Emptying Oneself ~

The Wise Old Monk told me to learn from my computer crash. He said I should learn from it what emptying onself means, the term the mystics used to explain what was necessary to achieve a union with God.

Valentine's Day ~

What was that I read in the newspaper? In a grade school in England the children were not allowed to exchange Valentine cards this year because they were considered too young to know what love is all about.

New Angles ~

So now a thief has offered the Federal Government in Berlin a CD he stole containing the names of German bank customers in Switzerland who have evaded taxes. Without any qualms at all, the Government has accepted the offer and will pay him $2,500.000.

Deus Obscurus ~

I told the Old Monk my problem: that when I reach out for God and there is nothing to grab on to. He said the problem is that there is too much.

Classroom

As a teacher I knew I had to hold the book in my hands, but at the same time have my arms wide open.

Haiti Earthquake ~

It was also an interior earthquake for us who trust in Him. How could He allow such a thing to happen to so many . . . ?

Song of Praise ~

I would like to sing a song of praise for the heroes on Flight 253 to Detroit who saved the lives of 278 passengers when there was a man with a bomb onboard. As of yet they have gone unthanked, unknown.

Coping ~

And just before Christmas my computer crashed, or rather burned out. With smoke. Lost everything. . . But maybe it is good to have to learn to start over from point zero-zero.

Morning Walk ~ Christmas 2009

You dazzle me with the beauty of Your creation.

An Old Friend ~

He celebrated his 90th birthday today. He used to sing in the choir. He was just a young boy when he partook in the Battle of Stalingrad. Artillery. He had a horse and carts and was to supply the troops at the front. Bloodiest battle of WW II. Two million casualties. Bitter cold: 20 below. But my friend survived. First thing when he got home: join the choir at church. His way of thanking.

I see him every Wednesday at the local store shopping. We chat. One morning he pulled out his wallet and showed me his favorite horse . . .

Inner Voices ~

How strange one gets. When going down the stairs I say to myself: Don't look at the steps, let the feet look for themselves.

While Playing Mozart ~

At the piano playing Mozart sonatas: There are moments when the music is so overwhelmingly beautiful that I thank him, measure for measure, for making those sounds possible. Something very personal.

Plaguing Insufficiencies ~

Am about to publish some poems. Just before sending them off . . . cold feet. Are they good enough? Can they survive on their own? An awful experience.

German Reunificaton ~

They were in Berlin today: Gorbachow, Bush Sr. and Helmut Kolh, the men who made reunification possible . . . along with the freedom-seeking East Germans who courageously took to the streets week after week chanting: We are the people.

Conference at the Building Site ~

They are renovating the house next door. This morning I looked up and saw the three in black standing at something like an altar. Were they studying a blue print? Were they planning the day's work? Or were they just having the first beer?

Beauty at the Clothesline ~

Stood there having a cigarette, looked askance and saw this . . .

Passivity in Autumn ~

What a beautiful autumn afternoon. Take a walk, I thought, across the fields. As if in a rowboat setting out into the deep. Don't have anything special in mind. Just let thoughts and feelings develop without my doing . . .

Wild geese came flying over in an undulating V shape heading south. My thoughts and feeling flew off with them.

At a Concert ~

Last evening a quintet from Leipzig was playing Beethoven. The music was overwhelmingly beautiful. The lead violinist captivated my attention. Blond, blue-eyed, surely a most likeable person. Somehow like a school-boy, innocent, harmless. He played with such enthusiasm and intensity.

All at once I imagined him wearing a W.W.II Nazi helmet on a battlefield and me having him in the sights of my M1 at 100 yards. Could I ever have pulled the trigger?

Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh ~ G-20 Summit

My hometown is Butler, Pennsylvania. But over here in Germany I tell people I am from Pittsburgh, hoping they can connect. But they seldom can. Now today all I hear on radio and TV is Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh where the G-20 Summit is being held there— as if everyone knows. And what is more, the word Pittsburgh even has a rich resonance when Germans pronounce it! I'm elated.

Morning Beauty ~

This morning at 7:30 I was walking along a high path looking down over fog-covered fields with only the tree-tops protruding. Coming up behind more distant hills the sun, a great bright ball. I stood there watching it roll up a distant hill.

Wise Old Monk ~

I was jammering to him about my feelings of inadequacy. He said: if you live out what you know you will receive from God what you do not know.

Reward for Courage ~

Yesterday at 4 p.m. in Munich two teenagers, 17 and 18, were threatening and demanding money from a group of four younger teenagers travelling on a subway train. A 50-year-old Munich man intervened, trying to protect them. After the train stopped at a station the older boys attacked him and beat him to death.

Wal-Mart Encroaching ~

Wal-Mart wants to open a Superstore on the Battlefield of the Wilderness in Virginia where 29,000 soldiers were wounded or killed in the Civil War.

Steffi Nerius ~ Gold ~ Womens' Javelin ~ Berlin

"Winning the gold medal was not something I could not achieve, but I did not dream of it! I knew that the others can throw further than me."

[Seldom heard words from a winner.]

Remember Keep Holy the Sabboth Day ~

As of yesterday it is lawful for stores in France to be open for business on Sunday.

Go, Sell What Thou Possesseth . . .

I have possessed this pencil since my grade school days and am still unable to give it up.

The Golden Parachute ~

Porsch manager severance pay : $71,000,000

A single person receives 50 times what a normal employee earns in a lifetime.

Wedding Anniversary ~ Maulbronn, Germany

A visit to this beautiful medieval Cistercian monastery, a memorable evening dining with my wife of 40 years, a Schubert concert afterwards. . .

Sex Life ~

I asked the Old Monk if monks knew what discovery, creativity, and fulfillment can be involved in intercourse between the sexes and if there was anything in a monk's life that could approach that.

He smiled and said he could not speak for all monks, but that he himself had intimate intercourse with God every now and then, depending on God's willingness.

Grandchildren ~

. . . what an uplift !

Pat Answers ~

I told the old monk frankly that on all the great issues I had no solid stand . . . always torn this way and that. He looked at me and said: You are on the right path.

Visit to Dresden ~

It was the best we could do! His hotel was near ours. Being a U.S. citizens we were allowed in a the high security zone. All we got to see though was his limousine as it rushed by on the way to the conference with the Chancellor, Angela Merkel. But in the park Dresden celebrated his being in town until late into the night. This city we bombed in 1945 was now light-hearted and in high spirits . . . 64 years later.

Visitors At My Window ~

We keep eyeing one another.

June Is Bustin' Out All Over ~

It was one of those quiet beautiful Saturday mornings . . .

An Act of Hope ~

The Old Monk asked me:

• what I would do if I had a box for a long time in which I believed there was a great treasure but I had never opened it. When I finally did I found it was empty. What would I do? 
• I said I would get rid of it.
• He said no, I should hold onto it and keep believing.

Beauty in the Fields ~

Yesterdat they cut the first hay. This morning I walked across the fields glistening with dew, breathing in the fragrance.

Monk's Wisdom ~

"Don't you realize that life is essentially God's search for you and your search for Him?"

To Live The Life ~

Be constantly revising.

Change of Direction ~

Sometimes life is routine and monotonous that I thought I needed a spectacular problem to grapple with, just to know I was up to it— and alive.

One by One They Pass Away ~

He was 55. They found him yesterday in his room on the floor, dead. We had taught together for over twenty years. His subjects were German, philosophy and religion. Both of us had seminary backgrounds, something in common. He lived alone on a Black Forest hillside. Being together with young students was his life.

A Teacher's Delight ~

Those were the moments in the classroom: when you talked about Shakespeare, about a poem . . . and their eyes would light up.

And Thou Shalt Renew the Face of the Earth ~

The world seemed to me to be a better place this morning because one man is trying to make peace, not war.

Wise Old Monk ~

He was saying that in order to have something you must give it up . . .

Good Friday ~ 2009

They were talking about what it meant to suffer — and our inability to. How we immediately grasp for the pills . . .

Obama ~ Visit to Strasbourg, France

See how the young folk take to him.

Friend of Teachers ~ J. C. from California

He invited the English Department to dine in a cozy restaurant in this Black Forest village near the school where I taught. Even though I am retired, Jack thought I belonged.

Twenty-five of us sat at the table. Lively conversation. Older members talked about change and what it causes. I looked around and saw the young teachers, those who will be carrying the torch. They will be doing it their "new" way, not ours. It has to be that way. And it will work. . .

Undying Love ~ After 50 Years

He a young Soviet Officer, she a teenager in Leipzig. 1946. They fell in love. For disobeying orders concerning fraternization with the enemy he was sent back to Moscow. She wrote letters. He did too, but his were censored and withheld telling that he was married and had children.

After the opening of the Iron Curtain in 1989, some fifty years later, she traveled to Moscow to look for him—and found him. He had never forgotten her, never married.

The undaunted couple celebrated their wedding in 2001.

Why Ask Why?

It is her birthday today. Twenty-five years old. In the little town of Winnenden, Germany, not far from here, they are burying her. She was a young woman doing her practice teaching when the boy with the pistol came into the classroom and shot her through the head. And killed fifteen others. Then himself.

Party Talk ~

I told them one of the nuns in the 5th grade had a thick, wide paddle she would whack us with, and a thin ruler to swat our knuckles with. "Holy smokes!" someone said.

Piano-Playing Rewards ~

I learn something about myself, namely, if I let go, the brain shows me that it already knows the patterns that determine where my fingers should be.

When playing I feel I am in the company of the Giants: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. . . partaking in their creative genius.