Dusty Reflections

This past week I had the opportunity to spend a couple days in Nürnberg. One of those days was Ash Wednesday, but here in Germany the Protestants don't hold Ash Wednesday services like Protestants do in the US. Ashes on the forehead are viewed as primarily Catholic here. Yet, I was privileged to join a group of people from around the world (gathered for the planning of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation celebration in 2017) for an organ concert in St. Sebald church. A Wartburg Seminary professor, who was part of the group, and I talked about how the organ concert was, for us, our Ash Wednesday worship.

It was a wonderful two days, even if St. Sebald was colder inside than outside during a February organ concert. Nürnberg's City Hostel was much nicer than the A&O Hostel I stayed in before. I spent several hours in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, followed by the Way of Human Rights, the Toy Museum (awesome toys from the early 1700s through the early 1900s), the Albrecht Dürer Haus museum, Hangman's Bridge, and lots of little shops, including the Trödelmarkt (junk market) that consists of shops on a little island in the river.

Hangman's Bridge

In an antique shop, I found a stein and two pewter shot glasses--all 3 with horses. The shot glasses have farrier scenes and the stein has horses pulling a wagon of barrels. I decided the barrels are the pickle barrels that Katharina von Bora (Luther's wife) escaped from her convent in.

I have given up on knitting a sock. Now I'm trying to crochet a sock. "Sock" shall remain in the singular for now because I may very well end up with a sock-yarn afghan. Granny squares, I can do. Oh, but my wool slippers are improving. I discovered the liquid-rubber-sole-stuff and now I don't wipe out on the linoleum at the bottom of the stairs. Slippery slippers are fun, but that's how I break my toes.

Pickle barrels...

Language continues to be a comical barrier that we all get good laughs from.  Slippers aren't slippers. Horses' boots aren't vegetables (oh, come on, Gemasche and Gemüse? They're kind of close!). I also can't hear the difference between German-accented "Paul" and "porn" which often doesn't end up quite right in the conversation. Yet, I got an email this morning, all in German, and as I usually do, I skimmed through it without the dictionary (or Google Translate) to see what I could get out of it. To my very big surprise, I understood the whole thing! All by myself! Whoohoo! Ok, back to reading Sebastian's children's book, "Gebete einer Maus" ("Prayers of a Mouse").

Out my window one morning before all the snow melted last week.

Pickle barrels. That's almost as bad as being puked up by a whale!

Pax.