The Hike

"Many climbers become writers because of the misconceptions about climbing."
-Jonathan Waterman

One of the views from our hike

This weekend several of my friends and I celebrated fall break by driving a total of 36 hours in order to spend 36 hours in the mountains. You see, my uncle Steve owns a lovely piece of property up the road from White Pine, Colorado (don't bother looking it up...even Google can't find White Pine). To us college students, so ready for a break, the mountains sounded like a grand idea, and hey, what's 36 hours of driving? So, we all piled into a car (or an airplane...several lucky people flew, I was not one of them), trekked across the Oklahoma Panhandle, and arrived at White Pine without too much hassle. After a night's sleep, a delicious breakfast (that took way too long to prepare), plus a 'everyone gather around the fire and share your deepest secrets and cry about it' session, we decided to go on a hike up the mountain.

It wasn't my idea.

From my experiences of spending a summer at White Pine several years ago, I suggested (with much digress) that we hike up Tomichi Pass. "It's not long," I guaranteed them, "I know it's been two years since I've been up there, and never mind the fact that I drove it last time, but I'm positive that we'll be able to do it in an afternoon!" I honestly think the apple cider from that morning's meal may have sat in the car just a bit too long...

After grabbing multiple bottles of water, making peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and peeing several times each (we were drinking lots of water...the altitude you know, it shrinks one's bladder), we were off up the pass. After about three steps, I was out of breath. After about six steps, I could feel the fat on my body start to melt away. This was going to be good! Then I looked down.

I was wearing Converse.

Have you ever tried to climb a mountain in Converse shoes? Don't. It does funny things to your legs. Besides the fact that they have no support, so even if you are a tiny bit fat you'll be dying from lack of air in several seconds. (It's easy to blame one's lack of physical ability on the shoes. Try it. That's why I still haven't bought a good pair of running shoes.) Anyway, we hiked for several hours, and try as I might, I still couldn't find the peak we were aiming towards. I kept reassuring everyone that it was just beyond that next mountain, but soon we were looking back at the snow covered peaks we had just passed, wondering how in the world we were surviving in the frozen tundra above the tree line of the Rocky Mountains.

I tried to keep up the motivation. "Hey guys! At least we still have peanut butter and honey sandwiches!" I gasped between half hour breathing breaks. "Oh! And we also packed clementines!" So, we sat down to eat. Then we decorated a Christmas tree with the clementine peels (that's our version of 'leave no trace' - 'make it look better than it did before with tropical fruit peels that would never be found on the top of a mountain'). After the lunch break, everyone decided to give up finding the original peak, and just run up to the top of one of the nearby mountains. I sat on a rock and watched.

Two hours later, I was interrupted from catching snowflakes on my tongue by the exhausted mountain climbers returning from their jaunt to the summit. I waved goodbye to my new baby bear friends and trekked back down the mountain, only to realize that Kristiana wanted to go swimming in the alpine lake up the road...

Maybe Colorado wasn't such a good idea.
-Matthias

P.S. If you ever happen to find yourself not able to fall asleep because you are more sore than you have ever been in your whole entire life, take Ibuprofen before you toss around for hours. You will thank yourself in the morning.

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The Shower

Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.
-Nolan Bushnell

I left my towel at Aunt Rhonda's.

There are two reasons why I left my towel: first, I had used it that morning and didn't want to pack a wet towel in my suitcase. Second, I figured that every hotel or residence I stayed at would have towels that I could use. For the most part I was right, but being right for the most part is the same as being wrong.

Fast forward four weeks into my summer travels. It was my last night in Poland and I was staying at a facility set up by some church. I decided I wanted to take a shower - it had been rather hot that day and I had spent 3 hours in a stuffy communist-era train. I gathered my deodorant, razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, toothpaste, and my comfy pajamas that smelled like they hadn't been washed for weeks (they hadn't), and prodded down the hall to the bathroom only to find that it was locked. I sighed, flashed a disgruntled smile at someone who muttered something to me in Polish, and went back to my room. I paced back and forth multiple times until I was bored enough to see if the bathroom was finally open. It was. I opened the door with no trouble and happened to notice that there was an absence of a lock. Puzzled, I inspected the door more closely. Turns out one has to pull instead of push. Who would've thought?

I walked to the back of the bathroom where the single shower room was located. I opened the door and observed the tiny room. It was completely covered with tile, as most European bathrooms are. There was a large window on the wall adjacent to me covered by a curtain. Three hooks hung on the wall presumably meant for changes of clothes. The shower was on the wall to the left, and try as I might, I couldn't find a shower curtain anywhere, which totally negated any use those three hooks may have had. There weren't any towels either, so for the third time that evening I meandered back to my room - this time in search for a towel. I couldn't find one. I looked in all the wardrobes, all the dresser drawers, and on all the beds. No towel. Sighing, I zipped open my suitcase. My goal was to find the most absorbent, yet quickest drying material that I had with me. T-shirts, jeans, and underwear flew out as I dug. Finally, I found what I needed.

My H&M scarf.

Thankful yet again that I refused to buy polyester, I made the trek back to the shower, scarf in hand. I was then presented with the problem of how to keep the scarf and my change of clothes dry as I showered. I couldn't hang them on the three useless hooks, and I certainly couldn't leave them outside the door of the shower room (although, I forget why). Finally, I decided to place them behind the window curtain and pray that I wouldn't get lead poisoning from the chipping paint gathered on the windowsill. I had visions of the curtain suddenly catching a draft and flying open leaving me exposed to all of Poland and without any dry clothes to change into. After dropping every single sock I had with me into the water gathered on the bottom of the shower, I managed to get clean, dry (thanks to my multi-purpose scarf...ha! the fashion designers didn't see that one coming!), and into my comfy pajamas.

As I made my final stroll to my room, I resolved that I will eventually design a t-shirt that boasts "I survived the shower." The words will be written in the gaudy typeface that every B horror movie uses, and you can betcha that it will double as a towel.

-Matthias

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Of Poland, Czech, and Narnia

"It's over there, just beyond the lamppost"
-Lucy Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

When I arrived at the hotel where I am currently staying in Poland, one of the first things pointed out to me was a lamppost. Three of the young women on my team rushed up to the lamppost exclaiming "It's like the lamppost in Narnia!" In reality, the lamppost looked nothing like the light fixture that Lucy found in Narnia, but we spent the next few minutes discussing Narnia and how we wished we could move there. Little did we know how close we actually were to the real Narnia.

Several days later we crossed paths with the lamppost again on our way to a forest that boasted beautiful waterfalls. A feeling of familiarity struck me as we walked through the trees. Somehow the topic of movies came up and one of our Polish friends interjected that we were walking through the forest where The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was filmed. We were in Narnia!

A Narnian waterfall

Look! Narnia!

After the stumble across Narnia, the travel bug hit us and we decided to go visit another country. The camp we are at is located close to the Czech Republic border, so we decided to hike up a mountain and step foot in Czech. The hike actually turned out to be a ride in a ski lift longer than any I've ever been on. It took us over a half hour to get to the top of the mountain. By the time we reached the top, we were so exhausted that we walked in, took a picture, and got back on the ski lift to go back down.

On the ski lift. I'm the one in the background sticking my tongue out...

Finally, I suppose I should mention that the English camps that I am filming are going super well. I'm getting great footage and it is so neat to see how God is working through us to impact the people of Poland. Thank you all for praying for me! As you can tell, I am enjoying myself - which is a huge praise as I was not excited whatsoever to go on this trip. Little did I know that I was about to go to Narnia.

Pożegnanie!
-Matthias

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The Incredible Shrinking Pants

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
-Anais Nin

In honor of the fact that my family will return from Romania in exactly two weeks, I have decided to uncover a peculiar phenomenon that, as far as I know, has never been brought into light. It's called The Incredible Shrinking Pants.

Throughout my travels in Europe, I have bought clothes. Of course, the clothes that I bought fit wonderfully on my body in the European dressing rooms. As would be expected, I brought the clothes back to the United States with me in my suitcase. This is when the phenomenon occurs. You see, instead of  the clothes getting bigger (as one would expect, everything is bigger in the US) the clothes actually get smaller. It's not an immediate thing, it sort of happens over a period of time. One doesn't notice it happening, until one day, that fateful day, it all becomes clear: clothes from Europe are designed to shrink when taken outside of European borders.

Today was that day for me.

I must say, I'm rather perplexed as to how it happens. I'm thinking about it quite hard as I sit here and eat my nightly snack of Oreos and ice cream. How does one design clothes to shrink?! I mean, if that method could be successfully figured out by American designers, it would cause a revolution in the fashion industry! It'd be motivation for people to lose weight! 'Buy this shirt and lose 10 pounds in 5 weeks! If you don't, the shirt simply won't fit leaving you without anything to wear!'

Hmmm.
-Matthias

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Finals Week

"I have never let schooling interfere with my education."
- Mark Twain

Yesterday afternoon I wrote a list of goals. I tend to write lists of goals whenever I know something needs to be done but don't feel like doing it. List writing is a great way to get the warm feeling of productivity without actually being productive. One can proudly flaunt off the list to friends and watch them think "he made a list, that means he's productive...I wish I could write lists like that." Sadly, what no one knows about my lists is that they typically don't get done. For example, my list last night had four simple things on it:

Goals:
Bed @ 10:00
Movie @ 8:00
Study Until 8:00
Eat Well @ Supper

One can begin to see where I went wrong just by looking at the chronological order of my list. Observe my priorities - Bed, Entertainment, Studying, Food. Here's the lowdown on how my list helped me through my day.

Bed.
Promptly after writing my list, I sat down on the immensely comfortable futon and absentmindedly popped open a caffeinated beverage. When I crawled into bed at 10:30 last night, I felt rather proud of myself. I had basically accomplished my goal (my goals contain lots of room for interpretation - 10:00 actually means somewhere after 10:00 but before 11:00). Sadly, the caffeine in the beverage I had enjoyed hours earlier decided to act up right then. I didn't sleep until 11:30.

Movie.
Ha. It's finals week. Movie didn't happen.

Study.
Thankfully, I did actually study yesterday, but it was a sort of a distracted studying. I was too busy contemplating the taste of my caffeinated beverage to really pay attention to how Western Civilization has progressed throughout the past five centuries. (Did you know that in blindfolded tests people are completely unable to differentiate between different carbonated beverages? Sprite, Coke, Pepsi - no one can tell the difference when blindfolded. Interesting...)

Eating Well.
I didn't eat supper. I had popcorn.

Welcome to Finals week. I'm not entirely sure why I'm blogging right now. I think I'll go write a list.
-Matthias

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The Piss Christ

We have grown used to beauty without horror.
-Andrew Hudgins

I bet that caught your attention.

Yep, it does say that word up there. Yep, I have a reason. No, college is not making me lose my faith.

I've felt like I needed to blog for a very long time. If you'll notice, I have not blogged for half a year. I've been at a loss as to what to blog about. Sure, I could go ahead and tell another funny story about my life, but I don't really want to. Today as I was walking back from the art building, I was pondering several things that I have been tossing around in my head. My thoughts have somewhat come to a culmination today because of a man, a poet named Andrew Hudgins, who is the keynote speaker for this weekend's writing conference that my school, John Brown University, is hosting. Mr. Hudgins is a bit of a controversial writer in Christian circles, probably because he makes people feel uncomfortable. I had the pleasure of having lunch with him, several other authors (including Leif Enger, author of Peace Like a River), and some of my classmates. During our conversation, I was able to observe Mr. Hudgins' deep wisdom and devotion to Christ.

Let me cue you in on my recent thought process. First, here is a quote:

"God calls Christians to be in the world, but not of it. But, I observe modern Christians doing the exact opposite. They're of the world, but not in it."

That was said by Terry Mattingly, president of The Washington Journalism Center, when he spoke in chapel last semester. That quote got to me. It's so true, us Christians have our own versions of everything: music, films, books, etc. Then, we have really conservative Christians who do an excellent job of not being of the world; but, they aren't in the world either. They live in their own little Christian boxes, surrounded by their Christian friends, claiming that they're living for God but ignoring the world around them. I don't doubt their commitment to Christ, but it seems they miss the point. So, in fact, the vast majority of Christians do not follow Jesus' command to be in the world but not of it. Myself included.

Secondly, I've been tossing around the idea of the "ideal Christian." You know what I'm talking about, the Christian stereotype of having to look and act a certain way. The un-spoken, but much implied rules of no piercings, no tattoos, no swearing, no weird hair cuts or hair colors, and on it goes. The ideal Christian family that glosses over the other family member who is gay, or is pregnant out of wedlock, or has had an abortion. The people in our lives who have done the unmentionable non-christian things. The ones who, when asked about, we say, "Oh, that's Bob's uncle, but we don't talk about him" and then shoot the universal 'he's a bad person' look that all Christians understand. I have problems with this. I have major problems with the ideal Christian stereotype. I've lived with it most of my life. Not from my parents, but from the people around me. Who did Jesus look like? Who did Jesus hang out with? I have another question, where does Jesus, or the other inspired writers of the Bible, tell us what we have to look like? What do they say about who we are allowed to talk about, or hang out with, or listen to? Yes, I'm aware of the verses that give guidelines for life, such as Colossians 3:8:

"But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips."

But, I'm talking about the gray areas here, the areas that Christians have been disagreeing about for years. What makes language filthy? Is piss a filthy word? What about fuck? Obviously there are contexts where those words are filthy; but, all language, every single word, can be filthy. Very filthy.

I'm not being rebellious. I'll lay that down right now. Ok? I'm not going out clubbing, and drinking, and partying. I'm not partaking of all the pleasures that are out there. I don't have questionable friends. These thoughts that I am presenting are what I've been thinking about. They really don't even pertain to me in a direct way. I am living at a Christian college in a fairly controlled Christian bubble. But, thankfully, at John Brown University, they don't dictate how we're allowed to think. They challenge us, and let us think for ourselves. That's what I'm doing.

Finally, this is what I saw today:


This is a piece of artwork by an artist named Andres Serrano. It has won awards. When you look at it, it's rather beautiful, isn't it? This piece of art is named Piss Christ. The artist spent weeks collecting his urine, cow urine, and cow blood. Then, he poured the liquids together and submerged a crucifix in them. Sacrilegious? Probably.

Now, read this poem. It is by the gentleman that I mentioned earlier, Andrew Hudgins. He wrote it after observing Mr. Serrano's artwork.

Piss Christ

If we did not know it was cow's blood and urine,
if we did not know that Serrano had for weeks
hoarded his urine in a plastic vat,
if we did not know the cross was gimcrack plastic,
we would assume it was too beautiful.
We would assume it was the resurrection,
glory, Christ transformed to light by light
because the blood and urine burn like a halo,
and light, as always, light makes it beautiful.

We are born between the urine and the feces,
Augustine says, and so was Christ, if there was a Christ,
skidding into this world as we do
on a tide of blood and urine. Blood, feces, urine—
what the fallen world is made of, and what we make.
He peed, ejaculated, shat, wept, bled—
bled under Pontius Pilate, and I assume
the mutilated god, the criminal,
humiliated god, voided himself
on the cross and the blood and urine smeared his legs
and he ascended bodily unto heaven,
and on the third day he rose into glory, which
is what we see here, the Piss Christ in glowing blood:
the whole irreducible point of the faith,
God thrown in human waste, submerged and shining.

We have grown used to beauty without horror.

We have grown used to useless beauty.

Makes you think, doesn't it? Read those last two lines again. "We have grown used to beauty without horror. We have grown used to useless beauty." This poem was met with the same outrage as the piece artwork. But, seriously, when we dig down past our romanticized, perfect, spotless Christianity, this poem is true. Jesus got dirty.

We need to get dirty.

We need to live in the world.

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