Bremen Weeks 2 and 3

Yesterday was a spectacular day.  The sun was finally out and I was comfortable with my light jacket as I walked the trails of Bremen's Bürgerpark after class.  I found there gorgeous bridges over water, dirt paths, grass and open spaces, trees and heavily wooded areas, even a little zoo that has the feel of a farm.  The animals had shelters with thatched rooves and grass and space to move around...maybe the best life a zoo animal can have!  Cows, sheep, goats, pigs, llamas, chickens, ducks, geese...and MINI DONKEYS!  Oh, this made me happy inside!

Today in my chronic coldness, I got another layer of clothes.  In the process, I lost my discipline and bought another hat.  I've been wearing it since I got home this afternoon.  Something about having a hat on my head...a hat of any sort, Aussie, Tilly, baseball cap, ski hat with ears, my fur hunting hat, my helmet...fills a space inside me that's empty without my hat. 

It's amazing how things, though very similar to things in the US, are so novel and exciting...like the yarn shop today. I've been in it before, but Europen yarn is different! Can't help it!  So I came home with 6 skeins of on-sale yarn and spent the afternoon crocheting.  Might turn into a scarf if I can quit ripping it apart every time it starts to look funny.  Then there's the grocery stores.  Everything is in different packaging and called something I don't understand.  It's new and exciting, even though it's really not...sort of.  Call me crazy.  It's okay, I'm not in denial...I have romantic ideas of a new land--and perhaps hats, too.  Perhaps this is a way of life we all could stand to live under a bit more, being able to walk the same streets day after day and see everything as new each time.  What would life be like?  What would relationships be like?

That reminds me of the beginning of "Creation and Fall", my current Bonhoeffer read.  He writes, "That God's work is good in no way means that the world is the best of all conceivable worlds."  He goes on a page later, "God wills to look upon [God's] work, to love it, to call it good, and preserve it." (Bonhoeffer, 25-26)  It seems to me that there is a strong connection between "preserving" and "being in awe of" the world around us. What we take for granted...the life that God preserves in us, in those around us, in creation.

What if we all had respect?  I find it fascinating, going back to a previous post about Germany not protecting me from myself, that people are so much more respectful here.  In my experience in the USA, as soon as there is a fence or a sign to keep people out, that's the invitation to cross it.  Check this out...no barrier but this little sign that says, "Please don't go here" (loose translation) and there are no signs of anyone being out there.  No paths.  No trash.  Why do so many Americans feel the right to cross boundaries such as this?

Pax.