a moment of um...

Today was a church field trip. It was interesting, as always, but it's going to take a bit of processing before I can write anything about it. (I hope I can write something about it? We'll see.)

After the church field trip I zipped to class, where we learned...that the "parable of the minas" (Luke 19:11-27) is not at all, as it is usually presented, a parable about the counterintuitive ways of God, but rather Jesus's social commentary and prediction of his own death. The nobleman represents the prevailing economic system; the servants who invest their master's money and return it with interest are rewarded for playing along. But the servant who does nothing with the money and calls the nobleman a harsh man is Jesus, passive resister and counter-cultural truth teller. "I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away." (Luke 19:26) is not an admonition to make something of the gifts we are given, but rather a critical description of a capitalist society.

This doesn't feel quite right to me, but then again, who am I to say it's wrong?

And also, I'm spending my evenings learning liberation theology? In German? Is this really a thing that is happening?

Sechseläuten

Tomorrow is Sechseläuten (Sächsilüüte for the locals), that amazing Zürich festival of spring, guilds, and an exploding snowman. It's probably my favorite day of the year here, when this beautiful but 

uptight city gets a bit drunk and colorful. (In an official, vintage-costumes sort of way; this ain't the Street Parade.) But it's also a not-so-subtle reminder that a lot of power here still rests within the city's guilds and old-money families. And that if you're a foreigner - where "foreigner" is defined as anyone without deep roots here, so even most of the city's Swiss residents - you really can't expect to have the same access and opportunities as a native. Is this as it should be? Theoretically no, right? But...

GAO was far and away the best place I ever worked. Yes, there was some bureaucracy - it was, unmistakably, the government - but in terms of having fair HR policies, clearly communicated and humanely applied, it was fantastic. Along these lines, there were many rules and processes around hiring - to make sure that all candidates were reviewed according to consistent criteria, veteran preference was observed, and so on. But even within this organization with model HR policies and a mission of fair, unbiased analysis - even at GAO - we would find a way to hire a mediocre intern we knew over a highly-qualified candidate we'd only met through the interview process.

It's human nature - we are biased towards what we know. We hire our friends (and our friends look like us). We rationalize this in all sorts of ways and we pay lip service to equal opportunity but deep down I think this is nearly impossible to escape. 

So bear with me here, because I don't have a watertight argument or a solution, this is just another thing I'm interested in: here we are, in the 21st century, humans are more mobile than ever, immigration is a reality and we have a moral imperative to treat our fellow humans with fairness and respect, even if they're foreigners - but at the same time we still have this bias towards our friends and people who look and sound like us, and in all seriousness what would become of these wonderful traditions of Zürich if they were suddenly open to everyone?

 

Monday's parade is exclusively for guild members and their families. But today, Sunday, was the children's parade, and it's a completely different kettle of fish. Any child 5-15 years old can participate: there's a somewhat daunting (for parents) procedure for costume rental but if you're willing to jump through some hoops, your child too can dress up and walk the parade route and throw candy to all the children of Zürich who aren't marching this year. (A great deal of candy is exchanged here.) The costumes are themed along the lines of "Zürich through the ages," so 500 years of fashion and workwear, from sailor's outfits to powdered wigs to hoop skirts to butcher's aprons, all in exquisitely detailed kids' sizes. There are marching bands, too - also mostly kids. It's a lot of fun and quite democratic but still very much in keeping with the tradition of Sechseläuten and...maybe these kids are the future, in more ways than one?

I feel like posting pictures of other people's kids is iffy, but you can watch a video about the parade here and get a good dose of Züridütsch while you're at it. 

My little (not so little any more!) Zürcherin, in "Wehntaler Tracht"

The Böögg, on death row.

a day out with C(h)

Today's post is brought to you by the letter C.

C is for Christopher, my companion on today's, um, pilgrimage.

C is also for chocolate, which one can find at the Lindt factory store in Kilchberg in many Easter-related shapes, including (critically for next week's "basket blessing" at playgroup) lambs.

and for St. Christophorus Church in Niederhasli, which we went to see because Christopher is interested in all things St. Christopher lately and it is listed on Wikipedia as one of three churches in Switzerland dedicated to him.

The church had Stations of the Cross designed by a local artist who found rocks with crosses on them and then painted pictures to match, which was kinda cool. 

But there wasn't much more to St. Christopher at St. Christophorus than this mural on the back wall. My Christopher was somewhat disappointed. 

But the disappointment of the church visit was relieved by cookies purchased from the station vending machine. Because vending machines are just always fun, aren't they?

Next stop, Claudia's Cat Vitus, who needed some fresh food and a bit of a pet.

Claudia's house, which Christopher would like to move into tomorrow because it is old and soooo much cooler than our apartment.

The last C was supposed to be cordon bleu at the restaurant across the street from Claudia's place, but apparently it is closed on Saturdays from April to September (huh?), so we took the train home and ate burgers. The End. 

TGIF - Order My Steps

We're singing this song in choir and it's been in my head all day long, so here you go :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCSuw1zs8Kw

I want to walk worthy,
my calling to fulfill.
Please order my steps Lord,
and I'll do Your blessed will.
The world is ever changing,
but You are still the same;
if You order my steps, I'll praise Your name.

The old church in Albisrieden. "Everything with the breath of life, praise the Lord!" (Psalm 150:6)

building bridges

The movie I went to see last night is called "Gateways to New York" and it's about Othmar Ammann, a Swiss engineer who designed and built suspension bridges in New York. You might well wonder, is it possible to make an engaging movie about a civil engineer? And the answer is really...not so much. But the filmmakers padded the movie with lots of cool stock footage and an interesting parallel narrative about the Mohawk ironworkers who worked on the bridges, and though I struggled to stay awake through the actual screening (to be fair, I was tired**), it's been on my mind all day.

The film doesn't comment or take a stand on America's relationship with cars and suburbs, except to say that they motivated the bridges. And the bridges are stunning works of engineering. But up close...I gotta say, when I look at seven lanes of traffic I have a really hard time thinking, "wow, I'm from the greatest country on Earth!"

It was hard not to notice the great preponderance of men in the movie, too - all of the workers on the bridges were male (and probably still are today) but so were all of the engineers and all of the civic leaders. It struck me how all this wasn't very long ago - Amman is from my grandparents' generation, and most of the movie takes place when my parents would have already been young adults.

Which in turn made me think about the Women's March and affirmative action and how much work we do these days to teach our kids that women can also make history (and in fact, often did). But at the same time how little we actually know about what gender equality is going to look like, when we finally get there. It's uncharted territory; we've never done it before. Not to mention what sustainable human life on Earth could look like, or a Catholic Church not weighed down by its own hierarchical structures? Amman worked at a time when men (and women) of vision created iconic structures with mathematics and data and money. We're living in a time when women (and men) of vision are needed to solve global problems with insight and compassion and love. Who will step up?



**see yesterday night's post. My plan was not to stay up after midnight writing tonight. It's 00:15. Um...

opinions

In a conversation with a friend yesterday I was forced to reveal the deep dark secret of my childhood. And here it is: I was a good kid. That's it. I was often the new kid, often the youngest in the class, usually also the smallest, and very shy, and my strategy for dealing with this was: just stay under the radar. Get good grades, find a friend or two, follow the rules, be you but only to the extent that no one else notices that you're actually kinda strange. (Note: I think they may have noticed.)

My big rebellious phase as a teenager consisted of that one time when I wanted to go on retreat with the Presbyterian youth group and my dad wouldn't let me because we were Catholic. I pitched a fit. He eventually relented, then cunningly undermined the whole thing by volunteering to go along as a chaperone the next year. Suddenly it didn't seem nearly as edgy. The End.

The trouble is that the older I get, the less well the flying-under-the-radar thing works. As an adult you are supposed to have...leadership skills. social skills. opinions about things. And this is all very hard for me. The past few years have been about trying to figure out whether somewhere, deep in hiding, a solid core of "me" exists. Who should I say that I am? And what do I believe?

On Saturday I was with my GCL group, and the host-of-the-day was leading us in a relaxing meditation. So there I was, lying on the on the floor, trying very hard to follow the directions in German without opening my eyes to cheat and see what everyone else was doing, breathing deeply, tensing and releasing each muscle group... And suddenly this intense feeling of resentment came over me. All I wanted to do was leave. I did NOT want to keep my eyes closed, I did NOT want to clench and relax my fists. I wanted to take up my mat and walk straight out the door, perhaps with a sneer and my best withering retort on the way out, "stop telling me what to do, B*TCH!"

I didn't, of course. I played along and did all the supposedly-relaxing things and we finished and when I finally got out the door I bolted up the hill and stood in the sun took a lot of deep breaths. What was that all about?

My first feeling was that it has something to do with my rather ambivalent relationship with authority. I'm desperate for direction aaaaand at the same time I bristle at following other people's rules. But it could be that the little temper tantrum is a sign that I'm ready now, finally, to stop following all the rules and make some of my own. Is this what it feels like to have an opinion?

Of course it might also be be my body's way of telling me that it's had enough with the dieting, already, and please go back to leaving us alone now.

As my favorite U.S. government agency likes to say: progress has been made, but more remains to be done.

verschiebung

So the big and totally foreseeable flaw in this blogging plan is that I didn't set aside time to write. Or more specifically, I didn't take a hard look at what I was going to leave out of my life in order to make room for this. What's happened is, I've lost sleep. Many days in a row now. Which theoretically I'm happy to do, but practically does not make for a...pleasant home environment. So in the interest of not screaming at everyone, I'm going to punt for tonight, and tomorrow I'll do some deep thinking about how and when I'm going to make this happen. Good night! 😴

wanted: travel agent

One thing I instantly loved about living in Europe, starting all the way back when I first came as a graduate student, was the more sane attitude towards work and time off. Europeans don't go on vacation for a few days, they go on vacation for a few weeks. They don't have five or ten days of vacation a year, they have twenty or more. No one's goal is to work as many hours as humanly possible. No one comes to work on the weekend. People do not eat lunch at their desks. It's all so. much. more. civilized.

But. Want to know a thing I detest? Vacation planning. Being on vacation is okay - though I'm much happier living in new places than being a tourist - but all the stuff that comes before it sends me into fits. I spend hours on the internet. I start with many grand ideas and end up talking myself out of all of them. I cannot make decisions. I end up spending a lot of money and not venturing far afield. And every time you turn around here there's another school break! Two weeks in the fall, two weeks for Christmas and New Year's, two weeks in the winter, two weeks in the spring, five weeks in the summer...

The point of all this is that my project for tonight was to account for four days of spring break, and after spending all evening looking at options, I have gotten nowhere. Please, travel-positive people, give me some tips!!

a rough draft

The Church of the Holy Introvert is a community of practice.

We practice love. We practice loving ourselves so that we can better love each other. We practice loving each other so that we can go out and love the world.

We practice speaking with confidence and listening with attention and curiosity. We believe that every person has a story worth hearing. And every person has something to teach.

We practice humility, in recognition of the fact that the questions we are struggling with are universal, even if our vocabulary and rituals are not. We critically examine our own stories and assumptions.

We practice trust. We acknowledge our desire for security and but resist the impulse to turn inward and shut out the world. Our doors remain open and newcomers are always welcome.

We believe that connection and storytelling are much too important, and much too hard, to be left for the coffee hour after church. We look for processes that facilitate honestly, deep connection, and conversations that matter.

We believe that we can always learn and we can always grow. We strive to be adults, but never grownups, because growing - in wisdom and experience and grace but most of all in understanding ourselves - is something we'll continue to do as long as we live.

We sing and dance and play and eat together, because joy gives us energy to do the hard work we need to do.

And then we probably go take a long walk or go home and sit by ourselves because we are, after all, introverts.

Sunday walk

Today we had a free afternoon so we tortured the children took a family hike. Switzerland is crisscrossed by 60,000 km of meticulously marked hiking trails, but either in spite of this or because of it I usually feel like I'm shooting in the dark when it comes to picking a route. Today we chose a "family hike" from the website of trails in Canton Zurich: Mettmenstetten to Hausen am Albis.

The weather was perfect (sunny, breezy, warm but not hot), the hiking distance was good, the public transport worked well (we parked at the end and took the bus to the beginning), the terrain had some uphilly bits but was hardly punishing...but...the overall experience was just okay. I think we're just hopelessly spoiled when it comes to these things - nearly every time we manage to leave the house we find some fabulous restaurant, or a cool farm stand, or a castle or a fabulous playground or at least a stunning Swiss view, but this hike had none of the above. (I think it would have had stunning Swiss views, but they were blocked by a haze of spring pollen!).

Still, though, it felt really good to get some fresh air and the kids only whined about half the time 😝. We got ice cream at the end and then had to take a bit of an extra hike to find a public restroom (hot Swiss tip, there's almost always one at the cemetery).

When we came home, we made dinner and the kids finished their homework without complaint and went to bed, and I did the dishes and cooked a potato-chard thing and made another double batch of cookie dough (the cookies for the recess-kiosk are back on, they just have to be oatmeal raisin instead of chocolate chip because they're "healthy" that way, ha).

And now to bed with me because the alarm will go off at 6:30 so I can listen to my dearest brother sing in the morning...and you should too because the St. Mark's compline choir is awesome! They're live every Sunday night at 9:30 pm Seattle time on KING FM, or you can listen a week or so later to the podcast.

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures. Good night!

Yes Dorothy, you are still in Switzerland.

German noun construction FTW!

In which the children learn that there are 60,000 km of hiking trails in Switzerland.

The cemetary offers facilities both sacred and profane.