Ponderings and Fun!

In talking to my lovely cousin, Jessie, she said something about that if I become a nun she will laugh at me.  Then she added, "Or maybe I will be laughing with you."  My response was to look at the entirety of my life and see how ridiculously funny just about everything I have done and hope to do is.  So I said, "I think we are already laughing together!"  Now, this isn't about making fun of any particular way of life but that perhaps life really is a tragicomedy as we all seek wholeness, albeit in our own and sometimes crazy and ineffective ways. 

So my life goals began early with wanting to "blow up balloons at the flower shop when I grow up."   That changed to horse training and a dream of riding in the Olympics.   In college, horse training changed to pastoral ministry.   It seems that I've gone so far in different directions that things are beginning to come full circle.   Or perhaps it is just the humor of life that all things are so intertwined that no matter what path one goes on to find wholeness (or happiness, or whatever you want to call it) one always runs into the same stumbling block:  the brokenness of the self.  I stumble and crash on one path so I find another.  And another.  But when the problem is within me, finding something else or acquiring a new...whatever, doesn't fix it.  The irony is that ultimately there is much more pain in the running away than there is in being honest with oneself right from the start.  But really, who does that?

As I type this, I am watching two tomcats out the window.  One sat at the base of the tree taunting the other whom he had "treed".  Apparently the one in the tree was a much more skilled climber, as the other would attempt to climb but it wasn't working out so well and he'd end up back on the ground.  Eventually he did get quite a ways up the tree, quite awkwardly.  The higher he wiggled, the higher the other cat would scale.  When the clumsy one got bored or hungry or whatever changed his mind, it took him a good 10 minutes to get himself out of the tree, done mostly by letting go, falling, and then catching himself a little farther down the trunk.  A few minutes later, the "treed" cat simply hopped from branch to branch and gracefully landed himself back on the ground.  Did either really accomplish anything with this endeavor?  Who knows.  But it seems the same with so much of what we do to find whatever it is that we think we want or need.  We scramble around as best we can and never get anywhere until we face the fact that we must deal with ourselves--the parts we don't want to admit to or look at--before we are going to find the peace and wholeness that we yearn for.  The brilliance of life and the very silly things we do in that brilliance.  Tragic?  Yes. Comical?  I think so.  Who said tears and laughter cannot go together?

That reminds me of the week after I graduated from Wartburg College.  It had been a very stressful final semester.  I had internalized all the stress and emotions of finals, leaving the place I had come to call home, and most of all, saying good-bye to my dear friends on campus as I set off for...I had no idea.  At home that week, I said to my mom, "Let's watch 'Land Before Time'!"  I really didn't know what to do with myself without reading and writing and studying to do.  Well, when Littlefoot's mom died in the first few minutes of the movie, it pushed me over the edge and I sobbed.  Yup, through the ENTIRE movie.  As I sobbed, I had to laugh.  Is it not comical, of all the things we live through, the absurd things that finally force us to let our emotions out, to face our grief or--for better or for worse--lose control of our anger?

Enough of that.  Since returning to Augustana Hochschule after Christmas and New Year's, I've settled back into the routine of classes and studying.  To my great delight, I have also added back into the routine what has been missing for much too long--9 very long months:  I'm back in the saddle.  I had my first lesson during the second week of January and tonight I'm going back for another!  Now that things have settled down and I have the membership paperwork done for the Reitverein (riding club), I hope to ride weekly.  This is still a far cry from my usual 12-15 rides/week, but it's better than not at all!

Last Thursday I had a chance to visit Jutta in Tübingen.  She even took me to the place where Goethe puked, but I didn't have a card in my camera at the time, so no picture of the sign.  Next time.  Friday, we went together to Freiburg where we met up with one of Wartburg's J-term classes--they had just spent two weeks in France and Switzerland.  It was great to see the seniors, the middlers (who I will graduate with), and to meet the juniors who I will never be classmates with.

[Update: Last night my riding lesson was fabulous! Oh, how good such a fantastic ride makes me feel! However, during this lesson...rrrrip went my breeches. So the goal for today (Friday) is to find my way to the saddle shop in Nürnberg and find a new pair for my next lesson on Wednesday.]

All for now.
Pax.