredibly sexist thought.” I paused again, and looked at the cheering crowds, and thought about why something like this would have an audience. This was when I realized that something like has an audience because it is not something women would normally do. The people that enjoy female wrestling realize this, and find it entertaining for that very reason.
I think it really says something about the love of self when we are able to log on to a website and mathematically figure out who is most “compatible” with us. In the forced marriages of yesteryear, the marriages never really were about what the husband or the wife wanted. Many of these marriages were done with social or political motivation between cooperating families. And yet, many of these marriages lasted. Many of these families thrived to begin new families. I never understood why, because the idea of forced marriage always sounded like twenty-seven different kinds of horrible to me. But then, I realized those marriages flourished becausethey weren't about the husband or the wife. They were about the marriage; the family.
Why does family work? You can't chose your family. They choose you when you are born into it.Before, I had always wondered why God placed such a great emphasis on family in the Bible, and talked about divorce like it was the Holocaust. Now I see that God loves family because family at its finest reflects Him. If there is a God, and if the Bible isn't a lie, then God chose us. We didn't choose Him. If God is real and the Bible is true, then there aren't twenty foster gods waiting to adopt us. There's just God, and that's it. And the reason I believe God places this ridiculously great emphasis on family is that you have to learnto love your family, in the same way that we have to learn how to love God back. And regardless of what today's leading Christian authors have to say, God isn't always likable. Neither is family. Sometimes family can drive you crazy. Lord knows there have been times where I have wanted to change my name and move away. Yet somehow, I always manage find myself back at God's front door. And no matter what I've done, the porch light is still on.
About a month ago, Dateline had this special on television about runaway Amish teenagers, and their lives outside the Amish community. It chronicled the lives of three Amish kids, disillusioned with their families and the strict rules they lived under. Each had an insatiable hunger for the “real world” that lay outside the horse and buggy. Many of them listened to the radio for the first time, smoked their first cigarettes, had their first beers, and so on. They each were wearing clothes that you would see on the backs and bottoms of most teenagers buzzing about malls. And yet, there was something in their faces, something that showed that deep down, they knew were far from home; from family. An interview on the program with an elderly Amish couple particularly struck a chord in me. The man said that when he was young, he owned a 1967 Ford Thunderbird, and would sneak out to go to movies. He said that he had fun, and that he didn't regret it, but that he ultimately went back to his family. With one leg crossed over the other and a raised eyebrow, the interviewer asked, “What made you go back?” After a brief pause, the elderly Amish man said, “Well, it was simple. I missed my family.”
About a week before I left for Ecuador, I was eating with my family at a Chinese restaurant. As we were finishing up, and I was eating oranges, my dad asked with at least ten different emotions in his face where we would all be twenty years from now, if at all. And what we would think about the time spent here in Texas, largely in the dark as to what lies ahead. I thought about how my family never really had that much money. I still remember the afternoons where my dad, sister, and I would go around the house finding enough spare change to go eat fast food. Money lies to those who have it, in that those who have it believe they have security. People who live without or with little money often have things in perspective; it is easier for them to see that God and family are all we really have in the end. Money comes and goes, like the tide at night, or friends that you only talk about common interests with. I thought about these things, and I chuckled a little bit. I told my dad, “All any of these things that have happened to us really are are really good stories. I mean, if we live to tell them. Or if someone else tells the story on our behalf. And these stories will either entertain, educate, or if you're lucky, both. When they happen to us, we often don't know how the story is going to end, and we're scared to death. But in retrospect, when it's all said and done, what we have is a story for ourselves to keep, or share with loved ones.”
I think the most successful storytellers are the ones who learn from the stories they tell, because they live on to tell more stories. The more stories we learn, the farther along we are able to go. I am always ready for a good story. Big Fish is one of my favorite movies, for all of the time it spends pondering about stories, and their value, if any. I love the end, when the disillusioned son is at his father's funeral, and there finds that while everything was not exactly as his father had claimed, it was far, far closer to the truth than he could have ever imagined. For the longest time, I never got the Old Testament, because I never read it like a story about real human beings. I read it like a law school textbook, with a few random passages of poetry and Eastern adages. I didn't understand why eating shrimp was against God, or how God could break His own rules in the New Testament.
I took a class this past semester where I had to read the Old Testament cover to cover in three weeks. And in those thousand or so pages, some pretty horrible things happen. It made me realize two things: one, that Christians who believe in blind censorship don't read their Bibles, and two, that the Old Testament is full of broken people. Reading much of the Old Testament is like watching a messy, R-rated drama that got a Best Picture nomination and the attention of all the cool, cultured adults and hipster kids. It's this really long story about families and their descendants who are real human beings with real human problems. Some of them believe in God, and some of them don't. Others that believe in God lose their faith, while others find their faith. Reading the Old Testament taught me something I saw every day but never really recognized: that people are people are people. We are alla little fractured; some more than others. Yet we are all the same in that we all need God; we all need family.
I grew up treating Theology and cultural Christian context like God, instead of a map to Him. And when the details didn't add up mathematically, or line up perfectly across some sort of chart I could draw on a piece of paper, my Christian house of cards would wobble. I think this happened to me because I wanted to make the Bible about me, or something that I could directly follow. I wanted God to tell me exactly what to do, instead of taking the time to get to know Him. But that was because I didn't really want to know Him before. I just wanted a pat on the back and afterlife insurance. I wanted the Bible to be my training wheels, and not my grandpa giving me the push. But this was before family. This was before story. After all, did God not give us a book to read, and families to share it with? Family has taught me that family only works when we realize that there is something bigger than ourselves, and that each individual has a part to play. Story has taught me that it only makes sense when all the pieces come together to form a plot. I am not able to live until I realize that my life is not my own. I have been slowly realizing this, and I hope that you are able to realize this with me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go spend some time with my family.
God, please help us remember
that our lives are not actually about us,
but stories that You are writing
to teach others about who You are
and who You are not.
And as we share these stories
among others in passing conversation
and firsthand experience,
that others would be enriched
from being part of this story.
Amen.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
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Currently Listening
Classics
By Ratatat
see relatedIf there's anything I hate, it's pretending to know about politics to be fashionable. A lot of my friends have asked me who I am going to vote for, and many of them have chosen Barack Obama. When I ask them why, I often get vague answers about how he “is better than McCain”, and that he wants to “support the working class”. For the longest time, I had hope in Ron Paul, because I don't care about how The Office is one of John McCain's favorite television shows, or that Obama was rooting for the Los Angeles Lakers during the NBA finals.
What I want to know about the man that will be the President of the United States for the next four years is what he plans to do in order to improve this country and keep it stable. Ron Paul really struck me differently than the other candidates in that he got up on stage and started talking about how he would improve the country, not about how Chuck Norris would endorse him. But no one wants to vote for Ron Paul, because Ron Paul doesn't have a great smile, and Oprah hasn't said anything about him.
I have read some of Obama's book The Audacity of Hope, and I think it's wonderful. Obama is a very talented writer, and is nothing short of one of the most likeable guys one could ever imagine. His commentary on politics is very thought-provoking, but none of it is specific enough. I can hardly blame him, as it is difficult to be specific when one seeks the support of the general American population. I would not hesitate for five seconds to choose Obama over McCain as someone to be stranded on a desert island with. The cynic in me questions whether or not Obama would not have gotten as far as he has today were it not for his skin color. But I truly believe that it is Obama's charisma, and not his skin, that has gotten him to where he is today.
While I feel that I need to research McCain a bit more, I have yet to see anything from McCain that hints at an America other than bankruptcy in a waning war. I respect that he was a prisoner-of-war. I certainly would doubt my will to survive if I were ever captured in war. But how will McCain improve America's condition because he was a prisoner-of-war? What will that bring to the table? I am less interested in credentials and far more interested in honesty and ideas.
This is why I plan to vote third-party this November. I have had friends tell me that by voting third-party, that I will be indirectly electing Obama. And I am sure that this is true. My father says that my uncle helped elect Bill Clinton by voting for Ralph Nader. If it is true that I am following in the footsteps of my uncle, then I will do so proudly. Why? Because I believe that the mentality of someone indirectly electing a certain official for office by voting for another causes fear, and keeps much of the American population from feeling that they have more than two choices on the ballot come Election Day. By voting third-party, I am giving the third-party a voice. While I feel that I am essentially throwing away my opinion on who I believe to be the better of the two major candidates running for office, I also feel that it is this attitude that limits our choice as Americans to no more than two candidates.
South Park put this predicament brilliantly in one of their episodes where the citizens of South Park have to decide between “a turd and a douchebag” for President. Every four years, it seems to me that the question is not, “Which person do I believe would be the best for the future of this country?”, but rather, “Which candidate will cause the least harm to the country during the next four years?”. Somebody has to vote third-party, and if enough people decide to give candidates outside the mainstream a voice, then perhaps we as Americans will have more to choose from than “a turd and a douchebag”.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
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Currently Listening
For Emma, Forever Ago
By Bon Iver
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Sitting in the car today, I looked out the window. The sun was low in the sky, and I nearly looked into its encompassing, powerful glare. I couldn't for long, and shut my eyes, opening them to look upon the landscape and telephone poles. All around me I saw the light touching the blades of grass and illuminating houses and haybails off in the distance. And I thought to myself that the Sun is like God, in that we can't look directly at Him and see everything that He is, but that without Him, we are not able to see anything at all.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
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Currently Listening
Post-War
By M. Ward
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I logged on to this website for the first time in...well, I can't really remember the last time I logged on here. I miss the writing; the community. I don't think any of you have the slightest idea how much that your thoughts and your ears got me through high school. I'm in college now; one year in, and three weeks home from college. I've sat at my laptop, and sifted through pages upon pages of things I've written, most of which aren't worth reading. I don't really think this is worth reading either; I hope that I am not wasting your time. The only thing is that for the longest time, I wrote as an extension of my soul, like a limb that expressed what I felt. And after a while, I stopped touching on the things that haunted me; the things that would repeatedly bother me and reappear in my life. I feel as though I am being rather vague in my thoughts. I hate being vague; and this is not done on purpose, no. What I am trying to express is my direct disdain for organized, prepared thoughts, thoughts that are made for a specific audience with an introductory problem, a solution to that problem, and so on. I adore the idea of someone bleeding their innermost thoughts that show where they are, who they are, and what it is that is on their mind. Is this not the purpose of any writing? I was in the fiction section of a bookstore not too long ago, and looked at the first few pages, that reminded me that any resemblances to persons living or dead were "entirely coincidental". Yet, the skeptic part of me wonders if there is anything such as complete, utter, unadulterated fiction. I think that even the most fantastical stories are really linked to things that have happened to us, to people we love or people we hate, or to things on our minds. Who is a writer that writes for any other purpose than to make sense of things? I prefer the nonfiction section, and memoirs, because I believe that every individual one of us all have one story to tell. This is not to say that one is unable to take liberties and stretch facts. This does not make his story entirely true. But ultimately, all of us have one individual story to tell that is unique to each of us that only we truly understand and only we have truly experienced. There are other individuals; other players and part to the story of our lives, but it is our story that is truly for ours alone to share or to keep.
I say all this because I want to apologize for keeping that story to myself, and for contriving the story that I was sharing before in order to write for the sake of popularity, rather than to write for writing's sake. I feel that writers are writers, and it is something nearly embedded in their veins and their genetics. I mean, how many people do you know carry a notepad and pen in their pocket to write in at any given moment?
I hope that at least some of this makes sense to you, and I refuse to proofread extensively because I aim for honesty and not for academic superiority. I realize that this is yet another "hello" stacked on top of other "hellos" I have periodically sent out to you in the past year or so, and promises unkept, or at least delayed, are not in the least bit exciting. All I really want to say is that I have not forgotten any of you, and I hope that you are well, and that you are enjoying Father's day.
Shalom.
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- Name: [ JT ]
- Member Since: 1/25/2005
